Richard House - The Kills

He arranged his clothes ready to dress, picked the socks out of his trainers, half-hurrying, then paused because he was working up a sweat and something about this whole thing just didn’t convince him. He sat on the bed, looked about the room for his clothes, and wondered what he was doing. A demand for money for no reason, coming in the middle of the night: why would he answer this? Rino didn’t sound drunk and didn’t sound particularly under pressure, and Finn had paid him, transferred a good deal more than this already, in advance. He had no obligation to go out.

€1,000. A new demand.

And how safe would this be? Walking the streets with a thousand euro.

Ten minutes later another message. You’d better be on your way. A definite threat.

Minutes after: Room 32, Hotel Grimaldi. Your light is on. His hotel, his room.

Then finally: Bring €2,000. Mr Rabbit & Mr Wolf.

Finn re-dressed, tucked his shirt into his pants. Two thousand euro? Rino wasn’t worth two thousand euro. One, maybe, at a stretch. But two thousand? Not a chance. A meeting with Mr Rabbit and Mr Wolf would be worth much more than two thousand.

* * *

He had the money, as it happened. This was all of his money for the month. It troubled him more that these people knew his hotel room, and, more likely than not, this would make him a target. If he didn’t go to the café they would come to the hotel. If he did go to cafe this could all be resolved.

He wrapped the notes in a sock and brought it with him to the piazza. Mr Rabbit and Mr Wolf? The mention of these men, he had to admit, was alarming and deeply unexpected, and sent the whole night off kilter. Finn waited in the portico outside the Café Flavia, the metal blinds down, no lights in any windows along the curved arcade. The road ran in a circle about the piazza and a centre island barricaded by temporary plywood barriers and a sign saying ‘Metro’. Above the hoardings some indication of roadworks, or digging: the sketched tops of cranes and heavy equipment. No traffic and no people. Finn stood under one of the arches, in view, in case anyone was watching, the money in the sock in his fist, in his pocket.

He heard the scooter come down the corso — a feeble wavering zip. When it came about the piazza the scooter continued, made an entire circuit, and when it returned to view a second time the man slowed down and crawled hesitantly toward him. A skinny man in shorts, very tight red shorts, with a striped T-shirt, a white helmet, sunglasses, a ratty beard, set his feet either side of the scooter to hold it up. Red shorts and white shoes. No socks. Sunglasses at two thirty-five in the morning. The man whistled through his teeth at Finn and signalled him forward.

‘You. Money.’

‘No.’

‘Money.’

‘No.’

‘Money. Now.’

‘No.’

The man appeared to speak little English, and Finn, although he spoke Italian very well, had no inclination to help him. The man set his hands on his thighs, as if Finn was being entirely unreasonable.

‘Money!’ he insisted.

‘Rino,’ Finn replied. ‘Mr Rabbit. Mr Wolf.’

The man lifted one foot to the scooter’s running board then started up the motor. Finn watched him slowly ride away and disappear around the corner. Something laughable about a tall man on such a small vehicle making such a stupid noise.

He couldn’t hear the motor run up the corso, so he followed the arcade round and saw for himself, the man on the scooter stopped at the side of the street speaking into a mobile. Finn crept close enough to hear pieces of the discussion.

‘I asked him. I said. I told him to give me the money. That’s what I said. I think he wants … I didn’t ask. OK, say that again,’ a pause, ‘again. OK. No. OK. One more time.’ The man cancelled the call, and stood up to wedge the phone into his pocket.

Finn approached him and asked in Italian what he thought he was doing.

‘Your friend. They will slit his throat. You have the money?’

‘I want to see him.’

‘You can’t see him.’

‘You can’t have the money.’

‘Give me the money and tomorrow you will see your friend.’

‘He isn’t my friend.’

Finn started to walk away. The man started up his bike. He followed Finn with some difficulty, the front wheel weaving awkwardly, the pace being too slow to keep the scooter steady.

‘Why don’t you give me the money? They will slit his throat. It will be your fault. You will be to blame.’ Now the man was sulking.

Finn gestured that he could care less. Before him, he saw a sign for the Questura. ‘Call your friends and tell them I want to see Rino, or they won’t get the money.’ He pointed at the sign. ‘Do it before I get to the police station.’

The man stopped his bike, and called OK, OK, to get Finn to stop. He stood up to take his phone out of his pocket, spat on the pavement, sat down heavily and cursed under his breath as he made the call. ‘ Ciao, ciao. Yeah. No. He wants to see him. I have … I did … I said that…’ He gestured at Finn. ‘He wants to see him now. OK.’ He handed the phone to Finn. ‘They want to talk.’

Finn dug his hands into his pockets.

‘Take the phone.’

‘No.’

‘Take it. They want to speak with you.’

‘I want to see Rino first.’

‘Take it, culo. Take the fucking phone.’

‘If I take the phone I’ll smash it.’

The man recoiled, and began speaking very quickly into his phone. In a hurry he started up the scooter, and with phone pinched in his hand he swung back into the street and sped off. Finn watched him disappear, then continued walking. The thin whine died away, but didn’t disappear completely. He was almost at the doors to the Questura when he realized that the sound was getting louder.

The man rode on the sidewalk and came right at him, head down, and fast. Finn, now past the police station, had reached a long wall and could find nowhere to step into. He began to run, too slow and too late.

Struck by a punch in his side he hit the wall and rolled to the pavement. Unsure exactly what the mechanics of the accident were he fumbled to his feet. The man had driven up and shoved him, hard enough to knock him down, and Finn winced, automatic, just folded over, expecting something else. Instead the man turned his bike around and returned. He used the scooter to block Finn against the wall, all of this within paces of the Questura.

‘Give me the money.’

‘I don’t have it.’

The rider pointed to Finn’s pocket.

‘The money is in your pocket.’

Finn reluctantly took the sock out of his pocket and handed it to the man.

‘You come to the Fazzini. The Bar Fazzini. Your friend will be there. One hour.’

Finn sat down in the street. The scooter zipped up the sidewalk, raced toward piazza del Municipio with a throttled croak sawing up the sides of the boulevard. Denying that he had the money and then handing it over was, well, as stupid as it gets. The corso opened up at the piazza, broadened into a neon-tinted night. Lights on the heights at Castel St Elmo. They’d found a boat in the piazza, hadn’t he heard this somewhere, or maybe lots of boats, some entire Greek fleet imprinted in the mud under the piazza, right smack in the centre of town. You couldn’t lift a paving slab without history leering back at you insisting your insignificance. Winded, Finn tried to catch his breath.