David Hewson - The Villa of Mysteries

If it worked out now they’d get some money, some kind of reconciliation, and they would earn the old man’s thanks. Mickey knew his father well. Gratitude was one thing that did count with the old man. Emilio had his faults but he had a thing about fairness, a thing that was almost a virtue. If he and Adele could deliver Vergil Wallis’s head on a plate, then it was possible—just—that everything else could be forgiven. Or if not forgiven, forgotten. These were, as Adele was swift to point out, changed times. Emilio Neri couldn’t go back to being a resident Rome hood, not after felling a bunch of cops with a bomb. His power was failing him. But the cops couldn’t touch Mickey with any of this. He could stick around, live off the cream of the estate. With or without Adele in tow—he hadn’t decided on that one yet.

It all hinged on Vergil Wallis showing up. Without him, Mickey thought, they were both dead. And that thought didn’t leave him any the happier. If he were the big black crook up on the hill, trying to look respectable for all the world, the last thing he’d do would be to run an errand to his worst enemy. It made no sense.

“What if Wallis don’t turn up?” he asked.

“He will.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“You don’t understand anything, do you?” she snapped. “These are serious men. Maybe they do end up trying to kill each other. Maybe that would be good for us. But men like this talk, even in the middle of a war. They have to understand how everything lies, if there’s some middle ground between them. Wallis wants this settled just as much as Emilio. And also—” She gave him that frank look, the one that went right through him. “I imagine he wants to know what happened back then. Don’t you?”

“Why ask me?” he demanded. “Never even knew the stuck-up little kid. Never even touched her.”

“No?” She didn’t sound convinced.

“No. Anyway, that was years ago. It’s time people started thinking about now, not what happened way back.”

She laughed, shook her sleek, perfect hair and gave him the same kind of look his father wore so often. One that said: don’t be so dumb . “That’s what happens when you get older, Mickey. You don’t have so much future ahead of you. It’s the past that gets more real.”

“What do you know? You’ve only got a year or two on me.”

“Guess I grew up more,” she said, watching him reach for his cigarettes. “Don’t light that.”

“Why not?”

“Because if all this goes bad someone’s going to be shooting in the dark. Think, for once in your life. It’s easier to aim at a smell.”

He swore and threw the pack onto the floor. “And if it goes well? What then?”

She moved close to him, smiling, and placed a slender hand against his chest, toying with the buttons on his shirt, a gesture he knew was mocking him somehow. “Then we get to inherit everything. You and me. We can make a couple. Can’t we?”

“Yeah.” He could hear the uncertainty in his own voice. He was trying to stay on top of things. It wasn’t easy. “What’s the cop doing here now, Adele? And that woman too? What do we do with them?”

She shrugged, playing with his collar. “You don’t have anything to worry about except your old man. Leave the rest of them to me.”

“What? This guy’s a cop. If they think I whacked him they’ll never leave me alone. I want this shit over when we get out of here. I want to be free of all this crap.”

“Mickey,” she said firmly. “When I say this isn’t your problem, I mean it.”

He tried to laugh but it didn’t ring true. “So you’re the boss? You’re going to take on Emilio and that Bucci animal all on your own? There’s just the two of us. How’s that gonna happen?”

She just smiled and it wasn’t a smile he recognized. He wasn’t sure he really knew this woman anymore.

“You don’t need to worry about Bruno. I screwed him before I screwed you.”

Mickey Neri suddenly felt dead stupid. “Really?” He didn’t know what to think, except that it offended him. “That’s nice.”

The cold eyes blinked then stared into him. “Yes. Nice. I did it just the once. That was all it needed. Thanks to that I got a little warning about what was going on in Emilio’s sick head when he found out about us last night. Thanks to that I knew enough to get out of the damn house before he blew it to pieces, and to save your pathetic ass. It means we stay alive and Bruno gets to prosper too. That’s called diplomacy, Mickey. It’s a skill you have to learn. Bruno knows he doesn’t have what it takes to run a family. There’d be a war within months and he’d lose. He’s a number two. He’s smart enough to realize that.”

“That’s good,” he said. “So long as it stays that way he’s got nothing to worry about.”

“No.” She was mocking him and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Not yet anyway.

Some time the previous day Adele had put some blonde stuff on her hair, mixing it over the red. It was more noticeable under the yellow light of the caves. It made her look different. More classy somehow. And younger.

“You coloured your hair,” he said, and reached to stroke it, thinking that maybe there was time to fit something in. Maybe this damp, stinking place in the earth was just the place for it. She could go down on him maybe. They could even stay in this little room and fuck. “I like it.”

She snatched his hand away. “I didn’t colour it, you moron. This is what it’s meant to be like. And don’t touch me, Mickey. Not without my say-so.”

He tried to think back over the years. She was right. She did used to be blonde. It just didn’t last too long for some reason. “Why not?”

The green eyes were so hard now, full of something not far from hate. “You need to learn what ”no“ means. You might as well start now.”

She hesitated. She looked a little nervous just then and he couldn’t work out whether this was good or bad.

“Do you remember what I told you?” she asked. “Can I rely on you, Mickey?”

“Yeah. Just don’t fuck around with me afterwards.”

Her skinny hand came up and touched his cheek. “No,” she said, smiling.

“Adele?” She was walking out of the room, without another word. “ Adele ?”

She stopped in the shadow of the open door and blew him a kiss.

“You’ve got to cope with this on your own now, Mickey,” she said. “I’ve got other things to do.”

TERESA LUPO WENT BACK to her office with Gianni Peroni’s words ringing happily in her head. A little praise went a long way. Her thoughts were beginning to clear a little too. The vicious flu virus in her head was in retreat from a bombardment of aspirin, and with its abatement came some clarity. She’d found the change of clothing she kept in the office, showered, and now felt fresh and clean. Her hair was combed and back in the businesslike crop. If she peered in the mirror—which she didn’t plan to do—she guessed her eyes wouldn’t even be that bloodshot anymore. The mood was a touch infectious. Monkboy had recovered some of his composure too when the report from the lab came through. It had confirmed what Teresa, in her heart, already knew. The paternity of the tiny preserved foetus she’d recovered from Eleanor Jamieson’s corpse may have been more about morale than closure. No one had any idea where the Neris had fled overnight. But morale mattered. Maybe everyone was still walking in the dark but at least they had a spring in their step.

One thing continued to bug her. She would have saved everyone so much grief if only she’d carried out a conventional autopsy when the body from the bog arrived. They’d have known it was not this for a while now… This was a lapse in judgement and it bothered her. If she could fail once, she could fail again. How many other oversights lay around her now in this overcrowded haven for the dead? Gianni Peroni’s point, brought home with that sudden, unexpected kiss, was a good one. In times like these it was all about priorities, looking closely under a handful of promising stones, not trying to steal a quick glance at everything. She hadn’t focused enough. Most of all, she hadn’t focused on Professor Randolph Kirk, which was odd given that he represented the sole customer in her career who had fallen into her care, so to speak, within earshot. Everything was about connections. It had been all along. If she could just find the right one it would all fall into place.