And Then You Die (18 page)

‘Lessi? Wait, I do remember someone by that name. Yes, that’s right. He was an officer with the
carabinieri
’s ROS division. He saved my life when I was on that assignment in Sicily.’

The man laughed his flat, hard laugh again.

‘Very good, Dottor Zen, very good.’

‘You’re Lessi?’ gasped Zen, as though the thought had only just struck him. ‘You look different, somehow. Or maybe that Mafia bomb affected my memory. Anyway, I only saw you that once, and at night.’

Lessi stared at him with eyes that told Zen how close he was to death. He looked about him distractedly, taking in every detail of the situation.

‘No, actually you saw me four times, if we’re only counting last year.’

The man’s leisurely tone gave Zen a flicker of hope for the first time. If Lessi wanted to talk, to explain and to justify himself, then there might conceivably be time to do what was necessary.

‘That time out in the country near Etna was the last,’ the
gunman
went on. ‘Before that, there was the time we picked you up in the street outside your apartment, the time on the ferry to Malta, and then earlier that evening, when you gunned down my partner Alfredo Ferraro in cold blood.’

‘What do you mean, cold blood?’ Zen demanded instinctively. ‘He had just strangled one man and was about to shoot me.’

Lessi smiled.

‘Ah, so you do remember Alfredo after all. I rather thought you did, to be honest Perhaps you remember the truth about that bomb, too. You must do.’

Zen glanced at the statically frantic figure of Gemma, just to check that her position was exactly as he had recalled it.

‘Of course I do,’ he said. ‘The Mafia tried to murder me on the way back from my meeting with Don Gaspare Limina. He promised me safe conduct, but that was a lie. They just wanted time to get clear and to do the job far away from anywhere
connected
with them.’

Roberto Lessi shook his head in mock disappointment.

‘Sorry,
dottore
. You’re very convincing and I almost believe you, but in the end it’s too much of a stretch. Your brain worked very well indeed when we met in Sicily and on the ferry to Malta, and I think it’s working just fine now.’

He was right, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to start the ballet. Zen took a couple of apparently casual steps to his left.

‘Of course it is!’ he protested vehemently. ‘That’s what
happened
. So what the hell are you doing breaking in here and threatening me and Signora Santini? You realize that this means the end of your career.’

Lessi had also moved slightly to the left, instinctively
compensating
to keep the same distance and angle between him and his adversary.

‘My career has already ended,
dottore
. We screwed up, you see. Well, my ex-colleagues did.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Zen snapped irritably, fidgeting another step around the invisible circle.

‘You remember when the Corleone clan killed Judge Falcone and his wife?’ Lessi replied. ‘They almost screwed up too. They planted a ton of explosives in that culvert under the motorway into Palermo from the airport, then blew the charge a second or two too early, for fear that Falcone’s car would pass by before it detonated. They knew they only had one chance, and so they panicked. In the end Falcone was killed anyway, but only because he had insisted on driving when he was met at the
airport
So he and his wife were sitting in the front seats of their car and took the full force of the blast, even though they were still some distance from the culvert. The
carabinieri
in the lead escort car, including some of my closest friends, were all wiped out. As for the chauffeur, he was seated in the back, where Falcone and his wife would have been if the judge hadn’t had his little whim. So they were killed and he survived.’

Lessi had stopped moving, intent on his story, but Zen kept
going, restlessly tracing a figure of short steps one way and another, but always two to the left and one to the right.

‘Well,
dottore
, the reason you’re alive is just the reverse of that scenario. The men who set the bomb and were responsible for detonating it were stationed on the hillside above the bridge your car crossed. Just for the record, they had no idea that you were in it. They had been told that the passengers were some Mafia thugs who we were eliminating as a routine “dirty war” tactic designed to stir up trouble between the rival clans.’

Zen kept moving, glancing down at his feet as though they hurt him. Like the professional he was, even while fixated on his tale, Lessi responded by keeping pace in the same clockwise direction, keeping Zen always opposite him and safely beyond striking range, about two metres distant.

‘When they found out the truth, they were horrified, or at least pretended to be,’ he went on. ‘I tried to pass it off as a mistake, but I was forced to resign anyway. That hurt, I can tell you. I’d been expecting a little more cooperation and understanding from men I’d been working with for all these years.’

He coughed out another laugh.

‘Loyalty doesn’t mean a damn thing in this country any more.’

Still continuing his ritualistic shuffle, Zen looked Lessi in the eye for the first time.

‘But they blew the bomb.’

‘They blew the bomb, just like our friends in the Mafia did with Falcone. Unfortunately in their case they blew it a couple of seconds too late. I watched the whole thing from the ridge on the other side of the river bed, counting down to give the signal by turning the motorbike’s headlights on. But your driver seemed to speed up suddenly, and by the time I flashed and the others responded, the car had crossed the bridge. And since you were sitting in the front, it was that poor dumb cop who came along to hold your hand who was killed, while you and the driver got off with a few scrapes and bruises.’

‘It was rather more serious than that.’

‘Who cares? The only thing that matters is that you’re still alive. Alfredo isn’t. Plus you have enough evidence to send me away for life, if you could ever get anyone to believe you.’

‘I couldn’t. You know that.’

‘No, I don’t I’d like to think so. I’d even go so far to admit that it’s probable that no one would believe you. But it’s not certain. And I want certainty at this point in my life, Zen. I’ve been eking out an existence of sorts with my relatives in Pisa, but sooner or later my savings are going to run out, and you know what I can expect then? At best some dead-end job as a private
guardia
giura
ta
standing like a target outside a bank all day.’

Zen took two more steps to his left.

‘Stay put!’ Lessi yelled suddenly, raising his pistol.

Zen shrugged self-deprecatingly.

‘It’s my feet. Bunions. Runs in the family. If I have to stand still for any time, they start acting up.’

‘Fine. Just don’t try acting up yourself. Can you imagine how I’ve felt? Fired from my job, my partner killed, and meanwhile your career is all set to go into orbit just as soon as the injured hero of the Mafia wars decides that he’s sufficiently rested to trudge back to the office and tell the press and some keen young investigating magistrate with a reputation to make that his memory has suddenly come back and the true story of what happened that night in Sicily is rather different from what everyone has been led to believe.’

Lessi gestured with the pistol.

‘Up against the wall again,’ he said. ‘It’ll be easier for both of us.’

Zen gestured frantically.

‘But what about Signora Santini?’ he said. ‘She has nothing to do with any of this.’

‘She does now. I’ve been monitoring your cellphone conversations, you see. Quite easily done, if you have access to the equipment. So I knew when you were expected this evening, and got here in plenty of time. Your girlfriend seemed quite surprised to see me, and naturally we got chatting once I’d tied her up. I needed to tell someone, you see, and I knew there wouldn’t be time once you arrived. So I’m afraid it has to be both of you. It would anyway, if that’s any consolation. I’m a pro, just like you, Zen. We don’t leave jobs half done.’

That was it, then. Still over two metres to go, and the clock had apparently run out. Lessi had explained everything he had to say to Gemma earlier, and now had no further need to talk.
Which left only one very risky possibility, totally dependent on Lessi being the ‘pro’ he claimed to be, in control of the situation, his trigger finger relaxed.

Zen shrugged helplessly and staggered to his left, in the direction Lessi had indicated. His shoe caught the base of a sideboard leaning against the wall, and he went tumbling down to the floor, a comic buffoon unable to make his way about the room without falling over.

Lessi laughed.

‘Maybe I’ve been overestimating you,’ he said. ‘Come on, get up! On your feet and up against the wall.’

Zen clambered up again, then slumped on to his knees.

‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ he whined.

‘Well, it is.’

Zen lurched up once more, glancing about him as though totally in shock. He had now made up the circular distance. All that remained was the final and most dangerous move, and the question of whether Gemma had understood. But there was no point in worrying about that.

Turning, he took two long, slow steps towards Lessi, his hands outspread in a gesture of appeal.

‘Look, can’t we just …’

Lessi instantly stepped backwards, so as to maintain the distance between them. He was just starting to say something when Gemma kicked him viciously in the back of the knees. A shot went off, wide to the right, and then Zen sprang forward as Lessi crumpled, kicking him hard in the groin and following it up with a blow to the man’s chin. He grabbed the hand holding the pistol, swung Lessi around and fell heavily on top of him.

For a moment Lessi lay limp on the floor, groaning. Zen raised his weight slightly off the man’s body and went for the pistol. Instantly Lessi swirled up and around. In desperation, Zen grabbed a handful of the scattered roses and rasped the thorny stems across his opponent’s face. Lessi screamed and instinctively brought up his hands to cover his eyes. Zen sank his teeth into the hand holding the gun, prised it loose by the barrel, and hit the other man again and again over the head with short, rapid blows, drawing blood from the scalp.

Lessi groaned and collapsed, murmuring something Zen didn’t
understand. When he was finally still, Zen transferred the butt of the pistol to his hand, crossed himself rapidly, stuck the barrel into the base of Lessi’s skull and fired three times.

A long time seemed to pass. Finally Zen stood up, thinking of the time he had put up some shelving at the family home in Venice, years ago. He felt the same calm, quiet satisfaction now, the same modest pride at a job well done. That house must be worth a fortune now, he thought.

He was brought out of this complacent mood of professional satisfaction by a savage kick to his calf which almost brought him down on top of his victim. He immediately bent over Gemma, tore the metallic tape off her mouth and then kissed her impulsively. Some of the adhesive backing remained on her lips, and even when the kiss was over it took a moment for them to unglue themselves.

‘Hang on,’ Zen told her, heading for the kitchen. He returned with a bread knife with which he cut through the cord binding Gemma to the chair. Then he helped her to her feet, rubbing the sore patches on her wrists anxiously.

‘Let’s just make sure the bastard’s dead first,’ said Gemma, pulling herself free.

She bent over Lessi’s body while Zen stood back, the pistol in one hand and the knife in the other.

‘There’s no pulse,’ Gemma commented, standing up again.

‘Are you sure?’

‘All registered pharmacists have to take first aid courses and refreshers. Believe me, he’s dead.’

She sighed loudly and turned towards the living room.

‘I’ll call the police.’

‘No!’

Zen’s tone was so peremptory that she looked at him half in startlement and half in anger.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We mustn’t do that.’

‘Are you out of your mind? This man came here and tried to kill us. Instead you killed him and I’ve got a corpse on my floor. Of course I must call them. You’re a policeman yourself, he told me. You of all people should realize that.’

‘Did he tell you that he was a policeman too?’ Zen asked.

Gemma looked irritatedly confused.

‘No, but what’s that got to do with it?’

‘Everything.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ she almost shouted.

Zen placed the knife on the sideboard, put the gun in his pocket and took her arm.

‘The situation’s a bit more complicated than you think. Or maybe it isn’t. I’m still slightly in shock. Isn’t adrenalin great stuff? Come into the next room and I’ll explain. It won’t take long. Then go ahead and call 113 if you want.’

Gemma shook him off.

‘We can do this right here,’ she said, confronting him. ‘First, a few questions. Your name is Zen?’

‘Yes.’

‘What sort of name is that?

‘Venetian.’

‘And you’re a policeman?’

‘Yes.’

‘So everything you’ve told me up to now was a lie.’

Zen shrugged.

‘I don’t know about everything. But I lied about quite a bit, yes.’

‘Then why should I believe anything you say now?’

‘Because now I don’t need to lie. And I won’t, Gemma. I won’t ever tell you any more lies, whatever happens.’

She looked for a moment as though she wanted to believe him.

‘But why now? Why not then?’

Zen hesitated for a moment. Then he recalled the phrase that one of his escorts had used when they drove him to Pisa airport after the shooting on the beach.

‘I was not ordered to tell the truth. If you like, I’ll explain why. But first we have to decide what to do about this.’

He gestured at Lessi’s corpse.

‘We call the police,’ Gemma answered. ‘We explain what happened. You shot him in self-defence after he’d threatened to kill us both. I’ll testify to that. There won’t be any problems.’