The Lizard's Bite (36 page)

Zecchini scowled at him, then asked, “Gone for good?”

The monk’s arms opened, the hands raised in a gesture of futility. “We’re neither a prison nor a hotel. I can help you no more. I can…”

Gianni Peroni couldn’t take his eyes off the doves. They’d assembled again around the foot of the statue of Saint Francis. It was a great place to hide a man. So good it seemed odd Randazzo felt moved to leave it, if only for a meal.

Then, as he watched, the birds began to lift again, a whirling fury of grey and white feathers, rising, racing in every direction, mindless, terrified.

Four, maybe five, shots rang out from somewhere beyond the monastery’s quiet walls, bounced off its bright, clean terra-cotta and echoed around the small, perfect square, threading their way through the colonnades.

Luca Zecchini had his gun in his hand in an instant. The monk gaped at the weapon, both shocked and angered by its visible presence.

“Where?” Zecchini yelled.

Gianni Peroni wasn’t going to wait for this little charade to play itself out. Bawling out some scared, unworldly monk who’d never heard a gunshot in his small, protected life wasn’t going to find them Gianfranco Randazzo. Peroni marched his big frame back into the outside world, thought about what he knew of this area, and where a police commissario with a taste for good food might want to eat. There weren’t many options. Then he began to run, aware, after just a few long strides, of Zecchini and his men playing catch-up in his wake.

T
ERESA LUPO HAD TOLD PINO FERRANTE SO MUCH about the patient whose life he’d saved that long night she dragged him from his dinner table in Bologna. She’d told him how Leo Falcone was a man worth preserving, a fine, honest, conscientious
ispettore
in the Rome police, someone who deserved better than to be butchered by some naive Venetian surgical hack, even if they could find one.

Now Falcone lay back on his bed, eyes wide open, blazing at each of them in turn, spitting fury in all directions. Pino glanced at her and smiled, that self-deprecating smile she’d known from their college days, the one that couldn’t offend a soul but still managed to say,
Really
?

Even Raffaella Arcangelo seemed a little taken aback. Clearly this was one side of Leo she’d never witnessed.

Pino let Falcone exhaust himself with one final set of demands — all the latest case notes on Aldo Bracci and the Arcangelo case, what new forensic there was, and a recall of Costa and Peroni, from wherever they happened to be malingering, presumably to give the inspector someone new to yell at — then sat down by the bed, folded his arms, and peered at the prone man there.

“Inspector Falcone,” he said mildly. “You’ve been seriously wounded by a gunshot to the head. You have been unconscious now for more than a week. I would have hoped a man who has been through what you have would have asked me one or two questions about his condition. Otherwise…”

The surgeon now had a rather hard smile, it seemed to Teresa, one he’d learned since college.

“Perhaps I will be driven to the conclusion that you are not so sufficiently recovered as you seem to believe.”

Falcone, propped up on a couple of pillows, bandages round his scalp, face lacking that full tan she’d come to take for granted, was silent for a moment.

Then, with all his customary bullishness, he replied, “I am a police officer in the middle of a murder investigation. It’s my duty to be kept fully informed. It’s your duty not to get in my way. I would advise you to remember that.”

Pino waited. When it became clear Falcone didn’t intend to utter another word, the surgeon said, “Would you like to ask me anything now? Or would you like me to leave and allow you to continue bellowing at your colleagues until your strength runs out? Not that I think you have much energy left for that. The choice is yours.” He looked at his watch. “I would like to be home in Bologna by eight, so please make your decision this instant.”

Falcone glanced at Teresa and Raffaella Arcangelo, as if they were somehow a part of this. Then, in a subdued tone, he asked, “What the hell’s wrong with me?”

“You were shot through the head,” Pino replied with a shrug. “There was damage to the brain. It’s a sensitive organ, even in an insensitive man. A mysterious organ too. I can go through the details later but they won’t tell you much. To be honest, they don’t tell me that much either. This is the way things are with neurological matters. What I see now is what I’d expected. Hoped for, to be honest with you. There is some paralysis below the waist. You should also expect to experience headaches. Blackouts maybe. And some side effects from the medication for sure. We will need to monitor all these things for a while.”

A purple blush of outrage began to suffuse Falcone’s face. “I have to work!”

“That’s ridiculous.” Pino said it bluntly. “A man in your condition cannot work. Even if you were physically capable, your mental state is still fragile, however much you wish to believe otherwise. You need what any other man or woman needs in such circumstances. Convalescence. Constant care. Regular follow-ups. You will be reliant on others for some time. I trust you can teach your ego to accommodate this fact,
Ispettore
.”

“I…” The words died in Falcone’s mouth. This was a situation he had clearly never encountered before.

“Leo,” Teresa interjected. “You’re no more or less human than the rest of us. Plus, you’re lucky to be alive. Just take it easy. And then…” She glanced at the surgeon, who had once again looked at his watch. “Oh, for God’s sake, Pino… Since he won’t ask, I will. How long will he be like this? What does it mean?”

“It means a wheelchair. For at least two, three months. Possibly longer. It is simply a matter of waiting now. I have no crystal ball. It is possible…” He stared at Falcone to make sure this went home. “… if you’re unlucky, that you will be in a wheelchair forever. I don’t think this is irreversible, but one can never be sure. You will need regular physiotherapy to work on that leg. I gather you are a bachelor. Perhaps there is a police home that could look after you.”

“A
home
?” Falcone roared.

“He will not go to a home,” Raffaella said quietly. “Please, Leo. Listen to your surgeon. He surely knows what’s best for you.”

“And what the hell am I supposed to do all day?”

“Relax,” Pino suggested mildly. “Read books. Listen to music. Take up a hobby. I recommend painting. It’s a talent found in the most unlikely of men at times. Apart from the physio I don’t expect you to experience much in the way of discomfort. Most men would appreciate the opportunity.”

“Most men!” Falcone spat back at him. He glared at Teresa. “Get Costa and Peroni in here
now
.”

Pino shook his head. “No. I absolutely forbid it. The stress of work is the last thing you need at this time.”

Falcone glowered at the surgeon. “At least let them send me the files to read. A man’s allowed to read, isn’t he?”

“By all means,” Pino said, smiling. “You can read to your heart’s content.”

T
HE FOOD TASTED BETTER WHEN LAVAZZI AND MALIPIERO were gone. Gianfranco Randazzo sat one table in from the window, alone in the room, eating and drinking slowly, enjoying the food and the solitude, trying to stretch out the meal for as long as possible. Escaping the monastery made him realise how he was beginning to hate the place. He was becoming sluggish and stupid. One more day. That was all he was prepared to wait. Then he’d get in touch with the right men, in the Questura and in the city, to remind them of a few salient facts. And how it was impolite to have to call in favours by name.

It was now close to two forty-five. He’d worked his way through a larger meal than he’d normally have eaten: antipasti of soft shell crab, calamari and mantis shrimp, porcini risotto, then lamb cutlets with a single
contorno
of spinach. All accompanied by the best bottle of heavy Barolo on the wine list, almost fifteen degrees proof, a heavy, swirling red of pure alcoholic clout. He felt a little drunk, a little angry too. All of this was undeserved. Aldo Bracci was a lout and a criminal. The thug got what was coming.

And Randazzo’s reward? To be sent into some kind of exile, humiliated when he stepped outside for a brief respite, forced to wear the stupid, itching, sweaty robe of a monk, a disguise that fooled no one, he thought, not by the way the waiter had looked at him, stifling a laugh, when he’d arrived with the two idiots from the Questura, who’d spent the rest of the lunch filling their faces at his expense.

There were scores to be settled after treatment like this. Randazzo ran a few possibilities through his head. He wasn’t going to be content with just a chalet in the mountains anymore. Massiter would make millions out of the Isola degli Arcangeli. He wouldn’t miss a few drops of that spilling over, trickling down to the man who removed the final obstacle to the deal.

He was going over a few more options when the waiter returned with another dish: tiny wild strawberries covered in cream and some kind of booze.

“I didn’t order that,” Randazzo snarled.

“Keep your hair on. It’s a gift!” the waiter remarked, grinning, mocking him. “We don’t get monks in here often. I’m hoping you’ll be bringing along some
colleagues
in the future. If that’s the right word. We always do good business with the Church. We can give you a little
sconto
off the bill if you like. How does ten percent sound? Twenty for you?”

“You can start today.” Randazzo glanced at the tables outside. “Make sure it comes off theirs too.”

Then he looked again. They weren’t there. Lavazzi and Malipiero had, without his noticing, finished eating, then somehow wandered off somewhere, maybe to bum a few drinks from some neighbourhood café.

Except.

They were filling their faces for free anyway. It didn’t make sense to Randazzo’s befuddled mind. Sometimes, he thought, there were men who just had to bunk off work, even when there was no good reason. It was bred into their genes. Like a twist in the DNA that, if you could just unravel it, read “lazy bastard, never going to change.”

Randazzo stared at the little piazza and wondered why he didn’t eat here more often. It was Castello, true, but not like the down-at-heel working-class
quartiere
around the Via Garibaldi where the Questura kept some apartments. This was a good place to eat, a quiet and pretty location, one the tourists found only by accident. Classy. It deserved to be popular. The last time he looked, every table outside had been occupied. Now there was just a single party left outdoors. Three men in blue shirts, sunglasses, slicked-back hair, well-ironed slacks, sat at the opposite end of the terrace to the table the two cops had occupied. Randazzo could understand why everyone else had left. It was hot. It was getting late.

The waiter had gone back to the counter, back to flicking at bread-crumbs and dust with his cloth. Randazzo got to his feet, a little unsteadily, and lifted the bottle of wine. It came up too easily from the table. He glowered at the Barolo, with its fancy yellow label and dark, dark glass. It was empty.

“Coffee,” he mumbled.

The waiter turned and grimaced at him. “What?”

“Coffee,” Randazzo barked angrily. “And grappa. Good grappa. Not the shit you’d normally give out. Big one. I’ll take it outside.”

On another occasion he’d have sat there anyway, looking at the Arsenale gates, thinking about those stolen lions. He liked his history, the good parts anyway. There was a time when entire naval fleets sailed out from the vast military boatyard hidden behind that castellated frontage. Big enough, powerful enough to browbeat the entire eastern Mediterranean into submission, to send emperors fleeing for safety, nations flocking to their treasuries to find some gold that could keep the Venetian pirates at bay.

Piracy and thieving. These were in the native blood. It was fruitless trying to pretend otherwise. He stumbled to the nearest table outside, fell into a chair, waited for the coffee and the drink to arrive, took one gulp of the latter, then poured some cane sugar into his cup and sipped at that.

He was next to the four businessmen, who were staring at him. They could go to hell, Randazzo decided. He’d heard them speaking. Small talk. In a language he half recognised because it was close to native Veneto.

The Croatians were everywhere these days. In the holiday business. In the smuggling rings. It was hard to draw the line between the legitimate ones and the crooks.

Randazzo gave them a sarcastic grin and mumbled, “
Salute
.”

The biggest raised his glass of beer and said the same back.

Randazzo considered mumbling some low insult under his breath, then thought the better of it.

“What do we call you?” one of the men asked. “Father? Brother? What?”

Randazzo peered at them. In his view the Croatians were scum, mainly. Opportunists who’d just crawled their way to the other side of the Adriatic in the hope of screwing some money out of the first mug they encountered. He gave them one sour glance, then returned to his grappa.

“Maybe he’s supposed to be one of the silent ones,” the nearest suggested. “You know. The kind of monk who never says a thing because he’s too busy contemplating God or something?”

The weasel-like dark-eyed creature by his side laughed. “Too busy contemplating his glass, more like. And what’s on his plate. You pay for that, Father, Brother, Sister, Uncle? Or whatever they call you?”

And they never had any respect. That was another thing that bugged him about the Croatians.

“I pay for everything,” Randazzo replied, trying not to sound drunk. “Including scum like you.”

They were coming into focus now. There were three of them. One older, bigger than the rest. Randazzo took a good look around the empty square.

“Lavazzi! Malipiero!” he yelled. “Where the hell are you when you’re wanted?”

“Language, language,” the big one tut-tutted under his breath.

“Where the fu…”

Randazzo cut what he was about to say and looked inside the restaurant. There was no one there now. Not even the insolent little waiter. The piazza was silent and empty, not a face at any of the windows, not a hand pushing out ribbons of washing onto the ropes that were strung across the adjoining alleyways, one wall to the other. Nothing but him, the men and some old stone lions.