Rogue Asset (Rogue Warrior Thrillers Book 11), page 9
“Sure, sure. But at least do us this favor for your own safety: when you arrive in Padova, please make contact with Ispettore Nick Boni, of the local police. He is the most noted local expert on the SCO and can perhaps give you rationales more convincing than my own.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” Bob said.
The agent rose. “Of course, it must go without saying that any activities undertaken on behalf of your government could be considered acts of espionage and will be received most harshly. And any acts on behalf of a criminal organization could be considered racketeering and guilt by association in other offenses.”
“Of course.”
“Then… I will leave you to your flight, which, I believe, leaves in…” He checked his wristwatch. “Thirty-eight minutes’ time.” He held out a hand and clicked his heels. Bob shook it.
He watched the intelligence officer walk away.
Well now, that was interesting. Bob had had any number of law enforcement types tell him to get out of town before. But as a warning, for his own safety?
What exactly have I gotten myself into?
PADOVA
The airport was a tiny landing strip on the southwest edge of town, its immediate surroundings a suburb of Mediterranean-style villa homes. The cab ride to the hotel was more illuminating; Padova was an odd city, to Bob’s eyes. The streets were cleaner than Italy’s larger centers, hedge- and tree-lined, some built out of new asphalt, others ancient cobblestones. The buildings on the outskirts mixed low-rise condos and skinny townhouses with large, older homes and businesses.
As the cab got closer to the city center, it became even more eclectic, modern ambition adjacent to crumbling grandiosity, some buildings dating back to medieval times. Most of the structures respected high local summer temperatures, not rising above four stories and typically whitewashed or a pallid gray, with terracotta red-clay tile roofs.
Hotel Al Bosco stood on the corner of Prato del Valle and Via Umberto I, near the Orto Botanical Gardens, the world’s oldest, and next to a tiny museum of pre-cinematic history. It was just a few blocks from the wedding site, the Chiesa Parrocchiale di San Daniele Martire, or Parish Church of Saint Daniel of Padova, the martyr.
The church, in turn, was a tiny concrete box from the outside, its steeple barely thirty feet above the ground. It dated from the ninth century, seated just one hundred and twenty, and adjoined a monks’ abbey and a convent.
The hotel, on the other hand, was deceptive. Outside, it was another aging, yellowed plaster rectangle, fighting the elements over decades. Judging by the size of the place, it couldn’t have held more than fifteen or twenty rooms. But the guests clearly had money; a valet was parking a Ferrari, presumably well off-site given the lack of anywhere to park on the street, for a middle-aged couple when Bob pulled up.
Geez… that’s a 275 GTB/6C. Alloy body and all, eh? Bob thought as it puttered off. That’s about $3 million worth of car, right there.
Inside, the hotel was sleekly modern, the lobby floor a marble mosaic. The concierge seemed to recognize him, which seemed a level of service above what was necessary, bordering on intrusion. “Ah, Signore Singleton!” he said as Bob approached the desk. “We are most grateful for your patronage, sir, and welcome to Padova!”
Bob scanned the place and the few other staff as the man went through his usual spiel about being able to arrange anything guests needed. A bellhop took his bag and led him to a small, refurbished cage elevator.
The room was equally impressive, stark white walls adorned with modernist art, a massive living room including a sectional sofa and big-screen television, as well as a well-stocked wet bar. A teak divider led into the bedroom proper, with a pair of plush queen-sized mattresses and a view out, over a Juliet balcony and toward the Prato Della Valle – once a “Valley Meadow,” as the name implied, now an ornately trimmed park with perfectly manicured hedges, benches and a statue-adorned island at its heart.
On a Louis XV-style writing desk between the living room and kitchenette, the room phone jingled. Bob closed the door behind the bellhop and went over to answer it. I’ve been here fifteen seconds, so I’m guessing this could only be one person.
But it wasn’t Alessandra.
“Signore Singleton? I am Don Vito Grasso.”
“Sir,” Bob said politely.
“I call to ensure you had a good trip and are settled.”
“It was comfortable, thank you.”
“Good. Then we will be able to get right down to business, yes?”
“Se lo desideria, possiamo parlare in Italiano,” Bob suggested.
“No, that is fine, I can use the English practice. I have spoken it for a great many years, but not so much recent. It is good that you speak our language, however. It will make the job less… how you say… imponente?”
“Imposing.”
“Si, si. Less ‘imposing.’ For now, we shall meet, have dinner. Once we break bread, we can determine how it is best you do this thing, eh?”
“You have a place in mind?”
“Si, si. Intendo… I mean, yes, of course, a restaurant that has been a favorite of mine on my occasional visits to Veneto. We shall send a car at eight o’clock. It is a jacket-and-tie sort of place, abito da sera.”
Bob had forgotten how Italians often ate later. “I look forward to it,” he said… then realized the line had already gone dead.
He’d seemed pleasant enough, cordial even. He could probably be a charmer when required, Bob supposed. Not that his CIA file suggested anything of the sort; to the agency, Vito Grasso was the epitome of criminal excess, a violent, selfish thug with a predilection for beating women and an insatiable appetite for illicit wealth.
Should be interesting company.
14
The limo arrived ten minutes early, a driver opening the door for Bob.
He smoothed the dark brown suit and thin black tie as he took the bench seat. The suit looked okay, he figured, though there were still hanger creases in the trousers from it sitting on an airport store rack for months.
It was a short ride, the utilitarian limo – absent any wet bar or other bells and whistles – stopping only at a handful of intersections, traffic more sparse after dark.
The restaurant had no sign outside, along a darkened side street. The driver opened the door, and Bob’s hackles went up immediately. There was no movement on the street, no bodies around, just a quietude rarely experienced in American cities. “Must be a popular place,” he muttered.
“It is one of the oldest restaurants in the city, maybe all of Italy,” the driver said. “It is only booked through the owner, and only by people he chooses to seat.”
He opened a screen door, then an old wooden front door. Behind it, an old stone staircase immediately led down to a basement. “When this place opened, many centuries ago, it was often more common to cook in the basements, as the heat would rise and heat the homes, while in summer it can be kept cool,” the young man said as they descended. At the bottom of the flight, he held open another door.
The restaurant was small, just four round tables, three of them occupied, and a pair of large booths featuring long rectangular tables. One was nearly full, ten of twelve seats occupied. Bob recognized Don Vito from his ancient mug shots and press clippings. He was seated at the head, wearing a burgundy silk dinner jacket and bow tie. His seat required some accommodation, Bob guessed, as his midsection seemed almost as wide as he was tall.
His son, Johnny, sat halfway down the table, next to Alessandra. The men to either side of the don looked like they’d been plucked from a seventies’ Pumping Iron video, short, with no necks, shoulder and back muscles nearly bursting out of their black tuxedos.
A seat next to the guard nearest the door was empty. Don Vito spotted Bob in his peripheral vision. He swept an arm towards the table. “Ah! This must be our guest, Johnny’s American friend!” he announced in Italian. “Please, Bob, join us.” He gestured to the empty chair.
The driver moved ahead of Bob and pulled it out for him. “I’ve got it, thanks,” Bob said.
He sat down.
The faces along the table were curious, but barely. Some were listening patiently, others still talking. The volume of perfume, jewels, makeup and well-tailored clothing fairly exuded wealth.
“Bob is attending the wedding from Chicago,” Don Vito announced. “Isn’t this so, Bob?”
“I’m most grateful for your amazing hospitality, Don Vito,” Bob said.
The old man smiled broadly. “And when you try the polpi in umido, you’ll be even more grateful I brought you here, eh?” He looked around the table at people’s glasses, then swirled a finger in the air. “More! More wine for our guests!”
A pair of waiters seemed to appear magically from the backdrop, each carrying bottles. They began refilling glasses.
“You like Italian food, Bob?” the don asked. “This place, the chefs are all from the same family, and they all cook like my sainted mother.”
As if on cue, a string of waistcoated waiters entered the room from a back hallway, dividing themselves into two lines, one passing down each side of the table, each man carrying serving dishes. They placed them in the center of the table, filling it from end to end, lids lifted to reveal steaming portions of pasta, sauces, stufatos and spezzatinos, pork roasts done marsala style. It looked like they’d simply brought out every item on a menu, several times over.
Don Vito raised his chin slightly and studied the assembled feast. He nodded once gently, then waved a hand away from himself, silently dismissing the headwaiter and his staff. “Bene, bene,” he muttered, picking up a large linen napkin and tucking it into his collar. “Now, we eat,” he told Bob. “After, we talk.”
They’d been through at least three courses, few saying much as Don Vito mowed down the plates ahead of him, waited a few moments for the empty plate to be replaced anew, then resumed feeding.
After an hour, he puffed out his cheeks and blew out some air. He pulled at his belt. “Bene, bene,” he muttered again. He reached over a foot and tapped his mid-bite bodyguard on the shoulder, then with the same hand shooed him away.
The guard got up, his expression awkward as he waited to figure out where he was supposed to sit.
“Bob… come, come,” Don Vito demanded, beckoning Bob over to the now-empty seat.
Bob did as requested, the square-chinned, crewcut bodyguard giving him a quick glare, dark eyes set above a nose that had been broken a few too many times. “A fine meal, Don Vito,” he said.
“Si, si. I told you the truth, no? Like my sainted mother, this man cooks. I am only glad he never presents himself to me, as I could not bear to judge his womanly qualities – his weakness and frivolousness – in the aftermath of so much genius. Bob… do you know what they say of me in Padova?”
“I couldn’t begin to guess, sir. I’m from the UP.”
“The… you-pee? This is a child’s expression, no? Like hurrah or something?”
“It’s the letters u and p. It’s an acronym for ‘Upper Peninsula,’ which is an area east-northeast of Detroit, Michigan.”
“Ah. A small-town American, then.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, here in Padova, there are plenty who know me from business. And they don’t like me much. From this thing we do. And here, they call me ‘Il Macellaio di Mestrino.’”
“The Butcher of Mestrino?” Bob frowned a little for effect. “You’ve got big forearms, but not butcher thick. Those guys can bend iron.”
“You tell a joke, yes? I have no sense of humor, I should note. I do try, but what I find amusing, sometimes others find shocking,” Don Vito said. “So… I do not try often. No, they call me this because they blame me for the deaths of seven men who were found skinned alive in a wine cellar there. It is a town near here, I should add.” He said it matter-of-factly, like someone recalling an old debate between friends. “This was in the difficult times, in the nineteen seventies, and these men, these Communistas, were a curse upon everyone in Veneto. I had business here at the time with Nicolo Caruso—”
“Any relation?” Bob asked.
His eyes widened in pleasant surprise. “You do your research. This is exceedingly good to know, given the task my soon-to-be daughter-in-law has set you. Yes, Nicolo was Corrado’s father. A much more reasonable man, a man who knew his limitations and the limitations of running such a small and… insignificant territory. But also a man not afraid to deal with the police and other authorities. His son? He seems more inclined to fight his fellow businessmen than the cops.” He practically sniffed haughtily as he said it, Bob noted. “It was coincidence, my presence here when those deaths occurred. And yet the reputation has stuck for fifty years.”
“But… that’s not why I’m here, is it?” Bob said. “If you thought the SCO was your real problem, or local communist sympathizers, I rather suspect you’d deal with them head-on, as your history suggests.”
He smiled broadly at that and nodded gently. He had a strange charisma to him; Bob recognized it right away, that mix of curiosity and charm that politicians could turn on and off.
“This is most true,” Don Vito said. “I have never shirked my role or been fanciful about what it is, this thing we do. We are an ancient society, Bob, men of honor but also men of conflict. We exist because there was a time when the average normal man did not have the power to stand up to the authorities, the upper classes and their excesses. And most typically, defending the interests of our customers has required bold directness… and sometimes extreme violence. But this is the oath we swear.”
He was leaving a lot out, Bob knew, like the fact that family members were not prevented from branching out to other less honorable traditions, things like prostitution, smuggling and contract murder. Or that allowing general immorality was highly profitable, as they all kicked back a percentage of their profits to their benevolent protectors.
But it wasn’t the time for a debate. “But in this case, you’ve been told it’ll be a man disguising himself and his intentions,” Bob said. He switched to Italian. “Duplice. Cosa dicevano i Romani? ‘Latet anguis in herba.’”
Don Vito’s eyes narrowed to a hard squint for a moment, and he was silent for a moment as he considered his laughing, chattering dinner guests. “Like the snake who lies hidden in the grass.” He downed the dregs of a cognac and held up the glass to alert bar staff. “When my daughter-in-law said she was bringing you here, I almost protested. Then I thought, who better to catch a hidden killer than a man such as yourself… a killer who himself remained hidden for so very long.”
He’d clearly read someone’s research as well, Bob thought. “There’s a certain symmetry to it,” he conceded.
“I did not want outside help because I have never needed it. But I am old, Bob, nearly eighty-four years passed. And I am old enough to know that an unused asset is no good to no one.”
“This merger is important to you, or you’d have just cancelled the wedding date and relocated, I suspect,” Bob said.
He nodded at that as well. “Giacomo Guidotti is an angry old fool… just like me. But angrier, because he has wanted nothing less than to kill me for our whole lives, while I simply want to win. But… my family is larger than his, far more powerful, with more sway, more money, more men. I am sick of this fighting, sick of decades of worrying every time either of us climbs into a limousine that it will explode a moment later. And it is a distraction from the real threat to both of us, which is the authorities and their unreasonable levels of persecution.”
“He seeks to better conditions for all of us,” Alessandra chirped in from a few feet down the table. “That is why this marriage and association must happen.” She turned towards Johnny. “And I love Johnny. He deserves a future detached from their resentments.”
Don Vito smiled quickly at that, but Bob got the sense he didn’t like her butting in. Instead, he leaned in and added, “I have no fear of this ‘Ghost,’ Bob, this super assassin. Whether he is real or a foolish rumor, I have already been shot four times in my life and survived each. That tells me that I have a good relationship with God, eh?”
“Sure.”
“If a man charges at me during the wedding ceremony, then I tell you, the best thing you can do is get out of the way so that I can kill him and we can get back to the festivities.” He finished his glass of wine with a hearty swig, then scanned the table again, considering each guest, as if telling himself their fealty proved his point. “But I will do as my daughter-in-law wishes and make sensible use of your skills.”
“We don’t need him here,” a voice to his left declared.
15
Vito turned towards his other bodyguard, on the other side of the table. “You have something to add, boy?” He stared at the younger man bloodlessly. “You think maybe I said something that needs correcting?”
“No, Don Vito, of course not. I would never disrespect your opinion. It’s just—”
“What? It’s what?” Don Vito turned back Bob’s way. “You’ve got to forgive Alex; he is a fine bodyguard but does not understand the situation.”
“I’m sorry, boss… it’s just embarrassing, is all,” Alex said. “It’s my job to make sure you and Giovanni are both safe, and I would never let—”
“Shhh! Shhh, shhh.” Don Vito shut him down with a single finger to his lips. “You’ll do as you’re told and be grateful that I do not take offense, Signore Buscemi. This is not a judgment on your skills. But I have already told you that, and I am… unaccustomed to the requirement that I repeat myself. It is irritating.”
The bodyguard’s face looked pale even in the soft basement light. “I sincerely apologize, Don Vito. If I offended in any way, I will offer myself for whatever punishment you see fit.”
The don seemed to weigh the notion, but only momentarily, an amusement. “Eh,” he said, offering the man a dismissive wave that spoke volumes. Bob doubted Alex would speak up again anytime soon, if ever.
