Angela said, 'Did he understand? I do not have much confidence in this Signor Rady. Is there someone else?'
'It will be okay. Signor Rady will call the father and the father will know what to do.'
'Did you tell him Signor Tallenger's life is in danger? Does he understand what will happen if the ransom is not paid? Did you impress that upon him?'
Roberto nodded. 'I made sure to tell him.'
Angela said, 'We better go, uh?'
'What is the hurry? He is not going anywhere.'
Angela was thinking about the American. She was expecting him to be different, this student from a wealthy family, the son of a well-known American politician, a senator, an important man. The senator was profiled in Corriere della sera as a self- made multi-millionaire living in Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the wealthiest cities in the United States. The one she met didn't seem to fit this background — his attitude, his clothes.
Pulling the thief off the motorcycle was the first indication. That was unexpected, but made it all work. Her job was to get his attention and hope he wanted to meet her. The thieves had made it much easier. But what really surprised her was how tough he was, fighting four of them. It was lucky Mazara hit him when he did or Chip Tallenger would have gotten away for sure.
She wondered what might have happened if they had met under different circumstances. There was something about him.
McCabe unlocked the handcuffs and placed them on the floor, trying not to make any noise. The big man was asleep, snoring. He went up the stairs, stopped and listened. He turned the handle, opened the door a crack and looked down a hall into the house. He smelled onions cooking. Went through the door, moving to his left and looked into the kitchen. There was a skillet on the stovetop, the smell of pancetta and onions filling the room. There was a cigarette burning in an ashtray.
A voice said, 'What are you doing in there? You are worse than a woman.'
He came in the kitchen now, the stocky guy with red hair from the holding cell, picked up his cigarette, took a drag and put it down. He wore a shoulder holster over a white tank top. He moved toward the doorway and yelled, 'No to…' And to himself he said, 'Where is he?'
McCabe crept down the hall and went out the front door and took off, running.
Angela had an odd feeling as they got in the car and called Sisto at the house. She listened and said, 'Where is he?' She listened. 'What do you mean you don't know? Find him.' She flipped the phone closed and said, 'The American has disappeared.'
Mazara floored the Lancia. She watched the speedometer climbing — 80, 100, 120, 140, 160 — flying now on the two- lane country road, heading south out of Orvieto, six kilometers to the farm.
Mazara said, 'He is chained to a post. How can he disappear?'
'Why are you asking me? They are your friends,' Angela said.
They were a street gang when she met Mazara at the Scene, a disco in Rome, a year earlier. After she got to know him he told her he was an 'ndrina.
Angela said, 'What is that?'
Mazara said, ''Ndrangheta.'
She had heard of them, the Calabrian Mafia. 'What are you doing in Rome?'
Mazara said, 'I was born in Calabria, but my family moved here when I was a boy.'
She said, 'What do you do?'
He said, 'A little of everything: kidnapping, extortion, guns, drugs.'
He was good-looking and fun to be with. Mazara had dropped out of the Lyceum school and formed a gang with some friends. But they were no more 'Ndrangheta than she was. All of them except for Mazara were born in villages outside Rome.
Angela dated him, but quietly. If her father found out she was seeing a Calabrian he would have disowned her or worse. She joined the gang and took a twenty per cent cut of everything she was involved in. Mazara had suggested they kidnap the American after reading the article in II Messaggero, Mazara telling her he knew him. He had played basketball against him in Rebibbia. It looked like easy money.
Up ahead she could see something blocking the road. 'What is that?'
'Sheep,' Mazara said.
He hit the brakes hard, tires squealing, the back end of the Lancia fishtailing, coming to a stop. Sheep were crossing the road, twenty-five, thirty, at least. Mazara honked the horn, leaned on it, but the sheep just stared at them, not moving.
Angela said, 'We better try something else and do it fast.'
She reached down under the seat and brought out her Beretta. She raised her arm out the window, aimed at the sky and pulled the trigger. The sheep took off, scattering in all directions, clearing the road enough so they could get by. Mazara put the car in gear and floored it. They passed a truck going the other way and then a car, lettuce fields on both sides of the road. She could see the farmhouse now, and coming toward them, the figure of a man running, it looked like the American, going full speed, the blue van coming fast behind him.
McCabe could hear a truck coming behind him. Turned and saw a big diesel semi, waved his arms and it blew by him. He glanced back at the farmhouse, saw the big man and the two others come out of the house, scanning the flat fields. One of them spotted him and pointed. They ran and got in the van. A car was approaching from the opposite direction. He waved his arms and it started to slow down, a red Lancia pulling up next to him, Angela pointing a gun at him from the front passenger seat.
'Where you going?' she said.
'Back to Rome.'
'What's the matter? You don't like it here?'
'Not so much.'
'I think you better stay where you are, don't move.'
Mazara got out from behind the wheel and came around the car toward him. The girl got out too, holding the gun on him, standing a few feet away. The blue van pulled up behind the Lancia. The big man and the two others got out and came toward him. He could see all the faces of the kidnappers now. 'How much you asking for me?'
The girl said, 'What difference does it make?'
'Believe me, it does,' McCabe said. 'I think we have a misunderstanding. You think I'm someone I'm not.'
Mazara said, 'We will go back and talk about it.'
McCabe said, 'What's wrong with right here? This is a good place to talk.'
'We can make it difficult,' Mazara said. 'Or we can make it easy. How do you want it, uh?'
'First, I've got to ask you something,' McCabe said. 'Who you think is going to pay to get me back?'
The girl said, 'Your rich father.'
McCabe said, 'I don't have a rich father.'
'Then you have a problem,' the girl said.
'No,' McCabe said. 'I think you do.'
Chapter Eight
'Signor Tallenger, we do not know who kidnap your son,' Captain Arturo Ferarra said. 'Most of the kidnaps, eighty per cent, are from gangs hired by the Mafia. The other twenty per cent are political, which clearly this is not. You have heard of the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia? The Sicilians are in Rome for many years. They can be responsible. But more likely, I believe, is another organization. Do you know of the Camorra?'
'No, I don't think so,' Tallenger said.
