'I don't think he has all of it,' she said. 'I'm sure the money has been divided among his men.'
McCabe said. 'Where's your share? We can start there.'
Angela said, 'He has not given it to me.'
'You're either lying or you're being scammed.'
'Who are you, you think you can take on this armed gang?'
'I'm not Chip Tallenger from Greenwich, Connecticut. I'll tell you that. My dad's a retired ironworker living on a pension.'
'The story in the newspaper said you were rich.'
'I'm not,' McCabe said.
'The amount of the ransom seemed insignificant,' she said, 'to someone so wealthy.'
'Did you hear what I said?'
Angela said, 'Why do you think I am going to help you?'
'You like sleeping next to the toilet?' McCabe said. He slid a pen and piece of paper across the table to her. 'Write down his number.'
She crumpled the paper in a ball, threw it at him and missed. He got up and went around the table at her, but she was already on her feet, holding the fork in her fist, arm raised, ready to fight him.
'Put it down.' He moved toward her and she tried to stab him. He stepped back, and she came at him, swung again and he blocked her arm and took the fork out of her hand, and dropped it on the floor.
She made a run for the kitchen and he caught her before she got to the doorway, standing behind her, holding her arms. She tried to free herself, tried to kick him. He bent her back and dragged her to the bathroom, pushed her in, and locked the door. She was pounding on the hardwood, yelling in Italian.
There wasn't much he could do with her at the moment, and wasn't much he could do without her. He'd wait till she cooled down and try again.
McCabe went back to the table and picked up the fork. He took the dishes into the kitchen and washed them. He went back into the main room. The pounding had stopped. He stretched out on the couch and fell asleep.
Chapter Nineteen
Ten in the morning, Joey was standing outside the villa smoking a Montecristo No. 4, waiting for Angela. At eleven when she still wasn't there, he called her apartment and got her answering machine. 'This is Angela,' a breathy voice. 'Leave a message. Ciao.'
Joey said, 'Yo Cuz, you're an hour late. Where the fuck're you at?'
At noon Joey went into his uncle's office. The old boy was sitting on a couch, watching some foreign movie, the mistress, Chiara, sitting next to him, looking bored. 'Hey, Unk, something's wrong, Angela was supposed to be here two hours ago.'
His uncle glanced at him and paused the movie. 'You think something is wrong you don't know her. Angela is never on time in her life. I think she is still asleep.' He said it with an edge to his voice.
Joey said, 'I'll go surprise her.'
His uncle seemed to like the idea. He perked up and yelled Mauro's name and a few seconds later the little guy ran in the room like he was sitting out there waiting to be called. In the faint light Mauro now reminded Joey of Sammy Davis Junior, his build and skin color. Joey grinned, almost laughed out loud, wondering if Mauro could sing and tap dance.
His Unk told Mauro to give Joey a ride into the city. Joey left the old boy in his office with his mistress who looked like she needed attention, wondering now if he should pay her a visit, walk down the hall in the middle of the night, unsheathe the pork sword. Nothing against his Unk, but show her what a hard-on looked like.
In the car, a black Mercedes sedan, he looked across at Mauro behind the wheel. They were still on villa property, cruising on the pebble driveway that had to be a quarter-mile long. Joey said, 'You take the oath?'
Mauro glanced over at him with a blank look on his face. This Sicilian hick had no idea what he was talking about. 'Poke your finger, spill blood on a sacred image, picture of a saint?' Joey paused, thinking about his old man telling him it was one of the rituals of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, how they did it in the old country. Then the picture was lit on fire, you had to hold it while you swore to obey the rules of the family.
His dad had said, 'May your flesh burn if you fail to keep the oath.'
Joey thought it sounded pretty goddamn stupid. He wasn't going to hold a burning piece of paper. His old man had wanted him to be 'made,' but after what had happened it would be a while, if ever. There was also the law of silence called omerta, his dad said meant don't talk to cops, tell them your business, like he'd tell the police anything about anything. Mauro, the little man, probably took it literally, thought omerta meant don't talk to anyone.
Driving through Rome Joey would point to some ruins and say, 'Hey, Mauro, what's that?'
Little fucker'd go, ' Vecchia Roma.'
Give Joey a smartass two-word answer in Italian. Joey wanted to give him a one-word answer: ' Vaffanculo.' Fuck you. Or a three-word answer: ' Succhiami il cazzo.' Suck my dick. That exhausted his knowledge of Italian but had come in handy in his old eastside Detroit neighborhood.
Joey liked looking at monuments and such, but it made him wonder what the Italians had been doing for the past two thousand years. They hadn't built anything close to the Colosseum or the Pantheon, or St Peter's. Most of the people, from what he could see, lived in second-rate apartment buildings outside the city the ancient Romans wouldn't have stepped foot in.
Mauro parked the Benz in front of a cool old building with arched windows and shutters. He could see the Colosseum right there. It looked a lot bigger up close, bigger than Comerica Park where the Tigers played. Bigger than Ford Field too. Jesus, six, seven storys high.
Mauro glanced at him and said, 'The residence of the signorina.'
That's the most he'd ever said at one time, got five words out of him — might be a Guinness Record. Joey also liked that he called Angela the signorina, like she was Italian royalty or something. But then again, as the daughter of Don Gennaro, maybe she was.
Peter Leonard
All He Saw Was the Girl
Chapter Twenty
McCabe went out and got in the Fiat and took the steep driveway down to a country road that wound around to the main road, Viale Fiume. The weather had changed, heavy dark clouds hung over the mountains as he drove through the hills, past sheep and horses grazing, passing through La Quercia, a village, arriving in Viterbo a few minutes later. He was surprised to see a modern mirrored-glass building on Via Cassia right outside the medieval city. He drove through Porta Romana, a giant archway built in the wall that surrounded the city, took a series of narrow one-way streets and parked on Via Roma in the center of the business district.
McCabe had seen photographs of Viterbo, but had never been there. He was surprised how big it was and how crowded. He walked downhill to Piazza del Plebiscito. Studied the two arcaded buildings that made up Palazzo dei Priori, built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Stopped in the tourist office and picked up a street map of the city. He sat outside at a cafe in the square, ordered espresso and sipped it, studying the map, looking for a place to meet Mazara and make the exchange, Angela for the money.
He walked to Piazza del Gesu and north to Piazza San Lorenzo, the religious center. He went south to Piazza della Morte, Death Square, which somehow seemed appropriate, but was too small, too remote. From there he took a series of winding streets to Piazza San Pellegrino in the medieval quarter, and back to Piazza del Plebiscito.
He stood staring at the buildings and got an idea, decided what he was going to do and how he was going to do it. He’d meet Mazara and ask for the money. Mazara would hand him the soccer bag, and he would tell them where to find Angela. But where could he keep her that was out of sight, but still close by? The car was probably
