12:45 p.m., Ray was at the reception desk in the Excelsior Hotel, asking what room his dear friend Joseph Palermo was in. The clerk checked the computer in front of him and said there was no guest by that name in the hotel. He had the guy try Sharon Pope too and got the same response. Ray unfolded a Xerox photo of Joey and showed it to him. The clerk's eyes lit up. He smiled and said, 'Signor Bitonte.' He had seen Joey leave the hotel but he had not returned.
Ray left Joey a note, then sat in the lobby for a while, reading the Herald Tribune, an article about Somali pirates seizing a luxury yacht in the Gulf of Aden off the north-eastern coast of Africa, and were holding the crew for ransom. It seemed hard to believe these ragtag pirates getting away with it.
He checked the football scores. Michigan State beat Wiconsin and were 6 and 1. He finished the paper and watched a good-looking woman walk past him in tight jeans, moving toward the front desk. He sat there for a few more minutes, stood up, went outside and got in his car that was parked on the street in front of the hotel.
1:48 p.m., Joey walked up the steps and went through the revolving door into the Excelsior, moving across the lobby to the front desk, his Bruno Maglis clicking on the tile floor. He stopped and got his key and the hotel guy handed him an envelope. It was cream-colored Excelsior stationery.
'For you, Signor Bitonte.'
Joey thought it was from his Unk, probably asking when he was coming back to the villa. Joey put it in his pocket, got on the elevator and pressed the button for the seventh floor. He took the envelope out and ripped it open. There was a folded piece of paper. He pulled it out and looked at it. Two words in capital letters:
WHERE'S SHARON?
Joey freaked. Jesus! Had to be the husband, the Secret Service agent. But how the hell'd he find him? Joey felt the elevator slowing down, heard the bell ring, and the doors open. Expected to see a guy aiming a gun at him. It was the wrong floor, the fifth. Nobody there. He got off and ran to the stairs. The agent could've been waiting for all he knew, watched him get in the elevator. Maybe even knew what room he was in.
Joey took the stairs, went down to the basement and ran along a hallway, passing workers in their hotel uniforms. He slowed down and walked through a stock room, past banks of shelves to a loading dock with stairs that took him down to street level. He was on the east side of the hotel. Raised his arm, signaled a taxi that was heading toward him. It stopped and he got in.
Chapter Thirty-seven
McCabe checked the time on Angelas cell phone. It was 3:28 p.m. He moved along Via Sistina, up the hill past the Hassler Hotel where Senator Tallenger had stayed, Rome's best, past the taxi queue, half a dozen Fiats parked, the drivers standing around talking, past the Beverage/Gelati truck parked in the square.
The street was one-way, and he was conscious of traffic, cars, trucks and motorbikes coming up behind him, passing by, and the sounds of the city coming alive again after siesta. The strap of the soccer bag was on his left shoulder, angling to the right across his chest, resting against his side.
He and Angela had taken a taxi from Soriano a couple hours earlier and gone to her apartment. He'd gotten Joey's call at 3:15, giving him forty-five minutes to get to the location. McCabe stood at the base of the obelisk, turned and looked up at the twin bell towers of Trinita dei Monti, the French Gothic church with a Renaissance facade, the famous church at the top of the Spanish Steps. He thought he saw something move in the tower on the left, and now a pigeon flew out and glided over the obelisk and disappeared down Via Sistina.
He scanned the top of the steps. There were a couple of black merchants with knock-off purses and umbrellas displayed on a wicker mat, and a painter setting up an easel. He glanced over and saw Angela at a table, drinking coffee at the terrace restaurant. He kept going, walked past Trinita dei Monti, the city of Rome spread out in perfect blue-sky panorama to his left. On his right was a twenty-foot-high salmon-colored wall that bordered Villa Borghese.
He went down almost to the park entrance and came back, studying the scene from a different angle. He walked down the Spanish Steps to the second level and leaned against the balustrade. It was all going to be over one way or the other in thirty minutes. He looked down at the bottom of the steps, always more crowded than the top, people sitting in rows, side by side like they were at a concert, people standing around Fontana della Barcaccia, the boat-shaped fountain, and more people crisscrossing Piazza di Spagna, heading for the shops. There were carriages lined up and he caught the faint odor of horse manure. There were flower vendors and photographers and black merchants selling jewelry, bags and sunglasses.
The Spanish Steps had to be at least one hundred yards from top to bottom, and maybe fifty yards from side to side. He thought they would come from the top. It was a better vantage point, and it was easier to go down than up.
3:48, Joey stood at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, the lower level packed with people, eyes going left to right. He looked up at the balcony on the second level, half a dozen tourists standing there, too far away to recognize. He was more relaxed now after getting out of the hotel, sure he'd lost the agent, and there was no way he was going back. It was time to get out of Rome, too. That's why the ransom money was more important than ever. He had a couple hundred grand in a Swiss account, but it wasn't enough. This was his stake in the future. He'd called Sharon and told her to pack her bag and meet him at the train station, the main terminal, at five.
'First tell me what's going on?' Sharon had said. 'You were supposed to come back and get me. We were going to have lunch. Where are you?'
'I can't talk right now,' Joey said. 'I'll tell you later. Just meet me at the train station. Bring your things and bring mine. There's a bag in the closet.'
'Where we going?' Sharon said.
'It's a surprise,' Joey said. 'For once just do what I ask and don't say anything, okay?' Didn't mention Ray. What was the point? If he was still at the hotel, and that was a good possibility, he might run into Sharon and she'd have to deal with him. Jesus, why was Joey taking all the heat?
He walked up the Spanish Steps, moving along the eastern wall that curved all the way to the top. On his right was an apartment building with an entrance on the square below. Joey had checked it out, walked from top to bottom a couple times earlier that afternoon and noticed the balcony of a second-floor apartment that was only a couple feet from the wall. Christ he could jump to it. He felt his phone vibrate in his pants pocket and took it out, heard Mazara say they were ready, everybody in position. Joey looked up and saw McCabe standing at the second balcony.
3:52, Psuz rested the barrel of an old bolt-action Beretta 501 on top of the metal railing that went around the penthouse patio, seven floors up, looking down at the Spanish Steps. Put the scope on Joey walking up, angled it to the right, saw McCabe at the balcony. Adjusted the scope, put the crosshairs on McCabe's back about seventy-five meters below him, adjusted again, closing on his head. Psuz could take the shot, drop him, he would never know what happened. But Joey said to wait, make sure he had the money, and also Angela.
It was Joey's idea to have him on the roof of the building. 'Psuz, you really a sniper?' Joey said to him. 'Let's see how good you are.'
But he also had an idea. After his time in the army he had worked for Italgas. He went there, the main office in Rome, and took a uniform from the locker room. First, he was thinking of going in the bell towers at Trinita dei Monti, but to get up there he'd have to go through the convent next door and that would be difficult. There were procedures to follow when dealing with the Catholic Church. So instead he chose the apartment building across Via Sistina from the Hassler Hotel.
In the uniform it was easy to enter with his tool bag, and ride the elevator to the penthouse apartment, ring the buzzer, and when the man opened the door, tell him there was gas leaking in the apartment and the occupants, for their safety, must vacate immediately.
3:57, McCabe saw Joey coming up the steps toward him, breathing hard, gut bouncing under a loose-fitting
