“Would you like coffee, cappuccino, Coke?”
The waitress looked affable; she had pale blue eyes and tanned cheeks.
“Coffee . . .
“
“Los Angeles. United States.”
“It is my dream to go there. Very beautiful.”
“It is the dream of Americans to come here.”
“Ahh . . .” She looked down at the sea, a sight that had lost its magic for her long ago. “I’ll bring your coffee.”
I waited for her to return and greeted her with a smile. The place wasn’t full. “How many people live in Positano?”
“Four thousand, more or less.”
“Everyone knows each other?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Any Americans?”
“Yes . . . summer houses. An English couple, too.”
“How much does a house cost here?”
“Depends on how high up you are . . . or how close to the beach.”
I sipped my coffee. She didn’t look in a hurry to go anywhere else, so I pressed on. “Like, say, that one up there.”
“The Cortinos. Wealthy family.”
“The house looks big.”
“It is. Five . . . how do you say . . . rooms for sleeping . . .”
“Bedrooms?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “My guess is . . . two million euros . . .”
I let out a low whistle.
“Yes, expensive. But they are nice family. They helped rebuild the church. Mrs. Cortino . . . her legs . . . how is it . . . don’t work. It is . . . much pity.”
“She uses a wheelchair?”
“Yes.”
“Must be difficult in this town.”
“Yes . . . but he takes care of her. Makes sure she still goes around.”
“That’s very nice.”
“Yes.”
A couple of noisy Austrian tourists came in. She smiled, rolled her eyes, and went to help them find a table. I sipped my coffee, thinking.
His wife, crippled. In this town, it must be extremely difficult; the place wasn’t exactly built wheelchair- friendly. None of this was in the file. Why did Pooley censor it? Did he think it would affect me? Was he concerned that after I had used my time to measure this man, I would find he was a good man, a man with no capacity for evil, with nothing to exploit?
I first saw Cortino and his bodyguard Gorgio a week later. He visited a church near my hotel, a stone edifice painted the same color as the cliff so it blended into the rock. The exterior was bleak, lacking the ornate iconography of most Catholic churches. I knew it was one of the first things he’d do when he returned to Positano; his file noted that he always walked to the church, lit two candles, and kneeled before the altar. For whom he lit the candles, I didn’t know, maybe one for each of his deceased parents.
I sat at a nearby Mediterranean restaurant, eating prawns silently, careful not to attract attention. Cortino looked grave as he moved inside the church. Twenty minutes passed as I ate my seafood, waiting for him to emerge. When he exited, his face was transformed, beatific. This surprised me. Could a man’s attitude really be improved so radically from the simple act of kneeling? What had he found in there? What words had his lips whispered? I discovered I was staring at his peaceful face, fascinated, and when my gaze flicked to the bodyguard, Stefano Gorgio, the man was eyeing me.
What a goddamn mistake. I looked past the bodyguard, through him, like I was just another daft tourist enjoying a taste of local scenery. This must’ve satisfied him, because Gorgio shuffled after his boss, helping him into a parked Mercedes two-seater. I didn’t lift my eyes again; I just picked at my shrimp until I heard the car disappear around the corner, heading down the hill. Fuck. Gorgio was good, a real professional, he would certainly remember seeing me if I popped up near his boss’s home.
I went back to my hotel room and turned off the lights, pissed . . . pissed at myself, pissed at the missing information from the file, pissed that everything I learned about Cortino made me . . . what? Envious? Of him? Of this life?
It hit me like a grease fire. Is that what I would exploit? My own jealousy? Not evil in him but evil in me? It spread out before me like a Polaroid coming into focus. How does an assassin bring down a good man? He summons up his own iniquity; he measures himself against the man and feeds on the distance he falls short. And where would that road lead, when there was no connection to sever? What price would I pay for focusing my hate on myself?
I holed up in the hotel and the few restaurants on my side of the hill until June 6 arrived, the day I was supposed to put a bullet in Gianni Cortino. That morning, I rented a scooter from a tourist trap near the main town center, entering when the place was most crowded. I was just one more American tourist in a sea of Anglo faces.
I headed down the single town road and then up the hill, black helmet obscuring my face. I wanted to take a peek at Cortino’s house from the street, so I slowly motored by, using my peripheral vision to take measure of the place. Fortunately, there was no room for anything remotely resembling a yard. The house’s roof was level with the street, stone steps led down from the street to the front door. There was no gate, no security cameras. Positano was too quiet and peaceful and small and remote to worry about crime, an illusion I would shatter by sunrise tomorrow. From Pooley’s file I knew a side door was accessible from below; my partner believed the side door was most likely Stefano Gorgio’s private room. I motored on, just one of a thousand scooters passing by that day.
AT two in the morning, I checked out of the hotel, carrying only a small backpack. I explained that I had a car waiting for me at the bottom of the hill and the night clerk had me sign the requisite papers before settling back down to read the French newspaper
It took me an hour to descend the hill and then climb the road leading to Cortino’s house. One car rolled up behind me, but I pressed into the nearby foliage and it passed without slowing. When I reached the bend that included Cortino’s house, I ducked to his side of the street and disappeared over the hedge separating his house from the road. Instead of using the stone steps to head to the front door, I slid along the vines to approach the side door from above, a maneuver that kept me from having to cross the bay windows lining the ocean side of the house.
The side door was cracked open. Not wide, but cracked enough for me to see the gap. Why? Was this the way Gorgio aerated his room, letting in the ocean breezes? I didn’t think it likely, not for a bodyguard. Warning bells rang in my ears.
I moved to the door, listening carefully for a full minute, but I didn’t hear a sound inside, no snoring, no breathing, nothing. I armed myself and discarded the backpack in the brush, held my breath, and pushed the door open a crack. The hinges didn’t make a sound, thank God for that. No response. I ducked my head in and out of the room in a split second, just enough time for me to scan the room or draw fire. My eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness outside, so the dark room held no secrets.
