Out of the corner of his eye McCabe saw someone come up behind him. He tried to move but he wasn't fast enough and now Noto's arms were wrapped around his, locking him in place like a human vice.
Joey looked at him and said, "You're in the wrong business. You really think I was going to give you the money?"
"No, I thought you might do something stupid like this, and you did."
Joey looked at Mazara, and pointed to the second-story window. "She's up there, go get her."
It was quiet in the Palazzo, the only sounds coming from Piazza del Plebiscito. Mazara gripped the Tanfoglio in his left hand as he moved up the stairway to the second floor. Checked four offices. No one in any of them. Looked in the fifth and saw Angela standing at the window. He watched her for a few seconds, wondering what she was doing. She turned and saw him, put her finger in front of her mouth, telling him not to say anything.
He went in, aiming the gun, checking the room. She seemed calm and relaxed, not what he was expecting of a hostage kidnapped for days. What was she doing in this office in a municipal building by herself? It was strange. Something was not right. He approached her and whispered, "Where are they?"
She looked at him and shook her head.
"Don't move," Mazara said in a quiet voice. "You are safe now." He walked out of the room, thinking Angela did not look as if anything was wrong, nor did she seem happy to see him. He moved along the hall checking the remaining offices on the floor. He saw no one. What kidnapper leaves their hostage before the ransom is collected?
When he went back to the room she was gone.
McCabe saw Mazara appear, coming out of Palazzo dei Priori, moving toward them. Joey turned and saw him and said, "Where the hell's she at?"
"She was in an office, right there," Mazara said. "And then she was gone."
Joey said, "What're you talking about?"
"Angela, she vanish like a ghost," Mazara said.
"A ghost, huh?" Joey grinned and glanced at McCabe. "Where is she, Slick? Still in the building?"
"Now you're starting to get it," McCabe said. "You want Angela, you've got to give me the money."
Joey handed the soccer bag to Mazara. "Hang on to this and keep an eye on him. I'm going in to have a look," he said, walking toward Palazzo dei Priori.
McCabe's mistake, he figured they'd do something, but didn't think they'd jump him in a public place, local police thirty yards away. But it wasn't over. The bag of money was right there and he was going to get it. Now a tour group, about thirty people, walked by them and stopped, crowding together in front of the arch that led to the courtyard behind Palazzo dei Priori, the mass of people separating them from Joey. McCabe lifted his heel and brought it down in the center of Noto's left foot. The big man grunted and let go of him, hobbling, trying to stay on his feet.
Sisto rushed him, and McCabe hit him with a straight right and he went down. Mazara came from behind, surprising him, almost knocking him off his feet. McCabe swung an elbow into his face and Mazara went to his knees. The strap slipped off his shoulder and the bag fell on the ground. McCabe went for it, picked it up, and took off running across the square, dodging people, trying to get through the crowd. He banged into a guy taking a photo and sent him flying.
He ran out of the piazza and down Via San Lorenzo to his car parked on the street, opened the door, threw the bag on the passenger seat and got in. He started the Fiat, put it in gear and saw Sisto and Mazara, coming toward him. He waited for an opening in traffic, pulled out and there was the little guy they called Psuz standing in front of the car, aiming a shotgun.
McCabe gunned it, engine winding, driving right at him. Psuz stepped out of the way, disappeared, and McCabe saw him in the rearview mirror. Saw him level the shotgun: firing and blowing out the rear window, firing and blowing off the passenger side mirror, firing and blowing out the passenger side windows, glass flying, glass all over him, all over the dash and front seats.
McCabe jerked the steering wheel left, then right, and floored it, speeding on a narrow one-way street toward Porta San Pietro, a straight shot out of the city. He drove through the arched exit, went left on Via Cassia, passed Porta Romana, cars lined up, bumper to bumper, waiting to enter Viterbo, the once holy residence of popes.
Joey was about to go in the building, looked back and saw McCabe take off with the soccer bag. He was gone five seconds and they'd lost the money. Now he was about thirty yards behind Mazara and Sisto, running, sucking air, trying to catch them. He heard a shotgun blast and then two more. Saw Mazara get in the front passenger seat of the Opel, and got there as they were pulling out. Joey was on the driver's side, aiming the Beretta at Sisto behind the wheel. Sisto stopped and Joey opened the rear door, jumped in and slid across the seat behind Mazara, pressing the barrel of the Beretta against the back of his head. "The fuck you think you're going?"
"He take the money," Mazara said.
"I know he take the money you fucking bozo." Joey hit him on top of the head with the barrel.
"He was lucky," Mazara said, turning in the seat, putting his hands up to protect himself.
"He was lucky? There were three of you, you can't handle a college kid. Jesus." Joey drove his fist into the seatback. In Joey's mind it was a no-brainer, a slam-dunk. What were they doing? Standing there holding their dicks while McCabe got away with?437,000.
Sisto stopped and picked Psuz up down the street that was as wide as an alley, Psuz getting in next to him saying, "He go this way, we catch him."
"You better catch him," Joey said.
Sisto gunned it, speeding along the narrow street, going through Porta San Pietro, stopping at the main road. Joey looked to the right and saw a gas station and beyond it a mirrored-glass building that looked out of place next to the old city.
"There," Mazara said, pointing left.
Joey saw the blue Fiat in heavy traffic up ahead. "What do you think Don Gennaro's going to say when I tell him what happened?" That got their attention. Mazara, still rubbing his head, glanced back at Joey.
"Why do you tell him?"
"Why do I tell him?" Joey shook his head. "Dude, his little girl, my cousin's been kidnapped in case you forgot, and she could be in serious fucking trouble. Oh, and you lost his share of the money. That's why I tell him." He leaned back in the seat, trying to get comfortable. There wasn't much legroom.
Psuz was next to him with the shotgun, barrel pointed at the floor, the stench of gunpowder filling the car. Psuz had bleached blond hair, a dark beard and dark eyebrows, and gave Joey the creeps. He grinned at him and Joey said, "What's your problem?"
Mazara looked back and pointed straight through the windshield. "You see? There, the blue Fiat?"
Joey saw it turn right up ahead, and they did too on Viale Fiume, a two-lane country road. They passed irrigation canals and flat dirt fields that had been harvested. They passed farmhouses in the distance and sheep grazing.
Mazara said something to Sisto in Italian and Sisto grinned, and looked at Joey in the rearview mirror.
"What'd you say?" Joey said.
"No more telling us what to do," Mazara said it like he was trying out the line, waiting for a reaction.
"Is that right?" Joey said. "Let me remind you, if it wasn't for you clowns we wouldn't be in this situation. We'd be on our way back to Rome with Angela and the money." Joey decided to keep the Beretta handy, even the odds if they were thinking about a mutiny.
Psuz was grinning at him again. Joey brought the Beretta up and aimed it at him. "You don't quit looking at me like that I'm going to put this in your mouth, let you suck on it like a big dick. You'll probably like it."
Mazara looked over his shoulder and said, "Be careful what you say. Psuz was in the Bersaglieri, a sniper in Italian army, can kill you from three hundred meters."
"Yeah, right." He didn't look like a sniper. He looked like a rump ranger.
"No, is the truth."
They passed through a little village, La Quercia, and saw a sign that said Bagnaia 6 kilometers. Joey lowered the pistol and rested it on the seat next to him. Glanced at Psuz. A sniper, huh? Maybe he'd come in handy. They passed a truck and a couple of cars, and came up behind a dark-blue Fiat. The rear window was blown out and the sheet metal was puckered with buckshot.
Sisto pulled out in the oncoming lane, trying to drive next to the Fiat, but the Fiat sped up and they couldn't quite catch it, didn't have the power to pass it, and swung back and got on McCabe's tail again and rammed him. The impact jarred them, Joey jerking forward, the shoulder belt straining, but holding him. Sisto accelerated and rammed McCabe's car again, and then pulled out, gaining on the Fiat this time, almost next to it.
McCabe saw Joey leaning out the rear window of the Opel with a gun in his hand. He heard the blast and felt the left rear tire blow, and felt the back end slide out. He hit the brake, trying to slow down, get the Fiat under control but couldn't, and then lost it, the back end going all the way around, and he was spinning, doing a 360. He turned the wheel, trying to correct his course, trying to straighten out the car, and he went off the road and over the embankment, rolling now, hands squeezing the steering wheel, conscious of his body going head-over-heels twice as the car rolled, blowing out all the glass.
The Fiat landed right side up, but was still moving, slamming head-on into a tree with impact. McCabe was conscious of the airbag blowing in a split second, hitting him in the face, knocking him back against the headrest, nose and forehead stinging. Conscious, too, of the dull pain in his arms and shoulders from holding the steering wheel so tight.
McCabe was dazed from the collision. The windshield was gone, roof caved in, hood buckled, and he could hear a hissing sound from the radiator that must have been punctured, steam escaping under pressure. He looked out the driver's side window and saw the Opel on top of the embankment, backing up fast. He was woozy but knew he had to move. It was difficult with the airbag pressing against him. He pushed the seat back as far as it would go, unhooked his belt, brushed glass off the soccer bag, and pushed it out the passenger side window. He glanced back toward the road and saw the Opel in profile on top of the embankment, skidding to a stop in reverse seventy yards away.
He pulled the handle up but the door wouldn't open, wouldn't budge. He used his arms to pull himself up and slid over on the passenger seat. He went head first through the open window, holding on to the doorsill, flipping his body around, going down on his knees, looking through the empty window frames. They were out of the car, four abreast, starting down the embankment.
Cars were slowing down, people trying to see what was happening. Behind him was the tree line, a narrow wooded area he'd seen from the road that went uphill a hundred yards to a stone house and outbuildings on the other side of the trees.
He picked up the bag, put the strap over his shoulder and went into the woods about fifty feet, stopped and saw them standing around the Fiat, and McCabe started to run.
Joey said, "Jesus Christ, you believe this fucking guy?" The Romans were looking in the car windows. "You going to stand there, pull pud, or go find him?"
These guys were so fucking lame it hurt.
Mazara said something in Italian and the three of them moved into the trees, Joey behind them, holding the Beretta down his leg. He didn't think these bozos would try to take him out but you never knew. He could hear the hum of traffic behind them as he followed the Romans into the woods.
They'd sure as hell better find him and do it fast. There was considerable personal gain at stake here too, beyond just the money. Joey saw himself giving McCabe to his uncle, saying, you want the guy kidnapped Angela? Here he is. My pleasure. You don't have to thank me. Just give me my own territory, I'll show you how it's done.
Joey saw himself making the rounds, persuading the Roman shopkeepers they needed protection. It wasn't hard. They didn't want to pay him he'd pull out the Closer, a twenty- nine-ounce white ash Louisville Slugger. His advice to young racketeers: choose a bat you could control, never pick up more wood than you could swing. Joey with his height and weight could handle a thirty-ouncer without any problem, but he liked the twenty-nine better. He knew it didn't make any sense, but one ounce made a difference.
The other piece of advice he'd give about hitting: loosen up a little before you swing for the fence. Stretch your muscles. Joey preferred a Louisville Slugger model C271 pro stock, but on occasion used his Pete Rose autograph with the man's signature on the barrel of the bat, and the words Hit King under it, and 4,256, his record number of major-league hits. It was a little corny but he liked it 'cause he liked Pete Rose, admired him, and having the man's autograph on the bat gave him confidence. He was thinking about the bat, watching Mazara and, the other two clowns walk through the woods when he heard a siren in the distance, the sound like a siren in a Second World War movie. The three Romans stopped, turned and looked at him, and they all started moving back to the car, Joey thinking, Jesus, that's all he needed — get arrested in fucking Italy.
When Mazara walked out of the office looking for the kidnappers, Angela had run down the hall and down the stairs. Instead of going into Piazza del Plebiscito she entered the courtyard between Palazzo dei Priori and Palazzo del Podesta. She had joined a tour group of Dutch students that had stopped to study the Etruscan sarcophagus lids on display.
The tour guide explained the historical significance of the ancient coffin lids, but Angela wasn't listening. She was glancing behind her through the students, looking for Roberto.
She stayed hidden in the group until they moved into Piazza del Plebiscito. She didn't see McCabe or Joey or any of them and started across the square. She heard the distant discharges of a shotgun, and then panic, people running toward her. Angela was concerned about McCabe, hoping Joey and Mazara didn't do something crazy. Two Polizia sedans sped past her down Via San Lorenzo, lights flashing, sirens yelping. She had seen a taxi queue on Via Roma, and ran there and got in the rear seat of a yellow Fiat sedan and told the driver she was in a hurry. Drive toward Bagnaia, I will direct you. She could see his face in the rearview mirror, dark eyes studying her. He looked Tunisian or Moroccan. She took a fifty-euro note out of her purse, leaned forward and handed it to him. He nodded and started the car.
"Subito, signorina."
They drove out of Viterbo and through La Quercia, zipping along, Angela thinking about McCabe again and realizing she had not stopped thinking about him. McCabe was tough, but there were five armed men after him. There was nothing she could do. No way to contact Joey or Mazara. And even if she could, what would she say to them? She was staring out at the countryside and felt the taxi slow down, and looked through the windshield and saw brake lights ahead. Cars traveling in both directions were stopping now.
The driver glanced at her, his solemn eyes in the rearview, and said, "I don't know."
It could have been anything, a collision, sheep crossing the road, a farmer driving a tractor slowing traffic. After a few minutes they started moving slowly, creeping along, Angela nervous, worried, looking out the window. She hit the button and the window went down and she lit a cigarette. She saw the driver's eyes looking at her in the mirror again but not saying anything to his fifty-euro customer. She blew smoke out the window and watched it disappear.
She could see flashing lights up ahead, two police cars parked on the side of the road. As they approached Angela looked down the embankment and saw four Polizia de Stato standing next to a dark-blue Fiat. It was McCabe's car, there was no doubt in her mind. The top was crushed, sides dented. Was he in the car? Was he hurt? If he was hurt they would have called an ambulance. So where was he? And where were Joey and Mazara?