“Enough,” said Coluzzi, fed up with Jojo’s nonsense. The man was sixty. Didn’t he know when to throw in the towel? Coluzzi waited for his spot, then lunged at Jojo, knocking the knife to one side and slugging him in the jaw.
It was enough.
Jojo went down on his knees, half out of it.
As luck had it, Bobby’s gun was right there, in arm’s reach.
“Don’t,” said Coluzzi.
But Jojo was already going for it, probably not even thinking what he was going to do with it or how he might get a shot off. His fingers found the grip, his hand pulling it closer. Coluzzi dropped to a knee and drove his stiletto through the top of Jojo’s hand, impaling it on the cracked linoleum floor.
Jojo was too stunned to shout. He sat there as if paralyzed, staring at the blade protruding from his hand, shaking with rage.
Coluzzi tossed a packet of ten thousand euros onto the floor. “There,” he said. “We’re even. Got it?”
Jojo looked at him, then at the money. “Sure,” he said. “We’re even.”
“Swear it.”
“I swear.”
“And you’ll never pull any kind of bullshit like this again.”
Jojo nodded.
“Say it.”
“I swear.”
“Okay, then.” Coluzzi pulled the stiletto out of Jojo’s hand. “Jesus,” he said, wiping the blade on a dishtowel. “What a mess.”
Jojo stood up, shakily, and put his hand under a stream of cold water.
“And one more thing,” said Coluzzi. “I need your ticket to the game tomorrow.”
Tuesday
Chapter 17
Simon woke at seven. After a shower and a light breakfast ordered from room service (cost: one hundred euros—apologies to Mr. Neill), he walked to the Champs-Élysées and hailed a cab.
“Porte d’Orléans,” he said.
Twenty minutes later, the taxi turned onto the Avenue du Général Leclerc in the southern perimeter of Paris. It was a working-class area, the street lined with bakeries, laundries, hair salons, and corner grocery stores.
It was here thirty-six hours earlier that the prince and his entourage had been robbed.
Simon stepped out of the car, handing the driver a fifty-euro note and asking that he wait. Slowly, he made his way up the block. He envisioned the line of sedans advancing along the boulevard. Coluzzi would have needed to wait until the last one crossed through the intersection before blocking the lead car. Timing was crucial.
All over in sixty seconds.
Simon started the timer on his wristwatch, then retraced his steps, stopping in the middle of the block, looking one way, then the other, playing out the scenario in his mind. The entry to the highway lay three hundred meters ahead, the green placards in sight. The drivers would have spotted them and relaxed. For all intents and purposes, they were home free. So much more the surprise when Coluzzi’s men appeared from a side street to bar the route. The lead chauffeur would have had no time to warn his colleagues before they were blocked from the rear as well.
Fifty-eight…fifty-nine…sixty.
Simon stopped the chronograph. The Corsican had chosen his spot well. There was no question but that he’d known the route in advance. A day, if not more, to allow for him and his accomplices to rehearse.
“How would you have planned it?” Neill had asked him yesterday morning.
