The involuntary escape, the relief from pain, was difficult to resist. Part of him welcomed it.
“Stay awake,” he told himself.
—
He’d set himself beside the door—and ran his hands along the bottom, and up to the latch. He knelt, putting his eye up to the small gap beside the bolt. Nothing.
He didn’t know how long he was there, drifting in and out of awareness. Every once in a while, desperation would get the better of him and Valerio would shout and slam his fist on the door. There was no response.
If they forgot him—without water, without medical care, he would die.
—
He awoke as the door opened. A flashlight beam found him.
“Water,” he said to the dark figure. “I need water.”
“Smells like shit in here,” someone exclaimed in Italian.
Men dragged him out.
Unbearable, exquisite, crystalline pain.
Valerio heard groaning and was ashamed to realize the sound was coming from him.
At last, they dumped him in a heap. Valerio wanted to move, to fight, but his body was sluggish, unresponsive.
He struggled to sit.
The area was brightly lit by electric lamps. Beyond this, blackness.
Men pointed guns at him. Lazarov wasn’t one of them.
Nearby was the sound of splashing water—a stone fountain and, beyond that, Luca’s house. As Valerio watched, a door opened, and the strains of distant jazz music drifted out.
Luca Errichiello paced towards Valerio, feet crunching on gravel.
He was dressed casually, hair glossy with pomade and stinking of cologne.
“You are one dumb motherfucker,” Luca said, squatting down. His face was inexpressive. “You just had to do what you were told. Look at you now. What a dumb fuck.”
He was so close—Valerio considered attacking. But how? And what then? It would be suicide.
“You killed Gaetano,” he croaked.
“It was necessary,” said Luca with a small shrug.
“He was your son.”
Luca grimaced and sighed, then stood.
“You are burdened with sentiment for your children, Capo,” he said without affect. “I’ve never suffered from that affliction.”
“You have other weaknesses,” said Valerio. “Yasen Lazarov, for one.”
“Who?”
“Il Fantasma. Your Ghost. Except he doesn’t work for you, does he? You aren’t the boss at all. You work for him.”
