Read Online The Goodbye Kiss by Massimo Carlotto - Free Book Online Page B

give
a damn, right?"
        "Right.
Under the seat are two files with all the information about them, including
photos and current addresses. There was enough to arrest them, but I managed to
change the program. You've got ten minutes to read the files. I can't let them
go."
        I
started with the Croats. Romo Dujc, alias Cerni the Black Shirt, 44, and Tonci
Zaninovic, 42. Soldiers in the seventy-second battalion of the military police.
Charged with participating in various ethnic cleansing operations. The report
indicated they were snipers. This was the only detail that interested me. I
studied their photos. Ugly. Dangerous. It wouldn't be easy to get rid of them.
They were holed up in the Giambellino quarter, in a small apartment rented to a
Croat prostitute. Patriotic solidarity.
        I
shifted to the Spaniards. Sebastian Monrubia, 39, Esteban Collar, 36, and Maria
Garces, 31. Noms de guerre: Pepe, Javier and Francisca. She was a fly piece of
ass; the other two wore the grim looks of militants sworn to self-sacrifice.
Whacking them wouldn't be a problem. The Spanish authorities were after them
for a robbery that went south, one cop dead, another seriously wounded. They
were hiding out at the home of an Italian comrade who hung around a community
center. His phone was tapped.
        I put
the files back under the seat and lit a cigarette. "I'll contact both
groups tomorrow."
        "How
do you plan to approach them?"
        I
expected that question. It was the most difficult step in the operation. The
pretext had to be convincing. Very convincing. "I'll tell them I'm an
informer, and I've picked them out. But since they're such a slick crew, I
won't sell them to the cops. Instead I'll let them in on a robbery that's a
sure thing and very profitable."
        Anedda
turned to look at me. "Can't you think of something less dangerous? They
don't strike me as people who take kindly to informers. You're risking a bullet
in the belly."
        I
shrugged my shoulders. "It'll be hard to make them swallow the idea that some
crook has tracked them down. Better a half-truth."
        The
cop let me out at the Cadorna station. I walked till I got hungry. Then I went
into a restaurant.
        
        
        I
rang the bell of the Croats' hide-out at eight in the morning. I chose to confront
them when they were still groggy from sleep. The girl answered. Her surname was
Bazov, her Christian name unpronounceable. On the street she called herself
Luana. There's nothing worse than a whore with a complicated name. She came
from Vukovar. A refugee in her country, a refugee in Italy, then the life. She
opened the door with her eyes half-closed. "What do you want?" she
mumbled.
        "From
you, nothing. I want to talk to Cerni and his partner, Zaninovic."
        She turned
a whiter shade of pale, then sprang back wideawake. She shook her head, on the
edge of panic. "I don't know these men," she lied.
        I
gave her a nasty pinch on a nipple. Another little trick I learned from the two
Romanians at the club. "Go call them," I ordered.
        Scared,
she slammed the door in my face. I could've given it a push and forced my way
into the apartment, but I couldn't rule out the possibility the two guys were
there eavesdropping, armed and ready for anything. I sensed the presence of
somebody eyeing me through the peephole. I didn't move a muscle. It was Cerni
himself who opened the door. One hand on the knob, the other holding a large
automatic.
        "Ciao,
Romo," I greeted him. "I want to talk to you."
        He
stuck out his head to make sure I was alone. Then he fastened his eyes on me.
He was strapping, his face creepy. His girlish mouth fought against his shaved
skull, his skinhead sideburns and the sagging flesh on his chin. Pale blue
eyes. Shifty, like a hunted animal's. When I looked into them, I knew for
certain this fucker wouldn't go down easy before he gave us his slice of