But the other man said, ‘They killed my brother.’
‘And did you shoot them with that?’ He pointed to the Thompson gun wrapped in the tarpaulin on the bottom of the boat.
Robinson shook his head. He rummaged under his jacket, then something flashed between them, landing on the seat, just beside Pierre.
‘With that,’ Robinson said, running his thumb along his throat.
Pierre shivered and pulled the knife from the wood, feigning indifference: his stomach was tight, but not with nausea. One of the knives they use for gutting and cutting up fish.
Killing a man in cold blood. Once, as a child, he had seen a pig being slaughtered. It squealed like a human being, and it took five people to hold it still. The most impressive spectacle he had ever witnessed. Perhaps death was what distinguished him from men the age of Robinson and his brother: having had to kill, and seeing people die.
He wrapped himself tighter in his coat, and did his best to banish the image of those four Germans squealing like pigs while Robinson butchered them one after the other. He decided to concentrate on his own stomach.
‘Do you see those lights?’
‘Yes. Is it a village?’
Robinson nodded.
It was pitch-dark. Pierre thought that if there were rocks, the boat would shatter.
Eventually he glimpsed something. It was the coastline, less than a hundred metres away.
Robinson switched off the engine and started to row.
When the lights of the village were far enough away, he switched the engine back on and guided the boat in a southerly direction.
The engine was turned off again. Pierre glimpsed a brighter strip along the coast, perhaps a beach. A light was shining from the shore, it flashed twice.
Robinson replied with the electric torch, after which he fixed the oars in the rowlocks and started rowing with all his strength, until the keel scraped on to the sand.
It was a little beach trapped among the rocks. The mountain wall descended steeply to the sea. Pierre felt absolutely tiny.
He put on the rubber boots that Robinson handed him, and jumped out, drenched to the marrow.
Three men joined him to carry the boat on to dry land.
When they were all on terra firma, Robinson swapped a few jokes with the smugglers. Pierre couldn’t understand a word. Then he saw that they were opening a case and illuminating the contents with their torches: cigarettes. Sticks of every brand.
As they loaded the cases on to the boat, Robinson whispered, ‘Give them a hand.’
Pierre picked up one of the boxes, helped by one of the Slavs, and loaded it on board.
When he had finished, Robinson threw Pierre’s bag on to the dry sand. He passed an envelope to the Slavs, then took the lid off the can of petrol and refilled the tank.
One of the men offered Pierre a cigarette, and he accepted it. A very strong flavour of black tobacco.
Robinson’s voice forced him to turn around. ‘These men will take you up to the top, to the village. They’ll understand if you talk to them in Italian. I’ll be back in exactly a month. If you don’t see me coming, find a spot around here, and come to this beach for three nights. If I haven’t come by the third night, then go away and come back the following month on the same date.’
‘But I haven’t enough money to stay here for two months!’
Robinson shrugged. ‘You haven’t given me enough money to risk my skin.’
Pierre didn’t know what to reply. He was there now, take it or leave it.
He helped push the boat back into the water.
He saw Robinson rowing towards the open sea. The night gradually swallowed him up, like an ink stain.
Chapter 37
Naples, 16 April
The port of Naples was a vast marina for military vessels. Nato Command for Southern Europe: all orders for the Allied bases from Portugal to Turkey came from here.
Zollo watched the city moving away beyond the parapet. Luciano had been right: choose this city as a retreat. Who would ever have imagined that the biggest drug-trafficking operation in the world would have its nerve centre right in the backyard of the Allied armed forces? And the great thing about it was that not a single gram of heroin came out of Naples. At least not wholesale. It came from the Middle East through the Balkans. From there it reached Sicily and Marseilles, where it was refined and cut for the first time. Then New York, America.
Luciano, the brains, the big capo, touched nothing, saw nothing. Every so often he collected his takings and received emissaries from the American families. The racecourse served as a public relations office, and provided him with an army of freelance office boys.
And then there was the betting and the cigarettes, but that was all just small change. A top-up. Luciano sold electric appliances.
A long way from their days in New York, when a spruce dandy, with a little dog in his lap, rained sweets on the poor children of the district. The days of rackets and brothels: whores to suit every pocket, from the poor man to the Wall Street agent. ‘Lucky’, who had, in a single night, eliminated the competition with bursts of machine-gun fire. But transforming exile into one of the most profitable businesses in the world had been a masterstroke. Zollo couldn’t help admiring the old snake.
Turning bad luck into profit. Resurgence. That was the example to follow.
The ferry manoeuvred its way between torpedo boats, destroyers and battleships, heading for the open sea.
The trip to Sicily would be instructive, even if it promised to be a trip to the zoo. The island where his parents were born was inhabited by cavemen, but it had the most efficient refineries in the market. He was going to inspect them. Their journey passed through Yugoslavia: bought goods. Finally Marseilles.
The plan was starting to take shape. Luciano had assigned him the task of checking the Sicilian bases, and overseeing the buying and selling of the heroin: a sign of absolute trust. Zollo was counting on this for a hefty pension.
As he prepared to go undercover he ran through the details of the plan once more. A matter of time and quantity. On his previous trips he had already set aside twelve kilos. He had found a safe hiding place for them. Even if someone discovered them, they could never be traced back to him. Otherwise, Luciano would eat him for lunch. The opportunity had presented itself by chance: no one would find the packets where he had put them. A meticulous skim: about one kilo every fifty. He had done it well. One more job, the last one, the most consistent, and he would be guaranteed whisky, sun and women until the end of his days. He would leave them all standing, and disappear for good, bye-bye everyone, from Steve Cement. He had also thought of faking his own death: a terrible car crash. There was no shortage of places to vanish into.
He had contacted the buyers, in France. This last trip took it to fifteen kilos. A skilful hand would double that and turn them into a mountain of money.
But who would ever suspect him? Steve, general dogsbody to Don Salvatore Lucania, aka Lucky Luciano. Impeccable Steve. Clean-Work Steve. No, no one imagines anyone cheating Luciano while standing elbow to elbow with him, right in the lion’s mouth. If they had had an inkling, the blame would have fallen on those swinish Slavs.
He came downstairs and walked into the restaurant. As the barman poured him a whisky, he contemplated his image in the mirror behind the bar. His eyes were black holes in his pale face: his face said that no one would stop him. He raised his glass and, all alone, toasted a better future.
Chapter 38
Gramovac (Split), 17 April
Gramovac. A miniature village in the hills behind Split, eight kilometres from the capital, the road that Vittorio Capponi cycled down each morning. Pierre had walked it on foot, an hour and a half through pastures, vines and twisted olive trees.