“It’s time to put an end to this. We can’t go on anymore. Not without Uriel. Not without money.”
“I sign for the family,” Michele snapped. “That was agreed. It’s down on paper.”
“That’s agreed,” Gabriele concurred.
“And if I don’t sign,” the older brother continued, pointing an angry finger in Massiter’s face, “we all go down with this particular ship. You. Us. Those crooks in the city. Everyone.”
“Everyone?” Massiter echoed, laughing. “I don’t think so. I’ve a talent for walking away from train wrecks. Hadn’t you noticed? Of course, if you really want to risk taking others with you . . .”
Massiter stared the man down. They both knew how unwise such a course of action would be.
Michele Arcangelo scowled and was silent.
Emily Deacon packed away her pen and notepad. “I’ve got nothing else to add here, Hugo,” she declared. “If you want to go ahead with this nonsense, then do so. Just don’t wave the bill in my face when it all goes wrong.”
“Leave us some dignity,” Michele snarled. “A place to work? A place to sell? Is that too much to ask?”
“Not at all,” Massiter answered. “I’ve an industrial unit near Piazzale Roma. It’s modern. Efficient. Take it. I’ve some retail outlets in the Strada Nuova too. Have one of those.”
Michele winced at the very name of the street. Emily knew the long drag from the station to San Marco, a parade of cheap tourist shops selling overpriced junk to gullible visitors.
“You can pass off anything as genuine there,” Massiter went on. “Take them, Michele. Rent-free for a decade. You can sell your little souvenirs there.”
“The Strada Nuova . . .” Michele let loose a short string of Venetian curses. “So I’m to be a shopkeeper now?”
“There’s a great future in shopkeeping hereabouts,” Massiter said. “More so than in making glass trinkets no one wants to buy. These are luxurious times only for those who can afford it. None of us can pick and choose anymore. I was content to live off an auction house once. Now I need to develop a little property, extend my range of friends. Only a fool thinks the world must change around him. We all have to find our own way. Listen to your own brother.”
Gabriele Arcangelo glowered at Massiter. “I’d like some dignity too,” he remarked.
“Then take it,” Massiter said severely. “Don’t test my generosity. A place to make your glass. A place to try to sell it. Free for ten years. Either that or ruin.” He leaned forward, emphasising the point. “Utter ruin. Perhaps jail for you, Michele. Or worse.”
The older man shook his head, full of regret. “I should never have allowed you through the door that day. I could have found others . . .”
“But you did!” Massiter replied with sudden spirit. “You invited me, if you recall. I only go where I’m welcome. I thought you understood that. And now . . .”
He withdrew a pen from his monogrammed shirt pocket. A large, gold Parker. He slid it across the table.
“You can use this in front of the mayor. Pretend it’s yours. Keep it after. Just one thing . . .”
Michele glared at the shining pen. “What?”
“Don’t linger once the place is mine,” Hugo Massiter said, with a deprecating smile.
BY THE TIME GIANNI PERONI ROUNDED THE PIAZZA BY the Arsenale gates, uniformed state police officers were erecting tape barriers to keep out the curious, and stealing snatched glances at the corpse still visible by the stone lion, leaking blood onto the stones.
Shattered face uppermost, dead eyes staring at the blazing sun, Gianfranco Randazzo didn’t look any more content with the world in death than he had in life. Nor had it been an easy departure. Peroni was sufficiently familiar with gunshot wounds to recognise that it had been a particularly cruel killing. The commissario had been wounded several times in the legs and torso, then crawled from the overturned restaurant tables nearby, leaving a trail of gore, before suffering a final shot to the head, presumably while still on the ground.
Peroni knew a hit when he saw one. Randazzo had been taken out with a savage, single-minded deliberation, and it was clear from the way the uniforms and a couple of plainclothes men were acting, more like disconcerted street cleaners than busy cops, none of the commissario’s killers had stayed around long enough to be apprehended.
Zecchini and his officers finally caught up with him, breathless, wide-eyed at the carnage in front of them.
“I suppose I don’t need to ask,” the Carabinieri major murmured, sweating hard, gasping to get some thin afternoon air into his lungs.
“Correct,” Peroni replied, eyeing a couple of plainclothes he recognised who were hanging around near the restaurant looking shifty, taking furtive sips at two small beers they’d secreted on the tables there.
“This is crazy,” Zecchini complained. “Those shots weren’t more than a few minutes ago. How’d they get here so fast?”
Peroni had run through that one already. “The local Questura’s just round the corner. I imagine they would have heard.”
All the same, it was pretty swift work.
The monk had pulled a disgusted face when he talked about the men who’d been assigned to Randazzo. Peroni felt the same way when he ran into this pair in the Questura.
“Also, unless I’m mistaken, they were supposed to stop something like this from happening. Hey! Lavazzi!”
One of them turned. The man looked scared.
“A word, please.”
Lavazzi didn’t move, just stayed there, clutching his beer, looking around for help.
The plainclothes man who was placing a plastic sheet over the corpse swore malevolently, finished the job, then strode over to meet them. Peroni dimly recognised him: one of the faceless people inside the main Piazzale Roma Questura, a local commissario who never so much as gave them a second glance all the time they worked in Venice.
“You people really should find better ways to spend your time. Now.” He spoke with a flat, monotonous northern accent that wasn’t local, or welcoming.
Zecchini reached into his jacket and flashed his badge.
“Carabinieri,” he said, nodding at the sheet on the ground. “We’ve got a warrant to interview this man.”
“Sadly, it seems you came a little late.” Some medics had turned up. They were running a gurney along the paving stones, looking as if they were ready to move the body. Peroni thought of what had happened on the Isola degli Arcangeli. Everything got taken care of so very, very quickly.
“You should wait until your pathologist arrives,” he said. “At least look as if you’re trying.”
The anonymous commissario came close and gave him an ugly look. He was a short man with a walrus moustache and black, lifeless eyes.
“Shut up, Peroni,” he replied. “This is our business, not yours. And we are trying, by the way. In ways we never had to until you and your Roman buddies turned up. What is it with you people? That this kind of crap just follows you around?”
Peroni wondered how long he’d have to stay in Venice before he broke the habit of a lifetime and started punching people.
“Like you said, Commissario,” he replied calmly. “This is your business. It was your business long before we happened to come along. I’m sure it will be that way long after we’re gone. Look to your own rotten apples. Not to us.”
“You’re gone now!” the officer bellowed, livid. “You’re no longer attached to this Questura. If you start poking your ugly nose in where it doesn’t belong, I’ll throw you in a cell. Understood?” Then he glanced at Zecchini. “The same goes for you. This is a state police case, nothing to worry the Carabinieri.”