I walked as nonchalantly as I could down the dim hallways of the Questura.
I figured that if I just acted like I was supposed to be there, nobody would question it.
After all, cops don’t expect a mafioso to go strolling around police headquarters.
I had the cop clothes and I had the badge – so I faked the attitude. I tried to project world-weariness, like I was tired as hell and just wanted to go home.
Outwardly I kept calm…
But my heart was thudding in my chest like a sledgehammer.
Talk about being in the lions’ den.
Luckily, almost nobody was around.
I saw a couple of people at their cubicles, but nobody looked up when I strolled past.
But I was watching them.
Every cop I saw, I mentally compared them with the pictures I’d memorized: the people on our family’s payroll in Florence.
I didn’t see anybody…
So I took the stairs to the next floor up.
Part of me was like, Get the fuck OUT!
But an even louder voice told that part of me to fuck off.
When our enemies found out the cops had Fabrizio Lettieri’s daughter, there was no telling what they’d do to her.
So I wasn’t leaving without her.
I exited the stairs on the next level and saw a sign for ‘Homicide.’
They were one of the few departments that would definitely be on call on a Saturday night…
And I knew we had a couple of their men on payroll.
All in all, we only had 10% of the Florence police force in our pocket… but there was at least one in every department. We had four in Homicide alone.
Time to roll the dice.
I did…
And I came up a winner.
There was a guy over by the copier – young, brown hair, hangdog look, dark circles under his eyes.
I cross-referenced him against my mental Rolodex and immediately pegged him as Matteo De Luca. One of ‘our guys.’
I glanced around the room. There were a couple of other detectives in the maze of cubicles, but they were all hunched over their desks. I suspected at least one of them was asleep.
I stepped back behind the corner and pulled out my gun, then took off my suit jacket and draped it over my arm to hide the pistol.
If things went south –
If De Luca wasn’t loyal to us, but was working for our enemies instead –
Then somebody was probably going to die tonight.
And it wasn’t going to be me.
I walked over to him. “Don’t react,” I said in a quiet voice.
He looked over at me like Who the fuck are you? “Don’t react to what?”
“Caesar has no knife to defend himself.”
That was the secret phrase we’d given De Luca. In case we ever had to contact him spur-of-the-moment, it was the code that would let him know we were the guys paying him off.
It had the desired effect.
His eyes bugged out and all the blood drained from his face.
“I’m Adriano Rosolini,” I said quietly. “You know who I am?”
De Luca swallowed hard, nodded, and looked around the squad room like he expected the boogeyman to jump out any second.
Then he turned back to me and whispered, “What the fuck are you doing here?! You can’t be here – ”
“But I am here. And I need your help.”
He looked like I’d just asked him to sacrifice his firstborn.
“Come on, man,” he whined, “this isn’t…”
“Is there someplace we can talk in private?”
“…the bathroom. We can go in there.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
We walked around the corner and he opened the door to the john. I followed him inside and checked every stall to make sure nobody was listening in.
Once the coast was clear, I asked, “You loyal to us, De Luca?”
He was sweating bullets, but he nodded yes.
“Good, because a cop named Moretti took me in one of the interrogation rooms just now and tried to kill me.”
De Luca frowned like I had a second head growing out of my shirt collar. “Wh– that’s impossible! If we brought you or any of your brothers in, it would’ve been all over the station! Everybody’d be talking about it!”
“That’s because I didn’t give ‘em my real name. Moretti knew who I was, but I’m guessing he was the only one. But I’m not here about that. I need you to find somebody in lockup and get her out.”
De Luca had recovered some of his color by now, but all the blood quickly drained out of his face again.
“Come on, man… you can’t ask me to do that… they’ll know it was me – I’ll get fired, I’ll probably get sent to prison – ”
“Relax. I’m aware that if you do this, it’ll destroy your career… so I’m prepared to make you a deal.”
De Luca got a resigned look, like he knew the kind of ‘deal’ I was about to offer him:
Drop your pants and bend over, bitch.
“What,” he said in a dead voice.
“How much do they pay you a year as a homicide detective?”
“47,000 euros,” he said glumly.
“As I recall, our family pays you 20,000 a year.”
“…yeah.”
I could tell he thought he was not only going to have to drop his pants, but there wouldn’t be any lube, either.
“You got a wife? Kids?”
“No.”
Good. That would make this whole thing easier.
Offering Moretti triple and even quadruple hadn’t made an impact, so I figured I better go big or go home.
“How’d you like to make two million euros in one night?” I asked.
De Luca lost his depressed look real quick.
“…what?” he whispered.
“You do what I say, and I’ll pay you two million euros.”
He stood there in shock.
I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Yo – De Luca, you still with me?”
“Yeah, but… just for getting somebody out of lockup?!” he asked in bewilderment.
“Then you gotta get us out of here safely. That’s the trick.”
He rubbed his hair. “If I do this – ”
“The cops’ll find out, which is why you gotta disappear. Go wherever you want, but I’d suggest Thailand – two million will go a lot farther there. You could live like a king till you’re 105.”
“But… my whole life is here…” he said forlornly.
“Do you want to work another 30 years and retire with a crappy pension and a fake gold watch? Or do you want 2 million euros?”
De Luca swallowed hard. “Mr. Rosolini… no disrespect, sir, but…”
I smirked. “How do you know I’m good for it.”
De Luca winced, then nodded – like he was afraid I might gun him down right there on the spot for voicing his doubts.
“Give me your phone,” I ordered.
He handed it over, and I tapped in a number – Roberto’s personal cell.
Then I texted him ‘6624732’ and hit Send.
That was ‘Adriano’ spelled out backwards on an alphanumeric keypad. It would let him know that it was me calling, even though it would be coming from an unknown number.
Then I dialed and waited.
Roberto picked up on the second ring. “You okay?”
He didn’t address me by name. That was part of the protocol, in case I was being forced to call him.
“Outstanding.”
Again, part of the code. It let him know that things weren’t great, but I wasn’t in immediate danger or being forced to call him at gunpoint.
“Good to hear.”
“I need you to set up a – hold on.” I looked at De Luca. “You want a Swiss Bank account or a bitcoin wallet?”
De Luca stared at me like he couldn’t believe this was happening. “I – uh – ”
I gave him an angry stare like HURRY IT UP.
“Swiss… bank account?” he said hesitantly.
I spoke back into the phone. “A Swiss – ”
“I heard. How much?”
“Two million. Can you do that right away?”
“I can just give you access to a spare account we already have. How’s that?”
“Perfect.”
“Let me get the information for you.”
I looked at De Luca. “Good choice, by the way. Moretti wasn’t so smart.”
