A Mortal Terror (27 page)

“Or maybe it wasn’t combat fatigue at all,” I said. “Maybe Landry was helping out somebody who had the clap, asking Galante to treat him so it wouldn’t go on his record.”

“Venereal disease isn’t exactly rare,” Harding said.

“No, but perhaps a married man would not want it to be known,” Kaz said.

“Or a priest,” I said, fairly certain that Saint Peter was putting a black mark next to my name for even suggesting it.

“I’m heading over to see Kearns,” Harding said. “What’s next for you two?”

“I want to find the Carabinieri who came along on this joyride. They may know more than they’re telling us about Bar Raffaele.”

“Why do you think that?”

“A hunch is all,” I said. I didn’t want to complicate things by bringing up Luca Amatori’s stint at a Fascist concentration camp. That was my leverage, and I needed to keep it to myself. For now.

“Okay,” Harding said, rising from the table with his mess kit. “I’ll be back tomorrow at 1100 hours. Report to me then. I need to send Ike an update on the situation. You’ll find me with Kearns.”

That worked fine for me, since I planned an early morning visit to Le Ferriere. I wasn’t going to let Danny face the Germans alone, not with an American killer at his back. I knew Harding and Kearns wouldn’t be happy with my protecting Danny, or tipping off the killer. But it was my kid brother, so colonels and majors be damned.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

W
E FOUND TENENTE
Luca Amatori at the Anzio Carabinieri headquarters, set up in a seaside casino pockmarked with bullet holes from the initial assault.

“Billy, Kaz,” he said, rising from his desk, which had originally been a croupier’s table. “I am glad to see you both. Is this a social call, or can I be of assistance?”

“We could use your help,” I said as I took a seat. Luca’s desk was filled with papers, lists of names and addresses from what I could see. An ornate white-and-gold telephone on his desk rang, and he ignored it, nodding to an officer across the room who picked up the call on another phone.

“Has it to do with the killings? The murders in Caserta?”

“Yes. We need some more information on the connection between Bar Raffaele and Lieutenant Landry.”

“But I already told you the little I know,” Luca said. “And we are quite busy, trying to provide for civil order.”

“How many men do you have here?” Kaz asked.

“One hundred and fifty.”

“Might not some of them know of Stefano Inzerillo and his bar?” Kaz asked. “Surely some of them visited it for personal reasons, while not on duty, of course.”

“I could ask, yes. But as you know, the American military police have jurisdiction in such matters.” Luca spread his hands and shrugged, to show how little there was he could do.

“We don’t need help with jurisdiction,” I said. “I want to know more about the prostitute Landry was involved with, and what happened to her.”

“Billy, how can I find a prostitute in Acerra while I am in Anzio?”

“Listen, I know cops, and cops talk about things that are out of the ordinary. Like an American lieutenant trying to talk a prostitute into going straight. It’s the kind of naïve thing any veteran cop would get a laugh out of, you know what I mean?”

“Yes, of course. But you must understand, the times are not normal. There are so many Americans, and so many prostitutes. My men come from all over Italy, it is not as if they are all from the area and know everything that goes on. Believe it or not, some of them do not even frequent houses of ill repute.”

“It sounds as if you’re making excuses,” I said. “Is there a reason you don’t want to help us?”

“No, not at all. As I told you before, I have only been in the area two months myself. Some of my men even less.”

“Maybe you were taking bribes from Inzerillo,” I said. “It wouldn’t take two months to set that up.”

“You have no right to make such an accusation! Are you mad?”

“What, cops in Italy don’t take bribes?”

“Why are we even having this discussion?” Luca asked.

“Because we find it hard to believe that an experienced Carabinieri officer would have difficulty with such a simple request,” Kaz said.

“Nothing in war is simple,” Luca said. “And
I
do not take bribes.” He left the implication hanging like a fastball right over the plate.

“But Capitano Renzo Trevisi does?” Kaz said.

“The Capitano grew up outside of Caserta,” Luca said. “He knows many people.”

“People in Acerra,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Stefano Inzerillo, for one?”

“I would rather not say. He is my superior officer.”

“Luca, I took you for a rookie when we first met. A guy who got a fast promotion, maybe due to the war, but a rookie nonetheless,” I said.

“A rook-ee?” he asked, sounding out the word.

“Someone new to the game. I thought the same thing when you came with us to Acerra, to interrogate Inzerillo, since you spilled the beans about Landry being dead.”

“Beans?” He looked puzzled.

“Yeah. Don’t you watch gangster movies in Italy? That was a rookie move, tipping Inzerillo off, getting him even more nervous than he was. But now I wonder, were you in on it with your capitano? Were you feeding information to Inzerillo and keeping watch on us at the same time?”

“This is ridiculous! You and your American words, they make as much sense as your accusation.” He was right, I was making it up as I went along. I didn’t think Luca was in cahoots with Trevisi, but I had the feeling he was holding back, and pressure was the best way to find out what.

“Why did a Carabiniere in Acerra call you a Fascist? He said you were a friend of the Nazis.”

“I have no idea,” Luca said, waving his hand in the air as he looked down at the empty green surface of the croupier’s table.

“Was it because of what you did at Rab? At the concentration camp?”

His hand fell from the air, as if a puppet master’s string had been cut. “I am not a Fascist,” he said, sighing in a way that let us know he’d said it many times before. “I am also not a friend of the Tedeschi. What do you think this has to do with a bordello in Acerra?”

“I think it has something to do with your capitano. He has you under his thumb, and you feel you have to protect him. I’d say Inzerillo was paying him off, and you knew it. You tried to warn Inzerillo that Landry’s killer would be coming for him; that’s why you blurted out that Landry was dead.”

“If it is as you say, then you are wasting your time with me,” Luca said. He lit a cigarette, keeping his eyes on the pack, the matches, the ashtray, everything but me.

“No, I don’t think so. You don’t strike me as a man who likes working for a crooked cop,” I said, leaning forward until he had to look me in the eye. “I think you’re ashamed of something, and you know that protecting Trevisi is only going to lead to more shame and disgrace. Am I right, Luca?”

Some guys aren’t made for lying. Some are. Luca was in between. He put a good face on things, and I’m sure he could lie to a crook or a killer if it meant getting a confession. But something was eating at him, and I knew he wanted to tell all.

“Yes, you are right,” he said finally. He took a drag on his cigarette, leaned back and blew smoke at the ceiling. “Capitano Trevisi had business dealings with Inzerillo.”

“What kind of dealings?” Kaz asked. Luca only shook his head. It was the same the world over. No cop wants to give up another cop, no matter how dirty. The blue wall of silence.

“That’s why he was so glad to offer your services, so you could keep an eye on things?” I said, not asking him a direct question about corruption.

“Yes. He was worried about Inzerillo. He thought there was trouble brewing, even before you came to Caserta.”

“Why?”

The truth came easier now. The dam had been broken, and it spilled out. “There was trouble, first with Lieutenant Landry. He threatened to bring in the military police if Inzerillo didn’t let one of the girls go.”

“I thought Inzerillo didn’t run the girls himself.”

“He didn’t. It was what Ileana told him.”

“Ileana? The prostitute Landry fell for?”

“Yes. She told him she needed money to buy her freedom from Inzerillo, that he would not let her go free. Trevisi said it was all a lie, to extort money from the lieutenant who loved her.”

“So you lied to us when you said it would be impossible to find her,” I said.

“She is gone, that much is true. She fled when she became frightened.”

“Frightened by what?”

“One of the soldiers. He threatened to kill her.”

“That couldn’t have been Landry,” I said.

“No, he saw himself as her defender, and she as his Dulcinea.” I must have looked puzzled, since he explained. “From
Don Quixote
.”

“A simple peasant girl who becomes Don Quixote’s idealized woman,” Kaz added.

“Oh yeah,” I said. I knew that was an old book, but not much more. “So who threatened her?”

“I only know it was a
sergente
. The same one who gave Inzerillo the beating.”

“Was it Sergeant Stumpf?” He came down with venereal disease after partaking of the pleasures at Bar Raffaele. That might be a motive for attacking Inzerillo and the girl.

“I do not know. I would tell you if I did.”

“Why didn’t you tell us before? Why keep this a secret? You knew we were investigating a murder.”

“The murder is another matter entirely. I can only say that this sergente asked for Ileana, even knowing Landry was smitten with her. Perhaps there was some problem between them, but I can only guess at that.”

“Why did the sergeant threaten her?”

“Because she laughed at him,” Luca said, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. “At his failure in lovemaking. He struck her violently and promised to kill her if she breathed a word. Inzerillo heard her screams and tried to intervene, and was beaten for it. I believe the sergeant came back again to hurt him some more.”

“And then a third visit, to kill him.”

“If it was the same man. All I know is what I heard from Inzerillo himself. A sergeant, and the second time he came with another man, but he would not say who.”

“Inzerillo told you it was a sergeant?”

“Yes, but he would say no more. He and Capitano Trevisi both wanted it kept quiet so there would be no trouble with the military police.”

“Do you know where the girl is now?”

“No, truly I do not. Trevisi had her taken away to a farm where she could heal. Not that he is kind, but so she can return to work as soon as possible. In another location, of course.” Luca ground out his cigarette and stared at the ashes. Finally he looked at us. “I am sorry for lying to you.”

“What does Trevisi have on you?” I asked. “Was it something that happened on Rab? What did you do there?”

“I did nothing,” Luca said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

L
UCA HAD CLAMMED
up tight after that. He’d looked past us, out to sea where the sun was setting and casting a red glow across the horizon. I wondered if he was thinking of the view from the island of Rab, and if he preferred looking out over water to what he’d seen on solid ground.

I’d gotten Kaz on a PT boat shuttling brass between Naples and Anzio, leaving it up to him and his Webley revolver to talk to Trevisi and find Ileana. We needed to know who had beaten her and Inzerillo. That had to be our killer, fixing up loose ends. Maybe Landry was the real target after all, but if so, I couldn’t figure out all the red heart stuff. It seemed overly complicated. I was stumped, and our only hope seemed to be that the killer would slip up and leave a clue or two next time. Not the best investigative technique, I’ll admit.

Ileana was the key to finding out everything. If she hadn’t run off, if she’d talk, and if she wasn’t under lock and key in some Naples whorehouse, we had a chance of catching this murderer before he struck again.

But I had another reason for sending Kaz back to Naples. I didn’t want him talking me out of heading back to the front in the morning. Someone had to watch over Danny. I might find a clue, but probably not. What I was more likely to find was a lot of lead in the air and bodies on the ground. But I might be able to make sure one of them wasn’t Danny’s.

Which is why the next morning I was on the road before dawn, driving without lights to Le Ferriere. Grenades in my pockets, extra clips in my ammo belt, Thompson on the seat. The road was packed with vehicles—trucks and ambulances, jeeps crammed with GIs, towed artillery, all strung out on the narrow straight road. If the Luftwaffe paid us a visit after the sun came up, it’d be a shooting gallery. Some of the traffic peeled off onto side roads, but most flowed to the front. Artillery thundered up ahead; outgoing stuff, thank God.

I was half a mile out of Le Ferriere when I noticed that the GIs marching on foot were making better time than I was. And that it was getting light. I didn’t want to be a stationary target, so I pulled off the main road, crossing a short bridge over the wide drainage ditch that ran alongside the roadway, and drove down a dirt road until I found a dry spot to pull over. The road was packed with men and vehicles, but out here everything was still. The fields were empty, stubble showing where plants had last been harvested. A few hundred yards away was one of the stone farmhouses that dotted the fields around here, built according to Mussolini’s plan. A woman came out of the house and began to hang laundry. White sheets fluttered in the early morning breeze, and the image of domesticity held me for a moment, before I turned to join the column of heavily armed soldiers heading into Le Ferriere.

“Here you go, fellas,” a sergeant shouted from the back of an open truck as he tossed out small bundles to each man passing by. “Stick ’em in your pack, they don’t weigh much.”

“What are these?” I asked as I caught a tightly bound pack of folded white cotton material.

“Mattress cover,” he shouted back, not missing a beat as he tossed them to the oncoming men.

“They got mattresses up front?” a skinny kid asked as he stuck the bundle into his pack. Laugher rippled around him, and a corporal by his side shook his head wearily. There were no mattresses waiting in Le Ferriere or beyond, I knew. The Graves Registration Units used them as shrouds for the dead. Usually they carried them to collection points where bodies were left, but they must have been expecting heavy casualties. Some officer who thought less about morale than efficiency probably figured this would save time. A couple of guys tossed the covers by the side of the road, but most kept them, either not knowing what they were for, not caring, or figuring they might get lucky and find some hay to stuff inside. Hell, maybe even a mattress.