Viper - Michael Morley [39]
In the past, Paolo had brought him hookers. The first had been his age, maybe even younger. She’d fled as soon as she’d got a good look at him. The second had been in her forties. As old and cold as his runaway mother. She was drunk and ridiculed him. Laughed at his withered face, his buck teeth and birdlike body. Asked if Bird Boy had got a worm for a cock? He’d have killed her if Paolo hadn’t stopped him. At times like that – times like now – he felt more dead than alive.
Franco was poor and he was ill, but he wasn’t stupid. He understood much of what the doctors had told him. Werner Syndrome was a rare and cruel disorder caused by missing proteins and damaged genes. It made him look old – very old – long before he should. It was responsible for him being smaller than most kids at school, but it hadn’t really kicked in and done its terrible damage until he’d reached puberty. Then it had turned his body to Plasticine. Reshaped him in its own terrible way. His hair was already greying and thinning. His hands were becoming clawlike and mottled. The sickness would only get worse with age and would soon make him vulnerable to a range of cancers, heart disease and diabetes. Doctors wanted to carry out regular checks and tests on him, but he shunned them. The worse it got, the less care he took of himself. The more he needed to stay warm and infection free, the more he desired to wander in the freezing rain.
Tonight the downpour was so cold it made his face burn. Through the gap in the curtain of a caravan that people had just moved into, he saw the most beautiful woman in the world. Her hair was damp from the shower and she wore a white towelling robe. Franco slid back and felt his heart pound. From inside the van he heard someone shout her name. ‘Rosa. Rosa, your dinner is ready.’
Rosa.
Franco spoke her name in the dark, cold wetness of the night. Rosa. His breath smoked white in the light from her window. Rosa. Even saying her name excited him.
His thoughts ran wild.
Rosa.
He knew exactly what he wanted to do to her. And he could barely wait for the chance to do it.
28
Grand Hotel Parker’s, Napoli
Jack kicked off his shoes and slumped on to the hotel bed. It needed new springs or a better base. He’d barely slept last night. Before he’d left New York he’d filled Howie in on Creed and why he was heading to Naples. As he dialled his number he hoped his old partner wasn’t too juiced to remember.
‘Hi there, H. You sober?’
Howie Baumguard croaked a laugh back down the line. ‘You joking? I left sober ’bout the same time you left charm school.’
Jack checked his watch, it would be just after seven p.m. in New York. ‘What wild evening are you cranking up for yourself?’
‘A couple of trays of Chinese slop. A few Buds. And I’m twenty minutes into Apocalypse Now.’
‘Terrific. “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.”’
‘“Smells like victory,”’ returned Howie.
‘Man, that’s a grim movie.’
‘Grim, but brilliant. You wait two friggin’ hours for Marlon Brando to come on screen and, when the thing’s over, all you can remember is him.’
Jack recalled the classic Coppola epic and Brando’s chilling Colonel Kurtz. ‘Wouldn’t you be better with something lighter?’
‘Only other thing I’ve got is The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,’ said the big guy. ‘My son left it on top of the TV after his last sleepover.’
‘You up to helping me with something?’
‘Sure, what d’you want?’
‘Remember the creepy Italian guy I met at the conference – Luciano Creed?’
‘Kind of.’
‘He stayed at the Lester. You know the place?’
‘Yeah, I know it. Not exactly Trump Towers.’ Howie found a pen down the side of the settee and used the cardboard lid from the Chinese food tray to write on.
‘And that’s a bad thing?’