"Dibdin, Michael - Aurelio Zen 02 - Vendetta UC - part 10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dibdin Michael)

been after your time. Anyway, this lad had twenty or thirty
hits to his credit, he couldn't remember himself exactly how
many, and everything went fine until he shook hands with
the victim before doing the job. He hadn't meant to, he
knew it was bad luck, but they were introduced, the man
stuck out his paw, what was he supposed to do? It would
have looked suspicious if he'd refused. He still went ahead
and made the hit, though, even though he knew he'd go
down for it. That's what I call real professionalism.
'To be honest, I thought that it would be a bit like that
with you. Impersonal, I mean, anonymous, like a paid hit.
That's the way it was with Bertolini, unfortunately. I just
hadn't thought the thing through, that first time. The
bastard never even knew why he died. I had enough to
cope with, what with his driver pulling a gun and his wife
screaming her head off from the house. I realized after-
wards that I wanted a lot more than that, otherwise I might
just as well hire it out and save myself the trouble. I mean
the victim's got to understand, he's got to know who you
are and why you're doing it, otherwise what kind of
revenge is it?
'So I swore that you and Parrucci would be different. I
certainly got my money's worth out of him, but you were
~ore difficult. Once this terrorist scare started after I shot
gertolini it seemed too risky to try and kidnap someone
~m the Ministry. They would have cracked down hard. I
gad no intention of getting caught. I've done twenty years
for a murder I didn't commit, so they owe me this one free!'
He leant back in his chair with a blissful smile.
'Ah, but I never imagined anything like this! To sit here
like two old friends, chatting at a table, and tell you that
I'm going to kill you, and you knowing it's true, that
you're going to die! And all the time those two old bas-
tards over there are discussing the price of sheep's milk or
some fucking thing, and the barman's cleaning the coffee
machine, and the television's blatting away next door, and
the ice-cream freezer in the corner is humming. And
you're going to die! I'm going to kill you, while all this is
going on! And it'll still go on, once you're dead. Because
you're not needed, Zen. None of us are. Have you ever
thought about that? I have. I spent twenty years thinking
about it. Twenty years, locked up for a murder I didn't
even do!'
Spadola squeezed the last puff of acrid smoke from his
cigar and threw that butt on the floor.
'You want to know who killed Tondelli? His cousin,
that's who. It was over a woman, a bar-room scuffle. Once
he was dead, the Tondellis saw a way to use it against me,
and paid that cunt Parrucci to perjure himself. You bas-
tards did the rest. But even supposing I had killed him, so