THE DIG
POV NARRATOR
It was dark and wet, it echoed a lot at the slightest of sounds, there were even echoes of water dripping down from the roof, and the tunnel leading to it smelt of stale bread or wet sand. Its walls were wet and the slipperiest of sides were the sides the carried water pipes that ran down into it. It was noisy old place, this place, a place that instantly told you its story or the stories of the possible multitude that had shared it at any given point in time.
There were cobwebs, spiders as big as my entire pinky, spiders as small as a grain of rice. And rats, rats that did not care for your presence, rats that carried on with their activities like they owned the place.
They had a torch that was not the most stable of torches, it fluctuated at every step going off at will for no reason. And its battery you could hear shake as you walked so maybe that was the reason.
As they moved further, it stunk, like the back side of a skunk in heat, like something had died in there, like a plethora of things had died in there. The echoes continued as she screamed, her hands were tightly held, and her feet were firmly bound to a futile struggle and her voice cracked at every breaking bawl. "stay still" said one of the Irishmen as they dragged her down into the basement, they had managed to drag her down the stairs without harming her, but their patience was now wearing thin, but for the direct orders they got from Ace Vicente himself, she would have had the beating of her life by now. She huffed and puffed, chanted, and bawled until she found herself tied to a chair in the middle of the basement between two pillars for which a broken pipe spews water on her.
Don Vicente is a hard man without remorse for anyone or anything. She had called him a coward and stood up to his face for sending her brother (Caputo) to do his dirty work for him while he remained at home in his rob drinking wine with the Irishmen. To her, now, she was being kidnapped, to him she was being thought a lesson and when the questions are asked, no one will ask.
It was cold down there, and after they had left. The cold set in gradually. Titi and the two Irishmen went to back up to an even more enraged Ace Vicente. He had no news about Rodrigo Sampha yet and that drove him to near insanity, and he became closer to hysteria than ever.
Down in the basement, it was dark and soggy to feel under the feet so much so that her slippers slapped the bottom of her feet whenever she tried to raise her leg each time, she felt a rat walk past her feet. It was one of those isolated instances that felt overly exaggerated due to the circumstances surrounding it. She was in a heightened state of mind and action and while she was hysterical above, she went through the same below. The darkness only seemed to make it worse as her attempts to calm herself down proved futile.
"Get me all of that," he yelled, "I need to know this, where is he?" in a short amount of time between the time she arrived and the time she was dragged down to the basement, he had lost his shape and control and they all now could see that even the most balanced and creative of men live him could lose their minds. The more the wives and families came, the closer it was for him to losing it.
The echoes of her voice could be heard at the door leading down into the basement. How she had managed to offend such a man was still an elusive fact to her. No, not that she was afraid of him, but she still could not understand why she hit at him the way that she did.
If one thing was a surety to her, it was that she hated being ignored, she did not like rude people and so she was not going to stand for it.
She was thinking now though, that she might have needed some element of self-control.
Up there, he doubted himself, wondering how a man like him could be so attached to anyone that it stressed him out so, and what made it worse, the way he felt, was that he could not hide it despite the manner in which he tried to hide his emotions. Such a man only knew one thing, and that was the respect he commanded. A way to find out about Rodrigo Sampha's whereabout had been agreed, a handful of men will go out to the safe houses to search for him, but if one thing was for sure, the police had not listed him amongst the casualties or arrests. Rugani was a proud man, he would have wanted for the whole to know that Sampha was in his custody, he would have made a big deal out of it, so much so that there would have been multiple phone calls come through to the don Vicente residence by now. So it was strange that none of that had happened, or was this another plot to frustrate him, take his man away and keep him in suspense?
As these thoughts raced through his mind, he remembered the woman in his basement, it had been three days without Rodrigo Sampha, three days he had been expecting an invasion of his home by his enemies or the police, three days with Gabriella down under his basement. "Titi, get the girl." He said as he sat alone wondering what could happen next, contemplating what his next move would be next. He had already ordered for a search party to go after Rodrigo Sampha, now the wait which was the hardest part for him as the party prepared to leave.
Down in the basement, Titi approached Gabriella, "Gabriella" he called out, "Titi?" she cried out, her voice shaking from the cold. She had had nothing to eat in three days. She was weak and found it hard to speak. "Gabriella, don Vicente has asked me to free you," he said as he untied her, "what about my brother, did he come to look for me?" she asked eagerly but faintly. "Come on Gabriella, the man is on the run he clearly needs some time to settle down first, you know how it is with the police in Venice." Said Titi as he helped her up. "So, what does he want?" "Who?" Titi asked, "your boss,"
"I don't know," replied Titi "we will see." He lifted her like a baby, her light body falling into his arms like a chubby baby. "Did you at least try to contact my brother Titi. Tell me you tried." She pressed as she held on tightly to his broad shoulders, "ah, Gabriella, I am just a poor gardener, I cannot put my job on the line like that, surely you understand this."
Titi carried her up into an open room with wide open windows that showed nearly the entire front of the villa up in the mansion, in the room were some women who were ready to wash and feed her as ordered by Ace Vicente. "be gentle with her." Said Titi, "this is the capitano's sister Gabriella, she is near royalty in these parts, handle with care." "do not worry about her, the poor soul has had a rough few days. We will take care of her."
Outside, a party of men waited for their final command. Connelly the Irishman and his brothers were with them. They were displeased about how things had turned out or that they had to volunteer to join the party of men and dogs in search of this illusive Rodrigo Sampha. "how is it that we stayed to be protected but now have to volunteer just because we are in his house?" asked Conor who was not having it, "we must honor him one way or another, this man is a powerful ally to have." Replied Connelly. "But this was not part of the plan brother." Whispered Mark. "Why are you whispering you little shit?" said Conor as he loaded his shotgun. "Because there are people around, we do not want them thinking we are the enemy." Said Mark, "what was the plan again?" asked Connelly, "it is a simple plan Connelly or at least it was, we come to Italy, make a transaction this Don Vicente man, make our intentions known to him and leave. Simple. Nobody said anything about being here for three days longer." Said Conor who was now fuming. "Plans change Conor, you of all people should know that." A loud sigh comes from a gathering, both men and their dogs rushed to discover what was going on, including the Irishmen. On the radio, an Italian presenter spoke about the shooting of a man of the name Rodrigo Sampha.