The Hit Read online

  THE HIT

  Nadia Dalbuono has spent the last sixteen years working as a documentary director and consultant for Channel 4, ITV, Discovery, and National Geographic in various countries. The Hit is the third of her Leone Scamarcio novels, following The Few and The American. She divides her time between the UK and northern Italy.

  To JR, AB, and all my friends in Rome.

  Scribe Publications

  18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia

  2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

  First published by Scribe 2016

  Copyright © Nadia Dalbuono 2016

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

  9781925321609 (Australian edition)

  9781925307832 (e-book)

  CiP records for this title are available from the British Library and the National Library of Australia.

  scribepublications.com.au

  scribepublications.co.uk

  1

  LILA SAT CRYING ON THE SOFA, her eye make-up running down her cheeks. The camera panned right to reveal Fernando standing in the doorway, half in shadow. The music was building to a slow crescendo.

  Micky Proietti sighed and uncrossed his legs. He’d told them ‘no piano’. He’d made it perfectly clear, he’d said it several times and had even set it down in an email, but there was piano everywhere — it was practically wall to wall.

  Fernando approached from the doorway and stood behind Lila, placing a shaky hand on her shoulder.

  Fernando had a memorable face, but his performance was weak. Right now, he looked like someone had run over his pet canary. Why hadn’t the director done a retake? The problem with the old guard was that they were scared of the talent; they didn’t ride them hard. The young guns didn’t care; they’d do whatever it took, commit their actors to an asylum if necessary. He should have got the Caselli Brothers on this. Why the hell had he listened to Giacometti when he’d insisted on Andrea? Andrea was 65 — he was past it. TV was a young man’s game.

  Yet again, Micky Proietti considered the fact that he turned 43 next month. Would he be able to stay in the game until retirement? Would he be squeezed out, forced to take up a new career? Focus, Micky, he told himself. You will be pushed aside if you don’t turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse.

  Fernando was sitting next to Lila on the sofa now. He was taking her hand gently in his. ‘Darling, I have something to tell you …’

  The dreadful piano music resumed, and the screen faded to black …

  Micky Proietti cleared his throat, remembering the basic lessons from his management training: start with the positives before moving to the negatives; be constructive; build confidence. Problem was, right now he couldn’t think of any positives. Lila was OK-ish. She just about carried it, but it was hardly a stellar performance. As for Fernando, Micky could write the reviews already: ‘a limp effort’; ‘lacks passion,’ etc, etc.

  Proietti cleared his throat again. He could murder a line. Maybe he should pop over to the bathroom before addressing the team. No, he told himself. Just get it over with — duty first, pleasure later.

  He shifted in his seat and surveyed the room. The editor was chewing down on a nail, staring at him impassively, quietly defiant. Micky hated that rebellious streak in editors; they always seemed determined to let whoever was higher up the hierarchy know that they wouldn’t be intimidated, couldn’t be pushed around. Actually, if he was honest, he’d always been a bit scared of them. Andrea, the director, was looking down at something on his notepad, doodling nervous circles with his biro, crossing and uncrossing his feet. Did he already realise it was a disaster? Didi, the producer, was subtly shifting her skirt higher up her magnificent legs. Poor Didi wouldn’t be able to screw her way out of this one.

  He recalled his management training once more, then thought, Fuck it. He needed to be in Parioli in an hour, and then there was that trip to the bathroom …

  ‘Guys,’ he said. ‘Guys …’ He opened his arms as if he wanted to enfold them all in a group hug. ‘Guys, what can I say? It’s shit.’

  Andrea looked up sharply from his notepad. Didi sat straighter in her chair, and pushed her ridiculous glasses higher up her perfect nose.

  ‘What, Micky?’ She narrowed her eyes and then sniffed.

  ‘It’s not working, is it? You don’t need me to tell you that.’

  Andrea set down his pen and sat back in his chair, barring his arms across his chest. ‘What’s not working, Micky? You need to elaborate.’

  ‘Where do I start? Fernando is weak, he’s not carrying it. The lighting is off — there’s way too much shadow all the time, it’s dingy — it looks like a British drama. And as for the music, I thought I made it clear that I didn’t want piano.’

  ‘You said, “Go easy on the piano.” You didn’t say you didn’t want any.’

  Micky shook his head. ‘Now, Andrea, you know that’s not true. I sent you an email.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t see it.’

  Didi held up a hand, but Micky ignored her. ‘Who did the music?’

  ‘D’Angelo.’

  ‘He’s usually good.’

  ‘So you don’t like the music?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘As for the shadow,’ said Andrea, colour rising up his neck, ‘we discussed the lighting plan. You said you liked it.’

  The old guy was infuriating. ‘How can I like something I haven’t seen? You’ve gone overboard. It’s a turn-off. It looks like you shot the entire thing in the dark.’

  The wave of red crept further up Andrea’s neck before reaching his jaw. His eyes narrowed, then he suddenly kicked back his chair and stormed out. The editor raised a languid eyebrow and extracted a packet of Fortuna from his top pocket. Micky would have to stop him if he went to light up. Didi had shut her eyes and was running a manicured finger across her closed lids.

  ‘Micky,’ she said with that smoker’s growl of hers that had turned so many men to mush.

  ‘Didi.’

  ‘Micky. We discussed the lighting, we discussed the talent, we discussed the music. You can’t turn around now and throw it all back in our faces.’

  ‘It’s not the choices, it’s the direction. Andrea hasn’t brought this one to life.’

  ‘Andrea has decades of experience, strings of awards …’

  ‘Well, this time he’s fucked up, and that’s very bad news for me, because I’ve spent over two million on this. We’re talking about six prime-time slots, Didi — don’t forget that.’

  She sighed and pushed a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. ‘Well, if you give us your notes, I’m sure we can all make this work.’

  ‘No, Didi. From what I’ve seen today, I’m considering this one an emergency.’

  She was shaking her head slowly now, screwing up her face again in distaste. She needed to show him more respect in front of her team.

  ‘I want Andrea out. I’m bringing in the Caselli brothers,’ he said, staring her out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. This show has to work. It has cost way too much to bomb.’

  ‘But you can’t do that to Andrea.’

  ‘I can do what the bloody hell I like, Didi. I’m head of drama on the nation’s most popular channel.’

  He gathered up his things and headed for the bathroom. He didn�
�t have time for this bleeding-heart crap.

  Micky Proietti climbed into the passenger seat of the silver Mercedes AMG, pulled down the mirror, and checked his nose. His driver for the day stared ahead, his expression inscrutable. Micky never made conversation with the drivers — he wasn’t interested, and he didn’t have the time. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the red light of his iPhone blinking, and realised that he must have left it in the car. There were two missed calls from Fiammetta — it seemed like she couldn’t get enough of him. The critics reckoned that she was the next big thing, that she’d run Belene out of town. Micky found the thought both troubling and exciting. Would she grow bored of him the more famous she became? Would she move onto someone younger, hipper? He checked himself in the mirror once more, and made a pistol with his fingers and fired, blowing the imaginary smoke away. No, he still had it. The way women responded to him told him that much.

  Fiammetta could wait; besides, it was wise to keep her keen. He dialled his new secretary, trying to imagine what she might be wearing today. When he’d hired her, she’d told him that she was desperate to make it onto The Inheritance as a dancer. He’d said he’d do what he could, but she would need to do what she could in return. Lola had got it straightaway — she was nobody’s fool. He wondered if he had time now to swing by the office for a quick one. He checked his watch. Not really. He had to pick up his wife and son in an hour — Antonio wanted them to head out to Sperlonga for the afternoon.

  ‘We need to stop at my place in Parioli before the beach,’ he told the driver.

  The man just nodded like an automaton, adjusted the mirror, and fired up the ignition.

  Micky jiggled his knee with impatience as the line rang out a few more times before his secretary finally picked up. He was about to berate her for the wait, then decided there wasn’t time: ‘Lola, I want you to get me the Casellis’ agent on the phone ASAP.’

  ‘Of course, Micky. Will you hold, or should I have him call you back?’

  ‘I’ll hold.’

  The line buzzed for a few moments, and then the rasping walrus grunt of Marco Bonanni came on — the greedy, obese, pederast fucker.

  ‘Marco, how are you? How’s the wife? How are those lovely girls of yours?’

  ‘Micky, what a pleasant surprise! We’re all good, thanks. You?’

  ‘Couldn’t be better, Marco. Listen, my friend, I need a favour — I won’t beat about the bush.’

  ‘Name it, Micky.’

  ‘I know the Casellis are very much in demand at the moment …’

  ‘I found them, you know.’

  ‘Yes, Marco. That’s what earns you the title super agent.’

  ‘I think they’ll make it to Hollywood. Interest is stirring.’

  ‘I’m not surprised to hear that.’

  ‘So, this favour?’

  ‘I’ve got a prime-time series that needs rescuing. Cancer and infidelity threaten to destroy a marriage; can they keep the love alive? Dinosaur director has made a hash of it.’

  ‘The Casellis don’t pick up other people’s leftovers, Micky. You should know that.’

  ‘I do, Marco, but this is an emergency. I’m convinced they can turn it around. And I’d give them full credit — the old guy will be expunged from the record.’

  ‘Yeah, but what kind of creative freedom will they have? How much is already in the can?’

  ‘We’ve just started,’ he lied. ‘I didn’t like what I saw.’

  ‘And you couldn’t talk the dinosaur round?’

  Shit, doesn’t Bonanni want to win his clients some business? ‘Didn’t like what I saw, old guy didn’t want to listen.’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Bonanni, coughing and then wheezing a bit. Word was, he smoked 40 a day. ‘I’ll run it past them. Obviously, you’ll pay full wack?’

  ‘What is full wack now?’

  Bonanni laughed. ‘Yeah, you wouldn’t know, would you, you tight-fisted bastard.’

  Micky wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but he swallowed it and managed to muster a casual laugh instead.

  ‘Full wack for the brothers is 40,000 an episode,’ grunted the walrus.

  Micky’s mouth dropped open. They were already charging Hollywood wages, the cunts. Where the hell was he going to find that kind of money? But this series had to make it …

  He took a long breath. ‘No problem, Marco. Run it past them. They’re free, I take it?’

  ‘Actually, they’ve just walked off something, didn’t like the way it was going.’

  Micky’s mind flipped over. Had they walked, or were they pushed? Were they still hot, or was their star waning? No, they’d probably walked. They knew they could pick and choose.

  ‘Great. Let me know ASAP, Marco. I need to get the ball rolling — schedule’s tight.’

  ‘Isn’t it always?’ Bonanni hung up, and the line went dead.

  Where was the respect?

  The driver pulled up outside the apartment block in Parioli where Micky’s wife and son were waiting at the kerb. Maia looked good in her long, white sundress, and Micky felt a twinge of guilt; guilt had been plaguing him a lot lately. Why wasn’t this magnificent woman enough? What was wrong with him? Or was he just a normal middle-aged man with normal urges? He sighed and felt suddenly low, but then his son beamed and ran to the car, and he forgot the sadness for a moment.

  They took the Autostrada out of the city towards Sperlonga, the grey concrete jungles of social housing gradually paling into sunbleached fields of corn and wheat. So far, so good: Micky reckoned they’d got ahead of the traffic by at least two hours. Maia placed her hand on the back of his neck, and he turned and smiled, imagining that the two of them must look like something out of a commercial. But then, uninvited, an image of Fiammetta came into his mind: an image from their lovemaking the night before. Would he ever be able to walk away from a woman like that, let her go, only for someone else to capture her heart? Somehow, he doubted it.

  ‘My God,’ Maia cried out. The synchronicity of it made him fear that she’d been granted a momentary glimpse inside his mind; that, for some inexplicable reason, she knew. But then his stomach flipped when he understood the real reason for her screams: a black BMW was hurtling towards them, doing way more than 160. The car was in their lane, heading right at them, bearing down on them fast. In an instant, Micky realised that whoever was behind the wheel wanted to destroy them; there would be no last-minute manoeuvre, no swerve to avoid.

  The chauffeur spun the Mercedes to the right. There was no time to know what they were driving into — whether there was a hard shoulder, whether there was anything beyond. The seconds felt like minutes, sound and vision seemed to fade, and when finally the driver’s knuckles had turned white and the wheel would turn no more, he threw himself across Micky, forcing his right shoulder hard into the window. But the impact didn’t register, because Micky’s mind was too busy processing what was happening on the other side of the car: an ear-shattering explosion was sucking in the air around them, dragging them down into a vortex, deeper and deeper until there was nothing but darkness and silence. Then suddenly a blast of light was pulling them all back to the surface, where the airbags mushroomed like bombs and the driver’s door began buckling inwards. Time seemed to slow as Micky watched mangled metal rip through leather, smoke particles collide with dust, crystal embed itself in skin. Sound had become liquid, pooling and oozing, but then the driver’s window ruptured, and a sharp volley of broken glass brought Micky to his senses.

  ‘Antonio! Antonio!’ he screamed, pushing the driver off him. What side of the car had his son been sitting? He couldn’t remember now.

  He heard muffled sobs from the back seat, and experienced a wave of relief so intense that he thought he might pass out. But then an image from countless films snapped him into action.

  ‘Get out the car, get out the car,’ he yelled
. He opened the handle and shoved the driver out, then fell onto the gravel behind him. Immediately, the driver scrambled to his feet and tore open the door for Antonio. Micky leant in and wrestled his son free. The boy tottered on the gravel for a moment before finding his balance. ‘I think I broke my arm, Daddy, I think I broke my arm,’ he cried.

  ‘Let’s just get to safety, and then I’ll take a look. Quick, come on.’

  The driver had already helped Maia from the back seat, and the four of them now limped and stumbled to the top of the hard shoulder, as far away from the smoking Mercedes as was possible before hitting the road. Thank God there was a hard shoulder, thought Micky, thank God. He really didn’t deserve that kind of luck.

  ‘Are you guys OK?’ Someone was shouting. ‘Jesus, are you all OK?’

  Micky turned, and saw movement up ahead to his left. A stranger was sprinting towards them. He had brown curly hair, and was wearing red exercise gear. ‘I saw the whole thing,’ he panted as he crossed the road. ‘Jesus, what was that arsehole thinking?’

  ‘Where is he? Did you see where he went?’ asked Micky.

  ‘He just drove off,’ said the man, incredulous. ‘There was no time to read his plates.’

  Antonio was sobbing now, his little legs shaking.

  ‘Your son? Is he OK?’

  Micky bent down and tried to take Antonio’s arm, but he was holding it at a strange angle, and screamed when Micky tried to touch it. Maia was kissing Antonio’s head, whispering that everything was going to be all right.

  ‘I think he’s broken it,’ said Micky. ‘I swear I’ll kill that maniac son of a bitch, I’ll fucking kill him.’

  The stranger pulled a mobile from his pocket. ‘I’m calling an ambulance.’

  Micky nodded. Antonio was crying in a way he’d never heard before. It was a kind of keening — a primitive, animal sound of groans rather than sobs. Micky was struggling to keep it together: his heart was racing, and his palms were sweating. He couldn’t stand hearing his son like this; he felt so helpless, so totally and utterly useless. Maia was trembling, and he could hear someone’s teeth chattering. Then, after a moment, he realised that they were his own — it was 22 degrees, and he was freezing. He noticed that the driver was sitting in the dirt, his head between his knees. He looked as if he were about to throw up. Micky made a mental note to thank him for his quick thinking. But now didn’t feel like the right time.