Suicide Italian Style (Crime Made in Italy Book 1) (10 page)

Sparks flew from his eyes and set his hair on fire. “
Dimmi tutto
.” Tell him everything.

So I did. I told him about my visit with Julia. About the little yellow bricks in Gigi’s pockets. They were a sign, I said—irrefutable evidence of a demonic, perfidious Masonic plot run out of the Vatican with help from Palermo.

Johnny liked it. He loved it. He wanted more.

I broke it to him: “It’s a load of crap, Johnny. You know that.”

Undeterred, waving his chopsticks, he leaned across the table, lowered his voice and whispered, “You remember Calvi?”

I scrunched my forehead into a frown. I didn’t have to think. Roberto Calvi, Italian banker, found dead in London in the early eighties, hanging by the neck from scaffolding under Blackfriars Bridge. In the days and weeks to follow, rumors surfaced he’d been laundering mob money through the Vatican bank. A London court later called it suicide, and twenty five years after his death the case opened up again in Rome. The Italians concluded that the man found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge had been helped to his death by persons unknown.

“
God’s banker
, they called  him,” I said. “What about him?”

“He was already dead when they strung him up under the bridge, Pete.”

“So they say.”

“It’s true. And you remember the bricks?”

“What bricks?” I was rattling his chain. Everybody knew about the bricks. Persons unknown had stuffed bricks into Calvi’s pockets—
after
they hung him up on the scaffolding. Ordinary, run-of-the-mill red bricks.

“In his pockets.”

I let him hang for a while, ruminating as I ate. “Oh,
those
bricks. So?”

Johnny waited for me to get it. Finally he said, “Masons.”

I tilted my head at him, puzzled. “Ohhh, now I get it.” Red bricks. Yellow bricks. Masons. Murder. “I’d forgotten you were such a conspiracy nut.”

Johnny reached for his beer and emptied the can into his glass. “I believe in conspiracy.”

“And I believe in facts.” I raised my glass and offered a toast. “To the facts. The facts, all the facts and nothing but.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

“You shouldn’t. You don’t believe it.”

“Conspiracies aren’t fantasies, Pete. Conspiracies are plans. Secret plans, but real all the same.” He drank. “A conspiracy is a fact.”

“Sure it is,” I said. “And everything bad that happens in Italy is the fault of some secret fact.” I lifted a slice of tuna on rice, drowned it in soy sauce and downed it. “What’s the point?”

“Whoever put the bricks in Calvi’s pockets was sending a message.”

“Yeah. It was a secret code, right? Two bricks in the left pocket, one in the right, says
Meet me on the steps of St. Peter’s at noon
.”

“Smart-ass.”

I was getting to him. Conspiracies were serious business. I wasn’t showing enough respect.

“So in your view, Pescatore, what is the meaning of the bricks?”

“A red herring.” I inhaled another tuna roll and washed it down with a splash of beer. “A distraction, a decoy.”

Johnny frowned.

“Think bloodhounds, boss. Something to throw them off the scent, get everybody barking up the wrong tree.”

“Got it.” He didn’t look too sure.

“Come on, Johnny. You think the bricks were a message? What did it say?
Don’t Mess With The Masons or You’ll End Up Like This?
I don’t think so.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with that?”

“Whoever killed Calvi wanted us to
think
it was the Masons. But it wasn’t.” I frowned and reached for the beer. “Or maybe it
was
the Masons—
This is what we do to snitches
.”

“Snitches?”

“Canaries. Traitors.” I set the beer down. “Calvi betrayed the Masons.”

A frown. “You know that for a fact?”

“Facts have nothing to do with it.”

Johnny growled, snatched a pen from a pocket, scribbled something on a napkin, and handed it to me.

I deciphered the script:
SWISS BANKER SUICIDE — THE CALVI CONNECTION.
I sighed. He took back the napkin and scribbled again:
GOLDONI SUICIDATO COME CALVI  DAL VATICANO.
I sighed again.
Suicidato
meant murder made to look like suicide. It was possible, in theory. Julia thought so. Johnny was sure. His headline suggested that Roberto Calvi and Gigi Goldoni had both been murdered by the Vatican. I looked up at him. “You need a question mark.”

“You think so?” With some reluctance he penciled one in.

“And maybe you should drop the Vatican bit.”

He bristled. “Why?”

“There’s no proof.”

He frowned and scribbled again, tacking a phrase onto the napkin headline. I read it.
L’OMBRA LUNGA DELLA P2
. The long shadow of the P2.

“Oh that’s good,” I said. “Very Italian. Very nice.”

Johnny ignored me. “Why was Roberto Calvi killed?”

“You’re asking me?”

“He owed people money.”

“I still don’t see where Goldoni fits in.”

“He owed somebody money. You said so yourself.”

“Wrong,” I said. “He owed
everybody
money. Everybody who worked for him, everybody who bought his shares and tried to cash them in again—the secretary, the accountant, even the lawyer.”

“You?”

“Sure, once upon a time.” I shrugged. “I wrote it off. But I hear he was a regular at Campione—the casino. Maybe he lost a lot more there. And maybe somebody we know helped him out. So to speak.”

His eyes lit up. “You know what?”

“What.”

“I bet Ali Baba is a Mason, Pete.”

“Right. And that’s his real name, too.”

“Of course not.” Johnny thumped the table, rattling the glasses and the cans. “But he’s on the list, whoever he is. He’s got to be.”

I drew a blank.

“You remember the list, Pete. The P2 lodge?”

I should have known. “The P2’s dead, Johnny. Shut down thirty years ago.”

“Says who? What if they’re back? Maybe they’re called the P3 now.”

I gave up. There was no point in arguing. “So what’s the story?”

He spelled it out for me.
Take the Money & Run to the Masons.
“They help move your money to Lugano, to a network of professional money-launderers, run by a mystery man called—“ He threw his arms open wide, an invitation to deliver the answer. “Come on, Pete … “

“Ali Baba?”

“
Bravo
. And the good part is, we don’t know his name—maybe Gigi Goldoni was the mystery man.”

“I’m confused.”

“Good. It’s the name of the game, Pete. Keep them guessing.”

It was time to reel him back to Earth. “Blood, Johnny. Where’s the blood?”

“The Masons,” he said, like it was totally obvious. “The Calvi connection.”

“I don’t get it. Connect me. Spit it out, Johnny.”

He coughed and shook his head. I was trying his patience. “Goldoni couldn’t pay what he owed, so they killed him. Just like they killed Calvi.”

“Right. Dead men always pay their debts. Makes a whole lot of sense.”

“More than you’ll ever know.” He slapped his hands on the table, pushed himself back and stood up. “I need a smoke,” he said, and walked out.

I carried the trays to the garbage and followed him outside. Red yapped and wagged himself silly. I gathered he was happy to see me. I loosed the leash from the tree, stood and turned back to Johnny. “I still don’t see where Calvi comes in.”

He dug out a pack of matches and lit up a
toscano
. “You haven’t been listening.” A cough tore through his lungs. “Calvi was a Mason. A card-carrying member of the secret P2 lodge. Member number
one six two four
.”

“Which proves?” 

“Goldoni was too, Pete.”

“A Mason? Since when?”

“He should never have screwed with them.”

“Them?”

“The Vatican. The Mafia. The Masons.”

“Don’t forget the Secret Service.”

“Of course.” He nodded, oblivious. “Your friends, the CIA.” 

“My friends.” I felt the anger rise and explode. “
Porca puttana
. You go chasing conspiracies, you’re immune to reason. You go blind to the facts.”

Red started yapping, agitated by the noise. I gave him some slack and let him sniff up a tree while I hissed at Johnny. “But that’s the point, isn’t it? Babble on about conspiracies. That way you don’t have to deal with the truth. Facts, Johnny. It’s the facts that are dangerous.”

“You’re missing the point.”

“Am I. So do me a favor. Enlighten me.”

Johnny sucked in smoke and held it, his face a mask of pleasure. For Johnny, smoking was better than sex. He blew it out slowly, enjoying the moment. Finally he said, “Conspiracies sell newspapers.”

Enough, already. “Come on, dog. Time to go.” I yanked the leash and walked off, whirled and went back to him. “The CIA didn’t kill Eva, Johnny. The Masons didn’t kill my wife. It was an accident. That’s all it was.”

“Are you sure?”

“
Bastardo
.” I could feel the heat rising and roasting my face. “But it’s all the same to you, isn’t it? Calvi, Eva, Marco, Gigi—you don’t know what happened, but who cares? The Masons did it.”

“Follow the money, Pete. See where it takes you.”

“I’m trying.”

“Good. Let’s go for a walk.” Johnny threw an arm around my shoulder and steered us into the
Parco Sempione
. The air was colder in the park and I began to calm down. But there were too many things going on at once. Red jerked at the leash and yipped at the birds while I ran Johnny through the briefcase story and told him what the problem was.

“I’ll speak to Anastasia tomorrow,” he said. “For the lock on the briefcase you can talk to Mario. He’s out at San Siro this afternoon, but he should be back right after the game. Meantime you can write up the story.”

“Swiss Masons in Vatican Murder Plot?”

“Just get me the facts, Pete. I can handle the headline.”

I picked up the dog and stepped into the elevator after Johnny. He punched a button and we rode the beautiful black machine up the shaft to
CNI
.

“What about the web site,” I said. “I need something for Stazz.”

Johnny let us in. “She paying you?”

“Are you kidding?” I set Red on the floor. “Sit,” I said. He sniffed at my shoes and wandered off.

“So relax,” said Johnny. “Throw her something on the lab in Locarno.”

I tried to picture the place. “Like what, atmosphere? A mood piece? Marble slab, hacksaw, cadavers in the icebox?”

Johnny smiled. I tracked down Red and dragged him down the hall to the hack room and looped the leash around a chair. A couple other writers were bent over computers, tapping out rewrites of yesterday’s news. I waved hello and sat down. 

The hack room. Stale cigar smoke, sweat, newsprint. Shelves crammed with books on all the walls. Magazines rising in jagged stacks from steel gray file cabinets. I opened a blank screen and began typing the words that showed up in my head. That took me nowhere. I got up and took a long look out the window over the road and the wall to the barracks. Every once in a while a couple of
Carabinieri
opened the gates and rode out on their horses, heading for the park just up the road. With the windows open on a summer day you could hear them clopping along the pavement.

Summer. A memory rose to the surface and popped. Sicily. Swimming in the sea with Eva. Gigi had a villa in Sicily. Did they go there together? I saw them again, leaning into each other, his hand on her arm, whispering in her ear. I tore myself away from the scene and slumped back down in front of the computer.

The pathology lab in Locarno had a web site the color of flesh and innards. I found a page that talked about autopsies. Bodies due for an autopsy were to be delivered by an undertaker. No mention of the Italian connection, nothing about Varese. Maybe the Swiss resented the suggestion they couldn’t handle it themselves. I put in a call to a friend who taught at a med school in Milan, a man named Bruno Vittadini.

The Swiss were perfectly capable, he said. Had I heard about digital autopsies? No, I said, so he told me about some place in Zurich that used 3D photographs, CAT and MRI scans in place of scalpels, rib-cutters and vibrating saws. It made for a lot less blood, he said, and the results were spectacular.

“So you figure they go digital for Gigi?”

“I doubt it,” he said. “I know the doc who goes up there from Varese. Old school, hates high tech.”

“So it’s slice and dice?”

“I expect so, Pete. You want me to find out? I know someone up at the lab in Locarno.”

“That would be cool.”

He promised to call me and hung up.

I typed some more words but they took me in circles so I dragged the dog out from under the table and let him loose. He nosed around, peed on a bookcase and loped off down the hall to where Anastasia had her desk and files. I went to look for a mop and came back with a roll of paper towels, cleaned up after Red and chased him around the office for a while. Johnny stuck his head out the door and yelled, so I tackled the pup and tied him up again.

Back at the screen it didn’t take long to find the place in Zurich. The web site had plenty of explanations and a photo of a mannequin wired up and ready to slide through a scanner. That gave me a headline—
TOO SOON, TOO LATE.
Then I typed up a graf with the usual slant.
It’s a weekend in Switzerland, but the victim’s body is under the knife and results are expected by Sunday night.
Which raises the question: what’s the rush? The answer is all too obvious. If the autopsy verdict is “suicide” we can expect a funeral within a few days. The case will be closed and the evidence tossed in the grave with the body
—
too soon for the truth, too late for justice for Gigi Goldoni.

I printed it out and carried it down the hall to Johnny. The door was closed, but I could hear him hammering on the old Olivetti. I knocked, opened up and stepped into the haze.

Johnny snatched the sheet from my hand, read it and said, “Terrible headline. Makes no sense at all.”

“Headlines are your job.”

Johnny heaved a theatrical sigh. “Send it to Stazz. She’ll think of something.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“Go do something useful and get me the good stuff. Get me the Masons.”

“Right.” I shut the door and traipsed back down the hall to the hack room. I dropped to a crouch and gave Red a good scratch behind the ears, sent the draft to Anastasia and sat down to go through my notes again. I read for a while and fell asleep.

Red woke me with a yelp and scrambled to his feet, yanking at the leash still looped to my chair. Mario bounded in the door wearing a black and blue striped scarf and a grin that would never grow old. FC Inter had whipped cross-town rivals AC Milan. “My man, Mario.” I stood, yawned and held up a flat hand. He slapped it and dropped to a crouch beside Red.

“Tell me we killed them.”

“We killed them,” he said and his grin broke open and he gave me the playback, reliving the shuddering chills and thrills with slow, shivering pleasure. I made him run through the goals a few times until finally it seemed like he’d had enough, then  pitched him the favor.

“There’s this briefcase, it’s locked. I can’t get it open.“

“Yeah, my dad told me. Can I see it?”

“Not right now.”

“OK.” Mario finally got Red to lie down again and took a seat at the computer. “Can you describe it?”

“Black. Looks like a regular briefcase.” I gave him the dimensions, more or less, and said it was heavy.

“How heavy? Like, gold bricks?”

I flicked at look at his face and shook my head. “No, just solid, well-made. There’s a little glass plate right under the handle, size of a postage stamp, more or less.”

His fingers flew and the screen in front of him filled with pictures of briefcases. “Does it look like any of these?”

None of them fit the bill, not exactly, but there was one with a glass plate set in the surface beside the handle. “Sort of like this one,” I said. I jabbed a finger at the photo on the screen.

“Biometrics.” Mario smiled. “How much do you know?”

“Less than zero.”

“OK. You’ve got a scanner and software. The scanner takes a photograph and the software makes a map. Fingerprints, iris, maybe your hand. They use it for security systems. Spy stuff, banks, prisons.”

“It’s just a briefcase, Mario. We’re not talking Alcatraz.”

Mario seemed puzzled, so I tried again. “It’s not like we’re trying to break out of jail.”

He gave me a sigh and a put-upon look of infinite patience. “You want to break into a briefcase, correct?”

I thought about it. “You could put it that way.”

“Same as a prison or a bank. It’s all software.” A faint smile. “Logic, dude.” He explained how it worked. The software made a map of the finger scan, encrypted the map and copied it to the memory chip sealed in the briefcase. “The briefcase belonged to the dead guy, right? So it’s likely to be his print on the chip.” 

“Good thinking.”

“And there’s no way to get a fresh print from his fingers?”

“He’s dead, Mario.” But I thought about it. The kid was smart. I could see where he was going. “Which makes it difficult.”

“But not impossible.” He fingers flew over the keyboard again. “What’s in the briefcase?”

“I don’t know, Mario. I have to open it first.”

“Without blowing yourself up.” A smile.

“Good point.”

The smile spread to his eyes. He was enjoying himself. Mario Buttafuoco, fifteen year old detective.

A cough drifted in from down the hall. Closer.

“You’re a smart kid, Mario,” I said. “You must take after your mother.”

“I heard that.” A hacking laugh and a cough at my back. “Go on, Mario. We’re listening.”

The kid looked up at his father, grinned, looked back at me and said, “You could run it through a scanner like they have at the airport. You got one?”

I flicked a look at his face again. Nothing, but I had the feeling he was rattling my chain. I shook my head.

“Right. So you have to crack the code and re-program the lock.”

“Great.” I stood up. “Easiest thing in the world.” I gave him a big smile and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a genius, Mario.”

“No, no,” he said, the smile lighting up his face again. “It’s not that simple.”

“What’s the problem?” Johnny pulled up a chair and lowered himself into it.

Mario explained that he could scan my finger and map the print but that the map would then have to be zapped to the case.

Johnny frowned. “How?”

“Bluetooth,” said Mario. “It’s like Wi-Fi. Radio waves.”

“Ah. So—” I was quiet for a moment while I worked it out. “So Mr Bluetooth zaps the map to the case and replaces Goldoni’s fingerprint with mine. Is that it?” 

“You got it.” Mario grinned and raised an open palm. I slapped it and did a little dance around the table. Then he said, “Can I see your phone?”

“Sure thing.” I handed it over.

He laughed, shook his head, punched a few buttons. “Vintage,” he said. “Antique.” He played with it some more. “But looks like it has Bluetooth.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” I said. “I guess.”

Johnny sucked on his cigar, exhaled and said, “Sounds like a long shot.”

“You got a better idea?”

“Should work,” said Mario, handing me the phone. “If you’re lucky.”

“Terrific,” I said. “All we need is the software, right?”

Mario aimed a slow look up at his dad. “It’s expensive,” he said. “Unless—”

Johnny frowned. “Don’t ask.”

Mario said nothing.

“Come on, Johnny,” I said. “Get with the program. Information wants to be free.”

He was having none of it. “I cannot allow a child of mine to engage in criminal behavior.”

Mario rolled his eyes for me. Johnny stood up, shaking his head. “I don’t want to know.”

“OK,” I said. “It’s my responsibility. And if it ever comes up, this conversation never took place.” 

Mario laughed. Johnny looked at his shoes and muttered, “Just this one time.”

“Great.” I clapped a hand on Mario’s shoulder. “Call me when you need me.” I marched out.

“Pete.” Johnny’s voice stopped me at the door. I turned. He pointed a fat finger at Red. “Your responsibility.”

“Forgot,” I said. I stepped back into the room. Mario handed me the leash. I waved, spun and led the dog down the hall.

Johnny rumbled along behind, called and caught up with us at the front door. “The Masons, Pete. When do I see a draft?”

I bent and picked up the dog, shifted my weight and held him under one arm. “Something I’ve been meaning to ask you, boss.”

Johnny struck a match, lit up and said, “Shoot.”

“Why are you so obsessed with deadlines?”

I watched his face, laughed and left him there sputtering obscenities and trundled down the stairs with the dog.