Suicide Italian Style (Crime Made in Italy Book 1) (12 page)

Stale cigar smoke hung in the air. No sign of Anastasia. Johnny was on the phone but said she’d called. I dropped the pages on his desk and went back and sat down in the hack room. The
CNI
site came up on screen and with it my story about the lab in Locarno and its odd arrangement with the Italians. I’d started by sticking a knife in their ribs:
If the Swiss are at the forefront of digital dissection, why do they bother to call in the Italians
,
who surely cut him up the old-fashioned way
? Johnny had taken it from there, lending the piece an ominous mood by suggesting the Swiss had something to hide—their own incompetence, or something more sinister, perverse and unknowable
.
He’d worked in a mention of the Vatican Bank, the Mafia and the old
Propaganda Due
Masonic lodge. It was classic
CNI
, a paranoid fantasy filled with dark hints of conspiracy.

Where was Anastasia?

I tapped out her number. It rang four or five times before she picked up.

“Sweetheart,” I said. “Where you been all my life?”

“Hello, Pete.” There was something a little too cool in her voice.

“Johnny said you called.” 

“Did I? I don’t remember.” A muffled silence, like she’d buried the phone in a pillow. She came back on. “I have someone here.” She handed off again.

“Pete?”

“Billy! Long time, no see, bubba. How are ya?”

“Hell do you care, Pescatore? Your girl Lyudmila’s been grilling me, so I figure you haven’t cracked the code.”

I didn’t like his tone of voice. Time to rattle his chain. “What are you talking about?”

“Come to Daddy, Pete. Daddy wants his briefcase back. “

“Sober up, Billy. You’re not making any sense.”             

He snorted and called out, “Stazz, honey, you ready for dessert?”

I didn’t hear her answer.

Billy Bob’s voice hissed again in my ear, “Have it your way, dick-head. Call me when you need some help. If you’re still breathing.” The line went dead.

“Good work, Pescatore.” Johnny thumped into a chair across from me, dug a hand into a jacket pocket and came up with a lighter. “I love it.”

“Does that mean I get paid?”

He focused on finding a fresh cigar and took his own sweet time lighting up. “Story’s great, but there’s something missing.”

“Facts?”

“Maybe that’s it.” A smile bloomed and faded beneath his mustache. “It’s all smoke, no roast.” He blew a cloud of foul smoke in my direction, making sure I got the point.

I shrugged. “Where there’s smoke, there’s smoke.”

Johnny sighed and sank further into the chair. He tapped a finger to his forehead. “I spoke to Rome. They want a real feature. A big story. Front page.”

I sat up. “Tell me more.”

“On one condition.”

“Blood?”

“Fresh blood.”

I felt a frown knot my face. “They want names?”

“It would help.”

“Like who killed Goldoni?”

Johnny shook his head. “Sure, but—“

“I’m not getting it.”

“It’s Rome, Pete. What do you think they want?”

“Money? You’re always telling me you have no money.”

Johnny flipped me the bird.

“The Vatican,” I said. “Don’t tell me, they want a name in the Vatican.”

“Finally, you get it.”

“So, like, the Pope killed Goldoni?”

“That would be interesting.” Johnny smiled. “You can do better.”

“Better?”

I got up and walked to the window, threw it open and leaned out. A tram squealed to a stop in the street below. Its doors clapped open and spilled its load onto the paving stones. A woman in a headscarf hauled her brats on board and an idea climbed up into my head. I shut the window and turned to Johnny.

“Aliens,” I said. “
Alien Zombies Kidnap Pope
.”

“Get out of here.” Johnny grabbed a book from the shelf behind him—

“
Zombie Lodge Loots Vatican Bank.
” I circled the table and backed away toward the door. A book whistled past and slammed into the wall.

“
Swiss Guards Clobber Zombies in Vatican Skirmish—”
I was out the door and into the hallway. A couple more books hit the wall. When things were quiet I poked my head back in. “You all right?”

“Sit down.” Johnny waved me back in. “Where are we?”  

I stooped to collect the books from the floor, set them in front of him and took a seat. “Rome?”

He shook his head. “Forget it, Pete. Let’s just get the story straight.”

“Right,” I said. “I hear the autopsy’s coming back suicide. That means a funeral. End of story.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. The police have taken your friend in for questioning.”

“Friend?”

“The accountant, banker, whatever he is. What’s his name—”

“Ungaretti? They’ve got Sarge?”

“Yeah. Like I said, it’s his gun.”

“So what’s the charge?”

Johnny shrugged. “Nothing yet. They’re just talking.” He lit up again. “If there’s a funeral, you should go. See who shows up.”

“Absolutely.”

A grunt and a cough. “The briefcase, Pescatore. Mario’s got the software but he needs your phone.”

I dug it out. The screen said I’d missed another call. From Switzerland. I didn’t recognize the number. “When can I see him?”

“He should be around this afternoon.”

“Great,” I said. Heidi? I punched in the call-back number and let it ring. 

“Pete—” Johnny was up on his feet and moving.

I held up my hand. “Hang on—”

“Hello, Pete. It’s been such a long time.” A slimy laugh slithered down the line. 

I knew the voice. “Tommy! How are you?”

“Better than some of us.” A pause. “Poor man.”

“You said it. When did you hear?”

“Friday. I flew in last night.”

“From Dublin?”

“Dubai. Business.” He paused. “I still live in Lugano, Pete.”

“Right. So I’ll see you at the funeral?”

“Of course, but I was thinking we ought to have a word. Would you be free this evening?” He was moving fast, his soft Irish rhythms unchanged by the years.

“What’s the rush, can’t wait to see me?”

“I’ve been following your work. It could benefit from another perspective. Shall we say half nine? The Prince Albert?”

I let him hang a while before I said, “Sounds good to me.”

“I’ll meet you in the bar. Do you need directions?”

“I can find it.”

“I’ll look forward to seeing you then, Pete. It’s been too long.”

“Indeed.”

I hung up and tossed the phone on the table.

Johnny raised his eyebrows. “Trouble?”

I shrugged. “Tommy O’Sullivan. Irish, a banker. Gigi Goldoni’s right-hand man.”

“So talk to him.”

“I’m seeing him for dinner, up in Lugano.”

“Good. You want the Shark?” 

I shook my head and reached for the phone. “I picked up my car from the shop this morning.”

“The FIAT?” A derisive snort morphed into a cough. “You’ll never make it. Take the Shark, Pete. Save yourself the heartache.”

I picked up a book, took aim, and threw it. Johnny batted it away, got up and lumbered off to his office.

I spent lunch putting the finishing touches on
Take The Money & Run—To the Masons
. Mario came and scanned my fingerprint and went away with my phone, shaking his head. He brought it back a few minutes later, said all I needed when I got to the briefcase was to point and shoot. Bluetooth would zap my print to the case, re-program the lock and let me in.
Open, Sesame
. Easy.

“Thanks, kid. I owe you.”

“Two tickets, mid-field.”

“Ouch. That’s high-priced help, Mario. For when?”

“Saturday.”

“Who are we up against?”

“Juventus.”

“Oh dear.” The arch-enemy from Turin. “What’s it looking like?”

Mario winced and spread his fingers and rocked a flat hand like the wings of a bird just learning to fly. Inter’s chances were so-so at best.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Great,” he said. “Are you OK with the phone?”

“Got it.” I gave him a big thumbs-up. “Thanks a million, Mario.”

“Call me if you need any help.”

“Count on it.”

Terrific. Now all I needed was the briefcase. I tried Anastasia and got no answer, so I scribbled a note, dropped it on her desk and waved to Johnny on my way out.

I climbed into the black iron cage and listened to its soothing clank and rattle as it sank down the shaft to street level. I was out in the cold and heading for the FIAT parked up the road when I looked back and saw her, long arms wrapped around the Lech as he drove up on the Harley and rolled to a stop in the street below the office. She pulled off the helmet and shook out her hair, laughed and climbed off and gave it back to Billy Bob.

I stood watching for a moment and then turned away and around the corner. It was the laugh that got to me. I shrugged it off and trudged up the road to my old
cinquecento
, climbed in and slammed the door.

Thirty miles north of Milan. Late afternoon, the fields white with frost and my hands gone numb on the wheel. The blast of a diesel horn shook my bones and a sixteen wheeler pulled out behind me and roared on past.

I should have taken him up on it, grabbed the keys to the Shark and run. Too late now. I was back in the past, tooling along in the Alfa Romeo, humming through the fog to the job in Lugano with Gigi and Billy Bob, Julia, Sarge Ungaretti and Tommy O’Sullivan. I pictured the Irishman, a permanent smirk ironed into his face, and gazed again into his granite gray eyes. Strange man, too much brain rattling around in his skull and no idea what to do with it.

I would see him soon.

One look at the FIAT and the guards at the border waved me through. One of them said something that made them both laugh. I gave them a salute, pressed the pedal to the metal and puttered off down the long, slow curve into Switzerland. An hour later I took the South Lugano exit and drove down into the city. It took another half hour to find the hotel.

The
Prince Albert
had the feel of a country club, a well-groomed, exclusive private estate. It was known around town as a high-end watering hole for the rich, their bankers, trustees and accountants. You could pay in cash and never be asked to show ID. Introduce yourself as the Wizard of Oz, they’d scrape and bow, mutter
Welcome, Sir
and hand you a tasseled key to a suite hung with tapestries and staid portraits in oil.

I parked to one side of the long pebbled driveway and made my way in through paneled glass doors to the lobby. Silence, a rustling of papers, a cough suppressed. I walked up to a counter and asked directions to the bar. A dark-haired young woman led the way and left me alone with black leather armchairs, low glass tables on Persian carpets, ornate Venetian chandeliers. A bespectacled man in a monkey suit sat futzing with a grand piano in the corner. Behind him on the wall hung an abstract landscape in pale pastels, immense and mute. I settled into a chair with a view of the entrance, looked up into a chandelier, sat back and closed my eyes.

“Sleeping on the job, Pete? Can’t have that now, can we?”

I opened my eyes. There he was. Tall, bald as an eight-ball, gray eyes hard and mirthless. I pulled myself to my feet, grinned and shook his hand.

“Tommy. Good to see you.”

“Glad you could make it, Pete. Drinkies?”

“Sure.”  

He snapped his fingers. A waiter appeared with a bottle of champagne, popped the cork, poured, sank the bottle in a bucket of ice and disappeared.

I sat back down. Tommy O lowered himself into the armchair across from me, leaned forward and lifted his glass. “To the memory of Gigi Goldoni.”

“Gigi.” I lifted mine, nodded at Tommy over the rim, and drank.

“Poor man. What did him in, Pete? Any idea?”

“Somebody shot him.”

He frowned, then raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You think so?”

“Yeah. I think somebody knocked him off.”

“Why do you say that?”

I shrugged. “It’s just a feeling, Tommy.”

“The police have been calling it suicide.”

“That’s what it looks like. Shot in the head from close range. But get this—there were bricks in his pockets.”

A frown cramped Tommy O’s pink face. “Bricks.” The frown deepened. “Bricks?”

“Not what you’re thinking. They’re plastic. Lego. The kind kids play with.”

“Plastic bricks?”

“Yeah, little yellow bricks.” I lowered my voice. “It’s a message, Tommy. Don’t mess with the Masons.”

“Ohh.” Tommy O leaned toward me, dropped his voice to a whisper. “The Masons killed Gigi?”

I shrugged. “Either them or the Sicilians. Borrow money from the mob, you better be able to pay it back. On time, with interest. Or else.”

“The mafia,” he said. “Dear me.”

“You don’t think so? Somebody got to him, Tommy. He didn’t just croak. Somebody put a bullet in his head.” I put a hand to my forehead, wondering how far I could push it. “Opus Dei?”

“No!” he whispered. His eyes narrowed. A thin smile appeared. “The Vatican? That’s pretty far-fetched, Pete.”

“Yeah? You don’t figure Gigi was playing with fire?”

“I have no idea.” Tommy O reached for his glass, buying a little time before he answered. He took a sip, plucked a cashew from a dish on the table and nibbled a while. “Tell me, Pete. Why all the questions?”

“Look at it this way,” I said. “Gigi was a very generous man. He gave me a job and he paid me well. But then it all went sideways. I went to bed married and a working man and woke up a widower out of a job.”

“Dear me.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a whiner. I got up and got on with my life.”

“As one does.”

“But now, Tommy, now’s the time to look back. Figure out what the hell happened.”

“I see,” he said. “I understand.” A polite cough, a pause. “So tell me. What is it that you do these days?”

“I write.”

A slow nod, thoughtful. “And what do you write, Pete?”

“Whatever the client wants. I get paid by the word.”

“Yes. I’ve read your—your work.” He forced a quick smile. “And how are we getting along these days? Keeping up with the mortgage?”

I shifted my gaze to the floor. “I do all right.” I looked up at him. “What about you, old man? Money makes the world go round?”

“Indeed.” He brightened.

“Where you working these days? Dublin? London?”

“Lugano.” He sent a pudgy pink hand to harvest another crop of cashews.

“Ah, that’s right.” I let a couple of seconds go by. “Banker?”

“In a manner of speaking.” He bit into a nut. “I manage portfolios.”

“Bean counter to the rich and famous.”

A tight smile. “Wealth management consultant.”

“Sounds lucrative.”

“It is. Very.” He lifted his glass, toasted wealth, and sipped.

“Right,” I said. “Truth is, Tommy, I had this friend, he was a journalist—a real one. He was working on a story in Lugano when he died.”

“How unfortunate.” An eloquent eyebrow rose and froze. “What was he writing about?”

“Tax evasion. According to my friend, the mob runs profits from all over Italy through the Vatican Bank to the BGSB, and from there all around the world.”

“Do they now? Since when?”

“You tell me, Tommy. “ I reached for the cashews. “Was Gigi part of it?”

“Mmn.” Tommy O drained his glass. “I don’t think so. Gigi wasn’t stupid.”

“But where did it come from, all that money? Millions and millions. ”

“Investors, Pete. Switzerland is the wealthiest country in the world.”

“What about the sports bag from Italy? Must have been a half a million in cash.”

“Hmn. Yes.“ Tommy O crunched his face into a frown. “The tote bags.”

“Bags?” I wondered how many I never saw, how many I’d seen and erased on the spot.

Tommy O shrugged. “You remember the policy—”

I thought about it, heard Gigi’s voice.
Don’t ask, don’t tell.

“—and don’t call it money-laundering, Pete. No-one calls it that anymore.” His voice turned mealy, slick and promotional. “We offer a broad range of services to high net worth individuals seeking tax efficient ways to structure their portfolios.”

I laughed. “You sound like a bloody brochure, Tommy.”

“Familiar with the genre, are we?” He plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed the sweat from his upper lip. “I’m quoting from our web site. Sort of thing you write, isn’t it?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Pity.” A quick smile. “We could use a man like you, Pete. A man with a feeling for the value of words.”

“Ten cents apiece,” I said. “Who’s ‘we’?”

Tommy O stood and brushed himself off. The waiter materialized. “Room one-oh-three, please.”

“Certainly, sir.” The waiter scrawled the room number on the bill and had him sign it. “Thank you, sir. Good evening.”

Tommy O turned to look me over. His lips grew thin and he reached into a pocket and came up with a tie and said, “You’d better have this.”

I took it. Little yellow ducks, lined up in rows against a midnight blue sky.

“Come along, Pete. I’ve booked a table.” He padded off over the Persian carpet, glittering light from the chandeliers glancing off his eight-ball. I drained my glass and hustled after him, fumbling with the tie. We passed a mirror hung in the hallway. I stopped to straighten the tie and ran my fingers through my hair. Bags under my eyes. Could have used a shave.

I caught up with Tommy O at the entrance to the restaurant. A slim hostess in black made a cool white smile. 

“O’Sullivan.”

A crisp nod said she knew him. “Good evening, Mr O’Sullivan. This way, please.”

We followed her in past linen-draped tables to a door that slid open onto a well-lit room with a single table and a tall glass window that looked out onto a manicured courtyard. The table was set for three.

Tommy O hitched his sleeve and looked at his watch. Not a Rolex. IWC?

He turned to the hostess. “Are we early?”

“Not at all, Mr O’Sullivan. Mr Bellomo will be a few minutes late.”

“I see.”

“He suggested you might wish to begin with champagne.”

Tommy turned to me. “Champers, Pete?”

“I’m good,” I said. I had a feeling I would need my wits. 

Tommy O sent the hostess on her way. 

“Can I see it?”

A frown.

“Your watch. I write about watches.”

“Is that so?” He plucked his sleeve and held out his wrist.

“Nice,” I said. “No Rolex.”

A deeper frown. “Rolex!” A sneer rippled his lip. “IWC Portofino.”

“Nice,” I said. A moon phase complication. “Good looking piece.” I drifted away to the window and stared out into the dusk. Snow had begun to fall. “Bellomo. Do I know him?”

“I shouldn’t think so, Pete. Although—”

I raised an eyebrow.

“He was an early investor and helped Gigi out every once in a while. You might remember him.”

“Yeah?” I scratched my head. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”

“Perhaps when you see him.”

“Maybe.” I gripped his arm, just above the elbow. “Listen, I hear Gigi had something in the works. Some sort of a deal, a big one.”

“Really. And who told you that, if I may ask?”

“Billy Bob. You remember him? The lawyer?”

“Certainly.” He extracted his arm from my grasp. “I spoke to him this morning. He seemed upset. Something about a briefcase gone missing.”

Woah
.  We took that curve a little too fast. “Yeah,” I said. “I heard somebody grabbed it from the back of his car.”

“Dear me. Any idea who it might have been?”

“Why, you interested?”

“Perhaps.” A thin smile. “Are you accepting offers?”

I mirrored the smile. “You’re wrong, Tommy. I have no idea where it is.”

“Or what it contains, I presume.”

“I can only guess.”

“Do.”

“Billy wouldn’t tell me. But you know me—can’t keep my nose out of other people’s business.”

“I see. And what sort of business might that be?”

“Seems Gigi ran a network of secret accounts in offshore banks around the world.” I was lying. Billy had said nothing of the kind. I was baiting Tommy with Marco’s research. “So maybe it’s a list of all those accounts, along with the names of their owners. Their real names, not the stand-ins.”

“Really.” Tommy O joined me at the window, stared out into the falling snow. “And why do you think he might have kept such a list?”

“They were his clients, Tommy,” I said. “And I think he was looking for a buyer.”

He stroked his chin, thoughtful again. “I always said you were smarter than you look.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”