Suicide Italian Style (Crime Made in Italy Book 1) (3 page)

He shook his head. “Later, Pete.”

I lifted my glass. Ruby red. “Julia found him?”

“That’s the word. At Gigi’s place in the Paradiso.” High on the hill. A walled-in garden packed with exotic shrubs and trees, expensive views of the lake below.

I sniffed at the wine, swirled it and drank. Mmn. A little rough. “How long did she work for him?”

Sarge gave me a shrug. “Twenty years?” He sipped, swallowed, took a drag and blew out the smoke. “The world’s most loyal secretary.”

“Like she was married to him,” I said. “Except for the sex.”

He drew in another long breath of smoke and reached for the ashtray. “Says who?”

“So it’s true?”

“Don’t play the idiot, Pete. You knew.”

His head hung low, wreathed in smoke, eyes burning at me through the haze. He was right. I knew and so did everybody else. “I suppose.” I looked away. “So. Still doing the books for Gigi?”

“Gigi’s dead.” A stricken, pale, anxious look.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“He’s dead, Pete. It doesn’t matter.
E’ finito
.”

“You can’t tell me anything?”

“There’s nothing to tell. He shot himself.”

“Last time you saw him?”

“Monday evening.” That came quick. Expecting the question. Maybe the police had already asked him.

“Mood?”

“Up one minute, down the next.” He reached for his wine. “Couldn’t stop talking about some deal.”

“What sort of deal?”

His eyes grew narrow. “He didn’t tell you?”

“No.” Gigi must have told him something, after our meeting in Milan. “I saw him a couple of weeks ago, he just said he had something in the works. Wanted me to get him some press. The Financial Times, no less.”

Sarge flicked a look around the restaurant. “And you said what?”

“I said I could get him an interview, but only if he had big news.”

“And Gigi?”

“
Big news
, he says.
Big, big, big. Fresh money, happening soon
.”

“Same old story.” The light in Sarge’s eyes went out. Like he’d been hoping for news and I’d failed him. “But he got what he wanted, didn’t he?”

I tilted my head, sideways. Question mark.

He pointed at the headline and the photo of Gigi in the
Corriere
. “He’s front page news.”

I took it in. The voice, the rage, the darkness. “You sound bitter, Sarge. Gigi lose all your money?”

He took a sudden interest in his cigarette, studied the smoke as it snaked from his mouth and drifted up under the lights and away. Finally I said, “You want to tell me about it?”

“Some other time.” He snuffed the cigarette. “You remember Aida? Gigi’s wife?”

“Why, he lose her money, too?”

Sarge lit up again. “Whatever he did, she went crazy on him, had to lock her away.”

I frowned and fished a notebook and a pencil from a pocket. “Any idea where?”

Sarge lifted his glass, examined the wine, its color darker than blood. “Up in the mountains. Davos, St. Moritz, something like that. Very exclusive. Very discreet.“ 

I scribbled a reminder to look her up. Aida. A widow now. I remembered a white face, frail and thin, framed in black. In my memory she had always worn black. As if her love for Gigi had died decades ago. No surprise there. He’d always acted like he wasn’t married, made no secret of his need. He never stopped asking, knocking on doors, hitting on anything in a skirt. I closed my eyes and heard Gigi’s voice, felt a hand grip my arm as he leaned in and whispered,
It doesn’t matter how many say no, Pete. You just keep on asking until you get to yes.

An image of Eva rose up from the lake, black and white, like a photograph on a marble tombstone. Gigi must have asked her too. And her answer? I didn’t know. I never would. I fingered her earrings in my pocket, shook her off and looked up at Sarge.

“You should give her a call,” he said.

Eva. Call Eva back from the dead. No, not what he meant. “Aida?”

“Julia.” Sarge shook his head, bent it and laid another cigarette on his lip. “Forget Aida. She’s gone.”

“Lights on, nobody home?” 

“Something like that.” He lit up.

I sat there, watching the smoke. I dug out my Nokia and fumbled with the menu. “Can you give me the number?”

I heard a funny noise and looked up. Sarge was laughing. “Mister Technology,” he said, and reached for my phone. “Let me see that. Must be fifteen years old.”

He took it in hand, laughed again and shook his head.

“It works,” I said, and took it back. “What’s her number?”

He picked up his own phone—shiny, the latest—and read off the numbers.

I punched them in.

“If you can get her to talk, she knows everything.” He set the phone on the table, tapped the screen a few times, stared at it for a moment and said, “We're in for some rain.”

I looked out the window. It was raining.

The waiter waddled up with the pizza. Sarge’s bubbled with four kinds of cheese. The Napoli was looking a little under the weather.

Sarge carved out a wedge of his
quattro formaggi
, folded it over and stuffed it in his mouth.

I sipped the Merlot and let him chew for a while and said, “How much do you figure Gigi owed? Between you and everybody else?” I picked up the pencil, licked the tip and held it poised above the page.

He raised a finger to his lips and shook his head. 

I tried a couple more questions, but Sarge made sure his mouth was busy. I turned my attention back to the food. The Napoli was a disaster. Burnt crust, soggy in the middle, enough salt to shrivel an army of slugs. I downed a couple of slices and left the rest to rot.

A blast of music made me jump. Familiar. It came to me—
The Lone Ranger
. Sarge took the call, got up and stepped away from the table. He was back in a couple of minutes, in a hurry. “Sorry, Pete. I have to run.” 

“No problem.” I pushed myself to my feet, drained my glass and hurried after him. He called to the waiter, gave a little nod and turned back to me.

“You heading back to Milan tonight?”

I shook my head. “I’m in a motel at the airport.”

“Huh?” A frown scrunched his face. “Don’t be silly. You can stay at our place. My mother’s still cooking.”

A vision of his mother floated in, a gray ghost without shoes, hunched over the stove in a rough woolen dress and black apron, silver hair pulled back in a bun, a flash of old yellow gold in her smile.

“Yeah? You sure? My old room?”

“Still there. Think you can find it?”

“No problem. Thanks.” Sarge and Renata ran a bed and breakfast in a lakeside village a few miles to the south. Morcote. It had a guest room high up under the roof where I used to stay every once in a while. Whenever something came up.

I rolled up to the cash register and pulled out my wallet.

From the door Sarge called out, “I took care of it, Pete. See you tonight.”

I watched him run down the street through the rain.

Rain. No point in getting wet. It would be over soon enough. I salvaged the
Corriere
from the table at the back, climbed a stool at the bar and ordered a coffee,
corretto
.

The barman added a splash of
grappa
and set the cup on the counter. I studied the paper and made a few more notes.
Suicide. No way out. Everything you ever cared about means nothing to you now. So you call it a day, call it a life. Next question: how? You’re afraid of heights, so you can’t step sideways off a bridge. You could jump in front of a subway train or stick your head in a plastic bag. Or get yourself a gun. Fast and painless.
I had run through the options myself, one long night after Eva died. In the end I decided it wasn’t my job to step on the brakes. I was on the bus until somebody else drove the bus off a cliff.

And Gigi? What drove the poor man over the edge? 

I dug for the earrings—silver, engraved—and played the scene back in my head, saw Gigi press them into my hand. The voice came back. Something about a safe. Did I remember where it was. 

Sure. It was up on the roof at the Villa Sofia. Yes. I slipped a hand back into the pocket, felt for it. There. The key—for the Villa. And the safe was up on the roof terrace.

Smells like a winner
, Gigi said. I jumped, spooked, slipped the earrings in a pocket and slid off the stool.

The Shark took me up a rain-slick road that led to the Villa Sofia. I hadn’t been back since Eva died, but the image was burned in my brain. A grand old place that sat at the end of a long, sweeping drive, it had two stone stories converted to offices, Art Nouveau windows and mottled terracotta tiles on the roof. A terrace up on the second floor offered views of the lake and the gray-green mountains on the other side. Slender palms in the garden, roses, oleander and a fountain in the shade of a chestnut tree.

As I rounded the curve the palms came into view, soaring up over the tall iron fence. On the gravel just outside the gates sat a glossy black BMW. I shot a glance at the driver as I drove on by. Dark glasses, wispy goatee, pale, thin face. A clone, skinnier, sat next to him, smoking. White shirts and black ties. I made them for cops and kept going, on around the curve to a hairpin switchback, up the hill and out of sight. I pulled over, climbed out and walked back down the road.

The Villa Sofia sat below me on an acre of prime Swiss real estate, framed by the hill and a high stone wall and a steep slope rising up to the road. The garden was dead, the fountain dry, the grass gone to ratty weeds and gravel.

Beyond the iron fence sat the BMW. Nothing happening there. I let my gaze drift back to the villa. Scrap ivy crawled up the walls from the granite foundation to terracotta tiles still glistening from the rain. Set into the roof at the back of the villa was a tiny, boxed-in terrace. That’s where the safe was, hidden under the tiles at the base of the chimney.

There.
What—?
There on the roof, in a suit and tie, big belly sliding over the tiles, legs dangling over the edge to the terrace, a black case hanging at the end of one arm. I squinted down at him, at—
holy moly!
—it was Billy Bob, the man himself, no doubt about it. He dropped from the roof tiles to the terrace below, rounded on himself and disappeared down the hatch, pulling the cover into place above him.

A car door slammed. Another. The BMW. Two men at the gates, one climbing up and over. 

I scrambled down the slope to the old stone wall, dropped to the gravel and took a few quick steps to the basement stairs. I slipped Gigi’s key in the lock and pushed in, took two flights of stairs double-time and padded down the hall. At the door I pulled up short and pushed it open. He stood with his back to me, brushing moss and dirt from a stained Armani. On the desk in front of him lay a flat black box. A briefcase, leather. Shiny brass snaps and a leather grip.

“Freeze!” I said. His hands shot up and he edged his head around, his eyes wide open and his face gone white and blotchy. He did a cinematic double-take, dropped his arms to his sides and roared, “Pete! Man, you scared the bejesus out of me.”

“Long time no see, Billy.”

“No kidding.”

I crossed the room to the window and peered out from behind the curtain. Two men moving up the drive. “Friends of yours?”

He strode up beside me, turned whiter still and shook his head.

“After you, dude.” I swept out a hand. “Move!”

He snatched the briefcase, ran out and down the hall to the stairs.

I caught up with him in the basement, breathing hard. Footfalls, wood creaking overhead. We slammed out the door in a rush to the wall, scrambled up and over the edge and on up the slippery grass slope to the road. From there we ran on up to the car, yanked the doors open and climbed in. I gunned the engine and stomped on the gas. The old boat groaned, creaked and shuddered off up the hill.

Billy Bob sat up, wheezing, reached and grabbed the rear-view mirror. He sighed, fumbled with his tie and ran long, skinny fingers through his hair, dark locks shot with a touch of gray. Handsome enough, as lawyers go.

“What you got there, Billy?” I eyed the leather briefcase at his feet.

“Paperwork. The usual crap.”

Billy Bob Decker. Attorney at law, professional liar. “What’s it been, four or five years? I had you back in Dallas.”

“San Antonio.”

“Whatever.”

“I made partner a couple of years ago, but I’m over here every six months or so.”

“Keeping an eye on Gigi Goldoni?”

“I was.” He swore. “Fool goes and shoots himself. You believe it?”

“I’m starting to.” I eased the Shark into third. “You got a favorite watering hole?”

“The Royale. It’s quiet.” He craned his neck around to look behind us. “But it’s all clear, Pete. You can drop me at the car.”

“Where’s that, the Villa?”

“Yeah, just down the street.”

“Dunno, Billy. I didn’t like the look of those clowns.”

He thought about it. “Fair enough,” he said. “Let’s hit the Royale.”

“Great. We can sit in the bar and watch the lake.”

I let him brood for a while as I slid on past the railway station and wound around down to the lake. He wouldn’t keep his trap shut long.

Thirty seconds passed and it opened. “So what is this, a social call? Just happen to catch up with me at the Villa Sofia?”

“Bird watching, Billy. There’s this tall, skinny kind, likes to nest on chimneys.”

He snorted and swore. “Just about got myself killed up there.” He drummed the briefcase with his long, slim fingers. “Thank my lucky stars I found it.”

“Why?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m on a story, Billy. I need to know what happened. You up on the roof over Gigi’s old office, what am I supposed to think?”

“You’re not.”

“I’m on deadline. Tonight.”

He stared out the window for a while. “The man shot himself. That’s all there is to it.”

“You sure?”

“What difference does it make?” Billy Bob shook his head. “He’s dead.”

“No news there, Billy.”

“So make something up. You were good, Pete. Back in the day.” He paused, smiled and delivered the punch line. “Bullshit, made to measure.”

The jab hit a nerve. I flinched and shot him a sour look sideways. “I took lessons from you. The master.”

Billy Bob laughed and shook his head. “Give yourself some credit. You wrote perfectly brilliant crap on your own.”

I swung around and up the hotel drive, climbed out and dropped the keys with the valet. Billy Bob pushed inside, heading for the bar. I was right behind him when a birdcall stopped me in my tracks. My phone. A whippoorwill. I’d found a recording on the net somewhere and had Johnny’s boy Mario turn it into a ringtone.

I dug out the phone and punched up the call.

It was Anastasia. “Johnny wants the Shark back, pronto.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tonight.”

“Come and get it.”

“I’m on my way.”

I hung up and pushed on into the bar. Billy Bob waved me over to a table by the window. I ordered a sparkler and asked the waiter for cheese and crackers. He came back with olives and parmesan, a glass of
prosecco
and Billy Bob’s gin and tonic. 

Back in the old days, like Billy Bob said, I was pretty good at what I did. If Gigi Goldoni had a big announcement, I’d round up the press and we’d deliver the news. I’d give him a set of talking points, tell him what to say and when to shut his trap. Not that I had much to teach him. He was a killer salesman and a gifted liar. But I had to be careful. I couldn’t ever let him loose on his own, not without me to watch over him.

The hacks always shot me dirty looks, but that’s what Gigi paid me for. If he got too excited and started babbling I’d kick him in the shins and he’d snap back on message—
We’ve just put a million in a great new start-up we’re hoping will do very well down the line
.
We’re business angels and investors, creating jobs and opportunities for entrepreneurs with new ideas.
Didn’t much matter what the company did. He threw money at start-ups in London, Bombay, Zurich, Paris and bought in consultants from Silicon Valley—high-tech wing-nuts and entrepreneurs, investment bankers and neurotic accountants.
We’re a network of experienced business-builders, here to add value and open doors
. 

“Billy Bob,” I said. “Gigi and you and the smart money boys, Tommy, Sarge—what the hell were you doing?”

“You were there, too.”

“I was and I wasn’t. I never had a head for numbers.”

“Bull, Pescatore.” Billy Bob heaved a sigh. “We were spending other people’s money. Investing in the future. Throwing cash at the horses and praying they’d make it to the finish line.”

“Seems like we had money to burn.”

He shrugged. “Money to burn, people bring it to the bonfire.” He shook his head. “Word gets around, everybody and his mother wants a piece of the action.”

“Double your money overnight.”

“Double?” Billy Bob laughed, set his glass on the table and leaned across the briefcase. “Ten times, Pete. Twenty. Fifty. It was always multiples.”

“Sounds more like a lottery.”

“You remember those guys from San Jose, sold dog food over the internet? Gigi put in a million, made a hundred times that with the IPO. Overnight.”

“Before my time, Billy, but I remember the stories.”

“Then—boom!” Billy Bob slammed a flat hand on the table. “Hear that giant sucking sound?” He was drumming his fingers on the briefcase again. “Billions rushing down the drain.”

“Mmn.” I flagged the waiter and held up two fingers. “So then what?”

Billy Bob drained his gin and tonic, wiped the back of a hand across his mouth. “Be right back.”

I threw a nod at the briefcase. “Keep an eye on it for you?”

He threw me a grim look, shook his head, stood up and hauled the thing off to the john.

I stared out at the lake. It was raining again. Gray in gray. The briefcase. I closed my eyes. Something about the safe on the roof. There. A memory surfaced and I heard Gigi’s voice:
If something happens, you know where the safe is
.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. Now it was staring me in the face. Gigi wanted me to get the briefcase. Me, not Billy Bob.

I had to have it.

The waiter set another
Brut
and a fresh gin and tonic on the table in front of me.

I stared out the window into the rain, got started on the refill and pulled out my phone. Anastasia picked up. I painted a picture and told her what I wanted. She went quiet on me, then threw me an idea. I said it sounded good to me.

Billy Bob was back a few minutes later. He sat down with the briefcase and reached for his drink. “So, Pete. Run me back to my car?”

“Aw, Billy.” I let my face fall. “You can’t do dinner? Shoot the breeze for a while?”

“Sorry, bubba. I’m on a flight back home at the crack of dawn.”

“That’s too bad.” My shoulders drooped. “So just—tell me one thing.”

He raised his chin, waiting.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Gigi never took no for answer,” I said. “Why would he kill himself? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Billy Bob shrugged, wrapped a big hand around his glass and drank.

“I’m just asking, Billy. Maybe he owed somebody something, one of those guys with money to burn—“

He gave a long sigh and pulled a hand down over his face and said, “How long ago was it he fired you, Pete?”

I thought about it. “Four or five years. The ship was sinking.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

Think, Pescatore. “Same day he fired me.”

“And what did you do?”

I thought about it. “I drank.”

“We all did… And then you wrote it off—bad luck, karma, whatever.”

“Back to square one.” I nodded. “So?”

“Come on, Pete. Some bozo bets the farm on Gigi, loses everything. He’s gonna sit around for ten years, wake up one day and go shoot Gigi in the head? Come on.” He gulped down his drink.

He had a point. “So what’s your take?”

“He was depressed, Pete. He’d been chasing Arab money for years—you know the story, it was never going to happen. All he had left was a stack of shares, worth dick. He finally had to face it. He was finished.” Billy Bob cocked his thumb, aimed the finger in his face and fired. “Boom. Over and out.”

I lowered my gaze to the floor and produced a long sigh. “It’s not much of a story. My boss won’t like it.”

Billy Bob offered a sorry-ass smile. As if he cared. He thought for a moment, called for another drink, sat back and let a smile sneak into his face. “You could always write a cookbook.”

I let him laugh by himself. When he stopped he said, “What’s that?” 

“What?”

“That noise.”

I cocked my ears. A bird. Louder now. Again. It was the whippoorwill. I pulled out my phone, eyed the screen and took the call. “Hey, Stazz. Where are you, sweetheart?” I bounced my eyebrows for Billy Bob. “Huh? OK, great. I’ll be there.” I hung up.

Billy Bob raised his chin again. “Wife?”