Suicide Italian Style (Crime Made in Italy Book 1) (5 page)

She was there, watching me from behind a curtain. I’d had a key once. I didn’t want one now. I pushed a button on the jamb and waited. A few seconds later the door creaked open.

“Renata,” I said. “Good to see you.”

She took a deep breath. “Come in,” she said, her voice as warm as a walk-in freezer. She backed away from the door, turned and led the way up two flights of stairs to the old stone room at the end of the hall. Bare rock walls, single bed, a dresser with a mirror and a desk shoved up against the wall.

Renata walked to the window, opened the shutters and gazed out over the lake. “Are you here to see me?” One hand smoothed the sleeve of a moss green sweater. A shapeless gray skirt hung from her hips.

“Renata—“

“That means no, doesn’t it? In more ways than one.” Her voice cut slices from the cool night air. She turned to face me. Dark eyes, a pink flush in her cheeks. “Your silence was always eloquent.”

“I won’t stay long.”

“You never did.”

“Renata—“

“Don’t.”

I took her in my arms. A long, hard kiss turned gentle in the end and left me with the taste of liquor in my mouth. She was crying when we broke apart.

“Why?” Her voice was a rattle. “Why did you come back?” Her eyes hard as bone scraping skin off my face. “Is it Gigi? That’s all you came for?”

“Isn’t that enough?” 

“Why do you care?”

“You don’t? I want to know what happened.”

“He was bankrupt, Pete. He owed everyone money. Sarge, Julia, me—everyone.”

“I saw him in Milan, he was talking comeback.”

“What, the Arabs?” A soft laugh. “A dream. A nightmare.” Bitter sorrow in her voice.

“So what are you saying? Suicide?”

“What else could it be?”

“You tell me.”

“He’s dead. That’s all there is.”

“Ever look at his books?”

She shifted her gaze around the room. The bed. An alpine landscape on the wall. The bare floor beneath her feet. “When Sergio left to work at the bank, I took over his clients. Gigi was one of them.”

“OK.” I took a breath. “Who else?”

“Don’t be stupid.” She bit her lip. “Where were you, Pete? All those years. Were you blind?”

“Why, did I miss something?”

“Everything. But it’s easier that way, isn’t it? Toss it all down a well and pretend it never happened.”

She whirled and ran out. I let her go. She was wrong. I never said it didn’t happen. I just didn’t like to think about it.

I turned back to the bed and shifted my clothes to a dresser drawer. I picked up the camera. Anastasia came to mind, angling for the briefcase with
Billy the Lech
. She could handle herself, no worries there. It was something else troubling me. Gigi Goldoni. I had worked for the man and called him a friend, but now I had no idea who he was, knew nothing of the trouble he was in when he died. I slipped the camera in a jacket pocket, stripped and stepped into the shower.

Under the hot water I peered down into the memory well. A blue canvas sports bag floated to the surface. It was stuffed with cash, small bills from Italy. At the time I played the story for a joke, something Sarge or Tommy O had made up for a laugh. But when I closed my eyes I knew I'd seen it, saw it again, sitting empty on the floor beside Gigi’s desk. Piled on the desk were stacks of old bank notes bundled up with brown paper tape. I had seen it and stopped and felt the pull, the dark lure of treasure there for the taking. I had stared and shrugged and walked away and tossed the memory down the well.

Another night came back. We were all sitting around at the Villa Sofia, Gigi and me and the smart money boys—Tommy O’Sullivan, Billy Bob Decker, couple of guys on the phone from Milan.
Putting investor money to work
. Betting on start-ups, rolling the dice. Sarge was there too, keeping the books, and Julia making like Gigi's shadow. The odds were no better than at the casino, but the boys placed thirty-nine million that night. And stood around, in the years to come, watching thirty-nine million bucks swirl down the drain.

I toweled off, pulled on my clothes and stepped out onto the balcony. To the south lay Italy, across the lake. You couldn’t just row a boatload of cash up over the border to Switzerland—but there were other ways. You could walk the old trails that ran through the mountains, cross the border well out of sight. The trails were still there. They had been there for centuries, worn into the rock, some known only to the mountain guides who’d led Jews on the run from Mussolini. Led them to safety in Switzerland or sold them into the arms of death. The Italian resistance had run guns and ammunition along the same trails. Smugglers hauled cigarettes south for years, and for years Italians had been sending up cash, north to Lugano’s secretive banks.

So. Stuff a backpack full of cash, head off into the woods for a hike? No. It was always better to hire a mule, a local boy who knew the trails. A
spallone
.

A shift in the wind brought a blast of cold. I shivered and stepped back into the room. 

Renata stood there, white in the face, trembling. I reached and took her hand, pulled her close. “What is it?”

“The gun, Pete. It’s gone.”

The gun. A sinking feeling. “What gun?”

“The pistol. Sarge took it with him when he left the army.”

“How long has it been missing?”

The fear flared in her eyes. “It was still here when Gigi called.”

“And this morning?”

She shook her head. “Gone.”

“Have you spoken to the police?”

“Sarge called them this morning. He told them he went to clean the gun and discovered it was missing.”

“You believe him?”

She looked away.

“You missing anything else?”

She closed her eyes and pulled away from me. “The computer. All my files. The accounts.”

I grabbed her again. “What accounts?”

“Gigi’s. And all the others.” She was back at the door. “The children. I must put them to bed.” And was gone.

So, middle of the night, Sarge gets a call from Gigi Goldoni. A few hours later Gigi’s dead and Sarge wakes up to find his gun has gone for a walk.

Right. I believe you, Sarge. Sure I do. And nobody else will either.

From somewhere below came the smell of onions sizzling in oil. I followed the trail out and down the stairs and along a dark hallway to the kitchen. The old woman was there, peering into a pot on the stove. Sarge’s mother. She waved a wooden spoon, inviting me to taste the broth. I took it, dipped it in the pot and took a sip. Superb. I gave her a big smile. She countered with a happy grin and began to tell me all about it. What went into it. Special ingredients. How much broth to add and when. 

“Get away from there, Pete.” Sarge, from the door. “You’ll ruin it.”

“I’ve been doing some research.” I licked the spoon.

“Is that so.” A trace of worry in his voice. He lifted a blue apron from a hook on the door. “What have you discovered?”

“There’s more to risotto than meets the eye.” I waved the spoon. “
Sbrinz
is better than parmesan, and I’ll never use store-bought broth again.”

Sarge grabbed the spoon, tossed it in the sink and said, “Why don’t you get yourself a drink. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

“Sure. Take your time.”

I knew the way. Down the hall to the room that looked out on the lake. A pair of worn floral armchairs, a dark stone hearth and a fire spitting sparks at a screen. I dropped to a crouch and stared into the flames.

After a while I heard the floor creak behind me. Sarge set a bottle of white and two glasses on a low tiled table.

“Sorry, Pete. Had to tell the kids a story.”

“Good,” I said. “You can tell me one, too.”

I looked up into his face, dark rings under darker eyes, pale cheeks and the shadow of a beard. He picked up a poker and played with the fire, fed the flames a chunk of pine, stood and slumped into an armchair. He was quiet for a while, then reached for the wine and filled my glass.

“You all right, Sarge? You didn’t sound so good this afternoon.”

He filled his own. We drank. I waited.

He got up and poked at the fire again. “Renata tell you about the gun?”

“She said you called the cops.”

He stared into the fire.

“You want to tell me about it?”

“Not if you’re planning to quote me.”

“I’m not.” It wasn’t a lie. Not yet.

“You wouldn’t want to get hurt.”

“Is that a threat, Sarge?” I reached for the wine and drank. “It sounds like a threat.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“I learn fast,” I said. “You can start with the gun.”

He nodded, settled himself in the chair again and rattled off the story. “SIG Sauer, Swiss army issue. It’s a citizen army, you can take it with you when you’ve done your time. I keep it locked away, over there.” He pointed to a tall, narrow cabinet pushed back in the corner. “There’s only one key.”

“You still have it?”

“Of course.” He leaned back. “But the cabinet wasn’t locked when I went to look.”

I let that sit for a while. “Not much of a story, Sarge.”

“Too bad. It’s all I’ve got.” He closed his eyes. “I’m telling the truth, Pete. Believe it or not.” He fished a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, lit up and sat there watching the fire.

“Renata says the gun was here last night and gone this morning.”

“She said that?” He took a deep drag and blew it out, spread his hands. “She lies, Pete. She lies all the time. You know that. She lied about you. Said she used to blow you. She was lying, right?”

“Happy little family.”

“Fuck off, Pete.”  

I let it pass and moved on. “I hear somebody walked off with Renata’s computer.”

“Yeah.” Sarge nodded. No surprise. A hard smile. “I’m just trying to protect her.”

“By destroying the evidence?”

A shrug. “No evidence, no crime.”

“So that’s how it works. I've always wondered,” I said. “What crime never happened?”

“None of your business.”

“People tell me that.”

“Maybe you should listen.”

I looked around. “What did you do with it?”

He ran a hand back through his hair and allowed himself a smile. “Bottom of the lake.”

He was looking a little queasy, so I took a chance. “Once upon a time, I hear, you drove up from Italy with half a million bucks in cash. In a sports bag.”

The color came back to his cheeks in a rush. “Who told you that?”

“You did, years ago.”

“It was a joke.”

“I saw the money, Sarge.” No joke. “On Gigi’s desk.”

He snuffed the cigarette. “I don’t know what you think you saw but it didn’t come from me.”

“Right,” I said. “How many shares did the sports bag buy?”

“How should I know? Gigi kept changing the prices.”

“Who gave you the bag?”

“One of our investors.”

“Half a million in small bills?”

He smiled, a hard light in his eyes. “Don’t ask, don’t tell. It’s the law of the land, Pete. The one rule Gigi never broke. Some guy shows up with a hundred thousand, wants to invest in one of our start-ups? What were we supposed to do—ask him where he got the money?”

“Why not?”

“It’s not polite.”

I laughed. “Bad for business?”

“You laugh, but that’s the way it works. Checks, gold, garbage bags stuffed full of cash—we’d count it out and hand the guy shares in whatever Gigi was pushing at the time.”

“Bearer shares?”

A nod.

“So what’s the big deal with these things?”

He waited, a look on his face like he’s listening to the wheels squeaking in my skull. “Come on, Pete. Once upon a time you had a brain.”

Any other day, I’d have hit him, hard, but he was telling me something I needed to know. “Bearer shares. Pay the bearer on demand? Like cash?”

He blew a soft sigh. “Yes and no. Depends.”

“On what?”

“A hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred bucks.” He lit a cigarette. “All the time.”

“And a bearer share—“

“Goes up, down, like regular shares. Depends on the market.”

“Got it.” I grunted. “So this guy, let’s say he wants to sell.”

Sarge nodded and blew a smoke ring, watched it rise and drift away. “Go ahead.”

“He runs to Gigi, who buys back the shares.”

“Not so fast.” Sarge got up and threw a log on the fire. “All Gigi does is find the guy a buyer. Somebody else with money to burn. Gigi’s the broker, takes his cut.” He flicked his cigarette into the coals.

I lifted my glass and drained it. “That's it? The bubble pops, the markets crash, everybody wants their cash back—”