Lust, Money & Murder (28 page)

“There’s a man here at Fontanella who says he has an appointment with your father.”

“Who is he?”

“Malcolm Price.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Says he’s a DayPrinto customer.”

“I said I’ve never heard of him.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Get rid of him,” Luigi said, and hung up.

The guard hesitated, looking back down at the list. Giorgio Cattoretti would be very upset if this man was a close friend. Cattoretti was exacting about how guests were treated.

Better to call Tony.

“Send him in,” Tony said, after the guard explained. “I will entertain him until the boss gets back.”

* * *

Tony seated Mr. Price in the Great Hall. The man was very well dressed and seemed distinguished and sophisticated.

“Would you like something to eat or drink?” Tony said. “You like-a Chianti? We have some new from a winery down in Tuscan, it’s-a very nice.”

“Chianti will be fine,” the guest said, with a warm smile. With a trembling hand on his cane, he glanced around the room’s vast interior. “This is incredible. I’ve been to DayPrinto many times, but I have never been to this castle before. Giorgio said I would be impressed, and I certainly am.”

“
Si
,” Tony said, pleased. “Maybe you want some
gnocchi
with truffle? I made it this afternoon.”

“No, no, I don’t want to trouble you.”

“Oh, it’s-a no trouble, believe me! I bring you
pronto
.”

* * *

As Tony returned to the kitchen, he thought,
Such a nice, well-mannered gentleman. It’s a pity he’s ill.

Tony brought the
gnocchi
out on a silver serving tray, along with a selection of their best cheese.

The aging man took one bite of the gnocchi, and his eyes closed.

“
Signore
—are you all right?”

The eyes slowly opened and he started chewing again, an ecstatic look on his face. “My god...this is the best
gnocchi
I’ve ever tasted!” He stared at Tony in awe. “And
you’re
the one who made it?”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Tony was proudly showing Mr. Price around the inside of the castle. When they went upstairs, he stopped in front of Cattoretti’s bedroom.

“Is that...no! It can’t be! An
original
Monet?”

“
Si
, it is original. But
Signore
Cattoretti, he don’t like...”

It was too late. The guest had already entered the bedroom. He hobbled over to the Monet painting. Leaning on his cane, he started inspecting it closely.

“Incredible.” He glanced at Tony. “Did you know, Claude Monet is one of my favorite artists?”

“
Si
,” Tony said uneasily, glancing back at the door. He didn’t want to be rude, but the bedroom was off limits to everyone—he wasn’t even allowed in here himself. Signore Cattoretti would blow his top if he knew.

“Oh, no!” Mr. Price said. “It looks like something splashed on the corner here.” He pointed.

Tony leaned closer. “Where?”

Suddenly there was a gun barrel thrust into his side. “Move and I’ll blow a hole in you, you prissy faggot.”

CHAPTER 3.2

It was after midnight when Elaine and Cattoretti left the theater.

The whole evening had been like a dream. After the opera had ended, Cattoretti took Elaine backstage. She met Andrea Bocelli and other members of the cast in person. It was thrilling to meet him—he had a larger than life presence, even more so than when he was on the stage.

Elaine had been to the opera before, in Washington, and the performances were moving, but nothing compared to what she had witnessed this evening. Seeing
Madame Butterfly
at La Scala, the very theater where Puccini’s masterpiece had premiered over a hundred years ago, and cast with some of the best performers in the world, was an experience she would never forget.

When the Rolls Royce turned down the road that led to Castello Fontanella, Cattoretti was holding her hand, stroking it, still talking about the opera. She knew that he wanted to sleep with her tonight—it was obvious. She wondered if he considered that “part of the deal.” And she wondered what would happen if she resisted.

“Did you live in America once?” Elaine asked curiously.

Cattoretti raised an eyebrow. “Yes I did. Why?”

“Your English,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

“Thank you,
cara
. But I would rather not discuss my time in the United States.” He absently touched the scar on his cheek. “It was a very long time ago, and I am a different person now.”

As they turned down the driveway, he squeezed her hand and said, “Before we move ahead with our plan, there is an understanding we must have between each other.”

“What’s that?” she said uneasily.

Cattoretti turned and looked into her eyes. “You must reveal to me every defect you see in my money, Elaine. Every mistake.”

“Of course I will,” she said.

“No holding back, like you did today.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

“Good.” Cattoretti smiled, and he stroked her hand. “I would consider anything less a betrayal.”

* * *

When the Rolls Royce passed the guard house, Cattoretti turned sharply and peered at it. No one was inside. The front gate was wide open.

Cattoretti said something to the driver, concerned. There was a brief exchange. Cattoretti looked angry.

As the car pulled into the courtyard, Tony came running out the kitchen door, his face white as chalk. Cattoretti got out of the car. Tony was talking rapidly in Italian, waving his hands, apologizing for something. He looked terrified. Elaine couldn’t understand a word.

Cattoretti brushed past him and went inside the Castle.

“What happened?” Elaine asked Tony.

“Oh, Tony in big trouble! Tony in
molto
trouble!” He skittered back into the kitchen, wringing his hands.

Elaine found Cattoretti standing in the Great Hall, yelling at his son. Luigi was looking at the floor, ashamed.

“
Sciocco
!” Cattoretti shouted, and slapped him.
“
Perchè non mi avete telefonato?
”

Luigi said something to defend himself. Cattoretti pulled his cellphone from his pocket. Elaine remembered that he had switched it off when the opera started, but he hadn’t pulled it from his pocket since.

So angry he didn’t even see Elaine, he turned and trotted up the marble staircase, leaving his son standing there with stinging red cheeks.

Elaine started to ask Luigi what happened, but when she saw the look on his face, she changed her mind.

She slowly went upstairs and cautiously entered Cattoretti’s bedroom. She had not seen it before, as the door had been closed when Tony had shown her around the castle. All the furniture in the room was turned over, drawers scattered everywhere.

Cattoretti was standing in front of the open door of a wall safe. There were bundles of money inside—he was counting through it.

“
Merda!
” he hissed. He slammed the heavy iron door shut.

“What happened?” Elaine said.

Cattoretti whirled around, his eyes seething with rage. “He took your money, that is what happened! Eight million goddam Euros!”

“Who took it?” Elaine said, dumbfounded.

“Gene Lassiter!”

Elaine was shocked, and she looked around the room. Lassiter had gotten into the castle?

“But...how?”

“That idiot Tony let him in here,” Cattoretti said, running his hand through his hair. “I...I cannot believe it—he just walked right into my house and walked away with millions!”

Elaine looked back at the safe. “But how did he open—”

“I keep the damn combination on a piece of paper under a desk drawer. I am a bigger fool than my son.” He ran his hand through his hair again. “I never thought anyone could get past all the...” His mouth still open, he looked suspiciously at Elaine. “How did Lassiter find me?”

She backed away slightly. She didn’t like the cast in his eye.

“I have no idea how he found you.”

“To find me, he must have found
you
.”

Cattoretti’s arm shot out and grabbed her wrist. “How did he know where you were?”

“You’re hurting me,” Elaine said, yanking her arm free.

Cattoretti kept looking at her, but suddenly his expression changed. “Your suitcase!”

He briskly walked out of the room and down the stairs. Elaine followed along, but lagged far enough behind to stay out of his reach. He went through the ground floor and up into the East Tower, to the bedroom.

Glancing around the room, he spotted her suitcase. He picked it up and threw it on the bed, then began rifling through it, unzipping pockets, roughly pulling items out, tossing them this way and that. The little wind-up turkey Nick had given her hit the stone floor.

“What are you looking for?” Elaine said, picking it up.

Cattoretti found something in the lining. Pulling out a pocket knife, he made a small slit in the fabric. The object was a little black box the size of a small makeup compact.

“What is it?” Elaine said.

“A GPS tracker,” he said, peering closely at it. He dropped it on the stone floor, then stomped on it with his heel. It shattered to pieces, electronics spilling out on the stones.

He looked at her accusingly.

“I had no idea it was there,” Elaine said. “Lassiter must have hidden it there when he put the data key in my suitcase.”

Cattoretti just stared at her, breathing hard, the air whistling though his nostrils.

“Do you think—do you think I would actually be in
cahoots
with Gene Lassiter?”

Cattoretti stared at her another moment, then his anger suddenly faded. “No, of course not.” He reached for her, and she flinched.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, gently touching her upper arm.

Elaine swallowed. She hadn’t realized how afraid she had been.

He ran his hand through his hair again. “It is just that I have never had anyone come into my own house before and do something like this...” He looked at the window. “It makes me feel like all my security here is a joke! Jesus Christ—what do I pay those people for? And that goddam Tony—”

“I’m sure it wasn’t Tony’s fault.”

Cattoretti looked at her again, and sighed. “No, of course you are right. It is not Tony’s fault, he is like a child.” Cattoretti looked down at her hand—she was still clutching the little wind-up turkey. One of the plastic feet had broken off.

He reached for it, but she moved it away.

“Sentimental value?” he asked, when she looked back at him.

“Yes.” For some reason, she didn’t want him to touch it.

After he left the room, she glanced at the Chopard necklace on the dresser, and then at the little gadget in her hand. It was ironic, she thought, that a broken toy an orphan would likely toss aside meant more than all the expensive gifts in the world.

* * *

When Cattoretti went back downstairs, he poured himself a cognac to calm his nerves. He pulled a Cuban cigar from the humidor in the Great Hall and then went outside and took a slow stroll around the courtyard, as he often did before he went to bed. The cool air relaxed him and cleared his mind.

He paused by the drinking well, looking up at the window in the East Tower, where Elaine Brogan was sleeping.

Did you live in America once?
she had asked.

Giorgio Cattoretti absently touched the scar on his face, and he remembered when he had decided to move to the United States.

CHAPTER 3.3

Cattoretti grew up in the
Cinecittà
or “Cinema City” section of Rome, where the Italian film industry was located. While Frederico Fellini and his peers may have made their masterpieces in
Cinecittà
, there was nothing else glamorous
about the suburb
. Giorgio grew up in a microscopic two room flat that housed his parents and his four brothers and sisters. His father was a bricklayer and his mother worked in a shoe factory.

Giorgio was the eldest. By age 13, he was roaming the streets, desperately trying to find a way out, any way out.

One hot summer afternoon he slipped into the side door of an air-conditioned cinema, merely to escape the heat. What he saw on the big silver screen by chance on that sultry afternoon changed his life forever. The film was
The Godfather
. It had just taken Italy by storm. Giorgio had of course seen plenty of gangster movies before, but the splendor in which the fictitious Corleone family thrived in America left Giorgio utterly awed. To the young and impressionable Italian, the characters in the story were all real people—Michael and Sonny and Fredo and Don Vito—living thrilling, dangerous, fascinating lives in New York City...the complete antithesis of the hopeless future Cattoretti saw stretched out in front of him.