Lust, Money & Murder (38 page)

Elaine was in such a deep state of shock and grief at Nick’s death, she felt nothing. She had showered and dressed that morning like an automaton, her body going through the movements but her mind and emotions completely shut down. After Cattoretti had shot Nick, Luigi had dragged the body down to the dungeon.

When Tony prepared breakfast for her in the morning, Cattoretti was busy packing. She and Tony were alone in the Great Hall. Gone was the warm, jovial character that had welcomed her to the castle a few days ago. This version of Tony was a jittery, anxious little man who looked like he might fall apart at the slightest provocation. His face was pale, his black hair disheveled, and his hands were trembling.

When he reached to pour her coffee, he fumbled, and her cup crashed to the floor.

“
Merda
!” he muttered.

Elaine squatted and helped him pick up the pieces.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“No, Tony not all right. Tony
nervoso
e
spaventato
!” he declared. “I never seen nothin’ lika-a in my life. I been a workin’ for
Signore
Cattoretti for five-a years, and I never seen
nothin’
like-a that.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and glanced at the doorway. “Two dead bodies in the dungeon! I never seen-a dead body before,
signora
! Never!”

“What do you mean, two dead bodies?”

“The man who-a broke in your room, and the other one.”

“What other one?”

Tony made a wavy gesture with his fingers. “With the long black curly hair. He was in the trunk of the Rolls Royce, with big-a hole in his head!”

Gypsy
, Elaine thought sickeningly. So Cattoretti had killed him, too. The thought that Nick’s and Gypsy’s bodies had been dumped together down in the basement of the castle was so repugnant she almost vomited.

“Tony gonna look for a new job,” he whispered, looking at the door that led to the Great Hall. “Tony don’t like this place no more.”

* * *

Cattoretti drove Elaine to Vernazza in the Porsche. It was a three hour drive. They stopped for coffee in Tortona, a beautiful 2,000-year-old village, at a bar on the main
piazza
.

It was about 2 pm when they drove up the steep hillside road that led to Cattoretti’s secluded seaside villa. He called it his “hideaway.” It afforded a splendid view of the sea.

Elaine felt nothing. She occasionally found herself giggling, and at other times, hot tears silently coursed down her cheeks.

She only had one conscious thought.
Nick LaGrange was the only man who ever loved me.

* * *

When they reached the villa at Vernazza, Cattoretti parked the car and carried their luggage inside.

Dazed, Elaine surveyed the living room. It was outfitted with modern furniture, in black leather, with a large desk that faced the Mediterranean.

Cattoretti unlocked a cabinet in the desk and deposited the Gucci bag there, relocking it. Elaine noticed the cabinet contained a set of file folders.

“I do a lot of private work here,” he said, as if he felt the need to explain. “I often use this little villa as a retreat, a place to clear my mind.”

He just stood there, smiling at her. She was wearing the black Prada dress he had given her the first day, and the Fendi heels.

He had been chattering on the entire trip as if nothing unusual had happened. She had barely heard anything he’d said, but she had gotten the gist of it. A Secret Service agent who she’d had a little fling with in Bulgaria had shown up at the castle, drawn his gun, and Cattoretti had killed him in self-defense. He was sorry that the man had died, but what did she expect him to do? Let the man kill him?

Of course Cattoretti did not know she knew about Gypsy, too. He had no excuses for that. Gypsy had been killed in cold blood.

“You look so beautiful in that outfit,” he said softly, still gazing at her.

He slowly approached her, then embraced her and hungrily kissed her, running his tongue deeply into her mouth the way he had last night.

This time Elaine did not resist. There was no point in fighting him any longer. He was all she had now. She had nowhere to go, no one who cared about her, and no future with anyone but him.

During the trip today he told her he was going to set up a numbered Swiss bank account for her and deposit the eight million Euros there. That her passport would be there soon and she could go wherever she wanted.

He had no intention of doing any of that, she knew. He was going to turn her into one of his whores, nothing more. He would use her brain to improve the quality of his counterfeits, when he needed it, but other than that, she would be his slave, like everyone else around him.

Cattoretti was soon on top of her, grinding his body into hers, pounding away at her like an animal.

* * *

They spent most of the next two days in the villa’s bedroom. Elaine was there, and she wasn’t there. The earth spun on its axis. Night became day, and day became night again. Cattoretti was insatiable. He did things to her that no man had ever done. She let him satisfy all his cravings, no matter how depraved they seemed. He tied her up, he ejaculated on her face, he sodomized her.

Elaine succumbed to everything. Emotionally, she was numb. At times she felt like a mannequin that he twisted into various sensual poses to please him or give him better access to the parts of her he desired. Every now and then she would look down at his ankles and expect to see hooves attached, but there were only two ordinary feet there, with toes, just like everyone else’s. He was a flesh and blood human being.

But what kind of human being?

* * *

Every now and then they “came up for air,” as Cattoretti put it. They hiked up and down the cobblestone streets of the village, looking at the views, and the narrow houses that were painted in pink, blue and yellow pastels. They ate the local cuisine—
cappon magro
, a pyramid made of fresh vegetables and a half dozen different types of fish, and the
torta pasqualina
, a cake made of 18 layers of light pasta and stuffed with
ricotta
cheese.

Elaine became more animated. She smiled, she laughed, she did all the things that Cattoretti expected her to do.

She had ceased being Elaine Brogan. She was someone else, an actress in a movie. When they were in bed, Cattoretti told her about his days of working as an extra on films. That’s what she felt like—an extra on a film. None of this was real, it was make believe.

As time passed, a thought began to nag her, one that she had almost forgotten about in her grief.
He’ll find out about the IN GOD WE TRUST flaw. And when he does, he will kill me.

She began to hear his voice in her head uttering the words he had spoken after they had gone to the opera.

You must reveal to me every defect you see in my money, Elaine. Every mistake. I would consider anything less than that a betrayal.

* * *

While they were in Vernazza, his cellphone rang often. If it happened while they were in bed, he wouldn’t answer. Otherwise he would take the call out on the balcony, or in the lobby, if they were in a restaurant. Each time he took a call Elaine began to fear that he was receiving the news that the counterfeits were worthless, that the fakes wouldn’t pass through bank verifying machines.

And she expected to see a gun pointed at her face.

But he would always come back after the phone calls with the same warm look on his face, and say, “I am sorry,
cara
. Business is such a bother.”

* * *

Late in the afternoon of the fourth day, when they were walking along a path that overlooked the sea, he said, “Have you ever been to San Remo?”

“No,” Elaine said.

“It has the largest casino in Italy. You would like it. A very colorful crowd gambles there.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were driving up the coast, heading towards San Remo. It was almost sunset. The highway ran up and down the rugged cliffs along the shore. Soon, the sky exploded into a riot of orange and indigo and violet.

The Gucci bag was in the back seat. Inside was the fake money he had been carrying around, the money that was badly flawed, the money that wouldn’t pass through even the older-model currency machines. The fake currency with the IN GOD WE TRUST phrase printed in the wrong place.

He had locked it away when they had arrived at the villa, but now he was taking it to the casino.

Did he plan on gambling with it?

The casino at San Remo was set up on a hill, amidst several expensive-looking hotels, restaurants, and cafes. As they approached it, Cattoretti slowed the Porsche a little, then brought the car to a stop just in front of the sidewalk that led up to the entrance.

He smiled, reached into his pocket, and pulled out an Italian passport. “Just as I promised,” he said, handing it to her.

Elaine opened it. DE LA FONTAINE, MARIE it said, next to her photo. It was the same name she had used at the opera reception.

“I don’t understand,” she muttered.
Why is he giving me the passport now?
she thought.

He reached into the back seat and put the Gucci bag in Elaine’s lap. “You are going inside the casino and change all of this into chips. I have some business to attend to. I’ll join you in a little while. Gamble a little bit, enjoy yourself.”

Elaine looked down at the bag. She was suddenly filled with terror. The first real feeling she’d had since Nick had died.

“But...what are you going to do?”

“I will have a coffee and a cigar over there,” Cattoretti said, motioning to an outdoor cafe across the street. “I will join you at the tables in a little while. I have fallen behind on my business calls, and I need to catch up.”

Elaine’s throat was so dry she couldn’t find her voice.

He gave her a puzzled look. “Is something wrong,
cara
?”

“I—I thought you weren’t going to change any of the counterfeits in Italy.”

He shrugged, glancing down at the bag. “It is only fifty thousand. This casino is owned by a French company—they send all their foreign notes to their main office, in Marseilles.” He paused. “Anyway, this is a good opportunity to put all our hard work to the test, Elaine. I also happen to know that the currency exchange in this casino just updated the verifying equipment with the latest software updates.”

“Oh.” Elaine swallowed.

He put his arm on her shoulder. “
Cara
, you should have more confidence in yourself! You went over my counterfeits ‘with a fine-tooth comb,’ as you put it. You have nothing to fear.” He patted her knee. “Now be a good girl and go change the money.”

Taking the bag, she slowly opened the door and got out of the car.

Cattoretti leaned over, smiling up at her. “And try not to gamble it all away before I get there!”

* * *

As Elaine neared the casino entrance, she suddenly found her senses clear and sharp. She glanced over her shoulder. Cattoretti was already sitting at one of the outdoor tables at the cafe.

He smiled at her and waved, his phone already to his ear.

A uniformed man opened the glass door for Elaine and she went inside the lobby of the sprawling casino. She could hear the steady dinging and mechanical grinding of the slot machines.

She passed a security guard. He gave her a cursory glance as she walked by. The currency exchange was busy--there were a few people standing in line to change money into chips, or change chips back into money.

There were security cameras everywhere. Elaine glimpsed a sign on the wall.

- WARNING -

ANYONE CAUGHT TRYING TO PASS AS MUCH AS ONE COUNTERFEIT BANKNOTE ON THESE PREMISES WILL BE TURNED OVER TO THE POLICE

The warning was repeated in Italian and French.

Elaine’s hands were already damp with sweat.

This was a test. Cattoretti wanted her to try changing the money, and take the fall if it was detected as counterfeit.

Then an even more terrifying thought hit her. Hadn’t Lassiter told her that a few months ago, an Italian hooker had changed some of the fakes at this very casino and then disappeared?

Behind one of the counters, she saw a clerk feeding a stack of Euro notes into one of the high-speed verifying machines. There was no way she could convert the money here—the machines would set off alarms instantly.

Now fully out of the passive daze she’d been in for the last three days, she frantically glanced around the lobby—there had to be another way out of the building...but where would she go? All she had was a fake passport that Cattoretti had made for her and a bag full of worthless counterfeits.

She wandered into the crowded casino, past the slot machines and around the blackjack tables, her heart thudding harder with each passing moment. Her only hope was to pass the fake currency off onto someone else. But who? And how?