Suicide Italian Style (Crime Made in Italy Book 1) (19 page)

“Voilà,” said Anastasia. “And now. Tape, please.” She handed me the roll.

I tore off a couple of inches and, following her instructions, positioned it directly above a print on the glass. Then I lowered it to the sugar-white whorl, pressed it to the surface, and slowly pulled it away.

“Let me see,” said Anastasia.

I held it up for her to see. Definitely a fingerprint of sorts. A little fuzzy. “Yes. Good. Very good.”

I wasn’t so sure.

“Would anyone like another drink?” Renata stood up. I raised my hand, and then put a finger to my lips. She reached for the vodka and poured herself a shot.

“Briefcase,” said Anastasia.

I took it from her lap and set it on my knees. The small glass window under the grip was about the size of a postage stamp. Just enough space for a fingerprint. I lowered the tape to the window, sugar side down, and waited. A little green light came on. A buzz. A click.

“Fantastic,” I said. “You’re a genius, Stazz.”

The green light went out. A red light came on and began to blink. A long beep. Silence. The red light went out.

“Or maybe not,” I said.

“No good,” said Anastasia. “We try another.”

Renata reached for her drink and raised it. “Cheers.”

There were three more whorled prints on the water glass.

When we were done with them Anastasia sat for a moment, a dull sadness in her eyes. “Too much trouble,” she said. “Not worth.”

I let a hand fall to her knee. She slapped it away. “Vodka, Pescatore. I need a drink.” 

And from the shadows of the doorway came a voice. “Make that two, would you, Pete?”

I shivered and turned to look at him. “Long time, no see, Sarge. Cops buy your story?”

Unprintable response. Tiny icicles hung from his mustache. He tore off his glasses, yanked a shirt-tail from his trousers and rubbed off the fog. When he was done he put them back on his nose, peered down at me and said, “That’s it, huh.”

He stared at the briefcase on my knees and began to rock slowly side to side, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Anastasia snuggled up close to me. A long arm settled around my shoulders while the other snagged the briefcase.

A phone rang.

“That your phone, Pete?” Sarge pointed at a shiny black cell phone buzzing across the tabletop.

It was mine. My new phone. I grabbed it and took the call.

It was Julia. She was a good half hour away, she said, and the lights were still following her.

“You know where I am, right?”

“I can read a map.”

“Pull over, turn off the engine and tell me what happens. I’ll wait.”

Sarge was staring at my phone. For some reason he began to laugh. It was a sick, drunken wheeze. He reached and grabbed it from my hand. “
Sei scemo
, Pescatore? Where’d you get this?”

“Give it here.”

He shook his head, put the phone to his ear and said, “Julia? Sarge here. Somebody’s tracking this phone.” A pause. “Listen. In a few minutes they’re going to disappear. Wait until they’re gone, then come on up.”

“Gimme the phone, Sarge—”

“Turn off the lights.”

“What—”

“Renata? Lights out. Now!”

The house went dark.

Sarge stomped to the front door and yanked it open. I got up and ran after him, watched from the porch as he tramped across the field to the edge of the cliff that plunged to granite far below. There he stopped, wound up and hurled the damn thing out into the night.

A couple minutes later he pushed in past me. I followed him inside and pulled the door shut behind me. “What you do that for?”

He was breathing hard. “Your phone’s got a GPS beacon, Pete. Buggers are just down the road.”

“What?”

“Stay away from the windows.” He fell to his knees. “Get down, down!”

I dropped to the floor beside him. Minutes passed, maybe ten.

In the silence we heard it, tires crunching slowly through the snow. It stopped. A door slammed shut. Light footsteps on the stairs. A knock.

A thin, frail voice.

Another knock. 

“Pete?”

I scrambled to my feet and rushed to the door.

“Jules, you all right?” I pulled her inside. She was shivering.

“They turned around and went back.”

Sarge appeared at my side. "They're following the phone."

I turned a puzzled look at him. “Why didn’t you just turn it off?”

He shook his head. “I want them to think you still have it. They’ll need snowshoes to get anywhere near it now.”

Renata padded to the wall switch and flipped on the lights.

“Who were they? Jules?”

A shrug lifted her shoulders. “It was a big silver SUV. I couldn’t see who was driving. I think the windows were smoked.” She took a slow look around. “What’s this, a pajama party?”

Stazz fell back on the couch, leaned forward and flicked a lighter under a cigarette.

I turned back to Julia. “You got it?”

“In here.” She tapped her purse. “Where’s the briefcase?”

“Sarge.” Gone. “Sarge?”

A faint light washed in from the kitchen at the end of the hall. I took Julia by the arm and led her to the light and found him hunched over the briefcase, peering at the dark glass plate beneath the grip. Julia set her purse on the kitchen table, opened it and pulled out a transparent freezer bag.

Sarge ran his hands along the seams of the briefcase, searching for a weak point, a button to push. I tossed a quick nod to Julia and steadied myself. I knew what was coming. She extracted the first one from the bag. It looked like a sausage, brown and raw. I felt the bile rise up in my gorge. It was a finger. Chopped off. And another one. She laid them out on the table. I counted. Four fingers and a thumb. I grabbed the edge of the table. Keep me steady.

“Which one?” said Julia.

I didn’t get it.

“Which one do you want?”

I shrugged. I remembered something Billy Bob said. Something about Gigi giving them the finger. I leaned in over the table. “Try the middle one.”

“Which one is that?”

“Never mind.” I picked up a finger, dropped it, swore, picked it up again, positioned the fingertip on the glass and pressed it.
Bzzt
. A red light.
Beep. Beep. Beep
. Silence. 

I tried a few more times, ran through all the fingers and tried the thumb. Nothing.

“Interesting,” said Anastasia. “Goldoni fingers?” She was leaning in the doorway. “How did you get them?”

Julia chewed on her lower lip. “Funeral home.”

“You bite them off?”

Julia plunged a hand into her purse, retrieved her tools and handed them over. Poultry shears and a bread knife.

Anastasia took them, pulled out a chair and sat down to examine them. “Interesting.” She reached for a finger, held it up to the light. “Why does not work?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

Sarge opened the fridge, then the freezer compartment. “Where’s the vodka? I swear I left a bottle.”

I flipped a slow nod toward Anastasia and said, “All gone.”

She let her head rock from side to side, stretched out a long arm and said, “Central heating.”

Renata drifted into the kitchen. Her gaze came to rest on the fingers. Her knees buckled. I caught her before she hit the floor, lifted her and carried her out and down the hall to the fire. I had Sarge on my heels, Julia right behind him with a blanket and a pillow. “I was a nurse once,” she said, to no one in particular.

I lowered Renata to the couch and left them to it, went back and sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the fingers until it hit me. I called out, “Jules?”

She came padding down the hall and stuck her head in the door. “What?”

“Which hand?”

Silence for a moment. “Oh, no.” She buried her head in her hands.

Sarge thumped in with a bottle of whisky. “What’s the matter?”

I picked up the thumb. “Wrong hand,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Gigi was a lefty.”

“Life,” said Anastasia. A sad smile rippled over her lips and died. “Tale told by idiot.”

Sarge shoved the bottle across the table. “Idiot?”

“Dostoevsky,” I said. “Or maybe Tolstoy.” I pulled out the cork, sniffed it.

Anastasia shook her head. “Shakespeare.”

I hammered the cork back into the bottle.

“Pete,” she said, remembering something.

“
Da
.”

“You owe me a story.” She wrapped her arms around the briefcase.

Sarge reached for the bottle, bit the cork and eased it out. He poured, and drank. From somewhere inside him came a song. An old song,
whiter shade of pale
. He reached into his jacket, withdrew a sleek black phone and took the call.

I leaned across the table. “What?”

His hand sliced a line across his throat. “Yes. No.” He covered the phone, jerked his thumb at the door and mouthed the word, “Run.”

I grabbed Anastasia and pulled her to her feet.

Sarge was up and pacing, waving his other arm at me, urging me out the door. “OK, Tommy. See you in a few.” He hung up. “You got two minutes, Pete. They’re just over the hill.”

“Stazz.” I wrapped a scarf around my neck and reached for my coat. “Come on, baby. Let's go.”

It was cold and dark on the road that morning, me and Anastasia on the Harley, her long arms locked around my waist and the briefcase jammed up between us. A half hour into the drive I slowed and turned into a road heading south that would take us to the clinic the long way around.

An hour or so later we rolled into town, most of the tourists still in their beds. Later they would fall out into the streets, heading for the slopes or maybe the races at the old Olympic bobsled run that dropped from St. Moritz to the town below. I kept an eye on the mirrors and scanned the streets for a silver SUV. Nothing. If we were lucky the boys were still chasing the phone that Sarge had tossed down the mountain.

About ten minutes later we arrived at the clinic, a two-story villa set back from the street amid dark pines and larches heavy with snow. Anastasia swung off the Harley and stamped with the briefcase to the barred iron gate. I parked and climbed off. A brass plaque bolted to the wall had a black button and a speaker grill. I pushed the button.

A voice crackled in the morning air. What did I want.

“Here to see a resident, Aida Goldoni.”

A pause, then the voice, firm. “Signora Goldoni does not receive guests. No visitors. I’m sorry.”

“It’s important.”

“No visitors. Doctor’s orders.”

“Let me speak to the doctor.”

“Your name?”

“Pescatore.”

A long pause. “Pescatore. First name Peter?”

“Yes.”

“One moment.”

A loud metallic click as the gate lock sprang open. I pushed in, Anastasia crowding me, briefcase in hand. A clump of snow fell at my feet. I looked up into the trees and beyond to the mountains rising into gray skies.

Another door, another black button. A click and the door slid into the wall.

“This way please.” Tall blond fellow, slim. I’d seen him before. At the church. Yes. Anastasia at my side as he led the way down a long hall to an elevator and up two floors. Out. The air smelled of roses. We passed a door with a printed panel: Aroma Therapy. Anastasia sneezed.

Our host made a left, ducked into a room and padded to the window. He drew back the curtain. Gray alpine light fell across the bed and the woman’s slender limbs beneath a light wool blanket. “This is Mr. Pescatore, Aida.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I know him.”

I stepped up to the bed, “Hello, Aida.”

The old woman held out her hand. Older now than I remembered her. She was always older. Older than Gigi, older than all of us.

“I saw you at the funeral,” she said. The voice low, strong. “Thank you for coming.”

“No trouble.”

“Gigi always spoke highly of you, Mr Pescatore. He was very fond of you.”

“Thank you, Signora.” I took her hand and squeezed it. “I remember him well. He was a friend.”

She shifted her gaze to Anastasia, smiled. “And you are?”

“A friend of Pete’s,” she said. “Anastasia.”

“Mr Pescatore—” The doc stepped in between us. “I must ask you to keep your visit brief. Mrs Goldoni is not accustomed to visitors. She is … frail.”

“You think?” said Anastasia. “Her spirit is strong. I can see in her eyes.”

“Even so,” he said. “I shall be back in ten minutes.”

Aida pushed herself up to a sitting position. Anastasia moved around to the side of the bed, fluffed a pillow and tucked it in behind the old woman.

“Thank you, my dear.” She turned back to me. “I expect you’ve come wanting to talk about Gigi.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You’ve not been to visit me before.”

“I was told you were kept here against your will, and that you were—”

“Nonsense,” she said. “I’m perfectly healthy. I simply prefer to be left alone. Staff are under orders to send everyone away.”

“So I’m lucky to see you—”

“Perhaps. I’ve been expecting you.” A faint smile. “Gigi said you would come, if … if anything happened. He trusted you.”

“Yes. It was a terrible shock. The news.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Signora Aida,” said Anastasia, lifting the leather case to the bed. “You know what is in the briefcase, don’t you?”

“Of course. Gigi told me. He confessed.” Her eyes went black. “He was always confessing. I was sick of it. I told him to be quiet. I didn’t want to hear about Julia anymore. Always Julia, his little English tart.
Puttana, puttana, maledetta puttana
.”

The word was a whip with a hundred tails. I had the feeling she’d been using it on herself for years.

“Shh. Quiet now.” Anastasia reached out and took her hand.

“Did your husband try to sell his secrets?”

“Perhaps.” Her face grew dark with slow, subterranean pain.

I leaned in again, “Who wanted to buy them, Aida? One of his Italian friends, an investor, perhaps?”

She considered the possibility. “There are so many.”

“Or someone from the bank?” said Anastasia.

No response.

“What about the casino? I understand he owed them a lot of money.”

“You must ask Arturo.” A faint smile crossed her face. “Arturo is the gambler.”

“Bellomo? Arturo Bellomo?” I leaned in close to her. “Do you know him?”

“Of course. Who doesn’t know Arturo? He is a vault himself, all the secrets are there.”

The morning light made her look older still. She drew up her knees, wrapped her arms around them and hugged herself.

Anastasia captured Aida’s hands and folded them around a glass of water. “Drink, my dear.”

The widow’s eyes sought out the shadows in the pale light of the curtained room. “Will you poison me, Julia? Is that what you want? Kill me, keep my husband all to yourself?”

Anastasia caught my hand with a gentle squeeze. Pay no attention.

“She tried to steal him.” A broken smile fell through her face and disappeared in the abyss below. “Thought she’d take him away from me.”

“Julia?”

“
Maledetta puttana
.”

“Was Julia going away with Gigi?”

“She thought so.”

“Where to?”

“He wouldn’t say. It was all a big secret.” Aida drank, thrust out her arm and dropped the glass. It shattered on the floor. “But it was we who were going away. Gigi and I.”

Her chest rose and fell, a wave rolling through her. I swept the broken glass into a pile with my shoe, waiting for the pain to wash away.

“She discovered the truth, you know.”

“What?” Anastasia again. “What is truth?”

“That Gigi was going away with me. With
me
.”

Anastasia sent a hand to the old woman’s face, brushed the hair away with a gentle caress. “Of course he was going away with you.”

The widow’s hand fell to the briefcase. She pressed a forefinger to the little glass plate and held it there.
Bzzt
. Then she lifted the case, brought the glass up close to one eye and held it.
Bzzt. Bzzt. Click.
Open. I took a sharp breath. Anastasia reached and swept the case quickly to the foot of the bed.

My hands shook as I lifted the lid. Papers. Loose. I began to shuffle through them, snatched one and peered at it. A share certificate. Another one. Dozens of them. Bearer shares.

“
Porca puttana,
” I breathed.

Anastasia took my arm. “What?”

No names, no accounts. No list of members in some secret lodge. No Ali Baba, no forty thieves. Just paper. “Worthless. Completely useless.”

“Let me see.” She reached into the case, took the shares in hand.

Aida had begun to sing, softly.
Somewhere over the rainbow
.

The case was empty. Nothing else. I ran my fingers over green felt lining. Smooth. Nothing.

“Look. Look at this,” said Anastasia. “What is this?” She flipped a share certificate over. A drawing on the back. Black and white stripes. Thin stripes, thick stripes, broad white spaces in between. Like stickers on food at a grocery store, or an airline luggage label. A band of vertical black and white stripes, drawn by hand on the back of every share certificate. Black ink on white paper.

“Wait a minute. Here.” Bound up with the shares was a bright blue folder. I opened it. A sheaf of papers, bound with a black metal clip. Each of the pages had a series of columns drawn in black ink:
Account Holder. Bank. Account number. Balance.
Two more columns.
Beneficial Owner. Address.
I ran down the list of names. Johns. Franken. Morris. Harrison. Torres. Beside each a street address, in New York. New Jersey. Texas. California. A long, long list. Page after page.

Anastasia said something in Russian, wonder and triumph in her voice.

I shrugged. “A thousand? A thousand names.”

Gigi’s widow lifted her voice. “Way up high. There’s a land that I heard of—“

“Once in a lullaby,” I said, and looked up at her. A smile.

Anastasia whispered, “Treasure.”

“Dynamite.” I handed her the folder and set the shares on the bed. My fingers ran over the lining once again.

“Go, now.” The old woman shivered and hugged herself. “It is cold. You must go now.”

I picked up the case and carried it to the window. And there, in the early morning light, I saw it. A shadow drew a short, slim line along the green felt floor of the case. Something was there, beneath the surface.

“Anastasia.” I took her hand. “See that? Can you feel it?” I pressed her finger lightly to the rise in the felt lining.

“Wait.” She whirled away and was back in a moment, pressing a nail file into my hands. “That’s all I have.”

I jabbed a tiny hole with the tip of the file and slowly sawed through the felt. An inch, no more. I slid a fingernail in the tear and eased out a slim, rectangular wafer. Blue plastic, shiny brass tabs. A memory card.  

I carried the briefcase back to the bed and set it  beside the old woman. I held up the tiny card in front of her eyes. “I’ve found something, Aida. What is it?”

“Ahh, yes,” she whispered. “Our ticket to paradise.” She caressed the leather case with her fingers, reached for the shares, slipped them into the case and slapped the lid shut.
Click. Bzzt
. A green light blinked, turned red for a moment and went out.

“Aida! Open the case. Please. Aida.”

“You have everything you need.”

The doc was at the door. “Time’s up.”

“Get out,” said Aida. “Go! Now!”

I reached for the briefcase, slid a hand in under the grip and eased it gently from her grasp.

Anastasia grabbed my hand and pulled me away. We slipped out and down the hall to a staircase, down and out a side door into the frozen morning. A paved stone path wound back under the trees to the iron gate and the road. I pushed out the gate and stomped to the Harley.

“The camera,” said Anastasia, wrapping herself up in her Siberian wolves. “We must document.”

I slapped my pockets, one after another. The camera. There. Inside pocket. I dug it out.

Anastasia grabbed it, turned and took a shot of the clinic through the trees, then one of the iron gate and the long stone wall, the brass plate with the name of the clinic and the street number.

“Done?” I took it from her, flipped it over and removed the memory card from the slot, took the card I’d snatched from the briefcase, and snapped it into the camera.

“Let me see.” Anastasia took it from me, pressed a couple of buttons. Nothing.

“Take it with you.”

The Harley made a noise like a dog getting sick. I tried again. Finally. Sputtering.

Anastasia gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth. I whirled and saw it—a SUV, silver, roaring toward us. Think, Pescatore. Fast. I climbed off, grabbed her by the waist and flew her up on the bike. “Go! Now!”

I turned, slowly, made sure they saw the briefcase in my hands, and dived from the road down into the trees. My boots crunched over the snow into a clearing and a street and through a hedge. There. Run. The bobsled run. Briefcase first, up and over.

I scrambled up and over the fence and dropped to the other side and rolled and slipped and fell. Up again. And there. A small sled hung upright on a concrete wall. I tore it from the rack and slapped it to the ice, slammed the briefcase to the sled and thumped up after it, jamming my heels, frog legged, pushing off.   

Down, down, head first into a tunnel of ice. Faster, faster —
Ohhh, shshsh —
dropping down, down, whipping around, fear slicing through me, tearing me up. Fighting to see through the roaring ice, the sled rumbling beneath my chest and riding up high, hauling me up and out, higher and higher, whipping round the curve and back into the chute. Pain in my hands, ice hammering my skull. Will it never end, no never, never, white light flashing and flooding my brain, my body one with the sled, hurtling round the curves, dropping down, down, hugging a black leather briefcase to my chest, a voice looping over and over in my head
,
droning
this is the end, the end, the end.