Project Rome

by Nicolas Crown

  Callaghan P.I.

  The Italian Project

  ©Copyright 2015 - All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. All characters within the book are fictitious and any similarity between them and those of real people is coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  There’s something cool about Venice, but it isn’t the weather. At this time of year, in Venice, you want to throw off your clothing and jump into the water, though when you see the pollution from the hotel window, you would be wise to change your mind quickly. Noise! Italians are noisy. There’s a kind of expressiveness about them that gives it all away. They want what you have and you get so carried away by listening to the lilt of their accents that you gladly part with your money.

  This was the hotel where Janine Coulson stayed. Pretty fancy by my standards – mediocre by hers. Her picture stares at me from the desk. She knows something but she’s not letting on. Her parents know more than they’re willing to tell and the Italian police were positively hostile. In this world of pizza and pasta, where boats speed by instead of cars, everything’s crazy. There’s a sense of not knowing who the good guys are and some of them look like hoods. Warm, so that you have to open your window. Noisy, so that you have to close them again. It’s a country of contrasts or perhaps it’s me that’s seeing things that aren’t there. Lack of sleep. Lack of clarity. Jet lag. Italian spaghetti indigestion.

  The beautiful body of Janine Coulson – you know – the rich Coulson family from New York – was washed up on the shores of Lake Garda. So why am I here? It seems that there was some kind of liaison in Venice that led to that untimely death. She stayed here in this very hotel – in this very room and yet I’m not seeing it. There’s nothing that romantic about the place. It’s clinical. It’s more in tune with business than avid affairs of the heart.

  “She was involved with an Italian Jeweler.” That put me in mind of classic styling but not like this room. This room was more like a compromise – a bad error of judgment. Even though sumptuous at first glance, behind its decrepit façade, the hotel hid a multitude of sins. The bath taps made the most horrendous noise and the water outside continued to erode the brickwork that held the place together.

  The airport staff had been unhelpful. “Buona sera. Avete qualche cosa da dichiarare?” I didn’t know what the guy was saying and without me replying in Italian, he wasn’t going to let on that he spoke perfect English. I watched him as a female passenger passed through customs and he spoke English with the kind of accent that women seem to go for. They’re short. They’re impudent and they’re foreign. I was accustomed to that foreign thing but I wasn’t prepared for the boat ride that took me through narrow alleyways, under bridges and to the front entrance of this hotel. The boatman had blocked my way, apparently waiting for that obligatory tip. As I gave it to him, I got the distinct impression that had it not been generous, I may have slipped and fallen flat on the doorstep of the hotel, with my suitcases unceremoniously dumped in front of me.

  Janine Coulson was dead. There was no reason and the suggestion of the Italian police that she had been found to drink more than her fair share was an unfair conclusion, according to her father – who was insistent that his daughter was not a drinker. In fact, he was so vehement about it that one could argue that perhaps he was a little over-protective. The thing is, kids do different things when parents aren’t around to control them although, in this case, she was old enough to know her own mind and to be able to show her parents what she was made of without adding lies.

  Her drowning in Lake Garda came at a time that was very advantageous for several business associates. All I had to do was prove it. Looking around the room gave little clue except that perhaps there was a reason why a rich lady such as Janine would have chosen such a dive. She had the money for the best and yet she chose this very room. There had to be a reason. There had to be some kind of secret liaison that she didn’t want to hit the newspapers. Instead of scandal hitting the papers, what had hit them was a story of a rich bitch with an attitude and that wasn’t the legacy her father wanted for his daughter.

  “Do you remember this woman?” I had asked the concierge. He had shrugged, but there was a certain look on his face that said if I was willing to pay for the information, he could give it. I handed him a 50 Euro note. “Yes,” he said. “I remember her very well indeed.” It’s strange how money can change attitudes.

  “Did she have visitors while she was here?” I asked, though it was obvious from his eyes that the greedy bastard wanted another 50 to give that kind of information. I didn’t have it on me. “Quanto?” I asked. I needed to know how much this information would cost. He looked at me with greed in his eyes. “Più di quello” was the answer. I knew enough Italian to know what the guy meant. I didn’t have enough money for the answers I needed.

  Chapter 2 – The Bellboy

  So far, I hadn’t made that good an impression on the Italians. I had picked up someone else’s bag on the plane and when asked to produce my passport, produced the passport that belonged to a woman. I have never been so embarrassed in my life. When they checked me out, they allowed me to enter, but in checking me out, to a certain degree, it blew my cover and that’s the last thing I needed.

  “What do you mean? You can’t help?” I screamed at the man at the Embassy. The American Embassy was supposed to help people like me, but it seemed almost as if they had Italianized if that’s a word. I looked at the face on the passport. Perhaps the woman had my passport and the phone calls around all the different hotels produced no real answers. In the evening, when I went out to dinner, I did, however catch a glimpse of her across the piazza. She was talking to friends and when I interrupted her flow of conversation looked toward me with annoyance.

  “Do you have any idea what you have put me through?” she asked, throwing my passport into my hand. You would think the Italians would have had the sense to keep the passports and pass them back to the Embassy. “You weren’t half as embarrassed as I was,” I assured her and I could see a sparkle of laughter in her eyes.

  Mistakes happen and you get over them, but it seemed that my path was likely to cross with hers every evening, since she appeared to live nearby the Piazza and this was the obvious place for eating. She hadn’t exactly invited me to her place or given any signs of thinking romantic thoughts, but it had crossed my mind. After all, wasn’t this what Italy was supposed to be all about?

  When I arrived back at the hotel, I couldn’t believe the mess that had been made of my room and called the bellboy. Each floor has a bellboy that specifically caters for the customers on that particular floor. My bellboy was called Marco. He couldn’t apologize enough for the mess.

  “Do you want me to call the Police?” he asked, but I thought better of it. After all, the only experience I had of Italians had been very negative and people were already asking me more than I was prepared to divulge. Janine Coulson was the whole purpose of this visit. She stayed in this very room and my staying in the same room seemed to have provoked the attention of someone. Everything was strewn across the floor and the bed had been stripped and mattress thrown to one side. The bellboy helped me to put it back onto the bed.

  “What do you know about Janine Coulson?” I asked him. He looked kind of embarrassed. “Why do you ask?” he answered cleverly as any bellboy should using a question instead of giving out answers which betrayed his guests.

  “I am working for her parents. I want to know why she died.” I explained.


  “But the papers already said why she died,” he said, though his face showed that he knew more than he was letting on.

  “Janine didn’t drink and her parents were not easily convinced that she fell overboard drunk.” I explained.

  “No, you are right. She did not drink,” he said. “She asked me to take away the booze from the bar in her room.”

  “Then why wasn’t this mentioned when she was found dead?” I asked.

  “No one asks a bellboy. We are nothing. We are like the mice that crawl out of the woodwork. We don’t count.” He confided in me as if trying to reap sympathy of some sort.

  “Then tell me what you know, Marco,” I said, trying to show him that I had more confidence in him than others.

  “I know that she was visited by a man from the Dorsodura area of Venice who seems to be involved in art of some kind.”

  “And what makes you think this?” I asked him.

  “I followed him one night back to where he is based and he was painting an oil painting in his studio. He came here after she died but he didn’t find what he was looking for.” He added.

  “And how do you know that?” I asked. This bellboy was becoming a mine of information.

  “Because he came back today.”

  Something told me I was getting nearer. Something told me that I would be able to track down the history of this event and soon put Janine Coulson’s death into the “solved” box where it deserved to be.

  Chapter 3 – The Art Connection

  There’s a whole lot more to the story than I imagined. As I left the hotel that evening and took the gondola ride toward Saint Marco, I knew that someone was following. The boat was behind us and the gondolier was totally oblivious to it, spouting off a song like in an ice cream advert. I stood and pushed him toward the water and moved that boat probably faster than it’s ever moved, pulling in at the port on the edge of Castello and jumping out of the boat before those chasing me had a chance to see which direction I was heading in. Gunshots across the water echoed into the evening air, though I notice that no one took much notice. Perhaps Italians were accustomed to this kind of event. I certainly was. Coming from New York, it wasn’t a shock to see someone pull a gun, but it was a shock to be approached by a woman in black with the most gorgeous eyes I have ever seen.

  “Come here!” she beckoned.

  “Me?” I asked.

  “Yes you,” she taunted with those dark eyes. “I need to talk to you.”

  When someone as beautiful as Alessa asks a man to do something, it’s rare that he turns her down. She was the most stunningly beautiful woman I have ever come close to in my life and although I had been warned about hot blooded Italians, had imagined that somewhere along the line, the people who had mentioned the Italians had meant men. Alessa introduced herself over coffee. There’s something seductively tasty about Italian coffee and as it trickled over my tongue, she, captivated to the point of losing all sensibility, mesmerized me. She wore a gown. I say gown because it wasn’t an ordinary dress. The lace that hid the slight shape and form of her breasts teased me. The silk seemed to cling to her skin and her perfume was adorable.

  “Do you know why you are being followed?” she asked.

  “I have no idea at all,” I replied.

  “What connection do you have to Janine Coulson?” she asked.

  “I work for her parents. They want answers.”

  Somewhere between sitting in a café and enjoying her company and walking her back to her hotel, I remember a thump on the back of my skull and then nothing until I woke up in the cellar of an old building. Old buildings aren’t that rare here. In fact the whole of Venice is made of them, but this one seemed to be my cell. I thought over the meeting with Alessa. She had introduced herself as being Janine’s friend, though I doubted that. Although Janine mixed in rich circles, people like Alessa didn’t associate themselves with those who stayed in hotels that were dubious to say the least and my hotel was. Sitting in the stench of the cellar, I could hear water lapping against the wall and occasionally hear voices, though they were distant and a little bit stifled.

  There was a box at the far side of the room and curiosity dragged me across the floor to find out what was in it. My head stung and when I held my hand to the cut, there was certainly congealed blood, telling me I had been here for some time. The cardboard box was tempting me forward because it was the only clue within the room. There were no windows, one door that was reached by a flight of stone steps and the only natural light that seemed to creep into the room was through a slit high up in the wall. It was enough to allow me to see the outlines of things, to figure out the shape of the room. The box held within its dampened cardboard tubes of paint.

  Alessa had mentioned paint. The bellboy, Marco, had mentioned paint. It didn’t take much intelligence to work out that whoever held me here was the connection between Janice Coulson and the art that she was smuggling back into the United States. I never quite worked out at that time what was in it for her. She was already rich. She could choose any man she wanted and she hadn’t needed to stay in that nasty hotel. It didn’t make sense. There had to be something that brought the art connection into the picture more clearly. Whoever had searched my room was looking for something – something that Janine may have left behind her and that they had assumed I was there to find.

  There was a rope and that was the worst mistake that my captors made because that rope allowed me access to the slit that allowed the light to come into the cellar. I could see outside. I could see the canal and people passing, but the slit was sufficiently discreet so that they could not see me. That put me at an advantage. I could take my time, and decided to sit in my cell until I had more idea about my captors. I hid the rope beneath the box of paints. The hook on the end of the rope made it appear to have been used to dock a boat and had been useful in accessing the slit in the wall.

  The door started to open and the face of my captor appeared. “Good evening,” he said, in a charming Italian accent, though I was not receptive to charm at this moment in time. All I could think of at that moment was that coffee and Alessa - not believing that she could have been instrumental in my capture. Was she alright?

  Chapter 4 – Alessa’s truth

  “What happened to Alessa?” I asked as the man came down the stairs.

  “I am not here to answer your questions. You are here to answer mine.”

  “And if I refuse to answer them?” I asked.

  “Then I shall take it out on Alessa,” he answered with a coy smile on his face.

  “I don’t believe you. She’s no doubt in this with you. She led me to you. You can’t honestly think that I am that gullible.” I joked. The fact was that I was that gullible. Alessa had painted a picture but not with oils. She had painted one of reason. She didn’t want to see more people getting hurt but just wanted answers to questions. Did I have the art? Did I have contacts in the United States? Who sent me?

  The man walked around toward me and pulled me up by the shoulder.

  “I cannot have you thinking that Italians are inhospitable. Come and eat.”

  As he said that he wandered back toward the stairs and I followed him. If he was expecting me to attempt violence, he didn’t show it. In fact, I was too weakened at that moment to be sure of my footing so hadn’t tried to overcome him. Besides anything else, I knew that I had a point of exit to the cell and that he didn’t know I had discovered it yet. If I was put back into the cell, I could escape. I would escape.”

  “I need to know where the painting is,” he said as he handed me a plate of food. It was almost as if he was sure I knew where it was, but the truth is I didn’t know.”

  “I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” I said. “I came here for a visit to find out more about the death of Janine Coulson, and ever since have been plagued with questions about art. I have no idea what any of you are talking about.”

  “And who sent you?”

  “Her parents sent m
e. They are concerned about her death being something more than accidental. After the kind of greeting I have received her, I would tend to agree with them.”

  “And you know nothing about the art?”

  “Do I look like an artistic man?” I asked. Truth is, I knew I didn’t. I looked like a worn out cop that had overstayed his welcome. That’s how I saw it when I was asked to retire. It wasn’t that they didn’t need my wit, charm and intelligence. It was just that I was too old in a world where young people were taking over.

  “Just answer me one question,” I said, as we rounded off the dinner with a glass of wine that tickled the senses and trickled down the throat like honey.

  “One question …” he replied.

  “Why would someone as rich as Janine need to be involved in shady art dealings? She had enough wealth to buy half of Venice. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Love rarely does,” he answered and that began to put things into perspective for the first time. Pulled into a life of crime because of her love for someone, Janine had become a victim – she had died a death she hadn’t needed to die and would most certainly have avoided had her affair with a tall dark Italian never begun.

  We talked for a long while and the guy seemed to know that I wasn’t there for the art that he thought I was. He thought that I was the agent that Janine had been working for and that I had come to Venice to retrieve the last paintings that Janine ever handled. Truth was, we didn’t even know of her involvement in art.