The Trouble with Mirrors (An Alix London Mystery Book 4)

by Charlotte Elkins

  Otherwise, he’d probably find some reason to lock her up too.

  CHAPTER 24

  Unlike Moscoli, Alessandro Ferrante took most of his meals with others, in trendy dining spots, but when he was alone he too had his favorite restaurant, the stately, darkly glowing old Caffè Vanni, which was not only virtually tourist-free but also served, in his opinion, the city’s finest stuzzichini, Italy’s far more elegant version of tapas. Here, in this oasis of order and urbanity, he was at his most tranquil and assured.

  But not today. “The stuzzichini, they are not to your satisfaction today, signor Ferrante?”

  Ferrante, lost in thought, in worry, in self-recrimination, jumped. “What?”

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, signore.”

  “No, that’s all right, Eduardo. No, they’re excellent, as always, but I find myself not very hungry this afternoon. You can take them away.”

  “Another glass of Prosecco?”

  “What?” Ferrante looked at his glass, surprised to see that it was empty. He could remember taking only that first small sip. “That would be nice, Eduardo,” he said.

  “Right away, signore.”

  Ferrante returned to his anxieties, with which he was well supplied. It had occurred to him belatedly—only this morning—that since Fausto Martucci now knew the name of the detective agency Ferrante was using, he, or Don Rizzolo himself, was perfectly able to communicate directly with di Stefano Investigations any time they chose. Which meant that he was now superfluous, an annoying, untrusted, unliked middleman whose services were no longer required. Add to that the fact that he had so flagrantly let the don down (again), and the implications were all too clear.

  Since talking to Fausto the previous day he’d been vacillating over what to do, but sitting here in the quiet café, he had finally come to his decision. He would have to run. He had lived in Genoa all his life, and he was an old man now, nearing seventy. To think of living elsewhere sat like an icicle in his heart, but as things now stood, Genoa was no longer safe for him.

  Now, with a second Prosecco in front of him, its bubbles slowly disappearing as it sat untouched, he formulated his plans. He had two hundred thousand euros in a bank in the Channel Islands, another hundred thousand in negotiable securities in the stock market, twenty thousand American dollars in a local safe deposit box, and he could probably convert another ninety thousand euros to cash within the next few hours. Trying to sell the gallery business couldn’t be done without Rizzolo’s learning of it, so he would just walk away from it. With what he owed on it, there would be as much gain as loss. All together, the money wouldn’t be enough for him to live in the manner he was used to for very long, but it was more than enough for him to make a simple life for himself elsewhere, someplace far away from Genoa. An out-of-the-way mountain village up in South Tyrol, perhaps, that was more Swiss than Italian, where as many people spoke German as Italian and the Mafia showed up only in the movies and jokes. Maybe he’d go to live in Switzerland itself, if they would let him do it.

  But no matter how he tried to talk himself into it, the idea of spending the rest of his life in a foreign country made him ill. He was Italian through and through, more than he’d ever realized before. As for living a “simple life,” well, he really didn’t know how to do that and had no desire to learn. And so he would stretch his luck a little to give things one last chance to satisfactorily resolve themselves here in Genoa. If they did, if “Tiny” were actually found and detained, they would never kill him. They’d be congratulating him instead. And he’d be enjoying the rewards that came with being in the good graces of the don.

  He’d heard this morning from di Stefano Investigations that the women had flown to Monterey, which surely meant they believed they would find “Tiny” there. London was a capable, intelligent woman, and he would simply hope—and pray—that she led di Stefano to him before the day was over. It was early Thursday morning there now. He would give her until the very end of the day, midnight, Monterey time, to succeed. That would be 9:00 a.m. Friday in Genoa, more than twelve hours from now. If he hadn’t gotten good news from di Stefano by then, he would be on a plane as soon as possible after 9:00 a.m. Between then and now, he would arrange his financial affairs as well as he could and book his flight to Basel, a city he knew well.

  Twelve hours. That was still enough time for things to work themselves out. And in the meantime, he felt himself relatively safe. The Mafia did not generally come calling in the night, but to make himself still more secure, he would return neither to his gallery nor to his condominium. The night would be spent in an airport hotel.

  He was feeling better than when he’d sat down, and could even sense a stirring of optimism. If things actually worked out . . . “Eduardo,” he called. “I believe I’ll have a plate of stuzzichini, after all.”

  “And a little more Prosecco to go with it?”

  “Yes . . . no, let’s have champagne instead. Do you have Veuve Clicquot?”

  Chris, displaying her impressive research skills during the drive to San Francisco International and the short flight to Monterey, determined that there were forty-two seafood restaurants in Monterey—not quite Waldo’s “million,” but formidable enough. None was owned by a Costantino or Valentino, or any variant thereof. One of them, however, the Starfish Grill, in the heart of downtown, just off Cannery Row, listed a day shift supervisor named Tino Calomino, and it was there that they began. They took a hired car directly there from the airport and had the driver then drop their bags off at the Monterey Plaza Hotel, where they were staying.

  The high hopes with which they entered the Starfish were soon dashed. Tino Calomino was there, all right, serving from behind the counter, and Alix, having had a little coaching from Chris, made a more artful inquiry than she had at Zappa’s. But Tino, who turned out to be Panamanian, not Italian (making it a little unlikely that he was Tiny’s cousin), just shook his head. He knew nothing about Tiny or anyone who might conceivably be Tiny.

  “Well, that certainly went well,” Chris said brightly as they left.

  “That’s only one,” Alix said. “Forty-one to go. We’ll find him.” She wished she felt as optimistic as she was trying to sound.

  Around the corner from the Starfish, on the Row, they found a bench and Chris produced two identical, annotated maps she’d printed up from the Internet. From them, it was clear that a majority of the city’s seafood restaurants were gathered right there, in the touristy part of the city, many of them within a few doors of each other. They decided it would be simpler, and probably faster, to walk from one to the next rather than jump in and out of a hired car that would then have to go searching for a place to park. They would begin north of downtown, at the far end of the Row, and work back toward the hotel, which would cover fifteen restaurants, including the Starfish. At the Plaza they could have a restorative bite and a cup of coffee at number sixteen, Schooners, the hotel restaurant. Afterward, assuming they had yet to turn up Tiny, a ten-minute walk would take them to Fisherman’s Wharf, along which another eleven were clustered, giving them altogether twenty-seven of the forty-two. The fifteen that were left were scattered around the city; they could cover those the next day if they had to, either singly or as a team. And if that didn’t do it . . . well, they’d deal with that contingency when and if it came.

  A pleasant chat with two good-looking women put most men in a cheerful frame of mind and Tino Calomino was like most men. He was whistling softly to himself as he clipped yet another fish-and-chips order to the ticket wheel for Gussie to fry up in the kitchen. When he turned to the front again and glanced through the plate glass windows, his attention was immediately caught by two men who were crossing the street toward the Starfish. They were an eye-catching pair, one of them small-headed and darty—ratlike—the other a real gorilla, with a mean, stupid face, a neck that was thicker than his head, and biceps that would burst the sleeves of his bomber jacket if he ever decided to flex them. Becau
se the small one was wearing jet-black sunglasses, Tino thought that he was seeing a blind man being assisted by a friend or whatever he was, but after watching them walk a few steps, with the little guy always a foot or two in the lead, his impression changed: more like watching a trained bear being led by his keeper.

  Tino was hoping they’d veer off before reaching the Starfish. Two months ago the restaurant had been robbed and he had had his nose broken and his cheek split open by the butt of a gun. His nerves were still on edge, and the gorilla had him spooked. Prison, was his immediate thought. Where else does a guy who looks like that get so bulked up?

  At the door they stopped to talk, and after a few seconds the big one clumped away down the street, looking angry, and it was only the little guy who came in, heading for a stool at the end of the counter. Tino exhaled his relief.

  “Hi, buddy, what can I do you for?”

  “Just a cup of coffee, please, no cream, no sugar.” An odd voice, almost a soprano. Like Mickey Mouse’s, but with a European accent: French, maybe, or Italian. Not German, definitely not Spanish. He had on a tie and a beige linen suit that was wrinkled but struck Tino as being the kind of suit you’d see on a movie star or sports celebrity. Yeah, Italian, he thought now. He was older than he’d seemed from a distance, perhaps in his late fifties, with short, thinning hair and a lined, crepey face.

  “No problem.” Tino wiped his hands on his apron, went to the carafe, poured a mugful, and with a smile, set it on the counter in front of the newcomer.

  “Thank you.” Returning Tino’s smile, he drew the mug toward himself. There was something unsettling about the smile—it was too tight, as if his thin lips would split if he tried to stretch them any more. I wish you’d take those damn glasses off, Tino thought. They make me nervous. Who wears sunglasses inside a restaurant anyway? And you ain’t no movie star, not unless you’re that guy from those Nightmare on Elm Street movies. He was starting to think he wasn’t any crazier about this guy than the gorilla he’d left outside.

  “No charge for refills, just ask,” he said, and started to move away toward another customer who’d just sat down.

  The man stopped him by laying a hundred-dollar bill next to the mug.

  Tino stared. “Whoo, for a cup of coffee? Is that the smallest you got?”

  “I am afraid so.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it. I could probably change it, but it’d wipe out my cash drawer, so what the hell, just go ahead and enjoy your coffee. It’s on the house.”

  “Thank you, but you see, I don’t want any change. What I would like is the answer to a question.”

  “Question?” Tino repeated nervously. “Look, mister, I don’t know what you want, but I don’t think I can—”

  “Oh, I think you can. It’s a simple question.” He took off his dark glasses slowly, one earpiece at a time, and Tino flinched. The guy had one hell of a stare, dead-eyed and intense at the same time. A Clint Eastwood stare, as if he was trying to come to a decision: Let’s see, should I just kill you now, or would it be easier to do it later? The gash of a smile was still on his face, unchanged, but it didn’t look like a smile anymore.

  The sheer psychic force of it backed Tino up. This was one scary character. “Hey, mister, I’m just trying—”

  The man slid the bill across the counter toward him but kept his hand on it. “The two ladies who left a minute ago, they were asking about somebody, yes?”

  “Well . . . yes, but I didn’t know the guy they were looking for.”

  “That’s all right, I was hoping you could give me his name.” He slipped his glasses on again, which improved things a little.

  “All you want is his name?” Tino echoed stupidly. He was still nervous, but at the same time he was having a hard time keeping his eyes off the money. “Umm . . . it was Italian, lemme see . . . Oh, jeez . . . oh, Benjaminio, something like that, and the last name . . . oh, Christ . . . Abbatosta, Tostaleone, something like that. No, it was . . . wait a minute—she wrote it down!”

  He reached into the plastic garbage can at his feet, fumbled among the food scraps and used paper napkins, and came up with Alix’s soiled business card. “Here. I tossed it, see, because like I told you, I didn’t know the guy.”

  The man turned the card over to the back. “‘Beniamino Abbatista,’” he read off in that weird Mickey Mouse voice. “Very good. And this number we have here? Is that a telephone number?”

  “Yeah, I was supposed to call her there if I thought of anything. It’s the hotel she’s staying at.”

  “And which one is that?”

  “Monterey Plaza,” Tino said, feeling guilty about it, but she hadn’t said it was any kind of a secret, and anyway, all the guy had to do was call the number himself to find out, so what was the point of keeping it from him? Besides, Tino didn’t have that hundred bucks yet.

  The man studied the card a little longer and put it into an inside jacket pocket. He stood up without ever having touched his coffee.

  “So is that all you want to know?” Tino asked. “Did I—did I do okay?”

  The man put his sunglasses back on, picked up the bill, placed it in Tino’s palm, and closed his fingers around it. “You did fine, my friend.” He smiled again and Tino shivered.

  CHAPTER 25

  The ratlike one with the bone-freezing stare was Fausto Martucci, Don Rizzolo’s top lieutenant. The gorilla was a fearsome enforcer by the name of Giuseppe “Beppe” Balboni. They were both in Monterey at the wish of Don Rizzolo. Beppe’s job was to handle this “Tiny,” to get the information they needed out of him, to chastise him adequately and appropriately for all the trouble he’d caused them, and then to dispose of the body. At all of these tasks he had in the past proven proficient.

  Martucci’s job was to handle Beppe. That, and to deal with the Americans when necessary (Martucci’s English was good, but Beppe was barely literate in Italian), and to do whatever thinking was required.

  Martucci, while not a lawyer (Rizzolo had more than enough of those), served as his consigliere, the man whose counsel he sought more often than anyone else’s, and the “arranger” with whom he trusted his most sensitive and important business matters. Unusually for a consigliere, he had come up through the ranks, proving himself first as a picciotto, a “little man,” a low-lever enforcer, and then a crew chief, a caporegime, where his administrative abilities first caught Rizzolo’s attention. He was very literally a “little man,” small and slight. Not much to look at, but there was something about him—something in his manner or his strange, squeak of a voice, or the simple intensity of his personality—that could put the fear of God into people who needed it put into them.

  Beppe, by contrast, was a mountain of muscle, an effective, fiercely loyal enforcer whose medium was action, not words. He was something of a loose cannon, thin-skinned, dangerous, and unpredictable—more so when he’d been at the vino, which was all too often. But there wasn’t much his caporegime could do with him, given Beppe’s special relationship with the don. Beppe had permanently won Rizzolo’s respect and gratitude when he’d been tried for murder two decades ago, had been convicted, and had then served fourteen years in prison, contemptuously ignoring the authorities’ threats and enticements through it all, refusing to implicate Rizzolo, on whose orders the victim had, of course, been killed. Beppe—who seemed content, even happy to remain a simple soldato after all these years—was as strong, and volatile, and dangerous as a chained elephant. His nickname was l’Animale, although the only two people known to have said it to his face now bore somewhat rearranged faces of their own.

  The two men had arrived at Monterey Regional Airport at 10:00 a.m., two hours before the women’s expected arrival. Their trip had taken twenty hours, including a change of planes in San Francisco, and they were travel-weary in the extreme. With two hours to wait for the women, Beppe had suggested a couple of morning glasses of Chianti. Instead, Martucci ordered them hefty, American bacon-and-egg breakfasts. Beppe accepte
d this (it had been made clear to him by Rizzolo that Martucci was to be obeyed, no arguing), but he did it with ill grace, openly, pointedly sulking.

  After twenty straight hours of keeping Beppe out of trouble in crowded airplanes and crowded airports, Martucci had needed a few glasses of wine more than Beppe did, but settled instead for some predictably lousy American coffee. In the few hours since then, things had not gotten easier. For the first time he was feeling some sympathy for Beppe’s unfortunate caporegime. Being the Animal’s keeper was no picnic.

  Nonetheless, progress was being made. They’d learned “Tiny’s” name, they were on the women’s trail, and even if they should lose them they knew where they were staying. All in the space of fifteen minutes. E fin qui ci siamo.

  So far, so good.

  For Alix and Chris, things went faster and easier than they’d anticipated, the only problem being that they didn’t have any success. Still, by 3:00 p.m. they’d covered all twenty-seven of the walkable seafood places, and they decided to tackle the remaining fifteen in what was left of the afternoon rather than waiting till tomorrow. But since they were scattered about the city, it was going to take longer to get to them all, so they divided the list and split up, using taxis. If either one of them came up with a lead to Tiny, she would call the other and they would proceed from there. If not, they would meet at seven on the patio of Schooners, the Monterey Plaza’s restaurant, to regroup.