Cries of the Lost

by Chris Knopf

  The air in the elegant office suddenly warmed up a few degrees.

  “What would be the best way to contact you?” she asked, her voice a muted rasp.

  “Email seems to work. Is that acceptable to you?”

  “Of course. And next time you will bring your wife.” She wagged her index finger at me. “Most of my deals fall through because the Signore does not properly involve the Signora.”

  “I never make that mistake, Laudomia. It’s the secret to happiness.”

  “No, Jonathan, avoiding envy and greed is the real secret. If you pardon my presumption.”

  “Both are true,” I said. “So, shall I wait for your email?”

  “You shall,” she said.

  I slapped the armrests of the comfortable chair, then stood up. She escorted me to the door, where we again shook hands. She added her other hand and lingered there a few beats past either Italian or American custom.

  “I am certain we will find you and Madame Fortnoy the perfect villa,” she said.

  “I am certain you will be a fine partner in this worthy pursuit.”

  “As fine as you want me to be,” she said, waiting until I climbed down the stairs to the street before closing the door, pleased with the outcome of the meeting, confused by the collateral implications.

  “DO YOU think I’m an attractive man?” I asked Natsumi when we were back on our lovely balcony.

  “The most attractive man in the world to me.”

  “But on an objective basis, how do I compare to other men?”

  “Very favorably,” she said.

  “I have a bald head with two big scars.”

  “You’re usually wearing a wig or a hat. But even if you weren’t, there’s something intriguing about a man with scars. Suggests an adventurous past.”

  “Really. I have a big nose and wear glasses.”

  “So does Woody Allen. The nose suggests virility and the glasses intelligence.”

  “You learned a lot getting that psychology degree.”

  “No need for that. Any woman will tell you the same thing.”

  “I’m forty-four years old. I’ve never had women pay any attention to me.”

  “I’ve seen pictures of you before the shooting. No offense, but I could see why. You were fat and balding, which is worse than bald. Bald is hip. Whatever you had left for hair stuck out in every direction. And you dressed like you were still living in your parents’ basement. Worse than all that, you were flagrantly happy.”

  “Okay, I was with you till that last bit.”

  She looked annoyed in an affectionate way, if that’s possible. “Most men project a mostly harmless, but automatic, low-level flirtatiousness. Being the type of kid you were, you never learned how to send out those vibes. Or how to read them coming back at you. Better to be oblivious than constantly rejected. Then you marry this Latina bombshell, essentially winning the romantic lottery, and you really have no incentive whatsoever to attract anyone else.

  “When I met you, I didn’t see the image you have of yourself. I saw this gaunt, but roughly handsome man with sad, haunted eyes. Someone with a deep intelligence, with a lot to hide, but also a person with a good heart. And by the way,” she leaned over and stuck a finger in my breastbone. “You weren’t wearing a disguise. I saw the real you.”

  It’s a habit of the researcher’s mind to decouple intellect from the sentimental aspects of emotion. So, while my cognitive functions were sorting the data and absorbing an aha moment, my heart was in another part of the building doing a little dance.

  “Even if my options have widened, I still only have interest in a single woman,” I said. “You.”

  She slid down a bit in the comfy, low-slung outdoor chair and took a sip of her red wine, which she held with two hands.

  “Keep thinking that way, mister. And tell me more about this Italian babe who has designs on you.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Laudomia met us at a café a few doors down from her office. She fussed a bit over Natsumi, basically ignoring me in the process. Both seemed to be pleasantly engaged, so if there were any sub rosa communications going on, it was beyond me.

  Natsumi had dressed and acted the part of an upper-crust Englishman’s wife, who’d met me when we were both working in New York. Laudomia didn’t press us on details and we volunteered nothing more.

  She discussed the various options for the tour, which included the villa in Cardano, one of her landscaping and housekeeping clients. She offered to drive us in her Fiat, but I told her we’d rather follow in our own car.

  “She’s very attractive, if you like long legs and eyelashes, perfect skin and a clear view down the front of her blouse,” said Natsumi as we drove along in our Galaxy.

  “She’s only following native customs. We need to respect that.”

  The first villa was directly on the lake, sitting above a stone breakwater into which a pair of boathouses were carved. It was three stories high, in yellow stucco with shutters painted a pale blue. There was a separate guesthouse and a huge outdoor dining table under a pergola supported by stone columns.

  Natsumi and I undermined our presumed British reserve by passionately praising the property. Laudomia seemed pleased.

  “By the way,” she said, “this villa is for sale, the next is solely property maintenance.”

  It took about five minutes to get there. The Fiat tossed up a low cloud of brown dust as we curved up a gravel driveway between rows of grapevines. Back at the café, Laudomia confirmed this was a working vineyard leased out to a neighboring winemaker. The villa itself was now strictly a vacation home, though infrequently used.

  As suggested by the blurry image on Google Earth, the villa was two stories high, with a shallow pitched hip roof and a full porch. There were a few cypress, some shrubbery and one big shade tree, and though everything was neatly kept, there was little else in the way of landscaping. I noted this to Laudomia when we got out of the car.

  “The owners like rustic,” she said with a shrug. “To me, it’s just as easy to have something beautiful, but I’m Italian.”

  “So they’re not,” I said.

  “Spanish. A different attitude. Not wrong.”

  We followed her into the villa, which reflected the spare and unadorned aesthetic of the outside. Though spotlessly clean and orderly, with very old furniture in well maintained condition, the place lacked any of the effortless elegance and beauty of Laudomia’s office, or our rented place in Menaggio.

  I noted that as well.

  “It would take nothing to fill these spaces with splendor and joy,” said Laudomia. “But we do what is asked.”

  She showed us the living areas and separate servants’ quarters. Equally plain, but serviceable.

  “Do they have a big family?” Natsumi asked.

  “I’ve only spoken to the gentleman by phone, and he is very private. He calls ahead, usually on short notice, and my people are under strict orders to stay away until he and his wife have left. This is not unusual. Every client has different demands. They were here only last week, so your timing was good.”

  She asked if we wanted to see the upstairs. I told her to take Natsumi while I had another look around the first floor. It took them about ten minutes to explore the six bedrooms and three baths, which was all the time I needed to place microphones in the kitchen, eating areas and living room, and a nanny cam hidden inside a small, traditional clock that I carried in under my jacket. I put it on a table in the front hall and aimed the lens at the door.

  A transmitter inside the clock had enough power to feed both video and audio feeds from the mics to the hidden router outside.

  “Okay, then,” said Natsumi when they were downstairs again, “are we ready?”

  “We are,” I said, the full implication understood.

  There are less engaging ways to spend the day than surveying Italian lakeside villas. Laudomia proved to be a tireless commentator on the visual feast that surrounded us, managin
g to demonstrate both a talent for hyperbole and a sincere devotion to her home territory. So it was both an education and a satisfying diversion that concluded at another café, where the women drank Bellinis and I had bitters and soda on the rocks.

  We discussed the day, with Laudomia gently moving us toward greater clarity in our villa specifications. Natsumi seemed to enjoy this, so I let her lead the fanciful conversation. I asked again about the various owners, disguising my keen interest, I hoped, in the Spaniards. Laudomia was fairly free with her information, but it was clear she knew little more than what she’d already shared.

  We left her promising we’d reconnect in about a week, which we would spend pondering the options.

  “I like her,” said Natsumi, when we were back in the car heading home. “Loves her country, loves her work, generally loves life. And she gets to do all that living in this place.”

  “Maybe we should just buy one of those villas and call it a day.”

  “She’s divorced,” Natsumi continued, still on the same track. “Said the guy sponged off her and ran around with the local tramps. Her words. Her parents were very religious, so she had to wait until they were gone to go through with it. The husband threatened to kill her if she left him, another hurdle. So she had another guy, known around town to be connected to certain elements, pay a call on the husband. She hears he’s now living somewhere outside Naples, but isn’t sure.”

  “You can learn a lot in ten minutes,” I said.

  “She likes being single, but I think she’s a little lonely. She’s having a small get-together this Friday evening and wants us to come. I said yes. I hope that’s okay.”

  “If she hasn’t included any real Brits. I’ll be found out in a half second.”

  “Oh, dear. Hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Quite.”

  WHEN WE got back to our villa, an email was waiting for me from Evelyn: “Call me.” So I did.

  “I have some disturbing news,” she said. “Damien Brandt, Florencia’s comptroller, was found dead. He’d been tortured. I don’t know how and I don’t want to know.”

  “Really.”

  “Bruce Finger said that the day before it happened, two men approached him in the agency parking lot asking about Damien. Said they were very threatening.”

  Bruce was the old friend of Evelyn’s who had agreed to take over Florencia’s agency after she was killed, which he’d hoped was on a temporary basis.

  “Have the cops told you anything?” I said.

  “They haven’t. Arthur, I can’t take much more of this.”

  “I know. I’m terribly sorry.”

  “I think we might have to close the agency. Bruce is terrified and none of the employees want to come to work.”

  “Let’s do it. We can sell the book of business. In pieces if we have to.”

  It was quiet on the line for a few moments. “Because the agency’s contaminated, is that what you’re saying?” she asked, in the low tones she would sometimes use when we were kids. It signaled she wanted a full and honest answer.

  “Yes. It’s worse than I thought.”

  “I can’t do this on my own,” she said. “I’m frightened.”

  I felt a burst of heat somewhere around my midsection. As with Evelyn’s tone of voice, I knew what it meant. Deep distress.

  “I’m sorry. We’ll fix that.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet, but I will. Do you have any vacation time coming to you?”

  “That’s not a reassuring thing to say.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. About ten years’ worth.”

  “I’m thinking Australia.”

  “Arthur, talk to me.”

  “It’s really hard to work things out when I’m all tangled up in worry. If you disappeared for a while, it would help a lot.”

  “Disappear? Sure,” she said. “It’s the family business.”

  “You’re only in this situation because of me. I feel really bad about that. But to get you out of it, you need to sort of go along.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Do you have a passport?”

  “I do.”

  “Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Don’t make any incountry reservations from the States. Fly to Melbourne. When you get there, I’ll have a bank account, with a debit card, waiting for you. Before you get to the bank, use cash to rent a car and stay in a hotel. Have fun. Take a lot of pictures. Read some trashy books. Pick up lonely millionaires.”

  “I’m way past that.”

  “If you need more money along the way, just let me know and I’ll restock. You can use our existing phone and email connection, but monitor both closely. They will probably change every once in a while.”

  “Do you have any idea how many patients I have?” she asked. “How many appointments and tests that are scheduled?”

  “There are other cardiologists. There’s only one Evelyn. I can’t lose you. Not because of me, that’s for sure.”

  She was quiet again before she spoke. “We really didn’t know Florencia, did we?”

  “No, we didn’t,” I said.

  “I still love the Florencia we knew.”

  “Me, too. Whatever else she was doesn’t change a thing.”

  “Okay. But what do I do with the agency?” she asked.

  “Have Bruce bring in a business broker. Let everyone work from home. Hang in there and check our email account.”

  “I do it every day, Arthur. Actually, every hour.”

  After we disconnected, I went back to the computer and spent the next few hours setting up a secure mailbox—as secure as I could make it—and wrote the retired FBI agent Shelly Gross. The email was from Alex Rimes, the fake identity I used when contacting Shelly.

  Mr. Gross:

  I hope you are well. I assume you are still angry about how our last engagement turned out. I fully understand and apologize for exploiting you the way I did. I made you feel like a sap, and no man likes that one bit.

  Nevertheless, there are much bigger issues afoot I hope transcend these minor discords.

  I have valuable information relating to several homicides, financial fraud, criminal enterprises and international terrorism.

  I know the FBI is interested in what I can tell them, since they appear uncomfortably interested in me.

  Can we talk?

  Best,

  Alex Rimes

  P.S. I could use a favor.

  TWO DAYS later my smartphone yelped at me. A van was pulling into the driveway of the Spaniards’ villa in Cardano. I yelled to Natsumi, then clicked out of Google and into the video application, switching immediately over to the nanny cam. Everything would be recorded at the highest possible fidelity, but I couldn’t help staring intently at the screen.

  “What, what?” said Natsumi, bursting into the equipment room.

  “Van at the Spaniards’ house. Minutes away from show time.”

  She grabbed a chair and pulled it close to the screen.

  “This is a little creepy, but I sort of like it.”

  “It’s totally creepy, and I love it,” she said.

  It took longer than I thought it would for the door to open. When it finally did, it was only because a crowbar had been used to pry it open. In walked four men I’d never seen before. One was maybe late thirties, with close-cropped dark hair and a rough complexion. Two were younger, probably twenties. The fourth was much older, with grey hair and a fleshier face. They were dressed in regular street clothes, though they moved as if informed by intense training and experience: nasty little rifles pointing in opposite directions, eyes squinting down the sights, jaws set and shoulders bunched.

  In a few seconds, they were off-camera. It was many minutes later that I heard the Spanish equivalent of “Clear!” repeated frequently as they moved through the house.

  After that, I saw them move in and out of the villa, carrying black canvas bags slung over their shoulders.
Gear and supplies.

  It was easily an hour before one of them spoke, clearly in a phone conversation, with long pauses between words. In Castilian Spanish.

  “Villa secured. Yes. Preparing the area and taking positions. Probably an hour at most. Yes. Do you have more intelligence on the target? Okay, understood. We’re good on logistics. Maybe you could send over some sexy women.” He laughed. “Okay, central command gets first pick, we get the discards. I understand.”

  At that point, conversation broke out among all four of them. The first speaker giving commands, allocating living quarters, setting watches and mess rotations, reminding everyone to keep weapons clean and operational, respectful questions from the troops about timing and duration, none answered—all the patter you’d expect to hear from a combat operation in the field.

  “Who are those guys?” Natsumi asked.

  “Spaniards. Probably military. That’s all I know.”

  “No uniforms?”

  “Special forces? Operating under cover in a foreign country? I think. My only reference point is Guns of Navarone.”

  The conversations dwindled down to talk of sports, women and music celebrities, the great universal themes.

  “Theories?” Natsumi asked.

  “It’s an ambush.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. I should’ve just said it, damn.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Who’s getting ambushed?”

  I turned in my chair and looked at her.

  “The safe-house people, I assume,” I said. “Interesting dilemma for us.”

  “Oh, no. Laudomia.”

  My mind launched into creating scenarios, each of which ended in some form of disaster, whether for our project, or much worse, for us and those of innocent people. I jumped out of my chair and stalked around the room, a proven way to accelerate the thought process. Natsumi sat and watched me.

  “She was just there a few days ago,” I said. “I doubt she’ll be back again that soon.”

  “But what about cleaning people? Gardeners?”

  “I know.”

  “We have a line into the safe-house people. We could warn them.”