Dopplegangster

by Laura Resnick

  “It was stolen!” Max looked excited.

  “The Widow Giacalona was there when I was asking for it. She said that a number of things had been stolen at church lately! She blamed young thugs and goombata . . . but then I got duplicated.”

  “We must find out what was taken from the widow,” he said, heading for the back of the shop.

  “I think I know!” I followed him as I recalled Elena’s appearance that afternoon at St. Monica’s. “Her necklace! That big cross. This afternoon at the church was the first time I’ve seen her without it.”

  Max paused at the door to the cellar. “And now her doppelgangster is wearing it. Excellent! I think I know what to do.”

  He went down the stairs, moving swiftly. I followed him.

  Elena’s perfect double looked up when we entered the laboratory. “Is this your entire plan?” she said in exasperation. “To keep me tied up in a basement? Don’t you think—”

  “Did Don Michael take your cross?” Max demanded.

  “What?”

  “I beg your pardon.” Max said. “I know this is a distasteful subject, but I gather he tried to force himself on you last night?”

  “He’s a pig,” she said with disgust.

  “He manhandled you? Was rough with you?”

  “Yes. When I resisted him, he got angry.”

  “You struggled?”

  She nodded. “And he pulled my hair, shoved me around, tried to unzip my dress.”

  “He is a pig,” I said. And Lucky would kill him when he found out about this.

  “And your necklace?” Max said. “Your cross?”

  “It came off while I fought him.” She scowled, looking furious. “He picked it up and wouldn’t give it back. It was my mother’s. It’s a sacred symbol! And that stronzo wouldn’t give it back to me.”

  “So you kicked him down the stairs.”

  “Yes,” she said with dark satisfaction.

  “And what do you remember after that?” Max asked.

  She looked confused. “After that?”

  “After you kicked him down the stairs, and he went away,” Max said. “What happened next?”

  “Next? Next, next . . .” She looked puzzled as she thought about it.

  “Tell me the very next thing you can remember after that moment.”

  Elena seemed bewildered. “Next I . . . I came home today and found you in my apartment.”

  “Yes,” Max said. “That is indeed what happened next.

  To you.”

  He reached around her neck, grasped the silver chain that hung there, and snapped the clasp.

  “Max,” I said as he removed the necklace from her throat. The ornate cross glinted in the lamplight as it swung in his hand. “What are you doing?”

  Elena’s eyeballs rolled back in their sockets. Her head fell backward. Her whole body quivered. There was a small explosion, and a tower of feathers, bird bones, pebbles, and clumps of dirt collapsed all over the chair where, only a moment ago, the doppelgangster had been tied up.

  “The token used to create the doppelgangster is the only part of the creature that’s real,” Max explained. “Remove it, and the illusion disintegrates.”

  “Is there any more of that sherry?” I couldn’t stand sherry, but I had felt the distinct need for a soothing beverage, and sherry was all that Max had. “Pour me another glass.”

  He did, saying, “Try to sip this one slowly.”

  “Lucky’s going to be upset when he finds out we killed it.”

  “We didn’t kill anything,” Max said patiently. “We deconstructed a convincing illusion.”

  “Well, at least we didn’t have to behead it.” The second glass of sherry was helping my hands stop shaking. With a grimace, I sipped a little more of the revolting stuff. We were back upstairs, sitting at the big walnut table, still surrounded by the filth of Lopez’s former doppelgangster. I added with some relief, “So I guess we don’t need to carry a machete around the city.”

  “No, I think not,” Max agreed. “From now on, when Nelli identifies a doppelgangster, we merely need to determine what mystically imbued personal token it possesses and remove the object. That will banish the illusion.”

  “You mean make it explode into messy crap,” I said.

  Max said thoughtfully, “My reading in recent days led me to ponder the possibilities of psychic transformation, soul possession, animation of physically altered corpses—”

  “Animation of what?”

  “There were some theories I felt it best not to share with you unless I found confirmation of them in our actual experiences,” he admitted.

  “Good call,” I said faintly.

  “But this . . .” He made a little sound of admiration. “This is unprecedented in the annals of doppelgängerism!”

  “How thrilling.”

  “As is the use of doppelgängers to facilitate—nay, to ensure—the success of assassination!”

  “Remarkable.”

  “And at the same time, it’s so absurdly simple!’

  “It is?”

  “Our adversary combined vastly different traditions—competing schools of thought, you might say—to enact his plan. Doppelgängerism is an abstract, elusive, and isolated mystical phenomenon. But the use of personal tokens in the practice of magic is common and widespread among multiple disciplines—all of them entirely unrelated to the highly esoteric mystery of doppelgängerism!” He shook his head in wonder. “I am forced to congratulate our foe on his imaginative practice of his art.”

  “Max, if we could cease the thunderous applause for a moment, I’d like to point out that our imaginative foe is trying to kill me.”

  “Oh! Yes, of course. How thoughtless of me, Esther.” He pulled himself together. “Do forgive me.”

  “Let’s look at motive, means, and opportunity,” I said, using Crime and Punishment as my tactical guide. “The motive is evidently to destroy—or at least severely damage—the Gambellos and Corvinos by manipulating them into a new mob war when both families would much rather avoid that.”

  “Agreed.”

  “The means is innovative, devious, and mystical. So the person behind this is someone who combines a shrewd intellect with the ability to conceal his true nature from others.”

  “I’m convinced of it.”

  “Which brings us to opportunity,” I said.

  “Indeed. We must determine who has had the opportunity to steal tokens from the known victims.”

  “Someone who’s a good pickpocket, I suppose.” A moment later I gasped as I realized what I had just said. “A pickpocket.”

  “Esther?”

  My heart was pounding. “The day I saw Chubby Charlie’s perfect double.” My God, had it been a week ago? How time flies when you’re fighting Evil. “Now I know!”

  “Know what?”

  “Which one was the duplicate!” I turned to Max.

  “Charlie thought of himself as a sharp dresser, and he paid special attention to accessorizing. He always wore matching socks, tie, and pocket handkerchief. The evening that two of him came to the restaurant, the first one had all his accessories. The second one, utterly identical in every other way, was missing the pocket handkerchief. I noticed it because I had just seen Charlie, and I had just straightened that thing for him.”

  “And the second one was missing it?”

  “He said it had been stolen. And I remember wondering who’d be reckless enough to pick the pocket of a Gambello killer!”

  “That was the token!” Max said. “The handkerchief was stolen and used to create the doppelgangster that you encountered at Bella Stella’s that evening, shortly before the real Chubby Charlie came to dinner.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We know that Michael Buonarotti took the widow’s necklace. But I don’t see how he could’ve have taken the handkerchief, too. Not without getting caught. I think Charlie would’ve noticed the don of a rival family getting that close to him.”

  “Don Michae
l took the widow’s necklace in violence and without stealth or secrecy. So, no, he doesn’t seem a likely prospect for subtly extracting a valued accessory from the pocket of an experienced Gambello captain.” Max added, “I doubt that Chubby Charlie would have been an easy target for theft. Therefore, I propose that the thief was someone he felt comfortable with. Someone whom he trusted, in a sense.”

  “But who did Charlie trust that Danny Dapezzo trusted, too?”

  “It might help if we had some idea what token Doctor Dapezzo . . .” His eyes widened. “Oh!”

  I realized it at the same moment he did. “His reading glasses!” At the sit-down, Danny was using a new pair that he didn’t like.

  My old ones are missing, goddamn it. Those frames were real gold, you know.

  Max said, “So we’re hunting an adversary who was able to get close enough to steal Doctor Dapezzo’s gold reading glasses as well as Charlie Chiccante’s handkerchief.”

  “But I wasn’t pickpocketed,” I said. “I was just careless. I left my wrap in the church crypt. How did the killer know? Was I followed?”

  “The widow told you there have been thefts at the church lately. Perhaps the killer lurks there and stole the wrap out of habit, upon seeing the opportunity.” Max slapped his hand on the table, making me jump. “And now we know how the victims are chosen!”

  I blinked. “How?”

  “Opportunity.”

  “Oppor—Oh! I see! He didn’t set out to kill Charlie.

  He found an opportunity to steal a token from Charlie, and that turned Charlie into a victim.”

  “Yes! Similarly, Doctor Dapezzo became a victim because of the loss of his glasses,” Max said. “The killer’s objective was to create murder victims in each famiglia and to do so without his accomplice, who actually committed the slayings, being identified. However, it didn’t particularly matter to him which family members died violently.”

  “Just as long as long as their deaths led to a war.”

  Max said, “This is why even Lucky, who knew the victims well, was unable to see a basis for how they were being chosen. Because the basis was, in a sense, quite random. They were simply the individuals from whom it had been possible to steal a token.”

  “But why duplicate me? I’m not a Gambello or a Corvino.”

  “And, indeed, the killer may have originally intended to restrict his victims to Gambellos and Corvinos. But then he realized you posed a threat to his plans. Just as Detective Lopez did. And so, since he had already stolen your wrap, the killer then overcame any scruples he may have had, and he duplicated you.”

  “Well, that certainly didn’t take long,” I said sourly.

  “I don’t believe there was ever any serious possibility that the killer would remain selective about his victims, even if he commenced his activities with that intention,” Max said. “Evil is always voracious.”

  I thought of the widow and realized how right Max was. She had been targeted for death just because she rejected a rough pass. “This guy really is evil.”

  “I suggest that he is also fully aware of our investigation.”

  “Right. I didn’t get duplicated just for hanging out too much in a church lately.” I felt icy insects all over my skin again. “But why duplicate me, rather than you or Lucky? Don’t both of you pose a bigger threat to the killer than I do?”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself, my dear!” Max added, “In any case, I am not, to my knowledge, missing any of my belongings. Nor has Lucky mentioned the loss of any personal possessions.”

  “But I was careless with my wrap,” I said grimly. “So I became a target of opportunity.”

  “Opportunity,” Max said again, dwelling on the word. “Our adversary is an improviser. He thinks on his feet and continually adapts his plan to new events and information.”

  “And he’s filching stuff from a church.” I was annoyed. “I loved that outfit.”

  “You’ve spent more time at St. Monica’s than I have,” Max said. “Whom have you noticed lurking there?”

  “The Widow Giacalona, certainly.” I shrugged. “Other women, I guess. They’ve got the hots for the priest.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, he is an appealing young man, and it’s amazing how often celibacy creates an aura of . . .” Max sat up straighter, looking stunned. “Good gracious! The priest lurks around the church.”

  “Yeah, but that’s his job,” I said dismissively.

  “Which means his lurking would pass unnoticed!”

  “Oh, but, Max, he’s such a nice . . .” I went blank for a moment, and then a shower of recollections fell on me. “That’s what the victims have in common!”

  “The church! The priest.”

  I nodded. “Danny was a parishioner there. Lucky said that Charlie went to Mass and Confession every week. And Charlie certainly knew Father Gabriel. He mentioned him the night he died.”

  Max said, “We have seen Don Michael Buonarotti there ourselves, whom we believe is the accomplice. And he seems to be on congenial terms with the priest.”

  “Buonarotti even courted the widow at the church.”

  “Johnny Be Good occasionally went to the church to pray for positive results in his gambling exploits,” Max said. “And by all accounts, he was a careless man from whom it would have been quite easy to collect a token.”

  “So easy, it’s probably not even worth trying to figure what the token was.” I recalled, “Johnny must have known Father Gabriel for years. The priest told me a little about Johnny’s youth and said that he—Gabriel—grew up around the Gambellos.” I brought my hands up to my cheeks as I realized what else the priest had told me “Oh, my God!”

  “What?” Max rose halfway out of his chair. “What is it?”

  “Father Gabriel was the one who planted the suspicions about Elena in my head. Mind you, her own comments made that easy. But he told me at length about her reasons for hating both the Gambellos and the Corvinos.” Looking back at the conversation with a new perspective, I could see that he had incited my curiosity and made leading comments that encouraged me to ask him for more information. “And the information he gave me about her past was so incomplete that it misled me!”

  He’d certainly neglected to mention that Don Victor had forgiven Elena for marrying a Corvino and gave her his blessings. After hearing Elena’s version of the past from her doppelgangster earlier tonight, I had assumed that Father Gabriel had merely been misinformed, relaying the popular gossip to me. But now . . . now I saw that he had been deflecting the possibility of suspicion falling on him by directing it elsewhere: to the thrice-widowed Elena.

  “Oh, Max,” I said, feeling guilty. “He also . . .” I nodded. “Father Gabriel also tried to drive a wedge between me and Lucky, and it almost worked!”

  “How?” Max asked.

  “He, uh . . . he told me something bad about Lucky that wasn’t true. But I believed him until tonight.”

  “Ah, of course he would try that, upon realizing you were working together. Divide and conquer.” Max nodded. “I gather that Father Gabriel’s lie is the reason for your irritability toward Lucky lately?”

  “Yes.” I frowned. My revulsion had intruded on our relationship, but it hadn’t ended our work. “But if the priest intended me to stop cooperating with Lucky, why didn’t he tell a bigger lie?”

  “We’re dealing with a subtle individual,” Max said. “He chose a lie that would distract you and, as you say, create a wedge between you and Lucky. But he avoided the mistake of telling a lie so big that you would either disbelieve it or immediately confront Lucky with it.”

  “Crafty,” I said.

  “Father Gabriel no doubt also underestimated your commitment to confronting Evil. He may have hoped that telling you something disturbing was enough to make you abandon your quest. It would be a common reaction, after all.”

  “He pretended to help me look for my wrap after he had filched it, and he used his minutes alone with me to mislead me. And I fell fo
r it.” I folded my arms. “Lopez was right. I’m naive.”

  “But since we know that the Widow Giacalona is not the killer, you can rest assured now that your talking to her about Detective Lopez is not what led to his being duplicated.”

  “I still may be the cause of that, Max. The widow was being courted by Buonarotti. Maybe she told him what I said to her.”

  I remembered that Buonarotti recognized me easily the night of the sit-down despite my disguise as a mob girl. Had the widow told him about my presence in the church? Or had Father Gabriel told him after he left the crypt and I remained down there alone for a few minutes? Had the priest and the don been meeting somewhere in the church before I arrived? If they were conspirators, it seemed likely.

  I also remembered how the priest had encouraged the Widow Giacalona to accept Buonarotti’s company that evening. Perhaps he had done it to keep Buonarotti happy, but perhaps he also wanted Buonarotti to get a full account of what Elena and I had discussed. “Besides, she’s a devout woman who’s always at church. Father Gabriel has influence over her, and she no doubt confides in him.”

  “We confided in him, too.” Max’s expression was heavy with self-reproach.

  I nodded. “At the sit-down.” We hadn’t questioned the priest’s presence there as peacekeeper. “He found out exactly how much we knew.”

  “And, being well practiced at deceit, he convincingly pretended to find our theories absurd. He also encouraged Lucky to believe that, despite their denials, the Corvinos were indeed murdering Gambellos.”

  With a sinking heart, I recalled, “Today he urged me to go straight home and rest my knee when I pretended that I had hurt myself as an excuse to leave quickly. At the time, he seemed so nice, so concerned. Now . . .”

  “Now you’re wondering if he was trying to arrange a meeting between you and your doppelgangster by directing you to go home?” Max said. “I think it very likely, my dear.”