Dante's Numbers nc-7

by David Hewson

  “And me?” Teresa wondered.

  “How you spend your holiday is your business. If you happen to be passing a store, could you kindly buy some decent coffee? That stuff in the house is disgusting.”

  She took a deep breath and glared at him. “So what am I supposed to do with my brain? I was on holiday when we were in Venice, if you remember …”

  “Venice was a different place.”

  “Damned right. I saved your life there.”

  “Grazie mille,” Falcone said nonchalantly. “We must get this out of the way because I don’t wish to keep repeating it. You are here of your own volition, on your own time. You’re a pathologist. We’re not investigating a murder. Nor will we ever be allowed the opportunity. It’s hard enough for me to argue a way in to eavesdrop on the investigation. I cannot do that for you. I won’t waste my breath trying.”

  A chill wind engulfed them at that moment, and it wasn’t simply the lively sea breeze gusting in from the nearby shoreline.

  The Palace of Fine Arts was a beautiful, quiet spot. Not what Costa had expected of the city of San Francisco, any more than was Cow Hollow, the small district neighbouring the Marina and the houses of the rich and famous, Roberto Tonti among them. They had landed in a quiet, genteel oasis of affluence tacked to the side of the larger grey urban metropolis from which the Carabinieri team and the local officers Catherine Bianchi simply referred to as “downtown” were running the investigation. And keeping their cards very close to their besuited chests.

  2

  To Gianni Peroni’s mildly jaundiced eye it seemed as if Maresciallo Gianluca Quattrocchi and Captain Gerald Kelly, his counterpart in the SFPD Homicide Detail, might have been made from the same mould, one customarily used to turn out military action figures for reclusive adolescent boys. Both men were of similar age — late forties — similar heavy build, and possessed the same kind of sullen, heavy, clean-shaven face, that of a boxer or field sergeant perhaps, or some burly priest with a taste for communion wine. Now both sat with their respective teams, three officers each, all male, behind facing tables in the largest room the modest Greenwich Street Police Station could offer, which wasn’t very large at all. But at least the American threw Quattrocchi the occasional doubtful look from time to time when the Carabinieri man’s language got a little too over the top. There might be hope there, Peroni thought. If only they had the chance to speak frankly …

  Falcone, Peroni, and Catherine Bianchi were perched on the end like bystanders. It was chilly outside but this overcrowded chamber at the rear of the little station was stifling and beginning to fill with the musky odour of men in business clothes. Peroni wondered, briefly, how much of his life had been passed in meetings, and atmospheres, such as this, then reminded himself that for once there was a variation from the norm.

  Quattrocchi had found himself an expert. Or rather the expert, if the Carabinieri were to be believed. Professor Bryan Whitcombe had flown from Toronto, where he divided his time between teaching Dante and writing about the man and his work, to join the team Quattrocchi and Kelly had assembled inside the Hall of Justice. The purpose, Quattrocchi had let it be known in a fulsome round of newspaper and television interviews, was to gain precious insight into the mentality and intent of the Dante-fixated murderers of Allan Prime, killers who might now be stalking remaining members of the Inferno cast and crew right here in San Francisco. The media, naturally, loved this story, and had come to adore the handsomely uniformed, English-speaking Carabinieri maresciallo, a man who seemed like an actor himself and was only too happy to play up for the cameras on any occasion.

  Peroni and the others had watched Quattrocchi introduce Bryan Whitcombe on the TV the previous night. The man was thirty-five, according to his personal web site, though his manner spoke of someone much older. He was extremely short and slender, bird-like in appearance, with darting, expressive hands and a pinched, pale academic’s face half hidden by enormous horn-rimmed spectacles. His curly dark brown hair seemed to shoot straight out of his scalp in any direction it fancied, in the manner of a 1970s rock musician. Whitcombe clearly enjoyed the attention and the cameras as much as his Italian patron, frequently stuttering off into academic dissertations, often peppered with obscure quotes in medieval Florentine, and never tiring of dealing with the most basic and idiotic of questions.

  “He wants his own show,” Teresa had observed perceptively. The professor also seemed extremely well informed about the case, given that he’d only been in San Francisco a day. The TV reported that the Dante expert had been following the story since the dreadful night of Prime’s death in Rome, and had been taken onto the team after the Carabinieri had identified him as one of the world’s leading authorities on the interpretation of The Divine Comedy.

  Falcone had cleared his throat at that point and revealed something the TV station hadn’t. Thanks to Catherine Bianchi, the inspector knew Whitcombe had approached Quattrocchi personally to offer his assistance after seeing the Carabinieri officer on CNN the morning following Prime’s murder.

  “Toronto is six hours behind Rome,” Falcone added. “He must watch television in the early hours.”

  Seeing Whitcombe in the flesh now, Peroni didn’t doubt it. The little man had the nervous energy of a squirrel.

  Gianluca Quattrocchi made the nature of the meeting clear from the outset.

  “You’re here to listen,” he told Falcone and Peroni as they arrived. “Not talk. I have a duty to share with you any information I feel may enable you to carry out your guard duties professionally. Nothing more. This is an ongoing murder investigation. The less chatter, the better. Professor?”

  Whitcombe nodded as if in approval and added, in an oddly nasal accent that was not quite English and not quite American, “I have examined the notes and they support the thesis that these people are intelligent, informed, and knowledgeable in their subject. They know Dante—”

  “These people?” Peroni interrupted. “I know you think the man shot dead in the park was one of them. What makes you think there were ever more than two, one of them dead?”

  “Because I am assuming we’re dealing with normal human beings,” Quattrocchi said with a sigh. “Not Superman. Now will you kindly sit and listen without interrupting?”

  Peroni shrugged and caught Falcone’s eye. Catherine Bianchi scratched her ear and smiled down at the table.

  “These people,” Whitcombe emphasised, “clearly know and appreciate the subject matter. They understand this is a cycle, with form, direction, and purpose. I must assure you my opinion is this: they will regard their work as only begun, not even half finished. There are nine circles of Hell, and their notes indicate only two have passed.…”

  Falcone raised a finger. “I’m sorry. This is my first and last question. Why would anyone kill another human being over a movie, even some so-called blockbuster that half the world seems to be panting to see? What does it matter?”

  Quattrocchi began swearing again. The academic bristled, then adjusted his glasses.

  “No, no, please,” Whitcombe continued. “Let me handle this.” He fixed Falcone with a glare, one Peroni found more daunting than he might have expected. “If I were the killing kind, Ispettore, I would murder over this. With as much brutality as I could muster. It’s blasphemy.”

  “Not according to any dictionary I know,” Peroni objected. “If Roberto Tonti is insulting anything — and he’s adamant he’s not — it’s some ancient piece of poetry. Not the Church.”

  “For anyone who admires Dante,” Whitcombe emphasised, “this is blasphemy. I sat through that drivel a week ago. They flew a group of experts to London hoping we would gild their vile nonsense with praise.” His small fist thumped the table. “Not a man or woman among us would say anything but the truth. It’s rubbish. Like defacing the Sistine Chapel.” He turned and glanced at Kelly and his men. “Or painting the Golden Gate Bridge black.”

  “Neither of which is worth killing for either,” Peroni obse
rved mildly.

  Catherine Bianchi’s light fingers caught his arm, and he found himself looking into her bright, attractive face.

  “Remember what I said, Gianni. This is America. A Bud and a hot dog. Sometimes that’s all it takes.”

  “Let’s get to the point,” Kelly cut in brusquely. “This is all we have. If it’s not some lunatics offended by what’s up there on the screen, what else could it be?”

  Falcone frowned at Peroni, who was about to open his mouth.

  “In the absence of any better suggestions,” Kelly continued, “we’ve got to run with what we have, and for the life of me this does sound convincing. I watched that movie. The thing’s creepy and obsessive. Just the kind of crap that can push the buttons of any number of screwballs out there.”

  “Someone hijacked that computer system,” Falcone suggested. “Someone made Allan Prime’s death an international event. That’s evidence, isn’t it? Not poetry.”

  One of Kelly’s men leaned forward and said, “It’s evidence that confirms there’s probably a link in this geographical area, sir. Nothing more. They didn’t hijack Lukatmi, by the way. They simply hacked into the DNS servers so that particular stream got pointed to some place they were hosting it in Russia, not that we’ll ever discover much from them.”

  Peroni felt his head start to thrum. “How many people could pull off that kind of trick?” he asked. “Surely it’s got to be someone from the company? Or someone Lukatmi fired?”

  The men from Bryant Street looked at one another as if these were the most idiotic questions they’d ever heard.

  “This is San Francisco,” Gerald Kelly said with a shrug of his big shoulders. He looked a little apologetic. “Ninety percent of the world’s geek population lives between here and San Jose. These people don’t breed or have girlfriends. Their principal romantic relationship is with their iPhone. They barely eat or talk. They spend their time frigging around with their little laptops, earning a living one moment and destroying someone else’s the next. Any big-name start-up like Lukatmi gets hackers going for its throat the moment someone picks up the Wall Street Journal and reads they’ve got seed capital. It’s part of the game.” He stared hard at Peroni to make his point. “We can give you more detail later if you want it.”

  “No clarification needed.” Gianluca Quattrocchi was intent on reclaiming the conversation. “This is none of their concern. We are naturally investigating employees and ex-employees in both Lukatmi and Tonti’s own production company. That’s all you need to know. That’s more than you need to know.”

  “Maybe,” Kelly agreed. “But understand this. Any one of a million pathetic nerds out there could have hacked into that system. Whoever it was could have done it on their laptop sitting in a Starbucks downtown sipping their double-foam latte while that poor bastard was breathing his last in Rome. This stuff is global.”

  One of the younger American officers jumped in. “We have experts in the FBI trawling the web spoor.”

  “The what?” Peroni asked.

  “Any traces they’ve left in their wake on the Net,” the officer explained. “We’ve gotten officers down at Bryant Street working this. There are other agencies involved, too, in the U.S. and in Rome …”

  “Enough,” Quattrocchi barked.

  Falcone stifled a laugh and glanced briefly at the ceiling.

  “How many officers do you have knocking on doors, staring in people’s faces, and seeing if they look guilty?” Peroni asked.

  The Carabinieri glanced at their watches. Gerald Kelly wriggled in his seat.

  “Listen,” the SFPD captain responded, “we all came up that way. Those of us over the age of thirty-five. Go head-to-head, yell at people, watch what happens. Let me tell you guys. First, even if we did have a face to yell at, those days are over. In this town there’d be a lawyer in the way before you got to the second sentence. Or the civil rights people if their name’s unpronounceable. Those days are past. Intelligence, analysts, profiling …” He patted Whitcombe’s arm. “Expert insight based upon years of knowledge … welcome to the future.”

  Peroni nodded and leaned forward. “And when you find them, will you have anyone left who still knows how to bring them in?”

  “You just watch,” Kelly replied with no small amount of menace. “We called this meeting to tell you the direction this investigation is heading. If those of you working the exhibition team see any suspicious individuals or come across any possible evidence, however small, we expect to hear of it, immediately. Your job is to keep those museum exhibits all together in one place. I suggest this time you get it right. It shouldn’t be too hard, should it?” He pointed at Falcone. “And stop that young cop of yours from hanging around with Maggie Flavier. She’s under our protection. Not yours.”

  “Miss Flavier goes where she wishes,” Falcone answered mildly. “You know that as well as we do. Speak to her. Put her in protective custody if you like. The media will love that.”

  “Falcone …” the Carabinieri officer warned.

  “What?”

  “Do not get in our way. One more question. Then we go.”

  “I doubt our paths will cross much, Maresciallo. I will be happy to comply with your wishes.”

  “And the question?” the man in the smart uniform added.

  Falcone screwed up his face. “You haven’t found anywhere that sells decent coffee, have you? The stuff we have in our house is simply disgusting.”

  “Good day,” Quattrocchi snorted, and stood up.

  The tiny room emptied in a flash. Catherine Bianchi opened every window, letting in some welcome fresh air. Peroni was pleased to notice that he could detect the scent of the ocean. Did the Pacific smell different from the Mediterranean? He thought so.

  Catherine Bianchi looked at Falcone and said, “Gerald Kelly is a good man. He’s only swallowing that bullshit because he’s got nothing else to work with.”

  “I believe you,” Falcone insisted.

  “So do you intend to tell him anything? You guys go home when this is over. I’ve got to keep a career, and it just might wind up on Bryant Street once they close up this place.”

  “I can’t think without coffee,” Falcone complained. “Real coffee. Not with chocolate in it. Or cinnamon. Or anything else. Just coffee.”

  She looked at Peroni, and he wished she hadn’t.

  “There’s a store around the corner,” she said. “They take orders. Not me.”

  Then she walked out of the room.

  Falcone watched her go, quite speechless. Peroni found himself a little misty-eyed with mirth.

  “They do things differently here, Leo,” he said quietly. “Best remember.”

  3

  Teresa Lupo knew she would end up gravitating to Chestnut Street. The house on Greenwich was comfortable and pretty and … boring. One neighbourhood store on the corner. A couple of bars and restaurants a block along. That was it. She hankered for noise and people and the bustle she associated with Rome. More than anything, she craved intellectual activity. Chestnut provided the first three, and perhaps the fourth, if she was lucky, though she felt sure that, by the time this self-assigned trip was over, she’d know every last bookstore, delicatessen, restaurant, and café there as well as any back home.

  At three o’clock on this chill San Francisco afternoon she found herself in a small and spotless café trying to summon the energy to walk along to the stores. Distances in this city were deceptive. From the nearby waterfront the Golden Gate Bridge itself seemed not much more than a stroll. She’d checked on the map she’d bought. The truth: it was a long, long haul, past West Bluff, Crissy Field, then Fort Point, and on to the bridge’s great arching span, thrusting out like some metal giant’s arm, reaching over the water. San Francisco was deceptive, a metropolis posing as a set of villages, or a set of villages posing as a metropolis, she wasn’t quite sure which. Perhaps if she went downtown … But the Marina and Cow Hollow were comfortable, and given that she seemed to be
expected to fall into some kind of mental torpor while the men got on with being jumped-up museum guards, there was, perhaps, no better place to be.

  The café owner was Armenian. His list of Italian “specialities” contained several items which Teresa not only failed to identify, but also found quite difficult to categorise. The coffee was fine, though: a strong macchiato, from a proper Italian machine, good enough for her to ask him to grind some to keep Falcone happy. Though why she did that …

  A long, low, and somewhat scatological Roman curse escaped her lips.

  One of two men seated at the next table shook his head and said, “Tut, tut. We are shocked.”

  She hadn’t really noticed them before, and now she realised that was odd. The pair appeared to be at the latter end of middle age, average height, dressed in the same fawn slacks and matching brown shirts with military-style pockets. Each had a good head of greying brown hair receding at the front, leaving them with prominent widow’s peaks. Their broad, friendly faces were tanned and adorned with walrus moustaches that nestled beneath florid, bulbous noses that spoke of beer and a bachelor lifestyle. They had the same eyes, too: deep set, dark, yet twinkling with intelligence and, perhaps, mischief.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologised. “I didn’t realise anyone here would speak Italian.”

  “We don’t,” the second one said. “A curse is a curse in any language. It’s the intonation.”

  “The force and the manner of speech,” the other added.

  “Observation is everything,” his counterpart continued, then dashed a vicious look across the street. Teresa’s own powers in this field were clearly on the wane. Both men were staring, with some degree of malevolence, at the fire station opposite. The doors were open, revealing the largest fire engine she had ever seen, a gigantic monster of gleaming red paint and mirror-like chrome that looked eager to burst upon the world seeking some blaze to extinguish merely by the force of its looming, glittering presence.