by David Hewson
Teresa and the two somewhat eccentric twins spoke of what they’d discovered. Costa listened.
When they were finished, Teresa said, “We thought you ought to know.”
He took a deep breath, smiled, and said, “It’s a good theory.”
“That’s it?” Teresa asked, incensed. “That’s all you have to say?”
“You can’t base a case on some information you’ve picked up on Google.”
“Nothing else fits,” insisted one of the brothers. “Does it?”
“Just because it fits doesn’t make it true. Without some evidence, or a confession, which seems just as unlikely, we’ve nothing.”
“A confession of murder,” the other brother said. “Sure. No one’s going to own up to that easily. But … am I really the only one who sees this?”
“Yes, Hank,” Teresa said. “I believe you are.”
“You don’t need to get someone to own up to killing one of these people,” Hank said. “All you need is to get them to own up to the deal. The insurance scheme. The tontine. If he — or she — does that and gives you the names of the members, you’ve got a short list. Someone on it has to be your man.”
Teresa stared at him. “Why on earth would anyone confess to that?”
“Because they can’t all be murdering bastards. This was an accidental tontine, right?” Hank looked at Costa. “Tom Black told you that himself, didn’t he? They surely didn’t start out to kill people. Why would they? Just to get a movie made? Someone somewhere’s got to have a conscience. Even in the movie business. Either that or they’ve got to be scared. Looking around at the others wondering, ‘Was it him? Am I next?’ No sane human being’s happy in that kind of situation.”
“Know anyone who fits the bill?” Teresa asked Costa.
“I’m not sure,” he replied. “Thanks for your time.”
Then he threw some money on the table and left.
6
Costa walked out onto chestnut and looked west, towards the flat green that fronted Fort Mason. The temperature seemed to have fallen a few degrees in the brief time he’d been inside the café. Gerald Kelly was right about the weather.
In the early days after they’d arrived in San Francisco, he’d checked the whereabouts of everyone involved in Inferno. Everyone except Maggie, since that felt somehow prurient. Roberto Tonti lived just a few hundred yards away in his bleached white mansion opposite the Palace of Fine Arts. Dino Bonetti usually took a suite in the Four Seasons on Market.
And Simon Harvey had a rented apartment on Marina Boulevard, not far from the Lukatmi building.
Someone somewhere’s got to have a conscience.
So how do you prick it?
He phoned Maggie. She was trying on some clothes for the premiere in a downtown store, surrounded, she complained, by plainclothes police. The two of them made small talk, then she asked, “Why did you really call, Nic? It wasn’t to check what I was going to wear tonight, was it?”
“I need to know something. A straight answer, Maggie. It’s important and it’s not what it sounds.”
“That has an ominous ring to it.” He heard her move somewhere more private.
“Was your relationship with Simon Harvey ever more than professional? If so, is it over? And if it is, how does he feel about that?”
He could hear the sharp, disappointed intake of breath down the phone. He could imagine the pain this question caused.
“Oh, Nic. You’re not going to do this to me all the time, are you? Ask about the past? There are a lot of questions and not many answers you’re going to like.”
“It’s never going to happen again. And I wish I didn’t have to ask now. But I do. It’s important.”
“To you?”
“In the sense that it concerns your safety … yes. Someone tried to harm you.”
“Not Simon, never Simon. That’s ludicrous …”
He hesitated. He really didn’t want to know. “You’re certain of that?”
“Yes. I am. We had an affair five years ago while we were filming that pirate nonsense. It lasted a few months. Then he joined the long line of ex-lovers who couldn’t take my behaviour any longer. I hurt him, Nic. A lot. I know because he’s told me more than once. He thought … Simon thought he could save me from myself. Some men do. It still pains him. From time to time he tries to pick up the pieces. Why do you think he was there in the sanatorium that day? Why do you think he gets so awkward when you’re around?”
“I’m sorry I had to ask.”
“I’m sorry, too. Don’t ever do it again.”
The phone went dead.
7
Simon Harvey’s apartment was on the ground floor of a Spanish-style block close to the yacht moorings that adjoined the eastern face of Fort Mason. The fog was now rolling in from the Bay with a steady momentum. There were three uniformed SFPD cops outside the door. They didn’t give him any trouble once they saw Costa’s ID. Kelly must have put round the word.
Harvey didn’t answer the bell straightaway. When he did, he didn’t look like a man preparing for the movie event of his career.
“What the hell did I do to deserve this?” He kept the door half open, blocking Costa’s way.
“I thought perhaps I’d need a publicist, now you’re setting the paparazzi on me.”
Harvey’s hair was shorter, freshly cut. The vaguely hip, student-like appearance was gone. He was trying on a tuxedo over a pair of jeans and a white dress shirt.
“Does this look like a good time to you? I’m getting dressed.”
“It’s a good time for me …” Costa began.
Harvey swore and began to close the door. Costa slipped his foot in the gap and his arm up against the wood.
“What the hell is this?” Harvey yelled. “Some Roman punk can’t just come here and start harassing me.” He glared at the three uniforms by the front gate, beyond the small, immaculate lawn of the garden. “Hey. Hey. Do I get some protection here? Well? Do I?”
One of the men turned briefly and shrugged.
Costa leaned forward and said, “Just a minute of your time, sir …”
“You don’t deserve a second of my time—”
“Simon,” Costa interrupted, “I know.”
The pressure on the door relaxed a little. Harvey’s bright, intelligent eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean? You know what?”
“I know about the scam. The tontine that Roberto Tonti had you and Dino Bonetti run up. The one that got Inferno made even though you didn’t have the money. Just a treasure chest offshore, one part Lukatmi, one part Inferno. All under-the-counter, half of it worthless, half—”
“—worth what? Worth killing for? That’s crap.” Harvey scowled at him. “You really are something else. You mess with one of my stars. You almost get her killed. And now you stand on my doorstep accusing me of murder. Get the hell out of here.”
Costa launched himself forward, pushed Simon Harvey hard back through the entrance, kicked the door shut behind, and held him tight against the wall, elbow to his throat. This close he could smell some rank, harsh spirit on Harvey’s breath. It seemed rather early in the day for vodka.
“I don’t care about you,” Costa murmured. “Not for one moment. I don’t care who it was turned murderous. Or that he may still have your name on the list of people standing between him and the pot of gold waiting in Grand Cayman.”
“Get out of my home—” Harvey began. Then he shut up.
Costa had never done this before but there were lots of things he’d never done until San Francisco. He had the service revolver hard against Simon Harvey’s right temple. He was looking into the publicist’s terrified face, searching for something.
“Do you know what it feels like? To get shot? I do. It hurts. Not the way you think. It’s a big hurt. It aches and aches. Long after the blood’s gone. Long after the scars. It’s not like the movies. Life isn’t. It’s real and cold and hard. If you lose someone you love, the taste of it stays with you for
ever.”
“Don’t threaten me. I could make one phone call …”
Costa stood back, breathing hard. Then he holstered the weapon.
“Make the call. Didn’t you hear me? I know. I know you didn’t just cut yourself in on this deal. Somehow you got between Maggie and her agent and put some part of her fee into that grubby little scheme of yours. That’s why she’s wondering where the money is now. What’s she going to think when she finds she got robbed by some …” He waited to let the words have some power. “… old boyfriend? One who still won’t let go?”
“You’re remarkably out of your depth.”
“Maybe,” Costa admitted. “Doesn’t it bother you, though? The idea that this isn’t over?”
“Of course it’s over. The Carabinieri said so. Those creeps from Lukatmi did it. Jonah. Black.”
“The Carabinieri are wrong. What if someone gets to Maggie first? Would you even care?”
“What the hell are you talking about? Where’d you get this crap?”
“Maggie told me. About you two. And the money.”
Harvey stared at him, remembering something. “Big deal. She tell you anything else? About what it was like? What she did?”
“No …”
“You’ve got all that ahead of you, friend. Nothing I can do will warn you off it, either. Listen. I am not a thief.”
“What else do you call it?”
“I call it looking after people who can’t look after themselves. I call it keeping her alive, making sure the last movie she was ever going to get didn’t fold beneath her. That’s the truth. Maggie’s career has been on the skids for years. Inferno was her only chance to keep her name up there. If it never even made it to the screen …” There was a distant look of resignation and regret on his face. “You weren’t there. You can’t begin to understand. Some of us put in years for that movie and there it was, ready to fall apart. No fairy godmothers on the horizon. Everything was in hock. Our homes, our reputations. Everything.”
Costa waited.
“And if you tell anyone I said that, I’ll call you a liar to your face,” Harvey rasped. “In a police station. On the witness stand. Anywhere. This is America. We’ve got lawyers who could free the Devil if he got found eating babies on Main Street. Give it up. You can’t win. Not with me. Not with Maggie, either. You’re way out of your league. Cut your losses.” He nodded at the door. “Now get out.”
“Best I know my place,” Costa said, not moving.
“If that’s the way you want to see it.”
He took out the weapon again and lifted it. The barrel was inches from Harvey’s throat.
“You’re not listening to me,” Costa said. “Maggie knew nothing of all this. You made her a part of it. You put her in danger. Because of you, she nearly died.” The shadow of the weapon fell towards the window. “Whoever murdered Allan Prime is still out there. He murdered Martin Vogel and Josh Jonah. He shot Tom Black dead before the police could get to him.”
The blood drained from Harvey’s face. “What the hell are you talking about? The cops shot Tom.”
“No. He was killed by a single bullet from a distant gunman. They’ve recovered the shell. They know what kind of rifle he used. A hunting weapon. Like the crossbow that killed Allan Prime.”
“This is not possible, not possible. The Maggie thing … it had to be an accident. I couldn’t …” Harvey was shaking his head like a man on the brink.
“There are no accidents. None. Every time someone in this deal of yours dies, the rest of you get richer. I don’t care what this madman does to you. But … if it’s Maggie he finds this time …”
“Not going to happen, not going to happen.” Harvey’s eyes were closed, screwed tight shut. “It’s inconceivable …”
“If it does — it doesn’t matter where or when — I will find you. I will walk up to your dinner table in whatever fancy restaurant in New York or Cannes or L.A., anywhere …” He nudged the barrel of the gun back towards Harvey’s temple. “… and then in front of your Hollywood friends I will shoot you through the head.”
Costa lowered the weapon. He put it back in Gerald Kelly’s leather holster. Then he turned towards the door.
A hand touched his arm.
“Don’t go.”
Simon Harvey was slumped against the wall. He looked drained, lost, defeated.
Then he turned, picked up a bottle of Grey Goose from the cocktail cabinet by the window, poured himself a large glass, and said, “Sit down.”
8
“It was never supposed to turn out this way,” Harvey murmured, gripping the glass. “The whole thing was just something to get us through. Out of the mess.”
He sat on the sofa opposite Costa, staring at the mirror on the side wall, as if trying to convince himself. “Maggie wasn’t the only one with everything to lose. Roberto’s dying. There was never going to be another movie. I wasn’t sure he’d live long enough to complete this one.”
“I didn’t realise the movie business was so sentimental.”
“Don’t patronise me!” Harvey screeched. “I’ve worked with these people for years. They’re more to me than a paycheck. Even Roberto. Sure, he can be an asshole. They all can. But he’s an artist, too, one of the last. The people he worked with — Hitchcock, Rossellini, De Sica. We don’t see men like them anymore. Those days, when it was all about film, nothing but film, they’re over. When I looked at Roberto …”
His bleak eyes never left Costa’s face. “You won’t understand, Nic. I grew up with all those movies from the fifties. Roberto lived them. You could talk to him, about how Hitchcock would chase the light he wanted, how Rossellini could coax a performance from some two-bit actress who didn’t have the talent to speak her own name. Inferno was always going to be his last movie, and when he dies, that piece of history dies with him.” He gulped more vodka.
“When he dies, all we’ll have left are kids who think you can direct a movie with a computer and a mouse. Maybe Inferno’s a piece of shit. But there’s still some art in there somewhere. I see it, even if no one else does.”
Outside, the fog shrouded the Bay. Costa couldn’t even see the cops by the gate anymore.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” Harvey said flatly.
“But it did. Maybe it will again.”
“No. It won’t. I guarantee that. I’ll make sure of it. This has gone far enough.”
“You need to make a statement.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, waving Costa down. “And in return …?”
“I can’t negotiate on behalf of the SFPD. You need to talk to them direct.”
“Fine. But only after the premiere. Not before. Roberto’s owed his moment. Maggie, too. We all are.”
“Whose idea was it?” Costa asked.
“I said after—”
“I know. But I want to hear it. Just for me.”
“Just for you.” Harvey shook his head, bitterly amused by some internal thought. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to tell someone this?”
“I’m starting to,” Costa said honestly.
“I don’t even really know when it started. I was drunk at the time. I figured Inferno was dead. We’d been everywhere. Dino had begged every last penny he could out of his mob friends, and they were starting to get ugly, thinking the whole thing was about to turn into a train wreck. Maybe it was him, maybe Roberto. Maybe both. I don’t even know. I just woke up one morning and the money was there. We got the movie, and maybe down the line we got paid, too.”
Harvey scowled at the glass and put it on the table in front of him, half finished. “How do you say no to something like that? We all knew Roberto was sick. He told us he was rolling in his fee as collateral, knowing full well he’d never live to collect it. Lukatmi was going to go sky high. Instant profit for all of us the moment he croaked, even if the movie bombed.”
“Whose names were on the contract?”
Harvey stared at him as i
f it were an idiotic question. “What contract? What do you think this was? A corporation? Some listing on the New York Stock Exchange? It was just some grubby little deal to breathe life back into a dying movie. These things happen all the time—”
“Who …?”
“I didn’t know all the names. I didn’t want to. Allan put in the balance of his fee. That took a little persuading, but Dino offered to sort out a few personal issues he had somewhere. What’s a producer for? I waived what I was owed. Same with Dino. Josh and Tom put in some special form of Lukatmi stock and a little cash just to keep the wheels turning. Those of us on the movie side thought that would turn out to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. How dumb can you get, huh? We thought we were robbing the geeks when the truth is it was the other way round. Robbing murderous geeks, too …”
He cleared his throat then, looked at Costa. “And now you’re telling me that’s not the case? That Black and Josh didn’t do it?”
“I don’t think so. Do you know anyone who hunts?”
“In the movie business? Are you kidding?”
“What about the people you used?”
“I made damned sure I stayed clear of that side of things. Fraud’s as far as I was prepared to go. Dino handled the rough stuff. He seemed comfortable with it. He had the contacts. Tom and Josh knew some guy from Lukatmi who came in as crew. All I did was get Martin Vogel on board. That creep would screw his mother for five bucks. The only other thing I handled was Maggie. I gave her a few drinks and talked her into signing her cut away into some fictitious offshore production company. She didn’t have a clue what she was doing. Money’s never been her thing. I had her name on the paper before her agent knew anything about it. Nothing anyone could do after that.”
His phone rang. Harvey took it out of his pocket, looked at the number, then turned the thing off.
“She wasn’t going to get robbed, either. I’d never let that happen to her. All of us figured we’d get what we were owed at the very least. Maybe more, if Lukatmi’s stock went through the roof. Dino handled the money and contract side of things. He could do that better than anyone. I didn’t understand a word of what he was doing. All any of us cared about was the fact this gave us a chance to make Inferno happen.”
