Dante's Numbers nc-7

by David Hewson

  He looked at his watch and shrugged. “I’ve got to get dressed soon. Really.”

  “Who put it all together?” Costa pressed.

  “We just did what we’d been doing all along. I’d been hyping Inferno from the start. Would the academic community be pissed off by it? Was the thing cursed? The media loved all that crap. The story had legs. So we decided to build on it. This idea that someone was stalking the movie and leaving clues straight out of Dante. We forged a few e-mails.” He stiffened. “Someone hired that guy to wear a Carabinieri uniform and create some kind of incident the day of the premiere in Rome. No one was supposed to get shot.”

  “Allan Prime …”

  “I damned near told you all this then. But that would have killed the movie stone dead. All I knew was that Tom and Josh had cooked up something to get us some publicity. They never told me what. I don’t know about the others. Afterwards …”

  He fell silent.

  “What?” Costa asked.

  “I thought the rest of them didn’t understand it, either. Allan was supposed to disappear for a while, get that death mask nonsense made, then put on that little show in front of the camera as a stunt and get rescued by the cops. They were going to portray it as some kind of warped attack. Allan was in on the plan. They told him all about it. That’s what they said. They had no idea why he got killed. They thought maybe something went wrong …”

  “He was murdered, deliberately, in cold blood, in front of millions of people. It almost kept Lukatmi alive.”

  “Josh said it was never meant to happen. That’s all I can tell you.”

  Harvey tapped his watch. “When the premiere’s over, come and see me and I will make a statement. I’ll want a lawyer there. This has gone far enough already. I don’t want anything else on my conscience. Besides …” He caught his own reflection in the mirror and the traces of a smile creased his face. “… it’s a hell of a story, isn’t it? Biggest I’ve ever spun. Could make a movie someday.”

  Something was still missing.

  “There was a woman involved,” Costa said. “She went to Prime’s apartment the morning he died. She made the mask. She left with him.”

  Harvey waved away the idea with his hand. “I don’t know about any woman. Except for Maggie, and she didn’t know the first thing about what was going on. Can’t help you there.”

  Costa kept his eyes on him and said, “The woman called herself Carlotta Valdes.”

  Simon Harvey blanched. He said, “What?”

  “Carlotta Valdes? Do you know the name?”

  “Of course I do! Vertigo. It was shot right here. Roberto worked on it. He’s talked about it, often.”

  “What do you think it means? That the woman used Carlotta Valdes’s name?” Costa asked.

  “That some punk in this nightmare still has good taste in movies.”

  9

  The security cordon ran from 101 all the way down to the waterfront stretch of Marina Boulevard. Bright red barriers and yellow tape blocked off all the normal entry routes. Photographers and TV camera crew who hadn’t managed to beg media accreditation wandered the perimeter like mangy starving lions. Uniformed SFPD officers stood at the two entry checkpoints, ruthlessly checking the credentials of the lines of men in evening suits and women wearing elegant, stunningly expensive dresses. Once they were approved, the guests were then forced to walk through a portable airport-style metal detector to check for weapons, an unusual addition to such an event, Costa thought, and one that clearly engaged the attention of the photographers. All stood shivering in the chilly mist.

  The queue of expensively clad bodies was steadily working through the system. Costa walked round the entire enclosed area once, then stopped by the lake that fronted the main structure of the Palace. Even this close, he could only just make out the domed roof of the structure across the water. Soon that would be gone. Inferno would be launched, appropriately enough, in a miasma of San Francisco fog. He wondered if the grey cloud might even seep into the gigantic tent erected for the private screening, and if it did whether those at the rear of the seats would have much of a view. Perhaps that wasn’t the point. This was an occasion to be seen at more than anything. The lines of sleek dark limousines drawing up by the checkpoints contained more than a few faces he had come to recognise from the TV since he’d arrived in San Francisco, politicians and media figures, actors and celebrities, a constant stream of beautiful women on the arms of men in impeccable evening dress.

  He looked ruefully at his own crumpled dark blue suit, bought from the usual discount store in Vittorio Emanuele, near the bridge to the Castel Sant’Angelo. Costa tightened his tie into a half-passable knot, which was as good as it got. When no one was looking, he stepped into a nearby flower bed, stole a red rose from one of the bushes there, and placed it in his lapel. Then he took out his Roman police ID card and, after the uniform on the gate checked with Gerald Kelly, made his way into the world premiere for Roberto Tonti’s Inferno.

  After a brief search he found Falcone, Peroni, and Teresa in the tent that housed the main historical exhibits from Florence. The three of them looked bored and out of sorts, yawning next to a set of glass cabinets displaying illuminated medieval manuscripts. Only a handful of visitors had wandered into the place. The rest were outside, with the stars and the free drinks. Compared to those, some old documents seemed insufficient to warrant anyone’s attention.

  Falcone cleared his throat and said, though with precious little in the way of displeasure, “I was under the impression, Soverintendente, that you were off-duty today.”

  “I am.” He flashed the envelope Maggie had sent to the house on Greenwich Street. “Someone sent me a ticket for the main event.”

  “Lucky you,” Peroni observed.

  “Thanks.”

  “I meant,” the big man went on, “lucky you getting away, after all that nonsense last night. It would be nice if we knew where you were sometimes, Nic.”

  Costa shrugged and apologised. “I hadn’t really expected things to turn out the way they did. Also …” He wondered how much to tell them. “… I was hoping for a little gratitude from Gerald Kelly when I brought him Tom Black. It wasn’t the fault of the SFPD that things went wrong.”

  Not at all, he thought, remembering the hunting weapon, and its link to the crossbow that had killed Allan Prime.

  Teresa reached up and did some more work on his tie. “If you’re on a date, and I suspect you are, Nic, you really ought to take a little more time with your appearance.”

  “Been busy,” he said, fighting shy of her hands.

  They caught the unintentional note of satisfaction in his voice.

  “Good busy or idle busy?” Peroni asked suspiciously.

  “Good.”

  He left it at that.

  Falcone looked at him and asked, “How good?”

  There was no way to say it except simply.

  “Possibly as good as we’re likely to get. When the show’s over, Simon Harvey wants to make a statement. He’ll confess to being a part of a financial conspiracy to hype Inferno by making bogus threats to those involved, with their knowledge usually. They needed the money. They needed the movie to be a success. Also …”

  “No details, not now,” Falcone said, suppressing a wry grin.

  Teresa smiled. “Will he name anyone else, perchance?”

  “Allan Prime. Josh Jonah. Tom Black. Dino Bonetti.” He paused. “And Roberto Tonti.”

  “A tontine?” she asked.

  “Effectively. Harvey says that Tonti made his illness one of the lures. It was obvious he wouldn’t survive to pick up his share, so all the others believed that would give them an instant profit. In return, he was allowed to make his final movie.”

  Falcone pointed a finger at him. “What did I say about details?” He glanced around. “Harvey’s told you all this already? And you say he’s willing to repeat it all?”

  “After the premiere. He feels they’re all owed the
ir moment of glory. After that, though, he’s had enough. He’s a decent man.”

  Peroni huffed and puffed and grumbled. “Now he’s decent! And if he changes his mind?”

  Costa pulled out the tiny MP3 player he’d bought from Walgreens on Chestnut on his way to Harvey’s apartment. It had been tucked into his jacket pocket, set to record, throughout their conversation. The histrionics with the gun had been intended, in part, to make Harvey so nervous he might not notice its presence. For twenty dollars the thing did a good job; Nic had checked through the little earphones on the walk back to the Palace of Fine Arts. He still didn’t quite recognise his own voice, particularly in those moments when he had the gun in his hands.

  “If he changes his mind, then I just give this to Gerald Kelly and let nature take its course. The entire conversation is recorded, from beginning to end. I’m not sure how much of it will pass the evidence rules in America …”

  They were grinning like Cheshire cats, all three of them.

  “I mean that about the evidence, Leo. It would be best all round if the man confesses …”

  “Let me worry about that.” The inspector hesitated, then asked, “No more names to give me?”

  “Maggie Flavier was defrauded of her fee. She never knew a thing about what was going on. Harvey’s admitted that. At the very least Kelly can charge them over that.”

  “At the very least,” Falcone agreed, then took the audio player from Costa’s fingers. “Thank you very much.”

  Costa stood his ground. “And you intend to do what with it, sir?”

  Leo Falcone stiffened, straightened his own tie, and looked outside the door at the swirling mist.

  “I intend to find Captain Kelly and tell him what you’ve just told me. I want to leave this place feeling we did our job as well as could be expected in the circumstances. Not in the middle of some argument over who deserves the credit.”

  “And me?” Costa asked.

  Falcone frowned, as if the question were ridiculous. “You’re off-duty and you’ve got a date. Make the most of it. As for you two …” He glanced at Peroni and Teresa, then waved at the glass cabinets and their ancient manuscripts. “… watch this stuff, will you?”

  10

  Falcone found Gerald Kelly alone a little way from the mob of photographers and reporters jostling one another by the red carpet runway to the premiere. The tent was now a ghostly grey shape in the fog. Through the open flaps, he could just make out the brightly lit stage with mikes clustered thickly in front of the screen, like the podium for some cut-rate copy of the Oscar ceremonies. A half-familiar face from the TV was scheduled to start a warm-up for the evening. Then there would be the movie, and, some three hours later, a closing speech from Roberto Tonti.

  The Roman inspector wished to see none of it. He knew his own force could take no part in what followed, even if the crucial information were to come from them in the first instance. This was Gerald Kelly’s case, one that would, if it came to court, be prosecuted through the American authorities, not those in Italy. If Falcone could return home with the missing mask of Dante Alighieri, then he would be content, though he did not expect this happy conclusion to be reached.

  “Are you planning to watch the movie?” Falcone asked as the American police officer arrived.

  “Not if I can help it,” Kelly said.

  “I understand.” The American had a very piercing gaze. “Are you pleased with the arrangements, Captain?”

  Kelly frowned. “As much as anyone could be. The glitterati don’t like going through metal detectors, but they can learn to live with it. We’re doing what we can.”

  Falcone thought of how Maggie Flavier had been poisoned by someone working in a catering truck, an individual with a fake name and no ID. There were limits to how much security one could put in place for events of this nature. Without months of preparation and the vetting of everyone concerned — neither of which had been practicable — some loopholes had to remain.

  He didn’t mention this because he knew Gerald Kelly understood the problem just as well as he did. Instead, he told Kelly briefly what he had learned from Costa. He passed on the audio player, then requested that he attend any interview with Simon Harvey to ask the necessary questions about the missing death mask of Dante Alighieri. After that — barring any new discoveries — the work of the Roman state police in San Francisco would be done. They could return home on the weekend with some sense of achievement, even if the public prize would doubtless fall to others.

  This news did not appear to surprise the American police captain, which Falcone found odd. But Kelly thanked him politely for it, agreed to Harvey’s conditions, and asked for Falcone to meet him with the publicist at the temporary police control truck after Roberto Tonti’s closing speech. Then he said no more.

  Taking the hint, Falcone left to amble idly around the crowd, determined not to return to a tent full of glass cases and mouldering pieces of paper.

  Finally, not consciously realising that this was what he intended all along, he found her. Catherine Bianchi stood beneath the dome of the Palace, a radio in her hand. She wore a dark suit that was tight on her slender figure, and she might have been mistaken for a guest herself had she not spent so much of her time alone, scrutinizing the crowd with the careful attention he knew all good police officers possessed.

  “Leo?” she said as he approached.

  “It’s a foul evening for a movie premiere. They should have chosen a theatre.”

  “It’s only a movie. A few hours of fantasy, then it’s over.” She smiled at him. She looked different somehow. More at ease. More … alluring perhaps. Falcone found this odd and a little disconcerting. He had scarcely given Catherine Bianchi a second thought all day, possibly for the first time since he had arrived in San Francisco.

  “I’m through at nine,” she said. “I know a warm place for dinner. We should go to North Beach. You’ve been avoiding Italian food ever since you got here. It’s time to try something new.”

  He laughed. “I don’t think I’ve done anything else but try new things since I got here, have I? And now …”

  “Now you’re going. I can see it in your face.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “You’re very transparent, Leo. You all are. Peroni. Nic. Teresa. I’ll miss that. It’s unusual. You’re unusual.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps we’re just out of place.”

  “When do you go?” she asked.

  “Sometime this weekend, I think. I haven’t given it much thought, to be honest. Nic said something about wishing to tack some holiday on the end. It’s fine by me. I have some reports to deal with in Rome. Internal reorganisation. You know the kind of thing.”

  “They’re transferring me downtown,” she told him. “Bryant Street. I’ll miss the Marina. It’s my little village.”

  The distant quacking of the waterfowl on the lake echoed through the mist. There was a burst of laughter and applause from the stage, now almost invisible in the fog.

  “You’ll never leave Rome, will you?” she asked.

  “No more than you’d leave San Francisco.”

  “Kind of makes things hard, doesn’t it? When two people are fixed in their ways like that?”

  “We have what time we have. We do with it the best we can.”

  A part of him had sought this woman’s affection with an ardent desire he’d not known for a long time. Now that Italy beckoned, that passion had dissipated almost as quickly as it had arisen in the first place. Yet there was a look in her eyes …

  “I’m sorry if I offended you, Catherine. That was never my intention.”

  “I wasn’t offended. I was flattered. But you try too hard, Leo. And also …” She looked a little guilty. “I have a rule. I don’t date cops.”

  He blinked. “Ever?”

  “Ever.” She was smiling at him. “At least I haven’t since I made the mistake of marrying one briefly a decade or so back.”

  “Ah …�
��

  “But we could have dinner in North Beach tonight. Since you go home so soon … We’re free as birds. After the premiere …?”

  Falcone felt briefly lost for words. Then he tapped his watch and said, rather more bluntly than he wished, “I’m afraid I can’t fit you in. Business, unfortunately. It may go on for a while. We should meet for a coffee sometime. That would be good.”

  The radio burst into life. She held it to her mouth and began speaking. He could see she hadn’t even touched the press-to-talk button. Their conversation had come to a close.

  Falcone walked to the cordoned area, found a quiet place with a seat. He was acutely aware of something that surprised him. He would miss this city. He would regret, too, the overzealous and childish way he had chased Catherine Bianchi without ever once asking himself what she might seek in return.

  Cries of surprise and a ripple of applause drifted through the mist from the nearby runway into the premiere.

  Falcone walked to the edge of the crowd, close to the road, and, with the deft elbows of a Roman, worked his way politely but forcefully to the front.

  The cameras and the reporters had only one thing on their mind, and that was the couple walking slowly along the red carpet.

  Leo Falcone stood behind the yellow tape, and found himself beaming with a mixture of pride and emotion at what he saw. Nic Costa looked as if he belonged with the beautiful young woman on his arm, even though his cheap Roman suit seemed somewhat shabby next to her flowing silk gown, a flimsy creation for such a chilly, fog-strewn night. Not that Maggie Flavier, being the consummate actress she was, showed one iota of discomfort.

  As the reporters shouted her name, she simply smiled and waved and held herself like a star for the cameras, her small hand always on Costa’s arm. The young police officer held himself with quiet, calm dignity.