A Thousand Tombs (21 page)

Giampaolino dropped the phone and did his best to grab her, but Gen wriggled from his grasp. She darted around the desk and kept it between them while she wracked her brain to figure out some way to get past his bulk and out the door.

But Rudy squashed that plan.

He pulled out a pistol and pointed it at her.

She looked from the gun to his face and got an eyeful of the damage she’d done, then felt a flash of pride despite the circumstances. One of his eye sockets was purple and as swollen as a ripe plum, an even better shiner than the one he’d given her. His broken nose was taped, and he was breathing through his mouth. The index finger on his left hand had been splinted and taped to the digit beside it.

Too bad she hadn’t had time to think; she should have bent his right instead, in which case he’d be having trouble holding onto his weapon right now.

“You stupid bitch,” he hissed. “I oughta shoot your ass right here for what you done to me.”

Gen opened her mouth to say something flippant but bit the words back; no sense pushing him farther down the pissy path than he already was.

She was good at that.

“Hey Rudy.” Her voice was as contrite as she could make it. “It wasn’t personal. I didn’t know that was you behind me.”

The big guy looked confused for a minute. Whether it was what she’d just said or because Gen knew his name, she didn’t know. But he shook it off, then narrowed his eyes and circled back to mad.

“You don’t know nothin’.”

Okay, yeah, that was true enough.

“I know you work for Luciano and his sidekick here.” Gen gestured at Carla, still unconscious and trussed in the chair with her head thrown forward on her chest. Rudy didn’t seem to be in any hurry to free her. Perhaps she irritated him, too, and he just wasn’t going to admit it.

But Rudy’s eyebrows went up; he was interested in what she had to say, a mistake according to Mack’s theory. He should have been intent on tying her up or knocking her out, whatever he needed to do to neutralize the threat. Then again, maybe he didn’t think she was dangerous.

She took offense at that, considering what she’d delivered earlier.

“So?” he replied. “What you know ain’t gonna do you any good. We’re outta here. You’ll be specks in our rearview mirror before the day is through. Course, you might be a crushed speck, you keep makin’ trouble.”

He waggled the gun toward Carla. “She’s already got it in for ya. Wait till you start rippin’ that tape off, she’ll be screaming for your blood then. Go on, get to work.”

Keep talking, big guy.

Gen nodded and took a step toward the woman. Rudy’s eyes blew up like silver dollars when she moved, and it took her a beat to realize it wasn’t about her change in position. When she heard the sound of tiny feet scurrying behind her, she knew.

Rats.

There was probably one in the duct above her head. And from the looks of it, Rudy Giampaolino was not partial to rodents.

He waved her out of the way with one hand, then raised the gun higher and lurched toward the open vent, as if his plan was to blow away the nasty little vermin.

But the telephone cord was still stretched across the floor from the desk to the wall, and although it didn’t offer much resistance, he caught a foot beneath it in his haste and tripped. His upper body hunched and he went down on one knee, plunging his free hand to the floor to keep his balance.

The stone ashtray was still there beside the door where she’d dropped it. Gen raced over and picked it up and cracked him on the side of the head.

It was like a bee sting to the big guy, but he cursed and whipped his free hand up to cover his head as she brought it down again. This time she whacked his fingers, right across the broken one.

That had to smart.

He screamed and dropped the gun and rocked back and forth, cursing in Italian. “I’m gonna kill you,” he bellowed, and scrambled for the pistol.

Gen drew her arm back like a major league pitcher, then swung. This time when the chunk of stone hit Rudy’s temple, she felt the jar of the impact all the way to her shoulder. She dropped her arm. Rudy fell over on his side.

Two for two.

She hoped her luck would hold, but she wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. She grabbed the gun and the tape and trussed Rudy’s hands behind him.

Then she found the phone and was on her butt on the floor again, this time with a dial tone and the receiver to her ear. She punched in 9-1-1 and willed her heart to drop from its thundering hundred-beats-a-second tempo to something closer to normal. As it did, she heard footsteps pacing up a set of stairs somewhere not too far away.

People were coming.

Her heart rate ramped up again. She took the phone and tried to hide in the keyhole of the desk, but it was a lame attempt and wouldn’t keep her safe for long, if at all. Her mind was screaming for the emergency operator to pick up when she heard a single set of footsteps enter the room.

“No need to call, the cops are on their way.”

Gen held her position and her breath.

Whoever it was strolled around to face her, and she looked up into the eyes of the scowling young guy who hung out in the dry cleaning establishment next door to Ralph Zuccaro’s pawn shop.

He was holding a pistol down by his leg.

“You sure are a pain in the neck,” he said. “You’ve been getting in my way for weeks now.” He scanned the room, checking out Rudy and Carla. “Nice job with this pair, though. Looks to me like you know your way around a roll of tape.”

He smiled and held out a hand to help her up.

Gen blinked. Who was this guy? And more importantly, was it a trick? She pointed Rudy’s gun at him. “Back off.”

He did.

Gen inched out from beneath the desk with the phone to her ear and the weapon held steady.

“Mike Lassiter,” the young man said. “Homeland Security. I’m one of the good guys. Okay if I put my hand in my pocket? I’ll show you my credentials.”

“Which pocket?”

“Back right. Jeans.”

Gen nodded. “Turn around while you do it.”

Lassiter followed instructions, reached slowly in and pulled out a wallet, then opened it with one hand and held it out, still turned, toward Gen.

She took it and glanced down. It looked like a government-issue ID all right, complete with his headshot and the name he’d given her. Could be a fake.

“9-1-1 operator,” a woman’s voice said. “What is your emergency?”

“This is Genevieve Delacourt. I need to report a kidnapping, assault, and robbery. I’m in a warehouse complex in South Oakland, but I don’t know the address.”

“2890 Fruitvale,” Lassiter replied.

Gen knew that was the street she’d turned onto when she was following Luca, so she went with it, repeating it to the operator. “A guy here says the police are already on the way,” she added.

“Let me check with dispatch,” the woman replied. “Are you in immediate danger?”

“Let’s hope not. Go ahead.”

When the operator came back on the line, she verified that units had been dispatched to that address. Gen lowered the gun and thanked her, then hung up the phone.

Two other men poked their faces in the door and Lassiter pointed to Rudy’s prone form, then waved them in. Carla began to stir.

“Feel better?” Lassiter asked.

“Yeah, whatever,” Gen replied. “They’re holding Vincenzo Vitelli’s wife in an apartment in this building, and her grandson dropped in unannounced to see her maybe twenty minutes ago. So chances are if they don’t already, it won’t be long before the bad guys have him again, too.”

“It’s under control. These two were the last loose ends we needed to tie up, and you handled that for us. Literally. I was just on my way to let them know we have a team downstairs and they were through. We’ve actually been looking for you, Miss Delacourt.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“You sure have. Luca told us you were in the attic somewhere. We were just about to send in a scent hound, see if he could track you down.” The humor in his voice was clear, but it was too soon for her to go there.

“What took you so long?” she asked. “If you knew what they’ve been up to, why didn’t you move in sooner?”

“The Italian cops were very careful not to be seen with the rest of the group. We’ve been waiting for solid evidence that Salvatore and Luciano were involved. We know John at the pawn shop is part of it, and we’re running audio surveillance over at Zuccaro’s. We heard John tell someone on the phone the Carabinieri had shown up here. That must have been just before you barreled in.”

“So how were they getting all the antiquities into the country?”

“You mean all the stuff downstairs? It was already here. Salvatore and Luciano were using their department’s intel to rip off looters and collectors in the U.S. who already had the stuff illegally. They were targeting other crooks. People who weren’t in a position to complain.”

Gen nodded.

“I need to apologize, Miss Delacourt. Your cleaning people let me into your office and I lifted your house key and had a look around, just to be sure you were legit. Sorry about that.

“Oh, and there’s a pretty significant reward being offered for the repatriation of some of the things they stole. I’m going to make sure you get a cut of it, even though you’ve been making my life miserable. Truth is, you kept them occupied. They weren’t looking over their shoulder for us, they were too busy trying to deal with you.”

Gen laughed, then picked up the phone again. It was time to call Mack and explain where Luca was, and why she was late.

* * *

It wasn’t long before they’d assembled in the kitchen of the warehouse apartment. Mrs. V was making coffee for everyone, as calm as a medicated suburban housewife. If it wasn’t for the obvious trembling of her fingers as she poured, you’d never know she’d been held against her will.

Ralph Zuccaro and Mr. Vitelli had arrived, and when he reunited with his wife and grandson, the scene was beyond touching. So poignant, in fact, that Gen turned away and wondered how long it would be before Mack showed up. He’d said he was on his way.

Now they were around the dinette in the kitchen, swapping stories.

“My father’s father unearthed the coins eighty years ago,” Vitelli explained, “beneath his fields. He knew they had value, but they became a symbol to our family. A good luck charm. Something to fall back on if times ever got so hard that the land could not pull us through. He decided they would be passed from first-born to first-born.

“When I became Carabinieri, I understood that the treasure was illegal for us to own. I was a self-righteous young man. I confronted my father, insisted that the coins be given back to Italy. But he refused.

“So when it came my turn to hold them I was passed over, and my sister stepped up to take my place. My family’s fear was that I would give them to the state, and it would not be right, you see, for me to own what I confiscated from others. But over time, I understood that I could not deny my family this legacy. I closed my eyes to their existence.”

“When my mother died last year, the coins passed to me,” Ralph added.

“How did you get them through customs?” Gen asked.

“They were already here, in North Beach. My parents emigrated when I was a child, and the coins came with them. They were hidden well, and it was long before the authorities were on the lookout for these things.”

“So explain how they ended up with Luca.”

“John had been working for me for about a month,” Ralph said, “when I came in on a Sunday morning. The fan was on and he had a radio playing, so he didn’t hear the locks or the door open.

“I was surprised he was there, although he had a key. He was in the front with his loupe, examining a page from an illuminated manuscript under the lights. He didn’t hear me until I was behind him, and by then it was too late to hide it.

“He was uncomfortable, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He made up a story about a friend whose family brought it over from the old country, and they wanted it appraised. I pretended disinterest, but after that I watched. And I saw things. A bronze cup wrapped in his jacket. A
krater
he’d hidden in an old cardboard box. Things like that.”

“What’s a
krater
?” Gen asked.

“A decorated vase,” Ralph replied. “This one was centuries old. I recognized its age and value, and that’s when I went to my uncle and told him I suspected my new employee was trading in illegal antiquities.”

Vitelli’s head bowed; he was embarrassed. “I was foolish in my reaction,” he said. “I thought it was my chance to relive the old days. To catch a thief, and to stop the looting and the crimes.”

“It was my fault,” Ralph said. “I thought it would be easy to trip John up and turn him in. But as much as I watched, I couldn’t discover where he got the artifacts or where he took them. We had no proof.”

“I proposed a trap,” Vitelli added. “We would catch him, then call in Homeland Security. Ralph agreed. He had the coins, and he thought if John saw one and thought there might be more, he would make a move to obtain them. We did not want to alert John that the coins belonged to Ralph. We did not know who he was working with. So I asked Luca to play his part. John would not know him.”

“And I bet you had Luca take the coin in because if Mr. Vitelli was a smuggler, he’d already know the value and where to sell it. That’s why you had to make it look like an accidental thing.”

“That’s right,” Ralph said. “We thought John would approach Vitelli as a new source.”

“What made you think they wouldn’t just come and take them from you, Vincenzo?”

“I gave the coins to Luca to put in his guitar case,” Vitelli replied. “When they came, I would tell them that I had more but I was smart enough to hide them in a safe place, away from my home. I had other valuables to show them, and I would say I wanted a long-term business agreement. That is why I had the statue, to convince them.”

“So where’d you get the statue?” Gen asked.

“I borrowed it.” Vitelli replied. “Thousands of Italian families have moved here over the past hundred and fifty years. They brought treasures from the old country, long before Italy or the United States considered their ownership a crime.

“As soon as John and his contacts had approached me,” Vitelli continued, “and we had solid evidence who was involved and a solicitation to join them in their illegitimate business, we would call the U.S. authorities.”

Gen jumped in. “So John tells the Carabinieri team and they send Rudy, Angelo, and another thug over to the Vitelli’s house to check him out.”

“That’s right,” Vincenzo said. “The minute Angelo sees me, his ex-Carabinieri brother-in-law, he assumes that I am in possession of the family treasure.”

“So he didn’t know that Ralph is your nephew and your sister inherited the coins.”

Vincenzo shook his head. “We have not spoken for many, many years. I stopped his family from looting long ago, and he swore revenge. So they threatened me. They told me to give them the coins, but I would not. When Luca appeared in the window, they knew he must be more deeply involved and gave chase, but they lost him.”

“John had told them the story about Luca bringing in the coin,” Gen said.

“That’s right,” Ralph said.

“So where was Mrs. Vitelli while this was all happening?”

“My husband did not tell me what he was planning,” Mrs. Vitelli replied. “He sent me out to the movies that evening. When I came home, Angelo was here. They pressed me to tell them where the coins were, but I kept quiet. All I could think was, what has my husband done to us? Then they took me.”

Mrs. Vitelli sighed. “Once he was my beloved brother. Bitterness changed him. Vengeance is a sword pointed inward.”

Vitelli hung his head. “They said they would keep us inside until we talked, but the next morning Genevieve came into the house and their plan was ruined. While she was unconscious, they took my wife away for what they called an extended stay, to last as long as I decided it should go on.”

“Until you caved in and handed over the coins,” Gen said.

Ralph nodded. “They warned him that he wouldn’t see her for a long time if he didn’t part with them. But he didn’t want to do that to me.”

“I was in deep trouble,” Vitelli said.

“My brother brought me here,” Mrs. Vitelli said. “And I settled in and prayed for my husband and waited to see what would happen.”

“And you left him your rosary beads so he could pray, too.”

Mrs. V nodded.

“Then,” Gen said, “I bet the Carabinieri stepped in and pointed the finger at Vitelli for illegal looting, just for another excuse to keep an eye on him. They probably tried to figure out how I was involved, ran Mack’s plates, found out Luca was with him, but like Vincenzo said, they didn’t want to make a move on Luca because they didn’t want Mack – and therefore the police – involved.

“So they sent Giampaolino and his sidekick to toss my place to see if I had the coins. They knew I was at Mack’s show that night. Carla tipped them off that I’d left early, so they didn’t have time to tear the whole place apart. Then I blew it and told John I saw Ralph with Vitelli, and Rudy threatened Ralph.”

“Sounds about right,” Ralph said.

“Sorry, Ralph.”

“Don’t be. We were naïve.”

“I had no idea how badly I was mistaken,” Vitelli said. “We were involved in something that was too complicated for us. How do you say it? I got us in over our heads.”

“Why did you keep John on at the store?”

“At first I didn’t want him to suspect that I knew, then, after they found out I knew Vitelli, they threatened me that I’d better not fire him. They wanted him there to keep tabs on me. Lassiter told me they picked him up a while ago, thank God.”

Gen turned to Luca. “So how much of the story you told us is true? Is your mother alive?”

Luca shook his head. “Mom got sick, and my father left. He made her stop talking to Grandma and Grandpa years ago, and she was too proud to tell them how bad it had gotten. When she died, I was supposed to go and live with Dad, but I took off and came here to find them instead.”

Vitelli clasped Luca’s shoulder. “Family was the reason we came to San Francisco so long ago. Because of my work, my life had been threatened many times in Italy. My wife finally convinced me to leave, so I brought them here. I wanted them to have a normal life. But my daughter married a man who did not like us, and they moved across the country. We lost her and our grandson. We lost them both.”

Gen could see the pain on Vitelli’s face; his thoughts were in the past. She wondered if he’d gotten involved to try and make amends for the things that had gone wrong so long ago. “So you put the coin back in my purse that day so nobody would take it.”

“I knew they would come,” Vitelli said, “and I did not want them to steal the coin. So I put the bag in your purse. When the Carabinieri appeared that morning, I suspected Angelo was working with them. I knew Ralph did not call them in, so the only other possibility was John. Sadly, we did not know about Luciano and Salvatore before we came up with our pitiful scheme.”