Dante's Numbers (29 page)

The SFPD captain scratched his grizzled head. “It never really occurred to me you might have got there first.”

“We keep trying to do you favours. It doesn't buy us any credit, does it?”

“Not much.”

Nic Costa closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself back in Rome. It was impossible.

“Did you happen to witness Tom Black taking a shot at us?” Kelly asked out of nowhere.

“I was in the back of the car with my head in my hands. I didn't see a thing.”

“Sensible man.” Kelly sighed. “I didn't see Tom Black use his weapon,” the cop said. “In fact I'd say the first shot I heard took him down, and that didn't come from us.”

H
E WAS WOKEN BY THE PHONE. IT WAS MAGGIE wanting to know what had happened. The incident outside the Ferry Building was all over the morning news.
Inferno
had hit the headlines again.

It was past nine and Costa still felt exhausted. Outside the window of his bedroom the light on Greenwich Street looked different, less bright, more diffuse. The only sound in the house was the noisy throb of the boom box of the Mexican decorators who'd spent most of the previous week painting the front of the building next door.

“You could have been killed,” she said, and he flinched at the accusation in her voice.

“Tom Black asked to see me. Alone. He didn't wish me any harm. If he'd listened to me, he'd still be alive and we might have a clearer idea of what's been going on.”

“And that makes it all OK?”

“Sometimes. He sounded as if he needed help.”

“And now he's dead, too.”

The memories of those last moments on the Embarcadero were starting to flood back. “I don't understand what happened. I'm sorry. I know you liked him.”

There was a moment's silence on the line.

“Not really. Tom was a sad man. He hung around me for a while like a lot of men do, not that he seemed terribly convinced. I think he felt he was supposed to do that kind of thing. If Josh had told him to jump off the roof, he would have. Tom didn't have the courage to ask for what he wanted, which makes him stand out from most so-called associate producers I've met.”

“Tom Black was a producer?” The job was news to him.

“Associate producer. Lukatmi put in money, didn't they? Collect enough tokens, you get free candy.” She hesitated. “Did they have to shoot him?”

He thought about Gerald Kelly's odd question, then said, “I didn't see what happened. Black was a man with a gun who looked ready to use it. Just like that idiot in Rome. I tried to talk him out of it. I failed.”

“This is getting to me, Nic. I can't wait to get the hell out of here. There are a couple of events over the weekend and then I'm gone.”

“Do you know if you've been paid yet?”

“What the hell does that matter?” she asked, incredulous.

“Maybe it doesn't. Have you?”

She sighed. “Only what I got at the start. Sylvie, my agent, is foaming about it. This is partly my fault. I let Simon deal with the money stuff when it all got complicated.”

“Complicated?”

“Not enough money to pay the bills at Cinecittà. People asking for favours. Don't take your fee now. Take it later, in installments. That kind of stuff. Normally you get it before the movie starts shooting. Not partway through. I didn't want to know. Simon was in Rome. Sylvie was in Hollywood. Like she should care. She still gets her cut. Why's my money important?”

“It probably isn't.”

“Did Tom say anything about what happened?”

“Nothing useful.”

“You wouldn't tell me, would you? Even if he did.”

This conversation always came up, in every relationship he'd had. With Emily it had been easy. She'd worked in law enforcement, too. She understood.

“No. I wouldn't.”

“OK. I'm starting to get the picture.”

“I wish I was. When will I see you?”

“Tonight, I hope. At the premiere. Will you be working?”

“If you can call it that. Babysitting a set of glass cases. We're irrelevant here. Come Saturday, when the exhibition goes back to Rome, we don't even get the rent paid.”

She waited, then said, very slowly, “I thought we had an understanding. Barbados. Remember?”

There was always that gap between what was said in the spur of passion and what was felt in the cold light of day. Costa didn't doubt his emotions there for a moment. He wanted to be with Maggie Flavier.

“Barbados,” he said. “Let me talk to Leo.”

“Do that. And another thing. An actress can't walk down the red carpet at a movie premiere on her own.” A pause. “Do I really have to ask?”

“I'm working.”

“Two minutes of your time. That's all it takes. Then you can go back to standing around your glass cases. Two minutes.”

He didn't know what to say. He was trying to picture it in his head, all those images of glittering affairs on the TV, shots of the Oscars, celebrities laughing and joking…The sea of paparazzi who had been trying to capture them all along, given what they wanted, on a plate.

“If you'd prefer not to…” she began.

“There's nothing I'd rather do in the world.”

“Really?”

“Really. I will smile for the cameras and wear a flower in my lapel. I will hold your hand, if that's not too forward. Be my director. Tell me what to do.”

There was a low, throaty giggle on the line.

“I'd rather leave that till later, if you don't mind. The photographers will go to town. You realise that, don't you? We'll be a couple, official. Privacy will be confined to the bathroom from now on, and I can't always guarantee that.”

“I can live with it if you can.”

“You say that now…”

“Yes. I do.”

“If that's true, you'll be the best damn man I've ever known,” she said huskily. “Got to go…”

He tried to imagine her in the Brocklebank building, wondering what she would wear for the premiere. Who she might be. Herself? Or someone stolen from a wall in the Legion of Honor?

Costa walked downstairs. The small house was empty. On the table was a handwritten note, scribbled in a familiar, precise hand.

I say this as much as a friend as your commanding officer. To absent yourself on a whim last night, without informing any of us of your intentions, was stupid, selfish, and unacceptable. I do not wish to see you today. Try to amuse yourself in a way which causes no one any concern or harm.

Falcone

He read the message twice, then screwed it up into a tight ball and threw the thing into the kitchen bin. Once again there was no coffee. Costa sat down with a glass of orange juice and called Sylvie Brewster, Maggie's agent. He had to talk his way through three assistants to reach her, and then she said, “You're asking me to discuss the financial affairs of a client? And you're not even an American cop with a warrant or something?”

“I'm a friend. I'm concerned.”

“Now I know who you are. You're that one. Nic.”

“This is important. It may explain why she was attacked.”

“Whoever did that thing to Maggie deserves to be eaten alive by rats. What can I tell you, love?”

“I don't know anything about the movie business. I don't understand how a film can go into production, go as far as having a premiere, and still the cast haven't all been paid. Is that normal?”

“No,” Sylvie Brewster replied, and nothing more.

“Then how did it happen?”

He heard a long groan and then the sound of someone sucking on a cigarette. “OK. You will never pass this on to another soul, right?”

“Agreed.”

“I haven't a clue. The first thing I heard about it was when the deal was already done. I went nuts but it was too late. They'd had some financial crisis. Tonti and that evil bastard Bonetti had set it up. They said that if I tried anything, I might be running the risk of bringing the whole damn thing crashing down. Not just no money but no
movie.”

“Could they make a threat like that?”

“They thought so. Dino Bonetti broke every rule in the book. Those bastards took Maggie to one side in Rome. Leaned on her. Begged her. Next thing I know, she's signed some papers and it's all settled.”

“Have you seen those papers?”

“Nope. And if I didn't love Maggie, she'd be an ex-client now. To hell with my cut. This is not the way the business is supposed to work.”

“Simon Harvey organised the deal, didn't he?”

“So I hear. Can't get into directing, so maybe he fancies himself a producer now. He'd better not come near my clients again—I'll claw his eyes out. Unless he's got funding, in which case we'll do lunch.” She laughed.

“Thanks for the insight.”

“I'll tell you something else, too, Nic sweetie. I was talking to Allan Prime's agent the other day. This is a small world. I wanted to commiserate.”

“Prime made the same deal,” Costa guessed. “Outside the usual rules. No money on the table. No money anywhere.”

Sylvie Brewster sounded impressed. “Maggie said you were a smart one. Be kind to her while it lasts, won't you, babe?”

Then she was gone. Costa went to the waste bin and retrieved Falcone's note. He was still reading it, half furious, half ashamed, when Teresa came back with two bags full of groceries.

She saw what he was doing and said, “Well, look on the bright side. At least you escaped getting it face-to-face. Leo was pretty mad at you. Even for him.”

“Sorry. I'll have to find him and apologise.”

“No rush. Leo Falcone's life consists of a series of small explosions. It always will. Particularly when he keeps getting knocked back. A woman who doesn't fall for his well-oiled charms. We had to come all the way to California to find one.”

She didn't say it with much relish.

“Is he upset?” Costa asked.

“About Catherine? He's beside himself. I think the poor thing's actually smitten. I'd like to say it serves him right for treating Raffaella Arcangelo so badly.” She screwed up her face. “But I don't feel that way. Must be getting old. It's difficult to work up the energy to be vindictive these days. He'll get over it when he's back home in Rome.” She took the note from his hands and put it back in the bin.

“Look. Leo wrote that thing out of hurt more than anything else. It's forgotten now. You should do the same. Don't expect me to make you coffee, either. I'm not stopping. I have identical twins to scold. And for that I do have the strength. Jesus…”

Costa didn't say a word.

She sat down opposite him and grumbled, “Oh for God's sake, what do you want?”

“I want to talk this through.”

Teresa put a finger to her cheek, gave him a questioning look. “Let me make a suggestion. You have been granted the day off. There is, it seems to me, someone in your life again. You're in a beautiful city most people would pay good money to visit. Why not go out and enjoy yourself? See the sights. Take Maggie to lunch. Do something normal for a change.”

“I do normal things all the time,” he objected.

“That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.”

She left without another word. Costa thought about what she'd said. He'd never invited Maggie for a coffee, let alone a meal. In Rome it would have been different. No, he corrected himself, in Rome it
will
be different.

He was reaching for the phone when it rang.

“We need to meet,” Gerald Kelly said. “Right away.”

T
ERESA LUPO HAD SUMMONED THEM TO THEIR usual table at the café on Chestnut. She couldn't work out whether to feel mad or relieved. Hank and Frank sat there sipping coffee and picking at a couple of doughnuts, staring at the ceiling as if pretending that nothing had happened. Their hands were covered in scratches. Hank's right cheek was red and inflamed from what he said was a reaction to poison oak. Frank's eyes were watery and bloodshot. They looked a mess, and as guilty as a couple of schoolboys caught pilfering from the neighbourhood store.

“What the hell were you thinking?” she wanted to know.

“That maybe we could help,” Frank responded.

“It was his idea,” Hank jumped in.

“Don't try that with me,” she warned. “You two work as a pair. I'm not stupid.”

“We did help, didn't we?” Hank seemed quite offended. “In a messy kind of way.”

The death of two men had clearly upset them, in spite of Jimmy Gaines's murderous intentions. It was impossible to escape the consequences. The shooting of Tom Black had headlined the morning TV news, and the recovery of Gaines's body from a ravine in the Muir Woods hadn't been far behind. Hank and Frank had spent half the night being interrogated and then, on the advice of the SFPD, found themselves somewhere private to stay in order to avoid the attentions of the news crews. “Some where private” had turned out to be a cheap motel in Cow Hollow, just round the corner from where they lived. Frank called it “hiding in plain sight.” Hank described the decision as pure laziness.

“If they hadn't shot that poor boy…” Hank grumbled. “He could have told them something.”

She was not going to take this nonsense. “Someone who comes racing towards armed police holding a gun is asking for trouble. Don't blame anyone else for that. Least of all yourselves.”

“So is that it?” Frank asked. “Is it over? It was Josh Jonah, Tom Black, and Jimmy Gaines doing all this stuff? Along with that photographer guy who got killed?”

Teresa shrugged. “Criminal investigations are based on assumptions,” she said, toying with some strange Middle Eastern pastry the café owner had thrust upon her. “They have to be. It's how we make progress. We assume that when a series of killings occur inside the same circle like this, it's all down to the same individual or group of people.”

“That makes sense,” Hank agreed.

“But what if the assumptions are wrong?” Teresa asked. “What if one person killed Allan Prime and another one tried to poison Maggie Flavier? They don't look like the same person's handiwork to me. Not for a moment.”

Frank looked uneasy. “I don't like complicated ideas. There's a gratifying shortage of people willing to go around knocking off their fellow human beings. What are the odds of them all turning up in one place like this, all at the same time?”

Hank nodded. “I'm inclined to agree. If this were fiction…”

“It isn't fiction!” she hissed. “If you'd got killed last night, you'd have known that.”

The brothers stared at her, eyebrows raised in the same surprised, amused expression.

“You know what I mean. Don't ask me what people think right now. I have no idea.”

“What did Tom Black tell your young friend?” Frank asked.

“Not a lot. Yes, there was a conspiracy to hype the movie. No, they didn't think anyone would get hurt. That's about it.”

Hank finished his doughnut, wiped his fingers daintily on a napkin, and said, “I still don't know why Jimmy wanted to get us out of the way. Why he couldn't just let us go once Tom was in police custody. He must have known it would come back to him in the end.”

“He'd have been gone the moment he was out of Muir Woods,” Frank muttered. “Murderous bastard…”

“Yeah, but why?” Hank shook his head. “Jimmy didn't like the idea of shooting us. And he didn't need to kill us, did he?”

Frank scratched his nose. “No,” he agreed. “He didn't.”

Teresa watched them struggle with this idea, then suggested, “There has to be some reason. Something you knew…”

“Like what?” Frank demanded. “We were wise to the fact Jimmy knocked around with Tom Black. We knew Jimmy was gay, or at least hung around in those circles. That's no big deal. Nothing worth killing for.”

“Frank's right,” Hank added. “No answers there.”

“Then it must have been something you said.”

The two men grumbled to each other, then folded their arms in unison and gazed at her.

“Think about it,” she urged. “When you went to see Gaines at Lukatmi. He surely wasn't thinking of popping you two in the Muir Woods the moment you turned up.”

“He looked pleased to see us,” Hank agreed. “Turned a touch cooler when we told him why we came. Not that
that
helps us any. He was keeping a big secret. Only understandable.”

“Think back,” she told them. “Was there some point in the conversation when his mood changed?”

The brothers looked blank.

“What about later?” Teresa persisted. “On the way to the woods? When you got there? What did you talk about?”

“Vertigo
and how it wasn't really shot where everyone thinks it was,” Frank answered. “Oh, and Thoreau. Tom Black loved
Walden.
Those secrets don't merit killing two old colleagues.”

“He'd already made up his mind by the time we got there,” Hank said. “It was in his eyes.”

Frank nodded. “You're right. He was odd with us even before we crossed the bridge. I can't believe we were so stupid to just walk into that forest with him.”

She didn't like seeing them like this. “Never look back, boys. Stupidity is God's gift to the world, ours to do with as we please. You're dead tired. Are you going to go back to that motel of yours? Come round to our place if you like…”

They didn't budge. Something she said had set Hank thinking.

“This is insane,” he said finally.

“What is?” she asked.

“The moment. When Jimmy Gaines got a look in his eye. I think I got it.”

“You have?” Frank asked.

“Maybe. Remember at Lukatmi? When he wanted to take us off for coffee?”

“So?” Frank said, shaking his head.

“You made some crack about there being no insurance against stupidity. Jimmy looked at you funny the moment you used that word. He asked what you meant.” Hank leaned forward. “Remember what you said?”

Frank grimaced. “I told him he knew exactly what I meant. It was just a saying.”

“He didn't get the joke, brother. Not at all.”

The three of them looked at each other.

“Insurance?” Teresa asked, bewildered. “Is that the best you've got? I've spent the last two weeks screaming at people about how the human race doesn't go around murdering itself in defence of poetry. They, in return, have been yelling at me for having the temerity to suggest it might have something to do with a 1950s movie. Now you're throwing
insurance
my way?”

Hank called out for more coffee and added, “Barkev? Is it OK if we use your machine out back?”

The café owner walked to the rear of the room and opened a door to a tiny and very tidy office where a smart new computer sat on a clear and well-polished desk.

“I don't imagine either of you has ever read much Robert Louis Stevenson except for
Treasure Island and Kidnapped
,” Hank stated.

Teresa exchanged glances with Frank. “I think I can speak for both of us when I say no,” she responded.

Hank got up and stretched his scratched and swollen fingers, as if readying them for action.

“There was a book called
The Wrong Box.
He wrote it with a friend. Read it years ago. Funny story, comedic funny, that is. Cruel and heartless, too.” He peered through at the office. “Guilty people get touchy, I guess,” Hank Boynton said. “They see spooks around every corner. Get twitchy at the slightest, most innocent of things. Maybe…” He looked at them, still working this out for himself. “Just maybe, it's all in a name.”