Lust, Money & Murder (23 page)

At exactly the same moment, the door opened. Giorgio Cattoretti entered the room. He looked Elaine up and down, taking in the dress, her long legs, and the high heels. “
Magnifico!
I knew that outfit would look splendid on you. Now you are a real
bella donna
.”

Elaine felt a pang of pleasure at these words, but did not show it. She noticed that he had changed his outfit—now he was wearing a honey-colored suit with a chocolate tie. She wondered if he had changed on her account.

He offered his arm to her. “I would like to show you around my company. I think you will find what we do here very interesting.”

Elaine hesitated. “If you don’t mind I would like to know why I was brought here.”

He raised his hands apologetically. “I honestly did not know what else to do, Ms. Brogan. My Russian partners called from Paris and told me that you had delivered the data key and told me all they could about you, which was scant—only that you were a U.S. Treasury Department employee. I told them to bring you here.” He paused and studied her face. “Did I do the wrong thing?”

Elaine didn’t know what to make of him.

“First, I didn’t ‘deliver’ anything to anybody,” she said. “The data key was planted in my luggage without my knowledge.”

“I am aware of that, but it has nothing to do with me. I negotiated a contract with the Russians to buy the software updates that the U.S. Treasury was developing and that is exactly what they delivered to me. I paid a handsome price for those updates, and I intend to hold onto them.” He offered her his arm. “Now, may I have the pleasure of showing you around?”

CHAPTER 2.11

Cattoretti led Elaine down the hallway and to a keypad-protected elevator, his warm hand holding hers. She still did not know what to make of his attitude and behavior. Was this all an act? She couldn’t tell.

As the elevator doors closed and the lift began descending, she tried to hide her fear. She anxiously watched the display change from 2 to 1 to G and then -1, -2...

They were going to the basement.

Cattoretti glanced at her and gave her a relaxed smile.

When the display showed -3, the elevator came smoothly to a stop. The doors opened. Cattoretti led her down a long, wide, tiled hallway with keypad-protected doors on either side. There was a lot of activity on the other side of the walls—Elaine could hear the hum of machinery and a cacophony of voices speaking Italian and other languages, perhaps Chinese or Japanese, Elaine couldn’t quite tell.

He stopped at one of the doors and tapped in another code. When they entered the room, the chattering dropped to a hush. Elaine expected to see the usual counterfeiting equipment—a printing press, a paper cutter, drying racks. Instead, the huge space was lined with rows and rows of middle-aged women sitting behind sewing machines.

“This is our designer clothing department,” Cattoretti said proudly. Several of the women glanced curiously at Elaine as she passed by. Cattoretti seemed to be searching the workstations for something specific. He stopped and picked up a green dress. Elaine saw that it was identical to the Prada she was wearing. There was a pile of similar dresses on the table. She noticed a stack of Prada labels beside the sewing machine.

She glanced down at her own dress, wondering if it was a copy.

Cattoretti smiled. “You are wearing the original. All the copies you see here were made from a pattern created from it. When the labels are attached, they will be distributed for sale worldwide.”

He paused, examining stitching in the garment. “
Lavoro magnifico
,” he said to the woman at the workstation.

“
Grazie
,” she said, beaming at his compliment. She looked like she worshipped the ground he walked on.

Far on the other side of the cavernous space, several Asian women were standing at tables with scraps of papers and various materials in front of them. They were chattering into headphones in Chinese, measuring various pieces of fabric, writing down information on yellow pads.

“It is far too expensive for us to manufacture most of our lines here,” Cattoretti explained. “Eighty-five percent of our copies are made in Taiwan.”

So he was a manufacturer of designer knockoffs, Elaine thought. She wondered why he was showing her all this.

They entered another similar room that smelled strongly of glue and leather. At least 50 people, both men and women, were at work at long wooden tables.

“This is our footwear center,” Cattoretti said. There were boots, high heels, and sandals in various stages of assembly, all copies of famous designer products. The room was huge. Tables extended as far as she could see.

They entered another vast room. “This is where we make our handbags and purses.” There were hundreds of items in all stages of production, everything from copies of Gucci wallets to Valentino satchels and cosmetic cases.

“And this,” he said, leading her through yet another door, “is our jewelry department.”

They walked down several rows of benches with workers peering through magnifiers, tapping with small hammers and filing stones with grinders. They were making necklaces, bracelets, rings...

“Let us choose something nice for you to wear with that dress.” He led her all the way back out into the hallway, and they turned another corner. At the end of that corridor was a massive iron door that looked like a bank vault.

Cattoretti entered a code into a computer touch screen that was mounted on the wall. There was a heavy thump. The massive door slowly swung open—it must have been two-feet thick.

“We simply call this, ‘
la
volta
,’” Cattoretti said. “The vault.”

The inside of the room looked like a high end jewelry store, with floor-to-ceiling display cases.

Cattoretti led Elaine over to one cabinet, pulled out a key, and opened a glass door. Behind it were dozens of Chopard necklaces. The diamonds glittered and made little prisms of red, blue and yellow on the glass.

“Those look real,” Elaine said, her mouth a little dry.

He chuckled. “Ms. Brogan, everything in
la volta
is genuine, purchased legitimately, at retail prices.” He paused. “May I call you Elaine? Please call me Giorgio.” He smiled warmly at her. “I think we will become very good friends, Elaine.”

She had her doubts about this.

He motioned to the shelves. “This is where we keep all the expensive originals...not only our jewelry, but our clothes and accessories as well. The moment a new design is available, we acquire it and begin the copying process. Once the design is captured, the originals are kept here.”

He inspected several of the necklaces, finally settling on a brilliant blue sapphire and diamond necklace in white gold. Taking it from the box, he stepped behind Elaine and drew it around her neck.

“How do you like it?” he said, both their faces visible in the mirror behind the glass.

Elaine swallowed, gazing at the stones against her neck. It must have cost a fortune.
He’s trying to buy me
, she thought.
And it just might work.

“It’s beautiful,” was all she could mutter.

Cattoretti placed it inside a plush Chopard box, and handed it to her. “You can wear it to the opera tonight.”

“The opera?” she said, taken aback.

“
Madame Butterfly
is playing at La Scala in Milan. It is opening night. Andrea Bocelli is performing. Would you do me the honor of accompanying me?”

“Well, I...”

“Unless you have other plans...”

Other plans? She almost smiled. That was a good one.

“Please, come this way—I want you to pick out some more things.”

They went farther into the space. Elaine could see it was the beginning of a long tunnel. It was illuminated by soft, recessed ceiling lamps. The passageway stretched as far as she could see, narrowing to a vanishing point hundreds of feet away. There were rows and rows of gowns, dresses, skirts, tops, lingerie, shoes, handbags...

Cattoretti pushed a button and the shelves rotated, a new shelf appearing above, and the one at the bottom disappearing. He plucked a pale blue evening gown from the nearest shelf and held it up to her shoulders, cocking his head to the side. “This Versace would look splendid on you.” He draped it over her arm and moved on. From another hanger, he removed a chinchilla fur coat. “These will go together well.”

Elaine looked numbly at the luxurious garments— together they must have cost twenty or thirty thousand dollars.

Leading her deeper into the tunnel, they reached the shoes. “Choose a nice pair of flats to complete the outfit.” He glanced at his watch. “If you will excuse me a moment, I have some pressing business I must attend to. Please feel free to look around all you want, try things on—take whatever suits your fancy.” He gave her a winning smile. “Put together a few nice ensembles, won’t you? It would give me great pleasure to present such a lovely woman with a few of these pieces—they just sit here in this vault, collecting dust.”

He left her alone in the tunnel, the door cracked open.

Elaine wandered down the rows and rows of lavish designer attire.
Gucci
,
Loretti
,
Casadei
,
Bergamo
... It was mesmerizing. She had never seen so much beautiful clothing in one place.
The tunnel of love
, she thought.

A pair of grey satin flats by Miu Miu caught her eye.

She unstrapped her green stilettos and tried on the slippers. Her feet melted into them.

Wandering down the tunnel, she became lost in all its apparel. She tried on anything that struck her fancy. She lost all track of time.

This almost makes up for all the bad things that have happened to me
, she thought.
If there’s a special heaven for women, this is it.

As she tried on garment after garment, she decided that she didn’t care if Cattoretti locked her in and left her here forever. Her emaciated body would be found clad head to toe in Prada, with a goofy smile on her face.

When Cattoretti finally returned, she was trying on a pair of Bergamo sandals.

“
Si
!” Cattoretti said, cocking his head to admire them. “An excellent choice.”

Elaine slipped them off and stepped back into the stilettos.

The sight of the man in the flesh, the brooding eyes and the scar running down his jaw, yanked Elaine back to reality.

“I can’t accept these things,” she said, reaching behind her neck to unfasten the necklace.

Cattoretti looked honestly surprised. “Why not?”

“I think you know why not.”

He gazed at her with a mixture of puzzlement and curiosity. He did not look offended.

“Come,” he said, taking her hand again. “I want to show you something else.”

CHAPTER 2.12

When they emerged from the vault, Cattoretti led Elaine back to the elevator and up one level. They passed through a maze of endlessly crisscrossing hallways. She was growing afraid again. Maybe she should have accepted the clothes.

They finally reached another heavily guarded door. She could feel a familiar vibration beneath her feet. “I think you will appreciate what you are about to see,” he said, as they passed through the door.

Elaine took only two steps inside before she stopped in her tracks, gaping.

There it was, the centerpiece of the room—a KBA Giori intaglio printing press, exactly like the model used at the Bureau of Exchange and Printing. The roaring contraption was blasting out page after page of wet green banknotes, the sheets flying through with such velocity they were only a blur. Beyond it, men in blue DayPrinto coveralls were feeding stacks of the freshly printed bills into a large paper cutter. On the far side of the room, a half dozen more men were crawling over two gigantic copies of $100 bills that were spread out on the floor, examining them on their hands and knees.

“Impressed?” Cattoretti shouted over the din.

Dumbfounded was the word. Elaine stepped closer to the printing press, peering at the manufacturer’s plate attached to the side. It was genuine, the words KBA GIORI—WURZBURG, GERMANY stamped into the metal.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Elaine said, “how did you—”

“There was a bit of a mix up in a shipment to South America,” he said, with a smile.

Elaine remembered what Nick had told her about the Giori press that had mysteriously disappeared en route to Chile.

Elaine stared at this strange man, trying to figure him out. An expert manufacturer of designer knockoffs, and a master currency counterfeiter? To somehow intercept a KBA Giori printing press on its way to the government of Chile?

She found herself strangely attracted to him. She was tired of fighting, and his power offered much-needed security.

The huge press slowed, then came to a halt. Cattoretti plucked a freshly printed sheet of $100 bills out of the hopper and handed it to her. The uncut banknotes were printed in the same format used by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 32 to a sheet.