This story had enough truth to sound at least partly plausible, but it was too late. Tom had already looked into Jenny Gray’s dead eyes, and he could connect Larry to two other killings. No proof, but plenty of motive.
“What do you say, Tom?” Larry was still smiling. “I’m offering you a one-time-only deal. We’re in this together, man.”
“Who is this person? The investor?”
“That doesn’t matter. This deal is between you and me. I’ll have you back here in half an hour. Allison won’t even miss you. My car’s down the block.”
“What’s his name? Leo Zurin?”
The smile faded slightly, and Larry took a second to say, “I don’t know where you got that from.”
“Jenny Gray. She told me some things.”
“Yeah?”
“She’s dead.” Tom waited for a reaction. “Not a surprise, Larry?”
“I am surprised. What happened to her?”
“She was strangled last Friday in her mother’s house.”
“That’s too bad.” Larry looked at him, then said, “Did you do it?”
“When was the last time you were in London?”
“Hey, it wasn’t me. I’m sorry about Jenny, but I wasn’t in London, and I have no idea who killed her.”
“Lucky for you she’s not around anymore,” Tom said. “She can’t talk about the public officials you blackmailed or bribed to get The Metropolis approved.”
“That is such bullshit,” Larry said. “She told you that? Did she also tell you she was a prostitute? The manager at my club caught her making offers to the customers.”
Tom thought of the bruises on Jenny’s neck and felt his fist tightening on the cable. “Jenny’s friend Carla knew about you, too, and she’s dead. What about Royce Herron? He knew what you were doing. Did he threaten to go to the media?”
“Come on, Tom. We’ve got things to talk about. I’m going to offer you more money than you’ve ever imagined having.”
Keeping his voice steady, Tom said, “No deal. Turn around and get your ass out of here before I kick it down the street.”
“Oh, man.” Larry laughed and tapped on the windshield again. “Tom.” Then his face tightened. He took his right hand out of his coat pocket, and a gun came with it.
Startled, Tom ducked to one side, and his arm hit the handlebar of the scooter. The windshield pivoted, and Larry glanced toward it. Tom crouched, leaped forward, and plowed into Larry’s stomach. The gun clattered to the stones. Larry collided with the vine-covered wall, and the air left his lungs in a loud grunt. Leaves spiraled down.
The map tube swung wildly as Tom sent kicks into Larry’s side, his upper leg. Larry went down and curled into a ball with his arms over his head. Straddling him, Tom grabbed the front of Larry’s jacket, picked him up, and slammed him into the ground. “What did you do to Jenny, you son of a bitch? And Royce Herron. What did you do?”
“I didn’t— Let me go. Stop!”
The cable was still tight around his fist. Tom raised his arm and brought the rubber-wrapped steel down on Larry’s face, then did it again. His arm was raised a third time but he saw the blood gushing from Larry’s mouth. Breathing hard, Tom stood up. “Go on. Get out of here before I kill you.”
Larry crawled away on all fours, then staggered to his feet. Tom started after him to be sure he kept going. Larry ran faster and went around the corner. Tom opened his fingers, and the end of the cable curled heavily to the ground. “Oh, Jesus.” He took some deep breaths and backed up into the alley, thinking he would have to call Eddie and go upstairs to tell Allison to get her things together. They would have to leave, find a new hotel, or drive back to Manarola tonight.
He was turning, going to get his helmet and take the scooter key out of the ignition, when he saw the men walking toward him. He stopped dead. There were two of them. The man to the right had a short blond cut. The man on the left wore a black coat. He held Larry’s gun loosely by one finger through the trigger guard. “Good job. I gotta say, I’m impressed.”
The widow’s peak and arching brows belonged to the man Tom had seen on the Eurostar, but this time, the accent was American. “Who are you?”
“You’re coming with us.”
Before Tom could run, someone grabbed him from behind and twisted his arm up and bent his hand toward his arm with a practiced, almost delicate touch. Tom went to one knee, then flat on the ground.
The man in the black coat told his blond friend to get the car, then came forward to speak to Tom, who was nearly gagging from the pain. He bent down, and a pair of dark eyes looked into Tom’s. “Do you have any weapons?”
“No,” he gasped.
Hands went around his ankles, up his legs, under his coat. Someone slid the strap of the map tube over Tom’s head. Then his arm was jerked down, and he felt plastic go around his wrists. A car came alongside. The man opened the back door, and Tom was hauled to his feet. A hand went on top of his head, and he was shoved inside.
The blond man drove, and the other two pinned him between them. The car went out of the alley and made a quick right. A tire caught the curb and squealed. Lights swept over the interior.
Tom smiled, then laughed.
The dark-haired man glanced at him. “What’s funny?”
“I don’t know your names, but I know who you are.”
“Who are we?”
“Miami cops. You forgot to read me my rights.”
“This isn’t Miami.”
Chapter 24
Tom was wrong; they weren’t Miami cops. Trapped in the backseat of a car traveling at high speed away from the city, he had reached for any
explanation that made sense, even that the Weasel had sent them. But when they arrived at a small house on an unpaved road about fifteen miles out of Florence, and put him in a kitchen chair, still cuffed, Tom found out who they were.
The man in the black coat took it off and tossed it over a broken-down table. He pushed up the sleeves of his gray turtleneck sweater like a man about to get his hands dirty. Taking the map tube from his blond friend, he shook it and asked Tom, “What’s in here?”
“An old map.” Tom watched him remove the plastic cap and turn the opening toward the weak fluorescent tube in the ceiling. He unrolled the Mylar-covered map and lay it on the table. The others turned their heads toward it. From where he sat, Tom couldn’t see the map, but he saw their reactions. Then all three looked at him.
“Is this blood?”
“What do you think?” Tom said.
The dark-haired man dragged a chair over and sat
facing Tom. “My name is Manny Suarez. I’m with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.” “Bullshit. ATF doesn’t operate overseas. Who sent you to grab me?”
“Shut up and listen. I’m going to ask you some questions, and if you want to get out of here any time in the next century, you’ll answer them truthfully.”
Suarez said he was a special case agent for the ATF based in Washington, D.C. He introduced his two friends, the blond and a shorter man with black hair, as Ricker and Ianucci. Through an uncurtained window in the front room Tom could see a fourth man standing on the porch watching the road. They were dressed in the casual dark clothing of Italian workers on their day off and wouldn’t draw a second glance.
Tom said, “What agency are they from, CIA?”
Suarez nudged Tom’s shoulder. “Pay attention. Why were you beating on Laurence Gerard?”
“How do you know who he was?”
“Answer the question.”
“Because he tried to kill me. He had a gun. What would you have done?”
“Why was he trying to kill you?”
“When do we get to the part where you tell me what you want?”
“Let’s start over. What are you doing in Italy?”
“No, you tell me why you grabbed me off the street. This isn’t Baghdad, last time I checked. Do the Italian police know what you’re doing in their country?”
<
br /> “We’d rather they didn’t,” Suarez said. “To avoid that, we could drop you down that well out the back door and walk away. We could say you’re wanted by Scotland Yard for the murder of a young woman in London. Lose the attitude and talk to me.”
Tom glanced at the other two, then back at Suarez. “I was sent here to make a copy of that map. It’s five hundred years old. It belongs to Stuart Barlowe. He’s a map collector in Miami. He loaned the map for an exhibition at the museum. An ex-judge named Royce Herron had the map at his house when somebody broke in and shot him. That’s his blood. Stuart Barlowe sent me to Italy to make a duplicate.”
Ricker smiled. “You’re here to forge a five-hundredyear-old map. Oh, that’s cute. Sell it to Toys ‘ ’ Us. The real story is, you’re working for Oscar Contreras.”
Trying to process this, Tom stared into the man’s pale, square face. “What planet are you from?”
Ricker shoved him, and the chair went over. With his hands cuffed behind him, Tom’s shoulder hit the floor first. Ricker leaned over him. “Try again, asshole. What are you doing in Italy?”
“Learning to make pasta.”
The men pulled Tom back into the chair.
Suarez dragged another chair over and sat facing him. “You asked what we want. Here it is. We want information about an illegal shipment of weapons going out of the port of Genoa within a week to ten days. We think you know something about it. Interesting story about the map, but it’s bogus. It’s a cover.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Here’s what we know about you, Mr. Fairchild. You have no real job. You pick up work as a self-employed computer technician and would-be graphic artist. You rent an apartment from a woman whose late husband was a member of a drug cartel. You’re a college dropout, a three-time-loser convicted felon currently on probation. Answer the questions, or we can and will put you on a U.S. military transport back to the States tonight, and I guarantee you, smart-ass, you will be in prison for a long, long time.”
Tom’s nerves were making the muscles twitch in his chest. He concentrated on keeping his breathing steady.
“You slipped out of the U.S. a week ago on Laurence Gerard’s boat. You were traveling with a Croatian by the name of Marek Vuksinic. He works for Leo Zurin, a Russian arms merchant living near Dubrovnik, Croatia. Mr. Zurin is presently at his chalet here in Italy.”
Arms merchant? Tom opened his mouth but said nothing.
Suarez went on, “Laurence Gerard is the person who brought Zurin and Contreras together. He’s also Stuart Barlowe’s stepson. We’re unclear on Mr. Barlowe’s involvement in the deal, but we think you can help us with that.”
A laugh escaped Tom’s lips. Ricker and his pal Ianucci looked like they wanted an excuse to pound him between the grooves in the old plank floor. “I swear to you, I don’t know anything about it. I’ve met Marek Vuksinic, but I just came over here to make a map, a duplicate for that one. It’s for Stuart Barlowe. Royce Herron borrowed it, and somebody shot him. Look, it’s got bullet holes—”
Suarez lifted a hand, a signal for Tom to stop talking. “Keeping track of Mr. Vuksinic, we ran into you. We know that you and he boarded Larry Gerard’s boat behind Stuart Barlowe’s house on La Gorce Island, Miami Beach. We tracked the boat from Miami to Nassau, where both you and Vuksinic got off. Oscar Contreras was also in Nassau. We lost you, but we put a trace on your passport and found you again in London last Thursday. We were watching Claridge’s and saw you arrive to meet Stuart Barlowe’s daughter, Allison. After that, you and she went to a Barclays bank—”
“Yeah, she was paying me to work on the map! That’s why she’s here.”
“Did I say you could talk? The next day on Regent Street you bought a high-end digital camera and a laptop computer. You spent the night with a young lady by the name of Jenny Gray, who used to work in Miami for Mr. Gerard. On Friday afternoon we followed you back to Ms. Gray’s house in Brixton. Ms. Barlowe arrived a few minutes later, followed by Ms. Gray’s mother, who reported to police that her daughter had been murdered. She said that Jenny had told her that the young man who had spent the night was going to take her to Florence, Italy. You and Ms. Barlowe slipped out of sight, but she used her MasterCard for the Eurostar. As it stands now, Scotland Yard doesn’t know who you are, but that could change.”
Tom had thought of coming completely clean— telling them who the map was really for—but that would mean kissing the fifty thousand dollars good-bye. He would spill only as much of the truth as he had to.
“I didn’t murder Jenny Gray.” Tom started to stand up, but Ricker moved a step closer. “Allison had nothing to do with it, either. Her father sent her here to supervise the map! She came to Jenny’s house looking for me, and we found Jenny dead. If you want to know who killed Jenny, go ask Larry Gerard. Ask him about Judge Herron and Carla Kelly.”
Suarez stared at him a second, then said, “Go on.”
“I think Larry or someone he hired shot Herron and hit the map by accident. Jenny and Carla were working for Larry. They all knew he was paying bribes on a real estate project in Miami—The Metropolis. Stuart Barlowe has a major stake in it, but there’s no way he’s involved in selling weapons. Larry, yes. I would believe that. You just told me he’s the one who put Oscar Contreras together with what’s-his-name—Leo Zurin.”
“We’ll get there,” Suarez said, “but right now, let me finish.” He leaned back in his chair with his hands loosely clasped in his lap. He had a nice manicure, but a scar went across his knuckles.
“We’ve been tracking Ms. Barlowe’s credit card purchases, so we were able to follow you to Italy. You disappeared in Turin, but she used her card to reserve two rooms at the Hotel Brianza in Florence. We also know that Stuart Barlowe is in Florence with his wife. We tracked Mr. Gerard arriving in London on Friday, Milan on Sunday, and here last night. Seems like all the participants in this transaction are converging.”
“Jesus. Don’t you listen? I’m making a duplicate map for Stuart Barlowe. I don’t know these other guys.”
“Never heard of them.”
“No.”
“We arrived at the hotel to have a talk with you when we saw you come out and get into a scrap with Laurence Gerard.” Suarez’s curved brows lifted. “And that brings me back to my first question. What was going on between you and him?”
“Larry doesn’t want me sleeping with Allison.”
“This is a reason to kill you?” Suarez smiled. “We don’t have a lot of time, Mr. Fairchild. We need some information, and you’re the logical person to ask because, frankly, we have your dick in a wringer. We’d rather not bring Allison into this, but Scotland Yard would really like to know who that woman was, the one who got out of the taxi just before Jenny’s mother arrived and found her daughter dead. Think about it.”
Tom did. Then said, “How about taking off the cuffs?”
“Sure.”
The short guy, Ianucci, went into his pocket for a cutter and walked around Tom’s chair. The plastic let go. Tom flexed his fingers and rotated his bruised shoulder. “Larry doesn’t want me to do the map.”
“We’re back to the map?”
“Stuart Barlowe promised it to Leo Zurin. And you’re telling me he’s an arms dealer. Jesus.” Tom had to get his thoughts together. “Zurin agreed to put a lot of money into The Metropolis. He collects Corelli maps, and Stuart promised him that one, but it was destroyed before he could give it to him, so he hired me. Larry thinks that if Zurin finds out it’s a forgery, he’ll back out of his investment, and The Metropolis would be dead in the water. I guess you’d say Larry and Stuart have a difference of opinion on how good a job I can do.”
Ricker and Ianucci exchanged a glance, but Suarez’s dark eyes were still fixed on Tom, who said, “I thought Larry was going to kill me tonight. Then you guys showed up. He’s the one you should be tracking, not me. I need to call Allison. If I’m not back, she’ll call the police.”
>
“Later,” Suarez said. “You’ll be here awhile. You mentioned a woman, Carla Kelly. Go back to that. You said Larry Gerard killed her.”
“I’m only guessing,” Tom said. “He used her to blackmail somebody on the Miami zoning board. Carla knew what was going on. Jenny Gray told me about it. She was a friend of Carla’s.”
“Did Ms. Gray say anything about a connection between Carla and Oscar Contreras?”
“Carla had sex with Oscar. Larry arranged that, too.”
“Did you know Carla?”
“I never met her.”
“Do you know Oscar Contreras?”
“You asked me that.”
“I’m asking again.”
“The answer is the same—no. I never met him. The first time I heard his name was on Larry’s boat, and then it was only ‘Oscar.’ Marek Vuksinic asked me if I was going to Nassau to see Oscar. He wanted to know if I was working for Oscar or for Larry.”
“And you said?”
“That I didn’t know what he was talking about. A little later I went down to the cabin and caught him looking in my backpack. I told him to keep his hands off. When we went back on deck, he flipped me upside down off the transom and put my head underwater. You’re wrong, I didn’t get off the boat in Nassau with Marek. I got off in Bimini because I didn’t know what he would do next. He told me he used to be in the Yugoslav army, and now he sells parts for trucks and heavy equipment in Dubrovnik. Does he?”
Suarez smiled. “No.”
“He said he’d been in jail in Bosnia. Do you know what for?”
“Participation in the murder of seventeen unarmed men, and burying their bodies in a mass grave. That was the accusation. The war crimes tribunal couldn’t prove it.”
Tom had to take a slow breath.
“Why did you go to London?”
“Jenny lived there and knew her way around. I had to see some Corelli maps at the Maritime Museum, and I needed to buy a camera and computer to work on the map for Stuart Barlowe. I stayed at Jenny’s house on Thursday night. I asked her who Oscar Contreras was. She said he was in the cocaine business, or used to be. I think that’s how Larry Gerard knows him. Larry doesn’t deal, but he knows people who are connected to it.” Tom paused to get the events in the right order. “Friday afternoon I went back to her place to pick up my stuff. I found her dead. Like I said, Allison was looking for me. She got there a few minutes later. I saw Jenny’s mother coming and told Allison we had to get out. We couldn’t let the police find us there.”
The Perfect Fake Page 25