It was after four when he strode through the Great Archway of the Porta Pia, with the sun over his shoulder, and crossed the piazzale of the Bersagliere Monument erected by Mussolini, across the wide boulevard, Corso d’Italia. Beyond stretched the broad and handsome Via Nomentana with its rows of speckled-trunk plane trees just coming into leaf.
He wished he could go back to that moment in his office just before he’d opened the Kotlikoff case. His instincts then had been right: he shouldn’t have opened it.
As he walked, he felt the lack of sleep in the fatigue of his back; felt also, in his depression, his new sense of isolation from other humans, that depressing solitude that had left many men before him inconsolable for a lifetime.
He expected any moment to be overwhelmed.
The waiter seated him at a table by the curb under a plane tree.
“Un cappuccino, per favore.” He opened his attaché case to lift out Kotlikoff’s journal, facing as he was the Bersagliere Monument and the Porta Pia.
He turned the leaves of the journal, seeking. Kotlikoff had reached Rome from Venice late in the afternoon almost exactly two years before, with the sun dying in the same quarter of the sky, casting the same angled shadows, and he had sat at a window in the city looking out at an archway the description of which was remarkably similar to Leary’s memory of the Porta Pia.
The memorial archway sat with its long shadow reaching across the piazzale for the Bersagliere Monument. The facade itself, its four columns and two saints’ statues, was in a shadow of its own making, turned as it was from the sun. Kotlikoff’s description—he never knew what it was that he had looked at—fit the Porta Pia in every detail. It was as though Kotlikoff had looked over Leary’s shoulder, getting precisely the same view with the same long afternoon shadow. Leary turned in his seat and looked down Via Nomentana, wondering from which one of the many windows Kotlikoff had observed the archway.
Leary spent the next half hour carefully rereading the journal entries of Kotlikoff’s stay in Rome. From random entries he learned five things: there was a fountain in the courtyard of the apartment building; the walls of the court were an umber orange; there were many canaries singing; there was a restaurant on the ground floor; and on Kotlikoff’s bedroom window there had been a decorative half grille with a metal face of a cherub at the center.
These components were common to hundreds of Roman apartment buildings, but not many had a view of the Porta Pia.
Leary raised his hand to pay the bill. “Subito, signore, subito,” the waiter called, hurrying inside. When he returned, Leary paid him and sauntered down Via Nomentana toward his hotel, under the plane trees. Young men sat at café tables along the way. Women carried their shopping in string bags; others walked muzzled dogs or talked in shadowed doorways. Leary passed a restaurant: the sign said OPEN AT 8 P.M. The windows above were decorated with half grilles. Next to the restaurant was a corridor that led to a courtyard. There was no fountain.
He walked on, acknowledging the friendly nod of a tobacconist. He passed two more restaurants, closed until eight. In all, he examined the entryways to several dozen apartment buildings—all with a view of the Porta Pia. At an intersection, another restaurant confronted him—on the corner. Closed also. Next to it was an apartment house corridor. The two large wooden doors were swung back against the walls; inside, down the corridor, was a court, and at its center a softly bubbling fountain. Above that soft sound came the trill of several canaries.
Leary looked up at the outside of the apartment building. On the third floor, all the windows wore decorative grilles, each with a rosette face of a cherub. He gazed back at the Porta Pia, still clearly visible several blocks distant. He stepped into the corridor and walked slowly toward the court.
Fountain water rose in the air and tumbled into a shallow bowl and then dribbled over the sides into a pool, softly splashing. Around it were a number of potted plants. Leary looked up. The canaries sang from cages hanging on the wall just outside the windows that looked down on the courtyard. Above, at the top of the umber orange courtyard walls, the glancing sun glowed warmly.
Leary mounted the marble staircase to the second floor, then ascended the flight to the third floor. The apartment door was made of dark walnut decorated with thick curves of carved wood. He stood before it and listened. There was no sound inside. He knocked at the door. No one came. Again he knocked—this time firmly.
Now there sounded the turning of a bolt in the lock. He felt his first qualms, realizing he had nothing to say to the face that would peer at him. The door swung back a few inches. A woman, middle-aged, handsomely coiffured and tailored, gazed at him with open curiosity.
“Buon giorno,” she said, prompting him.
“Buon giorno, signora. È qui Gabriele?”
“Si.” She turned and murmured a few words behind the door. It opened wider and a middle-aged man stood there, nodding quizically at Leary and frowning.
“Buon giorno,” said Leary. “Mr. Napletano?”
He was handsome, with a long face and a sharp jaw and sensitive brown eyes that suggested Boris Kotlikoff’s. The white hair at his temples was almost theatrical. He drew in his chin as he pointed a long finger at Leary’s credentials.
“You are the man who was with the detective—Sardi—who told the caretaker that someone was dead in my apartment.”
“Is that what he told her?”
“But you were there.”
“Well, my Italian is not that good. Anyway, I have different business with you.”
“Signore, you have no business with me.”
“If I don’t, then Jay Simmonds certainly does.”
Napletano glanced at the woman, then looked down at his watch. “I can’t talk to you now. Perhaps later. Where are you staying?”
“Llewellyn.”
“But that is right up the street. Would you like to dine with me at, say—”
“No, thank you, signore. I think I’d better talk to you while I have you.”
“Ah, but you see, my sister and I have an—” He paused, looking at his sister. “Signore, I can give you only ten minutes or so. Suppose you and I go have a coffee and talk?”
Leary gazed around the comfortable apartment filled with sunlight. It probably had not changed much since Kotlikoff’s overnight visit two years before. They were sitting on a large couch, covered in a striking yellow fabric. Through the open court windows sounded the thrill of the canaries and the splashing of the fountain. It was all very tranquil. “Why can’t we talk here?”
Gabriele Napletano stood up. “No. We’ll talk over coffee somewhere.”
The familiar afternoon airs had begun to stir through the streets of Rome as Napletano led him down Via Nomentana away from the city. They walked without talking, Napletano looking thoughtfully at the ground, as thin and elegant as the black walking stick he used: he walked with a slight limp. At last he stopped before a sidewalk table and sat down.
He struggled to light his cigarette in the breeze. The match raked irritably against the side of the box, finally igniting. He lit his cigarette and flung the match away. “I wish to God I’d not gotten involved in this. It was a tragic error. I had absolutely no faith. I didn’t want to do it. Not from the beginning. But I can tell you nothing. Absolutely nothing. There are others—my friends, you see? Nothing …”
“I know so much already, you have to tell me the rest.”
“Excuse me, but you know nothing. If you did, your hair would turn white before my eyes. This was a terrible blunder. Understand? Terrible. We should never—You must not inquire any further. This could start a war!”
“Why?”
Napletano writhed in his chair. “Enough. Enough.”
“If you aren’t going to tell me anything, why did you bring me on this long walk?”
“My mind is made up.”
“I may know more than you realize.”
“Ask Jay Simmonds.”
“He doesn’t have the
money. You do. Maybe you should return it to Boris Kotlikoff.”
Napletano was stunned. “Kotlikoff? The money came from Kotlikoff?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know?”
Napletano threw down his cigarette. “There is nothing more to be said.”
“Maybe I know more than you do. Is that not possible?”
“If you do, I don’t want to know it. I already know more than I want to know. What I know is driving me insane.”
“Mr. Napletano, my purpose is to save Boris Kotlikoff.”
A waiter crossed the sidewalk and stepped sideways through the tables. He spoke into Napletano’s ear.
Napletano listened, frowned, listened and nodded. “Well, Signor Leary, so much for the long walk. Your credentials are bona fide, and I am told I can trust you completely.”
“Who told you that?”
“The telephone.”
“Telephone—as in Sardi.”
“I must know how you found me.”
“It was easy. I have Boris Kotlikoff’s journals. I fitted together some pieces of information he wrote down.”
“Bad. Very bad. There are several groups of people trying to find me. Twice in the last two days—well, listen. You may be the piece of luck I’ve been looking for. I want to get a message to your people in Washington—a senator, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General—I don’t know. But I can’t do it through the Americans in Rome. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“I don’t trust them.”
“Why?”
“You must listen very carefully. And don’t make notes. Agreed?”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Just carry the information to Washington. The right people there will understand immediately. I want to tell you about two murders that took place here in Rome that affect your government. The first name you must remember is Rossolini. Rossolini.”
“Okay.”
“Rossolini is not his name; it is the name on his false papers. He was a very important person in the world. That’s all I can tell you. Now, this Rossolini went to the opera here one night two years ago—at the Baths of Caracalla. The opera was Turandot. He had an appointment to meet another man there whom he had never seen. This man was to escort him somewhere else. Rossolini is not young. In his sixties. And not well. He has a very bad heart, including angina pectoris. And he always carries his heart pills with him. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“It was arranged that during the performance of Turandot, Rossolini would leave his seat and walk back behind the amphitheater. There he finds a rather slight gentleman in his mid-thirties. Rossolini doesn’t know it, but this man is a professional killer who flew from America only an hour or so before. Understand? The gentleman makes a sign that Rossolini recognizes. They come closer, and Rossolini speaks. The gentleman answers. Rossolini can’t hear him—the voice is too low and the music is loud. The gentleman leans his mouth close to Rossolini’s ear. Rossolini leans his ear close to the mouth. The killer instantly pushes an ice pick into Rossolini’s ear. To the hilt.”
“Killed him?”
“Instantly.”
“But why are you—”
“Patience, Signor Leary of the authentic credentials. I do not have time to repeat things. You are to be a messenger. Listen well. Rossolini died before the body fell to the ground. Such an ice pick would be virtually undetectable under autopsy. I would say in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, the examining doctor never discovers the wound. Our gentleman with the ice pick now takes out Rossolini’s heart pills and spills a few on the ground and puts the container in Rossolini’s hand. He leaves the opera. Now …”
“I see. Rossolini is found dead, and the investigation decides he died of a heart attack.”
“Bravo. Exactly. Some people claiming to be relatives obtain the body, and he is buried. That name is important. Rossolini. During the Turandot performance. It was in July, two years ago.
“Now the gentleman with the ice pick. As I told you, he had arrived an hour or so before at the Leonardo da Vinci Airport from the United States with an American passport. It is fake, of course. After he does his job with the ice pick, our American friend leaves the grounds and enters a waiting car. The car has four men in it. They drive up to the Pincio and get out of the car with some garden chairs and a table, and they sit overlooking all of Rome under a beautiful canopy of stars—it is a flawless night in Rome, you understand, with a mild breeze high up on the Pincio. And the gentlemen all fall to drinking scotch. It is a celebration. A major victory. Soon our friend The Ice Pick, he has had enough scotch to drink, and he stands up. But they pull him down and put another glass—a large glass of scotch—in front of him. He is puzzled at first, then alarmed. There is no question; he will drink the scotch. He does. And they pour another tumbler of scotch. Now he perceives the situation, and he begins to talk to one of the men—a man I will call Signor Mustache. He answers The Ice Pick’s questions.”
“Large brown mustache?”
“There are many large brown mustaches in Rome.”
“Large brown American mustache.”
“You know this story?”
“No.”
“Hmmm. Well. The Mustache tells The Ice Pick he is sorry. There is nothing personal in this. In fact, he feels very bad about things, and therefore he will make things as painless as possible. It will be a mercy killing. They give Ice Pick more scotch, and then the merciful Mustache, he counts out one dozen Seconals for The Ice Pick. Ice Pick is in very bad condition now; he has consumed more than a fifth of scotch in less than fifteen minutes; he is very terrified, and he is begging for a deal. In fact, he has wet his pants. Now, they prod him into taking the Seconals one by one. Which he does with the scotch for a chaser. Pretty soon he is almost unconscious. They calmly walk him to the automobile with the folding chairs and the table and they all ride down to the Tiber. They park along the quay and get out and drag him down the stone steps to the river. The river is very low in July from lack of rainfall, but there’s water flowing in the mid-channel. They walk out there on the rocks in the beautiful Roman night, and they set the whiskey bottle on a rock and they set the vial with the Seconals down on another rock, and then they put The Ice Pick face down in the water, and The Mustache with the merciful heart, he stands with one foot on The Ice Pick’s head to hold it under water. In a few minutes The Ice Pick is dead. Okay? Nothing complicated to remember?”
“No.”
“When the sun comes up in the morning, The Ice Pick is seen by various people, and soon the police come. They rule it a suicide and put Ice Pick in the grave of the unknown, where he lies to this day. He has never been identified. Now I will tell you his name: it is Robert Ursala. He was an American criminal with a long record, and his trade name was Bobby Whispers. No one will ever know how many died from his ice pick. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now. You will not repeat this story to anyone in Rome. You will repeat it only to the Attorney General of the United States or someone of equal rank. This is simple, no?”
“But I don’t understand. I need to know more.”
“I cannot tell you more. Your Attorney General will understand immediately.”
“Does this have anything to do with a man named Gus Geller?”
“You may not leave Rome alive if you do not do what I tell you. Leave immediately. Pack and go. Do not be seen with me. If you see me, pretend you don’t know me. If you get home and deliver this message, you will settle a score for me and do your country a big service.”
Gabriele Napletano walked down Via Nomentana, a thin, elegant figure with a fragile walking stick under budding plane trees in late afternoon tawny sunlight in the springtime of the year in Rome. Unhappy in the spring in Rome.
Leary sat and finished his coffee. He seemed to have gotten nothing from Napletano. Actually, he understood a great deal, after all.
The case wasn’t simply stolen; rather, it vanis
hed. Completely vanished.
Leary had stopped at a newsstand—a kiosk—and, setting the bag down beside his foot, he opened the Roman newspaper to read in his stumbling Italian the news of the Kotlikoff affair. The story was a recapitulation of yesterday’s, with fresh quotations from American politicians: the usual meaningless words that canceled each other.
He reached down for his case, groped, turned in a crouch and straightened, astonished.
“Vide lei la mia valigetta?” he said to the newsman.
“Valigetta?” The newsman leaned curiously out of his stand and looked out at the ground. “No.”
Leary studied the people on the street: there were many; there were also many doorways, and an intersection twenty feet away. A junction for several narrow alleys.
Emotions in a series flooded him: first, a hostility toward all the pedestrians who clearly connived at the theft; then rage that screamed for blood, urging that the thief have both hands chopped off at the wrist; then the plunging dismay at the loss of precious literary property; and finally, immobilizing frustration.
He walked in fury down an alley; stopped halfway; returned to the newsstand, circumambulated it, searching under the protruding magazine racks; then walked a half block in the other direction.
The thief was watching him, smirking, somewhere. Leary walked back down the alley, came out at another street and walked the main thoroughfare back to the newsstand. There he stood, baffled, indecisive, alone. He felt strongly that eyes watched him; furtive men followed him. The newsman shrugged sympathetically. At last, he walked toward his hotel feeling somehow incomplete without the case. Dismay was replaced by fear; he had to face Amy Kotlikoff, to face the sentencing of those eyes, the chagrin, the resentment and anger. And beyond her lay the rage of the literary world: nasty Fed loses literary treasure.
“Signore, telefono.” The hotel deskman proffered the desk phone.
“Me? For me?”
“Si, for you, Signor Leary.”
“Hello.”
“Don’t go into your room.”
Catch Me: Kill Me Page 20