Dante's Numbers

by David Hewson

  It had to be said. He couldn't avoid it. “I'm just a Roman police officer. I do what I do in the place that I know. That won't change. Not ever. That's me.”

  “I know,” she replied, still staring at him. “But that's not what scares you. I scare you. What you think I am. Some being from a different planet. Out of your reach.”

  He felt the need for a drink and reached for the glass of Greco di Tufo. It tasted warm and a little too complex. There were cheaper wines he preferred. Cheaper places than this luxurious apartment in a city where he didn't belong. He'd lost track of time. He'd no idea where any of his team were, or whether they'd simply given up on him.

  “I was never much interested in anything that couldn't last,” he said, and found he couldn't look at her when he spoke those words.

  “Because of what I am?” she asked. “Some perfect untouchable movie star? Listen to the truth.” She lifted her hands to her face. “This is an accident and maybe not a lucky one. I'm the most flawed, most damaged human being you're likely to find. I've been off the rails more times than you could imagine. I've woken up in the wrong place, the wrong bed, so often I don't even have to blot out the memories anymore, there are so many they do that for themselves. I'm weak and pathetic and stupid. Someone can even poison me with an apple. Remember? With out you I might be dead.”

  “I remember.”

  She got on her knees on the sofa next to him and hitched up her skirt. “Does this look like perfection to you?” she demanded.

  The mark of the hypodermic pen was still livid on her thigh, darkening purple at its centre, yellow at the rim.

  “If I was naked on a set, with a million men pointing lights and cameras at my body, they could cover that with makeup. It doesn't mean it isn't there.”

  She took his head in her hands. Her eyes were wide and guileless, her fingers felt like fire on his skin. “I bruise, I bleed. I weep. I ache… I need. Just like you.”

  His fingers reached and touched the mark on her leg. Her skin felt soft and warm, like Emily's, like anyone's.

  She leaned forward, took his head more firmly, pulled it towards her.

  Her breath was hot and damp in his ear. “You can kiss it better if you want, Nic.”

  His hand spread over her leg without a single, deliberate thought.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  Costa bent down and brushed his lips gently against the mark, then let his tongue touch the warm flesh. She tasted of something sweet: soap and perfume. His fingers ran around her torso and felt the taut, nervous strength there.

  Then he got off the sofa, picked her up in his arms, and carried her into the bedroom. Her frantic kisses covered his neck, his face; her hands worked at his shoulders. Gently he placed her slender frame on the soft white cotton coverlet. She looked at him, pleading in silence, unmoving, arms raised.

  He removed her shirt with a slow, deliberate patience. She was naked beneath. Her hands tore anxiously at his clothes. In the shadows of her bedroom they found each other, not seeing anything else, not caring.

  There hadn't been many women in his life, and all of them had mattered. But not like this. Maggie Flavier sought something in him he'd never been asked for before, in ways that were utterly new to him.

  He lost count of the times they struggled with each other in the half darkness on a bed so gigantic he couldn't hear it creak, however physical their efforts. There would never be a time, he thought, when he could forget these moments, the sight of her sighing beneath him. The gentle curves of her legs with their moist dark triangle at the apex, the dark corona of the areola of her breast as she arched above him, straining with a gentle insistence, seeking to prolong the sweetness between them.

  Eventually Costa rolled to one side, closed his eyes, threw back his head against the deep pillow, and laughed.

  She was on her elbow at his side when he looked again, poking at him with a long fingernail. “So it's funny, is it?”

  “No. It's ridiculous.”

  “I like the ridiculous. I feel at home there. So will you, one day.” She rolled over and looked at the bedside clock. “It's nearly ten. What do we do now?” She ran a finger down his navel to his thigh. “Chess?”

  “I haven't played chess in years…” he began to say.

  The phone rang from somewhere.

  His jacket was strewn on the floor with all his other clothes. He struggled to find it.

  “Oh God,” she groaned. “You really are a cop, aren't you? I suppose I should be glad this didn't happen ten minutes ago.”

  “Or ten minutes before. Or ten minutes before that.”

  Costa picked up the phone, sat down on the bed, and said, without thinking, “Pronto.”

  “What?” asked a young, uncertain voice on the other end. “Who is this?”

  “I'm sorry. My name is Nic Costa. I'm Italian. I wasn't…” He glanced at Maggie, who sat upright with her arms folded, watching him with an expression of mock anger. At least he thought it was mock. “I wasn't thinking straight.”

  “Please start, Mr. Costa. I need your help.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Tom Black and someone wants to kill me. Be at the viewing platform above Fort Point. Eleven, on the dot. Be alone and for God's sake tell no one or I'm as good as dead.”

  The call ended abruptly. Costa hit redial. The number was withheld.

  “Who was it?” Maggie asked.

  “He said he was Tom Black. Wants to meet me. The viewing platform above Fort Point.”

  He'd glimpsed the old brick fortress when they'd been sightseeing. The building was half hidden beneath the city footings of the Golden Gate Bridge, like some ancient toy castle discarded by a lost race of giants. It was there that Scottie had fished the supposedly suicidal Madeleine Elster out of San Francisco Bay. The spot seemed so remote and shut off by the great red iron structure above, he'd no idea how it could be reached.

  “How do I get there?”

  “You don't,” she said very severely. “You tell the police and let them do it. This isn't Rome. This isn't your investigation.”

  “I know that. Tom Black's no idiot. He won't give himself up if he sees the police there. He's scared and he wants to talk. With me for some reason.”

  “Nic…”

  “If he disappears this time, we may never see him again.”

  She swore and gave him an evil look. Then she said, “Get on 101 as if you want to go over the bridge. Just before you do, there's a turnoff to the right with a parking lot.”

  “How public is it?”

  “You're right next to the Golden Gate Bridge. There'll be traffic.” She hunched her arms around herself. Naked, she seemed smaller somehow, and vulnerable. “But not much if you turn off the road, I guess.”

  She took his hand. “Nic—don't go. Stay here with me. We can drink wine and play chess. Leave this to someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Anyone. I don't care.”

  He couldn't read the expression on her face.

  The hot, human scent of sex hung around them, along with that sense of both embarrassment and elation he'd come to recognise when life took a turn like this. Something had changed in a subtle and mysterious way. The barriers were tumbling down, like leaves caught in an autumn storm. A part of him, he knew, wanted to run.

  Costa gripped her fingers, then kissed her damp forehead.

  “Stay here, Maggie. I'll call,” he promised.

  JIMMY GAINES SMOKED THREE CIGARETTES BY the redwood tree, none of them quickly. As darkness fell, a waxy yellow half-moon began to emerge above the forest, and the dense wilderness became drowned in a cacophony of new sounds: birds and animals, insects and distant wild calls Frank Boynton couldn't begin to name. He and his brother watched everything like hawks. More than anything, they sought to measure every breath of the man by the tree. Or perhaps, he reflected, they were simply counting away their own.

  Without Gaines noticing, the two had talked toget
her in low tones, about the lay of the land and the limited possibilities ahead of them. Somewhere at their backs they could hear motor vehicles passing through Muir Woods. Not many. This was a deserted part of the forest, and their number had diminished as day turned to night. But there was a road somewhere back there up the slope. Both men were sure of that.

  In the opposite direction, downhill, beyond the sequoia trees looming opposite their captor, was, Hank said, a steep, sheer drop, one he'd seen as they arrived. Frank had never noticed. He'd been too worried by that stage to take much notice of anything except Jimmy Gaines. Now, though, thanks to his brother's acuity, he could tell the drop was there by the way the just-visible foliage faded to nothing in the mid-distance, and from the faint sound of running water somewhere distant and below. There was a creek maybe. It was difficult to tell. Even more difficult as dusk gave way to the pale sheen of the moon, which made the area beneath the high, dense tree cover seem even blacker than before.

  Neither man felt at home in the forest. All they had between them were two small flashlights and some vague idea of where the road might be. That would have to be enough. If they could escape Jimmy Gaines and his old black gun, they would head uphill, back towards the Lost Trail, then try to find headlights that might lead them back to the city and civilisation.

  If…

  Jimmy Gaines threw his last cigarette into the black void ahead of him, where it vanished like a firefly on speed. Then he came tearing towards them, swearing and stomping his big boots on the damp, mossy ground.

  “Why can't you keep your noses out of things that don't concern you?” the old fireman demanded.

  The gun was in his right hand. Hank had cut both their sets of ropes and left them there so Gaines wouldn't see what had happened. Frank wondered whether that mattered so much. A gun was a gun.

  “We're sorry, Jimmy,” Frank said. “We didn't know.”

  “But you still came looking!”

  “Blame me.” Frank nodded at his brother. “Not him. He's not very bright. Besides, it was always me who got to you. You don't need to bring Hank into this.”

  “Hank, Frank, Tweedledee, Tweedledum…” The gun was getting higher and starting to look more purposeful. “You're both the same. What business of yours is it, anyway, what Tom and me get up to? He's a good guy. It was Josh who got him into all this shit. Josh and them.”

  “What shit?” Hank asked.

  The gun rose and pointed at his head.

  “There you go again,” Gaines moaned. “Mouth on overdrive. I suppose you think I might as well tell you now it doesn't matter. All this movie shit. Those bastards from Hollywood who ate those two kids up and spat them out. They were doing OK when they just stuck to being computer geeks. Somebody would've come along and bought the company when the money ran out. They didn't need to move in those damned circles…”

  The weapon wavered.

  “It's got nothing to do with us,” Frank agreed mildly. “Our Italian lady said she could help Tom. That's all. So we thought maybe…”

  Gaines let out a despairing wheeze. “I don't want to die in jail. I don't deserve that. I was just looking for a little security when I retired. That and a little companionship.”

  “We won't tell them,” Frank insisted.

  “We don't even know what's going on, do we?” Hank asked meekly. “We just thought we were doing your friend a favour, Jimmy. Hasn't he gone to see our nice Italian lady?”

  “Never mind where he's gone. None of your business.”

  “I couldn't agree more there, Jimmy,” Frank said. “But she's going to think it's a little odd if Hank and I don't turn up for our regular coffee tomorrow morning. She's like us. Inquisitive.”

  Gaines moved and a shaft of moonlight caught his face. It was taut, anxious, locked in something close to a snarl.

  “As if I don't know you two. Always the smart-asses. You wouldn't tell someone what you were doing before you went out and did it. Not if you figured you'd get some brownie points at the end when you turned round and said, ‘Look at us. Look at the Boynton brothers. Look what clever bastards we are.'” He bent and leered in Frank's face. “You didn't tell her where you were going, did you? Or any of this stuff. Admit it. You were always lousy liars, both of you. Don't try that on me. I've known you too long.”

  “We didn't tell her,” Frank agreed. “All the same… two and two.”

  “Screw two and two. If Tom can get a few days free once he's spoken to the police, that's all we need. We'll be gone. They say Laos is nice.” He grimaced. “If that jerk Jonah hadn't locked up the money so tight, we'd be gone by now anyway.” He laughed, not pleasantly. “I owe you that, boys. You provided us with a way out. It's a pity…”

  The gun arced through the air, from Frank to Hank and back again. To give Jimmy his due, he didn't look keen on any of this. “Tell you what. Let me do you one last favour. You choose who gets to go first.”

  “Him,” Hank said promptly, nodding at his brother. “He got to come into this world seven minutes before me. Only right I get to even things up a little. After… we could talk.”

  “What?” Frank bellowed with heartfelt outrage. “What? Be cause I'm seven minutes older?”

  Hank screwed round trying to look at him. “It's only fair. Given the circumstances and everything.”

  Frank shuffled up against him, remembering not to disturb the loose ropes. “He'd have just killed me! And you want to talk to him?”

  “Who else am I supposed to exchange my final words with?” Hank objected. “The frigging chipmunks?”

  “Generally speaking, chipmunks are only active by day,” Gaines pointed out. “Too many predators at night. Also—”

  “Shut up, Jimmy!” the Boynton brothers yelled in concert.

  Gaines shuffled in his big forest boots. “Maybe it wasn't fair of me to offer you a choice,” he said a little mournfully. “I mean, it's not like I'm proud of this, you know. It's just…needed.” The gun swung towards Frank, and Jimmy Gaines said, “Oh hell…”

  It was the loudest noise Frank had ever heard. Like a sonic boom that rang throughout the forest. Unseen creatures skittered across on the ground around them, crashing through the leaves.

  Hank had caught Jimmy Gaines's shin hard with his foot as the weapon was coming round. More through luck than anything else, the gun was rising upwards, above them both, when the explosion came.

  The recoil on the old handgun seemed tremendous, and the upward forty-five-degree angle pushed it all back into Gaines's shoulder. The force bucked him away from them, onto the slight slope towards the redwood that had, until recently, been wreathed in his cigarette smoke. One stumbling step behind took over from another. Soon Gaines was running backwards downhill, arms flailing and cartwheeling through the air, old gun flying high into the moonlight, trying to stay upright, screaming and swearing until finally he toppled over.

  The two brothers got up and watched, helpless. Momentum could be a terrible thing. He'd fallen past the lip of some projecting plateau in the forest floor and flipped over the edge like a tree trunk rolling downhill. In the gashes of light visible through the sequoia branches, they could see Jimmy Gaines's body tumbling round and round on the moss and grass and rocks as the incline grew steeper and steeper, and the trees got more slender and scarce.

  They stood together in silence. Then there was a long, solitary cry and Jimmy Gaines's shape disappeared from sight altogether.

  “Damn,” Hank muttered, and pulled out his little flashlight. The battery was low. The light was the colour of the wan moon above. Frank got his instead and ordered him to turn it off. They might need it later.

  They held hands like children to make sure they didn't lose their footings, stepping gingerly down the slope towards the place where Jimmy Gaines had vanished.

  After a little while Frank put out an arm to keep his brother back. The incline was turning too sheer. There was no point and they both knew it. Jimmy Gaines lay somewhere below, a long way, cl
ose to the tinkling waters of the creek that they could now hear very clearly. Frank doubted even a skilled mountain rescue party could reach him quickly.

  He pointed his little light back up the hill. They waited for a minute or two. Then there was the faint sound of some kind of vehicle and the flash of far-off headlights.

  “You walk carefully, little brother,” Frank Boynton warned, still holding on to his arm. “This has been a very eventful day.”

  A loud and repetitive electronic beep burst out of the lush undergrowth beneath the beam of his flashlight, one so unexpected it made Frank jump with a short spike of fear.

  “My phone,” Hank said. “See? I told you there was a point to having different rings.”

  Frank picked it up, looked at the caller ID. Then he said, “Pronto.”

  THERE WERE NO OTHER VEHICLES IN THE PARKing lot by the bridge. Costa got out and walked to the edge of the bluff overlooking the Pacific. Fifty years before, somewhere below, a fictional Scottie had seen Madeleine Elster fall into the ocean and had dived in to save her, sealing his and her fate. The movie he'd watched with Maggie wouldn't leave his head. Or what had happened after.

  In the distance to the right there were lights in the Marina and Fort Mason, where the Lukatmi corporation was now a dismembered corpse. Further along, a vivid electric slur of illumination marked the tourist bars and restaurants of Fisherman's Wharf. A few boats, some large, bobbed on the water. It was the noise that surprised him, rising into the starry sky, the gruff, smoke-stained roar of a constant throng of vehicles on the highway behind. Their fumes choked the sea breeze rising over the headland; their presence almost blotted out the beauty of the ocean.