Dante's Numbers

by David Hewson

  They were grinning like Cheshire cats, all three of them.

  “I mean that about the evidence, Leo. It would be best all round if the man confesses…”

  “Let me worry about that.” The inspector hesitated, then asked, “No more names to give me?”

  “Maggie Flavier was defrauded of her fee. She never knew a thing about what was going on. Harvey's admitted that. At the very least Kelly can charge them over that.”

  “At the very least,” Falcone agreed, then took the audio player from Costa's fingers. “Thank you very much.”

  Costa stood his ground. “And you intend to do what with it, sir?”

  Leo Falcone stiffened, straightened his own tie, and looked outside the door at the swirling mist.

  “I intend to find Captain Kelly and tell him what you've just told me. I want to leave this place feeling we did our job as well as could be expected in the circumstances. Not in the middle of some argument over who deserves the credit.”

  “And me?” Costa asked.

  Falcone frowned, as if the question were ridiculous. “You're off-duty and you've got a date. Make the most of it. As for you two…” He glanced at Peroni and Teresa, then waved at the glass cabinets and their ancient manuscripts. “… watch this stuff, will you?”

  FALCONE FOUND GERALD KELLY ALONE A LITTLE way from the mob of photographers and reporters jostling one another by the red carpet runway to the premiere. The tent was now a ghostly grey shape in the fog. Through the open flaps, he could just make out the brightly lit stage with mikes clustered thickly in front of the screen, like the podium for some cut-rate copy of the Oscar ceremonies. A half-familiar face from the TV was scheduled to start a warm-up for the evening. Then there would be the movie, and, some three hours later, a closing speech from Roberto Tonti.

  The Roman inspector wished to see none of it. He knew his own force could take no part in what followed, even if the crucial information were to come from them in the first instance. This was Gerald Kelly's case, one that would, if it came to court, be prosecuted through the American authorities, not those in Italy. If Falcone could return home with the missing mask of Dante Alighieri, then he would be content, though he did not expect this happy conclusion to be reached.

  “Are you planning to watch the movie?” Falcone asked as the American police officer arrived.

  “Not if I can help it,” Kelly said.

  “I understand.” The American had a very piercing gaze. “Are you pleased with the arrangements, Captain?”

  Kelly frowned. “As much as anyone could be. The glitterati don't like going through metal detectors, but they can learn to live with it. We're doing what we can.”

  Falcone thought of how Maggie Flavier had been poisoned by someone working in a catering truck, an individual with a fake name and no ID. There were limits to how much security one could put in place for events of this nature. Without months of preparation and the vetting of everyone concerned—neither of which had been practicable—some loopholes had to remain.

  He didn't mention this because he knew Gerald Kelly understood the problem just as well as he did. Instead, he told Kelly briefly what he had learned from Costa. He passed on the audio player, then requested that he attend any interview with Simon Harvey to ask the necessary questions about the missing death mask of Dante Alighieri. After that—barring any new discoveries—the work of the Roman state police in San Francisco would be done. They could return home on the weekend with some sense of achievement, even if the public prize would doubtless fall to others.

  This news did not appear to surprise the American police captain, which Falcone found odd. But Kelly thanked him politely for it, agreed to Harvey's conditions, and asked for Falcone to meet him with the publicist at the temporary police control truck after Roberto Tonti's closing speech. Then he said no more.

  Taking the hint, Falcone left to amble idly around the crowd, determined not to return to a tent full of glass cases and mouldering pieces of paper.

  Finally, not consciously realising that this was what he intended all along, he found her. Catherine Bianchi stood beneath the dome of the Palace, a radio in her hand. She wore a dark suit that was tight on her slender figure, and she might have been mistaken for a guest herself had she not spent so much of her time alone, scrutinizing the crowd with the careful attention he knew all good police officers possessed.

  “Leo?” she said as he approached.

  “It's a foul evening for a movie premiere. They should have chosen a theatre.”

  “It's only a movie. A few hours of fantasy, then it's over.” She smiled at him. She looked different somehow. More at ease. More… alluring perhaps. Falcone found this odd and a little disconcerting. He had scarcely given Catherine Bianchi a second thought all day, possibly for the first time since he had arrived in San Francisco.

  “I'm through at nine,” she said. “I know a warm place for dinner. We should go to North Beach. You've been avoiding Italian food ever since you got here. It's time to try something new.”

  He laughed. “I don't think I've done anything else but try new things since I got here, have I? And now…”

  “Now you're going. I can see it in your face.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “You're very transparent, Leo. You all are. Peroni. Nic. Teresa. I'll miss that. It's unusual. You're unusual.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps we're just out of place.”

  “When do you go?” she asked.

  “Sometime this weekend, I think. I haven't given it much thought, to be honest. Nic said something about wishing to tack some holiday on the end. It's fine by me. I have some reports to deal with in Rome. Internal reorganisation. You know the kind of thing.”

  “They're transferring me downtown,” she told him. “Bryant Street. I'll miss the Marina. It's my little village.”

  The distant quacking of the waterfowl on the lake echoed through the mist. There was a burst of laughter and applause from the stage, now almost invisible in the fog.

  “You'll never leave Rome, will you?” she asked.

  “No more than you'd leave San Francisco.”

  “Kind of makes things hard, doesn't it? When two people are fixed in their ways like that?”

  “We have what time we have. We do with it the best we can.”

  A part of him had sought this woman's affection with an ardent desire he'd not known for a long time. Now that Italy beckoned, that passion had dissipated almost as quickly as it had arisen in the first place. Yet there was a look in her eyes…

  “I'm sorry if I offended you, Catherine. That was never my intention.”

  “I wasn't offended. I was flattered. But you try too hard, Leo. And also…” She looked a little guilty. “I have a rule. I don't date cops.”

  He blinked. “Ever?”

  “Ever.” She was smiling at him. “At least I haven't since I made the mistake of marrying one briefly a decade or so back.”

  “Ah…”

  “But we could have dinner in North Beach tonight. Since you go home so soon…We're free as birds. After the premiere…?”

  Falcone felt briefly lost for words. Then he tapped his watch and said, rather more bluntly than he wished, “I'm afraid I can't fit you in. Business, unfortunately. It may go on for a while. We should meet for a coffee sometime. That would be good.”

  The radio burst into life. She held it to her mouth and began speaking. He could see she hadn't even touched the press-to-talk button. Their conversation had come to a close.

  Falcone walked to the cordoned area, found a quiet place with a seat. He was acutely aware of something that surprised him. He would miss this city. He would regret, too, the overzealous and childish way he had chased Catherine Bianchi without ever once asking himself what she might seek in return.

  Cries of surprise and a ripple of applause drifted through the mist from the nearby runway into the premiere.

  Falcone walked to the edge of the crowd, close to the road, and,
with the deft elbows of a Roman, worked his way politely but forcefully to the front.

  The cameras and the reporters had only one thing on their mind, and that was the couple walking slowly along the red carpet.

  Leo Falcone stood behind the yellow tape, and found himself beaming with a mixture of pride and emotion at what he saw. Nic Costa looked as if he belonged with the beautiful young woman on his arm, even though his cheap Roman suit seemed somewhat shabby next to her flowing silk gown, a flimsy creation for such a chilly, fog-strewn night. Not that Maggie Flavier, being the consummate actress she was, showed one iota of discomfort.

  As the reporters shouted her name, she simply smiled and waved and held herself like a star for the cameras, her small hand always on Costa's arm. The young police officer held himself with quiet, calm dignity.

  As they slowly passed, Falcone, to his own amazement, found himself crying out, “Soverintendente! Soverintendente!”

  The couple stopped. Nic Costa turned and stared at him with a quizzical look.

  “In bocca al lupo,” Falcone shouted, with a sudden and entirely involuntary enthusiasm.

  “Crepi il lupo!” Maggie Flavier cried back joyfully at him.

  And then they moved on.

  In the mouth of the wolf. Foreigners always found it a curious way to wish someone good luck. He was impressed that Maggie Flavier knew the correct response. Let the wolf die.

  The wolf had hung around Nic Costa long enough, Falcone thought as he watched them disappear into the mist.

  GIANLUCA QUATTROCCHI WORE HIS FINEST dress uniform with a white carnation in the collar, determined to look his best at this final glittering event before his return home. He had already rehearsed in his head the report he would give to his superiors. Of the uncooperative intransigence of the American authorities, unable to relinquish their grip on the case sufficiently to allow the Carabinieri to do their job. Of the meddling of the state police, constantly obstructing and interfering with Quattrocchi's investigation. He would single out Falcone by name, in the knowledge that to do so would get back to the higher echelons of the state police and perhaps earn the man the reprimand he deserved.

  There was, for Gianluca Quattrocchi, a point at which a failed case turned from a mystery demanding solution into a disaster requiring containment. The death of Allan Prime and the sequence of events that had followed now fell entirely in the second category. It would be for the American authorities to pursue whatever slim, time-consuming half-leads and connections they could find in the financial affairs of the two dead men involved in the dotcom bubble of Lukatmi. The Carabinieri had neither the time nor the resources to become involved in such work, not least because any resulting case would surely be tried in America and benefit the Italian authorities not one whit.

  This was not the outcome Quattrocchi sought. He had, for a while, genuinely believed that the Canadian professor, Bryan Whitcombe, who had pressed himself upon the Italian authorities with such adamant enthusiasm, might hold some insight into the case. That idea had waned lately, and he'd even begun to find the man somewhat creepy. Whitcombe had turned up for tonight's premiere in a garish white suit and taken to bearding starlets with his lascivious gaze. The man had even announced to the media that he intended to write a book on the affair of “Dante's Numbers,” as he had dubbed it. According to that morning's papers, an outline for the work was now being hyped around American publishers by one of the book world's more notorious agents. Law enforcement work often had unforeseen consequences. The elevation of Bryan Whitcombe to the status of unlikely media star was one he could never have predicted.

  None of this did much for Quattrocchi's mood as he sipped his free champagne. He began quietly to plan his exit from the proceedings so that he might miss the screening altogether, merely returning for the closing ceremony. Then he saw Gerald Kelly, a man for whom he felt no affection whatsoever, stomping towards him like a bulldog intent on its victim.

  “We need to talk,” the American snapped. “Somewhere private.”

  Quattrocchi followed to an empty area close by the lake and listened. As he did so he felt the bitter taste of envy rise in his throat.

  The SFPD captain was right to tell him of this development. He was in charge of the Italian investigative team. Falcone should have come to him first with this news, and allowed Quattrocchi to pass it on to Kelly.

  The American finished with the suggestion Quattrocchi join him and Falcone for the interview with Simon Harvey after the premiere.

  “Of course I'll be there,” Quattrocchi insisted. “We're joint investigating authorities in this case. It would be highly improper to commence without me.”

  Kelly glared at him. “You know, I never got around to saying this to your face until now. But this is our country, not yours. We interview who we like, when we like, and I don't care whether that pisses you off or not.”

  “And Tonti? What do you propose with him?”

  “I'm feeling generous. And I don't want this freak show getting any worse. He's a sick old man. He's not going anywhere. He can turn up with his lawyers at Bryant Street in the morning. No reporters. No leaks. Not a word to anyone.”

  The maresciallo nodded at the pack of photographers now corralled into a specific section of the secure area by the stage outside the screening tent. “You think they'll be happy with that?”

  “I don't care what they'll be happy with. That's the way it's going to be.”

  He stalked back into the crowd.

  Americans amazed Quattrocchi. Their incapacity for a little common deviousness from time to necessary time was quite bewildering.

  He found Roberto Tonti in the center of a group of movie company executives. The man looked more gaunt and haggard than he had two weeks before. His eyes were invisible behind sunglasses as usual. His grey hair appeared stiff and unreal. The director was finishing a cigarette as Quattrocchi arrived. Immediately he lit another and said nothing as the suits around him gossiped and argued.

  Quattrocchi got next to him and said in Italian, “Tonti, it is important we talk.”

  “I doubt that very much.”

  The Carabinieri officer nodded at the men around them. “Do they speak Italian?”

  There was a slow, shallow intake of breath, then Tonti replied, “They're producers. Most are still struggling with English and it's their native tongue.”

  “Listen to me well. Once this premiere is over, it is the intention of the San Francisco Police Department to arrest you on suspicion of fraud and conspiracy to murder.”

  Tonti took a long drag on the cigarette, looked at him, and said nothing.

  “They have a witness,” Quattrocchi persisted. “A member of your… tontine. He has already told them of your arrangement. The man has agreed to make a statement, doubtless in return for some kind of immunity.”

  “Who?” Tonti demanded.

  “This is not an appropriate time.”

  “I wish to avoid embarrassment this evening. You must understand that.”

  “Of course. All the same…”

  “Shut up. I am thinking.”

  Gianluca Quattrocchi fell silent. There was something chilling in the authority of this man. Something decidedly odd.

  “What do you have to offer me?” Tonti asked at last.

  “You're an Italian citizen. If you give yourself up to my authority, I can arrange these matters through our courts, not theirs.”

  “You don't understand Americans. They don't like to lose.”

  “Captain Kelly is feeling sentimental. He will invite you for an interview tomorrow morning. Were you to leave the country tonight after the premiere and arrive in Italy in due course…It would not be difficult. A private jet would have you in Mexico in a couple of hours. After that, what could the American authorities do?” Quattrocchi coughed into his fist, praying none of this conversation would ever go any further. “Extradition proceedings take years. You will receive much fairer treatment in your native country, surely. If y
ou plead guilty to some minor financial transgression, we can spin things out for a long time…”

  “I'll be dead before summer turns.” Tonti spoke with a matter-of-fact certainty.

  “Then die in Rome, where you belong. In bed. In your home, not some prison cell in California.”

  “Without a name I shall not agree to this.”

  “I cannot…”

  “Without a name I shall go to the Americans this instant. I shall tell them everything, and inform them of your approach and your offer. Perhaps they can better it.”

  Quattrocchi's temper had stretched to breaking point. The premiere would begin in a matter of minutes.

  “I believe they have an appointment with Simon Harvey,” he muttered. “I did not tell you this.”

  “Of course, Maresciallo. This is kind of you.”

  “No. Merely practical.” He tried to fathom the expression in the man's haggard features. “So we have an arrangement?”

  “How could one deny the Carabinieri?” the director replied effusively. “It would be impertinent, no?”

  Gianluca Quattrocchi did not expect thanks from this individual. Nor did he anticipate or enjoy condescension.

  “I shall endeavour to make your time in Rome as comfortable as possible,” he replied stiffly, aware that he was speaking to the long, thin back of Roberto Tonti as the director turned to the suits and evening gowns, the mayhem of the premiere of Inferno.

  THEY WATCHED THE MOVIE FROM THE DARKness of the VIP seats at the front. Not long after the start he felt her head slip onto his shoulder, her hair fall against his neck. Costa turned his head a degree or two and stole a glimpse at Maggie Flavier. On the screen she stood five metres high, the ethereal beauty Beatrice, Dante's dead muse, offering hope as the poet faced the horrors and travails of Hell's circles, just as the idea of the unworldly Madeleine Elster had appeared to bring solace to the lost and fearful Scottie. For most of the movie, the real woman behind Beatrice was fast asleep against him, mouth slightly ajar, at peace. He scarcely dared breathe for fear of waking her. However loud the commotion on the screen, she seemed oblivious to it all, slumbering by his side like a child lost in a world of her own.