by Noel Hynd
With retirement beckoning, Rizzo was increasingly free with his opinions. The forensic technicians busied themselves with the details of the double homicide. Why take issue? They agreed with him, anyway. Even his assistant, Stephano DiPetri, knew enough to ignore him.
The dead woman was on the floor of the living room, her arms and legs a tangle, a robe half on, half off, the upper part of it caked with blood. Her face was blue from strangulation, her eyes frozen wide in the pain of her death. Her throat looked as if it had been perforated with a butcher’s knife.
Lt. Rizzo walked to the next room. There, a man, who appeared to have been a musician, had been shot to death while sleeping. He had a couple of guitars by the bed, a collection of sheet music, and the inevitable marijuana paraphernalia, none of which was going to be much use to him now.
The first and second bullets had passed through him. The third had blown apart his skull. Nasty splatter. A crime scene pick-four: Skin, hair, tissues, bone in every direction.
It wasn’t pretty.
The pillow and the worn mattress had caught most of the blood, which was good for the cleanup squad. But his left eye was ruptured and half out of his head, which would make their task messier. And at least the remains of the bullets had already been recovered. That was another good part.
The really grisly detail, aside from the homicides themselves, had been the discovery. For a solid day, starting at two in the afternoon, the dead man’s clock radio had blasted some vile American music.
The downstairs neighbors, after a sleepless night and much pounding on the ceiling, indignantly phoned the proprietario over the excessive noise. The landlord had raised the portiera, the deaf-as-a-haddock old Signora Massiella.
Signora Massiella had used her passkey to enter the apartment. She had pushed the door open. The door had stopped against the dead woman on the floor.
Then she screamed and fled, crossing herself several times as she ran. She called the police. The carabinieri arrived and then summoned the homicide people, which included Lt. Rizzo. Rizzo brought in his attitude, of which he had plenty.
Rizzo stood at the foot of the bed, surveying the death scene and not feeling much compassion. He glanced at the disgraceful film poster above the body, one that turned immorality drug addiction into a joke.
Cheech and Chong. The Corsican Brothers. Who was kidding whom? If one of these potheads wanted to meet some real Corsican brothers, Rizzo could arrange it. And as for this dead guy being a singer-musician, well, Sinatra and Pavarotti had been singers. Gino Paoli was a singer. The current pop star Zucherro was a singer. This guy was just a dead guy.
Nearby, detectives went through drawers. They found enough illicit pharmaceuticals and “head” equipment to equip a small store.
Rizzo had an opinion: victims like these brought such things upon themselves. So why then should he, Lt. Rizzo, have to spend his life sorting out a mess like this? Elsewhere in Rome there were good God-fearing local people who were also victims, good Italian working people who battled every day against immigrants and street thugs. Those genti deserved his attention more than this international trash, didn’t they?
A young policeman with chubby cheeks stood next to the lieutenant. His name was Quinzani. In his squad room it was frequently said that Quinzani looked like a hamster in a police uniform. He was of the municipal police and not the homicide brigade. This was his first serious crime scene, and up until now, everyone made fun of him.
He was frightened not just of his boss and the hardened old bastardi of the homicide brigade, but he was also scared stiff just of being there. “ Signor Lieutenant? ” the young man asked.
Rizzo’s thoughts were far away at the moment. He liked to tell people that his distant cousin had been police commissioner and then mayor in Philadelphia. It was a good story and played well with his fellow cops, usually accompanied by one of his diatribes about the scheming American government and their outlaw intelligence services that operated across Europe. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Rizzo, despite his likings for Americans personally, loathed anything to do with the US government.
Then again, on a recent trip to America, Gian Antonio Rizzo had had himself photographed in front of the mural of the world famous Frank Rizzo at the Italian market in South Philly. And if you asked him, the two paesani had a strong facial resemblance! Aside from that, like many excellent stories, this one had no basis in truth.
His thoughts drifted further, and he wondered what his mistress, Sophie, a nice young French woman in her late thirties, was doing. Sophie worked in a dress store near the Piazza San Marco, dealing with pretty feminine things and cultivated customers, while he was engaged in this muck.
“ Signor Lieutenant? Scusi? ” young Quinzani repeated.
“ Cosa che? ” snapped the lieutenant, breaking out of his reverie.
“ Guardi, signor Lieutenant, per favor,” the young policeman said. “I found this.”
“ Dove? ” he asked. Where?
“In an envelope. Behind some books,” the young man said, “in the living room.”
A hand covered in a surgical glove extended three passports to the lieutenant, plus a thick handful of Euros and dollars.
Rizzo looked around for DiPetri. The man was gone, as usual, leaving Rizzo to the mercy of this overanxious young laddie. Rizzo eyed the passports and the money.
“Let me see this,” Rizzo said.
He put the money in his pocket for safekeeping. He would turn it over at headquarters. Or maybe he’d take Sophie out to dinner. He’d decide later.
Then he looked at the passports: an American one and two Canadian ones.
The lieutenant didn’t grasp the significance at first.
Then he opened the top one. The picture showed the woman who lay dead on the floor. Her name on the passport was Angelina Mercoli. Then he opened the next one, issued in Ottawa in 2006. Same woman, different picture. Now her name was Diana Gilberti. A trend emerged. He looked at the third. Now the dead girl had born in Toronto and her name was Lana Bissoni.
He looked at the passports, at their bindings and their printing. Good fakes but fakes nonetheless. Probably good enough to cross a porous border. Not good enough for entry into the United States, Japan, or China but workable for almost anywhere in Europe. Once you got into a country of the European Union you could travel freely to any other, with a handful of exceptions like Great Britain. Such as Italy, where they were now.
He grunted as young Quinzani looked over his shoulder.
He closed the passports, then looked down. He drew a breath. His blood pressure must have been three hundred over two hundred right at that moment, he reasoned. He was going to have to learn to calm down, or he’d have a stroke and Sophie would end up with some young punk her own age who didn’t deserve her.
He focused: first this had looked like a drug hit or some snap of jealousy among lowlifes. But now there were fake passports. No way Rizzo was going to be able to sweep this one away.
This case was going to be a pain. What was this city coming to anyway? Rome was starting to remind him of the wide-open city of the seventies where the loathsome Red Brigades and their criminal friends had the whole country in fear.
Rizzo looked back to Quinzani. He gave the young man a nod and was suddenly back on his game. “What’s happening with the old woman downstairs?” Rizzo asked. “That old deaf woman who lives by the elevator and always has her door open? Was that her name? La portiera ?”
“Massiella,” Quinzani answered.
“Are they talking to the old vacca? Did she see anything? Does she remember anyone enter yesterday morning?”
“She says she doesn’t always have her hearing aid in,” Quinzani said. “She’s very frightened. She says these people had a lot of visitors she didn’t like, but she never asked questions.”
“ Altro che! ” Rizzo answered. “Of course. That’s always our job, eh? To ask the bloody questions?”
“ Si, signor Li
eutenant.”
Rizzo thought for a moment. “Is there anyone in particular she remembers?”
“ No, signor Lieutenant. ”
“No. Of course not,” he fumed. He thought further. “All right. Good work for now. Maybe you’ll have my job someday soon because I’m old and senile.”
“ Si, signor Lieutenant. ”
“Oh, you think so, do you?” Rizzo snapped.
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, I don’t, sir. I mean I never considered it, sir.”
Rizzo winked at him. “Go do your job, ragazzo,” he said gently. “And I’ll do mine.” He actually liked young Quinzani. For a kid, he was okay.
The young man looked at his superior with uncertainty. Then he gave a nod and a slight smile, not knowing what else to say.
Rizzo knew what to say, however, but it was wildly profane. So, defender of public morals that he was, he kept it deep inside.
TWENTY
A week passed. Busy days for Alex, not happy days. The weekend became inseparable from the week. Robert drew Sunday duty as well, this time at the Secret Service Training Center at Beltsville, Maryland.
The Beltsville complex was officially known as the James J. Rowley Training Center. It had a fake town, driving courses, helipad with a helicopter, bunkers, an obstacle course, twelve miles of roads, caves, a simulated airport apron, an “instinctive” firing range, a protective driver training course, a K-9 training area, and outdoor training and tactical response areas. Best of all, the center had six miles of paved roadways where the Secret Service Mountain Bike Patrol could drill. Once during a previous administration a president had been off on a seventy-five minute bike ride while Homeland Security had been on Red alert. No one bothered to tell the president. So here was where Robert got to wear what Alex jokingly always called “his sexiest outfit.” The helmet, the colorful red, white, and blue USA bike shirt, the black bike shorts, the SIDI shoes, and a nifty little Beretta 9000S on his hip.
For Alex, more prosaic stuff: language lessons on top of language lessons, then back to the firing range, where at least she could blow off some steam.
Then back to language lessons. Robert went on an overnight trip with the president to Boston. Nasty hecklers intruded on the motorcade. Lots of street scuffling and placard waving. Irritating but innocuous. “Typical Boston,” Robert said.
No big deal. No significant incidents. Fifteen arrests, including a drunk with a carton of eggs he wanted to hurl. The new American president had then continued on to Kansas to do some political fundraising with the party faithful. Corn country was more receptive and respectful. Or maybe the president hadn’t worn out the newly elected welcome just yet.
For Alex on day eight, Olga droned on far into each afternoon of instruction, her grasp on Ukrainian strong as a bull, her grip of English somewhere short of perfect, even after all these decades in the West. Privately, Alex and Robert had nicknamed Olga, “the baroness of the Black Sea.”
“Another terminology point,” Olga said, as Alex stifled a yawn. “You so will have noticed and perhaps been mystificated by the fact the name of the capital city on the embassy website is spelled K-y-i-v,”she said. “Why is it this?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” Alex answered. Mystificated, indeed.
“Of course, you do not. But we are about to discuss and you will learn,” Olga said. “Ukrainian, like Russian, has two i sounds. A short i sound like in ‘prick’ and a long i sound like the French I or like the English ee in ‘needy.’ ”
Alex’s mind was drifting. She was maxed on this stuff. “Uh huh,”she said.
Olga, bless her, must have realized this because, just to be mean, she started to amp up the small killer details about the Cyrillic alphabet.
A soft knock and then the door opened. Michael Cerny came into the room with a nod and a smile. He seated himself at the table, saying nothing. He was carrying a green interoffice folder that was tied shut.
“Olga, my dear,” Cerny interrupted gently, “I need to talk to Alex for a moment. Why don’t you take a break?”
Without speaking, Olga stood and marched out the door. She looked angry. The door closed with a high profile.
Cerny rolled his eyes when she was gone. “Having fun?” he asked.
“She’s brutal,” Alex said. “Who’s side is that woman on anyway? Is she trying to get me there in one piece or kill me first?”
“Now, now,” he said with a smirk.
“Thanks for rescuing me. I needed a break.”
Alex leaned back in her chair.
“Thought you might,” Cerny said. He opened the green folder. Alex waited.
“Alex,” he said, reaching into it, “let me show you some things. We’ve set you up quite nicely.”
“Set me up?”
From the folder, Cerny pulled a variety of IDs in the name of Anna Marie Tavares, all with photographs of Alex. The most impressive was the US passport. It looked just like standard government-issue because it was. But it had been backdated to reflect an issue in 2007. Entry stamps had been impressed into it from Ireland, France, and Mexico.
“Please memorize your new date of birth,” he said, “as well as your location. I know there’s a lot on your plate right now, so we took your normal birthday, October 20, and cut it in half. Ten twenty becomes five ten. May 10. Get it?”
A pause as she shook the remnants of the day’s Ukrainian lesson out of the forefront of her mind. “Got it,” she said.
She examined the passport.
“We made you a year younger and set the birthplace as Los Angeles,” Cerny continued. “You look young and LA would fit with the ‘Tavares’ name.”
Alex looked at one of the photographs that she had sat for a day previously. She had gone undercover with the FBI, but the thoroughness of this was impressive even by law enforcement standards.
“If you have monograms on anything,” Cerny said, “be sure not to bring it. Same with magazines with labels or books with your name in it. If you want an address book, create a new one. Better, don’t even bring one.”
“Uh huh,” she said.
“Notice those travel stamps,” he said. “Ireland, France, and Mexico. You’ve been to all three places. Have cover stories for your trips. Note the days of entry and exit. Just in case you’re ever quizzed.”
“Why would I be?” she asked.
“Ukraine is an old Soviet republic,” he said. “Paranoia is still the plat du jour. Nice mixed metaphor, right?”
She didn’t answer.
Cerny began opening envelopes and pulled out supporting material.
There was a Maryland driver’s license, valid, he claimed, which employed the second picture that had been taken the day before. Then there were a trio of credit cards: Discover, Visa, and American Express, plus a bank ATM card.
“All of these are live credit cards,” he said. “We have a special relationship with a bank in northern Virginia, which issues these. However, you’re only to use the Visa if you see fit. You can expense up to five thousand dollars on it, no questions asked, so buy yourself a nice fake Cartier watch in Kiev if you have the chance. They do great work on counterfeit brand names in Eastern Europe, so might as well take advantage.”
“That’s perfectly illegal, you know,” she said.
“Of course it is, but who cares?” he answered blithely. “You can score some nice stuff before some rival gangsters put them out of business.”
She tried to ignore the point. She examined the credit cards individually.
“The other cards are ‘fly traps,’ ” he said, continuing. “If used, they will function up to two hundred dollars but will issue an immediate alert that something has happened to you. They will only work in an ATM that takes photographs. If primed, they will send a picture immediately to the State Department as to the location plus the photo of the user. If they’re used anywhere else, they’re a distress signal and a squad of marines in civilian clothes will probably come looking for you and want to kil
l someone just to make their trip worthwhile. Understand?”
“Clever,” she said.
“It is clever, isn’t it? The latest thing,” Cerny said with some pride.
He gave her a trio of pens, three different shades of ink.
“You might want to sign everything, the passport and the cards. Don’t use the same pen on any two cards. Use a ballpoint on the passport, and be sure when you sign to sign ‘Anna Tavares.’ Do it now right in front of me so I can see it, then give me one more Anna Tavares signature for your passport application so we have a record.”
She did what was asked. She looked up.
“So, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Anna Tavares.”
“When were you born, Anna?”
“May 10, 1979.”
“Really? Where?”
“In Los Angeles.”
“ En espanol,” he pressed. “ Ahora mismo. ”
“ El diez de mayo, mil novecientos setenta y nueve a Los Angeles. ”
“ Muy bien,” he said. “Now in Ukrainian.”
She threw it back to him. He was pleased.
“I have your plane tickets too, Anna,” he said. “They’re e-tickets, but you need the invoices. You’re flying Air France to Paris, connecting to Kiev. You will depart on February sixth and arrive in Kiev on the seventh. That’s ten days in advance of the president’s arrival. Excited?”
“Completely overwhelmed.”
“Don’t be,” he said.
“I assume I’m in all the proper computers as Anna,” she said. “If anyone checks these?” Alex asked.
“Absolutely,” Cerny answered. “Which reminds me.” He opened a final envelope. “Commerce Department ID. It’s your cover. Plus some supporting nonsense. Library cards, health club membership. BS stuff, but the type of things a lady would have in her purse. Which reminds me again. Do you have an old purse you can use?”
She opened her mouth to answer. He answered his own question before she could.
“Well, you do now,” he said. He had a worn Couch purse, complete with attached change purse. A nice leather Couch billfold actually, but with the proper wear on it.