"Charley?" Middleton asked. The briefcase sat flat on his lap.
"Safe," Perez said, tires squealing as he turned left.
"Sylvia?"
"No, Harry. They got Sylvia."
"Where is--"
"The lake house, Harry. Charley's at the lake house."
Middleton wiped the side of his face, then stared as his bloody palm.
"Before we get there, Harry, you'd better tell me what's going on."
"They're trying to kill me," Middleton managed.
"Trying, but you're not dead," Perez said. "Sylvia, two guys in the bar, two cops at Dulles--"
"Three people in Warsaw," Middleton heard himself say.
"And now the hooker."
"She wasn't--"
"That's nine, and none of them is you."
The ramp up ahead, and what little traffic there was flowed free.
"Jack, listen."
Perez lifted his right hand from the wheel and silently told his father-in-law to keep still. "I just undid a lifetime's worth of work reversing my family's reputation for you, Harry."
Middleton stayed quiet. He knew the Perez family had been connected in the '60s to the Genovese crime family through Carlo Marcello, but Army Intel said young Jack had tested clean. He never mentioned the off-the-books background check to Charley.
"In return," Perez continued, "you tell me what you're into."
"There's a Chopin manuscript in here," Middleton said, tapping the briefcase's lid. "It's believed to be part of a stash the Nazis squirreled away in a church in Kosovo."
"'Believed'?"
"It's a forgery. It's not in Chopin's hand. It's been folded, mistreated--"
"And yet somebody thinks it's worth nine lives?"
Middleton remembered the bodies strewn inside St. Sophia, and the dying teenage girl's desperate cry. "Green shirt, green shirt . . . please."
"A lot more than nine, Jack."
They were on the highway now and Perez slid the Mercedes into the fast lane, pushing it up to 70, the sedan riding on a cloud.
"So I'm telling you, Jack, that you and Charley ought to go on thinking I was in Krakow to authenticate--"
"A manuscript that some other expert will know is phony too. Suddenly, you, who's catalogued scores by Bach, Handel, Wagner--"
"Mozart," Middleton added.
"--are fooled by an obvious forgery."
"Jack, what I'm trying to say--"
"And with Charley ready to pop, you go to Poland. That's not you, Harry."
Middleton watched the maple and poplars trees rush by at the roadside. "Are you going to toss that Python?"
Perez had been driving with the .357 pressed against the steering wheel. "Hell no. At least not until you're straight with me."
Middleton sighed. "Better you don't know, Jack."
"Why?" Perez said, peering into the rearview. "You think it's about to get worse?"
Though toughened by a native cynicism and the hardscrabble life of a street musician, 19-year-old Felicia Kaminski was too young to understand that a sense of justice and a blush of optimism raised by an unexpected success were illusions, no more reliable than a promise or a kiss. Still energized by caffeine and the vision of Faust as he was hauled off by airport security, she'd headed from Signor Abe's La Musica shop to an internet cafe near the Colosseum--another sign of her cleverness: She fled Via delle Botteghe Oscure and hadn't gone to the Pantheon or north to the Trevi Fountain, areas Faust had scouted; nor did she return to her home in San Giovanni. She'd begun to feel she was living a clandestine life, a purposeful life, in memory of her uncle Henryk.
Within the first minute at the computer, she'd learned Harold Middleton taught "Masterpieces of Music" at the American University in Washington, D.C.
Which was 40 miles--40.23 miles, to be precise--from the address in Baltimore Faust said was to be her new home.
There was a 6:45 flight from Fiumicino through Frankfurt that would arrive in Washington at 12:45. She could exchange her first-class ticket for a coach seat, and still have enough euros--no, dollars--to take a taxi to the college. Even if Professor Middleton was off campus, she could arrange to bring him back--the words "I am Henryk Jedynak's niece" would be enough to earn his attention.
She spent the night in a cheap flop on the Lido, resolute but feeling naked without her violin.
Remembering to use the Joanna Phelps passport Faust had given her, she swapped the ticket at the Alitalia courtesy desk in terminal B, sharing a conspiratorial smile with the young woman behind the counter when she explained that she didn't want to fly with the vecchio sporcaccione--dirty old man--who'd bought it in her name. Incredibly, the woman directed her to retrieve her luggage that had been pulled from yesterday's flight.
Her excuse played with security in baggage claim too, and she returned upstairs to a Lufthansa desk to turn over nearly 1,400 euros for a new ticket. She converted the remaining euros to dollars, paying an exchange rate worthy of a loan shark.
Three hours later, the ample jet was soaring above the Dolomiti on its way to its stopover in Germany. And miracle of miracles, as it departed Frankfurt, the two seats next to her in row 41 remained empty. She slipped off her shoes, grabbed a blanket from an overhead bin and stretched out, her last thoughts a prayer that Middleton would explain everything and a sense that she was about to discover that her uncle had died in defense of art and culture in the form of an unknown composition by Mozart.
She was in a deep sleep, dreaming of music, of a violin with quicksilver strings, of returning to the States--a glimpse of her father, who hadn't appeared to her in years, and the broad-shouldered buildings of Chicago's State Street--when she felt a tug on her toe. She awoke slowly, her mind unable to recall where she was. Opening her eyes, she scrambled to uncoil her body.
"Looking for this?"
Faust held up the oversized envelope that she had seen in Signor Abe's shop. No doubt it contained the Mozart manuscript.
She rose up on her elbows and, to her surprise, spoke in Italian. "Che cosa avete fatto con l'anziano?"
He nudged into the seat on the aisle, and placed a forefinger on his chin. "Old man Nowakowski is fine," he replied in English. "He may continue to be fine."
She stared at him. In a blue-striped business suit, white shirt and a blue tie that matched the sky over the Atlantic, he was utterly composed as he stroked back his long black hair.
"You are very lucky you were not killed last night," he told her.
"It wasn't luck." Her senses had begun to return.
"Well, you were hiding from me, I suppose, which is as good as hiding from them."
"Tell me what's going on."
Faust looked around the rear of the jet. Stewardesses were in the back cabin, preparing the beverage service.
"Think, Joanna," he said. "Your Signor Abe is alive and so are you. I have the Mozart your uncle wanted to protect. Knowing that, tell me how you can believe I am the enemy."
"You say nothing," she said as she sat up, crossing her legs under her. "Niente. Nic. Nothing."
"With the Mozart in my hand, I will go with you to meet Harold Middleton," he replied. "The last man to see your uncle alive--except for the killer, that is."
"You know who killed my uncle?"
Faust stood and held out his hand, beckoning her to leave the narrow row. "Of course," he said, speaking in Polish. "The traitor Vukasin. The lowest of the lows. It's a shame your uncle had to die in his presence."
"Where is he?"
"Vukasin? No doubt he is within a kilometer or so of Colonel Middleton."
Faust turned at the sound of the beverage cart rattling into the aisle.
"Come, Joanna," he said, reaching for her. "They serve Champagne in first class. And Bavarian bleu cheese with a pumpkinseed bread--before lunch. I'm sure the effects of the panzanella and cantucci you had last night have long passed."
Kaminski--no, Phelps--stood and wriggled her feet back into her worn shoes.
&n
bsp; The arterial spray from Brocco's severed throat had already dried on his heartbreakingly meager kitchen table, and rigor had begun to subside. Curiously, only his left hand was tied behind his back; his right hung limply, fingertips just above the blood-and urine-stained floor. Tesla saw the outline of a standard-sized reporter's notebook on the table. Which meant the killer coerced Brocco to write something before he died. And getting Brocco to write something meant he was tortured before he was killed.
The killer also recorded Brocco's voice--how else could a dead man call in sick after he died? Clever; a way to buy some time.
But what had he wanted Brocco to write? Tesla had been asked one pertinent question by Schmidt: Where is Harold Middleton? There are four immediate answers Brocco could have given: Middleton's true location; a false one; a concession that he didn't know where he was--as Tesla had--or a refusal to say anything. All but the first would lead to escalating pain and, if Brocco hadn't known where his old boss was, he could have been compelled into speculation.
Tesla looked at her former colleague and, though his head was lolled back and his eyes opened wide and empty, she remembered tenderly his earnestness, his awkwardness around women, his passion for 18th century classical music, his unassailable belief in the power of a free press.
She peered into his mouth and saw that his tongue had been cut out. Which explained the dried blood on his lips and chin, and also whatever he wrote on the notebook's page.
Tesla went to the sink to retrieve a ratty dishtowel, and brought it to the old, newsprint-smudged yellow wall phone. She dialed 911, gave them Brocco's address and then let the handset fall, the towel unraveling and landing on the worn linoleum.
As she turned to leave, she saw Brocco had five deadbolt locks on the door. His tattered khaki saddlebag, which hung from the knob, was empty.
The ultra-cautious Brocco had let the killer in. The killer stole Brocco's laptop.
Brocco knew the killer, and the email addresses stored in the laptop weren't enough.
Tesla hustled down three flights of stairs and stepped into the late-afternoon sun. Shaken, her thoughts occupied by Brocco's brutal murder as well as by speculation on where Harold might be, she momentarily abandoned the vigilance she applied when she stepped off the Acela in Wilmington, only to taxi to BWI, scurry through the airport as if she were late for a flight, and then pop back on Amtrak to Union Station, buying a ticket using a credit card issued to a woman who worked as an extra at Il Teatro Constanzi in Rome. Now as she hurried to catch the Georgia Avenue bus as it wheezed from its stop, she suddenly remembered, with a startling vividness, an unexpectedly satisfying afternoon she'd spent with Harold at a house on Lake Anna. Were she the type to blush, she would've.
Lake Anna, she told herself, unaware that she'd failed to see a man in an old sun-baked Citroen sitting directly across from Brocco's shabby building. He wore a black stocking cap atop his shaved head; the cap covered a black-and-green tattoo of the jack of spades.
When Tesla leaped onto the bus, the man turned the ignition key, folded the switchblade he'd been using to clean his fingernails, and eased the car out of the spot.
He was waiting when, 33 minutes later, the woman in black pulled out of the Budget lot at Union Station in a dark blue rental, sunglasses on her nose.
There was nothing else they could do. They had no choice.
The Mercedes had kicked up pebbles as Perez parked it at the side of the house. As Middleton hoisted his weary body from the car, Perez said, "Harry, no lights."
"She's sleeping?"
"Harry . . . "
No, of course not. Charley sent her husband to "Scotland" to rescue her father. If she wasn't pregnant, she'd have been there herself.
Perez pulled the Python.
Groping through darkness, they'd stepped inside the house, and as Perez climbed the stairs to the bedrooms, Middleton put down his briefcase and headed through the kitchen to the living room.
Through the picture window, he saw his daughter's silhouette on the porch. She was slumped in a wicker chair.
"Charley," he'd whispered. Then he said her name again, louder this time.
When she didn't respond, Middleton called to his son-in-law and raced outside.
Charley had his Browning A-Bolt across her lap.
Beneath the wicker chair was a tiny puddle of blood that had been dripping from between her legs.
Middleton recoiled.
"Oh Jesus," Perez said as he skidded to a halt. "Charley. Charley, wake up." At that moment, Middleton understood that his daughter had lost her baby. He felt a muted sense of relief: For a moment, seeing the blood, he thought they had gotten to her as they had Henryk Jedynak, Sylvia and others--and had tried to kill him at Dulles.
Kneeling, Perez said, "She needs--"
"Yeah, she does."
And now Charlotte Perez was recovering at Martha Jefferson Hospital. A private room, IV drip in place, and her husband at her side, barely awake in a lounge chair with a .357 Magnum in his jacket side pocket.
Honey sunlight streamed through the windows. Treetops swayed in the gentle breeze.
Felt like hiding in plain sight to Harold Middleton.
To Jack Perez too.
11
PETER SPIEGELMAN
Felicia Kaminski collapsed on the vast sofa that sat before the window that filled the wall of a suite atop the Harbor Court Hotel. The fat, silk-covered cushions nearly swallowed her whole. Far below, the lights of Baltimore's Inner Harbor blinked yellow and white at her, and big boats bobbed like eggs on the black water. Was there something in the blinking lights--some pattern, a signal, a message meant for her? If there was, she was too tired to decipher it.
Beyond tired, really. She was spent--exhausted by fear and flight, and addled by too many time zones and Champagne that flowed freely in the first-class cabin. Faust had all but forced it on her, and he'd kept up with her glass for glass, all the while smiling like the Cheshire Cat. One bottle had led to another--so many bubbles--but the smiling Mr. Faust seemed entirely immune.
Kaminski closed her eyes, but she could still see his white teeth and those dark, stony eyes, could still hear that deep melodious voice speaking in Italian, then in French, in Polish, in German, and now in English as he addressed the hotel man. There was a rueful smile in his words. Without looking, she knew that the hotel man--not a bellman but the immaculate, blue-suited fellow from behind the desk--was smiling back and nodding. It was all smiles and nods and discreet bows for Mr. Faust, all along the way: on the airplane; in the executive lounge in Frankfurt as they waited to fly to the States; and from the man at Dulles who met them, retrieved their luggage and drove them in a shiny black BMW all the way to Baltimore. It was as if they all knew him, their oldest friend, dear Mr. Faust--who smiled and drank Champagne and spoke in many tongues, but answered questions in none of them.
Kaminski sighed and sank deeper into the cushions. Her head swam and the harbor lights blinked at her, even through her closed lids. She had smoked opium once, an oily black bead with that Tunisian boy--what was his name?--who played guitar near the Castel Sant'Angelo, and it had set her drifting like this. Floating, her worries no more than distant lights.
There was a sharp knock and she came to with a bump. She rubbed her eyes and sat up to see Faust opening the suite door. A man came in, squat and muscular, wearing jeans and a black-leather jacket. His hair was gray and cut short, and he greeted Faust in Italian, then glanced at his guest and switched to something else. Whatever it was sounded fast and harsh to Kaminski's ears--Slavic, she thought, but otherwise no clue. Faust listened and nodded and checked his watch. He said something to the man--an order, a dismissal--and the man nodded and left.
Faust looked at her. "Another trip," he said.
Felicia could barely find her voice. "What? Now? At this hour?"
Again the smile. "No rest for the wicked, Felicia, but we won't be gone long. If you wish to wash up first, I will wait."
; She rubbed her hands over her face, rubbing life back into it. "No," she said. "I'm tired of being dragged around, and now I'm done with it. Sono rifinito. Non sto andando."
Even to herself she sounded like a child, but she was beyond caring. She looked at Faust, leaning so casually against the doorframe, his suit somehow without a wrinkle and every hair in place, as if he had stepped from a page in a fashion magazine.
He shook his head. "You are not staying here alone, Felicia."
Anger welled in her. "No? And why not?"
"It is not safe."
"I take care of myself."
"Yes, I saw how well back in Rome."
She said, "Screw you! I don't need a goddamn babysitter."
"You are the tough little urchin now, eh?"
"Tough enough," Kaminski said, grinding her teeth. "I didn't grow up in places like this, being waited on hand and foot."
Faust's smile widened. "You think that I did?"
"Let's say you don't look out of place."
He chuckled. "You haven't known the real romance of street life until you've experienced it in Buenos Aires, caught between the Montoneros and the Battalion 601 boys. Now those were charming fellows, and much more dedicated than your average Roman teppista."
Kaminski massaged her temples, trying to get her brain to function. Buenos Aires? Montoneros? What the fuck? She'd read something once about the Dirty War, but she couldn't remember what. "So you had it rough and now you're up from the gutter--a real success story."
"Something like that."
"Good for you. You've earned all this! And never mind that you're a thief or a spy or some kind of terrorist--someone who bullies old men, and kidnaps girls from the streets of Rome."
"I've told you, Felicia, your friend Abe is fine, and I am no spy. I have no taste for politics at all. If I had to describe my profession, I'd say I was a broker. I match buyers with sellers, and take a fee. A modest fee, all things considered."
"Buyers and sellers of what?"
Faust shrugged. "This and that. Odds and ends."
"Like stolen music manuscripts?"
"The manuscript is in the closet, Felicia, behind lock and key. My own musical inclinations run more to Sinatra than Mozart."