37
The National Police occupied the newest building belonging to the Como judiciary. The structure was on the northeast side of the main avenue leading to Como’s central train station. The site had been specifically chosen because of the steep hillside into which it was built. The Alpine granite that formed the building’s foundation had been hollowed. The result was more of a bunker than a basement. This windowless cellar was sectioned into a series of chambers. Evidence lockers for ongoing cases occupied a small portion of the total space. The rest was given over to court-ordered confiscations.
Before arriving in Como three years earlier, Alessandro had lived and worked in Naples. During that period, it had been necessary for him to attend mass at a different church every day. He had been driven everywhere by an armored police car. But he no longer lived under the daily threat of bombings or assassins, much to the relief of his wife and son. Como, like every city, had its own share of trouble and danger. But compared to Naples during the Camorristi wars, Como was a playpen for infants.
His work in Naples had centered upon a mob trial that made international headlines. Alessandro’s duty was to identify the assets of all the convicted mobsters, seize them, and auction them off. But nothing in Italy was as simple as it should be. Two years before Alessandro arrived in Naples, the third bailiff in a row was gunned down while performing his duties. Alessandro’s predecessor got the message. Seized houses were valued at a fraction of their actual worth, and the auctions were held in absolute secrecy, with only one bidder. Assets in seized bank accounts and safety-deposit boxes vanished. Jewelry, paintings, boats, and cars were either sold for pennies or simply declared lost and gone forever. When the public prosecutor finally turned his attention on the bailiff, Alessandro’s predecessor fled to a beachfront palace in Rio.
The scandal went public, and the revelations kept mounting. The hue and cry was so overwhelming, the elephantine justice system was forced to act. They sent in Alessandro.
It was not just the local mob that was furious over Alessandro’s refusal to bend under threats. His immediate superiors in Rome were irate over the loss of bribes that formerly had been filtering up their way. They became even more enraged when Alessandro fed their names and their comments to Rome’s chief prosecutor.
The Corriere della Sera, Italy’s finest newspaper, labeled Alessandro Gavi “The Guardian of Italy’s Honor.”
The Italian court system had learned to use the seizure of assets as a principal weapon against the Mafiosi and their lawyers. Long before the judges gave their final ruling, a prosecutor could go before the court and claim that a certain defendant was a flight risk. Over the past two decades the term had been broadened to cover an astonishing amount of territory. Before then, the courts had watched as wealthy criminals facing guilty verdicts suddenly proved to have no assets at all, while their Liechtenstein bank accounts and Swiss villas remained firmly out of reach. So prosecutors started demanding the seizure of assets at the same time arrest warrants were issued.
Everything seized by the courts, everything held against arrest warrants, everything held pending judgments—all this was part of Alessandro’s underground empire. And once the cases had been tried and the appeals exhausted, Alessandro was also responsible for their sale by auction. The opportunities for illegal gain were vast.
The Como crypt covered almost three thousand square meters and was jammed full. Before Alessandro’s time, there had been a constant level of attrition. Things came in the front door and things went out the back. Now much of this had stopped. Not all. Alessandro was, after all, just one man. The underground chambers nowadays held only the most valuable items. Four seized warehouses contained the rest. This being Italy, the largest warehouse was reserved for cars. At last count, Alessandro’s warehouse contained twenty-six Ferraris, nineteen Maseratis, eleven Bentley Continental GTs, and a matched pair of Bugattis. The warehouse had become the favorite lunch spot for the Como police.
Alessandro knew a certain grim satisfaction every time he entered the police cellar. The Roman officials who had ordered him to Como thought they were relegating their pesky but honest bailiff to a mountain backwater. Instead, Alessandro found himself surrounded by many of the same criminals who had managed to elude justice the first time around.
Just as he was about to enter the main elevators, his mobile rang. He murmured his apologies to the other occupants and stepped out. “Hello?”
“This is Edoardo.”
“Two calls in one day? Don’t tell me we’ve been handed more thugs.”
“I wish. Can you meet me at what’s left of the Bar Azzurra?”
“Closed for the day, I’m afraid. The owner is currently sharing several bottles of Barolo with the chief prosecutor.”
“Where can we talk that will be completely safe?”
“You sound worried, Edoardo.”
“You think I would drive to Como for the waters, perhaps? For my health? Of course I’m worried.”
“I am about to have a private visit with our mutual friend in Evidence.”
“I will use the lights and siren and be there in half an hour.”
Alessandro greeted his closest ally in Evidence with, “Where is Pietro?”
“Having coffee. He’ll be gone the rest of the day.” Luca Bresco spoke with the deep rolling voice of a cave troll. His skin was bone white. What he did with his spare time, no one knew. Alessandro suspected that he hunted forest mushrooms.
“It takes so long to drink a coffee?”
“It does,” Luca replied, “if he is drinking with his favorite fence. Soon as I said I’d cover for him, I heard him make the call.”
“Old friend, I need your help with a very important matter.”
Few people besides Alessandro would detect just how pleased Luca was with that statement. “What is it this time?”
“I don’t have much to go on.”
“Does it involve evidence or seized assets?”
“I have no idea.”
“Interesting.”
“There is a box. I need it.”
“Will you tell me why?”
“I do not even know what it holds.”
Luca grinned. “And people think this work is boring.”
“Indeed.”
“You know you need it, but you don’t know what it is. Has Pietro or one of the others been heard making one of their deals?”
“No. At least, that’s not why I am here.”
“One piled upon another. Can you lock up for a time and come join me in the search?”
Luca sealed the basement, shut down the elevator access, then rejoined Alessandro and said, “Tell me what you know.”
“Very little, in fact.” He repeated the description given to him by Charlie Hazard. “I seek a box about a meter and a half long, half a meter wide, the same deep.”
“Sounds like a locker.”
“If so, then a very special one. The hinges and the lock shine like gold. The entire box itself is of highly polished wood, perhaps burl, and it is rimmed in silver or pewter that is intricately scrolled . . .” Alessandro stopped because Luca was shaking his head. “What?”
“It’s not here.”
“My contacts insist that it is.”
“They are wrong. I have worked here nine years. I know all my treasures.”
Alessandro could not completely hide his smile. “Your treasures.”
“I hold them longer than most of their previous owners, they might as well be mine. At least, those not made to disappear by the robbers in uniform who work with me.”
“And yet my sources claim it is here. What is more, they have told me where to find it.”
“Then let us go look so you can return to these mystery people and tell them they are mistaken.”
“The northernmost chamber, against the wall deepest into the cliff. Two shelves from the top.”
“The north rooms hold unclaimed evidence and cold-case archives.” Luca started off. He did not so much limp as rock like a boat in heavy seas. He had been an officer serving under Edoardo in Catania and had taken a bullet in his hip. Luca and Edoardo and the owner of the Bar Azzurra were the only three who had survived that ambush. “Can I ask what this is about?”
“You can. But I know nothing else for certain. Not how, not why.”
“A shred of a rumor.”
“One that may hold extreme importance. More than that I cannot say. Not now.”
They passed through one concrete chamber after another, ignoring a vast collection of Italy’s splendor all stacked like cordwood and taped with yellow document forms. The entrance to the rear room was flanked by one gold chandelier and a fireplace stolen from a bishop’s palace.
Luca flipped on the lights and said, “As I told you, nothing but evidence boxes and old files.”
“Is there a ladder?”
“You will make yourself filthy for nothing.” Luca drew over a set of metal steps. The wheels made a noisy rattle across the stone floor. “Here. Use my gloves.”
“Hold this thing steady for me.”
The files lining the top shelves had been in the damp chamber long enough to become coated with mold. Alessandro began shifting boxes and coughed as dust was disturbed. Then he stopped noticing either the grime or the stench. “Well, well.”
“You have something?”
“Right size, wrong color.” He gripped one of the handles and tugged. “This thing weighs more than my car.”
“Let me help.”
“With your hip? Don’t be silly.” Alessandro took a two-fisted grip on the handle and managed to pull the locker forward until it stood perched on the edge of the shelf.
The locker was painted a matte black, as though someone wished for it to disappear into the shadows and be forgotten. Alessandro reached in his pocket for the penknife attached to his keychain. Using the smallest blade, he began scraping away flecks of paint. It was not the first time his prey had sought to hide treasures beneath a blanket of enamel.
He took his time, careful not to damage the underlying material, as he cleared a spot about the size of his palm. “What does that look like to you?”
“How can I say, with your head in the way?” Luca squinted as Alessandro leaned away. “As you said, silver or pewter. And burl. Amazing. Hidden here all this time.”
Alessandro cocked his head. “The phone on your desk is ringing.”
“So it is. One moment.”
Alessandro continued his cleaning until Edoardo arrived and declared, “I race up here with lights flashing and sirens screaming, only to have you two lock me out?”
Alessandro replied, “Just the man I need. Help me lift this thing down. Take great care. The surface is coated in mold slick as soap.”
“What’s inside?”
“I have no idea.”
Edoardo snorted. “And people wonder why Italy’s justice system is in such shape.”
The two of them were puffing hard by the time the locker rested on the stone floor. Alessandro’s penknife had been made for him by a locksmith friend and contained special implements not normally found on the end of a policeman’s keychain. Edoardo and Luca watched as he picked the lock and opened the case. The interior had remained pristine. The hinges were brass, as Alessandro had suspected, and not gold. They shone ruddy in the chamber’s fluorescent lighting.
The two men leaned over his shoulder. “Are they rifles?” Luca asked.
“They are,” Alessandro replied.
“I have never seen the like.”
“They are very rare.”
Edoardo asked, “May I?”
“Careful. Those scopes make them quite heavy.”
Edoardo lifted one of the rifles from the special felt-covered hold. The nightscope was as long as the stubby barrel. “You know this weapon?”
“I do. What is more, I am probably the only person in Como who does.”
Luca said, “This is very spooky.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Alessandro said. There were four rifles laid end to end. “These are made by a company called Wahler. The factory is located in the borderlands between Germany and Austria. It is a pneumatic rifle, accurate to two hundred meters, or so they claim. Powered by special gas canisters. I imagine if we lift the rifles out, we will find beneath that flooring both the canisters and the darts. Perhaps some pistols as well for close-quarter work.”
“Who would use such a thing?”
“Oh, any number of people. Researchers tagging animals after anesthetizing them. Game parks. Wealthy sportsmen.”
Edoardo settled the rifle back into the case. “Expensive?”
“On the open market, the contents of that box would probably bring half a million euros.” Alessandro stared at the locker a moment longer, growing accustomed to the dual facts that Charlie Hazard had told him the truth and that he himself was going to help them. He turned to Luca and said, “I need to borrow this for a time. Without any record being made that this has left with me.”
Luca gave an easy shrug. “How can I make a record of something that does not exist?”
“I will bring it back. In the meantime, I need you to find out where it came from.”
“Consider it done.”
Edoardo asked, “Does this have anything to do with the thugs parked inside the Bar Azzurra?”
“I think yes. Most probably there is a direct link.”
“Will you tell me when you know for certain?”
“Of course.”
Edoardo turned to Luca and said, “Old friend, I must ask that you leave us alone for a time. Alessandro and I must have ourselves a discussion that never took place.”
Edoardo was a squat man, solid and immensely strong. He had a gaze that could probe deep as a bullet. “Tell me how you know about this rifle.”
“A Camorra boss we went after was a collecting fiend. He had every rifle ever made, or so it seemed at the time. Including two of these. When they went up for auction, they were bought by Cambridge University’s veterinary school.”
“Is your current interest tied in any way to that old Camorra case?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Will you tell me what you’re working on?”
Alessandro had expected the question. And still was uncertain how to answer it. “You would not believe me.”
“Tell me anyway.”
So he did. The meeting outside his church. Turning on his phone. Speaking with Edoardo. Everything the Americans told him.
Edoardo mulled that over, then said, “If I did not know you as the most honest man in Italy, I would say you should have worked up a better lie.”
“I admit, it sounds insane even as I tell you. Then again, we have no reasonable means to explain how the nine came to be trussed with Super Glue and parked in the bar.”
Edoardo nodded slowly. “Tell me about this American. What was his name again?”
“Charlie Hazard. He is so still, you could easily ignore him. He compresses himself into a space smaller than his own body.”
“Sounds to me like a professional assassin.”
“He could be, and a good one, were he not so principled.”
Edoardo gave him a skeptical look. “You’re certain of this, are you?”
Alessandro spoke very slowly. “I have earned a doctorate in the art of lies. After all, I have been an Italian bailiff for over thirty years. I have been lied to by the finest. I know all shades and permutations. And I am absolutely certain Hazard told me nothing but the truth.”
Edoardo shut the locker and set his briefcase on top. He extracted a laptop and turned it on. “As I told you on the phone, the attackers your American faced were two squads. One was led by a punisher for a Ukrainian known as the Prince, who handles most of the Natashas in northern Italy. The other was led by this man.”
“I know him.”
“Of course you do. His name is Montefiori, and his uncle runs the Como club scene. The three men with him are employees of a professional bodyguard and corporate security group. We have long suspected the security firm of criminal connections. But this is the first concrete evidence we have ever obtained. Which means this case has moved far beyond a simple assault on a bar.”
“I understand.”
Edoardo tapped the face on the screen. “This morning, Montefiori slit his own throat. Inside the prison. After being skin-searched by pros.”
As Alessandro absorbed this news, Edoardo ran his thumb over the laptop’s fingerprint scanner and coded in a lengthy password. He entered a file name and said, “What I am about to show you, you have not seen. How could you, since it does not exist? We have wired the prison room used by defendants and their lawyers. We can’t use anything from this surveillance in court. We can’t tell a judge we’re doing this. Permission has come from the absolute highest levels—verbally. Anything we learn, we never use unless it is first discovered by some other source. One that we can make known publicly.” Edoardo hit the switch. “This happened earlier today.”
As soon as the image appeared, Alessandro cried, “That lawyer was in my office!”
“When?”
“A little over six hours ago.”
“Which means he went straight from you to the prison.”
Alessandro watched as Antonio D’Alba entered the grey room and seated himself at the metal table across from a brute with a killer’s face. Antonio said, “The Prince wants to know who did this.”
“We were ambushed inside the wall. I don’t even know how many there were. Many.”
Alessandro said, “Actually, there were only—”
“Shh. Watch.”
Antonio said, “Tell me where this happened.”
“I can’t.”
“This is the Prince asking.”
“The man has my highest respects. But I cannot give what I don’t know. All I can say is, we were in Brunate.”
“The village above Como.”
“The same. You know how it can be in the mountains. It was the middle of the night and raining hard. The clouds were a blanket. We followed Montefiori’s car. I could hardly see the building from inside the wall. It was a villa. There was a gatehouse. More than that I can’t say.”
“The Prince will be displeased.”
The brute shrugged massive shoulders. “Ask Montefiori.”
“I can’t. He’s dead.”
The brute smiled. “Pity. I was looking forward to doing him myself. Slowly.”
“Montefiori’s men claim they knew nothing more than you. There was a woman being held in Como, a dancer. They learned of this group through her mother, who was the villa’s cleaner. Both the mother and the daughter have vanished.”
“Perhaps Montefiori’s men know more than they are saying. I could ask them myself.”
The lawyer rose to his feet. “First we have to get you out.”
Edoardo stopped the video feed. “That will prove more difficult than he expects, now that we have evidence of criminal collusion. Not to mention how one of their own has managed to kill himself while in solitary lockup.”
Alessandro straightened. “Will you help me shift this case to my car?”
After they settled the crate onto a wheeled cart, Edoardo asked, “What was the name of the Orlando policewoman?”
“Irma Steeg.” Alessandro spelled the name. “Senior detective, retired from Homicide.”
“I’ll see what I can learn.”
As they passed the front barrier, Luca looked up from a dusty file and announced, “I think I know where your locker came from.”
“Tell me.”
“The year before I started here, there was a conviction.” Luca read from a mildewed file open on his counter. “Europe’s biggest importer of forbidden animals.”
Edoardo grinned. “I remember that. He had clients everywhere. Even inside the president’s palace.”
“And the Mafia,” Alessandro recalled. “They love to collect wild animals for their private zoos.”
Luca read off the screen. “The court ordered all his assets seized.”
“Let me guess,” Alessandro said. “The records show he went to prison a pauper.”
“Hardly a penny to his name.” Luca tapped the page. “It says your box should contain four air rifles and two air pistols. Purpose: target shooting. Total estimated value: five hundred euros.”
Edoardo said, “Someday soon, he’ll be freed on parole. The lost items will suddenly be discovered. An auction will be held at midnight. Few people will bother to come. His old friends will reward his silence by restoring his possessions.”
“It’s a familiar tune,” Luca said.
“I hate it all the more for that reason,” Alessandro said. “May I also borrow the file?”
Once they had bid Luca their farewells and were safely inside the elevator, Edoardo said, “Warn your Americans that the attackers will return. Of that I am utterly certain. And sooner rather than later.”
“I think,” Alessandro replied, “Charlie Hazard already knows.”
When they had loaded the locker into Alessandro’s car, Edoardo warned, “Be careful, old friend. We don’t want the enemy to know of our interest until we have already left the beast’s lair.”