End Games - 11 (15 page)

‘Signor Newman appears to have spent much of his time with a notary named Nicola Mantega. What was the subject under discussion when they met?’

‘I couldn’t say. Pete never mentioned the name, but that’s normal. He was a self-starter, made his own contacts. We didn’t expect detailed reports as long as he got results.’

Zen considered this in silence for a moment.

‘And what about you, Signor, er –’

‘Nguyen,’ Tom interposed.

‘What about me?’ the other man demanded.

‘Have you been in touch with Mantega since your arrival here?’

‘No.’

‘Do you plan to be?’

‘What business is that of yours?’

Zen gazed for some time at the window, as though there was something of vital importance to be glimpsed through the luminous screening of the blinds.

‘Signor Mantega is an interesting man,’ he remarked blandly. ‘He specialises in arranging deals between crooked businessmen and corrupt politicians. One therefore asks oneself why your company should have required his services.’

Nguyen’s face hardened.

‘Are you in fact asking yourself, or are you asking me?’

Zen pretended to consider this for a moment.

‘Well, since you put it that way, I suppose I’m asking you.’

‘Then I want a lawyer present,’ Nguyen replied curtly.

Zen sighed in a weary way.

‘I have no time for that nonsense. I’ve had a hard night,
signore
. I was simply hoping for your cooperation in providing some background to the case that concerns me now. But, to be honest, recent developments have rendered your status entirely peripheral and your resulting interest to me minimal. I therefore invite you to take your leave.’

After witnessing the initial confrontation, Arnone had remained standing in the corner of the room throughout. With a sweep of his hand, Zen signalled him to escort Martin Nguyen out, then turned to face Tom Newman.

‘I’m afraid I have some bad news,’ he said.

The spiny dorsal fin of the coast slipped past unnoticed beyond the vast expanse of glass shielding the saloon. Luciano Aldobrandini lay embedded in a winged leather recliner, naked except for a black thong, watching his personal recut for DVD of the film which had won him the silver at Venice back in the 1960s. It should have been the gold, but Visconti’s people had packed the jury.

All things considered, it had held up pretty well, he thought. Artless and unsophisticated, of course, and given to crude over-emphasis at times. He would make it very differently now, but it was questionable whether the result would necessarily have been an improvement. Primitive though it was in many respects, the original had a raw, driven quality to it, a sense of energy to burn, amounting to sheer recklessness at times, that now felt very, very precious.

He switched off the DVD player and summoned Pippo.

‘Bring me a Singapore Sling, darling.’

The lad frowned ominously.

‘It’s only ten to twelve.’

‘Don’t be a bore. In Singapore, it’s cocktail time.’

His phone chirruped. Luciano glanced at the screen. It was Marcello.

‘Where are you?’ the agent asked, with a brittle tone and lack of the customary foreplay which suggested a state of some agitation.

‘On board the
Narcisso
, southward bound to start preparations for the shoot,’ his master replied. ‘A calm sea and a prosperous voyage, since you haven’t bothered to ask. At least, I trust it will prove to be prosperous. Some of my crew members are joining me in a few days and I intend to put on a show of having started principal photography by the end of the week, as per your instructions.’

Marcello grunted.

‘From what I’ve heard, an advance crew is already in place and has been for several weeks.’

‘Heard from whom?’

‘Another client of mine.’

‘Which specific talentless cunt are you referring to?’

‘That’s privileged information, Luciano. Anyway, you wouldn’t be any the wiser if I told you. He’s a rapper.’

‘A what?’

‘You see? Right now he’s trekking on horseback along the edge of the Sila range above Cosenza. I called him about a business thing and asked how his holiday was going. “It would be blissful if it weren’t for that damned helicopter that Luciano has hired,” he said. It seems there’s a lot of very noisy low-level flying going on. When my client asked what it was about, he was told it was preparatory location scouting for your movie.’

Aldobrandini straightened up abruptly.

‘That’s absurd! You know I never delegate that sort of work.’

‘Exactly. So I engaged the services of an ex-spook who now works as a private eye in Reggio. Last night he raided the compound on the outskirts of Cosenza which this outfit uses as a base, and has just reported his findings. Briefly, the helicopter has been hired by an American company called Aeroscan Surveying. He broke into the machine and took a look inside. The entire cargo space is filled with electronic equipment and screens and seats for the operators. Further research on my part has revealed that Aeroscan is a specialised firm which uses ground-penetrating radar devices to locate objects concealed underground. Everything from unmapped sewage lines to military bunkers and archaeological remains. Are you planning to film underground, Luciano?’

‘Not till they plant me there.’

Pippo returned with a brimming glass. His master downed the contents in one and commanded a refill.

‘So this raises the question of why they are using your movie as the justification for their activities,’ Marcello went on.

‘And how they found out about the film project in the first place.’

‘Fortunately, my employee also took a look inside the temporary office they’ve set up at the site. Tacked to the wall of one of the offices was a large-scale map of the whole area around Cosenza, stamped at the bottom with a form showing details of the surveying job. The box for the title of the relevant contract contained the words “Rapture Works”.’

There was a long silence.

‘It’s beginning to look as if Jeremy’s agent was right,’ Marcello went on. ‘I’m afraid we’ve been scammed.’

Luciano Aldobrandini accepted his second Singapore Sling without even noticing.

‘But why would they do that?’ he protested. ‘All the money they’ve spent already, not to mention the risk of a lawsuit. We are going to sue, I take it?’

‘Depends. We’d have to be able to prove intention to deceive and defraud.’

‘But if all they wanted was to do an aerial survey, why drag me into it?’

‘I have no idea. But don’t forget that it was Rapture Works that insisted on the film being shot in Calabria. It’s just possible that they may have two separate projects on the go and that they’re being piggy-backed for some reason. As of now, we just don’t know.’

‘Well, I’m going to find out!’

Luciano scrolled through his address book to the name of Martin Nguyen, but the number was engaged and stayed that way for over five minutes. He finally succumbed to the robotic siren voice which intervened after ten rings and left a message. Then his eye was caught by the video screen, which had returned to muted TV mode. It showed a man on a podium speaking into a microphone. A window at the upper right read ‘Breaking News’ and the occasion appeared to be a press conference. Normally Luciano would have switched channels, but something about the tall, lean, angular figure struck him, the face particularly. It took another few moments to realise that shorn of the modern clothes – in some suitably fetching drapery, not too daring but seductively suggestive, and with longer, unkempt hair – this man, even more than the late lamented Jeremy, represented his ideal image of John of Patmos. The caption in the right-hand corner indicated that he was in fact the chief of police for the province of Cosenza. Luciano reached for the remote control and turned up the volume, just to hear if the man’s voice was as good as his stunning physiognomy.

‘… the remains of the American lawyer Peter Newman, who has subsequently been identified as a member of the Calopezzati family and hence of Calabrian origin. The victim’s head had been blown off by a charge of plastic explosive detonated by remote control. Forensic tests have revealed that the explosive substance was identical to that used last night to force an entry into a house in the new town of Altomonte, located near by. The
capofamiglia
, Antonio Nicastro, was then shot while attempting to defend his nine-year-old son Francesco, whose tongue was subsequently severed with a razor blade. These events are clearly related and we urge anybody in possession of any information which might be relevant to come forward and –’

Luciano blanked the screen. Dear God, he thought, and this is where I was going to spend months making my masterpiece? ‘We just don’t know,’ Marcello had said, but now he knew, with overwhelming and irrefutable conviction. There would be no movie. He, the great Aldobrandini, had been bought and sold like a rent boy to be used and then tossed away. Whatever happened now, his genius and his reputation, his entire career, had been besmirched for ever.

He stalked out on deck and up to the wheelhouse.

‘I’ve changed my mind, Matteo,’ he told the skipper. ‘Alter course for Sardinia.’

Tom Newman felt angry. Normally a mild man, he was capable of spectacular outbursts of rage if he felt that others had taken advantage of his good nature. This was one such occasion. These people had pushed him too far. Fine, they’d soon find out what he was made of.

‘
Ma cazzo, oh, dov’è ’sto beverragio?
’ he shouted at the waiter.

The man paused in mid-stride, then flipped up his right forefinger in a gesture that read, ‘Damn, I knew I’d forgotten something.’

‘
Subito, signore!
’

Twenty seconds later, the waiter brought what looked like an innocent Campari Soda but in fact contained a shot of vodka – what the Italians called
un
drink
, an alien name for an alien concept. Tom nodded graciously, settled back in his chair with a masterful smile and relaxed again, soaking up the sun and the scene around him. The sun was high in a blue sky flawless except for a few puffy white clouds spilling over the coastal chain of mountains from the Mediterranean to the west. Later on in the afternoon, they would bulk up, loom over the city like thugs and then unleash the mother of all thunderstorms, but for now they were merely decorative or maybe even symbolic, like in some Old Master’s frescoed ceiling of strapping lads and overweight gals, signifiers of beneficence and plenty.

Since leaving the Questura after having received Aurelio Zen’s bad news, he’d drifted at random through the streets, noticing everything with heightened awareness and interacting with whatever presented itself to his dazed consciousness. He’d bought some green peaches and fresh walnuts from one street vendor, and eaten them along with a chalky roundel of aged goat’s cheese sold by another vendor, who looked a bit like a goat himself – skinny, neurotic and driven, like the gormless offspring of some Spanish noble family.

Then there had been the cheap clothing stores run by Chinese immigrants around the bus station, the bijou boutiques on the upscale streets selling pricey goods for wedding presents and the home beautiful, and odd places with English names like Daddy & Son and Miss Sixty – the latter, it turned out, catering not to geriatric spinsters but the adorable young women of the neighbourhood who wanted retro Carnaby Street gear to show off their amazing legs. Tom had listened to a bootleg CD of Calabrian folk music blaring from another street stall and with the help of the salesman had managed to pick out some of the words:
O sol, o
sol, almo immortale, non t’asconder mai più, che certo
veggio s’io non ti miro, non poss’aver peggio
. It was a hymn of praise to the sun, all about how when it is hidden from us we’re screwed. Pure paganism, but he was feeling pretty pagan himself. It was in the air here, in the pitiless light, in the facial expressions and body language of the people all around. His father was dead, the police chief had told him. Like this was the first time in the history of the world that someone’s father had died? The Greeks and Romans who’d run this place thousands of years ago would have understood that.

He’d bought the CD and felt it now in his pocket as he heard the melody again in his brain and looked at a passing woman, the fastenings of her bra standing out on her back under the tight top like widely spaced shoulder nipples. Then he saw a face he knew.

‘Signor Mantega!’

Tom sprang to his feet and shook hands with the
notaio
.

‘How have you been keeping?’ Mantega asked distractedly.

‘Pretty well, all things considered. What about you?’

Mantega looked startled, then made a large gesture and sighed deeply.

‘Ah, you know! Work, always work.’

‘Come and sit down,’ Tom urged.

He was feeling lonely and, with two drinks inside him, expansive, but Mantega demurred.

‘Actually, I’m in a bit of a hurry –’

‘
Solo un momento
. I need to ask you something.’

Mantega hesitated, but finally joined Tom at his table. He waved away the waiter and stared at Tom.

‘Well?’ he said pointedly.

‘It’s just this expression I heard today and didn’t understand, so I thought maybe it was dialect.
La
tomba d’Alarico
. Does that mean anything to you?’

Mantega shrugged dismissively. He obviously couldn’t have cared less about Tom’s question, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to hold forth all the same.

‘But of course! Alaric was a barbarian chieftain who invaded Italy in the fifth century. He sacked Rome and then continued south, but died here in Cosenza and is believed to have been buried along with all the treasure he had plundered. There have been many attempts to find the tomb, all of them fruitless. When the Germans were in charge here during the war, they organised a particularly intensive search. The Goths were an important element in Nazi mythology. But even with all their resources, the results were once again negative.’