Blue Moonlight, page 14
Dante would have loved me.
I finish my coffee, set the cup back down into the white saucer. The little metal spoon makes a clinking noise when the cup brushes up against it. I set a ten-euro note onto the bar for the cigs, the lighter, and the coffee, and motion for the blond woman to keep the change. All one euro of it.
I step back out into the darkness of an early Florentine night. The wet cobbled street takes on an eerie glow that reflects the light of the streetlamps as obscure white bulbs. The cigarette still burning between my lips, I pull up the collar on my leather coat and feel the light raindrops slap my face. Every one of them screams of loneliness. Every one of them bears the likeness of Lola.
My former lover turned fugitive.
Chapter 48
She’s sitting at the bar to my left when I walk through the door of Harry’s American Bar. Except for the bartender, she’s alone. Her long dark hair is draped over her left shoulder, and the skin on her chiseled face is tan and rich. She’s shed a couple of pounds since I last laid eyes on her, not that she needed to. But from what I understand about her present condition, she’s been under a lot of stress lately.
When she turns to look at me, her big milk chocolate brown eyes melt into mine. As she crosses her black-booted legs under a brown leather miniskirt, I feel like the rainwater dripping down my cheeks could in fact be tears.
To my left is a picture window that contains the words “Harry’s American Bar” in big gray block letters. Through the glass you can see the Victorian-era streetlamps that illuminate the red, common brick knee-wall that runs the length of the swift-flowing Arno. To my right is Lola, in her tights, turtleneck sweater, and thin brown leather jacket.
The barkeep is a distinguished middle-aged man in a white shirt, black bowtie, and matching trousers. He politely asks me what I’ll be drinking. Jack Daniels, I tell him. Lola says she’ll take the same.
The bartender tells me in perfect English that Jack is a fine choice on a cool, rainy evening like this one. But he has no idea just how cool things are around here, and quite possibly, how cold they might get.
I go to take the stool beside Lola’s.
“Can we grab a table in the corner?” she asks. “Better not to risk being seen through the window.”
She’s right of course.
“Sure,” I say.
The bartender tells us he will bring our drinks to us.
She slips off the stool. When she passes by me on her way to the table, I get a quick whiff of her rose petal scent. It doesn’t take a psychologist to tell you that smell can provoke profound memory.
In this case, it steals my breath away.
We sit down at the table and just stare at one another.
Finally, I work up the strength to make words. “You look good, Lo,” I say. “Don’t look like a kidnap victim to me.”
“Whoever said that?” she says, smiling, brushing back long, thick hair.
I’m slightly taken aback, as if she just reached out and gently flicked the tip of my nose with her index finger. My stomach constricts. I feel my pulse throbbing in my head and injured hand.
“My contacts in New York led me to believe you’re being held against your will,” I explain.
She exhales, sits back. “Do you have a cigarette?”
“Since when did you resume smoking?”
“Since my life went to hell.”
I pull out the pack of Marlboros and hand her one as the barkeep brings the whiskeys in clear drinking glasses set on small white plates. He also sets out a small pitcher of drinking water, should we want to add some of it to the whiskey.
When he leaves, I say, “Can you smoke in here?”
“It’s Harry’s,” Lola says.
“Of course,” I say, reaching across the table with my lighter and firing up her smoke.
I light one for myself and return the pack to my coat pocket.
“Which is it, Lo? You being held against your will or not?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Or…yes, yes.” She’s smoking and nodding. “What I mean is, I came here of my own free will. Christian told me he was doing some business here with Interpol. That we would be here for some months. I desperately wanted to get out of the States and to forget about losing Peter and you, and I trusted my…my…significant other.” Pausing, smoking. “It was only after a week of our stay here that I learned about the flash drive and his true reason for being here. That’s when Clyne revealed himself.” Her smoking hand begins to tremble. “They stand to make a lot of money. While risking the lives of millions of poor, poor people.”
“Did you try to leave?”
“Immediately.”
“He forced you to stay.”
“Let’s just say he keeps me on a short leash.”
Now, I begin to feel a slow burn building inside my chest. It’s important that I keep my cool and stay calm. “Has he hurt you in any way? He hit you? Threaten you?”
She shakes her head. “No, nothing like that. It’s more a matter of knowing what will happen to me if I try to leave.”
“He’d kill you.”
She smokes. “I believe he would,” she exhales.
The burn, heating up. Heart racing. “How did you get out tonight?”
“I cornered him into an argument. Then I told him I needed to take a walk to cool off. He’s used to my walks and even more used to our fights.”
“He trusts you’ll come back and not simply hop a flight out.” A question.
“I’ve never given him reason not to trust me. Besides…”
She looks away, her hands still trembling.
“Besides what, Lo?”
“He’d come looking for me. And he would employ people here in the city to come looking for me. I’d never get beyond the train station.”
“So, you are a prisoner.”
“Yes,” she says. “And I hate Christian Barter’s guts almost as much as I detest Dennis Clyne and what it is they are about to do.”
“You mean sell the flash drive to the Iranians. Is that their true intention?”
She nods. “You’ve been informed.”
“A source was provided for me. The provider lost his life in the line of duty to the same bunch of Russians who killed me once already in Albany.”
“Yes, the Russians want their flash drive back. My late son, Peter, contracted with them, and they want their property.”
Suddenly the acid burn that fills me blooms, like a switch has been flicked inside my brain. I reach out and take hold of Lola’s forearm. Time to ask her the question of questions.
“Do you know where the flash drive is, Lo?”
She nods again, smokes.
“Can you lead me to it?” A surge of optimism dislodging the brick in my stomach.
“It would be extremely dangerous.”
“I understand that. This whole place is dangerous. But it’s something I have to do.”
“For you? For the tragic mistake you made in handing it over to Clyne in the first place? Or for the FBI?”
“Both,” I say. “And for us.”
She stamps out her now smoked cigarette. “There is no us,” she whispers. “Not any longer.”
It feels like a slap to the face. But it’s also something I have to accept. “I’m taking you out of here,” I tell her. “We’ll grab the flash drive, get on the train, and then take the next flight out of here.”
“Dick Moonlight, knight in shining armor. Well, Richard, aren’t you just a little too late to be saving our relationship?”
“It’s never too late.”
“Is that how you reassured yourself when you cheated on me with Scarlet Montana? With the others?”
I feel my breath exit my lungs along with the cigarette smoke. “I have this condition, Lo—”
“I’m sick of hearing about that bullet, Richard. You have a conscience and a soul and they’re perfectly fine. That bullet is and has been your crutch. Get over it.”
“This the clinical psychologist speaking? Or Lola Ross? Excuse me…Lola Rose, your true last name. The name you hid from me for years. It’s not like you’re beyond deception.”
“It’s me in here, Richard. Just me. And I’m not going back to that life I lived with you.” Turning away. “I’d rather take my chances here.”
For a moment, we drink. I shoot my whiskey while Lola sips hers. I motion to the barkeep for another.
“Easy, killer,” Lola warns. “It’s ten euros a drink in this establishment. I hope the FBI provided you with some mad money.”
“They want me to produce receipts when I make it back.”
“If you make it back, you mean.”
My second whiskey arrives. I sit and stare at it.
“I’ll ask you again,” I say after a time. “Will you leave Florence with me?”
A tear begins to fall down her left cheek. “Yes,” she whispers. “I will leave with you. But I make no promises about us beyond that.”
“Can you trust me for the time being?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Can you take me to the flash drive?”
“I think I can.”
“Now?”
Running her hands through her hair. “That’s the question.”
“You have to be sure,” I say. “There’s no room here for error. Clyne or Barter sees me, they’ll kill me on the spot, dump me in the river, and no telling what they might do to you.”
“It’s Tuesday,” she begins to explain. “There’s an old gym located in the center of town. Ricciardi’s Gym. Run by a man who used to compete with Arnold. Barter and Clyne lift weights there on Tuesday and Thursday nights.”
“Clyne?”
“You noticed how much weight he’s dropped since he’s been here? He’s a health fanatic now. His psychological profile is now that of a free man intent on attracting a woman to help him enjoy what will be his newfound wealth. Ultimately, he’s playing out a game of revenge against his cheating wife.”
“God. Sounds like you’ve had the uhhh…former APD dick on the couch.”
“Passes the time. Especially when my heart is learning to hate as much as it used to love.”
“How can you be sure they made their date at the gym tonight?”
She pulls out her cell.
I drink some more whiskey while she calls Barter.
When he answers she asks him how long he’s going to be at the gym. Her voice is cold enough to frost over the North Pole. I recall that voice very well. Makes me feel good she’s using it on Barter.
She hangs up. “We have approximately one hour to retrieve your precious flash drive,” she informs.
I stand. “We’ve leaving,” I say, peeling off thirty euros and sliding them under the empty drinking glass. “Now.”
Lola gets up and begins to follow. “Just like old times,” she says.
“Let’s hope not,” I say, holding the door for her.
Chapter 49
Lola’s apartment is not far from here. Just a straight shot across the Piazza Santa Maria Novella in the direction of the train station. From there, we hook a right onto busy Nazionale. Lola follows close behind me, not saying anything, while we walk one in front of the other over the narrow sidewalk in the darkness and in the rain. When we come upon the Via Guelfa, which runs perpendicular to Nazionale, I stop, and Lola takes the lead.
“It’s just a few buildings in,” she says, her voice showing signs of fraying nerves and maybe fear.
I reach into my leather jacket and thumb the safety off on my shoulder-holstered .9 mm. Then, I say, “Let’s do this, Lola. Let’s get the hell out of rainy Florence.”
“We have no other choice, Richard?” she says, and begins the long, short walk down the Via Guelfa.
Her apartment building is nondescript for Florence, in that it looks a lot like every other four- or five-hundred-year-old townhouse on the block. Five stories, old french windows protected by thick wood shutters painted lime green, Victorian-era metal lamps mounted to the stucco walls, the ground level stucco walls marred by colorful graffiti shouting out political slogans and threats of anarchy.
Lola unlocks the door and we slip into the narrow tile-floored entry. She goes to flick on the overhead corridor lamps, but I grab hold of her hand.
“No,” I whisper. “No light.”
She heeds my warning and begins climbing a short flight of stairs.
Reaching into my coat, I slip out the .9 mm and follow.
The door leading into Lola’s apartment is preceded by a landing that’s made entirely of stone. It’s so old it has a distinct list to it, making me feel like at any moment I might fall backward. The doors are thick wood, french doors secured by a deadbolt with pulleys for openers. As is the custom in Italy, the landing outside the door also serves as a makeshift closet, housing a mop and a bucket, plus a broom and a couple of plastic bottles of cleaning solution.
It takes Lola a moment to negotiate the key in the lock in the semidarkness. Then I hear the distinct click-clack of a bolt being sprung and the squeak of a door being pushed open. We’re in.
Lola flicks on a dull, wall-mounted sconce. She attempts to turn the overhead lights on, but again I tell her not to. One light will do.
A quick glance at the place reveals brick walls covered in new white stucco that in some areas has been removed to reveal some faded, ancient detailing, which I understand is the modern architectural norm for buildings considered historic. Ninety-nine percent of the structures in Florence probably make the historic cut. There are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves to my right and beyond that a small dining room with a kitchen on one side and a bath on the other. Behind me is a bedroom. To my right a couch that looks like it’s been doubling as a bed. Clyne’s bed, no doubt.
“Where is it?” I ask.
“In the bedroom,” Lola answers.
“Show me,” I say, feeling my heart sink at the thought of entering into the bedroom where my former lover sleeps with her new man.
The bedroom is rectangular and good-sized for an apartment, with thick wood beams supporting a stucco ceiling. The wall opposite the bed is brick and partially finished with white stucco. Same for the wall to my left.
There are two big french windows that are presently open, admitting the sounds from the street below. It’s quiet, with only the occasional Mini and Vespa passing by or neighborhood dweller walking past on the cobbles in the steady rain.
The bed is a queen-sized futon. It hasn’t been made, the sheets and covers scattered mostly at the foot of the bed like some serious wrestling went on here recently.
Wrestling…
I prefer to put the image out of my mind.
Lola kneels onto the bed, at the head where two sets of head-dented down pillows reside. There’s a tall, almost life-size print of Botticelli’s Venus that covers almost the entire wall above the bed. The naked, blond-haired beauty in the painting is floating in a big clamshell while angels blow wind gusts upon her from puckered lips and a handmaiden attempts to cover up her nakedness with a blanket. I never did get to see the real thing during my recent unpleasantness at the Uffizi, but I’ve seen maybe a dozen prints just like this one hanging on the dorm room wall of just about every college woman I ever dated.
Lola carefully lifts the framed print off the wall, revealing a recessed safe. She sets the painting onto the bed. The small safe opens not with a combination, but a skeleton key. Sliding back off the bed, she lifts up the edge of the futon and uncovers the key. Replacing the mattress, she once more sets herself on her knees before the safe.
“That’s it?” I say. “That’s the extent of your security system?”
“It’s not my flash drive,” she answers.
She slides the key into the safe lock, twists it. The safe opens.
Reaching inside the dark space, she pulls out three American passports along with a couple of bundles of euros wadded together with rubber bands. Then she pulls out a .9 mm S&W, identical to the service weapon I used to carry as an APD cop, and two extra loaded ammo clips. The third thing she pulls out is the flash drive, which is protected in a little plastic ziplock sandwich baggie.
For a moment, I stare at it. Then, realizing what it is and how important it is to some very bad people, I hold out my hand. “Please,” I say.
Lola exhales, sets it into my hand.
The quiet of the rainy night is shattered by the deep voices of two men coming from directly outside the open windows.
Chapter 50
Lola’s eyes go wide.
“It’s them,” she whispers. “They’re early.”
I shove the flash drive into the right-hand pocket of my leather coat.
We hear the front door to the building open and slam closed.
“What do we do?” she begs, sliding off the bed.
I hear the sound of footsteps coming up the stone stairs.
“They carry weapons on them?”
“Always.”
“I’m not gonna shoot it out with them.”
“I’ll distract them,” Lola says. “You sneak out the door. You have what you came for. Just go. I’ll be fine.”
“Sure, until they find out the flash drive is missing. You’ll be lucky you don’t end up in the river with your throat cut.” I take hold of her arm. “I’m not leaving without you.”
I hear the key entering into the lock on the front door.
“Greet your man at the door,” I say, releasing my grip and snatching up the euros, the passports, the pistol, and the extra clips. I press my back up against the wall, out of sight of the open bedroom door. “Lead them into the kitchen and come back here to the bedroom for something you forgot. We’ll just walk out the door together.”
