"Have your men come up with anything yet?" Bruno asked.
"Not much. It appears that there had to be at least two people involved-one to drop off the car and the other to direct it from that building there," the assistant said pointing across the street to a large five story brick building with Roman arch windows.
Bruno looked up at the building and then back at the Americans. "What's the connection here?" he said. "This isn't your typical American hang out. How could the Red Brigade know they'd be here at this time? Or did they really give a shit who they killed? The car stopped right under the table, though. So, whoever did this, had to know these guys would be here at this particular time."
Bruno's assistant just shrugged his shoulders.
"Who are the Americans?" Bruno asked.
"Let's see," the assistant said flipping through his note pad. "We have a Lieutenant Budd, a PO1 Albrecht, whatever that is, a PO1 Taylor, and a Seaman Phillips."
Bruno scratched his impending beard again. He stooped down and took a look at another American sailor. "Isn't that kind of a strange group?" he asked. "I mean, in the Italian military we never went anywhere with the enlisted men, yet here we have a lieutenant with three enlisted sailors. Is that significant?"
"I don't know," the assistant said. "Maybe we should ask the American officials when they show up."
Bruno's assistant had sent word to the USS Roosevelt as soon as he found out that American sailors had been victims.
"Inspector!" yelled a man from the third floor window of the building across the street from the bloody site.
Bruno turned and looked up. "Si, si."
"We found something."
Bruno instructed his men at the scene to leave the bodies where they were until the American authorities arrived. Then he and his assistant entered the old brick building and climbed the three flights of stairs. The stairwell was dark, and Bruno noticed that a bright sunny day would probably not change that fact. The hallway on the third floor had uneven hardwood floors and tan thick plaster walls in need of fresh paint. Two Carabiniere officers waited in front of a wide doorway.
Bruno breezed past the men and into a small one room apartment. Bruno stopped and scanned the room. A boy around eight years old sat on the edge of a small bed in one corner. He immediately looked up at Bruno with his dark overpowering eyes. Fear seemed to scream from each eye with recent tears streaking his dark cheeks. Bruno looked at the rest of the room to try to de-emphasize his presence and put the boy at ease. He walked to the window and leaned against the sill to observe the gory scene below. Had the boy seen what happened and was fearful of its tragic consequences, or did he know more? Bruno suspected the latter. He walked back over to the two Carabiniere at the doorway and escorted them farther into the hallway.
"Does the boy know what happened?" Bruno asked.
"Si!" said the older of the two officers. "We just got to this floor when the door slammed. The boy acted strange, so we asked him a few questions."
"And?" Bruno asked impatiently.
"He was sitting on the steps on the first floor of the building when a man came up to him and asked if he would like to make some money. Of course, he did. The man told the boy to meet him back here at four. When the man came back, he had a small case with him. He told the boy he needed to bring him to his apartment. When they got up here, the guy opens his case and pulls out a black remote control Porsche. Of course the boy's eyes lit up with joy when he saw that."
"Then what?"
"The man puts the car in a paper bag and tells the boy not to let anyone see it. He then instructed him to take the car down the block to the alley, pull it out and set it on the sidewalk when the church bell chimed on the half hour. It was timed so the boy would only have to stand there for about a minute or two."
"Can he describe the man?" Bruno asked.
"Si, inspector. The man was in his mid-thirties, well dressed, expensive black pants, a leather coat, driving gloves, and a black knit cap. But more importantly, his Italian was poor."
"What type of accent?" Bruno asked quickly.
The officer paused for a minute. "American."
Bruno put his hand up to his nose, stroked it, and then slid it down and rubbed the stubble on his face again. Either the Americans were trying to take their crimes to his streets, or one had joined the Red Brigade, Bruno thought.
"Where's the boy's parents?"
"He says there's only a mother who works days at an office a few blocks away. The boy decided not to go to school this morning. We think the mother walks the streets at night."
"Why's that?"
"The room right next door to this one has papers with her name on it. There's only a bed in there and a few skimpy outfits."
"You say nothing about this to anyone," Bruno said. "Do you understand? Not to your superiors, friends, wife, nobody!"
"Si, inspector," they both said.
"Take the boy directly to my office. Don't let anyone question him, or see you take him from this building. Any questions?"
They looked at each other, and then said: "No, sir."
After the men left with the boy, Bruno looked over the room. He knew he wouldn't find anything, but it was a force of habit. He found himself feeling sorry for the young boy and the situation he was in. He had to be frightened, it could be no other way. The room, the building, the neighborhood had all hardened him in some way. But he was still a child. And children still have fears, Bruno thought. He locked the door and headed back down to deal with the bodies still lying in the street.
CHAPTER 17
Over six inches of thick, heavy snow had fallen overnight. The city looked cleaner than it had in decades. Many of the older buildings, damaged during World War II, still hadn't received their restorations as promised, but progress had surely been made. To the thousands of people who had flooded the streets to protest the government's stagnant economy, it was as though a baptism had been performed by God himself upon the two million citizens of Budapest.
At his weathered, wooden desk, Isaac Lebovitz slowly paged through the volumes of information that the American businessman, Jason Dalton, had given him. The frequent chants for more jobs by the protesters below his office brought an occasional smile to his face. He knew that not long ago the people would have been silently whisked away to jail, or worse. But now the chants were tolerated; the will of the people could no longer be stomped under foot. And Isaac intended to take advantage of this movement.
Isaac's men had printed page after page of computer data and bound them in hard cardboard binders to allow more easy reading. The marketing information was current; perhaps too current to allow his company to properly use this powerful information.
Behind his desk, a large cast iron radiator, with few paint chips remaining on its surface, clanked violently out of control. Isaac kicked it with the side of his shoe dropping more paint chips to the floor, but doing nothing to stop the noise. Things will surely change, he thought. No more second-rate anything.
The phone rang.
Isaac picked up the ancient black dial phone and simply said "Lebovitz."
His secretary, who had been with Isaac as long as the phone, told him that two of his men had arrived and wished to speak with him. "Send them in," he said, and then set the phone back in its slot.
The brass door latch swiveled, but the door wouldn't open. Isaac got out of his chair, flipped the binders closed, and shuffled to the door to unlock it. The papers weren't for all to view.
"Have a seat," Isaac said, sweeping his hand toward the two wooden chairs in front of his desk as he sat back in his chair.