She smiled. “It took you longer than I thought it would. Maybe your reputation isn’t justified? Or perhaps you’re losing your touch. The passing years haven’t been easy for you, have they?”
I had no idea whether she was trying to goad me or if she was just upset I’d discovered her identity, but either way I didn’t rise to the bait.
“I think you know a lot more about what’s going on here,” I said. “If you’ve got information, you should share it, but if you’re mixed up in whatever this is, you need to know I will hold you to account.”
“I’m not mixed up in this,” Faduma assured me. “And I want to believe you’re a good man. I want to trust you, but you keep doing questionable things, like letting a corrupt cop leave a crime scene.”
“What makes you think she’s corrupt?” I asked.
Faduma smiled again. “You need to do more digging, Mr. Morgan. Find out who your new partner really is.”
“She’s not my partner.”
“Your associate then.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?” I asked.
“Like I said, I want to believe I can trust you,” Faduma replied, getting to her feet. “Call it a test.”
She walked away as the waiter came over with my iced water and her orange juice.
“I’ll take them both,” I told him. “It’s been a hot day.”
“Shall I charge them to your room, sir?” he asked, arranging the drinks on the table in front of me.
“Yes, please,” I replied, watching the journalist leave the bar, wondering just how much she knew and what exactly I’d have to do to get her to trust me.
Chapter 19
After I’d had a revitalizing and refreshing shower and changed into jeans and a black T-shirt, I ordered some pesto linguine from the hotel bistro and ate in the small dining area in my suite during a video call with Justine, Sci and Mo-bot, who were in the conference room in Private’s LA headquarters.
“That looks good,” Mo-bot remarked, nodding in my direction as I took another forkful.
I’d opted for a simple meal, but the Hassler bistro was known for making the simple magnificent. The sauce was rich and flavorsome and the linguine perfectly cooked.
“It is good,” I replied. “I’ll bring some back.”
Mo-bot scoffed.
“So, we’ve got a prosecutor dead in a murder made to look like an accident?” Sci observed. Seymour ‘Sci’ Kloppenberg was the embodiment of an aging biker, but he was also one of the world’s leading experts in forensic analysis and had examined the photos I’d taken of the hillside road where Lombardi had died.
“And the cop investigating the death, our new colleague Matteo, tells his partner to back off the case,” Justine remarked.
I nodded. “Looks that way.”
“He is then found holding a smoking gun, standing over the body of the priest he claims told him to back off the investigation, and his ex-partner goes into hiding while a reporter stakes you out,” Mo-bot added. “And when you check out the scene of the earlier crime, some guy tries to punch holes in you with a machine gun.”
“You take a look at the guy yet?” I asked, referring to the dead assassin.
“Yeah,” Mo-bot replied. “The ink reeks of organized crime, but there’s a bunch of other stuff there. Religious symbolism. I don’t recognize any of the designs, but I’m running analysis against image libraries.”
“And the phone SIM?” I asked.
“I have a friend in Rome, a gray hat called Valentina who I’ve collaborated with a couple of times,” Mo-bot revealed.
“Gray hat?” I asked. Mo-bot was referring to the kind of hacker who did legal and illegal work. “How gray?”
“Pretty dark gray,” Mo-bot replied. “But her heart is in the right place.”
I frowned. She didn’t like it.
“How long have you known me, Jack Morgan?” she asked. “You think I would send you to someone you couldn’t trust? I’ll message you her details. Stop worrying and focus on getting answers off that SIM.”
I nodded. “Okay. No need to take it personally. I’m just a little wary of strangers right now.”
“Because you’ve been shot at?” Mo-bot asked.
I smiled. “That might have something to do with it. Can you give me and Justine a minute?”
Mo-bot and Sci exchanged knowing looks.
“So you can do some smooching?” Mo-bot teased.
“So we can talk,” I replied.
“Good to catch up, Jack,” Sci said, rising. “Speak soon.”
He and Mo-bot left the conference room and Justine drew closer to the camera.
“How are you doing, honey?” I asked.
“I’d be better if you were here.”
“I know. Me too, but someone shot at me today, which makes this personal. It also tells me there’s probably something to my suspicion that Matteo’s innocent. I don’t think he murdered that priest.”
“Me neither,” Justine replied. “It doesn’t fit his profile. Speaking of which, Mo-bot ran background on Christian Altmer, and he isn’t as squeaky clean as you might expect of one of God’s bankers. I’ll send you the file and my psych workup, but keep an eye on him, Jack: he has many of the hallmarks of a sociopath. Trouble in school, jail time for minor offences in his late teens and early twenties.”
“Anything recent?”
She shook her head. “He cleaned up his act ten years ago. Finished an economics degree in London, joined the graduate program at an investment bank and climbed the greasy corporate pole.”
“You think people don’t change?” I asked.
“Do you?”
In my experience it was rare for people to undergo genuine transformation, but it could happen.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” I replied.
There was a moment’s silence, and I knew she was building up the courage to say something else.
“I don’t like you being shot at,” she confessed at last. “It’s becoming a habit, Jack.”
“So is surviving,” I replied. “I’m being careful. I’ll come back to you in one piece.”
“You’d better,” she said.
“I will. I promise.”
Chapter 20
I woke to find a message from Mo-bot telling me she’d arranged a meeting with the hacker named Valentina at Ostia, an outlying district of Rome, at midday. I took the opportunity of a free morning to visit the local boutiques that lined the ancient narrow streets stretching out from the bottom of the Spanish Steps. I desperately wanted to be home with Justine, but I’d made a commitment to Matteo and our new client Joseph Stadler and would have to see it through. I added to the small selection of clothes I’d brought with me for a short trip and by 10:30 a.m. was back in my room with enough shirts, trousers and suits for an extended stay.
I opted for a new navy blue linen suit, a white shirt and brown shoes, and caught a cab outside the hotel.
The driver, a scowling woman in her early fifties, wasn’t keen on visiting Ostia and while we drove through Rome to the coast told me it was not a good neighborhood. The sun was high and the foreshortened shadows harsh and stark against the dazzling light. Some of the buildings seemed to sparkle, their white marble shining beneath the bright sky, heightening the beauty of the ancient city. We drove with the windows open and the car filled with the smells of the city; coffee, pastries, sickly-sweet scents of over-ripe fruit and garbage, and every now and then the aroma of food being prepared for the lunchtime rush. Rome was not a peaceful place. Music blared from open vehicle windows and horns sounded anytime there was a delay in the smooth progress of the traffic, which was often.
Ostia was a rundown coastal town, nowadays almost linked to Rome by urban sprawl and regarded by many as one of the city’s suburbs. It had been developed at a time when function had trumped form, the buildings mostly practical but ugly. Uniform blocks of flats; drab modern storefronts; office buildings with mundane and unimaginative façades. The area was characterized in all the wrong ways by graffiti, grime, trash, abandoned vehicles. All spoke to the soul of Ostia, but it probably wasn’t the image most locals wanted to promote.