The Da Vinci Deception (20 page)

“I certainly do,” Patrick said without hesitation. “That's Mr. Waters. He was here about a week ago. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

“You recognize him with the beard?”

“Oh, sure. I knew it was Mr. Waters when he showed because there's a way about him that I know. Maybe the eyes or how he walks. It's my job to remember people. I know Mr. Anthony Waters, all right.”

“We'd like to talk with Mr. Waters, but he's disappeared. Do you know where he might have gone?”

“No, I can't help, Superintendent. Fact is, I never did know where he lived. I do recall him once sayin'he was goin'to the States. That's right, but I wouldn't know where.”

Deats held out the paper he found over the sun visor. “Know anything about this?”

“'Course I do. I wrote that name down for Mr. Waters the night he was here. Nasty weather that night. He had a flat. That's right, a flat on the M4 and he wanted to know where to get a new tire. I told him I'd put it all down on a note. I figured he'd know where to look for it.”

“Did he stay at Dukes often?”

“Well now, he didn't stay here this last time. He was with an American gentleman, the same one he'd been with on other visits. But I know Mr. Waters from before. Always very generous, he was.” Patrick winked and rubbed a thumb and forefinger together.

“How do you mean ‘from before'?” Deats asked.

“It goes back some years. Mr. Waters had a business in London. Successful was my guess. At least he would come here and spend the night with some expensive ladies. All very proper to talk to, all dressed fit for the queen's ball. But whores, they was.”

“The American. Tell me about him.”

“He's a big man with a deep voice. Wears glasses, thick ones.” Patrick frowned. “They stayed in the Duke of Gloucester suite.”

“They? He wasn't alone?”

“There was one other. I didn't see much of him. He stayed cooped up in the rooms most of the time.”

“That's strange, or didn't you think so?”

“Not so strange as all the special packages and boxes that was delivered up there.”

“What kind of boxes? What was in them?”

“None of the hotel staff could touch them. The people that brought them in took every one up to the suite, then the same blighters took'em out.”

“Any visitors?”

“Not on your life. They was particular about who went through the doors and they blocked off one of the bedrooms and no one was allowed there the entire while they was 'ere. You can ask Mrs. Palmer about that, all right. She's in charge of housekeeping on that floor.”

“When did the big American leave?”

“Only this morning. Too bad I wasn't on duty. He was generous, too.” Patrick looked sad.

“And the other American?”

“He left on my day off. Bad luck all around for me. That was the day they took all the cartons out of the suite.”

Patrick had been cooperative and had made no bones about trading his information for coin of the realm. Deats handed him several pounds.

“Not a word of our conversation to anyone,” Deats said gravely, fully aware that Patrick would break his silence a dozen times before nightfall. “Here's my card. Phone immediately if any of the men who were in those rooms comes back.”

Before returning to Scotland Yard, Deats met with the manager, a Mr. Proquitte, and the senior concierge. They added little to Patrick's testimony. The dour concierge, who had more the air of an important guest than one who wore crossed keys, described the cartons that were delivered by a crew from Kalem's London office. Mr. Proquitte reluctantly divulged Jonas Kalem's business address in New York.

“Waters didn't stay at the Dukes and I don't have the foggiest notion where he's been staying. I doubt it would help if we did know.” Deats summed up his findings for Elliot Heston with a final conundrum. “The big man named Kalem obviously has something to do with whatever Waters is up to and the gang of them were using the hotel for some hush-hush purpose. Last anyone knows, he was off to Heathrow.”

“We can put a trace on him but don't count on fast results,” Heston said. “We'll do better picking up on him in New York.”

“I'm not sure he went to New York. No one at the hotel handled his tickets. I have a hunch he went to Paris. He has an office there, too.”

“We can check both offices. We can do it by phone.”

“Anonymously, I hope.”

“By all means.”

“There's a third man. Curtis Stiehl returned to New York on the twelfth. Monday. The hotel confirmed his reservation.”

“If Kalem and Stiehl have left the country, what does that suggest our friend Waters may have done?”

“I say he's in New York,” Deats replied.

“Under what name?” Heston tossed a thick file onto the desk. “There's a dozen aliases in that file and you know damned well he isn't traveling under any one of them.”

“I wonder if he'd have the balls to use his real name in New York.”

“Not likely. You said he's become a rabbi, and God knows he might have.”

“What do you suppose his relationship is to Kalem? He's not under hire to put in air conditioners.”

Heston nodded but did not respond. He lifted his phone and asked for a connection to the chief of detectives' office in the New York City Police Department. A line cleared in less than a minute and he heard the phone ring on the other side of the Atlantic. He glanced at his watch: it was 3:30—10:30 in the morning in New York.

“Chief Tobias, please. This is Elliot Heston, Metropolitan Police in London. If he's not there, please tell me how I can reach—Tobey, it's Elliot Heston, you old scoundrel. . . . I understand you were in London last month and I never heard a peep from you....I'll excuse you this time . . . when will you join us fishing up north? . . . Just keep me posted. . . . Tobey, I need your help. I just lost a young special agent—we think a homicide. . . .We've got a suspect, only we don't know what name he's using and I can't give you an accurate ID on him but we've some things to go on.... He may have used the name Anthony Waters when he was in New York....We think he was employed by a Jonas Kalem....I'll fax over everything we've got on him and the Kalem chap. . . .There's a third person—name of Curtis Stiehl. . . . Don't bother about the spelling now. . . .Yes, there's a rush....The press is beginning to put all their bizarre twists on the case. . . . It was a young woman, quite pretty, and she had a
daughter we didn't know about, so the department is getting flak.... Good . . . you understand . . . thanks, Tobey . . . I'll get the information started. Cheerio.”

For the balance of the afternoon the old friends pored over Waters's files hoping to uncover a clue to the way he handled himself on previous occasions when he changed identities.

“There's no clear pattern to the way he operated,” Deats concluded, twirling the glasses he had not worn while reading the files.

Heston leaned back, his head cradled in his hands. “If Greg Hewlitt is really Anthony Waters and he sent Sarah to her death, then we're dealing with someone completely different from what we're reading about in these reports. Waters was a confidence man, a professional ripper-offer. When he was threatened, he responded with force, but there's no record of violence, not yet. I have a feeling he won't surface in the suburbs selling bogus cemetery plots.”

Deats fidgeted with his glasses then folded them and tucked them into his shirt pocket. “Gregory Hewlitt killed Sarah Evans. But there is no Gregory Hewlitt. There is an Anthony Waters who is tied up with a very large man named Jonas Kalem. Add Curtis Stiehl to the stew. They stayed in the Dukes Hotel, where they moved many big cartons in and out. Stir it all up and you have everything but a motive. I'm going to New York.”

“You can't do that, Wally. Your department won't send you.”

“I didn't think they would. But you can.”

“Now you are out of your mind.”

“Not at all. A deputy assistant commissioner knows where the strings are. Pull one of them.”

Heston rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I'd like to go myself”—he shook his head—“but I can't. I'll see what I can do.”

M
orning came painfully for Jonas. His head throbbed as if it had been pummeled by a hot iron bar, and his eyes were little more than red slits. His memory of the previous evening was all too vivid up to the point when Madame Sun placed a note with the terms of her offer next to the astrological chart she had prepared. Then the glasses of whiskey that contained more than his favorite scotch. After that his memory was blank until he wakened to find himself sprawled on the floor of his bedroom. Even the sight of the huge tray of food in the sitting room could not evoke a memory of what had transpired after leaving the Berkeley Hotel. He bathed in water as hot as he could tolerate, then stood under a cold shower. Slowly he rallied and was able to pack and be at Heathrow in time for his flight to Milan.

He alerted Ellie to his arrival and was gladdened by her cheerfulness. Nothing had dimmed his appetite and on the train to Florence he found the dining car, where he remained for the entire trip.

Jonas had been in Florence on two previous tours, but had stayed briefly each time. He was familiar with that part of the city radiating out from the Piazza Goldoni, site of the Excelsior and the recently revived Grand Hotel. There, too, is the Church of Ognissanti containing the crypt of Botticelli. From the hotel it was a five-minute walk to the American consulate, less than that to the British. Around the corner was the Palazzo Corsini with its rarely seen treasure of early Italian art.

He had made swift visits to the historical heart of the city and the great Duomo, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore with its baptistry and Giotto's bell tower, gleaming in white, pink, and green marble. Once he walked to the Pitti Palace on a day that had been insufferably hot only to quickly retreat to the relative comfort of the Uffizi Gallery. In spite of the great city's rank among the world's art capitals, Jonas had done very badly. He had actually seen a small portion of the treasures
about which he had so avidly read and routinely included in lectures delivered with the fervor of a native Florentine.

If Jonas was a relative stranger to the city, he was not so considered by the manager and chief concierge in the Excelsior. He had phoned personally, asking for the Belvedere suite, a magnificently appointed penthouse complete with a secluded terrace and commanding view of the city. He uncorked a bottle of Freisa d'Asti, a sparkling red wine with the distinctively unique aftertaste of raspberries. He downed a tumblerful.

The late afternoon sun cast its orange aura over the city. Jonas stood on the terrace gazing past the Duomo to the slopes that rose in the east, where, tucked into the hills, was the ancient town of Fiesole. Somewhere in the scope of his vision was Ellie's villa. He returned to the sitting room and his briefcase. He took out the two vials of ink samples Stiehl had extracted from the Windsor drawing. A third contained the sliver of paper sliced from the same sheet. Jonas was impressed with the ordinariness of the treasure; the vials appeared empty and the slender strip of paper would surely be discarded by a zealous charwoman. They told a different story to Jonas—millions of dollars and a slain policewoman.

He planned to spend the weekend, stretching his stay until Tuesday. He would monopolize Ellie's attention to gain her unquestioned loyalty and also observe her progress in finding or making the materials Stiehl would use in the final execution of the manuscripts. To this point, she had no reason to suspect the role she was actually playing. At all cost, Jonas had to keep it that way.