Foreign Affairs

Jim Lugano strode into the room. “Relax,” he said, “the finger doesn’t belong to Hedy.”

“How do you know?” Stone asked.

“We found her prints from an application she made for a Global Entry pass, the thing that gets you through airport security in a hurry. No match. Also, the lab says the finger, though recently severed, had been refrigerated for several days. The finger was probably taken at a morgue. Finally, we got a hit on the print from the Italian database: the woman it belonged to had an arrest record for prostitution in Naples.”

Stone heaved a loud sigh. “When you find Casselli, I hope you’ll give me a few minutes alone with him.”

44

Casselli paced back and forth across his new living room. He had been faced with uncooperative victims before, but never one like Barrington. Normally, he could beat, shoot, or bomb a holdout into submission, but Barrington, in addition to being a hardhead, had the co

Finally, Casselli turned to a minion. “Bring the girl to me,” he said.

Moments later, Hedy was marched into the living room. “Ah, Miss Kiesler,” Casselli said. “I won’t detain you long.” He held up a finger, then pressed the redial button on his phone.

—

Stone answered the call on speaker, so everyone in the room could hear the conversation. “Yes?”

“You said you wished to speak to the girl,” Casselli said.

Before Stone could reply, he heard Hedy’s voice, shouting, “Wow, what a view! I can see almost as far as Capri!”

There were sounds of a scuffle.

“Did you hear that?” Casselli asked.

“Hear what?”

“The voice of your lover.”

“All I hear is you.”

“You still wish to speak with her?”

“Certainly.”

Hedy came on. “Don’t do what he wants, Stone!” she shouted. “If he hurts me, Arthur will destroy him!”

There were more sounds of struggle, then Casselli came back on. “There, did you hear that?”

“Yes, and I will follow her instructions to the letter,” Stone said. “You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, Leo. She’s right about Arthur—he will destroy you.” Stone hung up.

“Who the hell is Arthur?” someone asked.

“Hedy’s stepfather, Arthur Steele.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s an insurance executive.”

“Does he have the means to destroy Casselli?”

“No, but Casselli doesn’t know that.”

Everyone burst out laughing.

—

Kill her!” Casselli screamed at his men. “Cut her into pieces, and send them to Barrington!”

“Yes, Don Leonardo,” one of them said, and the men began to drag her from the room.

“Wait a minute!” Hedy yelled.

Astonished, they stopped.

“What?” Casselli shouted.

“I want a priest.”

“Are you insane?” Casselli asked.

“I’m a good Catholic, I want to make my confession and have the last rites of the Church!”

“I’m not going to get you a priest!”

“Are you a Catholic?”

“Of course!”

“Then you can’t deny me a priest!” Hedy was not a Catholic, and she had no idea whether this was correct. “You will go directly to hell, no purgatory!”

Casselli stopped talking; his jaw worked, but no sound came out.

“And if you murder me, I will prepare the way for you to hell’s gates!” She groped for something else to say. “And Arthur is a friend of the Pope! He will ask him to excommunicate you immediately!” This was a bald-faced lie; Arthur was Jewish, and he had no acquaintances in the Vatican that she knew of.

“You are worse than this Barrington!” Casselli shouted. He waved a hand. “Take her back to her room!”

“Do you still want us to kill her, Don Leonardo?” one of the men asked.

“No. Not yet! When I say!”

The men dragged Hedy away. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!” she shouted back at him.

Casselli sank into a chair and mopped his brow. Perhaps she was right; maybe he didn’t know who he was dealing with.

First, this Barrington, now this Arthur, who was a friend of the Pope! Casselli didn’t even know the Pope! He wasn’t much of a Catholic, but he feared the Church. If he killed this girl, she would precede him into the next world, and the Church’s wrath would be waiting for him.

—

She’s confirmed her location,” Stone said. “She said she could almost see Capri.”

“Dante,” Jim Lugano said, “do we have enough on Casselli to raid this house on the cliff?”

“Having enough is not the problem,” Dante replied. “It would require nothing less than a full-scale military assault to take the place, and the girl could die in the middle of that. We would be moving out of the world of criminal justice and into the world of politics, where anything could happen. Who knows who Casselli has bought?”

“We’re just going to have to find another way,” Stone said.

45

Hedy was returned to her little room and locked in. But in the past minutes—the first time she had been let out of her prison—she had learned a few things. They were on the Amalfi Coast, she had been right about that. Now she had to start finding a way out of this room and then out of the house.

She found a wire coat hanger in her closet and began trying to shape part of it into a lock pick. She didn’t know much about picking locks, but this one was large and old-fashioned and used a large key. She worked on it until di

Lasagna this time; she ate it greedily, pouring the wine down the toilet, as usual. Maybe picking the lock had not been such a good idea. The woman who brought the food was a little smaller than she; maybe she could be overcome. She knew where the key was—in her apron pocket. She looked around for a weapon, should she need it. Nothing, only a rickety caned chair, very old. Nothing to tie the woman up with, either, and she would have to be gagged, too, and there was nothing for that, unless she started tearing up the sheets. She tried it, but without a cutting tool, she couldn’t make it work.

She thought of bribing the woman, but she didn’t have any money to show her, and she was unlikely to accept a promise of funds later. She would also be afraid of her employer.

Hedy went back to working on the coat hanger.

—

A couple of hours later, she began experimenting with the pick she had made. She had bent one end to a right angle by clamping it in a drawer and bending the long end. Then she made another, larger right angle at the other end to use as turning leverage. The whole thing was, maybe, four inches long. She was surprised once, when she heard the key scrape in the lock and barely had time to duck into the bathroom and flush the toilet before the woman came in and took her tray. When Hedy came out she was alone again and went back to work on the key. Finally, she got it placed inside the lock and thought she had found a sweet spot. Using both hands, she turned the other, larger end and felt something inside move. A moment later the door was unlocked.

She cracked it open and listened. There was conversation in Italian from the kitchen between two women, who from the sound of their activity were cleaning up. She closed the door softly. She would wait until later, when the house was asleep.