“These people?” Peroni interrupted. “I know you think the man shot dead in the park was one of them. What makes you think there were ever more than two, one of them dead?”
“Because I am assuming we’re dealing with normal human beings,” Quattrocchi said with a sigh. “Not Superman. Now will you kindly sit and listen without interrupting?”
Peroni shrugged and caught Falcone’s eye. Catherine Bianchi scratched her ear and smiled down at the table.
“These people,” Whitcombe emphasised, “clearly know and appreciate the subject matter. They understand this is a cycle, with form, direction, and purpose. I must assure you my opinion is this: they will regard their work as only begun, not even half finished. There are nine circles of Hell, and their notes indicate only two have passed.…”
Falcone raised a finger. “I’m sorry. This is my first and last question. Why would anyone kill another human being over a movie, even some so-called blockbuster that half the world seems to be panting to see? What does it matter?”
Quattrocchi began swearing again. The academic bristled, then adjusted his glasses.
“No, no, please,” Whitcombe continued. “Let me handle this.” He fixed Falcone with a glare, one Peroni found more daunting than he might have expected. “If I were the killing kind, Ispettore, I would murder over this. With as much brutality as I could muster. It’s blasphemy.”
“Not according to any dictionary I know,” Peroni objected. “If Roberto Tonti is insulting anything — and he’s adamant he’s not — it’s some ancient piece of poetry. Not the Church.”
“For anyone who admires Dante,” Whitcombe emphasised, “this is blasphemy. I sat through that drivel a week ago. They flew a group of experts to London hoping we would gild their vile nonsense with praise.” His small fist thumped the table. “Not a man or woman among us would say anything but the truth. It’s rubbish. Like defacing the Sistine Chapel.” He turned and glanced at Kelly and his men. “Or painting the Golden Gate Bridge black.”
“Neither of which is worth killing for either,” Peroni observed mildly.
Catherine Bianchi’s light fingers caught his arm, and he found himself looking into her bright, attractive face.
“Remember what I said, Gianni. This is America. A Bud and a hot dog. Sometimes that’s all it takes.”
“Let’s get to the point,” Kelly cut in brusquely. “This is all we have. If it’s not some lunatics offended by what’s up there on the screen, what else could it be?”
Falcone frowned at Peroni, who was about to open his mouth.
“In the absence of any better suggestions,” Kelly continued, “we’ve got to run with what we have, and for the life of me this does sound convincing. I watched that movie. The thing’s creepy and obsessive. Just the kind of crap that can push the buttons of any number of screwballs out there.”
“Someone hijacked that computer system,” Falcone suggested. “Someone made Allan Prime’s death an international event. That’s evidence, isn’t it? Not poetry.”
One of Kelly’s men leaned forward and said, “It’s evidence that confirms there’s probably a link in this geographical area, sir. Nothing more. They didn’t hijack Lukatmi, by the way. They simply hacked into the DNS servers so that particular stream got pointed to some place they were hosting it in Russia, not that we’ll ever discover much from them.”
Peroni felt his head start to thrum. “How many people could pull off that kind of trick?” he asked. “Surely it’s got to be someone from the company? Or someone Lukatmi fired?”
The men from Bryant Street looked at one another as if these were the most idiotic questions they’d ever heard.
“This is San Francisco,” Gerald Kelly said with a shrug of his big shoulders. He looked a little apologetic. “Ninety percent of the world’s geek population lives between here and San Jose. These people don’t breed or have girlfriends. Their principal romantic relationship is with their iPhone. They barely eat or talk. They spend their time frigging around with their little laptops, earning a living one moment and destroying someone else’s the next. Any big-name start-up like Lukatmi gets hackers going for its throat the moment someone picks up the Wall Street Journal and reads they’ve got seed capital. It’s part of the game.” He stared hard at Peroni to make his point. “We can give you more detail later if you want it.”
“No clarification needed.” Gianluca Quattrocchi was intent on reclaiming the conversation. “This is none of their concern. We are naturally investigating employees and ex-employees in both Lukatmi and Tonti’s own production company. That’s all you need to know. That’s more than you need to know.”
“Maybe,” Kelly agreed. “But understand this. Any one of a million pathetic nerds out there could have hacked into that system. Whoever it was could have done it on their laptop sitting in a Starbucks downtown sipping their double-foam latte while that poor bastard was breathing his last in Rome. This stuff is global.”
One of the younger American officers jumped in. “We have experts in the FBI trawling the web spoor.”
“The what?” Peroni asked.
“Any traces they’ve left in their wake on the Net,” the officer explained. “We’ve gotten officers down at Bryant Street working this. There are other agencies involved, too, in the U.S. and in Rome …”
“Enough,” Quattrocchi barked.
Falcone stifled a laugh and glanced briefly at the ceiling.
“How many officers do you have knocking on doors, staring in people’s faces, and seeing if they look guilty?” Peroni asked.
The Carabinieri glanced at their watches. Gerald Kelly wriggled in his seat.
“Listen,” the SFPD captain responded, “we all came up that way. Those of us over the age of thirty-five. Go head-to-head, yell at people, watch what happens. Let me tell you guys. First, even if we did have a face to yell at, those days are over. In this town there’d be a lawyer in the way before you got to the second sentence. Or the civil rights people if their name’s unpronounceable. Those days are past. Intelligence, analysts, profiling …” He patted Whitcombe’s arm. “Expert insight based upon years of knowledge … welcome to the future.”
Peroni nodded and leaned forward. “And when you find them, will you have anyone left who still knows how to bring them in?”
“You just watch,” Kelly replied with no small amount of menace. “We called this meeting to tell you the direction this investigation is heading. If those of you working the exhibition team see any suspicious individuals or come across any possible evidence, however small, we expect to hear of it, immediately. Your job is to keep those museum exhibits all together in one place. I suggest this time you get it right. It shouldn’t be too hard, should it?” He pointed at Falcone. “And stop that young cop of yours from hanging around with Maggie Flavier. She’s under our protection. Not yours.”
“Miss Flavier goes where she wishes,” Falcone answered mildly. “You know that as well as we do. Speak to her. Put her in protective custody if you like. The media will love that.”
“Falcone …” the Carabinieri officer warned.
“What?”
“Do not get in our way. One more question. Then we go.”
“I doubt our paths will cross much, Maresciallo. I will be happy to comply with your wishes.”
“And the question?” the man in the smart uniform added.
Falcone screwed up his face. “You haven’t found anywhere that sells decent coffee, have you? The stuff we have in our house is simply disgusting.”
“Good day,” Quattrocchi snorted, and stood up.