They did, and they stayed silent, too, as she showed them, by flicking through Hitchcock’s eerie masterpiece, places they now knew — the Palace of Fine Arts, the waterfront at Crissy Field leading to Fort Point, beneath the great bridge, and so many of the narrow downtown alleys through which they’d wandered in delight, jet-lagged, when they’d arrived and had a little time for rubbernecking.
“In short,” Falcone summed up, “this movie covers many of the locations we’ve seen, and a few that appear to have connections to Roberto Tonti, or his cast, his crew, and his movie.”
“That and the rest,” Teresa went on. She announced, “Tonti worked on Vertigo.”
She watched their faces. They didn’t seem surprised, or interested.
“He was a second cameraman! In America illegally, trying to pick up experience. It’s in his biography. Tonti didn’t know a thing about directing until he came and saw Hitchcock at work here, in San Francisco, in the autumn of 1957. If you look at the movies that made him famous in the seventies, the influence is obvious. Vertigo made Roberto Tonti. This city left its mark on him.”
The pair of them folded their arms, an identical indication of boredom that would have made HankenFrank proud.
“Also,” she added desperately, “he came back and got married when his career in Italy began to hit a brick wall.”
Falcone’s tan face creased in a scowl. “It didn’t work, did it? What’s the man done for two decades? How’s he managed to live?”
That question had also occurred to her.
“It’s all listed on the Internet. Directing commercials. Developing TV programs. Jobbing work. Lecturing. Writing. Consulting. There are always crumbs to be picked up if you once had a name.”
“And then,” Peroni ventured, “he bounces back from the dead and picks up one of the biggest jobs around. One hundred and fifty million dollars and rising. How does that happen? Why didn’t they give it to Spielberg or someone?”
“Because,” Falcone suggested, “of the risk. It’s a movie based on an obscure literary masterpiece everyone’s heard of and no one’s read. That’s why the mobsters who put up the money are getting worried.”
She wriggled on the comfy sofa. It had to come out, however much she hated the idea. But the revelation she was about to make obscured her principal point.
“You’re very quiet all of a sudden,” Falcone noted.
“Don’t get fooled by the obvious,” she warned them. “I got the office to do some discreet checking. No footprints back to us. That I promise.”
Falcone cleared his throat and gave her a filthy look.
She pulled out the sheets she’d printed on the little ink-jet that came with the apartment. Her assistant, Silvio Di Capua, had risked no small degree of internal conflict by calling in some favours from the anti-Mafia people in the DIA and asking them to run a few names through their system. Somehow what he’d found came as no surprise to her. Still, it didn’t mean it was relevant.
“Tonti got married thirty-two years ago, here. His wife was Eleanor Sardi. Born and bred in San Francisco. Daughter of the Mafia capo for northern California at the time. There have been a few … corporate takeovers since then. But Roberto Tonti knows the mob. Probably better than he knows Dante. The dark suits run in the family.”
“Family. So that’s how Bonetti raked in the emergency financing when he needed it,” Falcone declared, suddenly animated.
Peroni looked puzzled. “Why wouldn’t Tonti get the money himself?”
“Because he’s a director,” Teresa pointed out. “Money’s beneath him. Supposedly. Producers find money. Directors direct.”
“Where’s this wife now?” Falcone demanded.
“It hasn’t made the newspapers for some reason, but they separated nine months ago, not long after Inferno got a lot of bad publicity saying it was in trouble over financing. She’s living in Sardinia. In a very well-guarded villa on the Costa Smeralda. Doesn’t go out much. Her father died years ago. His clan’s now part of some Sicilian conglomerate.”
She saw that familiar glint in Falcone’s sharp eyes.
“The wife’s hostage for the mob money that went in to rescue the movie,” the inspector surmised. “Either Tonti comes up with the goods, or she pays the price. That gives him a great motive for making sure Inferno grabs all the publicity — good or bad — he can find.”
“You could say that about Dino Bonetti,” Peroni pointed out. “If he tapped Tonti’s mob relatives for money. Also, remember Emilio Neri’s lovely widow said he was the one mixing with the crooks at Prime’s place. Not Tonti.”
“You could say that about Simon Harvey, too,” Teresa added.
“He’s just the publicist!” Falcone cried.
She picked out another piece of paper that Silvio had found. “Harvey’s a substantial investor in Inferno. He took a profit share instead of a full fee. It’s all in Variety. And he’s a scholar, of both literature and the cinema. Someone who’s familiar with Dante and Hitchcock. Don’t forget those two odd little geeks, Josh Jonah and Tom Black, either. They’ve put in a stash of money too, which, contrary to popular opinion, they can’t afford. There are lawyers hovering around Lukatmi trying to screw them for breach of copyright, inciting racial hatred, suicide … you name it. And where exactly do they come from? Just over the road. A two-minute walk from Roberto Tonti’s mansion. If you want to go down that path …”
“I still don’t like the way the video of Prime got onto that site,” Peroni complained. “It’s all very well for Gerald Kelly to claim there’s a geek on every corner here. It can’t be that easy. Also, think of the publicity. The publicity they’re all getting. Every last one of them, even Maggie Flavier. It has to be worth millions. They could all be in it together.”
Falcone looked cross. “Oh, for pity’s sake. You’re starting to sound like Gianluca Quattrocchi, both of you. There may well be an attempt to make everything that’s happening appear complex. That doesn’t mean it is. Two men are dead, a fortune hangs in the balance, and everything depends on Roberto Tonti’s movie being a success, which it might not be on its own merits. The more we lose sight of those basic facts, the further we are from some resolution.”
“It’s not our case, though, is it?” she reminded him. “You didn’t even know this stuff about Tonti and his marital background, Leo. Don’t play games. You’re desperate. Best admit it.”
To her astonishment he allowed himself a brief, childlike grin.
“Touché,” the inspector murmured. “But … I hear things.”
“From Catherine?” she asked outright.
“Possibly.”
“Is telling you stuff her way of diverting the conversation from all these pathetic invitations to dinner?”
“I have no idea what you mean,” Falcone complained.
“Dammit, Leo. I’m not giving dating lessons here, too. I told you before. This is California. Not some middle-aged playboy’s cocktail shack on the Via Veneto.”
“I know for a fact that we are no more and no less in the dark than Quattrocchi and Gerald Kelly,” Falcone insisted, trying to steer the conversation somewhere else. “It’s a level playing field.”
“Not exactly,” Peroni snapped. “They’ve got weapons.”
That had been a source of discontent from the outset. The rules of their security assignment precluded their carrying guns. Costa liked that idea. Peroni wasn’t so sure. Falcone was of much the same opinion.
“Does anyone want to hear about this movie I found?” Teresa cried, before the gun debate could start again.
“A summary in no more than three sentences,” Falcone ordered.