The Medici Dagger

col suo nome. Io sono con un ragazzo chiamato Reb.”

I got the“Listen, you idiot”and“Reb”parts.

Ginny covered the mouthpiece and whispered to me, “I told him about the card.”

“Reb?” I heard the man on the phone say.

“Si,”she said into the phone. “Reb.”

“Hollywood Reb?”

“Si.”

“Well, put the fucker on, for chrissakes.”

Ginny raised her eyebrows, passed me the phone.

Everybody loves Hollywood.“Dracco?” I said.

“The same.”

“Why did you hang up on me?”

“Policy.”

“Uh-huh. Listen, a guy shot somebody on my behalf and then gave your card to my friend before taking off.”

“Shot a guy, gave the girl a card. I see,” he said flippantly. “How ’bout that.”

“Yeah. Then I say Archie Ferris and you hang up on me twice.”

“I’ve seen all your movies, Hollywood Reb.”

“Ar-chie Fer-ris,” I repeated slowly.

“You say those words like you wanna win something.”

“I’m hanging up,” I told him.

“Okay by me.”

“Come on, Dracco. Give me something.”

After a pause he said, “All right. Somebody knows me thinks you got cash and a reason to leave the country without a trace. Don’t bother asking me who.”

“So you’re in the travel business?”

“I got a Gulfstream Five and a forty-thousand-dollar opening in my schedule right now,” Dracco said. “Anywhere you wanna go. It doesn’t say so on my card, but it’s implied.”

“I see,” I replied, looking at Ginny. “Anywhere.”

“Pretty much, yeah,” he said.

His offer sounded good to me. “Can I call you back in a couple of minutes?”

“Why not.”

We rang off.

“Did you hear all that?” I asked Ginny.

“What do you think? Is this a setup?”

We both whipped around at the sound of footsteps behind us. An old man wearing a dirty apron emptied his trash and disappeared into his store.

I looked into Ginny’s eyes.

“I think these things: The two men at the bus must have been Tecci’s. Somehow they picked us up; I have no idea how. The man who saved us and gave you the card must have been sent by Archie. We’re in danger here and we no longer have any weapons, but unless someone’s broken into the hotel vault, we still have Leonardo’s two pages, which you need to finish translating. And, I believe we’re the only ones with the Circles of Truth.”

“Right. Well, whatever the rest of Leonardo’s writing says, I don’t have the first clue about the Circles themselves. They just look like elaborate graphic designs to me. I mean it would take a—”

“Whoa!” I said, a strange feeling washing over me. Thoughts snapped like thumbnails on wooden match heads.Mona Kinsky!Last night at the hotel with Ginny, something had sparked a memory when we’d talked about searching for a pattern in the Circles of Truth, but I hadn’t been able to identify it then. Now I did. Patterns, graphic designs.Mona Kinsky! Of course!

“What you just said,” I told Ginny excitedly. “Graphic design . . . the Circles of Truth are a graphic design. What we need is a computer graphics expert.”

“It’s got to be someone we can trust.”

“It is.”

“Who?”

“Mona Kinsky.” I fished a coin out of my pocket. “This is so weird . . . Mona . . . dear old Mona.”

“Dear—old—Mona?” Ginny asked, incredulous.

“I’m calling Dracco back. I’m booking him.”