I saw the killer’s hands touching Mona’s transparencies—my work, Leonardo’s genius—leaving infernal imprints on everything, visible only to me through the infrared of my hatred.
“How did you find us?” I asked defiantly. “I got the Hollister House bit that you had my car phone, but how’d you get here?”
“Ma Bell. We checked out the main phone at the inn right after you had the party with the Germans. I told Krell we shouldn’t usethose boys, but he’s a patriot, you know. I guarantee he never had a Nathan’s hot dog in his entire life. Anyway, we misplaced you for a little while until the dear sweet cannoli here called with the A.F.B.B. business. That didn’t sound like a reservation to me. And, of course, as you might expect, I have a source who’s got the spread on you and everyone you ever met. So A. F., that was Archie Ferris in a heartbeat. And
B. B . . . well, not too difficult. Tell him, honey,” he said to Ginny, “how you got all the way down here from the North Coast.”
“Don’t call me honey,” she snapped.
Nolo smiled at me. “I do like her,” he said.
Kneeling down on the carpet, he placed his chin on Ginny’s shoulder.-She flinched.
“When I say do something,” he whispered in her ear, “you must do it. Now tell him.”
Ginny nervously licked her lips. “I took a cab,” she said softly.
Nolo stood up and laughed. “She took a cab! The girl took a four-hundred-mile taxi trip. I love that.” He stomped the floor.
Jocko came back to the doorway, as if on cue.
Nolo stopped laughing. “Get out,” he snarled. “I didn’t call you.”
The man withdrew.
Nolo waved the transparencies at me. “All right,” he said. “I repeat, Flame Boy. How do they go together?”
I let my face hang loosely, showing apparent ease while inside thoughts crashed into each other like bumper cars.
“I’m a stuntman, Nolo,” I said. “What do I know about this kind of thing? I was just trying to figure it out myself.”
“Well, that’s good, Flame Boy, that’s exceptionally good. Of course you don’t know what it means. How could you? But you, darling,” he said to Ginny. “You know what it means.”
“I’m an art historian,” she said. “The designs may have historical significance, but I have absolutely no idea of what.”
Nolo mimicked, “I have absolutely no idea of what. You’re quite a hot little condiment, aren’t you? Here’s what I think. Flame Boy wasplaying Dick Tracy and somehow he uncovered some sort of code that Leonardo da Vinci made up five million years ago.”
Nolo brushed the edge of one of the transparencies against his closely shaved chin. “I’m going to get a dollar for every one of those years, once Krell’s analysts crack the code. That’s where you come in, art girl. In case whatever the eggheads find out needs some artistic interpreting.” He caressed Ginny’s hair.
I futilely twisted my wrists against the twine.
“Relax, Flame Boy,” he said. “I’m just toying with her. We’ve got the two pages of da Vinci’s notes and all these nice circles on translucent paper. Herr Krell is going to be blissful.”
“By the way, where is Krell?” I asked. “I’d like to meet him, share the bliss with him.”
“In his jet.” Nolo shrugged.
“Well,” I said, “if Wiener’s at the airport, what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
“Wiener . . . You’re a card, a regular joker.”
My stare hardened, the molten pool of loathing solidifying in my gut.
“I’m the Ace of Spades, Tecci,” I uttered. “I always turn up.”
“Oooh,” he taunted, “I’m trembling like a twig in a twister. That’s not bad, twig in a twister. Do you think? Ah, I have the muse in me.”
“Hey, Nolo. How did you know we were taking the taxi to Torcello Island?”
“Ah, money talks, Ace. In fact it screams,” Tecci said with a malignant leer. “Now the question is, will you?”
Nolo set the clutter of transparencies down on the table, reached into his inside jacket pocket, and withdrew something that looked like a silver garage door opener with a little gooseneck attached to it. A surgeon’s laser.
“You won’t be turning up, Ace. You’ll be burning up. You and your pal,” he said, stroking the apparatus like a piece of velvet. “But first, I’ve got to sign off on you.”
I swallowed hard. The signature “N” in the nape.
“Not her,” I said, my eyes locked on Tecci’s.
“That’s very touching,” he smirked. “I really think he’s soft on you, sweetheart. One never knows. It’s conceivable I might even get stuck on you, myself. Ms. Gianelli comes with us. She’s not a roaster, she’s a coaster. A coast-to-coaster. For now.”
Tecci pulled a two-pronged electric device for zapping muggers from his pants pocket and casually zapped
