Falco: The Dark Guardian

Something hot and dangerous rolled through Falco’s belly.

“Well? Do you recognize her?”

He looked up. Cesare’s eyes locked on his. Falco tossed the photo on the desk.

“I told you I didn’t. Okay? Are we done here?”

“Her name is Elle. Elle Bissette. She was a model. Now she is an actress.”

“Good for her.”

Cesare took something else from the folder. Another ad? He held it toward Falco, but Falco didn’t move.

“What is this? You expect me to spend the next hour playing Name the Celebrity?”

“Per favore, Falco. I ask you, please. Look at the photo.”

Falco’s eyebrows rose. Please? In Italian and in English. He had never heard his father use those words or anything close to them. What the hell, he thought, and reached for the photo.

Bile rose in his throat.

It was the same ad but someone had used a red pen to X out her eyes. To trace a crude line of stitches across her lips.

To draw a heavy line across her throat and dab red dots from her throat to her breasts. To circle her breasts in the same bright, vicious crimson.

“Miss Bissette received it in the mail.”

“What did the cops say?”

“Nothing. She refuses to contact them.”

“She’s a fool,” Falco said bluntly, “if she won’t go to the authorities.”

“The parents of the Turkish boy went to you, not the authorities. They feared seeking official help.”

“This is America.”

“Fear is fear, Falco, no matter where one lives. She is afraid or perhaps she does not trust the police. Whatever the reason, she refuses to contact them.” Cesare paused. “Miss Bissette is making a film in Hollywood. The producer is, shall we say, an old friend.”

“Ah. I get it now. Your pal’s worried about his investment.”

“It concerns him, yes. And he needs my help.”

“Send him some of your blood money.”

“Not my financial help. He needs my help to safeguard Miss Bissette.”

“I’m sure your goons will love L.A.”

Cesare chuckled. “Can you see my men in Beverly Hills?”

Falco almost laughed. He had to admit, the idea was amusing—and, suddenly, it all came together. The talk of what had happened in Turkey, this conversation about Elle Bissette…

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Falco nodded. “I know some guys who do bodyguard work for celebrities. I’ll call around, put you in touch—”

“I am already in touch,” Cesare said gently. “With you.”

“Me?” This time, Falco did laugh. “I’m an investor, Father, not a bodyguard.”

“You did not say that to the people you helped in Turkey.”

“That was different. They turned to me and I did what I had to do.”

“As I am turning to you, mio figlio, and asking that you do what must be done.”

Falco’s face hardened. “You want some names and phone numbers, fine. Otherwise, I’m out of here.”

Cesare didn’t answer. Falco snorted, turned on his heel, headed for the door again, changed his mind and decided to exit through the French doors hidden by the heavy drapes. The mood he was in, the last thing he wanted was to risk running in to his mother or his sisters.

“Wait.” His father hurried after him. “Take the folder. Everything you need is in it.”

Falco grabbed the folder. It was easier than arguing.

By the time he’d taxied to his mid-sixties town house, he’d come up with the names of four men who could do this job and do it well. Once home, he poured a brandy, took the folder and his cell phone and headed outside to his walled garden. It was close to sunset; the air was chill but he liked it out here, with the noise of Manhattan shut away.

There was nothing of much use in the folder. Stuff about the movie; a letter from the producer to Cesare.

And the pictures. The one with her in lace. The markedup duplicate. And another that his father had not shown him, a photo of Bissette standing on a beach, looking over her shoulder at the camera. No lace. No stiletto heels. She was dressed in a T-shirt and shorts.

Falco put the three pictures on the top of a glass table and looked from one to the other.

The one of her sexy and mysterious was a turn-on if you liked that kind of thing. He didn’t. Yeah, he liked crimson and lace and stiletto heels well enough; was there a man who didn’t? But the pose was blatantly phony. The smile was false. The woman looking at the camera had no substance. She might have been looking at a million guys instead of him.

The mutilated picture made his gut knot. It was an outright threat, crude but effective.

The third photo was the one that caught him. It was unselfconscious. Unposed. A simple shot of a beautiful woman walking on a beach, needing no artifice to make her look beautiful.

But there was more to it than that.

She’d sensed someone was watching her. He’d been the watcher often enough in what he thought of as his former life to know how subjects looked when they suspected the unwelcome presence of an observer. He could see it in her eyes. In the angle of her jaw. In the way she held her hair back from her face. Wariness. Fear. Distress.

And more.

Determination. Defiance. An attitude that, despite everything, said, Hey, pal, don’t screw with me.