Chapter 42
CHAPTER 42
8:30 P.M.
C OTTON WALKED THE STREETS OF S IENA, THE WAY LIT BY LIGHTS AND lanterns. People were everywhere, the excitement evident. Camilla had told him that all across the city each contrada would be holding a celebratory dinner. Like the pep rallies he remembered from high school before each football game. A way for the contrada to gather and hear emotional speeches from their capitano and jockey, further building enthusiasm for the race tomorrow. Some of the contradas held their celebrations right in the streets of their neighborhood. He’d passed one where tables, some fifty-plus feet long, lined the cobblestones, following the street’s hilly contour up and down. Golden Oak gathered in the plaza before their church. He found the area loaded with people singing and cheering.
The sun was gone, the evening warm but pleasant. More long tables were here in rows, overflowing with bottles of Chianti, baskets of bread and plates waiting to be filled with pasta, meat, and vegetables. He caught the inviting waft from their stewing. Revelers filled nearly every seat, all Golden Oakers, born and bred. The atmosphere was exciting yet serious, with flags and banners hung everywhere and lots of chanting. Just after he arrived they all stood reverently and sang the contrada’s anthem. One huge family, all united behind one thought.
Win tomorrow.
But that was not what Camilla Baines had in mind.
“Just make sure the Porcupines lose. However you do that, I do not care.”
“And what about our entrance into Santa Maria di Castello?”
“You will not be disappointed.”
“You’ve already spoken with the monks?”
“Of course. You will have access.”
That he’d liked to hear.
Especially considering the risks he was taking.
At the head table, elevated above the others on a long dais, Camilla sat beside the current jockey, who was dressed in the black and gold livery colors for Golden Oak. The remaining chairs at the table were filled, he assumed, with contrada officials. Camilla was busy talking to the jockey, carrying on with the others, everything seemingly fine, no one aware that she would be firing the Sardinian tomorrow morning. The jockey himself seemed oblivious to the fact that his duplicity had been discovered.
All part of the Palio, though.
“ Mockery and irony are always present ,” Camilla said. “ The Palio mirrors life with all its ups and downs, lies and truths, good and bad. I do not fault our jockey for making his side deal. So he cannot fault me for reacting to it. ”
Camilla had explained that Palio rules allowed a contrada to change jockeys up till 10:30 A.M . tomorrow, when they had to finally declare a name. Once done there could be no further substitutions, even if the jockey was injured, became sick, or was unable to ride. If that happened the contrada simply forfeited their spot in the race.
He was not going to stay and eat. Instead he would find dinner at one of the many cafés across town. Camilla had provided him and Richter rooms for the night at her palazzo, a spacious residence far away from the campo.
Stephanie had texted him information on the dead woman from the train. She was a career criminal with a long arrest record. The dead man from the Dom in Cologne possessed a similar résumé. So they were hired help. Engaged most likely by the other man from the train, who’d ended his association with her through a bullet to the head.
Then there was the murdered Swiss Guardsman.
Another matter entirely.
He stood at the end of one of the many streets that drained into the crowded plaza, all of them closed to traffic, pedestrian-only tonight. He was about to leave when a face caught his attention. Across, on the far side, with a thousand-plus people in between chowing down.
Pale skin stretched across a bony face. Thinning hair. Smooth brow. Hollow, high-boned cheeks.
The killer from the train.
S TEFANO STOOD AMONG THE STREAM OF PEOPLE MOVING IN AND OUT of the Golden Oak dinner. He’d made his way here because of the man from the Palazzo Tempi. The men Daniele had loaned to him to watch the residence had reported that the stranger was on the move.
So he’d made his way over from La Soldano where he’d been eating his dinner, finding his target. He’d even managed to snap a few photographs. He needed an identification but could not risk going through the Entity, not with Ascolani’s connection to this individual. His boss would not appreciate his curiosity. If Ascolani had wanted him to know about the man, he would have told him. Whoever he was, he was clearly on a mission. It might be nothing. Something none of his business. But he’d been a field operative long enough to know when things felt off. Daniele had said that he had contrada contacts within the local carabinieri who might be able to provide an identification from a photo. Now he had several. Good ones too. So there’d be no harm in checking this out.
He watched as the man turned and dissolved back into the crowd beyond the dinner in the open plaza. Daniele’s two men would keep an eye on him.
His phone vibrated with a call.
From Daniele.
He answered and retreated back, settling close to the stone wall of a closed shop.
“Something is definitely happening within Golden Oak,” Daniele said. “Camilla Baines is going to change out jockeys for the American, Malone.”
“You do have a good intel network on her.”
“We have learned from experience not to take an eye off her.”
“That seems unusual. To change jockeys this late.”
“It is. And it presents us with a problem. We were counting on that jockey.”
He wondered if any of that had prompted his presence here. Ascolani had been stingy on the details, though heavy on the history lesson. So all he could do was roll with the punches and see where things led.
“Keep me posted.”
He ended the call and stepped back to the end of the street, where the plaza started. Okay, he knew what Malone was doing.
So where was Cardinal Richter?