“Beautiful,” Perry Breslauer said. “I love it.”
It’s like having a gold mine, Rizzoli thought. Once Korontzis goes along with this, he’s hooked. There’s no way he can ever back out. I’m going to make him clean out the whole goddamned museum.
Marvin Seymour asked, “How are you going to get the stuff out of the country?”
“I’ll find a way,” Tony Rizzoli said. “I’ll find a way.”
He had to. And fast. Alfredo Mancuso and Gino La-veri were waiting.
Chapter Thirteen
At police headquarters on Stadiou Street, an emergency meeting had been called. In the conference room were chief of police Dmitri, Inspector Tinou, Inspector Nicolino, Walt Kelly, the U.S. Treasury agent, and half a dozen detectives. The atmosphere was far different than it had been at the previous meeting.
Inspector Nicolino was saying, “We now have reason to believe your information was correct, Mr. Kelly. Our sources tell us that Tony Rizzoli is trying to find a way to smuggle a very large shipment of heroin out of Athens. We have already begun a search of possible warehouses where he might have stored it.”
“Did you put a tail on Rizzoli?”
“We increased the number of men this morning,” Chief Dmitri said.
Walt Kelly sighed. “I hope to God it isn’t too late.”
Inspector Nicolino assigned two teams of detectives to handle the surveillance on Tony Rizzoli, but he underestimated his subject. By afternoon Rizzoli became aware that he had company. Whenever he left the little hotel he was staying at, he was followed, and when he returned, someone was always casually loitering in the background. They were real professionals. Rizzoli liked that. It was a sign of respect for him.
He now not only had to find a way to get the heroin out of Athens, but he was going to have a priceless antiquity to smuggle out. Alfredo Mancuso and Gino La-veri are on my back, and the police are all over me like a wet blanket. I’ve got to make a contact fast. The only name that immediately came to mind was Ivo Bruggi, a small-time ship owner in Rome. Rizzoli had done business with Bruggi in the past. It was a long shot, but it was better than nothing.
Rizzoli was certain that the telephone in his hotel room was tapped. I’ve got to have a setup where I can receive calls at the hotel. He sat there thinking for a long time. Finally, he rose and walked over to the room across the hall and knocked at the door. It was opened by an elderly, sour-faced man.
“Yeah?”
Rizzoli turned on the charm. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m your neighbor across the hall. I wonder if I could come in and talk to you for a minute?”
The man studied him suspiciously. “Lemme see you open the door to your room.”
Tony Rizzoli smiled. “Certainly.” He stepped across the hall, took out his key, and opened the door.
The man nodded. “All right. Come in.”
Tony Rizzoli closed his door and went into the room across the hall.
“What do you want?”
“It’s really a personal problem, and I hate to trouble you, but…Well, the truth is, I’m in the middle of getting a divorce, and my wife is having me followed.” He shook his head in disgust. “She even had the phone in my room bugged.”
“Women!” his neighbor growled. “God damn them. I divorced my wife last year. I should’ve done it ten years ago.
“Really? Anyway, what I was wondering was if you would be good enough to let me give a couple of friends your room number so they can telephone me here. I promise you there won’t be many calls.”
The man started to shake his head. “I can’t be bother—”
Rizzoli pulled a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket. “This is for your trouble.”
The man licked his lips. “Oh. Well, sure,” he said. “I guess it’ll be all right. I’m glad to do a fellow sufferer a favor.”
“That’s certainly kind of you. Whenever there’s a call for me, just knock at my door. I’ll be here most of the time.”
“Right.”
Early the following morning, Rizzoli walked to a public pay station to telephone Ivo Bruggi. He dialed the operator and put in a call for Rome.