He didn’t ask her why she wanted the car seen, or how long he should be gone. He knew there’d be a timeline in there somewhere. Celeste would have taken care of even the minutest detail within that timeline and if he deviated, there’d be hell to pay.
He controlled his urge to inhale deeply and stood to take the file from her. He held his hand out and she slid the file across her desk.
“I’ll have Andy taken care of while you’re down in Louisiana, so make sure people notice you when you’re there. Go out every day, interact in the community, but not too much.” She paused to pin him to the floor with her eyes. “Don’t bring the cops on you down there.”
“Yes, Aunt.” He inclined his head, mainly so he wouldn’t have to look at her lined face or the bright-red lipstick she still insisted on wearing. He repeated the mantra from his youth, the one that always kept him in check. “Just obey, just obey, just obey.” That was all he had to do. Just obey.
“There was debt that your uncle was owed before he died. One that he wasn’t able to collect because, well, he died.” She rolled her eyes like it was the long-dead Nick’s fault for dying. “I want that debt collected before I go anywhere. She’s owed it to me for almost 27 years now. It’s time she paid up.”
This was some debt then. Matteo suspected he knew who it was, he’d heard whispers over the years, and had once spent an evening reading old newspaper articles and wiki pages about his uncle’s death. He’d died with a movie starlet in his car, a movie starlet that was pregnant at the time. She’d disappeared into obscurity, never to be heard from again, but Matteo knew that Celeste hadn’t forgotten.
She’d been humiliated over the circumstances of Nick’s death, that he’d been out all night with the starlet and then had the gall to die in the car she was in. He couldn’t even live long enough to die alone in the ambulance or the hospital. Oh no, he’d died with that starlet’s arms around him. Not that Celeste would have been anywhere near Nick’s no doubt bloodied body, Mateo had mused. She wouldn’t defile herself like that.
And now she’d decided it was time for payback. Matteo took the manila folder and left the study without another word. There didn’t need to be, Celeste would take anything he had to say now as questioning, and Celeste was not to be questioned. If he had a question, he had to find the answer himself.
He drove back home in his dark blue Maserati Ghibli S G4 GranSport, a gift from his aunt when he graduated from NYU with a business degree. An old car now but he still loved and maintained it to the highest standards, his own. He thought as he drove carefully, skillfully, along the congested roads that would take him back to his apartment on the outskirts of the city.
He glanced at the file when he stopped for a red light but didn’t pick it up. He would wait and think for now. She’d taught him that, to think carefully before he took action. He’d have to put quite a few things on hold here to take care of business down there, but it didn’t matter. There’d be someone to deal with those matters, his aunt would make sure of it.
He pulled into the parking garage of his building and parked on the top floor. This was the floor that held the elevator for his part of the building, the very top. He used a keycard to get into the elevator and then into the sole penthouse apartment. His view allowed him to see the tallest buildings in the city that he liked to look at but didn’t necessarily like to be in. His keys went on the hook beside the door and his shoes, loafers of the finest Italian leather, came off and went into a small nearby closet.
The press of a button turned on the sound system and Sting began to croon about fields and desert beauties. He went into his dark living room, turned on a lamp made from some kind of salt the designer told him about, and sat on the leather sectional sofa. With his back against the couch arm, he opened the file and began to read.
The first few pages were old magazine pages, interviews