“Tell him there’s still time. No hard feelings. Just in case you remember.”
Falconi raised his glass. “Stay out of trouble.”
“I’ll try.” Simon went back to minding his own business. Falconi disappeared into the back office. Simon had a good idea what he was up to. It looked like Nikki Perez was right about this being Coluzzi’s hangout.
Chapter 30
Tino Coluzzi was asleep when the phone rang. He sat up and checked the number before answering.
“Yeah, Luca,” he said. “What is it?”
“Something’s up. A guy’s in here asking about you.”
“A cop?”
“It’s not about Sunday. All the boys are keeping their mouths shut.”
“Then why are you bothering me?”
“The guy’s one of us.”
“La Brise?”
“Yeah.”
Coluzzi rubbed his eyes, still half-asleep. “Recognize him?”
“Never seen him before, but he says he knows you.”
“Who is he, then?”
“Ledoux.”
The name rocked him like a swift kick in the nuts. “Say again.”
“Ledoux. Says he’d heard you liked to hang out here. And he wanted to give you a message.”
“What’s that?”
“He thinks that you might have something he wants. Something you found by accident but that you need to give back. You know what he’s talking about?”
Coluzzi was fully awake now and on edge. Still, he needed time to put everything together. He rose and stalked through the small, low-ceilinged house, throwing open the doors to the terrace and stepping outside.
He called the place Le Coual, and it was situated far off the beaten path on a promontory overlooking the sea twenty kilometers outside Marseille. He’d built the place himself over the course of two summers not long after he’d gotten out of prison. He’d learned at a young age that he needed a place to lay up from time to time. A place where no one could find him, friend or foe. The line between the two could be razor thin, and subject to change without notice.
“You there?” asked Falconi.
“Yeah, I’m here.” Coluzzi put a foot on the retaining wall and breathed in the sea air. A thousand feet below him the ocean crashed against the rocky shoreline. “I got no idea what he means. I don’t have anything that belongs to him.”
“He said there’s still time. No hard feelings. Mean anything to you?”
“Nah. Nothing.”
“You think he’s talking about the other day?”
“Of course not. Anyway, it’s impossible. It can’t be Ledoux.”
“You sure? He said you two did some work together a while back.”
