Jeff Carson - Foreign Deceit

His eyelids drooped lazily as he pointed to the far wall. “The toilet is over there.”

Wolf stood still, returning his unblinking glare to Cezar.

Cezar held up his arms in a defensive gesture, a vaudeville look of fear twisting his face, then laughed through his bean-toothed smile.

Wolf opened the car door. “He knows something.”

“That guy is creepy.”

“Yeah, that too.”

Lia’s phone trilled loudly, and she talked for a minute.

“Valerio is going to meet us at the station with the police report. Let’s go pick up your brother’s computer and head down there.”

Wolf followed Lia into the Caribinieri station. She darted up the stairs to the left without a glance to the chaos below, which Wolf saw had escalated to biblical status.

Upstairs was light and smelled refreshing after the mid day rains. The lake in the distance was white capped once again, more aquatic boarders riding the winds back and forth across the vast expanse. He shook his head looking back at the stairway, like it was a wormhole into another universe..

The room bustled with activity, officers on phones, paperwork being shuffled from desk to desk, paperwork that wasn’t anchored down blowing off of desks. Colonnello Marino’s room to the right was closed, a booming voice rumbling from within. Detective Rossi stood up from behind a desk off to the left and greeted them with a nod of his head and wave over.

“How are things coming along, David?” Rossi folded his arms and furrowed his brow.

“There have been some developments for sure.” He looked to Lia, who sat comfortably on the edge of Rossi’s desk. “We found that the belt around my brother’s neck was not his own belt.”

“What do you mean?”

Wolf explained the length of the belt and how it couldn’t have been stretched.

“About your brother, I am working on getting all this paperwork done to release him and his belongings as fast as possible. And did you find this friend he was out with the night before?”

“No, we just went to his place of work and his apartment, and no luck at either place. It looks like he’s been missing for the same amount of time as my brother. Or, at least he hasn’t shown up for work all week.”

“Interesting again.” Rossi raised an eyebrow. He waved them to the chairs in front of his desk and sat back down. Wolf sat gratefully and stole another glance out to the shimmering water behind Rossi. His desk was amongst many others in a vast main room, a mid 1990s looking computer perched on his desk.

Rossi pushed a manila folder over to Wolf. “Here is a copy of the police report. If you would please not let Marino know that I gave you that, it would be much appreciated.”

“All right.” Wolf took the folder and put it on his lap. He looked around the room, noticing the piles of paper on each desk. It seemed mountainous compared to what he was used to. Every single person at a desk was dealing with paperwork, or holding a piece of paperwork while on the phone, or handing a stack of paperwork to someone else.

Rossi seemed to sense his curiosity. “What?”

“Oh, I was just noting the vast amounts of paperwork on everyone’s desk. I thought we had it bad in Colorado.”

Rossi and Lia laughed. “Really? This is a lot of paperwork?”

Wolf nodded. “Yes. This is a lot of paperwork.”

They laughed like school children at the observation, Rossi slapping his hand on the desk. “Paperwork is in the DNA of all Italians. We are born with paperwork in our hands.”

Rossi leaned forward and furrowed his brow, as if remembering the sober reality of Wolf’s visit, “David, all that paperwork is the reason it can take a lot of time. But I’ve been keeping on top of your brother’s release papers. They are sitting on Marino’s desk now for final approval. In the meantime, I see you have your brother’s computer?”

“Yep.” Wolf nodded. “I can’t get into it. I was hoping to get your guy to help me.”

“Good, give it to Paulo. He will be able to help you. If he can help me with this pig,” he slapped the side of his dirty cream-colored desk top monitor, “then he can help you with a brand new computer like that!”

“I hope,” Wolf said.

“ Porco miseria. ” Lia plucked a slip of paper off her desk. “I have to go see Colonnello Marino. Let me get you started with Paulo.”

“Ciao!” Paulo stood peaking over the two giant monitors on his desk.

Wolf estimated his age at about fifteen years old, but then again he wasn’t good at estimating ages past twelve years old, Jack’s current age.

Paulo was dressed in plain clothes, wearing a black t-shirt that had two 1950s style American hot rods smashing into each other. His jeans were faded, baggy in the mid section and skin tight in the legs, a popular look Wolf had noticed propagating with the youth of today’s Italy. He wore thick red plastic framed glasses and had a faux-hawk hair-do. Silver rings on three fingers and a bright red plastic watch adorned his arm extended to shake Wolf’s hand. It was a firm hand shake with solid eye contact.

“Piachere.”

“Hello. Uh, do you speak English?” Wolf asked.

“Yes, yes! I am a, not very good,” he said in an impressive American accent. “But, I learned in University.”

“Great,” Wolf wondered if college for Paulo was done pre or post puberty.

“Well, what’s up?” Paulo pointed at the computer bag slung on his shoulder.

“I would like to get into this computer, but I don’t have my brother’s password.” Wolf wore a pained expression as he pulled out the thin Macintosh laptop.

“Pfffffffft, okay.”

“Do you think you can do it?”

“Yes, no problem.”

Lia looked satisfied. “Paulo can do anything with computers, and programming, and the internet, and, all things that confuse the rest of us.”

Paulo was blushing ferociously but tilting his head back proudly. He opened the computer and pushed a few buttons simultaneously, his attention unwavering from Lia.

“He’ll take care of you,” she said slapping his back. “I have to go talk to Marino, I will be back, hopefully soon.”

Wolf looked around. “Okay, sounds good. I’ll be here.”

Lia walked away back across the room and down the hall. Wolf caught himself staring and turned quickly to what was happening with Paulo, who was now standing at his desk staring intently at Lia leaving the room.

“Mmmmmadonna.” Paulo breathed the words, turning to Wolf with a conspiratorial look. “She is beautiful, eh?”

“Yes, she is,” Wolf agreed with a resigned smile. “Okay, what’s happening?”

“Oh, yes, you can pull up that chair there. I am going to create another administrator account on the computer. It takes a few minutes. Then I can go in and access all the files.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

Wolf waited and watched Paulo work his magic with the computer. The computer screen looked to be displaying lines of code — a site Wolf was completely unfamiliar with. He felt proficient enough with a computer, but he was watching a master mechanic rip the hood off of a car and dig into the engine. A tweak here, a command there, and a few minutes later they were inside the computer with a normal view Wolf was more accustomed to.

“Okay, I’ve created a new admin account, and changed the password to your brother’s account, allowing me to log in as him. I’m going to fire up a few of his programs. Otherwise, what would you like to do?”

“I’d like to look at his documents, I guess.”

Paulo worked for a few minutes, opening windows and programs. “Well, wait a minute, this is interesting.” Paulo was looking in the Skype program.