Andrea de Lillo, also known as Loco Lillo - the crazy Lillo - met Elizabeth and Nikki on the bank below the Ponte Vecchio. The Ponte Vecchio, which meant old bridge, was the oldest bridge in Florence, rising on two massive pillars over the Arno, with several floors of apartments and stores on top, a whole street of houses crossing a river. An architectural masterpiece. Even in Etruscan times, there had been a crossing here on the river. The whole thing was elegant, even, and beautiful as if the bridge had not been built but had grown.

Above, they could hear the tourists, but no one was close to the embankment. You had to hold tight to avoid falling into the water on the slippery embankment.

Loco Lillo had a bald head, short gray hair on the sides, a bull neck, and bushy hair spilling out of his ears. He was stocky and muscular, with a thick layer of fat over his muscles. His face really did look as if, as Nick had said, something had gone very wrong with the chicken game. Loco Lillo was chewing incessantly, and Nikki wondered what he was chewing on.

"It's better to be feared --" Loco Lillo began.

"... than to be loved," Nikki finished the quote from Machiavelli. That was the identifying mark they had made out. Not everyone knew this saying, even if it was still valid today, centuries after Machiavelli.

Loco Lillo had volunteered when Europol and the French, British, and especially the Dutch police succeeded in striking the most significant blow against organized crime in the history of Europe. The officers not only arrested hundreds of gangsters but also confiscated cars, weapons, and especially drugs with a market value of one billion euros. The biggest surprise, however, was various overseas containers on a remote farmstead in the Netherlands. The containers were soundproofed. Some of them, equipped with chemical toilets, were to be used as prison cells, but another, even more, soundproofed and with handcuffs on the ceiling and floor, was planned as a torture chamber. In the middle of the container was an old dentist's chair where the victim's feet and hands could be shackled and which the criminals referred to as a 'treatment room'.

The gangsters intended to capture other gangsters and extort secrets from them through torture. Carpet knives, hammers, pliers, and hedge shears were ready. The gangsters had bought unique police uniforms and chains to make it easier for them to capture their victims by convincingly posing as cops. Fortunately, the case was blown before the gray container was operated. This was mainly because Europol had managed to crack the encrypted communication via EncroChat, a kind of WhatsApp for organized crime, and read the uninhibited communication of the underworld bigwigs, who felt highly safe there for years. Years earlier, the French gendarmerie had already managed to decode the first parts of EncroChat before the whole thing was financially supported by the EU and Europol.

Loco Lillo had become too hot to handle, so he switched sides just in time, not without ratting out a few underworld VIPs.

"Crazy place, isn't it?" asked Loco Lillo. That suits a madman like me. But nobody hears anyone here—except the fish." He chewed again and spat a stream of chewing tobacco into the river.

"Luca Brasi sleeps with the fish," Nikki said, "the godfather. You must know him too?"

"Sure, who doesn't know him?" Loco Lillo took a piece of chewing tobacco and chewed again.

"You have information about Carina, Visconti's missing daughter?" Elizabeth asked, gritting her teeth.

"You get to the point quickly," Lillo replied, "but I heard something at the time."

"And what did you hear?"

"The problem with organized crime is usually that it doesn't have too little money or cash, but too much. That's why money always has to be laundered and invested somewhere. Drug money lying around in plain sight is dangerous. That's why the Nacros invest in premium real estate in New York and disguise their cash reserves as loans from major banks. I was dealing with drug dealers from Afghanistan at the time. Opium poppies are processed into heroin in the poison kitchens there."

Nikki pressed her lips together and nodded slowly. "Chemical treatment of the morphine produces heroin, which has three to six times the analgesic effect of morphine."

Loco Lillo looked at her with a grin. "Were you once a drug dealer, too?"

"No, my aunt and my mother are doctors."

Loco Lillo whistled through his teeth. "Then you'd make a good drug dealer, too."

"What does drug dealing have to do with Carina Visconti?" Elizabeth asked, almost growling.

Loco Lillo looked at the lieutenant with a grin. "There's a lot of money in the Visconti family, too. Old Visconti has more than Donatella."

"And?"

"Money is like light. It attracts vermin." He spat another stream of brown chewing tobacco juice into the river.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. "What are you trying to say?"

"My God," Loco Lillo rolled his eyes and kept talking, "it's always about the fucking money."

Nikki narrowed her eyes and took a step towards him. "So it's about the Visconti's money?"

He nodded slowly. "Exactly."

Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. "But his wife Donatella will inherit that when he dies anyway."

"In part, yes. But she'll have to wait until he dies. A large part of it is in the Visconti Foundation, and she won't be able to access it easily. Others would also inherit half of his private fortune. And they'll die later than Donatella because they're much younger."

"Carina," Nikki said, looking at her mother. "His daughter? He told Ashlyn and me about it briefly and then immediately stopped."

Loco Lillo pulled the corners of his mouth down. "I'm not surprised. But yes, Carina, for example."

"And that's why Carina was kidnapped?" Elizabeth lowered her voice as a boat passed under the bridge.

"You think that was ordered by Donatella? The kidnapping," Nikki wanted to know. "By Donatella herself, actually? She kidnapped her own stepdaughter to get the money?"

Loco Lillo raised his shoulders. "Almost right. Of course, it wasn't Donatella herself who kidnapped her stepdaughter. But enough people are happy to help if they get a slice of the big cake. It wouldn't be the very first time something like this has happened. Then, this ransom money ending with Donatella must be laundered by investing it somewhere, for example, in many new buildings outside the Florence suburbs. Some lawyers are happy to help. You don't have to do that alone if you can spare some money."

Elizabeth furrowed her brows. "Lawyers like Luca Turelli, for example?"

Loco Lillo grinned broadly. "You already know your way around Florence very well for an American. Here in Florence, they call Turelli Il Mago."

Nikki drew her brows together. "The magician. Why?"

"Because, like a magician, he can make things disappear and conjure them up again, like a lot of money, for example. First gone, then back again. This is a very popular skill if you work for organized crime." Loco Lillo chewed on his tobacco. "What's with Turelli that you're interested in him?"

Elizabeth took a deep breath and licked her lips. "Nothing at all anymore."

Loco Lillo raised his eyebrows again. "What exactly do you mean? He's a goner?"

"Yeah, he's dead," Nikki growled, gritting her teeth. "He's been murdered."

"I'm not surprised." He spat out again. "Everyone gets it sometimes. And especially people like Turelli. That's why I got out early enough. Nice of you to tell me, though."

Nikki thought for a moment. "You mean Carina was kidnapped or eliminated to clear the line of succession for Donatella?"

Elizabeth looked at her daughter with her eyebrows furrowed, but they shot up the next second.

Loco Lillo smiled wryly and raised his shoulders. "Could be good."

Elizabeth suppressed an eye roll. "Could you find out if that was really the case? We'll try our contacts, too."

"I can, but I need at least three hours."

"Then we'll meet again?"

He took another bite of chewing tobacco and nodded. "Si."

"Back here again?"

"No." Loco Lillo grinned even more comprehensively. Elizabeth thought for a moment that she had fallen into a trap. But Lillo was probably just having fun. Or he enjoyed scaring people. "And yet it moves --" Lillo then mumbled. "Who said that?"

"Galileo Galilei," Nikki replied with a frown.

"What did he show the church?"

"His new worldview? With the sun at the center?"

"What else?"

Nikki furrowed her eyebrows. "I don't know."

"He showed the church something else. I'll meet you where it's on display."

Elizabeth couldn't suppress the growl any longer and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "It's like Dan Brown here. Can't you just tell us the meeting place?"

He tapped his temple. "Just think about it for a bit." Lillo spat brown stuff into the river again. "If you can't figure it out, text me on Threema. I'm off EncroChat." With these words, he climbed up the embankment somewhat awkwardly.