“That English lord that Rodolfo and Fiammetta mentioned—he might know where Robertino is.”
Michael put his paper down. “I know you’re worried about him, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be looking for Robertino,” he said. “Look at what happened the other night. It’s the job of the police.”
Another plank in the corral he was building around her. But she was a jumper.
“I just wish I could help,” she said.
He looked down at the butter on his plate. “You’re so kind. Like Elsie,” he said. “Beautiful, sweet and kind.”
“Are you comparing me to a cow on a milk bottle?”
The phone rang, and Michael answered it. He brightened up, told someone he couldn’t make it but he knew Scottie would love to go. He hung up and turned to her, his face bright and uncomplicated for once.
“That was Carlo Chigi Piccolomini. He’s going to Florence for the day and invited us along.”
Scottie tried to control her expression. “You told him I would go?”
“Yes. You need a day away. It will be fun.”
She turned so he couldn’t see her face, and said, “Yes. Maybe I’ll sign up for that American Women’s Club while I’m there.”
2.
A telegram had been delivered for him, and he was eager to get her out the door so he could decode it. He needed to keep her busy. And safe from everything that was happening.
And then Marchese Carlo Chigi Piccolomini telephoned and invited them to Florence for the day. It was perfect. Scottie would be safely out of Siena, off the Robertino trail, and would strengthen their friendship with a nobleman known to be friendly to the American cause. She was proving incredibly useful to him, without even meaning to. He wished he was better at telling her that. He felt a sort of grateful relief to Scottie for being so … prosaic. With everything that was happening, he’d so much rather be in her head, thinking about Gucci’s new bamboo bag or the eighteen-carat gold rope sandals Ferragamo had just custom-made for a special client. She is like that cow in the ads, he thought—beautiful, sweet, reliable and uncomplicated. When he had tried to tell her that, she had taken it completely the wrong way. He was sorry now he’d ever doubted his decision to marry her. It would be lonely here without a wife. He had grown fond of her. The way she had tried to save the old woman during that horrible, terrifying melee. It was sweet that she was worried about the boy. Of course she was—it was the right thing to do. His beautiful wife, the mother of his child. He handed her a small stack of bills he had taken from the briefcase. That’s not stealing, he told himself. That’s hardship pay.
“Replace the bracelet you lost,” he said. “And get to know the marchese,” he added, heading out the door. “He sounds like a very good sort.”
3.
Michael went off to work, and she went out to do some food shopping to fill the time before Carlo arrived, to make it go faster. A day with Carlo. She tried to stay calm, tell herself it meant nothing.
It was the morning after the Palio, and the entire city felt subdued and slightly hungover. She had watched the hours-long parade and the minute-and-a-half race from her window, feeling almost guilty about having such amazing front-row seats when there were thousands and thousands of people packed into the square below. She did love seeing the horses snorting and tossing their heads, and her tears flowed as they raced three times around the square, lean and beautiful and out of control, but the whole event felt slightly anticlimactic after the riot of the contrada dinner.
Robertino should be here, she thought. Without him, the whole thing felt muted and pointless.
The famous gray mare Gaudenzia had run for the Giraffe, coming a close second to the Eagle contrada. Scottie admired the rough beauty of the cranky mare, who kept her ears back and took care of herself on the slick, dangerous track. She seemed to know her job and, except for a slight jostling on the last turn, could have won with or without her jockey.
Now it was all over until August 16, when the second and final Palio of the year would be run. She hoped Robertino would be back by then. She hoped he was alive.
“Ci sono notizie del barbaresco scomparso?” Scottie asked the owner of the fruit and vegetable store—an unusually tall woman with a long nose and sharp eyes, married to a short, round man, neither of whom ever spoke to Scottie beyond the most basic pleasantries—for news of the missing groom.
The woman shook her head but, to Scottie’s surprise, took her hand. “You are American,” she said. “You have connections. Make the police do something for a change.”
Scottie nodded. “I’ll try,” she said, feeling a slight thrill.
“Grazie, signora,” said the woman. “Such a kind and lovely woman you are.”
Ecco dragged her toward the macelleria, where the butcher tossed him chunks of raw meat as he served the customers ahead of her.
The lord was the piece that didn’t fit for her. How would Robertino have met an English lord? It was true that the Brits had been coming on the Grand Tour since the late 1800s, and now they were beginning to buy up property that was being abandoned by people like Ecco’s former owners. There was a large and ever-growing colony of the English in Tuscany, but she didn’t see them stopping by Signor Banchi’s farmhouse. At a hotel?
Ecco sat and stared as Scottie looked over the cuts of beef. Whatever she chose would be beautifully wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string, as if it were a gift—this was the routine in every shop, even if you bought a box of aspirin at the farmacia. At first she had thought of it as wasteful—why not just toss it in a bag, like at home?—but now she found the whole thing quite charming, a sign of the pride Italians took in what they sold.
“Buongiorno, Signor Gracci,” she said to the owner, keeping her eyes on his face and not on his bloodstained apron. “Vorrei due bistecche di vitello.”
“Certo, signora,” he said. “Subito.” He showed her some lovely veal. “Chianina,” he said. “I hear you are looking for Robertino,” he added. “Che brava donna. What a good woman. The police, they have already forgotten about him. His contrada has replaced him. But you Americans, you do not turn your backs on a child so easily.”
Word was traveling fast, Scottie thought with a slight chill.
4.
As soon as he got to the office, he opened his briefcase and took out the telegram to decode.
Rosini has reported break-in and theft of membership list to Siena police, who have notified Italian Secret Service. Destroy any connection and cease all contact with your asset. Maximum deniability essential. If asset’s loyalty in doubt, eliminate.
Robertino was the asset. They were asking him to eliminate Robertino? But why had it taken Rosini so long to notice the theft? There was something else going on here that he couldn’t understand, something in this masquerade he wasn’t seeing.
If asset’s loyalty in doubt, eliminate.
Kill Robertino? He couldn’t imagine actually killing a man, much less a boy. Yes, his Agency training had covered both self-defense and assassinations, but there was a difference between reading about something and … doing it.
On the other hand, if Robertino were gone for good it would solve a lot of problems for him. And he was now in for a pound, as it were.
5.
A day with Carlo. She had put her hair in pink plastic curlers held in place with sharp metal clips to get the wave just right, and now she sprayed it into place with Helene Curtis Spray Net and covered it with a polka-dot-patterned scarf for the car ride. She shaved her legs and armpits after putting a new blade in her heavy metal Lady Gillette razor, plucked and penciled her eyebrows using an eyebrow stencil, curled her lashes and waxed her upper lip. Painted her nails and toes with two coats of Peggy Sage Spice Pink. Applied Revlon’s thick, creamy ivory liquid foundation, Michel flesh-colored powder that came in a huge pink can with a large pouf, brushed on a light shimmer of Max Factor eyeshadow, drew on the latest “wing” effect with her eyeliner, applied Mayb
elline mascara to her upper lashes, and brushed on very light rose rouge to the “apple” of her cheek. Coty Dahlia Pink creamy lipstick from a golden case, finessed into a “smile” shape. Joy by Jean Patou eau de toilette. Taylor-Woods fifty-four-gauge stockings, Warners garters, underwear, cinch brassiere and the hated girdle. Just another day being female, she thought.
Up until age twelve, life had been simple. She had tumbled out of bed in the mornings, thrown on dungarees and a T-shirt, gathered her hair into a ponytail, pulled on paddock boots and been on her way to the stable within ten minutes of waking.
Because her mother was gone, it had been her Aunt Ida who’d intervened on a Christmas visit. “You have to wear these now,” she’d said, dropping onto the bed a set of stiff, scratchy, reinforced garments made of thick white padding covered with white nylon lace. There were braces and straps and snaps, like the pony’s cart harness.
“Why?” Scottie had asked.
“Because you’ve started to jiggle,” she said. “And we can’t have that. Only whores jiggle.” She pronounced it “hewers.”
As Ecco slept on the bath mat, Scottie pulled on dress shields to protect against perspiration, then two petticoat half-slips, and the short-sleeved ivy-patterned cotton dress she’d bought at Bendel’s before leaving New York. She added rose earrings, a daisy-pattern necklace, a bracelet made of coins and another of laughing Buddhas, and her gold snaffle-bit Duval watch, slipped into the Dolcis red high heels that bit into her toes, and pulled on summer-weight white cotton gloves and a light duster and sunglasses.
She did not stop to ask herself if she was dressing up to make herself look good for Carlo, or if this was all a layer of protection from him, a way of hiding her true, vulnerable self under an armor of makeup and layers of clothing and hard metal jewelry. She simply grabbed her purse, traded the scarf for the new white feather hat Michael had given her, and left.
6.
I am trained to kill. Michael studied his face in the mirror. The bathroom attached to his office was small, but at least it was private—he didn’t have to worry about Brigante barging in, unzipping and unleashing a prodigious manly stream into some ghastly urinal while chitchatting about a soccer team. Though I am also trained to affect a French accent and wiretap a houseplant, neither of which I do very well.
He ran a hand over his cheek. He had shaved carefully, as he did every morning, with a new blade, but even now his inexorable, irrepressible beard was forcing its way to the surface again. He hated the way his face darkened as the day wore on—by five p.m. each day he did look like a killer, or at least someone shady enough to rob your grandmother. He sighed and turned to the shelf where he kept a spare Dopp kit. He washed his face carefully to remove the grit that ruined the blade. Then he dampened a washcloth with water as hot as he could stand and held it to his face for three minutes, as the latest issue of Esquire had advised. When his beard was softened, he lathered up and shaved again, stripping off the criminal shadow and restoring the appearance of youth and innocence.
Some days he shaved four times. Occasionally he wondered what it would be like to simply give in and let his beard grow. But even at Yale, where some slovenly types had advertised their commitment to their studies with bristled cheeks during finals, he had shaved every day, feeling that even a minor crack in the façade he presented to the world might lead to skipping naked across the quad reciting nursery rhymes, as an unstable classmate had done after a difficult semester.
He took a step back and admired the clothes he had chosen today, and composed a brief description of his look in the louche, knowing style that Esquire had defined as the male voice of the era: This dashing spy sports a lustrous chestnut-over-sand windowpane plaid silk shantung jacket with a contrasting sapphire lining and pocket square, just the thing for a day of espionage and intrigue. The caramel Dacron boxy sport shirt has short sleeves to stay cool in the most torrid of climes, while the generous cut of the charcoal slacks could hide any number of weapons. His two-tone loafers are perfect for a quick escape, while his jaunty black straw Trilby is enlivened with a peacock-pattern grosgrain band and secret listening device that lets him foil dastardly plans while still looking sharp.
Whatever happened, at least he would look good.
7.
She and Ecco found the robin’s egg blue Fiat parked just outside Porta Camollia. Carlo was leaning against it, smoking a cigar. He was wearing a stylish blue suit and a crisp white shirt with a red tie. Though in his playful moments Carlo could look like a little boy, he definitely looked like a man now.
“Carlo,” she called. He looked up and smiled. He greeted her in the Italian fashion, a kiss on each cheek. She could smell his wonderful mix of horse and tobacco and tweed.
“I didn’t recognize you two,” he said, laughing, opening the car door for her and for Ecco, who jumped in. “That hat!” She blushed, self-conscious.
“Do you have business in Florence?” she asked, settling into the passenger seat.
“Bookstores. I’m desperate for something fresh to read.”
“Why not shop here?”
Again that shadow on his face. “I prefer Florence,” he said. “Better selection. Any sign of Robertino?”
“No. He would never have missed the Palio.”
Carlo nodded, looking worried.
They drove down the winding road to the valley floor, then picked up the Via Cassia heading north. They passed the hilltop cluster of buildings that comprised the walled town of Monteriggioni, and then Scottie saw the turnoff for Poggibonsi, where Carlo’s son had died. She glanced at him, but his face displayed nothing. They passed Barberino Val d’Elsa, and Casole d’Elsa, huge towers and castles and imposing ancient stone.
“Do you know Lord Sebastian Gordon?” she asked.
“Not well, but yes. He’s taking credit for getting Italian luxury brands recognition overseas. He does public relations for Gucci, I think.”
“Robertino posed for him. Do you think he might know where Robertino is?”
Carlo considered this. “He might.”
Carlo was not flirting, which was a relief. Maybe they could just spend the day together as friends. That was what Carlo had wanted, after all. A friend.
* * *
Florence was crowded—it felt like everyone in the world had decided to spend the summer of ’56 there. Colorful flocks of laughing young men in loose, boxy shirts and women wearing scarves and big sunglasses swooped over the cobblestones on Vespas past Scottie and Ecco and Carlo, and at least half of the people they passed were speaking something other than Italian—French, American English, English English, with the majority speaking German. Carlo joked about the latest “German invasion,” but there was an undertone of slight alarm among the Italians, she thought—though this onslaught of West Germans came to soak up sun and spend, not to conquer.
“Neither Italians nor Germans ever seem to mention the war,” Scottie said cautiously as they strolled along the Arno. She didn’t want to bring up his painful past, but it seemed awkward to ignore it, too.
Carlo sighed. “Yes. Perhaps we all pretend that it never happened.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Everyone wants to forget the bad years and embrace the benessere,” he said. “You know that phrase?”
“Yes. Well-being.”
“We want to be like your hat. Stylish, amusing, light as air. I have some banking to do. I will meet you in front of David in an hour, okay?”
She nodded. It was all very innocent, just two friends having a day in the city.
Ecco was enjoying the Florentine smells as she made her way to the Ponte Vecchio to look for a new bracelet. She remembered how Michael had told her this was the only bridge the Germans didn’t detonate as they retreated from the advancing Allies. Now that she knew what the Americans had done, she saw it all in a different light. They should hate us, she thought. But then we liberated them, too. And now we’re rebuilding their country. It’s all so comp
licated. She studied the fabulous old covered span and its row of shops jutting improbably over the Arno. She chose the first bracelet that was hawked at her and headed back into the city center, feeling like the Queen Mary being towed by tiny tugboat Ecco through dense crowds.
As she passed a medieval palace adorned with heavy iron dragons, she glanced up at the sign: GUCCI. Carlo had said that Lord Sebastian Gordon did public relations for Gucci. Before going in she paused to gather her nerve. Fancy stores had always intimidated her.
She stood in the massive doorway. Something about the way the dark-haired, chicly coiffed saleswomen looked at her made her feel like they knew she was faking it. She had felt so right, so strong leaving the apartment this morning, but now she saw that her gloves already had a stain on them, and her stockings had a run starting. The veneer was chipping away and the real her poking through. Still, she and Ecco made their way into the store.
“Excuse me,” she said to a woman in a chignon and pencil skirt folding scarves under a ceiling frescoed with angels. “Is Lord Sebastian Gordon here today?”
“He does not work in the shop, madam.” The woman feigned horror at how inappropriate the very idea was. “He has a studio of his own in Via dei Cimatori. Number 6.”
And then Ecco began to make that horrible whomp-whomp-whomp sound …
“No no no!” shouted the enraged saleswomen, rushing toward them. Scottie tried to drag Ecco away, but he retched up a pile of grass-flecked chunky yellow vomit on Gucci’s pristine white marble floor. Scottie spotted last night’s peas and bread crusts in the mess.
“Mi dispiace,” she shouted in apology as the saleslady cursed her roundly. Her face was red as she escaped and clomped away, dragging poor Ecco behind her, nearly twisting an ankle on the cobblestones in her precarious, painful red heels.
The wave of shame was followed by anger. Go to hell, she thought. The poor dog was just being sick.
She stalked off in a rage, unaware of where she was going. Florence suddenly felt hot and dark and ominous, all appearance and deception, omnipresent laundry strung between iron balconies that hung from bullet–riddled façades. A group of young men leaning up against a Cinzano ad papered to the wall catcalled at her, making rude gestures. Ecco growled and strained at his leash, and the men sneered and laughed. She and Ecco turned abruptly into a narrow side street. She looked up and saw she was in Via dei Cimatori. She took a deep breath. She would steel herself and hunt down Gordon. She would have something to tell Carlo when she met him in a few minutes.
The Italian Party Page 18
