Red, White & Dead

by Laura Caldwell

  “And how did my father respond?” How strange it was to speak those words-my father-and be referring to someone alive, someone I was about to meet. Again.

  “Your father was torn. On one hand, it was his job to stop people in the System. And I had always understood what he was doing. But now there he was, bringing down one of my family members. We were going to have no money left if Paulo went down. And we all loved him. Despite what he does with the System, for work, he is a good man in many ways. I finally decided I had to let them know, the people who were my family now. I told Maurizio and his brother what was going to happen and that it was going to occur very soon. When they didn’t believe me, I finally had to tell them why I knew this-because my brother was an undercover agent for the FBI. And he was spying on the System.” She shook her head now and looked up.

  I stayed silent.

  “Can you understand how torn I was?” Her eyes beseeched mine.

  “Yes, of course.”

  She slipped her sunglasses back on. “It was horrid. I wanted so desperately to protect my brother, but I also wanted to protect my husband and his family, my life. I had already lost one life, you know. I couldn’t bear the thought of the death of yet another.”

  “What happened?”

  She dropped her head and began to sob again.

  “What?” I said. “What happened?”

  A few more shuddering cries, then she restrained herself. “They couldn’t get to Christopher. Not right away. Being with the police force and having protection from the FBI meant he was not an easy person to reach.” She looked out the window then back at me. She took off her sunglasses, and her eyes were dead. “So they killed my mother.”

  “Grandma O died in a car crash in Phoenix.”

  “Is that what you were told?”

  I thought back to that time. I’d been eight years old, and although I hadn’t spent much time with her, I was fond of Grandma O. I liked her musical voice, the way she broke into songs in Italian whenever there was a tense moment. She was funny like that-she could defuse almost any situation.

  And then one day, my father sat me down and said that Grandma O had died.

  “Yes, I think so,” I said to Elena. “My father told me…” I drifted off for a second, thinking. “He told me that she had problems with her car and she died. I assumed it was an accident. I felt like that’s what he was saying.”

  Elena squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. “I’m sure that is the impression he was trying to give you, but the truth was that her car exploded. The official story from the police was she had put a propane tank in the trunk and the propane tank leaked and ignited when she started the car. But I know that wasn’t true.” She grimaced. “Or rather, it was true, but she had not placed it there. One of the System’s men did and he turned the tank on so that it was leaking.”

  “They killed your mother.”

  Why hadn’t I found it suspicious that my grandmother died such a short time before her son? I suppose because my parents had done a good job of dialing down the violent nature of her death. And soon her death was overshadowed by my father’s.

  Elena nodded, her lips pressed together, making the skin around her mouth bleached white.

  “They did it as a way to get a message to Christopher, to my father?”

  Another nod. She relaxed her lips and blew out a large breath. “They were trying to say, we’ve killed your mother and we will kill you, Christopher, and your family, too. It is only a matter of time.”

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  She shook her head again and again, as if she was trying to shake away the memories and all that had been done.

  “How awful,” I said.

  “You have no idea. I had killed my mother. And now they were trying to kill my brother and his children.” She stopped and looked at me, and then she spoke very, very softly. “And so he…”

  But now I could pick up the story. “And so he faked his own death.”

  She nodded, she stopped, she nodded again. She turned to me. “Yes, Isabel. That is what he did.” She gave me a grim look. “It nearly destroyed me, the thought that they might kill you. And trust me, Isabel, they would have killed you.”

  “Weren’t you worried that they would kill you? I mean, after what they did to Grandma O. Weren’t you afraid they would do the same to you to send a message to him?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “The System is very difficult for an outsider to understand. They are ruthless, yes, but there is still a circle of loyalty, and I fell within that circle. Your father knew that, too. He knew that they were coming for him next and for his family, and they wouldn’t stop, and so he went to the FBI. He told them what was going on. The FBI said that they would immediately put the family in the witness protection program. But your father said the witness protection program was no way to live, no way to move on. He didn’t want you all to have to change your identities and your lives. It would have been awful. And so instead of doing that to you…” Her words trailed off.

  “But when there was no body, didn’t the Camorra suspect something?”

  She laughed but it was without mirth. “Your father was very smart. He played on their egos. He landed the helicopter on the water and rigged it to explode after he’d gotten out. To this day, I know different clans, different members of the Camorra who pride themselves on having killed my brother.”

  “So, like I said before-that’s why you weren’t at his funeral. Because you knew he wasn’t dead.”

  She nodded. “I couldn’t bring myself to act like he had died. It was enough that I had killed my mother.”

  “You didn’t kill her, the Camorra did.”

  “Because of me. Because I told them about Christopher.” She clutched her stomach and rocked forward, her head bent.

  I put a hand on her shoulder, leaning closer. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded.

  I had to ask. “Where has he been in Italy this whole time?”

  She shrugged. “That is your father’s story. I will let him tell you.”

  She seemed depleted by what she’d told me so far. I decided not to push her.

  We sat for a while in silence, the train gently rocking. Elena made a huge exhale of breath, then turned to me. “Those men who chased you in Naples,” she said. “They weren’t trying to kill you.”

  “What do you mean? They came in the hotel, they seemed to be looking for me and they ran after us with guns!”

  She shook her head dismissively. “Trust me. When the Camorra wants to kill you, they kill you. They don’t look, and they don’t chase. They just do.”

  “Then what were they doing exactly?”

  A small shrug. “My guess is they were trying to scare you.”

  “They did a great job. But why?”

  Another shrug. “It would be difficult to kill you. To kill italiani? Sí. That happens all the time. But if the Camorra kills a young, attractive American woman, it could cause problems for them.”

  “And when I go back to the United States?”

  She examined my face. She glanced from my mouth to my hair and back to my eyes. “I would be very careful.”

  41

  We went to the hotel on via Giulia where we’d had the reservation for yesterday and checked in. The lobby there was cool and quiet, just like a former convent should be. While Elena went to the lobby restroom, Maggie got a bellman to take our bags upstairs. Then she drew me over to the small library in the lobby. “Sit,” she said, pointing at a low white couch.

  I did, and looked up at her.

  Maggie stood in front of me. “Look, I’m just going to tell you what you tell me when I’m about to go on trial.”

  “Okay. Good. Hit me.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. There was no one near us. “Here’s the thing. You can’t let your mind go crazy and think about all that could happen. You just have to go through it, minute to minute, and make smart choices along the way. Like right now
, you can’t let your mind run over the possibilities of why your dad did what he did.” Maggie started pacing. “You can’t be angry about it, do you understand?”

  I nodded. God, it was great to have a friend doing your mental prep for you.

  “You can’t think about anything other than right now,” Maggie continued. “You can’t let your head run around and around in fifteen different circles. Essentially, don’t be a conspiracy theorist. Just be you in this situation.” She stopped, nodded like, Got it?

  “The thing is, I can’t believe it’s me in this situation. I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

  She pointed at my face. “You’re doing it. You’re letting your head run around in circles.” She sat on the couch next to me. “Okay, let’s think. What would help you to get your mind around this? To really feel like it’s happening. Right now.”

  “Well, I can’t stop thinking about my mom. Did she know?”

  Maggie shrugged, then looked at her watch. “She’s up. Call her.”

  I nodded. It felt good to have some course of action to take, rather than simply waiting for Elena, reacting to her.

  I called my mother’s cell phone. “Izzy!” she said. “I was just going to call you. Happy birthday!”

  I’d almost forgotten. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Do you know that I can remember exactly what happened on the day you were born?”

  “Really?” I said with a laugh. She told me this story every year.

  “It was a beautiful Friday. It had been cold that summer in Michigan, but this was the first real summer day, and so your dad had taken the day off, and he and I were working in the garden. Do you remember the garden we had in Michigan?”

  I said I did. My parents both loved gardening, something they’d shared together but never really taught Charlie and me. I told my mom about the wildflowers Maggie gave me and the flower box she was going to put on my roof deck.

  “Wonderful!” my mom said. “I’ll help you with it.” She sighed. “Well, I remember that day you were born. I was kneeling next to the tomato plants and staking them. They were just starting to bloom, and I couldn’t wait until they grew and ripened.”

  My mother went on, saying how, kneeling there in the Michigan soil, she’d realized that her water had broken, that she was about to have her first child. She’d spent a moment by herself appreciating that, before she called for my father.

  She was so happy recounting this story that for the moment I decided not to mention my father. We chatted about Italy, about Maggie being there. My mom told me that she and Spence were supposed to go to a barbecue later at their friend’s house on Astor Street.

  After a few more pleasantries and questions about Italy, I asked her, “Do you know how Grandma O died?”

  “Oriana? Awful. She died in a car explosion.”

  “Why wasn’t I told that when I was younger?”

  “Weren’t you?”

  “Dad told me she had car problems and that she died.”

  “Well, that’s true, isn’t it? And you were seven or eight, Isabel. It’s not the kind of thing you tell a young child-that her grandmother has been blown to bits.”

  “What caused the explosion?”

  “They said that your grandmother had put a propane tank from her barbecue in her trunk the night before, because she was going to have it filled. This was before there were laws about refilling. They said the tank leaked, and when she started the car the next day, it ignited.”

  “Grandma O had a barbecue? That doesn’t sound like her. I just remember pastas and bread and those big mushrooms.”

  “She was a wonderful cook. I thought it strange about the barbecue, too. I remember asking your father about it at the time. Even the fact that she had carried the tank to the car surprised me. Those tanks are heavy and she was a small woman and getting up there in age.”

  “What did Dad say to you?”

  “Not much. He was so traumatized. It was a horrible time.”

  “And then a month later, he was dead.” Supposedly. Allegedly.

  “Yes, and your grandmother’s death took a backseat. Losing your father was just so all consuming.”

  Did you know? Did you know he faked his death? This was what I wanted to scream into the phone, but I wasn’t sure I quite believed it, even now, even having spoken to Elena. And I couldn’t upset my mom unnecessarily.

  In the background, I heard Spence calling to her. I could see him rushing into the kitchen. “Say hi to Spence for me,” I said. I would ask her later, when I knew for sure, when I understood the whole story.

  “Will do, honey. Have a fun birthday, and we’ll celebrate when you get home.”

  I hung up the phone and looked at Maggie.

  “You didn’t ask her,” she said.

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t. Not until I know myself for sure.”

  “Okay. I get that. So look at me. Where are you right now?”

  “In Rome. About to meet my father. For the first time in almost twenty-two years.” I sat and stared at her. We were both silent.

  A family filed into the hotel lobby. They looked jubilant and tired after a day of sightseeing. One of the kids was saying, “Let’s go to the Vatican again tomorrow.” The dad laughed, ruffled his hair.

  “I never had that,” I said. “Sightseeing with my father.”

  “This is exactly what I’m telling you not to do,” Maggie said. “Do not think about things like that. Do not think about anything except the fact that you are about to meet him. Nothing before this meeting, nothing after. Now, let me ask you again, where are you right now?”

  “I’m in a hotel and my best friend is pretending to be Eckhart Tolle.”

  Maggie laughed. Then she lost her smile. “Seriously, just be here. Just be sitting here right now.” She looked over my shoulder. “And right now, your aunt is about to come up to us. So just be someone who’s about to walk out onto the streets of Rome.”

  I opened my mouth to say something.

  She shook her head, “Iz, there’s nothing else you can do right now except walk onto the streets of Rome.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m not going to ask you if you’re okay. You are. I’ll be here when you get back.” She took her phone out of her pocket and pointed to it. “Call me if you need anything.”

  “What are you going to do?” I looked at my watch. It was 4:00 p.m. “A lot of museums are open until six. Or you could walk along the Tiber or go see the Coliseum.”

  Maggie put her hand on my shoulder once more. “Iz, I know I’m in Rome. And we both know I love this city. But you know what I like best of all.”

  “Sleep.”

  “Yep. But if you need anything, I’m up in a minute.”

  Maggie looked past me and smiled. “Hi, Elena.” She hugged me. “See you guys later,” she said, as if this were any other day.

  I turned to Elena.

  “Ready?” Elena said.

  My head screamed, No, but a different answer came from somewhere deep within me. I think it was my heart.

  And my heart said, “Yes.”

  42

  Like any Roman, Elena was quick on the cobbled streets, dodging down one alley, one street, rushing through another section of town, then another, striding in front of taxis with her hand held out, assuming (correctly) that they would all stop for her. The afternoon had turned humid, the air thick with exhaust and heat. The tourists were easy to spot-all scrutinizing maps, their faces confused and sweating-while the Romans breezed by, seeming not to notice them and not perspiring a drop.

  We passed through the Piazza Navona, where street vendors ran after tourists, trying to sell belts and bags. I wondered if they were fakes made by the Camorra. We skirted the Pantheon next, the circular temple still and solid amid the chaos of the city. I glanced across the piazza and saw the ivory-colored awnings of Fortunato, the ristorante where Elena had taken Maggie and me when we were here years ago. Had my father been here, too? How had Elena sat
across from me then, knowing my father was-what?-maybe a mile away?

  Meanwhile, where we were going now, I had no idea. Elena had told me to follow her. That was all. Elena walked faster as I struggled over the cobblestones, always a step behind. She dodged around more tourists, she darted into deserted alleys and then would turn again onto the bigger streets like the Corso. I kept following her, past gelaterie, past piazzas with center obelisks and columns decorated with enough symbolism to study for years.

  All the while, Elena was quiet. I kept sending glances at her, murmuring my appreciation for taking me to him, for being honest with me. When these comments were met with nothing more than a scared look in my direction, I decided to ignore the topic of my father, and instead started commenting on a church or a facade of a shop as if we were out sightseeing. Elena responded to the overtures with a terse nod, a quick smile, her face always returning to one of deep thought. I decided not to say anything more. I was afraid she would change her mind.

  We turned another corner, and I gasped at the sight of the Trevi Fountain. Tucked in an otherwise average and rather small piazza, the fountain was a massive white marble wall, carved with a commanding figure of Neptune in the center. Streams and arcs of glistening water shot into a huge oval pool that glittered silver and gold from the coins coating the bottom.

  Tourists were packed in front of the fountain, snapping pictures and throwing coins over their left shoulder, a superstitious way to ensure your return to Rome.

  Elena stopped, too, as if giving me a short break. She followed my gaze to the pool. “Do you know,” she said, pointing at the coins, “how much we collect every night from the Fontana di Trevi? Three thousand euros.”

  “Every day?”

  Elena nodded. “They say they give the money to a supermarket for food for poor families.” She shrugged as if to say that might happen and it might not. She touched my arm. “Andiamo.” Let’s go.

  Elena started moving fast again, skirting the fountain, not giving it another thought. I got my legs moving and scurried after her, but I kept slowing inadvertently, darting glances at the fountain. I felt envious of the tourists, and I wondered if I didn’t throw a coin, would I get back to this city? I shook the thought away. It didn’t matter. How could it possibly when I was about to meet my father, to see him resurrected from the land of the dead?