“Wow, Emilia. That’s a little over the top, but I appreciate the sentiment. Now, how about that cappuccino?”
She finally leaves the room.
Hmm . . . I wonder what that was about. Maybe Emilia’s concerned about me? Perhaps she’s just a nice person? Weird. I’ll have to keep an eye on her. It’s all getting rather personal, too close for comfort. But I need Emilia. She’s good with the baby. She washes my clothes. She cooks my dinner, like some kind of saint. I still haven’t worked out how to make my own coffee; it’s harder than alchemy. I need to keep her on my side.
I stand in the window and look out at the street. A policeman is walking down the road to the villa. Is that Commissario Savastano? I can’t see his face. Is he coming here? I freeze, my coffee cup suspended in midair. He disappears somewhere near Salvatore’s villa. What’s he doing over there? Have they found Salvatore’s body already? Did they see his brains spilled out on the floor? His blood splattered all over the fridge like a mural by Jackson Pollock? I take a deep breath. Ah, Salvatore. It’s such a waste. He was fantastic in bed. Really quite talented; he could have been a pro, like that famous Italian porn star Rocco. Still, he wasn’t a patch on Nino. . . .
I don’t like these coppers snooping around.
So what if they link me to Salvatore’s death? Ha! Good luck to them. That wasn’t even me. So what if I set Nino up to kill him? There’s no proof of that. No evidence. It’s Nino’s word against mine. Salvo’s blood’s not on my hands.
Anyway it’s the same old story, someone change the fucking record. Seriously, I’m bored to tears: no body, no murder. And there won’t be a body; Nino’s a professional and Domenico is too. Nino knows what he is doing, I’m sure of that. They’ll have cleaned up the mess: no brains. No blood. They’ll have dealt with the corpse. Nino’s smarter and sexier than those lazy fucking cops—corrupt, most of them, anyway—taking hand-outs from the Mafia to look the other way. I’m sure we could bribe them, if it came to it.
No, it’s fine. As far as anyone knows, Salvatore decided to take a long, lonely vacation to Italy’s most secluded beach. He’s an artist, isn’t he? He has an artist’s temperament. Perhaps he felt like being a recluse and immersing himself in his sculptures. Yes, I’m pretty sure he mentioned something like that just before he left. The pressures of modern-day living in Taormina were getting to him. He wanted to return to the purity of nature, to be inspired by the sea and the sound of the waves . . . some bullshit like that. In fact, he definitely told me he was going away. I’m willing to put my hand on a Bible and swear it in court.
I check Beth’s iPhone charging by the bed to see if there’s anything urgent I need to respond to. There are 325 “Likes” for my selfie with Ernie. Another Tweet from Taylor Swift. And three missed calls; they’re all from my mum. Oh God, what now? She’s left a voicemail, but I can’t be bothered to listen to it. I’m definitely not calling her back.
I get dressed in a little number that’s too cute to be true: a pink, silk, pussy-bow blouse with a matching knee-length froufrou skirt. I look simply adorable. Just like Miss Universe, when they’re doing the bit where she has to talk and wear clothes. This outfit’s going straight onto Instagram. I twirl in the mirror and the nightmare comes back in a lightning flash! I was dreaming about Beth! She was chasing me, calling me. She was coming for me like some kind of zombie; I was running for my life! Now I remember! It was a bad dream. Why can’t Beth leave me the fuck alone? Even now when she’s supposed to be dead! This is getting really annoying. Why can’t I have nice, normal nightmares like everyone else? Falling down elevator shafts or being pursued by giant spiders. Teeth falling out. The end of the world or Armageddon. But no, I’ve got to dream about Beth.
You know what I need? I need a plan. If you fail to plan you plan to fail. I need to move on. Live my life (Beth’s life). Enough of this crap. Enough dicking around. Enough of my sister. I’ll contact Beth’s lawyer. Sort out the inheritance from Ambrogio’s will. I’ll get another beautician. Hire a new nanny, just in case. Wham-bam. Job done. In your face.
Chapter Thirty-Four
So where is it?” says Nino, pushing through the door and into the living room.
Whoa, where did he come from? He’s as quiet as a Prius. Does he have his own house keys? I put down the copy of The Female Eunuch that I’d started to read (one of the few books that I brought with me; I’d forgotten all about it at the bottom of my bag, tucked away with my Swiss Army knife). I wonder what Germaine would think of Nino.
“Where’s what?”
“The fucking painting?”
Painting? Yes, there had been something about a painting. Something about a Caravaggio. “The Caravaggio?” I ask. What is that anyway? A picture of an Italian caravan? A watercolor of the RV from Breaking Bad?
“Yes, of course the Caravaggio. What do you think?” He paces the carpet, restless, anxious, like he’s had too much coke. He’s probably had too much coke.
“Ooh,” I say, “shall we do some coke? I don’t know where the painting is.”
“You don’t know where it is?”
“No.”
Nino takes off his hat and slams it down on the coffee table, runs his fingers through ebony hair. I like that hat. I think I might steal it. “You’re his fucking wife, of course you know where it is.” He takes out the bag of cocaine and racks up.
“So anyway,” I say, changing the subject. “How come you didn’t sleep over last night? I wanted you to stay.”
He looks up and frowns.
“I do not sleep.”
“What do you mean you don’t sleep? Everyone sleeps.”
Nino snorts his line and wipes his nose with the back of his hand.
“Where is the painting, Betta?”
“What are you, like a vampire or something? Are you Edward from Twilight? Are you one of the Volturi?”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Who is Edward?”
“You have to sleep. I need at least ten hours a night. It’s good for your skin.”
“I have a siesta in the afternoons.”
“A siesta? Like a nap?”
“I work at night.”
“What are you, a baby?”
“In Sicily, everyone has a siesta. It’s too hot to work in the day.”
Only mad dogs and English girls go out in the midday sun. . . .
Nino hands me the rolled-up €50.
“So you’re nocturnal? Like a bat? Like a bush baby?” I say.
Nino nods. I thought he’d looked a bit like a bat that first time I saw him, gliding down the driveway in his long, black coat.
“Still, it would have been nice if you’d stayed, instead of just taking off. We could have spooned,” I say. I do my line.
Nino sighs. “Betta. I know you know where the painting is, so just fucking tell me.”
Shit, he’s right. Beth would know this. Where would Ambrogio hide a painting? A Caravaggio?
“Ambrogio didn’t want to tell me. He said it was better if I didn’t know. Safer,” I say.
Nino shrugs.
“Well, it’s gotta be somewhere in the villa and we gotta find it,” he says.
I snort another line. Fuck, that’s good: a brain orgasm. Or something. The back of my brain is fizzy, like Coca-Cola. Is this what happiness feels like?
“OK, so we’ll look.”
I give Nino a million-megawatt smile. A real one. Like I mean it. God bless cocaine. I’m going to be so helpful this time. Useful. Super proactive Alvie! Obviously, I mean Beth.
Nino snorts another line. He paces the room. “So who was the client? Who was Ambrogio gonna sell it to?”
“Sorry, come again?” I’m supposed to know this? “I . . . I . . . I . . .”
“And don’t tell me that you don’t know, ’cause he wouldn’t fucking tell me. Wanted to handle this
one by himself.”
I pause, look down at his waistband where the handle of the gun is sticking out. I’ve got to keep this bad boy sweet. “I’m sorry, baby, I don’t know.”
Nino kicks the leg of the coffee table and the ceramic lamp wobbles precariously. I catch it before it falls and smashes. The label on the bottom says Wedgwood.
“Betta, you can stop with the innocent-wife act. I know you two were in this together. He told me, the client, he likes my wife. So who the fuck is he?”
It’s a good question. I wish I knew . . . but Nino’s reminded me of something: Ambrogio took me with him to visit that priest. He liked me, I mean the priest liked Beth. Caravaggio . . . Caravaggio . . . I knew I’d heard that word before. I look up at Nino and grin.
“The priest!” I say. “The priest is the client.” Thank God for that. I’m catching on.
Nino smiles an unpleasant smile. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Bene. Which priest is that? There are hundreds of thousands in Sicily.”
“At the church on the square.” Shit, what was it called? “The . . . the . . . the Chiesa di San Giuseppe?” I twist Beth’s ring around on my finger. I hope I said that right.
“Right here? In Taormina?”
“That’s right, in Taormina.”
Nino lets out a long, slow whistle, leans back in the sofa, and smooths his mustache with a finger and thumb. His mustache looks a bit like a slug. But sexy. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The church on Piazza IX Aprile?”
I think so. . . . “Yes. Yes, that was it.”
“What’s his name, this priest?” He laughs, sitting up. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out his smokes. He offers one to me, but I shake my head. He seems to have cheered up . . . is that the painting or the coke?
“I don’t know. He was really, really old. He had a big nose . . . he reminded me of Belial in Paradise Lost?”
If he was Belial, then Nino’s got to be Moloch. I’ll be Satan; he was the hero.
“A big nose? Whatever. We’ll find him. How much did you agree?” Nino blows out a lungful of smoke. It stings my eyes.
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t agree anything.”
“Your husband, Il Professore. What was the price?”
“I have no idea. Actually, Nino, last time they met they had an argument. I think the deal might be off. . . .”
Nino freezes, looks into my eyes. If looks could kill . . . I guess that was the wrong thing to say? I eye his gun.
“Oh no, it’s not off. No fucking way. When was this?”
“A couple of days ago . . . I guess.” I have no idea. I’ve lost track of time. I don’t even know what day it is today. Tuesday? Saturday? Christmas morning?
“We’re selling this piece of shit painting if it’s the last thing we do. That priest wants to buy it. We’re not leaving it sitting up here in this villa when it’s worth twenty million dollars.”
“Twenty million dollars?” I can’t have heard right. That cocaine’s tricking and tickling my brain.
“At least. At auction, perhaps more. But on the black market we’ll get a tenth, if we’re lucky.”
“A tenth, so two million?” Oh my God.
“Bravo, baby. Great fucking math. I bet Ambrogio wanted more. That’s what the argument was about. Greedy bastard. His papà had been sitting on that thing since the ’90s.”
“Really? That long?”
“Fucking pain in the ass to sell something that hot. Do you know how long it took to find that buyer?”
“Erm . . . no.”
“Your husband told you none of this, Betta? You two even speak?” He looks at me sideways. “This was a big fucking deal for Ambrogio, biggest fucking deal of his life. All those other paintings he was selling? Nothing, merda on toilet paper compared to this. . . .”
“I see,” I say. I don’t really get it. I’m concerned that my head might be about to explode. Nino seems to be talking far too fast, like a New York car salesman or Jimmy Carr.
“This painting, that we still need to fucking find by the way, isn’t just any old Caravaggio. Not that there are any regular paintings by this guy. It’s The Nativity. You understand?”
“I understand.” I don’t understand.
I grab Beth’s phone and Google “Caravaggio the Nativity” while Nino isn’t looking. The Internet says there are only about fifty paintings by this guy in the entire world. But this one of the nativity? According to Wikipedia, this is the big one, the fucking star of the show. This is his masterpiece.
“Shit,” I say.
“Yeah, shit. You didn’t know? You’re married to Ambrogio Caruso and you don’t know this? Fuck . . .”
Nino’s stroking his mustache. My heart is beating at a million miles an hour. I didn’t really know what Ambrogio did for a living. If I were Beth, I would know. My skin is burning. I’m far too hot. I know about Waterhouse, Hogarth and Gainsborough, Turner, and all the pre-Raphaelites. I know about Freud and Bacon and Banksy, but not about this. I haven’t read up on Italian art; I would never pick this as my subject on Mastermind. I bet Beth knew all about this stuff. She was the one who went on the trip to the National Gallery when we were thirteen.
“Art’s never really been my thing; that was all Ambrogio,” I say. “Shall we do one more line?”
Nino racks up a couple more lines with his shiny silver credit card. Where would Ambrogio have hidden this painting? I kinda wish I hadn’t killed him now; I could have asked him. So annoying. Why aren’t I clairvoyant? Or what’s the one where you can speak with the dead? Clairaudient? Psychic? I wish I were a shaman. If only I’d known about this painting before he died, but Ambrogio was so shady when I asked about his job: I’m just the middleman. It’s really not that interesting. Twenty million dollars? THIS IS THE MOST INTERESTING THING I’VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE.
Could be a nice little earner. If we can find it.
I do some more Googling while Nino racks up. The Nativity was stolen in 1969 from the Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Palermo. Apparently, a couple of chancers with razor blades had seen it on TV a few weeks before on a show about Italy’s hidden treasures. They weren’t even Mafia, they were amateurs. They weren’t in the mob. They knew the church. They recognized the painting. Of course, in those days security was useless, nothing like it is today; the painting was protected by some old geezer who probably slept through the whole fucking thing. One night, they cut it down from above the altar and drove off with the painting in a three-wheeled van. A three-wheeled van! That’s nuts.
We clearly need to find this painting. It sounds pretty fucking special. I snort my line.
“So how come Ambrogio’s dad had this painting?”
Nino looks restless. He picks up the corner of the Persian carpet and looks underneath. He moves the sofa and looks down the back by the wall. Neinte. Nada. Zilch.
“It changed hands a few times; Rosario Riccobono had it before he was got in 1982. Ambrogio’s papà bought it from U Paccarè, you know Gerlando Alberti, the cigarettes and heroin guy? That was back in 1991.”
I have no idea who these people are.
“So, how come he never sold it before?” My lips have gone numb. Am I speaking funny? I can’t feel my face, like in that song. I hope I’m not dribbling. Nino looks under the dining table, pulls back the chairs, and checks underneath.
“You think it’s easy to sell something like this? This painting is hot. The FBI are all over it. It’s on all the world’s most wanted lists. . . . No, Ambrogio was lucky. He finally got the painting when his parents died. He wasn’t stupid, Ambrogio’s papà, he needed to let the heat cool off. He even got this stronzo, Gaspare Spatuzza—a former guy turned police rat—got him to make up some story about it.”
“What story?”
“The rat told the cops that the painting had been eaten by rats—by rats!—while being stored
in some shed at a farm. Can you imagine anyone being so stupid? It’s worth twenty million dollars and some joker feeds it to rats? He said it was so fucked up that they burned the remains. The police ate it up. Ate it up.” He takes an angry drag on the stub of his cigarette. “Just goes to show they have no respect for us wiseguys. That’s why they’ll never beat us. They think we’re retarded, so they underestimate us. . . . It’s wiseguys. Wise.”
I’m listening in a kind of trance; my little gray cells working on overdrive, gradually placing the pieces of the puzzle, putting it all together. Now I see. It all makes sense. The metaphorical lightbulb flicks on. Ambrogio had finally found a buyer. He was going to sell his stolen painting and then he and Beth planned to disappear. My dead body was a decoy for Beth: I was just bait, a red fucking herring, like a carrot or a duck. The funeral, the police, and the international press were going to create one royal mess. Everyone would think Princess Beth was dead, so she would have been safe. She could have run and no one would have chased her. What’s the point if she’s in the ground? Ambrogio was going to play the part of the mourning widower. Then he’d scram, sneak out of Taormina in the middle of the night when the whole world and its dog thought he was grieving his wife. He’d probably arranged to meet my twin in Hawaii, Tahiti, or Bora Bora. They planned to take their kid and their millions and get away from this bloodthirsty mob, run away from this Mafia war. They’d planned to elope and start over. Nice.
But something went wrong—namely, my sister. Something turned her off her husband. She didn’t just want to get out of Sicily, she wanted to get away from him. It can’t have just been the sex situation; that’s just ridiculous, even for Beth. Even for me. There must have been something else. He wasn’t a wife beater, wasn’t a thug. So what? What was it? Was she really in love with Salvatore? I’ll figure it out. But first I’m going to make some cash.
“I’ll help you find it,” I say, standing up.
Chapter Thirty-Five
We’ve looked everywhere, inside the villa and out. In the garage. In the shed. In what felt like a hundred bedrooms and bathrooms. I found some interesting things—a room full of brand-new copies of Beth’s book; Ambrogio’s secret collection of porn (apparently he was into “college,” “babysitters,” and “teens,” all pretty vanilla); and a vintage ostrich handbag that I’m definitely going to keep, but the painting is nowhere. I am seriously starting to freak the fuck out. We’ve been searching for hours, fueled by cocaine and strong black coffee, thick with sugar (the sugar’s for me, Nino seems to prefer it bitter and black. I have no idea how he drinks it like that). I thought about asking Emilia if she’s seen it, even asking Ernesto. But it’s probably not a good idea. Where would Ambrogio keep a painting? A painting worth twenty million dollars? He’d keep it close, right? He’d need to keep it safe. I walk back into the bedroom he’d shared with Beth and stand in the doorway, leaning my forehead against the cool of the wood. This is hopeless; it’s gone.
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