by April Smith
“I’ll show you to your room and then I have to go.” Giovanni punches the cell phone yet again. “My dad just texted. He says to make yourself comfortable.”
I look around. Comfortable, where? The fortified palace, first an austere monastery, then a seat of power for rulers of the church, is no less commanding in its present role as a private residence. The open space is bounded by potted palms and urns filled with geraniums, carefully pruned, not a paper cup to mar the raked gravel yard. The clean perspective of shaded walkways and sun-washed tufa-stone walls creates a solemnity even deeper than the monks’ devotion.
Who are these people who reside like old-fashioned royalty in a compound the size of a five-star resort? God may have lived here once, but the premises have since been vacated; this is about the ascending fortune of a single man. I feel more disoriented than ever, unable to imagine any connection to this foreign way of life, looking for a foothold to dig into for my work as an agent. The insistent beep of Giovanni’s technology does nothing to dispel the eerie sense that when I entered the shadowed hush of this ancient courtyard, the curtain parted to a strange reality.
• • •
I lie down briefly and wake up an hour later. The room floats in quietude. The bedspread is sage-green damask. At the foot of the bed is a folded cashmere throw. The cast-iron headboard is made to look like the tendrils of a sweet-pea vine. A strip of wallpaper with similar coils is set along the midline of eggshell plaster walls. There is one small arched window—no screen, no glass, just a pair of shutters over a grate that frames a grove of olive trees. I stick my face into the fresh air and listen to the regular splash of someone doing laps in a pool that is hidden from my sight. I am a pool rat. In Los Angeles I swim with a Masters team, a mile and a half every day. Nothing could make me happier than to work out right now. After the bus trip from Rome, my neck feels like a tangle of wire. I unpack eagerly, almost frantic from the nearby call of water.
My bedroom is on the second story of the monks’ quarters. I walk along an exterior corridor laid with terra-cotta tile where archways look down on the courtyard. Apricot-colored draperies are gathered in the arches, the sun hitting them like golden chimes. Centuries of leather sandals and whisperings of prayer have softened the air and smoothed the stone.
I head down a marble staircase leading to the garden, carrying nothing but a towel and goggles, an old rayon dress thrown over my Speedo. Almost naked, the still hot air is now my friend. I come to a stand of pines. The scent of pitch is intoxicating, heavy and tinder-dry. Several cars are parked in the shade, engines hot and ticking. I wonder if these are guests, come to use the pool, but then sharp male voices cut through the torpor.
Peering over a gate, I see Nicoli Nicosa, wearing bathing trunks, holding back an angry group of hard-looking men—field-workers, judging from the size of their forearms and hands. They wear track-suits, even in this heat. Nicosa has just climbed out of the pool, evidently surprised by their arrival. He is dark-chested, his longish hair slicked back, showing an aggressive profile. He has compact legs and a developed, hairy back; a street fighter.
He answers back, but they are like a pack of wolves stalking a lamb, going for the exposed soft belly of the rich man trapped in a corner of his own property, where nobody can see. The leader—gaunt, white-haired, in his seventies—is becoming more and more agitated, shouting and gesturing angrily.
The others join in the attack with rapid-fire Italian, repeating a word I have never heard—“alfiere”—all of them pointing at heaven, earth, and the dripping man in the bathing trunks. Nicosa has nowhere to go. To the right are a stone wall and a sloping hill of pine trees. Would he scale it and run? To the left is the pool. He might try for the cell phone gleaming on a towel thrown over a lounge chair. I know from the file that he is tenacious as a terrier; he would take a beating rather than surrender dominance. Yes, there it goes. The surge of adrenaline. The closed fists and challenging stance.
I push through the gate, calling, “Buongiorno! Is that Nicoli Nicosa? Hello! It’s your relative from America, Ana Grey.”
Dumbstruck, they all turn in my direction. Nicosa takes the moment to pull a pair of red sweatpants over the trunks and comes toward me with a tight smile. You can see Giovanni’s resemblance to his dad, both in looks and the hotheaded willingness to attack.
“My God, you must be Ana!” he says in unaccented English. “You couldn’t be anyone else. I am Nicoli, Cecilia’s husband.”
We kiss on both cheeks but do not hug, as he is still bare-chested and wet. Instead he holds me at arm’s length and stares in wonder.
“You look just like my wife!”
“Do I?”
Nicosa’s face is close enough that I can see the dark awareness in his eyes and the unspoken understanding that we are both playing for time.
“This is wonderful!” He smiles handsomely. “Cecilia will be home soon. You must be crazy to meet her!”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt—”
“Not at all.”
I face the group of angry peasant faces as if my heart isn’t going a mile a minute. Dry wind fingers the rayon dress. I regard them amiably. What are you going to do to us?
They leave. But not without the same muttered word Giovanni had thrown at the gypsies.
“Vaffanculo!”
When we hear the engines of their cars start up, I ask Nicosa if everything is all right.
“No, but never mind.” His voice is shaky; he has had a serious scare.
“Who are they?”
“Oh, some people who are upset with me. Somebody always is. But these are from my own contrada. Do you know about that?”
“Yes; Giovanni explained. The neighborhood.”
“Normally we have respect for other contrada members.” He falters. “I am embarrassed.”
“Don’t be. You handled it.”
Barely. I wonder if he will thank me for intervening, but that would mean acknowledging how close he came to having his butt kicked by his own neighbors, and clearly, he would rather put the incident behind us.
“Can I get you something?” He lights a cigarette and walks into the pool house. “You look like you’re ready for a swim.”
“Would you mind?” I ask, tearing off the dress without waiting for an answer. “I’ll be a much better person after I get in the water.”
He smiles quizzically and gestures toward the pool.
Oh, what a soul-saving dive. Hitting a hard freestyle, I glimpse Nicosa through the crook of my arm, grimly pouring a drink. Catching my look, he changes his expression to one of forced amusement. Raising a glass, he calls, “Brava!”
SIX
The wet swimsuit hangs over a chair in the sweet-pea bedroom. The mirrors of the mahogany armoire reflect a woman wearing white jeans and a black bra, frozen by indecision. My hair is as blow-dried as it will get in this humidity. I’ve put on eyeliner, eye shadow, and lipstick, which is a lot for me. Opening the doors of the armoire, the room revolves brightly in the polished glass, and then I’m staring into the despair of an empty closet. The sum total of my travel wardrobe rests on four lonely hangers.
This is when I miss Sterling, a lot. He would be lying on the sage-green bedspread wearing a Western-style shirt he ironed himself, jeans that have seen real horsehide, and soft R.M. Williams boots custom-made in Australia—completely oblivious to my pain. Getting dressed is easy for him: he is always himself.
“What should I wear?”
“Wear what feels comfortable.”
That’s just it. How do I present myself? As an FBI agent or as a long-lost relative? Girlie? Tough? There’s the chocolate-brown wrap dress I splurged on in London, imagining Sterling and me in one of those minimalist restaurants where everybody looks like a piece of art, but it seems too special just for dinner. How dressy do you get in an abbey?
The hell with it. I pull on a stretchy black lace blouse, step into a pair of high-heeled sandals, open the door, and stop—fascinated by
the play of air and light outside. So much vitality is contained inside the walls of the abbey. You could stand here all day, absorbed in silence, watching the sun creep through the spikes of lavender. Open a door in Los Angeles, and all you get is noise.
The iron latch falls into place behind me. Bands of light ricochet through the archways as I descend the worn travertine steps. The last warmth of day remains heavy in the courtyard, which is empty except for Nicosa, alone at a wooden table beneath one of the portals that frame the loggia. The sight of him texting on his phone is disconcerting. If he is a mafia associate, he represents a new breed: a global businessman who operates in the economic overworld. I can understand Dennis Rizzio’s excitement. An ordinary FBI agent attempting to gain access to that elite brotherhood of power would be as effective as a peasant throwing pebbles at a castle. But here I am, already inside.
Not surprisingly, Nicosa also possesses a brawnier-than-average sexuality. Powerful men have it—the kind of animal magnetism that must have kept the Rome-based surveillance team wide awake while they documented the affair with his counterpart sexpot, Lucia Vincenzo. It is impossible for him to simply sit in a chair in this theatrical setting and not look larger than life, simmering with operatic passions, especially when his artistically cut black and silver hair curls with just the right panache along the nape of the neck, and his expressive face gleams with a masculine hint of sweat.
“Sit.”
He motions toward a cushioned wicker chair. On the table is salvation: a bottle of white wine in a silver bucket of ice.
“I’m glad we have some time to talk before my wife comes home.”
Like that of the male guests at the London birthday party, the flirtatiousness is reflexive and without meaning, but he does have a way of making himself feel very close, as if his furrowed, animated face has become magnified with interest, following your every thought.
“How was your trip from Rome?”
“The train station was a nightmare,” I tell him. “But you’ll be happy to know that every spot at Caffè Nicosa was taken. Your company must be doing well.”
“I have a secret weapon. His name is Sofri. He does not look like a secret weapon—he looks like Marcello Mastroianni with a white mustache—but he is an old friend and a brilliant biologist who cracked the genome of the coffee plant and created a new, genetically engineered bean. He is the reason for our success.”
“In Italy, don’t you also have to know the right people?”
Nicosa’s eyes hold mine. Within the coarse stone walls, the early twilight softens our skin tones so we gaze at each other with frankness—there is no hiding in this sultry light.
“What do you mean, ‘the right people’?” he inquires gently.
My cell phone rings. It is Dennis Rizzio.
“Sorry …”
“Go ahead,” Nicosa says.
Dennis’s voice is clipped. “Can you talk?”
“For a minute.”
I look questioningly at Nicosa, and he reads it exactly. “I’ll get some glasses,” he says and politely leaves the table.
“Hi, Dennis. What’s up?”
“I received a call from Inspector Reilly of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command, Metropolitan Police. He spoke to you on the scene.”
“I remember.” The dinosaur with the head cold.
“They recovered the Ford used in the attack.”
“Where?”
“Aberdeen, Scotland. Pretty much burned to a crisp. Forensics has determined that the fire was deliberately set. Point of origin was the engine. Accelerant used was gasoline. They were trying to destroy the vehicle identification number on the engine block, but the team was able to recover another copy of it on the axel that the knuckle-brains didn’t know existed. They’re using it to trace the original owner.”
“Witnesses?”
“If there are any, they’re under a rock. We’re talking a poor section, infested with gangs. The Brits are canvassing the scene.”
“You don’t sound optimistic.”
“Why Aberdeen?” Dennis wonders. “It bothers me.”
“Scots nationalists?” I suggest. “They did hit a diplomat neighborhood.”
Dennis mulls it over. “I dunno, but they drove way the hell to Scotland for a reason. It’s likely they went there because they knew someone who would take them in after they dumped the car.”
Nicosa is walking out the kitchen door with a corkscrew and two wineglasses.
“He’s coming back. Tell me quickly, anything more on the London attack?”
“They used an Ingram MAC-10,” Dennis reports. “A crap gun used by your basic street thug. I’m guessing the shooters were hired hands.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I promise Dennis as my host sits down.
“Everything okay?” Nicosa asks.
“Fine.”
“Va bène.”
He flicks open a waiter’s corkscrew, effortlessly withdraws the cork, and pours wine into two squat glasses, not of cut crystal as I might have imagined, but everyday tableware.
“You ask about knowing the right people,” he muses. “I assume you mean the mafias? Italy, you will find, has always been a fairly lawless place. We have laws, of course, but nobody pays attention. We will always be a collection of dysfunctional tribal families ruled by old men who want to settle scores. But foreigners have the wrong impression. We are moving toward democratic capitalism; the old dons can’t fix everything. Salute.”
We toast. The white wine is sweeter than what I am used to. Nicosa seems unfazed, so I venture deeper.
“It’s not just Italy, Nicoli. Criminal networks rule the world—and that’s no exaggeration.”
I am about to add that they have become a main focus of intelligence efforts by the Bureau when he points to a red Ferrari parked near the gate.
“You see that car? I had another, just like that one. It was stolen in Rome in the morning, and they found it in Croatia the following afternoon. The collapse of communism has blessed us with a new breed of jailbeaks.”
“Jailbirds?”
“Yes. Allora … what do you do in Los Angeles? I love it there. Some of it looks just like Italy.”
“What do I do?”
I am about to explain that FBI agents do everything from bank robberies to counterterrorism when we are interrupted by the sound of tires on gravel, and a sporty green Alfa Romeo hatchback driven by Cecilia Maria Nicosa surfs through the gates to a space between two palm trees. There’s a whirl of exhaust, and then the smell of leather settles briefly.
The door opens fast and she calls, “Hello!” an exuberant hand waving even before the car stops. Then she emerges—mountains of auburn hair, large sunglasses with jeweled frames. She’s wearing a white lab coat over a tight-fitting silk sheath in vibrant shades of plum. She makes a diminutive figure in the solemn space of the sanctuary, but from her self-assured stride it is clear that she, like Nicosa, owns it.
We kiss back and forth in a fragrant blur, and next thing I know, her arms are around my neck. We hug wordlessly, tightly, for a long moment. Her body is heavier than mine, soft and voluptuous. The intensity seems a bit overwrought, considering we have never met.
Although Cecilia dresses like an Italian, she looks entirely Central American, like the Latinas I know in Los Angeles. The flat cheekbones, full lips, and broad nose show the African, Spanish, and Indian mix of our El Salvadoran background—the difference being that I received a dominant helping of Scots/Irish. She removes the sunglasses, revealing strong eyebrows and warm brown eyes, empathetic and searching, taking me in. We gaze into each other’s souls and my thoughts come to a flat-out stop—I’m face-to-face with a brown-skinned woman from another part of the globe with whom I have nothing in common.
“Do I say Buenas tardes or Ciao?” I wonder.
“You say—I am so happy!”
We embrace again, awkwardly now, and when we step apart, the candid courtyard light permits no illusion.
This is not a pampered social climber. This is a person in the real world, a doctor with a mind full of equations; a mother preoccupied with a teenage son; the wife of a man in the social spotlight, always under pressure to be fabulous.
As we walk, she murmurs, “I have a favor to ask. Please don’t tell my husband you are FBI.”
“Why not?” I whisper. “I thought he knew.”
She shakes her head.
“God!” I gasp. “I almost spilled the beans!”
“But you didn’t tell him?”
“No. What’s the problem?” I ask. “Why can’t your husband know?”
“Some people are upset by these things,” she says evasively.
“He asked what kind of work I do. What should I say?”
“I don’t know!”
“I’ll think of something,” I reply, pleased that she is reaching out to me, and wondering what she’s hiding.
Nicosa comes toward us and takes both our hands.
“This is beautiful!” he cries. “Beautiful!”
“Do you think we resemble each other?” Cecilia asks innocently.
“Definitely,” her husband affirms. “The same bone structure. The same wavy hair.”
“My hair used to be Ana’s color, but now I have to dye it. Too much gray.” Cecilia shrugs. “Look. Our skin color is so different.” She holds her arm up to mine. “Coffee and cream.”
“Still, the family resemblance is unmistakable,” Nicosa assures her. “Anyone could tell you two are related.”
We grab the bottle in the ice bucket, and our wineglasses, and continue toward the southern wing, arms around one another’s shoulders, an ungainly trio, not quite matching steps. Cecilia heads through the open door first. It is double-thick aged wood reinforced with square-head nails that could probably stop a battering ram, but the antique iron lock could be popped with a hairpin.
