Claire Gulliver #03 - Intrigue in Italics

by Gayle Wigglesworth

  “This is the cake!” LiAnn’s tone left no room to dispute. George looked at it with raised eyebrows and then passed it to Renee.

  Renee nodded. “Looks fine to me. Let me see the pudding choice you have, Randy.”

  “Here’s a torte cake that looks interesting,” George offered.

  LiAnn looked at him sternly then retorted haughtily, “We’re doing the Torta Soffice di Mele. We don’t need another cake choice.”

  George shrugged, shuffled his torte recipe to the bottom of the stack and started looking for cookies.

  LiAnn having gotten her way with the cake choice was agreeable on the pudding, but then suggested, “I don’t mind the ricotto, but let’s do a better one than Chef Martin’s.”

  Renee grinned. “So, LiAnn, you didn’t like Chef Martin’s?”

  George glared at Renee. “Don’t be a fool Renee. I agree with LiAnn. We don’t want to offer the same recipe. We need to have something different.”

  “Let’s not use raisins,” Millie suggested. “I’m not overly fond of raisins even when they’re soaked in wine. I don’t think they’re special enough. Can’t we use some kind of fresh fruit?”

  “I’ll check in the kitchen and see what’s available.” Sal left them.

  “You know at the George V, I frequently made a dessert with fresh fruit which I marinated in Frangelica. It was wonderful. I think it would be delightful spooned over the ricotta, and different.”

  “What is this Frangelica?” LiAnn asked. “I don’t know it.”

  “It’s a liqueur. Made from hazelnuts, isn’t it, Renee?”

  “Yes, it’s similar to Amaretto but lighter; it would be very good with fruit.” George answered for Renee while nodding his agreement.

  Sal returned with the list. “We have strawberries, peaches, plums and cherries available. Do any of those strike your fancy?”

  Everyone had an opinion. “Wait I saw a recipe for strawberries.” George dug through the recipes in front of him. “Here it is, Ricotta Con Le Fragole.” He passed it to LiAnn.

  “I think peaches would be good,” Renee offered.

  “I love cherries.” Millie sighed. “It would be wonderful with cherries and we could use a small amount of almond extract in the ricotta and sprinkle toasted almonds over the top to garnish it.”

  “That does sound good,” Randy agreed. “And cherries are more elegant. The season is shorter and they’re only available for a small window of time.”

  Everyone paused to consider Randy’s comment. Sal was questioned further about the cherries and finally he agreed to go back to the kitchen to get a sample for them to taste.

  “I agree the cherries would be special, but only if they are wonderful cherries,” LiAnn pronounced.

  And after tasting, they agreed that these cherries were special. So Ricotto, flavored with Almond and covered with sweet cherries soaked in Frangelica would be their third selection.

  Now the cookies were the battleground. Millie felt exhausted; making decisions by committee was a wearing process.

  But it turned out that the Almond Biscuits were chosen with ease. Made with egg whites and almonds, they would be the perfect accompaniment to their Ricotto Cherry dish.

  And they finished fifteen minutes before the break.

  As soon as they were released, Millie hurried back to her room to check the answering machine. But there were no new messages.

  * * *

  The desk clerk looked up with a friendly expression as the men approached the counter.

  “We’re looking for the American women,” the taller of the two, dressed in a brown suit, shod in expensive Italian loafers, said in a gravelly voice.

  The clerk misunderstood the gravity of the situation, retorting in a facetious manner, “American women? We have many here, do you have a name?”

  The large hand around his throat dragged him forward over the counter so his toes barely touched the floor. It was hard to breathe but he was afraid to jerk or pull away because of the knife. The sharp point was pressed uncomfortably against the skin below his right eye. He was so scared he thought he was going to wet himself.

  “The American women! Two of them. Checked in yesterday!” The voice was terrifying.

  Confusion was clear on the clerk’s face; he was desperate to give the right response.

  “Two American women! One has red hair,” the second man offered. He didn’t dress to match his friend. His attire consisted of khaki pants, tee shirt and a red nylon jacket, but his expression was grim. He meant business.

  The clerk trembled, still not moving. He stopped gasping for air long enough to say, “Yes, yes.” But he didn’t nod, the knife was still there.

  The tall man released his neck at the same time the knife disappeared, “So? What room? Are they in?”

  The clerk glanced at the cubbyholes where they kept the keys and nodded.

  “Give me the key.”

  He started to protest but one look at the men changed his mind. Silently he retrieved a key and handed it to the tall man, the number 722 clearly marked on the tag.

  The tall man handed it to his companion and said, his eyes never leaving the clerk, “I’ll just wait here with our friend. You take care of this.”

  They both watched the man enter the elevator, the doors shut behind him and the floor indicator slowly moved to number seven.

  The clerk didn’t know what to do. The tall man stood off to the side watching him carefully. He accepted the keys from two sets of departing guests, nodding nervously at their exclamations about the brightness of the morning. He didn’t encourage conversation with them, just hoping they would leave without asking a lot of questions he didn’t have the ability to answer. Meanwhile he wondered what was happening on the seventh floor.

  Room 722 was at the far end of the hall from the elevator. The man didn’t bother to knock. He fitted the key in the lock, turned it and then slammed into it so hard that the little safety lock broke and the door swung wide. The two women looked up. Their shocked expressions quickly turned to horror as the large gun in his hand silently jerked. First the red-headed woman who was leaning over her backpack fell, red blossoming on her breast, then the other woman, the one with the mousy brown hair, whose head exploded before the scream emerged. He left without even checking the corpses. No need; he knew they were dead.

  When the elevator opened on the lobby again he nodded at his companion as he headed for the door, his gun tucked back in his waistband, hidden by the red jacket. The tall man followed without a further glance at the clerk.

  The desk clerk stood mutely, shaking, thinking about what to do. He knew he didn’t want to go up to the seventh floor. He knew it wouldn’t be good.

  * * *

  Claire sat quietly thumbing through a fashion magazine. Since she was unable to read Italian she was reduced to looking at the pictures when she wasn’t surreptitiously glancing Kristen’s way. It was all she could do not to interfere but she wasn’t Kristen’s mother, so how could she protest even when the beautician kept cutting and cutting and cutting. And Kristen seemed to be fine with the amount of hair strewn around her. At last the scissors were put away; the razor came out to trim her neck and around her ears. Finally the beautician squeezed something from a tube, rubbed her hands together and then worked it into Kristen’s hair, or what was left of it. With some adroit movements of her fingers she was finished. Kristen’s hair was as short as a boy’s cut, and the hair on top of her head, a little longer than the rest, had been spiked. And Kristen was smiling as she fitted her dangling earrings back in her ears.

  “So, what do you think?” She asked gaily.

  Claire didn’t want to tell her, so she stalled, looking at her friend carefully. “I wouldn’t know you,” she said slowly.

  “Really? That’s great! Here, now what do you think?” She fitted a pair of glasses on her nose. The frameless, blue tinted lenses gave her an even more modern look.

  “You look like one of the models in t
his magazine I was looking at.”

  Kristen smiled big. “Precisely. But I look different, don’t I?”

  Claire had to admit she did.

  “Now are you sure you don’t want to have yours done?” Kirsten was serious; she didn’t seem to notice the shiver that ran through Claire as she firmly shook her head.

  “It wouldn’t do me much good. I don’t have a handful of passports with different names. And besides, no one is looking for me....” She paused a moment, thinking. “Well, except for my mother, maybe.” But she hoped not. She was counting on the message she left for her last night forestalling any anxiety on her mother’s part. With the bombing on all the television channels, her mother was sure to hear about it. And when she couldn’t reach Claire she would naturally panic. It had been so easy to purchase a phone card and call the Villa Tuscany. Unfortunately she wasn’t able to reach either her mother or Ruth. But, as the Villa Tuscany was a five star establishment, each room had its own voice message system. Claire just left a message so her mother wouldn’t worry, and that way she didn’t have to lie to her directly. It was a very satisfactory solution.

  “Now what?” Claire asked Kristen.

  “Well, we’ve got time to kill and it’s too early for lunch, so how about we see some of Siena?

  “What does that guidebook of yours recommend?

  That’s how they ended up at the Duomo.

  “Kristen, this church has two Michelangelo statues, several of Bernini’s works, some Pisano and even a Donatello. Most museums would spend a fortune to add them to their collection, if they even had a chance to bid on them. And here they sit for everyone and anyone to see.”

  They entered the vestibule of the church with anticipation. But they no more than got through the door before the floor, the beautiful, intricate, detailed marble pavement took their breath away. Claire spent the next couple of hours hunched over, examining every detail. She only nodded abstractedly to Kristen’s comments on the Michelangelo statues unable to lift her eyes long enough to examine them. Never had she seen anything as wonderful as this vast floor. It was mind boggling. She hoped to burn it into her memory so she could remember the details for years to come. But in case her memory wasn’t good enough she bought a lot of postcards and even a book with detailed pictures. When Kristen finally lured her out of the Duomo with promises of food, she went reluctantly, vowing to herself that she would be back, perhaps tomorrow or another time, but she would be back to look some more.

  They ate in the fashionable Il Campo. But not at one of the trendy, expensive outdoor cafes spread along the perimeter of the great paved piazza, but with the dozens of office workers and students. This group bought their lunches, as they had, from one of the small delis; then sat in the sun, eating their lunches perched on the various stairs, fountains, benches, and even sitting cross-legged on the pavement of the piazza.

  Claire had finished her Panini, a sandwich like affair with thin dry ham on a crusty buttered roll. Now she was starting to peel her orange.

  “Yuck. What’s the matter with this orange?” she asked Kristen.

  “Oh, you haven’t had one of our oranges yet, have you? It’s a blood orange. It’s red inside, not orange, but it tastes very good. Try it.”

  Claire took a small piece. It was tasty despite its blood red color, so she lost her hesitancy immediately.

  “Claire, I’m a little surprised you don’t have a cell phone. Haven’t you entered the twenty-first century yet?” Kristen teased.

  “Oh, I do. I just didn’t bring it. People told me I’d have to make arrangements to have it work here, and it seemed like too much trouble for what little use I would get from it.

  “What about you? It seems that everyone here has one attached to their ear most of the time. Shouldn’t you have one?”

  “I don’t know that many people. I don’t need one and when I make my weekly report I always use a public phone. It’s safer.”

  They let their gazes wander around looking at the others eating and sunning there. Then Kristen continued, “I guess your bookstore is making it?”

  Claire nodded. She had left the library while Kristen was still working there to transform the outdated bookstore her great uncle left her into the trendy Gulliver’s Travels Bookshop. It had been a very risky venture for someone who had spent the first half of her life in a safe, conservative job. But, in spite of the reversals from the dot-com crash of Silicon Valley and the following tragedy of 9/11, the business was still solid.

  “I love running the store. I love being my own boss and doing what I want. Well, of course, I have Mrs. B, Theroux and Tuffy-Two to consider.”

  She saw Kristen’s confusion and laughed. “Mrs. B is my assistant manager. She’s somewhere between fifty-five and eighty-five and she’s lived. She’s traveled everywhere, done everything and loves working in the store, schmoozing with the customers and pushing me in directions I’m sometimes too cautious to go. And Theroux is the cat, who moved in and made the store her own. She tolerates us and allows the customers to fawn over her when she feels like it. And then there’s Tuffy-Two. Some friends gave me a West Highland Terrier puppy last Christmas. I’m afraid he has taken over our lives. Even the cat has taken him in hand. In fact I’m a little surprised Theroux hasn’t taught him how to use her litter box.”

  “Gee, Claire it sounds wonderful. I know everyone thought you were having some huge mid-life crisis. They thought you were going to ruin your life by leaving the library after all those years. But I didn’t. I thought with all the time you had in the library you probably needed a change.”

  She sighed. “And of course I’ve learned how easy it is to completely change courses in life. Sometimes it only takes a small step to send you in a completely different direction.”

  They both fell silent pondering the strange turns of fate.

  The sun, the muted noise on the piazza and the food made Claire realize how sleepy she was.

  “Kristen, I think I could use a nap. What do you think?”

  She agreed, so they dumped their garbage and headed back to their hotel.

  CHAPTER 7

  Kristen was first to notice the surge of pedestrians moving with them up the narrow curved street to the hotel. “What’s going on?”

  Claire had been concentrating on getting up the steep street without losing her breath. She was very tired. Visions of victims and the blown out buildings crowded her mind every time she had shut her eyes, which had robbed her of a sound sleep last night. Now she looked up and saw the people crowding the street ahead of them, going the same way they were. It was strange.

  “Oh, my god,” Kristen breathed, as they rounded a curve giving them a view of the crowd amassed in front of them. Police cars and emergency vehicles were clustered in front of a building which looked suspiciously like their hotel.

  The crowd was being held back by determined policemen holding out their arms. Something was obviously wrong.

  “What’s going on?” Claire asked, frightened.

  Kristen shook her head and motioned Claire to follow her into the edge of the crowd. She asked lots of questions as they worked their way forward until they could see it was definitely their hotel which was cordoned off. Finally, near the front, she found someone who seemed to know something, and the rapid-fire Italian went on and on until Claire wanted to scream at them. At last Kristen turned back to Claire and whispered, “That was one of the maids. She said two men forced the desk clerk to give them the room number of the two American women. They were very specific; they wanted two American women, one with red hair.”

  Claire’s eyes widened in horror.

  “And..., what happened?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  Kristen swallowed hard. “He gave him the key. One of the men stayed with the clerk and the other went up in the elevator. When he came down they left.”

  “And...?” Claire felt a scream in her throat and forced it back. “What did they look like? Ask her what they looke
d like.”

  Kristen turned back to the woman and spoke again; Claire wished she could understand.

  Just then a ripple went through the crowd. People pressed forward craning their necks to get a better glimpse of the activity near the door of the hotel. A collective gasp came from the watchers as the gurneys came out, one after the other, each draped with a sheet over what could only have been a body bag. The attendants loaded the gurneys into the back and then the ambulance moved silently down the street, the crowd opening a path for it to pass.

  Kristen turned and slipped back down the street with Claire right on her heels. They didn’t stop until they collapsed in the chairs at a table in a sidewalk café just outside Il Campo. Kirsten ordered two espressos and the hovering waiter disappeared.

  “There doesn’t seem to be much of a question here.” Kristen was grim. “Two Americans? One with red hair? How did they know? How could they have found out so soon I wasn’t in the building they bombed in Florence?”

  “Was it him? Did she say?” Claire’s heart was pounding so rapidly she could hardly breathe.

  “One was tall, good-looking, dressed in a nice brown suit, shiny with flashes of green. And the other was wearing casual clothes and a lightweight red jacket.”

  Now Claire was truly afraid. “This is really serious, Kristen. Someone wants you dead.”

  “Not hard to guess who, is it? I guess ‘Daddy’ still has contacts in the old country.” She looked around at the other people sitting in the café. “But how did they find me?”

  The waiter brought their coffees and the bill. Kristen laid a few coins down, swallowed the espresso in one gulp and said, “I’ve got to be moving on. It won’t take long for them to find out they made another mistake and this town will be easy to search.”

  Claire shivered; she knew Kristen was right.

  “I think the best thing to do now is for you to go back to Florence and go about your vacation as if you had never found me. I’ll hole up somewhere until my contact people can find a safe place for me to go.”