Roman Count Down

by David P. Wagner

  “They do drink wine here. Give me your friend’s name and cell phone, and I’ll see what I can find out.”

  Rick quickly pulled out a card and passed it to her. “It might be easier just to call me.”

  A few minutes later Rick was outside trying to shake off the image of Lidia in a nun’s habit. It wasn’t the full costume, long and black with her face framed in white wings. Instead she wore plain gray, ankle length and a head cover of the same color. But the total effect was the same—she was a nun. He reminded himself what she’d said about being very happy, which was the most important, and he believed her. Despite that, he couldn’t help getting an empty feeling about the encounter. There was no reason for it, so he tried to shake it off and return to the other issues at hand, mainly the murder of the count. He was anxious to know if his uncle had tracked down Syms-Mulford and set up an interview. There was something about the man’s relationship with the late count that intrigued Rick, as much as the name itself.

  There were mundane practical issues as well, the foremost being moving into his apartment. He needed to shop for towels and sheets, and knew just the store where to do it, relatively close to his new address. A church bell rang, marking midday, and reminding him that he was supposed to meet his uncle for lunch. He looked across St. Peter’s Square at the facade of the basilica, the arms of Bernini’s colonnade beckoning him toward it. The square was dotted with groups of tourists, expected any day regardless of the weather, and certainly on a sunny morning like this.

  Living in Rome was like living in a museum, and it was a shame not to take advantage of it. Otherwise he might as well have stayed in Albuquerque. He stepped off the curb and started toward the basilica just as his phone rang. He checked the number and reluctantly answered in Spanish.

  “Si, Juan Alberto.”

  “Reek, I was wondering if you have been able to find a way to help your old friend.”

  Rick shook his head. “I am working on it, Juan Alberto, just now, as a matter of fact. But nothing firm yet. You’ll be the first one to know. And what about you? This is your responsibility, or did you forget that?”

  “I am quite aware of that, Reek. As we speak I am waiting for someone here in the Vatican so that I can send something positive back to my bosses in Buenos Aires.”

  Perhaps Rick had spoken too harshly. “That sounds excellent, Juan Alberto. Someone in the Curia?” He looked over at the group of medieval buildings that dominated one side of the square. “I’ve always wondered where the offices are located.”

  “I am not precisely inside the Vatican, Reek. In fact I am in St. Peter’s Square.”

  Rick had been walking as he talked, and now stopped. He looked around the vast square and in the distance spotted Juan Alberto, dressed in a dark suit, standing near a group of Japanese tourists. Rick held the phone away from his ear and looked at the time on its face. Against his better instincts—which were to put off meeting with Juan Alberto as long as possible—but giving in to curiosity, he starting walking in his direction. “Stay put, Juan Alberto, I’ll be right there.” He hung up and the Argentine looked around, a puzzled frown on his face. Juan Alberto appeared the same, with perhaps a few more pounds added to his lank frame. Same slicked-back hair, same clean-shaven face. Same arrogant air that went along with his passport. Like so many natives of Buenos Aires, Juan Alberto considered himself a European who, by some cruel and inexplicable twist of fate, happened to have been born in South America.

  Juan Alberto was looking up at the obelisk when Rick approached.

  “Huevón.”

  Juan Alberto spun around. “Reek!” The two exchanged spine-crushing abrazos, as required of two Latino men who had not seen each other in years. “You look great, my friend. Who would have thought that these two old amigos would reunite here in Italy?”

  “Technically speaking, we aren’t in Italy, but your point is well taken.” Rick pointed to his friend’s suit. “You have an appointment and I don’t want to keep you, but I happened to be close by so I had to come over.”

  Juan Alberto looked around and then back at Rick. “He should be here any moment. Ah, I think I see him coming now.”

  Rick followed his friend’s eyes and saw a small man walking toward them carrying something under his arm that appeared to be a large piece of cardboard. The guy wore a tattered suit with a thin tie, and hanging from his other arm was a camera. He was searching the crowd as he walked. Juan Alberto waved and the man nodded and waddled toward them, grasping the cardboard. He looked at Rick’s cowboy boots.

  “I don’t suppose you speak Italian either.”

  “In fact I do,” Rick replied.

  “Well, tell your Spanish friend here I don’t normally work out in the sun since I don’t want the pope to fade. I’ll expect a good tip.”

  “Juan Alberto, the guy said something about the pope fading. What is he—?”

  Rick stopped when the man turned the cardboard over and set it up on the stone pavement, braced by two sticks. It was a life-size photograph of the pontiff.

  Juan Alberto grinned. “I saw this guy yesterday out on the street, Reek, and had a brilliant idea.”

  “I don’t think I want to ask.”

  Juan Alberto stepped next to the pope. “I thought that taking the picture in front of St. Peter’s would add veracity to the photograph. My boss was expecting me to see the pope, so it makes sense that I would get a photo, no?”

  “Absolutely. And the pope is often found in St. Peter’s Square greeting visiting wine salesmen.”

  The short man stood with his camera. “Are you two done chatting? The sun’s pretty bright.”

  Juan Alberto didn’t understand the words but somehow got the point. He walked next to the pope and tried putting his arm over the white cardboard shoulder. Rick shook his head and wagged a finger. Juan Alberto took his hand down and looked at the camera with a serious face. Rick gave him a thumbs-up as the camera snapped. Then they both looked over the shoulder of the cameraman as he showed them the photos.

  “That will be perfect,” said Juan Alberto. “Reek, all I have are fifty euro notes. Could you spare something smaller so I can tip this guy?”

  Piero’s lunch spot was Giggetto, a restaurant in the heart of Rome’s Jewish quarter, the Ghetto. It was still early when Rick left Juan Alberto, and the weather was perfect, so he decided to walk rather than take a taxi. He crossed the Tiber and made his way to the Via Giulia, one of the straightest in Rome, built by Pope Julius II who gave it his name. As he walked, he dragged his mind away from Lidia and thought of another Giulia, again marveling at how she had changed for the better. She was still the same person, programmed for success, but at least the exterior made it more pleasant to be around her. And what was wrong with being a success in business? That’s what he was trying to do, wasn’t it? Maybe he should give her a call, especially since Lidia was now very much out of the picture.

  Piero was sitting at a table reading the menu when Rick walked through the door. To Rick’s great surprise, his uncle’s suit jacket was hanging behind him on the chair back. Informality gone rampant. The shirt was perfectly tailored, its sleeves just the right fit between baggy and too tight, and the spread collar held the knot of a solid blue tie. It would all be covered by the napkin once the food arrived.

  “Hope I’m not late.” Rick took the chair across from his uncle.

  “Not at all. I’ve ordered wine, a Velletri Rosso, so we’ll have to have something that goes with red. Which should not be a problem here. Did you eat in the Ghetto often when you lived here?”

  “A few times. I had a Jewish classmate who lived down here. She said her family had been in this area of Rome since the forties.”

  “Not very long.”

  “Not the nineteen forties, Zio, just the forties. The first century.”

  “Ah. So you are familiar with the food?”
r />   “Absolutely. Her mother made wonderful carciofi alla giudia.”

  “That is a specialty here.”

  The waiter arrived with mineral water and the wine, and Piero ordered the Jerusalem artichokes for both of them, along with supplì al telefono, another fried specialty. He poured wine into their glasses, they toasted each other, and took their first sips. The room was about half full, mostly with what looked like local businessmen, though few of them wore jackets or ties. Perhaps that was what had convinced Piero to go casual.

  “I saw Sergeant Lamponi just before I came here and she told me about your meetings this morning, but I’d like to hear about them from you. You went first to the street where Count Zimbardi spent his last days, if I remember correctly.”

  “At least part of his last days. He saw various people, including Rospo the bookie and Syms-Mulford, as we found out later from Rospo. So the man was busy. But let me go over each of the people we saw.”

  Piero took another drink of wine and sat back to listen. Rick described the street in the order he and Carmella had walked it: Signor Avellone the furniture restorer, Pina in the salumaio, Ahmed the pizza maker, Leopoldo who fixed mopeds, and finally two of the three generations of Stampatelli in the print shop. By the time he finished they were well into the flat, crisp artichokes and crunchy, round supplì which had arrived at the same time as Ahmed. Rick cut one of the rice balls in half and the cheese inside it stretched into the strings that gave the dish its nickname.

  “Sergeant Lamponi told me of her suspicions that male villainy may have been at play,” said Piero when Rick finished. He popped the last crunchy piece of his artichoke into his mouth while awaiting Rick’s reply.

  “She does have a penchant for suspecting such things, but in this case she could be correct. The count’s interest in Pina may well have been for more than her memories of living on the street. And the middle Stampatelli could also have been in a relationship with the lovely Pina, which the arrival of the rich count on the scene threatened. If that’s what happened, it puts Ludovico Stampatelli on a list of suspects.”

  “You will have to go back and talk with Ludovico. And what about the bookie? Did you get anything from him?”

  The waiter appeared to take away their plates and inquire as to what would be next. Rick did not hesitate, ordering melanzane alla parmigiana, while Piero opted for funghi porcini.

  Rick took another sip of the vino rosso. “An interesting fellow, our man Rospo. The way he talked was right on character for a bookie. Like in a movie. Mind you, it was difficult to picture him as such, he being dressed in what was essentially a short skirt. But he was helpful in getting more of a picture of the count, whom he described as a good customer who paid his bets and was addicted to gambling. It coincided with what I’d heard from the card players at the bar. More important was that Rospo saw the count that last day. By itself that’s not much, but he mentioned that Count Zimbardi was with his good friend Girolamo Syms-Mulford. So we can add Syms-Mulford to the list of people who saw the count on the day of his murder.”

  “Which makes your interview with him more important. I set it up for late this afternoon, by the way. He will meet you at his office.”

  “Office?”

  “He works part-time at some institute for historical studies near the Circus Maximus. I was told he spends his time writing and doing research. This city is filled with little groups that study arcane issues and think they are contributing to the betterment of mankind. I haven’t seen much improvement as a result of their efforts, but what do I know? I’m only a cynical policeman.”

  “Did you run a check on him?”

  “Dual citizenship with Great Britain, as you would expect, but essentially he’s clean.” He studied the bottle and appeared to be on the verge of ordering another. Instead he changed topics. “You’re still planning on moving into the apartment tomorrow, Riccardo?”

  “Yes, I thought I would. When I leave here I’m going to buy sheets for the bed and towels for the bathroom, and drop them off. Tomorrow morning I’ll leave and let you get back to a normal home life.”

  “Such as it is.” Piero shook his head. “Did you know that I almost got married five years ago?”

  Rick had his wineglass at his lips, but he brought it down slowly to the table. Rick’s mother always said that his uncle was not one to share details of his personal life, which made the comment a stunner. When Rick had been in high school in Rome, Piero was working somewhere in the south, and the Montoyas didn’t see him often. When they did, the policeman was anything but forthcoming about things personal. Rick’s mother complained about Piero’s need for privacy, saying it wasn’t very Italian. Indeed, when he started working on translations, Rick found that there is no word in Italian for “privacy.” In the phone call when he told his mother of his plans for moving to Rome, she didn’t even ask him to find out what was going on with her brother’s life outside the office. For her it was a lost cause.

  So Rick was jolted by the peripety of his uncle’s question.

  “No, Zio, I didn’t.”

  Piero studied his wineglass. “She was a doctor—still is, of course. I met her when I was working on an especially complicated case in Sicily, and she had been called in to help the medical examiner. We started seeing each other, frequently. After solving that case I went through a slow period at the office, almost no criminal activity. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, we police find it a mixed blessing; boredom, but also the chance to relax and enjoy life outside the office. She came to think that that was the way it always was in police work, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t. We talked about moving in together and even marriage. I knew that we were in the eye of the hurricane, its wall about to bear down on me, and that’s exactly what happened. All hell broke loose, a series of mob murders that were part of a power struggle between the families. I went for days, weeks, without seeing her, and she caught on to what a policeman’s life is really like. She concluded that it wasn’t for her.” He took a long swig of wine. “Can’t say that I blamed her.”

  Rick didn’t know how to respond. The Italian in him said that Piero was opening up to him for a reason, perhaps expecting Rick to respond in kind when the opportunity arose. Or he just wanted to show that he trusted his nephew. Certainly this revelation would not be shared with Rick’s mother, and Piero sensed that. More likely the man had simply come to a stage in his life when he needed someone outside the office to talk to about things. That was what Anna had said back in Albuquerque, but she had been referring to his work. Personal stuff was not what Rick expected.

  Fortunately, the second courses arrived and were placed in front of them. Eggplant parmesan was one of Rick’s favorites, and this one looked especially inviting. Straight from the broiler, it was in a round metal dish with handles, and the edges were crusted with burnt cheese, a sure sign of the real thing. He told himself to wait before digging in. Like with pizza just out of the oven, the combination of tomato and cheese on melanzane alla parmigiana was a recipe for a burned mouth. Caution was required, but the smells and look of the dish silently urged him to dig in. Piero’s porcini mushrooms were less menacing but equally inviting. Rather than grilled, these came out of the oven looking like two steaks sprinkled with parsley and wafting an aroma of garlic. Wishes of buon appetito were exchanged.

  “What is your feeling about this case so far, Riccardo?”

  Rick was relieved his uncle had changed the subject; the previous one was making him uncomfortable. If the man wished to return to his private life at a later time, he was ready to listen, but he wouldn’t probe. Rick concluded he must be more of a Montoya than a Fontana when it came to being nosy, though his mother would never characterize innocent interest in a relative’s life as being nosy.

  “The most logical scenario is still a mugging gone bad, Uncle, but since reading the count’s papers and talking
with people he knew, I cannot help thinking that there is more to it. He clearly had discovered something he didn’t like, but what was it and who was doing it? I keep thinking that it has to be connected to the people he saw on the last days, but logic tells me it could have nothing to do with them.” He carefully sliced a piece of eggplant.

  “I like the way your mind works, Riccardo. Perhaps your meeting with this man Syms-Mulford will get us some answers. Also, I have tracked down the harp teacher, so you and Sergeant Lamponi can go see her tomorrow. Is that melanzane to your liking?”

  “Yes, it’s excellent.” He took a drink from his glass of mineral water, sloshing it around on the top of his mouth where the blistered skin was starting to peel off.

  Rick didn’t have to wait long for the door to the courtyard to open, which was fortunate since he was weighted down with heavy shopping bags.

  The portiere had beamed when he saw Rick’s face through the hole in the door. “Mister Montoya. Let me help you with the bags.”

  So now it was mister. “That’s all right, Giorgio, I’ve got them. If you could just give me the key, I’ll be fine.” He started walking back to the elevator, with Giorgio scurrying ahead of him. They came together again at the elevator door, where Rick had put down his burdens and pressed the button. He took the key from the man’s hand. “I can handle it from here, thank you.”

  “Are you sure there is nothing else I can help with?”

  “If there is, I’ll call down. That phone I saw in the kitchen rings in your room?”

  “Yes, Mister Montoya.” He couldn’t keep his eyes off Rick’s cowboy boots.

  Once in the apartment Rick put down his shopping bags and stepped into the living room. Giorgio must have come up and opened the shutters and windows to air out the place, since light streamed in from both sides of the room. After taking one step, he froze.