Roman Count Down

by David P. Wagner

  Syms-Mulford’s eyes bore in on Rick, but he said nothing.

  “The count usually called when he was on his way, as a courtesy to the countess, and his habit was very helpful to you, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” His tone had an unconvincing gruffness.

  “His calls always gave you time to make your escape. And on that night, since you assumed he would be arriving home as always in a taxi, and you didn’t want to run into him, you decided to walk across the river and find one for yourself on the other side. But instead, your old friend had taken a bus and was himself crossing the island. It was an awkward meeting, to say the least. Especially since you had argued with him that day, in this very spot, about your relationship with the sess.”

  “You seem to have it all figured out, Mr. Montoya.” He was breathing deeply in an attempt to keep himself under control. It wasn’t helping.

  “What exactly happened then on the bridge I can only guess. You being the larger man, I suspect that when the argument started, you threw him to the ground.”

  Syms-Mulford exploded. He slammed his hand down next to his cup and glass, upsetting them both and startling both Gilda and the man at the end of the bar. “That’s not true! It was completely unintentional, we struggled and he slipped, but I did not throw him to the ground. You must believe me.” He lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “He was my oldest and dearest friend.”

  Rick looked past Syms-Mulford and nodded to Commissario Piero Fontana, who folded the newspaper and put a coin on the bar.

  Chapter Twelve

  The rest of Rick’s day went very well—perhaps even better—than the morning, since he’d succeeded in getting a foot in the door at the university for some new translation work. That could be the start of getting his name out in the Italian university community and going on to the next step in his business plan, breaking into the interpreter circuit. His father had suggested contacting the public affairs office of the embassy, since they needed interpreters on occasion, and he would do that tomorrow. Perhaps this really could work. The crisp air added to his good mood. A pastel red dominated the late afternoon sky, taking over from the dirty layer that had covered the city before the cleansing rain. The price paid by the Romans, at least those who owned cars, was the thin layer of brown mud that covered every vehicle left outside. He walked past an old Fiat, its back window scrawled with the Italian equivalent of “wash me.” In the next few days the car washes would be as busy as shops selling fresh pasta. Though the scirocco was a rare weather phenomenon, Rick added it to the list of reasons not to get his own car.

  He pushed open the door to O’Shea’s Pub and immediately went from Rome to Dublin—or to a pseudo-Irish city populated mostly by Americans and other non-Irish. The place was starting to grow on him, and he no longer found fault with the anonymous member of his class who, in the distant past, had picked it as a gathering place. Leave the chic wine bars to the native Romans, Guido’s unpretentious pub served its purpose for the alumni of the American Overseas School. Rick adjusted his eyes to the dim light and spotted Art at his usual place. His friend was alone with his beer glass, but two dishes of greasy french fries sat in the middle of the table.

  “Is someone sitting here?” Rick asked as he reached the table.

  Art looked up. “Aha. Our resident sleuth. Sit, sit. My drinking companion is wandering around the room, talking to people about the baseball game.” He gestured at the screen above them where an outfielder, unaware that a camera could be on him, was scratching where he shouldn’t. “Tell me what has been happening in the life of Rick Montoya. It will be more exciting than this athletic contest. We’ll get you a beer if Guido comes back out from the kitchen. Someone, no doubt tourists, foolishly ordered the day’s special, and he is in the back preparing it since yesterday he fired his cook. Always a drama in this place. Have a french fry in the meantime.”

  Rick looked at the plate. “I don’t want to spoil my dinner.”

  “I can’t blame you. Guido’s food has a way of doing that. So, have you and your uncle solved the crime of the century? Can we once again walk the streets of the city without fear?”

  “As a matter of fact, you can, Arturo.” He told him about the criminal activity of the eldest Stampatelli, and how Count Zimbardi must have stumbled upon it.

  “What a great idea. It’s like that guy I read about once who counterfeited one-dollar bills. Nobody prints up dollar bills in their basement, the bad guys always go with higher denominations. But that’s what this guy did, and since they only check fifties and hundreds in stores, he got away with it for decades. Did your guy sell the tickets, or just use them himself?”

  “You seem to think that printing the bus tickets is a more interesting crime than murder.”

  “Absolutely. Murders are a dime a dozen. So this counterfeiter murdered the count to keep his activities from the eyes of the police.”

  “No, in fact the count was bumped off by his oldest and dearest friend, to quote the murderer.”

  “With oldest and dearest friends like that, who—”

  “My thoughts exactly, Arturo.”

  “I want to hear more about this. How about we get a pizza after this and you can fill me in.”

  “No can do, Art. I am having dinner with a young lady.”

  “Aha. Let me guess: the lovely and talented Giulia Livingston?”

  “No. We were supposed to dine last night, but she canceled at the last minute.”

  “Bummer. So you dined alone.”

  “No, in fact I went out with a lovely girl from my new neighborhood.”

  “Excellent. And things went so well you’re meeting her again this evening.”

  “Wrong again. The evening went well until she ran into an old flame and dropped me like a hot potato, if you’ll excuse the use of two similar figures of speech in the same sentence.”

  “Ouch. You deserve a drink.” He looked toward the bar. “Where’s that Guido? How can he make any money in this place if he’s not around to serve his clientele? So who is it tonight?”

  “Her name is Erica, and I think she’s a college professor.”

  “Let’s hope this new relationship lasts more than twenty-four hours. What about your Argentine friend? Has he managed to sell his wine to the Vatican?”

  “He did,” answered Rick, without going into details.

  “So he’ll be on a plane back to Buenos Aires.”

  “No, he’s going to work with Giulia in the travel business.”

  Art held up a hand. “Wait. Is that why she—?”

  “I’m quite sure, yes.”

  Again Art looked for Guido. “Where is that guy? You really, really need a drink bad.”

  “No, I’m fine, Art. In fact I had an excellent day, starting with solving the murder case. I made some progress on my business as well, and now I will dine with a lovely woman. How could it be any better?”

  “You failed to mention having a drink with your oldest and dearest friend, if Guido ever appears to serve it to you, but I’ll let your oversight pass. I hope this woman breaks your streak.”

  “Streak?”

  “I’m referring to your love life. You’ve been here barely a week and your high school sweetheart turns out to be a nun, another high school friend scorns you for a so-called friend of yours from South America, and a lovely lady from your neighborhood longs for her old boyfriend. Zero for three is a bad streak.”

  A voice boomed from behind them. “Our best hitter is O for three tonight, is that who you’re talking about?”

  Rick turned to see a familiar figure standing behind him with a bottle of Budweiser in hand.

  “Rick,” said Art, “let me introduce Lambert Field, a visitor from America.”

  “We are already well acquainted, Art. It was Rick who called and gave me the name of this wonderful es
tablishment. It was like being thrown a lifesaver after falling off my yacht. But I do not see any libation in front of you, Rick.” Field caught the eye of Guido, who had finally made an appearance. “Innkeeper, a flagon of your finest ale for my companion.”

  Guido nodded and reached for an empty glass.

  Food and Wine

  In this book Rick once again manages to eat well, as would be expected since he finds himself in Rome at meal time. But his first lunch on these pages is set in Albuquerque, when he dines with his sister before leaving for Italy. He has a local specialty, the green chile cheeseburger, topped with green chiles from Hatch, New Mexico and served with french fries. The Alien Ale he drinks as an accompaniment was inspired by the UFO landing in Roswell, south of Albuquerque. When in New Mexico you should try both; Rick would not steer you wrong.

  The first dinner out with his uncle in Rome is at a neighborhood restaurant, where Piero orders an unnamed “dark red from Piemonte.” The Piedmont region, of which Turin is the capital, boasts a number of quality reds, including Barolo, Gattinara, Barbera, and Dolcetto. All are readily available at good wine shops in the States. To go with the red wine Piero orders soup while Rick has one of his favorite Roman pasta dishes, spaghetti alla gricia. It is one of those recipes that looks simple to make but never tastes as good at home as when you have it at a restaurant in Rome. Meat is next, with Piero getting a traditional steak while Rick orders carpaccio. The paper-thin raw steak that Rick has can be served with various toppings, but the traditional one is shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese drizzled with olive oil.

  Their next meal is at Giggetto in the Ghetto, what the Romans call the Jewish neighborhood of the city, which was indeed a ghetto in the worst sense during the Middle Ages and afterward. (The word is from the Venetian dialect going back to the original ghetto in that city.) Appropriately, the two have Roman/Jewish specialties to start the lunch: crisp Jerusalem artichokes and rice balls stuffed with cheese, both deep-fried. Rick follows with parmigiana di melanzane, which bears no resemblance to eggplant parmesan you get in restaurants in the States. Piero has porcini mushrooms, which can be grilled like steaks, but in this case are roasted in the oven. The one word that can truly describe these grilled mushrooms is “rich.” To accompany this repast, and stay relatively local, Piero orders a Velletri Rosso, produced around the town of the same name south east of Rome at the edge of the Alban Hills.

  Once again Piero mixes a local wine with local food when they lunch in a Ligurian restaurant. I don’t name it in the text, but I had Taverna Giulia in mind when I wrote this. It was the best place to get Ligurian food in Rome when I lived there, and it is found near the eastern end of Via Giulia, a street Rick walks at one point in the book. You can’t get a more Ligurian pasta dish than trenette al pesto, which is what Rick orders. I should warn you that the problem with ordering pesto in Italy, especially in the towns near Genova, is that when you get back home the pesto will taste terrible in comparison. I could say that about many things you get in restaurants in Italy compared with the States, but pesto is perhaps the most extreme example. (It and mozzarella cheese. See A Funeral in Mantova.) Piero has pansôti as his first course, but it also goes well with the white they drink with the meal, Cinque Terre. It comes from vines on hills around the five (cinque) towns (terre) just down the coast from Genova, which have become a tourist mecca. Compared to other Italian regions Liguria does not produce many quality wines, or really many wines at all, but that is simply because it is much smaller in area.

  Rick’s last meal in the book is a dinner with Gina in a very informal restaurant near his new apartment. The place I had in mind when I wrote this was da Francesco, a short walk from Piazza Navona. Without a GPS it’s hard to find in the matrix of streets that make up that neighborhood, but it will be worth the effort. Rick’s choices here are classic Roman specialties, spaghetti al’ Amatriciana followed by saltimboca. The pasta’s name comes from the town of Amatrice in the mountains east of Rome, where it originated. Their wine for this meal is specified only as “red.” When one so orders at trattorie in Italy the waiter will bring the house wine, more often than not in an open carafe, and refill it as needed. It can be ordered in a quarter liter, half liter, or full liter, depending on how many of you there are. Obviously, the restaurant orders the house wine in bulk, and where it comes from is not specified. Though I’ve never asked, I’m sure the waiter will tell you what kind of wine it is, if you are curious. Let me state that I have never been disappointed by a house wine in Italy.

  Author’s Note

  I am most grateful to my editors, Barbara and Annette, for suggesting a prequel to the Rick Montoya series, as well as for urging that it be set in Rome and encouraging me to put in more humor than the first five books. I enjoyed writing it and am excited that something which could be described as “Montoya Lite” is going to press. To my regular readers I promise that, in the next one, Rick will leave the big city and again find himself in another of those wonderful small Italian towns.

  This book allowed me to poke around some of my favorite places in Rome and have some fun with the foibles of both residents and tourists. Having spent six wonderful years there, I feel like I’m allowed. I hope my Roman friends agree. Rome’s historic center is, to use an Italian phrase, a misura di uomo. That can be roughly translated as, “the measure of a man,” meaning that everything’s easily reachable on foot. Rick does take buses and taxis, but most of the time he walks, and doing so allowed me to show that strolling around the city’s ancient streets is a joy open to both locals and visitors. It is what I miss most about living in Rome. Well, that and the food.

  While the plot and characters are complete fiction, all of the main streets and sites mentioned in the book are very much real. That includes Bernini’s delightful elephant statue, the Vatican press office, and La Palma gelateria. Another is the Torre Argentina area sacra, a required stop for those interested in ancient Roman ruins as well as for cat lovers. One can spend hours watching the felines strolling around the temples. There is not a Via Anacleto in Rome, though an anti-pope of that name did exist, and the description of his life that I wrote is accurate. For Anacleto’s history I consulted one of my favorite references, Lives of the Popes, by the late professor Richard P. McBrien.

  Rick’s Rome apartment, in both layout and location, is roughly based on that of my good foreign service friends Joe and Barbara Johnson, when we all lived in Rome in the mid 1980s. I hope they don’t mind that Rick borrows it. I also thank two old buddies from New Mexico, Art Verardo and Alan Firestone, for the use of their names. Perhaps they will think of Rick the next time they have a green chile cheeseburger.

  A big grazie mille goes, as ever, to my son, Max, for his support and ideas. Both he and Rick Montoya attended the American Overseas School of Rome, and are better people for it. Of course my wife, Mary, was again instrumental in keeping me on track with his book, always providing encouragement and excellent ideas. I couldn’t have written it without her.