it would be difficult to find them in the city.
Ten minutes later they were following the red icon on the autostrada heading for Fiumicino, the airport. The thief was probably catching a plane, leaving the country. But then the icon turned, going north now toward Civitavecchia. Luciano was passing cars, and they came up behind a stake truck. The icon was flashing. Arturo radioed the backup units. He told one unit to get ahead of the truck and slow it down. He told the other to position itself in the lane to the left of the truck and they would have it surrounded on three sides. The only escape was going off-road into a field.
When the backup units were in position, Luciano turned on the flashers and siren. The truck pulled over on the side of the road. Eight GIS surrounding the truck, aiming HK MP5 machine guns at the driver, an old man with dark wrinkled skin.
Arturo saw cars slowing down, people curious, wondering what was happening — all the police — all this firepower. He found the white soccer bag in a wooden crate in the open bed of the truck, the inside of the crate stained red from the fruit it had carried. He reached in and brought the bag out. It was empty. Luciano told the old man to get out of the truck and he did and started to run. Eight guns pointed at him and he tried to get away. Luciano caught him and the GIS teams came closer, aiming their automatic weapons, forming a tight circle around him. Arturo held up the soccer bag. 'Is this yours?' he said.
The old man shook his head. 'I have not seen it before.'
Arturo believed him. The man was afraid. Who wouldn't be? All these guns aimed at him as if he were a wanted criminal, a fugitive. He thought they were overdoing it a little, and told the men to lower their weapons and disperse. He did not consider this bent, wrinkled old prune much of a threat. Arturo said, 'Where are you coming from?'
'Campo di Fiori, the market,' the old man said. 'I am a farmer. I grow vegetables and fruit.'
He had the hands of a laborer, fingers permanently stained from the soil, fingernails caked with dirt. Arturo said, 'Why did you try to get away?'
'I have no driving license,' the man said.
'You lost it?'
'Never had it.'
'How long have you been driving?'
'Since I was thirteen years old.'
Arturo took out his pipe and tobacco and filled the bowl and lighted it, blowing out smoke that had a spicy aroma. 'You can go,' he said to the old man.
Luciano said, 'Captain, can I talk to you?'
They stepped a few feet away from the truck.
Luciano said, 'You are not going to bring him in?'
Arturo said, 'For what reason?'
Luciano said, 'Maybe he knows something.'
Arturo said, 'Did you look at him?'
The old man drove away. Arturo and Luciano went to their car and got in.
Arturo could now see how the kidnappers were able to escape. He imagined the monk emerging from the tunnel, walking down to Viale del Parco del Celio where an automobile picked him up. They emptied the money and threw the soccer bag on the truck. The only question: if the farmer was at Campo di Fiore, where did the kidnappers cross paths with the truck? It had to be on Corso Vittorio Emanuel as the farmer was leaving the market. He could see the truck stopped at a traffic light and one of the kidnappers throwing the soccer bag on the back of it.
Luciano said, 'Captain, what do we do now?'
'Hope they release the American, and hope he saw something, or knows something.' Arturo said, although based on statistics, the odds were not good.
It was dark. The streets of Rome were deserted. She heard the bang. It sounded like a pistol firing. Psuz came around the side of the van with the Beretta in his hand. She saw the American lying on the sidewalk, Victor Emmanuel rising up behind him. She put the Lancia in gear and pulled away from the curb, sorry for him, but relieved it was over.
Chapter Ten
Ray expected to see Sharon sitting at the kitchen table when he came in, watching Oprah on the small TV on the counter, or reading the Free Press. He rolled his suitcase across the wood floor through the dining room, down a hallway into their bedroom. She wasn't in there either. He bet she was at Costco or getting her hair done. She had to have her hair colored more often to get rid of the dark roots after going blonde. He didn't know why she did it. What would possess a woman to change her natural hair color at age thirty-eight? He wasn't sure if he liked it or not. He'd only seen it once. Now he'd have a chance to get used to it, that and a lot of other things.
He went to the kitchen and got a beer and went back to the bedroom and put his clothes away, hung up his suits, put trees in his black dress shoes, threw his dirty clothes in the laundry hamper. Ray had his own closet and Sharon had hers. His was neat and orderly like his life with the Service, and hers was a mess.
He carried his empty suitcase through the living room. He was going to take it upstairs to the attic. They lived in a bungalow in Beverly Hills. He stopped and put the suitcase on the floor in the front hall. There was a pile of mail, days' worth on the carpet, shoved through the slot in the door by the mailman. He got on his knees and scooped up the envelopes and magazines and took them into the kitchen.
He sat at the table shuffling through the mail. There were bills from US Bank Visa, DTE Energy, Honda, Verizon Wireless, Green Trees Lawn Care and half a dozen more including a letter from Pat, Sharon's sister in New Jersey. He checked the postmark on each envelope, a couple of them going back to October 5th, three days earlier.
Ray was trying to remember the last time he talked to Sharon and thought it was October 1st, a few days before he was dismissed from the Service. He was going to call and tell Sharon but decided to just show up and surprise her.
He went through her magazines: People, Rolling Stone, Vibe, Scene and Murder Dog. Sharon told him she had to read them to stay current with the music scene.
He said, ' Murder Dog?'
She said, 'Where else are you going to learn about Snap and Crunk and Hyphy?'
He said, 'What the hell're you talking about.' The words sounding like what you heard when you ate cereal.
She said, 'Current trends in music, dawg. It's time to broaden your musical horizons. Take a break from the old stuff.'
She was talking about what he liked, Marshall Tucker and Hank Williams Junior and Neil Young. She said, 'How'd a guy from Motown get turned on by country in the first place.'
He thought of it as rock not country.
She said, 'You want to get contemporary? Check out the Ying Yang Twinz and Soulja Boy.' She said it serious and then broke into a big grin.
He said, 'Yeah, fix me up, then who knows, I may sign up for breakdancing lessons.'
'You're about twenty years too late.'
Ray glanced at the answering machine and saw the orange message light blinking. He hadn't noticed it before. He got up and looked. There were eleven messages. He pushed the play button and listened to all of them, checking the date and time of each call.
DeAnn, Sharon's boss, said, 'When are you planning to come back? I have to tell our clients something.'
Lisa from Dr Lambrecht's office was confirming an appointment. Barry from Balboa Capital had to talk to Ray immediately about a home-run stock opportunity.
Pat, Sharon's sister, said, 'You're being very mysterious. Is this a vacation? Is Ray going with you?'
