Angela said, 'No visitor can leave Rome without seeing the Trevi fountain. It's called Trevi because three streets meet here: tre vie. Do you understand?' 'I know,' Joey said. 'I seen it before.' He was staring at the fountain. He pointed at a statue and said, 'Who's that again?'
'Neptune,' Angela said. 'God of the sea.'
'That's right,' Joey said.
They walked up to the edge of the pool.
Joey said, 'Look at all the coins in there.'
'People throw in three thousand euros a day,' Angela said. 'For good luck.'
He grinned. 'Tell me you don't believe that bullshit.'
A vendor, an aggressive little dark-skinned Asian, approached them with an armful of roses. 'Want to buy?' he said to Joey, big smile.
'No want to buy,' Joey said. 'Get the fuck out of here. '
The vendor kept smiling and said, 'Want to buy?'
Joey said, 'Say that one more time I'm going to pick you up and throw you in the fucking water.'
'Take it easy,' Angela said. 'He doesn't understand you.'
'Let's have some fun,' Joey said. 'Put Unk to bed, hit some clubs. What do you say?'
She told him she was too tired, but would pick him up the next morning, and show him the sights of Rome.
'Oh, boy,' Joey said. 'I can hardly wait.'
Angela carried her wine into the bathroom, placed the stemmed glass on the sink and filled the tub with hot water. She was going to soak and relax, drink her wine. She could see the Colosseum lit up in the distance. This view was the reason she had fallen in love with the apartment. It was expensive, but her father was helping her in those days.
She took her clothes off and dropped them in a pile on the bathroom floor and stepped in the tub, taking her time, getting used to the hot water. When she was all the way under, water covering her shoulders, she heard a sound — like a door closing. She thought it was Roberto and was disappointed, she wanted to be alone tonight. More than that, she could see their relationship coming to an end. She had lost interest in him, but didn't have the energy to tell him tonight, so she would have to think of an excuse to get rid of him.
She said, 'Roberto, is that you?' And then thought, who else would it be? 'I'm in here.' They were supposed to split up the money. With her share she was going to get away for a while — from her father who was trying to run her life, and from Roberto who needed someone to run his, but not her. She was thinking about Greece. Cruise the islands, lay in the sun for a week. Then she was thinking about going to Paris. Stay at a nice hotel, shop and eat and drink wine.
She finished her Chianti and reached her arm out of the tub and put the glass on the tile floor. Now she stood up and grabbed a folded white towel off a warming rack attached to the wall and wrapped it around her and stepped out of the tub onto the Persian rug, a gift from her father. She dried herself and slipped on a white terrycloth robe and went into the living room and put on a Magic Numbers CD, a British group she liked, and played Love Is Just a Game, singing along to it, thinking about Roberto again. As soon as she received her share of the money she would tell him the relationship was over.
Oh maybe I think, maybe I don't Maybe I will, maybe I won't…
She danced into her bedroom and turned on the light. He was sitting on the bed, looking at her.
McCabe watched her park the Lancia on the street, and walk in the building, but it wasn't the one he thought, the entrance was on the next block on Via del Monte Oppio. Her apartment building was the last one, bordering two streets, with an unobstructed view of the Colosseum lit up right there less than a hundred yards away. He parked on Via della Polveriera and waited. He saw lights go on in an apartment and saw her in the window that was open. He got out of the car. There was a downspout that ran up the apartment wall a foot from her window. He climbed it with his backpack on. Reached out and touched the window, pushing one side all the way open. Now he reached over and grabbed the sill and jumped, arms through the window, body half inside the room, legs hanging over the edge, and shimmied his way in.
He got up and bumped the window and it closed with a bang. She must have heard it. He was in her bedroom. He crouched next to the bed, listening. Heard her call Roberto, but Roberto didn't answer. McCabe heard her turn the water on and off a couple times. Heard her walk into the other room and put music on. Heard her singing and was surprised how bad her voice was, worse than his and that was saying something.
She had a robe on and was drying her hair with a towel when she walked in the room, and turned on the light. She glanced at him sitting there and he sprang off the bed and tackled her, trying to pin her down, surprised how strong she was. She yelled and he put his hand over her mouth and she tried to bite him. He flipped her on her stomach, sat on her, pulling her arms back, and wrapped duct tape around her wrists. She yelled again and he put a piece over her mouth, and taped her feet together. He flipped her on her back. Her robe had come apart and he pulled it closed.
He could see her arms flexing, trying to rip the tape and pull her hands free.
McCabe said, 'What's the matter? You're not glad to see me?
She glared at him.
He said, 'Where's the money?' He pulled the tape off her mouth.
'I don't know.'
'Then you've got a problem.'
He went in her closet and looked at her clothes and took out some things and threw them on the bed. He could see her eyes follow him. He went back in the closet, opened the top drawer of her dresser, looking at panties and thongs, and saw a small black pistol with a short barrel. He picked it up and went back in the room and said, 'This what you're looking for?'
'You better go some place and hide,' she said. 'Hope they don't find you.'
He put the tarp on the floor and unfolded it. He saw her watching him.
'You're making a big mistake,' she said. 'You have no idea.'
He put the tape over her mouth again. 'You're the one made the mistake.'
Now he had to get her out of the apartment without anyone seeing them. He walked across the apartment and looked out an east-side window down at Via del Monte Oppio. It was 1:15 a.m. He looked in both directions. The street was deserted.
He found her keys and cell phone on a table near the front door. He put the phone in his shirt pocket and took the keys. There were two of them. He opened the door and tried the keys and found the one that worked. The second key had to open the door to the building.
The stairs were made of white marble and very narrow and there was a small elevator that ran through the center of the apartment building. He went down and got the car and parked in front with the hatchback open. Now he went back upstairs and wrapped her in the tarp, and carried her over his shoulder, down a flight of stairs to the car. She fought him the whole way, squirming, moving, trying to make noise. He opened the hatchback and slid her in and closed it. He hadn't seen anyone and hoped no one had seen him.
He went back to her apartment and got his backpack and her clothes. He filled two bags with food from her kitchen and took the stairs again, down to the car. He drove through the city and got on the autostrada, heading north to Viterbo, a fifty-minute drive at 1:30 in the morning with no traffic, following Pietro's directions to the house called Casale Vecchio, his summer home, McCabe replaying their conversation at the restaurant.
'I met a girl,' he'd said.
Pietro had given him a sly grin. 'A girl, eh? This is sounding good. An Italian girl?'
'A good-looking Italian girl.'
'It is sounding better. And what, you want to bring her here for dinner?'
'You told me I should visit your house in Lazio. Now I have a reason.'
He gave McCabe the keys and drew him a map.
It was originally a hunting lodge — the walls were made out of perperino, volcanic stones. It had a tile roof and was built in 1782 on a hill overlooking the lush green countryside of Lazio. He could see Viterbo to the north, the clock tower, Palazzo del Podesta sticking up over the rooftops of the city.
