Good Blood

grandfather, of course, God bless him.”

“What was that he said about a crisis? Did we come at a bad time?”

Phil shrugged. “I doubt it. Nonno Cosimo isn’t always...well, he kind of lives in his own world—namely the pre-1946 world, before the dissolution of the aristocracy. Anyway, he’s well into his eighties, and sometimes, you know, the skylight leaks a little? In a charming way, of course. ‘Time of crisis’ probably means Bacco didn’t take his morning dump.”

“Fili, welcome to the island, why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

It was spoken in Italian, with impatience—if not irritation—and it didn’t sound like much of a welcome. They turned to see a trim, wiry, gray-headed man dressed in a perfectly tailored cashmere sport coat; tie; pale, flawlessly pressed trousers; and tasseled loafers striding, with every appearance of authority, toward them. Ah, the boss man, Gideon thought. Vincenzo de Grazia, il padrone.

The corners of Phil’s mouth turned down just a little. “Hello, Vincenzo. When have I ever told you I was coming?”

Vincenzo uttered a flat, one-note laugh. “That’s true enough. But at a time like this? You might have let me know.” Gideon noticed that the usual Mediterranean embrace wasn’t in evidence.

“At a time like what? Is something the matter?”

“Are you serious? You didn’t know? Achille—” He stopped and peered at Gideon. “Who are these?” he said to Phil.

“These are my friends Professor and Mrs. Oliver,” Phil said.

“Americans?” Vincenzo asked, and on receiving nods, switched without comment to fluent English. “You’re welcome here, but we are having a problem. My son has been kidnapped.”

Phil gaped at him. “Achille?”

“Do I have another son?” Vincenzo said tartly.

“I’m sorry, I only—”

“I know, I know. I apologize, I’m a little tense. It’s good that you’re here, Fili. We’re about to hold a...you know, a consiglio . . .” He groped for the English word.

“A council,” Gideon supplied. He didn’t want to seem to be hiding from Vincenzo the fact that he had some Italian.

“A family council, that’s right.” Vincenzo said, unimpressed. “They’re all waiting in the gallery. When Cesare told me you’d come, I assumed that was why.”

“I didn’t know anything about it. But I’d like to sit in, if that’s all right. Maybe there’s something I can do.”

“Of course it’s all right. You’re one of the family, aren’t you?” Then, after another joyless laugh: “More than most of them, anyway.” He turned to Gideon. “In the meantime, perhaps you and your wife would care to—”

“I’m afraid we’ve picked a bad time for a visit,” Gideon said. “We’re sorry for your trouble, signore. I think it’d be best if my wife and I just went back to Stresa.”

But Vincenzo wouldn’t allow it. “Certainly not. It won’t take us long. Make yourselves comfortable in the breakfast garden. My man will see to refreshments. And the island is yours to explore. The animals are tame.”

“Grazie, signore,” Julie said.

“Jesus, Vincenzo, I really am really sorry about this,” they heard Phil saying as he was led back to the villa. “Is he all right? When did it happen? Jesus.”

SIX

THE gallery, in which the consiglio was to be held, was a smallish room without windows on the ground floor, the faded, red-flocked walls of which were covered floorto- ceiling with portraits of defunct de Grazias, some in medieval armor; some in frilly seventeenth-century courtiers’ garb, some in military uniforms or 1930s businessmen’s suits, and in one case, the reason for which was no longer known, in a balloon-trousered Turkish pasha’s outfit complete with turban and jeweled dagger. Furnished with the oldest, ugliest, and least comfortable furniture in the house—dark, slab-backed, hard-seated wooden chairs from the Italian Gothic (apparently a time when human anatomy was imperfectly understood)—and with a couple of massive, grim commodes to match, the gallery had been Vincenzo’s choice for familial consigli from the day he took the reins from his father. He frequently said it was because it imbued their councils with the fitting ambience of family tradition. But the prevailing view, in which Phil shared, was that he’d picked it because the uncomfortable seating guaranteed that the meetings would be brief. There was even a rumor that he’d had an inch taken off the front legs of all the chairs to help speed people on their way.

On the way there, Vincenzo took Phil aside, into the music room with its two harpsichords and virginal—tuned every three months without exception and dusted weekly, but never, to Phil’s knowledge, played—to fill him in on the current status of things. Achille had been taken from a company limousine the previous Thursday, four days earlier. There had been shooting and two people were dead, but Achille was believed to be all right. Nothing at all had been heard until a few hours ago, when the carabiniere in charge of the case, Colonel Caravale, had telephoned. It seemed that a fax from the kidnappers, with their demands, had been sent to Vincenzo’s office in Ghiffa and automatically diverted, as were all faxes and telephone calls for the time being, to carabinieri headquarters.

“What do they want?” Phil asked.

“I don’t know yet. I didn’t speak with him personally. He’ll be here with it at eleven o’clock.” As custom required, Vincenzo had called a consiglio, and the de Grazias and their kin were now gathered and awaiting the colonel’s arrival.

“The usual crew?” Phil asked.

With a sigh and a barely discernible lift of his eyes, Vincenzo nodded. “Every last one. Your ‘sainted’ grandfather, of course, who, in his usual way—”

“Yes, I met him outside,” Phil said, cutting him off. He didn’t want to hear Vincenzo’s mocking assessment of the aged Cosimo. “Let’s go in.”