the management didn't want her plying her trade under their roof. He was wrong.
'Alessandra used to be Alessandro,' Gaetano explained.
It took Adam a moment to assimilate the news. The timbre of the voice had been the only giveaway.
'Really?'
Gaetano smiled at Adam's incredulity. 'There have been . . . difficulties with some of the customers.'
It was now or never.
'Can I offer you a drink? As a thank you, I mean.'
Gaetano hesitated. 'Sure.' He shrugged.
Adam opted for a twelve-year-old single-malt Scotch. Gaetano nodded his approval and followed suit.
He sensed he had just the one drink in which to hook his fish or Gaetano would be off, back to his booth. He'd already settled on flattery as his opening gambit, and the tactic worked. Gaetano thanked him for his compliments about La Capannina, and was disarmingly humble in his reply. The building provided the great atmosphere, the chef the great food—he was just the owner. Some of this humility deserted him when he went on to explain that he had reversed the sliding fortunes of the place in under a year, and to such an extent that the previous owner was now kicking himself over the sale price. He had even approached Gaetano on the subject of buying back a stake in the business.
It was the book that clinched it, though, just as Adam thought it would. It was a big work on Italian Renaissance sculpture, loaded with pictures, and it didn't go unnoticed by Gaetano. When Adam explained that he was an art history student, Gaetano confessed to knowing a little about sculptures from that period. He mentioned a garden he knew—a garden attached to a grand villa near Florence. He talked about it as if stumbling across such a thing was one of the hazards you faced when mixing in the sort of circles he did. He certainly didn't say that he had spent a sizable chunk of his life cutting the garden's grass and pruning its laurel.
When Gaetano offered up a detailed and impressively vivid description of the garden, Adam found himself experiencing a strange sympathy for the man. The slightly desolate look that stole into his round, simian eyes suggested that years of exposure to the garden's unsettling atmosphere had also taken their toll on him.
Remembering his role, Adam reacted with enthusiasm, especially to the news that Flora, the goddess of flowers, was the linchpin of the cycle. He told Gaetano about Edgar Wind's new theory, published earlier that year, that not only did Flora figure in Botticelli's
He had to hold himself in check when Gaetano quizzed him about the other sculptures in the garden. It was too easy to shine, too easy to give himself away. He shared a few further insights, just enough to impress. It seemed to do the trick. It was Gaetano who ordered the next round.
The bar had started to empty by the time the third round hit the table, and they were deep in a discussion about the war. It was Adam who had steered the conversation this way, looking for a tear in the tissue of lies that shrouded Gaetano's account of his life. He claimed to have been a partisan, which might or might not have been true, although it seemed unlikely. When he said he had witnessed bad things, Adam pressed him further. Gaetano wouldn't be drawn on the subject, except to say that war made monsters of men—good men, men of standing, men you thought you knew— he'd seen it with his own eyes.
Adam said he'd hardly witnessed anything of the war other than the odd plane overhead—the privilege of growing up on a remote farm, he lied. Casting himself as a country boy had the desired effect. Gaetano confessed to being one too, and he had a storehouse of tedious anecdotes to prove it. This new turn in their conversation also allowed him to hold forth on his favorite subject: land.
He was obsessed with it. Land equaled power. History proved it. And if land was the past, then it was also the future. Italy was changing. The ownership of land was being opened up to a wider constituency. Only a fool could fail to appreciate the opportunities this presented.
'I'm going to give you some advice,' said Gaetano, leaning across the table, his eyes dimmed with drink. 'You know the real reason you should buy land?' He paused for effect. 'Because they can't make any more of it.'
The man's boorish self-satisfaction was almost unbearable, but Adam managed to look impressed by the statement. 'I hadn't thought of it like that.'
'That's why I'm telling you.'
Adam saw his opening and pounced. Land brought heavy responsibilities, he countered. It also incited passions, not all of them good. He'd seen it with his own family. Ownership of the farm had split his father's generation, dividing siblings, turning them against each other. On one occasion it had even come to blows between his father and his uncle.
'Blows?' snorted Gaetano. 'I've known brothers to kill over it.'
Adam feigned a doubtful look.
'It's true. You don't believe me?'
'Really?'
'Murder. All because of a big house and some land.'
A heavy silence followed. Gaetano clearly felt he had said too much, and Adam didn't need to hear anymore. He had his confirmation.
The arrival of two more whiskies helped them draw a line under this chapter of their conversation, with Gaetano more than happy to return to the subject of his plans for world domination. He prattled on drunkenly about a big hotel just down the road that he had his eye on. It was ripe for improvement, the only problem being that his reputation now preceded him, and the owner was therefore likely to ask the fullest possible price for the place. He had toyed with the idea of purchasing it through an intermediary in order to throw the fellow off the scent. He had also set his sights on a villa estate in the hills above Pisa. It belonged to an old family who had fallen on hard times, but he would probably hold off for a bit. Better to build up the business first. Estates were thirsty, they required a steady flow of cash, he knew that from experience. Then there was marriage. Marriage was good for business and he had held out long enough. Maybe it was time to throw in the towel and make an honest woman of some young
