expect a cynical teenage reply, but instead he cries, “It’s true!” “They say that in July and August the people of Siena go mad from the heat, and that is when they have the Palio. You must understand the Palio is not just a race,” Nicosa explains, serious as a priest. “It is a time of analysis that arouses deep emotions. You abandon cowardice and embrace action. You defeat death and create life. The city is like a hole in time, every monument and painting in Siena possessing a symbol or a secret code that brings us back into the past. Show your aunt the famous Magic Square.” Obediently, Giovanni grabs a scratch pad and with dirt-stained fingers spells out the letters:
SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS
“It’s a Latin puzzle that can be read in every direction,” Giovanni says, excitedly. “See how the word tenet forms a cross? This mystery”—he taps the pad—“is written on the wall of our own church, the Duomo.” Not for the first time since I have come to the abbey, I feel a chill.
“What does it mean?”
“ ‘God holds the plow, but you turn the furrows,’ ” Giovanni says.
I look quizzically at my new sister, staring at the letters over my new nephew’s shoulder. “What does that mean?” “There are two types of fate,” Cecilia replies. “The actions of God, and our own responsibility for our lives. Two kinds of fate have brought us together.” Nicosa pops the cork on a cold bottle of Prosecco. “Welcome to the family.
“Congratulations, Giovanni,” I say.
“Why?”
“For holding the flag in the parade. Your mom says it’s a big deal.” “Oh.” He blushes.
“It’s not simply that he holds it”—Cecilia begins, but Nicosa stops her by encircling her waist and stage- whispering in her ear.
“Shhh. She will see.”
“Okay,
But now we have a problem.
I am leaning against the pillows on the sweet-pea bed, on the phone with Dennis Rizzio.
“She’s not just a relative,” I say, covering my legs with the cashmere throw. “She’s my sister. Her son is my nephew. How can I do this?” “Did you and Ms. Nicosa grow up together?” he demands, a crackling New York counterpunch. “Did you two share a crib? You know this lady less than twenty-four hours. You know nothing about her. She’s a blank slate.” “I can tell you that she needs me. Why else would she want me here? She’s clear about not letting her husband know I’m FBI — she’s trying to walk some kind of a line. I don’t know what it is, except there’s fear and desperation that she thinks only someone close, like a sister, would understand. I feel a responsibility toward that. Also to the case.” I’m worrying the fringes on the blanket. “I hope I can do both.” “Trust me, she’s not a real sister. Your sister is the one who makes you drive three hours on the Long Island Expressway because it’s Mother’s Day and she doesn’t want to come to you. She’s a bossy pain in the ass you have to tolerate because she’s your sister, because if you don’t, your brother, who can’t stand her either, is gonna get mad. You and Cecilia Nicosa have nothing like that. No obligations, which is good. So don’t jump to conclusions.” “I think she’s still testing me.” “Why do you suppose she doesn’t want her husband to know you’re Bureau? Because he’s up to his neck in cocaine, and she knows it, and she wants her and the kid out. That’s her agenda. Nothing has changed,” Rizzio insists. “You’re in an ideal position. She reached out to you, remember? Like you say, she wants your help.” I find myself relaxing back into the pillows. The tension escapes with a sigh — I am back inside my comfort zone. Dennis is right. Let me do what I’m good at: pretending to be who I’m not. Put aside these notions of what family is supposed to be and accomplish the task.
“You’re more of a help to Cecilia as an agent who can get her out of there than as some bogus half sister. What does that mean, anyway? History. Words on paper.”
“Caught a break in the London attack,” Dennis is saying. “Are you interested?” “Sure.”
In truth, I’m pretty well past the whole thing. It was literally another time in another country. Italy has absorbed my focus now.
“The Brits traced the vehicle identification number on the abandoned Ford in Aberdeen to Southall, West London. The original owner, Mr. Hafeez Khan, says he sold it to ‘a foreign type’ as a junker for five hundred pounds cash. It had almost ninety thousand kilometers on it. No paperwork; the buyer takes the keys and drives away. The seller doesn’t even have a name.” I squirm underneath the covers.
“So there’s no way to ID the guy?” “Mr. Khan is sitting down with a police artist as we speak. It’ll be interesting if he comes up with a description of the same guy you saw in South Kensington.” “How did he contact the buyer?”
“The car was sold on Craigslist. They met in a parking lot. Like I said, no paperwork, but Mr. Hafeez did keep one remnant of the transaction. He didn’t remember at first, but he still had the buyer’s phone number. Are you with me?” “Barely.”
“Mr. Khan is a butcher, so what does he do? He writes the phone number of the guy who wants to buy his car on a piece of paper and sticks it on that nail where they put the receipts. The Met Police search his shop and it’s still there. You know that nail thing?” “Yes, I do.” My eyes are closing.
“Just like they have in every New York deli. They have them in London, too. And this entire case could turn on it. One nail. I thought that was something.”
SEVEN
Cecilia decides to give a party in my honor. It will be outdoors by torchlight at the abbey, in the ruins of the original church. I guess this is why she keeps banquet tables stacked up in the dining room, ready to roll. Someone else will do the cooking, but the key ingredients have to be assembled according to Cecilia’s standards, from individual shopkeepers she’s known for twenty years in the district of the noble contrada of Oca in the heart of Siena.
Oca district is clearly marked by green and white silk with a crowned white goose flying from every building — as opposed to Oca’s blood enemy, Torre, the Tower, whose blue and burgundy banners, showing an elephant carrying a tower, warn that you are entering enemy territory. Just like gangland L.A., sporting the wrong colors in the wrong district during Palio is either a deliberate challenge or just plain stupid.
We are dutifully wearing Oca scarves, flowing capelike over the shoulders, as we haul string bags filled with groceries up the forty-five-degree incline of Arte della Lana; it’s barely ten in the morning, and my neck is prickly with perspiration. We turn a corner and the street drops to S. Andrea Gallerani in a heartbeat. Ahead is another rise. If you graphed it, our little shopping trip would look like a killer hills workout on a treadmill.
And yet Cecilia is stepping doelike over the pavers in high heels and an Armani dress with tiny dots that she will later wear to the hospital, movie star sunglasses, and a buckle-encrusted marigold leather purse as big as a watermelon. I notice that the other women, young and old, all of them in Oca scarves like flocks of green and white hens, are also carrying handbags and wearing dresses — tailored cotton with belts, or splashy bosom-revealing rayon — going about their morning business with self-assured femininity. And here I am, dressed L.A.-style for a day in the sun: hiking shorts, adventure shoes, water bottle, and baseball cap, trudging behind.
Cecilia is so in charge of her world, you forget that it isn’t her world. Passing a shop with eye-catching patterns of blush peaches and dark plums reminds her of helping her mother at the fish store in El Salvador when she was five years old. Her stories are told in clean, thought-out paragraphs. Reflexively running Cecilia through my FBI profiling machine, I assess her as a high-functioning, fiercely well-organized, extroverted personality. Which means it will not be easy to get past her defenses. When she feels secure, she will tell me her secrets; why she
