Nicosa mutters, “Why don’t you go home?” and walks toward the emergency entrance.
The chill from standing out there in the middle of the night has seeped into my skin. My head is throbbing from having consumed nothing but a couple of mushroom ravioli and some “big red” wine, and I would do anything to get out of the brown wrap dress and put on a pair of jeans. How can I fix this? I have none of my usual props. No weapon, no creds, no Nextel, no connection to a busy investigative team in a warm office with global reach to every foreign agency — I don’t even have a sweater.
Out of the shadows a voice calls, “Signorina Grey?” “Yes?”
“Over here.”
The orange tip of a lighted cigarette moves in the darkness. Inspector Martini is leaning against the hospital wall, with a cop’s instinct to stay out of the light.
NINE
Inspector Martini says, “Ciao,” and offers a cigarette.
“You speak Italian?” “Only enough to get on a train. Usually the wrong train.” “Tell me,” she says, “how long have you worked for the FBI?” “How do you know about that?” “We know who you are. We were informed by your captain in Rome, Dennis Rizzio.” “When did you talk to Dennis?” “Two days ago,
She expels a funnel of smoke. “It is professional. We have a good relationship with the Americans.” “Nice if he would let me know.” She nods sympathetically. “I have the same problems with my boss.” “Does Signore Rizzio always call you when an FBI agent is in town?” I ask lightly.
“Usually only for tickets to Palio.” She smiles and tosses her head and then fixes me with a steely stare. “What do you do in the FBI?” “I’m a field agent. My visit here is almost like being undercover,” I say. “My sister has asked me not to tell her husband I am with the FBI. It’s strange, because that’s how she found me, through the Bureau. I wonder what else she’s keeping from him.” Inspector Martini frowns. “I am of the same contrada as your family — Oca, the Goose. I know Cecilia well, but I don’t understand what is in her head, keeping this secret from her husband.” “Could it have to do with Nicoli’s relationship with Lucia Vincenzo?” “We don’t have the whole story there, except that she is most probably dead.” “Is there a connection between Vincenzo, the southern mafias, and Nicoli Nicosa?” “I can’t speak about that.” “I understand.”
“I could never go undercover like you,” she reflects. “I have my baby.” “How are you able to make that work?” “Around the time that she was born, a statue of Christ by a Renaissance master named Vecchietta was stolen from a church in Siena. A task force was formed to recover it. I have a degree in art history, and it was part- time, so I applied for a position. I went back full-time when she was one year old.” “Did you recover the statue?” She shakes her head. “It is somewhere in the hands of a private collector. Now I’m back on the street, and I like it much better.” “Hard to go back to a desk job,” I agree.
She hesitates. “You have experience with homicide?” “I make trips to the crime lab and testify in court, just like you.” We give it a moment. Her arms are crossed. She grinds the concrete with a heel.
Finally she says, “I did not tell you this—” “I never heard a thing.” I am becoming attuned to these disclaimers—“This is not a problem,” Sofri said when the police car arrived at the party flashing emergency lights.
“It is about the police report. On your nephew, Giovanni.” “What about it?”
Materializing as if from nowhere, the paparazzi appear out of the shadows of the parking lot — half a dozen athletic young men on the hunt, weaving and pointing the eyes of their cameras at everything in their path, like an assault unit of spiders.
A white car pulls up, doors open, and two plainclothes detectives spring out, positioning themselves for the exit of the chief. The Commissario is taller than everyone else, and extremely thin. Wisps of white hair flying in the backlight of the TV cameras show that he’s balding. He walks like a marionette, lower legs extending stiffly on their own, as if badly in need of a double knee replacement. But the odd gait only adds to a kind of worldly elegance; at this late hour, wearing a well-tailored dark suit, he looks as if he has been called away from a state department dinner party behind locked gates.
Nobody stops anyone from entering the hospital, and I’m thinking the whole entourage is going to march right into the operating room, but in a country where politics is theater, Nicoli Nicosa recognizes the opportunity for an entrance and is waiting, with the priest in the background, for Il Commissario in the reception area, where they confer privately before facing the cameras. In the crowded space and overly bright lights, the Commissario speaks closely into the lens, and the speech looks smoky and intimate. On the flat-screens at home it will seem huge and crisp.
I imagine he is saying how shocked he is that an innocent boy was brutally attacked on the eve of Palio, promising the Nicosa family that the provincial police will bring these thugs to justice.
A grief-stricken embrace between the two men, and then they disappear down the hall together and the TV lights go out.
For the next two hours I pace the visitors’ lounge, picking up magazines I can’t read, trying to get e-mail where there is no service. Finally Nicosa appears, exhausted from a long interview with the police while his son was in the operating room. He is still wearing evening clothes, but the tie is gone, and gray stubble shows on his hollow cheeks. He reports in a flat voice that Giovanni made it through the surgery and there is nothing for us to do but go home. Cecilia will stay at the hospital. The police will arrange for us to leave quietly through a back exit. As he is telling me this, Inspector Martini passes and catches my eye. I ask Nicosa to give me a minute, so I can surreptitiously join her in the ladies’ room.
In the mirror over the sinks our reflections show a tall, olive-skinned police officer in a sexy blue uniform, and a shorter American in a brown party dress — two cops from opposite sides of the world who speak the same language. After making sure we are alone, Inspector Martini picks up where we left off when the paparazzi arrived.
“The police report,” she says quietly, “will state that your nephew was attacked in the territory of Torre — you understand about the contrade, okay? He is of Oca, and he was found in Torre, and naturally there must have been a fight.” “But you don’t think that’s the way it happened?” “His body was — changed places?” “Moved?”
“Sorry for my English — yes,” she continues urgently. “His car was found by the police outside the walls of the city.” “How far away from the district of Torre?” “Two kilometers. There were bloodstains around his car. Not so many. I believe the worst took place in the tunnel at Via Salicotto.” “He was taken to the tunnel to make it look like he was attacked by Torre?” She nods. “A nurse tells me she smelled ether on his clothes. It is commonly used in Italy for kidnappings, to subdue the victim. Probably they jumped him, he defended himself”—she raises a forearm to demonstrate—“they put a cloth over his face.” This is when I awaken from my romantic dream of Italy. My sister’s analysis of the stab wounds was accurate. Giovanni was targeted by professionals who tracked him outside the walls, and dumped him in Torre — for a reason.
“But it wasn’t a kidnapping, or a murder, although they could have killed him at any time. It was a warning. To whom?” I ask the inspector.
“Often it is to make an example for others. Witnesses. Informants. Anyone who resists.” “We are talking
