her own mafia bosses as retribution for some misstep. Which means they are not overly interested in keeping her alive.
Neither is the FBI legat, despite the “sister of an American national” speech. His agenda is still to use my proximity to Cecilia to get intel on the mafias. He’s got a hard-on for her disappearance because I am already established inside the abbey, where I can observe Nicosa make his moves, pick up on who he’s talking to. Rizzio sees this as an organized crime case first, a kidnapping second. Even if he believes Cecilia is already dead, playing it out could present “an opportunity.” Anything he can bring back on ’Ndrangheta will mean a bigger piece of the pie for the Bureau, and for him.
Leaving the phone bank from hell, I feel like a disembodied soul among the living, still trying to absorb the fact that earnest Cecilia has been paying protection bribes. The soft whoop of a siren parts the throng going to the Campo. A police car slowly plows along Via di Citta, plainclothes detectives trotting on either side. Pedestrians attempt to move out of the way, people tripping over one another. Excited shopgirls are pouring from the stores.
A sophisticated-looking young woman wearing a black suit and pearls is watching coolly from the doorway of an expensive jeweler. I suspect that she speaks English.
“Who’s inside the car?” I ask.
She names an American movie star.
“Wow. You get some famous people during Palio.” “Oh,
“That is our Commissario of police.” Without hesitation, I shoulder through the wall of humanity. It makes sense that Nicosa would not go for help to a police chief who had an affair with his wife. But what if the chief still has feelings for Cecilia? What if he would throw his weight behind an investigation?
In trying to get a look, I have drifted too close to the car.
“Get lost,” says one of the detectives in English, and I do, but not before snagging a close-up view of the Commissario. He looks like a tidy, underweight, middle-aged banker. The car turns into the Campo, where it is immediately swamped by military police. These soldiers are the real deal. They wear riot gear and carry automatic weapons. You’d need an armored personnel vehicle just to get their attention. I watch as the Commissario and his celebrity guest are absorbed into their ranks.
Somehow I have been spit into the dead center of Il Campo. The genius of the design is hard to comprehend. How did they do it? The shell shape and the slope of the brickwork is exactly right to hold a crowd. The walls of one palazzo adjoin the next in a crescent that overlooks the bowl of the Campo, which is quickly filling from all eleven entrances with spectators from all over the world. They didn’t have sixty thousand people in Siena in the fourteenth century. How did they know? Turning in circles, I take in the maroon-draped balconies, contradaioli waving colors in the stands, clusters of medics in aqua scrubs, seas of law-enforcement blue, all simultaneously present inside the Campo for this one electrifying moment.
The afternoon is sultry, but at least the sun is hidden by clouds. I can pick out Sofri’s windows. Behind them is that red-and-white-striped couch. Iced aperitifs. Moist slices of melon, bruschetta covered with olive paste, and, no doubt, coffee-flavored gelato. Here there is a popcorn stand. I am almost in the same spot as Cecilia was during the choosing of the horses.
I will never get to Sofri’s; I am stuck. The density of population is multiplying by the minute. I see a sliver of space right up against the rail and make for it. A big man moves six inches to the right, enough for me to slip in beside him. I say, “Grazie,” and he says, “You’re welcome.” He is American. In his forties and balding, with red artistic glasses, greasy slicked-back hair, and a graying goatee. At his feet is a plastic milk crate and a bag of cameras. Professional.
His name is Chuck. Chuck from Findlay, Ohio — a photographer, he says, for the Associated Press.
“How long have you been here?” “Since eight this morning,” he replies. “Hope you like the heat. This is going to take a while. You know what that scarf you’re wearing means?” he asks.
“It’s Oca, the Goose,” I answer wearily. “I like the colors.” We wait. Mountain ranges are formed and destroyed. There is no wind. The claws of the sun flash out from its striking place behind the clouds. I distract myself by observing the paramedic station. Every few minutes someone with heatstroke is brought in on a stretcher. Now there seems to be an asthma attack. I feel like I’ve known our boring neighbors all my life: an American family — Dave and Heather Bunyon, two kids, and a grandma playing cards — and the Japanese family with a fat toddler in a striped shirt who looks dazed with heat. Pairs of lovers are the only ones who seem to be having a good time.
Chuck offers his copy of the International Herald Tribune. We have already had the stranger-on-a-train conversation — that weird intimacy that springs up on a long journey, which this afternoon promises to be. He asks where I am staying, and I tell him about the abbey and the reliquary of the sainted hand. He knows the property well; he shot a wedding there, before Nicosa bought it, when it was briefly a hotel. He has lived in Milan eight years, and this is the second Palio he has covered for AP. He staked out this spot because it is at San Martino, the most hazardous curve in the track, where jockeys are thrown and horses crash. Padding has been placed against the walls. The pads look homemade and thin.
“How can those work?” I wonder.
“They don’t. They want to see blood. Italy is a brutal society.” He points to the paper. “See that?” “What happened?”
“The Rome police found a girl who was murdered. African immigrant, sixteen years old. The lips of her vagina were sewn together.” “Why?”
“She was a prostitute. Turf war,” the photographer explains. “Albanians and the Italian mafias, fighting over the sex trade.” I remember the willowy African woman wearing nothing but a bikini in the cornfield near the bus station. And the white man getting out of the car. No doubt she answered to the same type of criminal sociopaths who are holding Cecilia.
Seeing my reaction, Chuck says, “What’s the matter? Do you find the word vagina embarrassing? Some women say it’s a turn-on.”
His cell phone rings. I try to move away, but it is impossible. People who had claimed a space with blankets on the brick are now forced to stand. The Japanese toddler is picked up and placed over his father’s shoulder. The Bunyons pack up the card game and squeeze into a nervous cluster. My abdomen is being pushed up against the rail, as the remaining space is squeezed out by the pressure of spectators continuing to push inside. People are literally hanging from the palazzos on overloaded balconies and stone outcrops. When everyone is finally jammed together it will be impossible to even turn around. A bunch of humanity the size of a small city — upright as asparagus, packed together, and tied with a bow — for anyone intent on doing harm.
Chuck jumps up on the milk crate, swinging an enormous telephoto lens over my head. I duck as the motor drive fires.
Stepping down, he grins, very pleased with himself.
“I just got a tip worth five grand. My buddy called me to say there’s a famous actor in the VIP lounge.” “Where?”
“Up there, in the temporary police headquarters.” He points toward the palazzo to our left. We can see figures in the windows.
“Take a look,” the photographer offers, holding up the viewfinder.
I see the actor and the Commissario. Clear as day.
“I can introduce you later,” Chuck whispers moistly in my ear.
“Good-bye, Chuck.”
“Did I offend you?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll never find a better spot!” he warns, cursing after me in Italian. Associated Press, my ass. I should have recognized a lowlife paparazzo.
The folks nearby are thrilled to step aside in order to suck up my space, not so the walls of anxious onlookers. Head down, shoulder in, there’s nothing for it but to charge, holding my position by the black and white flag of Istrice, the Porcupine, flying from the VIP palazzo.
The commanding officer of the military police is a hunk in his sixties, with broad shoulders and a thick gray mustache standing out against dark skin; with medals on his chest and on his beret, he looks like he just invaded
