She studied the Bangladeshi and Senegalese street vendors, whose counterfeit goods lined the walkway. “All I see are purses and sunglasses.”
“Keep looking.” I turned and scanned the ground-level archways for loiterers. “It’s a shame, but the Colosseum is a mecca for pickpockets and con artists.”
A waft of Versace cologne cut the diesel-scented air, and I discovered a thirtyish man in a suit beside me.
“Ti accompagno?” He asked to “accompany” me, a common come-on.
“Smamma,” I replied with a less-than-inviting stare. It meant “un-mamma,” which was slang for “get lost.”
“Bah!” He spun on the heels of his Salvatore Ferragamos.
I scoured the crowd, keeping a grip on my handbag. It wasn’t only the thieves I was worried about, but the gladiators. The mayor of Rome had banned them from the Colosseum numerous times for extorting money from visitors in exchange for pictures and tours. But like true warriors they kept coming back to fight for tourist dollars.
As I watched the goings on, something didn’t seem right. And I realized what it was. I hadn’t heard a pio, i.e., peep, from Glenda.
I looked around, and she was gone.
Fantastico. All I needed was for her to go missing too. Although, courtesy of her coat, I knew how to find her.
I followed the fuchsia feathers around the curve of the Colosseum, and there she was.
In a gladiator’s arms.
I tapped my toe on the cobblestone. “What are you doing?”
She waved her cigarette holder. “When in Rome, sugar.”
“Um, that’s not what the Romans do, at least not in this era. And you’re supposed to be helping me look for the boys.”
“I am, Miss Franki. Tiberio offered to carry me while I work.” She wrapped both arms around his thick neck. “This is proof that you can investigate and live la dolce vita, so why don’t you get yourself a Tiberio and enjoy the country a little?”
Et tu, Brute? I thought, flashing back to Boccadifuoco.
A middle-aged gladiator ambled over with an old Polaroid.
Spartacus he was not. He was a foot shorter than me and looked like he’d eaten a barrel of Barilla pasta.
Non-Spartacus analyzed me with bloodshot eyes. “I war you?”
I’d heard enough Italian English to know he wasn’t asking to battle but rather inquiring about how I was doing. “Fine.”
“I take pitchair.” He motioned with the camera for me to stand beside Glenda.
“No picture.” I shook my finger the Italian way—from right to left. “I don’t want to remember this.”
“Don’ worey, don’ worey. You like-a.” He reached under his skirt and scratched his bottom. Then he pulled a stack of photographs from under the armpit of his breastplate.
Not the best way to promote your business. I almost suggested that he take an advertising lesson from the police.
“Look-a.” He fanned the pictures in front of my face.
And I thought I saw the word Tulane.
I grabbed the stack and rifled through it.
A stab pierced my gut like a sword.
There was a picture of David and the vassal in gladiator helmets. And according to the date and time stamp, the picture had been taken on Saturday morning—the day they’d disappeared.
“Did either of you talk to these boys?”
Tiberio’s expression faltered, but his grip on Glenda didn’t. “They want tour of il Foro.”
The Roman Forum, where Julius Caesar was killed. Had they gone there to get a gladius?
“Did you take them, Ti?” Glenda cooed.
A scrawny gladiator sped up on a Vespa, his red cape flying.
Tiberio nodded at the caped crusader. “Mio cugino, Adriano, he take-a.”
I smirked at the name. Either these cousins were con men, or their mothers had a fondness for the emperors Tiberius and Hadrian.
Adriano stepped off his scooter, stuck out his breastplate, and high-stepped over in his strappy Roman sandals. He took my hand and pressed his lips to it. “At your service, signorina.”
I wiped my hand on my pants and held up the picture. “After you took these boys to the Forum, where did they go?”
He exchanged a complicit look with the others and shrugged. “I no know.”
Adriano was lucky his gladius was fake. Otherwise, I would’ve grabbed it and slayed him. “Then I’m going to tell the police that you stole that camera from me.”
Non-Spartacus scuttled away, and Tiberio dropped Glenda.
She landed on the posterior of her peasant skirt. “Hey, I thought gladiators were gentlemen.”
I helped her up and glared at both men. “And now I’m going to add that you kicked my friend’s culo.”
Adriano rubbed the broom bristles atop his homemade helmet. “Our cousin, he drive taxi. He take them to country.”
I sneered. “Let me guess. His name is Cesare?”
“Ow you know?” Tiberio’s surprise seemed legitimate.
“Forget that. You call him.”
He hesitated.
I pulled out my phone. “Or I call 1-1-2.”
Tiberio’s unibrow lowered at my reference to Italian 9-1-1, and he pulled his cell from his skirt pocket.
While he was waiting for Cesare to pick up, I turned on Adriano. “Where did your cousin take them?”
He kicked an ancient archway. “To buy gladio.”
“Where?” I wielded my phone like a weapon.
“To see Don Peppino . . .” He hesitated. “. . . Lucchese.”
I felt like a gladiator, or maybe a martyr, facing a lion.
Because the surname was one I recognized, and it didn’t belong to an emperor. In Texas, the Lucchese family was known for cowboy boots, but in the U.S. and Italy la famiglia Lucchese was synonymous with Mafia.
6
I punted open the passenger door of Cesare’s 1969 Bianchina 500, annoyed that a cab driver would own the tiny two-seater. “Could you get your tail feathers off me?”
Glenda observed an old two-story villa from the comfort of my lap. “I’d rather stay in the go-cart.”
I glanced at Cesare, who stood at the front door casting furtive glances in our direction as he conferred with a thirty-something male dressed in black. “Because a Mafia clan lives here?”
“It’s not that, sugar.” She waved her cigarette holder. “It’s too damn rustic. Where are the other houses and the restaurants and the stores?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been to the countryside.”
“Besides New Orleans and Rome, I’ve been to Las Vegas, Atlantic
