Or had he just seen too many movies?
He shook his head and climbed the stairs to the second floor of the cloister, where the library and its world- famous collection of books and codices was housed.
But he was no sooner at the top than he heard that squeaking sound again. Was Mrs. Van Owen-rich and eccentric as she was-having him tailed, for God’s sake?
For all he knew, that maniac in the BMW had followed him all the way from the States.
He no longer knew what to believe.
But he did know how to waylay his pursuer and find out once and for all.
The vestibule of the library had been purposely designed by Michelangelo to be dim-the windows had been bricked up, in fact-so that the visitors to the library would feel themselves ascending from its gloom into the sudden illumination-in every sense-of the library at the top of the stairs. David pressed himself into a niche that housed a marble bust of Petrarch, and with the valise clutched under one arm, held his breath.
The steps came closer, and paused just outside the vestibule.
Had the tracker decided to abandon his quarry?
And then, squeaking softly, the steps continued. David saw the back of a hat and raincoat, with a newspaper sticking out from under one arm.
Stepping out of the niche, David said in Italian, “What can I do for you?”
The figure whirled around, a copy of La Stampa flying out from under one arm, one palm dramatically pressed to her chest.
To his astonishment David saw that it was the tour guide, Olivia Levi, from the day before.
“ Maron! ” she cried. “You nearly killed me! Why did you do that!”
“Not until you tell me why you’ve been following me!” At least his suspicions had been proven correct-he had been followed.
Olivia bent to pick up the scattered pages of the newspaper, just as a heavyset female guard, in a gray uniform and cap, showed up at the top of the steps to see what the sudden commotion was all about.
“Oh no,” she shouted, glaring at Olivia, “not you again! You’re barred from the library-you know that-so get going!” She slapped her hands together, up and down, to emphasize her dismissal.
“But I’m not done with my research!”
“That’s too bad. The director is done with you.”
There was a pleading look on Olivia’s face and, without missing a beat, she added, “But I am working today! I am this man’s assistant. He has hired me to help him with his work here.”
She quickly glanced at David, waiting for confirmation, and David didn’t know what to do. His normal impulse was to help out a fellow scholar, but there was too much about this woman that he simply didn’t know, or trust.
“Is that true?” the guard asked suspiciously. “She works for you?”
But it wasn’t going to be that easy. “Why are you barred?” David whispered in English.
“What does it matter?” Olivia whispered back. “It was nothing!”
“Last chance-why are you barred?”
“I had an argument with the director,” she said, shrugging. “The man is a Nazi.”
From the way she said it, coupled with that weary shrug, David almost laughed. But it still took him several seconds before he decided to take a chance. Looking up at the guard, he said, in Italian again, “Yes, I’ve hired her.”
“And who are you?”
David took his own letter of introduction from his pocket and advanced with it in hand. “Dottore Valetta is expecting me.”
The guard studied the paper, glared one more time at Olivia, then turned around and waddled into the library, a nightstick straining in the belt at her side.
“ Grazie mille,” Olivia mumbled to David, who mumbled back, “But we’re not done-you’ll still have to tell me why you were following me.”
“Because you told me you would be working here,” she said. “I needed a way back in.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me?”
“Because you didn’t know me.”
“And I do now?”
“We are getting there,” she said, with a half smile that, despite himself, he found beguiling.
Following the guard, they entered the long and elegant hall that was the library’s main reading room. Bay windows, framed by marble pilasters, lined one wall, throwing a bright but diffused light onto the red and white terra-cotta tiles-demonstrating the fundamental principles of geometry-embedded in the floor. Wooden desks lined both sides of the room under a high, beamed ceiling. An old woman, studying some ancient text with a magnifying glass, glanced up as they passed, then quickly buried herself again in her work.
At the end of the hall, the guard turned into a side corridor and rapped her knuckles on a frosted-glass panel. She opened the door, announced them, and before David could even see Dr. Valetta, he heard the director say, “No, that woman is not allowed on the premises!”
“She’s working for Signor Franco,” the guard tried to explain.
David neatly stepped around her, where he saw the director, in a crisp tan suit with a pocket square, standing behind a desk. When David extended his hand, Dr. Valetta accepted it, all the while keeping a close eye on Olivia, who loitered near the door.
“Greetings, Mr. Franco. We’ve been expecting you. But how is it that you know Signorina Levi?”
“She’s volunteered to help me with my research,” David improvised. “She tells me she’s quite familiar with the Laurenziana’s collections.”
Dr. Valetta snorted. “That much is true. But I wouldn’t believe anything else she tells you. The signorina has her own ‘theories,’ and no amount of fact can ever dissuade her.”
“What?” Olivia broke in, unable to contain herself. “I have plenty of facts, and I’d have more if people like you weren’t forever standing in my way!”
David turned to her and said, “ Basta.” What had he gotten himself into?
Subsiding, she said, “I will wait for you in the reading room,” and stalked out.
“Sorry about that,” David said to the director.
Valetta looked like he was still wondering what to do, then said, “You will have to be responsible for her, you know?”
“I will.”
Determinedly regaining his composure and pinching the crease of his trousers before resuming his own seat, Dr. Valetta invited him to sit down.
David took the chair opposite the desk, resting his valise against his leg. The walls of the office were lined with shelves of books, all perfectly arranged and aligned. More, David thought, for show than for use.
“And you are comfortable if we continue to speak in Italian?”
David nodded and said he preferred it.
“Good. I believe that you have done some research in our collections before?”
“I have. But it was some years ago.”
“Then permit me to remind you of our procedures.”
David listened attentively, in part to make up for Olivia’s transgressions, as the director explained that any manuscript or text that was requested had to be brought to the borrower’s assigned desk by a library attendant, and no more than three at any time. Any manuscript being returned also had to be given back to one of the attendants. Any portfolio or briefcase leaving the library had to be inspected by a security guard-assisted by a librarian-at the checkout station. No photographs were allowed, except by special permission. And, to avoid any ink spillage, no pens-only pencils-were allowed for note-taking.
“We have set aside an alcove for your exclusive use,” Dr. Valetta said, “for as long as you need it.”
“That’s very kind of you,” David said.
“And I have instructed the staff to be accommodating, if, say, you need more than the usual number of texts at a time.”
“Thank you again.”
