Two From Isaac's House

by Normandie Fischer

  Acie glanced outside. “That’s the golden boy—or at least that’s how he thinks of himself, the Gambacorta’s pride and joy.”

  Mae snorted. “Acie is being sarcastic. Giorgio has had to bail him out of financial trouble too many times to count—the big-brother syndrome. Roberto kept blaming his losses on clients who didn’t pay—he’s a lawyer—but after Giorgio put his foot down last winter, Roberto seems to be swimming in cash. Now Giorgio worries about the type of clients finding their way to his little brother’s office.”

  Rina thought of those gold chains. “Mafia?”

  “Probably.” Suddenly, Acie’s posture stiffened. “Will you look at that?”

  “What?”

  “Come see the California girl at work.”

  An over-endowed blond stood in the circle of Roberto’s arms. When she uncoiled and sidled up next to Nicco, Acie’s words made her sister gasp and leave her place to peek over Rina’s shoulder. Fortunately for the peace of the afternoon, Nicco removed the woman’s arms from around his neck and returned her to his cousin.

  “I’d like to wring her skinny neck, bless her little peapicking heart,” Acie said as she turned back to help put the food together, the grim expression fading as quickly as it had come.

  Roberto’s taste in women certainly differed from his brother Giorgio’s—except for the hair color. Fodder for her journal, Rina decided as she helped set out the food and wine. At least none of it had anything to do with her.

  She had eaten way too much, and that last glass of wine had been one too many. She held the banister as she climbed to her room, then she fumbled in her purse for the key, not registering that her door wasn’t locked until she shouldered it open.

  A whiff of stale cigarette smoke greeted her. Clutching her bag close, she breathed an “Oh, no!” into the silence.

  Bed covers lay heaped on the floor, and the drawers were piled upside down, their contents strewn everywhere. Behind her, something squeaked, the air whispered, and she started to turn.

  She awoke to cold drops trickling into her eyes and ears, to muffled voices. A hammer clanged inside her skull. One of the nuns bent over her, holding a wet cloth inches from her nose, while Monica gibbered nearby.

  “Ah, you are awake,” the sister said. “Bene, bene. No, do not move yourself. You must instead leave the cloth thus. You will hurt yet for some hours, I think.” She looked around the room and muttered again, her modified wimple creaking as she turned. “How did this happen? How could someone get into here? Per l’amor del cielo!”

  Bustling about, Monica picked up clothes, shoved drawers back in the bureau, straightened shelves. Two of the boarders slipped in to help. They probably shouldn’t touch anything, at least not until the police came. Rina whispered, “The police?”

  Sister ignored her and shooed everyone from the room. “This place, it is too small, you must go back to your own rooms now.” When one girl argued, Sister said, “We will take care of everything. To your rooms, grazie.”

  Rina tried again. “Polizia? Have you called them?”

  “First, you must explain. Then, I will telephone.”

  “I don’t know. I came in, saw the mess, and somebody hit me over the head. I have nothing to steal, no jewelry or anything. I had no money here, only what was in my purse.”

  “The purse, it is not a problem. You see?” She pointed to Rina’s bag. “We look to be certain it has not been emptied. All is there, your passport, your money. You need not fear.”

  Rina tried to nod and cringed instead. The sister handed her a glass of water and two aspirin, and she sat up enough to swallow before lowering herself and her aching head to the pillow.

  “Slowly, signorina, slowly. You will tire yourself.”

  “Was anyone else’s room touched?”

  “No one else. I do not understand how someone could have entered without being seen. And why was your room chosen instead of the first on the hall? I do not understand this. Did you have something special here?”

  “No. Nothing.” She closed her eyes against the throb.

  “Sleep again, signorina. We will speak of this later.”

  When next her eyes opened, the hammer merely tapped, padded by the aspirin she’d taken. The door opened slowly, and the sister peeked in.

  “You are awake? You wish to speak now? You feel well enough?” She bobbed over and perched, straight-backed, on the wooden chair next to the bed. “I do not know what we are to do. Now, we lock the door so that even in the day, the girls must ring the bell to enter. This is not so easy, but if we do not do this, Monica, la poverina, must sit all the day in the hall to observe who comes, and this is worse. Who would then clean and take care of you young ladies?”

  “Maybe the police will find prints.” Then she remembered the busy fingers touching everything. “No, I guess not. Not with all the other girls in here. What should we do?”

  “That is a question I am asking myself. If nothing is stolen, if no one has seen this man, how do the police help us? It was a man, yes?”

  “I think it had to be, or a very strong woman. Whoever did it hit me pretty hard. There is nothing here to use as a weapon and nothing missing—so he must have brought it with him.”

  “It?”

  “The gun.”

  “Una pistola?” The already pale face blanched.

  “Probably. I assume so.” It wasn’t like the room had candlesticks or fire pokers to use as a weapon, so he’d have had to carry it in. A gun seemed the weapon of choice in her world.

  “This, it is different. If a gun was here, we must telephone to the police.” She bustled out, her hands fluttering, her skirts flying.

  Again, Rina closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to ease and the night to end. It didn’t, at least not before two poliziotti arrived to take very few fingerprints and to mutter a great deal. She couldn’t blame them. After all, the world had been in her room.

  Before they left, they suggested she call them if she found anything missing. Then the older one turned to the younger and spoke in Italian. She didn’t catch it all, but enough to figure out that he was talking about foreigners and violence. Two dead stranieri and one straniera—herself—hit with a gun.

  That airline ticket out of here looked better by the moment.

  The next morning, a mere tightness accompanied the lump on her head, just a mild throb and a new fear planted by the police. Two dead bodies and now this? She seemed to have climbed between the covers of a book, and not as the heroine.

  The pain sobered her. Someone wanted something and was willing to be rough to get it. This sort of thing happened to other people, not to her, and not in a convent. Jason had liked the idea of this pensione. Safe, he’d called it. Hah.

  She kept asking the same question. What did she have that anyone could possibly want?

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Whoever it was hadn’t taken anything. No one knew of her connection to either the Englishman thrown off the train or the man they’d found by the river. No one except Tony, and she knew he hadn’t been the one waiting to clobber her. Her assailant had smelled of cigarettes.

  A light flicked on in her dulled brain. No one could have known which room was hers.

  Well, that wasn’t completely accurate. There was a book downstairs, not a real register, one the boarders used for messages if one of them planned to be away and didn’t want dinner. The thief could have found her room number, but that assumed time in the lobby. She didn’t think anyone would be that obvious. So maybe, just maybe, they, he, hadn’t wanted her at all, had made a normal, natural mistake, and wasn’t a threat.

  Then what was it about? One of the German girls next to her on the left? Or Ilsa in the room to her right? One of the Japanese at the head of the stairs? What did any of them have to hide? She’d better warn them, just in case. The sister agreed and placed notes in the other rooms, suggesting caution, asking that each evaluate her acquaintances to see who might have done such a thing.

  Al
l thirteen girls showed up for lunch. Rina had just begun to enjoy the unusual attention when Hilda, one of the Germans, silenced everyone. “It was meant for me.”

  Twelve heads turned toward her.

  “Yes, I find that it is so. I have examined my friends as requested.” Hilda paused. “It has to do with my boyfriend, the leader of the Libyan students here. The others fear his power to send them home because the government pays for them to study and live.” She nodded, looked at each to emphasize her words. “So, some are jealous. But one especially.”

  “Who?” the Swede asked.

  “I do not know his name, but he drives a red sporty car, something Italian. He tried to make—what do you call it?—a pass? I told Hassan, who threatened the man.”

  “And?”

  “I am thinking he may have tried to get Hassan in trouble through me, to find something bad to use. Perhaps they find out my room, that I am at the top of the stairs. Hassan knows. Perhaps he has told others, though that puzzles me, because I don’t know why he would. Still, perhaps they mistake Rina’s room for mine. They go one room too far, yes? I can think of no other reason for this, can you?” Her audience shrugged, except the Japanese, who whispered among themselves.

  Rina didn’t respond. Her head still hurt, but at least she’d been right. No malevolent force chased her, no phantom lurked in wait. The assailant must have recognized his mistake as he hit her and would not bother her again. A grin struggled to the surface as she imagined a chagrined thief, thwarted in crime, bending over the wrong woman.

  In spite of her pain, she almost laughed at the image. Because she’d had all the intrigue she needed in this lifetime. Let the fun begin. Please.

  12

  TONY

  When his phone rang, Tony had just climbed out of the shower. He wrapped himself in a towel and answered in Italian. “Pronto.”

  “I have just heard,” Paola said. “The man Ibrahim, he was in Rome. Your suspicion has been confirmed. He is Kamal Abdul-Malik.”

  Tony’s grip tightened. So, he’d guessed correctly. The one time he’d have liked to be wrong, he wasn’t. “You said ‘was’ there. Where is he now?”

  “Someone is tracking his movements. Kamal is a man for hire, but we do not yet know for whom he is working. I have called headquarters. Someone will be in touch.” She paused, and Tony heard a slow exhale as if she’d blown out smoke. “I have been thinking. If Achmed was the one who hired Kamal to work in Perugia, and it was not someone else worried about what Yusuf or the English Mr. Darling might have been doing, then we must wonder why Achmed would also send you there. You have seen no one following?”

  “No one.”

  But that didn’t mean much, did it? And Paola’s reassurance that someone tailed Kamal didn’t do much for his peace of mind. They’d lost track of the man before, hadn’t they?

  “You will watch out, yes?” Paola said.

  “I will. If you hear any more, you’ll call?”

  “Or send you a message.”

  He had to be satisfied with that.

  Staring in the bathroom mirror after he brushed his teeth, he grimaced. “What on earth am I supposed to do next?”

  The voice that answered back sounded a heck of a lot like his dad’s. “What your gut tells you is the right thing. Follow your instincts. They’re good ones.”

  Of course, he had no idea what his gut or his instincts wanted from him. He had a gun, but where exactly was he supposed to carry it? In his back pocket? His waistband? In some fancy ankle holster?

  He could picture it now: he’d be scrambling for his pistol while an attacker aimed, shot, and hit his mark. Or brandished a dagger and sent it flying.

  Unarmed, unprotected, all he knew to do was put one foot in front of the other and listen as best he could.

  13

  RINA

  Bold and gritty headlines eventually confirmed that the dead man found on the outskirts of Perugia—motive and murderer as yet unknown—had been a Syrian. Police continued to investigate.

  Syrian. Of course.

  Why hadn’t the police found anything? He must have had friends other than Tony, people who might have seen or known something.

  Her grip tightened on the paper, crumpling it. For a nice half-Jewish girl from North Carolina, these non-Italian—as in Middle Eastern—encounters seemed ridiculous: first the gunman on the train, then the Arab/American Tony, next a dead Syrian, and now, if Hilda were right, a Libyan.

  But there wasn’t a thing she could do about the death, the motive, the perpetrator, or the missing Tony. Where was the man? He’d promised answers; instead he’d vanished.

  She was so tired of living in slow motion because of the throbbing behind her eyes that she swallowed two acetaminophen and decided to skip class. It took her a while to change into something for touring because the pills hadn’t worked their magic yet. No matter, she was determined to get out of doors, even out of town. Pooh to the messes crowding her world.

  She walked carefully to the bus stop behind the main post office. The pain had lessened by the time she slid into a seat, and she could enjoy the view from the window as the bus rumbled downhill, past the swooping curve of the Viale Indipendenza.

  At the next stop, someone slid in next to her. “Hey, where are you off to?” Acie’s big smile met her surprised gaze.

  “Assisi, I think. If I can rent a car at the station.”

  “You want company? Mae and the boys have gone off to visit an aunt, and I’ve the day to myself.”

  The volume at close range made Rina wince. “Sure, why not?”

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic. Are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry. The remnants of a headache.”

  Acie’s sympathy got them to the train station, where the only available car was a smallish red Fiat. Poor Acie’s knees touched the dash, and the top of her head brushed the roof when she sat up straight. “Italy,” she said fondly, “the land of small people.”

  “Mostly. There is your friend Nicco.”

  “Mmm,” Acie said with a secretive smile.

  Clouds floated across a sky the color of the hydrangeas back home. Her spirits lightened, and her headache waned as they crossed the valley. At the first true view of the old town, of Monte Subasio and Assisi’s stone walls, she stopped the car and rolled down her window. “I saw an old movie, Brother Sun, Sister Moon, in one of those art houses in Washington and fell in love with the idea of St. Francis. He seemed so gentle, so full of, I don’t know, the way God ought to be?”

  “Really.” Acie had her face in the guidebook and her glasses halfway down her nose. Obviously, St. Francis didn’t touch a chord in her. “Looks like we can park in one of several places, one with an escalator, one nearer the Basilica.”

  Figuring out which of the many Parcheggio signs led to which parking lot stumped them. They tried asking the attendant in one how to get to the town center, but his answer sounded like gibberish. By the time they located a street that corresponded with one on the map, Acie was ready for food. “There?”

  “Sure.” Rina had envisioned Italian food as a major source of pleasure but had underestimated its fascination.

  “It’s been a rough few days,” she admitted, digging in her purse for the small bottle and swallowing two more pills when the waiter brought her water.

  “You want to talk about it?” Acie asked.

  She supposed she did. She needed to tell someone, and who else was there? So, they ate, and she talked. And Acie turned out to be a marvelous listener, with just the right amount of sympathy and horrified disbelief. Rina felt so much better by the time she asked for the check that she announced, “I’m paying. You’re much cheaper than a shrink.”

  They wandered the narrow streets until they came to the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli, where Acie handed over the guidebook. “This seems more your gig than mine.”

  Traipsing through the church, Rina studied—and read aloud--notes about Benedictines and Franci
scans, monks versus friars.

  “Are you Catholic?” Acie asked after she’d shared yet another paragraph. “Is that why you’re so interested in all this?” Obviously, her friend didn’t share her passion for historical context.

  “Well,” she admitted, “I’m not sure what I am, other than half Jewish and half sort-of Protestant. Makes the whole belief system a little mixed up. It’s the facts and history that interest me.”

  But something more than history tugged at her in this place. The unabashed sensuality, the lush textures and colors, the echoing chambers, the fluid lines of both paintings and architectural shapes, affected each of her senses. She could imagine centuries of worshipers gathering here, some for the ritual, some to draw closer to God.

  “Inquiring minds,” she whispered.

  “Inquiring minds what?”

  “Like to know.”

  Acie fluttered her fingers. “Then, honey, you go right ahead and study the subject. I’ll just look.”

  If only she had hours to explore. But it seemed that Acie’s threshold for boredom had been reached.

  “Time for ice cream,” Acie announced, much like a bounce-on-her-toes child, the type who’d too easily be labeled ADHD. “We can always come back another day. Okay?”

  “Not a problem.” After all, what she really required from the day was distraction. “Lead on.”

  Gelati, postcards, and a trudge up to the Rocca Maggiore followed. Maybe it was the view, maybe the ice cream, but the pain in her head had eased almost to nothing. Here she could imagine that all the rest had been an illusion that it hadn’t happened. Here was beauty and simplicity and a new friend.

  She licked the creamy chocolate as they sat on a stone bench to gaze out over the countryside. “Isn’t it great we don’t have to worry about the extra calories, not with all this walking and climbing. Imagine how fit we’ll be when we go home. Unless,” she said with a sidelong glace at Acie, “you don’t plan to leave.”