Follow That Blonde

by Joan Smith

  Within twenty minutes we were all sitting around a table laden with the feast. “What did I tell you?” Bert said, as proud as if he'd done the cooking himself. “Didn't I say Nick was a great chef? Numero uno. Look out, Julia Child."

  “This is fabulous," Nancy exclaimed. “I have to get the recipe for this, Nick. Is it hard to make?” He told her the ingredients. “But how much garlic?"

  “Just a little—five or six buds."

  “That much? It doesn't taste that strong."

  “Don't squeeze them, just slice."

  “And how much pecorino?"

  “You don't measure,” he said, surprised. “Just enough to make it taste right.” His hands fanned the air, shoulders shrugging.

  As we lingered over coffee, our talk turned inevitably to “the case.” A summer storm had blown up suddenly, and we stayed at the table to talk, nibbling grapes and melon slices, with the wine lending a warm glow, and the flickering candles casting romantic shadows. Rain beat against the windows, and ran in tears down the glass. It only lasted ten minutes. I didn't ever want to leave Rome. I didn't want to leave the villa. I wanted to be Nick's sous chef forever. I wanted to learn to cook, Italian style, with fresh herbs and funny cheeses, and black flecks in my food. Nick's jet hair and ruddy complexion were enhanced by the shadows. Even Bert looked good, and Nancy had a dreamy air about her. I wondered how I looked, since Nick's eyes were often on me, studying me with disturbing intimacy.

  “This visit could have been a hell of a lot of fun if it weren't for Conan,” Bert said. “Why did he introduce Maria to me in the first place, if he's so crazy about her?"

  This surprised me. “Did he actually introduce you?"

  “Sure. She works at the Minosi Gallery. He's the one who told me I should check it out. He owns a piece of it, maybe the whole thing. It's a small place."

  “Where'd you meet him?"

  “I met him a year ago, at Nick's exhibition. The gorilla's interested in art, believe it or not. Strange but true. He's the one that took me to the Minosi. Maria was all over me like snow in a blizzard. Make that sweat in the tropics."

  “Let's stick with snow."

  “He didn't seem to mind then,” Bert said. “In fact, I got the idea he was encouraging her. Probably thought I was a rich American. Boy, did they get the wrong number! Maybe they weren't engaged yet. I was going with another girl at the time. I didn't call Maria. All she wanted from me was to put Nick's works in her gallery. The place is a two-bit affair. Nothing in the shop sold for more than five hundred bucks. I said thanks, but no thanks. Forgot all about her. Then about a month ago, we met again, in the Subura where I live. We went out a couple of times. That Sunday dinner with the family did it for me. Exitville. Arrivederci, Maria. These Italian girls get too serious too fast."

  “It's odd she invited you home,” Nick said. “Romans guard their homes jealously. If they want to be sociable, they take you to a restaurant. Home is for family and very close friends."

  “The lady planned to make me part of the family, definitely,” Bert said.

  “When did Conan start chasing you?” I asked, sensing something interesting here, because Maria did know the Contessa, who had been at the Risorgimento looking for, or meeting, Boisvert.

  “Strangely enough, he didn't go after my hide till I had dropped her. It was all over between us, finis, but try telling him that."

  “So Conan and Maria are interested in Nick's works, too,” I said musingly.

  Nick lifted his eyebrows. “They didn't happen to ask after any of my earlier works?"

  “You got me there,” Bert said. “It was a year ago, more or less, that they mentioned you. The second time around, it wasn't art we talked about. I don't think you came up at all, Nick. Maria met me, accidentally on purpose, if you know what I mean, at a little café in the Subura that I go to. She followed me there. To put it bluntly, the lady wanted my bod.” He smiled complacently.

  “What does Conan say when he's beating you up?” I asked.

  “Italian cuss words mostly. He suggested I perform unspeakable acts on myself. He says in Italy women aren't seduced and abandoned. I've disgraced her. We haven't even—” he looked uncertainly at Nancy. “Really! Nothing happened. He says things like ‘If you aren't going to marry Maria, keep away from her, or I'll rip out your guts and wrap them around your throat.’ Stuff like that, with liberal swearing."

  Nancy peered at him suspiciously. “I thought he was telling you to keep away from her. It sounds to me as if he's trying to coerce you into marrying her."

  “He's got the wrong man. No gold bands for this bozo—and Maria, I mean.” They exchanged a long, meaningful look. Lord, was Nancy thinking of marrying him? A whole future of having to be nice to Bert flashed in front of my eyes. I'd have to be their bridesmaid, godmother for their children. For as long as I lived, Bert Garr would be a part of my life. Then I remembered his awful childhood, and felt a wave of remorse. I looked toward Nick.

  He wore a sly, considering face. “If you were an Italian gentleman, Bert, you'd do the right thing by the lady. Thanks to you, Maria's lost Conan. He's trying to force you back to her."

  “Sure, he's seen the family at the trough and wants out. Can't say I blame him, but he can get himself another fall guy. I'm no Italian gentleman. All I did with Maria was take her to a couple of movies and visit her family. Period."

  “But visiting the family is such a serious step here,” Nick insisted. “A forerunner to the betrothal."

  Nancy took umbrage. “She was throwing herself at a rich old man at Lingini's party last night. She's no innocent young girl. Bert doesn't have to marry her just because Conan wants out. Why does he want you to, anyway?” she demanded, turning to Bert. “It's not as if you're rich. Have you been bragging to her, Bert?"

  “No way,” he said automatically, but a sudden puckering of his forehead intimated that he had. “Maybe he's got her pregnant."

  “She certainly didn't look it last night in that black dress,” I reminded them.

  Nick's long, El Greco fingers began beating a tattoo on the table. His mind had wandered away from us. I knew by the faraway look in his eyes that he was conjuring with the case. “No, it's too late tonight,” he mumbled into his glass.

  “Too late for what?” I prodded.

  “I think we should offer the Frageau to the Minosi Gallery,” he said, with a diabolical grin.

  “What about Lingini?” Bert demanded. “I practically told her she could have it."

  “She can have it, if she likes it,” Nick pointed out. “The Minosi will only exhibit it and sell it. Give other possible buyers a chance to bid. I'll insist they put it in the window."

  Bert shook his head. “All this Conan-Maria business doesn't have anything to do with the painting. He wants to dump Maria and he's trying to put the blocks to me to take her off his hands. And I'm not just saying that because I'll lose my commission if you go with Minosi. Seven-thousand-five-hundred I can kiss goodbye."

  “We'll discuss that later,” Nick said. “What intrigues me is why they picked on you for Maria. Conan met you at my exhibition. Maybe originally he just wanted to get me for the Minosi, but a year later—about the time Art World published my Frageau—Maria suddenly calls you again. They know I did the Frageau, Bert. I don't know how they know, but they know. And if you'd fallen for Maria as you were supposed to, they would have gotten the other Frageaus from you. You didn't go along with that, so Conan's trying to put the muscle on you. And it gives him a good excuse to follow you, search your apartment without much chance that you'll report him to the police. In Italy, affairs of the heart are considered outside of the law,” he explained to us.

  “But if you exhibit the painting at the Minosi, Lingini probably won't see it, and she's the one who's willing to pay big bucks,” Bert pointed out. “Mega bucks, Nick. She said whatever Boisvert offered, she'd pay more."

  “She'll see it. You're forgetting, Maria was at her party last night,” Nick cou
ntered. “An ... interesting connection, that."

  After I had considered this interesting fact, I began to have a few doubts. “That doesn't necessarily mean they're working together. They might just be acquaintances, through art dealings."

  “The Minosi isn't the kind of place Lingini shops for art,” Bert thought. “Not the same league at all."

  Undaunted, I said, “Well then, they might actually be competitors for the Frageau, and Lingini just wanted to keep an eye on the competition. If that's how it is, Maria won't call the Contessa."

  Nick just smiled unconcernedly. “She'll call. The Contessa has practically said she'll pay anything for a Frageau. The Minosi Gallery wants the painting to sell, not to keep. Why wouldn't they notify the highest bidder?"

  “If it was a matter of keeping an eye on the competition, why wasn't Conan at the party?” Bert asked. “He owns the Minosi. Maria's just his helper."

  Nick listened, unperturbed. “I'll phone Lingini tomorrow morning to make sure she knows the picture's there. One way or the other, it should be an interesting morning. And now we'll forget about the case. We've been promising to show the ladies around Rome, Bert. The rain's stopped. Let's go out on the town."

  Nancy and I exchanged a blissful smile. “You were going to take us to the Sound and Light show at the Forum,” I reminded them. “If we hurry, we can catch it."

  Bert glanced at his watch. “We better get a hustle on."

  “What'll you do with the Frageau while we're out of the house?” Nancy asked Nick.

  “Stick it back in the oven,” Bert suggested. “I don't mean turn the oven on. Just hide it there."

  That's what we did. Then Nancy and I got dressed in our fanciest clothes and went out to see, at last, the Forum, and enjoy a night on the town.

  CHAPTER 13

  Floodlights shone on statues and columns as we drove down the Corso. The Forum, as they say, needs no introduction. Bert had been there often and acted as our guide. He suggested we approach it from the Campidoglio. Nick parked the car and we had our first view from the deck. A melancholy graveyard air hung over the scene. The stumps of ruined columns looked like headstones, bathed in eerie light. Some longer column shafts and a few arches had escaped the depredations of war and time and man, and reared into the blue-black sky, where a ghostly white moon shone. Behind it all the swell of the Palatine Hill formed a ragged backdrop. The outline of individual trees lent a touch of nature to all the ruined grandeur of old Rome. Umbrella pines hovered protectively amidst the palms, cedars, and of course, the ever-present cypresses that are as much a part of Italy as the wine or language.

  “What was the Forum, exactly, before it became a ruin?” Nancy asked.

  “It was Rome,” Bert said simply. “Law courts, temples, market, prison, theater, villas. That,” he pointed to three columns, “is Julius Caesar's Forum. Yessir, they stuck it to poor old Julius, the Ides of March. Et tu, Brute."

  “Imagine, and it's still here,” Nancy said, in an awed voice.

  “It's back,” Bert corrected.

  “Where did it go?"

  “Underground. Buried. This was a cowfield for centuries. Cow cookies all over the greatest show on earth. It was only dug up in the nineteenth century. People used to take the marble for other buildings, but the government watches the place like a hawk now. I think that pedestal in your house is from here, isn't it, Nick?"

  “That's the legend. My grandfather gave it to my mother. It's a family heirloom."

  As our eyes became accustomed to the eerie lighting, we could pick out a few residual bits of architecture from amongst the featureless brickwork remains. One pretty doorway, leading nowhere, was in good repair. Bert said the columns and acanthus leaves at the top were nearly perfect, but the architrave was crumbling and the pediment was half gone. The ruins were softened by vines and grass and shrubs. Bert quoted half forgotten old historical names, but I was content to just look and absorb the mood of romantic desolation, because I knew I wouldn't recall the details anyway. Some of it sounded like legend, but there really were Vestal Virgins. A part of their temple remained. He spoke of Etruscan kings and various Caesars and Augustuses, on through the Renaissance and right up to Mussolini.

  As he explained, the scene came alive. In imagination, walls rose again, lintels spanned the columns and domes appeared above the arches. I could almost hear the tramp of Roman legions, imagine the sun gleaming on armor, and flags waving. Or maybe I was just remembering scenes from Quo Vadis. Anyway it was thrilling. It had been here forever, that was what I had difficulty grasping. When I think of old, in terms of architecture, I tend to think of Williamsburg, but Monticello would be a baby here. Rome was ancient. That was why a medieval doorway would suddenly catch my eye in some cobblestoned alley, and throw me for a loop. That was why I occasionally saw a fine marble archway leading into a hovel of a house. The layers of history revealed themselves in this interesting way.

  “The orchestra plays in the Basilica of Maxentius,” Bert said. “Want to have a listen?"

  He led us to the basilica, a ruin of course, but the vaulted roof remained and there was seating in front of it. An orchestra—a large one—was dwarfed in the cavernous space, giving some idea of the monumental size of the original edifice. Gold lights shone from above. They were playing something form The Barber of Seville. “Rossini should be sung,” Bert humphed. I wondered if he'd heard a tourist say that before, but maybe I'm just revealing my prejudice against him. He had surprised me with his knowledge of the place. Did the soul of a romantic lurk beneath his desperate bravado?

  There was a large crowd. In the privacy of darkness, I noticed some men had their arms around women's shoulders. Some of them were necking, but not as passionately as couples did in Paris. Nancy's head leaned away from me, and I saw Bert's arm go around her shoulders, pulling her against him. I waited, wondering if Nick would follow suit. It had been a romantic evening, and I hoped he would. He just reached out and took my hand. We smiled. He looked at the row in front of us, where one couple were becoming quite Parisian. Then he checked the row behind us to see how they were behaving, or maybe to make sure no one there would recognize him, before he became amorous.

  I expected to feel his hand withdraw from mine, but not quite so convulsively as it did, lifting my skirt in the process. I expected the arm would then go around my shoulder. I really didn't expect him to jump to his feet and shout, “Holy Christ, it's him!” The audience turned and gave various indications of their disgust. The Italians are quite uninhibited in that respect. Just as well I didn't know what they were saying. Certain polylingual hand signals gave the general idea.

  Nick didn't sit down and try to hide his head after this shameful exhibition. He began an ungainly exit. Hemmed in by a full row, he leapt over the back of the seat to the row behind, where he only had to annoy six patrons before he got to the aisle. Bert and Nancy quit smooching long enough to ask what was going on.

  “He saw somebody, and took off like a bat out of hell,” I said.

  “Did you see who it was?” Nancy asked.

  “No, but it was a man. He said ‘It's him.’ Maybe it was Boisvert."

  Bert paled visibly. “Or Conan."

  A muted hiss of “Shhh” and "Silenzio" came at us from front and rear.

  “He wouldn't have chased Conan. He would have ducked,” I whispered.

  “Was it Claude or Réné?” Nancy asked.

  “I didn't see who it was."

  The “Shhh!” and "Silenzio" were no longer muted, and a few less discreet utterances were added to the chorus. We decided this conversation should be resumed beyond the basilica and left in disgrace, receiving a baleful glare from the owner of every knee we had to jar in the process. By the time we got out, there was nothing to see but semidarkness, and the vast, stretching length of the Forum.

  “Maybe we should split up,” Bert said.

  “What for? I'm not going looking for trouble alone,” Nancy declared.

 
; Bert rubbed his chin, probably figuring the chances that it wasn't Conan, and finally loped off. Nancy and I stayed outside the basilica, where we could run back in for safety if anyone with a gun should show up.

  “I wonder if Nick brought his gun,” I said.

  “I heard him tell Bert he was putting it in his car. Maybe he went there to get it."

  “We'll wait five minutes. If they don't come back, we'll go to the car."

  Nick was back within two minutes. “I lost him,” he said.

  “Who was it?” Nancy and I demanded in unison.

  “Claude. He's following me. He must be. He wouldn't just coincidentally show up here. He was standing at the back of the hall, staring at me.” Nancy didn't use the word synchronicity. “Where's Bert?” he asked.

  “Looking for you,” she said.

  In ten or so minutes, Bert came back, and Nick told him about Claude. “What do you figure he's after?” Bert asked.

  “I'll be damned if I know."

  “The Frageau?” Nancy suggested.

  “They've already stolen all the Frageaus except the new one. They can't know I've done another."

  “They might, if they're following you. Maybe they peeked in your window,” she said.

  I said, “Then they'd know it's in the oven."

  "Was in the oven,” Bert added, with a knowing look. “Maybe we'd better check it out."

  “If it's the painting they're after, they wouldn't be following me,” Nick insisted. “Claude could see at a glance I wasn't carrying a painting."

  “You could have it hidden in your car,” Bert said.

  I thought the incident had set Bert's nerves on edge. He was just afraid Conan might be lurking behind a column, and wanted to get out of the Forum. The romantic atmosphere had long since evaporated. None of us was in the mood for Rossini after the interruption, and we decided to leave.