by April Smith
I am astonished. “They’re not going to investigate?” “They’ll investigate.” Cecilia pulls out the clips and shakes her hair. “But we will never really know who did this. They’ll say, Cosa si può fare? It is Palio,” adding savagely, “when we all know it has nothing to do with Palio.” “This is ridiculous.” Sofri looks at his watch. “Where is the surgeon?” I don’t like the way Cecilia is refixing her hair with eyes lowered in resentful silence.
“What do you mean, ‘Nothing to do with Palio?’ ” “I can tell from the wounds it was not a random stabbing, okay? Someone knew exactly what they were doing,” she says. “If they wanted to kill him they would have cut his neck or shot him in the head. But no — they only come this close. Instead, they hurt him and leave him a cripple.” Sofri winces. “Please!” “Why? It is the truth. They do it to send a message. This kind of attack is something we see in the emergency room in Napoli, not in Siena, when two contrade get into a fistfight.” “But it could happen,” Nicosa says. “Between contrade.” “Why do you say that?” Cecilia snaps, venomous, as if the gold snakes on her dress have come to life. “If he went with friends, where are the friends? If they fought with Torre, why didn’t anybody see?” I cut in. “Is Via Salicotto a busy street?” “Yes.”
“Stores and cafés open?” “Yes, of course. Summer is the busy season.” “If there were any witnesses, and if they were from Torre, what is the likelihood they would come forward to help someone from Oca?” There is a pause as the three exchange glances, as if to decide just how crazy the Sienese might be.
“You have to believe not even the people of Torre, sangue d’ebrei e Torraioli,” Sofri says, adding an ugly curse meaning that the enemy is as low as the Jews, “would be silent about something this serious.” “Anybody could have seen!” Cecilia cries, exasperated. “Thousands of tourists in the city — someone walking on Via Salicotto had to notice if a boy was being stabbed almost to death.” Nicosa cocks his fist. “He will not die!” “Basta,” Sofri says. “We have to be together now.” “He acts like he has nothing to do with it,” Cecilia murmurs.
“What is that tone in your voice?” her husband demands. “Are you saying this is my fault?” “You have turned your head.” “Let’s go inside.” Sofri takes her hand. “The doctor is here.” As headlights swerve into the parking lot, Sofri steers Cecilia toward the hospital.
“I have turned my head?” Nicosa shouts. “You spoil him! You treat him like a baby! You don’t allow him to grow up!” Cecilia twists from Sofri’s grasp. “He doesn’t want to grow up. He doesn’t want to be like his father—” But then she stops herself and her look becomes pleading. “Mi dispiace, Nicoli. Sono spaventata così.”
Nicosa relents and comes toward her. They embrace, long and hard and desperate; you can see in the fit of their bodies how the years have carved them together. They hold on until Sofri gently takes Cecilia’s arm. The surgeon from Montepulciano has gotten out of his car. Nicosa watches as the three meet and the automatic doors swing open and swallow them inside.
“Giovanni is going to make it,” I say.
Nicosa mutters, “Why don’t you go home?” and walks toward the emergency entrance.
The chill from standing out there in the middle of the night has seeped into my skin. My head is throbbing from having consumed nothing but a couple of mushroom ravioli and some “big red” wine, and I would do anything to get out of the brown wrap dress and put on a pair of jeans. How can I fix this? I have none of my usual props. No weapon, no creds, no Nextel, no connection to a busy investigative team in a warm office with global reach to every foreign agency — I don’t even have a sweater.
Out of the shadows a voice calls, “Signorina Grey?” “Yes?”
“Over here.”
The orange tip of a lighted cigarette moves in the darkness. Inspector Martini is leaning against the hospital wall, with a cop’s instinct to stay out of the light.
NINE
Inspector Martini says, “Ciao,” and offers a cigarette.
“No, grazie.”
“You speak Italian?” “Only enough to get on a train. Usually the wrong train.” “Tell me,” she says, “how long have you worked for the FBI?” “How do you know about that?” “We know who you are. We were informed by your captain in Rome, Dennis Rizzio.” “When did you talk to Dennis?” “Two days ago, forse? He told our department to expect you here.” “Why?”
She expels a funnel of smoke. “It is professional. We have a good relationship with the Americans.” “Nice if he would let me know.” She nods sympathetically. “I have the same problems with my boss.” “Does Signore Rizzio always call you when an FBI agent is in town?” I ask lightly.
“Usually only for tickets to Palio.” She smiles and tosses her head and then fixes me with a steely stare. “What do you do in the FBI?” “I’m a field agent. My visit here is almost like being undercover,” I say. “My sister has asked me not to tell her husband I am with the FBI. It’s strange, because that’s how she found me, through the Bureau. I wonder what else she’s keeping from him.” Inspector Martini frowns. “I am of the same contrada as your family — Oca, the Goose. I know Cecilia well, but I don’t understand what is in her head, keeping this secret from her husband.” “Could it have to do with Nicoli’s relationship with Lucia Vincenzo?” “We don’t have the whole story there, except that she is most probably dead.” “Is there a connection between Vincenzo, the southern mafias, and Nicoli Nicosa?” “I can’t speak about that.” “I understand.”
When you need to know.
“I could never go undercover like you,” she reflects. “I have my baby.” “How are you able to make that work?” “Around the time that she was born, a statue of Christ by a Renaissance master named Vecchietta was stolen from a church in Siena. A task force was formed to recover it. I have a degree in art history, and it was part-time, so I applied for a position. I went back full-time when she was one year old.” “Did you recover the statue?” She shakes her head. “It is somewhere in the hands of a private collector. Now I’m back on the street, and I like it much better.” “Hard to go back to a desk job,” I agree.
She hesitates. “You have experience with homicide?” “I make trips to the crime lab and testify in court, just like you.” We give it a moment. Her arms are crossed. She grinds the concrete with a heel.
Finally she says, “I did not tell you this—” “I never heard a thing.” I am becoming attuned to these disclaimers—“This is not a problem,” Sofri said when the police car arrived at the party flashing emergency lights.
“It is about the police report. On your nephew, Giovanni.” “What about it?”
Materializing as if from nowhere, the paparazzi appear out of the shadows of the parking lot — half a dozen athletic young men on the hunt, weaving and pointing the eyes of their cameras at everything in their path, like an assault unit of spiders.
“Cazzo!” grunts Inspector Martini, glancing at them, and then at her cell. “The boss must be here.” They had gotten here before the Commissario, grabbing whatever shots they could to feed the universal craving to see rich people suffer — no matter how pathetic the crumbs, like shots of Nicosa’s Ferrari and the exterior of the hospital. They ferret out the two of us near the entrance, but Inspector Martini speaks sharply in Italian, and they back off with apologetic waves, signifying to me the ultimate control of the government over the press. Instinctively, she and I separate without a word as TV news vans swarm the parking lot.
A white car pulls up, doors open, and two plainclothes detectives spring out, positioning themselves for the exit of the chief. The Commissario is taller than everyone else, and extremely thin. Wisps of white hair flying in the backlight of the TV cameras show that he’s balding. He walks like a marionette, lower legs extending stiffly on their own, as if badly in need of a double knee replacement. But the odd gait only adds to a kind of worldly elegance; at this late hour, wearing a well-tailored dark suit, he looks as if he has
been called away from a state department dinner party behind locked gates.
Nobody stops anyone from entering the hospital, and I’m thinking the whole entourage is going to march right into the operating room, but in a country where politics is theater, Nicoli Nicosa recognizes the opportunity for an entrance and is waiting, with the priest in the background, for Il Commissario in the reception area, where they confer privately before facing the cameras. In the crowded space and overly bright lights, the Commissario speaks closely into the lens, and the speech looks smoky and intimate. On the flat-screens at home it will seem huge and crisp.
I imagine he is saying how shocked he is that an innocent boy was brutally attacked on the eve of Palio, promising the Nicosa family that the provincial police will bring these thugs to justice.
A grief-stricken embrace between the two men, and then they disappear down the hall together and the TV lights go out.
“Il bastone ricco insieme,” mutters a reporter.
The rich stick together.
For the next two hours I pace the visitors’ lounge, picking up magazines I can’t read, trying to get e-mail where there is no service. Finally Nicosa appears, exhausted from a long interview with the police while his son was in the operating room. He is still wearing evening clothes, but the tie is gone, and gray stubble shows on his hollow cheeks. He reports in a flat voice that Giovanni made it through the surgery and there is nothing for us to do but go home. Cecilia will stay at the hospital. The police will arrange for us to leave quietly through a back exit. As he is telling me this, Inspector Martini passes and catches my eye. I ask Nicosa to give me a minute, so I can surreptitiously join her in the ladies’ room.
In the mirror over the sinks our reflections show a tall, olive-skinned police officer in a sexy blue uniform, and a shorter American in a brown party dress — two cops from opposite sides of the world who speak the same language. After making sure we are alone, Inspector Martini picks up where we left off when the paparazzi arrived.
“The police report,” she says quietly, “will state that your nephew was attacked in the territory of Torre — you understand about the contrade, okay? He is of Oca, and he was found in Torre, and naturally there must have been a fight.” “But you don’t think that’s the way it happened?” “His body was — changed places?” “Moved?”
“Sorry for my English — yes,” she continues urgently. “His car was found by the police outside the walls of the city.” “How far away from the district of Torre?” “Two kilometers. There were bloodstains around his car. Not so many. I believe the worst took place in the tunnel at Via Salicotto.” “He was taken to the tunnel to make it look like he was attacked by Torre?” She nods. “A nurse tells me she smelled ether on his clothes. It is commonly used in Italy for kidnappings, to subdue the victim. Probably they jumped him, he defended himself”—she raises a forearm to demonstrate—“they put a cloth over his face.” This is when I awaken from my romantic dream of Italy. My sister’s analysis of the stab wounds was accurate. Giovanni was targeted by professionals who tracked him outside the walls, and dumped him in Torre — for a reason.
“But it wasn’t a kidnapping, or a murder, although they could have killed him at any time. It was a warning. To whom?” I ask the inspector.
“Often it is to make an example for others. Witnesses. Informants. Anyone who resists.” “We are talking about the mafias?” “I am afraid that is a foregone conclusion,” she says soberly.
“Not necessarily,” I say, and tell her about the confrontation that I witnessed by the pool with members of Oca.
“Why would they be angry with Nicosa?” Inspector Martini shrugs. “I don’t know. He is well respected. Director of the contrada. His son is alfiere, the flag bearer—” “Yes, that’s the word they were shouting. They seemed to be upset for some reason about Giovanni carrying the flag. Could they have been angry enough to teach him a lesson?” “No. Never. No way. The contrada protects its own children. Everyone looks out for everyone else; that’s why in general we don’t have crime in Siena.” Still, how humiliating it must have been for Nicosa — the coffee king, whose son was alfiere — to be called into account on his own property by his own contrada.
I check the door. We are still alone.
“Is it possible Giovanni brought this on himself? Is he the type who gets into fights in school?” “He is liked by everyone.” “Does he do drugs?” “I would be surprised if he’s never tried them. Marijuana and cocaine are everywhere. But he is not an addict, no.” She brushes aside her bangs, damp from the night. “I am of Oca. I want to know who did this to Giovanni, and then I will hang that person by his balls from a tree. But I have to be careful. It is possible that the bloodstains near the car will never be on the report. My boss, Il Commissario, may not allow it.” “Because he is of your enemy, Torre?” I ask incredulously.
“He doesn’t want a crime investigation. It is Palio. The city is filled with tourists — you can see how the press is stalking him — and so at this time, simple answers are best. A fight occurred between the young men of two traditional rivals. Perfetto.” The door swings open and I almost have a heart attack. It is Nicosa! What the hell is he doing in the ladies’ room?
“Ana, we have to go,” he says, matter-of-fact.
In the Bureau, the sanctum sanctorum for female agents, the only place where two women can talk in privacy, is the ladies’ room. If two females close the office door they are accused of having a “knitting party.” Men, of course, have “meetings.” Italians don’t make that distinction, at least when it comes to personal hygiene. Their public bathrooms are gender-neutral, where men and women share the sinks.
Nicoli Nicosa has every right to be staring at us impatiently with the door wide open.
“I am afraid I have no more information,” Inspector Martini says, covering briskly. “Best wishes to your family.” She offers a comradely handshake. In her palm is a scrap of paper, upon which is written an address.
On the ride back to the abbey Nicosa says little, but I can see his fingers tight on the wheel, and I imagine he must be scared to death — not only about Giovanni’s survival, but also about the motive for the attack. He must understand that since two people close to him have been targeted so far, nobody in his family is safe.
“What do you think they want?” I ask.
“Who?”
“The people who attacked Giovanni.” “I couldn’t possibly answer that question.” “Do you think they are the same criminals who took your friend Lucia Vincenzo?” He gives me an accusatory stare.
“Why do you bring that up?” “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s all over the Internet.” “They are not the same. One is a fight between boys. The other — we may never know.” We drive in silence, then finally he asks, “Do you pray?” “No. Do you?”
“Of course. I will open up the chapel later.” If he meant that as an invitation, it is declined. That night, unable to sleep, I walk out to the corridor, breathing in the scents of pine and cold. The chapel is dark, but by the light of the electric torches in the courtyard below I see Nicosa, alone, playing with the flag, a square of silk about a meter wide attached to a pole: white and green with bands of red, emblazoned with the symbol of Oca, a crowned white goose with the Cross of Savoy flying from a blue ribbon around its neck.
His starched shirt is open, his chest shining with sweat. His moves are worthy of an acrobat. Like a flag attached to a fencing foil, the banner of Oca follows a split-second pattern, first clockwise at Nicosa’s waist, then tightly furled and thrown straight up, high enough to float by me on the second-story balcony, and then caught on one knee, behind his back. Unbound, it makes a figure eight, a butterfly of silk opening to glory — and then, unbelievably, it becomes a flashing green-and-white knot in the air, passes close to earth, and Nicosa leaps right over it, tossing it straight up again like a thunderbolt.
What is this? A private meditation? The rite of a man preparing for combat? Is he doing
this practice for himself? For his youth? For his grievously wounded son? Does he see the visitor above the torchlight, watching breathlessly?
TEN
The following day, thunderstorms are expected. The hammocks and laundry have to be taken in. There are predictions of powerful lightning strikes. In the morning the wind bucks and swirls, the unstable atmosphere trying to rid itself of electric charge. Then it rains, hard, like winter rain in Los Angeles. Alone in the abbey, the kitchen feels cavernous and damp.
Someone made coffee and left the espresso pot on the stove. Someone cut bread and left the crumbs on the board. Pieces of a meal have been left for me to put together: plums in a bowl, muesli in a cupboard, a wedge of local pecorino cheese wrapped in white paper in the refrigerator. Irish tea in a canister. I put on a kettle of water.
I zip my sweatshirt over my pj’s and put up the hood — not so much from cold as unease. Cecilia came home at four o’clock that morning and said Giovanni’s condition had become critical. They fixed the artery and gave him transfusions, but the blood pressure in the leg had not come up, and they couldn’t figure out why. Today they will decide if it is necessary to amputate.
We spoke in the frank way of professionals, skipping the soft touch you’d use with a civilian, minimizing nothing.
“Is the medical information accurate?” “You mean, do I want another opinion? It is straightforward, my colleagues agree. If the circulation in the leg is insufficient, the tissue dies, gangrene sets in, and you risk an overwhelming bacterial infection. I would rather have him alive in a wheelchair than dead of sepsis.” We were in her bedroom. She had torn off her dress and thrown it on the bed, done an efficient thirty-second sweep with a washcloth that covered all the bases.