by April Smith
“There’s a resemblance,” I admit.
“A strong resemblance.”
“If you didn’t know us.”
“I’m sorry to say this.”
I know where he’s going. It’s the look in his eyes. A lump rises in my throat.
“Say it.”
“The mafia sees the cell phone picture. This lady could identify the shooter; she’s starin’ straight at him. So they put an APB out on their network. Every punk in Italy goes looking. And some lower-level dope says, Hey, I found her, smack-dab in the middle of Siena. They watch for a while. Yep, it sure looks like the lady in the photo. The bad guys, they’re not from around here; they’re from the south; they don’t know who Cecilia Nicosa is. They think they’ve got the witness in the photo, so they nab her in the church. But they took the wrong girl.”
“I was wearing Cecilia’s clothes that day,” I say softly. “She was always trying to get me to dress better.” I wait. “What will happen when they figure out she isn’t me?”
There is no need for him to answer.
Then comes the long, slow sigh of defeat. “Most of the time,” I say, “the ‘disappeared’ are never found.”
“Bad police work.”
“No, it’s because the bodies are dissolved in lye.”
Sterling’s eyes flare briefly. “Lye?”
I nod. “Nothing left to find.”
He slides his fingers over mine for just an instant. It’s the best he can do.
TWENTY-THREE
They blindfolded Cecilia and pushed her up a staircase. Thin metal stairs, leading up from the basement. She was between the two enormous men, a gun jammed into her ribs. They were moving fast, almost carrying her between them. Briefly outside, it smelled like night and hot winds. Hurrying up another staircase. Shouts, conversations, radios, the smells of coffee and spilled beer. As they turned abruptly she was able to put out one hand and feel a rough stucco corner — then she heard locks turning, murmuring voices, and she was pulled inside an apartment with a TV turned up, the scents of oilcloth and something in the oven — phyllo dough? — and shoved inside a room. The door was locked and immediately there was pounding on the other side by shrieking, taunting children.
She took off the rag that covered her eyes. The first thing she saw was a piece of foam on the floor, two feet by six feet. Grimy balled-up sheets. Who knew who had been sleeping there? A window. She lifted the blind and saw another window of another apartment less than five feet away. The window was the sliding type, secured with a lock. She noticed she was standing on a filthy remnant of gold carpet. It curled up at the edges, revealing a concrete floor. There was a plastic basket filled with clean folded laundry, as if someone had forgotten about it. Copies of the magazine Oggi, months old.
She sat on the foam pad and took off her heels. She was still wearing the shiny green suit she’d had on at the church in Piazza Provenzano where the Palio banner had been blessed. It was now so tight and uncomfortable she wanted to rip it to shreds. She peeked at the laundry. Kids’ clothes. Male sweats.
She threw off the sheets, turned the foam pad over, and lay down. The vertebrae in her neck cracked, and she realized that her back was killing her. With the window closed, the room was stifling, like the room in El Salvador, in the outbuilding near the garden, where she sometimes hid to rest from the exhaustion of working while she was pregnant. There was no sleep. Roosters crowed and dogs barked all day long. Outside, her uncles and brothers lopped corn off the stalks with machetes. It was like an oven in that room. She felt the baby kick. She could only feel sorry for it, to be born to such a failure of a mother. Cecilia couldn’t move in that room because of the heat of the afternoon and the weight of sadness. It was during the time her own mother had exiled her to work in the garden and grind the corn for tortillas, giving her study room with its unfinished mural of Tweety Bird to a younger brother, as punishment.
Now she was a lady of elegance, a doctor. What had those years of suffering come to? She saw her death outside the door. The fat man with the gun. She would be humiliated by these men, that was a given. They would take her dignity, but what did it matter? We are all naked in death. She could accept everything else, she thought, but not that she would never see her son again. Lying down, with tears running along her temples, she forced herself to prepare, to travel slowly through the tunnel of darkness, at the end of which, in a bright mist, was Giovanni.
The lock slid open and a woman entered. The woman was ordinary. Middle-aged and silent. She had a mass of black hair and wore a cheap print dress. She brought a small bowl of garbanzo beans in olive oil and a piece of bread. She didn’t look at Cecilia but picked up the laundry basket and left. Cecilia knew better than to try to talk to her. Women can kill you, too.
TWENTY-FOUR
Exuberant shouts are coming from the courtyard — sounds I’ve never heard in the abbey before. Sterling had woken early, leaving the sweet-pea bed with quick and economical movements, so as not to wake me. He told me he’s been dreaming about airplanes falling out of the sky, and I’m afraid that’s what got him up — although maybe it was also to avoid the possibility of sex. He has been uncharacteristically indifferent. “I’m kinda all wore out,” he said. Alone, the former monk’s room seems even starker than before, somehow even threatening. Without the safe harbor of his warm, accepting body, I feel like I’m the one falling through space.
The morning sun lies in curtains across the inner space of the compound, warming the old stone. The electric torches are still burning, pale as the new day. Looking down from the second-story loggia, I see Sterling and Nicosa playing soccer, grunting and hooting. The taut leather ball sails off their feet with hard percussive pops. Giovanni, still on crutches, coaches from the sidelines. The sun plays golden notes in his dark curly hair, but his features are drawn.
Mom is gone, and the boys are out to play. Somehow they found each other this morning — Sterling, the uninvited guest, lean and buff, wearing camouflage shorts and a black T-shirt with a dragon, and Nicosa, the host, in pajama bottoms and an undershirt. He is unshaven with unkempt hair, throwing sweat, not moving as fluidly as when he played with the flag, but with red-faced determination to stay in the game.
Sterling and Nicosa go at it with competitive abandon. Nicosa has superior control, is good at disguising his moves, but Sterling stays on him, stealing the ball with a sharp inside curve. It rolls toward Giovanni, who gives a feeble swipe with a crutch. His shirt rides up, exposing a pale sunken belly and sharp hip bones.
“Be careful,” I murmur to myself.
Giovanni shouts at his father, “Vai così!”—Go this way! — but Sterling swings forward with a powerful strike squarely through the center of the ball and makes a goal between two potted palm trees. It’s a good shot, and everyone high-fives and cheers.
“È uno spettacolo!”
I clap also, yelling, “Bravi!”
The result is that while the two men tussle over the next point, Giovanni’s attention is drawn to the second floor, where I am standing; he looks up at the same moment his father boots the ball. It hits the boy in the chest, the crutches fly, and he collapses.
I run down the marble steps. Giovanni is lying on his back, gasping for air. Nicosa and Sterling squat beside him, talking rapidly and at cross-purposes in each other’s language.
“Posso aiutare!” says Sterling. “Sono addestrato come un paramedico.”
“My boy … he just had surgery, and he has a bad heart!”
I assure Nicosa we know what we’re doing, and he steps back as I take the boy’s pulse while Sterling checks the airways. We lift his shirt, inspect the surgical scars. Intact. No visible contusions from the soccer ball. A nod between us says, All clear. We count to three and gently roll my nephew onto his side. Soon his breathing returns to normal.
Nicosa has been watching with hands on hips, like the boss at a construction site. He smells of musty bedclothes and alcohol.
“How is
he?”
“Had the wind knocked out of him is all,” says Sterling. “Like falling out of a tree, right, son?”
“He’s done that, too. Sono così spiacente, mio figlio,” he says, repentance in his voice.
“È giusto, Babbo,” Giovanni replies as we help him to his feet.
Nicosa hands his son a rucksack that has been lying in the grass, then slowly walks back into the abbey with his head down.
“Tu sarai giusto; giusto riposa il minuto,” Sterling tells Giovanni.
“I’m okay,” Giovanni assures him. “Your Italian is very good.”
“The army sent me to language school.”
“Are those real army shorts?”
“Nah. They look cool, but they’re not that cool. See this?” He pops a pocket in the waistband. “Yuppie iPod holder.”
“Were you in Special Ops?” Giovanni asks, carefully pronouncing the words. “Is that why you learned Italian?”
“Why not learn something on the government’s dime?” Sterling says genially. “I was just a ranch hand before,” he adds, leaving out a lifelong career in Delta Force.
“He’s a real cowboy,” I point out. “Can’t you tell by those bowed legs?”
Giovanni obediently looks at Sterling’s legs. “Do you have guns?”
“Several.”
“Is it true that everyone in America owns a gun?”
Sterling smiles easily. “Lots of people do have guns. Just like everyone in Italy grows olives; is that true?”
“Around here, yes.”
“Where can we get some really fine olives?”
“Anywhere.”
“I mean, not a store, but where they grow the fruit and cure it. We raise olives in Texas, just like you. My dad’s a rancher, but he’s got a good-sized olive grove.”
“You never told me that,” I say.
Sterling raises his eyebrows, mocking my surprise. “You never had a need to know.”
“Oh, you can see our friend,” Giovanni offers. “His name is Aleandro; he owns the farm next door. That’s where we get our olive oil.”
Honking the horn, a kid driving a small car like Giovanni’s pulls into the driveway.
“Are you sure you’re well enough to go to school?”
“I would rather be in school than here,” he replies bitterly.
Slowly, he makes it to the car, and it is amazing how his manner changes the moment he comes within range of his friend. Suddenly he’s a different person, all jokes and smiles, clownishly climbing inside, despite the weight of the pack pulling him backward, and the crutches awkwardly held in one hand.
“Giovanni,” I call, “you’re not ready.”
“You’re not my mother,” he says sharply.
“If your mother were here, she would say you need to rest.”
“You don’t understand. My father is crazy, and my mother ran away.”
“Is that what she did? She ran away?”
“Yes, of course, to get away from him. So why should I care what she thinks?”
They take off, spraying gravel.
Sterling is waiting alone in the courtyard.
“Giovanni has no idea what’s going on with his mother,” I tell him.
“Maybe it’s better that way,” he says as we head toward the front door. “Does Nicosa always look so wasted?”
“No, usually he’s the king of cool.”
“He still expects to get Cecilia back?”
“He believes he’ll get a ransom call, and he’s waiting. Just waiting.”
“When’re you gonna tell him the truth?”
“Which is?”
“If she was taken by the mob, they’ve most likely already killed her.”
I let that one go by, like a wasp hanging in the air. If you don’t move, it won’t sting you.
“We have no proof one way or another. We don’t have a big enough picture.”
“What are we missing?” Sterling asks, just to humor me.
“Here’s how I see it: there are three separate strands, one for each member of this messed-up family. The FBI believes Nicosa has ties to the mafias because he was sleeping with one of their players, who has disappeared and is believed to be dead. Mom pays bribes to the clans in order to keep her clinics open. And the son is caught receiving cocaine from a British expat who has since left the country. None of them has the slightest clue about what the others are up to — what makes them tick, or where they go at night.”
“The part that braids it all together is the boy,” Sterling muses. “Let’s see what comes loose when we pull that thread.”
We find Nicosa in the kitchen, pouring a long shot of grappa into a short cup of espresso.
“Forgive me,” he says. “I am an idiot.”
“For what happened out there? It was an accident,” Sterling tells him. “Could’ve been me, kicked that ball.”
“It is unbearable to hurt your own child.”
Nicosa’s mouth is set in self-reproach. On the table is the morning paper from Rome. The photo of Cecilia on the yacht is on the front page with the headline, IL MISTERO DI PERSONA MONDANA MANCANTE IN SIENA!
“What does that mean?”
“ ‘Mystery of missing socialite in Siena,’ ” Nicosa says, as if resigned to the media onslaught that has only begun.
I squeeze his arm in sympathy.
Sterling scans the story, translating as he goes: “ ‘People are speculating about what happened to Dr. Cecilia Nicosa, wife of the well-known coffee entrepreneur. Rumors are that Dr. Nicosa has disappeared, like Signore Nicosa’s mistress, Lucia Vincenzo, a mafia associate whose body was never found … People are afraid … Nobody feels safe … If Dr. Nicosa has been kidnapped, it will be a daring assault on the upper class—’ ”
“Enough,” says Nicosa. “I’ve read it.”
Sterling pushes the paper aside. “The family should issue a statement. Put a lid on information getting out.”
“I’ll see to it,” Nicosa says.
He brews us two espressos, and we gather at the counter, hacking off pieces of yesterday’s bread, spreading them with honey and slices of pecorino cheese.
“What do you do?” he asks Sterling, finally. “Are you also FBI?”
Sterling picks a pear from a ceramic bowl and quarters it with the blade of his Leatherman tool.
“I work for a security company called Oryx. I’m a private military contractor, Mr. Nicosa.”
Nicosa’s eyes refocus. Soldiering, the military hierarchy, is something he understands.
“I hired a company like yours in El Salvador to protect our coffee plantations.”
“Did they do the job?”
“Yes, they did.”
“Good.” Sterling offers a crisp wedge of pear.
“Why are you here?” Nicosa asks.
“We completed the mission. I knew Ana was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop by.”
Nicosa eyes us back and forth, sniffing out the connection.
“Do you know what Ana does?”
“Yes, sir, I do. We’ve worked together before.”
“Well, she lied about it to me. My sister-in-law, she sits at my table and tells me with a smile that she sells home alarms.”
“I notice you still don’t have one,” I say pleasantly.
Sterling sighs. “That’s the way they do it in the Bureau. You’ll never meet such lying bastards.”
“Why did you hide it from me?” Nicosa asks.
“Cecilia begged me not to tell you.”
He is now pouring straight grappa. “Cecilia told you to lie? I find that hard to believe.”
“She said you were ‘under the thumb’ of the mafias,” I reply matter-of-factly. “She thought I could help you and the family to find a way out.”
“I don’t know where she got that idea.” Nicosa waves dismissively.
“Maybe because the Puppet was in your son’s room. Was he there to threaten you?”
“Not at all!�
��
My cover may be blown, but I’m still on assignment. Sterling senses I’m about to push it, and he steers us back to the line of inquiry most likely to engage Nicosa’s cooperation: his son.
“Sir, it’s Giovanni we’re most worried about. With all due respect, I just got here, but anyone can see there’re problems. Ana and I worked a case where young people came under bad influences, just like your son. I understand that you want to concentrate on your wife’s situation, so why not let us help untangle this mess with the boy? What do you know about his relationship with the woman who passed him cocaine?”
Nicosa shrugs with his eyebrows, his shoulders, his whole body.
“She’s just a local oddball. I don’t know what’s in Giovanni’s head.”
I ask if he knew how much the boy had been using at the time he was found passed out in the shower.
“He was buying painkillers from some little piece of trash who stole them from his grandparents.”
“Giovanni told you that?”
“Of course not. We hired a private investigator. The same private investigator my wife used when she was looking for you. Pain pills were nothing compared to what Giovanni was into. Our son was hanging out with heroin addicts. Nice kids. University students. The detective said it was a matter of days — hours — before we lost him forever. We got him away from his ‘friends,’ the hardest thing we’ve ever had to do. The rehab people came and took our boy in the middle of the night. There was no other way he would go. We had to tell everyone he was trying out another school. Cecilia was the strong one. She sees addicts every day; she knows what has to be done. I thought, you know, lock him in his room. Beat the crap out of him, like my father would have done to me. I didn’t know what we were up against. But three months later, they brought him back to us, and so far he’s been clean. Now we will always walk on eggshells. It’s my fault. You don’t have to say it.”
“I wasn’t going to say that, because it isn’t true. It’s the mafias who control your lives,” I tell him.
Nicosa shakes his head sadly. Hollow-eyed, he says, “The trouble is inside of us,” and bangs his own heart.