by Gregg Loomis
An English couple at the head of the line muttered angrily as Giuseppe whisked Jason and Maria to a table just now being cleared by one of the waiters Jason recognized as the proprietor’s youngest son. Pangloss settled by Maria’s chair expectantly. A few scraps always found their way to his place at Angelina.
Seated, Jason pretended to be enjoying the view. Over a sea of red-tile roofs, the harbor was visible and, beyond, the blue of the Bay of Naples faded into a gray haze. Fishing boats, no more than open rowboats at anchor in neat rows, bobbed gently in the swell. Their nets were spread to dry on the khaki-colored rocks of the breakwater like bright orange moss.
By the time he looked back at the table, a glass of white wine was frosting its glass in front of him. Another perk of tipping. Most Italians claimed that cold killed the taste, preferring their vino blanco only slightly chilled below room temperature, if at all. Jason was more than willing to concede the point: dulling the acidic bite of most Italian whites was to be desired. For the euros Jason left on the table after eating here, Giuseppe would have cheerfully served the wine as ice cubes.
Maria was studying her menu, although she had been here enough to have it memorized. They always ordered one of the catches of the day, anyway. “You nearly killed that man, you know,” she finally said reproachfully.
Jason felt eyes on him from neighboring tables. He leaned forward, speaking softly so he could be heard only by Maria. “You may wish I had. He has some pals already on the island and I doubt they’re here to buy my paintings.”
Her blue eyes peered over the top of the menu. “The man in the market? He could have been anyone.”
“Possible,” Jason conceded. “But he sure took off when he realized I’d spotted him. I’d bet he was surprised we weren’t so much shark chum out on the causeway.”
“You mean he was with the guy who tried to run us over? Why would they want to kill you?”
Jason shrugged. “I guess my popularity rating has slipped.”
Maria put her menu flat on the table and leaned forward on arms crossed. The pose pushed up her breasts, giving a tempting view of cleavage. “Let me see, now: for three years we live on this island where the greatest threat is boredom. I leave for a few weeks and you do a ‘friend’”—she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers—“a favor. A few days later, some unknown person appears on the island, steals a cement truck, and tries to run us down. You don’t suppose there’s a connection?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”
“Killing people doesn’t exactly enhance your appeal either.”
Jason was acutely aware of the silence at neighboring tables. “Any chance we can continue this discussion in private?”
She flushed as she noticed the curious faces around them. The menu went up again. “Sorry, I should have …”
But Jason wasn’t paying attention. He was riveted to one of the television screens.
It was filled with a photograph of Al Mohammed Moustaph.
9
Getting up from the table, Jason moved to the big-screen TV, where he could just hear the news announcer’s voice. The man spoke with that certain authority Americans always attribute to a British accent.
“… Moustaph, reputed to be in the command structure of al-Qaida, was kidnapped while visiting Africa.”
The screen shifted to a strangely familiar scene. It took Jason a second to recognize the black helicopter in a storm of African dust.
The film crew! The fucking TV equipment he had seen before he shot Bugunda! They must have had a cameraman in the pursuing jeep!
“Although no one has claimed credit for the abduction, an anonymous al-Qaida spokesperson, speaking on Al Jazeera, the Qatar television network, has blamed ‘the criminal element posing as governments of Western countries.’”
The camera panned the open area and Jason felt a wave of nausea sweep over him. There he was, running for the chopper for all he was worth. The camera zoomed in just he threw himself to the ground. It was less than a second but his face was clearly recognizable before he disappeared into the tall grass. The scene went suddenly blank, no doubt as the rocket demolished the jeep and its occupants.
The announcer’s voice continued unruffled, as though giving the match results at Wimbledon. Moustaph’s picture replaced the helicopter. “The Muslim extremists threaten unprecedented attacks on Western countries if Mr. Moustaph is not released from wherever he is being held.”
“Now we know why someone wanted to kill us.”
Jason had not noticed Maria come up beside him.
“Huh?”
“The little ‘favor’ you did in Africa for your friend,” she said in the even voice she used when most angry. “Looks like it might not just get us killed, but innocent people all over the world, too. You must be very proud of yourself.”
“How was I to know … ?”
“Jason,” she said as though addressing a dim-witted child, “how many times have I told you? Violence begets violence. It is an unending cycle that must be broken to end.”
Tell that to the people in the World Trade Center, he thought. Or, for that matter, at Pearl Harbor. But he said, “The man was responsible for Laurin’s death. I was hardly prepared to kiss and make up.”
She arched one unplucked eyebrow, an expression he somehow always found sexy. “And I am not prepared to live with a man who continues the killing.”
Spinning on her heel, no easy task since she was wearing flip-flops, she whistled to Pangloss and marched out of the trattoria, followed by every eye in the place.
Giuseppe could not have hired better entertainment.
Jason caught up with both Maria and Pangloss halfway down the hill.
“Maria, you won’t be safe if you leave.”
She stopped and faced him, hands on hips. “And I will be safe with you? They will make sure I am out of the house before someone tosses a bomb into it?”
Pangloss was following the exchange as though they were passing a meaty bone back and forth.
“We’ll leave. We have to leave. We’ll go someplace they can’t find us.”
“Really? And where would that be, the South Pole? No, Jason, they saw your face, know who you are. They followed you to this little speck in the Bay of Naples, they would follow you to Timbuktu.”
“I hear Northwest Africa can be quite charming.”
She stamped her foot, barely missing Pangloss’s tail. “Make a joke if you like, I am not putting my life at risk so you may enjoy the luxury of revenge.”
With that, she turned and marched toward the car, rigid as any soldier on parade.
Minutes later, the Suzuki was straining up the hill toward the villa. From the bottom, a car had been visible, parked in front of the gate.
Maria spoke for the first time since leaving town. “Aren’t you curious who that is? It might be …”
“I doubt al-Qaida would announce its arrival by leaving a car in plain view.”
Maria wasn’t so sure. She was looking around at the surrounding landscape. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, does it? I am leaving as soon as I can get packed.”
“Leaving? For where, your friend Eno in Turin?”
Eno Calligini was Maria’s uncle by marriage. Given his rugged good looks, flowing silver hair, and commonality of interests with his niece, Jason had suspected the relationship might have been, at one time, more than avuncular.
Her expression obviated an answer. “I’ll go where I please.”
“You already do. You were off in Hawaii when I went to Africa, remember?”
She turned around to sit straight in her seat, arms folded, the cold stature of a maiden frozen in rigid marble.
Jason knew better than to even try to appease her in this mood. He drove up to the gate and, using the electronic device, opened it. The Suzuki squeezed by the other vehicle, a dusty Volkswagen Passat. On Ischia, anything that had a backseat that really could hold two adults was considered a luxury car.
Maria was out of the Suzuki before Jason could kill the engine. Even her well-shaped rear end seemed to have an angry swing to it as she strode across the piazza. Pangloss whined and jumped out of the car to follow.
“Ingrate!” Jason muttered, preparing to follow as well.
She was standing at the outside entrance to the upstairs loggia as he hastily climbed the stairs. “Maria …”
He stopped dead behind her. Over her shoulder he could see an immense black woman filling most of a sofa. She was dressed in a garishly colored loose-fitting caftan. Pangloss had his head in her lap as she scratched his ears, murmuring softly.
Momma.
Gianna hovered nearby, ready to fill Momma’s glass from a black-and-white-labeled bottle of Gaja chilling in a nearby bucket.
“Please, make yourself at home,” Jason said, stepping around the still-awestruck Maria.
Momma looked up from the dog as though suddenly aware of Jason and Maria. “Jason! Come give Momma a hug!”
Jason stood his ground. “At the risk of sounding inhospitable, might I ask what you’re doing here?”
She shook her head, setting multiple chins in motion like Jell-O. “Doing? Well, I’m enjoying the company of your dog—Pangloss is his name? And I’m also enjoying a delightful and refreshing Piemonte this wonderful woman offered me.”
Gianna shrugged. “Signore, I no offer ennythin’. She ast an’ I …”
Jason nodded to his housekeeper. “I understand, Gianna. Not your fault.”
With a last resentful scowl at Momma, Gianna departed toward the back of the house.
“Really, Jason, I wouldn’t think you’d begrudge …”
He noted the customary dialect had dropped from her speech. Her English could be as precise as his when she chose. And he could guess whom she was trying to impress.
“Think again. My privacy is my own.”
Maria finally spoke up. “Jason, who is this woman?”
Jason didn’t take his eyes from his visitor. “We used to do business together.”
Momma rose with a grace one would not expect of a woman of her bulk, crossed the room, and smothered Maria’s hand in hers. “And you must be Dr. Bergenghetti. May I call you Maria?” She reached out to touch the scarf around Maria’s neck. “Hermès, right? Hard to miss those beautiful colors. And all this time I thought Jason was exaggerating how pretty you are! You’re so lucky! He simply adores you!”
Jason was quite sure he had never mentioned Maria to Momma. For that matter, he realized with a jolt, he’d never said anything about having a dog, either.
Jason sensed that Maria’s hostility, if not melting, was at least showing signs of a thaw.
Momma led Maria back to the couch, still holding her hand. “And I understand you’re a scientist, too! You certainly don’t look like one.”
Maria smiled weakly. “I will take that as a compliment.”
Momma’s effervescence was as uncharacteristic as speaking in exclamation points.
“As delighted as we are to have you here, I’m guessing this isn’t a social visit,” Jason said.
If she noted the sarcasm, Momma ignored it. “Actually, you’re right. I do have a bit of business to discuss.”
She looked pointedly at Maria.
Jason shook his head. “This is our home. There’s nothing you can say to me you cannot say in front of Maria.”
“Of course, darling,” Momma oozed. “It’s just that … well, I have no idea how secure this house is.”
“Secure?” Maria asked, as though Momma might think the structure was about to slide down the hill into the sea.
“She means she doesn’t know if anyone else might be listening,” Jason explained. “You know, bugs.”
Maria was less than happy about the implications of that. “Why would anyone want to listen to us?”
Jason was about to explain how in Momma’s business paranoia was like an inoculation against a potentially deadly disease when Momma went over to a pair of French doors. “It’s a beautiful day. Why don’t we all sit outside?”
Maria remained seated. “No! I want to know why someone would, what is it? Bug, yes, bug the house.”
Momma was already opening the doors that led out to a small balcony and a table with four chairs. “I couldn’t guess, dearest. All I know is that when I arrived here an hour or so ago, all everyone was talking about was the American who nearly got run over by a cement truck. How many Americans on this island, Jason?”
“OK,” Jason conceded gruffly, “but I still want to know—”
He stopped in mid-sentence. There was a man sitting at the table, a man whose skin was the color of midnight. Even seated, Jason could see he was tall, perhaps seven feet. His hands rested in front of him on the table, hands far too big for a normal person. But his most remarkable feature was his eyes. They reminded Jason of pebbles polished by a stream: smooth, shiny, and lifeless. The man slowly got to his feet, confirming Jason’s original estimate as to height. Despite the heat, he wore a suit of some rough black material. There was no sign he was uncomfortable in the temperature, no sweat on his black face, no dampness under the arms of his suit. Jason recalled the stories of Haiti’s zombies—men and women not quite dead but not alive, either.
“Oh, how careless of me,” Momma chortled. “This is Semedi, my friend and driver.” She turned to Maria. “You won’t believe this, but I never learned to drive.”
More likely, she had never submitted to the scrutiny of identification that went with a driver’s-license application.
Driver and bodyguard, Jason guessed. But he said, “Semedi? That’s patois for Saturday, right?”
“Also the name of one of our loa, or voodoo spirits,” Momma added.
“The loa of death, as I recall,” Jason added.
If Semedi understood any of the conversation, he gave no sign.
Momma sat on—or, rather, filled—one of the chairs, fanning herself with her hand.
Jason sat across the table from her as Maria slid into the remaining seat.
“OK,” Jason began, “to what do I owe the honor of the first visit you’ve ever made to my home—any home?”
Although speaking to him, Momma’s eyes were searching the landscape, perhaps looking for long-range spyware. “Yesterday morning I received a call from a policeman in Iceland.”
Jason knew she wanted him to ask a question, but he remained silent.
“You remember Boris Karloff?” Momma asked, relevant to nothing Jason could think of.
What was this, some trivia contest? “Sure. Stage actor turned to movies in the late thirties, did a number of Frankenstein films. Even had a TV show in the fifties.”
Jason swallowed his curiosity. Damned if he’d play one of Momma’s games.
She shook her head, tinkling long, drooping beaded earrings. “Not the same. He was one of our—ah—contractors. Little guy, always wore a hat of some sort. I think he was Russian, Eastern European, something like that. You were”—she shot a glance at Maria—“You were investigating a fraudulent scheme by a consortium of Russians. Boris was the one who fingered, pointed out, the head guy.”
Jason recalled now. An in-and-out hit job. Boris had been a minor but important player, a gnomelike little man who had put a face with a name that, left alone, would have made Bernie Madoff’s escapades seem penny-ante, bankrupting several European financial institutions and, quite likely, precipitating a panic not seen since the Wall Street crash of 1929. The little guy always wore some type of head covering—to cover pointed, elflike ears? At the time, he had seemed remarkable only because few who worked for Narcom ever met others who did.
“He was so thrilled to have worked with one of our major contractors,” Momma added.
Jason put out a hand: stop. “Was a major contractor. I said the job in Africa was my last, and I meant it.” He shot a quick look at Maria and was rewarded by the faint hint of a smile.
Momma drained the last of t
he wine and looked around hopefully. Gianna knew when not to be available. She set the glass down on the table. “That was truly some of the best I’ve ever had, particularly an Italian white.”
“Boris,” Jason said, “you came here about Boris.”
Momma shrugged, a small matter. “It seems he got himself hurt in Iceland, shot, actually, doing a bit of investigative work. He won’t tell the local police anything but keeps asking for you. Narcom’s number was the only one he had.”
“Me?” Jason was truly surprised. “Why me?”
“As I said, he was thrilled to work with you. I suspect yours was the only name he had of anyone connected with the company.”
Jason asked, “So, what does all this have to do with me? I’m retired, remember?”
It was his turn to view a huge smile as Momma reached across the table to pat his arm. “Of course you are, dear! Having met Maria now, I can see why you wouldn’t want to leave her or this marvelous villa, even if it meant a nonhazardous trip to Iceland to simply see what is going on.”
“Wasn’t nonhazardous for Boris,” Jason observed dryly.
Momma leaned over to pat his leg. “I can see your point of view. Boris was … was investigating something someone saw as none of his business. As the closest contractor—”
“Closest former contractor.”
“Yes. Well …”
Jason suppressed a sigh. This side of Momma, charm and acquiescence, was new to him, even if her manipulative nature still showed.
He should have recognized the slow curveball.
The fast break over the plate came soon enough. “Of course, I suppose you will have to be leaving here shortly. A pity.”
Maria was immediately concerned. “Leave? That is what Jason said. Do you really think we have to?”
Momma clucked sympathetically. “Sweetie, unless you believe the driver of that cement truck was vacationing here and just happened across Jason, you can bet his head-chopping friends will follow. I would be surprised if one of their filthy, hateful mullahs hadn’t declared a fatwa, or death writ, against Jason. You can also make a safe wager those people don’t care whom they might injure or kill—you, your housekeeper … anybody who gets in the way of their trying to get to Jason.”