Again that shake of his head. “You no want to go there. Go to Colosseum, go to Pantheon.”
“Per favore,” I said pleadingly. Then for good measure, I put my hands together in a prayerlike position, the way I’d seen the Italians do, and said it over and over…Per favore, per favore, per favore.
Finally, he laughed, shrugged. He took my map and circled a location.
I flashed him a smile and tipped him some euros. Tucking the map under my arm, I went upstairs to my dorm room. I looked around once more. It had been wonderful to visit Loyola Rome for a few days. But it was time to go.
In the still, dusty-yellow quiet of the Roman morning, I packed everything into my suitcase and took a cab to the hotel. Once there, I stowed my luggage in the hotel’s lobby, since it was too early to check in, and left. When I reached via Giulia, the street the antimafia office was on, I stopped to consult my map and read about it in my guidebook. It was a wide-laned avenue, much bigger than the usual Italian streets, and it had been created during Renaissance Rome to connect all the major governmental institutions. During the sixteenth century, it had been fashionable to live there, the guidebook said, and I marveled at that one phrase-during the sixteenth century-since very little had been fashionable in the U.S. then. Via Giulia was now a cobbled, shaded street that seemed to house mostly antique and jewelry shops.
After fifteen minutes of strolling and glancing at the map, I found the directorate. The building itself was medieval-looking, brown with steel bars on the windows. A black stone sat near the entrance. On it, written in red, was La Direzione Nazionale Antimafia. There was a bell. I rang it. Once, then again. A few minutes later, a carabiniere stepped outside. He looked me up and down, raised his eyebrows.
“Buongiorno,” I said. “Parla inglese?”
A nod. “Sí.”
“Great. I’d like to speak to someone in the Antimafia Directorate.”
The policeman turned and opened the door, holding it for me. Inside, he led me through a courtyard garden. In Italy, apparently even the government knew how to do a courtyard right.
On the other side we entered another door, and the carabiniere gestured at a desk. No one was behind it. A logbook sat open on top of it, and the man nodded, as if saying, Sign it.
I picked up the pen that sat there, held my hand poised over the book. Should I give my real name? I didn’t see any way around it. If I was going to ask about my father, I’d have to give his name. And they might ask for identification. And if I got anywhere with these people and they found out I had lied, that wouldn’t be good.
I signed the book, then looked at the carabiniere.
“Uno momento,” he said. He stood silently, arms behind his back.
A woman in a suit and a scowl came to the desk. She looked at my name in the book, then rattled off a few Italian words, her tone giving me the impression that she was saying, What in the hell do you want?
“Is there someone I can speak to?” I said.
“Perché?” Why?
“I’d like to ask some questions about the Camorra.”
Silence.
I glanced from the woman to the carabiniere and back. Neither moved a muscle. “I think I might be from a Camorra family,” I said. “Technically anyway. And I’m trying to find my father. He did consulting for the U.S. government. And I know he was involved in the case of the Rizatto Brothers.”
She frowned deeper. “You are americana?”
“Yes.”
“Your name, per favore.”
I pointed at the box I’d signed. “Isabel McNeil.”
“Do you understand where you are?” She gestured around the office. It was fairly nondescript, looked like a reception office anywhere.
“The National Antimafia Directorate.”
“Yes. And do you know what is here, what we do?”
I felt the urge to say Mafia hunting? I ignored it, kept quiet.
“We are prosecutors,” she said. “You understand?”
“Yes, I’m a lawyer.”
“Okay, so you understand. We do not answer questions, we prosecute. We do not give out information.”
“Well, where would I get information? I mean, is there…” What was I looking for exactly? A Mafia museum? “…a place to do research about someone from the United States, someone I know who was working on a case involving the Camorra and then-” I was about to say died, but instead said, “-disappeared.”
“Not here.” She gave a brusque shake of her head. “You will not get that information here.”
She gestured at the door. The carabiniere stepped forward, ushering me toward the door and back through the courtyard. Once again, I found myself standing outside the building.
And that, apparently, was that.
I stood another moment, looking at the door. I was about to turn away when it clicked open. I expected to see the carabiniere frowning, telling me to move along or whatever they say in Italian, but instead a young man stepped outside. He looked about my age. He had sandy-brown hair and gleaming blue eyes. Unlike the carabiniere’s and the woman’s, those eyes were smiling.
“You said you were here for what?” he asked.
When I hesitated, he pointed to the camera above the door. “They are everywhere in the building. We see and hear everything.”
“Oh,” I said, a little uncomfortable, “I was just here to ask some questions…”
“Come,” he said, gesturing away from the camera. We took a few steps up the street. He nodded at me, encouraging me to continue.
As I spoke, the man nodded, his eyes gleamed some more. “You are in Roma for how long?” He smiled, showing lots of teeth.
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, come.” He waved an arm up the street. “Let us take a coffee, and we will talk.”
23
He didn’t ask my name. But then, he’d heard everything I’d said at the office. He already knew that. Still, I offered my hand. “Isabel McNeil.”
He shook it, bowing slightly. “Alberto Giani.”
He began walking, sort of casually strolling. Hesitantly, I followed. I was here to ask questions, after all, and hopefully, he was here to give me answers.
We walked to the Campo de’ Fiori, a big piazza that hopped at night with tourists since it was lined with bars like the Drunken Ship and Sloppy Sam’s. But in the morning, aside from the fruit and vegetable markets, many establishments were closed. The smell of old cheese wafted through the piazza and newspapers blew haphazardly.
I looked at Alberto. He smiled again, gestured at one of the places that was open. We went inside. Patrons stood at the bar, sipping, or in some cases sipping-disguised-as-slugging, from white cups topped with foam.
Alberto stepped up to the cashier and ordered two cappuccinos.
“No, no,” I said, moving beside him. “Tea, per piacere.”
“Tea?” both the cashier and Alberto repeated. They both pronounced it like tay.
“Sí,” I said. “Decaffeinated, please.”
Now they both stared at me with puzzled faces.
“Decaffeinato,” I said. Since I’d been out of work, I’d noticed that the caffeine in my usual green tea was making me jittery, as if my body didn’t have enough daily running-around-stress to soak it all up. So, I’d switched to decaf. It wasn’t much fun to be a decaf tea drinker, I’d found, at least not when you went to a coffee shop. The clerks always looked disappointed at the order. There were usually only a few lame selections, like chamomile or lavender, to choose from. But if I felt marginalized as a decaffeinated tea drinker in the U.S., I knew Italy would be fifty times worse, and so before I’d left, I’d learned to say decaf in Italian.
Almost defensively, I repeated it now. “Decaffeinato.”
Alberto nodded, as if to say, Okay, then, and he and the cashier had a flurried, indecipherable conversation before the cashier seemed to cave.
When we sat on barstools near the window, I thanked him for talking to me and launch
ed into my questions about the Camorra.
But he wasn’t responding. Or suddenly, I realized, he wasn’t listening. He was just bobbing his head, his gaze bobbing somewhere lower than mine.
“Can you help me with this kind of thing?” I asked, bending down a little to try and catch his eyes. “Can you tell me about the Camorra?”
He gave what seemed a blasé shrug. “There are some Camorra in Rome, but mostly they are in Napoli. You want the Camorra, you go to Napoli. But you no want the Camorra. So, what do you do in America? For a job?”
“Well, you heard me in the office, right? I’m a lawyer.” I didn’t feel much like a lawyer right now, but hoped it would lend me some cred.
“What kind of lawyer?”
“Entertainment.”
His eyes went big. He named a few pop bands from America. “You are their lawyer?”
“No. Look, if I wanted to find out about someone in the United States who was working on something long ago, maybe something involving the Camorra, could you help me with that?”
“How long ago was this person working on it?” he asked, although he didn’t sound particularly interested.
“Almost twenty-two years.”
He gave me that big Italian shrug. “Twenty-two years? Ah!” He shook his head, leaned in a little. “So. Where are you staying in Roma?”
I was about to mention the name of the hotel, but something made me lie. “The Hassler,” I said, naming a hotel atop the Spanish Steps.
“Ah, Hassler! They charge too much for drinks, but the courtyard…” He snapped his fingers. “Bellissimo! Have you been to the courtyard?”
I squeezed my lips together, trying to figure him out. What was with all the personal questions? “Not yet,” I muttered finally.
“We will go.” He gestured between the two of us, then cocked his head to one side and looked at me. “You are how many years?”
“Excuse me?”
“You are twenty-five years?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“You have a boyfriend?” he asked.
And suddenly I got it. He was hitting on me. At last-an Italian guy who still knew how to chase women no matter what the circumstances.
I flashed a smile. “No. No boyfriend.” I leaned in, and then I charged forward with my questions.
But the guy couldn’t be budged. By the time he’d finished downing his cappuccino, he was already trying to get me back to his apartment.
“I can’t,” I said. “Thank you. Can you tell me anything about the Camorra?”
He made a hand-waving gesture. “I already tell you. The Camorra is in Napoli. You want the Camorra, you go to Napoli.”
“But they prosecute them here, right? The directorate does?”
“Sí. Here and in Napoli. But I am not prosecutor.”
“Then what is your job?” I waited to hear detective, investigator, something like that.
“I am notary.”
“You’re a notary?” I leaned back, deflated.
“Yes. Yes, I am.” Now, he was the one who sounded defensive. “Notary here is much bigger job than in the United States. It is an honorable position.”
“I’m sure it is. But do you work with the Mafia at all?”
“Not so much.” He beamed at me, flashed his teeth. “You meet me tonight?”
I pushed my tea away. “Not so much.”
Ten minutes later, I was back at the hotel, alone and with no questions answered. I would have to keep going back to one source for them-Elena.
I looked at my watch and figured Palazzo Colonna was open for the day. My aunt would be at work, and it was time for more questions about this Camorra business and my dad. It all seemed too bizarre that my grandmother was Camorra, my grandfather had been killed by Camorra members, my father had been looking into a pair of brothers who were Camorra when he died, and I had been chased by another alleged Camorra member and saved, I thought, by my father.
I called the palazzo. No answer. Not even a machine. Typical Italy.
I tried again, and again, and finally at nine-thirty, the phone was picked up and I heard a pleasant, “Pronto.”
“Elena?” I said.
“Justina.”
“Oh, Justina, this is Isabel. Elena’s niece.”
“Chiè?”
I tried again to explain who I was. What was the Italian word for niece? I had no idea. Finally we managed to connect.
“Elena is no here,” she said, switching to English.
“Do you know where she is?”
“She went to Poseidon.”
“Poseidon?”
“Poseidon is waters. How do you say…healing waters. Si.”
“And where is that?”
“Ischia.”
Ischia. That was where the Rizzato Brothers were from. “It’s a little island,” I said. “Is that right? Outside Napoli?”
“Sí.” Justina kept talking, saying Elena wouldn’t be back in the office for a few days, in fact, she wasn’t even sure when she would return.
In my mind I kept hearing Alberto-You want the Camorra, you go to Napoli.
When Maggie finally got into town, I was standing at the Fiumicino Airport, just outside the baggage area.
She emerged, blowing her honey-colored bangs out of her face, her tiny body about the same height as the large teal-blue suitcase she lugged behind her.
“Mags!” I shouted.
Her mouth opened in a wide grin. She ran around the fencing and hugged me tight. “Happy almost birthday!”
“Thank you. I’m so glad you’re here!”
“Me, too!” She hugged me again, standing on her toes the way she does.
I pulled the luggage out of her grasp. “Jesus, what do you have in here?”
She laughed. “I had no idea what to pack for Rome these days. I mean, what do people wear now?”
I stopped, looked her in the eye. “What if I told you it didn’t matter?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we’re not staying in Rome. Don’t kill me, but we’re going to Ischia.”
She opened her mouth. She seemed stumped for words, finally settling for, “What?”
“It’s an island off the coast. It’s not that far.” I put my hand on her arm. “Mags, we’re getting a train to Naples.”
24
Dez Romano’s man from the antimafia office called at 10:00 a.m. It was good to have his people everywhere, especially in organizations that were trying to fuck him.
“It’s me,” his mole said in Italian.
“Sí.” Dez gestured to his secretary that she did not need to leave his office. This mole wasn’t important, wasn’t any kind of clandestino supersleuth, just a watcher, there to report on certain topics when he came across them. The mole was Antonio Sandello, not that his name was of any significance. It was his heritage. He’d grown up in the System-what everyone on the inside called the Camorra-and although he now worked for the other side technically, as a video tech for the antimafia office, the kid harbored a dream to move to America, to live a big life there. Dez had promised to help him do that someday in return for a heads-up when information came through the office, usually from feeds from office cameras, dealing with anything that had to do with the Camorra and the United States.
“An American came into the office today,” Sandello said.
“Is that right?” The System had never been successful at establishing a strong foothold in America, but Dez was going to change that. And people like Sandello were going to help him.
“Said she was looking for her father, someone working on a Camorra case when he disappeared.”
“What kind of case?”
“Rizzato Brothers.”
“Who was the person working the case?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Did the office give her anything?”
“Just the door. You know they do not hand out information.”
“Certa,” he said. Obviously. Of course. It wo
uld be so much easier for him if the office was loose with their information. “Did she come in cold?”
“Sí. She did not have an appointment. Walked in off the street.”
“Interesting. Name?”
“Isabel McNeil.”
Sandello pronounced it all wrong, but Dez recognized the name right away. She’d been on his mind for days.
He put down his pen and gestured for his secretary to leave. He asked Sandello a multitude of questions and learned that after being turned away, Isabel McNeil had walked down the street with a staff member of the office. A notary. The office’s cameras recorded the direction they were heading, but then she’d gone out of range.
He told Sandello to talk to the notary, told him exactly how to do it, then he hung up, a little disappointed. She had seemed quite intelligent to him, but how fucking stupida did you have to be to run from the Mob and head straight for Italy?
Then again, maybe he was the stupid one. Could there have been any basis to the words she’d thrown out in that goddamned butterfly room-that she was a federal agent? Was she the one playing him?
25
Maggie and I took a seat in front of the travel agent’s desk. In Italy, travel agencies are as plentiful as tomatoes, and they’re always the most orderly places to book a trip in a very disorderly country.
“Tickets to Naples, please,” I said, telling the agent we wanted to leave as soon as possible.
“Sí,” the agent said. “Napoli Centrale. Regular or Eurostar tickets?”
Maggie sat, rubbing her head. “I still can’t believe all this. I cannot believe it.”
I’d told Maggie everything in the cab from the airport. The night on the stairwell, Dez and Ransom chasing me from the museum, finding Alyssa in Sam’s apartment, our teary goodbye. I even told her about the fact I had been working for Mayburn. Mayburn would kill me, but I simply could not hold it back any longer. And it felt damn good to have my best friend once again knowing all.
But Mags was having a hard time wrapping her head around it. “You?” she was saying now. “You have been doing undercover work?” More rubbing of the head. “And your dad? You think he might be alive?”
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