by Bill Cariad
“I’m tired, my child,” he said. “I thought I would take a nap, and join you later for dinner?”
“Good idea,” she told him, glancing at one of the elevator walls which was adorned with photographs of the rich and famous who had stayed at the hotel, “You can call me when you wake up. I’ll make sure I’m ready.”
They parted after hugging one another in the corridor outside rooms 307 and 320, and Maria keyed her door and stepped inside her suite. A little while later, standing under a crystal chandelier, she was barefoot on the thick and richly patterned lounge carpet as she mentally reviewed her opulent accommodation. She was in a one-bedroom suite overlooking Park Avenue. She had an abundance of brass lamps. She had a desk, a telephone, a clock radio, and two televisions. She had a boudoir with its own make-up and dressing area. She had her own kitchenette complete with refrigerator and mini-bar. And she had a marble bathroom with its separate shower-stall. She stripped off with the thought that a holidaying single girl could have the time of her life in such a suite, and that as a place to plan how to get near enough to a man in order to take his life without getting caught, it would do just fine. She spent some time gently working her body through a few Tai-Chi exercises, before pleasurably immersing it in the hot water and soapy bubbles she manufactured in her marble bathroom. Her body gradually relaxed, but her mind did not.
Three hours later, claiming he was feeling refreshed by his nap, a jovial sounding and immaculately dressed Canizzaro greeted her in the corridor outside their rooms. Seeing him standing there, looking so obviously pleased to be seeing her, revived the memory of the first time she had seen him and had heard him speak her name. Maria returned his greeting with a smile and a hug, glad that she had also made the effort to dress up for their dinner date.
“I am flattered,” said Canizzaro, “that you should choose to wear such a stunning dress just to have dinner with your old uncle.”
“Well, since you bought me the dress,” she replied with a smile, “it seemed only right that you should be the first to see me wear it.”
As they rode the elevator to one of the hotel’s dining rooms, they chatted amicably about their respective suites and each agreed they had nothing to complain about in the accommodation department. The chosen dining room was crowded and buzzing with the sound of conversations and sporadic laughter, and they were obligingly shown to their requested table for two. Soon began the ritual of menu perusal and meal selection, and the discussion as to their choice of wine before its arrival for tasting and approval.
“Have you given any thought,” asked Canizzaro as they waited for the food, “about what you might do tomorrow, my child?”
“A bit of sightseeing by taxi and by foot,” she replied, “and I will probably telephone a martial arts master who lives in this city. Tanaka recommended him.”
“The idea of bringing you here,” he reminded her, “was to get you well away from all that physical training so that you could relax and enjoy yourself.”
“Since I’m in his city, I’m only proposing to meet the man as an act of respect. That’s not too physical, and you’ve often told me that good manners is becoming in a young lady.”
Canizzaro laughed and conceded the point as their food arrived. They had both chosen to skip a starter and were presented now with their other joint choice of steak, which came with French fries and a variety of vegetables and was mostly consumed in silence. Canizzaro’s silence could be attributed to the meal, thought Maria, because he was obviously enjoying it. Her own silence was stemming from guilt. She had not been completely truthful about what she planned to do tomorrow, but it wasn’t her intended reconnaissance which was driving the guilt. Refusing to leave her mind was the crushing thought of what it would do to him if she ultimately failed to escape the clutches of the CIA, and was exposed as the person who had attempted to kill a person under their protection but had been slain in the attempt.
“This may be our last evening meal together,” began Canizzaro, pausing to bring the serviette to his lips, “for some time. From past experience of the people I will be meeting over the next few days, I will be probably be required to continue discussing business over dinner. The thought of you sitting here all alone suddenly makes me feel guilty,” he ended, sipping at his wine as he waited for her response.
Maria had managed not to choke on her food whilst listening to him say he was feeling guilty about leaving her alone for a few nights. He had brought her here for a holiday, so obviously felt responsible for her welfare. She was using his gift as an opportunity to exact revenge for Sergio Sabbatini and his remaining family, and failure on her part would leave Claudio Canizzaro alone for more than just three nights at a dinner table.
“I’ll be perfectly all right,” she replied, reaching out across the table to squeeze his hand, “There are lots of things for me to see during the day in a place like New York, and I’m quite capable of looking after myself at night. So stop feeling guilty, there’s no need to do so.”
“I was forgetting,” said Canizzaro with a smile, “just how capable you are of looking after yourself.” He paused to glance at his wristwatch, “I’m afraid I must call it a night, my child, I have an early start in the morning. I’m being collected at nine.”
They rose from the table and retraced their journey to the thirtieth floor, arms linked and chatting about what they might do together in a few days time. She hugged him in the corridor before they finally said goodnight, and thought of her mother hugging him all those years ago.
Thursday, 22nd August, 1985
At eight forty-five in the morning, wearing a Waldorf dressing gown and standing in the corridor separating their rooms, Maria kissed her uncle’s cheek and wished him well for his forthcoming series of meetings. At nine thirty in the morning, standing naked under a crystal chandelier, she used her room telephone to call the martial arts master recommended to her by Tanaka. The ringing tone was brief before a male voice sounded in her ear.
“Kimoto.”
Maria waited a second, then realized that was all she was going to get. “Buongiorno, my name is Maria Orsinni and Tanaka was my Sensai.” She heard the indrawn breath which preceded the response.
“His Italian Samurai,” said the tired sounding voice, “Tanaka is well?”
“Tanaka is well,” she replied, “and I am calling you from a New York hotel.”
“Is Tanaka with you?” asked the voice.
Maria had heard something in his tone which hadn’t been there before. “Only in spirit,” she replied, “and he would be displeased if I had not contacted you whilst I am in your city, and had not suggested I visit you to show my respect.”
“Where is your hotel?” asked the voice, its tone lacking warmth.
“Midtown Manhattan,” she answered, “the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue.”
“I could see you at two this afternoon,” was offered with an audible sigh.
“That’s fine,” she answered.
“Use a taxi,” said the voice, “Tell your driver to bring you to Little Italy. Tell him my dojo is on the corner of Grand and Centre.”
Maria was about to acknowledge the instructions when she realized Kimoto had terminated the call. Sighing with exasperation, she headed for the marble bathroom.
At ten twenty-five in the morning, Maria Orsinni stood in her comfortable calf-length leather boots outside the front entrance of the Waldorf Astoria. She was wearing an Armani black trouser suit over a red ruffle-neck blouse, and carrying a white Gucci shoulder bag. The doorman said ‘you look terrific’, and told her to ‘have a nice day’, and she could hardly hear him above the noise of traffic and the siren sounds of what she assumed to be police or ambulance vehicles. At ten twenty-eight she was moving forward as the yellow-coloured taxi stopped at the pavement’s edge in front of her, and she reached the vehicle at the same time as Tony w
as holding open the passenger door and performing a mock-bow as he greeted her.
“Ten thirty on the dot, and at your service, lady.”
Maria smiled at his comedy as she returned his greeting. “Buongiorno Antonio.”
“The language of love from the voice of an angel,” he cried, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand, “Mama Mia!”
Maria laughed at the performance and got in the taxi. She settled herself as Tony moved round the car and re-occupied the driver’s seat. Behind him, from where she sat, Maria could see his face in right profile as she spoke. She could also see his family snapshot.
“Good morning again, Tony, in English, to remind you that you are a married man with a beautiful daughter, yes?” she ended, knowing he could see her grin in his mirror.
“The lady from Italy has sharp eyes,” he responded, easing the taxi into traffic as he went on, “Her name is Theresa. She was born here, but Valentina, her equally beautiful mother, hails from Solerno in your country. I presume, by the way, I’m taking you to the Plaza Hotel, lady?”
“Yes,” she replied, “and since I now know the names of your family, and we will be spending time in each other’s company, you must start calling me Maria.”
“Buongiorno Maria,” he responded, “So what’s the deal when we get there?”
“I’m hoping,” began Maria, “there will be somewhere you can park while we discuss that.”
“Yeah, sure,” he replied, flicking a glance over his shoulder and adding with a grin, “leave it to trusty Tony. Sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Knowing she couldn’t say that enjoying the ride wasn’t on her agenda, Maria partly obeyed the driver and sat back in her seat. They hadn’t gone very far, it seemed, but already the taxi had been brought to a halt several times by overhead traffic lights. Occasional glances to her right registered the glitzy window displays of department stores, and the hot-dog vendors she had only ever seen before in films, and the moving throng of people on the pavements of what she saw now was signed as Fifth Avenue. Passing scenes on her left included the incongruous sight of a uniformed policeman on horseback, riding between the lanes of streaming traffic as if he might have been herding cattle.
But just as she had been unable to appreciate the Waldorf’s interior, or the fact that the building took up an entire city block, so too was she failing to be really interested in what she could see from the back of a New York taxi. Still uppermost in her mind, over-riding all else, was the fact that she and her uncle were scheduled to leave this city on the morning of the last day of this month. Calendar was reportedly only going to be at the Plaza Hotel for the last two days of this month. So the conclusion still wasn’t difficult to reach. If she was going to do what she had sworn to Sergio Sabbatini she would do, then she would have to do it on the very day Calendar checked in to the Plaza. She didn’t even know what time he would check in, but she did know he wouldn’t be standing in line to do so and that he wouldn’t be short of company.
“We’re coming up on it now,” said Tony, “but I’m gonna’ go past it to a spot where we can lay up without being hassled by New York’s finest while we have this discussion you mentioned.”
Maria saw several flags above the entrance to a building with a French Renaissance-style facade, and which appeared to be even taller than that of the Waldorf, then they were past the impressive frontage and she heard yet more sirens coming from somewhere as Tony stopped his taxi and then began reversing it. Maria looked behind her and realized they were turning in to an alley between a coffee shop and a dress shop, and then the taxi stopped again and she turned to see pedestrians passing by within feet of the taxi’s bonnet.
“My sister runs the coffee shop,” began Tony, “and my cousin owns the dress shop. So we’re good here for a little while. You got time for a coffee while we have this discussion?”
Maria hesitated in the face of Tony’s question, using the hesitation to check her watch. Which told her that it had taken thirty minutes to get here.
“Coffee would be wonderful,” she replied, wondering suddenly if she was just seizing on any opportunity to delay what she was supposed to do. Tony was already out of the car, so she pushed that thought aside and followed him. But they didn’t leave the alley, and Maria mentally switched gears and became very alert.
She saw Tony jab a finger at the wall beside what looked like a steel door and realized that he was ringing a bell, and then the door was opened and she immediately caught the scent of coffee beans. She relaxed, and allowed herself to be led into what she identified as a staff kitchen and restroom of sorts. Directly ahead of her stood a small table and some chairs, and beyond them a beaded curtain hung over the frame of an open doorway to what was obviously the public area of the coffee shop. The rich aroma from the coffee beans filled her nostrils, and she saw that Tony was already hugging a blonde-haired woman who wore both an apron and a beaming smile. Both of them faced her as Tony spoke, and she saw the resemblance now.
“This is my sister, Jolanta, from Poland,” said Tony, “She makes the best coffee in New York. Jolanta, say hello to Maria from Italy.”
“As if I didn’t know,” began Jolanta, still smiling as she moved to offer her hand in greeting, “he tells his wife the same thing. Hello Maria,” she said, “From where in Italy?” she added, but her eyes were signalling the fact that she hadn’t asked the question she had really wanted to ask.
“Sicily,” answered Maria, “and what else could a man say to two women with such lovely names as Valentina and Jolanta?”
“Oh I like this Maria from Italy,” said Tony, “She understands a man, Jolanta.”
“You know Valentina?” asked Jolanta, clearly confused now.
“I saw her photograph,” explained Maria, “in your brother’s taxi, and he told me her name. This is my first time in New York, and I’m only here for a few days, and I don’t want to drive myself in a strange city. So I’m hiring Tony to show me around and make sure I don’t get lost. Is that going to be okay with you and Valentina, do you think?” She smiled at Jolanta as she added, “I too have a brother who must be protected from himself sometimes.” She turned the smile into soft laughter as she ended, “A brother who says I act like his mother.”
“Your Maria from Sicily also understands women, Tony,” said Jolanta, taking Maria’s hand as she added, “I see no reason why Valentina should concern herself with this arrangement. Come, Maria, you can have your coffee here in the free seats with my useless brother. But don’t worry, he’s not entirely useless, he will look after you. What kind of coffee would you like?”
“A glass of water is what I would really like,” she replied.
“Of course, of course, whatever you like,” said Jolanta, ignoring the brother whose preference she obviously knew.
Maria fully understood, and didn’t mind, the fact that she had just been checked over by Jolanta. She was also amused to be perceived as someone who would need to be looked after. She joined Tony at the small table and extracted from her shoulder bag the envelope which she slid towards him across the table.
“Will that be enough to buy your exclusive services for the next three days?”
Maria watched his nicotine-stained fingers pick up the unsealed envelope and examine its content, and once more saw the brown eyes narrow in the pock-marked face with its nose of a boxer who had taken too many punches.
“More than enough,” he said quietly, and then he stopped as Jolanta appeared to place a glass of water and a cup of black coffee on the table.
“You’ve got fifteen minutes to finish this and move your chariot from the alley. I’ve got a delivery man coming, and if he sees a blocked alley he’ll just take off.”
Maria watched as Tony gently fanned his face with the generously filled envelope as he resumed speaking.
“Am I,” he began, looking
perfectly serious, “to be your getaway driver when you rob a bank? Or are you some kind of intelligence spook with a generous expense account and a mission? Or am I to hide a body in the boot of my taxi?”
Maria controlled her reaction, making her voice sound relaxed and amusedly surprised by such wayward suggestions. “Nothing so exciting, I’m afraid. I’m trying to write my first novel, and some of the plot has my central character visiting a few places in New York.” She watched him receive her news with a nod of understanding, and silently congratulated herself for coming up with a cover story which would allow her freedom of movement.
“So I just run you around,” he said, “let you loose when you wanna’ explore whatever, wherever, and wait for you. Is that it?”
“That’s it,” she said.
“There’s a lotta’ dough in here,” he said, hefting the envelope, “So when we’re done, I’ll give you back what isn’t mine to keep.”
Maria smiled, and looked at her watch. “How much time,” she asked, “will you need to get from the Plaza Hotel to the corner of Grand and Centre in Little Italy for two o’clock?”
“That’s on the Lower East Side,” he replied, frowning as he added, “I’d want an hour to be sure.”
“Okay,” she said, calculating times in her head as she checked her watch again, “You can pick me up again outside the Plaza at one o’clock. Shall we go?”
“Yours to command,” said Tony.
At eleven twenty-five in the morning, Maria was deposited by Tony at the junction of Fifth Avenue and Central Park South. As she checked her immediate environment, her eyes were drawn to the middle of the concrete junction which boasted a man-made oasis of attractive trees and flower-beds. But that, and the colourful shop fronts, and everything else she saw, was simply dwarfed by the building towering in front of her. At eleven thirty in the morning, she took a deep breath and entered the lobby of the Plaza Hotel.
Maria’s immediate impression was that the Plaza’s lobby could have been purpose built to make her feel at home, because the artistic theme throughout had been created with Italy very clearly etched in the designer’s mind. She paused for a moment, imagining a time gone by when the Senate of ancient Rome would have convened in such a setting. Huge columns of some kind of exotic looking stone rose from the marble floor to support a very high ceiling. The columns nearest to her, the ones she could see clearly, were intricately carved with figures and scenes of all things Italian, and the carvings snaked their way around and up the columns to reach the eye-catching ceiling. A ceiling which had as its stunning centrepiece, a back-lit rectangle of what could have been, at first glance, a stained glass mural masterpiece.