Italy to Die For

by Loretta Giacoletto

  “Ellen from St. Louis, meet Trevor from Louisville,” Jonathan said, all the while looking at Margo. “And you are?” he asked.

  She held out her hand. “Margo Savino, Ellen’s sister.”

  “Ellen, what a surprise: you have a last name.” Jonathan still hadn’t taken his eyes off of Margo although it made more sense with him now pumping her hand. “What’s more, you have a sister—every bit as pretty as you. Where have you been hiding her?”

  “In Florence,” Margo said. “El couldn’t wait for me to wrap up a few loose ends so she left without me. I just arrived in Monterosso this afternoon.”

  Trevor, who gave his last name as Connors, stopped gazing at Margo long enough to smile at me, in a way the high school nerd who doesn’t knows he’s a nerd acknowledges the sidelined wallflower who knows she is. In terms of overall appearance Trevor rated a notch or two below Jonathan but without the rugged outdoorsman features. Shoulder to shoulder, the two men stood about five feet ten, with Trevor the stockier and his dark hair showing signs of thinning. Already I could see that neither he nor Jonathan measured up to Margo’s standards. Nor would they hold her interest any longer than it took some guy with more appeal to come along and rescue her.

  “So-o,” Jonathan started off, a lame beginning if ever there was. “What do you think of Monterosso?”

  “It’s too soon to tell,” Margo said, “although, I must admit to a craving for excitement.”

  “Monterosso might offer a bloody diversion,” Trevor said.

  “As in something British?” she asked.

  “No, as in something bloody,” Trevor said. “More like two bloody women, both murdered.”

  Margo wrapped two nervous fingers around a lock of her hair and looked at me as if I’d committed the crimes.

  I defended myself by saying, “I only learned about the second one this afternoon.”

  “From Lorenzo, no doubt,” Jonathan said.

  “More like the police commissioner.”

  “You know him personally?” Trevor asked.

  “Doesn’t everybody,” I replied in a casual manner.

  “My, my, you have been busy,” Margo said, repeating her earlier comment.

  “As for your Italian host … er, innkeeper, whatever,” Jonathan said. “Where is Lorenzo?”

  Margo’s antennae went up. “Hmm, do I detect a bit—”

  “Lorenzo is in La Spezia on business,” I said. “But he’s due to return shortly.”

  “But when you don’t know for sure,” Jonathan said. With way too much authority, considering he barely knew Lorenzo. If that wasn’t bad enough, he went on to say, “Am I right or am I right.”

  “Not exactly but it’s not like I’m worried. Nor should you be, Jonathan. Margo and I are quite capable of taking care of ourselves.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Margo told me.

  I shot back with, “Look who’s calling the kettle black.”

  “Shades of Mom, that’s what she always says. Now, about those poor women, does anyone know how they died?”

  “Word on the street: something about getting their throats slit,” Jonathan said.

  “In more graphic terms, they bled out,” Trevor added, “this from a guy who knows his way around livestock. In terms of slaughtering it’s considered quite humane.”

  “Unless it happens to be your throat,” I said.

  “One quick stab and slice of the knife and the bloodletting begins. In certain parts of Africa, drinking that first blood is a rite of passage.”

  “We’re not in Africa and this is no rite of passage,” I said. For an evening barely underway Trevor was already wearing on my nerves. “These two victims were real people, women who laughed and cried and must’ve enjoyed life or they wouldn’t have been in Cinque Terre,” History now, the first victim, a woman I no longer felt comfortable referring to as the gypsy. I’d have to learn her name, have some frame of reference that didn’t label the deceased with pre-conceived negativity.

  “All this talk of bleeding out and the humanity of it is so-o depressing,” Margo said with an exaggerated shudder. “Nor is it not my idea of how to spend the next two weeks, you know, worrying about life and death issues. If it were up to me, we’d move on tomorrow but El has other ideas. She’s determined to wait around for Lorenzo.”

  “This Lorenzo’s your boyfriend?” Trevor asked.

  “Not exactly,” Jonathan said. “Ellen is staying in his apartment.”

  “As a paying guest, and please let me answer for myself. To leave before Lorenzo returns would be downright rude.” To say nothing of spending my nights in his bed instead of the one Margo and I were supposed to be sharing.

  “I’m all for moving on,” Trevor said. “That is, if I can convince Jonathan to join me.”

  “So, the two of you have been traveling together?” Margo asked.

  “Not until today when I talked him into taking the long walk to Corniglia,” Trevor said. “My third trip there in five days and a terrific way to build up the old stamina, what with all that up and down and sideways stuff.” He winked at Margo. She kicked my foot as Trevor continued. “Jonathan and I go all the way back to college but disconnected after that. Then, bingo, who should I bump into last evening but him, strolling around like Tony Tourist on his first day in Italy. I’ve already spent a week here, eating like a pig at the trough, hiking between the villages, cruising along the coastline to the Italian Riviera.”

  “And there’s the rub,” Jonathan said. “You’re running five days ahead of me. I haven’t seen the coastline from here to Portofino, and no way am I leaving until I do.”

  “We could charter a boat,” Trevor said. He leveled his two forefingers at Margo and me. “What say you, my pretties: how about tomorrow?”

  “But you’ve already seen the coast, too bad.” I’d made up my mind about not spending any more time with Trevor. Jonathan wasn’t far behind him either. “Margo and I haven’t seen enough of Cinque Terre yet.”

  I ignored his disappointed expression, as did Margo when she said, “Sorry, Trevor, but El’s right. We have our own agenda which should in no way interfere with yours.” She was toying with her empty glass when Jonathan asked if we wanted something else to drink.

  “Perhaps the local grappa,” I said.

  “You’ve tried it?” Margo asked.

  “With Lorenzo—it’s really quite good.”

  “Then grappa for everyone.” Jonathan lifted one finger to the waiter, who circled around to our table, took the order, and soon returned with four shot glasses brimming with the dregs of leftover grapes.

  We sat around for another hour or two and another round of grappa. Or was it two … maybe three, I stopped counting when my ears went numb from Margo talking about any and everything Margo. Including hunger pains that resulted in a large platter of antipasto, followed by four plates of linguini al mare. When the topic of dessert came up, Margo yawned once and insisted she was too tired to eat another bite.

  “Check, please,” she said to the waiter who was passing by. When he came back, the bill went directly into Jonathan’s waiting palm.

  “Thank you, Jonathan,” Margo and I said together, like two chirpy schoolgirls.

  To which Trevor added, “Yeah, it’s been a blast.”

  And my cue to escape, I got up and started to sway from the grappa more potent than I’d realized.

  “Whoa,” Margo said while wobbling to her feet. “I’m feeling a bit shaky. Could somebody ask the waiter to call us a taxi, please?”

  While Jonathan paid the bill, Margo and I made our way to the bar’s entrance, bumping into a table here and a table there. Trevor brought up the rear, offering a scusi here and a scusi there. Jonathan caught up with us about the same time our taxi pulled up. Trevor opened the back door, and volunteered to see us home, not once but twice. It might’ve been three times.

  “Stay right where you are,” I told him. To the driver I spoke a few words in Italian, my clumsy attempt
at Lorenzo’s address.

  The driver responded with a string of rat-a-tat Italian, none of which I understood although Margo would’ve had she stopped with the second grappa.

  Good thing Trevor had known when to stop, or how to hold his liquor. Better yet, how to interpret the driver’s words. “The guy has another fare to pick up,” he explained, “at a nearby trattoria, a couple going in your direction or you’re going in theirs. Either way, sit tight but not too tight.”

  “Whatever,” Margo mumbled as she followed me into the back seat. “Just shut the damn door and give me some damn air before I suffocate.”

  I obeyed her command, rolling down the window while our taxi ventured into the crowd of pedestrians who didn’t seem the least bit concerned about their safety since the only vehicles allowed in the area were service-oriented. The driver soon stopped for a middle-aged couple who struck me as more European than American. I pulled Margo toward me which gave the woman more than her fair share of the back seat. She took one look at us and, shades of Mom and all moms beginning with Eve, this woman gave us a universal tsk-tsk that knew no boundaries. Her husband slid onto the front seat and rolled down his window. Neither of them spoke Italian or English but that didn’t stop the husband from trying to communicate through a series of hand signals, none of which seemed to be working, which made me feel pretty good because mine usually did. We drove to one location, not even a hotel. The front-seat passenger shook his head. We drove to another non-hotel, wrong again.

  Margo rested her head on my shoulder; I patted her arm. “This is your fault,” she said. “You and that damn grappa.”

  “Did I tell you to drink the third one or the fourth? No, you had to show how tough you were, keeping up with the boys.”

  “At least we didn’t have to pay for anything.”

  “You ought to be ashamed, leading them on.”

  “Please, as if they had something better to do.” Margo straightened up. She held her hand to her mouth and mumbled something about stopping the car. “I think I’m … no, I’m definitely going to be sick.”

  When the driver made no effort to stop, I waved a tissue from my purse and took a chance on one word. “Vomitare! Vomitare!”

  To vomit the driver understood; he stopped. The back door flew open and Margo stumbled out. She ran to the nearest trash container, bent her head into it, and unceremoniously released a waterfall of maroon liquid and chunks of yucky stuff.

  Why our backseat companion didn’t have sense enough to turn her head is beyond me. But no, she just had to watch Margo make a fool of herself. After gagging a few times, the woman started fanning a scarf over her face turning this weird shade of green, all the while blasting her husband as only an inconvenienced wife can do. He kept nodding until she jabbed his shoulder with her finger, giving him an excuse to complain to the driver. The driver tooted his horn. Margo lifted her head and yelled an obscenity no one except me understood; and I pretended not to hear while putting together an Italian sentence from the translation book she always carried in her handbag but seldom used.

  After more horn tooting and wife grumbling and husband fuming, Margo climbed back in the car. “Tell him, El. I can’t think of the word.”

  “Andiamo,” I said with confidence. “Let’s go.”

  Again, the driver attempted to locate the couple’s destination while Margo shifted from one position to another. She leaned forward, tapped the driver on his shoulder. Looking into the rear view mirror, he saw Margo being Margo, this time holding her finger to her tongue, as if to simulate another grappa toss.

  “Emergenza, emergenza,” I half-whispered, half-yelled. “Primo, primo … take us first, per favore.”

  Chapter 20

  Margo in the Alley

  Thank god the driver understood the horrific urgency of my unexpected stomach flu because he didn’t understand a word of El’s fractured Italian. After a long five minutes of weaving through one street after the other, which clearly annoyed those inconsiderate tagalongs who belonged in a cab other than ours, the driver finally dumped them off at an apartment house that might’ve been where they were staying. Or maybe they just wanted out as much as I wanted them out. When they finally made their exit, I gave them a piece of sage advice every traveler should know. “Next time do not leave your hotel without a business card or a book of matches that indicates where you’re staying.”

  “Save your breath,” El said. “They don’t speak English.”

  “Then they have no business traveling.”

  “Shut up, Margo. I can’t take much more of this.”

  “You can’t, what about me.”

  An eternity or so later, El and I were standing in front of Lorenzo’s apartment. Okay, she was standing; I was hanging on to her.

  “What now?” El said, more like snapped at me. “If there’s one thing I cannot stand ….”

  “It’s an inebriated broad,” I said, finishing her sentence because the words took too long coming out of her mouth. “Regardless of how pretty the broad is, or everybody thinks she is. Because beauty is only skin deep, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. As dear ol’ Mom would say, beauty can be as much a curse as a blessing.”

  “You would know.”

  Propping one arm against the building, I refused to go inside. “Not while I’m on the verge of a purge far worse than the last one.”

  El heaved one of her disapproving sighs. “I don’t care where you give up that grappa, just as long as it’s not in the vicinity of Lorenzo’s space. I will not have you embarrassing me.”

  I stretched my neck up and down the street. “An alleyway, a bucket, I’ll take anything, just point me in the right direction.”

  “You know how I feel about pointing: it’s so … so tacky.”

  “For the love of god, El ….”

  She gestured with her head. “Over there, between those two buildings and hurry up.”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “By now we could’ve been upstairs,” she said. “You with your face in the toilet bowl. Just make it quick. I have to use the toilet, in the manner of a civilized person.”

  “Okay, okay, but don’t you dare leave me stranded.”

  I walked across the cobblestoned area, peered into the narrow alleyway, and inched my way along a wall that felt like stucco. As alleys go, not bad, in fact quite decent, that is until I let loose with two days’ worth of what can only be described as assorted tidbits I couldn’t remember tossing before, all the while having to listen to El yell about my being okay. Obviously not, or I would’ve answered her. After the third calling of my name, I poked my head out to see her standing with arms folded, ala the Miss Priss mode even her students must’ve found annoying. Using my outside voice, I said, “No need to panic. I can hear you.”

  “Then why didn’t you answer?”

  “Too busy with my head between my legs, isn’t that why I’m here?” The question was rhetorical, as were many of mine, but often the only way to get through to her.

  “So much for the fear factor,” El said. She turned and started walking toward Lorenzo’s building.

  I was about to resume the usual position when a noise from behind caught my attention. Dammit, what now, I mumbled a nano second before that gut-wrenching feeling, more like the reality of a strong arm wrapped around me, my arms pinned down. Cold steel pressing against my throat warned me not to move. The disgusting erection pressing against my back confirmed my assailant’s gender. All I could think about was one word: slaughter. Not of the animals Trevor had described, but of those two women here in Cinque Terre, their slashed throats gushing out thick red blood, wide-eyed with the fear of knowing death was moments away. Jesus, Mary, and … what was that? The bastard sneezed. Not once but twice. Adrenalin I didn’t think possible kicked in, giving me the strength to rear back with one elbow and jab the point into his ribs. When he loosened his grip on me, I turned and hammered my knee into that yucky bulge.

  He let out the sweetest s
ound I’d heard in a long time, “A-A-GH!” Followed by a long string of foreign profanities, some of which I’d probably heard from Giorgio’s mama, of all times to have thought about her. Not now, Mama, not while fighting for my life in Cinque Terre. Tonight’s jerk must’ve called on his precious adrenalin. Before I could make a second move, he executed a quick flip to our original positions and slammed me against the wall.

  “Watch the face,” I almost said but didn’t want to give him any ideas he hadn’t thought up on his own.

  Somewhere from a distant universe came the welcoming sound of El’s shrill voice.

  “Cut it out, Margo,” she yelled. “I’m tired and in no mood for playing junior high games at this hour.”

  Hel-lo … neither was I. Under those circumstances the best I could manage was a pathetic grunt, followed by an even more pathetic but much more aggressive wail, one I hoped would be loud enough to arouse a neighborhood dog into a barking frenzy that promised to get worse before it stopped altogether. Instead I got nothing. The backward butt block I attempted failed miserably. One more body slam from him sent me into the wall and my heart to race faster than the three-sixty spin on a soccer ball. Goodbye, world. I sank to the ground, a heap of crumbled cardboard. Dead or dying was the only way I could describe my condition, along with the horrific odor of vomit and fermenting produce.

  Chapter 21

  Aftermath

  What now. At times Margo could be such a pain but those rumblings coming from the alley sounded more like two people than one. I ran over there, not knowing what to expect, certainly not the shadowy figure of a man bent over and clutching his groin as he careened down the narrow passage, banging from one wall to the other before turning a corner into darker than dark. To hell with him, my immediate concern was Margo who didn’t even yell at me when I mistook her for a heap of garbage blocking my way. After plowing into the heap, I tripped and stumbled and slipped until I skated into a butt fall. Dear god, don’t let me find spilled blood. Immediate prayer answered in the form of tomato peelings and onion skins and other slimy things.