“Where were you for four days, Jeff?”
“Sweetheart, listen, I can’t tell you. I am sorry for that, I really am. I have never lied to you before. I have never kept anything from you. I am sorry for lying to you about the conference. I hate myself for that. But I can’t tell you now, either. Please, you just have to trust me…”
My sobs faded to sniffles, and I stared at the ground.
“As the cancer progresses, the opiate dosage increases,” I said quietly, more to myself than to Dante.
… abnormally high levels of opiates in the system… only survivable following repeated exposure and increasing desensitization…
“Jeff came to Naples to try to save his own life before I could ever find out he was dying.”
I have a lot of patients these days asking about the latest advancements in superheavy-isotope-based therapeutics. Especially the people that… have failed other therapies and don’t have many options left…
I looked up at Dante.
“The opiates were at such a high level in Jeff’s system that they should have killed him. Which means that his cancer was already beyond treatment by modern means.
“The nardo was Jeff’s last hope. It was the only clinically validated cancer treatment that he had not already tried. Because it was lost to medicine when the volcano erupted two thousand years ago.”
Dante laid a hand on my shoulder.
“No wonder,” I muttered under my breath, still sniffling. “No wonder his best friend keeps calling. No wonder he is so concerned about Jeff’s condition.”
Is he still having problems from the stomach flu he had earlier?
“John probably diagnosed the cancer. John is probably trying to call Jeff to update him about recent test results, to check in and find out how he is feeling. And also, just to listen because he knows that Jeff hasn’t told me.
“And no wonder Jeff didn’t tell me. He knew the losses I have already suffered. He was trying to find the treatment without ever letting me know he was sick in the first place.”
I stared at the Pompeii earth and smiled through my tears.
It was just like him.
Dante and I parted at the Naples train station.
“Thank you, Dante,” I said. “For everything. Really.” I hugged him fiercely. “But I will be fine on my own from here. I have already involved you too much, and it is only a short bus ride to my hotel.”
Dante was shaking his head. They never learn, his expression said. “May I at least go with you to your hotel? What if Rossi comes back?”
“No, thank you,” I said. “If Rossi is still looking for me, it will be easier for him to find us together. Hold on a second…”
I stepped away from him to purchase a sweatshirt and hat from a tourist booth in the train station. I donned the sweatshirt and tucked my hair into its hood before cramming the hat over the top. “See?” I said. “I will be fine. I can see Rossi before he sees me. And I have learned my lesson about stamping bus tickets.”
“OK, OK.” He gave me a fatherly smile. “But listen to me. Rossi is not the only threat to you in Naples. I meant what I said earlier. It’s not very safe here for you alone, especially at night. Don’t talk to anyone, not even small children. And, please, I must insist you take my cell phone number. If anyone tries to even talk to you, call me right away.”
He said something in Italian to a man standing nearby, and the man pulled a pen from his shirt pocket. Dante scribbled a number on the back of his ticket stub from Pompeii and handed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said and tucked the stub into my purse.
He then took out his ticket stub from Herculaneum and wrote the number again. “Now,” he said, “put this one in your pocket, in case you have to call me because your purse has been snatched.”
I watched the bus pull away with Dante aboard. He waved through the window, watching over me for as long as traffic allowed.
In truth, I needed to take the same bus he had, the one we had taken from the seafood district. But something told me not to share the location of my hotel. Not even with the young man who had just saved my life. He was still a strange man in a foreign city, and I was still unsure of his motive for helping me in the first place.
So now I had to wait for the next bus. The sun was going down, and I suddenly felt very, very vulnerable. I looked around the train station.
A young man in earmuffs was staring at me. Earmuffs? It’s seventy-five degrees outside! But the look on his face was vacant. I realized that he was not staring at me so much as staring absently in my direction. A mustachioed old woman in a bra sat on the floor, rocking back and forth and muttering to herself.
I watched a chatty herd of small children with cloying smiles surround a solitary young woman. While it was clear that they were deliberately portraying themselves as sweet and endearing, they looked far too streetwise for their ages. They reminded me of a flock of vultures. The woman abrasively shooed them away, and I fervently hoped they would not approach me.
Another man, this one in shorts and a T-shirt and with his face partially obscured by a scruffy beard, was definitely looking at me. Unlike the man in earmuffs whose look revealed mental disability, the look of this man revealed interest. Great, I thought and looked away.
The bus was far less crowded this time. As I mounted the steps, grateful to be escaping the late-evening creepiness of the station, I immediately saw the bright yellow validation machine located in the aisle a few feet behind the driver. I practically lunged for it with my ticket extended.
I slipped the ticket into the slot, and nothing happened. I retracted it and tried again. Again, nothing happened. I could feel panic closing in as I thrust my ticket repeatedly into the machine, and then I felt a tap on my shoulder. Oh, God, not again.
I turned and found myself face-to-face with a portly elderly woman. One hand clutched a fraying vinyl purse; the other held a small bag of groceries. I sighed with relief.
The woman smiled sympathetically, pointed at my ticket, and then extended her hand. I gave her the ticket. She, in turn, gave it to the driver, who pulled a pen from his dashboard and scribbled on it. The woman returned the ticket to me.
Ah, I thought. Manual validation. OK.
“Grazie,” I said to both the woman and the driver.
Still, I should have known that the transit police would get on the bus as we neared the Naples police station. I should have stepped off the bus beforehand and walked the distance of a few stops before re-boarding. I should have done anything, anything, besides wait for them to approach me. But by the time I realized that, it was too late.
When I saw the two familiar uniforms on the bus, I turned to look out the window. I pulled the hood of my new sweatshirt a bit closer around my face and the hat over my ears as tightly as possible. Then I pulled my purse in front of me and covered it with my arms as best I could, praying that Rossi—if he was, indeed, one of the cops now aboard the bus—would not see or notice the very handbag he had been rifling through earlier in the day.
I could hear the dialog between the two policemen and the various passengers as the officers worked their way toward me. My heart was pounding. The ticket in my hand was now soaking in sweat, and I took care not to crumple it beyond legibility.
I kept my head down when the officers reached me, simply holding out the ticket for them to see. But I peered out from beneath my hat to read the name badges on the two uniforms. One was a name I did not recognize. The other was Dalfani.
“I validated my ticket, asshole,” I muttered.
Dalfani stood next to me for what felt like far too long. Then he said simply, “Prego,” and walked away. I wondered if, like Rossi, he had been able to speak English all along.
A few moments later, I recognized the large stone arch leading into the Santa Lucia district, and I knew that we were near my hotel. I stepped off the bus and looked around to gather my bearings. My hotel was almost immediately across the street. I was so exhaust
ed that the thought of room service followed by a good night’s sleep in a plush bed was almost painful.
I turned and watched as the bus drove away. I could see Dalfani through its window. He was watching me as well.
It was now completely dark.
I had begun walking toward the light of the hotel when a sudden, intense feeling came over me that I was being followed. Casually, trying to look like I was seeking a street address, I allowed myself to turn around and look behind me.
I recognized him immediately. The man behind me was not Dalfani as I had been expecting. It was not Rossi either. It was the man from the train station—the one in shorts and a T-shirt who had been looking at me with an interest I had taken for romantic. Our eyes now met; his were emotionless.
I quickly looked away.
For the second time that day, I was afraid to return to my hotel. As I deliberately avoided looking toward its façade, I turned instead to face the Bay of Naples. The bridge to Castel dell’ Ovo came into my field of view. Remembering the lively seafood district just across the water, I kept walking.
Like a ticking clock behind me, I could hear steady footsteps.
How many people were on the bus? Maybe thirty?
I walked past the Hotel Santa Lucia.
How many got off the bus at my stop? Three? I could not remember. Perhaps I did not even notice, distracted by my second encounter with the Naples police.
Now, I could only see two people. One man was some distance away from me, walking in the other direction. The other was still behind me, keeping pace with my own movement.
Katrina, stay calm. Your mind is playing tricks on you. This man may be merely another passenger now headed toward his own hotel.
But I had consciously observed him looking at me.
He doesn’t strike me as a tourist. Are there homes near here?
I approached the bridge, resisting the urge to break into a run. Running will only make you look scared, Katrina. It will make you look like a victim. That is what attackers want. Easy prey. Don’t give it to him. Be confident.
I turned onto the bridge.
A teenaged couple was crossing the bridge in front of me, holding hands. I could hear the footsteps of the strange man behind me. Nobody else was in sight.
The street that led off into the seafood district was much darker than I had thought it would be. The only sound I could hear was the rhythmic lapping of the waves against the sides of the bridge, and their ebb and flow washed away my confidence that the restaurants would still be open.
The teenaged couple entered the castle through its arched opening. Instead of turning left and entering the seafood district, I followed them.
The man behind me followed as well.
The castle was wide open; there was no ticket booth of any kind. It appeared that one could just meander through at leisure. A stone walkway wound upward toward the top of the castle. Over the high wall bordering the walkway was a drop to the street of the seafood district below. The couple strolled up the path and I followed.
The walkway passed by a series of dungeons, and the couple faded slyly toward one of them. Wordlessly, the young man pushed his mate roughly against the bars of the gate barricading the dungeon and began kissing her with abandon. As he advanced from the girl’s mouth downward and began hungrily kissing her neck, she tipped her head back and caught my eye. His hand was snaking its way into her shirt. Her glance told me to get lost.
I ducked beneath an archway and began briskly climbing a staircase through a dimly lit passageway.
When I heard the footsteps behind me advance to keep pace with my own, I began to understand that I was not just being paranoid. This man had been following me from the start and was now deliberately staying only steps behind me.
I reached the top of the staircase and stepped under another archway. To my horror, I suddenly emerged onto a large terrace. It was open almost three hundred sixty degrees around and offered panoramic views of the Bay of Naples. Short, squat cannons pointed out in all directions through low openings in the waist-high stone wall. Beside them were small piles of cannonballs at the ready.
I ran toward a cannon and reached down for one of the cannonballs, but it was far too heavy for me to throw with any accuracy. I let it fall back onto the pile.
The only other object on the terrace was a spindly statue depicting a centaur-like creature. It stood a few feet from the stone wall, positioned as if the centaur was looking out over the water. The statue was clearly too thin to hide behind.
As I hurriedly scanned the expansive space, I realized all too clearly the purpose of it. This had been a formidable fortress. Both its location and its structure were perfect for the function. There was no way to sneak up on the inhabitants of this castle.
I quickly realized the irony of my situation. On the terrace of a two-thousand-year-old fortress designed to offer failsafe protection from invaders, I was suddenly completely exposed and simultaneously trapped. A wrong turn had traded the narrow, cryptic passageways of the castle for a sacrificial altar, and I was the lamb. Except for one skinny statue, there was nothing to hide behind and nowhere to go except back through the archway. And the man from the train station was coming through it.
I ran behind the statue. It provided abysmally thin protection, and the backward cocked head of the centaur suddenly seemed mocking.
The man emerged from the archway, and suddenly the darkness surrounding me was not nearly complete enough. I could see into his eyes. They still bore that same cold, emotionless expression.
“Katrina!” he said.
As if reeling from a physical blow, I scrambled backward until I felt the stone wall slam into my lower back. “What do you want?” I practically screamed.
“I have a message from Jeff!”
But his hand was reaching into his pocket, so I gripped the wall with both hands and jumped.
The water was dark but surprisingly warm.
My only thought was to swim as far from the castle as possible before emerging, and suddenly I was very grateful for my daily habit of running four miles a day through deep sand and then up a steep cliff. I was able to hold my breath for a long time and swam at the lowest depth possible through the dark, murky water for as long as I could.
Still, the weight of my clothes and the purse yet dangling from my arm slowed me considerably. When I could no longer continue, I surfaced and took in deep breaths of the cool night air.
I looked back at the castle behind me and gasped at its height. I was lucky that a boulder instead of open water had not broken my fall. But the desperate jump had served its purpose. Looking up at the castle in the distance, I was confident that my form in the dark water would be nearly impossible to detect from the terrace.
I turned and looked toward the shore. Nearby was a short dock. I remembered it. The dock jutted off from one side of the castle bridge, near the boats of the marina. There had been sunbathers on it earlier in the day when I had crossed the bridge on my quest for seafood. Now, the dock was abandoned. But it was not far from the shore that paralleled the street my hotel was on.
I took a few more deep breaths and continued swimming. When I reached the shore, I looked around before exiting the water, acutely aware that a fully clothed woman with a purse emerging from the bay would scarcely go unnoticed. I saw nobody.
Leaving a trail of seawater behind me, I walked toward my hotel. You just have to get through the lobby, I thought to myself. Without slowing my pace, I wrung out my clothes to the best of my ability. I squeezed as much water as possible out of my hair and then tied the thick locks into a knot crudely resembling a bun at the nape of my neck.
After a thorough survey of the area, I finally paused just long enough to dump my purse upside down onto the sidewalk. A small river and all of my belongings poured out of it. As quickly as possible, I wrung out the ruined leather itself and then began picking up objects one at a time, shaking them off, and dropping them back into my purse.
At least I was no longer dripping excessively.
The concierge at the front desk gave me a strange look but did not say anything except to wish me a good evening. I returned the greeting politely, as if there was nothing unusual about my condition, and then hurried upstairs to my room.
Campania can get worse because you could cut into a Camorra group, but another ten could emerge from it.
-Galasso Clan Boss
Pasquale Galasso (1955–)
Chapter Ten
I walk down the rows of hospital beds, taking in the hopelessness of the nameless victims. An IV drips into one arm of each. A teenaged voice pleads with me. I look toward her.
The girl is my daughter. Alexis is fifteen.
I awoke feeling almost hung over, as if I had been drugged. After a few moments reviving, I realized how well I had slept. My body was stiff and sore, but, nonetheless, I felt refreshed, calm, and aware.
I finally roused myself from bed and stepped into the bathroom to inventory my belongings. On the floor were my soggy blue jeans and T-shirt, along with my underwear and the one pair of tennis shoes I had brought to Naples. I picked up one damp shoe off the floor and poured a small river of sand into the wastebasket before giving up and adding all of my salty, sandy clothing to the wastebasket.
Sitting in the sink’s bowl was my leather purse, still saturated with water from accompanying me into the sea. I reached inside the purse and began withdrawing its soaked contents, sorting through them to distinguish the salvageable items from the hopelessly ruined. The cursory survey made me realize with some relief and a great deal of apathy that almost everything in my purse could be replaced.
The Vesuvius Isotope Page 10