This Crumbling Pageant

by David Fiore

  She did. Scott pressed her phone against his ear and listened to the European-style ringing. On the fourth tone, San Michele picked up.

  “Tesoro,” Luca began, “lasciami spiegare—”

  Scott’s heart pounded. What does tesoro mean? “It’s me,” he said. “I think we should meet.”

  Luca recovered. “Good idea,” he said amicably. “Let’s sit and set things straight, all three of us.”

  “Just you and me,” Scott told him. “The top of the tower.” He liked the idea of Luca waiting for him high up in the city’s highest tower, safely sequestered.

  “It doesn’t open until nine.”

  “The fountain of Neptune, then.” Scott liked the idea of Luca sitting by the fountain in the Piazza Maggiore, all by his lonesome in that six acres of space, waiting like a jerk. “How soon can you be there?”

  “I can be there in five minutes.”

  “Good. Don’t be late.” He hung up and handed the phone back to Holly, giving her such a long, hard look they nearly crashed into a traffic cone.

  At first light, they reached their neighborhood. The streets were peaceful. Scott left Holly in the idling ape a few blocks from the apartment, in an alley off the road that rings the old center. From there it would be a short drive to the highway. He ran the three blocks, whipping around corners, leaping up steps, slipping on the glassy portico floors. At the corner of his street he stopped to peer around, then scurried to his building, unlocked the door, and began bounding up the five flights. He knew that by now the poor dog would be dying for its walk—and that was how he knew, immediately upon opening the door, that something wasn’t right.

  27

  Scott drifted back outside, his mind in a fog. As expected, Luca had been in the apartment. He had kindly left them their passports, and nabbed their dog instead.

  Absently, Scott pocketed the documents and headed back in the direction of the car. But what was the point? The plan was ruined now. Now he was debating a showdown in the square, after all. San Michele’s words came back to him. “You Americans are very sentimental when it comes to your pets.” The diabolical bastard.

  Scott’s phone rang. In a little court laid with river pebbles, he stopped to answer it.

  “Is everything okay?” Holly asked. She didn’t sound good. “Where are you?”

  “I just left the apartment.”

  “Well hurry up. He keeps trying to call me.”

  Scott’s phone beeped. He looked to see who it was.

  “That’s him now,” he told her.

  “Don’t answer it!” she pleaded. “Just come back right now. Did you get Pucci?”

  The phone beeped again. Irritably, Scott said, “I’ll be there soon. Stay where you are.”

  He hung up and answered the incoming call. An unsettling change had come over Luca’s voice.

  “Scott, where are you? I hope this isn’t some trick. There really is something we should discuss.”

  Scott took out a cigarette. Then his shoulders sagged. “Okay, Luca,” he said. “Okay.”

  “Benissima.”

  “I just want to get my dog back and forget this whole thing.”

  “Of course. Now, where are you?”

  “In a little piazza”—he crossed over to read the sign—“called Margherita. Do you know where that is?”

  “I’ll find it,” San Michele said, and hung up.

  The small, circular court where Scott had happened to stagnate had one main attraction. On the sidewalk in the perimeter was a public bench. He trudged over to it and sat down, under the wrought-iron bars bellying out from someone’s window. The three-story houses around him were slumbering. He tried to light the cigarette, but it fell on the ground. He was starting to hallucinate from lack of sleep. He looked at his phone and dialed 112.

  “Emergenzia,” said the dispatcher.

  “Ho bisogno della polizia. Sto a Piazzetta Margherita.” I need the police. I’m at Piazzetta Margherita. “E per favore. Qualcuno che parla l’inglese.” And please. Someone who speaks English.

  He ended the call before the dispatcher could weary him with a reply. While he was waiting, a door to one of the houses opened, and an old man came out. He tottered over to the wooden bench and unsteadily planted himself beside Scott. He was a gaunt, lantern-jawed old pensioner, carrying a big bag of bird feed. He must have been making his regularly scheduled appearance, because as soon as he stationed himself on the bench the circle of rooftops exploded with great flocks of unsuspected pigeons, all coming down to gather at the bench.

  “Gesù Cristo,” Scott said. They were swarmed. His companion grinned keenly and looked at him with nothing but the whites of his eyes. He held the bird feed out to him. Scott reached into the open bag, and was about to remove a handful when the old man started rebuking him in dialect. With sham gravity, he showed Scott how it was done, picking up the mix of corn and wheat with his fingertips and sowing the ground with sparing, stingy little pinches which drove the pigeons mad with greed.

  “Tu vedi? Tu vedi?” You see? You see? The blind man wheezed with laughter.

  The pigeons aggressively milled and bobbed and flapped before them. In their sober, Quaker cloaks, they made an ominous congregation, with tardy members continually homing in and adding to their numbers, so that by the time Luca San Michele arrived, Scott had a roughly fifteen-foot buffer zone of whirring birds.

  Luca was walking up with open arms and a smile that was half embarrassed, half rascal, as if the whole thing was one big scherzo.

  “Where’s Luca?” Scott growled.

  Luca stopped short, deeply puzzled. Then the smile reappeared. “I’m flattered,” he said. He walked up as far as he could go. “First,” he began, raising his voice above the cooing of the stupid pigeons, “let me congratulate you on last night. I was completely hoodwinked.” He wagged a shrewd finger. “That was a very clever little ploy. One should never underestimate spouses when they conspire.”

  He was wearing last night’s clothes, but with a wool-lined jacket over the fisherman’s sweater. He looked well rested, though. Freshly shaven, even. Had he made himself at home in the apartment?

  “You’re scum,” Scott informed him. Then, very deliberately: “Just for sleeping with my wife, I should kill you.”

  At first he was hopeful, because Luca’s hands went up as if in honest confusion. But he was only deflecting responsibility. “I’m afraid that’s between you and Holly. I’m just some man, Scott. I’m afraid there will always be ‘some man’ who wants to sleep with your wife.” With more compassion, he added, “But I am sorry. For what it’s worth, she was the one who ended it.”

  He started to take a step closer, before noticing as if for the first time the absurd sea of pigeons. “Signore,” he addressed Scott’s companion, and went on to say something in Bolognese that made the old man rock with guilty laughter.

  Scott was shaking his head. “How could you do it, Luca? Why would you do it? It’s not like you need the money.”

  “Ah.” Luca nodded. “Would you believe it? It was all by accident. I swear to you, when Holly told me about your little game with the woman, I had no intention of interfering. But then one day at the spa I overheard an American complaining next to me, and I thought, ‘Oh ho! This must be her!’ She was wrapped in towels and her face was covered in mud, but based on your wife’s descriptions I knew it had to be her. You understand,” he sighed, “I simply could not let such an opportunity pass.”

  Scott watched the old man scatter seeds and waited for Luca to continue.

  “And so I struck up a conversation. Within minutes she was inviting me to her house for dinner that evening. The whole thing was too easy. And then,” Luca elided, “when I saw how pretty the picture was, in the middle of all that trash…” He clapped his hands together. “I knew I had to have it.”

  Hardly an ‘accident,’ this. Scott watched two pigeons peck gorily over a morsel. Then a third sna
tched it up and ran off to eat it in peace. Where were the police?

  “So you killed her,” Scott said, just to make clear.

  “I didn’t set out to. I didn’t even bring my pistol. But she quite unreasonably refused all my offers to buy it.”

  Scott looked up at him. “And because of that she deserved to die?”

  Luca became grave. “Oh, no,” he objected. “She was a horrible woman.” He frowned at the recollection. “So insulting.”

  Scott was too stunned to remember who he was dealing with. “So you killed her because of that?”

  This harping on the victim finally irked Luca. He winced as if at some minor irritation, and then made a face of pure repulsion.

  “I hate older women,” he said.

  Sociopath, Scott thought. Holly had given herself to, and gotten them mixed up with, a monster.

  He stared up at the expressionless eyes. How could he have never noticed before? Behind all the animated faces Luca made, the eyes remained essentially expressionless. Scott started to worry he hadn’t made himself clear when asking for the police. Or were they still trying to hunt someone down who spoke English? His mind scrambled for an alternate plan. One thing was certain. This man was not going to let him and Holly go with a simple exchange. This man was going to murder them. The gun allusion did not go unnoticed. But did he have it on him right now?

  Luca edged closer, a pigeon scooting over his boot. “But what’s done is done,” he said, “and now I’d like my painting back. Where is it?”

  Scott stiffened. For a moment, he pretended to meditate to the sounds of the pigeons, to their submerged, deep-chested murmuring. Then leisurely he reached for the bag of bird feed on the old man’s lap. “Posso?” he asked. May I?

  “Si! Si!” the old man insisted. He plunked the bag down on the bench between them so they could share.

  Trying not to stall too transparently, Scott picked up some seeds and began sprinkling them over the smooth heads in the front row. At once, the sea of pigeons swelled toward him and crashed around at his feet. “How’d you do it?” he asked.

  San Michele shrugged. “With a statue. This little statue. She was walking away from me, shaking her head, and I grabbed whatever was handy. I struck her in the back of the head.”

  Scott measured out his words. “But that didn’t kill her right away, did it?”

  Luca considered. “Not right away, that’s true. But it must have damaged her brains, because she went running around the room smashing into things before she finally collapsed. Actually,”—he gave a black laugh—“it was funny, because she collapsed in my arms.”

  At last Scott heard it: the distant, nasal heehaw of a police siren.

  Luca was looking at him with admiration, as if listening to some delightful tune which Scott himself had composed.

  “That reminds me. I told you there was something we needed to discuss. I think it’s only fair to warn you, Scott, that I am on intimate terms with the head of the investigation, Commissario Bruno Sforzini, or, as I call him, Encyclopedia Bruno. Alfonso Falanga is not only the public prosecutor but my father’s ex-law partner as well. His actions are controlled by one man, Giudice Luca Sarto, the Judge for the Preliminary Investigation, and also my namesake. All are either close family friends or, indeed, family members themselves. Suffice it to say, should you tell the police your story, you would not find a warm reception. And I can’t promise the focus of the inquiry wouldn’t shift to you and your wife. As I understand, the ex-husband has a reliable alibi.”

  Scott looked around in distress. The siren was getting louder, but now it sounded somewhat minatory. Holly was calling again. He heard the hectic pinball machine racket of her ringtone. “Okay, okay,” he said. “You win. I’ll give it back to you. But… I demand some money for it.” He looked Luca in the eyes. “I deserve it,” he told him. “I earned it.”

  San Michele’s face lit up malignantly. “Of course! It’s only just. You were the one who found it. You deserve a finder’s fee.”

  “Half,” Scott said. “Whether you decide to sell it, or keep it for yourself, I want half its value.”

  Luca calculated. The siren’s presence became larger, more immediate. The phone stopped ringing, only to start up again at once. “Fair enough,” he finally said. “I can agree to that. So, I’ve done some research, and it has led me to believe the work is worth upward of two hundred thousand euros—”

  “Ten million dollars. That’s how much I’m asking.”

  Luca laughed. “Magari!” If only! “Listen, I know the market here and abroad. If this piece went under the hammer today, the most it would achieve is maybe half a million. But I suppose I could go as high as, say, a million euros.”

  The phone went quiet. So, too, the siren. The by-streets in that intersection were too narrow for cars. The police would have to get there on foot. Scott gave the starving pigeons another teasing taste of the bird feed. “Five million.”

  “Ah!” Luca was in his element. “Now we are bargaining like two Italians!” He stroked his chin. “I’ll give you half that. Now say yes before our friends show up. Who knows what I might say to them?”

  Scott pursed his lips. Two-point-five million was actually a fair deal. Based on Holly’s own estimations, it was half the market value.

  He reached for the bird feed again, sinking his hand into the bag and scooping up a heaping handful. The sea of pigeons became choppy. There was a spike in the level of their murmuring. “Alright, Luca… Alright. I think we have a deal—”

  In a single motion, Scott gripped the seeds, jumped out of his seat, and threw a strike, splashing them over San Michele from head to toe.

  The pigeons rose up as one. With sudden thunder, they darkened the sky, beat their wings, and then attached themselves like magnets to San Michele. Like a man on fire, he staggered away.

  “Che successo?” the old man was asking. What’s happening?

  But Scott had disappeared.

  28

  They began their escape to Naples, down the highway, sputtering along in the ape at top speed. Scott hunched over the toy wheel. “We’re gonna get him back,” he vowed out loud. He was talking about the dog. “We’re gonna get him back, we’re gonna get him back.” His bloodshot eyes kept checking the rearview mirror.

  “Why are we going this way?” Holly was asking repeatedly. “This is the way to Luca’s!”

  “Quiet,” he said. He was aware of this. “We’ll be alright. We just need to pass the next exit.” He pounded the wheel. “Damn, this piece of crap is slow!”

  “You’re not even supposed to drive them on the highway. You’re supposed to drive them on the shoulder.”

  The city of Bologna had receded. Route A1 was deserted at that hour, on that day of the week. On Sundays, not even truckers worked in Italy. Far off on the stubble fields, a solitary farmhouse lay in ruins. Talking more to himself, Scott said, “When we get to Naples, we’ll go to the embassy. Plus, we’ll be safe in Naples.” He threw Holly a look that was half mad. “That’s not his turf down there. Did I ever tell you my father’s a gangster? That’s what my mom always told me. Do you hear me, Holly? The mafia. The fucking mob!” he said, tingling all over.

  The engine labored up a hill. On the way down Scott kept the pedal floored. The speedometer was maxed out at 80 kmph. Once more he glanced in the rearview mirror.

  “Oh no,” he said.

  A vehicle had risen up in the distance. Holly spun around, and then turned on Scott. “Scott!” she shouted, as if his name alone were an accusation.

  In no time, San Michele’s SUV closed the distance and was hulking over them, in observation. Holly watched as it drew up effortlessly alongside her, with the window rolled down.

  There was no recognition when their eyes met. Luca’s face was devoid of human emotion. Feathers were blowing off him. He mouthed some words.

  Her voice shook. “He wants us to pull over.”

 
Doubt could be seen in Scott’s eyes, but it seemed his only idea was to hunker down at the wheel and continue the futile race downhill.

  Holly looked back at Luca, now showing her a handgun.

  She let out a clear shriek. Instantly, the sound was picked up by the barking of a dog, and she saw Pucci Luca bouncing around the back of the SUV. He dropped out of sight and then resurfaced seconds later in the front, clambering onto Luca’s lap and barking out the window again and again.

  Luca went to shove him away with his gun-hand. It was his last act. The terrier fastened onto the hand with his teeth, and the pistol dropped into the footwell.

  Scott heard the bang. In his side mirror he saw the Cadillac swerve off-balance. In a blink it disappeared, and then came crashing down sideways behind them. With spectacular splashes of glass, it tumbled down the hill, faster than the ape, chasing it. Scott managed to steer out of its path and then watched the wreck leap past, land hard on the pavement, and finally skid, bottom-up, to a grinding stop.

  &

  So the vet had been right. He wasn’t mute. He was, in the end, “just a little shy.”

  They ran down to the vehicle. Scott got down on all fours and peered inside. Through the drift of talcum powder from the deflated airbags, he saw the clay of his lifeless landlord. He crawled toward the backseats. His voice cracked, “I don’t see him.”

  “Scott,” Holly said. She was pointing halfway up the hill.

  Far from the roadside—so far Scott didn’t think it was possible—lay a little figure, completely inert.

  He began marching up, crunching over the dirty-gold stalks of the stubble field. He could make out the shaggy, black-and-tan coat. The nearer he came, the more his heart sank. There was no movement. The body was lying on its stomach, nose down. He must have been ejected when the vehicle first swerved.

  As Scott came within ten yards, a stem of wheat snapped underfoot, and the hair on the dog’s head seemed to stand up. Scott stopped.