All He Saw Was the Girl (24 page)

    Another
one liked to walk out to the end of the driveway and get the newspaper in a
robe with nothing under it. When the wind blew it open she'd pretend to be
embarrassed. Oh, don't look. I'm naked under here.

    It
was Joey's belief that all women were whores. Some like Lia were up front,
straightforward about it. They came to your room and you paid for their
services. Girlfriends got paid in other ways: gifts and dinners and trips. But
they all took your money, one way or the other.

    Lia
got up and took her clothes off and Joey looked at her and grinned and said,
"
Succhiami il cazzo."

    She
got on her knees, knelt before him. See, his command of Italian was coming in
handy again. As it turned out, Lia was nothing special, going through the
motions, giving him a C- blowjob and a C+ fuck. When they were finished he paid
her ˆ250 and booted her out. He needed to be alone for a while. He went to the
mini bar and took out a bottle of Grey Goose and made himself a Martini.

    He
sat on the bed, leaned back against the headboard, more relaxed now, the edge
taken off, and thought about Sharon, Sharona his nickname for her. She'd been
the exception to the all-women-are-whores rule. She refused to parade around in
the nude, and when he gave her a present, she told him it wasn't necessary and
meant it. She was a keeper. That's why he asked her to marry him. He'd dated
dozens of girls and realized that meeting the
one
was like luck
roulette.

    He
pictured Sharon with the blonde hair and the black beaver that was like a
mohair sweater he couldn't keep his hands off of. She wasn't the best-looking
girl he'd ever dated, but she was the sexiest. She was also girlish and
feminine and funny. Only one he'd ever gone out with made him laugh. He saw
himself showing her the sights of Rome, and then taking her to Positano on the
Amalfi Coast, this beautiful picturesque town, and he got horny again just
thinking about it.

    It
was his father who’d arranged for his passport that was the real thing, and
snuck him into Canada - through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel in the back of a
panel truck so there’d be no record with Canadian customs. He was driven to
Toronto where he got on a plane with his new identity, headed for Frankfurt,
Germany, biggest goddamn airport he’d ever seen in his life. From there he flew
to Milan and was picked up by Mauro who took the Autostrada del Sole 350
kilometers to Rome in a little less than four hours.

    He’d
been in Italy now for six days and he had a craving for Coney dogs and thick
rare cheeseburgers. He missed Edy's mint-chocolate-chip ice cream too and the idea
of staying with his uncle, hearing opera every day had him on edge. But the
situation with Angela presented an interesting opportunity. Joey had a vision.
Saw Mazara and his crew working for him, Joey sitting back, relaxing, getting
rich. Yeah, he'd take some of that.

    It was
just before 9:00 p.m. when he opened the refrigerator and took the chicken out
and put it on the counter, its long neck and head still attached. "You
want to make something — a side dish to go with this?"

    Angela
said, "I don't know how to cook." She came toward him and clinked his
glass with hers. 'But I know how to do this," and took a sip.

    "An
Italian girl who doesn't cook…" McCabe said. "That's got to be a
first. In ancient Rome learning to cook was a girl's duty."

    "Does
this look like ancient Rome?"

    "What
was your mother thinking?"

    "She
died when I was young." She put her glass down and pulled her hair back
behind her ears. "We lived in a small house, one floor, on the outskirts
of Palermo."

    McCabe
said, "You don't look Sicilian."

    "My
mother was from Cinque Terra. She had blonde hair. It was just before seven in
the morning." Angela paused, took a breath. "I heard a knock on the
door and wondered who would be coming to our house so early. I was getting
ready for school. We didn't have to wear our uniform that day. I had a new pair
of jeans and a blouse, but my mother said I could not wear jeans to the Ave
Maria School - even on special days. I heard the door open and then voices, men
arguing with my father. My mother told me to stay in my room and went out to
see what was happening. I wanted to see, too, so I crept down the hall and
peeked into the salon. There were two men aiming guns at my father. One was
stocky and losing his hair, almost bald. The other man had a big mustache.
That's all I remember, a face with a mustache. They tied up my father and then
my older brother, Massimo, who was fourteen, and then my mother. The men made
them sit on the floor. I could tell by the way they spoke, their accent, they
were not Sicilian."

    McCabe
said, "Who were they?"

    "Calabrians.
The bald one kept saying, '
Dove il denaro? Dove il denaro.'"

    McCabe
said, "Where's the money?"

    "My
father said, 'What money?' He didn't know what they were talking about. Mustache
walked over and put a knife to my brother's throat. I remember my father
saying, 'I don't know.' I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. I
could hear my heart thumping in my chest. I thought the men could hear it too.
I thought it might explode." She paused and sipped her wine. "The
bald man asked my father again for the money. My father said, 'Don't you think
I would tell you if I knew.' This time Mustache did not hesitate, put the knife
under my brother's chin and cut his throat. My mother screamed and now Mustache
moved to her with the knife." Angela's eyes were wet. "My father
begged them but it did no good and the man cut her throat. I was shaking. I
went back to my room and got under the bed and closed my eyes as tight as I
could, and put my hands over my ears." Angela took a breath. "I
remember the sounds my father made when they stabbed him —" She paused
again. "They thought he was dead."

    McCabe
said, "They didn't hurt you?"

    "They
didn't find me. One of the men, I don't know which one, came in my room. I
could hear his feet on the wood floor, coming toward me. I put my hand over my
mouth. I could see his shoes, ordinary black shoes that were scuffed and needed
polish, and the bottom of his dark trousers. That was the scariest time of all,
thinking they were going to kill me. I closed my eyes and pretended I was
invisible, and a few minutes later I heard the front door close."

    "But
your father was alive?"

    "The
men walked out and I could hear him moaning, in agony, shirt covered with
blood. I ran to our neighbor's house. An ambulance came and took him to the
hospital. He had been stabbed four times and should have died."

    "He
must be tough," McCabe said. "That's where you get it, huh?"

    "A
few months later we moved to Rome. Carmella, my nanny, raised me." She
picked up her glass, sipped some wine. "You would think an experience like
this would have brought me and my father closer together, but just the
opposite. I think he has always resented me because my brother was killed and I
wasn't. Massimo was his favorite."

    McCabe
said, "Did he talk to you about what happened?"

    "I
asked him who the men were and why they came to our house," Angela said.
"He wouldn't tell me anything. He's never said a word about it."

    "I
saw you with him coming out of A1 Moro and I could tell by watching you
something was wrong."

    "You
could see that? Every time I talk to him we argue," Angela said.

    "Who
were the men with you," McCabe said, "walking behind you?"

    Angela
said, "The little one is Mauro, my father's bodyguard. He, too, is
Sicilian, from my father's village."

    "He
doesn't look like a bodyguard."

    "That's
what happens — you underestimate him - and then it's too late. The other man is
my cousin from Detroit. Maybe you know him."

    "What's
his name?"

    "Joey
Palermo."

    "Are
you a Palermo too?"

    "No,
Gennaro."

    McCabe
was thinking - wait a minute. He remembered the Rome cop, Captain Ferrara, telling
him about Carlo Gennaro, the boss of all bosses in Rome. It couldn't be the
same family. He said, "Your dad's name isn't Carlo, is it?"

    Angela
said, "How did you know?"

    They
were sitting on the portico, looking across the valley at the Cimini Mountains,
blue sky, high clouds, Viterbo in the distance. The half wall next to them had
vines crisscrossing it like green veins. She glanced at McCabe and said,
"Do you know what Viterbo is famous for?"

    McCabe
said, "Of course, do you?"

    He
made it sound like a challenge.

    "It
is the city of popes," Angela said.
"La Citta dei Papi.
More
popes are from Viterbo than anywhere."

    "Anagni
is the real city of popes," McCabe said. "I can think of four who
were born there: Innocent III, Gregory IX, Alexander IV and Boniface VIII- all
between 1198 and 1303."

    Angela
said, "You know your popes." She sipped her wine. "Then what is
Viterbo?"

    "The
residence of popes," McCabe said. "They lived there because it was
safer than living in Rome. The emperor wanted to kill them. That's why the
walls were built around the city."

    She
saw a truck driving by in the distance.

    McCabe
sipped his wine and said, "You know about the papal election of
1268?"

    "Let
me think," she said, putting him on. "No, I don't remember."

    "Eighteen
cardinals went to the bishop's palace to elect the new pope," McCabe said.
"A year and a half went by and they still hadn't picked someone, so the
people of Viterbo, the Viterbesi, locked them in their conclave and fed them
bread and water till a new pope was chosen."

    She
was leaning back in her chair, legs bent, feet on the stone wall for balance.

    "Are
you falling asleep yet?" McCabe said.

    "I
was starting to doze off now that you say it. "

    His
glass was empty and she poured him more Chianti and held his gaze. She said,
"You going to tell me your plan to get the money, or talk about the
history of Viterbo?"

    "I'm
going to do as the Romans do."

    "Who
said that, Caesar?"

    "St
Ambrose."

    "Who
is St Ambrose?"

    "The
Bishop of Milan."

    Angela
studied his face. "Is this for real?"

    "You
want to hear it?" He paused. "St Augustine went to Milan and learned
that the Church didn't fast on Saturday as they did in Rome."

    "When
was this?" Angela lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward the mountains.

    "AD
387." McCabe sipped his wine. "So St Ambrose said, 'When I am at
Rome, I fast on Saturday. When I am at Milan, I do not. Follow the custom of
the Church where you are.' And over time it became 'When in Rome, do as the
Romans do.'"

    "So
you are going to do it their way, uh?" She flicked her cigarette ash on
the patio stones. "What does that mean?"

    "I'm
going to meet Joey in front of Palazzo dei Priori," McCabe said, "if
you know where that is." "In the square," Angela said,
"Plebiscito. There are usually a lot of people there. "

    "That's
why I chose it," McCabe said.

    "Okay,
you meet him in the middle of town," Angela said. "Then what
happens?"

    "I
invite him in the Palazzo, the council chamber, show him the ceiling. It's
covered in frescos painted by Baldassare Croce in 1592, depicting the
mythological origins of Viterbo and other historical events."

    She
smiled, not expecting that. "What are you really going to do?"

    McCabe
said, "Ask him for the money. He isn't carrying a white Adidas soccer bag,
it's over. We try again another time."

    "If
he has the money," Angela said, "and I believe he will, he is going
to want to see me. You must know that, right?"