Frame-Up (29 page)

He doesn’t react, leaning back again, eyes closed.

"When?" I repeat a bit louder.

"Leave it. I don’t remember."

I shake him. He opens his eyes, looking at me as if I were a stranger.
"When."

"Last month. Sis, leave it."

"September?"

"Yes."

"And then what happened?"

"He invited me for lunch."

"Who invited you for lunch?"

"Gary, that’s where I met this guy Garland."

I’m getting there slowly. "And Garland asked you for that favor then?"

"No, a few days later."

"He invited you to his house?"

"No, we met in a pub; the Grosvenor or something."

"The Governor near Trafalgar Square?"

"Yes, that’s it. Sis, please leave it. My head is killing me." He presses
both hands to his temples.

One more question he has to answer. "And how did you find out
Garland’s home address?"

"Gary; he told me."

"When?"

"Tonight."

Carlo saw Gary tonight? And why would Gary tell him where Garland
lives? But another thought forces itself on my mind. Gary betrayed me
while he still pretended to love me. He must already have planned then
to dump me. It feels like a violation that he had sex with me after that.
And I contemplated to propose marriage to him then. What a bad judge
of character I was. And is the Porsche was the payoff? Is that also why he
suddenly panicked when the police began suspecting him of being my
accomplice? These are the self-recriminations that assail my self-esteem.

Friday, 11.10 p.m.

The first thing I do after reaching home is to make coffee for all of us.

"Signorina, make it strong," begs Fausto.

"Is there any food?" Carlo asks opening the refrigerator, the tone of his
voice already more normal.

"Sit. I’ll prepare something for everybody," I reply. I still have some
of the Italian cold cuts Silvio brought on Wednesday. Together with other
delicacies it adds up to an appetizing supper.

Carlo has regained much of his usual charm and begins to engage
Fausto in small talk. I’m rather surprised when he asks him outright:
"Fausto, you’re a
mafioso
, right? Send here to straighten out my sister?"

"Yes, but your sister doesn’t need straightening out. And you, I
presume, are into drugs. You need straightening out," is his equally blunt
response.

Carlo shrugs his shoulders.

"You should take your sister as a role model."

"She’s strong, always has been. I’m weak. Can’t help it."

Yes, that has always been his excuse, hasn’t it?

I set the table with the selection of cold cuts, cheeses, tomatoes, black
olives, a crunchy baguette, and a bottle of red. Fausto breaks into a
pleased smile. Both he and Carlo dig into the food.

"Now, Fausto, lets discuss how to proceed from here. First, I think it
would be unwise to let Carvaggio know right away that we have
discovered who did the scam. He might again try to speed up things by
interfering. Don’t you agree?"

"Yes, signorina, but we can’t let him wait too long."

"I obviously want that he gets his money quickly, but I also want to
clear myself, and for that I need a few more days. He’ll just have to wait
that long. Although my brother doesn’t deserve it, I don’t want him in
trouble with the police. So far, he has a clean record. So, I want to find a
way to achieve both without involving him —"

Carlo interrupts: "You give me the money for the airfare plus some
more and I will go to mother and promise not to return to London for a
long time. Then I’ll be out of your way and you can do whatever you
want."

I can’t help laughing. He is already up to his old tricks of fleecing me.

"What’s so funny about that?" he asks, annoyed. "I thought you
wanted help?"

"What’s funny is that you always find a way to extract money from
me. The trouble right now is that I’m very short myself. But I’ll buy you
a ticket to fly to Milan, and make sure you’re actually on the flight, and
give you some money, not much, for the train trip to Lugano and to tide
you over."

"Sis, I’m sad that you never trust me."

"You know perfectly well why I can’t, and I don’t believe you’re sad.
You accept what I offer, or else we’ll take you to the police and you
confess."

Carlo turns to Fausto. "You see how tough she is with me. It’s so
unfair. She makes thousands of pound with every deal she does."

"That’s a huge exaggeration, and right now I’ve no income, and all my
funds with Lewis have been frozen. So, do you agree to the deal I offer
you?"

"Do I have a choice?"

To my surprise, Fausto intervenes: "No, you don’t. Your sister is going
out of her way to protect you. It would be much simpler for us to take you
to the police."

Carlo grins. "Man, you got me."

How can I not be disarmed when he defuses any aggro with such easy
charm? Even Fausto does not manage to suppress a smile.

"All right, Carlo. I guess you’ve no other place to crash tonight, nor do
I want to let you out of my sight. You now go and take a hot shower and
then go to sleep in the spare bedroom. Fausto and I and need to talk
alone."

"You see, Fausto. She treats me like a child," he comments, rising
from the table, as he empties his wine glass, and then disappears in the
second bathroom off the entrance corridor.

"He’s trouble," Fausto says in a low voice. "Why do you tolerate it?"

"Yes, he’s trouble, but he is my only brother."

"Lugano is where your mother lives?"

"Yes." He doesn’t need to know it is a village outside.

"Will he go there? I could arrange for one of my friends to pick him
up at the airport and put him on the train, if you think this is advisable."

"I think he will. Once he is on the plane with little money, he’ll have
no choice. But thank you for your offer."

"I only wanted to help."

"I know, and I’m grateful we understand each other so well. Let’s now
talk about how to get Garland to confess."

"Carvaggio would want me to offer him the usual encouragement, you
know," he replies, grinning. "The man might cave in."

"Yes, that’s one possibility, except that he is smart and may want to
strike a deal, namely that he only refunds the money without confessing
to the police."
Nor do I want that you frighten his daughters
, but I don’t
voice that.

"I could make it clear to him that there’s no deal and that he needs to
do both."

"He knows Carvaggio and he will simply bypass you and negotiate
directly with him. My fate will hardly be of much concern to your boss.
He’ll prefer to make a deal for a quick refund of the money. Is that a fair
assessment of him?"

"Signorina, I’m afraid it is. He may even relish leaving you in the stew
after the chiding you gave him the other day."

Yes, that may have been unwise, but what’s done is done.

"How about threatening your ex-boyfriend," Fausto picks up the
thought once more, "telling him that your brother confessed. Once he has
left the country, even if the police get to know that it is his signature, not
yours, they’re not likely to go after him."

"I doubt they would bother, except that he may never be able to come
back into the country without risking arrest."

"So what about going after your ex-boyfriend? He deserves being
punished."

I meet Fausto’s earnest expression with a smile. Yes, Gary deserves
punishment. The question though is: would it achieve the desired result
of getting Garland? The Gary I know is stubborn. He will deny
everything. He may even go to the police, accuse me of sending a
mafioso
after him. I’m sure that Somes would delight in getting a reason for
revoking my bail. No, revenge on Gary will have to wait a bit longer. I
voice these concerns to Fausto and then conclude: "I think we may just
have to go back to our original plan of searching Garland’s office for
evidence, and that will have to wait until Sunday night."

Before leaving, Fausto begs me to demonstrate how to use the Google
maps. Just to show him that what’s on the Web now renders even the
Mafia more vulnerable to snoopers, I choose Carvaggio’s street address
and show the 360 degree rotation, zoom in on the ornate gate of the villa,
and then call up the sky view of the grounds, zooming in on a figure
standing on the steps of the villa.

"Wait, signorina. Can you enlarge this further?"

I do, stopping just before the image becomes blurry. It’s a man,
dressed in a cream-colored suit, wearing a checkered hat and holding a
cane.

"This is
il capo
," he exclaims. "He always dresses like this. He won’t
like that at all. Can anybody see this on a computer?"

"Yes, the whole world can see this." I print the enlargement on my
color printer and give it to Fausto. I hope he will show it to Carvaggio and
cause him some worries.

At the door I ask Fausto to wait a moment. I fetch the pistol I took off
him some ten days ago — only ten days? I want to give it back to him. I
don’t like the idea of having a gun in the house with Carlo here. Fausto
is surprised.

"This is proof that you trust me, signorina."

"I do, Fausto." He doesn’t have to know that this is not the primary
reason for wanting to get rid of the gun.

I still have a task to do before going to bed, namely, book Carlo’s
ticket to Milan on the first available flight, no matter the cost. I manage
to get a booking on an Alitalia flight for Saturday noon, and print out the
electronic ticket. That will get him to Lugano by dinnertime, since the
train from Milan to Lugano takes just over an hour.

As I lie in bed, I remember that I turned off my iPhone after we parked
the car in the neighbor’s driveway. I switch it on. Two missed calls, both
from Silvio. The first simply asks me to call back. He left a longer
message for the second, explaining that he didn’t know his wife would
show up in London, that it’s finished between them, and to please call
back. It’s a half past midnight. Could I still call him now? I may still
catch him before he goes to sleep. He answers promptly.

"Ceci, I so hoped you would call back so that we can talk."

"I had my cell phone off and just turned it on. That’s why I only called
now."

A woman is yelling in the background, the shrill voice rapidly coming
closer. It sounds like "tell the bitch to get lost." Sounds of a scuffle, the
cell phone banged against a hard surface, Silvio shouting: "Give it back.
Let me talk." A loud crash and then the phone goes dead. Did she smash
Silvio’s cell phone?

Half a minute later the phone rings again. It can only be him. Before
I manage to say a word, he speaks.

"Ceci, I’m sorry, my wife is hysterical —"

There is again shouting in the background. "Hysterical? You fucked
her, I demand that you fuck me … now."

"I’m sorry, Ceci. We’ll have to talk later. Please, call me in the
morning."

Renewed yelling. "You bastard, I’m your wife. Do your duty."

"I’ll call you at the restaurant," I answer quickly, "around ten.
Ciao
."

"
Ciao
." Some more shouting, cut off as he disconnects.

My mind plays tricks on me. I see her voluptuous olive-skin body,
naked on the bed, legs apart, trying to arouse his lust, beckoning him to
top her. Would he do it? I shake my head to dispel the vision. How can
I even think along those lines?

Would I be jealous if he did have sex with her? Maybe simply to shut
her up? I don’t think so. I’m not the jealous type, but I hope he won’t.
Unprotected sex could result in a pregnancy, and that would spell the end
for Silvio and me. It wouldn’t be beyond her to scheme along that line
and, given her recent lifestyle, she could even be a carrier of a sexually
transmitted disease. The thought crosses my mind to call back and warn
him, but then I abandon the idea.