Midnight Angels (9 page)

“You scare me at times,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“I don’t mean to.”

“I know,” he said. “And it’s as much me as it is you. I can’t explain it, really. Maybe it’s more envy I feel than fear. You shrug off any risks that might be in your way and are content to let your heart chart your course. In that sense, it makes you so much more Italian than me.”

“I always factor in the risks of anything I do,” Kate said. “It would be foolish not to. But sometimes the bigger risk is
not
taking the chance.”

“Would you think less of me if I didn’t try to sneak into the corridor with you?” Marco asked.

“Of course not,” Kate said.

“But you wouldn’t mind if I did come along?” he asked.

“It’s always better to have company,” she said.

“This could turn out to be one of those decisions I’ll always regret,” Marco said.

“Or it might be one that could change your life forever,” Kate said. “Or it could end up being nothing more than an adventure for us both. But the potential for it to be any of those possibilities makes the attempt worth the gamble.”

“When do you plan to do this?” he asked.

“Saturday at noon, thirty minutes before lunch.”

“Why then?”

“That’s when it will be at its most crowded,” she said, “especially the
area closest to the sealed-off corridor. The few guards stationed at the front of the Uffizi will have their hands full following the various tour groups coming in and going out of the halls. There’s more than a good chance we can get in without being noticed.”

“And what about getting out?” Marco asked.

“We’ll stay inside until the crowds begin to return after lunch,” Kate said. “We’ll come out the Palazzo Vecchio side and blend in with one of the groups heading either in or out of the halls.”

“You knew I would be coming with you before you sat down,” Marco said, a smile spreading across his face.

Kate returned the smile.

“What makes you so certain there aren’t any security cameras in the sealed-off area of the corridor?” he asked.

Kate lost the smile and wrinkled her brow, leaned in closer to Marco and lowered her voice. “Don’t get mad, okay?” she said.

“That means you
don’t
know if there are cameras in there or not,” he said.
“Dio mio
, Kate. I will never live long enough to understand someone like you.”

“There’s no reason to have any security cameras in that part of the corridor,” she said. “It’s been sealed off since Michelangelo was
alive
. There are people who have lived their entire
lives
in this city who don’t even know it’s there. It’s safely hidden in plain sight. As far as any of the guards are concerned, that section of the corridor might as well be invisible.”

“If that’s true—and I don’t doubt you,” Marco said, “then in all likelihood it has not been as well maintained as the rest of the corridor. It could have been used as storage space by the maintenance crews.”

“There’s only one way for us to know for sure,” Kate said, “and that’s to make our way in there and see for ourselves.”

A middle-aged woman in a light blue summer dress, draped around a body that was still shapely enough to draw stares, stood at their table, a box of biscotti cradled in her arms. “These are for you,” she said, placing the box on Kate’s end of the table, “to enjoy late at night, while you study.”

“Grazie
, signora,” Kate said, glancing up at the woman’s warm eyes and the dark hair that ran long down the sides of an unlined face and along the nape of her neck.

“Per niente,”
the woman said with a wave and a smile, bustling off to a corner table to make small talk with an elderly couple.

“It’s going to be hard for me to one day have to leave this city,” Kate said. “I already feel as if I could live the rest of my life here.”

“Most Americans do,” Marco said. “And some Florentines, too, I would imagine.”

“But not you,” she said. “Why is that, Marco?”

“I love the Italian way of life,” he said. “The strength of family, the ability to nurture our souls as much as we do our wallets, is the way we should all view our lives. There would be far fewer wars if we did, that’s for certain.”

“But you see negatives to this life as well,” Kate said.

“Yes,” he said. “They are not negatives to all of us, but to me they seem limiting.”

“How?”

“Well, for example, in America it is assumed that anyone can achieve anything that he or she sets out to do,” Marco said. “You’re pretty much told that from cradle to grave. And in your hearts, whether it’s true or misguided, you embrace the idea, no matter how rich or poor you may be. That’s not the case in my country.”

“You don’t think you can make any of your dreams come true?” Kate asked. “What would stop you?”

“Of course I believe I can achieve what I set out to do,” he said. “But like many Italians my age, I approach my dreams with a more realistic eye. Maybe we here in Italy learn early on not to set our sights too high. We are taught a simpler way to dream. And for many that’s more than enough.”

“But not for you,” she said.

Marco nodded. “In so many ways,” he said, “I’m so much more of an American than you are, maybe because I have seen a lot more television. Or perhaps it’s just something that’s rubbed off on me, living in a city that has so many American visitors. I seem to want more than what my other Italian friends want, and I’m not talking just about money. I want many of the things that are treated as nothing more than second nature to successful Americans and, for whatever reasons, are seen as beyond the norm for the majority of Italians. I’m not even sure I can point to any one specific example that would help explain what I mean. I just know the differences are there and are very real to many of us.”

“You want to live in America some day?” Kate asked.

“I dream like an American,” he said. “It would be nice to try to live like one.”

“It does sound like we should just trade places,” she said. “We might both end up a lot happier.”

“You do seem comfortable here,” Marco said. “From your very first day, you fit right in.”

“Professor Edwards—the man who raised me after my parents died—always said I wasn’t of my generation,” Kate said, “that I was one of those kids who preferred the past to the future. And if there is one thing you can never escape from in Florence, it is the past.”

“Which helps explain your fascination with all things Michelangelo,” Marco said.

“In part,” she said.

“And which also paints a clearer picture of why you are so determined to get into that sealed-off end of the corridor,” he said.

“Yes,” Kate said, “and it’s a comfort to know I won’t be alone. I’ll have a friend by my side.”

“A frightened friend, to be sure,” Marco said, “but a friend to you all the same. And one who even pays for lunch.”

“I don’t recall agreeing to that,” she said, a gentle tone of mock anger in her voice. “I thought we’d go Dutch.”

“Actually, here in Italy we say, ‘a la Romana,’” Marco said.

“Okay, then,” Kate said. “A la Romana sounds like a plan.”

“And a good plan it would be,” he said, signaling a passing waiter,
“if
we were in Rome. But, we are in Florence, and today I insist on paying.”

“You’re going to make a fine American, Marco,” Kate said. “I have no doubts at all about that.”

CHAPTER
11

T
HE RAVEN WALKED WITH A STEADY STEP INTO THE DUOMO, HEAD
down and hands clasped behind his back. He was flanked by two men, both at least ten years younger and several inches taller, each dressed in a manner far too casual to suit their style-conscious companion. The Raven turned right to face the majestic altar at the center of the Duomo, the light from the frescoed windows surrounding it as if by drawn swords, thick shards of midmorning sunlight bouncing off the marble and chiseled stone.

“There was history made here, my friends,” the Raven said, speaking in a low but strong voice, indifferent to the packs of tourists and guides who flowed past. “It was here that the scheme to kill young Giuliano de’ Medici was carried out. At that very spot,” he added, pointing, “Giuliano was murdered by Francesco Pazzi, at the time the banker to the Pope. It was the twenty-first day of April, 1478. The church was twice as crowded as it is today.”

“The murder was done in front of witnesses?” the muscular man to the Raven’s left asked. His neatly shaven head served as a waxed mirror to the candles burning bright around them. “Then, I doubt the killer got very far.”

The Raven turned away from the altar and gazed at the man, his head tilted slightly. “Escape was not part of his plan,” he explained. “He
wanted
the Medicis to know, wanted
everyone
to know, that it was he who had the courage to plunge a dagger twenty-one times into the body of one of the most powerful men in the world. There are some acts that are worth
the price of a life. The earlier you learn this lesson, Piero, the better you will be able to serve our cause.”

“I don’t see how my death would serve the cause,” Piero said.

“I do,” the Raven said. “But that’s a conversation for another day. For now, I need you to tell me all you have learned about the city’s most curious student.”

“She’s done nothing out of the ordinary so far,” the chubby man to his left said. “Ordinary for a young woman of her financial means, at least.”

“I’m curious to find out, Gennaro, if you and I share the same definition of ordinary,” the Raven said.

“She took care of the basics from the start,” Gennaro said. “She found an apartment, a large one-bedroom on the second floor of a well-maintained home right around the corner from Casa Buonarroti, with the living room window looking down on a quiet street. She signed up for her classes on time and bought her books secondhand from the university shop. She maintains a disciplined daily routine, starting her day just about sunup with either a run through the streets or a row down the Arno. She walks to school, stopping at a café for a quick coffee and a bottle of water she keeps in her backpack. She has grown friendly with many of the merchants in her neighborhood and, occasionally, initiates a brief chat. She’s quite a bit different from most of the other foreign students, not only in her line of study but throughout the school.”

“In what way?” the Raven asked.

“She was at home here from the start,” Piero said, jumping into the conversation. “She didn’t need time to adjust or change her ways. It helps that her Italian is fluent. Plus, she’s been here a number of times before, so the city is not alien to her. She eats her meals out every day—a panino or salad for lunch, which she normally finishes either sitting near the ugly Neptune or in the piazza in Santa Croce. She has her big meal in the evening and has become a familiar face in three restaurants. She buys and reads two newspapers a day—the
International Herald Tribune
and
USA Today
—and is rarely without a book in hand. She likes to window-shop and buys her notebooks in a place not far from the Excelsior Hotel.”

“What about friends?” the Raven asked.

“There’s a young man,” Gennaro said, “a fellow student, Marco Scudarti.
They seemed to hit it off from the start of classes and spend quite a bit of time together. If she’s ever with company, it includes him.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He’s got a clean record and no prior links to either the girl or anyone from her family,” Piero said. “His father died when he was barely out of diapers, and his mother remarried a few years later, but the boy spends as few hours at home as possible. I’m not sure why, but I’m guessing he and the stepfather are not close.”

“How is he set financially?” the Raven asked.

“He’s not rich, not by any means,” Gennaro said. “He has an account at one of the local banks and draws small amounts of cash from there every two weeks. It seems to be some sort of small trust fund set up for him years ago, perhaps by his father, maybe even a relative also long since dead. Either way, it’s enough to keep him in food and clothing and books while he completes the program.”

“Are he and the young lady involved romantically?” the Raven asked.

“They’re only friends,” Gennaro said, “as far as I can tell. They make the rounds at the museums together, not a day passes when they don’t go into at least one, sometimes for hours at a time.”

“Can you get to him?”

“His family history comes up clean as far as any criminal links,” Piero said. “There have been a few legal issues that have cropped up in the past, but nothing that goes any further than a landlord and tenant dispute. If we went to him with the right offer, he might listen.”

The Raven turned from Gennaro and Piero and walked slowly toward an exit door at the rear of the Duomo, his head down, his hands resting casually inside the pockets of his expertly tailored gray slacks. Gennaro and Piero waited a few seconds, then followed.

“Do you have them both under watch?” he asked.

“Yes,” Gennaro said. “Neither one makes a move without our knowledge, whether they go out for a gelato or to the library. We have people on their every step.”

“Except for that one day,” Piero said. “A few hours. They went into a section of the Uffizi we weren’t allowed to go.”

“It’s not a problem,” Gennaro said, rushing to defuse what he hoped would not evolve into an explosive situation. “They were the only two allowed in, a private tour arranged for them by the school. Other than the
guards assigned to go in and out with them, they were alone. There was no one in there for the lady to contact anyone and nothing in there for her to take.”

The Raven turned and looked at the two men, his eyes as still as stone. “Has either one of you been inside the Vasari Corridor?” he asked.

Both men shook their heads.

“Then neither one of you
knows
who else might be in there and what there would be in the corridor for her to take,” the Raven said.