The Da Vinci Cook (23 page)

“Is this the place?” Angie asked, interrupting Cat’s thoughts.

“Yes. It’s a good spot to meet. There are a lot of people around. He felt it’s safe here for both of us.”

Considering that Angie had a long talk with Marcello at Da Vinci’s, his sudden desire for many people around made no sense to her. “I don’t know about this,” she murmured, then took hold of Cat’s elbow. “Don’t look now, but isn’t that the guy with the goatee who was following us once before?”

Cat turned in the direction Angie had been looking. “I don’t see anyone.”

“I said . . . ” It was too late. Angie searched the area. If it had been him, he was gone now. Maybe goatees were suddenly very popular in Italy and it wasn’t actually the same guy popping up like a jack-in-the-box all over Rome. “This crowd makes me nervous,” she said, and inched closer to her sister.

Cat ignored her concerns. “Marcello’s here somewhere. He agreed to meet, and I’m not leaving until I find him.”

“Maybe something happened that scared him away,” Angie said.

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to talk to me while you’re nearby. I didn’t tell him you’d be coming.”

Angie looked offended. “Why shouldn’t I be here?”

“Perhaps we have some personal things to discuss,” Cat said indignantly.

“Like?”

“Like none of your business! Now, go throw coins in the fountain. I’m going to look for Marcello on my own.”

“Just stay away from goateed men!” Angie warned as she went one way and Cat the other.

Not three minutes later, Cat felt a tug on her arm. Instead of Marcello, it was Angie again. “What’s wrong with you? I said, go away!”

Angie sidled up close and whispered, “Someone’s watching us.”

“Are you seeing goateed men again?” Cat was beside herself. “Do you have a beard fixation?”

“I’m not seeing things! And this guy doesn’t have a goatee. He has a green cap, and he keeps watching us.”

“Great. Now you’re seeing leprechauns! This is Italy, not Ireland. Leave me alone.”

“He’s standing in front of the Tazza D’Oro coffee shop.” She held Cat’s arm and slowly the two turned as if they were on a merry-go-round. “See him yet?”

“I don’t . . . oh! Yes. He’s there.” Stricken, Cat averted her eyes and looked at Angie. “He
is
watching us!”

“Told you! Let’s get out of here.”

“But Marcello . . . ” Cat scanned the crowd.

“Consider that he just stood you up.” Angie took Cat’s hand and plunged down a narrow, cobbled side street. A few umbrella-covered tables stood outside shops with panini, pizza, and cappuccino.

They hid in a doorway. The man with the green cap appeared at the end of the street, slinking along the sides of buildings, his eyes searching.

“He’ll find us if we stay here,” Angie whispered. “Run.”

She and Cat ran down the block and turned a corner into a warren of ancient streets. They looked back, and saw him running after them.

A young man walked toward them. “Help!” Angie grabbed his arm. “Someone is chasing us.”

“You’re crazy,” he said, pulling free. “Crazy American!”

The streets were narrow. Only one small car at a time could fit in them. The buildings were nearly black with centuries of soot, and so tall that Cat felt as if she were running through a maze. “I don’t see him anymore,” she said, clutching Angie’s jacket. “Do you know where we are?”

Angie nervously looked around. Little sunlight reached them. This was not a good place to be, the sisters realized, night or day. “Just keep going straight,” Angie tried to sound confident. “We’ll find our way out eventually.”

They did as she’d suggested, but when they turned a corner, the green-capped man was there. “
Mamma mia!
” he cried.

Angie screamed.

Without giving him a chance to say or do anything, Cat whacked him in the face with her oversized handbag. He tried to grab the bag. Cat kept swinging, and Angie joined her.

A crowd quickly formed around them, cheering the women on.

The man’s cap fell off. Crouching, he covered his bald head with his hands. “Stop!” he yelled. Finally, he managed to escape.

The crowd roared its approval.

Surprised and smug, the sisters watched him run.

They were high-fiving themselves when he stopped farther up the narrow street and turned to face them. “Your mother hired me to watch you,” he called, patting his cut lip. “She was worried about you two in Rome all by yourselves. I’ll tell her she doesn’t have to worry! I quit!”

Stunned, Angie and Cat watched him limp away.

Paavo was rereading the Sea Cliff homicide reports in hopes that an overlooked clue would jump out at him when he felt someone’s eyes.

He lifted his head, and could barely stifle a groan.

“Frannie,” he said. “I thought you’d gone home long ago.”

“Mamma called me on my cell phone.” Her face wore an ugly scowl as she plunked herself in Yosh’s chair. Yosh was out reinterviewing Flora Piccoletti’s neighbors.

“Now that Papa and Kenny are out of the house, Mamma’s wearing her fingers to the bone on the telephone to get Angie and Cat home. If she doesn’t succeed soon, she’s going after them herself.”

“God help us,” Paavo murmured.

“You can say that again. She’d do anything for those two.” She held up a scrap of paper. “She gave me some information for you. The phone number of Marcello’s sister—Flora Piccoletti’s only daughter.”

Paavo reached for it, but Frannie pulled back her hand and put the paper in the pocket of her jeans.

“I’ve already called her. She’s waiting for us at a bar in Cow Hollow. I’ll introduce you two.” Frannie’s mouth wrinkled in disgust. “Of course, the way it’s going for everyone else in her family, by the time we get there, she might be dead.”

“I hate this!” Cat yelled, and stabbed a paring knife into the chicken breast Luigi wanted boned.

Luigi jumped back. “What’sa matter you? You make a hole in the meat! You think you’re some Gypsy knife thrower now?” From his fearful expression and gaping mouth, he must have expected her to plunge it into him next.

She’d been tempted. Her husband was missing, her sister was badgering her, and after midnight, alone, she planned to meet a man she wasn’t positive she could trust. On top of that, Luigi expected her to bone chicken?

That’s what butchers were for. If one wanted chicken fillets, one bought them that way.

The only one around here she wanted to bone . . . no, that didn’t come out right. The only one she wanted to debone was Luigi, with all his arrogance and bossiness.

Or Bruno, who was a dictatorial maniac.

Or Angie, who couldn’t leave her alone for two seconds.

She yanked out the knife and waved it in front of Luigi’s nose. “I’m thinking of making sausage next.”

He placed two fingers against the knife blade and gently eased it away from his face. “You wanna break? You got it.”

Cat glanced at Cosimo, and suddenly an idea sprang to mind, a way to get herself permanently out of the kitchen and into the dining room, where she could watch and listen to the customers, and just possibly one of them might divulge some connection to Marcello, or the chain, or something that would lead to resolving this mess.

She smacked the knife onto the chopping block, tossed her apron atop it, then took Cosimo by the shoulder of his jacket and dragged him out of the restaurant. As his feet skirted the ground, he looked scared to death.

Angie and the others watched, slack-jawed and silent, as Cat headed onto the Via Porta Cavalleggeri. Angie could only hope Cat would be safe out there, but she, too, knew better than to cross her sister.

Frannie sat back in the Corvette, luxuriating in the leather seats, the growl of the engine. “I thought you were too stuffy for a car like this,” she said to Paavo.

He grimaced. “And I thought you were too PETA to sit on leather seats.”

“I don’t approve, but if the animal must be killed for food, then no part of it should go to waste. That’s what the American Indians believed. And so do I.”

“A useful philosophy,” he said.

She gave him a sidelong glance to discern if he was mocking her. Her eyes narrowed. “I take my work seriously. Mankind has the capacity to destroy the world. It’s important to restrict him. It’s our duty to save species close to extinction. There’s a lot of work to be done. Most of the great animals of Africa are dying out–gorillas, elephants, lions. Also whales. And in this country, wolves, grizzlies, condors, eagles—more species than you can name. It’s quite tragic. Most people don’t know, or don’t care. Not even my own sisters.”

“I’ve heard Angie say that she agrees with most of your causes,” Paavo said. “Just not necessarily the tactics used.”

“At least Angie listens to me. Cat never would. She always said I was embarrassing. Can you imagine? She said I’d better not get Angie involved in my causes or I’d have her to answer to.”

“Cat tried to protect Angie?” That didn’t fit Paavo’s image of Caterina at all.

“She didn’t care so much about Angie as she did the family name. I guess it was bad enough if one Amalfi daughter was arrested for a good cause. Heaven forbid two got their names in the papers.”

“That sounds like Cat,” Paavo admitted.

“Things worked out the way Cat wanted, since Angie only went on a protest with me once. It turned out badly, I’m sorry to say.”

“Angie protested something?” She’d never told him about that.

“That’s right. She was going to protest the razing of an old windmill in a park in Berkeley. It’s not only animals I care about, it’s things as well. Mankind is the problem, you see.”

“I see,” Paavo said, willing to agree so he could hear the rest of the story.

“Come to think of it, Angie was always enthusiastic about doing things together. Very sisterly and all. I’d kind of forgotten that about her. She was always willing to tag along when we were growing up.”

Frannie seemed lost in thought for a moment, then continued with her story. “About the Berkeley protest, we hand-painted some T-shirts and headed off to the sit-in where we expected to be arrested. Unfortunately, it started to rain, and the protest disbanded. I mean, jail is one thing, but not when you’re already cold and wet. Anyway, Angie had drawn a big brown windmill on her T-shirt, but in the rain, the ink she’d used started to fade. It turned sort of flesh-colored.”

Frannie started to giggle. “She had to walk through Berkeley and ride BART all the way back to the city wearing on her chest what looked like a giant phallus with a propeller on top. You should have heard the comments from men on the street.” Frannie’s snickers turned to full laughter. “Angie was so mortified, she couldn’t even hear the word ‘windmill’ for a couple of years without turning beet red. Mamma couldn’t understand why I kept bringing home library books about Holland.”

Paavo just shook his head. If he allowed himself to smile, if even the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, that would be the first thing Frannie would tell Angie when she saw her again. To his surprise, Frannie wiped away a tear. “I never thought I’d admit it, but Angie wasn’t half bad for an annoying little sister,” she said, her throat thick. “I actually miss the little brat.”

This time he did laugh.

Flanagan’s Pub was just off of Union Street. The drone of voices, smell of beer and whiskey, and the sound of a television and a jukebox playing at the same time assaulted their senses the instant they put one foot past the door.

A loud whoop came from deep in the bar, and Frannie let out an answering call. She and a tall, heavyset woman met in the center with a big hug. Both talked rapid-fire at the same time about how long it had been, how good the other looked, how sorry Frannie was to hear about Josie’s mother’s death, and how sorry Josie was to hear that Frannie’s sisters were in trouble because of Marcello.

Paavo listened hard, hoping to pick up some bit of news, but everything they said, he already knew. Josie had an attractive face, with short, curly black hair and brown eyes.

“So this is Angie’s fiancé?” Josie asked Frannie, as if Paavo wasn’t standing three feet away.

“Yes, he’s the detective,” Frannie replied.

“Angie’s doing all right. He’s good looking,” Josie said with a bold wink.

“If you like cops,” Frannie said, then turning to Paavo, added, “Meet Josie Nakagawa. Josie, Paavo Smith.”

They went to a table. A cocktail waitress followed, and they all ordered microbrewery beers.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” Paavo began. “I’m the lead on investigating her murder, but so far we’re hitting a stone wall. No one can think of a reason anyone would want to harm her.”

“Nobody but her kids,” Josie said, then sadly shook her head. “I shouldn’t say that. Mom wasn’t easy on any of us. She hated my husband. Nice Italian girls don’t marry Japanese men under Mom’s rules of the universe. She cut me off. For Rocco, it was the same. He tried hard, but nothing he did made her happy. But when I got married and settled down, Rocco simply went away. I heard he changed his name, skirted the edge of the law. He grew more and more tough. Tough and bitter.”

“Changed his name?” That could explain why he hadn’t been able to find any information on him. “Do you know to what?”

“Rocky Pick.” She chuckled. “Ugly, isn’t it? Only Marcello stuck around Mom, and look at him.” At Paavo’s inquiring look, she explained, “He’s not a happy man. When I look into his eyes, I only see sadness.”

“Excuse me,” Frannie said, “but all this touchy-feely family stuff is making my stomach turn. I’m going to play some pool in the back.”

After she’d gone, Josie continued. “My mother kept pushing. She was never satisfied with her life, her husband—my dad died at a young age—or her kids. She told Marcello he was the only one who hadn’t deserted her, that he was the one she could depend on. Whatever he did, though, was never enough. He should be smarter, richer, more famous. Marcello kept doing crazy things, always trying to make her happy until . . . ”

“Until?” Paavo asked.

“I’m not sure. Something happened about five or six years ago. I never saw Marcello after that, even though he was right here in the city and I live only about fifty miles away.”