These Dark Things (27 page)

When she got back to the station, an elderly couple was waiting for her. Teresa Steiner’s grandparents, come all the way from Palermo to take their granddaughter home. They’d come on the train, second-class. They were going back by plane—a private jet.

Natalia drove them over to see Dr. Francesca and view the body. She worried that the ordeal might be too much for the white-haired couple. They’d already buried their daughter, now their grandchild. But they came from a hard life. Not so much as a sniffle or tear when the curtain was drawn back in the viewing area. Teresa Steiner was beautiful; the morticians had done exemplary work for Mr. Gambini.

Afterward, they signed the requisite forms and sat waiting for the hearse.

Dr. Francesca stopped by and apologized for the delay in releasing the body. “But everything is in order now. We will provide a police escort to make sure you get to the airport without problems.”

“Thank you.” The elderly woman turned to Natalia as the doctor left. “We have a family plot.” She twisted her wedding ring anxiously. “We will look after her.”

A road accident stalled traffic and delayed Natalia’s return. When she finally reached her office, Pino was in her chair and on her phone, an extended finger signaling trouble. He signed off and replaced the receiver slowly, deep in thought and a little apprehensive.

“You saw Gambini earlier?” he asked.

“Yes, at his elegant new offices. But you knew that.”

“Yes,” Pino said.

“Why are you puzzled?”

“Surprised, really.” He stood. “Gambini’s
dead.
”

“Really? How? Who did it?”

“No suspects yet.”

“At his office?”

“No, a park. You’re going to love this. He was shot dead by a mobile. A fake four-shot cell phone. Antenna muzzle. Two .22 calibers fired close up. Hit right behind the ear.”

“Professional.”

“Very.” Pino surrendered the desk chair and handed her a message slip. “They want statements from you, about your visit, your whereabouts at the time of the shooting. You know the drill.”

“What are the bodyguards saying?”

“They weren’t with him. He went there alone. A groundskeeper said he saw a woman in black coming from the vicinity.”

“Where did it happen?”

“On Capodimonte.”

“A small grove behind the museum.”

“Yes, exactly. How did you guess?”

Natalia made for the door.

“Where are you going, Natalia? You’ve got to be interviewed. Natalia!”

17

Natalia drove back to the old neighborhood and parked near the building where she used to live. On the sidewalk, a man prayed beneath a statue of Christ. Painted gold, it was nailed to the trunk of a magnificent tree whose shade Natalia had appreciated summers when she was a girl. Vandals had broken off one of the Savior’s arms. As Natalia walked past, the supplicant stood up and kissed the plaster form.

She proceeded to the
palazzo
of Mariel and Lola’s grandmother, where Lola was staying. The officers on duty downstairs, guarding her, said she’d been in all day. But there was no answer when Natalia rang the bell. When she finally telephoned, Nonna answered and told her to come right up. Lola was expecting her.

The ancient elevator clattered and groaned to the sixth floor, and Natalia got off. The hallway was still painted green—“like an avocado,” Lola always teased her
nonna.
It was dim as ever.

Lola met her by the door, wearing Capri pants and a black top printed in gold.

“Kids still away?” Natalia said.

“Yeah.” Lola led the way inside.

Nonna retired to her room. The two women sat at the dining table, where Lola had been filling a huge ashtray with half-smoked cigarettes.

“I hope you didn’t leave any of those at the scene,” Natalia said. “They’ll take DNA evidence off them.”

“I’m impressed. How’d you figure it out so fast?”

“I saw Gambini just this afternoon. Right before you lured him to the museum garden, the one you and I loved so much when we were kids.”

“I left no trace. Not a fingerprint, footprint, nothing. In fact, I’ve been here all afternoon. Ask my bodyguards downstairs. Or Nonna.”

“… who was napping, as usual, after lunch, no?”

“No one saw me.”

“A groundskeeper saw a woman in black … at a distance.”

“All the widows in Naples wear black. That’s half the city. So what?”

“Gambini told me almost everything. He said you were infiltrating Strozzi’s organization to spy for him.”

“Yeah, well.… Now I’m doubly glad I shut him up before he ruined the rest of my life.”

“He told me you wanted Frankie dead, and he obliged. Why, Lol?”

Lola’s face suddenly looked old, the wrinkles around her eyes more pronounced. Her eyes themselves seemed closed off, as if the windows to her soul had been transformed to mirrors. “When Frankie and I got married, I knew he might be killed. He’d chosen a dangerous business, after all. A Camorra widow … I was prepared. But to be cheated on with young girls? No way! Frankie swore he would be faithful. And he knew what would happen if he broke his promise—so help him God.”

She dabbed at her mascara.

“And he
was
faithful, too. Until last year.”

“How could you tell he wasn’t?”

“The way he looked. Guilty. And then I found a lipstick in our car. Not my color. I begged him to end it. He promised. But he didn’t. ‘She’s pregnant,’ he told me. Can you imagine? That was just before the German turned up. Teresa Steiner. Frankie didn’t like her—and he got in trouble with Gambini. Zazu threatened him with a ban of suspicion. We would have been silenced. No one allowed to speak to us until the suspicion was disproved. Teresa wanted me to go in with her. Crazy schemes. I feared for all of us.”

“Go on.”

“Frankie hid out with his girlfriend, left me and the kids alone, unprotected. He left me to deal with Teresa, with everything. I went to Gambini and said I could solve his problem with Bianca Strozzi by defecting to her mob if he would do me this one thing that would completely convince Bianca my break with the organization was final and irreversible.”

“Bombing Frankie’s car.”

“Yeah. But the fools blew up Frankie and my Nico both.”

Tears welled again. “They were sorry, Gambini said. They didn’t see the boy.”

Never could Natalia have imagined anything like this. How many dozens of times had she hung out with Lola here—sat on this shabby wine-and-white-striped couch, and in the bedroom where Lola had modeled her first bra for her and Mariel?

In this very room, Lola had confessed her first kiss, her first lover. At the large walnut table, the girls had eaten her grandmother’s
biscotti
and fretted about their waistlines and complexions, about what their husbands would be like, what their lives would be. Never this.

“Eliminating Gambini, was that part of your scheme all along?”

Lola nodded. “Yes. I’d had it with him after he brought Teresa in. And I’d had it with Frankie too.” She reached for Natalia’s hand. “Now that’s it’s over … I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I thought I would. I don’t. I hope you’re not thinking I’m going to confess like that besotted priest.”

“Listen to me. If they find this out, they’ll take you down and everyone connected to you—me, and Mariel—especially if they get wind that you used me as a go-between to broker a deal for Bianca Strozzi in her bookstore. They’ll kill you with your kids in your arms. Then do the kids too. It
has
to remain a secret, Lol. You and I are the only two who will ever know.”

“I swear it.”

“Swear on your kids, Lola. No one else will ever hear from you what you did.”

“I swear. You’re not going to arrest me, are you, Nat?”

“You’ll work for Strozzi. Run whatever for her. You’ll raise the kids. You’ll—”

“Nico was the cutest baby. My first. Remember the black curls?
Cara mia
, I’m afraid for my babies.”

Natalia squeezed Lola’s hand. “We’ll figure it out. You’ll all be okay. Mariel and I will help.”

On the sideboard was a photograph, black and white, of the three of them in school uniforms and braids.

“Which birthday was it that we swore undying friendship?” Natalia asked.

“Mariel’s eleventh,” Lola said.

“No boy would ever come between us,” Natalia recalled. “No man. We were in Piazza Dante. We treated ourselves to pizza. Then we exchanged lipstick. Not blood.”

There were shouts from the street—people talking, kids fighting, the snatch of a song.

The air felt limp and damp. Natalia recognized the flowers Mariel had brought days ago. Peonies. They occupied a vase in the center of the table. Their pink blossoms were splayed open now, edged with rust. She inhaled their perfume—rotten, yet sweet, the scent of her beloved city.