Part 12 (1/2)

”Could you tell how old the man was who had this cap on?”

I shook my head.

”Isabel.” Again, she said it in the Italian way-Ee-sabel. She frowned, but her eyes carried some humor. ”It wasn't your father.”

”How do you know that?”

She laughed. ”Because your father died many years ago. It was a stressful situation that you were in that night, and you manufactured a response to help get through it.”

”It was stressful.” I got a flash of Michael and Dez across the car from me. Dez saying, C'mere, little girl.

I must have made an expression of distaste or fear, because Elena looked at me with even more sympathy now. ”Who were these men that were chasing you? Why were they chasing you?”

”Oh...” I waved my hand. ”No one. It was nothing. I was talking to them in order to help a friend out. It's a long story.”

She smiled. ”I don't like the idea of my sweet niece hanging out with dangerous characters.”

”I usually don't.” I thought of Theo with his constellation of tattoos. ”Well, I've been dating-sort of dating-a young guy who looks like he could be dangerous, but he's actually the sweetest person. And those guys that one night, they were just...” I trailed off. Repeated, ”It's a long story.”

Elena patted me on the hand. She put her sungla.s.ses back on. ”How long are you in town, Isabel?”

I told her my trip was open-ended.

”I would like to show you something tomorrow. The gallery where I work.”

”I'd love that.”

”Good. I must go now.”

Elena pulled a small crocodile notebook from her purse then a tiny, gold pen. She uncapped the pen, wrote Palazzo Colonna, a time and an address on a small sheet of paper, then ripped out the paper and handed it to me.

”A domani, cara,” she said. ”I will see you tomorrow.”

A bleating sound woke me in the middle of the night. I sat up, looked around, struggled to get my bearings-Italy, Rome, dorm room. Got it. I looked at the small faux wood cabinet that served as a nightstand in the room. My cell phone sat there. It was ringing, I realized. I looked at the screen and recognized that number. Mayburn.

I sat up against the headboard, drew my knees up. ”Yes?” I said, sleepily drawing the out the word.

”You were asleep. I know. But you gotta hear this. The Rizzato Brothers? They were from Naples.”

”And originally from some island called Ischia. I know. Is that why you woke me up? You can find that out on Wikipedia.”

”Hold off with the sarcasm, will ya? Did you find out from Wikipedia that the Rizzatos were Camorra?”

”Camorra, the organized crime syndicate?”

”Yeah.”

”The one that Dez Romano is a part of?”

”Yeah, and you know who else was believed to be Camorra? Dragonetti and Battista.”

I pushed myself up straighter, kicking off the covers from my legs. ”The men who killed my grandfather?”

”Right. And I got one more doozy for you. You know who else is Camorra? At least technically.”

Why did I feel right then that the dorm room squeezed in on me, the linoleum floors contracting, the walls shrinking? ”Who?” I said, although you could barely hear my voice.

But I heard Mayburn clearly. ”You.”

17.

T he Palazzo Colonna was on an odd cobblestoned lane across the street from a high wall with a garden at the top. Like so many places in Rome, the front door of the palazzo gave no indication of what was behind it. A discreet plaque said that the palazzo was only open on Sat.u.r.day mornings. It was Monday.

I checked the address again from the sheet where Elena had written it, then raised my finger to the buzzer, hesitating only for a second before I pushed it. Nothing happened. It was hot outside. I lifted the hair off my neck, wis.h.i.+ng I had a barrette so I could put it up.

I tried the buzzer again. No sounds came from inside. I couldn't tell if it was working. I laid my finger on it again.

And then the wood door clicked open.

The heat receded when I stepped inside, almost as if it had been sucked out by a vacuum.

The first floor was a small foyer. On a nondescript desk, brochures and pamphlets were laid out. Next to that was a circular staircase, its walls holding shelves with paintings, tiles and statuettes from different eras.

I heard a soft tap, tap, tap and saw a pair of black patent leather heels coming down the stairs. Aunt Elena was dressed in red pants and a stylish, asymmetrical black s.h.i.+rt.

”Isabel.” She walked over and embraced me.

I heard sounds from behind her and saw a woman in her twenties coming down the stairs. Elena introduced the woman as her a.s.sistant, Justina. She p.r.o.nounced it Juice-tina. ”Now, come,” Elena said, ”let me show you around my second home.”

I followed her up the winding iron stairs. At the top was a small room with a few red velvet chairs and stands displaying enormous art books. Elena opened one of the books and fanned the pages. ”These show all the art.”

”The art in Rome?”

She smiled. It was a secretive and yet jubilant smile, as if she couldn't wait to let me in on something special. ”No. The art from here.”

I looked around the room. The walls contained sketches and paintings, all framed in gold, but they would only take up a couple of pages of the book.

”Let me show you,” Elena said.

She crooked a finger and stepped to double doors at the side of the room. I stood behind her.

Elena took a set of keys from her pocket and used them to unlock the doors. She slid them open, stepped forward and then turned and threw her arm out as if to say, It's all yours.

I gasped. I walked through the doors, looked to the right and gasped again.

How to describe that place? What I was looking at was a gallery, clearly, and yet the word gallery is too small, too pedestrian, too quaint for the grand, ostentatious and stunning salon that lay before me. Its floors, fas.h.i.+oned from all different types of marble-yellow trimmed in green, white striped with gray, red that was deep and rusty-stretched out hundreds of feet. The ceiling was at least four stories high, barrel vaulted, rimmed with gilded gold and painted with a vibrant fresco. The walls were lined with paintings, and before them stood white marble sculptures of Roman figures. Sunlight flowed into the room from a few high windows on one side, making the gold gleam, the marble sparkle.