Should I order and then shower and dress, or shower and dress and then order? One could never tell how fast Room Service would deliver meals to our floor since they had the whole floor to deal with. Our dinner hadn’t arrived until ten, although we’d ordered three and a half hours earlier, and when it came, it wasn’t even the right dinner. On the other hand, breakfast sometimes arrived in ten minutes. I decided to shower first. If I didn’t answer the door, the policeman would probably deliver it to someone else.
When I emerged from the bathroom, toweling my hair and thinking about fennel bread and fresh fruit, the telephone rang, and the general ordered me down to his conference room off the lobby.
“I haven’t had breakfast yet,” I muttered.
“I’ll order it for you. Loppi will be at your door in fifteen minutes to escort you down.”
Well, that was nice! He hadn’t even asked what I wanted to eat. I’d probably end up with a bun and a cup of coffee. Grumbling to myself, I threw on some clothes and stomped back into the bathroom to dry my hair and put on makeup. Before I could even reacquaint myself with the controls of the hairdryer, someone knocked on my door. I was sure five minutes hadn’t passed, but there was Signor Loppi, smiling at me. He had overlapping teeth. Very unsightly. I told him that I had to dry my hair and do a few other things. He told me the general was waiting and wouldn’t care how I looked.
So I went downstairs with my hair straggling in damp clumps down my back and my face pale with dark circles under my eyes. The general not only didn’t care, he didn’t notice. He waved me to a seat, in front of which was placed a little table that contained rolls, coffee, and fresh fruit. No eggs, no fennel toast, but it was better than I expected, and I began to eat without even saying hello to him.
The general didn’t greet me either. Instead he began immediately to tell me about a call he had received from Rome. “A tape arrived in my office, addressed to me,” he said. “No note. Postmarked Catania, the day Lucia evidently left for Sorrento.”
“Lucia?” I mumbled around a mouthful of melon. It was delicious. Maybe from Israel, or could they ripen melons in the Campania at this time of year?
“My daughter Lucia,” he said impatiently. “I can see that you are hungry, but this is important, Signora.”
I was still thinking of her as Paolina. “Right. What was on the tape?” I asked, and bit into a roll. It had a surprise filling of a fruity cream.
Very
nice. I looked to see if the second one was the same kind, but it appeared to be of a different variety.
“It’s a very poor recording. My people think she may have recorded it off the office intercom—Ricci’s office. And she must have been in hurry to mail it, because she neglected to include an explanation of what she was sending.”
His hard face looked strained, and I felt sorry for him. Had Paolina known she was in trouble even then?
“They’re going to try to improve the sound quality and overnight it to me. What they got from it in its present condition was two men talking, no names, but one of them had to be Ricci. And my people think they made out two words.
Radioactive
and an Italian slang word for heroin.” He stared at me as I munched my roll and thought about the words. A bit of the fruit cream stuck to my lip, and I wiped it off with the napkin, embarrassed.
“Have you any thoughts, Signora, on who might have been talking to Ricci, and what they might have been talking about?” he demanded.
“Well, Gracia said a foreigner was in Ricci’s office that afternoon, the one who stopped to talk to Paolina and may have—well, visited her that night. So that might be the other man on the tape. And
radioactive
—well, Ricci’s company may have made those radioactive medicines hospitals use for taking x-rays.”
The general nodded. “They do. What else?”
“Ummm—Hank Girol was talking to Ricci one night before dinner about getting a contract to dispose of their toxic waste. That’s what his company does. He’s the vice president of a toxic waste company. In New Jersey. They’re hoping to expand abroad, in Europe and especially Eastern Europe.”
“What would that have to do with heroin?”
“I don’t know, unless Ricci planned to use their new containers to transport heroin, but he couldn’t have been talking to Hank about that, because Hank was in Rome the day Paolina was here sightseeing with me, and he drove down here the next morning, the morning I found Paolina.”
The general was silent for a long time. I’d finished my breakfast by the time he spoke again. “Girol has asked permission to take you ladies to Capri today. He seems to feel it’s unfair that your husbands and his wife get to continue the meeting, but you ladies can’t do any more sightseeing.”
“Well, it is, sort of. When you think about it,” I replied. “I’ve really been looking forward to visiting Capri. It’s so gorgeous that one of the emperors, Augustus, I think, traded a bigger island for it in Roman times.”
“Capri’s not going to happen. I’ll have to send a policeman, probably Gambardella, along with you, and I don’t want him shoved over the side of the boat while you’re on the water. Girol’s second choice was Naples. I’ll say yes to that, and you see what you can find out from him.”
“About what?” I asked, thinking of Naples. That would be interesting, sort of, although I’d have preferred Capri—home of
insalata Caprese
, site of Shirley Hazzard’s interesting meetings with Graham Greene, one of the most beautiful places in the world. Still, I wasn’t going to turn down Naples. It was bound to be better than staying in the room all day by myself. And although I’d heard it was quite dangerous, those warnings are usually exaggerated; no doubt Hank and Sergeant Gambardella could take care of us.
“I’ll go, but maybe you could be clearer about what you want me to ask him.”
“I don’t want you to
ask
him anything, Signora. I want you to lead him into conversation. See if you can get him to knock down his own alibi. Find out what he thinks about Ricci’s death. Show an interest in his business connections with Ricci. You seem to have collected a lot of information since my daughter died, but most of it regards motive; motive doesn’t help us in court without hard evidence. Try to find out some facts, Signora.”
I was a bit peeved, really. I hadn’t told him anything that would stand up in court? Why would he say that? “How do you know he’s going to invite me to go to Naples?” I asked. “Everyone’s mad at me since you arrested Constanza.”
“Trust me to see that he does,” said the general. “Now go back to your room and think about how you’re going to approach him. And you might do something with your hair. It looks—” He searched for a word.
“Wet?” I suggested. “Loppi showed up too fast and wouldn’t let me dry it. He said you were in a hurry and wouldn’t care what I looked like.”
“I don’t,” said the general, “but Girol might.”
Although I was supposed to be thinking of questions I could ask Hank, should he invite me to go to Naples, I couldn’t help thinking about Naples itself and everything I’d read about it. Of course, I did want to see the archaeological museum since it housed the artifacts from Pompeii, but the city? Its reputation was mixed at best. A city where people hung their washing above the streets? Didn’t it get all dirty again? A city where homemade pasta was hung to dry outside on lines so that it could be preserved for times of famine and war? How sanitary was that? But probably they didn’t do that anymore.
Then there are all the wars, plagues, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions over the years, some in recent times. One period of violence that the Neapolitans avoided was the devastating raids of Saracen pirates. While the rest of the Campania suffered from these predators, the Neapolitans cultivated them as friendly trading partners and evidently weren’t bothered at all that they were “infidels.” The Pope, however, was bothered and excommunicated the whole city.
Aside from the attacks of all the conquering armies that besieged Naples, including the Nazis and the allies during World War II, there were the little wars—the rebellion of the population against the “vegetable tax” imposed by the Spanish Viceroys, the modern “family” warfare among various branches of the Camorra, which is the Mafia of the Campania; it has no central organization. A bishop actually organized a local “army” to fight the Camorra gangs in Naples in the 1980s, although the effort failed. And once a cabal of artists led by the Spanish painter Rib-era terrorized noncabal artists to eliminate the competition for art contracts, but that was in another century.
It is said that there is no law in Naples, where crime and graft are rampant. Even professors at the university accept expensive stays on Capri paid for by the parents of their students when oral-exam time comes up. Those factors made Naples less alluring than it might have been given its castles, palazzos, museums, and its opera house, the San Carlo, which is the largest opera venue in Italy. It was founded by a king who didn’t like opera, and its patrons are given more to conversation than attention to the performance. In other words, it’s beautiful but noisy.
Also, to the eyes of a Protestant American, maybe even a Catholic American, Neapolitans are bizarrely superstitious. The city’s patron saint is San Gennaro, a bishop who arrived to support Christianity early in the first millennium and was sentenced to death by the local Roman leader, Timotheus. On pronouncing the death sentence, Timotheus was struck blind. The kindly Bishop Gennaro prayed for the return of his tormentor’s sight, God obliged, and five thousand people were converted by the miracle, although the Roman leader was not one of them. However, Gennaro was not an easy man to execute. He survived a fiery furnace and hungry wild beasts in the amphitheater. Finally he was beheaded, which did kill him, but the stone on which his blood fell was saved, and his blood was collected in vials which are still shaken on certain feast days in order for the miracle of liquefaction to occur and forecast a good year for the city. The dark blood spots on the stone brighten to red. When the blood does not liquefy in the vial or turn red on the stone, Neapolitans expect to be visited by volcanic eruptions and defeats of their soccer teams, and the saint is cursed by the populace.
Furthermore, Neapolitans believe in the evil eye. They have amulets to ward it off, and some have more than a passing interest in numerology and black magic. Not that I believe in any of those things, but did I really want to visit the most superstitious city in Europe?
Then there is the Neapolitan character. The men adore their mamas but pride themselves on their ability to seduce women who are not their mamas. Neapolitan women are guarded by their men in old-fashioned ways. Wives who work as maids for bachelors are accompanied by their husbands, who sit outside scowling. Sisters are chaperoned by their reluctant brothers. Yet there are women of power in the Camorra, in politics, and in the arts. A lawless, schizophrenic society.
Do I really want to go to Naples?
I asked myself, while trying to repair my hair with the hotel’s hair dryer, away from which the general’s minion had dragged me.
Then Hank called, and I accepted. After all, it was my civic duty.
35
Escape to Naples
“Thank you, Holy
Mother,” I said fervently as I put down the telephone. My children looked up hopefully, astonished to see me looking pleased. “Guess what?” I cried merrily. “You can spend the day with Granny; the general said so.” They both cheered, believing that they had been granted a fine gift, which they had. Any change from being locked up in this room looked good—to them and to me. We gathered up toys, books, and a change of clothes in case of accidents, and I hustled them out into the hall. Of course, the policeman guarding the elevator spotted us since we were heading his way, and told us to stop right there. I paid no attention.
“Signora, you are not allowed—”
“The general says we can spend the day with Granny,” Andrea told him. “Ask the general.”
The policeman looked confused. He wouldn’t let us on the elevator, but he did call the general’s number. Probably terrified he’d get in trouble with Rome if he inadvertently countermanded General Bianconi’s wishes. After some questions and answers, he handed the phone to me.
“I was told I could go to Naples with the others. No one said the children could go.” My children looked downcast. “Museums and churches,” I whispered to them, and they cheered up. They preferred Granny to museums and churches. “Therefore, I have to leave them with their grandmother.” I was talking to Flavia Vacci, not the general. “Ask your new boss.” She did and then conveyed a message to the Sorrento policeman, who let us on the elevator and told me I had five minutes to drop them off and return before he came after me.
Dear God
, I prayed silently.
Let her be there. Let her want to take the children.
She was. She did. She thought the general was such a sweet man. I had to agree since he was letting me go to Naples.
We all congregated in the lobby, and there were two more than I expected. The first was Sergeant Gambardella, our escort, who looked as happy to get out of the hotel as any of us. Probably he resented the addition of Carabinieri officers to the guard force because they had prettier uniforms. And, second, Charles de Gaulle, mooning after Carolyn, who was saying, “I thought he was going into a kennel.”
“Adrien couldn’t get him a place until tomorrow,” said Albertine angrily. “He won’t bother you; he’ll sit beside me and be a perfect gentleman, although I don’t know why you’re included in this outing. After what you did to our hostess, who is quite innocent of—”
“Now ladies,” Hank intervened. “We’re out on parole. Let’s make the most of it. We even have our own escort.” He grinned at Sergeant Gambardella, who tipped his hat and smiled happily. “Carolyn, I’m sorry it couldn’t be Capri, but maybe I can talk the general into that tomorrow.”