All He Saw Was the Girl by Peter Leonard Page B

or
strangled." He paused. "McCabe, am I getting through to you?"
        Yeah,
he heard him. But he was thinking of a way to get the money back. To do it he
had to find the girl.
    ----
        

Chapter Thirteen
        
        Mazara
was thinking about the last time he came here. Don Gennaro was studying a painting
on one of the walls in his office, a room that had to be twenty meters one way
and thirty the other way. The don turned and looked at him and said, "Do
you know what this is?"
        It
did not seem complicated. It was a painting so that is what Mazara said, and
the don looked at him like he was a moron.
        "Do
you know Bronzino?"
        The
man made him nervous. Who was this Bronzino? The name was vaguely familiar.
"I think he played goalie for Lombardy. Is that right?"
        Don
Gennaro said, "He was the court painter for Cosimo de Medici."
        Mazara
said, "Who?" He stared at the painting on the wall, naked people
running around. It looked like a fun party. "What are they doing?" It
looked like an orgy.
        "It
is an allegory," Don Gennaro said. "Do you understand?"
        Mazara
had no idea what he was talking about and decided not to say anything else.
        Don
Gennaro said to Mauro, "Give him the money and get him out of here."
        That
time the don had hired him to steal a painting from a villa near Florence. The
don saying the owner had stolen it from the Uffizi. The Uffizi? Did he mean the
museum?
        This
time the don was having lunch on the veranda with someone he had never seen
before. They were drinking wine and talking. He could see the bodyguards at the
edge of the olive grove. They were alert, but keeping their distance, the grove
extending behind them as far as he could see. The bodyguards wore berets and
had shotguns on straps slung over their shoulders like Sicilian peasants.
        Mauro,
the don's secondo, had met him at the front door, searched him for weapons, and
looked in the paper bag he was carrying that contained money, the don's share
of the ransom. Mauro was a weird, quiet Sicilian, wiry, with dark skin, almost
as dark as a Tunisian. Mazara had been escorted out to the veranda that was
made of stone and built on two levels, wrapping around the back of the villa.
There was a swimming pool at one end. There was a wicker couch and chairs and a
low table with a glass top in the middle of the veranda and a long table at the
far end under a wrought-iron pergola that was covered with vines. He admired
the house and the grounds, thinking, this son of a peasant, who did not finish
his fifth year of school, had done well for himself. Roberto stood only five
feet from the man's table now, Don Gennaro ignoring him, making him stand there
like a servant. They were eating roast chicken and fried potatoes, washing it
down with a chilled bottle of Terre di Tufi. He recognized the tiny label.
Seeing the food was making him hungry. When he finished here Mazara would drive
back to Rome, pick up Angela and celebrate.
        The
don finally looked up at him and said, "Why are you here, interrupting my
lunch?"
        "I
bring your share of the money," Roberto said. "The ransom."
        The
don said, "Oh, the ransom."
        Of
course, the ransom, what did he think it was?
        The
don said, "Do I have to count it?"
        Roberto
said, "If you prefer."
        "No,"
the don said. "Do I have to count it?"
        The man
sitting at the table next to the don said, "Unk, want me to count
it?" He was American.
        The
don ignored him, staring at Roberto, and Roberto froze. He did not know what to
say, the don was keeping him off balance, making him nervous. What was this about?
        The
don picked up his glass and sipped the white. He leveled his gaze on Mazara and
said, "Is it all there?"
        "Yes,
of course." He could feel beads of sweat sliding down his face. He raised
his arm and wiped his forehead with his shirt