suite—adjoining rooms that looked as if they’d been designed for
Masterpiece Theater
. Velvet drapes guarded the windows, quenching the light and muffling the sounds from outside. In the center of the larger room, a welcoming bouquet rested on a round mahogany table, the flowers’ sweet scent vying with the pungent aroma of furniture wax.
The adjoining room had much the same feel. At once funky and luxe, it was dominated by a massive sleigh bed that carried the weight of an impossibly thick mattress. An avalanche of feather pillows was piled high against the headboard, atop a thin down comforter. Testing the mattress, Danny keeled backward on the bed—just for a second, he told himself, just to catch his breath—and felt his eyes close.
Late afternoon.
Waking with a start, and with the unreasonable sense that he was somehow
late
, Danny fairly vaulted out of bed. He padded across the Oriental rug toward the shower and stepped inside the marble enclosure. A torrent of water leached the jet lag from his bones.
Suddenly, he was hungry and excited to be in Rome. Dressing quickly, he clambered down the stairs to the lobby and out onto Bocca di Leone. Without much caring which way he went, he wandered with the crowds until he found himself climbing the Spanish Steps. Losing himself in the streets at the top of the stairs, he wandered through a labyrinth of side streets. He emerged twenty minutes later on the Via Veneto, having no idea where he was in relation to his hotel.
Dropping into a chair at a sidewalk table outside the Cafe de Paris, he ordered a mozzarella and tomato sandwich
(“si, si, si—a Caprese, signore”),
a bottle of Pellegrino water, and a Campari-soda. Then he sat back and watched the parade.
It was an elegant and stylish crowd of passersby. The women were uniformly thin and beautifully dressed—as, indeed, were most of the men. Everyone seemed to smoke, and no one wore a fanny pack. Except the tourists. Half of them appeared to be Americans who’d “supersized” one too many meals. As for Danny himself, okay, he wasn’t fat, and he wore his good shoes—the Cole-Haan loafers. But apart from that, he felt almost dowdy among the Italians, dressed as he was in khakis from the Gap and a polo shirt from nowhere in particular.
There were two ways he could go, he thought. Either he could get to work right away (like the good boy that he was) or he could do what came more naturally—which was to spend a couple of hours in the cafés, reading the
Herald Tribune
and savoring
la dolce vita
.
A tough call, but virtue prevailed. Paying the bill with his Visa card, he crossed the street to an ATM at the Banco Ambrosiano. He coaxed half a million lire from the machine, then caught a taxi back to his hotel.
He collapsed into a wing chair next to the window and sat with the phone in his hand, silently rehearsing the short speech that he’d devised on the flight from Washington. Satisfied that he had it down, he punched in the number from the FedEx receipt, pressed SEND , and waited. Momentarily the phone began to squawk at the other end of the line. Danny leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, concentrating. Finally, a recorded voice came on the line:
“Ciao! Avete raggiunto Inzaghi. Non posso ora venire al telefono . . .”
The only words he recognized were
Ciao, Inzaghi,
and
telefono
, but he got the point. The priest was out. He’d call him again in the morning.
There wasn’t much else for Danny to do, really. Father Inzaghi was the only reason he was in Rome. If the priest was out of town or if he refused to meet with Danny, well . . . in that case, Belzer’s client would have spent a lot of money for not much at all. Which was
his
problem, Danny thought.
There’s nothing I can do about that.
If Belzer wanted to keep him in the Inghilterra for a day, a week, or a month, making the same phone call every couple of hours, that was up to him—and it was fine by Danny.
Taking a bottle of
Masterpiece Theater
. Velvet drapes guarded the windows, quenching the light and muffling the sounds from outside. In the center of the larger room, a welcoming bouquet rested on a round mahogany table, the flowers’ sweet scent vying with the pungent aroma of furniture wax.
The adjoining room had much the same feel. At once funky and luxe, it was dominated by a massive sleigh bed that carried the weight of an impossibly thick mattress. An avalanche of feather pillows was piled high against the headboard, atop a thin down comforter. Testing the mattress, Danny keeled backward on the bed—just for a second, he told himself, just to catch his breath—and felt his eyes close.
Late afternoon.
Waking with a start, and with the unreasonable sense that he was somehow
late
, Danny fairly vaulted out of bed. He padded across the Oriental rug toward the shower and stepped inside the marble enclosure. A torrent of water leached the jet lag from his bones.
Suddenly, he was hungry and excited to be in Rome. Dressing quickly, he clambered down the stairs to the lobby and out onto Bocca di Leone. Without much caring which way he went, he wandered with the crowds until he found himself climbing the Spanish Steps. Losing himself in the streets at the top of the stairs, he wandered through a labyrinth of side streets. He emerged twenty minutes later on the Via Veneto, having no idea where he was in relation to his hotel.
Dropping into a chair at a sidewalk table outside the Cafe de Paris, he ordered a mozzarella and tomato sandwich
(“si, si, si—a Caprese, signore”),
a bottle of Pellegrino water, and a Campari-soda. Then he sat back and watched the parade.
It was an elegant and stylish crowd of passersby. The women were uniformly thin and beautifully dressed—as, indeed, were most of the men. Everyone seemed to smoke, and no one wore a fanny pack. Except the tourists. Half of them appeared to be Americans who’d “supersized” one too many meals. As for Danny himself, okay, he wasn’t fat, and he wore his good shoes—the Cole-Haan loafers. But apart from that, he felt almost dowdy among the Italians, dressed as he was in khakis from the Gap and a polo shirt from nowhere in particular.
There were two ways he could go, he thought. Either he could get to work right away (like the good boy that he was) or he could do what came more naturally—which was to spend a couple of hours in the cafés, reading the
Herald Tribune
and savoring
la dolce vita
.
A tough call, but virtue prevailed. Paying the bill with his Visa card, he crossed the street to an ATM at the Banco Ambrosiano. He coaxed half a million lire from the machine, then caught a taxi back to his hotel.
He collapsed into a wing chair next to the window and sat with the phone in his hand, silently rehearsing the short speech that he’d devised on the flight from Washington. Satisfied that he had it down, he punched in the number from the FedEx receipt, pressed SEND , and waited. Momentarily the phone began to squawk at the other end of the line. Danny leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, concentrating. Finally, a recorded voice came on the line:
“Ciao! Avete raggiunto Inzaghi. Non posso ora venire al telefono . . .”
The only words he recognized were
Ciao, Inzaghi,
and
telefono
, but he got the point. The priest was out. He’d call him again in the morning.
There wasn’t much else for Danny to do, really. Father Inzaghi was the only reason he was in Rome. If the priest was out of town or if he refused to meet with Danny, well . . . in that case, Belzer’s client would have spent a lot of money for not much at all. Which was
his
problem, Danny thought.
There’s nothing I can do about that.
If Belzer wanted to keep him in the Inghilterra for a day, a week, or a month, making the same phone call every couple of hours, that was up to him—and it was fine by Danny.
Taking a bottle of
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