She finished her Chianti and reached her arm out of the tub and put the glass on the tile floor. Now she stood up and grabbed a folded white towel off a warming rack attached to the wall and wrapped it around her and stepped out of the tub onto the Persian rug, a gift from her father. She dried herself and slipped on a white terrycloth robe and went into the living room and put on a Magic Numbers CD, a British group she liked, and played Love Is Just a Game, singing along to it, thinking about Roberto again. As soon as she received her share of the money she would tell him the relationship was over.
Oh maybe I think, maybe I don't Maybe I will, maybe I won't…
She danced into her bedroom and turned on the light. He was sitting on the bed, looking at her.
McCabe watched her park the Lancia on the street, and walk in the building, but it wasn't the one he thought, the entrance was on the next block on Via del Monte Oppio. Her apartment building was the last one, bordering two streets, with an unobstructed view of the Colosseum lit up right there less than a hundred yards away. He parked on Via della Polveriera and waited. He saw lights go on in an apartment and saw her in the window that was open. He got out of the car. There was a downspout that ran up the apartment wall a foot from her window. He climbed it with his backpack on. Reached out and touched the window, pushing one side all the way open. Now he reached over and grabbed the sill and jumped, arms through the window, body half inside the room, legs hanging over the edge, and shimmied his way in.
He got up and bumped the window and it closed with a bang. She must have heard it. He was in her bedroom. He crouched next to the bed, listening. Heard her call Roberto, but Roberto didn't answer. McCabe heard her turn the water on and off a couple times. Heard her walk into the other room and put music on. Heard her singing and was surprised how bad her voice was, worse than his and that was saying something.
She had a robe on and was drying her hair with a towel when she walked in the room, and turned on the light. She glanced at him sitting there and he sprang off the bed and tackled her, trying to pin her down, surprised how strong she was. She yelled and he put his hand over her mouth and she tried to bite him. He flipped her on her stomach, sat on her, pulling her arms back, and wrapped duct tape around her wrists. She yelled again and he put a piece over her mouth, and taped her feet together. He flipped her on her back. Her robe had come apart and he pulled it closed.
He could see her arms flexing, trying to rip the tape and pull her hands free.
McCabe said, "What's the matter? You're not glad to see me?
She glared at him.
He said, "Where's the money?" He pulled the tape off her mouth.
"I don't know."
"Then you've got a problem."
He went in her closet and looked at her clothes and took out some things and threw them on the bed. He could see her eyes follow him. He went back in the closet, opened the top drawer of her dresser, looking at panties and thongs, and saw a small black pistol with a short barrel. He picked it up and went back in the room and said, "This what you're looking for?"
"You better go some place and hide," she said. "Hope they don't find you."
He put the tarp on the floor and unfolded it. He saw her watching him.
"You're making a big mistake," she said. "You have no idea."
He put the tape over her mouth again. "You're the one made the mistake."
Now he had to get her out of the apartment without anyone seeing them. He walked across the apartment and looked out an east-side window down at Via del Monte Oppio. It was 1:15 a.m. He looked in both directions. The street was deserted.
He found her keys and cell phone on a table near the front door. He put the phone in his shirt pocket and took the keys. There were two of them. He opened the door and tried the keys and found the one that worked. The second key had to open the door to the building.
The stairs were made of white marble and very narrow and there was a small elevator that ran through the center of the apartment building. He went down and got the car and parked in front with the hatchback open. Now he went back upstairs and wrapped her in the tarp, and carried her over his shoulder, down a flight of stairs to the car. She fought him the whole way, squirming, moving, trying to make noise. He opened the hatchback and slid her in and closed it. He hadn't seen anyone and hoped no one had seen him.
He went back to her apartment and got his backpack and her clothes. He filled two bags with food from her kitchen and took the stairs again, down to the car. He drove through the city and got on the autostrada, heading north to Viterbo, a fifty-minute drive at 1:30 in the morning with no traffic, following Pietro's directions to the house called Casale Vecchio, his summer home, McCabe replaying their conversation at the restaurant.
"I met a girl," he'd said.
Pietro had given him a sly grin. "A girl, eh? This is sounding good. An Italian girl?"
"A good-looking Italian girl."
"It is sounding better. And what, you want to bring her here for dinner?"
"You told me I should visit your house in Lazio. Now I have a reason."
He gave McCabe the keys and drew him a map.
It was originally a hunting lodge — the walls were made out of perperino, volcanic stones. It had a tile roof and was built in 1782 on a hill overlooking the lush green countryside of Lazio. He could see Viterbo to the north, the clock tower, Palazzo del Podesta sticking up over the rooftops of the city.
He pulled up the steep drive and parked and carried Angela inside and unwrapped the tarp on a rug in the main room. She was soaked with sweat and he could see fear or anger in her eyes, or both. He couldn't blame her, wrapped in a tarp for an hour. He felt bad about it. But he couldn't think of another way to get her out of the apartment without being seen.
He pulled the strip of tape from her mouth. She didn't say anything, just looked up at him. Her robe had come apart down the middle where the sash had loosened, exposing the soft curve of her breasts, her flat stomach and the thin dark strip of hair between her legs. He knelt next to her and pulled it closed.
"Don't touch me," she said.
McCabe was thinking, okay, you don't care if your robe's open, I don't either.
She said, "Where are we?"
"In the country," McCabe said.
"I have to use the toilet."
McCabe took the Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and pulled a blade open and cut the duct tape binding her hands and feet. Now he helped her up and gave her the paper bag with her clothes, and took her to the bathroom. It had a ten- by-ten-inch window that looked down a steep hill to a valley, and beyond it rolling hills extending to a dark ridge of mountains in the distance. The room had a toilet and a sink, a mirror and stone walls and no way out except the door. He closed it and waited.
Ten minutes later she came out wearing a pair of jeans and a white blouse, barefoot, red t-nails on the gray tile floor. The clothes seemed to change her attitude.
She said, "Listen, take me back to the city. I will talk to them. I will see what I can do about getting your money."
"Is that right?"
"I will talk to Mazara," she said. "I will make sure you get some of it back."
Like that was it. It was over. She was ready to go home now. McCabe said, "I don't want some of it. I want it all." He'd put the bags of groceries on a coffee table in the center of a furniture grouping. He was hungry and reached in a bag, grabbed a loaf of ciabatta and a wedge of pecorino romano. He said, "You want something to eat?" Looked up, and she was gone. He moved toward the front of the house, down a hallway into the salon. Checked the front door. It was locked. Behind him stairs led to the second level. The stairs, like everything else, were made of stone. He ran up and stood at the top. There was a bathroom straight ahead and bedrooms on both sides, moonlight coming through the upstairs windows casting light across the floor.