At this time of the evening the baroque ocher edifices of the Piazza Navona were illuminated dramatically with klieg lights, a stunning sight. The square bustled with people, crowding into cafés, garrulous and excited and electric. Couples strolled, absorbed in each other, or eyeing others; in another time they would have promenaded. The piazza was built on the ancient ruins of the Stadium of the emperor Domitian. (I’ll always remember that it was Domitian who once said, “Emperors are necessarily wretched men since only their assassination can convince the public that the conspiracies against their lives are real.”)
The evening lights glinted and sparkled off the spouting water of the two Bernini fountains to which people always seemed to gravitate: the Fountain of the Four Rivers in the square’s center and the Fountain of the Moor at the south end. It was an odd place, the Piazza Navona. Centuries ago it was used for chariot races, and later the popes ordered the place flooded so that mock naval battles could be waged.
I walked through the crowd, feeling somewhat alienated from the others, their effervescent high spirits contrasting with my anxiety. I had spent quite a few nights like this, alone in foreign cities, and I’d always considered it oddly lulling to be surrounded by the babble of foreign voices. That night, of course, graced (or was it afflicted?) with this strange ability, I found myself increasingly confused, as thoughts blended with chatter and cries in one great indistinguishable rush.
I heard, aloud: “Non ho mai avuto una settimana peggiore!” and then, in that thought-voice: Avessimo potuto salvarlo!
And aloud: “Lui e uscito con la sua ragazza.”
And in that softer thought-voice: Poverino!
And then, another muzzy thought-voice, but this one distinctly American: damn him left me all alone!
I turned. She was obviously an American, in her early twenties, wearing a Stanford sweatshirt under an acid-washed denim jacket, walking by herself a few feet from me. Her round, plain face was set in a pout. She caught me staring at her and gave me an angry glance. I looked away, and just then I heard another phrase, in American-accented English, and my heart began to thud.
Benjamin Ellison.
But where was it coming from? It had to be close, had to be within six feet or so. Must have come from one of the dozens of people immediately surrounding me, but who? It took enormous restraint to keep from whipsawing my head around, from side to side, trying to catch a glimpse of someone who looked slightly out of place, an Agency type following me. I turned casually, heard-
can’t let him notice
– and began to accelerate my pace, striding toward the church of St. Agnes, still unable to single out the follower from the crowds, and suddenly lunged left, knocking over a white plastic café table, knocking an elderly man off balance, and plunged into the darkness of a narrow alley, which was fetid with urine. From behind I could hear shouts, a woman’s voice and a man’s, the sounds of a commotion. I ran down the alley, sensed footsteps following me, and ducked into a doorway, which appeared to be some sort of service entrance. I flattened myself against the tall wooden doors, feeling the crust of peeling paint sharp against my neck and head, and slowly bent my knees and sank toward the cold tile floor of the foyer. I could just see out through a broken glass pane in the middle of the exterior door. The darkness and shadows would, I thought, conceal me sufficiently.
Yes: a watcher.
A hulking, muscle-bound figure made its way down the alley, hands outstretched as if they were being used to keep balance. I had seen this man in the piazza, off to my right, but he had looked like every other Italian man; he had blended in too well for my unpracticed eye. Now he passed directly in front of me, moving slowly, and I saw his eyes peering directly into the tiny lobby where I knelt.
Did he see me?
I heard: run to…
His eyes stared straight ahead, not down at an angle.
I felt the cold steel of the pistol in my pants pocket, slowly withdrew it. Released the safety, and fingered the trigger tentatively.
He moved on, down the alley, peering into doorways on either side. I crept forward, watched as he reached the end of the alley, paused for a moment, and took a right.
I sat back, let out a long, slow breath. Closed my eyes for a minute, then leaned forward and glanced out again. He was gone. I had lost him for the time being.
Several endless minutes later I emerged and walked down the alley, in the direction the watcher had gone earlier, away from the piazza, and through a rabbit warren of dimly lit back streets to the Corso.
At precisely eight o’clock, Dr. Aldo Pasqualucci opened his office door and, with a slight bow of the head, shook my hand. He was surprisingly short, rotund but not fat, wearing a comfortably worn brown tweed suit with a camel sweater-vest. His face was kind. His brown eyes had a look of concern about them. His hair was black, peppered with gray, and looked recently combed. In his left hand he held a meerschaum; the air around him was vanilla-fragrant with pipe smoke.
“Please come in, Mr. Mason,” he said. His accent wasn’t Italian at all, but British, upper-class and crisp. He waved with his pipe toward the examination room.
“Thank you for seeing me at such an inconvenient time,” I said.
He dipped his head, neither assenting nor disagreeing, and said smilingly, “My pleasure. I’ve heard much about you.”
“And I you. But I must ask first…”
I paused, concentrated… and found nothing audible.
“Yes? If you can please sit over here and remove your shirt.”
As I sat on the paper-covered examination table and took off my suit jacket and shirt, I said, “I need to make sure I can count on your absolute discretion.”
He took a blood-pressure cuff from the table behind him, wrapped it around my arm, pressed the Velcro closures together, and said, “All of my patients can count on complete confidentiality. I’d have it no other way.”
Then I said loudly, deliberately provocative: “But can you guarantee it?”
And in the instant before Pasqualucci replied, pumping the bulb until the cuff squeezed my upper arm uncomfortably, I heard:… pomposo… arrogante…
He was standing so close to me that I could feel and smell his tobacco-scented breath hotly against me, sense a tension in him, and I knew I was reading his thoughts.
In Italian.
He was bilingual, I had been briefed: Italian-born but raised in Northumbria, Great Britain, and schooled at Harrow and then Oxford.
So what did that mean? What did it mean to be bilingual? Would he speak in English while thinking in Italian, was that how it worked?
He said, this time with considerably less warmth, “Mr. Mason, as you well know, I treat some very prominent and very reclusive individuals. I shall not reveal their names. If you feel uncomfortable about my discretion, please feel free to leave right now.”
He had left the cuff pumped up to its maximum rather too long, so that my arm throbbed. At least half deliberately, I suspected. But now, as if punctuating his declaration, he released the pressure valve, which gave off a loud hiss.