It was a shock to see him, but I knew right away that it ought not have been. As soon as Janice had sprung the news on me-that Umberto was, in fact, Luciano Salimbeni-I had known that, for all his dorky questions over the phone, pretending to misunderstand everything I told him about Mom’s box, he had been several steps ahead of me all the time. And because I loved him and had kept defending him to Janice-insisting that she had somehow misunderstood the police, or that it was simply a case of mistaken identity-his betrayal of me was so much more excruciating.
No matter how I tried to explain his presence here, tonight, there could no longer be any doubt that Umberto was really Luciano Salimbeni. He had been the one siccing Bruno Carrera on me in order to get his hands on the cencio. And considering his track record-people had tended to die when Luciano was around-he had most likely been the one who had helped Bruno tie his shoelaces one last time.
The odd thing was that Umberto still looked precisely the way he always had. Even the expression on his face was exactly as I remembered it: a little arrogant, a little amused, and never betraying his innermost thoughts.
The one who had changed was me.
Now I could finally see that Janice had been right about him all these years; he was a psychopath waiting to snap. And as for Alessandro, sadly, she had been right about him, too. She had said that he didn’t give a hoot about me, and that it was all just a big charade to get his hands on the treasure. Well, I should have listened to her. But that was all too late now. Here I was, stupid me, feeling as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to my future.
This, I thought to myself as I stood there looking at them through the door, would be a natural time for me to cry. But I couldn’t. Too much had happened this night-I had no emotions left in store, save a lump in my throat that was part disbelief, part fear.
Meanwhile, inside the room, Alessandro got off the desk and said something to Umberto that involved the familiar concepts, Friar Lorenzo, Giulietta, and cencio. In response, Umberto reached into his pocket and took out a small, green vial, said something I couldn’t understand, and gave it a vigorous shake before handing it to Alessandro.
Breathless and on tiptoes, all I could see was green glass and a cork stopper. What was it? Poison? Sleeping potion? And for what? Me? Did Umberto want Alessandro to kill me? Never had I needed Italian more than now.
Whatever was in the vial, it was a complete surprise to its recipient, and as he turned it over in his hand, his eyes became practically demonic. Handing it back to Umberto, he sneered something dismissive, and for the briefest of moments I dared to believe that, whatever Umberto’s wicked plans, Alessandro would have nothing to do with them.
Umberto merely shrugged and put the vial gently down on a table. Then he held out his hand, clearly expecting something in return, and Alessandro frowned and handed him a book.
I recognized it right away. It was my mother’s volume of Romeo and Juliet, which had disappeared from the box of papers the day before, while Janice and I were out spelunking in the Bottini… or maybe later, when we were swapping ghost stories in Maestro Lippi’s workshop. No wonder Alessandro had kept calling the hotel over and over; he had obviously wanted to make sure I was out before he broke in and took it.
Without a word of thanks, Umberto started riffling through the book with self-congratulatory greed, while Alessandro stuck his hands in his pockets and walked over to look out the window.
Swallowing hard to keep my heart from popping right out of my throat, I looked at the man whose last words to me, spoken only a few hours ago, had been that he felt reborn and cleansed of all his sins. Here he was, already betraying me, not just with anyone, but with the only other man I had ever trusted.
Just as I decided that I had seen enough, Umberto slammed the book shut and threw it dismissively on the table next to the vial, sneering something I didn’t need to know Italian to understand. Like Janice and me, Umberto had come to the frustrating conclusion that the book in itself did not contain any clues to the whereabouts of Romeo and Giulietta’s grave, and that some other vital piece of evidence was clearly missing.
Without much of a warning, he came over to the door, and I barely had time to dart off into the shadows before Umberto stepped out onto the loggia, impatiently waving Alessandro along. Pressed against a recess in the wall, I saw them both walking off down the hallway and disappearing quietly down the stairs into the great hall.
Now, finally, I could feel the tears coming, but I held them in, deciding that I was more angry than sad. Fine. So Alessandro had been in it for the money, just as Janice had divined. That being the case, he could at least have had the decency to keep his hands to himself and not make things worse. As for Umberto, there were not enough words in Aunt Rose’s big dictionary to describe my fury at his being here tonight and doing this to me. It was obviously he who had manipulated Alessandro, telling him to keep an eye-and two hands, and a mouth, and so forth-on me at all times.
My body executed the only logical game plan before my brain had even approved it. Rushing into the room they had just left, I picked up the book and the vial-the latter exclusively out of spite. Then I ran back to Alessandro’s room and bundled up my loot in a shirt lying on his bed.
Looking around the room for other items that could be construed as relevant to my victimhood, it occurred to me that the most useful object I could possibly steal would be the keys to the Alfa Romeo. Ripping open the drawer in Alessandro’s bedstand, however, all I found were a handful of foreign change, a rosary, and a pocketknife. Not even bothering to close the drawer, I scanned the room for other possible locations, trying to put myself in Alessandro’s place. “Romeo, Romeo,” I mumbled, peeking under this and that, “where dost thou keep thine car keys?”
When it finally occurred to me to look under the bed pillows, I was rewarded with the discovery of not only the car keys, but a handgun as well. Without allowing myself time for second thoughts, I grabbed both, and was astounded by the weight of the weapon. If I had not been so upset, I would have laughed at myself. Look at the pacifist now-gone were all my rosy dreams of a world with perfect equality and without guns. To me now, Alessandro’s handgun was exactly the kind of equalizer I needed.
Back in my own room, I quickly tossed everything into my weekend bag. As I started to zip it up, my eyes fell on the ring on my finger. Yes, it was mine, and yes, it was solid gold, but it symbolized my spiritual-and now also physical-symbiosis with the man who had broken into my hotel room twice and stolen half of my treasure map in order to give it to the two-faced bastard who had very possibly murdered my parents. So I pulled and pulled until the ring finally came off, and left it on one of the bed pillows as one last, melodramatic goodbye to Alessandro.
Mostly as an afterthought, I grabbed the cencio from the bed and folded it gingerly before putting it into the bag with the rest of my stuff. It wasn’t that I had any use for it whatsoever, nor did I think I could ever go out and sell it to anyone-especially in its current condition. No, I simply didn’t want them to have it.
Whereupon I picked up my loot and slipped right back out the balcony door without waiting for applause.
THE OLD VINES GROWING on the wall were just strong enough to carry my weight as I began my descent from the balcony. I had dropped the bag first, aiming for a spongy bush, and after seeing that it had landed safely, I had embarked on my own laborious escape.