“Sightseeing — wasn’t that what we talked about? People always seem to disbelieve me, but I can truthfully say that I came to Italy just to look around and eat and drink like any other tourist.”
“But when you’re at home — you don’t really go around selling pens?”
Few women could claim the distinction of having left the Saint bereft of a suitable rejoinder, and Gina may have been the first to achieve it unintentionally. But her question was perfectly serious, as he assured himself by a swift sidelong glance. Apparently her convent reading had been somewhat less catholic than she believed, and its lacunae had not been filled in by any recent briefing.
“No,” he said weakly. “I don’t really work at anything seriously, because I hate to take a job away from somebody who might need it.”
That gave her something to think about in her turn, which occupied her until it occurred to her to ask: “Where are you going? I thought I was supposed to show you the sights, but you seem to know the way somewhere.”
“I had breakfast with a map and a guide book,” he said. “I thought it might help if the lamb could find its own way to the first sacrificial altar.”
“I don’t know of any of those near Palermo,” she said seriously. “Very few of the pagan temples have survived at all, and certainly no altars.”
“Well, let’s give this a whirl instead,” said the Saint resignedly, as he came in sight of his first destination.
He pulled into the free public parking lot, and paid the local extortioner the customary blackmail for seeing that nobody walked off with his car or any of its detachable components.
“San Giovanni degli Eremiti!” Gina cried, clapping her hands in enthusiastic recognition. “It’s about the most romantic old church around here — it goes back to the Norman times. How clever of you to find it!”
“It’s the natural affinity of one ancient monument for another,” said the Saint, gazing up at the gray walls whose crumbling scars bore witness to the countless battles that had been fought around them. “I suppose we have to give this one the full treatment?”
He permitted himself to be led through the moldering glories of pillars and porticos, and what was unmistakably the remains of a mosque around which the thrifty Crusaders had constructed their own place of worship. When they finally arrived in a beautiful little cloistered garden, he sank down on a bower-shaded bench and drew Gina down beside him.
“It was a wonderful tour, and I can never thank you enough for showing me the antiquities of Palermo.”
“But we’ve only just begun,” she protested. “There are lots more churches — the Cathedral — the museum—”
“That’s what I’ve been dreading. In spite of my name, I’ve always preferred to leave the churches and cathedrals to more deserving Saints. But we told your sweet old Aunt that we were going sightseeing, and now even you can look her in the eye and solemnly and truthfully swear that we did so. Thus having kept the letter of our word, we can turn to something more in keeping with the reality of this climate than tramping around a lot of sweltering ruins. Let’s face it, if it weren’t for me, would you be sightseeing today?”
“No, but—”
“But me no buts; the ‘no’ is quite enough. That means I’m inflicting something on you which you’d never have chosen, and I hate to be part of an infliction. Now, wouldn’t you much rather be going for a swim?”
“Well yes, perhaps. But I didn’t think of bringing anything with me—”
“And you can’t go back home for it without probably running afoul of Auntie. Never mind. Anyone who looks as sensational as you do in a bikini should have a new one every day.” Simon stood up. “Come along and prepare to revel in woman’s time-honored pastime of buying clothes.”
With no more delay for argument, the Bugatti was speeding on its way again in a few minutes. At the near-by seaside resort of Romagnolo they found a little beach shop which supplied the requisite minimum of water-wear; and in what seemed like little more than the span of a movie lap-dissolve he was on the beach in his trunks watching her come out of her cabana in the nearest approach to the simple costume of Eve permitted by the customs of the time.
“I didn’t see you buying anything,” she observed belatedly.
“I didn’t have to,” he said without shame. “I had these in the car, just in case we accidently decided to change our program. Now let’s get in the water and cool off before you give heat-stroke to half the population of this lido.”
They swam and splashed away the dust and stickiness of the morning, until they were completely refreshed and buttressed with a reserve of coolness to make another spell in the sun seem welcome for a while. As they came ashore, a white-coated cameriere greeted them at the water’s edge.
“Ecco la lista delle vivande, signore,” he said, extending a menu. “I am sure you have already decided to lunch at the best restaurant on the beach.”
Simon had already noticed a number of attractively shaded restaurants at the edge of the strand, and realized that the more enterprising of them were not proposing to leave the selection of possible customers to chance. Such initiative would have taken a fairly dedicated curmudgeon to resist.
“Che cosa raccomandate?” he asked.
“Everything is good, but the lobster is most excellent, Do not move, and I will show you.”
The waiter rushed away, to return in a few minutes with a wire basket in which a couple of lively aragoste squirmed and flapped in futile rebellion against their destiny.
“I suppose they could get to be a monotonous diet, if you lived here long enough,” Simon said, “but I’m a long way from reaching that stage yet. How about you, Gina?”
“Donna Maria isn’t an extravagant housekeeper,” she said. “So they’re still a treat for me.”
“Then we’ll make this an occasion,” he said, and proceeded to round out the order.
The waiter departed again, promising to send for them when everything was ready; and they spread their rented towels on the sand and sprawled on them in sybaritic relaxation.
“At times like this,” said the Saint, “I often wonder who was the fathead who first proclaimed that work was a noble and rewarding activity. Or was he a really brilliant fellow who thought of a line to kid the suckers into doing the dirty jobs and liking it?”
“But you must work at something, don’t you?” she said after a pause.
“As seldom as possible.”
“But you told us you had business with Uncle Alessandro.”
“Do I look like a type of character who would have business with him?”
“No,” she said emphatically, and then was instantly appalled and open-mouthed. “I mean—”
He grinned.
“You mean exactly what you said,” he insisted gently. “I never did convince you that I was part of the ordinary commercial world, and since then you’ve remembered more of what you’ve read or heard about some of my adventures, which your educational background would have to regard as slightly nefarious. In spite of which, you apparently know that Uncle Al’s private line of skulduggery is much worse than anything a comparatively respectable buccaneer like me would be mixed up in.”
“I didn’t say that at all!” she flared. “I know everyone says he made his money in rum-running or rackets or some of the other things you have in the United States, and I know he was in trouble with the police about taxes or something. It was in all the papers when I was at school, and the other girls teased me to death because I had the same name. I didn’t dare admit he was a relation. But since then he’s told me that all the best people dealt with him, only the Americans are so hypocritical, and he just happened to run up against the wrong politicians. And he’s always been so good to us—”