The Savage Garden (36 page)

    Maurizio wasn't at dinner. He sent his apologies with Chiara—he wasn't feeling well after the previous night's festivities. Adam tried to imagine the look on his face when Chiara returned with the news that Adam had delayed his departure. Signora Docci seemed more than happy that the purpose of the dinner had been undermined. Harry pointed out that
he
really was leaving for good in the morning, so the dinner had lost none of its true purpose.

    The only farewell of Harry's that couldn't be postponed till the morning was the one with Antonella. He insisted on escorting her back to her farmhouse. Adam went along with them.

    Antonella produced a bottle of cheap brandy, half of which they drank on the mound beside her barn, sprawled on cushions set around a couple of guttering candles.

    When they finally left, Harry made the most of his goodbye hug with Antonella to get to know her body a bit better.

    Picking their way back down through the olive grove, Harry said to Adam, "You can stay if you want."

    "It's okay."

    "Which means you did the dirty this afternoon."

    Adam said nothing. Harry barged against him playfully.

    "You're not getting anything out of me."

    "Give up now, you know I will."

    "Harry, what are you doing?"

    "Chinese burn."

    "Well, it's not working."

    "Shit," said Harry, releasing Adam's wrist.

    SIGNORA DOCCI SENT THEM OFF IN STYLE IN HER NAVY blue Lancia. They were driven by Foscolo, a man of few words. One of them was
"Arrivederci,"
which he mumbled sullenly when he dropped them off at Santa Maria Novella station in Florence.

    Adam bought a ticket to Arezzo to keep up appearances. He could exchange it later, once Harry was gone. There was an hour to kill before the train to Venice. They headed for the station bar, where Harry proposed they drink their way through the colors of the rainbow—a trick he'd picked up from the Swedish Finn.

    "She lives just round the corner," said Harry wistfully.

    "She's got a boyfriend."

    "I doubt it, not anymore."

    "You hardly know her. You're getting on that train."

    "Okay. But the reds are on you."

    Harry wasn't leaving empty-handed. The old tan leather suitcase, a gift from Signora Docci, was stuffed with many of Adam's clothes (which Maria, on her own initiative, had washed, dried and pressed in the space of one day). The only thing that Harry lacked was money. But when Adam handed him the greater part of his remaining cash, Harry produced a generous bundle from his own pocket, fanning it in the air.

    "A commission."

    "A commission?"

    "From Signora Docci. She wants another sculpture. I guess she wasn't just being polite after all."

    Adam leaned forward in his chair. "Harry, listen, she's a sly old bird, she knows she's getting you cheap."

    Harry tilted his head in a strange fashion. "That's got to be about the nicest thing you've ever said to me." He lit a cigarette. "I didn't say before, didn't want to, and I can still pull out . . ." His voice trailed off.

    "What?"

    "There's a gallery in London, a good gallery, the Matthiessen Gallery . . . they want me to do a show."

    "That's fantastic, Harry."

    "It's set for April. Will you come?"

    Adam winced. "April's bad, I'll be studying for my finals."

    "Since when did you ever have to study for exams?"

    "Of course I'll come!"

    "I'm scared, Paddler. No—crapping myself."

    "Of course you are. If it's a flop, you're ruined as a sculptor."

    "Arsehole."

    Judging from her expression, the middle-aged woman at the neighboring table was an English-speaker.

    They only got as far as "green" before Harry had to head for his train. He secured a seat for himself in a compartment, then joined Adam on the platform for a farewell smoke.

    "Weird times were had," said Harry.

    "They were."

    "And much fun."

    "Yeah."

    "We needed that, you and me."

    "You're right, we did."

    "She's a great girl, Paddler."

    "She is."

    "You look good together—I mean, she looks better than you, but you still look good together." He paused. "Don't mess it up."

    "Why would I mess up?"

    "I don't know." Harry glanced off, then back at Adam. "Something's going on, I don't know what, but I reckon you would have told me if you wanted to, if you wanted my help."

    "Harry, nothing's—"

    Harry waved him down. "Don't, it's insulting. I'm offering you my services." He gave a short snort of a laugh. "Not much of an offer, I know. Just say yes or no. I don't have to get on this train."

    "No."

    Harry scrutinized him closely, then nodded. "Okay."

    "But thanks for asking."

    The loneliness hit Adam the moment Harry's train edged out of the station. The kaleidoscope of Italian liqueurs mingling in his belly didn't help, nor did the fact that he missed the train to Viareggio by a matter of seconds, and with it being a Sunday he then had to wait two hours for the next one. He distracted himself with a gossipy magazine devoted to Italian cinema. He fought the urge to doze, fearful of what his unfettered thoughts might bring.

    He lost the battle soon after the train cleared the depressing outskirts of Florence. Strangely, sleep proved to be a peaceful diversion. There was no warped and worrying analysis of what he was embarking on—this fool's errand—just momentary oblivion, his face pressed to the window, fields and farms sliding by outside.

    Viareggio was an impressive town, its proud boardwalk backed by grand hotels, its beach a clean line of sand, the sunshades of its private lidos a colorful banded ribbon stretching off into the distance. It was high season and hot, and the place was alive, a definite whiff of wealth in the air. The women were beautiful, their men paunchy and confident, and Adam's immediate instinct was to head straight back to the station.

    He found himself a cheap room well back from the sea front, beyond the large pine wood that cut through the town. He paced his room, smoking, building up courage. Then he headed outside into the blinding sunlight.

    He remembered the name of the bar. There'd been no need to write it down. It had etched itself on his brain the moment Fausto mentioned it. Maybe he already knew then, sitting in the yard at Fausto's farmhouse, that he would find himself here in Viareggio, asking for directions to La Capannina.

    If Gaetano the gardener really had come into some family money, then it was evidently a large legacy. La Capannina proved to be a two-story building in a prime spot on the front. It wasn't as imposing as the buildings that flanked it, but it was an architectural gem, a little art nouveau masterpiece. Set some distance back from the pavement, it had a terrace out front, fringed with exotic palms. A stone staircase climbed majestically to the main entrance, and the facade was stepped, allowing for a balcony terrace on the second floor running the full length of the building. The sea air had taken its toll on the place, but the scaling paintwork lent it an appealing air of shabby elegance.

    Adam didn't venture beyond the front terrace, there was no need to, he would be returning later. He gathered from the waiter who brought him his drink that the upper floor was given over to a restaurant. He made a reservation on the upper terrace for dinner and was about to ask if the owner was around, when he checked himself. He mustn't do anything to jeopardize his role as an innocent tourist, a simple bird of passage who had alighted on this perch by pure chance.

    Thanks to Harry's unexpected windfall, he could afford to indulge himself a little. He bought a beach towel and a pair of swimming trunks, then secured himself a patch of sand at a lido across the way. It came with a lounge chair, a beach umbrella and an unctuous waiter who kept trying to foist overpriced refreshments on him.

    He lay there, staring at the jagged peaks of the mountains backing the narrow coastal plain—the same mountains that had offered up the gigantic block of white marble from which Michelangelo had hacked his "snake-hipped Narcissus." Harry's wonderfully dismissive phrase brought a smile to his face. It also brought to mind the aching void left by his brother's departure.

    He hired a pedal boat and struck out for the horizon, leaving the beach far behind. But even then, the empty seat taunted him. He saw Antonella's lean legs pumping the vacant pedals beside him. They should be here together, a couple, like all the other couples, the ones he'd been seeing all day, the ones his eyes kept settling on. Instead, he was alone, working through the details of some reckless plan in his head. He drew consolation from the possibility that Gaetano was away on holiday, or that he was an absentee boss who rarely showed his face at La Capannina, and certainly never on a Sunday.

    As he sat there bobbing on the light Mediterranean swell, a more pleasing picture began to fashion itself for him. He saw a fish dinner eaten in peace under the stars, followed by a stroll along the beach and a good night's sleep. He saw himself boarding the train back to Florence in the morning, secure in the knowledge that he'd given the thing his best shot.

    "Eh, Gaetano, how's it going?"

    They weren't the first words Adam heard on entering the bar of La Capannina several hours later, but he had yet to order his first drink when the fat man in the fawn linen suit uttered them. The fat man raised a pudgy paw. The thin man sitting with friends at a booth table in the far corner returned the gesture, giving a slight nod of his tanned head as he did so.

    Gaetano was bald and had trimmed what remained of his hair close to his skull. He wasn't at all what Adam had expected. He was handsome, well dressed, composed. It was hard to imagine that he owed everything he was to his complicity in a murder. In fact, it was near impossible to keep any faith at all with the idea.

    Adam had run imaginary conversations in his head, toying with ways of steering their exchange. He hadn't thought about the difficulties involved in actually getting to meet the fellow in the first place. He took a table and pondered the problem.

    Gaetano hadn't moved from his booth in the corner by the time he went upstairs to eat.

    It was a perfect night, the cooling sea breeze a welcome change from the windless humidity of the hills. Overhead, the stars cast a dirty stain across the sky. The smell of grilling fish mingled with the soft scent of pine trees and the earthy spice of cigar smoke wafting up from the terrace below. The white wine was crisp and dry, his shellfish starter a revelation. Under any other circumstances he would have lingered over his meal. Instead, he wolfed it down, eager to get back to the bar.