Italian Romance (5 page)

“Please don’t leave Kay,” he whispered, “not when I’ve just found
you. Please stay here a while longer.”

Kay didn’t answer for a moment. She rolled over onto her back and
propped herself up on her elbows so she could see outside. The sky was a clear
unblemished blue from horizon to horizon. The cicadas were singing and in the distance,
and she could hear church bells chiming. How could someone’s life change so
completely so quickly? For the first time she understood Melissa. Passion could
creep up on you and make you its slave. Kay looked across at Alessandro. She
could not give him up either.

“Alright,” she conceded with a playful smile, “I’ll stay for a few
more weeks. I’m overdue a holiday and Melissa needs at least one family member
at her wedding.”

Alessandro grinned and he pulled her down into his arms. Kay
suddenly stiffened and let out a strangled cry.

“Oh God!”

“What is it?” Alessandro’s face creased in concern.

“We left our clothes downstairs, thrown all over the floor. When
Melissa and Vincenzo go into the kitchen…they’ll know!”

Alessandro laughed, seemingly unbothered, “Yes they will, unless
you can think of an elaborate excuse they’d actually believe?”

Kay stared at him in horror before the ridiculousness of the
situation dawned on her. She cuddled against Alessandro’s chest and wrapped her
arms around him.

“Well then,” Kay sighed in resignation, “we’d better get ready to
eat some humble pie.”

The End

N
eapolitan
E
ncounter

by Jayne Castel

The
moment Luisa Durasanti heard the scooter turn into the narrow street behind her
and gun its engine, her instincts flared. 

Something
terrible was about to happen. 

There
was nothing in her surroundings to suggest it, but the intuition was so strong
that Luisa stepped back from where she had been photographing a basket of
garlic, and flattened herself up against the rough stone wall.

Around
her, the daily life of Naples' Spanish Quarter played itself out as it had
probably done for centuries. Washing snapped in the breeze above the street
like brightly colored flags, and the
appartamenti
at street level all
had their front doors open so the street became an extension of the
inhabitants' living rooms. It was late morning and the aroma of frying garlic
wafted out onto the street, followed by the clanging of pots and pans as
someone prepared lunch. An elderly couple sat outside squabbling in dialect,
while a young woman with a toddler in a pram stood chatting to a middle-aged
woman who plied the small child with sweets. Nearby, a young man crouched next
to his scooter, his hands blackened with grease. Naples appeared to be full of
over-confident young men like him and they all dressed the same - tight jeans
and a muscle t-shirt, buzz-cut black hair and
Dolce & Gabbana
sunglasses. He had stared at Luisa as she walked by, his gaze boring into her
as she wandered along the street, taking photographs of whatever took her
fancy.  Her guidebook had warned her to take care in the
Quartiere Spanolo
but
she had been captivated by its raw vibrancy.

Until
this moment she had felt perfectly safe.

The
scooter, a dusty red Vespa with dented sides, roared down the street. Its rider
was a thin young man wearing a quilted vest, jeans and combat boots. His
tanned, sinewy arms were bare and his face was partially hidden under wrap-around,
mirrored sunglasses. He rocketed past the mother, pram and older woman, only
just missing them.

Metal
flashed, followed by the crack of a single gunshot.

The
young man, who still crouched near his scooter, had turned at the noise of the
approaching Vespa.

He
never had time to cry out for the bullet caught him in the forehead. He
sprawled back against his scooter, gore splattering against the stone-wall
behind him.

Two
things happened then. Luisa screamed and the assassin, so intent on hitting his
target, lost control of his Vespa. The scooter swerved, toppled and skidded up
the street. Bike and rider came to a halt a meter from where Luisa stood,
terrified, still clutching her camera.

The
fall had not appeared to injure the assassin for he rolled out from under the
bike and leaped to his feet. He had lost his sunglasses but still clutched the
gun. For a second, he and Luisa stood eye to eye.

The
world stilled and for a long, slow heartbeat, the assassin and Luisa stared at
each other.

Luisa
stood there, powerless, frozen in terror.

"Murdering
bastard!" The young woman's hysterical scream echoed off the walls behind
them. Her child forgotten, the woman grabbed a beer bottle that lay at her feet
and hurled it at the man. It bounced off his back and shattered on the cobbles.
"You've murdered my Michele!" she wailed, rushing to the dead young
man lying just meters away.

"Michele!"

The
street exploded in an uproar. The elderly couple, with no thought for their own
safety, ran shouting towards the killer, one armed with a broom, the other with
a frying pan.

The
assassin had run out of time. He shoved Luisa into the path of his elderly
assailants and fled. 

Luisa
collided with a broom and a frying pan. She and the elderly couple sprawled
across the road. Her chin hit the cobbles and she tasted blood. Head reeling,
Luisa picked herself up off the street and helped the elderly couple to their
feet.

The
assassin had vanished, leaving behind the Vespa that lay on its side, wheels
spinning, and the body of a young man with grease-stained hands who lay
spread-eagled over his scooter.

***

The
wail of police sirens got gradually closer before two Alfa Romeo blue and white
patrol cars screamed into the street and slid to a spectacular halt. The sirens
cut with one last wail. Uniformed
polizia
leaped out and barked orders
at the crowd of bystanders that had swelled over the past ten minutes. 

Moments
later, the whole area was cordoned off with police tape, and the witnesses were
huddled together in a small, defensive group. The toddler was screaming while
his mother sobbed. The two elderly witnesses shouted over the top of each other
as they poured out their version of events to the police. Luisa stood, still
clutching her camera, and looked on in mute silence. Her Italian, though good
enough to get her by in most occasions, had completely deserted her for the
moment and the voices around her sounded nothing more than a cacophony of
noise.

It
was then that another Alfa Romeo, this one a gleaming blue with a detachable
siren on the roof, pulled up behind the two police cars. As Luisa watched, a
tall, dark-haired man dressed in jeans, combat boots, and open-necked shirt,
got out, took off his sunglasses and ducked under the police tape. The
policemen made no move to stop this man, although one stepped up to him and
spoke quietly. The man nodded. Unsmiling, he looked across to where Luisa and
the other witnesses stood.

A
physical jolt went through Luisa and her stomach dipped as if she had just
stepped off the edge of a cliff. Dizzy, she looked down at her camera and felt
her cheeks burn.

“
Signorina,
ha fatto una foto dell’assassino?
”

The
voice, low and masculine, made Luisa look up sharply – straight into a pair
dark, intelligent eyes.

“No,”
Luisa replied shakily, “I didn’t take a photo of him, although I looked him in
the eye. I thought he was going to kill me.”

“According
to the other witnesses, he would have killed you if he’d had more time,” the
man continued in Italian, “I’d say you had a narrow escape.”

There
was something about the intensity of his gaze that made Luisa squirm. He was ignoring
the other witnesses and focusing on her as if she alone held the key to
catching the assassin.

“I’m
sorry, but I don’t know how much help I can be,” Luisa burbled. She inwardly
cursed as she felt her cheeks burn. He was making her so nervous. “I mean, I
saw him but I froze during the whole thing. I don’t know if I can remember all
the details.”

The
man nodded, unbothered by her assertion. Instead, he held out his hand for her
to shake.

“Don’t
worry, we’ll get a detailed report from you at the station. I’m sure you’ll
remember the details once the shock fades. I’m Commissario Valerio Catanese, and
your name is?”

“Luisa
Durasanti,” Luisa replied. She wasn’t surprised he was a police inspector – he
had an air of calm intensity – a man who missed nothing.

“Luisa,
you have an Italian name but you speak with an accent – you aren’t from here?”

“No,
I’m Australian,” Luisa smiled. She might have an Italian name but to her it was
obvious, even before she opened her mouth, that she was not Italian. Her
father, an immigrant from southern Italy, was small, sturdy and dark with a
beaky nose that her brother had inherited. However, he had married a tall,
slender girl with red hair and Luisa had taken after her mother. “I’m here
visiting relatives in Napoli.”

They
shook hands. His hand was warm and strong, and the feel of his skin against
hers made Luisa’s heart jolt once more against her ribs. What was wrong with
her? The shock had obviously turned her into a nervous wreck.

After
the break-up of her engagement two years earlier, she had been determined not
to let a man affect her – and she had been successful. Maybe fear and shock had
lowered her defenses, but whatever it was, Luisa did not enjoy it. She liked
being in control and Commissario Catanese made her feel as if she was about to
step out into the unknown.

Luisa
swallowed hard and crossed her arms across her chest in an effort to distance
herself from the inspector. She looked across at where a blood-soaked white
sheet covered the corpse of the man who had, just a short time earlier, ogled
her as she had walked past. Her gaze rested on one, grease-stained hand that
the sheet did not cover.

“Who
is he?” she asked, hugging her arms tightly against her chest, “what did he do
to deserve being gunned down like that?”

Commissario
Catanese turned his gaze from Luisa and looked across at the corpse. He sighed,
as if he had seen sights like this far too often, and ran a hand through short
dark hair.

“The
reasons for such an act are both simple and complicated,” he began cryptically.
“His name is Michele Esposito. He’s 25 years-old and currently out of work. He
has no previous criminal convictions but may have got himself involved in
things too big for him. His girlfriend,” Catanese motioned to the young woman
who sobbed in the arms of relatives nearby, “has recently had a baby. I’d guess
he had money pressures and took what he thought was the easy route to cash.”

Valerio
Catanese’s expression darkened then. “They learn too late there’s no such thing
as easy money. Unfortunately, it’s not a lesson they live to pass on to
others.”

***

Luisa
shifted in her chair and glanced at her watch. It was getting late and she
hoped her uncle and aunt were not starting to worry. Outside the window, the
late afternoon sun cast long shadows against the walls of the nearby buildings,
and a scooter gunned its engine on the street – reminding Luisa of the violent
scene she had recently witnessed, and the reason she was here in the police
station.

She
sat in the middle of a drab room furnished only with a small wooden table and
two chairs. The walls were blank and the door had a formidable array of
deadbolts.

Commissario
Catanese had driven her back to the police station in his car. They had
travelled in silence through a web of narrow streets and crumbling tenements.
At the police station, he had escorted her to this depressing room and promised
to return shortly. That had been nearly an hour and a half ago. Now Luisa was
becoming hungry, thirsty and more than a little irritated as she suspected she
had been forgotten.

She
glanced at her watch again and with a sigh of annoyance got to her feet. She
paced around the room, looked out of the window, crossed and uncrossed her arms
and chewed at her bottom lip. 

He
has forgotten me
,
she thought in annoyance. She understood a police inspector had many demands on
his time but she did not appreciate being dumped in a room and left there as if
she had committed a crime.
I’m going home
, she decided,
I’m damned if
I’m waiting here for another hour and a half until someone realizes I exist!           

Luisa
tried the door and was relieved to find it open. She stepped outside into a
featureless corridor with the same whitewashed walls and worn tiled floor.
There was no one about so she turned left, the way Catanese had brought her,
and made her way down the corridor to a set of stairs which led down to the
ground floor of the building.

Downstairs,
she entered a grimy foyer area where disgruntled members of the public waited
to report crimes. A uniformed policeman sat behind armored glass and grunted
when Luisa motioned to him that she would like him to release the door and let
her out into the street. He did as she asked and moments later Luisa had
stepped back into the humid Neapolitan afternoon, onto a busy street thronged
with pedestrians, fume-belching buses, and scooters.

Luisa
took a deep breath and felt the tension of the afternoon slowly ebb from her
neck and shoulders. All she wanted now was to get home to the safety of her
aunt and uncle’s apartment, enjoy a glass of
prosecco
and a bowl of
pasta. Her relatives lived in Naples’ prosperous hill-suburb of the Vomero and
she could not wait to return to it.

In
the couple of weeks Luisa had been in Naples she had got a good sense of the
city’s major landmarks, and had figured out how to get about using Naples’
public transport. Up the street was a metro station that would take her to the
Vittorio Emanuele metro and
funicolare
stop where she could catch a
cable car up to the Vomero. She figured if she did not have to wait too long
for connections she would be home within half an hour. Then she would be able
to put this awful afternoon behind her.

***

A
figure, hidden from view on the other side of the street, watched the young,
red-headed woman emerge from the central police station and walk in the
direction of the metro station. She was striking and noticeably exotic in a
city of petite dark-haired beauties. The man who watched her was not doing so
out of lust. She had stood face-to-face with him only hours ago. In a police
lineup, or if they showed her mug shots of men who met his description, it
would not take the police long to identify him as the shooter.