A Few Drops of Blood (16 page)

Mariel paled. A “present” referred to cash delivered to a man who got a Camorra girl pregnant. The message: Marry the girl, and buy some china and silverware. Spurn her and it could pay for a funeral just as well.

“If Colonel Fabio finds out about Pino’s involvement with this girl, he’s finished in law enforcement.”

“Sounds like he’s done with the Carabinieri anyway.”

“But I’m not. We had to break up because we’d violated policy, and here he brings me another violation the moment he’s back in my life.”

Mariel brushed back Natalia’s hair. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” She kissed her friend’s hand. “I haven’t a clue.”

Normally Fionetta opened her hair salon at one on Mondays. Once a month Lola got her to open at ten thirty, though the closed sign stayed up and the shades down.

Natalia rapped twice, and Onetta opened the door.

“What’s the matter?” Onetta demanded. “Don’t you love me anymore?”

They kissed each other’s cheeks and embraced.

“I do love you, Onetta, but it’s been crazy.”

“Crazy here, too. Mariel was wondering where you were. Lola’s already had a manicure. Blue. Blue nails, like a teenager’s. And now she wants me to give the dog a manicure.”

“I wouldn’t let you lay a finger on my precious pooch, would I?” Lola said. “So cute!” She screeched, hugging the dog to her chest and kissing her. “Natalia, don’t you love his little jacket!”

Onetta had stuck a piece of duct tape across the seat of Natalia’s favorite red vinyl chair.

“What’s going on? Things falling apart?” Natalia said. “We can take up a collection.”

“Very funny,” ‘Onetta said. “When I need your help, I’ll ask.”

Lola and the barking Micu were dressed to kill, the former in a Dolce and Gabbana sheath, leopard skin stiletto gladiator heels and an emerald choker; the latter, in a gray knitted sweater with green rhinestone buttons.

Natalia hugged Lola and said over her shoulder to Onetta, “It’s good of you to let us use your shop.”

“How often do old friends have a chance to get together?”

“New friends,” Lola recited, “are silver, but old friends …”

“Are gold,” Mariel, in the chair next to Lola, finished. “Natalia, how are you?”

“Em, glad you made it. So where’s the guest of honor?”

“On the way. Lola was antsy and made us come early.”

“Better that way,” Lola said. “Less to notice.”

They’d met like this for years, and it had become second nature to keep their association semi-secret, though Natalia didn’t doubt for a minute that Colonel Fabio knew. He just chose to look the other way because her contact with Lola and some others and her familiarity with the ways of Naples had paid dividends in any number of investigations. But there was always someone in the ranks or in authority, like Marshal Cervino, who objected and invoked the Carabinieri’s strict rules against fraternization with what amounted to the enemy.

A lush buffet was laid out across a counter.

“What’s this?” Natalia asked.

“Brunch,” Lola announced. “We can’t go out, so I ordered in. Scrambled eggs. Champagne. Gnocchi slathered in sour cream. And caviar, five hundred euros an ounce, from Belarus.”

Onetta made a face. “Fish eggs.”

Lola said, “Good thing Mama’s not here. She wouldn’t approve of wasting money on food. She’d serve stale bread if she could get away with it.”

“My God, this is amazing,” Mariel said and held out a basket of popovers and
focaccio
.

“No, thanks.” Lola passed it to Natalia. “I’m forbidden to have carbs.”

Natalia took a roll. “You have a trainer?”

“The boyfriend. Guess where he’s taking me for a vacation? Monte Carlo. Thousand a night.”

“Sounds like lust,” Natalia said.

“Hope so,” Lola answered, checking her cleavage.

“Where do you get asparagus this time of year?” Mariel asked.

“Chile.” Lola ripped off a wedge of popover and took a bite. “So … what can we talk about in front of the Carabiniere?”

Mariel added food to her plate. “I have something,”

“Something exciting in books?” Lola said. “How likely is that?”

“I had dinner with someone.”

“Look, she’s blushing,” Lola said. “A man someone?”

“A book dealer.”

“Good-looking?”

“
Mezzo mezzo
—but nice.”

“Then he can’t be from here.”

“Milan.”

“Was I right, or was I right?” Lola picked up a plate, following Mariel down the line of food. “You sure he isn’t married?”

Natalia’s cell phone buzzed. She checked to see the caller. “Pino again.”

“There a rumor Pino knocked up one of the Gracci girls.”

“Shut up, Lola.” Mariel said.

“Is it true?”

Natalia bit her thumbnail. “Pino says not.”

Lola took out her Blackberry.

“Remember we agreed?” Mariel said.

“What? Agreed what?”

“No texting or talking on electronic devices during girl time.”

“I don’t know about you,
signora
, but I’m a working woman. Business doesn’t stop just because I’m shooting the shit with a couple of girlfriends during working hours.”

Someone knocked on the door, and Onetta went to answer. “Suzanna!” she exclaimed, “Come in, come in,” and quickly closed the door behind the new arrival.

Suzanna Ruttollo strode toward her once-upon-a-time schoolmates in an orange sundress, matching heels, gold flashing everywhere, including her hair, which was beautifully styled—short now and angled over one eye.

“Suzie!” Lola squealed and rushed to greet her. Suzanna beamed and took each of them in her arms in turn, Natalia last.

“I can’t believe it.” She held onto Natalia’s hand.

Suzanna looked better in her late thirties than she had at twenty. Skin smooth, no trace of the acne that once plagued her. Not even a hint of a wrinkle around the eyes. “Captain Monte,” she said with pride.

“Good to see you, Suzanna,” Natalia said, and they embraced again.

“My mother very much appreciated your kindness the other day at the rail station.”

“Not at all. How is her visit?”

“She’s having a wonderful time with the new baby and giving me grief that I never gave her the joy of a grandchild. Broke her heart that I never made more babies.”

“You don’t have anyone in your life?”

“A man? No.”

“There’s still time,” Lola said.

“No. It’s not going to happen for me.”

“Are you back for good?” Mariel said.

“Not completely. I’ve bought a place in Naples with a beautiful view of the bay. I’ll be staying with Mama for now. When it’s ready, you must come by and see it.”

“Terrific,” Mariel said.

“Nothing like seeing old friends,” Lola chimed in.

“Otherwise you’re in London?” Natalia said.

“London mostly. We have businesses in Germany and England.”

“Businesses?” Lola said. “Like what?”

“A variety. That’s the way to go, isn’t it? Pharmaceuticals. Chocolate. A line of women’s sports and casual wear. Oh, and jewelry shops. We’d like to open a flagship store here.”

“Good for you,” Mariel said.

Lola agreed.

Natalia looked into Suzanna’s grey eyes. “You’re out of the family business entirely?”

“From the time I left, yes. I’m on my own. Mama helped me along. But I’ve paid her back tenfold. We have five divisions now and last year acquired a couple of subsidiaries.”

“All of ’em legit?” Lola asked.

“Well …” Suzanna smiled enigmatically.

Natalia poured herself a glass of wine. “Missing London at all?”

“Only the theater. It’s quite nice to be … home. I’ve missed Naples actually.”

They spent the late morning reminiscing. Suzanna brought up the day they’d gone to the sliver of beach by the harbor just across Via Caracciolo. She, Mariel, Lola and Natalia were showing off their first bikinis. They’d eaten the egg sandwiches their mothers packed them and drunk wine from a thermos of an older boy in a black, cut-off T-shirt. Mariel read her latest
romanzo
, while Suzanna and Natalia sunbathed. Lola disappeared behind some rocks with the aspiring Lothario who had supplied the wine. They barely unlocked their embrace when he left to deliver pizzas, gunning his motor scooter on the walk above. Lola blew him a kiss, and he disappeared into traffic.

The girls had made their way to Mariel’s house, sunburned, caked with sand. Lola proudly reported she and the boy had finished the bottle. Then she showed off her hickey. Mariel’s parents were out of town at an art auction. Mariel opened a bottle of wine, and they each had a proper glass. Everyone got tipsy except Mariel, who was already served wine at dinner and used to it. On the other hand, when Natalia’s mother detected the alcohol on her daughter’s breath, she informed Natalia’s father. First she received a lecture on the proper behavior for a young lady and then was punished with a week’s isolation in the house after school.

The women were lingering over biscotti and limoncello at noon when Onetta’s old Swiss clock chimed the hour.

“Twelve,” Suzanna said, wistfully. “The coach turns into a pumpkin. I have to return to the world. This was great.”

“Yeah,” Lola said. “We’re back! Look at us together again. We gotta do this more.” She picked up her handbag. “Gotta go, gotta go.”

They kissed and departed one by one: Suzanna first, then Lola. Mariel and Natalia lingered a while longer.

“So what’s going on with Pino?” Mariel asked. “Sounds like he’s pursuing you with passion. Wish I was so lucky.”

“Thank your stars you’re not,” Natalia said. “Sometimes I think passion is overrated.”

“What was that Shakespeare said? Great passion cannot survive four walls?”

“If Pino and I ever get a chance for four walls and a few years, I’ll let you know.”

“For a simple follower of the Buddha, that boy gets himself tangled in a lot of complication.”

“That he does,” Natalia said. “The Buddha Way hasn’t seemed to work for him. Enough about my love life. Lola’s got a new beau.”

“Mmm. He bought her a mink coat.”

“Mama! Are they planning to relocate to Greenland?”

“You know her. She’ll ride around in a refrigerated limousine if she has to, to show it off. For a smart girl, sometimes I wonder why she parks her brains in neutral all the time.”

Natalia put her drink aside. “What did you make of Suzanna?”

“Quite turned out, that one. An accomplished business woman from the look of her.”

“Clothing. Jewelry. Chocolates.”

“I wonder what’s in the centers,” Mariel said. “Cocaine?”

“I wonder what she has in mind to do here.”

“You don’t buy visiting mom?”

“No.”

Mariel slipped on her jacket. “Do you think we’ll always have to meet clandestinely, like characters in a fairy tale?”

“Until our friends get out of the rackets.”

“The twelfth of never.”

They slipped out the door together.

“Em,” Natalia said, “did Suzanna ever divorce Ernesto Scavullo?”

“I don’t believe so. No divorce, no annulment.”

Natalia bit her lip. “Either one could have paid the usual gift to the Church fathers for a favorable judgment and dissolved it. But they didn’t.”

“Well, for all the push-up bras and other challenges she posed to the nuns, Suzanna remained faithful and observant. Ernesto, too, was religious, remember?”

“Yeah,” Natalia said. “Didn’t he regularly send his maker fresh souls to judge?”

“Doesn’t he still?”

The friends said their goodbyes.

Natalia sauntered along Tribunali. She stopped to buy some fresh cherries. Suzanna, she mused, as the vendor weighed her fruit and threw in a few extra for good measure. Back in Naples to look after her mama. Right. What if the devoted daughter had returned to claim the territory she had left in shame years ago? Get back at Ernesto. And the others.

Funny the way Lola was cozying up to Suzanna at the beauty parlor just then. Who would have guessed? It was weird—how much Lola had hated her, insanely jealous when they were young, and now … But if you looked at it another way, maybe it wasn’t so strange.

In the competition between the two women, for a while Lola had been ahead. While Suzanna had suffered exile, Lola gave birth to two beautiful children. And she had Frankie, who’d been nothing if not generous.

But the balance had shifted. Frankie slaughtered. And her beloved son. Businesswise, Lola had moved up the ranks partnering with Bianca Strozzi. But, face it, she worked in the shadow of her boss.

It was Suzanna who was ahead, controlling an increasingly large territory. An international star. And here she was back again in Lola’s face. And Lola being so nicey-nicey. That was out of character.

Lola was up to something. Befriend Suzanna as a prelude for getting rid of her? Possible. Or was it something else? Something Natalia didn’t want to contemplate.

What if her two old friends were planning to partner up? With Suzanna’s clout and Lola’s connections, they’d swallow Bianca’s empire easily as a python ingests a mouse. They’d be in position to muscle for control of Naples. For real. Up until now Natalia’s relationship with Lola had been a low-grade problem. But if her fears were founded, that would change. How could she do her job? Natalia was generally respected, even liked by her colleagues. But even now there were those who were jealous, those who would be more than happy to take her down.

Not Colonel Donati, obviously. He had her back. But even his protection could only go so far. And she couldn’t blame him.

If what she suspected were true, she would be tested. Cervino would be on her ass. Her calls would be taped. She would be followed.

And, more profoundly, she loved Lola. Aside from Mariel, she considered Lola her best friend in the world.

How would she cope with her old friends moving to the top of the Carabinieri’s Most Wanted list? Called on to look the other way as they bloodied the field. What would she do?

The officers on night duty ate Bolognese while they watched Naples trounce Brazil at the stadium in Rome. It was edible, Natalia had to concede, though barely. They could hear people singing and shouting in the street. Then the fireworks started and the cherry bombs, each packing the explosive power of a quarter of a stick of dynamite. One went off near the station, shaking the windows.