45
Como’s clothing stores smelled of crushed flowers and oiled wood panels and money. Julio thought the prices were gun-to-the-head high. As in, three hundred dollars for a shirt.
Elizabeth might have been semi-poor, but she was the right lady for the day. He knew this because, when she pulled out a pair of pants by Ungaro and he caught sight of the price, then converted it from Euros into dollars and got ready to holler, Elizabeth gave him a tiny slit of the icy gaze. Julio caught the message in a flash. Suck it up, big boy. You’re playing with the major leaguers now.
Elizabeth guided him through the purchase of two complete outfits—one in grey and the other in midnight blue—from shoes to cashmere sweaters, then made him wear the greys out of the store. Truth be told, he would have gone for a little more color and a lot less severe. But then she hiked up his shirt collar enough to hide all but the top line of his neck tattoo, smiled for real, and said, “You clean up good, ese.”
There were worse ways to spend a rainy day.
They stopped for a stand-up meal of toasted sandwiches and fresh-squeezed orange juice and the finest cup of coffee Julio had ever tasted. As they were finishing, he said, “Can I ask a favor?”
Elizabeth instantly got that locked-and-loaded set to her features. Ready to shoot him with those ice bullets of hers, straight to the heart. But all she said was, “Sure, Julio. Ask away.”
“It sounds like anybody who wants to do this thing, they work as a team. Am I right?”
“You’re talking about ascending?”
“That’s the deal. Will you do it with me?”
She hesitated. “Not everybody can handle it.”
“Hey, I’ve taken off on a twenty-foot Puerto Rican rocket. I can handle anything.”
“Everybody knows you’ve got the goods. There are other ways to help out than doing a kamikaze dive off the deep end of reality.”
“No, I mean it. I want to get out there, shoot myself out of their cannon. I can’t tell you why. But it calls to me.” The words came faster now in the face of possible denial. “I used to feel that way about the waves. Wake up before dawn, lie there, knowing the sound I hear isn’t thunder. Monster waves, just waiting to chew my bones. Waves big enough to kill. But I go out there anyway, because I feel the hunger and the power and the thrill, and I know I can handle this thing. I lost that hunger somewhere. Don’t ask me how. But it’s gone. Now it’s back. I hear this thing calling to me. This ascent. I want to do it.”
Elizabeth gave him a long look, then said, “Let’s get out of here.”
Which just about did it for their one moment of intimacy. “Sure thing.”
Julio paid and they left the café and he opened the umbrella, half expecting her to draw away. But she fell into step beside him, their shoulders touching. When they reached the lakefront, she said, “I can’t ascend. I tried and I failed. It felt like I was trapped inside a straitjacket.”
She stayed silent on the road that wound around the lake. Julio figured it was her way of saying he needed to go ask somebody else. And there was no reason for him to feel as disappointed as he did.
But when they settled into the funicular for the ride back up to Brunate, she said so softly he almost missed the words, “I could feel something clenched all around me.”
“What?”
“My anger. It felt like I was wrapped in red-hot barbed wire.”
“Whoa.”
“It was worse than awful, Julio.” She looked at him, revealing the horror behind the ice. “I still have nightmares.”
He read the warning written in her gaze. “That could be me.”
She did not nod so much as rock. Forward and back. Once.
They stayed like that for a while. Caught in the realization that they shared a lot more than either had expected.
Finally Julio said, “I need to at least try to do this thing.”
“I understand.”
“Will you help me?”
“Yes. On one condition.” It seemed more than the altitude made breathing hard for her. “I want to try it again. I’ve wanted it ever since that day.”
“So let’s do it, girl. Together. First me and then you.”
Another slow rocking forward. “Okay.”
Julio leaned back in his seat. “You know what this reminds me of? My first tow-in. The larger the wave, the more water rushes up the face. It gets to a certain size, you can’t paddle over the lip. You’ve got to be towed in behind Jet Skis. I was surfing a coral ridge off Tres Palmas in Puerto Rico. We’re talking maybe twenty-five, thirty feet. Strong offshores. Barrels so big you could park a train inside. The sound of those waves breaking was this constant rip, like they tore holes in the world. I could feel the sound in my chest.”
Elizabeth had that look in her eyes again, letting him see down below the iced surface, down deep to where the real woman lived. “But you did it, right? You went.”
“That’s the rule of the jungle, baby. Go for it.”
She linked up with him as they left the funicular and started toward the villa. The air was a lot colder up top, and the wind was strong enough to blow the rain under his umbrella. But Elizabeth did not seem to mind. Instead, as they made the final turn to the road leading to the villa, she said, “I’m glad we could do this today, Julio. Really, really glad.”
He was still working on a halfway decent response to that little gift when he caught sight of the cars. And the men seated inside.
Four men in each car. Straight off the same block as the group that had attacked out of the night and the rain.
Julio said, “Take the bags.”
“What?”
“We’re being watched. Do what I say. I’m gonna slip my arm in yours. Lay on you some sappy lines. No, girl, don’t look at the car. Look at me. That’s good.”
He wiped the rain from his face, not surprised to find his fingers were jumping to the same tune as his warbly voice. He linked his arm through hers, and the heat of that fine body steadied him enough to say, “When we get to the gatehouse, I’m going to kiss you.”
“Julio—”
“Wait, now, listen to what I’m saying. You’re going to slap me as hard as you can. Then you take off for the house. Alone. Here we go.” He pitched his voice up a notch as they passed the car, talking trash he didn’t bother to hear himself.
He felt the eyes drilling into him as he sauntered up to the villa’s entrance. Swung her around. Caught Elizabeth’s fear and defiance and tight anger. But she was a player. Oh yeah. She let him move in and watched him lower his face to hers. He tasted the honey of warm lips and cold, cold rain. And for a moment, one long shared heartbeat, he gave himself in to the pleasure of kissing her.
It almost made up for the English she put into her swing.
He staggered back toward the funicular, rubbing his face, amazed she hadn’t taken the skin off.
He could hear the men in the car laughing.
The tension in the two cars carried a deadly force. The four men in each vehicle had been intentionally mixed together. They knew each other, but none had worked together before. Especially not on a hit. In public. In what passed for broad daylight, in this season of perpetual tempest.
Half the crew were the Prince’s men. Half came from the man who controlled Como’s action. These men had arrived filled with their capo’s angry grief over losing his favorite nephew and heir apparent. The Prince and the uncle had appeared together with the strange blonde American woman, and together they had passed on the instructions. Attack the villa. Kill any opposition. Seize all who surrender. The more they captured alive, the higher their reward. But no one could escape.
Then came the astonishment.
They were to get in position. Work out precisely who was to do what. Climb from the two cars. Cock their guns. Then phone the American woman for the final green light.
If she said go, they had their orders.
If she said stand down, they were to return to the cars and back off.
If any of their crew started to attack the villa after being ordered to stand down, the rest of the team were to shoot him dead.
The men in the front car watched as a pretty woman with a very cold face walked past them. She was accompanied by a guy who was clearly much younger. The kid was talking a mile a minute in English. The man in the front passenger seat, the appointed leader of the two crews, cracked his window a notch. The kid was saying something about getting together later, he knew this great club, they could meet up with some friends, hit the scene. The woman said nothing. Her features were very tight, almost angry.
Then the kid leaned in and kissed her.
The men in the car laughed in unison as the woman hauled back and slapped the kid hard enough to shoot him halfway across the street.
The kid was still rubbing his face and gawking at the villa’s entrance long after the woman disappeared. Then he turned and stumbled back toward the funicular station.
The leader gave it another fifteen minutes. Then he pushed open his door and said, “Call the lady. We move out.”