I punted open the passenger door of Cesare’s 1969 Bianchina 500, annoyed that a cab driver would own the tiny two-seater. “Could you get your tail feathers off me?”
Glenda observed an old two-story villa from the comfort of my lap. “I’d rather stay in the go-cart.”
I glanced at Cesare, who stood at the front door casting furtive glances in our direction as he conferred with a thirty-something male dressed in black. “Because a Mafia clan lives here?”
“It’s not that, sugar.” She waved her cigarette holder. “It’s too damn rustic. Where are the other houses and the restaurants and the stores?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been to the countryside.”
“Besides New Orleans and Rome, I’ve been to Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and Miami.”
All stripper hubs. “Well, I’d say it’s time to experience nature in the country, as opposed to a strip club.” I pushed her onto the driveway and catapulted my 5 feet 10 inches from the seat.
We were in Frascati on the outskirts of Rome, but the landscape looked like The Godfather scene when Michael Corleone dined with his future bride and her family outdoors in Sicily. There was even a long wooden table set for the midday meal, pranzo, on the side of the house.
An elderly woman in a plain black dress emerged from the villa and placed a large ceramic bowl on the table.
“Prego, venite.” She motioned for us to come.
Glenda and I obliged, and she filled our glasses with a fuchsia-colored liquid, presumably local wine. Then she removed a cloth from a basket filled with coarse bread.
It was one o’clock, and I hadn’t eaten anything since the cornetti Silvana had served. But even though I was starving, I refused to break bread with mobsters. All I wanted was to talk to the host. “Signora, potrei parlare con Don Peppino?”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her dark eyes. “Soon.”
I stared at her, stunned. What was it about my Italian that was no good?
A couple in their sixties exited the house. They looked like they’d taken a wrong turn on their way to the Royal Ascot racecourse, as evidenced by the man’s gray ascot and his consort’s matching feather fascinator.
“Good day.”
His English accent, not to mention his greeting, confirmed my suspicion.
He helped the lady into her chair, and then he took a seat. “I’m called Alistair, and this is my wife, Camilla.”
“I’m called Fr—” Why was I speaking British, and in Italy of all places? “I mean, my name is Franki, and this is my associate, Glenda.”
Camilla ignored me and gaped at Glenda. And her expression looked like her name sounded—royally uptight.
Glenda smiled and blew her a smoke heart.
I studied the pompous pair. Italian organized crime had infiltrated the United Kingdom, so it was possible they’d come on business pertaining to drugs or money laundering. “Are you related to Don Peppino?”
Camilla gave me a sovereign stare. “We’re English.”
Glenda’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t it nice that we’re in Italy together? And with our feathers, you and I are practically twins.”
Camilla choked on her wine.
But Alistair grinned. “Yes, quite.”
A young woman in a low-cut red dress pushed an elderly man in a wheelchair toward us. His legs were visibly frail beneath a plaid blanket, and I wondered whether his paralysis was related to his profession.
“Ah, Don Peppino.” Alistair rubbed his hands together. “Now we can eat.”
Our host arrived at the head of the table and surveyed his guests through empty black eyes offset by a double set of dark, swollen bags. He gave a slight nod of his cement-shaped head.
Alistair dove for the pasta alla carbonara, which taunted me with its odor of pancetta.
Don Peppino picked up a platter and offered it to Glenda.
“Why thank you, Donny.” She leaned in close. “I like eggplant.”
He leered at her chest. “I like too.”
That exchange made it easy not to eat. I took a sip of wine and realized it was liqueur.
“Strawberry drink-a.” The Don pointed to my glass. “Fragolino.”
Glenda swallowed a sip and made a show of licking her lips. “This would be dynamite in Sex on the Beach or a Strawberry Stripper.”
Camilla’s face turned as gray as her fascinator.
And Don Peppino’s eyes popped. “You stay gratis. On-a the ‘ouse.”
“Stay?” I looked at the Brits. “What kind of place is this?”
Camilla tossed her napkin on the table like she’d thrown down the gauntlet. “That’s precisely what I was about to ask my husband.”
Alistair speared a slice of salame. “It’s an agriturismo.”
“A farm stay?” I translated.
Glenda shot me a shame-on-you look. “And you said this was a Mafia hideout.”
A silenzio ensued.
Nevertheless, I grabbed the pasta and served myself a helping now that it was no longer off limits. “Hilarious, isn’t she?”
But no one was laughing, especially not Don Peppino.
I decided to get to the point of our visit before we got the boot. But not before I downed a forkful of pasta and slipped a piece of bread in my purse. “We already have a place to stay. We’re looking for two young men.” I pulled up pictures of David and the vassal on my phone and showed them to the table. “They came here on Saturday afternoon.”
“They buy bread, prosciutto, and cacio.” The Don hooked his thumbs into his suspenders. “I give strawberry drink-a for gift.”
It was common for Italians to give a gift as a thank you for a large purchase. But I wondered whether the boys had understood that fragolino was alcoholic. They didn’t drink, so the booze would have hit them like a brick. “Where did they go after they left?”
“My son Gaetano take to catacombs.” He revealed a row of fierce false teeth. “It’s nice-a place for picnic.”
Horror filled my chest at the mention of the ancient Roman burial grounds, and it wasn’t only because he’d suggested eating in them. There were forty known catacombs underneath Rome, and they were hundreds of miles long. People had been known to disappear in them.
Never to be seen again.