20

ROBERT MICHAELS SAT in the misty pungency of Mrs. Santorelli's kitchen watching the portly woman stir pasta sauce with a wooden spoon. She shuffled around in worn slippers, offering benign smiles when she looked at him, winking at him as she tasted the sauce from her wooden spoon.

Because of the heat, he had stripped down to his T-shirt. Yet he had chosen to sit in the kitchen rather than the cooler living room because he did not want to be alone. Not that he and Mrs. Santorelli had much to say to each other. Her frame of reference was only that of her dead husband, the sainted Giovanni, and almost no sentence escaped her mouth without a reference to what her Giovanni used to say.

When he was not watching Mrs. Santorelli's movements in front of her old-fashioned gas range, his eyes drifted to the black and white television set on her Formica kitchen table. From where he sat, he could also see Angelo, the Pencil, sitting at the dining-room table speaking softly into the black telephone. The heat did not faze him. In fact, little fazed him. He seemed to be a man wearing blinders, his eyes wandering only as far as his little notes, which he consulted periodically, after which he dialed a number and whispered into the phone.

Agitation and frustration had given way to helplessness. He felt childlike, half-made, ravaged by the triple demons of guilt, uncertainty, and depression.

"Not to worry," Angelo had assured him.

It was only when he heard the first announcement on television that the enormity of the act blasted into his consciousness. To hear it in this manner, stark and blatant, shattered his hopes.

"Madness," he said aloud. Angelo had looked at him and frowned. It was a conclusion he had not allowed himself to make during the planning stages. Salvatore had made it seem so simple, so logical. We will take the President hostage and not give him up until Maria and Joey are released. An eye for an eye.

Now he blamed himself for encouraging it to happen. Not that he could have stopped the vaunted Padre from doing anything.

"They will surely kill them now," he sighed. By then, Angelo merely ignored him. Robert knew why. There was no role for a Cassandra in the organization. Not now or ever. They were simply geared to believe that they could perform the impossible.

Mrs. Santorelli began to slap meat into meatballs, clapping her hands around the little globs of beef as if she were cheering the tenor in some Verdi opera. It was such an incongruous sight, he could not, despite his gloom, keep himself from smiling.

At that moment Rocco burst in the door. He was out of breath, sweating from walking two flights. He grunted in Robert's direction, passing him to where Angelo was sitting in the dining room. Robert listened as the men spoke in low tones.

"The Pole," Rocco, the Talker, said.

"Again," Angelo said. "We trashed his trucks."

"He still makes trouble."

"It was not enough of a message," the Pencil said.

"No."

"Not a warning this time," the Pencil said. "He has made his bed."

The Talker nodded. The Pencil made a note.

"Something to do with Salvatore?" Robert asked. He knew better, but needed to ask the question.

"Just business," the Pencil said. The Talker grunted.

"You're going to have a man killed, aren't you?"

They both looked at him, ignoring his question.

"Considering what we're involved with now—" Robert pointed to the television set "—how can you, it boggles the mind."

"It is business, Robert," Rocco said in a gravelly voice.

"It is the Padre's orders," the Pencil said, "to conduct business."

Robert did not expect an answer. He felt imprisoned in a value system that he could never really understand.

Rocco moved into the kitchen. Mrs. Santorelli looked up and nodded a greeting.

"You want some, Rocco?" she asked.

"Later," he said. His expression was dark and gloomy. For a moment he looked at the television set.

"It was a stupid idea," Robert said testily.

Rocco glowered at the television, then left.

Luigi came into the apartment without knocking. He looked agitated. His face was red and he, too, was sweating.

"They know. The FBI is everywhere, even in the restaurant."

"Did you think it would be a secret?" Robert said sarcastically.

"But the Padre is inside the White House," Luigi said, after he had cooled down. "Right in the bonanz. You'll see, they will succeed." He looked at Robert, then bent over and patted his hand. "Your Maria and Joey will be coming home soon."

"Blind faith," Robert said. Inside himself, he was churning. Did he feel pride in his father-in-law's incredible achievement? It was awesome, beyond madness.

Mrs. Santorelli slid the meatballs from a wooden board into a pot of boiling water. Something in the act panicked him, as if she were throwing bits of Maria and Joey into the pot. He imagined their pain and felt it himself.

"Those people are animals," Luigi said, watching the television screen. They saw images of the dead after a recent airport terrorist attack.

Mrs. Santorelli muttered something in Italian.

"What did she say?" Robert asked Luigi.

"'Without a heart, they will lose every time.' An old Italian saying."

Considering what he had heard earlier, he did not savor the irony.

"We are all flesh and blood," he whispered. It was then that the idea occurred to him. With the all-seeing media eye focused on the issue of hostage-taking, perhaps the time had come for another bold step. He would get on television. Surely he would be a commodity of news value, the son-in-law of the man who held the President hostage. He would make an appeal, let the world see a husband and father's anguish. Appeal to the hostage-takers, to his father-in-law, to the world. He would certainly have their attention.

Suddenly his interest was drawn back to the television set. The commentator was making an announcement: "Another American hostage has been murdered."

"Oh my God," Robert shouted.

"We have been provided with these tapes, distributed by the group calling itself the Islamic Jihad," the commentator continued. "They are not for the squeamish."

Mrs. Santorelli turned from her pots. The Pencil came in from the living room to watch the television set.

On the screen was a man sitting on a chair in a barren room, his face bearded, his eyes glazed and fearful. Beside were two smiling young men waving weapons. Suddenly they leveled their guns and took aim at the man's body. There was a burst of silent gunfire. The man's body bounced in a macabre St. Vitus dance. Then, bloody and riddled with bullets, the body slumped to the floor in a gruesome closeup.

Robert ran to the bathroom, knelt beside the toilet, and vomited.