His BlackBerry beeped and he frowned, hands on hips.
There were no phones in the house, no landlines, anyway. Jason detested them. Always ringing at inconvenient times, bringing news he either didn’t want to hear or didn’t care about. There was no need on the island anyway. It wasn’t as if he had to call ahead for a dinner reservation at either of the two trattoria. If he showed up, they were glad to see him. If he needed to speak to his housekeeper or one of her cousins, grandchildren, or in-laws who comprised his staff when they were off duty, he got on a bicycle and rode to their nearby house.
Since Maria’s arrival and subsequent business trips, he had agreed to the BlackBerry. She was the only one who had his e-mail address. Her infrequent messages lessened the burden of her absences.
No doubt it was Maria e-mailing. What the hell time was it in Hawaii, anyway?
Jason stepped into the relative cool of the villa’s interior, where the sunlight would not make the tiny screen difficult to read.
At first, he thought he was not seeing what was clearly printed: COME TO MOMMA. NAPLES A’PT 0800 TOMORROW.
Jason glanced over his shoulder as though he suspected someone might be watching the fulfillment of what might have been a wish. Mephistopheles never sleeps. His first reaction was to return text something short and obscene. That didn’t work. UNABLE TO TRANSMIT appeared on the screen just as he knew it would.
“Fuckers!” he snorted.
Pangloss opened one eye.
How the hell had they known how to contact him? Why now?
He went to a seventeenth-century buffet deux corps, fussed with the iron latch, and opened the bottom doors. Removing a half-full bottle of Antinori Solaia 2006, he fumbled with the recorking mechanism and poured himself a generous glass before crossing the room to sprawl onto a couch.
The heavy Tuscan red would have gone well with the mustard flavor of a lamb dish or the garlic of roasted pork loin, two of Jason’s favorites once winter’s chill replaced the heat of summer. To hell with the seasons. At the moment, he wanted something thick, almost viscous.
Pangloss got up, stretched again, and came over to sit in front of him, brown eyes looking into Jason’s from a cocked head.
“So, what are your thoughts on the matter?”
If he had any, Pangloss kept them to himself.
Jason took a healthy swallow of wine, the hearty red sticking to the back of his tongue for a moment. Almost instantly, his anger faded along with the lingering taste. Drinking during the day usually put him to sleep or at least made him drowsy. He wasn’t thinking about that. He had been angry that the wall of privacy, if not secrecy, he had taken so much trouble to erect had been breached.
But, his logical mind interrupted: You were just thinking about the good old days and how bored you are.
“Maybe so,” Jason said aloud, “but I don’t think they’ve perfected mind-reading. At least, not yet.”
“Mi dispiace?”
Gianna, his housekeeper, was standing in the doorway, a plate in her hand. From what he could see, his lunch would consist of frutti di mare freddo: octopus thinly sliced and tender, prawns, clams, and squid, all served cold. Sometimes it included a half l’aragosta—small warm-water lobster. The dish was one of his favorites.
“Prego.”
The Italian word that means everything from “quickly” to “pardon me” to “you’re welcome.”
He pointed to a long oak table, a piece he had rescued from the refectory of a Umbrian monastery. Gianna lifted an eyebrow as she noted the red wine. Jason rarely had alcohol with lunch. Even on the occasions he did, he invariably had a single beer or a glass of a Gaja, a buttery Piemonte white.
Jason managed a smile as he took the plate from her and pointedly said, “Grazie.”
He waited until she left the room before he sat down. He was immediately joined by a ball of orange fur that plopped down on the table from nowhere. Robespierre, the cat. Robbie, as he was known, never slunk into a room with the hauteur common to felines. He dropped from something, pounced, dashed, or exploded like a missile.
“Never see you till there’s food on the table,” Jason observed, moving the plate away. “Fine friend you are.”
Robbie licked a paw, pretending not to care. Jason knew that trick: the minute his attention was distracted a good part of his seafood lunch would disappear.
The cat had simply appeared in Jason’s villa, origins and return address unknown. The only thing clear was that the animal had come in a very distant last in some feline dispute. Half an ear was missing, as was a good bit of fur and skin. The creature was so pitiful that Jason, not a cat lover, felt compelled to take him to the local undertaker who, in absence of a medical doctor, served as the community’s physician and veterinarian. After their first encounter, Pangloss and Robespierre had reached a tenuous truce if not a friendship. The association involved no effort on Jason’s part other than vigilance at the dining table. Besides, since no one really owns a cat, how do you get rid of one?
His logical mind returned to the text message. So, it persisted, you were feeling deserted, bored, and generally sorry for yourself. Then, like a genie in a bottle, along they come and you get pissed off because your precious privacy has been violated. Jeez, give me break!
Jason methodically peeled a prawn and began to chew. Robespierre still feigned indifference.
So?
So, I promised Maria I was through with them. No more killing, no more violence.
That’s not exactly what you promised.
Oh?
She left you after that episode in Sicily when you fed that terrorist to a feral hog….
Actually, it was in Sardinia.
OK, Sardinia. She left you because she couldn’t stand violence. If she’s not here, she won’t be exposed to anything that’s distasteful to her. What you promised was that if she stayed with you, you’d give up working for them and you did. Now she’s not here.
I doubt she’ll see it that way.
I doubt she’ll see it at all. If you can do a job and be back here before she is …
Jason started on the cold slices of octopus, took a bite, and put his fork down. Mozart was starting over. He stood, moved Robbie to the floor, crossed the room, and changed CDs, switching to a Mendelssohn. Son of a German philosopher, the composer’s sonatas had a logical cadence helpful in resolving moral dilemmas.
He finished his meal without further intrusion.
True, with Maria gone, he was bored. Also true, she could be gone for a month or more. He hadn’t been off this rock in … He couldn’t remember. What was the harm in catching the early hydrofoil, meeting someone at the Naples airport? He could always walk away, spend the day at Italy’s finest archaeological museum and be back by dinnertime.
He would not have liked to explain why he put his paints away and began to search the villa for a suitcase.
As the cab from the next morning’s ferry climbed above the harbor that is Naples’s front door, the twin humps of Vesuvius marred the western horizon like a malignant wart. Jason remembered the observation station on the slopes of the volcano, now largely a museum, where Maria had worked and where the last part of what he recalled as the “Hades matter” had begun.
Maria.
The thought had returned that morning as he regarded his face in the shaving mirror. What kind of a guy promises the woman he loves to abandon his previous life and then goes back on his word as soon as she’s gone?