Death al Dente (22 page)

“In due course, I can get to that,” he said with an unpleasant grin. “For now”—he looked meaningfully at me—”it’s just orders. That’s all, just orders.”

“Orders from whom?” In Italian, the grammar was not in question. “At least, I deserve to know that.” I did want to know, though the desire to keep him talking, to stall as long as I could, was more important.

He was not a believer in last requests. He ignored my question. “Over there.” He motioned to the far end of the kitchen, wreathed in darkness. I obeyed quickly, the vague thought that the darkness might offer a hiding place. I obeyed so quickly in fact that it took him unawares. I hurried past the racks of dishes with the intention of separating myself from Francesca, keeping us apart so as to make it as difficult for him as I could. I was rounding the end of the bench when I saw ahead of me one of the wooden-slatted platforms that chefs place on the concrete floors to stand on while working.

“Slowly!” he said harshly.

I paused, put my hand on the corner of the bench top as I half turned. He was coming towards me and I moved my hand. His eyes flickered to it, looking to see if I was reaching for something to use as a weapon. There was nothing there on the scrubbed wooden surface, and he grinned mirthlessly. Francesca stopped too, a few paces behind me.

He waved the automatic for me to go on towards the dark alcove. I could only presume that he had made some preparations there for our disposal, but I didn’t want to speculate on what they might be.

I went on, trailing my hand on the bench top as I turned the corner, trusting that he was looking at my hand and not at the floor.

He kicked the edge of the slatted platform just as I had hoped and almost fell, saving himself only with a grab at the table with his left arm.

I might not have another chance. I had spotted a row of iron skillets on a rack above and I snatched the nearest and swung at him. It missed his head but hit him on the right bicep as he was pulling himself to his feet. His fingers instinctively let go of the automatic and it clattered to the floor. Francesca took a step forward to run and pick it up but he lunged for it. He dropped his hand flat on the gun, pinning it to the floor.

He was a cool customer. Where most would have scrambled to get a grip on the gun, he kept it there, his hand covering it while he sized up our relative positions. Francesca and I were seven or eight feet apart so he had to look from one to the other. An evil smile came over his face as he slowly fumbled to get the gun into his hand, keeping his eyes on us and not giving in to the temptation to look down at the gun.

I edged to my left, widening the space between Francesca and me, increasing the angle between us. He had to turn his head further now to look from one to the other, but as he did, he was palming the gun. He was having to do it with his left hand, and I had noticed that he had held it in his right before. Most people are one-handed and have a strong preference for the favored hand. Gambling on him being that way, I guessed that he would rather shoot me with his right hand, so I watched breathlessly as he scooped up the gun.

I took another step to the left. I had guessed correctly, he switched the gun to the other hand and as he did so I threw the skillet at him. Heavy iron skillets are not easy to throw and I had no time to wind up a swing. It sailed through the air in a lazy arc and he sneered as it dipped to fall on the concrete floor in front of him.

The sneer promptly disappeared as the skillet bounced once on its handle and rebounded to hit him on the shin. He winced but held on to the gun. In that half second, I had taken another step and banged against a bench. I glanced at it swiftly—there must be something there. A knife was what I hoped for, but I knew kitchens too well to really expect one. They are always kept in racks on the wall, where they are safer than left lying on a flat surface.

He was facing me across the end of the bench and the blow on the shinbone had not improved his temper. He muttered something I did not hear, but it sounded profane. He raised the gun and took aim. His manner was smoothly professional.

The crash of the gun was. deafening in the confines of the kitchen. Echoes rolled from saucepans to stew pots and bounced down from the low ceiling. A stack of plates shivered and some glasses rattled in a dishwasher.

He stood staring at me, his expression threatening. The reverberations were still rolling when there was another explosion.

At the second shot, the man jerked visibly and his gun arm sagged. His legs gave way and his mouth opened in almost comical incredulity. He crumpled to his knees and he was still staring at me. His torso folded and he toppled forward to crash facedown on the concrete, the automatic still in his hand.

Francesca stood there, her hand still inside her bag. A whiff of smoke spiraled up from it. Two patches of blood were spreading rapidly on the man’s back and she looked down at them scornfully. The look on her face was almost frightening. She could probably have shot a whole platoon if her ammunition had held out.

She looked ruefully at her handbag. There was a large ragged hole in the bottom of it, the fiber edges still smoking.

“It’s usual to take the gun out before firing it,” I commented.

“There wasn’t time,” she said simply. She lifted the bag and examined it. “I paid three hundred thousand lire for this.”

“Maybe you can get it repaired.”

She gave a choking laugh, dropped the bag, and threw herself into my arms.

When Cataldo arrived, we had every light in the restaurant blazing. He looked at the body.

“You are running up a high death rate here,” he commented.

“I was right to insist on having a gun, wasn’t I, Carlo?” Francesca asked pertly.

He grunted a grudging acquiescence.

“It was a good idea to give me a license too,” she added.

He examined the body and then the gun. He sniffed my hands and then Francesca’s. We told him exactly what had happened and he listened without comment. The investigation team started arriving in ones and twos and he nodded to them to go ahead. To us, he said, “Let’s take a look down here,” and we went in the direction of the dark alcove where we had been headed.

Two very large black plastic sacks and a garbage wagon on wheels were there, and Francesca gave a look, a shudder, and turned away. An older detective with years of experience written all over his face came up and said something to Cataldo in a low voice. The captain nodded thanks.

“One of my detectives recognized your assailant,” he told us. “His name is Perruchio—he has a long criminal record.” He glanced at Francesca. “Thanks to you, it won’t get any longer.”

“After your phone call, I thought we were safe,” I said with a touch of acerbity.

“I did too,” Cataldo admitted. “I didn’t think a replacement for Spezzano could be found that quickly.”

“Yes, that was a bad mistake, wasn’t it?” I commented.

He looked at me quickly.

Francesca frowned. “Mistake? Whose mistake?”

“You already know, don’t you?” I asked Cataldo.

He was studying me with a quizzical expression, cautiously assessing what he was going to say.

“Two ex-convicts and Desmond Lansdown’s assistant. It’s obvious now when you put those together,” I said.

The vestige of a satisfied smile was beginning to spread over his face.

“But you don’t have quite enough evidence,” I suggested.

He smiled and his strong, bronzed face lit up.

“Between us, we can conclude this case!” His voice was triumphant.

Francesca looked from Cataldo to me and back again.

“Will you two tell me what you are talking about?”

I
TALVIN, AS IT IS
known, is the biggest wine fair in Italy and perhaps in Europe. It is the showcase of the wine industry and only open to persons in the trade, but it was child’s play for a man with Cataldo’s influence to get tickets for Francesca and me.

Situated in the gently rolling countryside south of Vicenza, five massive pavilions housed booths where over five hundred vineyards offered sample tasting of their wares. We signed in—Cataldo had arranged it all—and we were given large badges which identified us as representatives of some organization with several bewildering initials. Francesca glanced at them and nodded, satisfied that she could answer questions about our supposed status. We strolled down the first aisle, admiring the work that had gone into the display boards and backdrops. In one, rows of vines stood out in almost three-dimensional green against the brown soil, and a spectacular old castle converted into a mansion stood proudly on top of a hill. Some had only posters on the wall, some had racks of bottles and boards covered with colorful labels.

The banquet was to be at eight o’clock but Cataldo had asked us to be there early and suggested that we spend the time in the wine pavilions. It was a proposal not to be declined, and Francesca noted I was having a hard time controlling my salivation.

“You can’t wait to do some tasting, can you?”

“It would be unfair to all these vintners who have spent so much time—”

“Let’s try this one.”

The Italian wine industry is the most baffling and infuriating in Europe. It can delight and excite but it can also exasperate and disappoint. Great names such as Soave, Frascati, and Verdicchio have been abused by overproduction, and this is a shame because the country has an infinite variety of climate, landscape, and soil. Over a thousand grape varieties mean a treasure trove of rare and original wine tastes—in theory. The planting of too many inferior but high-yielding clones has resulted in an ocean of cheap, cheerless mouthwash.

Signs of the tide turning are encouraging, though. Chianti has been brought back from the depths of mediocrity and investment in replanting, modern equipment, and the right clones continues to grow.

The Casa Vinicola Montello had a stand being run by the elderly Signor Montello himself, aided by his two sons and his daughter and a twenty-year-old grandson. Many of the stands here belonged to family-owned and operated vineyards, Francesca told me. Some had been forced to sell to the big-name producers but others like this one steadfastly continued the family tradition.

“Taste this,” urged the daughter. It was a Mammolo, an ancient variety of red rarely encountered. She poured less than an inch into a large bulb-shaped glass that would hold half a liter. “It keeps in the bouquet for tasting purposes,” she explained. It had a delicate perfume and a rare balance of lean elegance and almost smoky fruit. They were trying to develop a business in up-market reds, aware that they would have to sell at higher prices than they would get for table wines but the decision was influenced by their limited production.

“Let’s find some whites,” Francesca said and we stopped at La Pergola Giuliano Agricola. Like most booths, it consisted of a counter like a bar with various open bottles. Boxes and crates stood behind the bar ready to replenish the supply. Giuliano himself, stocky and a true son of the soil, was beaming with pleasure and pouring from his selection of Sauvignon, Pinot Bianco, Pviesling Renano, Nebbiolo, Tocai Friulano, and Chardonnay. Francesca particularly liked the Pinot Bianco. “Let’s find some more of that,” she said.

It was no problem. We found many more—and then many more. We talked to vintners, some old and some young, some sedately traditional and some progressive, some optimistic and some pessimistic. One had sold his vineyard, gone into real estate development, then returned and bought the vineyard back. Another had been to California, marveled at the technological razzle-dazzle of Napa Valley, but come back to his drab cellars in the foothills of the Alps and continued to make wine just as before.

“It’s as well they only give us a few milliliters of each wine to taste.” Francesca commented.

“In total volume, we’ve only drunk about a bottle,” I assured her.

Prices were not displayed anywhere. A prospective buyer could ask and negotiate but this noticeable lack of one aspect of commercialism at least was refreshing.

We tasted some Merlot, another wine that has suffered not only from overproduction but also from its high yield which has attracted “pirate” vineyards to produce blends with inferior wines, a practice that is illegal.

This wine has the recurrent problem of the intrusion of a blackberry flavor. A modest amount is essential to Merlot’s rich mellowness, but just a little too much and the blackberries grab you by the taste buds. It is a popular wine in Italy as Italians rate it as the perfect accompaniment to robust pasta dishes.

A small drinking group had already emptied several bottles which a smiling young man hastily disposed of to make room for us. The group was bewailing the legal entanglements of the wine industry. “There are too many laws,” the young man protested.

“That’s not just the wine trade,” interjected an older man. “It’s the same everywhere you look in this country. Rules, regulations, statues, canons, decrees, acts, charters—only a lawyer could understand them and most of them don’t. How could they? A lot of laws may be five hundred years old but others were passed only last week. They don’t have time even to read all of them.”

It was a comment I had heard repeated many times in Italy. The conclusion usually reached at the end of such discussions was that if all the laws were applied, the entire country would be paralyzed. Most of this assembly wanted to talk about the wine industry, though, and the strangulation effect of too many rules and regulations. “In the Middle Ages,” contributed another, “table wines were flavored with herbs and spices. This is now illegal—it is prohibited by law—”

“Unless you are making vermouth,” called out someone from the end of the bar. “Then you can salvage wines that couldn’t be sold otherwise.” There were rueful laughs at the truth of this. Wine producers in Italy particularly are angry because wines from a bad harvest are used in vermouth, which then becomes saleable.

On the next aisle, we ran into Bernardo, plant and flower chef
straordinario,
and his demure wife, Vanessa. He was a little more somber than even his usual eremitic self. He told us he was still concerned about the shadow cast over his style of cooking and his use of natural ingredients. “There have never been any dangerous products in my cooking,” he stated firmly.