Divas (43 page)

Still holding his hands, she made him look at her through sheer force of will, her brown eyes boring into him until he raised his head and returned her gaze.

‘You’ll never be safe from her, ’ she said. ‘Like you said yourself, you’re just a hired hand. It’s about the money. She doesn’t expect any loyalty from
you – she’s bought your testimony, that’s all. What’s to stop you having an accident a couple of months after you’ve testified, just to make sure you don’t
change your story? I’m sure Rico’s arranged plenty of accidents for people over the years.’

His eyes widened so much that she could see the whites all around his irises.

‘If you take our side, you’ll be safe, ’ she insisted. ‘We haven’t killed anyone. And you know how powerful the Van der Veers are. They can protect you. Anything it
takes.’

His hands relaxed under hers. And she knew then that she had him.

‘Sign the contract, Joe, come on, ’ she coaxed, her voice soft, gentle, a total contrast to Carin, her enemy. ‘A million euros, for telling the truth. And powerful people to
protect you for the rest of your life. Please. Do it. Sign the contract.’

He drew his hands away from hers, and she thought with horror that she had read him all wrong, that he was going to say no.

And just as she thought she would burst into tears of frustration and despair, he reached for the fountain pen, picked it up, and scrawled his name at the base of the first contract.

‘W
e celebrate, Evie!’ Mario said joyously as they tumbled back down the stairs, so jubilant that the stench and the pools of liquid
barely bothered them. ‘I take you to the best restaurant in Rome! You like the
carciofi
, the artichokes? We are famous in Rome for the artichokes. Raw, with Parmesan cheese and to
drink a
prosecco,
or a Vermentino wine from Sardinia – very fresh and dry – and then a dish of
pastasciutta
, maybe with truffles . . . It is not the truffle season, sadly,
but under oil they are still very good, very tasty. And then—’

They were on the ground floor now, approaching the entrance door. Leo shouldered forward to open it. A burst of laughter came from the young men outside as they saw who was exiting the
building.

The leader, smoking a joint, gestured with it to her, and the young men on either side of him laughed even harder, shoving their hips back and forth at her in the universal gesture of fucking.
For a moment they were surrounded, and she felt a jolt of fear. One of them shouted a question at Leo, who answered shortly, and there was even more laughter. The questioner pressed himself against
her, his hand to his crotch, shoving it into her, his sweaty face alight with lust, and Lola tensed up in panic, smelling cheap aftershave and unwashed male skin.

Then Leo, clearing a path for them, yelled something loudly and the leader seemed to second it, because the men hemming her in pulled back reluctantly, and Mario was shoving her from behind so
hard she nearly stumbled as she followed Leo down the path towards the car. Nearly there, nearly there . . . The men were falling back, still laughing and catcalling in their wake. The group of
kids were kicking their ball in a bored, desultory manner up and down the road. And there was a group of women now on the far side of the street, waiting at a bus stop, staring over at the three
people walking towards the Fiat, which, mercifully, was still there and seemed to have all its windows intact.

Or
were
they women? She blinked, her heart still racing, trying to clear her vision.

‘The
prostitute –
prostitutes of this zone, ’ Mario said disapprovingly behind her. ‘Going to the motorway stops, for the
camioniste
at lunch time. The
drivers of the big trucks. They have lunch, they make sex. Disgusting for all decent people. Poor black girls from Africa,
trasvestiti
from this country. Please ignore,
Signorina
Evie.’

That was why she’d been confused: some of the women in that small group were much too tall to be Italian, a country whose women were rarely taller than five foot seven. With their wigs,
their big fake breasts, their painted faces, the transvestites towered over the smaller African girls, but all were dressed in the same gear: shiny miniskirts, ra-ra boots, cropped bra tops.

Leo had almost reached the car when one of the women shouted something across the street. It hung in the air for a moment, a cue to action. And suddenly there was the sound of running footsteps,
and the ball that the boys had been kicking was bouncing away down the road, discarded, as they came after a new target.

One kid came flying at her, a blade flashing as he tried to slice her bag strap, and before she knew what she was doing she had swivelled on one heel and landed a perfect side kick on the little
fucker, as she had done so many times on the weight bag at kickboxing classes. Her legs were strong enough from all the exercise, God knew. The kid emitted a squeal of surprise and pain as he went
flying through the air and smacked into another one, who went down under him. Barely eleven, and coming at her with a knife. Maybe Evie, the real Evie, had seen this kind of feral child before, but
Lola certainly hadn’t. It was like she’d been pitched into a nightmare, a documentary of the kind she’d turn off immediately if she saw it on TV. She was so sheltered. She’d
never really believed that people lived like this, and now she was faced with it. A kid, with a knife in his hand. Ready to wound or kill someone he didn’t even know.

Instinctively, Lola grabbed the bag to her chest with both arms as she felt another pull on the strap from behind her. It had the signed contract inside: they’d have to kill her to take it
from her. Mario yelled something in Italian, a warning, maybe, and she ducked instinctively as Leo’s fist flew past her face, catching a kid who was jumping towards her. Some little bastard
grabbed at her ankle and she kicked out as hard as she had before, managing to dislodge him, but only for a moment: next second he, or another one, was back, pulling so hard she nearly tumbled
over. Small fingers were scrabbling at her bag, trying to drag it out of her hands, and she couldn’t free them to defend herself; she writhed wildly, trying to shake the kids off and not
succeeding.

Crack! Crack! Two shots rang out overhead, snapping through the air, making everyone scream. The women by the bus stop crouched to the ground, hands over their heads. The kids’ shrill
voices buzzed around her for a second more, till a third shot rang out and the hands on her ankles let go, and she heard the footsteps again, this time sprinting away.

‘
Si! Correte via, pezzenti!
’ someone was yelling, and as her ears adjusted after the shock of the pistol shots, she realised it was Leo, standing a few feet away, a
wicked-looking gun in his right hand, held up into the air.

‘
Oh, mio Dio, mio Dio
. . .
’
Mario, slumped against the car, was moaning, his face so completely drained of colour his skin looked grey. ‘
Mamma mia, siamo
tutti fottuti
. . .’

‘Mario!’ She ran over to him. ‘Mario, are you OK?

‘Is OK, I am OK, ’ he managed. ‘And you, Evie? You have your bag still?’ He saw it, still clutched to her breast. ‘
Oh, Dio sia ringraziato
. . .’

‘
Nella macchina! Tutti nella macchina! Via, andiamo!
’ Leo shouted, still holding his gun above his head as he strode towards them.

‘He say, get in the car, we go, ’ Mario gasped, fumbling for the car keys.

Leo tore them out of his hand, unlocked the car and practically threw her in, jumping into the driver’s seat himself. The car started up and Leo threw it into gear instantly, screeching
away from the curb. The kids, who had regrouped further down the road, screamed insults, windmilling their arms to throw stones at them. A couple hit the car, but didn’t manage to shatter any
windows. Still, Mario yelped in fear.

Swivelling around, Lola looked out the rear window: the kids were slowing down now. The young men stationed outside the apartment building, who had hit the ground when Leo started firing, were
standing up, dusting off their clothes and yelling at the kids, waving their hands furiously. A
motorino
, one of the small Vespa-type scooters so popular in Italy, had chosen a bad time to
buzz down the road in their wake. Its rider, looping around the kids in the road, was doing its best to dodge the stones lying on the tarmac.

‘
Fuck
, ’ she said, sitting back down. ‘What the
hell
just happened there?’

‘One of the prostitutes, ’ Mario said, still gasping. ‘She calls out to say your bag is real. That it’s worth a lot of money. She says it means you are rich.’

Lola’s eyebrows shot up.

‘She’s right, ’ she admitted. ‘But how the hell did she spot that from way across the street?’

‘Who knows, who cares, ’ Mario said. ‘All I know is, never never never do I want to go to that bad place again. Not even if you beg me,
Signorina
Evie. Not even for
you.’

‘I promise, Mario, ’ she said in heartfelt tones.‘Look, what did Leo say to those men so they’d let me into the building?’

‘I did not understand all he say, ’ Mario answered, ‘but more or less, he say that you are American, you have a lover in America but he leave you and come back here and you are
in love so much you come to find him and implore with him to be with you again.’

‘You’re
joking.
’

‘No no. The men there, of course, this makes them happy that an Italian man is so
virile
, so, um—’

‘I got it, ’ she assured him, eager to spare Mario’s blushes.

‘You understand, yes? That only an Italian man can satisfy an American woman. They enjoy this a lot. They ask if you want more Italian men, of course. That is the problem with this story
he tells. When we come out, they ask if you have – um – with him—’

‘I got it!’

‘—and they ask, of course, how it is, if you want more. They say that – ahem – anyway, it is bad, a bad situation. He should have talk with me, I would have found a
better story, ’ Mario finished disapprovingly.

‘Never mind. All’s well that ends well, ’ she said, breathing out a great sigh of relief, feeling her muscles relax for the first time in what felt like weeks. ‘I got
what I came for. Hey, Leo.’ She wasn’t sure if she should touch him, so she just leaned forward, her head between the two front seats. ‘
Grazie, molto grazie, OK?
You were
amazing.
Fantastico
, if that’s even a word.’

Leo’s impassive features cracked into a smile.

And then her phone rang. A withheld number, but that meant nothing: caller ID never worked overseas. She flicked the phone open and said:

‘Yes?’

‘Lola!’ It was Evie’s voice, and she was panicked. ‘Lola, you’ve got to get back here as soon as possible! Somehow they’ve guessed you left the country on my
passport! They’ll be watching for you at all the airports, the cops have been to the apartment already, trying to see you – well,
me
. Suzanne’s being amazing, she’s
been telling them I’m sick and they can’t come in, but they’re getting really pushy about it and we can’t hold them off forever. George says they’ll get a search
warrant, because they suspect you’ve jumped bail!’

Evie took a breath, finally. ‘

‘Lola, you’ve got to find a way to get back into the States without showing my passport! If you come in on mine, they’ll arrest you and throw you in jail!’

From exhilaration to total panic in one short phone call. Lola took slow, deep breaths, doing her level best not to freak out completely. Her mission to Italy had been a complete success:
she’d got what she needed from Scutellaro, the crucial contract that she had fought off knife-wielding feral kids to protect. But how on earth was she going to get herself back to New York
undetected? The plan for her to travel on Evie’s passport had been a brilliant one, taking the uncomfortable fact of their resemblance and turning it to her advantage. Evie had sneaked into
the Plaza apartment and was living there as Lola, smuggled out at night to do her burlesque show but present during the day so the maids wouldn’t report her absence to tabloid reporters
prepared to pay huge sums for any new stories on Lola.

A perfect plan, it had seemed when they hatched it barely two days ago. But now it seemed as if someone, somewhere, had found out what she was up to and reported it to the police. Who could
possibly have done that? Lola trusted everyone in her inner circle implicitly!

Lola pushed the question away. She could deal with that one later. Right now, she had a much more pressing problem.

How the hell was she going to sneak herself and her precious contract back into the Plaza before the police got a search warrant and arrested Evie for impersonating her?

A
s Suzanne had predicted when she shut the door in their faces that morning, the two cops came back later on that day, around six in the evening.
And this time they were determined not to be fobbed off.

‘Mrs Fitzgerald?’ said the first one, his jaw set. ‘We’re hoping your daughter will have recovered enough by now to be able to talk to us.’

‘We just need to verify her presence in the apartment, ’ finished the other one. ‘If you let us see her, we can be out of your hair in no time. If not, our lieutenant says to
say we’ll be back first thing tomorrow with a search warrant.’

‘My God, this is ludicrous!’ Suzanne protested furiously.

Evie and India, listening further down the corridor, exchanged glances of approval with each other at Suzanne’s command of the scene. Her English accent had suddenly become much more
pronounced and intimidating, and she had dressed up, expecting the return of the two detectives. In the black crepe suit she had worn to the funeral, pearls at her neck, and high heels to make sure
that she towered over the two men, she reminded them both that she was recently bereaved, and also that she was Suzanne Myers, who had been a supermodel well before that word was even coined, and
was still dazzlingly beautiful.