All He Saw Was the Girl (12 page)

    It
was dark. The streets of Rome were deserted. She heard the
bang.
It
sounded like a pistol firing. Psuz came around the side of the van with the
Beretta in his hand. She saw the American lying on the sidewalk, Victor
Emmanuel rising up behind him. She put the Lancia in gear and pulled away from
the curb, sorry for him, but relieved it was over.

    Ray
expected to see Sharon sitting at the kitchen table when he came in, watching
Oprah on the small TV on the counter, or reading the
Free Press.
He
rolled his suitcase across the wood floor through the dining room, down a
hallway into their bedroom. She wasn't in there either. He bet she was at
Costco or getting her hair done. She had to have her hair colored more often to
get rid of the dark roots after going blonde. He didn't know why she did it.
What would possess a woman to change her natural hair color at age
thirty-eight? He wasn't sure if he liked it or not. He'd only seen it once. Now
he'd have a chance to get used to it, that and a lot of other things.

    He
went to the kitchen and got a beer and went back to the bedroom and put his
clothes away, hung up his suits, put trees in his black dress shoes, threw his
dirty clothes in the laundry hamper. Ray had his own closet and Sharon had
hers. His was neat and orderly like his life with the Service, and hers was a
mess.

    He
carried his empty suitcase through the living room. He was going to take it
upstairs to the attic. They lived in a bungalow in Beverly Hills. He stopped
and put the suitcase on the floor in the front hall. There was a pile of mail,
days' worth on the carpet, shoved through the slot in the door by the mailman.
He got on his knees and scooped up the envelopes and magazines and took them
into the kitchen.

    He
sat at the table shuffling through the mail. There were bills from US Bank
Visa, DTE Energy, Honda, Verizon Wireless, Green Trees Lawn Care and half a
dozen more including a letter from Pat, Sharon's sister in New Jersey. He
checked the postmark on each envelope, a couple of them going back to October
5th, three days earlier.

    Ray
was trying to remember the last time he talked to Sharon and thought it was
October 1st, a few days before he was dismissed from the Service. He was going
to call and tell Sharon but decided to just show up and surprise her.

    He went
through her magazines:
People, Rolling Stone, Vibe, Scene
and
Murder
Dog.
Sharon told him she had to read them to stay current with the music
scene.

    
He
said, "
Murder Dog?"

    She
said, "Where else are you going to learn about Snap and Crunk and Hyphy?"

    He
said, "What the hell're you talking about." The words sounding like
what you heard when you ate cereal.

    She
said, "Current trends in music, dawg. It's time to broaden your musical
horizons. Take a break from the old stuff."

    She
was talking about what he liked, Marshall Tucker and Hank Williams Junior and
Neil Young. She said, "How'd a guy from Motown get turned on by country in
the first place."

    He
thought of it as rock not country.

    She
said, "You want to get contemporary? Check out the Ying Yang Twinz and
Soulja Boy." She said it serious and then broke into a big grin.

    He
said, "Yeah, fix me up, then who knows, I may sign up for breakdancing
lessons."

    "You're
about twenty years too late."

    Ray
glanced at the answering machine and saw the orange message light blinking. He
hadn't noticed it before. He got up and looked. There were eleven messages. He
pushed the play button and listened to all of them, checking the date and time
of each call.

    DeAnn,
Sharon's boss, said, "When are you planning to come back? I have to tell
our clients something."

    Lisa
from Dr Lambrecht's office was confirming an appointment. Barry from Balboa
Capital had to talk to Ray immediately about a home-run stock opportunity.

    Pat,
Sharon's sister, said, "You're being very mysterious. Is this a vacation?
Is Ray going with you?"

    The
next one was from Sharon's mother, Annette. "I got your email. Where are
you going? Is it a business trip?"

    Ronni
Keating from SKBK Sotheby's was wondering if they were interested in selling
their house. She had a potential buyer.

    A
TruGreen salesman started his pitch and Ray hit the skip button.

    He
heard a man's voice say, "Hey, babe, you there? Call me."

    Ray
didn't recognize the voice. He played it back and wrote down the number, a 586
area code, which meant it came from somewhere on the east side.

    According
to the dates on the answering machine, Sharon hadn't checked the messages for
three days. And that was unusual, she'd get up from the dinner table when the
phone rang just to see if she was missing an important call.

    Ray
tried Sharon's cell number. It went right to voice mail: "This is Sharon,
please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

    He
went into the bedroom and looked around. The bed was made, six pillows, two
rows of three lined up across the headboard. Her reading glasses were on the
table on her side of the bed. He checked her closet, scanned her clothes, shoes
and purses. The shelves were full. Nothing seemed to be missing. Not that he
could tell with any certainty if anything was. He went in the bathroom and saw
her toothbrush on the counter in a ceramic cup, makeup brushes next to it in a
clay bowl. No woman would leave town without her makeup. He knew that much.

    He
went out to the garage and opened the side door and looked in. Her car, a
silver Honda Accord, was gone. He went back in the kitchen, opened the Verizon
bill, checking the list of phone numbers. Thirty calls, he counted them, were
to a number with a 586 area code in Harrison Township. It was different than
the one he'd copied from the answering machine.

    He
called Jim Teegarden, an old friend who was still with the Service, the Office
of Protective Research, OPR, in downtown Detroit. Teeg and his colleagues
gathered intelligence about individuals or groups who might pose a threat to
the president, vice president or any other high-level protectee. Their paths
had crossed on a number of occasions over the years when Ray was on protective
detail.

    Teeg
was a devout Catholic, and one night over drinks he told Ray his surname was
sacrilegious. There's only one Pope and he's in Rome. I think you should change
your name to Cardinal or Bishop. He said it with such conviction Ray thought he
was serious until Teeg started laughing.

    Ray
said, "You Catholics sure have a wicked sense of humor, don't you?"

    "I'm
sorry to hear about what happened," Teegarden said.

    Ray
said, "Don't be. It's a blessing in disguise. I'd had enough."

    "Why
didn't you stay on, take a job with uniform?"

    "Wear
one of those fancy outfits, and guard a foreign embassy, you think that sounds
like me?"

    "You
always did have an interesting way of looking at things," Teegarden said.
"What's Sharon think, having you home all the time now?"

    "Are
you kidding? She loves it," Ray said. "Hey, I'm hoping you can help
me out with something. Some guy's been calling Sharon, stalking her. I've got
the phone number but I need the name and address."

    "Why
don't you call the police?"

    "You
know how it works," Ray said. "They won't do anything till a crime's
been committed. I'd rather not wait that long."

    "All
right. What's the number?"

    Ray
said, "There are two."

    Kathy
Keating, a cute blonde from Chicago he barely knew, said, "Are you all
right?" Looking concerned. Like he had inoperable cancer. She was standing
at the front desk, talking to Canzio. He was sitting in a chair behind the desk
in the school lobby. Canzio was about five six, a Roman with a Caesar haircut
and long sideburns, Chip thought he looked like an extra in a spaghetti
western.

    "We're
so glad you're safe," said Beth, a pale dark-haired goth from Boston he'd
seen around the BU campus. She was shuffling through her mail.

    Chip
glanced at Brianna. "What's going on?"

    Brianna
shrugged and shook her head. Trish walked through the lobby and didn't say
anything to anyone, still angry McCabe didn't go with them.

    "Dude,
what's good?" said Cody Gorman, a six-foot-four surfer from Huntington
Beach, California. "Where you been?"

    "Messina,"
Chip said.

    "Bitchin',"
Cody said. "Catch any sick waves, or was it mush?"

    "Mushburger,
dude," Chip said, using one of the five words of surfer slang Cody had
taught him.

    Canzio
stood up and said, "Signor Chip, I am so glad to see you. Are you all
right? I must notify Signor Rady at once."

    He
picked up the phone, punched in a number.

    "Signor
Tallenger has return." He listened. "Young Signor Tallenger.
Si,
just now."

    He
hung up the phone, glanced up at Chip.

    "Signor
Rady say to tell you he will be right here."

    "For
what?" Chip said. What was going on?

    Canzio
said, "To see you. Are you hurt?"

    "Why
would I be hurt?" It was really getting crazy.

    Canzio
said, "Do you need medical attention?"

    "No,
I need my mail."

    Canzio
said, "Yes, of course." He turned and took three envelopes out of
Chip's mail slot and handed them to him.

    Frank
Rady appeared now, entering the lobby, walking fast, coming toward him.

    "I
called your father. He's on his way. We never gave up hope. "

    "We
went to Messina," Chip said. "Spent the weekend on the beach."

    His
dad, Mr Rady and the Rome cop, Captain Ferrara, all had their eyes glued to
him, staring with somber expressions. They were sitting at a small round table
in Rady's office, and Chip felt claustrophobic. He moved his chair back to give
himself more room.

    Rady
said, "Why didn't you sign out? You know it's mandatory, school
policy."

    He
was trying to deflect any blame, cover his ass.

    "I
did," Chip said.

    "What're
you talking about?" his dad said. He was wearing a crisp white dress shirt
with his initials, CET, Charles Erickson Tallenger, on the right cuff, as
always. Erickson was Chip's grandmother's maiden name.

    "When
students leave campus for an extended period of time - weekends included -
they're supposed to fill out a form and give it to whoever’s at the front
desk," Frank Rady said. "So we know where our students are going,
where they're at."

    "I
gave it to Franco," Chip said. "Thursday through Sunday - Messina,
Sicily."