Italy to Die For (12 page)

“That’s not funny, Margo.”

All right, it must’ve been because we both started giggling, a case of school-girl fluff that relieved the on-going tension between us. Better yet, the annoyance I first felt about her ruining any chance of a romance with Lorenzo that might lead to one more permanent.
Stay with me
, he’d said. That was all and nothing more.

“Forget the balcony views
and being cooped up all evening,” Margo said. “We’ll be fine, as long as we stay with the crowd.” She stood up and held out her hand. “So, are you with me?”

“If you insist,” I said
and offered no resistance when she pulled me up and into the bedroom. Just like a piece of luggage, all I needed were rollers attached to the soles of my feet.

“You are planning on changing those clothes, I hope.”

“What you see is what you’re getting. I bought this here in Monterosso.”

“
Which is why God created more than one clothing store,” Margo said. “Why didn’t you speak up when we were browsing today?”

Margo knew me too well
. I had no excuse.

“No problem,” she said with a snap of her fingers. She unzipped one suitcase and pulled out a stack of my clothes
she’d brought along without my asking. I didn’t tell her Lorenzo would be bringing the rest. After a scathing review of each item, she declared the whole lot unfit to be seen in her company.

“
They were good enough for Rome and Florence and all points in between,” I countered.

“That was before this Lorenzo
connection. Not to worry, I just happen to have the perfect outfit for you tonight.”

“
Forget tonight. I told you Lorenzo is away on business.”

“
Forget Lorenzo for tonight. There’s more than one fish in the Mediterranean.”

“
Around here the Italians call it the Ligurian Sea.”

“And what they call business might be monkey business. When is he coming back?”

“Not until tomorrow or the next day.”

“Then what are we waiting for?
” With that, Margo produced a dress from her vast supply. One I’d not seen before and what she referred to as a darling tent, which explains why it worked so well on me.

Chapter 19

An Evening Gone Bad

W
ith Margo it was always Margo’s way, which could go any number of ways—sometimes good, other times, downright disastrous. At least she and I had agreed on how to begin our first evening together in Monterosso: no five or six-course meal that neither of us needed. A glass of campari we could handle, and, according to Margo: what better way to meet guys who appreciated their alcohol in something besides a longneck. We stopped at a trattoria packed with her idea of upscale tourists and snagged one of the few outdoor tables still unoccupied. After settling back to enjoy the passing scene, I heard my name called out, again. This time I did recognize the voice and was almost glad to see the not-so-upscale Jonathan Ballister accompanied by a not-so-upscale sidekick. I waved the guys over.

“Ellen from St. Louis, meet Trevor
from Louisville,” Jonathan said, all the while looking at Margo. “And you are?” he asked.

She held out her hand. “Margo
Savino, Ellen’s sister.”

“El
len, what a surprise: you have a last name.” Jonathan still hadn’t taken his eyes off of Margo although it made more sense with him now pumping her hand. “What’s more, you have a sister—every bit as pretty as you. Where have you been hiding her?”

“In Florence,”
Margo said. “El couldn’t wait for me to wrap up a few loose ends so she left without me. I just arrived in Monterosso this afternoon.”

Trevor
, who gave his last name as Connors, stopped gazing at Margo long enough to smile at me, in a way the high school nerd who doesn’t knows he’s a nerd acknowledges the side-lined wallflower who knows she is. In terms of overall appearance Trevor rated a notch or two below Jonathan but without the rugged outdoorsman features. Shoulder to shoulder, the two men stood about five feet ten, with Trevor the stockier and his dark hair showing signs of thinning. Already I could see that neither he nor Jonathan measured up to Margo’s standards. Nor would they hold her interest any longer than it took some guy with more appeal to come along and rescue her.

“So-o,” Jonathan started off, a lame beginning if ever there was. “What do you think of Monterosso?”

“It’s too soon to tell,” Margo said, “although, I must admit to a craving for excitement.”

“Monterosso might offer a bloody diversion,” Trevor said.

“As in something British?” she asked.

“No, as in something bloody,” Trevor said. “More like two bloody women, both
murdered.”

Margo wrapped two nervous fingers around a lock of
her hair and looked at me as if I’d committed the crimes.

I defended myself by saying,
“I only learned about the second one this afternoon.”

“From Lorenzo, no doubt,”
Jonathan said.

“
More like the police commissioner.”

“You know him personally?”
Trevor asked.

“Doesn’t everybody,” I replied in a casual manner.

“My, my, you have been busy,” Margo said, repeating her earlier comment.

“As for your Italian host … er, innkeeper, whatever,
” Jonathan said. “Where is Lorenzo?”

Margo’s antennae went up. “
Hmm, do I detect a bit—”

“
Lorenzo is in La Spezia on business,” I said. “But he’s due to return shortly.”

“But
when you don’t know for sure,” Jonathan said. With way too much authority, considering he barely knew Lorenzo. If that wasn’t bad enough, he went on to say, “Am I right or am I right.”

“Not exactly but it’s
not like I’m worried. Nor should you be, Jonathan. Margo and I are quite capable of taking care of ourselves.”

“Speak for
yourself,” Margo told me.

I shot back with,
“Look who’s calling the kettle black.”

“
Shades of Mom, that’s what she always says. Now, about those poor women, does anyone know how they died?”

“Word on the street: something about getting their throats
slit,” Jonathan said.

“In more graphic terms
, they bled out,” Trevor added, “this from a guy who knows his way around livestock. In terms of slaughtering it’s considered quite humane.”

“
Unless it happens to be your throat,” I said.

“One quick
stab and slice of the knife and the bloodletting begins. In certain parts of Africa, drinking that first blood is a rite of passage.”

“We’re not in Africa and this is no rite of passage,” I said.
For an evening barely underway Trevor was already wearing on my nerves. “These two victims were real people, women who laughed and cried and must’ve enjoyed life or they wouldn’t have been in Cinque Terre,” History now, the first victim, a woman I no longer felt comfortable referring to as
the gypsy
. I’d have to learn her name, have some frame of reference that didn’t label the deceased with pre-conceived negativity.

“All this talk of bleeding out and the humanity of it is so
-o depressing,” Margo said with an exaggerated shudder. “Nor is it not my idea of how to spend the next two weeks, you know, worrying about life and death issues. If it were up to me, we’d move on tomorrow but El has other ideas. She’s determined to wait around for Lorenzo.”

“This Lorenzo’s y
our boyfriend?” Trevor asked.

“Not exactly,”
Jonathan said. “Ellen is staying in his apartment.”

“As a paying guest, and please le
t me answer for myself. To leave before Lorenzo returns would be downright rude.” To say nothing of spending my nights in his bed instead of the one Margo and I were supposed to be sharing.

“I’m all for moving on,”
Trevor said. “That is, if I can convince Jonathan to join me.”

“So, the two of y
ou have been traveling together?” Margo asked.

“No
t until today when I talked him into taking the long walk to Corniglia,” Trevor said. “My third trip there in five days and a terrific way to build up the old stamina, what with all that up and down and sideways stuff.” He winked at Margo. She kicked my foot as Trevor continued. “Jonathan and I go all the way back to college but disconnected after that. Then, bingo, who should I bump into last evening but him, strolling around like Tony Tourist on his first day in Italy. I’ve already spent a week here, eating like a pig at the trough, hiking between the villages, cruising along the coastline to the Italian Riviera.”

“And there’s the rub,”
Jonathan said. “You’re running five days ahead of me. I haven’t seen the coastline from here to Portofino, and no way am I leaving until I do.”

“We could charter a boat,”
Trevor said. He leveled his two forefingers at Margo and me. “What say you, my pretties: how about tomorrow?”

“But you’v
e already seen the coast, too bad.” I’d made up my mind about not spending any more time with Trevor. Jonathan wasn’t far behind him either. “Margo and I haven’t seen enough of Cinque Terre yet.”

I ignored his disappointed expression, as did Margo when she said,
“Sorry, Trevor, but El’s right. We have our own agenda which should in no way interfere with yours.” She was toying with her empty glass when Jonathan asked if we wanted something else to drink.

“Perhaps the l
ocal grappa,” I said.

“You’ve tried it?” Margo asked.

“With Lorenzo—it’s really quite good.”

“Then grappa
for everyone.” Jonathan lifted one finger to the waiter, who circled around to our table, took the order, and soon returned with four shot glasses brimming with the dregs of leftover grapes.

We
sat around for another hour or two and another round of grappa. Or was it two … maybe three, I stopped counting when my ears went numb from Margo talking about any and everything Margo. Including hunger pains that resulted in a large platter of antipasto, followed by four plates of
linguini al mare
. When the topic of dessert came up, Margo yawned once and insisted she was too tired to eat another bite.

“Check, please,” she said to the waiter
who was passing by. When he came back, the bill went directly into Jonathan’s waiting palm.

“
Thank you, Jonathan,” Margo and I said together, like two chirpy schoolgirls.

To which Trevor add
ed, “Yeah, it’s been a blast.”

And my cue to escape
, I got up and started to sway from the grappa more potent than I’d realized.

“Who
a,” Margo said while wobbling to her feet. “I’m feeling a bit shaky. Could somebody ask the waiter to call us a taxi, please?”

While
Jonathan paid the bill, Margo and I made our way to the bar’s entrance, bumping into a table here and a table there. Trevor brought up the rear, offering a scusi here and a scusi there. Jonathan caught up with us about the same time our taxi pulled up. Trevor opened the back door, and volunteered to see us home, not once but twice. It might’ve been three times.

“
Stay right where you are,” I told him. To the driver I spoke a few words in Italian, my clumsy attempt at Lorenzo’s address.

The driver responded with a string of rat-a-tat
Italian, none of which I understood although Margo would’ve had she stopped with the second grappa.

Good thing Trevor had known when to stop, or
how to hold his liquor. Better yet, how to interpret the driver’s words. “The guy has another fare to pick up,” he explained, “at a nearby trattoria, a couple going in your direction or you’re going in theirs. Either way, sit tight but not too tight.”

“Whatever,” Mar
go mumbled as she followed me into the back seat. “Just shut the damn door and give me some damn air before I suffocate.”

I obeyed
her command, rolling down the window while our taxi ventured into the crowd of pedestrians who didn’t seem the least bit concerned about their safety since the only vehicles allowed in the area were service-oriented. The driver soon stopped for a middle-aged couple who struck me as more European than American. I pulled Margo toward me which gave the woman more than her fair share of the back seat. She took one look at us and, shades of Mom and all moms beginning with Eve, this woman gave us a universal
tsk-tsk
that knew no boundaries. Her husband slid onto the front seat and rolled down his window. Neither of them spoke Italian or English but that didn’t stop the husband from trying to communicate through a series of hand signals, none of which seemed to be working, which made me feel pretty good because mine usually did. We drove to one location, not even a hotel. The front-seat passenger shook his head. We drove to another non-hotel, wrong again.

Margo rested her head on my shoulder; I patted her arm. “This is your fault,” she
said. “You and that damn grappa.”

“Did I tell you to drink the third one
or the fourth? No, you had to show how tough you were, keeping up with the boys.”

“At least we didn’t have to pay for anything.”

“You ought to be ashamed, leading them on.”

“Please, as if they had something better to do.”
Margo straightened up. She held her hand to her mouth and mumbled something about stopping the car. “I think I’m … no, I’m definitely going to be sick.”

When the driv
er made no effort to stop, I waved a tissue from my purse and took a chance on one word.
“Vomitare! Vomitare!”

To vomit
the driver understood; he stopped. The back door flew open and Margo stumbled out. She ran to the nearest trash container, bent her head into it, and unceremoniously released a waterfall of maroon liquid and chunks of yucky stuff.

Why o
ur backseat companion didn’t have sense enough to turn her head is beyond me. But no, she just had to watch Margo make a fool of herself. After gagging a few times, the woman started fanning a scarf over her face turning this weird shade of green, all the while blasting her husband as only an inconvenienced wife can do. He kept nodding until she jabbed his shoulder with her finger, giving him an excuse to complain to the driver. The driver tooted his horn. Margo lifted her head and yelled an obscenity no one except me understood; and I pretended not to hear while putting together an Italian sentence from the translation book she always carried in her handbag but seldom used.

After more horn tooting and wife grumbling and husband fuming
, Margo climbed back in the car. “Tell him, El. I can’t think of the word.”

“Andiamo,”
I said with confidence. “Let’s go.”

Again, the driver
attempted to locate the couple’s destination while Margo shifted from one position to another. She leaned forward, tapped the driver on his shoulder. Looking into the rear view mirror, he saw Margo being Margo, this time holding her finger to her tongue, as if to simulate another grappa toss.