Street of the Five Moons (3 page)

So I got my leave of absence, to start that very day, and a nice little expense account. How Schmidt planned to justify this expenditure to his colleagues I couldn’t imagine, but that wasn’t my problem. I cashed the check he gave me, called the airport and made a reservation, and rushed home to pack. My passport was in order, so the only thing left to do was figure out where I was going to stay in Rome.

It didn’t take me long to decide. People on expense accounts don’t stay in pensions or hostels. It wouldn’t look good. I felt I owed it to my employer to check into the best hotel in town.

III

There may be more beautiful cities than Rome on a bright May morning, but I doubt that any of them will ever get to me in quite the same way. The Spanish Steps looked just like the picture on the billboard in Munich, with the massed flowers spilling down them like a pink-and-white waterfall. The tourists did spoil the scene slightly — the artist had thoughtfully omitted them from the billboard — but I didn’t mind them; they added that note of nonchalant irreverence that is so typical of Rome. “Eclectic” is the word for that city; everything is all mixed in together: lush voluptuous Baroque fountains with sculptured columns from the time of the Caesars; a modern sports arena, all steel girders and molded concrete, next to a twisty dark street in which Raphael would feel right at home. Tying it all together, like a running ribbon of greenery, are the trees and plants — umbrella pines and cypresses, palm trees, ilex, and oleander; and salmon-pink geraniums and blue plumbago fringing balconies and roof gardens.

It was too early to dine, so I found a sidewalk café, ordered a Campari and soda, and watched the passing throng.

At least that was what I planned to do. I hadn’t been seated for more than sixty seconds when a good-looking boy sat down next to me, smiled like a Fra Angelico angel, and made an extremely improper suggestion in Italian.

I smiled back at him and made an equally improper suggestion in Italian as fluent as his, but better accented. (The Roman dialect sounds atrocious; it is jeered at by other Italians, especially the Florentines, who speak lovely pure Tuscan.)

The boy’s expression was ludicrous. He had expected me to understand only his sweet smile. I went on to explain that I was expecting my boyfriend, who was six feet six inches tall, and a star soccer player.

The boy left. I opened my guidebook and pretended to read. Actually, I was checking the map, and plotting.

Shops in southern Italy close between noon and four o’clock and then reopen until seven or eight. The streets are crowded during these lovely evening hours, when the heat of the day is passing and the light lingers. There was still plenty of time for me to visit the Via delle Cinque Lune and number 37 in a subtle and inconspicuous manner.

As I walked along, I began to realize that one of the elements in that plan wasn’t going to be as easy as I had anticipated. I am not exactly inconspicuous. For one thing, I’m half a head taller than most Romans, male or female; I stood out like a perambulating obelisk in that throng of little dark people. It became increasingly evident to me that I was going to need some sort of disguise.

I felt even more conspicuous after I had crossed the Via del Corso and plunged into the twisting network of small streets around the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona. There are no sidewalks, except on the big main streets and corsos. The house facades front onto the pavement, which is so narrow in some places that pedestrians have to flatten themselves against a wall to let a Fiat go past. Every tiny piazza has a café or two, whose tables and chairs are insecurely protected from traffic by potted shrubs.

I walked slowly along the Via dei Coronari, peering into the windows of the shops. It wasn’t easy to see the merchandise: there were no plate-glass show windows, brilliantly lighted, as in American stores. But the dark, dusty interiors of these shops held treasure. A worm-eaten but oddly compelling wooden saint, greater than life size, from some looted church: pairs of huge silver gilt candelabra; Meissen china, bodiless gilded Baroque cherubs, a dim, cracked triptych with scenes from the life of some virgin saint….

I would have passed the entrance into the Via delle Cinque Lune if I hadn’t been looking for it. You couldn’t even get a Fiat into that passageway without squeezing, but it was lined with shops even darker and more expensive looking than the ones on the Via dei Coronari. One window had an embroidered Chinese robe that stopped me in my tracks. A concealed light brought out the shimmer of the gold threads, which outlined amber and citrine chrysanthemums and a peacock’s tail of glowing blue-green. It must have been a high official’s robe. I had seen one not nearly so lovely in the Victoria and Albert in London.

The number above the door of the shop was 37.

I went on slowly, looking in other windows and feeling absurdly pleased with myself. The odds were at least two to one that number 37 should be an antique shop; there were greengrocers and druggists on the street, plus private houses and apartment buildings. It was a small confirmation of my nebulous theory, but I was in a mood to appreciate any encouragement.

The street curved like the arc of a bow and ended in another equally narrow passageway called the Via della Stellata. At the far end of this latter street I could see a patch of sunlight and a piece of a fountain. It was Bernini’s “Fountain of the Rivers,” in the Piazza Navona.

I don’t often read mystery stories. For light reading I prefer bad historical novels with voluptuous heroines and swashbuckling heroes, and lots of swordplay and seduction. But in some of the mysteries I had read, the heroes — and villains — used to break into places quite a lot. They usually burgled the back entrance through an alley that was conveniently located behind the place they wanted to search.

There was no alley behind the Via delle Cinque Lune.

The street didn’t even form one side of a square. As I have said, it was curved. Maybe there was only one entrance to the shop. From the garbage piled by the door that seemed a likely hypothesis.

I turned and went back along the Street of the Five Moons. I didn’t stop to look at the mandarin’s robe this time, but I took careful note of number 37 itself. There was nothing distinctive about it except for a name painted in discreet black lettering above the door — A. Fergamo. It meant nothing to me. But I saw something else I had not noticed before — a slitlike opening on one side of the building, so narrow that the sun did not penetrate the gloom within.

On my way back to the hotel I stopped to make several purchases. I took them to my room and freshened up; then I went to the hotel dining room and ordered the specialty of the house, with a bottle of Frascati. It was all on Professor Schmidt, and I toasted him as I drank my wine.

I left the hotel about ten. It was too early for breaking and entering, but I didn’t want to wait any later for fear of attracting attention. Even in Rome, nice girls don’t go out alone at 2 A.M. The streets were still crowded with people. They all seemed to be paired off like Siamese twins, even the middle-aged tourists. The elderly ladies arm in arm with their paunchy, balding escorts looked rather sweet. There is something about Rome on a spring evening…. I had to remind myself that I had more important matters to deal with.

I ducked into the first dark doorway and put on my disguise. It wasn’t very complex, just a dark raincoat, a pair of glasses, and a navy-blue scarf tied closely over my hair. I was wearing sneakers and brown slacks. That was all I needed — that, and a stooped, shuffling walk and a sour look that curved the corners of my mouth down. Nobody bothered me after that.

I prowled the streets of Rome for almost three hours. Lights went out as I wandered. Shops closed, windows darkened. When midnight struck from the countless church towers, I was on the Lungotevere Sangello, one of the broad boulevards that follow the winding course of the Tiber. I stood for a long time with my elbows on the stone parapet, looking down at the river where the reflected shapes of St. Peter’s and the Castel Sant’ Angelo shimmered in the dark waters. The lights of the Via della Conciliazione led straight as a ruler toward the circular piazza of St. Peter’s, and the great dome blocked out a circular section of the sky.

Rome is a swinging city; it doesn’t roll up the sidewalks at midnight. But some areas are more lively than others, and the antique area had gone to bed at ten o’clock. When I tore myself away from the magnificent view, I found most of the streets deserted.

It was a good thing I had visited that part of town by day: I had a hard time finding my way. Once I had left the busy boulevards by the Tiber, I might have been in another world, for this part of Rome hasn’t changed in externals for hundreds of years, and it doesn’t go in for streetlights. I had a flashlight — one of my purchases earlier that day — but I didn’t want to use it. So I shuffled along, head bowed, through the darkened streets. Occasionally I passed another form as dark and shadowy as my own. At the far end of a curving street I would sometimes catch a glimpse of bright lights and hear a ghostly echo of revelry from the Piazza Navona. It is one of the tourist centers, and some of the cafés and restaurants stay open far into the night. It was only a few blocks away, but it might as well have been a few miles. The lights didn’t penetrate into the gloomy passageways where I wandered. I hoped the constabulary of the city kept itself busy watching over exuberant tourists.

Finally I found number 37 and the passageway alongside the shop. Lord, was it dark in there! The street was dark enough; this slit looked like the mouth of a big animal. I groped into it, sliding my feet so as not to stumble over something I could not see. My hands felt gritty as they trailed along the crumbling brick of the wall.

There may have been windows in the wall, though I doubt it; why construct windows that open onto a two-foot-wide alley? I was looking for a door, and I soon found it. Then I used my flashlight, shielding it with the ample folds of my raincoat. The door was solid and the lock was a big, old-fashioned type.

Any adolescent with a grain of initiative learns how to pick locks. I learned in tenth grade from Piggy Wilson. He used to steal bikes — not for filthy gain, just to ride around on. He had a thing about bicycles…. Anyhow, all you need for an ordinary lock — not the combination, or Yale, types — are a couple of long, stiff steel probes and another long metal gadget with a hook on the end. Remember buttonhooks? They were before my time, too, like the high-buttoned shoes on which they were once used. But I had read about them, and I had found one in an antique shop of the cheaper sort, on the fringes of the Via dei Coronari area.

With the buttonhook and a thin steel probe it was no problem to force the lock. I had expected there might be chains and bolts as well, and had planned to worry about them when I found them. To my surprise and pleasure the door gave to the pressure of my hand as soon as I had unlocked it. I should have been suspicious, instead of pleased. I should have known there was a reason why the door wasn’t bolted.

I heard the reason before I saw it. It was a growl that sounded as if it came from the throat of a grizzly bear — a low bass rumble, with lots of teeth behind it.

I switched on the flashlight. In its beam I saw the source of the growl. Not a grizzly bear, nothing so harmless — but a dog the size of a small horse, black as Satan except for a mouthful of white fangs. Talk about the Hound of the Baskervilles. There it was, except for the phosphorescent slaver — a Doberman pinscher, the fiercest guard dog in the world.

Two

NO WONDER THEY HADN’T BOLTED THE BACK door. I wondered why they had bothered to lock it.

I could have slammed the door and taken to my heels. I had time. It wasn’t courage, but the reverse, that prevented me from taking flight. I was paralyzed. After a long second or two I saw something I hadn’t noticed before. The dog’s lips were curled back, its low growl never stopped; but its tail lifted and gave a tentative wag.

The room into which the door opened wasn’t large; it was an entryway rather than a room. The floor was cement, the walls and ceiling were festooned with dirty cobwebs, and the canine amenities were not luxurious — only a pile of filthy sacks in one corner and a couple of battered tin plates, both empty. On one plate was a shriveled scrap of pasta, obviously the remains of the dog’s dinner. The other dish, the water dish, was bone dry.

People say southern Europeans aren’t as sentimental about animals as Americans are. But I had seen scraps left by kindhearted Romans for the stray dogs and cats that infest the ancient ruins, and once I had watched a gruff, tough-looking laborer feed half a dozen cats in the Roman Forum, producing cans of food and a can opener from his pants pocket. It was undoubtedly a daily ritual, since the half-wild felines came running at his call and preened, purring, under his touch. The man who tended the Doberman wasn’t that kind of Roman. He hadn’t even bothered to give the animal fresh water.

I walked into the room, crooning in the voice I use to Duke, my retriever back home in Cleveland.

“Poor old boy,
poverino
, did the bad mans forget to feedums? Here,
carissimo
, sweetheart, mama will get you some water.”

The dog leaped.

He would have knocked me flat on my back if Duke hadn’t taught me how to brace myself against that kind of rush. The Doberman was a big fake — a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Dogs are like people, there are good ones and bad ones; but although even a nice dog may be soured by bad treatment, most of them are much more forgiving than humans.

I managed to get the door closed, and then I sat down and played with the dog for a while, letting him drool happily all over my hands. I finally persuaded him to let me stand up, and then, before I did anything else, I went looking for a source of water.

I found it in a tiny room that contained a sink and a toilet and a lot of cockroaches. I filled the dog’s water bowl and watched him gulp it up with growing indignation. He was awfully thin. I suppose they kept him underfed on the assumption that he would be all the more ready to munch up an intruder. So I thought I would just see if I could find something to eat. The most I expected was a coffeepot and a box of crackers, the sort of thing a clerk might have on hand for snacks. But I hit pay dirt. Another little cubbyhole next to the lavatory contained a hot plate and a surprising collection of goodies — cans of pâté and smoked oysters, and a tin of expensive English tea, plus another tin of cookies. “Fancy Biscuits,” it said on the lid.