Roman Roulette by David Downie

Author:David Downie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Santa Fe Writer's Project
Published: 2022-07-14T20:26:03+00:00

Twelve

Daria had a sensation, an intuition, a gut feeling that she had better get off the streetcar soon—on Via Arenula one stop before the end of the line. The traffic-clogged Piazzale Argentina was famous for its unidentified ruined ancient temple, its colony of feral cats, and busy streetcar terminus. It would be the logical place for Foscolo and his men to expect them to step down.

Piling out with a handful of other riders, they dashed between speeding cars, heading east along a kinking, imperfect diagonal into the maze of the historic Jewish Ghetto. Squeezing bodily toward the Tiber side by side down narrow back alleys, they doubled back past the Ghetto’s bustling kosher delicatessens, bakeries, restaurants, souvenir shops, and haberdasheries.

“In here,” Daria barked in a hoarse whisper, hustling Morbido into a hole-in-the-wall clothing shop. Seconds later, Captain Foscolo and two undercover operatives clattered by in the cobbled alleyway, shouting to each other as they ran. Smiling at the startled proprietor, Daria flashed her badge, put her finger to her lips, then pointed to a wide-brimmed black hat, a lightweight man’s cape, also black, and what looked like a shawl or mantilla, asking for the biggest sizes available. “Cash,” she whispered, laying down two large-denomination euro bank notes and scooping up the clothes and change.

“A present,” she told Morbido as he gaped at her. Glancing outside, she jerked a thumb toward the streetcar stop on Via Arenula as they stepped back into the alleyway, hurriedly pressing the hat onto Morbido’s extra-large head. “Now the cape,” she whispered, “and now you bend over like this, because you’re feeling your years.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he wheezed, pretending to hobble.

Wrapping herself in the mantilla, Daria tipped her head down and began walking behind him, slower than her usual pace. “That’s a very attractive outfit,” she remarked, “we’ll give the cape to your wife as a peace offering.”

Morbido grunted. “You’re still walking too fast for someone wearing that mantilla, and you’re not far enough behind me.”

“You better hand me the bag with the tunic,” she said, realizing that she did not want Morbido to take the heat if Foscolo or his men cornered them.

Cautiously traversing the Ghetto’s main street, she pointed to an alleyway even narrower than the others they had taken. “Go up there, keep following the alley until you come out in the little square with the turtle fountain, go right on the wider road, and wait for me in front of the church of Santa Caterina dei Funari, you can ask anyone where it is.”

Morbido stopped dead and pivoted. “You mean, the church where they found Aldo Moro’s body crammed into the trunk of a parked Renault 4?”

“Exactly,” Daria said. “The Red Brigades. May 9, 1978, a day that lives on in infamy. There’s a plaque on the sidewall of the building abutting the church. You can’t miss it. I thought you might recognize the spot.” She paused, racking her brain. “If you see Foscolo or his men, detour into the courtyard across the street from the plaque and wait there; it’s open to the public.

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