Chapter 11
Iled Raffaelo to the kitchen, where we found Alessandra and Caterina exactly as Don Rosolini had described.
Caterina was working with the kitchen staff to prepare lunch.
Even though she had married into money and could have never worked another day in her life, her great love – besides Valentino – was cooking.
At least three days a week, she prepared lunch or dinner for the family simply because it brought her joy.
And I was very thankful for it, because she usually made enough for the foot soldiers, too – and I’d never tasted food as delicious as what Caterina cooked.
As she worked, Caterina chatted with Alessandra, who sat across the kitchen island on a high-backed chair.
Alessandra was fairly far along in her pregnancy. She’d switched to maternity clothes months ago – but not just any maternity clothes: fashionable, flowing dresses from the finest shops in Italy.
Recently, though, the pregnancy had begun to take a toll on her. Her hands were abnormally swollen, and her face looked puffy. Several months ago, she had looked absolutely radiant – but now her complexion was pale.
I noticed that she had a rosary in her left hand and was idly rubbing the beads. She had always been fairly devout, but ever since Rome, she had begun carrying the rosary with her everywhere she went.
It might have been due to everything that had happened with Fausto –
But I wondered if perhaps she feared for her baby.
I knew that she was going to weekly medical check-ups in Florence. Adriano hadn’t said anything, and I knew it wasn’t my place to ask, but I wondered if something might be wrong.
Whatever the reason, she had become much more religious. When I visited the house with Adriano, I sometimes heard her walking the hallways, whispering Hail Marys and Our Fathers under her breath.
As Raffaelo and I walked into the kitchen, Caterina called out, “Hey, it’s Giorgio and a new guy! Hi Giorgio! Hi, new guy!”
“Hi there, yourself,” Raffaelo said with a charming grin.
Alessandra smiled at us.
“Good morning, Signoras,” I greeted them. “This is Raffaelo. He works for the family in Florence.”
“Oh, cool. I’m Cat – ”
“And I’m Alessandra.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Raffaelo replied, then said to Cat, “I’d offer to shake, but you seem like you’re a bit preoccupied at the moment.”
Caterina grinned and held up her hands, which were covered in flour. “True. We can do an elbow bump, though.”
“Sounds good to me.”
They made an elaborate display of bumping elbows, and then Raffaelo shook Alessandra’s hand.
“Third trimester?” he asked. “Or the very end of the second?”
She was impressed. “I just finished the 25th week. Are you a doctor?”
“I used to be.”
“Not anymore?”
“Therein lies a tale. Do you know the baby’s gender yet?”
Alessandra beamed and touched her belly. “A little girl.”
“Wonderful! Do you have a name picked out?”
“Niccolo called dibs on their mother’s name, Viviana, so we’re going to name her after my mother, Elena.” Alessandra smiled sadly. “She died when I was only 12, so Dario and I agreed this would be a good way to keep her legacy alive.”
“Elena… that’s beautiful,” Raffaelo said earnestly. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
Raffaelo looked over at Caterina. “So… I heard you were the best cook in all of Tuscany. Any chance I could taste one of your creations?”
Caterina laughed. “With flattery like that, I’ll cook you an entire meal! Breakfast or lunch?”
“Dealer’s choice.”
“Alright – I’ll do a brunch, then! Giorgio, you hungry?”
“For your cooking?” I said. “Always.”
“Two flatterers! Alright, give me a few minutes and I’ll whip something up.”
Raffaelo gestured at the chair next to Alessandra. “You mind?”
“Please.”
We both sat down as Caterina poured us glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice.
“Thank you,” Raffaelo said, then took a sip. “Mmm.”
“So, you said you used to be a doctor?” Alessandra asked.
“Yes. I worked in the ER. Saw a lot of gunshot wounds, stabbings, bad car accidents – that sort of thing. Other doctors would pass along the worst stuff to me because I was good at it.
“I loved my job, but it was incredibly stressful. Lots of long hours and double shifts, irregular sleep… after several years, it began to wear me down, and I started taking pills to stay sharp. Before too long, I became addicted.
“It’s an occupational hazard. Doctors have one of the highest addiction rates of any profession in the world. After all, we can get almost any prescription medication we want, like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “In my case, it proved to be too great a temptation.”
Raffaelo told the rest without self-pity or excuses. I’d heard it before, but it was a riveting story.
As he spoke, Cat stopped working, and both she and Alessandra listened intently. Even the other members of the kitchen staff paused to listen in.
“At first, it was just uppers – Adderall and Ritalin to stay alert. But I had to take a little bit more to get the same effect… then a little bit more. Eventually, I couldn’t function without it. Before long, I was a full-blown addict.
“I had a hard time falling asleep because of the uppers, so I’d take Valium after I got off work and wash it down with some vodka. Then I had a hard time waking up, so I took even more uppers. Pills to wake me up, pills to stay alert, booze and pills to go to sleep.
“I was a mess, but I was still able to function at my job – until I wasn’t.
It all came to a head when I screwed up.
A sixteen-year-old girl who’d been in a car crash.
She died right there in the emergency room because I was high and made a stupid mistake.
By the time the other doctors in the ER got there, she was gone.
“Seven years later, I still think about her every single day,” Raffaelo said quietly. “Some days, it’s every single hour. About how she could be at university right now. Or married. Or maybe she’d have her first child if it wasn’t for me.”
Both Alessandra’s and Caterina’s eyes misted up.
Raffaelo shook off his melancholy and continued. “The hospital investigated and fired me on the spot. I lost my license a couple of weeks later when the medical board reviewed the case.
“Not only did I deserve it, but it was the best possible thing they could have done for me. I hit rock bottom. I knew I was going to wind up dead if I kept going the way I was, so I checked into rehab. I’ve been clean ever since… although not without some struggles along the way.
“Getting sober was hard, but not being a doctor was worse. That was all I’d ever wanted to do since I was 10 years old, and now – because of my own terrible mistakes – I never would be again.
“That is, until one of your husband’s men got shot,” Raffaelo said to Alessandra.
“It happened six years ago. I was walking around Florence at night, deeply depressed, trying to talk myself out of going into a bar and getting blackout drunk, when I heard a gunshot.
“A man screamed in an alleyway, and a strung-out junkie rushed into the street with a gun in his hand. He took one look at me and went the other way.
“I ran inside the alley and found a guy wearing a suit like this joker right here.” Raffaelo smiled as he gestured towards me.
“He’d been shot in the leg and was bleeding out. I immediately called for an ambulance, told them what to expect, and got to work elevating his legs and putting pressure on the wound. I kept the guy calm and told him he was gonna be fine. Then the ambulance arrived and took him away.
“It’s funny… before it happened, I was this close to going into a bar and throwing it all away,” Raffaelo said, holding his fingers a millimeter apart. “After I helped that guy in the alleyway, I was covered in blood and looked like I’d been shot myself… but I felt better than I had in years.
“The next day, I called an old friend at the hospital and found out the guy had made it through surgery. I was glad, but I figured that was the last I’d ever hear of it – until your husband showed up on my doorstep.”
“This was before he went to prison?” Alessandra asked.
“Exactly. He was handling Florence for his father and uncle back then. He was their liaison with the Agrellas.
“Dario thanked me for saving Alberto – that was the name of the guy who got shot – and told me he needed a doctor for his men in case of emergencies. Gunshot wounds, mostly. Exactly the kind of thing I was good at.
“He was very open about what line of work he was in. He didn’t try to hide anything – he said he wanted me to be aware of the downsides so I could make an informed decision.
“I thought about it for exactly two seconds before I said ‘yes,’ and I’ve been working for Dario and your family ever since.”
“He’s saved the lives of at least a dozen men who work for Don Rosolini,” I said to Alessandra.
She looked impressed.
“I don’t know about a dozen,” Raffaelo said modestly, “but I’ve saved a few.”
“You saved Cosimo’s life the night Mezzasalma and the Agrellas shot up the hotel,” I pointed out.
“I wish I’d been there in Venice,” Raffaelo said regretfully. “I might have been able to save a few more.”
He was talking about the terrible fight on the cemetery island of San Michele, where Massimo killed Aurelio – and where 14 of my friends and fellow foot soldiers had died.
For a second, I thought of Lorenzo lying on his back, his blood staining the gravel beneath him.
The look in his eyes as he knew he was about to die.
I shuddered, then shook my head. “It’s a good thing you weren’t there. As soon as the Russians saw you helping us, they would have killed you.”
“Which is probably why your husband didn’t ask me to go,” Raffaelo said to Alessandra.
“He’s been incredibly good to me. I owe him everything.
No one else would have given me a chance, but he did.
And he’s been extraordinarily generous. He pays me more than I ever made as an ER doctor, and I hardly ever do any work. ”
“Thank god. If you’re working hard, then the rest of us are in deep shit.” I turned to Alessandra and Cat and apologized. “Please excuse my language.”
“Don’t fuckin’ worry about it,” Cat said, and we all laughed.
“To peacetime,” Raffaelo said as he lifted his glass of orange juice in a toast. “It may be boring, but it’s the best kind of boring there is.”
“To peacetime,” I agreed as I clinked my glass against his, and Cat and Alessandra joined in as well.
“To peacetime.”