Chapter 27 #2
“Buongiorno, Signorina Parker,” he blurted out, stopping in front of me and placing his arms behind his back.
“Good morning, Mr. Condello.” I greeted him with the utmost formality. As if being the head of security and Camillo’s right-hand man wasn’t menacing enough, Luca Condello always wore a grimace that made me wonder how many people he’d already killed, which kept me a few steps away.
Better safe than sorry.
He clicked his tongue, and suddenly his hands were waving in the air between us, his fingers joined in a very Italian gesture. “No need for ‘Mr. Condello,’ Signorina. I’ve already told you that Luca is fine!” he protested, and I didn’t know if he was being friendly or if he wanted to shoot me.
“But… Camillo said—”
“I’ll handle Don Camillo myself, va bene?” he grumbled, cutting off any further protests. “Call me Luca, Signorina.”
“Uh… Sure, Luca.”
“Molto bene.” He said, and seemed genuinely pleased.
“Allora, Don Camillo didn’t spend the night at the villa.
Nor is he likely to return anytime soon.
Since you haven’t left the property since arriving in Italy, I thought I could take this opportunity to show you Castello dell’Fiero. What do you say?”
I blinked, frozen in the middle of that garden, and gave thanks for the sun’s scorching embrace, because fear was freezing my insides.
The grim-faced mafioso was inviting me on a guided tour of the village, and I didn’t know if he really meant that or if it was some kind of code to announce that the time for my execution had come.
I scratched my nose, shaking off the thought while convincing myself that he was just being friendly. “Sure… Sounds great.”
“Va bene. In…” He paused, and I realized that buried beneath the various gold bracelets he wore was a poor watch. “In an hour, maybe an hour and a half, I’ll come pick you up. If we go too late, it gets too hot and you can’t walk on the street.”
“Yes, of course.” Just being nice, Daisy. He’s just being nice. You’re going to live a little longer. “Thank you, Luca.”
“You’re welcome, Signorina. See you then!”
Until the time the Italian indicated, I followed Camillo’s instructions to the letter.
As I had done every morning since arriving there, I entered the villa and opened all the shutters on the ground floor and first floor, letting the light in.
I grabbed an upright vacuum cleaner and quickly vacuumed the floor, then cleaned it with a mop and cedar spray.
Since Camillo wasn’t home, I skipped breakfast and went up to the first floor.
I checked his room.
It was extremely spacious, worthy of the title of master suite, with dark blue floral wallpaper and dark, intricately carved furniture.
Some pieces, like the nightstands, had flowers and vines engraved on them, others, such as the bed canopy, featured beams that resembled twisted rope.
I had only ever seen furniture like that in mansions, never in the home of an ordinary person.
Ordinary person.
Those people were not ordinary.
But despite the furniture, the room had a modern touch that did not go unnoticed by me.
There was a huge television, slim and curved enough to whisper to me just how expensive it must have been, positioned facing the bed, on the wall between the bedroom door and another door leading to a private bathroom.
On one side of the room, near the door to a walk-in closet, stood a simple bookshelf, dark like the wood of the other furniture, but without its elaborate details and noble air.
It was clearly a recent purchase, made of blocks.
On its shelves were books about wildlife, but also cameras.
I walked over and picked one up.
As I took the camera out of its case, I realized it was an old Kodak folding camera.
I put it back in the same place and wondered if Camillo used them.
The truth was that I had noticed pictures of animals in the bedroom of his home in Mississippi, and there, in that villa, there were pictures scattered everywhere—some taken at important moments in the family’s life and others depicting their daily routines.
Beyond those details, the curtains and bedding in the bedroom were also modern, without old-fashioned floral bedspreads or lace curtains. Camillo used dark satin sheets and gray cotton duvet covers. The curtains were made of tulle, simple, without frills.
I gave the furniture a quick dusting as I’d been instructed, and my legs faltered as soon as I reached the walk-in closet.
It was a space of pornographic proportions that didn’t match the rest of the house.
Too modern, with a gray carpet and white furniture, and a ceiling light so bright it reminded me of a hospital.
There were no windows, which led me to believe someone had reinvented that space.
The room was rectangular, and I walked along it, seeing my reflection at the far end, on a mirrored wall. I looked tiny in the midst of it all, even out of place.
I ran the orange microfiber cloth over the furniture, not wanting to linger too long, yet my hands slowed over the glass top of a sort of dresser in the center of the room.
I pressed my lips together and paused for a moment.
On the glass top were Camillo’s perfume bottles.
Some were ordinary, though the brands they bore whispered to me that they must be worth two months’ salary for an average person, others were small works of art.
There was one bottle resting on a bed of ruby-red satin, its box wide open to reveal the golden liquid and its cap mimicking what looked like a diamond, or an English crown. I couldn’t say for sure.
I leaned closer to the box. Clive Christian No. 1 Imperial Majesty Perfume. I didn’t recognize the brand, but it must be expensive.
Yet, among so many beautiful bottles, only one seemed to be used.
Of all of them, it was the simplest bottle.
A faceted glass cylinder with amber liquid inside.
I picked it up, not quite sure why I was doing it.
Angels' Share by Kilian. I carefully removed the cap and brought it close to my nose, instantly closing my eyes.
It was wonderful. It smelled of caramel, vanilla, cinnamon, but also chocolate and almond, and there was a hint of some kind of alcoholic drink that overpowered the rest. On Camillo, it smelled even better. The intensity faded, leaving only the sweet and alcoholic notes.
The man looked like dessert and smelled like one.
Seriously, Daisy? ‘Dessert’?
I quickly covered up the scent and bolted out of that place. If he’d been home, I wouldn’t have dared touch his personal belongings. Something I discovered three days after arriving there was that my dear soon-to-be murderer harbored the paranoia that everyone was conspiring against him.
On the morning of my third day, after making his bed, I’d let curiosity get the better of me and he’d caught me flipping through one of the wildlife books on his bedroom shelf—a book on European birds— and he grilled me for two hours about what had led me to flip through it.
Although I told him a thousand times that I was just looking at the pictures, he didn’t seem the least bit convinced and warned me not to touch anything unless absolutely necessary.
Did I intend to obey? Of course not. But I also had no intention of taking risks while he was around.
I was already in the kitchen, finishing off a chocolate cornetto—which was nothing more than an Italian croissant, even though Camillo insisted they had nothing to do with each other—when Luca showed up. He was sweating profusely and wiping his bald head with a handkerchief.
“Shall we go, Signorina Parker?” he asked me with a smile that was a novelty.
I tried to return his expression as best I could, my cheeks puffed out with food. “Of course!”
Minutes later, we were driving down the road toward the town in Luca’s car. Like all the vehicles parked there, it was a tinted-window SUV. The only thing that gave away that they were a bunch of mobsters.
It didn’t make much sense for us to drive into a tiny village in a car like that, but something told me it would be pointless to protest. Before we got into the vehicle, Luca checked all the tires, even opened the hood, and something told me that he and his boss shared a common paranoia.
He parked the SUV in front of a white-walled building, with a pergola at the entrance covered in passionflower vines laden with beautiful flowers. We got out of the vehicle and he stopped beside me, pointing proudly at the building.
“This is my cousin Maurizio Condello’s ristorante. It’s the only ristorante in Castello dell’Fiero.”
I smiled, amused by the pride with which he was telling me this, but I barely had time to appreciate the place.
Luca motioned to me, and we began to wander through the narrow streets and their sidewalks paved with yellow slabs.
We passed an unimaginable number of small cafés, all with elderly people sitting at the door, and I realized, amused, that old people were the same in every country.
In Silver River, it was also customary for them to show up early at dinner for a little chat, a hot drink, and perhaps a pancake.
I wondered if Italians would do the same thing, especially knowing how much they loved a good cake.
When we reached the end of a tiny street, where a car couldn’t fit and we could barely walk side by side, Luca invited me into what looked like a little house.
The facade was a charming mustard-yellow, and as soon as we walked through the door, the scent of lemon hit my nose, and before long I found myself standing in front of a glass counter.
The interior was lined with tiles covered peppered with little red flowers, and the floor was made of orange-colored mosaic.
In the display case behind the counter, I could see what looked to me like trays of… cannoli?