Juliet

VIII.III

JANICE HAD ALWAYS CLAIMED that you have to get your heart broken at least once in order to grow up and figure out who you really are. To me, this harsh doctrine had never been more than yet another excellent reason for not falling in love. Until now. As I stood there on the loggia that night, watching Alessandro and Umberto conspire against me, I finally knew precisely who I was. I was Shakespeare’s fool.

For despite everything I had learned about Umberto over the past week, the first thing I felt when I saw him was joy. A ridiculous, bubbling, nonsensical joy that it took me a few moments to quell. Two weeks ago, after Aunt Rose’s funeral, I had felt that he was the only person in the world left for me to love, and when I had taken off on my Italian adventure I had felt guilty about leaving him behind. Now, of course, everything was different, but that didn’t mean-I now realized-that I had stopped loving him.

It was a shock to see him, but I knew right away that it ought not have been. As soon as Janice had sprung the news on me-that Umberto was, in fact, Luciano Salimbeni-I had known that, for all his dorky questions over the phone, pretending to misunderstand everything I told him about Mom’s box, he had been several steps ahead of me all the time. And because I loved him and had kept defending him to Janice-insisting that she had somehow misunderstood the police, or that it was simply a case of mistaken identity-his betrayal of me was so much more excruciating.

No matter how I tried to explain his presence here, tonight, there could no longer be any doubt that Umberto was really Luciano Salimbeni. He had been the one siccing Bruno Carrera on me in order to get his hands on the cencio. And considering his track record-people had tended to die when Luciano was around-he had most likely been the one who had helped Bruno tie his shoelaces one last time.

The odd thing was that Umberto still looked precisely the way he always had. Even the expression on his face was exactly as I remembered it: a little arrogant, a little amused, and never betraying his innermost thoughts.

The one who had changed was me.

Now I could finally see that Janice had been right about him all these years; he was a psychopath waiting to snap. And as for Alessandro, sadly, she had been right about him, too. She had said that he didn’t give a hoot about me, and that it was all just a big charade to get his hands on the treasure. Well, I should have listened to her. But that was all too late now. Here I was, stupid me, feeling as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to my future.

This, I thought to myself as I stood there looking at them through the door, would be a natural time for me to cry. But I couldn’t. Too much had happened this night-I had no emotions left in store, save a lump in my throat that was part disbelief, part fear.

Meanwhile, inside the room, Alessandro got off the desk and said something to Umberto that involved the familiar concepts, Friar Lorenzo, Giulietta, and cencio. In response, Umberto reached into his pocket and took out a small, green vial, said something I couldn’t understand, and gave it a vigorous shake before handing it to Alessandro.

Breathless and on tiptoes, all I could see was green glass and a cork stopper. What was it? Poison? Sleeping potion? And for what? Me? Did Umberto want Alessandro to kill me? Never had I needed Italian more than now.

Whatever was in the vial, it was a complete surprise to its recipient, and as he turned it over in his hand, his eyes became practically demonic. Handing it back to Umberto, he sneered something dismissive, and for the briefest of moments I dared to believe that, whatever Umberto’s wicked plans, Alessandro would have nothing to do with them.

Umberto merely shrugged and put the vial gently down on a table. Then he held out his hand, clearly expecting something in return, and Alessandro frowned and handed him a book.

I recognized it right away. It was my mother’s volume of Romeo and Juliet, which had disappeared from the box of papers the day before, while Janice and I were out spelunking in the Bottini… or maybe later, when we were swapping ghost stories in Maestro Lippi’s workshop. No wonder Alessandro had kept calling the hotel over and over; he had obviously wanted to make sure I was out before he broke in and took it.

Without a word of thanks, Umberto started riffling through the book with self-congratulatory greed, while Alessandro stuck his hands in his pockets and walked over to look out the window.

Swallowing hard to keep my heart from popping right out of my throat, I looked at the man whose last words to me, spoken only a few hours ago, had been that he felt reborn and cleansed of all his sins. Here he was, already betraying me, not just with anyone, but with the only other man I had ever trusted.

Just as I decided that I had seen enough, Umberto slammed the book shut and threw it dismissively on the table next to the vial, sneering something I didn’t need to know Italian to understand. Like Janice and me, Umberto had come to the frustrating conclusion that the book in itself did not contain any clues to the whereabouts of Romeo and Giulietta’s grave, and that some other vital piece of evidence was clearly missing.

Without much of a warning, he came over to the door, and I barely had time to dart off into the shadows before Umberto stepped out onto the loggia, impatiently waving Alessandro along. Pressed against a recess in the wall, I saw them both walking off down the hallway and disappearing quietly down the stairs into the great hall.

Now, finally, I could feel the tears coming, but I held them in, deciding that I was more angry than sad. Fine. So Alessandro had been in it for the money, just as Janice had divined. That being the case, he could at least have had the decency to keep his hands to himself and not make things worse. As for Umberto, there were not enough words in Aunt Rose’s big dictionary to describe my fury at his being here tonight and doing this to me. It was obviously he who had manipulated Alessandro, telling him to keep an eye-and two hands, and a mouth, and so forth-on me at all times.

My body executed the only logical game plan before my brain had even approved it. Rushing into the room they had just left, I picked up the book and the vial-the latter exclusively out of spite. Then I ran back to Alessandro’s room and bundled up my loot in a shirt lying on his bed.

Looking around the room for other items that could be construed as relevant to my victimhood, it occurred to me that the most useful object I could possibly steal would be the keys to the Alfa Romeo. Ripping open the drawer in Alessandro’s bedstand, however, all I found were a handful of foreign change, a rosary, and a pocketknife. Not even bothering to close the drawer, I scanned the room for other possible locations, trying to put myself in Alessandro’s place. “Romeo, Romeo,” I mumbled, peeking under this and that, “where dost thou keep thine car keys?”

When it finally occurred to me to look under the bed pillows, I was rewarded with the discovery of not only the car keys, but a handgun as well. Without allowing myself time for second thoughts, I grabbed both, and was astounded by the weight of the weapon. If I had not been so upset, I would have laughed at myself. Look at the pacifist now-gone were all my rosy dreams of a world with perfect equality and without guns. To me now, Alessandro’s handgun was exactly the kind of equalizer I needed.

Back in my own room, I quickly tossed everything into my weekend bag. As I started to zip it up, my eyes fell on the ring on my finger. Yes, it was mine, and yes, it was solid gold, but it symbolized my spiritual-and now also physical-symbiosis with the man who had broken into my hotel room twice and stolen half of my treasure map in order to give it to the two-faced bastard who had very possibly murdered my parents. So I pulled and pulled until the ring finally came off, and left it on one of the bed pillows as one last, melodramatic goodbye to Alessandro.

Mostly as an afterthought, I grabbed the cencio from the bed and folded it gingerly before putting it into the bag with the rest of my stuff. It wasn’t that I had any use for it whatsoever, nor did I think I could ever go out and sell it to anyone-especially in its current condition. No, I simply didn’t want them to have it.

Whereupon I picked up my loot and slipped right back out the balcony door without waiting for applause.

THE OLD VINES GROWING on the wall were just strong enough to carry my weight as I began my descent from the balcony. I had dropped the bag first, aiming for a spongy bush, and after seeing that it had landed safely, I had embarked on my own laborious escape.

Inching along on the wall, my hands and arms throbbing, I passed closely by a window that was still illuminated despite the late hour. Stretching to make sure there was no one in the room who might wonder about the scratching sounds, I was astounded to see Friar Lorenzo and three of his fellow monks sitting very quietly, hands folded, in four armchairs facing a fireplace full of fresh flowers. Two of the monks were clearly nodding off, but Friar Lorenzo looked as if nothing and no one could compel him to close his eyes until this night was over.

At one point while I was hanging there, panting and desperate, I heard agitated voices coming from my room above, and the sound of someone stepping angrily out onto my balcony. Holding my breath, I hung as still as I possibly could, until I was sure the person had gone back inside. The prolonged strain, however, was too much for the vine. Just as I dared to move again, it snapped and started peeling off the wall, sending me into a headlong plunge to the greenery below.

Fortunately, the drop was no more than ten feet or so. Less fortunate was my landing in a bed of roses. But I was too frantic to feel any real pain as I extracted myself from the thorny branches and picked up my bag; the scratches on my arms and legs were nothing compared to the pangs of defeat I couldn’t block out as I limped away from the best of nights and the worst of nights all at once.

Picking my way through the dewy darkness of the garden I eventually emerged from a clingy shrubbery into the dimly lit circle of the driveway. Standing there, clutching the bag against my chest, I now realized that there was no way I could get the Alfa Romeo out; it was trapped behind several black limos which could only belong to the Lorenzo Brotherhood. However little I liked the idea, it was beginning to look as if I would be walking all the way back to Siena.

While I stood there, smarting from my bad luck, I suddenly heard dogs barking madly somewhere behind me. Unzipping the bag, I quickly took out the gun-just in case-and began running down the gravel driveway, sending up gasping prayers to whatever guardian angel was on duty in the area that night. If I was lucky, I could make it out to the main road before they caught up with me, and hitch a ride with a passing car. Surely, if the driver thought my romantic dress-up was meant as an invitation, the gun would quickly set him straight.

The tall gate at the end of Castello Salimbeni’s driveway was, of course, closed, and I did not waste my time pressing the buttons to the intercom. Sticking my arm through the iron bars, I put down the gun carefully in the gravel on the other side, before throwing my bag over the gate. Only when it came down with a thud on the other side did it occur to me that the impact might have crushed the vial inside. But that should hardly be a concern; trapped between barking dogs and a tall gate, I was lucky if the vial was all that ended up in pieces tonight.

Then, finally, I grabbed the iron bars and began climbing. Not even halfway to the top, however, I heard running feet in the gravel behind me, and frantically tried to speed up my progress. But the metal was cold and slippery, and before I could pull myself up and out of reach, a hand closed firmly around my ankle. “Giulietta! Wait!” It was Alessandro.

I glared down at him, nearly blinded by fear and fury. “Let me go!” I cried, trying as hard as I could to kick his hand away. “You bastard! I hope you burn in hell! You and your bloody godmother!”

“Come down!” Alessandro was not open for negotiation. “Before you hurt yourself!”

I finally managed to get my foot free, and to hoist myself out of reach. “Yeah right! You asshole! I’d rather break my neck than play your sick games anymore!”

“Come down, now!” He climbed up behind me, this time to grab hold of my skirt. “And let me explain! Please!”

I groaned with frustration. I was frantic to get away, and what more could he possibly tell me now? But with him stubbornly holding on to the fabric of my dress, there was nothing I could do but hang there, fuming with desperation, while my arms and hands slowly started giving way.

“Giulietta. Please listen. I can explain everything-”

I suppose we were so focused on each other that neither of us noticed a third person emerging from the darkness on the other side of the gate, until she spoke. “Okay, Romeo, get your hands off my sister!”

“Janice!” I was so surprised to see her that I very nearly lost my grip.

“Just keep climbing!” Janice knelt down to pick up the gun in the gravel. “And you, mister, let’s see your flippers!”

She pointed the gun at Alessandro through the gate, and he let go of me right away. Janice had always been pretty forceful regardless of her accessories; with a gun in her hand she was the very embodiment of “No means no.”

“Careful!” Alessandro jumped off the gate and backed up a few steps, “That gun is loaded…”

“Of course it’s loaded!” snapped Janice. “Put your paws up, lover-boy!”

“… and it has a very light trigger pull.”

“Oh yeah? Well, so do I! But you know what? That’s your problem! You’re on the smoking end!”

Meanwhile, I was able to painfully work my way over the top of the gate, and as soon as I could, I let myself drop to the ground next to Janice with a howl of pain.

“Jesus, Jules! Are you okay? Here, take this-” Janice handed me the gun. “I’m gonna get our ride-no, you idiot! Point it at him!”

We stood there for only a few seconds, but it felt like time had stopped. Alessandro looked at me glumly through the gate while I did my best to point the gun at him, tears of confusion fogging my scope.

“Give me the book,” was all he said. “It’s what they want. They won’t let you go until they have it. Trust me. Please don’t-”

“Come on!” cried Janice, pulling up next to me on her motorcycle, gravel flying. “Get the bag and hop on!” Seeing my hesitation, she revved the engine impatiently. “Get your ass in gear, Miss Juliet, the party’s over!”

Moments later, we zoomed into the darkness on the Ducati Monster, and when I turned around to look one last time, Alessandro just stood there, leaning on the gate, like a man who has missed the most important flight of his life because of a silly miscalculation.