Read Online Windy City Blues by Sara Paretsky - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sara Paretsky
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English. “Do you pay them, or they you?”
“I don’t think it matters.” Ranier was still indifferent. “Let’s get going…. Oh, Verazi,” he added inItalian, “before we leave, just check for the score, will you?”
“What is this precious score?” I asked.
“It’s not important for you to know.”
“You steal it from my apartment, but I don’t need to know about it? I think the state will take a different view.”
Before Ranier finished another cold response Vico cried out that the manuscript was missing.
“Then search her bag,” Ranier ordered.
Vico crossed behind him to snatch my case from the couch. He dumped the contents on the floor. A Shawn Colwin tape, a tampon that had come partially free of its container, loose receipts, and a handful of dog biscuits joined my work notebook, miniature camera, and binoculars in an unprofessional heap. Vico opened the case wide and shook it. The letter from my mother remained in the inner compartment.
“Where is it?” Ranier demanded.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” I said, using English again.
“Verazi, get behind her and tie her hands. You’ll find some rope in the bottom of my desk.”
Ranier wasn’t going to shoot me in his office: too much to explain to the building management. I fought hard. When Ranier kicked me in the stomach I lost my breath, though, and Vico caught my arms roughly behind me. His marigold was crushed, and he would have a black eye before tomorrow morning. He was panting with fury, and smacked me againacross the face when he finished tying me. Blood dripped from my nose onto my shirt. I wanted to blot it and momentarily gave way to rage at my helplessness. I thought of Gabriella, of the love that moves the sun and all the other stars, and tried to avoid the emptiness of Ranier’s eyes.
“Now tell me where the manuscript is,” Ranier said in the same impersonal voice.
I leaned back in the couch and shut my eyes. Vico hit me again.
“Okay, okay,” I muttered. “I’ll tell you where the damned thing is. But I have one question first.”
“You’re in no position to bargain,” Ranier intoned.
I ignored him. “Are you really my cousin?”
Vico bared his teeth in a canine grin. “Oh, yes,
cara cugina
, be assured, we are relatives. That naughty Frederica whom everyone in the family despised was truly my grandmother. Yes, she slunk off to Milan to have a baby in the slums without a father. And my mother was so impressed by her example that she did the same. Then when those two worthy women died, the one of tuberculosis, the other of excess heroin, the noble Verazis rescued the poor gutter child and brought him up in splendor in Florence. They packed all my grandmother’s letters into a box and swept them up with me and my one toy, a horse that someone else had thrown in the garbage, and that my mother brought home from one of her nights out.My aunt discarded the horse and replaced it with some very hygienic toys, but the papers she stored in her attic.
“Then when my so-worthy uncle, who could never thank himself enough for rescuing this worthless brat, died, I found all my grandmother’s papers. Including letters from your mother, and her plea for help in finding Francesca Salvini so that she could return this most precious musical score. And I thought, what have these Verazis ever done for me, but rubbed my nose in dirt? And you, that same beautiful blood flows in you as in them. And as in me!”
“And Claudia Fortezza, our great-grandmother? Did she write music, or was that all a fiction?”
“Oh, no doubt she dabbled in music as all the ladies in our family like to, even you, looking at that score the other night and asking me about the notation! Oh, yes, like all those stuck-up Verazi cousins, laughing at me because I’d never seen a piano before! I thought you would fall for such a tale, and it amused me to have you hunting for her music when it never existed.”
His eyes glittered amber and flecks
“I don’t think it matters.” Ranier was still indifferent. “Let’s get going…. Oh, Verazi,” he added inItalian, “before we leave, just check for the score, will you?”
“What is this precious score?” I asked.
“It’s not important for you to know.”
“You steal it from my apartment, but I don’t need to know about it? I think the state will take a different view.”
Before Ranier finished another cold response Vico cried out that the manuscript was missing.
“Then search her bag,” Ranier ordered.
Vico crossed behind him to snatch my case from the couch. He dumped the contents on the floor. A Shawn Colwin tape, a tampon that had come partially free of its container, loose receipts, and a handful of dog biscuits joined my work notebook, miniature camera, and binoculars in an unprofessional heap. Vico opened the case wide and shook it. The letter from my mother remained in the inner compartment.
“Where is it?” Ranier demanded.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” I said, using English again.
“Verazi, get behind her and tie her hands. You’ll find some rope in the bottom of my desk.”
Ranier wasn’t going to shoot me in his office: too much to explain to the building management. I fought hard. When Ranier kicked me in the stomach I lost my breath, though, and Vico caught my arms roughly behind me. His marigold was crushed, and he would have a black eye before tomorrow morning. He was panting with fury, and smacked me againacross the face when he finished tying me. Blood dripped from my nose onto my shirt. I wanted to blot it and momentarily gave way to rage at my helplessness. I thought of Gabriella, of the love that moves the sun and all the other stars, and tried to avoid the emptiness of Ranier’s eyes.
“Now tell me where the manuscript is,” Ranier said in the same impersonal voice.
I leaned back in the couch and shut my eyes. Vico hit me again.
“Okay, okay,” I muttered. “I’ll tell you where the damned thing is. But I have one question first.”
“You’re in no position to bargain,” Ranier intoned.
I ignored him. “Are you really my cousin?”
Vico bared his teeth in a canine grin. “Oh, yes,
cara cugina
, be assured, we are relatives. That naughty Frederica whom everyone in the family despised was truly my grandmother. Yes, she slunk off to Milan to have a baby in the slums without a father. And my mother was so impressed by her example that she did the same. Then when those two worthy women died, the one of tuberculosis, the other of excess heroin, the noble Verazis rescued the poor gutter child and brought him up in splendor in Florence. They packed all my grandmother’s letters into a box and swept them up with me and my one toy, a horse that someone else had thrown in the garbage, and that my mother brought home from one of her nights out.My aunt discarded the horse and replaced it with some very hygienic toys, but the papers she stored in her attic.
“Then when my so-worthy uncle, who could never thank himself enough for rescuing this worthless brat, died, I found all my grandmother’s papers. Including letters from your mother, and her plea for help in finding Francesca Salvini so that she could return this most precious musical score. And I thought, what have these Verazis ever done for me, but rubbed my nose in dirt? And you, that same beautiful blood flows in you as in them. And as in me!”
“And Claudia Fortezza, our great-grandmother? Did she write music, or was that all a fiction?”
“Oh, no doubt she dabbled in music as all the ladies in our family like to, even you, looking at that score the other night and asking me about the notation! Oh, yes, like all those stuck-up Verazi cousins, laughing at me because I’d never seen a piano before! I thought you would fall for such a tale, and it amused me to have you hunting for her music when it never existed.”
His eyes glittered amber and flecks
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