Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

Patricia Highsmith When in Rome

Isabella had soaped her face, her neck, and was beginning to relax in the spray of deliciously warm water on her body when suddenly — there he was again! An ugly grinning face peered at her not a meter from her own face, with one big fist gripping an iron bar, so he could raise himself to her level.

“Swine!” Isabella said between her teeth, ducking at the same time.

“Slut!” came his retort. “Ha, ha!”

This must have been the third intrusion by the same creep! Isabella, still stooped, got out of the shower and reached for the plastic bottle of yellow shampoo, shot some into a bowl which held a cake of soap (she removed the soap), let some hot shower water run into the bowl and agitated the water until the suds rose, thick and sweet-smelling. She set the bowl within easy reach on the rim of the tub, and climbed back under the shower, breathing harder with her fury.

Just let him try it again! Defiantly erect, she soaped her facecloth, washed her thighs. The square recessed window was just to the left of her head, and there was a square emptiness, stone-lined, between the blue-and-white tiled bathroom walls and the great iron bars, each as thick as her wrist, on the street side.

“Signora?” came the mocking voice again.

Isabella reached for the bowl. Now he had both hands on the bars, and his face was between them, unshaven, his black eyes intense, his loose mouth smiling. Isabella flung the suds, holding the bowl with fingers spread wide on its underside.

“Oof!” The head disappeared.

A direct hit! The suds had caught him between the eyes, and she thought she heard some of the suds hit the pavement. Isabella smiled and finished her shower.

She was not looking forward to the evening — dinner at home with the First Secretary of the Danish Embassy with his girl friend; but she had had worse evenings in the past, and there were worse to come in Vienna in the last week of this month, May, when her husband Filippo had to attend some kind of human-rights-and-pollution conference that was going to last five days. Isabella didn’t care for the Viennese — she considered the women bores with nothing on their minds but clothes, who was wearing what, and how much did it cost.

“I think I prefer the green silk tonight,” Isabella said to her maid Elisabetta, when she went into her bedroom, big bathtowel around her, and saw the new black dress laid out on her bed. “I changed my mind,” Isabella added, because she remembered that she had chosen the black that afternoon. Hadn’t she? Isabella felt a little vague.

“And which shoes, signora?”

Isabella told her.

A quarter to eight now. The guests — two men, Filippo had said, besides the Danish secretary who was called Osterberg or Ottenberg, were not due until eight, which meant eight thirty or later. Isabella wanted to go out on the street, to drink an espresso standing up at the bar, like any other ordinary Roman citizen, and she also wanted to see if the Peeping Tom was still hanging around. In fact, there were two of them, the second a weedy type of about thirty who wore a limp raincoat and dark glasses. He was a “feeler,” the kind who pushed his hand against a woman’s bottom. He had done it to Isabella once or twice while she was waiting for the porter to open the door. Isabella had to wait for the porter unless she chose to carry around a key as long as a man’s foot for the big outside doors. The feeler looked a bit cleaner than her bathroom snoop, but he also seemed creepier and he never smiled.

“Going out for a caffé,” Isabella said to Elisabetta.

“You prefer to go out?” Elisabetta said, meaning that she could make a caffé, if the signora wanted. Elisabetta was forty-odd, her hair in a neat bun. Her husband had died a year ago, and she was still in a state of semi-mourning.

Isabella flung a cape over her shoulders, barely nodded, and left. She crossed the cobbled court whose stones slanted gently toward a center drain, and was met at the door by one of the three porters who kept a round-the-clock guard on the palazzo which was occupied by six affluent tenants. This porter was Franco. He lifted the heavy crossbar and opened the big doors enough for her to pass through.

Isabella was out on the street. Freedom! She stood tall and breathed. An adolescent boy cycled past, whistling. An old woman in black waddled by slowly, burdened with a shopping bag that showed onions and spaghetti on top, carelessly wrapped in newspaper. Someone’s radio blared jazz through an open window. The air promised a hot summer.

Isabella looked around, but didn’t see either of her nuisances, and was aware of feeling slightly disappointed. However, there was the bar-caffé across the street and a bit to the right. Isabella entered, conscious that her fine clothes and well-groomed hair set her apart from the usual patrons here. She put on a warm smile for the young barman who knew her by now.

“Signora! Buon’ giorno! A fine day, no? What is your wish?”

“Un espress’, per piacere.”

Isabella realized that she was known in the neighborhood as the wife of a government official who was reasonably important for his age which was still under forty, aware that she was considered rather rich, and pretty too. The latter, people could see. And what else, Isabella wondered as she sipped her espresso. She and Filippo had a fourteen-year-old daughter in school in Switzerland now. Susanna.

Isabella wrote to her faithfully once a week, as Susanna did to her. How was Susanna going to shape up? Would she even like her daughter by the time she was eighteen or twenty-two? Was Susanna going to lose her passion for horses and horseback riding (Isabella hoped so) and go for something more intellectual such as geology and anthropology, which she had shown an interest in last year? Or was she going to go the usual way — get married at twenty before she’d finished university, trade on her good looks and marry “the right kind of man” before she had found out what life was all about? What was life all about?

Isabella looked around her, as if to find out. Isabella had had two years of university in Milan, had come from a rather intellectual family, and didn’t consider herself just another dumb wife. Filippo was good-looking and had a promising career ahead of him. But then Filippo’s father was important in a government ministry, and had money. The only trouble was that the wife of a man in diplomatic service had to be a clothes-horse, had to keep her mouth shut when she would like to open it, had to be polite and gracious to people whom she detested or was bored by. There were times when Isabella wanted to kick it all, to go slumming, simply to laugh.

She tossed off the last of her coffee, left a five-hundred-lire piece, and turned around, not yet leaving the security of the bar’s counter. She surveyed the scene. Two tables were occupied by couples who might be lovers. A blind beggar with a white cane was on his way in.

And here came her dark-eyed Peeping Tom! Isabella was aware that her eyes lit up as if she beheld her lover walking in.

He grinned. He sauntered, swaggered slightly as he headed for the bar to a place at a little distance from her. He looked her up and down, like a man sizing up a pick-up before deciding yes or no.

Isabella lifted her head and walked out of the bar-caffé.

He followed. “You are beautiful, signora,” he said. “I should know, don’t you think so?”

“You can keep your filthy ideas to yourself!” Isabella replied as she crossed the street.

“My beautiful lady-love — the wife of my dreams!”

Isabella noticed that his eyes looked pink. Good! She pressed the bell for the porter. An approaching figure on her left caught her eye. The bottom-pincher, the gooser, the real oddball! Raincoat again, no glasses today, a faint smile. Isabella turned to face him, with her back to the big doors.

“Oh, how I would like to...” the feeler murmured as he passed her, so close she imagined she could feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek, and at the same time he slapped her hip with his left hand. He had a pockmark or two, and big cheekbones that stuck out gauntly. Disgusting type! And a disgusting phrase he had used!

From across the street, Peeping Tom was watching, Isabella saw; he was chuckling silently, rocking back on his heels.

Franco opened the doors. What if she told Filippo about those two? But of course she had, Isabella remembered, a month or so ago, yes. “How would you like it if a psychopath stared at you nearly every time you took a shower?” Isabella had said to Filippo, and he had broken out in one of his rare laughs. “If it were a woman maybe, yes, I might like it!” he said, then he had said that she shouldn’t take it so seriously, that he would speak to the porters, or something like that.

Isabella had the feeling that she didn’t really wake up until after the dinner party, when the coffee was served in the living room. The taste of the coffee reminded her of the bar that afternoon, of the dark-haired Peeping Tom with the pink eyes walking into the bar and having the nerve to speak to her again!

“We shall be in Vienna too, at the end of the month,” said the girl friend of the Danish First Secretary.

Isabella rather liked her. Her name was Gudrun. She looked healthy, honest, unsnobbish. But Isabella had nothing to say except, “Good. We shall be looking forward,” one of the phrases that came out of her automatically after fifteen years of being the wife-of-a-government-employee. There were moments, hours, when she felt bored to the point of going insane. Like now. She felt on the brink of doing something shocking, such as standing up and screaming, or announcing that she wanted to go out for a walk (yes, and have another espresso in the same crummy bar), of shouting that she was bored with them all, even Filippo, slumped with legs crossed in an armchair now, wearing his neat, new dinner suit with a ruffled shirt, deep in conversation with the three other men. Filippo was long and lean like a fashion model, his black hair beginning to gray at the temples in a distinguished way. Women liked his looks, Isabella knew. His good looks, however, didn’t make him a ball of fire as a lover. Did the women know that, Isabella wondered.

Before going to bed that night, Isabella had to check the shopping list with Luigi the cook for tomorrow’s dinner party, because Luigi would be up early to buy fresh fish. Hadn’t the signora suggested fish? And Luigi recommended young lamb instead of tournedos for the main course, if he dared say so.

Filippo paid her a compliment as he was undressing. “Osterberg thought you were charming.”

They both slept in the same big bed, but it was so wide that Filippo could switch his reading light on and read his papers and briefings till all hours, as he often did, without disturbing Isabella.

A couple of evenings later Isabella was showering just before seven P.M, when the same dark-haired creep sprang up at her bathroom window, leering a “Hello, beautiful! Getting ready for me?”

Isabella was not in a mood for repartee. She got out of the shower.

“Ah, signora, such beauty should not be hidden! Don’t try—”

“I’ve told the police about you!” Isabella yelled back at him, and switched off the bathroom light.

Isabella spoke to Filippo that evening as soon as he came in. “Something’s got to be done — opaque glass put in the window—”

“You said that would make the bathroom too humid.”

“I don’t care! It’s revolting! I’ve told the porters — Giorgio, anyway. He doesn’t do a damned thing, that’s plain! Filippo?”

“Yes, my dear. Come on, can’t we talk about this later? I’ve got to change my shirt, at least, because we’re due — already.” He looked at his watch.

Isabella was dressed. “I want your tear-gas gun. You remember you showed it to me. Where is it?”

Filippo sighed. “Top drawer, left side of my desk.”

Isabella went to the desk in Filippo’s study. The gun looked like a fountain pen, only a bit thicker. Isabella smiled as she placed her thumb on the firing end of it and imagined her counterattack.

“Be careful how you use that tear-gas,” Filippo said as they were leaving the house. “I don’t want you to get into trouble with the police just because of a—”

“Me in trouble with the police! Whose side are you on?” Isabella laughed, and felt much better now that she was armed.

The next afternoon around five, Isabella went out, paid a visit to the pharmacy where she bought tissues and a bottle of a new eau de Cologne which the chemist suggested, and whose packaging amused her. Then she strolled toward the bar-caffé, keeping an eye out for her snoops as she went. She was bareheaded, had a bit of rouge on her lips, and she wore a new summer frock. She looked pretty and was aware of it. And across the street, walking past her very door now, went the raincoated creep in dark glasses again — and he didn’t notice her. Isabella felt slightly disappointed. She went into the bar and ordered an espresso, lit a rare cigarette.

The barman chatted. “Wasn’t it a nice day? And the signora is looking especially well today.”

Isabella barely heard him, but she replied politely. When she opened her handbag to pay for her espresso, she touched the tear-gas gun, picked it up, dropped it, before reaching for her purse.

“Grazie, signora!” She had tipped generously as usual.

Just as she turned to the door, the bathroom peeper — her special persecutor — entered, and had the audacity to smile broadly and nod, as if they were dear friends. Isabella lifted her head higher as if with disdain, and at the same time gave him an appraising glance, which just might have been mistaken for an invitation, Isabella knew. She had meant it that way. The creep hadn’t quite the boldness to say anything to her inside the caffé, but he did follow her out the door. Isabella avoided looking directly at him. Even his shoes were unshined. What could he do for a living, she wondered.

Isabella pretended, at her door, to be groping for her key. She picked up the tear-gas gun, pushed off its safety, and held it with her thumb against its top.

Then he said, with such mirth in his voice that he could hardly get the words out, “Bellissima signora, when are you going to let me—”

Isabella lifted the big fountain pen and pushed its firing button, maneuvering it so that its spray caught both his eyes at short range.

“Ow! — Ooh-h!” He coughed, then groaned, down on one knee now, with a hand across his eyes.

Even Isabella could smell the stuff, and blinked, her eyes watering. A man on the pavement had noticed the Peeping Tom struggling to get up, but was not running to help him, merely walking toward him. And now a porter opened the big wooden doors, and Isabella ducked into her own courtyard. “Thank you, Giorgio.”

The next morning she and Filippo set out for Vienna. This excursion was one Isabella dreaded. Vienna would be dead after eleven thirty at night — not even an interesting coffee house would be open. Awful! But the fact that she had fired a shot in self-defense — in attack — buoyed Isabella’s morale.

And to crown her satisfaction she had the pleasure of seeing Peeping Tom in dark glasses as she and Filippo were getting into the chauffeured government car to be driven to the airport. He had stopped on the pavement some ten meters away to gaze at the luggage being put into the limousine by the liveried driver.

Isabella hoped his eyes were killing him. She had noted there was a box of four cartridges for the tear-gas gun in the same drawer. She intended to keep her gadget well charged. Surely the fellow wasn’t going to come back for more! She might try it also on the feeler in the dirty raincoat. Yes, there was one who didn’t mind approaching damned close!

“Why’re you dawdling, Isabella? Forget something?” Filippo asked, holding the car door for her.

Isabella hadn’t realized that she had been standing on the pavement, relishing the fact that the creep could see her about to get into the protective armor of the shiny car, about to go hundreds of kilometers away from him. “I’m ready,” she said, and got in. She was not going to say to Filippo, “There’s my Peeping Tom.” She liked the idea of her secret war with him. Maybe his eyes were permanently damaged. She hoped so.

This minor coup made Vienna seem better. Isabella missed Elisabetta — some women whose husbands were in government service traveled with their maids, but Filippo was against this, just now. “Wait a couple of years till I get a promotion,” Filippo had said. Years. Isabella didn’t care for the word year or years. Could she stand it? At the stuffy dinner parties where the Austrians spoke bad French or worse Italian, Isabella carried her tear-gas gun in her handbag, even in her small evening bag at the big gala at the Staatsoper. The Flying Dutchman. Isabella sat with legs crossed, feet crossed also with tension, and dreamed of resuming her attack when she got back to Rome.

Then on the last evening Filippo had an “all-night meeting” with four men of the human-rights committee, or whatever they called it. Isabella expected him back at the hotel about three in the morning at the latest, but he did not get back till seven thirty, looking exhausted and even a bit drunk. His arrival had awakened her, though he had tried to come in quietly with his own key.

“Nothing at all,” he said unnecessarily and a little vaguely. “Got to take a shower — then a little sleep. No appointment till — eleven this morning and it won’t matter if I’m late.” He ran the shower.

Then Isabella remembered the girl he had been talking to that evening, as he smoked a fine cigar — at least, Isabella had heard Filippo call it “a fine cigar” — a smiling, blonde Austrian girl, smiling in the special way women had when they wanted to say, “Anything you do is all right with me. I’m yours, you understand? At least for tonight.”

Isabella sighed, turned over in bed, tried to sleep again, but she felt tense with rage, and knew she would not sleep before it was time for breakfast, time to get up. Damn it! She knew Filippo had been at the girl’s apartment or in her hotel room, knew that if she took the trouble to sniff his shirt, even the shoulders of his dinner jacket, she would smell the girl’s perfume — and the idea of doing that revolted her. Well, she herself had had two, no three lovers during her married life with Filippo, but they had been so brief, those affairs! And so discreet! Not one servant had known.

Isabella also suspected Filippo of having a girl friend in Rome, Sibilla, a rather gypsy-like brunette, and if Filippo was “discreet,” it was because he was only lukewarm about her. This blonde tonight was more Filippo’s type, Isabella knew. She heard Filippo hit the twin bed that was pushed close to her bed. He would sleep like a log, then get up in three hours looking amazingly fresh.

When Isabella and Filippo got back to Rome, Signor Sore-Eyes was on hand the very first evening, when Isabella stood under the shower about seven thirty in the evening. Now that was fidelity for you! Isabella ducked, giggling. Her giggle was audible.

And Sore-Eyes’ response came instantly: “Ah, the lady of my heart is pleased! She laughs!” He had dropped to his feet, out of sight, but his voice came clearly through the stone recess. “Come, let me see more. More!” Hands grasped the bars; the grinning face appeared, black eyes shining and looking not at all damaged.

“Get lost!” she shouted, and stepped out of the shower and began to dry herself, standing near the wall, out of his view.

But the other nut, the feeler, seemed to have left the neighborhood. At least Isabella did not see him during three or four days after her return from Vienna. Nearly every day she had an espresso at the bar-caffé across the street, and sometimes twice a day she took taxis to the Via Veneto area where a few of her friends lived, or to the Via Condotti for shopping. Shiny-Eyes remained faithful, however, not always in view when she came out of her big doors, but more often than not.

Isabella fancied — she liked to fancy — that he was in love with her, even though his silly remarks were intended either to make her laugh or, she had to admit it, to insult and shock her. It was this line of thinking, however, which caused Isabella to see the Peeping Tom as a rival, and which gave her an idea. What Filippo needed was a good jolt!

“Would you like to come for after-dinner coffee tonight?” Isabella murmured to Shiny-Eyes one day, interrupting his own stream of vulgarity, as she stood not yet pushing the bell of her house.

The man’s mouth fell open, revealing more of his stained teeth.

“Ghiardini,” she said, giving her last name. “Ten thirty.” She had pushed the bell by now and the doors were opening. “Wear some better clothes,” she whispered.

That evening Isabella dressed with a little more interest in her appearance. She and Filippo had to go out first to a “buffet cocktail” at the Hotel Eliseo. Isabella was not even interested in what country was host to the affair. Then she and Filippo departed at ten fifteen in their own government car, to be followed by two other groups of Americans, Italians, and a couple of Germans. Isabella and Filippo were earlier than the rest, and of course Luigi and Elisabetta already had the long bar-table well equipped with bottles, glasses, and ice, and platters of little sausages stuck with toothpicks. Why hadn’t she told Shiny-Eyes eleven o’clock?

But Shiny-Eyes did the right thing, and arrived just after eleven. Isabella’s heart gave a dip as he entered through the living-room door, which had been opened by Luigi. The room was already crowded with guests, most of them standing up with drinks, chattering away, quite occupied, and giving Shiny-Eyes not a glance. Luigi was seeing to his drink. At least he was wearing a dark suit, a limp but white shirt, and a tie.

Isabella chatted with a large American and his wife. Isabella hated speaking English, but she could hold her own in it. Filippo, Isabella saw, had left his quartet of diplomats and was now concentrating on two pretty women; he was standing before them while they sat on the sofa, as if mesmerizing them by his tall elegant presence, his stream of bilge. The women were German, secretaries or girl friends. Isabella almost sneered.

Shiny-Eyes was nursing his Scotch against the wall by the bar-table, and Isabella drifted over on the pretense of replenishing her champagne. She glanced at him, and he came closer. To Isabella he seemed the only vital person in the room. She had no intention of speaking to him, even of looking directly at him, and concentrated on pouring champagne from a small bottle.

“Good evening, signora,” he said in English.

“Good evening. And what is your name?” she asked in Italian.

“Ugo.”

Isabella turned gracefully on her heel and walked away. For the next minutes she was a dutiful hostess, circulating, chatting, making sure that everyone had what he or she wanted. People were relaxing, laughing more loudly. Even as she spoke to someone, Isabella looked in Ugo’s direction and saw him in the act of pocketing a small Etruscan statue. She drifted back across the room toward him. “You put that back!” she said between her teeth, and left him.

Ugo put it back, flustered, but not seriously.

Filippo had caught the end of this, Isabella speaking to Ugo. Filippo rose to find a new drink, got it, and approached Isabella. “Who’s the dark type over there? Do you know him?”

Isabella shrugged. “Someone’s bodyguard, perhaps?”

The evening ended quietly, Ugo slipping out unnoticed even by Isabella. When Isabella turned back to the living room expecting to see Filippo, she found the room empty. “Filippo?” she called, thinking he might be in the bedroom.

Filippo had evidently gone out with some of the guests, and Isabella was sure he was going to see one of the blondes tonight. Isabella helped herself to a last champagne, something she rarely did. She was not satisfied with the evening after all.

When she awakened the next morning, at the knock of Elisabetta with the breakfast tray, Filippo was not beside her in bed. Elisabetta, of course, made no comment. While Isabella was still drinking caffé latte, Filippo arrived. All-night talk with the Americans, he explained, and now he had to change his clothes.

“Is the blonde in the blue dress American? I thought she and the other blonde were Germans,” Isabella said.

Now the row was on. So what, was Filippo’s attitude.

“What kind of life is it for me?” Isabella screamed. “Am I nothing but an object? Just some female figure in the house — always here, to say buona sera — and smile!”

“Where would I be without you? Every man in government service needs a wife,” replied Filippo, using up the last of his patience. “And you’re a very good hostess, Isabella, really!”

Isabella roared like a lioness. “Hostess! I detest the word! And your girl friends — in this house—”

“Never!” Filippo replied proudly.

“Two of them! How many have you now?”

“Am I the only man in Rome with a mistress or two?” He had recovered his cool and intended to stand up for his rights. After all, he was supporting Isabella and in fine style, and their daughter Susanna too. “If you don’t like it—” But Filippo stopped.

More than ever, that day, Isabella wanted to see Ugo. She went out around noon, and stopped for an americano at the little bar-caffé. This time she sat at a table. Ugo came in when she had nearly finished her drink. Faithful, he was. Or psychic. Maybe both. Without looking at him, she knew that he had seen her.

She left some money on the table and walked out. Ugo followed. She walked in an opposite direction from the palazzo across the street, knowing that he knew she expected him to follow her.

When they were safely around another corner, Isabella turned. “You did quite well last night, except for the attempted—”

“Ah, sorry, signora!” he interrupted, grinning.

“What are you by profession — if I dare to ask?”

“Journalist, sometimes. Photographer. You know, a free-lance.”

“Would you like to make some money?”

He wriggled, and grinned wider. “To spend on you, signora, yes.”

“Never mind the rubbish.” He really was an untidy specimen, back in his old shoes again, dirty sweater under his jacket, and when had he last had a bath? Isabella looked around to see if anyone might be observing them. “Would you be interested in kidnaping a rich man?”

Ugo hesitated only two seconds. “Why not?” His black eyebrows had gone up. “Tell me. Who?”

“My husband. You will need a friend with a gun and a car.”

Ugo indulged in another grin, but his attitude was attentive.

Isabella had thought out her plans that morning. She told Ugo that she and Filippo wanted to buy a house outside of Rome, and she had the names of a few real-estate agents. She could make an appointment with one for Friday morning, for instance, at nine o’clock. Isabella said she would make herself “indisposed” that morning, so Filippo would have to go alone. But Ugo must be at the palazzo with a car a little before nine.

“I must make the hour the same, otherwise Filippo will suspect me,” Isabella explained. “These agents are always a little late. You should be ten minutes early. I’ll see that Filippo is ready.”

Isabella continued, walking slowly, since she felt it made them less conspicuous than if they stood still. If Ugo and his friend could camp out somewhere overnight with Filippo, until she had time to get a message from them and get the money from the government? If Ugo could communicate by telephone or entrust someone to deliver a written message?

Either way was easy, Ugo said. He might have to hit Filippo on the head, Isabella said, but Ugo was not to hurt him seriously. Ugo understood.

A few moments later, when they parted, everything was worked out for the kidnaping on Friday morning. Tomorrow was Thursday, and if Ugo had spoken to his friend and all was well, he was to give Isabella a nod, merely, tomorrow afternoon about five when she would go out for an espresso.

Isabella was so exhilarated she went that afternoon to see her friend Margherita who lived off the Via Veneto. Margherita asked her if she had found a new lover. Isabella laughed.

“No, but I think Filippo has,” Isabella replied.

Filippo also noticed, by Thursday afternoon, that she was in a merry mood. Filippo was home Thursday evening after their dinner out at a restaurant where they had been two at a table of twenty. Isabella took off her shoes and waltzed in the living room. Filippo was aware of his early date with the real-estate agents, and cursed it. It was already after midnight.

The next morning Elisabetta awakened them with the breakfast tray at eight thirty, and Isabella complained of a headache.

“No use in my going if you’re not going,” Filippo said.

“You can at least tell if the house is possible — or houses,” she replied sleepily. “Don’t let them down or they won’t make a date with us again.”

Filippo got dressed.

Isabella heard the faint ring of the street-door bell. Filippo went out. By this time he was in the living room or the kitchen in quest of more coffee. It was two minutes to nine. Isabella at once got up, flung on a blouse, slacks and sandals, ready to meet the real-estate agents who she supposed would be twenty minutes late, at least.

They were. Elisabetta announced them. Two gentlemen. The porter had let them into the court. All seemed to be going well, which was to say Filippo was not in view.

“But I thought my husband had already left with you!” She explained that her husband had left the house half an hour ago. “I’m afraid I must ask you to excuse me. I have a migraine today.”

The agency men expressed disappointment, but left in good humor finally, because the Ghiardinis were potentially good clients, and Isabella promised to telephone them in the near future.

Isabella went out for a pre-lunch cinzano, and felt reassured by the absence of Ugo. She was about to answer a letter from Susanna which had come that morning when the telephone rang. It was Filippo’s colleague, Vicente, and where was Filippo? Filippo was supposed to have arrived at noon at Vicente’s office for a talk before they went out to lunch with a man who Vicente said was “important.”

“This morning was a little strange,” Isabella said casually, with a smile in her voice, “because Filippo went off with some estate agents at nine, I thought, then—”

“Then?”

“Well, I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him since,” Isabella replied, thinking she had said quite enough. “I don’t know anything about his appointments today.”

Isabella went out to mail her letter to Susanna around four. Susanna had fallen from her horse taking a low jump, in which the horse had fallen too. A miracle Susanna hadn’t broken a bone! Susanna needed not only new riding breeches but a book of photographs of German cathedrals which the class was going to visit this summer, so Isabella had sent her a check on their Swiss bank. As soon as Isabella had got back home and closed her door, the telephone rang.

“Signora Ghiardini—” It sounded like Ugo speaking through a handkerchief. “We have your husband. Do not try to find out where he is. One hundred million lire we want. Do you understand?”

“Where is he?” Isabella demanded, putting on an act as if Elisabetta or someone else were listening; but no one was, unless Luigi had picked up the living-room extension phone. It was Elisabetta’s afternoon off.

“Get the money by tomorrow noon. Do not inform the police. This evening at seven a messenger will tell you where to deliver the money.” Ugo hung up.

That sounded all right! Just what Isabella had expected. Now she had to get busy, especially with Caccia-Lunghi, Filippo’s boss, higher than Vicente in the Bureau of Public Welfare and Environment. But first she went into her bathroom, where she was sure Ugo would not be peering in, washed her face and made herself up again to give herself confidence. She would soon be putting a lot of money into Ugo’s pocket and the pocket of his friend — whoever was helping him.

Isabella now envisaged Ugo her slave for a long time to come. She would have the power of betraying him if he got out of hand, and if Ugo chose to betray her, she would simply deny it, and between the two of them she had no doubt which one the police would choose to believe; her.

“Vicente!” Isabella said in a hectic voice into the telephone (she had decided after all to ring Vicente first). “Filippo has been kidnaped! That’s why he didn’t turn up this morning! I’ve just had a message from the kidnapers. They’re asking for a hundred million lire by tomorrow noon!”

She and Filippo, of course, had not that much money in the bank, she went on, and wasn’t it the responsibility of the government, since Filippo was a government employee, an official?

Vicente sighed audibly. “The government has had enough of such things. You’d better try Filippo’s father, Isabella.”

“But he’s so stubborn! — The kidnaper said something about throwing Filippo in a river!”

“They all say that. Try the father, my dear.”

So Isabella did. It was nearly six P.M. before she could reach him, because he had been “in conference.” Isabella first asked, “Has Filippo spoken to you today?” He had not. Then she explained that Filippo had been kidnaped, and that his captors wanted 100,000,000 lire by tomorrow noon.

“What? Kidnaped — and they want it from me? Why me?” the old man spluttered. “The government — Filippo’s in the government!”

“I’ve asked Vicente Carda.” Isabella told him about her rejection in a tearful voice, prolonging her story so that Filippo’s predicament would have time to sink in.

“Va bene, va bene.” Pietro Ghiardini sounded defeated. “I can contribute seventy-five million, not more. What a business! You’d think Italy...” He went on, though he sounded on the brink of a heart attack.

Isabella expressed gratitude, but she was disappointed. She would have to come up with the rest out of their bank account — unless of course she could make a deal with Ugo. Old Pietro promised that the money would be delivered by ten thirty the following morning.

If she and Filippo were due to go anywhere tonight, Isabella didn’t give a damn, and she told Luigi to turn away people who might arrive at the door with the excuse that there was a crisis tonight and they could interpret that as they wished, Isabella thought. Luigi was understanding, and most concerned, as was Elisabetta.

Ugo was prompt with another telephone call at seven, and though Isabella was alone in her bedroom, she played her part as though someone were listening, though no one could have been unless Luigi had picked up the living-room telephone. Isabella’s voice betrayed anxiety, anger, and fear of what might happen to her husband. Ugo spoke briefly. She was to meet him in a tiny square which Isabella had never heard of — she scribbled the name down — at noon tomorrow, with 100,000,000 lire in old bills in 20,000 and 50.000 denominations in a shopping bag or basket, and then Filippo would be released at once on the edge of Rome. Ugo did not say where.

“Come alone. Filippo is well,” Ugo said. “Goodbye, signora.”

Vicente telephoned just afterward. Isabella told Vicente what she had to do, said that Filippo’s father had come up with 75,000.000 and could the government provide the rest? Vicente said no, and wished Isabella and Filippo the best of luck.

And that was that. So early the next morning Isabella went to their bank and withdrew 25.000.000 lire from their savings, which left so little that she had to sign a check on their Swiss bank for a transfer when she got home. At half-past ten a chauffeur in uniform and puttees, with a bulge under his tunic that must have been a gun, arrived with a briefcase under each arm. Isabella took him into the bedroom for a transfer of money from the briefcases into the shopping bag — a black plastic bag belonging to Elisabetta. Isabella didn’t feel like counting through all the soiled banknotes.

“You’re sure it’s exact?” she asked.

The calm and polite chauffeur said it was. He loaded the shopping bag for her, then took his leave with the briefcases.

Isabella ordered a taxi for eleven fifteen, because she had no idea how long it might take her to get to the little square, especially if they ran into a traffic jam somewhere. Elisabetta was worried, and asked for the tenth time, “Lan’t I come with you — just sit in the taxi, signora?”

“They will think you are a man in disguise with a gun,” Isabella replied, though she intended to get out of the taxi a couple of streets away from the square, and dismiss the taxi.

The taxi arrived. Isabella said she should be back before one o’clock. She had looked up the square on her map of Rome, and had the map with her in case the taxi driver was vague.

“What a place!” said the driver. “I don’t know it at all. Evidently you don’t either.”

“The mother of an old servant of mine lives here. I’m taking her some clothing,” Isabella said by way of explaining the bulging but not very heavy shopping bag.

The driver let her out. Isabella had said she was uncertain of the house number, but could find out by asking neighbors. Now she was on her own, with a fortune in her right hand.

There was the little square, and there was Ugo, five minutes early, like herself, reading a newspaper on a bench. Isabella entered the little square slowly. It had a few ill-tended trees, a ground of square stones laid like a pavement. One old woman sat knitting on the only sunlit bench. It was a working-class neighborhood, or one mainly of old people, it seemed. Ugo got up and walked toward her.

“Giorno, signora,” he said casually, with a polite nod, as if greeting an old acquaintance, and by his own walking led her toward the street pavement. “You’re all right?”

“Yes. And—”

“He’s quite all right. — Thank you for this.” He glanced at her shopping bag. “Soon as we see everything’s in order, we’ll let Filippo — loose.” His smile was reassuring.

“Where are we—”

“Just here,” Ugo interrupted, pushing her to the left, toward the street, and a parked car’s door suddenly swung open beside her. The push had not been a hard one, only rude and sudden enough to fluster Isabella for a moment. The man in the driver’s seat had turned hall around and had a pistol pointed at her, held low on the back of the front seat.

“Just be quiet, Signora Isabella, and there will be no trouble at all — nobody hurt at all,” the man with the gun said.

Ugo got in beside her in back and slammed the door shut. The car started off.

It had not even occurred to Isabella to scream, she realized. She had a glimpse of a man with a briefcase under his arm, walking only two meters away on the pavement, his eyes straight ahead. They were soon out in the country. There were a few houses, but mostly it was fields and trees. The man driving the car wore a hat.

“Isn’t it necessary that I join Filippo, Ugo?” she asked.

Ugo laughed, then asked the man driving to pull in at a roadside bar-restaurant. Here Ugo got out, saying he would be just a minute. He had looked into the shopping bag long enough to see that it contained money and was not partly stuffed with newspaper. The man driving turned around in his seat.

“The signora will please be quiet,” he said. “Everything is all right.” He had the horrible accent of a Milan tough, attempting to be soothing to an unpredictable woman who might go off in a scream louder than a police siren. In his nervousness he was chewing gum.

“Where are you taking me?”

Ugo was coming back.

Isabella soon found out. They pulled in at a farmhouse whose occupants had evidently recently left — there were clothes on the line, dishes in the sink — but the only people now in the house seemed to be Isabella, Ugo, and his driver chum whom Ugo called Eddy. Isabella looked at an ashtray, recognizing Filippo’s Turkish cigarette stubs, noticed also the pack empty and uncrumpled on the floor.

“Filippo has been released, signora,” Ugo said. “He has money for a taxi and soon you should be able to phone him at home. Sit down. Would you like a coffee?”

“Take me back to Rome!” Isabella shouted. But she knew. They had kidnaped her. “If you think there is any more money coming, you are quite mistaken, Ugo — and you!” she added to the smiling driver, an old slob now helping himself to whiskey.

“There is always more money,” Ugo said calmly...

“Swine!” Isabella said. “I should have known from the time you first stared into my bathroom! That’s your real occupation, you creep!” A fear of assault crossed her mind, but only swiftly. Her rage was stronger just now. “After I tried to — to give you a break, turn a little money your way! Look at all that money!”

Eddy was now sitting on the floor counting it, like a child with an absorbing new toy or game, except that a big cigar stuck out of his mouth.

“Sit down, signora. All will be well when we telephone your husband.”

Isabella sat down on a sagging sofa. There was mud on the heels of her shoes from the filthy courtyard she had just walked across. Ugo brought some warmed-over coffee. Isabella learned that still another chum of Ugo’s had driven Filippo in another car and dropped him somewhere to make his own way home.

“He is quite all right, signora,” Ugo assured her, bringing a plate of awful-looking sliced lamb and hunks of cheese. The other man was on his feet, and brought a basket of bread and a bottle of inferior wine. The men were hungry. Isabella took nothing, refusing even whiskey and wine. When the men had finished eating, Ugo sent Eddy off in the car to telephone Filippo from somewhere. The farmhouse had no telephone. How Isabella wished she had brought her tear-gas gun! But she had thought she would be among friends today.

Ugo sipped coffee, smoked a cigarette, and tried to assuage Isabella’s anger. “By tonight, by tomorrow morning you will be back home, signora. No harm done! A room to yourself here! Even though the bed may not be as comfortable as the one you’re used to.”

Isabella refused to answer him, and bit her lip, thinking that she had got herself into an awful mess, had cost herself and Filippo 25,000,000 lire, and might cost them another 50,000,000 (or whatever she was worth) because Filippo’s father might decide not to come up with the money to ransom her.

Eddy came back with an air of disappointment and reported in his disgusting slang that Signor Ghiardini had told him to go stuff himself.

“What?” Ugo jumped up from his chair. “We’ll try again. We’ll threaten — didn’t you threaten—”

Eddy nodded. “He said...” Again the revolting phrase.

“We’ll see how it goes tonight — around seven or so,” said Ugo.

“How much are you asking?” Isabella was unable to repress the question any longer. Her voice had gone shrill.

“Fifty million, signora,” replied Ugo.

“We simply haven’t got it — not after this!” Isabella gestured toward the shopping bag, now in a corner of the room.

“Ha, ha,” Ugo laughed softly. “The Ghiardinis haven’t got another fifty million? Or the government? Or Papa Ghiardini?”

The other man announced that he was going to take a nap in the other room. Ugo turned on the radio to some pop music. Isabella remained seated on the uncomfortable sofa. She had declined to remove her coat. Ugo paced about, thinking, talking a little to himself, half drunk with the realization of all the money in the corner of the room. The gun lay on the center table near the radio. She looked at it with an idea of grabbing it and turning it on Ugo, but she knew she could not keep both men at bay if Eddy woke up.

When Eddy did wake up and returned to the room, Ugo announced that he was going to try to telephone Filippo, while Eddy kept watch on Isabella. “No funny business,” said Ugo like an army officer, before going out.

It was just after six.

Eddy tried to engage her in conversation about revolutionary tactics, about Ugo’s having been a journalist once, a photographer also (Isabella could imagine what kind of photographer). Isabella was angry and bored, and hated herself for replying even slightly to Eddy’s moronic ramblings. He was talking about making a down payment on a house with the money he had gained from Filippo’s abduction. Ugo would also start leading a more decent life, which was what he deserved, said Eddy.

“He deserves to be behind bars for the protection of the public!” Isabella shot back.

The car had returned. Ugo entered with his slack mouth even slacker, a look of puzzlement on his brow. “Gotta let her go, he may have traced the call,” Ugo said to Eddy, and snapped his fingers for action.

Eddy at once went for the shopping bag and carried it out to the car.

“Your husband says you can go to hell,” said Ugo. “He will not pay one lire.”

It suddenly sank into Isabella. She stood up, feeling scared, feeling naked somehow, even though she still wore her coat over her dress. “He is joking. He’ll—” But somehow she knew Filippo wouldn’t. “Where’re you taking me now?”

Ugo laughed. He laughed heartily, rocking back as he always did, laughing at Isabella and also at himself. “So I have lost fifty million! A pity, eh? Big pity. But the joke is on you! Hah! Ha, ha, ha! Come on, Signora Isabella, what’ve you got in your purse? Let’s see.” He took her purse rudely from her hands.

Isabella knew she had about twenty thousand in her billfold. This Ugo laid with a large gesture on the center table, then turned off the radio.

“Let’s go,” he said, indicating the door, smiling. Eddy had started the car. Ugo’s happy mood seemed to be contagious. Eddy began laughing too at Ugo’s comments. The lady was worth nothing! That was the idea. La donna niente, they sang.

“You won’t get away with this for long, you piece of filth!” Isabella said to Ugo.

More laughter.

“Here! Fine!” yelled Ugo who was with Isabella in the back seat again, and Eddy pulled the car over to the edge of the road.

Where were they? Isabella had thought they were heading for Rome, but wasn’t sure. Yes. She saw some high-rise apartment buildings. A truck went by, close, as she got out with Ugo, half pulled by him.

“Shoes, signora! Ha, ha!” He pushed her against the car and bent to take off her pumps. She kicked him, but he only laughed. She swung her handbag, catching him on the head with it, and nearly fell herself as he snatched off her second shoe. Ugo jumped, with the shoes in his hand, back into the car which roared off.

To be shoeless in silk stockings was a nasty shock. Isabella began walking — toward Rome. She could see lights coming on here and there in the twilight dimness. She’d hitch a ride to the next roadside bar and telephone for a taxi, she thought, pay the taxi when she got home. A large truck passed her by as if blind to her frantic waving. So did a car with a single man in it. Isabella was ready to hitch a lift with anyone!

She walked on, realizing that her stockings were now tom and open at the bottom, and when she stopped to pick something out of one foot, she saw blood. It was more than fifteen minutes later when Isabella made her painful way to a restaurant on the opposite of the road where she begged the use of the telephone.

Isabella did not at all like the smile of the young waiter who looked her up and down and was plainly surmising what must have happened to her: a boy friend had chucked her out of his car. Isabella telephoned a taxi company’s number which the waiter provided. There would be at least ten minutes to wait, she was told, so she stood by the coat rack at the front of the place, feeling miserable and ashamed with her dirty feet and tom stockings. Passing waiters glanced at her. She had to explain to the proprietor — a stuffy type — that she was waiting for a taxi.

The taxi arrived, Isabella gave her address, and the driver looked dubious, so Isabella had to explain that her husband would pay the fee at the other end. She was almost in tears.

Isabella fell against the porter’s bell, as if it were home itself. Giorgio opened the doors. Filippo came across the court, scowling.

“The taxi—” Isabella said.

Filippo was reaching into a pocket. “As if I had anything left!”

Isabella took the last excruciating steps across the courtyard to the door out of which Elisabetta was now running to help her.

Elisabetta made tea for her. Isabella sat in the tub, soaking her feet, washing off the filth of Ugo and his ugly chum. She applied surgical spirits to the soles of her feet, then put on clean white woolen booties and a dressing gown. She cast one furious glance at the bathroom window, sure Ugo would never come back.

As soon as she came out of her bathroom, Filippo said, “I suppose you remember — tonight we have the Greek consul coming to dinner with his wife. And two other men. Six in all. I was going to receive them alone — make some excuse.” His tone was icy.

Isabella did remember, but had somehow thought all that would be canceled. Nothing was canceled. She could see it now: life would go on as usual, not a single date would be canceled. They were poorer. That was all. Isabella rested in her bed, with some newspapers and magazines, then got up and began to dress. Filippo came in, not even knocking first.

“Wear the peach-colored dress tonight — not that one,” he said. “The Greeks need cheering up.”

Isabella began removing the dark blue dress she had put on.

“I know you arranged all this,” Filippo continued. “They were ready to kill me, those hoodlums — or at least they acted like it. My father is furious! What stupid arrangements! I can also make some arrangements. Wait and see!”

Isabella said nothing. And her future arrangements? Well, she might make some too. She gave Filippo a look. Then she gritted her teeth as she squeezed her swollen feet into “the right shoes” for the evening. When she got up, she had to walk with a limp.