Seizure

twenty-one

9:37 P.M., Monday, March 11, 2002

“I recognize this statue from somewhere,” Daniel said. “Do you know if it’s famous?”

Daniel and Stephanie were standing on a manicured patch of grass, gazing at a white marble reclining nude that appeared to glow in the humid, misty semidarkness of the Ocean Club’s Versailles-inspired garden. A silvery blue illumination washed over the formal landscape and contrasted sharply with the deep purple shadows.

“I think it’s a copy of a Canova,” Stephanie replied. “So, yes, it’s reasonably famous. If it is the one I’m thinking of, the original is in the Borghese Museum in Rome.”

Daniel shot an awed glance in her direction, which she missed. She was absorbed in lightly touching the woman’s thigh. “It’s amazing how much like skin the marble appears in the moonlight.”

“How on earth did you know it is a copy of a Canova, whatever the hell that is?”

“Antonio Canova was a renowned eighteenth-century neoclassical Italian sculptor.”

“I’m impressed,” Daniel said, with continued awed disbelief. “How do you happen to have such arcane facts at your fingertips? Or are you pulling my leg from having read about this garden in the brochure in the room?”

“I didn’t read the brochure, but I saw you reading it. Maybe you should be giving us a tour.”

“Not a chance! The only part I read carefully was about the cloister up on the hill. Seriously, how did you know about Canova?”

“I was a history minor in college,” Stephanie said. “That included a survey course in art history, which I remember more about than most of my other classes.”

“You amaze me sometimes,” Daniel commented. Following Stephanie’s example, he reached out and touched the marble cushion on which the woman reclined. “It is uncanny how these guys were able to make marble appear so soft. Look at the way her body indents the fabric.”

“Daniel!” Stephanie said with sudden insistence.

Daniel straightened up and tried to read Stephanie’s expression in the darkness. She was staring back toward the pool area. He followed her line of sight but saw nothing out of the ordinary in the shadowy moonlit landscape. “What’s the matter? Did you see something?”

“I did,” Stephanie said. “I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I think there is someone over there behind that balustrade.”

“So what! There’s bound to be people wandering around out here, as beautiful as this place is. It’s not as if we can expect to have this huge garden to ourselves.”

“True,” Stephanie agreed. “But it just seemed as if whoever I saw ducked away as soon as I turned my head. It was like they didn’t want to be seen.”

“What are you trying to suggest?” Daniel questioned, with one of his scornful laughs. “Someone is spying on us?”

“Well, yeah, something like that.”

“Oh, come on, Stephanie! I wasn’t serious when I suggested it.”

“Well, I’m serious. I really think I saw someone.” She raised herself up on her tiptoes and strained to see in the darkness. “And there’s someone else!” she said excitedly.

“Where? I don’t see anybody.”

“Back by the pool. Someone just disappeared from the light into the shadows of the snack bar.”

Daniel reached out and gripped Stephanie by both shoulders, making her turn to look at him. She resisted initially. “Hey! Come on! We’re out here to relax. We’ve both had a hell of a day, and you in particular.”

“Maybe we should go back and take a walk on the beach, where there are always people. This garden seems too big, too dark, and too isolated for my current taste.”

“We’re going up to that cloister,” Daniel said authoritatively, pointing up the hill. “We’ve both been intrigued by it, and as I said earlier, our visiting it is metaphysically apropos. We need some shielding from our current turmoil. And nighttime is the best time to visit ruins. So pull yourself together and let’s go!”

“What if I really did see someone duck behind that balustrade?” Stephanie went back to craning her neck to see over the bougainvilleae.

“Do you want me to run back there and check? If you do, I’ll be glad to go to put your mind at ease. You’re being understandably paranoid, although paranoid nonetheless. We’re on the hotel’s grounds, for Christ’s sake. They have security all over this place, remember?”

“I suppose,” Stephanie reluctantly agreed. A fleeting image of Kurt Hermann leering at her passed through her mind. She had a lot of reasons to be on edge.

“What do you say; do you want me to run back there?”

“No, I want you to stay here.”

“Well, come on then! Let’s go up to the cloister.” Daniel took her hand and guided her back to the central promenade that led through a number of terraces and up widely spaced flights of steps to the crest of the hill where the cloister was sited. In contrast to the dark garden, the cloister was illuminated with hidden ground-level lights to highlight its gothic arches and give it a jewellike quality in the distance.

As they gained each terrace and skirted a central fountain or statue, they noticed additional statuary to either side within shadowed arbors. Some of these side statues were marble, while others were stone or cast bronze. Although tempted to take a look at them, they avoided any more detours.

“I had no idea there was so much art out here,” Stephanie commented.

“It was a private estate before it was a hotel,” Daniel said. “At least according to the brochure.”

“What did it say about the cloister?”

“All I remember is that it’s French and was built in the twelfth century.”

Stephanie whistled in wonderment. “Very few cloisters have ever left France. In fact, I only know of one other, and it’s not that old.”

They climbed the last flight of steps, and when they reached the top, they found a paved public road cutting across their path and isolating the cloister from its formal gardens. When they had viewed the cloister from below, there was no way to see the road unless a vehicle had gone by, and none had.

“This is a surprise,” Daniel said, looking up and down the road. It ran east to west along the spine of Paradise Island.

“I guess it’s the price of progress,” Stephanie said. “I bet it goes out to the golf course.”

They crossed the road, the blacktop of which was still radiating the heat of the day, and climbed a few more steps to gain the crown of the hill dominated by the cloister. The ancient structure was merely a square, roofless, double row of gothic-columned arches. The inner row had a bit of tracery in the form of a single foil within each arch.

Daniel and Stephanie approached the edifice. They had to watch their footing, because in contrast to the lower garden, the ground near the cloister was uneven and littered with chunks of stone and crushed seashells.

“I have a feeling this is going to be one of those things that looks better from a distance than close-up,” Stephanie said.

“That’s part of the reason ruins are better viewed at night.”

They reached the structure and carefully made their way into the aisle that ran between the two rows of columns. Their eyes, adapted to the dark, had to squint against the glare of the outside illumination.

“This portion was roofed in its former life,” Stephanie said.

Daniel looked up and nodded.

Avoiding the debris underfoot, they stepped over to the inner balustrade. Both leaned on the ancient limestone handrail and peered into the central courtyard. It was about fifty feet square and filled with flat mounds of stone and shell fragments, plus a complicated interplay of shadows from the display lights and the intervening arches.

“It’s sad,” Stephanie commented. She shook her head. “Back when this was the center of a functioning cloister, this courtyard would have had a well and maybe even a fountain, plus a garden.”

Daniel’s eyes roamed around the enclosure. “What I find sad is that after lasting almost a thousand years in France, it’s not going to last very long here, exposed to the tropical sun and sea air.”

They straightened up and looked at each other. “This is a bit anticlimactic,” Daniel said. “Let’s go take that stroll you suggested on the beach!”

“Good idea,” Stephanie said. “But first, let’s give this structure the benefit of the doubt and a bit of respect. Let’s at least take one walk around the ambulatory.”

Hand in hand, they helped each other avoid the obstacles on the ground. With the glare of the outside lights, it was hard to see details. On the side opposite their hotel, they paused briefly to admire the view out over Nassau’s harbor. The illuminating lights made that difficult as well, and soon they were back on their way.

Gaetano was ecstatic. There was no way he could have planned things any better. The professor and Tony’s sister were now standing in a square of light that kept Gaetano all but invisible as he approached within striking distance. He could have approached back in the darkness of the garden, but he’d correctly guessed their destination, and he knew it would be perfect.

Gaetano had decided it was best for Tony’s sister to know without an ounce of doubt where the hit was coming from, so as not to think the professor was a victim of a random act of violence. Gaetano considered this significant, since she was going to be taking over the company. He thought it was important that she knew exactly how the Castigliano brothers felt about their loan and about how the company was being managed.

At that moment, the couple was on the far side of the ruins, making a slow circuit of the edifice. Gaetano had positioned himself just outside the pool of light along the western side. His intention was to wait until they were no more than twenty feet away before vaulting into the aisle to confront them.

Gaetano’s pulse began to race as he watched Daniel and Stephanie round the final corner and start toward him. With growing excitement, he extracted the gun from its makeshift holster and made sure a bullet was in the chamber. Holding it up alongside his head, he prepared himself for what he loved best: action!

“I don’t think we should be reopening this subject,” Stephanie said. “Not now, and maybe not ever.”

“I apologized for what I said back at the restaurant. All I’m saying now is that I would rather be groped than beaten up. I’m not saying that being groped isn’t unpleasant; it’s just easier to take than being beaten and physically injured.”

“What is this, a contest?” Stephanie questioned derisively. “Don’t answer that! I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Daniel was about to respond when he gasped, stopped in his tracks, and tightened his grip on Stephanie’s hand. Stephanie had been looking down at the ground so she could navigate over a large hunk of stone when Daniel’s response shocked her into raising her eyes. When she did, she gasped as well.

A hulking figure had leaped into their path, holding a huge handgun and pointing it at them with an outstretched arm. Daniel, more than Stephanie, was aware of a red dot just beneath the gun’s barrel.

Neither Daniel nor Stephanie could move, as the man slowly approached. He had a sneering expression on his broad, flat-featured face, which Daniel recognized with a shudder. Gaetano came within six feet of the stunned and immobile couple. At that point, it was abundantly clear that the gun was aimed directly at Daniel’s forehead.

“You made me come back, asshole,” Gaetano growled. “A bad decision! The Castigliano brothers are very disappointed you did not return to Boston to safeguard their loan. I thought you had gotten my message, but apparently not, and you made me look bad. So goodbye.”

The sound of the shot was loud in the humid stillness of the night. Gaetano’s arm holding the gun fell to his side while Daniel staggered backward, dragging Stephanie with him. Stephanie screamed as the body fell heavily, facedown, arms out to the sides. There were a few muscular twitches, but then all was still. A large exit wound on the back of his head oozed blood and gray matter.