One Step to You (The Rome Novels #1)(31)

Step walked toward her. “Good morning. Here you are. I need to leave this for Babi.”

The housekeeper took the poster in her strong, healthy hands.

“Be careful, please. You’ll ruin it.”

A voice came from the far end of the apartment hallway. “Who is it, Rina?”

“A young man brought something for Babi.”

Raffaella appeared behind her. She came walking toward him, her eyes taking in the young man in the doorway with broad shoulders and short hair. That smile, she’d seen it before but she just couldn’t remember where.

“Buongiorno, signora. I’m Stefano Mancini. I brought this for Babi. It’s nothing, just a trifle. Would you mind seeing that she gets it when she returns home from school?”

Raffaella was still smiling. She hadn’t really focused yet. Then, all at once, she realized. Step noticed, too, when it happened.

Raffaella was no longer smiling. “You’re the one who assaulted Signor Accado.”

Step was surprised. “I didn’t think I’d become so famous.”

“In fact, you’re not famous. You’re just a miscreant, a thug. Do your folks know what happened?”

“Why, exactly what’s happened?”

“You’ve been reported to the police.”

“Oh, that’s no problem. I’m used to it.” He smiled. “And after all, I’m an orphan.”

Raffaella stood there awkwardly for a moment, suddenly embarrassed. She didn’t know whether to believe him. And she was right to doubt. “Well, in any case, I don’t want you around my daughter.”

“Actually, she’s the one who always turns up wherever I go. But I don’t mind, it doesn’t bother me. But promise me this, don’t yell at her, don’t scold her—she doesn’t deserve that. I can appreciate her motives.”

“Well, I can’t.” Raffaella looked him up and down, trying to intimidate him.

But she was unsuccessful. Step smiled. “I don’t know why it is, but mothers never like me. Well, signora, please excuse me, but now I really have to get going. I have a taxi downstairs waiting for me. It’s costing me an arm and a leg.”

Step turned around and started down the stairs. He leaped down the last few steps just in time to hear the door slam hard behind him. He turned and looked back up. How that lady resembled Babi. It was astonishing. Her eyes had the same shape and angle, and her face had the same geometry. But Babi was prettier. He hoped she was also less eager for a fight. No, the resemblance extended to that aspect as well. For a moment, he yearned to see her again.

Then Pollo leaned on his horn. “Oh, you want to get a move on? What the fuck are you doing, are you in some kind of trance?”

Step climbed on behind him. “Could you possibly be even worse at being a cabbie than everything else you do badly?”

“Screw you and your whole family. What were you up to?”

“I talked with her mother.” Suddenly a thought occurred to Step. He looked up. In fact, it was just as he expected. Raffaella was there, looking out the window. She recoiled suddenly, trying to get out of sight. But it was too late. Step had seen her.

He smiled up at her and waved. Raffaella didn’t respond in any way. She slammed the window shut as the motorcycle disappeared around the curve. Pollo came to a halt when he reached the gate arm. Step greeted the doorman. It was good to make friends with someone in that apartment building.

“So you talked to the mother? And what did she say to you?” Pollo asked.

“Oh, nothing. We had a little bit of a quarrel but actually she adores me.”

“Step, be careful.” Pollo took off.

“About what?”

“About everything! This is the classic story that goes sidewise.”

“Why?”

“You bring her gifts. You talk to her mother. You’ve never done these things. But what about Madda?”

“What does Madda have to do with it? That’s another story.”

“So wait, do you want to be exclusive with Babi?”

“Pollo…”

“What?”

“Did you hear that yesterday someone killed a guy right near where you live?”

“Seriously? I don’t know anything about it. How did it happen?”

“They cut his throat.” Step suddenly put his arm around Pollo’s neck and tightened it.

“It was a taxi driver, and he asked too many questions.”

Pollo tried to wriggle out of that grip but to no avail. So he decided to turn it into a joke and went back to making the crackling staticky voice on the radio. “Pollo Forty, message received. Ktchsss. Pollo Forty, message received.”





Chapter 10



Raffaella unrolled the poster. She recognized Stefano on a motorcycle with its front wheel in the air. What a brazen smirk that boy always seemed to have on his face.

But riding behind him was her daughter. Who had taken that photo? It was a little out of focus. On the top left someone had written on it by hand, with a felt-tip pen. No doubt, it had been that same boy. There were a few printed words: THE PHOTO OF THE FUGITIVES. What was that supposed to mean?

“Signora, it’s your husband on the telephone.”

Raffaella went into the other room. “Hello, Claudio?”