Red, White and Dead Part 15

"The reporter. Weren't we just talking about that?"

"Yeah, but I just got a message from Lucy."

No response.

"Mayburn?"

"What did she say?" His voice was quick, flat.

"She was calling me from her sister's cell phone. She wanted to check on me. She was apologizing to me."

"Jesus."

"I know. She's the sweetest person on the planet."

"In the universe."

"You miss her."

"Yeah. But it doesn't help to talk about it. Give me the sister's cell-phone number."

"Has she given it to you?"

"If she had, then why would I be asking you?"

"I'm not giving it to you. You need to let her have her s.p.a.ce."

"I need to make sure Lucy is okay."

"She's okay. You know that. You just want to call because of you, not her. You can't take being apart from her. Believe me, I understand."

Silence.

"I'm not giving it to you for your own good. But I'll hold on to it, I promise. So, this reporter," I said. "How do I talk to him?"

Mayburn exhaled. "I'll call him and conference us in."

"d.a.m.n, you know how to make things happen," I said. "I appreciate this."

"Yeah, yeah. Hold on." There was quiet for a moment and I took a breath, staring at an old photo, cheaply framed, that hung on the dorm wall-a shot of the sun hitting the dome of a Roman church in a silvery green stream of light.

"Iz, ya there? I've got Stephen Gooden on the line. Steve, can you hear us?"

We all said our h.e.l.los. "So, what can I help you with?" Stephen said. He had a resonant, academic-sounding voice. "Something about the witness protection program?"

"Yeah," I said. "It's something to do with my father. I guess I'm just wondering exactly how the witness protection program works."

"Well, for starters, there are a couple of different kinds of programs. The federal marshal program, the U.S. Attorney's program and the state level."

"What's the difference between those three?"

"Well, the federal marshal's program usually involves a witness in a case with the Justice Department or the FBI. The U.S. Attorney's office has separate funding to protect people who might be witnesses in an upcoming case or something like that. And then there's the state version. Local police or almost any law enforcement can put someone into protection mode. None of these programs are much fun."

"What do you mean?"

"They're essentially social services. They set someone up with an ident.i.ty, give them a little cash or a new job and turn them loose. After a year, no more financial a.s.sistance. Used to be they didn't even provide any papers or doc.u.mentation. Today, there's still very little follow-up."

"So, does that mean that the person can come out of hiding at anytime?"

"It's not exactly hiding. But, yeah, it works something like that. I mean, a federal employee can't stay with someone twenty-four hours a day in order to make sure a witness doesn't get themselves into trouble after the case is over."

"How do you know if someone is in the witness protection program?"

"You don't. That's the whole point."

"So they just go away forever?"

"Look, do you want to tell me what drain we're circling around? I mean, is there something more specific you want to know?" He didn't say this unkindly. In fact, he sounded as though he wanted to help.

So I told him about my father's helicopter accident. I told him what the flight instructor had said. "From what you've heard, Steve, is there any chance they faked his death and put my father in the program?"

"Doesn't sound like it to me. In every case I've heard of they take the whole family."

"What do you mean by that-'take the whole family."

"That's not the right way to say it. What I mean is that they'll usually put the entire family unit in the program. The point is to keep everyone safe. The whole faking of the death thing is really just a myth. In actuality, you disappear. They don't tell people you died. It's too complicated to find a body and have a funeral."

"There was no body in this case," Mayburn said, speaking up. "Does that red flag anything?"

"No. Like I said, they wouldn't usually just eliminate one person. They'd make the whole family disappear."

"The family just takes off?" I asked.

"Essentially. They say they're moving out of town to take a new job. Sometimes, the program doesn't let them talk at all-they just move 'em in the middle of the night. But faking deaths? The government doesn't do that. I mean, your father would have to have been so instrumental, so key to a ma.s.sive case or a huge federal program. Even then...I really doubt it."

The disappointment, layered on top of the sagging sadness of what was left of Sam and me, made me take a few steps to the bed and fall back on it. I held the phone to my ear. I heard Mayburn asking the guy a bunch of other questions. I thanked Steve, thanked Mayburn, said it was late Rome time, and hung up.

A bouquet of sounds came from the room above me-music with loud ba.s.s, footsteps, sc.r.a.ping of furniture, laughing. I could almost see the group of students who were up there-I'd been one myself years ago. They were drinking Moretti beers and pulling off hunks of bread from the local market, gesturing with the bread while they talked about politics and international law and the professor who would administer their exam tomorrow.

The music got louder. More sc.r.a.ping and shouts of laughter. As much as I wanted them to shut up, I was envious of them. But then I remembered my own friend. Maggie was coming tomorrow. The thought gave me a burst of energy.

I sat up, turned the lights up brighter, put my own music on-blaring a Wilco tune-and got back on the Internet.

The Camorra, I learned from my research, became a powerful force in Naples in the 1800s, when its members acted, essentially, as law enforcement for the Bourbon monarchy. When Naples officially became a part of Italy, the Camorra was forced aside. But they were never eradicated from the city of Naples and the Campania region, and they once again became a powerful presence in the mid-1990s with control of the area's garbage disposal. Apparently, they hadn't done such a good job-no regard for the environment, much less the health of residents-and yet officials couldn't get them out, couldn't put an end to the warring clans of Camorra, who all kept fighting each other for control, making it unlike the Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia or the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria. The Camorra infighting led to ma.s.sive violence in Naples, most notably drive-by shootings which often killed civilians, as well as Camorristi.

I sat back from my computer. I thought of my aunt Elena's words that morning. Dangerous, she had said about the Camorra. You must be very careful.

Was it just the Camorra in general that she feared? Or specific people inside the organization? Could it be that one of those people was my father? And why hadn't she been more surprised or alarmed when I'd talked about hearing my father, wondering whether he could be alive?

I leaned forward and typed a search for Camorra and United States. The site I found mentioned the Rizzato Brothers. They had been Camorra, but since their disappearance, no one knew whether there was any Camorra left in the country. The exact nature of the Camorra's presence in America currently is unknown, said another site. Another final site stated simply, The Mafia in America, the Cosa Nostra, is almost wholesome compared to that of Naples's Camorra.

22.

T uesday morning I was up long before the sun, checking the Internet religiously for Maggie's flight. Delayed, it kept saying, but then finally it reported she was in the air. She was hours away, and I could not freaking wait to see her.

That intense desire to see Mags, to talk to her, was something new, something different from the last few years. Going through this roller coaster of a search for my dad-it's stupid, it's not, he might be alive, of course he's not-and not having Sam to talk to, I realized just how much I'd turned to him over the years and how much I'd turned away from Maggie. It was unintentional, of course, the usual fallout from getting into a serious relations.h.i.+p. But now, I wanted to talk to her more about her breakup with Wyatt and how she was feeling. I wanted to tell Maggie everything about my dad. I needed to tell her about Sam, too. I hadn't talked with anyone about our breakup-what felt like the real one-and the memory was starting to fester and rot in my mind, needing to be dissected, just to make sure I was reading it tragically right before it disintegrated entirely.

I took a shower and dressed, then got back on the computer. In my research the night before, I'd found that there was something called the National Antimafia Directorate in Italy. In fact, the headquarters were in Rome. So I started to do some more in-depth research on the directorate. After half an hour of trying to convert Italian words into English, I finally found an address for the place, apparently not too far from the hotel, the one I'd been to with Aunt Elena, the one Maggie and I would be checking into today.

I went downstairs to the porter and asked for exact directions to the hotel and from there to the directorante. When I mentioned that place was the "antimafia office," he raised his eyebrows then shook his head in sort of a silent no-no-no kind of way.

"Yes," I said, "please tell me how to get there."

Again that shake of his head. "You no want to go there. Go to Colosseum, go to Pantheon."

"Per favore," I said pleadingly. Then for good measure, I put my hands together in a prayerlike position, the way I'd seen the Italians do, and said it over and over...Per favore, per favore, per favore.

Finally, he laughed, shrugged. He took my map and circled a location.

I flashed him a smile and tipped him some euros. Tucking the map under my arm, I went upstairs to my dorm room. I looked around once more. It had been wonderful to visit Loyola Rome for a few days. But it was time to go.

In the still, dusty-yellow quiet of the Roman morning, I packed everything into my suitcase and took a cab to the hotel. Once there, I stowed my luggage in the hotel's lobby, since it was too early to check in, and left. When I reached via Giulia, the street the antimafia office was on, I stopped to consult my map and read about it in my guidebook. It was a wide-laned avenue, much bigger than the usual Italian streets, and it had been created during Renaissance Rome to connect all the major governmental inst.i.tutions. During the sixteenth century, it had been fas.h.i.+onable to live there, the guidebook said, and I marveled at that one phrase-during the sixteenth century-since very little had been fas.h.i.+onable in the U.S. then. Via Giulia was now a cobbled, shaded street that seemed to house mostly antique and jewelry shops.

After fifteen minutes of strolling and glancing at the map, I found the directorate. The building itself was medieval-looking, brown with steel bars on the windows. A black stone sat near the entrance. On it, written in red, was La Direzione n.a.z.ionale Antimafia. There was a bell. I rang it. Once, then again. A few minutes later, a carabiniere stepped outside. He looked me up and down, raised his eyebrows.

"Buongiorno," I said. "Parla inglese?"

A nod. "Si."

"Great. I'd like to speak to someone in the Antimafia Directorate."

The policeman turned and opened the door, holding it for me. Inside, he led me through a courtyard garden. In Italy, apparently even the government knew how to do a courtyard right.

On the other side we entered another door, and the carabiniere gestured at a desk. No one was behind it. A logbook sat open on top of it, and the man nodded, as if saying, Sign it.

I picked up the pen that sat there, held my hand poised over the book. Should I give my real name? I didn't see any way around it. If I was going to ask about my father, I'd have to give his name. And they might ask for identification. And if I got anywhere with these people and they found out I had lied, that wouldn't be good.

I signed the book, then looked at the carabiniere.

"Uno momento," he said. He stood silently, arms behind his back.

A woman in a suit and a scowl came to the desk. She looked at my name in the book, then rattled off a few Italian words, her tone giving me the impression that she was saying, What in the h.e.l.l do you want?

"Is there someone I can speak to?" I said.

"Perche?" Why?

"I'd like to ask some questions about the Camorra."

Silence.

I glanced from the woman to the carabiniere and back. Neither moved a muscle. "I think I might be from a Camorra family," I said. "Technically anyway. And I'm trying to find my father. He did consulting for the U.S. government. And I know he was involved in the case of the Rizatto Brothers."

She frowned deeper. "You are americana?"

"Yes."

"Your name, per favore."

I pointed at the box I'd signed. "Isabel McNeil."

"Do you understand where you are?" She gestured around the office. It was fairly nondescript, looked like a reception office anywhere.

"The National Antimafia Directorate."

"Yes. And do you know what is here, what we do?"

I felt the urge to say Mafia hunting? I ignored it, kept quiet.

"We are prosecutors," she said. "You understand?"

"Yes, I'm a lawyer."

"Okay, so you understand. We do not answer questions, we prosecute. We do not give out information."

"Well, where would I get information? I mean, is there..." What was I looking for exactly? A Mafia museum? "...a place to do research about someone from the United States, someone I know who was working on a case involving the Camorra and then-" I was about to say died, but instead said, "-disappeared."

"Not here." She gave a brusque shake of her head. "You will not get that information here."

She gestured at the door. The carabiniere stepped forward, ushering me toward the door and back through the courtyard. Once again, I found myself standing outside the building.

And that, apparently, was that.

I stood another moment, looking at the door. I was about to turn away when it clicked open. I expected to see the carabiniere frowning, telling me to move along or whatever they say in Italian, but instead a young man stepped outside. He looked about my age. He had sandy-brown hair and gleaming blue eyes. Unlike the carabiniere's and the woman's, those eyes were smiling.

"You said you were here for what?" he asked.

When I hesitated, he pointed to the camera above the door. "They are everywhere in the building. We see and hear everything."

"Oh," I said, a little uncomfortable, "I was just here to ask some questions...."

"Come," he said, gesturing away from the camera. We took a few steps up the street. He nodded at me, encouraging me to continue.