1.
“Signor Chase Baker!” shouts the guard sergeant as he approaches the iron bars of this dark, dank, basement holding cell. “You are free to go! Andare!”
I shove through a pen that’s filled mostly with drunk, piss-soaked vagrants who’ve migrated from Peru. Why they cross over the big drink to Italy instead of heading north to America, which is far closer, beats the hell out of me. Maybe they get better health care here. Or maybe it has something to do with a higher alcohol content in the beer…Yeah that’s it, more alcohol in the beer.
The barred door slides open.
I step on through, offer the uniformed guard sergeant a smile like, Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! Or, Top o’ the late afternoon anyway. He doesn’t smile back. Go figure.
“Su,” he says, nodding at the staircase before me.
Su…That’s Italian for “up.” As in, Get the hell up those stairs! It’s also something an American redneck might shout at an old dog before kicking it in the ass with his Redwing-booted foot.
“Up the stairs, Chase. Detective Cipriani would like a word with you in his office.”
“He asking or telling?” I say.
But the short, stocky cop just glares at me like he has no idea how to answer my query. And he doesn’t. The guard sergeant on my heels, I climb the concrete steps as ordered, like an old dog being led around by his master.
A minute later I’m granted my private audience with Florence’s top cop. If you want to call him that. Detective Federico Cipriani closes the door to his office, asks me to take a seat in a wood chair set before his long dark wood desk. Set out on the desktop is a translucent plastic baggy that contains my personals: my belt, the laces to my boots, my wallet, my passport, my cell phone, my cigs, my Saint Christopher’s medal, my gun, my bullets … I go to reach for them.
“Not yet!” barks Cipriani, from across the room. “We need to talk first, Chase.”
I sit back, my eyes peeled on the internationally licensed 9 mm Smith & Wesson.
“Looks like the Doyles aren’t pressing charges,” I say. “How sweet of them.”
The fifty-something Ciprinai goes behind his desk, sits himself down. He’s a big man with a barrel chest and a pleasant looking face mostly hidden behind a thick but well trimmed beard. His eyes are brown as is his hair, and the dark blue suit he wears was no doubt purchased in Florence, probably at the department store across the street from the Piazza Della Republica.
“It’s true they have dropped their case of assault against you,” he nods, picking up my handgun, staring down contemplatively at it. “But that doesn’t excuse you from punching the merda out of an American tourist.”
“You detaining me further, Cip?” I say, pronouncing the nick name like “Chip.”
He shakes his head.
“No, just trying to somehow get it through that thick skull of yours that the time will come when I can no longer keep you out of trouble. Eventually you will be asked to leave Italy for good.”
I force my eyes wide open.
“Never,” I say. “Who will guide all those lovely lost women who’ve just arrived from America and England and Australia and Japan and China and Russia and…?”
“I’ll never understand it why a bestselling author like you still insists on providing guided tours or working as a private detective or even a, what do you call it, sand dog? Doesn’t make sense.”
