“No, at the Biblioteca Laurenziana.”
It was as if David could actually hear the wheels spinning in her head, like a slot machine that was coming up all cherries. He expected another volley of questions, and was beginning to wonder if he should have been quite so forthcoming. Was it really just by chance that she had followed him to the café and joined him? Or was he being paranoid? Ever since that guy had tried to run him down in the street, he’d been uncharacteristically suspicious.
Olivia stood up, taking one last drag on her cigarette. “I will be late,” she said, dropping the butt in her empty espresso cup. “But I thank you for the meal.”
“You’re welcome,” David said.
“You may join another of my tours, anytime. Also for free.”
“Careful,” David replied, “I might take you up on that.”
She smiled and said, “It is possible I could teach you a thing or two.”
And then, as he pondered the full import of that, she hurried off across the square, the tails of her old coat flapping around her. He was still looking when she turned her head unexpectedly and caught him. Her laugh rang out across the piazza.
Chapter 12
Damn, damn, damn. What should he do now, Escher wondered, from his vantage point across from the café. The girl was leaving, and David was staying, but he couldn’t very well tail both of them.
Who was she? An accomplice of some kind? Or just a tour guide who’d taken a fancy to the guy who’d joined her group?
On Ambassador Schillinger’s orders, Escher had followed David all the way from Chicago, never more than a few hundred yards behind. While David flew in the first-class compartment, Escher had squeezed into the last available seat—back by the bathrooms—in coach.
And while David traveled into the city in a private car, Escher had followed in an unlicensed cab.
And as David had checked into the Grand Hotel, Escher had lurked in the lobby. He was still carrying his overnight bag slung over one sturdy shoulder.
On a hunch, he followed the girl. She was good-looking, though with less meat on her bones than he liked. Maybe in her late twenties, she walked with the brisk pace of someone who was intent on getting a lot done. As she passed a trash bin, she pulled the iris out of her lapel and dropped it in. Escher snorted in approval, thinking she must have worn the flower solely for the benefit of the tourists.
A few blocks from the piazza, she ducked into a used-books store and came out half an hour later with a fat volume tucked under one arm. With her other hand, she was fishing in her coat pocket, and when he realized that she was looking for her car keys, he hailed the first passing cab, jumped in, then had the driver wait until she stopped beside a beat-up little Fiat and got in. The thing was more dents than car.
“Follow it,” he told the cabbie, tossing some bills onto the front seat.
She drove like she did everything else—fast and direct, cutting through the traffic like a knife, honking her horn, whipping around the traffic circles, taking corners so sharply that pedestrians had to jump back to keep their feet from being run over.
“This woman’s crazy!” the cabbie said, doing his best to keep up.
“Just don’t lose her,” Escher said, tossing another bill.
At the Piazza della Repubblica, she went up and down the local streets a couple of times, apparently looking for a parking spot—in Florence, it was never easy—before someone in front of a busy café pulled out. Another car made a beeline for the spot, but the little Fiat, clattering like a tin can, cut it off at the pass and dove in headfirst, one tire bumping over the curb, the back end sticking out into the street.
Escher could hear a brief shouting match, but the girl grabbed her book, locked the car—who would ever steal that hunk of junk, he wondered?—and marched up the steps of a small, dilapidated apartment building without so much as a glance back.
Once she was inside, Escher got out of his cab and watched the windows. She appeared on the third floor, yanking open some curtains, and when he consulted the apartment roster, he was able to deduce that her name was Levi, first initial O.
He’d have to run it by Schillinger in Chicago and see if it rang any bells. If not, Schillinger could always kick it upstairs.