McCabe waited at the bus stop on Via Trionfale with a heavyset gray-haired woman wearing a black dress. She was holding hands with a young girl in a school uniform who looked nine or ten. The woman wore dark translucent stockings and he could see the hair on her legs matted against the fabric.
Two tradesmen in blue coveralls were smoking, a slight breeze blowing it toward the woman. She glanced at the men, fanning her face. They dropped their cigarettes on the sidewalk and stepped on them as the bus pulled up. The doors opened and people got off and McCabe and the others got on.
The bus was packed, siesta over, people going back into the city to work. McCabe stood leaning against the rear window, looking down the aisle, the air thick with the smell of body odor. At times it was so heavy he had to breathe through his mouth.
He watched traffic approach, looking out the rear window, helmeted riders on Vespas and Lambrettas coming up close to the bus then gunning their motorbikes, hearing the throaty whine of their engines at high rpms as they whipped by. The bus drove down Via Cola di Rienzo, over the river and through the giant arches of Flaminia and stopped in Piazza del Popolo. McCabe got off and walked across the square to Rosati.
He sat at a sidewalk table, sipping a Moretti in a stemmed glass, taking in the scene, studying the obelisk that was brought to Rome by Augustus after the conquest of Egypt, appreciating the simplicity of it. Beyond the obelisk was the Porta del Popolo, a giant arch carved out of the Aurelian Wall, the original perimeter of the city.
He watched pigeons land in the piazza in front of the churches, strutting and bowing on their little red feet, blue- gray feathers flecked with red. He once saw a show on pigeons on the Nature Channel and remembered some amazing pigeon facts: they could fly fifty miles an hour and they came in seven different colors and when they had sex, the female bent down and the male climbed on top, flapping his wings for balance, saying "Coo roo-croo coo."
At a table to his right, a balding old dude in a suit was having a conversation with a young girl who looked like a model, a bottle of wine in an ice bucket next to the table. Rosati was known as the place wealthy Italian men brought their mistresses during the week, and their wives on weekends. He watched two stylish girls, early twenties, get out of a taxi and move past him on their way into the cafe. He turned and checked them out and they turned back and smiled, and sat a few tables behind him. He was thinking about buying them a drink when he saw a girl coming across the square.
Fixed his attention on her moving toward him from Canova. And although cars and motorbikes zipped around, all he saw was the girl coming toward him like a scene in a movie. The girl wearing sunglasses and tight black capris and a white tee-shirt, hair combed back, tied in a ponytail. She reminded him of Manuela Arcuri, Manuela with streaked hair. McCabe held on her, gaze locked on her as she came closer, maybe fifty yards from where he sat at a front table.
He saw a motorcycle appear, entering the square from Via del Babuino conscious of the throaty brat-brat of its exhaust, muffler going bad. It made a ninety-degree turn, coming fast behind the girl, two riders on it. She heard it too, and switched her bag from her left shoulder to her right, the motorcycle coming up behind her now, going right, surprising her, the passenger on the back grabbing the bag, yanking it off her shoulder, the girl trying to hang onto it, and then letting go.
McCabe got up and moved between two BMWs parked in front of the cafe, and went into the square as the motorcycle approached. It was heading for Via di Ripetta. He stepped in front of it, and as the bike tried to swerve around him, he reached out and grabbed the passenger's arm and pulled him off the back and took him down on the cobblestone surface. The guy was trying to get up, but McCabe was bigger and stronger, knees on his chest, holding him down, a skinny teenager with a big nose, wearing a striped soccer jersey, looking up at him, stunned and afraid.
McCabe pulled the girl's purse out of his hand and now the girl ran up and started kicking him in the ribs, swearing in Italian. McCabe got off him and watched her. The kid tried to cover up and then scrambled to his feet, running, the girl going after him, letting him go. She yelled something in Italian, but the kid didn't look back.
McCabe handed her the purse, a black shoulder bag that said Prada Milano, silver metal in a black triangle on the side. She stared at him, studying him.
"What you did was very courageous. How can I repay you?"
McCabe could think of a few ways. He said, "Have a drink with me." She was better-looking up close, about his age, early twenties.
She said, "Only if you let me buy one for you."
Her English was perfect and she spoke with a sexy Roman accent.
"I've got a table," he said.
"Not here," she said. "I know a better place. Do you mind?"
Did he mind? He couldn't believe his luck. He stepped over and put a five-euro note on the table and the people sitting there applauded him. He moved back to the girl, surprised by the reaction.
She said, "See, you are a hero."
They walked across Piazza del Popolo and down Via del Babuino toward the Spanish Steps, passing storefronts: Gente, Bonora, Feltrinelli and Carlucci.
She said, "What do you do when you are not pulling thieves off the back of a motorcycle?"
"Have drinks with good-looking girls," McCabe said, walking past St Attanasio, a small church tucked in among the designer shops, an odd contrast he thought. "I'm a student, and the only reason I saw the motorcycle was because I was watching you."
She gave him an innocent look.
"What school do you go to?"
"Loyola University. It's on Via Trionfale in Monte Mario."
"What do you study?"
"Art history."
"You are in the right city, uh?"
They were on a narrow sidewalk crowded with pedestrians, lined on one side by boutiques and restaurants, and on the other side by parked cars. They had to stop occasionally to let people pass, McCabe checking her out, trying to be discreet.
She caught him and said, "What're you looking at now?"
"The sights of Rome." He smiled and she did too. "What about you?"
"I can't tell you. It would spoil the mystery. You have to guess."
"You're a model?"
She gave him a look. "No."
McCabe said, "Okay, you're an actress."
"Why do you think that?"
"You remind me of Manuela Arcuri."
She shook her head. "I don't think so." And seemed embarrassed by the compliment.
"I give up," McCabe said.
She gave him her sexy look again.
"No, you can't."
"Let me think about it."
They walked along Via Condotti, congested now after siesta, strolled past designer storefronts: Missoni, Prada, Gucci, D amp;G, Valentino and MaxMara.
She stopped in front of Armani. "Is this where you shop?"
McCabe, in faded Levis and a blue Nine Inch Nails tee- shirt with red type, said, "You can tell, huh? Yeah, I'm very fashion-conscious."
'You do have your own style," she said, grinning now, "I have to say."
She was making fun of him and he liked it. She took him to an enoteca in the neighborhood. They sat outside, drinking glasses of Brunello di Montalcino, her choice, and watched people go by. She held up her wine glass, looking sexy, her brown eyes and skinny arms and nice rack, a line of cleavage visible where the tee-shirt tapered into a V.
She picked up her wine glass. "Do you like Tuscan wine?"
"I must 'cause I'm drinking it like it's beer," McCabe said.
"Take your time, savor it." She showed him how, put the glass up to her lips. "You take a little in your mouth, chew it, let it slide under your tongue and down the inside of your cheeks, taste the different flavors: black cherry, spice, a little of cinnamon."
McCabe was staring at her mouth, with those lips, an urge to lean over and kiss her. Jesus.
She said, " Parla Italiano? "
McCabe said, " Un poco. Enough to confuse myself. I go into a store to buy something and say quanto costa?. The person gives me the answer in rapid-fire Italian. I have no idea what he's saying."
"It was the same with English."
"You sound fluent," McCabe said. "Perfect."
"I grew up speaking English. Used to spend summers in Michigan.'
"No kidding," McCabe said. "Where?"
"The east side of Detroit. Have you ever heard of St Clair Shores?"
"I was born right near there," McCabe said.
She said, "I would have guessed Connecticut, or maybe New York."
"Why's that?" McCabe said. "You think I have an east-coast accent?"
"You know how it is. You look at someone and imagine where they're from? That's what I did."
Sure. Like he did with her. Thinking she was a fashion model from Milan. He said, "Why Detroit?"
"I have an aunt and uncle who live there. They would drive us north to Harbor Springs. They have a house on Lake Michigan. We would build a fire on the beach and cook marshmallows and watch the sunsets."
McCabe said, "What's your uncle's name?"
"You don't know him." she said.
"Maybe I do."
She looked at her watch again, the second time in the past ten minutes.
He said, "You have to be somewhere?"
"I am meeting a friend in Villa Borghese."
Her cell phone rang. She took it out of her purse and said, "Pronto." She listened and said, " Ciao," and put the phone away.
She said, " Mi displace. I have to go."
He said, "Maybe I should go with you. You never know, someone might try to steal your purse." He knew if she left now he'd never see her again.
"It is a long walk. Stay here. Let me buy you another glass of wine."
She was blowing him off, but in a nice way. He finished his Brunello and said, "Black cherry and cinnamon, huh? Yeah, I see what you mean." He stood up and offered his hand. "It was nice meeting you."
She got up too and moved toward him and kissed him on the cheek.
"Maybe I should take you up on your offer," she said. "You can protect me."
She smiled and he felt a rush of adrenalin, grinning, but trying not to, excited, but trying to hold it back. He'd miss Italian, his six o'clock class, but he was learning a lot in the company of this real Italian girl and figured he'd learn even more. He was going to Sicily with Chip and Brianna and a girl he was kind of interested in named Trish from New York. The train left at 8:06 that night. So he had an hour and a half to make a move.
As they walked through the narrow streets of the Condotti neighborhood, McCabe was thinking things like this only happened in movies, and he was going to take advantage of it, give it his best shot. Get her number and when he got back in town, call her and set something up. They moved past a cafe with outside tables. A waiter in a white jacket was serving drinks to a tourist couple. He glanced over, seemed to recognize her and said, " Ciao, bella."
The girl said, "Ciao, Enzo," waved but kept walking.