Anna backed away. "Oh, please," she whimpered, "don't hurt me."
Walther was moving toward her, his eyes bright, his voice so soft that she could hardly make out the words. "Liebchen, I'm not going to hurt you. I love you, don't you know that?" He touched her, and she could feel her flesh crawl. "It's just that we don't want the police coming here, do we?" She shook her head from side to side, too filled with terror to speak. "It's the children that are causing the trouble, Anna. We're going to get rid of them. I - "
Downstairs the front doorbell rang. Walther stood there, hesitating. It rang again.
"Stay here," he ordered. "I'll be back."
Anna watched, petrified, as he walked out the bedroom door. He slammed it behind him and she could hear the click of the key as he locked it.
I'll be back, he had said.
Walther Gassner hurried down the stairs, walked to the front door and opened it. A man in a gray messenger's uniform stood there, holding a sealed manila envelope.
"I have a special delivery for Mr. and Mrs. Walther Gassner."
"Yes," Walther said. "I will take it."
He closed the door, looked at the envelope in his hand, then ripped it open. Slowly, he read the message inside.
DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT SAM
ROFFE WAS KILLED IN A CLIMBING
ACCIDENT. PLEASE BE IN ZURICH
FRIDAY NOON FOR AN EMERGENCY
MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS.
It was signed "Rhys Williams."
Chapter 3
Rome.
Monday, September 7.
Six p.m.
Ivo Palazzi stood in the middle of his bedroom, the blood streaming down his face. "Mamma mia! Mi hai rovinato!"
"I haven't begun to ruin you, you miserable figlio di putana!" Donatella screamed at him.
They were both naked in the large bedroom of their apartment in Via Montemignaio. Donatella had the most sensuous, exciting body Ivo Palazzi had ever seen, and even now, as his life's blood poured from his face, from the terrible scratches she had inflicted on him, he felt a familiar stirring in his loins. Dio, she was beautiful. There was an innocent decadence about her that drove him wild. She had the face of a leopard, high cheekbones and slant eyes, full ripe lips, lips that nibbled him and sucked him and - but he must not think of that now. He picked up a white cloth from a chair to stanch the flow of blood, and too late he realized that it was his shirt. Donatella was standing in the middle of their huge double bed, yelling at him. "I hope you bleed to death! When I've finished with you, you filthy whoremonger, there won't be enough left for a gattino to shit on!"
For the hundredth time Ivo Palazzi wondered how he had gotten himself into this impossible situation. He had always prided himself on being the happiest of men, and all his friends had agreed with him. His friends? Everybody! Because Ivo had no enemies. In his bachelor days he had been a happy-go-lucky Roman without a care in the world, a Don Giovanni who was the envy of half the males in Italy. His philosophy was summed up in the phrase Farsi onore con una donna - "Honor oneself with a woman." It kept Ivo very busy. He was a true romantic. He kept falling in love, and each time he used his new love to help him forget his old love. Ivo adored women, and to him they were all beautiful, from the putane who plied their ancient trade along the Via Appia, to the high-fashion models strutting along the Via Condotti. The only girls Ivo did not care for were the Americans. They were too independent for his tastes. Besides, what could one expect of a nation whose language was so unromantic that they would translate the name of Giuseppe Verdi to Joe Green?
Ivo always managed to have a dozen girls in various states of preparation. There were five stages. In stage one were the girls he had just met. They received daily phone calls, flowers, slim volumes of erotic poetry. In stage two were those to whom he sent little gifts of Gucci scarves and porcelain boxes filled with Perugina chocolates. Those in stage three received jewelry and clothes and were taken to dinner at El Toula, or Taverna Flavia. Those in stage four shared Ivo's bed and enjoyed his formidable skills as a lover. An assignation with Ivo was a production. His beautifully decorated little apartment on the Via Margutta would be filled with flowers, garofani or papaveri, the music would be opera, classical or rock, according to the chosen girl's taste. Ivo was a superb cook, and one of his specialties, appropriately enough, was polio alla cacciatora, chicken of the hunter. After dinner, a bottle of chilled champagne to drink in bed...Ah, yes, Ivo loved stage four.
But stage five was probably the most delicate of them all. It consisted of a heartbreaking farewell speech, a generous parting gift and a tearful arrivederci.
But all that was in the past. Now Ivo Palazzi took a quick glance at his bleeding, scratched face in the mirror over his bed and was horrified. He looked as though he had been attacked by a mad threshing machine.
"Look at what you've done to me!" he cried. "Cora, I know you didn't mean it."
He moved over to the bed to take Donatella in his arms. Her soft arms flew around him and as he started to hug her, she buried her long fingernails in his naked back and clawed him like a wild animal. Ivo yelled with pain.
"Scream!" Donatella shouted. "If I had a knife, I'd cut your cazzo and ram it down your miserable throat"
"Please!" Ivo begged. "The children will hear you."
"Let them!" she shrieked. "It's time they found out what kind of monster their father is."
He took a step toward her. "Carissima - "
"Don't you touch me! I'd give my body to the first drunken syphilitic sailor I met on the streets before I'd ever let you come near me again."