(7) The Woman in the Red Vinyl Raincoat (conclusion)

Signora Vicenti had taken her knitting out to the garden patio, her one hobby outside of bridge, and a special one, because she didn't have to rely on a partner for success, or be blamed by her partner for bad play. Knitting had a usefulness beyond the relaxation and satisfaction it gave. It filled up all the silent moments during morning coffee with her husband when he lapsed into a reverie concerning some to-do at the office. Signora Maria Francesca Vicenti hated shop talk. She was glad of the silences, when only the clicking needles spoke; spoke of fidelity and peacefulness.

And here it was, a good morning. Giorgio, who came out to the patio just then, still in his pajamas, sipped his coffee as if it were hemlock, expressing sadness over the incredible death of his step-sister, which Maria Francesca felt to be a false sadness. But it was a good morning because it was nice of her husband to feign sorrow over Isabel's demise, rather than express his true feelings and gloat over it.

"You are not reading the paper this morning, Giorgio?" she asked. He always read the business section before their conversation.

"I have mislaid my reading glasses," he replied. "But I would not be able to concentrate. Not this morning."

"I know, dear. Should we go up to Rome? Would it be seemly, so soon after poor Isabel's passing?" Then she voiced what she had determined not to think about. It would ruin the good morning. But she could see that the subject was haunting Giorgio's eyes. "Do you think the police will want to ask you questions?"

"No," he said firmly, "unless it is about the robbery."

"Oh those guards. The people they hire these days. No sense of right and wrong. You mustn't worry. They will not damage the collection. There would be no sense in them doing so. And it would lower the value of it to sell the miniatures separately, to different buyers. Isn't that true?"

She went back to her knitting. Giorgio had gone to daydreaming about something. By the look of him, a pleasant something. That was good. It was bad luck to think of unpleasant things in the morning.

Sanguineus rolled over on his back, on the pine needles beneath the stunted tree whose twisted branches looked like a modern sculpture of a tortured man. It stood on the brow of a hill one hundred and forty yards from the garden patio.

He had removed the custom designed double-barreled rifle from the tennis racket case and was now turning the screw just forward of the twin triggers. The barrels gradually seperated to a width of two and a quarter inches. From his jacket pocket he took the pair of glasses. There was a translucent dot in the exact center of both lenses. He held the glasses in front of the rifle barrels and adjusted the screw until the bore of each barrel was aligned with the dots. Satisfied, he rolled back over on his stomach. He took aim through the dual scope at the man who had seen him with his own two eyes.

"Perhaps we should go to Rome," said Maria Francesca, knotting a length of yarn. "Shameful it is that we have yet to see the Fountain of Tripoli together."

"True," said Giorgio, lifting his cup. "The two pennies I have saved to be put on my eyes when I die, I will toss into the Fountain."

Maria Francesca had no idea what to make of the two parallel streaks of bright red that suddenly appeared on the glass top of the table; no idea, that is, until her husband fell over backwards in his wrought-iron chair.

Above the rim of his glass of red burgandy Sanguineus observed the dinner hostess of the Azur Amore leading the prettiest girl in Palermo toward his table. He set down his glass and stood. Their eyes met. He sensed the girl's heart racing. Her ears turned pink and her eyes a deeper shade of blue.

"How very kind of you to come," he said, as the hostess placed a menu against the basket of hot buttered bread.

"The pleasure is entirely mine," said the girl, whose name Sanguineus had inconveniently forgotten.

He made no move to assist her in being seated. She liked that. She liked how he stood there appraising her. She sighed a laugh then and sat down across from him. They both opened their menus. Now she liked his coolness as he scanned the entrees, while the waiter, a starched white towel over the sleeve of his tux, asked her, "What may I get you to drink?"

She had not taken her eyes off the stranger whom she had been thinking about for four long days.

"I will have what he is drinking," she said.