to guess whether she meant yes or no, and watching the way Cristina di Santis dealt with the uncertainty.
The contessa was half a head taller than she was, black-haired, slender, but with all the curves that Rosa lacked. Her raised left eyebrow suggested that she was sizing Rosa up. She seemed to be waiting to test Rosa seriously, and then she would show this stupid, full-of-herself American girl how contempt was expressed stylishly here in Europe.
None of this surprised Rosa. In a way, she could totally understand it. What did surprise her was the contessa’s reaction when the soft sound of rubber tires on stone announced the attorney’s arrival.
An expression of diligent civility appeared on the contessa’s face. Like a robot without any personality of its own; as if her emotions had suddenly been extinguished.
Careful not to show any irritation, Rosa turned to the old man in the wheelchair. This was the third time she had met the Alcantaras’ attorney, the gray eminence of the clan, and once again she thought that he was like a certain actor, though try as she might she couldn’t think of his name. She didn’t remember seeing him in any movie; she just had a sense of him staring down at her from a screen, larger than life. Not that there was anything about Trevini to intimidate anyone at first sight. He was an emaciated old man, he had been confined to a wheelchair since childhood, and he was blind in one eye. Threat and intimidation didn’t look like that in Mafia circles. Yet there was an aura that followed him, surrounded him, came into a room with him, and lingered in the air out on this terrace.
“Signorina Alcantara.” The corners of his mouth moved, merging with his countless wrinkles. “We meet again at last. I am so glad to see you.”
The wind off the sea swept Rosa’s ponytail forward over her shoulder, but the avvocato’s white hair was untouched by the draft. Maybe he had put gel on its few remaining strands to keep it in place. His lips were narrow and colorless, as if he were parting scar tissue when he smiled.
She went to meet him, with a surreptitious glance at her two bodyguards standing motionless in their black suits at the edge of the terrace. She was already regretting that she had let Alessandro persuade her to take the men with her.
She offered Trevini her hand. “Avvocato.”
“You received my message,” he said.
“You haven’t replied to my questions about that.”
“Because matters call for discussion face-to-face.”
She took this ploy with a good grace. “And that’s why I’m here.”
“Will you come a little way with me?” He steered the wheelchair along the balustrade of the terrace. The contessa was left behind.
Rosa walked beside the wheelchair for some twenty or thirty yards, until they were out of earshot of anyone else. “I haven’t seen much of my business managers and the other annoying people who usually harass me whenever they have the chance,” she said. “Since I came back from the States, they’ve left me alone. I assume I have you to thank for that.”
“I am sure that you value a little rest after such a strenuous journey.”
“What did you tell them? That from now on you would be making the decisions on all economic matters?”
“Is that what you’d prefer?”
She had some difficulty in not letting the milky membrane over his right eye distract her. “What do you think my grandmother would have done, in her time, if you had gone over her head like that?”
He smiled. “I certainly would not be here any longer.”
With a sigh, she grasped the balustrade and looked out at the sea. A few isolated yachts were cruising off the coast. Even in February, Taormina was not entirely free of tourists. There was hardly another place in Sicily as popular with foreign visitors as this town high above the water.
“I hate what you’re trying to do here, avvocato,” she said quietly. “I’m sure you think it’s stupid of me, but I just don’t like it. Not you, or your cheap tricks, or the whole damn thing.”
“But you have no objection to all that money, do you?”
Angrily, she spun around, and noticed at the same time that the movement had alerted her bodyguards. With a shake of her head, she let them know that everything was all right.
“Was that really necessary?” asked Trevini, glancing at the two men.
“You tell me.”
There was a touch of warmth in his smile. “What makes you