Nikki rinsed the small Moka and started a fresh pot. Raoul didn’t seem inclined to wait. As soon as he’d made his calls and gotten Sandro’s contact details, he bolted from the kitchen and Nikki heard him tromping through the flat as she made a message to Sandro.
—
Raoul’s mission was underway when Nikki joined him in the living room. He carried in a stack of boxes, setting them in front of the sofa. They stank of dust and mildew.
“Start with that one,” he said, pointing.
Nikki sat and opened the first box. “What am I looking for?”
“Your mother’s notes. Letters. Anything with her handwriting. Just set it aside.”
He bustled away again.
—
By the time he was finished, the space was littered with dusty boxes: old family memorabilia, left by Beatrice when she and Raoul moved back to Benevento. Under other circumstances, Nikki would have left her father to sort through these himself. But the conversations with Izzy yesterday about Beatrice’s secret life made her wonder if she could find evidence about that mystery here.
They excavated decades of sediment—old photos, school records, personal letters, Christmas cards, and geological formations of souvenirs. Nikki paused at a photo of her mother after boot camp, wearing Navy service dress blues, a stern expression on her childish face—large, intelligent eyes and Romanesque nose. Her lips, pressedclosed tightly in that moment, had always been so ready to curve into a laugh. Nikki saw that smile in other family pictures—beachside holidays, and poorly lit Christmas dinners.
The longer Nikki searched, the clearer it became: There was nothing mysterious here. No key to unlock the enigma of her missing mother. Instead, she was unexpectedly confronted by the immediacy of a familiar grief—the faces of her mother and Adriano, memories so far faded, faces so young and hopeful, they seemed to belong to another life.
—
After a few hours, they broke for lunch.
At a nearby trattoria, they ordered panini and insalata, settling into an outdoor table to enjoy the sunlight and respite from the rain.
After the meal, as they drank coffee, Nikki asked, “What exactly are you hoping to find in Mom’s stuff?”
Raoul stared for a long moment, then took out his phone, and scrolled through photos before handing it to her.
“I’m probably hunting chimeras,” he said. “It was a long time ago, and my memory isn’t as good as it once was.”
Nikki squinted at the screen—at a photo of lined paper and handwriting scrawled in thick blue ink: numbers and dates and names.
“What am I looking at?” she asked.
He leaned forward.
“This is from Lotterio Patalano’s secret ledger,” he explained. “He kept track of shipments for the mob. See the vessel names and the code for the manifest?” He pointed. “And the port, the date. And there, on the far right—the name.”
Nikki zoomed in, sounding it out. “Damascus.They were shipping to Syria?”
He shook his head. “I thought that at first. But these records are sea routes. Damascus isn’t a port—it’s in the middle of the desert. Also, it doesn’t make sense in the context. I think it’s a code name for someone.”
“Someone inside Syria?”
“I wondered that, too, but I don’t think so. I’ve been working with some young analysts—they’re very eager…very bright. We can’tfind any link between this name, and shipments to that region during that time. If there’s a connection, we’re not seeing it.”
He flicked to the next picture. “Now, look at the names here.”
Nikki zoomed in again. “Diogenes,” she read. “Another code name? Who’s Diogenes?”
Raoul pressed his lips together and wrinkled his nose. “Diogenes was a Greek philosopher. He carried a lamp, saying he was looking for an honest man.”
“Okay,” said Nikki. “I’m not seeing what you’re seeing.”
“When I saw the name Damascus, I thought it rang a bell, but I couldn’t place it. Then I saw Diogenes. Those two names together—that meant something to me. Diogenes and Damascus. Not a natural pairing. But your mother…she used to talk about them. Yesterday, I drove back to Benevento, went through all her notes and records. Nothing. I told myself it was a coincidence.”
