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seen.
        "Three
fucking carats," he said.
        He
was grinning, holding his champagne glass by the stem. "Had it made
special. What do you think?"
    ----
        

Chapter Four
        
        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