Read The Body in the Piazza for Free Online Page B

not out of place.
    â€œNo,” Freddy said again and then laughed, a laugh that was almost like a bark, startling the young couple at the next table, who, having finished their antipasti, had been engaged in locking lips.
    â€œI wander ‘lonely as a cloud.’ I cannot disappoint you any more, Faith my sweet. Ask me anything. Well, almost anything. My parents are both dead. I am an orphan with no siblings. I tried being married once, but couldn’t get the hang of it and, much to the relief of my wife, stopped trying. She now lives in Shropshire with her much nicer husband and four children, none of them mine, and she sends me a Christmas card each year. And now, pudding? Or if I may suggest instead, an espresso for me—you two must go to sleep and get on local time— un liquore for you, perhaps a limoncello if they have some of the della Costiera, as I’m sure they must. Then we can walk back by way of the Pantheon, which you need to see at night. There is an acceptable gelateria nearby for afterward. Mo’s, the best in Rome, is too far—near Vatican City. But you will be in Florence and can go to Carapina as many times as possible. I’m quite fond of Italian ice cream. All those flavors, much like your original Howard Johnson’s without the orange roofs.”
    â€œSo you’ve spent some time in the States?”
    â€œDon’t you think I’ve shared enough information with you for one night, dear lady? We must leave something to talk about the next time we meet, as I’m sure our paths will cross again, although not immediately. I leave Rome early tomorrow morning.”
    Faith, too, was sure their paths would cross again and pictured the three of them walking off at the end of the evening into the fog à la Claude Rains and Humphrey Bogart, except it was a clear night and Rome, not Casablanca.
    He ordered their liquori and his espresso. Faith sipped her limoncello appreciatively—she wanted to remember the brand—and then Freddy shooed them off for a tour of the restaurant while he proceeded to write in the notebook that he’d closed and placed next to him on the table when they’d arrived.
    What Faith had thought from the outside would be a small interior turned out to be a maze of delightful rooms ranging from banquet proportions to an intimate patio with a few tables tucked away at the rear. The wine cellars were impressive for the number of bottles and the brick walls that dated back to the original fish market. Claudio and his father were enthusiastic guides, pressing a bottle of a favorite Frascati on them. The Fairchilds had no difficulty promising to return as soon as possible.
    When they came back outside, Freddy was engaged in writing. He snapped his notebook shut as soon as he saw them and said, “The Pantheon, I rather think now.”
    â€œJust the brief look we had before coming to the restaurant was a revelation,” Tom said. “It’s the kind of place that a photograph can’t capture. It sounds quite inane, but it’s so big and the oculus is truly like an eye to the heavens. I’d very much like to see it at night.”
    â€œNot inane at all, exactly right. When you come back to Rome, which you will even if you don’t go to the Trevi Fountain and toss a coin, try to go to the Pantheon when it’s raining. I have a small store of special memories and one is of being under that eye during a sun shower. I was quite young and felt like some sort of male transfiguration of Danaë. The golden mist hung in the air and even the puddles on the floor looked molten. Ah youth, truly wasted on the young, as Shaw, that curmudgeony vegetarian, aptly said.”
    He stood up, tucking his notebook in his jacket pocket. “ Andiamo! Before you both turn into pumpkins. I shouldn’t be keeping you up so late, but I’m a very selfish man. Ask my ex-wife. I can say that now, since you know