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other things.”
    “He’s been kidnapped! ”
    The children burst into tears. They knew all about kidnapping from years of schoolyard warnings. It took Sybil several minutes to calm them.
    And then Beppo led them outside. A cloud crossed the sun, the air cooled momentarily. Well-dressed people hurried this way and that, going for coffee, going to church. Sybil wondered if she should have gone back upstairs to get coats for the children.
    Ida stopped by a window display of chocolate eggs. They were the huge Italian kind, foil-wrapped and with a toy hidden inside. Alwin had planned to buy two for the kids today.
    Sybil signaled the night-clerk to stop rushing ahead, and waited for Ida. The child was just tall enough to see in the store window. From the side, Sybil could see the round little face reflected, no bigger than one of the giant Easter eggs.
    “Come on, Ida. We have to find Daddy.”
    Still the blond little head stared into the depths of the store window. Was there a tear on her cheek?
    “Ida? Don’t cry, honey.”
    At this, Ida’s face squeezed up and the fat tears popped out. In an instant her whole face was wet. Alwin had always compared this process to the squeezing of a grapefruit half. “I’m scared of the kidnappers,” Ida sobbed.
    “Don’t worry, sweetie,” Sybil said, picking her up. Such a cuddly, curvy body this little one had. Rubber popo, you’re the one . “Everything will be all right. Everything will be all right.” Sybil carried Ida to Beppo and Tom, taking comfort from her own words.
    “Do you have a gun?” Tom was asking the night-clerk.
    “ Subito, signora ,” the skinny man cried to Sybil. “I have hurry.”
    They tagged after him as far as the corner, from where he pointed out the US Embassy building, half a block down the other side of the Via Veneto. The daylight shone through the night-clerk’s lank strands of greasy hair, making unpleasant highlights on his scurfy scalp. Sybil was glad to see him go, the heartless prick.
    The light changed, and they could have rushed right across the street, but Sybil hesitated. Until she went and talked to some little American official, this was still unreal. Alwin kidnapped? For what? All they had in the world was some furniture, and the money they were saving for a house. Why would a kidnapper grab Alwin in his shabby old sport coat?
    Tom and Ida were examining the Italian comic books at the corner newsstand. Paparino was Donald, and Topolino was Mickey. Up where the children couldn’t see, there were a bunch of the lurid Italian porno comics. Sodomy was the thing these men craved the most…. Sybil could feel it in their stares and pinches. Ugh.
    As if called up by the thought, a passing man in a suit and mustache ran his hand over her ass. A bony hand like a sheathed meat-hook. Sybil turned to glare at him, but he was already two paces into the street. She bought a Topolino and a Paparino to keep the children busy.
    The Embassy was housed in an enormous old dwelling, practically a palace. Freshly mimeographed sheets of paper were blowing up and down the sidewalk. Some kind of message in Italian. The guards let Sybil in after she showed her US passport. They were black marines with country accents.
    “My husband’s been kidnapped,” she told them.
    “We’re doing what we can, ma’am. Just go on ahead in.”
    Inside, there was an enormous marble entrance hall with a single silver-haired lady behind a metal desk. DOT HOOK, said the plastic nameplate. DOT HOOK, RECEPTION. She looked alertly at Sybil and the two children.
    “My husband has been kidnapped,” repeated Sybil. “What can we do?”
    “Oh, so you’re the wife .” Dot Hook paused to savor the information. “Mrs….”
    “Bitter. Sybil Bitter. Did you get a note?”
    “That’s right, Sybil, there was a note nailed to our front door. With a stiletto . Do you want to see it?”
    This felt viciously unreal. “Yes,” Sybil said. “Of course. What do they