My Life My Choice

Chapter 5

Chapter 5I awoke early, close to 6:30 a.m., to a clear, chilly morning. It was the first week of March, and there was still a lot of snow in the mountains. I checked my phone and had received a text from Stephanie with a list of attendees. The date of the baptism was going to be the first weekend in May. Confirmed attendees were my son John and his wife Sally, with their twin sons, Cindy and her husband Rick, my daughter Sherry, John’s sister and her husband Robert, and their two daughters, Stephanie, her husband Jim, and her mother, Joanne. I looked down the list; at least my first wife is not on the list, only one ex-wife.

I got up and made the bed, showered, and got dressed. I made myself a cappuccino and walked out the French doors onto the terrace. I sat down on the small chair next to the table Cindy and I had sat at to enjoy the mornings and our coffee. I picked up my phone and dialed the number on Signor Moretti’s hand-written note.

“Pronto.”

I recognized the voice. It was Gino, Signor Moretti’s bodyguard. Gino, as I remember him, was a mountain of a man, at least 6’6” in height and about 260 pounds, trim with chiseled features and was dressed as if he was the cover photo for GQ magazine. I checked the time on my watch. Gino, it’s Warren Steelgrave, you can expect me about 11:30 this morning.

I then called my cousin Gino. He and his wife Maria have a couple of apartments in the village they rent from time to time to Americans in search of their roots.

“Pronto”

“Ciao, Gino. It’s Warren. I have some family coming the first weekend in May. Arriving on Thursday and staying seven days. I need places for nine people, can you help me out?”

“Sure, Warren, send me the list by groups that can stay together.”

“I will send it now. Thank, Gino.”

I hung up and sent Stephanie’s list with a note that Sherry’s family would be staying with me. I grabbed my coat and headed out the door on my way to Cremona and the home of Signor Moretti.

It took me just under three hours to get to the home of Signor Moretti, not bad considering the traffic around Milan. I drove down the very long cypress-lined driveway. The driveway ends in a circular court with a fountain in the middle. I drove into the court and parked in front of the front door. I got out and rang the front-door-bell, and shortly the door opened. Gino was standing there, motioning me to enter. He was as well-groomed and as big as ever, complete with a slight bulge under the coat: his gun. I walked in, and Signor Moretti was standing at the base of the staircase in the small foyer. He was dressed in a beautifully tailored gray open-window suit, white shirt with French cuffs, and an expensive-looking dark blue tie. For a man of seventy plus,he was trim and strikingly good looking. He looked not a day over sixty. This was a man who knew how to project power and intimidation.

“Welcome, Mr. Steelgrave, please let us talk in the library. Perhaps a coffee?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He gave a nod to Gino, who was off to fetch the coffee. I followed Signor Moretti through the living-room and into the library; I was as impressed as I was the first time. It was a medium-sized room with a large Persian rug in the center covering a wood parquet floor. There was a small settee, a couple of chairs and a round table in the middle of the rug; all the furniture was Italian baroque. The back wall was a large bookcase filled with several hundred books all first editions and signed. This impressed me most the first time here: that he was so well-read. We entered the library, and he walked over to a small table and picked up something. Turning, he said, “If you wouldn’t mind indulging an old man.”

He handed me a copy of my second book, A Life Separate: Together to sign. Was I summoned because he was upset at how he was portrayed in the book? Then he said,

“I thought you were very fair with how you portrayed our first two meetings in the book. Thank you for fictionalizing them enough that people aren’t sure it was this family and me.” I signed the book and set it on the table.

Gino walked in with the coffee on a tray and set it down on the table with the book. I walked over and picked up an espresso and sat down in a chair. After taking a sip of my coffee, I began, “Mr. Moretti, you didn’t summons me here to sign a book. Why am I here?”

Mr. Moretti smiled, and with a slight tilt of the head and raising of one shoulder, he answered, “That’s what I like aboutyou, Mr. Steelgrave, always directly to the point. I need you to do me a favor. My brother’s son . . . my nephew, Mauro, is missing. I have been told he has been picked up by the FBI. I know you have some kind of connection with them because of your and my last association. I obviously cannot call the FBI and ask if they have him.

My nephew has never been associated with the family business. He is a computer nerd and works as an independent IT contractor for big companies. Because of his last name, some people and groups cause him trouble to get to me. It has been two weeks he has been missing, and all I hear is the rumor he is in FBI custody. The family is very worried. I’m asking you to use your contacts with the FBI to find out if they have him, and if they do, why.”

I sat sipping my coffee, weighing my options. I don’t need Signor Moretti as an enemy, and he would owe me a favor; on the other hand, I could find myself involved in something over my head. I finished my coffee, stood, and walked over and put the empty cup back on the tray still thinking. I turned to him and said, “I will make a call, Mr. Moretti, because it is your nephew and a family member, not part of your organization. Don’t assume that means I will do anything more in the future. I still feel bad about the death of your son; this makes us even.”

With a nod of agreement, he extended his hand, and we shook. We said goodbye, and I left.

He could have called and asked, but I am glad he didn’t I wouldn’t want someone someday checking his phone records and see we had been talking. Hell, I bet his phones are monitored, and he knows it. That’s why I was summoned with a note.