Free All He Saw Was the Girl by Peter Leonard

right shoulder, as if he was
waiting for the team to arrive, the bag looking out of place on a man his age,
the senator long past his playing days, glancing in different directions.
        Arturo
was parked behind the taxi queue at the east end of the square on Via della Conciliazione.
He watched Grossi and Pirlo walking in opposite directions, disappearing behind
columns in the colonnade. He glanced at Luciano next to him in the front seat
and said, "How long have you been engaged?"
        "Four
years."
        "Four
years? How do you do it?"
        "It's
not me. It's her. I want to get married, Carmen has a career, her own
apartment."
        "You
don't live together?"
        "A
few days a week." Luciano grinned. "It's not bad, I have to tell you.
She has her space, I have mine."
        Arturo
knew he was old-fashioned, but this was crazy.
        Luciano
said, "It might be the new model for a modern relationship."
        Arturo
was going to tell Luciano he was out of his mind. If you have a disagreement,
how do you work it out if you both have your own apartment? He watched Signor
Tallenger take out his mobile phone and hold it up to his ear, listening and
then moving, running awkwardly with the heavy bag.
        Instead
of proceeding east out of Piazza San Pietro toward the open street, he went south
through the colonnade. Pirlo radioed him and said Signor Tallenger got in a
taxi. He glanced at the map on his laptop: the red icon was moving south toward
the river. Grossi and Pirlo were running to the car. They opened the doors and
got in the rear seat.
        "Go
straight and take a right on Via Pio X," Arturo told Luciano.
        They
were waiting to turn when the taxi passed them, Signor Tallenger in the rear
seat, clearly visible. They followed, took the bridge over the Tiber and drove
along the river, giving the taxi plenty of room. Arturo was thinking he should
radio backup and tell them what was happening. The taxi was going left now,
slowing down and stopping at the Pantheon.
        They
parked on the street across from Replay, a clothing store. It was interesting
to watch Signor Tallenger step out of the Fiat with the heavy bag, the weight
of it pulling him to one side. The kidnappers had this rich, powerful man
running around the city and he was clearly not used to this. He was standing
with his back to the Pantheon, standing out among the tourists posing in front
of the famous church, or was it a temple? Signor Tallenger, the only person not
staring at it, smiling, pointing, admiring it. His body language saying he was
waiting for something to happen.
        A few
minutes later Signor Tallenger reached into his jacket pocket and took out his
cell phone and brought it to his ear. He listened for several seconds and then
he was moving again, running, or trying to, the bag weighing him down. He
crossed the square, Arturo picturing the maze of streets behind the Pantheon,
narrow and congested, difficult to follow in an automobile. He sent Grossi and
Pirlo after the senator. Then he radioed his backup units, explaining what was
happening. He had two cars, four Gruppo di Intervento Speciale, GIS, in each.
One car was standing by at Palazzo Ruspoli, the second on Via Nazionale east of
the Forum.
        Arturo
watched the red icon wind slowly around to Via del Corso and stop, not moving
for several minutes and then resuming, going faster now, heading toward the
Piazza Venezia. Pirlo checked in and told him Signor Tallenger had gotten on a
bus.
        "What
number?"
        "Twenty-three."
        Arturo
said, "Where is it going?"
        "I
called transit dispatch, a man named Fortuna said Via Labicana," Pirlo
said. "East of the Colosseum."
        Arturo
glanced at Luciano. "What is on Via Labicana?"
        "I
don't know."
        
        
        They
turned right on Via del Corso and they drove past Piazza Venezia and the
Wedding Cake and the Forum, the red icon moving southeast.