Free The Broker by John Grisham Page A

learn English?”
    “My mother is American. We spoke English at home, Italian everywhere else.”
    “That’s cheating. What else do you speak?”
    “Spanish, French, a few more. Ermanno is an excellent teacher. The classroom is just down the street.”
    “Not here, in the hotel?”
    “No, no, Marco. You must think about your trail. What would the bellboy or the housekeeper say if a young man spent four hours a day in this room with you?”
    “God forbid.”
    “The housekeeper would listen at the door and hear your lessons. She would whisper to her supervisor. Within a day or two the entire staff would know that the Canadian businessman is studying intensely. Four hours a day!”
    “Gotcha. Now about lunch.”
    Leaving the hotel, Joel managed to smile at the clerk, a janitor, and the bell captain without uttering a word. They walked one block to the center of Treviso, the Piazza dei Signori, the main square lined with arcades and cafés. It was noon and the foot traffic was heavier as the locals hurried about for lunch. The air was getting colder, though Joel was quite comfortable tucked inside his new wool overcoat. He tried his best to look Italian.
    “Inside or outside?” Luigi asked.
    “Inside,” Joel said, and they ducked into the Caffè Beltrame, overlooking the piazza. A brick oven near the front was heating the place, and the aroma of the daily feast was steaming from the rear. Luigi and the headwaiter both spoke at the same time, then they laughed, then a table was found by a front window.
    “We’re in luck,” Luigi said as they took off their coats and sat down. “The special today is faraona con polenta.”
    “And what might that be?”
    “Guinea fowl with polenta.”
    “What else?”
    Luigi was studying one of the blackboards hanging from a rough-hewn crossbeam. “Panzerotti di funghi al burro—fried mushroom pastries. Conchiglie con cavalfiori—pasta shells with cauliflower. Spiedino di carne misto alla griglia—grilled shish kabob of mixed meats.”
    “I’ll have it all.”
    “Their house wine is pretty good.”
    “I prefer red.”
    Within minutes the café was crowded with locals, all of whom seemed to know each other. A jolly little man with a dirty white apron sped by the table, slowed just long enough to make eye contact with Joel, and wrote down nothing as Luigi spat out a long list of what they wanted to eat. A jug of house wine arrived with a bowl of warm olive oil and a platter of sliced focaccia, and Joel began eating. Luigi was busy explaining the complexities of lunch and breakfast, the customs and traditions and mistakes made by tourists trying to pass themselves off as authentic Italians.
    With Luigi, everything would be a learning experience.
    Though Joel sipped and savored the first glass of wine, the alcohol went straight to his brain. A wonderful warmth and numbness embraced his body. He was free, many years ahead of schedule, and sitting in a rustic little café in an Italian town he’d never heard of, drinking a nice local wine, and inhaling the smells of a delicious feast. He smiled at Luigi as the explanations continued, but at some point Joel drifted into another world.
______
    ERMANNO claimed to be twenty-three years old but looked no more than sixteen. He was tall and painfully thin, and with sandy hair and hazel eyes he looked more German than Italian. He was also very shy and quite nervous, and Joel did not like the first impression.
    They met Ermanno at his tiny apartment, on the third floor of an ill-kept building six blocks or so fromJoel’s hotel. There were three small rooms—kitchen, bedroom, living area—all sparsely furnished, but then Ermanno was a student so such surroundings were not unexpected. But the place looked as though he had just moved in and might be moving out at any minute.
    They sat around a small desk in the center of the living room. There was no television. The room was cold and dimly lit, and Joel couldn’t help but feel as if he