Free The Broker by John Grisham Page B

had been placed in some underground highway where fugitives are kept alive and moved about in secret. The warmth of a two-hour lunch was fading quickly.
    His tutor’s nervousness didn’t help matters.
    When Ermanno was unable to take control of the meeting, Luigi quickly stepped in and kicked things off. He suggested that they study each morning from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., break for two hours, then resume around 1:30 and study until they were tired. This seemed to suit Ermanno and Joel, who thought about asking the obvious: If my new guy here is a student, how does he have the time to teach me all day long? But he let it pass. He’d pursue it later.
    Oh, the questions he was accumulating.
    Ermanno eventually relaxed and described the language course. When he spoke slowly, his accent was not intrusive. But when he rushed things, as he was prone to do, his English might as well have been Italian. Once Luigi interrupted and said, “Ermanno, it’s important to speak very slowly, at least in the first few days.”
    “Thank you,” Joel said, like a true smartass.
    Ermanno’s cheeks actually reddened and he offered a very timid “Sorry.”
    He handed over the first batch of study aids—coursebook number one, along with a small tape player and two cassettes. “The tapes follow the book,” he said, very slowly. “Tonight, you should study chapter one and listen to each tape several times. Tomorrow we’ll begin there.”
    “It will be very intense,” Luigi added, applying more pressure, as if more was needed.
    “Where did you learn English?” Joel asked.
    “At the university,” Ermanno said. “In Bologna.”
    “So you haven’t studied in the United States?”
    “Yes, I have,” he said, shooting a quick nervous glance at Luigi, as if whatever happened in the States was something he preferred not to talk about. Unlike Luigi, Ermanno was an easy read, obviously not a professional.
    “Where?” Joel asked, probing, seeing how much he could get.
    “Furman,” Ermanno said. “A small school in South Carolina.”
    “When were you there?”
    Luigi came to the rescue, clearing his throat. “You will have plenty of time for this small talk later. It is important for you to forget English, Marco. From this day forward, you will live in a world of Italian. Everything you touch has an Italian name for it. Every thought must be translated. In one week you’ll be ordering in restaurants. In two weeks you’ll be dreaming in Italian. It’s total, absolute immersion in the language and culture, and there’s no turning back.”
    “Can we start at eight in the morning?” Joel asked.
    Ermanno glanced and fidgeted, finally said, “Perhaps eight-thirty.”
    “Good, I’ll be here at eight-thirty.”
    They left the apartment and strolled back to thePiazza dei Signori. It was mid-afternoon, traffic was noticeably quieter, the sidewalks almost deserted. Luigi stopped in front of the Trattoria del Monte. He nodded at the door, said, “I’ll meet you here at eight for dinner, okay?”
    “Yes, okay.”
    “You know where your hotel is?”
    “Yes, the albergo.”
    “And you have a map of the city?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good. You’re on your own, Marco.” And with that Luigi ducked into an alley and disappeared. Joel watched him for a second, then continued his walk to the main square.
    He felt very much alone. Four days after leaving Rudley, he was finally free and unaccompanied, perhaps unobserved, though he doubted it. He decided immediately that he would move around the city, go about his business, as if no one was watching him. And he further decided, as he pretended to examine the items in the window of a small leather shop, that he would not live the rest of his life glancing over his shoulder.
    They wouldn’t find him.
    He drifted until he found himself at Piazza San Vito, a small square where two churches had been sitting for seven hundred years. The Santa Lucia and San Vito were both closed, but, according to the