Pasquale slept uneasily in an expensive little albergo near the terminal station. He wondered how
guests in these Rome hotels slept with all the noise. He rose early, slipped into his pants, shirt, tie,
and jacket, had a caffè, and then took a cab to the Grand Hotel, where the American film people were
staying. He smoked a cigarette on the Spanish Steps as he prepared himself. Vendors were setting up
cut-flower stands and tourists were already flitting about, clutching folded maps, cameras around
their necks. Pasquale looked down at the name on the paper that Orenzio had given him and said the
name quietly so he wouldn’t mess it up.
I am here to see . . . Michael Deane. Michael Deane. Michael Deane.
Pasquale had never been inside the Grand Hotel. The mahogany door opened onto the most ornate
lobby he’d ever seen: marble floors, floral frescoes on the ceilings, crystal chandeliers, stained-glass
skylights depicting saints and birds and glum lions. It was hard to take it all in and he had to force
himself not to gape like a tourist, to appear serious and focused. He had important business with the
bastard Michael Deane. People were milling about in the lobby, groups of tourists and Italian
businessmen in black suits and eyeglasses. Pasquale didn’t see any film stars, but then he wouldn’t
have known what they looked like, either. He rested for a moment against a white sculpted lion, but
its face was so much like a human’s that it made Pasquale uncomfortable and he moved on to the front
desk.
Pasquale removed his hat and handed the desk clerk the piece of paper with Michael Deane’s name
on it. He opened his mouth to say his line, but the clerk looked at the paper and pointed to an ornate
doorway at the end of the lobby. “End of the hall.” A long line of people stretched and winded out the
doorway where the clerk pointed.
“I have business with this man, Deane. He’s in there?” he asked the clerk.
The man just pointed and looked away. “End of the hall.”
Pasquale made his way to the back of the line at the end of the hall. He wondered if these people
all had business with Michael Deane. Maybe the man had sick actresses squirreled all over Italy. The
woman in line in front of Pasquale was attractive—straight brown hair and long legs, maybe his age,
twenty-two or twenty-three, wearing a tight dress and nervously fingering an unlit cigarette.
“Do you have a light?” she asked.
Pasquale struck a match and held it for her. She cupped his hand and breathed in.
“I’m so nervous. If I don’t smoke right now I’m going to have to eat a whole cake. Then I’ll be as
fat as my sister and they’ll have no use for me.”
He looked past her, along the line of people, into an ornate ballroom, big gold pillars in the
corners.
“What is this line?” he asked.
“This is the only way,” she answered. “You can try to get in at the studio or wherever they’re
