MEET ME AT THE GALLIANO CLUB
This is an excerpt from my current work-in-progress.
MEET ME AT THE GALLIANO CLUB is the prequel to the Galliano Club thriller series and tells the backstories of bartender Luca Lombardo and dancer Ruth Cross.
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“You must forget Calabrian,” Father Caviglia said, peering at Luca’s paper through his little rimless glasses. “Forget Italian. Only Latin is the Lord’s language.”
The oil lamp on the priest’s desk brightened the musty study in the church’s rectory. It was a mere 10 days before Luca’s examination to enter the seminary.
“Yes, Father,” Luca replied.
Father Caviglia gave Luca a fresh sheet of paper and carefully turned the page in the Latin text. “Do the next.”
Latin was the most challenging subject Luca had to master but tonight he’d done well. His translation of the assigned section of Tacitus’ Annals of Imperial Rome was faultless. He still got a lecture, of course. Father Caviglia constantly hectored Luca on mental discipline as well as his Latin skills. The ancient priest was a hard taskmaster,
swaddled in his equally ancient cassock despite the heat that persisted into the evening, yet he always gave Luca something to eat and a glass of wine.
If the examination was only mathematics and history, Luca would not have to study at all. In school, he sucked up information like a sponge, answering questions and asking more until the village maestro got flustered and made him sit in a corner. Hearing of this prodigy, Father Caviglia came to speak to Luca’s grandparents about sending him to
the seminary, one of the few options for poor boys with a quick mind. A deal was quickly struck.
Father Caviglia clasped his hands across his stomach, closed his eyes and lapsed into a gentle snore. Shrunk into his chair like that, with the rusty black cassock puddling around his ankles, he resembled a molting crow. Fighting the urge to yawn, Luca dutifully printed the title of his new assignment at the top of the paper.
P. CORNELI TACITI ANNALIVM LIBER SECVNDVS Liber III.
The sleepy lesson was interrupted by a knock on the rectory's front entrance across the hall. Luca heard the shuffling footsteps of Signora Scotti, the housekeeper who lived behind the rectory kitchen. Voices murmured and then Signora Scotti rapped on the door of the study.
Father Caviglia snapped awake. “Come in.”
The housekeeper’s wizened face poked around the edge of the door. “Father, you have a visitor. The military man. Colonello Orsini. He brought a rabbit for the stew pot.”
“How kind. Send him in.” Father Caviglia unfolded himself and swayed to his feet, panting a little from the exertion.
The door opened all the way. Signora Scotti shuffled aside, wiping her face with her ever-present dish towel.
The man who killed Luca’s parents stepped into the study.
