“Well,” said Katie as they got into the Fiat. “That was interesting.”
         David wagged his chin and whistled. “Now that I know the whole story, I’m more bewildered than ever.”
         “Me, too. There’s certainly enough to build a story on. It’s got to be Capone’s gold. I mean, fifty or more candlesticks and all the rest of the ornaments and altar pieces in the church. It adds up to hundreds of ingots, melted down.”
         “And without a Federal stamp on them,” added David.
         “And, if it was Capone’s gift to God in order to save his immortal soul, it was certainly in a safe spot. Even if he eventually told the feds where it was, they’d have a hard time getting hold of it, yet he’d have gotten the reward. But, David, I’m still puzzled as to how he got the gold over here? Did he put it on the Italian ocean liners with the rest of it? Did he have it melted  down when it got here?”
         “I don’t think so,” said David. “Remember you showed me those photos of the Capone flatware at Theresa Scali’s house?  Well, I can’t be sure—we can look at the photos when we get back to Naples tonight—but they seemed to have the same patterns as the candlesticks we saw.”
         “Meaning they were probably made by the same fabricator?”
         “Right, an American company. So, if Capone used just a few ingots to make his own personal dining set, he must have melted the rest down, had them made into candlesticks and church implements, then silver plated.”
         “And how would he get them to Angri?”
         “It all makes sense this way,” said David. “After the disaster with the rumrunner and U-boat, the arrangement for another third of the gold to be shipped to Italy on the ocean liners was easy enough to arrange through Mussolini. His people, along with Capone’s friends on the docks, would allow the gold to go onboard, no questions asked.”
         “Okay, I follow so far,” said Katie.
         “But there was still a third of the gold Capone held, and he wanted to hedge his bets in case Mussolini double-crossed him, or the Germans got the gold. He probably never knew that Vito Genovese had arranged with the American Army and the feds to transfer as much of the gold as they could back to the States.  So Al still had hundreds of ingots melted down into candlesticks and the rest and had them silver plated. That way he could have shipped them across the Atlantic on any ship he wanted. They might have been heavy, but, if silver candlesticks are listed on the ships’ manifest, it’s not going to raise much suspicion, especially if Capone’s friends on the Brooklyn docks (right) in New York oversaw the loading of the boat.”
         “Greco, you are a helluva detective,” said Katie. “That is an amazing story.  Capone keeps some gold hidden in reserve to help get him into heaven and even when the war breaks out, he knows the Church will hide it all somewhere, as they would any treasured objects.  What a great scheme.”
         “I think we got lucky there at the end,” said David, “but it’s the only way the whole thing hangs together. Three stashes of gold.  One lost. One in Mussolini’s custody.  One hidden away in his mother’s church, where nobody except a succession of parish priests knows the truth.”
         “Very . . . very well played,” said Katie.  “Too bad Al’s brain started to rot out before he had any chance of getting his revenge.”
         “Hey, who knows? Maybe Al is now up in heaven with his mother and father and the rest of his family.  I wouldn’t put it past him to bribe his way in with St. Peter.  If I remember correctly, those angels play harps of gold.”
         Katie stretched her arm out the window of the Fiat and asked, “Well, Detective Greco, you think we should reward ourselves with a day trip to Capri?”
         David was all for that idea but suggested they drive down the coast a bit more—they had the rest of the afternoon—and visit Positano, Amalfi, maybe Ravello, and stay over till the next day. 
         “Drive on, maestro!” Katie said.

                                                   *                         *                         *                         *

         Feeling as if they’d already collected a reward—the simple fact of solving the mystery of Capone’s gold—gave the afternoon the refreshing feeling of having a weight off their shoulders.  They took their time driving down the Amalfi Coast on what had turned out to be a brilliant autumn day, with a brisk breeze coming off the sea. 
         Following the signs for Positano, they began the serpentine crawl down the side of the mountain to a town that seemed barely attached to the rocks. Its buildings, some owned by very wealthy Italians and, increasingly, Russians, were done in a riot of bright pastel colors, the streets lined with lemon trees and bushes of basil, thyme and rosemary. 
         The tourist crush of spring and summer had mostly subsided, but parking anywhere was difficult, so, when they did find a space, they ate at the nearest trattoria, La Cambusa on the Piazza Vespucci, with a breathtaking view of the water. They feasted on whatever the owner suggested, which was what was brought in by the fishermen down at the town dock that day.
         “Let’s not talk about Al Capone today,” said Katie.
      But, after a glass of wine, they couldn’t help themselves.
      “So once they know the whereabouts, you think the feds will come round up the gold?” she asked first.
      “Ha! Not likely. They would have to jump through so many legal hoops—international banking, the gold market, Interpol, the Italian government and the Naples police, not to mention the Vatican and the townspeople of Angri. Like the Monsignor said, it would be tough to get the town to give up their religious artwork going back seven decades.”
      “Even though the Fed had ownership? It’s not like they’re the Elgin Marbles,” said Katie.
      “Whose marbles?”
      Katie suppressed a chuckle, saying, “Lord Elgin was a Brit who gathered up all the marble statues that had fallen off the frieze of the Parthenon in Athens, then he shipped them back to London and the government had them installed ‘for safekeeping’ in the British Museum.  The Greeks have been trying to get them back for close to two centuries now.”
      “Oh, and you think the Italians are going to wrap up the gold in San Giovanni and just ship it all back to the U.S.?” asked David. “Believe me, even before litigation started, the Camorra would find a way to get it all out of the church.”
      “Wouldn’t the Neapolitan police keep that from happening, once this became known in the news?”
      “You mean, your article in McClure’s?”
      David shook his head and laughed. “You don’t know the Neapolitan police. Primerano and Lucadamo were two exceptions, real professionals, but most of them are inept at best. You might as well put the Pope’s Swiss Guard inside the church. Which, now that I think of it, is not a bad idea.”
      “But what would the Camorra do with gold that would become so famous they couldn’t use it?”
      “I don’t know. They might make a present of it to the Vatican and replace the candlesticks and ornaments with replicas. Then the Vatican could keep it secure in its own vaults.”
       “And the Camorra would get . . . what?”
      “Access to Vatican bigwigs. The grateful thanks of God Almighty.  I really don’t know. In any case, the secret will be out and now the whole world will have to deal with it.”
      Katie turned strangely quiet.
      “More wine?” asked David.
      Katie shook her head and just looked out to the sea.
      “All right, what’s the matter, Cavuto?”
      Katie put her chin in her hand and said, “It’s so very beautiful here. And it’s been this way for such a long time.”
      “Well, except for that little patch of inconvenience called World War II.”
      “I mean how it all goes way, way back, with a succession of invaders and kings and princes who tried to rob the people in Southern Italy of whatever wealth it had.  And how it was so bad for so many people that they left this gorgeous place and sailed to an unknown land called America.
      “You can see how little towns like Angri a hundred years ago would have lost maybe the majority of its people, including Teresina Raiola (left).  They had next to nothing, and it’s still pretty poor down here in the south. They’ve got plenty of crime and lots of corruption, and people still take advantage of them. All they can cling to is the Church and their little parishes where they were baptized, like their fathers and mothers and grandparents and great-grandparents were—at least those who didn’t move to America.”
     “And become gangsters, like Al Capone,” quipped David.
      “That’s not fair, David. Your ancestors didn’t, mine didn’t, and we didn’t. Capone wasn’t even born here and his only connection to the region was through his long-suffering mother.”
      “I know. You’re right,” David said. “Capone and all the hoods I went after helped blacken all the Italian immigrants who left here.  Looking around, it must have been very difficult for them to pick up and go.”
  David hoped Katie might start singing “Return to Sorrento” again, but she seemed glum.
      “You know what I’m thinking, David?”      “I . . . have a feeling I do.”    
    "I was thinking, what if I didn’t write the whole story after all?  What if the gold of Angri was never found, not even by the people of Angri.  The feds haven’t a clue as to the gold’s whereabouts and it sounds like the Camorra doesn’t either.  What if we just kept the secret of Angri?”
      David’s mind was churning under the influence of two more glasses of wine than Katie had.
      “After all we’ve been through, including almost getting murdered and made into fish food? Not to mention the money we spent on the whole project.  And I’m not even thinking of the reward money.”
      “Okay, what if we use what we’ve got on two-thirds of the gold—the sunken treasure in the Caribbean and the secret transfer to the Fed by Genovese and his friends in the U.S. Army. Then we have the attempted murder interlude by a Mafia thug.  That makes for a helluva good story, and it will really piss off your pal Frank English.”
      “That alone makes it sound enticing,” said David. “So, let me get this straight: You turn in all your notes and recordings and a nice fat story about the two-thirds of the gold we’ve found.”
     “Yes, and we can corroborate all of it. The Angri gold, we really can’t, and by so doing save that little town and its people a whole lot of publicity, misery, court costs, and so on. I’m positive my editor will go for that; I’ll get paid, you’ll get paid.”
      “But no reward?”
      Katie put her hand around David’s shoulder.  “Detective Greco, what was the reward you got from putting guys like Gotti away?”
      “I felt like a million bucks.”
      “Well, there you go.  You’re going to get a nice big fee for helping me on the story and the knowledge you figured out a mystery no one else could for more than fifty years. And, you got to hang out with me on the Amalfi Coast!  That enough?”
      Then Katie gave him a big kiss on the cheek.
      “That and that kiss makes it enough,” said David, kissing her on both cheeks. “I love you, Katie.”    
    “Me, too,” she said, but both of them knew it was really out of mutual respect and nothing more romantic than that. At least on her part.
      Katie then called over the waiter and asked if he’d take a couple of pictures of the two of them.
      “I say we finish lunch, drive to Amalfi and call it a night,” said David. “Then tomorrow we can visit Capri.”
      “Reward enough,” Katie repeated.

      The trip to Capri (right) was blissfully free of the burdens of further investigation and brain crunching.  Katie had already phoned her editor and told him in brief as much as she’d discussed with David the day before, how she had a great story that would embarrass the F.B.I., the I.R.S., and the Federal Reserve—that was McClure’s kind of story!—as well as Nazi U-boats, rumrunners, Mussolini and Italian gangsters.  Who could ask for more?
      She told her editor she didn’t think the time she and David needed to stay in Naples for the police investigation would be much longer, and she promised to begin a first draft of the article. 
      After another week she and David filed papers with the Carabinieri, and then were able to fly back to New York.
      On the plane David asked, “So, you going back to that lawyer friend of yours?”
      Katie shook her head and said, “Yeah, I think I’ve been away long enough for him to miss me like crazy.”
      Katie knew David was smitten with her, and she’d been very careful to mix her natural ebullience with a measure of cordial distance.  She could imagine working again with David someday on another project.  They made a good team. she thought, and, although she didn’t know where her relationship with “the lawyer friend” was going, her affection for David would have no effect on it.

                                                  *                         *                         *                         *

The Hudson River

      A few weeks later, after Katie and David had worked on piecing the story together, Katie handed it in to her editor, who was impressed by the amount of research and the success it led to.  Although somewhat disappointed by not knowing the whereabouts of the last third of the gold—hell, it was a whole lot more than Gerald Rivera ever found!—what her editor had was more than enough for a great story.  He even asked Katie if she’d be interested in becoming a staff writer for McClure’s.  Katie said she’d think it over after the article came out, because she suspected she’d be getting calls from other magazines and newspapers, maybe even network TV.
      David, meanwhile, was back up the Hudson tending his garden and ripping out an overgrowth of hogweed that had taken hold of a large patch of his land while he was gone.  He missed Katie and the adventure they’d had together, hoping something might develop where she needed his help again.
      At that moment he heard the honk of a small car at the end of his driveway.  He shielded his eyes and watched Katie Cavuto getting out of a shiny red Fiat.  She looked very happy.
      “So, what do you think of my new car?  Well, new used car. I didn’t know you can’t buy a new Fiat in America now.  I hope they come back.”
      “She’s a beauty,” said David, adding to himself, “So’s the car.”
      “I just thought I’d drive up here, show you my little car, a-a-n-n-d d . . . give you the first press copy of McClure’s with our article in it!”
      Katie held it out in front of her and David grabbed it, then gave her a hug and kiss on her cheeks.
      “Jesus, it really came out.  After all we went through.”
      “Impressive, eh? And the photos are terrific. They got a first-rate Italian photographer to shoot all the locations over there and some freelancer to shoot Capone’s house in Miami.”
      David flipped through the pages, and, yes, there were very good shots of Naples, Angri, the boat dock in Miami, even the Stella di Mare.”
      “And look at this,” said Katie, showing David a photo of the two of them together at the trattoria in Positano.
      “Where’d they get this?” David asked, laughing at how good they looked in it.
      “Remember I asked the waiter to take a picture of us? That’s one of them. Nick and Nora Charles!”
      David couldn’t think of anything to say except, “I can’t wait to read it,” then offered her coffee.
      “Absolutely,” she said. “You know, for all the great espresso and cappuccino we had in Italy, I kind of missed yours.”
      They went back to the house and David made the coffee, then they spread the magazine out on the table—Katie had brought three copies for him—and they pored through it like high school kids with a yearbook.
      After a couple of hours of reminiscing about events that seemed to have taken place years ago and so far away, Katie said, “Well, I’ve got to get going. Rev up the old Fiat.”
      David couldn’t bring himself to ask Katie if she was seeing the “lawyer guy” that evening.
      After a long embrace on David’s lawn, Katie said, “You’re a good cop, David Greco.”
      “That all?”
      “You’re a good man, too.”
      “Anything else?”
      Katie grinned. “And you’re going to make some woman a great husband.”
      David gave her a goodbye hug, and then she walked back to her car.
      David waved and called out, “Take care, Katie.”
      Then he watched her drive away until he couldn’t see her anymore.