They had dinner on the terrace of a restaurant named Baleen (above) overlooking the Bay of Naples on a night when a yellow three-quarter moon was cutting through the clouds that passed over its face.  There were sounds of a trio of musicians playing Neapolitan songs in the piazza below.  By the time Katie and David had finished their meal they had already heard “O Sole Mio!” three times.
         Each had mixed emotions about everything that had occurred up to that moment.  The evening was so beautiful, the food and wine superb—simply grilled shellfish with a rose-colored Abruzzese wine called Cerasuolo—but the thought of leaving Naples gave them something of the feeling their own ancestors must have had when leaving the city to sail to a new country, most deeply saddened by the thought they might never see their homeland again.
         When the trio played the most famous of all Neapolitan songs, Torna a Surriento—“Come Back to Sorrento”—Katie translated for David,  a love song to the beauty of Southern Italy, gardens scented with the aroma of oranges and mermaids who “love you so much” and “want to kiss you.”     
        David thought this was one of the most wonderful and saddest days of his life.
         “You sing very beautifully,” he said.
         “Doesn’t every Neapolitan?” she asked.
         “Not this one,” he said, pointing to himself.
         “So, David, what do we do now?”
         “I’m not at all sure.  Can we afford to go any further, without any more leads?”
         “Well, give us credit for finding out all that we have.  I think I have a good story already, even if we don’t find any more gold.”
         “Your editor will go for that?”
         Katie sighed. “I really don’t know. I think so. But it isn’t enough for the reward.”
         David took a sip of wine and refilled their glasses.
         “You got that right. For one thing, the feds will never admit to what Primerano told us about the Genovese connection, and for another, all along they knew there was only one-third of the gold still missing all these years.  That’s all their interest amounts to by now.  Let’s face it, it’s a burnt-out, fifty-year-old case, and they’re probably not expecting anyone to find the remaining gold.”
         Then David slammed his hand on the table and said, “I just wish the hell Frank English had stopped us from going on this wild goose chase.”
         “I would like to know why he did that. You going to speak with him tomorrow?”
         “Oh, yeah.  I’m going ream his ass.  Maybe we should go into print on what we know, embarrass the hell out of him.”
         Katie said, “Well, David, be fair, this wasn’t a case he himself ever worked on. Everything happened long before he was ever in the F.B.I.  And another problem is that, without his confirming what we got from Primerano and Lucadamo, I’m not going to have a story.  A reporter always needs at least two sources for every claim or assertion.”
         David laughed and said, “You can imagine how we cops feel about getting as many sources as possible in an investigation before we make an arrest.  The tape recordings are only one part of it. Judges have a much higher standard than the New York newspapers. I had recordings tossed out in court, even though we’d had warrants to make them.”
         “Well, then, it looks like we have two alternatives: You call English and demand an explanation we can use or we get other sources to corroborate the story.”
         “There is a third alternative,” said David. “We keep looking for the gold.  As a matter of fact, I’m beginning to think the third part of the gold might never have left America.”
         Katie was very surprised by what David said. “Why now, after all we’ve gone through, would you believe that?” she asked. “We’ve always operated on the assumption that it was too risky for Capone to have the gold lying around somewhere someone could get to it, especially with the reward out there.”
         David shook his head. “I guess you’re right.  I was just thinking about those gold place settings he had for his house in Miami. He obviously melted down some of the gold for that.”       
     “Yeah, but that would have been very little gold compared to what was missing.  What, an ingot or two? Plus, if he did stash a good amount of the gold somewhere, it certainly never filtered down to his family.  He and his family were close to broke by the time he died.”
         “You’re right.  And he could never have sold the gold within the United States.  Nobody would buy it because it was illegal to own it.  Y’know, I wonder if Capone had any idea what happened to the gold that went to Italy, or if he knew the feds had actually gotten a lot of it back, thanks to Vito Genovese.  I’ll have to ask English about that tomorrow.”
         “So, what do you think about seeing that guy Iacobello—Frankie `Switch?’  You think he really knows something?”
         “I have no idea,” said David, “but there’s no harm in trying.  I’ll give him a call tomorrow after I speak to English.  God, I am so pissed off about him!”
         “Well, let’s just finish this lovely wine and look at the moon and have a nice night.  In the words of the great Italian diva Scarlatta O’Hara, ‘Domani è un altro giorno!’”

                                                                        *                *                *

         The next afternoon at two o’clock—five hours ahead of Washington time—David was on the phone to Frank English.
         “You bastard!” said David.
         “Who the hell is this?” answered English, picking up a pen and hitting a RECORD button.
         “Your former colleague David Greco, the guy you let go on a wild goose chase all the way to Italy to find out what you could have goddamn told me weeks ago.”
         “And that was . . . what?”
         “Don’t screw with me,  Frank.  You know damn well what.  All the time we talked you knew that a lot of the Capone gold was brought back from Italy and you knew how that happened.  Does Vito Genovese ring a bell, you sonofabitch?”
         “Hey, David, calm down,” said English, clicking off the recording of the conversation.  “You know the rules about the company secrets. I wasn’t at liberty to tell you anything.  I should not even have told you about where to find Cuoco, but I let it go.”
         “Oh, come on,  Frank, you didn’t have to play that stupid game about Cuoco.  You could have at least told me that I was wasting my time going to Italy to look for the gold.  The feds had it all this time.”
         “David, for starters, I was never involved in any of that.  It all happened way before both our times.  But it’s still considered secret information and my hands were tied.”
         “All you had to do was to tell me I didn’t need to fly to fucking Italy.  Maybe you didn’t have anything to do with all the shit that went down forty-something years ago, but you’re still covering for the Federal Reserve, the I.R.S. and the F.B.I.  I mean, let’s face it, Frank, we both know that we all have to work with the bad guys sometimes. I remember all the shit that happened between the C.I.A. and the Mafia to take out Castro.”
         “Call me whatever you want, David, but don’t try to associate me with the C.I.A. And, by the way, back in 1947, or whenever it was, the C.I.A. didn’t even exist yet.”
         Oddly, that seemed to soften David’s tone a little, for he did understand that various intelligence agencies rarely shared secret information with each other.  And he realized that he hadn’t shared with English the information about the gold going down on the rumrunner.
         “Well, tell me one goddamn thing, Frank,” said David. “Why do you guys keep dangling that reward money out there?  I have to guess it’s because you don’t want anyone finding out you got back the gold through Genovese and his friends in the U.S. Army.”
         “David, believe what you want but I can’t confirm anything like that. I had nothing to do with it, nobody living around here did, and they probably just keep the reward out there thinking no one’s going to even bother to look for the gold.  That is until you came along.”
         “Well, I’ve got another theory.  Besides you guys trying to protect your own federal ass, I also know that you know you didn’t get back all of what Capone stole.”
         “I’d heard that,” said English.
         “Well, it’s true.  Confirmed by the Italian police. There’s still two-thirds missing.”
         David wanted so much to tell English about the rumrunner disaster but let him wonder instead.
         “So you still think you can find the rest of the gold?” asked English.
         “If I do, you’ll be the first to know.  G’bye, Frank.”
         Katie had been standing there listening to David’s side of the phone call. “Feel better?” she asked.
         “Not much. But, what the hell, he’s right. It is a very old case and he doesn’t even know as much as we do. He probably couldn’t care less about the damn gold, although if we find it, he may be the one to write the check.”  That actually made David smile.
          “So what’re we going to do now?” asked Katie.
         “My next call is to Frankie Switch. Who knows, probably turn up nothing. Worth a try.”
         David dialed the phone number he’d been given by Officer Frascella.
         “Pronto?” said a voice on the other end of the line.        
         “Signore Iacobello, this is David Greco.  I used to be a detective in New York, and I was told by Officer John Frascella out of Chicago you might have some information that might help me out. About the Al Capone gold heist.”
         The phone was silent for a few moments. David could hear a voice muffled by a hand over the receiver.
         “When do you want to meet?” asked Iacobello, who had a thick accent.
         “Any time it’s convenient for you. Today possible?”
         “Okay, I’ll meet you at six o’clock tonight.”
         “At your apartment? I have this address—”
         “No, no. I’ll meet you on my boat in the marina. It’s quite nice this time of year down there, and no one will be around to hear our conversation.”
         David realized that Iacobello would be understandably suspicious after years of being left alone by the Italian police.  Out of the blue comes an ex-New York cop who wants to get information, so it was not unreasonable to want to meet where no one would be prying.
         Iacobello gave them the number of the dock and the name of the boat.
         “Six o’clock,” he said. “Do not be late.”
         David turned to Katie and said, “Okay, we have a date with Frankie Snitch.”
         “I suppose we should just keep to surnames?” asked Katie, kidding.
         “Probably a good idea. Wear something waterproof.”
         “Huh?”
         “Looks like we’re going to sail around the Bay of Naples.”