The Disappearance of Grace by Vincent Zandri Read Free Book Online

panic she experienced when I nearly fell to my death from up on the roof. Better than the anxiety-ridden woman she was yesterday afternoon at the café when I gave her a hard time and a strange man with black eyes kept staring at her. She keeps placing her open hand on her flat belly. I don’t require perfect eyesight to know she’s doing it. She is always holding my hand and she must release it in order to do this. I know she is touching her belly, because just moments ago, when I wrapped my arms around her from behind, she once more took hold of my hand and pressed it there for a time that seemed very long. Her hand was warm and so was her bare belly. I know she was trying to tell me something. Sometimes the best conversations I have with Grace are the ones we carry on silently.
    When we are dressed and have our black leather coats on, Grace opens the door. I’m about to step out behind her when the phone rings again.
    â€œLet me get it this time,” I say.
    I step back inside the apartment, shuffle the couple of steps to my right, where the wall-mounted phone is located beside the door. I feel for the receiver, pick it up.
    â€œPronto.”
    My ear fills with white noise. Not loud white noise. More like the static that comes from a bad connection, or a cell phone with bad reception. I listen for a voice, but thus far, I hear nothing but the static.
    â€œWho is it?” Grace asks from outside the open door on the stone landing, her soft voice echoing in the open stairwell.
    I find myself turning in order to glance at her. But of course, this is just instinct kicking in.
    The sound of her booted feet shuffling against the stone landing tells me she is taking a step closer to the open door.
    â€œIt’s him again, isn’t it?”
    I hold up my hand as if to say, Please don’t talk .
    Grace gets the message and goes silent. It’s possible she’s holding her breath.
    â€œWho’sthere?” I say into the phone. Tone even keeled, not at all threatening.
    There is only the white noise. Until it’s broken by a faint voice.
    â€œI.See.” says the voice. It sounds like a man. Perhaps an old man who is talking to me over the phone from a great distance away. But this is the age of satellites. He can be located on the other side of the world and it’s possible for him to sound like he’s standing in the room next door.
    â€œWhat do you see?” I pose.
    More white noise.
    â€œI. See.” he repeats.
    â€œWho is this? What is your name? Please tell me your name.” I’m lobbing the queries but they don’t seem to be registering in the least.
    Once more the receiver fills with white noise, and once more come the words softly spoken: “I. See.”
    And then the line goes dead.
    * * *
    â€œHello,” I bark into the phone. “Hello. Hello. Hello…”
    But it’s no use. The man on the phone is gone. Disconnected.
    Grace comes back in.
    â€œMay I?” she begs.
    It startles me when she pulls the cordless phone from out of my hand and punches a couple of numbers into the handset. In my head I see her face. Her cheeks will be tight as a tick, her lips pressed together, her green eyes bright and wide. It’s the face she wears when she’s angry or upset.
    â€œWhat’s happening?” I say, standing inches from her in the corner of the room by the apartment’s open door.
    â€œStar sixty-nine.”
    â€œYou sure that works in Europe? In Italy?”
    â€œWe’ll soon find out.”
    I wait along with Grace. Even though the phone is not pressed against my ear I am still able to make out the faint, tinny sound of the computer-generated operator speaking in rapid-fire Italian. I can’t make out a word she’s saying, but I sense that Grace is trying her best to make sense of it all.
    â€œWell?” I pose.
    â€œGreek to me,” she jokes. But I know it’s not funny. Then she adds,