WILLIAM PHILLIPS
241
"Do you want to see her?" she asked.
They were directed to Gianelli's office, a large, odd-shaped, mod–
ernly-furnished room. A woman in her late twenties, with frizzy, un–
tamed blonde hair, seated behind Gianelli's desk, pointed to two shiny
chrome chairs.
"You're Toni, Gianelli's wife," said Robins. "What are you doing
here?"
"I'm looking over the business. Maybe I'll take it over for a while,"
she said in stilted English, with a strong Italian accent.
"We came to talk to you about Gianelli, Algie, as you called him.
We're investigating the explosion that killed him. It is a criminal investi–
gation because he was carrying bombs illegally. Tell us everything you
know."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything about his politics, his personal life, anything that will
throw some light on why he was carrying explosives."
"We don't discuss politics with the police. But I don't mind telling
you about him personally."
"We don't care about his personal life, only if it tells us something
that might help clear up the night in Connecticut. What was Gianelli
doing with explosives? Where was he going?"
"I can't tell you. Truly, I don't know. I said I don't talk to the po–
lice about politics. But if you want to know about Gianelli, I've written
a little book. It's the story of myself, and Algie is in it. It's in Italian. I've
got a copy here."
"Could you let us have it? We can get it translated."
"Here," she said, as she went to a bookshelf and handed them a slim
paperback with the Italian title,
La
Vita con Politica.
"Thank you," said Hastings. "If we have any questions we'll be
back."
The little book was sent to Washington to have the section on Gi–
anelli translated. A week later the translation arrived. Since the Bureau is
not
in the foreign translation business, the English version was literal and
simple. But the Italian was probably equally simple and matter-of-fact.
It
was
xeroxed and Robins and Hastings sat down to read the part on Gi–
anelli. It was called
Life with the Sacred Cow,
and the title of the book
translated into English became
Life With Politics.
The selection on Gianelli began with Toni's meeting him at the
home
of Arbuto, the international terrorist:
Arbuto introduced me to Algie in a safe house in a fashionable
neighborhood in Rome. I could see that Algie was nervous. He tried to
talk
tough, like a worker, a man of action. But you could tell he was
