Mercury Pictures Presents

The narrative shifts into the present tense to describe events on the day of Himmler’s visit. Vincenzo plans to steal one of the cars from the German convoy, as checkpoints allow them through with minimal security procedures. He plans to steal a key from one of the German officers while they visit the local brothel. Vincenzo leaves his passport and his tickets to New York with Nino for safekeeping.

Giuseppe goes to the post office where, as usual, he receives all the clippings of text that have been expurgated from his latest letters. He is pleased to see that at least the phrase “I’ll see you soon” has made it through.

As Nino watches Himmler arrive, he reflects on the importance of photography in framing and defining historical moments. He associates the visiting Nazis with Alaric and the barbarian hordes of the past.

The narrative perspective shifts to Vincenzo, who visits the brothel. When Vincenzo steals the keys, he does not notice that he is visible to a German officer in a mirror in the room. The German officer shoots Vincenzo as he retreats with the key. In his dying moments, Vincenzo recalls the light his mother left in the window to guide him and Nino safely home.

Police Inspector Rocco Ferrando, assisted by his elegant second-in-command, Bellino, takes on the murder inquiry into Vincenzo’s death. The inspector currently sleeps in his jail cells since his cat burned his house down. He has a long history of fabricating evidence and writing false reports. He is terminally ill with tuberculosis. Ferrando is a great fan of Sherlock Holmes but finds few parallels between Doyle’s empirically reasonable world and life in San Lorenzo. Detectives find a bullet near the body that confirms that the gun belonged to one of the visiting Germans, but the Italians are not authorized to question their guests, so this discovery brings them no closer to the truth.

Ferrando and Bellino petition the podestà for authorization to question the Germans. The podestà makes it clear that he does not want the murder solved, as he hopes to maintain good relations with Himmler’s party and carry forward the excavations. He does not believe there is anything to find in the river, but he hopes that the project will bring investment and better conditions to the colony. A search of Vincenzo’s person yields a fourth-century golden coin.

Ferrando and Bellino go to Elisabetta’s brothel and retrieve Vincenzo’s coat. They find a piece of paper with the time and place of a meeting scrawled on it (“Piazza Vittorio Veneto Bus Stop, 1900 hrs”).

Ferrando takes the crime scene photos to Nino to develop. He recalls Michele from Genoa, the detainee who drowned. Years ago, Fernando lent Michele’s boat to Nino and grew attached to the boy when he learned that Nino survived a near-death experience in the same waters that claimed the life of Fernando’s friend.

After leaving Nino, Ferrando decides to go to Vincenzo’s appointment and see who Vincenzo had planned to meet before he died.

Giuseppe finishes work at the excavation site and returns to Picone Photography to prepare for departure.

He spots the film plates that Nino is preparing for Ferrando, but Nino tells him that they will not be ready until the next day, by which time they intend to be gone.

The only thing Giuseppe wishes to bring with him is a red and white cigarette box. Nino packs photographs of life in San Lorenzo. He also packs the album of torn passport photographs in lieu of a photograph of his mother since none remain. He prepares and tears a passport photo for himself.

Ferrando waits at the Piazza Vittorio Veneto bus stop. He sees a man waiting and mentally prepares himself to make an arrest. However, when he is distracted, the stranger disappears, and all he can see is a urinating stray dog. He sets off down an alley, where he hears breathing. In his nervousness, his raised gun goes off, and he sees brain tissue on the alley wall. However, when he investigates further, he realizes that he shot the dog.

On Gallo’s orders, Bellino and Ferrando bury Vincenzo in Michele’s empty coffin. Ferrando recalls Michele’s death and how he searched for his body for weeks in his rowing boat.

Ferrando’s prints finish developing, and Nino learns of Vincenzo’s fate. Giuseppe works out that Ferrando cannot yet have identified the body.

While Nino sleeps, Giuseppe reprints his passport photo and superimposes it onto Vincenzo’s passport. He intends for Nino to travel to America using Vincenzo’s name. Nino feels guilty about leaving Vincenzo’s mother behind, but Giuseppe insists that she would never leave San Lorenzo without burying her son.

Giuseppe sneaks down the excavation shaft and leaves two jars of gasoline in contact with exposed copper wiring. When the watchman tries to switch on the lights in the morning, there will be a massive explosion.

Ferrando is guilt-stricken about his role in disposing of the unidentified body and has trouble sleeping. His sergeant tells him that witnesses saw a man matching the dead man’s description visiting Giuseppe Lagana and Nino Picone two days prior.

Nino visits Concetta Cortese. He is tempted to tell her the truth but knows that Giuseppe is right about the fact that she would never cooperate with their scheme. A wicker basket hangs over her bed in which each of her six children slept as infants. Vincenzo was the only surviving child. As he prepares to say goodbye, Nino bursts into tears. Concetta believes he is crying because she is leaving and comforts him. She asks him to untie the basket from the rafter in preparation for her departure.

Ferrando arrives at Picone Photography. A sudden flurry of white pigeon feathers reminds him of an encounter with Michele in Genova when they were both young and working in a sugar factory, and the narrative flashes back.

On a particularly hot day, Michele brings an electric fan into the warehouse. He kicks over a sack of sugar and sends the white dust flying into the air. He lays a hand on Ferrando’s bare chest. Aroused but confused and ashamed by his feelings and the sardonic comments of their coworkers, Ferrando punches Michele in the face.

Years later, Michele is sentenced to imprisonment on San Lorenzo for “sexual deviancy” (149). Ferrando volunteers to transfer there from Genova to follow him, but when he introduces himself, Michele recoils. He makes his escape attempt shortly afterward. Following his suicide, Ferrando wonders if he has been a Moriarty-like figure for Michele, “a pursuing evil he could only shake by throwing himself from a great height” (149). Back in the present, he compares his search for Michele’s body to the activities of the treasure hunters looking for Alaric’s tomb, and he suddenly realizes where Giuseppe and Nino must have gone.

Giuseppe and Nino reach the boat. They realize that the little craft will only carry one of them. Giuseppe gives Nino the cigar box. In his pocket, Giuseppe carries a letter from Maria in which she confesses her role in his arrest. He tried to respond, but his words of love and forgiveness never made it past the censors.

Ferrando sees Nino rowing away. He shoots his revolver into the water so that he can claim he shot Nino dead during the pursuit and that his body disappeared.

Maria finishes listening to Nino, who now goes by “Vincent,” recite his story. He cannot tell her what has become of her father, and she feels angry and resentful. She takes him out for a sandwich, and he tells her of his travels across America. He produces the album of passport photos. She tears out her photo and crumples it up, but he retrieves it and puts it in his pocket.

He has now saved enough money to set up a small photography studio in San Francisco. Maria suggests that he stay one more day in LA to photograph film extras in wedding dresses to have a better portfolio for wedding work.

Artie brings Maria up to date on the deal with Eastern National and asks her advice about getting Devil’s Bargain past the censors.

Maria recently visited Mercury’s research library and asked for advice from Mr. Simmons, the librarian. Simmons recalls that Breen just refused production code approval for an indoctrination movie by Hanso Beck, a previously well-regarded filmmaker who had agreed to make propaganda films for Goebbels. Beck is the ex-husband of Anna Weber, the miniature maker. Breen justified his decision with a lengthy written statement on the dangers of “hateful ideologies” (165). Maria suggests framing Devil’s Bargain with citations from Breen’s statement so that if he does not approve of the film, he will be shamed as a hypocrite. Artie is delighted and tells Maria, “[Y]ou’re the brother I never had” (166).

Maria books travel plans to Washington with Artie. She suggests that he ask their scriptwriters for help with his defense, but he refuses. He argues that “showmen” like himself will not lose “show trials” (167).

Maria spots Vincent on her way home, still sitting where she left him at lunchtime. She invites him into the studios and shows him the fake Italian piazza. One of the doors leads into a little room that was Maria’s first office at Mercury and continues to be the only space she truly considers her own.

Maria asks Eddie to check Vincent into a room at the Montclair for the night. Vincent gives Maria the cigar box and inside, she finds all the strips of text that the censor excised from her father’s letters.

Later that night, the Polish refugee night watchman sees a light on in one of the windows on the Italian set and looks in to see Maria papering the walls of her little office with the reconstructed letters, an expression of huge relief on her face. He recalls the scene from Frankenstein in which the monster looks in at the family through the cabin window.