The Parsifal Mosaic

  “I’m looking for a woman. It’s a minor matter, nothing to be concerned about; call it an affair of the heart. She’s an impetuous woman; we’ve all known them, haven’t we? But now she may have gone too far for her own good. I’m told she has a friend on the Cristóvão. She may have been around the pier, asking questions, looking for transport. She’s an attractive woman, average height, blond hair, probably wearing a raincoat and a wide-brimmed hat. Have you seen anyone like that? If you have, there could be a lot more money in your pocket than there is now.”

  And with each man he gave an explanation for his summons that the sailor could take back to his companions, along with 5,000 lire: “Whatever you tell me remains between us. For my good more than yours. When you go back to your table, you can say the same thing I’m telling everyone. I want rough sex with someone leaving Civitavecchia, but I’m not going to take it from any son of a bitch who won’t leave his papers down at a hotel desk. Released by me. Got it?”

  Only with the third man did the bartender, who insisted on being present at each interview, caution Havelock firmly. “This one will leave his papers at a desk,” he said.

  “Then he’s not my type.”

  “Bene!”

  “Grazie.”

  “Prego.”

  Nothing. No such woman had been seen or heard of on the Cristóvão pier. The four Portuguese crewmen resumed their drinking.

  Havelock thanked the perplexed older man beside him, and pressed another bill into his apron pocket. “Which way to Il Pinguino?” he asked.

  “The Elba crew?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said the bartender, removing his apron and the money in its pocket.

  “Why?”

  “You sound like a decent man. Also stupid. You walk into Il Pinguino asking questions, your money’s for everyone. All it takes is one sailor with a quiet knife.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “You are not only stupid, you are very stupid. I own Il Tritone; they respect me at Il Pinguino. You’ll be safer with me. You pass money too quickly.”

  “I’m in a hurry.”

  “Presto! Let’s get on with it. It’s a bad morning here. Not like the old days when men knew that half a chestful was enough. You taste it in your throat, you know. These assholes mix up comfort with wanting no memory, Vieni!”

  The café five blocks away brought back memories, remembrances of a life he had thought was over—he had been in too many such places in that other life. If Il Tritone catered to the garbage of humanity, Il Pinguino took the dregs and considered it clientela scelta. The smoke was thicker, the shouting louder; men did not lurch, they lunged at nothing and everything, intent only on the violence in their minds. These were men who found amusement in the sudden exposure of another’s weakness or a semblance of weakness—which they construed as an absence of manhood—and then attacked.

  They had nothing else. They challenged the shadows of their own deepest fears.

  The owner of Il Tritone was greeted by his counterpart within seconds of ushering Havelock through the door. The Pinguino’s proprietario matched his establishment, having few teeth and arms that hung like huge, hairy cheeses. He was not as large as Michael’s newfound friend, but there was a sense of violence about him that made one think of a boar that could be quickly stirred to anger.

  The greetings between the two men were spoken rapidly, perfunctorily. But there was respect, as Il Tritone’s owner had said there would be, and the arrangements were made swiftly, with a minimum of explanation.

  “The American looks for a woman. It is a malinteso, and not our business,” said the owner of Il Tritone. “She may be sailing with the Elba, and one of these thieves may have seen her. He’s willing to pay.”

  “He’d better hurry,” replied the sullen boar. “The oilers left an hour ago; they’re sweating piss-green by now. The second mate will be here any minute to gather up the rest of the deck.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Eight, ten, who knows? I count lire, not faces.”

  “Have one of your people go around and ask quietly, find them, and tell me who they are. Clear a table for my companion. I’ll bring each one to him.”

  “You give orders as though the Pinguino were the Tritone.”

  “Because I would accord you the same courtesy, even as my tongue thickened as yours does now. One never knows. You could need my help tomorrow.… Each pig from the Elba is worth ten thousand lire to you.”

  “Bene.” The Pinguino’s owner walked away toward the bar.

  “Do not give these men any excuse for talking to you as you did the Portoghese,” said Michael’s companion. “For them it was good thinking, but not for these. There’s no time, and in their drunkenness they could find the wrong meaning. Bottles are broken easily in here.”

  “Then what am I going to say? I’ve got to separate them, give each a reason for talking to me alone. I can’t go up to all of them at once. One may know something, but he’s not going to tell me in front of the others.”

  “Agreed. So tell each you trust only him. The others—you were told—are not to be trusted. You spoke with them only for appearance, because your business concerns the Elba. It will be enough.”

  “I’m a stranger. Who would tell me something like that?”

  “A man who knows his clientele—the one you paid. The owner of Il Pinguino.” The owner of Il Tritone grinned. “By the time they reach port again, he’ll be covered with stink. He’ll need the carabinieri every night.”

  Separately, warily, in varying phases of stupor, the remaining crew of the Elba sat down and listened to Havelock’s increasingly fluent Italian as he repeated the same question. And with each he studied the man’s face, the eyes, looking for a reaction, a glint of recognition, a brief straying of a glance that covered a lie. With the sixth man he thought he found it; it was in the lips—a sudden stretching unrelated to the sagging muscle tone induced by whisky, and in the clouded eyes, dulled further by an instinctive desire not to listen. The man knew something.

  “You’ve seen her, haven’t you?” said Michael, losing control, speaking in English.

  “Ascolta,” interrupted the owner of Il Tritone. “In italiano, signore.”

  “Sorry.” Havelock repeated the question, which was more an accusation, in Italian.

  The sailor responded with a shrug, shifted his position, and started to get up. Michael reached over quickly and clamped his hand on the seaman’s arm. The response was now ugly; the sailor squinted his rheumy, red-veined eyes, his mouth like that of an angry dog, lips parted, stained yellow teeth showing. In seconds he would lunge—drunkenly, to be sure, but nevertheless, attack was imminent.

  “Lascialo,” ordered the owner of Il Tritone, then spoke rapidly under his breath in English. “Show him money. Quickly! This pig will grab your throat, and they’ll be all over us and you will learn nothing. You are right. He’s seen her.”

  Havelock released the man’s arm, reached into his pocket and took out the thick pack of awkwardly small lire notes. He separated two bills and placed them in front of the sailor; they totaled 40,000 lire, a day’s pay on board ship.

  “As you can see,” he said in Italian, “there’s more here. You can’t take it from me, but I can give it to you. On the other hand, you can walk away and not tell me anything.” Michael paused, leaned back in the chair, staring at the man, his expression hostile. “But I can make trouble for you. And I will.”

  “In che modo?” The crewman was as angry as he was bewildered, his eyes darting between Havelock’s face, the money, and the owner of Il Tritone, who sat impassively, his rigid posture showing that he was aware of the danger in Michael’s tactic.

  “How?” Havelock leaned forward, his fingers pulling the lire toward him, as though retrieving two vital cards in a game of baccarat. “I’ll go over to the Elba and find your captain. Whatever I say to him about you he’s not going to like.”
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  “Che cosa? What?… What can you say to him in riguardo a me that he would credere?” The sailor’s sudden use of English words was unexpected. He turned to the owner of Il Tritone. “Perhaps this pig will grab your throat, old man. I need no help from others. For you or this ricco americano.” The man unzipped his coarse wool jacket; the handle of a knife protruded from a scabbard strapped to his belt; his head swayed from the effects of the whisky. A very thin line was about to be crossed.

  Abruptly, Michael settled back in his chair and laughed quietly. It was a genuine laugh, in no way hostile or challenging, further confusing the seaman. “Bene!” said Michael, suddenly leaning forward again, removing two more 5,000-lire notes from the loose packet of bills. “I wanted to find out if you had balls, and you told me. Good! A man without balls doesn’t know what he sees. He makes things up because he’s afraid, or because he sees money.” Havelock gripped the man’s hand at the wrist, forcing the palm open. It was a strong if friendly grip, indicating a strength the sailor had to acknowledge. “Here! Fifty thousand lire. There’s no quarrel between us. Where did you see her?”

  The abrupt changes of mood were beyond the man’s comprehension. He was reluctant to forgo the challenge, but the combination of the money, the grip and the infectious laugh made him retreat. “Are you … go to my captain?” he asked in English, eyes swimming.

  “What for? You just told me. It has nothing to do with him. Why bring that farabutto into it? Let him earn his own money. Where did you see her?”

  “On the street Ragazza bionda. Bella. Cappello a large tesa.” “Blond, attractive … wide hat! Where? Who was she with? A mate, a ship’s officer? Un ufficiale?”

  “Not the Elba. The next ship. Nave mercantile.”

  “There are only two. The Cristóvão and the Teresa. Which one?”

  The man glanced around, head bobbing, eyes only half focused. “She was talking to two men … one a capitano.”

  “Which one?”

  “A destra,” whispered the sailor, pulling the back of his hand across his wet lips.

  “On the right?” “asked Michael quickly. The Santa Teresa?”

  The seaman now rubbed his chin and blinked; he was afraid, his eyes suddenly focused to the left of the table. He shrugged, crushing the money in his right hand, as he pushed back his chair. “Non so niente. Una puttana del capitano.”

  “Mercantile italiano?” pressed Havelock. The Italian freighter? “The Santa Teresa?”

  The sailor stood up, his face white. “Sì … No! Destra … sinistra!” The man’s eyes were now riveted somewhere across the room; Michael angled his head unobtrusively. Three men at a table against the wall were watching the crewman from the Elba, “Il capitano. Un marinaio superiors! Il migliore!” cried the seaman hoarsely. “I know nothing else, signore!” He lurched away, shouldering a path through the bodies gathered at the bar toward the alley door.

  “You play dangerously,” commented the owner of Il Tritone. “It could have gone either way.”

  “With a mule—drunk or otherwise—nothing’s ever replaced the carrot and the whip,” said Havelock, his head still turned slightly, his concentration still on the three men at the table across the room.

  “You could have had blood on your stomach and have learned nothing at all.”

  “But I did learn something.”

  “Not a great deal. A freighter on the right, on the left. Which?”

  “He said on the right first.”

  “Coming off the pier, or going on to it?”

  “From his immediate point of view. Going on. Destra. The Santa Teresa. She’ll be put on board the Teresa, which means I have time to find her before she’s given the signal. She’s somewhere within sight of the dock.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Il Tritone’s owner, shaking his head “Our mule was specific. The captain was un marinaio superiore. Migliore. The best, a great seaman. The captain of the Teresa is a tired merchantman. He never sails past Marseilles.”

  “Who are those men at the table over there?” asked Michael, his question barely audible through the din. “Don’t turn your head, just shift your eyes. Who are they?”

  “I do not know them by name.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Italiano,” said the owner of Il Tritone, his voice flat.

  “The Santa Teresa,” said Havelock, removing a number of bills and putting the rest of the money back into his pocket. “You’ve been a great help,” he said. “I owe the proprietario. The rest is for you.”

  “Grazie.”

  “Prego.”

  “I will see you down the alley to the waterfront. I still do not like it. We don’t know those men are from the Teresa. Something is not in equilibrio.”

  “The percentages say otherwise. It’s the Teresa. Let’s go.”

  Outside the noisy café the narrow thoroughfare was comparatively silent; naked light bulbs shone weakly, enveloped in mist above intermittent doorways, and centuries-old smooth cobblestones muffled the sound of footsteps. At the end of the alley the wide avenue that fronted the piers could be seen in the glow of the streetlamps; until one reached it the alley itself was a gauntlet of shadows. One walked cautiously, alert to the spaces of black silence.

  “Ecco!” whispered the Italian, his eyes up ahead. “Someone’s in that doorway. On the left. Do you have a weapon?”

  “No. I haven’t had time—”

  “Then quickly!” The owner of Il Tritone suddenly broke into a run, passing the doorway as a figure lurched out—a stocky man with arms raised, hands poised for interception. But there was no gun in those hands, no weapon but the thick hands themselves.

  Havelock took several rapid strides toward the prowler, then spun into the shadows on the opposite side of the alley. The man lunged; Michael spun around again and, grabbing his assailant’s coat, hammered his right foot up into the man’s midsection. He pivoted a third time, now yanking the man off the ground, and hurled him into the wall. As the man fell, Havelock sprang downward, his left knee sinking into the man’s stomach, his right hand gripping the face and clawing at the eyes.

  “Basta! Por favor! Se Deus quiser!” choked the prowler, holding his groin, saliva dribbling from his mouth. The language was Portuguese, the man one of the crew of the Cristóvão. Michael yanked him up against the wall, into the dim light; he was the seaman who had spoken a few words of English at the table in Il Tritone.

  “If you’re going into theft with assault and battery, you’re not doing it very well!”

  “No, senhor! I wish only to talk, but I cannot be seen! You pay me, I’ll tell you things, but not where I can be seen with you!”

  “Go on.”

  “You pay!”

  Havelock clamped the sailor’s neck against the brick with his forearm, reached into his pocket and took out his money. Shoving his knee into the man’s chest and freeing his hand, he removed two bills. “Twenty thousand lire,” he said. “Talk!”

  “It’s worth mora. Much more, senhor! You will see.”

  “I can take it back if it’s not.… Thirty thousand, that’s it. Go on!”

  “The woman goes aboard the Cristóvão … sete … seven minutos before we sail. It is arranged. She comes out the east warehouse door. She is guarded now; you cannot reach her. But she must walk forty meters to the cargo boarding plank.”

  Michael released him and added another note to the three in the seaman’s hand. “Get out of here,” he said. “I never saw you.”

  “You must swear to it, senhor!” cried the man, scrambling to his feet.

  “Sworn. Now get out.”

  Suddenly voices were heard at the end of the alley; two men came running out of the light.

  “Americano! Americano!” It was the owner of Il Tritone; he had returned with help. As the Portuguese started to race away they grabbed him.

  “Let him go!” yelled Havelock. “It’s all right! Let him go!”

  Sixty seconds later Michael expla
ined to the owner of Il Tritone. “It’s not the Teresa. It’s the Cristóvão.”

  “It’s what was missing!” cried the Italian. “The knowledgeable capitano, the great seaman. It was there and I did not see it. Aliandro. João Aliandro! The finest captain in the Mediterranean. He could work his ship into any dangerous coastline, dropping off cargo wherever he wished, wherever the rocks and shoals called for no observers on shore. You have found your woman, signore.”

  He crouched in the shadows of a stationary crane, the open spaces of the machinery allowing him unobstructed sight lines. The freighter’s cargo had been loaded; the teams of stevedores dispersed, swearing as they went their various ways across the wide avenue and down the narrow alleys into cafés. Except for the four-man cast-off crew the pier was deserted, and even those men were barely visible, standing motionless by the huge pilings, two men to a line, fore and aft.

  A hundred yards behind him was the entrance gate, the obsequious guard inside his glass booth, his figure a gray silhouette in the rolling early-morning fog. Diagonally to the left in front of the crane some eighty-odd feet away was the ribbed, weather-beaten gangplank that went up to the Cristóvão’s forward deck. It was the last physical connection to the ship to be hauled on board before the giant hawsers were slipped off the pilings, freeing the behemoth for the open water.

  On the right, no more than sixty feet from the crane, was the door to the pier’s warehouse office; it was locked, and all lights were off inside. And beyond that door was Jenna Karas, a fugitive from her own and others’ betrayal—his love, who had turned on that love for reasons only she could tell him.… In moments now, the door would open and she would have to walk from that door to the gangplank, then up the cracked wooden causeway to the deck. Once on board, she would be free; giant lines would be thrown over the pier, whistles would blow, and the gangplank would be whipped in the air, sucked up on deck and stowed. But until then she was not free; she was human contraband in open transit, crossing territory where no one would dare protect her. Inside the warehouse office she could be protected; an intruder breaking in could be shot for the act itself. But not in the open; men would not risk being caught smuggling human flesh on board ships. The prison sentences were long; a few thousand lire was not worth that risk.