Pronto

  Harry paused. The woman was waiting for him to continue and he didn't know what to say, how much he wanted to tell her.

  "So you bought a villa?"

  "I leased it for two years."

  "You rather live where the Virgin Mary appeared to a man four hundred years ago than where this poet lived with his wife and his mistress and somehow wasn't killed. I don't blame you."

  Harry saw he was going to let her go, not waste any more effort on her. She was too big for him. Joyce was as tall as Maura but slim, without those tremendous thighs. Still, he asked Maura if she would like to see his villa, not sure why he did. She seemed to think about it, as though she might accept his invitation, then shook her head and said, "Not today." So after that he stopped trying to make conversation and pretty soon the woman from Genova picked up her fur jacket and left the cafe.

  Harry wondered about her, a disagreeable woman. He could imagine her husband in the industrial film business having an affair with an attractive dark-haired actress who demonstrates electronic devices and Maura finds out about them. Catches them on a dark set or in the editing room. If the husband hadn't died of a heart attack Maura might have killed him.

  Maybe she did.

  The woman discounted or disagreed with everything he said. He was glad she didn't want to see his villa; he didn't feel much like going up there, riding the funivia with the woman. Then feel he should ask her to have dinner with him and ride back down again.

  As soon as he returned to his suite at the Hotel Liguria, Harry called Joyce and saw her living room in late morning sunlight as he listened to the phone ring.

  Chapter Ten.

  He told Joyce right away, "I don't want to say too much over the phone."

  "But are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. Listen -- remember when I told you that story I've never told anyone else in my life?"

  "That's where you are?"

  "Yeah, but don't say it. Are you busy?"

  "Am I busy? Right now?"

  "I mean are you working?"

  "The end of the month I'm doing a German catalog, right here. Everybody in the world's using South Beach."

  "How would you like to take a trip instead?"

  She paused. "You sound different."

  "I'm trying not to say too much, just in case. I'll tell you, though, I'm standing here looking out the window... I think you'd like it."

  There was a silence as she paused again.

  "I don't know if I can. I have to make a living."

  "Don't worry about that for now, just think about coming. You wouldn't need anything dressy, but bring a coat. It's cooler than Florida."

  "How do I get there?"

  "Don't worry about that either. I'll work something out."

  She said, "I think I'm being watched."

  This time Harry paused.

  The Hotel Liguria, on a hillside above the road that followed the coast to Santa Margherita and Portofino, was high enough to give Harry a clear view of Rapallo from this far side of the bay: centuries of gray and sand-colored houses and buildings against steep green hills, palm trees along the seafront, an old resort city more Victorian now than medieval. Learning to live here, he hadn't thought of what he might have left behind.

  He said to Joyce, "You mean the police?"

  And heard her say, "I hope so." And then say, "I've had visitors, friends of yours and someone who isn't a friend. They all seem to think I know where you are."

  He was careful, saying, "Was it Tommy who came to see you? You know who I mean?"

  "He tried to. Raylan ran him off. But I don't think it's Raylan who's watching me. He's a pretty nice guy."

  Harry said, "I didn't mean to get you involved." Heard himself and knew it sounded lame. "I'm really sorry. I can understand if you don't want to come."

  She said, "No, I want to." Sounding sincere.

  He said, "You don't think maybe we should wait awhile?"

  And she said, "Do you want me to come or not?"

  He liked her voice, the familiar sound of it, just then with an edge; but he felt they were talking too much. He said, "Are you nervous?"

  "A little, yeah."

  He said, "I miss you, I want you to come more than anything. Listen, I'll figure out how to work it and get back to you." Harry paused. He said, "Joyce? You know the aftershave I like?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Bring me a couple bottles. Okay?"

  She said it again, "You sound different."

  He said, "I know I do."

  Harry stood looking at his view of Rapallo beyond the marina on this side of the bay and the statue of Christopher Columbus, anxious to show Joyce his villa. He believed that with a good pair of binoculars he would be able to pick out the villa from here. Tomorrow was Sunday; he'd look for binoculars on Monday. This evening he could stroll down to his favorite fish restaurant or stay in, have dinner in the hotel dining room with its sterile white tile and potted palms. Hotel literature said the English loved the Liguria. At least at one time they did. Built more than a hundred years ago the hotel became popular with English tourists just after the First World War. The restaurant in town or the hotel dining room ... Harry hated eating alone. The woman this afternoon, the way she smoked, sucking deeply on her cigarettes, had made him want one. He'd almost taken a Salem from her pack on the table. He had told Joyce he wanted her to come more than anything, and it was true as he said it. Right now what he wanted more than anything was a drink, a Scotch over ice. It was that time of day and he was far enough from home that it would be safe here. He wouldn't be drinking and talking, telling stories -- the way he had most often gotten in trouble in the past, overdoing it -- there wasn't anyone he could hold a conversation with here and not sound as though he was explaining a joke.

  He had imagined himself strolling in the evening along the seafront promenade, the lungomare, where Ezra Pound had strolled more than a half century ago and again a few years before he died, and where Harry had actually watched him stroll in '67. Pound with his style, his cane, his black hat with the wide brim that was like no other hat, the long points of his shirt collar outside his black overcoat. Harry would imagine Ezra Pound returning from his stroll to have a drink with his mistress at the Gran Caffe. Harry had seen Olga Rudge also in '67, gray-haired, but still a knockout. Most people would probably consider his wife, Dorothy, better looking. Maybe, but in one photograph she appeared pigeon-toed and to Harry that indicated a tight-assed personality, little or no sense of humor. He was convinced Olga would have been more fun, or else why get involved in that kind of situation?

  He had never thought of Joyce as his mistress, but now liked the idea as he explored ways of getting her here without being followed.

  He could call his travel agent, charge Joyce's fare to his account. It seemed the likeliest way. Work out a few details....

  There were North Africans here from Tunis, Benghazi, from places in Algeria, who were called "wannabuys" in English and something else in Italian. They sold cheap watches and jewelry on the walk along the seafront: laid out their goods on blankets and called in low voices what sounded like "Wannabuy?" and waited for the people strolling past to notice them.

  Harry stood looking out at the bay, at power boats skimming past the sixteenth-century castle that sat out past the seawall; it was connected to the shore by a concrete ramp, like a driveway, and was much smaller than Harry had imagined castles would be. Four-thirty Sunday afternoon there were only a few people on the beach, some old men playing boccie ball. Harry had taken his blazer off and wore it draped over his shoulders now without putting his arms in the sleeves. He believed he might be taken for a real Italian. Lately he'd been thinking he might have to learn the language.

  About ten feet from him one of the North Africans had unrolled a straw mat and was now laying out a display of umbrellas, the collapsible kind in a variety of dark colors. The black guy paused, bringing the umbrellas out of a plastic trash bag, looked this way, and Harry felt himself bein
g sized up, judged, the guy about to spring some Mediterranean con on him. The man was slim, his T-shirt hanging loose on his body; he wore a mustache, a tuft of beard under his lower lip, rings and a gold earring, sandals, a pleasant-looking guy actually, smiling now. He said in English:

  "I'm not going to sell you an umbrella today, am I? You made up your mind you not going to need one."

  With an accent that was Caribbean, British colonial.

  Harry said, "Where're you supposed to be from, the Bahamas, Jamaica, or Tunisia?"

  The guy said, "You caught me, huh?" Now in American English without the hint of an accent. "I can get away with it talking to Italians, they don't detect the, you know, the nuances. I should've known, man like you would pick up on it."

  "I still don't need an umbrella," Harry said. "Day like this, why would anybody want to buy one?"

  "It's the way I look up at the sky. See?" He raised his gaze as Harry watched. "Like I know something from my native intelligence, in my genes, I can tell when it's going to rain."

  "Being, they think you're from North Africa, the Sahara, and know all about rain."

  "They don't put that together. The sun can be out, it don't matter. I sniff the air. Like that, smell it coming. See, I knew I wasn't going to sell you a umbrella. I can also tell when I ought'n try to bullshit the person."

  "You didn't think I was Italian?" Harry said.

  "Uh-unh, not even you wearing your coat like that, like Fellini. You from somewhere on the East Coast. New York?"

  "Miami. The Beach most of my life."

  "You could be Italian, yeah, but not from around here the way you're dressed. Well, you could come from Milan, I guess, close by. But to look all the way Italian, man, you got to have the suit with the pointy shoulders and the pointy shoes with the little thin soles. You staying here on your holiday?"

  "I've got a place," Harry said, and then came right out and told him, "a villa. I'm making up my mind if I want to live here."

  "Rapallo? Man, this is all there is to it. You hiding out?"

  "Do I look like I am?"

  "I've run into all kinds of people over here hiding from something -- the only reason I ask. I don't care, you understand. I see a man like yourself come to a place like this? Pretty much strictly for locals? I have to wonder, that's all."

  "You live around here," Harry said, "don't you? Or you come over from Africa with your umbrellas?"

  "Where I came over here from was Houston, Texas. Man, a long time ago, after doing Vietnam and not finding things at home to my liking: everybody from up north down there trying the oil business. I came over to the Mediterranean, did Morocco, the Greek islands, Egypt. For a while I became an Islamic brother, named myself Jabal Radwa after a mountain in Saudi Arabia. But then, you know what I finally did? I went to Marseilles and joined the Foreign Legion. I did, I'm not kidding, under the name Robert Gee. And you don't believe me, do you?"

  Harry shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

  "Influenced by a former legionnaire," Robert Gee said, "I knew when I was in Saigon, a Frenchman that stayed over there from the fifties -- you know when I mean? -- married a woman there and became part of that life. He kept telling me what I should do was stay, get me a cute woman like he did. ... But I couldn't see myself going Asiatic. You know what I'm saying? So I come over here instead and join the French Foreign Legion, full of mercenary-type motherfuckers had been fighting in wars in Africa, for pay and also the chance to shoot brothers. And here I am in the same outfit, sleeping and marching with these racists."

  "And if I happen to lean that way," Harry said, "too bad."

  "You might. Though I don't think you lean too much one way or the other. Or give a shit what I think especially."

  Harry let him believe what he wanted. He said, "How long were you in?"

  "The whole five years, made corporal and got my jump wings. Served in Corsica, where they train, and in Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden, over in East Africa. I got out, found myself after a while in Kuwait before Desert Storm and got a job as this sheik's bodyguard and driver. I was the only one he trusted to drive his stretch in some of the capitals of Europe. Pretty soon, though, I had enough of the sheik and his ways. I quit being Jabal Radwa and changed my name back to Robert Gee for the second time."

  Harry said, "I've got a couple of names."

  It brought a smile, Robert Gee saying, "I thought you might. Running some kind of game and they caught up with you, huh?"

  "I retired," Harry said.

  "Well, I'm semi," Robert Gee said. "I sell umbrellas sometimes or can get you whatever you might need, or your imagination allows. You want American cigarettes, Scotch whisky? A pistol, shotgun? For sport or whatever your reason. I can get you some pretty good hashish. Smoke it watching American sitcoms on TV. Andy Griffith talking Italian. Cocaine, you have to go someplace else."

  "What kind of pistol?" Harry said.

  It got another smile from Robert Gee.

  "Beretta. We in Italy, man."

  "You hire out?" Harry asked.

  "To do what?"

  "Hang around. See if anything comes up."

  "Sounds like bodyguarding."

  "Drive to Milan and meet a lady who's flying in. Bring her back here?"

  "I could do that. Tell me how much you paying for these services?"

  "Why don't you put your umbrellas away," Harry said. "We'll step over to Vesuvio's or the Gran Caffe and talk about it." He said, "You don't by any chance cook, do you?"

  Chapter Eleven.

  Jimmy Cap was having his dinner, some kind of fish baked with the head and tail and a plate of linguini, it looked like, with clam sauce. His tongue was moving around in his mouth in search of something that shouldn't be in there as the Zip came into the dining room with Nicky Testa, brought him in, sat him down at the table opposite Jimmy Cap and stood behind him. Jimmy Cap pulled a fish bone out of his mouth. The Zip, using the heel of his hand, popped Nicky in the back of the head.

  "Tell him."

  Jimmy Cap worked his tongue around. He pulled out another fish bone and said, "Fucking snapper."

  The Zip popped Nicky again. "I said tell him." Nicky hunched his shoulders as the Zip said, "He's watching Harry Arno's girlfriend. This afternoon five o'clock -- go on, tell him."

  Nicky leaned against the table, away from the Zip. He said to Jimmy Cap, almost in confidence, "I don't need this kind of shit."

  "Tell me," Jimmy Cap said, "what you're suppose to tell me."

  "Tell him to keep his fucking hands off me."

  "Work it out between you," Jimmy Cap said. "Now talk to me, what?"

  "I followed this lady," Nicky said, "from her apartment to a travel agent's on Lincoln Road."

  Behind him the Zip said, "What was she driving?"

  "She was driving Harry Arno's Cadillac. She comes out of the travel agent's, gets in the car, and takes the Julia Tuttle and One-twelve over to the airport and parks in the long-term place there. I'm right with her. I get out of my car, I ask can I give her a hand with her suitcases. She's got a big one and two smaller ones."

  Jimmy Cap sucked in linguini and said, "The Macho man. Never sees a broad he don't make a fucking move on her."

  "Hey, come on, this one's old."

  The Zip popped him with the heel of his hand. "Tell him what happened."

  Nicky hunched his shoulders and then straightened slowly, staring at Jimmy Cap sucking in linguini, Jimmy ignoring him.

  "Tell him," the Zip said, "what you talked about."

  "I start a conversation with her, tell her I'm meeting somebody, my mother. The idea, get her so she don't think, you know, I'm trying to find out anything."

  "But he never asked her," the Zip said, "where she was going."

  "I didn't have to. We go in the terminal right to British Airways. Where do they go? They go to fucking London, England. I asked her there at the counter, you going to England, huh? She says yeah, she is. So what do you want?"

  Jimmy Cap looked up at
the Zip as though asking the same question.

  "Half the people that get off in London," the Zip said, "go on to someplace else. They stop off there. So we don't know where she went because this stronzo wouldn't ask her."

  Jimmy Cap said, "Ask the travel agent."

  "Yeah, that's what I have to do."

  "So, what's the problem?"

  "I got to wait till tomorrow, when the guy opens. Lose a whole day."

  "You don't know she's going to meet Harry."

  "She drove his car," the Zip said. "Watch and see somebody turns out to be a friend of his picks it up tomorrow." The Zip, standing behind the chair, looked down at Nicky. "The woman's going to meet Harry and I'm going to be a day late because of this stronzo."

  Nicky hunched his shoulders, waiting to get popped.

  Thursday, November 26, Raylan Givens had coffee with Buck Torres in a Cuban joint down the street from Miami Beach police headquarters. Raylan had a plate of beans and rice too; he'd missed lunch. He asked Torres if they were going to get Interpol into it, try to locate Harry and have him extradited. Torres said they might do that if he had shot an upstanding citizen and not some lowlife ex-con who was known to have worked for Jimmy Cap. He said as a favor to Harry he was on the lookout for sawed-off shotguns. One had been picked up at a dope house the past week and they were checking it out.

  "The reason I ask about extradition," Raylan said, "I leave tomorrow. I'm going over there and look for Harry."

  Torres didn't seem surprised. He said, "Going on your own?"

  And Raylan nodded. He said, "Nobody cares about him, huh? I think they're even dropping Jimmy Cap's investigation anyway."

  "You can count on it," Torres said. "But you're going over there? Italy's a big country."

  "I know, I been looking at maps."

  That was all Raylan said about Italy. Nothing about where Harry might be, not with extradition still a possibility.

  "Twice now he's ducked out on me," Raylan said, without any show of emotion. "I owe it to myself, you might say, to go look for him." He poked at the black beans with his fork, not as hungry now.

  "It's too bad," Torres said, "you didn't leave yesterday. You know the flights Harry took, here to Heathrow and then on to Milan? That information I got from Harry's travel agent?"