A House in Naples. Peter Rabe
cares about Benny. Listen, tourist, I don’t need nobody. I got my own life, nobody tells me nothing, and I go where I please.” The drunk leaned his chin in one hand and looked coy. “Bet you don’t know where I was two days ago?”
“Did they have polka-dot elephants there?”
“Listen, tourist. Don’t talk. I was in Cairo, buddy boy. Five years in Cairo!”
“That’s big stuff. Real big stuff.”
“I hope to tell you,” said the drunk, and tilted the bottle. “And how did I get back?”
“By boat.”
“Right! And me, Delmont, I come and go with nobody telling me nothing. What a joke!” he laughed. “What a joke!”
“What joke?”
“Five years in Cairo, tourist, and me with no papers! All that time they’re lying here in my trunk, safe as safe, and me without papers. That’s operating!”
“I’ll say. So they threw you out. That’s real operating.”
“Who, the police?” and he gurgled his laugh again. “Listen, tourist, my buddy Amir brung me back, on his little yacht. I come back the way I left, nobody the wiser. That’s how I operate!”
“Good old Amir,” said Charley, but it sounded mechanical. He had enough of the game. It was time to phone.
“Amir is a sonofabitch,” said the drunk, “another of you high-hat sonsabitches, only Egyptian. After five years he throws me out, me, Delmont, what showed him how to operate. Listen, tourist, that lurch is no friend of mine. I only got one buddy. Me. And Bantam, maybe.”
Bantam. Charley knew of a Bantam.
“My buddy Bantam. I gotta go see him tomorrow maybe. Ten years is a long time for buddies to be apart; maybe my buddy—”
The drunk was getting whiney and Charley saw it was time. He didn’t listen any more because the drunk had done his job. Time was up. Call Joe. Charley squeezed to the bar and said he wanted a phone. He went through the curtain in back, found the door with light behind it and went in. There was a phone on the beat-up desk and a guy sleeping on a couch. Charley got Naples,
“Joe?”
“Ya. I’m here.”
“Look, Joe, it isn’t good. It’ll be a while, unless I dig something up between now and tomorrow. The merchandise I want is scarce.”
“I know. You shoulda done like I done. Start early and take your time.”
“Don’t preach, dammit. Now look, I’ll be back tomorrow late, because—”
“That’s too early, Chuck.”
“What?”
“Hell broke loose.”
“What are you talking about! Vittore lose his head?”
“He just talked.”
“Oh that everloving bastard! What—”
“They been here, looking for you. They figured I knew something, seeing Vittore hangs around our place. They’re around asking for Charley. You.”
“That figures. What did you tell them?”
“Just that they were wrong. I set up a story for you, like you told me. I told ’em—”
“Never mind, never mind. They got me identified for sure?”
“I don’t know, Chuck. Maybe not. But enough to dig up the works if you come back.”
Charley kept still after that because it was worse than ever. Don’t come back, hide someplace else, maybe let me know where you are in a while and I send you your suitcase. Or maybe you don’t even need your stuff seeing the way you’re going to be traveling, seeing you’re going to be needing a total change anyway.
“That’s how it is, Chuck. Anything you want?”
And then again this would be the time for everybody to do a little pushing, except Charley of course. He’d be the one that gets the push. Chuck pushing out, the carabinièri pushing after, Uncle Sam pushing up with some unfinished business—
“—and better don’t call any more,” said Joe, and Charley could just see that mouth hanging open, the eyes looking lazy and maybe Fanny was standing there, within reach unless there was a new model by then.
“I won’t,” said Charley.
It didn’t sound like the same voice to Joe. Something had happened at the other end of the line, something that he better know about. Then Charley told him.
“I’m coming back. With bells on.”
He hung up, went back to the bar. He wasn’t limping any more. While he paid his bill he looked around the room like he knew what he wanted.
“And gimme an empty glass,” he said to the barman who brought the change.
“And keep the change,” he said when he got the glass. Then he went and sat down where Delmont was, holding the bottle.
The drunk had been coasting with just a nip here and there because what he mostly wanted was talk. That tourist bastard was okay. A little out of focus maybe and kind of snotty when he opened his mouth but he didn’t talk much. He listened. He didn’t impress much but that would come, tourist bastards always impressed after a while. Might even be good for some fun, or a sucker play. Somebody was due for a sucker play right around then because Delmont himself had been getting it in the neck lately, too much lately, like getting the boot from that buddy bastard Amir in Cairo, like being stranded with just one bottle left between him and the screaming willies—so when Charley sat down and took the bottle out of his hand it was a surprise. Charley poured into his glass, gave the bottle back, and hoisted his glass.
“To Delmont,” he said and drank.
If Delmont had known that Charley never drank, almost never, he would have watched out. He would have held on to his bottle and made a beeline for the first open door or window or crack in the wall.
“Hey,” he said and worked his tongue around that tooth.
“That’s better, Delmont. Talk it up. Make it gay. Come on, up on your feet. This place is too noisy. I can hardly hear what you’re saying.”
“Hey,” said Delmont, but Charley had him up and talked friendly.
“Where’s your room, buddy? You got a room?”
“What in hell—”
“So you can talk some more. Big shot like you ought to have lots to talk about. All right, big shot. You do the talking and I bring the bottle. A full one, big shot.”
“Upstairs,” said Delmont. “Upstairs in the back. And you bring the—”
“Yeah. I’ll bring the.”.
Charley got a quart of bar cognac and steered the drunk to the rear. There were doors all along the corridor and in back, where the lightbulb hung, there was a staircase. The downstairs rooms didn’t have permanent guests, just rabbit jobs like the two sailors. But upstairs you could stay all night, even longer. Maybe it wouldn’t take all night, Charley was thinking. Plan it right, get to work with no small talk in between, and maybe it wouldn’t take all night. It wouldn’t take a month, that was a cinch. After all, what’s four questions?
Delmont opened the room in back and switched on the light. There was a bed, a table, two chairs, and a suitcase under the bed. The drunk looked around, then at Charley, as if he was waiting to be commended. In the adjoining room somebody giggled.
“This one’s on me,” said Charley and plunked the full bottle on the table.
Delmont got it open and drank. There was a small window