October Men

by Anthony Price

  “Something will happen, then?”

  Villari shrugged.

  “But you know that Audley is meeting someone here?”

  Villari shrugged again.

  “But—“ Boselli persisted desperately “—you know something is going on?”

  The Clotheshorse shifted his glance from Boselli to the detective and then, lazily, returned it. “The Englishman is being watched.”

  Boselli frowned at him, perplexed.

  “Not just by us, idiot—by others.”

  “By whom?”

  “We are not sure.”

  Not sure, Boselli digested the tiny fragments of information, trying to make a meal of them.

  By others. Logically, Ruelle would be continuing his surveillance, but they were quite properly more concerned with Audley at this point—and with his contact—than with Ruelle, so they hadn’t risked trying to find out who was watching on the Aventine for fear of blowing the whole thing, for the contact himself might be keeping an eye on Audley too. That “others” implied as much, anyway, though the English themselves might also be maintaining a protective watch on their man if he was as important to them as the file suggested.

  Boselli shivered in the heat at the memory of that file, with its cold little facts and hot little theories. He knew so little about what was going on, but he also knew too much for his own peace of mind. Audley and Ruelle, and above them Sir Frederick Clinton and General Raffaele Montuori—they all had one thing in common: they were dangerous men. He thought nostalgically of his little airless room back in the city: by now it would be almost as hot as Ostia Antica, but it would be much safer.

  As they advanced down the Decumano Massimo he began to grasp the principle on which Villari was searching the excavations. He was using the two detectives as hunting dogs—what were they called, pointers?—Depretis to cover the minor streets which ran at right angles to the main thoroughfare, and the threadbare man to watch for him. So long as Depretis kept sight of Audley and remained in sight of the Decumano Massimo at the same time he would serve as a moving signpost to the Englishman.

  The trouble was that not all the side streets were absolutely straight, and there were lateral alleys branching off them, so that they needed luck as well as logic. In fact the farther they progressed the more unlikely it seemed to Boselli that they would see anyone at all, certainly anyone who didn’t want to be seen, in that maze of walls. The Clotheshorse had delivered his briefing decisively and confidently, but the frown of concentration on his forehead indicated that his self-esteem was drying up fast.

  Still, he had been right about the theatre: it was a substantial—or substantially restored—building, with a series of arcades facing the street and a stair leading up to the seating on the other side. But when Boselli made to follow Villari up the stairs, the Clotheshorse gestured angrily down the street towards the detective, who was now loitering fifty metres ahead of them.

  “You watch him—can’t you remember a simple order?” Villari hissed.

  Chastened, Boselli made for the shadow of the arcade, reaching in his pocket for his handkerchief, and then remembering just in time that the one thing he mustn’t do was to mop his genuinely sweaty face with it. He must make do with his equally sweaty palm.

  “It’s hot, eh?”

  Boselli jerked as if stung, and then relaxed, his heart still thumping: one of the arcades had been turned into a refreshment room, and the serving man in it was standing in the shadow just inside the doorway, watching him hopefully.

  “Yes,” he muttered.

  “And it will get maybe just a little hotter.” The man squinted up at the sky. “You want a cool drink, eh?”

  Boselli was about to refuse when it occurred to him that so sharp an eye for custom might have intercepted earlier prospects.

  He pretended to consider the question. “Pretty quiet today.”

  The man nodded. “It is the mezzogiorno, though.”

  “I reckon we must be the only ones here,” Boselli surveyed the scene with a dissatisfied sniff, as though it didn’t surprise him now that it was no tourist attraction. “Except for him, at least,” he nodded towards the detective in the distance.

  The conflict in the refreshment man’s expression suggested that he was torn between loyalty to Ostia Antica and the proposition that the customer—especially the would-be customer—was always right.

  In the end he compromised, as Boselli had hoped he would. “Almost the only ones, signore,” he said.

  “You mean there are others here?” That was just the right note of not-quite-polite disbelief: “I haven’t seen anyone.”

  “Oh, yes—“ the refreshment man was on his honour now. He stepped out into the sunlight and stared down the Decumano Massimo —“just a few minutes ago there was a foreign couple—a big bull of a man and a woman in a big hat, slender like a model-girl—“

  “Well, they seem to have disappeared,” murmured Boselli. “Perhaps they knew where to go—where the best things to see are, eh?”

  “But there is much to see, signore!” The refreshment man spread his hands. “Behind here there is the Piazzale delle Corporazioni— they come from all over the world to see the mosaics there—and—“ He stopped suddenly as though it had dawned on him that only a barbarian could have come so far and remained unmoved by his surroundings.

  “Where did they go, then, the foreigners,” persisted Boselli, like a man who has had what he believes to be a sharp idea which he intends to pursue to the exclusion of better advice.

  The man shrugged, disillusioned. “I think maybe they turned off to the right, to the House of Diana or maybe the Temple of Livia. Or they may have gone to the Museum—but it is closed now.”

  Boselli acknowledged the information with a nod as he heard Villari’s footfall on the stair.

  But the man was a trier. Even as Boselli turned away from him he called out: “You want for me to get you that drink now, signore?”

  Boselli raised a negative hand. He wanted a cool drink, it was true, but it would only make him want to urinate more than he did already —it was that damned drink he had had back at the fountain in the city which was already beginning to discomfort him. Nevertheless— he had made progress, and a good deal more of it than had Villari, who appeared round the corner of the theatre with a face like thunder.

  “They went—“

  Villari cut him off. “I heard. Come on.”

  He strode off, bristling. Not a word of approbation, thought Boselli hotly, panting after him—not even an encouraging look could he manage. It was childish, even allowing for the fact that Villari had always worked alone in the past, but more than that it might soon become positively dangerous and he could not afford to allow it to go on much longer.

  A few metres farther on Villari stopped to examine the map again.

  But this time Boselli closed up on him and craned over his shoulder.

  “The House of Diana—which is that?” he asked. The map was crudely drawn, and although the streets were named the buildings along them were numbered according to a key which was under Villari’s thumb on the far side. “And the Temple of Livia—“

  Villari refolded the map just as Boselli had managed to identify a Via di Diana, which seemed to run parallel to the main thoroughfare. There was no way of telling from the numbers where any of the actual buildings were.

  “Signor Villari, this is ridiculous—“ he began.

  “Be quiet!”

  It was not the order that stopped Boselli, but the fact that Villari had embarked on a curious sequence of hand signals to the detective ahead of them. But curious or not, the detective seemed to understand what he was trying to convey, for he bobbed his head before starting off again.

  “Now—“ Villari turned back to him “—what the devil is the matter?”

  Boselli swallowed, then nerved himself. “I cannot—Signor Villari —I cannot continue like this, not knowing what is happening. You do not tell me anything—and yo
u do not show me anything—“ the words foamed out as though a dam had broken “—you ignore me, you treat me like a child! I must insist—“

  “Insist?” Villari showed his teeth.

  “Yes, signore—insist!” Boselli was desperate now. “If things go wrong—General Montuori spoke to both of us—if things go wrong then I shall be held responsible just as much as you—“

  He paused, aware that his voice was rising towards a plaintive squeak.

  “If there is nothing for me to do here, then I will return to the city,” he said firmly. “And I will report to the General that you have no use for me.”

  As a final statement of intent that was not wholly without dignity, he decided. From the spreading smile on Villari’s face, however, it seemed to lack something as an ultimate threat, though under the face-concealing glasses it was difficult to make out what species of smile it was.

  “Then you have a long walk ahead of you,” said Villari equably. “But I have never said I had no use for you—you must have patience, little Boselli. This is a game of patience, you know, is it not?”

  “What use am I, then?” Perversely Boselli found the Clotheshorse’s amiability as off-putting as his insolence: it made him wonder whether his real usefulness was not in truth simply as someone to carry half the responsibility for failure. Perhaps he had underrated the man after all. …

  “You can put names to faces for me, I’m told. And that’s what we need at the moment, a few more names to add to this Englishman’s. Then we can really get started.” Villari sounded almost friendly now. “Does that answer your question?”

  Boselli stared at him wordlessly, conscious once more of the insistent pressure on bis bladder.

  “Is there anything else you’d like?” asked Villari.

  “I—I—you must excuse me for one moment,” Boselli muttered. “The call of nature—“

  He stumbled down the nearest alleyway until he was just out of sight of the main street, fumbling as he went for the zip fastener on his fly. It was partly nerves, of course, as well as nature, but it was also hugely humiliating. Why did people like Villari never, never need to do it, though?

  He sighed with relief at the little lizard staring at him with bright eyes from a crack in the wall just above his head. To his right he had a part view of a little courtyard with a faded black and white geometric mosaic pavement already half covered by modern detritus. Around it were splintered columns like a line of tree stumps felled by inexpert foresters.

  A little hysterically, physical and mental relief at two distracting jobs done restoring his spirit, he thought: this is the moment when the Englishman and his contact come strolling round the corner, or if not them then the Englishman’s model-girl wife in her wide hat, catching him in the unstoppable moment of midflow.

  The thought made him rise on tiptoe and peer round him, and then back away from the spattered wall as he pulled up the zip, still searching the alleyway for prying eyes—

  There was a man leaning in a ruined opening halfway down the alley—a man with a bright red cravat like a stain running down his white shirt front—

  As he stared, hypnotised, the man raised a red hand to adjust the cravat, turning slightly away from him as he did so, totally ignoring him.

  Boselli’s mouth opened—he felt it open as though his lower jaw was falling away from the upper one, its muscles severed—and a meaningless sound rose out of it.

  The bright blood rippled over the fingers suddenly and the head sank against the wall as though the man was overcome by weariness. In ghastly slow motion he sank on to his knees, head and shoulder scraping down the stone work; for one instant he remained balanced, then he began to fold forward until he was bent double, the top of his head resting on the ground—

  The sound inside Boselli became coherent.

  “Villari!” he wailed.

  As though released at last by the sound, the kneeling man pitched over suddenly on to his side, his back towards Boselli. His left leg straightened and kicked convulsively at the stone doorstep on which he had been standing.

  “ Villari!” This time the wail was much louder, more like a scream.

  There was a low, bubbling rattle ahead of him and the sound of running footsteps behind, but both were lost in the tide of sickness which swept over Boselli: he vomited helplessly and painfully into the dust at his feet, the tears starting from his eyes as he did so.

  “What the—“ Villari stopped dead beside him. “Jesu!”

  “He was standing in the—“ Boselli choked on the lump in his throat. “He—just fell down.”

  Villari moved forward, but cautiously now, staring all around him and stooping. As he moved he reached back inside his coat with his right hand, towards his hip. Boselli blinked the tears out of his eyes, fascinated even though fear was now flooding inside him to replace the sickness: it was like watching a cream-fed tomcat transformed into a tiger hunting in the territory of its enemies.

  When he reached the opening out of which the man had fallen Villari paused, setting his back against the wall for a moment. Then, with his automatic pistol held at the ready across his chest, its muzzle level with his left breast, he peered into the courtyard over his left shoulder. The movement was smooth and continuous: the right shoulder swung away from the wall and Villari pivoted across the gap, facing it squarely for an instant with the pistol now extended to cover the ulterior, stepping over the legs of the man in the alley without looking down and ending up with his back against the wall on the other side in exactly the same stance as he had started. He looked up and down the alley, shifting his pistol from his right to his left hand as he did so, and then sank down on one knee beside the body, reaching with his free hand for the pulse at the neck.

  It was unnecessary, thought Boselli, the memory of the man’s collapse still horrific in his mind. But it was also enormously reassuring: this was an altogether different Villari from the languid, aristocratic brute of a few minutes ago. A brute still, no doubt—but one with all the necessary jungle qualities and skills.

  He recalled with a pang of surprise that he had said as much to Villari in the cafe an hour earlier, ascribing it to the General without believing in it himself. Once more he saw that his instinct had been sound, although he had allowed his personal feelings to confuse it and to doubt the wisdom of the General’s design. He should have known better than that.

  Villari rose from his knee and beckoned to him.

  For a moment Boselli stared at him uncertainly. Irrationally, he felt that so long as he stood where he was then he was somehow safer, and that unseen eyes would disregard him as an innocent passer-by who had stumbled by accident on something in which he had no part and sought none. But the first step forward—if his legs didn’t buckle under him—would bring him into the front line, however.

  “And keep your head down,” Villari mouthed at him.

  There was no way out or backwards or anywhere except forward. He hunched his shoulders and lurched forward in what he knew was a parody of the other’s catlike wariness.

  “Stop there!” Villari hissed.

  But Boselli had already stopped on the safe side of the ruined doorway. Nothing short of danger from behind, he felt, would induce him to cross that hundred-mile gap out of which death had come.

  “I want you to go back and get Porro,” Villari whispered across the opening.

  “Go back—?” Boselli’s squeak was cut off by the registration of the second part of the command. “Who’s Porro?”

  He blinked with embarrassment as Villari’s lips tightened with contempt.

  “The policeman?”

  Villari nodded. “Tell him to come here, to the Temple of Livia,” he whispered patiently, as one explaining a simple game to a dull child. “And tell him that Depretis is dead.”

  “Depretis!” Boselli’s voice rose in shocked surprise.

  “Who the hell did you think it was?”

  “I—I didn’t think—“ Boselli looked down
at the body between them and then looked up again quickly. At this distance and from this angle he could see more clearly how Depretis had died and he didn’t like what he saw. He felt the lump in his throat rising again sickeningly.

  “You didn’t think policemen get killed?” Villari spoke softly, almost soothingly. “Little clerk—it happens, and now you know it happens.”

  “But—“ Boselli did not feel at all soothed. Policemen did get killed, and in this line of duty not only policemen, as he had good reason to know from his files. But it only happened when someone became desperate. He looked pleadingly at Villari, struck hopeless by the recollection of his own forecast once more. It was all happening as he had forecast, but it was happening to him!

  “Now, Signor Boselli, just don’t panic—just do as I tell you—“ the gentleness of Villari’s voice was hideously counterproductive: it impressed the gravity of the situation on Boselli more convincingly than urgency or anger could ever have done “—walk, don’t run. But don’t stop, keep moving—and tell him—“

  Villari never finished the sentence: it was lost in the change in Boselli’s eyes looking over his shoulder past him down the alley, the fishlike NO forming on his lips and the contraction of his body against the stone wall in a vain attempt to disappear into it.

  Boselli was staring into his own death.

  His death was a black finger, a finger which was long at first and then foreshortened as it came up to point directly at him: a shocking extension of the hand of the man who had appeared out of nowhere at the end of the alley.

  Ever afterwards, when he relived that instant through the light of his candle burning before the altar, it was with a prayer to the Virgin of Miracles for his deliverance from that finger steadying on his heart. But there was no prayer in his mind or on his lips in the instant itself, only blank horror and disbelief, mindless and soundless; and to his private shame he did not even see the manner of that deliverance. His eyes were already closed when Villari moved…

  He heard a thump—more like a blow than a true sound—and a much louder crack of Villari’s pistol, which almost blotted out the second thump, shattering the silence of the alley.