October Men dda-4

by Anthony Price

Boselli nodded sympathetically.

  "Not that I am grumbling, you understand," Fragoni added hastily, uncertain of the most profitable role open to him until he could establish just how much Boselli knew. "But let us not speak of such things. You said—I believe you said—?"

  "That I have something for you. That is correct. But something in turn for something, Signor Frugoni. Perhaps I might step inside for a moment, yes?"

  Frugoni regarded him in complete bewilderment; the possibility that he possessed something—anything—which was likely to be saleable, but of which he was totally unaware, seemed to have knocked away what little balance he could muster so early in the day.

  "I—but of course, Signor Boselli—"

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  The moment he entered the attic room it was Boselli in his turn who was knocked off balance, however. The smell on the dingy landing had been unpleasant enough, combined as it was of all the different aromas of cooking and concentrated humanity which had risen up the stairway from the warrens below. But in Frugoni's room this smell graduated to the rank of stench, in which stale wine and the sweet-sour mustiness of old unwashed linen united into a miasma.

  Boselli dragged out his damp silk handkerchief and held it across the lower part of his face, fighting his sickness.

  "Signor Boselli—?" Frugoni was looking at him solicitously, oblivious of the foulness.

  "A moment's giddiness—no, please do not bother—" Frugoni was removing some unmentionable garments from a rickety-looking chair "—I'd prefer to stand, if you don't mind. It will pass."

  "A cup of—" Frugoni looked uneasily towards what must be his kitchen "—coffee?"

  "No. . . . thank you." The thought of consuming anything—of even touching anything—coming from these rooms made his stomach turn.

  "How can I serve you, then?"

  Boselli took a firm grip of his senses. It was always better to offer types like this something in exchange for something if one was not relying on good old-fashioned blackmail. He would have preferred the latter method, and he had no doubt dummy2

  that with very little digging he could have uncovered the right lever. But digging took time, which he didn't have—and digging would also involve exposing his actions to others, which multiplied the danger of the General coming to hear of it.

  But if unsolicited charity would have roused Frugoni's suspicions, or at least his curiosity, the chance of doing some sort of deal would arouse his trading instinct, and that must be squashed quickly.

  "It is nothing of great importance—nothing you will find in the least taxing, my dear Frugoni," he began heartily. "You are simply one among a number of veterans I am consulting for your wartime recollections, you see—for a work of history a colleague of mine is undertaking."

  Frugoni's expression sagged with disappointment.

  "It will be a scholarly work—a work of reference primarily, so I fear there will be little profit in it for anyone—" Boselli nodded regretfully "—but remembering that you had served with the General in the mountains I knew I could rely on your strong sense of patriotism—" Frugoni looked as if he was about to burst into tears; it was time to dust the pill with a trace of sugar "—and naturally your name would be mentioned in the acknowledgements in addition to the modest honorarium we are making to some contributors."

  "Honorari—?" Frugoni abandoned the attempt.

  "Payment," said Boselli briskly. "Small, of course. More a dummy2

  gesture than a payment. But in deserving cases like yourself we do the best we can ... if the information supplied is of use, of course."

  "Of use?"

  "Of interest. I'm sure you saw a great deal of action when you were in the mountains immediately after the Armistice of 1943."

  "When we threw in the sponge, you mean?" Frugoni gave a short, bitter laugh. "Jesus Christ! You can say that again—

  more than I wanted to, that's how much action I saw. But I wasn't in the mountains, Signor Boselli, not at first, anyway."

  "Indeed?" Boselli wasn't interested in anything Frugoni had done before he reached the mountains, but it wouldn't do to seem too eager to reveal that fact.

  "No—we were in billets just outside Salerno—good billets, too. Then the bloody Germans turfed us out—turfed us all out, and disarmed us too. Shot two of the officers right in front of our billet when they wouldn't play ball, they did—

  they knew what was in the wind right enough, the Germans did. What they called Panzer grenadiers— trigger-happy sods, they were. We reckoned afterwards that someone had told 'em the Yanks and the English were going to land there—

  which they did, of course. . . ."

  "But you stayed and fought?"

  "Without our guns?" Frugoni started to laugh again, and then stopped as though he had remembered the more heroic dummy2

  role he had to sustain now. "No—'cause we wanted to, but without our guns, see, an' with the place crawling with German tanks—well, this mate of mine and me thought we'd have more chance up Naples way—"

  More chance of getting home, more likely. In a word, Frugoni had deserted at the first opportunity.

  "More chance of resisting the enemy?"

  "That's right, sir. But when we got to Naples things were real bad there, I can tell you—they'd been fighting the Germans in the streets there, the people had. Even the little kids—they're bloodthirsty— and everywhere they'd blocked the streets with trams and lorries so the Germans were shooting everyone on sight, practically." He shook his head unbelievingly at the memory. "The main roads were jammed with supply columns heading south—there was no chance of gettin' through 'em—gettin' through to join up with some proper unit, I mean."

  Frugoni had jumped out of the frying pan into a very hot fire: he had escaped formal captivity with his regiment only to find himself in the midst of a popular insurrection. Even Boselli could remember the tales of Neapolitan carnage which percolated northwards as the enraged inhabitants of that dangerous city had turned on the Germans with medieval fury . . . tales of stranded tank crews parboiled and houses full of women and children put to the torch. It had been from such horrors that men like George Ruelle had risen.

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  "So you headed for the hills?"

  "It was the only thing to do, seein' as how things were, you see

  —"

  "And met the General."

  "Yes." For one second Frugoni failed to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "That was a bit of—luck—for us, of course."

  Of course! Twice the wretched man had fled from his duty, though each time in circumstances which would have daunted better men and for which Boselli could not in his heart wholly blame him. And all in order to fall into the clutches of the one man who would make very sure that he had no third opportunity of escaping! Fate had surely played a cat-and-mouse game with Private Frugoni.

  "Number One on the Breda, I was for the General, Signor Boselli, sir." All the whine and pretence had gone from the voice now; this at least was genuine. "An' that's a rotten bad gun, too—the Breda 30—a proper swine to clean, with that oil pump in it. An' it's got no carrying handle, either: I'd like to make the silly fucker that designed it carry it up the mountainsides that I had to, carrying it like a bleedin' baby

  —"

  "That would be a responsible job, I'm sure," Boselli cut through the old soldier's complaint. "The General must have trusted you, then."

  "The General. . . ." The memory half strangled the words and then re-injected the old mendacious note. "A major, 'e was dummy2

  then, major in the Bersaglieri—'e made us jump, Christ 'e did, an' no mistake. We blocked the road from Campobasso for nearly a week—took a regiment of their Alpine troops, what they call Jaegers, to shift us. An' they wouldn't have done it then if the bastard hadn't let us down."

  It was odd, but under the hate which lay like a half-hidden substratum beneath the pretence of soldierly pride there was a thin vein of genuine admiration. It was probably true that— />
  The bastard?

  That was the word which had been lodged in his mind like a tiny thorn under the skin: the General had used it yesterday—

  had used it twice in one short space of time. And yet under ordinary circumstances his language was always notably free of such words—beyond an occasional "for the love of God" in moments of exceptional stress the General's vocabulary was as disciplined as a priest's.

  Boselli's own mind had been fully extended at the time, yet those two "bastards" had pricked nevertheless; and more, there had been something curious about the sound of them—

  the emphasis had been too evenly distributed, just as it had been in Frugoni's tone: too even and lacking in vehemence. . . .

  And then he had it: it had quite simply been a name and not an epithet-not "the bastard" but more precisely "The Bastard"!

  He examined his fingernails. "You mean Ruelle?" he said dummy2

  casually.

  "Ah—I guess you've heard a thing or two about The Bastard, eh?" Frugoni leered at him. "You'll 'ave to be careful puttin'

  'im in your book alongside of the General, you will—'e won't like that, I can tell you, not at all. Come to that, The Bastard won't neither, if the swine's still around. There wasn't no love lost between them two, there wasn't."

  "Yes, so I've heard," murmured Boselli, stifling the rising sense of excitement he felt at so easily getting to the one question he had feared to ask directly.

  "I could tell you a thing or two about them," Frugoni confided maliciously. "I bet you ain't 'eard the 'alf of it, not the 'alf of it!"

  "I expect I've heard it all before, my dear fellow," said Boselli, controlling the level of disinterest in his voice with scientific exactness. "But do go on all the same."

  It was going to be a good day after all.

  VI

  COMING OUT OF the midday sunlight into the cafe's shadow, for a moment he could see very little. Then, as he peered round the supporting trellis-work of the vine-covered roof, his gaze was directed by the admiring eyes of two young girls towards the corner in which Armando Villari had arranged himself.

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  Not that their admiration was going to do them any good.

  They weren't in the Clotheshorse's income group for one thing, and the Clotheshorse was on duty anyway (although that was probably the least important consideration). But above all the swine was far too busy admiring his own profile in the mirror on his left—Boselli didn't know which offended his sense of decency the more, the girls' sickening bitch-on-heat look or Villari's narcissism. Almost it made him want to quit the job cold, except that the General's parting words and his own recent discoveries made the situation painfully clear: he had to work with Villari or risk not working at all, and for a man with hungry relatives and no cushion of private savings that was no choice.

  But at least that certainty firmed his own meagre reserve of courage. At the time of the General's pronouncement he had been ready to accept the assignment as a test for them both—

  a proof that they could sink their personal antipathies in the state's service. He still admired his boss enough to hope that that had played a part in the whole design, but he no longer believed that it played the only part. Because the General was a fair man he would accept honest failure— but because of his personal involvement he would be in no mood to put up with tantrums from either of them.

  Villari gave no indication that he had noticed him except to put on the dark glasses which had lain beside his glass, a simple action which he contrived somehow to render affected.

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  So it was going to be unpleasant. . . .

  Boselli smiled politely. "I do not think I am late, but I am sorry if you have been kept waiting. Is anything happening yet?"

  The dark circles considered him briefly. "If anything was happening I would not be here. And then you would have been late."

  So it was going to be difficult too, thought Boselli. But he had expected nothing less ever since the fellow had walked out of the meeting without so much as one word to him. And since then he had obviously not bothered to work out any of the implications of the situation.

  He sighed as he sat down. The difficulty was all the less bearable for being unnecessary, because the simplest of those implications was that he, Boselli, would be less afraid of offending Villari than of risking General Montuori's anger, but Villari was too stupid to understand that fact.

  He stared directly into the dark glasses. "Signor Villari, I will be plain with you—" an eyebrow lifted above one of the gold frames "—I have been ordered to work with you and that is what I must do if it is at all possible. I do not care for you and you do not care for me—"

  "I don't really think that much about you either way, frankly, Signor Boselli."

  "—But it seems that you clearly do not intend to work with me. Consequently it is not possible for me to work with you."

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  Villari's lip curled. "Little man—you do tie yourself into knots when you talk! I tell you again, it's of no consequence to me what you do. I can handle this man Audley perfectly well without you farting about beside me."

  "And George Ruelle? Can you handle him as well?"

  The lip straightened. "Him also, if I have to."

  "And General Montuori too?"

  "General—?" Villari cut the name off quickly, but could not stop the question forming.

  "What's General Montuori got to do with this? Apart from setting it up?" Boselli nodded with a confidence he did not feel. He had to gauge this bit exactly: he had to put just a touch of fear into Villari, but it mustn't seem a deliberate act

  —the man must scare himself, which might not be a quick process in one so lacking in imagination, never mind sense.

  But it had to be attempted none the less.

  "Tell me, signore—tell me this one thing—" he forced humility into his tone "—why do you think the General has ordered you to work with me?"

  He paused only momentarily, because he did not expect any answer—Villari would never admit that he could not think of one. But he must, he surely must, have at least formulated that question in his mind all the same.

  "I will tell you then, because the General never does anything without his reasons. ... It is first because in this instance we complement each other. You have all the proven executive dummy2

  skills in the field —the daring and the resourcefulness when there is danger—" (Was he laying it on too thick? No! One glance at the arrogant lift of the chin confirmed that!) "—the quickness of mind and body, the firmness. . . ." That was enough—and in another second the words would choke in his throat, anyway.

  "And in addition you are not known so well here in Rome—at least not to the agents of the British and those who might associate with Ruelle."

  He paused again, opening his hands in a gesture of self-deprecation. "Whereas I—I too am not well known—though for a different reason, of course—and I have some specialist knowledge of—of present political considerations and personalities." (Villari would scorn such knowledge, so he could fairly safely claim it himself.) But this was all window-dressing: now he was coming to the real merchandise hidden in the back room!

  "And it is because I have that knowledge that I am frightened, signore—because I have just a little more of it than even the General himself suspects. Enough to frighten me."

  He had the man's attention now; even though not so much as a muscle moved in Villari's face Boselli was sure of it.

  Whatever scorn the pig might affect, he would be uneasy at the thought of Boselli digging like a termite beneath him.

  "You see—first, signore—I happen to know now who it was dummy2

  who saw Ruelle and Audley at the airport. I know also that it was not Audley he recognised—it was Ruelle. It was Ruelle that interested him, too. And now I know why he was so interested in the man. ..."

  He allowed the sentence to tail off mysteriously.

  "Who was i
t, then?"

  As Villari spoke at last a shadow fell across the table between them.

  "What—?" Boselli began irritably, only to catch the absence of surprise or irritation on Villari's face.

  Much more surprising was that Villari turned back towards him briefly with what was for him a remarkable gesture of courtesy.

  "One moment—" the dark glasses tilted upwards again

  —"Well?"

  "The man and the woman have left the house—they've taken the car."

  "In which direction?"

  "Towards the Porta San Paolo, signore. Unless he's taken the wrong direction, they're heading out of the city."

  Villari stared at the speaker, a compact, youngish man unknown to Boselli. Then he shook his head.

  "No. He knows Rome well enough not to do that."

  "Then it could be the EUR—there are some big museums there. Or maybe the beach at Ostia. It's going to be hot dummy2

  today."

  It was damned hot already, thought Boselli. What it would be like later didn't bear thinking about.

  "Very good. Depretis is following them, then. I—we—will follow him. You go back and relieve Piccione at the house."

  Boselli watched the man out of sight with a twinge of uneasiness. Depretis and Piccione were also names he was unable to place.

  "Who is he—and the others?"

  "One of the police special squads. The General must have borrowed them—he's had them watching Audley from the beginning, not our own men." Villari watched him, head cocked slightly to one side. "Would you have any thoughts about that, too?"

  Boselli rubbed his chin reflectively. The Clotheshorse had changed his tune quickly enough, so perhaps he had some sense after all.

  "I might."

  "But in the meantime you have a name for me."

  Boselli nodded. "Yesterday I took some reports to leave with Signorina Calcagano. She was giving the General's driver the evening off; she said the General would take the car to the airport himself. It slipped my mind until after our meeting.

  Then I checked up on it."

  He nodded again. "It was the General who spotted Ruelle."