1952 - The Wary Transgressor

by James Hadley Chase

  "All right; then I will brazen it out. Now that's settled, tell me your name."

  She was examining me closely, and I felt her eyes were missing nothing. I was glad I had put on a clean shirt and had shaved.

  Some mornings I don't bother to shave.

  "David Chisholm. What is yours?"

  "Laura Fancino."

  "But I thought you said you were an American. Fancino is a famous Italian name."

  "I am an American. My husband is Italian."

  I looked at her sharply.

  "Is an Italian or was an Italian?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "I think it does."

  "Then the answer is neither."

  Piero came over and put two glasses of Campari and a bottle of mineral water on the table.

  "The risotto will be ready in five minutes, signora. A drink with my compliments while you wait."

  I put my hand on his paunch and gave him a little push.

  "Go away, Piero; you are in the way."

  He walked back to the cash desk, smiling.

  "What do you mean—neither?" I asked. "Is he alive or dead?"

  "A little of both. He had an accident. He can't move nor speak, but he remains alive. He's been like that for four years."

  "I'm sorry. That's bad."

  "Yes, isn't it?" She poured a little mineral water into her glass.

  "Bad for me too."

  "I wouldn't have kissed you had I known," I said uneasily. "I'm sorry about that too."

  "Why did you do it?" She wasn't looking at me. Her slim fingers turned the glass slowly by its stem.

  "I wanted to. You have a pull like a magnet."

  She went on turning the glass. Silence hung over us for a long minute, then she said, "So have you."

  My heart began thumping against my side.

  "You told me to be brazen," she went on. "I liked you the moment I saw you. Is that brazen enough for you?"

  I laughed.

  "It's not bad. I'll tell you something. When I first saw you I felt as if I'd stepped on an electric cable."

  Piero came with the risotto at this moment. He opened the wine. We didn't say anything until he had gone back to the cash desk.

  "I can't understand why a man like you should be a guide," she said.

  "There's no other work I can do. I am what is called an unregistered alien: that's a secret, of course."

  "You mean you haven't a police permit to live in Italy?"

  "That's right."

  "But you could get one?"

  "I can't unless I can prove I have prospects of work, and I can't prove I have prospects of work unless I can produce a police permit. It is a typical Italian vicious circle."

  "Why are you living in Italy?"

  "I like the place, and I'm trying to write a book about the cathedrals of Italy."

  "You're the last person on earth who should be writing a book about cathedrals."

  "Do you think so? Before the war, when I lived in New York, I was an architect. Not a very good one, but I managed to scrape up a living. I joined up, and finally got out here. I got mixed up in the invasion of Italy. My unit was one of the first to reach Rome. I got bitten by the splendour of Italy, and decided I'd write a book about its cathedrals. I had already done some study on the subject. As soon as I was out of the Army I settled in Milan. I hadn't any money. I couldn't be bothered with the police formalities so I took on the job of a guide to the Duomo. That's my life story in a nutshell."

  "Wouldn't it have been better to have got a police permit?"

  "Maybe; I just didn't bother."

  Piero brought the cotoletti, a dish of veal cutlets, egged and breadcrumbed, fried in butter and served on the bone.

  When he had gone, she said, "Haven't you really any money?"

  "I have now."

  "But before ... when you said ..."

  "I work on a pretty narrow margin, but it doesn't worry me. But look, let's not talk about me anymore. Suppose you tell me about yourself?"

  She lifted her shoulders.

  "There's not much to tell. I worked for one of the Undersecretaries of State during the war. He came out here to help set up the Control Commission. I came with him. I met Bruno—that's my husband—and he asked me to marry him. He was very rich; you can't imagine how rich. I was sick and tired of working in an office; he seemed very much in love with me. So I married him. A year after, he had a car accident. He broke his back and injured his spinal cord. He had other horrible injuries. They said he couldn't possibly live, but they didn't know Bruno. There's nothing he can't do, once he makes up his mind. He made up his mind to live, and he has lived for four years, if you can call it living. He can't move; he has no use in his limbs, and he can't speak. But he just goes on living."

  "There's no hope for him then?"

  She shook her head.

  "I don't know how long he'll go on existing. The doctors say he might die tomorrow or he might go on for a year."

  The bitterness in her voice gave me a creepy feeling.

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  "Yes." She smiled suddenly. "So you see my life's a little complicated at the moment."

  "What are you doing in Milan?" I asked, feeling the bitter tension was still there in spite of her smile, and wanting to get away from it.

  "I have a hairdressing appointment at two. The atmosphere at home was so depressing I decided to come in early and look at the Duomo. I'm glad I did." Her eyes moved over my face like a caress.

  I thought of her husband unable to move and unable to speak.

  I wondered how I would have felt if I were in his place. His mind could never be at ease. He must be wondering all the time what she was doing whenever she was out of his sight.

  "He trusts me," she said. "He never thinks I'm human enough to give way to my feelings. He believes in loyalty and duty and self-control."

  I was startled she had seen so easily what had gone through my mind.

  "That puts you in a spot."

  "Up to now it has," she said slowly, not looking at me, "but I'm beginning to think I've been a fool. Four years is a long time; the best years of my life perhaps. I don't know how much longer it is going on for. It's not as if he would ever find out."

  I felt my blood move through my veins like a stranger through an empty house. The next move was mine. She only wanted someone to convince her, and that wouldn't be difficult. If I didn't convince her, someone else would before very long.

  But my mind couldn't get away from the image she had drawn of her husband. I kept putting myself in his place.

  "I wouldn't be too sure about that," I said. "Some people are very sensitive to atmosphere. He might cotton on very quickly. You would probably give yourself away. It wouldn't be very pleasant for him, would it?"

  She was idling with her glass, and suddenly her hand lay motionless on the table. She sat there for perhaps four or five seconds without looking at me or without moving, then she said: "It's nice of you to think of him. Most men wouldn't."

  "I'm not thinking so much of him as I am of you. I've had some experience of behaving badly. It creeps up on you in the night."

  She smiled then: a cold little smile that didn't reach her eyes.

  "Now I'm beginning to think you should go on writing that book, David," she said. "You sound almost like a holy man; certainly a man who could write about cathedrals."

  I felt my face turn red.

  "I guess I asked for that. But I can't help it: that's the way I feel. If he could stand on his own feet and fend for himself it would be different. I've always been a sucker about shooting sitting birds."

  "I like you for it, David." The light had gone out in her eyes now. She was talking to me across a gulf a hundred miles wide.

  "I suppose it would be shooting a sitting bird. I wish I had such sporting instincts. If I ever shot a bird, I'd prefer an easy shot to a difficult one." She glanced at her watch. "Just look at the time, I must run. I won't offer to pay for th
e meal. You wouldn't like that, would you?" She got to her feet. "Please stay where you are. I'd rather go alone."

  Well, I had asked for it, and I had got it.

  "Am I going to see you again?" I said, looking up at her.

  She laughed, and her eyes were genuinely amused.

  "Why should we meet again? I don't think I should be interested to hear about your cathedrals, and you wouldn't be interested to hear about my troubles."

  She was standing against the light, and I could see the outline of her shape under the blouse. My good intentions began to drain out of me. I suddenly realized what I was losing.

  "Wait a minute . . ."

  "Goodbye David; thank you for the lovely lunch, and go on writing your book. I'm sure it'll be a success."

  She walked down the aisle between the tables. Piero bowed to her and she said something to him, pausing in the doorway. The sunlight framed her into a silhouette. I could see the shadowy outline of her long slim legs and rounded thighs through. the linen skirt.

  She went into the street without looking back.

  I just sat there, feeling empty and angry, staring at the spot where she had stood, talking to Piero, thinking what a damned fool I was, and yet knowing I had done the right thing.

  Piero came down the aisle and stood by the table.

  "Was everything satisfactory, signor David?"

  "It was fine. Give me the bill."

  "The signora is very beautiful."

  "Give me the bill!"

  He went away and came back with the bill. He had lost his sunny smile.

  I gave him the thousand-lira note.

  "Keep the change, Piero."

  "But it is too much!" Piero said, startled. "You need the money. The bill is only…"

  "Keep the change and go to hell!"

  He went quietly back to the cash desk and sat down, looking at me with hurt, shocked eyes,

  I leaned forward to stub out my cigarette.

  Then I saw it.

  She had left her diamond clip by the ashtray, half hidden by her napkin.

  I knew she hadn't forgotten to take it with her. Somehow she must have sneaked it out of her handbag when she was leaving.

  She had left it there deliberately for me to find.

  Torrchi had a small flat in a side street off the Piazza Loreto.

  It was in the Piazza that the Partisans had dumped Mussolini's body for public display. Torrchi had always been a strong anti-Mussolini man, and he had made great efforts to find this flat so that every morning, when he set of to the Duomo, he could spit on the exact spot where Mussolini's body had been outraged by a shrieking, infuriated mob.

  Torrchi's flat was on the top floor of a dirty, dilapidated building that still had shrapnel scars on its walls, and on either side of it there still remained great mounds of rubble and bricks from the bombing.

  I climbed the four flights of stairs, stepping over the children who played on the landings, and nodding to the men and women I met on the way up who lounged in the open doorways.

  Torrchi returned home every afternoon for the siesta, and I knew I would find him in. He was a man of very regular habits; setting out for the Duomo every morning at nine-thirty, returning for lunch at twelve, and going to the Duomo again at four o'clock until seven. Except for two weeks' holiday each year when he visited his parents in Naples, he never altered this routine.

  I rapped on the front door and, while I waited, wiped my face and hands with my handkerchief. It was very hot on the top floor, and I could feel the heat of the sun burning through the flimsy roof.

  Torrchi opened the door himself. He was wearing a dirty white singlet and a pair of black trousers. He was barefooted, and beads of sweat lay on his round face as if he had just dipped his face in water.

  "Signor David!" he exclaimed, his face lighting up. "Come in. It is months since you have called on me."

  "It must be," I said, and followed him into the big, untidy sitting room.

  Lying on the couch by the window, wearing only a pair of pink panties, was Simona, Torrchi's mistress. She was a small, dark, voluptuous creature with big black eyes and short curly hair that always reminded me of a cap made of astrakhan.

  She gave me an indifferent stare, and then shifted her eyes to the window. A cigarette hung from her full lips, and grey ash had fallen on her small pointed breasts. Before she had joined up with Torrchi she had been an artist's model. Her nakedness caused her no embarrassment.

  "Take no notice of Simona," Torrchi said. "She is in a bad mood this afternoon. When it is less hot, I shall give her a sound beating, and then she will be sweet natured again."

  Simona said three obscene words without turning her head.

  Torrchi stifled a giggle.

  "Pay no attention to her, signor David, she is a mere animal. Sit down. I have some whisky I have been saving for just this occasion."

  I sat down at the table and watched Torrchi bring a bottle and two glasses, which he set before me.

  "I wish to apologize for the little incident this morning," he said, pouring two big whiskies. "The temptation was too great. You know this is the first time I have ever interfered with one of your clients."

  "I know it," I said. "But why did you take the diamond clip? You couldn't have got rid of it."

  Torrchi rolled some of the whisky around in his mouth, swallowed it and sighed, nodding his head.

  "Good Scotch whisky," he said. "A friend of mine gave me a case. Very good, very smooth. Try it."

  "You couldn't have got rid of the clip," I repeated. "Why did you take it?"

  "I could have got rid of it. I have a friend now who deals in diamonds. He pays very well."

  "What would he have given you for it?"

  Torrchi shrugged.

  "I don't know. It was dark in the Duomo this morning. I had no chance to examine it."

  I took the diamond clip from my pocket and put it on the table.

  "Examine it now."

  Torrchi sat very still, his round fat face expressionless, his eyes on the clip.

  Simona pushed herself of the couch and came over to the table.

  She stood behind Torrchi, scratching her thigh, and looking over his shoulder at the clip.

  "Give me my glass," Torrchi said.

  She went to the drawer, took out a watchmaker's glass and gave it to him. He screwed it into his eye and picked up the clip.

  There was a long silence while he examined it. Then he gave the glass and clip to Simona.

  She took even longer to examine it. Then she put the glass and clip on the table and went back to the couch. With the lazy movement of a cat, she stretched out on the couch and lit another cigarette, "Do you wish to sell it, signor David?" Torrchi asked.

  "What is it worth?"

  "I would give you two hundred thousand lire for it."

  Simona half started up, her lips coming of her white teeth in a snarl.

  "Fool! It isn't worth a hundred thousand! Have you gone crazy?" she demanded shrilly.

  Torrchi smiled at her.

  "Signor David is my good friend. I wouldn't cheat a friend. The true price is two hundred thousand."

  "Stupid ox!" Simona said furiously. "Who would pay you that for it? Give him ninety-five thousand! Do you have to ruin yourself for your friends?"

  "It is her bad tempter, signor David," Torrchi said. "She is really very fond of you. Take no notice of her. I will buy it for two hundred thousand."

  That meant the clip was worth at least three hundred, possibly four hundred, thousand.

  With an unsteady hand I picked it up and turned it slowly in my fingers.

  "She gave it to you, signor David?" Torrchi asked, watching me closely.

  "No. She left it on the table and forgot about it."

  "No woman would do such a thing. She gave it to you. I can have the money here by four o'clock."

  "Would it buy a passport, Torrchi?" I asked.

  He made a little grimace.

 
"I think not. Passports cost more than two hundred thousand, signor David."

  "Yes." I finished the whisky, pushed back my chair and stood up.

  "Can you lend me five hundred lire, Torrchi?"

  "You aren't selling it then?"

  "I don't think so. I want to think about it."

  "I will give you two hundred and thirty thousand. That is my best offer."

  "I'll think about it. Right now I want five hundred lire."

  Torrchi took out a thick roll of notes.

  "Have more. Have five thousand. Here, take it."

  "Five hundred will be enough."

  He shrugged his fat shoulders and pushed a five-hundred lira note across the table.

  "If you get a better offer for the clip, please let me know," he said. "Let me have the first refusal."

  "I will," I said, putting the note and the clip in my pocket.

  "Mad, crazy, stupid son of a monkey!" Simona screamed suddenly. "You will ruin us!"

  Torrchi saw me to the door.

  "It is because she wants me to buy her a new hat," he said under his breath. "She has twenty-six hats already. What does she want with yet another one?"

  "I wouldn't know," I said, shaking his hand. "I don't pretend to understand women."

  He gave me a sly wink.

  "But you get what you want, huh?"

  "Not always," I said, and went down the four flights of stairs and into the hot street.

  Four flies walked aimlessly across the ceiling, and then came swooping down to buzz irritatingly around my bed before climbing to the ceiling again.

  I lay on the bed and watched them.

  My room was on the ground floor of a big apartment house at the back of the Terra alla Scala. Sometimes when it was very hot and all the ventilators of the Scala were open I could hear the singing and the music. It depended too on the direction of the wind. Quite often I heard a whole opera for nothing.

  The room wasn't much. The only thing in its favour was that it was clean, and only because I kept it so myself. The furniture was very shabby and poor, and the wallpaper set my teeth on edge when I happened to look at it.

  There was a bed, an armchair, a washstand, a strip of carpet, and a very bad reproduction of Botticelli's Primavera on the wall opposite the bed.

  There was a table in the window recess, and on it was piled my notebooks and the leather bound manuscript I had been working on for four years. Under the table were my reference books: a lot of books worth quite a piece of money.