Traitor's Gate

by Charlie Newton

  Eddie smelled cordite, could almost see, but couldn’t make his knees work. Saba propped him to her shoulder and they staggered uphill.

  From behind. “Halt!”

  Anistazio’s rifle cracked from the dome. Pistol fire behind them made Saba duck. Eddie fell. The pistols fired again. Saba struggled Eddie to standing and into an alley. He said, “Higher . . . a car up there.” Eddie’s shirt was pink. Saba looked back at the piazza, then patted his side. Eddie winced; he was shot at least once. Saba pushed them up the alley and into another. Their second alley crested a hill in the maze of streets. Sirens wailed from three directions. The alley was the width of a cart and too narrow to hide either of them. At the top of the next rise, Anistazio waved, then staggered left.

  The Sicilians’ car was a truck, the driver a brownish boy. Anistazio was bloody and gray-pale with his rifle slung over his back. He whispered foamy words to Eddie’s ear as they piled into the truck’s cab. The driver bounced them west then south, looping the city. Eddie felt sick, saw glary headlights spin, and passed out.

  Saba crushed her hand and fought it bloody out of one cuff, then ripped the leather belt off her neck, read the road behind them, then their driver hunched tight to the wheel, head barely high enough to see. He eyed her handcuffs, then Eddie and the rifleman bleeding, then quickly back to the road. Lightning lit the narrow street awash in rain but getting wider. Saba felt for Eddie’s pulse; his breathing was ragged but better. Rags were tied to the rifleman’s neck, arm, and leg. The rags were soaked red. A police siren wailed close by but invisible in the storm. The boy asked something in hurried Italian blanketed by thunder. Saba didn’t answer. The boy asked again.

  Gale hammered the road and truck. Saba barked: “No Italian.”

  The boy shouted Hebrew—

  Saba jerked back into the passenger window. The rifleman’s arm bounced limp over his head and across her leg—he had a faded blue tattoo under his armpit. Saba’s breath caught in her throat; she smeared at the blood:

  Irgun. The letters were Hebrew and meant “The Stand,” an Irgun identifier from the murdering militia’s earliest days in Jerusalem. Saba grabbed the rifleman’s bloody hand and found blue dots on his little finger. The boy driver grinned yellow teeth, nodded big, and started to speak. Saba reached over and across Eddie and the Irgun rifleman and ripped the pistol out of the boy’s belt. The boy wild-eyed her instead of the road. His truck veered into a wall, bounced off toward the sea. Saba jammed her foot across the gearshift to the brake. The truck skidded, grabbed, and everyone smashed forward into the dash. The truck crashed back into the wall and stopped. The boy’s hands were on the wheel. Slowly, he raised one hand above his head and spoke apologetic Italian: “Alto grande.”

  The Irgun rifleman was spread across Eddie and Saba’s lap. He spoke in wheezy broken English: “Anistazio. My name is Anistazio.”

  Saba aimed the pistol at the boy and glanced down at Anistazio’s face. Death crept into the Irgun murderer’s eyes. Irgun had killed many of her people and she had personally killed five of his kind. Rather than cut his throat, an odd reaction filled her. “You are a good soldier, Anistazio. You have saved us.” She hesitated, then smoothed his forehead, the same as she had done three of her own fighters in their final moments.

  Anistazio coughed blood, blinked, and tried to speak again. His eyes clouded and focused on hers. He said, “Yes, I am good soldier,” and died.

  The boy reached over Eddie for Anistazio’s face and cried out in Hebrew. Eddie mumbled blood into Saba’s shoulder. She pushed Eddie into the boy, fought the passenger door open, pulled out Anistazio’s body into the gale, and got back in.

  The boy shouted: “No!”

  Saba pulled the pistol and slammed it across Eddie into the boy’s head. His other cheek flattened against the driver’s window. She shouted, “Doctor. For him.”

  The boy’s eyes were sideways to their limits.

  “Doctor!”

  The boy stuttered, “D-Dottore?”

  “Yes. Dottore.” Saba pulled back. “Now!”

  The boy started the truck. The windscreen was green with wind-blown water. He said, “Dottore,” to the steering wheel and windscreen and inched the truck uphill, over a crest, then downhill toward the seafront. “Dottore.” The boy had tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. Saba braced with her feet, wrapped her left arm around Eddie against her shoulder, and wiped the blood off his mouth.

  “Breathe, Eddie.” She twisted the skin on his face.

  Eddie jerked with the pain. His eyes fluttered.

  Saba yelled at the boy, “Faster!”

  CHAPTER 38

  April, 1939

  The doctor’s office was the front rooms of his villa. Saba stood with her back to the locked door, pistol in hand. The boy sat cross-legged on the floor, Eddie on the operating table, the doctor over him. Through his mask the doctor said, “Two bullet holes, no bullets. He can live, if he is not moved.”

  Saba did not answer. If they were still here after the storm passed, she would die at the hands of the Irgun, the Italians, or the Nazis. Without the papers, Eddie’s value was Eddie—a price on his head by the British and the Spanish for sabotage. The Nazis would want him for their refineries. The doctor’s office had a telephone. Saba had Eddie’s money belt. She said, “We cannot stay and survive. He and I are fugitives.”

  The doctor turned his head to her, then went back to work.

  Saba continued. “We will leave you safe. But you must show us an exit from Italy.”

  The doctor spoke while he worked. “You are Albanian? Caught in Il Duce’s war?”

  Saba didn’t answer.

  “No? You are Jew? A fugitive from the Nazis?”

  Saba didn’t answer.

  The doctor said, “My patient is not a Jew, not of the kind I have seen. If you are not Jews or Albanians, then why are you with—” The doctor stopped, his hands busying with Eddie’s wounds. “The boy and his family are Gypsies, Jews, smugglers, the ‘old family of the coast.’”

  Saba was unsure what the doctor meant.

  “Pirates. Is your American a pirate? A gangster like our Lucky Luciano? If your American is Mafia, they can get him out of Italy. The Mafia does not love Il Duce.” The doctor worked until he finished, then removed his gauze mask and washed his hands. He faced her from his side of the room and did not demonstrate fear. Saba wanted to look at Eddie but did not.

  The doctor said, “You require a doctor’s attention as well.” He touched his face to mimic hers and shook his pants. “And dry clothes. And likely food and water.” He paused, inspecting her. “But you ask for none.”

  Saba waited for the Italian doctor to arrive at his destination. The boy on the floor shot glances between them.

  “And you are comfortable with your gun. And the manacles that hang from your wrist.” The doctor paused. “You are no pirate, no mafia. You are a soldier.” He paused again. “But whose?”

  “American.”

  The doctor smiled a cautious inch and shook his head. “No.” He tapped the cheekbone beneath his right eye.

  The boy craned from the floor. Saba glanced at his movement. The boy could not know, could not be sure; her face was too dirty and bruised. The boy pushed himself deep in the corner, eyes locked on her face. The doctor said, “There is a legend here among the pirates and smugglers, the Jews in particular. The women use it to scare their children into order.” He touched his cheekbone again. “This legend can do many things to those who incite her.”

  Saba stared at the doctor.

  He said, “I have heard this legend. And know it cannot be true, no woman could be this powerful.”

  Saba nodded. With two fingers she removed the ten franc note inside her pocket, pinned there with the numbers Eddie had given her for Doña Carmen, and placed the note and money on the sheet by Eddie’s feet. “These are numbers in America, in Texas.” She glanced at the phone. “You will call them, yes? And I will see to my man.”


  The doctor picked up the note, not the money.

  They waited an hour while Eddie fevered for his life.

  The doctor’s phone rang. He answered in Italian. Saba shouted, “English!” and aimed the pistol. The doctor went silent, listened, his eyes on her, nodded, handed her the phone, and backed away. Saba held the phone to her ear. “Yes?”

  Through the transatlantic static, a Texas accent said, “And who might you be, honey? Calling Texas from Bari, Italy?”

  Saba answered, “State your name.”

  Silence, static, then, “Floyd.”

  “Floyd Mer-weather?”

  “Close enough.”

  “I have Eddie Owen. Alive but shot. We are fugitives. Can you help him?”

  “How bad’s he shot?”

  “Cannot travel well, but we must.”

  “He’s there with you?”

  “Yes.”

  Static shrilled the line. “Hold on a minute.”

  Saba glanced at Eddie immobile on the table, then the boy terrified in the corner, then the doctor watching her on his phone.

  The phone said, “Where’s Bari?”

  “The eastern coast.”

  “Hold on.” Two minutes passed. “Can you get our friend to Naples? Supposed to be their big port on the west coast?”

  Saba asked the doctor. He shook his head.

  “No. Eddie is not strong enough.”

  “Naples is the best I can do, honey. Pretty damn good, considering middle of the fuckin’ night in a goddamn foreign country. Maybe you work a little harder on your end or go back to your kitchen.”

  Saba squeezed the pistol in her hand. “Where in Naples?”

  The doctor said, “No. He cannot—”

  Saba waved him silent. “Where in Naples?”

  “The harbor. Main dock. Eddie can get a ship with a hospital; big passenger ships from all over dock there in Naples. Go inside the harbor station. If there’s an ocean liner in the port, I’ll know the name by the time you get there. You and Eddie will have a cabin booked for ‘Mr. and Mrs. Benny Binion.’ If there’s no ocean liner in port, hide till one arrives. Won’t be long; supposedly, they sail in and out all the time.”

  “You can do this? From Texas?”

  “Where the fuck you from, lady? I said it, didn’t I?”

  The drive to the outskirts of Naples was an endless series of turns, dips, and climbs. The gale stayed just to their south, walling off the entire of Southern Italy and Bari’s dead policemen and Nazis. Eddie coughed blood onto Saba’s pants the entire way. Saba had the boy in front of her in the front seat of the doctor’s Fiat coupe and the doctor’s wife behind the wheel. Eddie was in the back with the doctor and her. The doctor picked the lock on her handcuffs and constantly admonished his wife to drive slower. The almost six hours had not been easy on Eddie. The doctor’s drugs masked Eddie’s condition. He was pale, his breathing ragged, and Saba could do nothing about it.

  The Naples harbor station was large and new and beneath a castle. Saba blinked. All of Europe must be ports and castles. Ships were in the port. Soldiers were everywhere—Italy was sixteen hours into her war with Albania. The doctor, his wife, and the boy were on the outskirts of town, unharmed but isolated, for how long, Saba couldn’t know, other than they had been good to her and would be free soon.

  Saba drove the doctor’s Fiat down the seafront road past the street vendors and merchants of the docks. Behind them, an enormous, awe-inspiring vessel held the main berth. The flag was French, an ocean liner, the SS Normandie. It was the finest vessel Saba had ever seen, slung high to low, the bow a sharp, towering, deep V, three red smokestacks, and black-and-white hull trimmed in red. Saba could not imagine what it was like aboard. The Europeans lived in a world so foreign their palaces could travel.

  Saba parked the doctor’s Fiat away from the harbor station’s grand entrance. She checked Eddie resting in the backseat, donned the long coat and scarf provided by the doctor’s wife, and walked inside to be Mrs. Benny Binion. Saba had one pistol, a knife from the doctor’s office, boots that had been in the sea, and no travel documents. As instructed, she would state her name to the ship’s purser. He would assure their boarding or he would betray them. One or the other. It could all easily end here.

  The harbor station was as grand on the inside as the SS Normandie was on the outside. The lobby bustled with well-fitted passengers—men in vested suits, women in lace hats, tailored coats, and dresses with matching gloves, their servants better dressed than Saba had ever been. Porters in maritime uniform pushed carts of leather valises and wardrobe trunks across the marble floor. Ceremonial Royal Italian soldiers lined the monumental walls . . . an amazing, surreal grand ball from The Great Gatsby. In better times, Saba would have gawked. Walking through the money of Europe, she smelled the perfume and the coffee, listening to the lilt of dignified voices, men of position who would soon sail away from the war.

  Saba read the queue for travel documents she did not have, gripped her pistol under the coat, and presented herself as Mrs. Benny Binion. Immediately Saba was passed through the queue. Without touching her, two uniformed crewmen spoke nonstop at her shoulders of their deepest wish to be of service for the entire voyage. Saba stopped them when she was willing to believe this was no trap. She explained she must return for her husband, Mr. Benny Binion. He was briefly ill, under a physician’s care—

  Both crewmen said they were aware and a place had been made in the ship’s sickbay, a hospital. All would be well.

  Saba hid her surprise. Who were Benny Binion and Floyd Mere-Weather? She asked the two crewmen to provide porters who would assist when her husband arrived in a few short minutes. Could they meet her at the main entrance? Both crewmen said they would see to it and escorted her back through the travel documents queue. She asked if they could remain, so that her husband’s process through this queue could be as simple as hers.

  The men said that this was their honor.

  Saba thanked them and walked through the station, past guards and passengers who had seen the flurry of activity around her. They would wonder about her clothing beneath the woman’s coat—that of a man, rough and unfashionable. Possibly they would think her an actress or an eccentric heiress of some type. Saba stepped outside, walked past the street vendors to the doctor’s car, and slid in the backseat with Eddie. He was up and sitting. She was shocked.

  He said, “Where are we? The ocean’s on the wrong side.”

  Saba stared. Eddie stared back. “What?”

  Saba checked his pulse, then his forehead for fever, then his eyes.

  Eddie said, “Maybe you should kiss me.”

  Saba found a smile that surprised her. “You are under a doctor’s care. Such an act may kill you.”

  “Try me.”

  “We are at a ships’ berth in Napoli, the coast away from the Italians’ war. We are Mr. and Mrs. Benny Binion of Dallas, Texas—”

  “You talked to Floyd and Benny?”

  Saba nodded. “I believe it is safe, although I cannot promise this. The ship is French, bound for New York City. You will be met there, possibly by police if the phone call was overheard. If not, then a train to Ne-va-da”—she had trouble with the word—“not Texas; you cannot go to Texas now.”

  Eddie’s eyes added light and focus. “No shit, we made it?”

  Saba nodded. “Possibly, yes. If we can get aboard . . . and I believe we can. Your Mr. Binion is an important man.”

  Eddie grinned to his limits, reached, hugged Saba to him, winced at the pain, and held on anyway. “I don’t know what to say. Thanks. For everything. Now it’s my turn. I swear to God I’ll make you happy.”

  Saba didn’t answer; she held on.

  “Nevada’s a desert, like yours. They just built this gigantic dam, the Hoover Dam. Mr. Binion has his eye on a gambling town, Las Vegas; maybe that’s what we’ll do first. I don’t know. I’ll get my family out there—you’ll love them and Benny and Floyd, too—it’ll be good, Saba
, better than you can imagine. Mr. and Mrs. Eddie Owen.” Eddie was out of breath and stopped.

  Saba pushed back from him and smiled best she could into his jubilant blue eyes. “I love you, Eddie. You know this, yes?” She nodded for him to nod.

  He kissed her instead. She kissed him back, intending the kiss to be soft and short. Her lips pressed into his; both her hands gripped into his clothes. Tears formed in her eyes. She squeezed, hoping to stop the tears from her cheeks, but could not.

  Eddie’s lips told hers: “Don’t cry; you can still be a cowboy in Nevada.”

  Saba swallowed a small laugh, pushed back, and wiped at her eyes.

  She started to speak and Eddie said, “God, you’re beautiful.”

  “I cannot go with you . . . to America.”

  Eddie pushed back in the seat, breathed deep against his arms clutched across his wounds, and didn’t speak. Silence filled the space between them. Eddie swallowed again and nodded small. He curled his lips against his teeth and said, “I know.”

  Saba’s face blanked, unable to hide her surprise. Eddie was a boy, but he was not. She had seen it clearly when they were in the worst of times and she saw it now.

  Eddie grabbed her hand. “I know. But you’ll marry me. Here, right now.”

  Saba laughed in her throat and the tears welled again. “You would have a wife who is only a memory? Who you will never know in your bed? Her and no other?”

  “Not a memory. I’ll see her again. At first, it’ll be every night in those stars.” Eddie pointed at the roof of the Fiat. “And when the war is over, and Palestine is free, I’ll come and get her, wherever she is, whatever she’s done.”

  “You are a boy—”

  “Yeah, a boy who scares the Raven with just his fingertips.”

  Saba reddened at the challenge, then exhaled and said a breathy, “Yes. His hands and his heart frighten me.” She swallowed. “And I wish them both.”

  “Get on the boat.”

  Saba leaned back. “I will send two porters to the car. They will take you to the crewmen who will take you aboard your ship to America. My fight is in Palestine, not our bed. Not in this lifetime, but in the next.”