Читать книгу A House in Naples - Peter Rabe - Страница 10

“NUMBER ONE,” said Charley. “Tell me about that Amir.”

“To hell with that Amir. Him and me is through. Are through,” he added.

“Fine. When will you see him again?”

“Never!” yelled Delmont. “That pig darsen’t show his face over here, and good riddance.”

“You saw to that, eh, big shot?”

The drunk liked that so he laid it on thick. “For once, buddy boy, I didn’t have to lift a finger. Amir can’t get in the country anyway. They don’t think he’s desirable. So I didn’t have to do a thing.”

“Fine friends you got, big shot.”

“Friends! I’ll kill that bastard next time I see him! Five years in Cairo I show that bastard the ropes, introduce him to all the right elements, and then, so help me—”

“I know. He dumped you.”

“Wanna know what that bastard is doing? He—”

“Never mind, big shot.”

“He sells dope. I show him how. I show him the ropes and then he don’t trust me—me, his buddy—and gives me the boot.”

“Nice guy, big shot. He coulda just set you up for a hit. Save himself a trip back to Italy.”

The drunk got sly then and looked around like in a melodrama. “Not to me he wouldn’t do that, tourist buddy. I got powerful friends!”

“And they wouldn’t want you any deader.”

“That’s right, buddy, and Amir knows it. All the time I kept telling Amir don’t bend a hair on my head, Amir buddy, I got powerful friends here—”

“Okay, that’s enough.”

Charley pushed the bottle over, which interrupted the drunk. Number one was fine. Question number one was out of the way. Delmont had been in Cairo, maybe five years, and he wasn’t likely to run into that crowd over here. And when he came back he didn’t go through Customs.

“Number two,” said Charley.

“Two what, buddy boy?”

“Who’s Bantam?”

The drunk looked at the wall between here and the next room. There was mumbling and the sound of a bed.

“Rabbits,” said the drunk.

“Who’s Bantam?”

The drunk made a disgusted face. “Like I was telling you, buddy boy, he’s my powerful friend. He’s in business here, and what he says goes. He says no to Amir and Amir don’t operate. That’s who Bantam is, and he’s a buddy of mine.”

That’s who Bantam was, only the drunk had it backwards. Bantam was from the States and all he was doing was keeping up the contacts. He got paid from the States, he did what his bosses told him to do, and he was middle man for some of the syndicate’s business that went through Italy and maybe the Near East. If Amir was anything to Bantam, he was one of his suppliers. In that circle Bantam was small potatoes. To Charley he wasn’t. To Charley he was a man who knew Delmont.

“He’d give you his right arm, eh, big shot?”

“Sure. Haven’t seen old Bantam in maybe ten years, but we’re buddies. Always been.”

“Sure. You set him up in business.”

“That’s right, tourist buddy, that’s how it was. One day I meet Bantam—in Milano, I think—and being a countryman I take him in hand. He just got here. Green, I tell you, real green.”

“So you set him up.”

“Fixed him up. I show him this house where they got nothing but the best. High class from all over the world. You don’t just walk in there, buddy boy, and say ‘how about a jump?’ You gotta be introduced!”

“You introduce him.”

“Yeah. I show him the house. We been buddies ever since.”

“You get your cut, buddy?”

“Cut? This was friendship, you bastard. Like the other time. The other time—in Genoa, I think—I see him in that cafe there just by chance. I walk up to Bantam and say, ‘How’d you like some more of the same? Right here in Genoa?’ I don’t wait for an answer but run right over where I know this chick—I mean nice all around—and take her back to the cafe.”

“And Bantam is so horny since Milano he takes her right around the corner.”

“He wasn’t there,” said the drunk. “Been called away on business. That’s how big my buddy is. Sitting right there in that café—”

“That’s enough, big shot,” and Charley pushed the bottle over.

So number two was out of the way. Delmont didn’t know Bantam from Adam.

“Number three,” he said. This time he had to take the bottle away because Delmont had started to feel low. Delmont let go of the bottle but he almost fell off the chair, that’s how little he cared.

“And me that showed him the ropes, me—” Then he noticed the bottle was gone and turned mean again. “Look, tourist, get one thing. Nobody messes with Delmont, hear? Gimme that bottle, tourist.”

When Charley wasn’t fast enough the drunk spat in his face, from right across the table.

“You hear, tourist?”

Charley just wiped his face.

“I’m going downstairs now, tourist, and get that girl. Time those rabbits were off and gone, and when I come back you better be gone. I hate Peeping Toms, tourist.”

“I’m not, big shot. I’m not even making a peep. Here’s your bottle.”

“You wanna stay, huh? Wanna see how she screams, huh? I learned ways in Cairo, buddy boy, and I give no quarter!” He had started declaiming. “They mess with Delmont and they don’t even get a nickel!”

“Sit down, Casanova.”

“What did you call me?”

“Big shot.”

“Gimme that bottle.”

“Number three,” said Charley and he drank from his glass. His head was starting to pound, but that was better than the feel of pressure inside his chest, a pressure like any minute something was going to explode. Just a little while longer and then there would be no more of that ache, as if he were running without a breath but running to catch one.

“You got big friends,” said Charley. “You got any little ones? Just common-type people, like downstairs, like in Rome, in Naples—”

“Bastards,” said the drunk.

“Or Genoa?”

“Never been in Naples. Not since the place on Ischia.”

“In Thirty-five.”

“Before.”

“Don’t get around much any more, huh, big shot?”

“I get around. I get around plenty!”

“And make lots of buddies all over.”

“I don’t got the time, buddy boy. I don’t bother with small fry. Only reason I bring you up here is because you asked me. And I don’t often do favors, buddy boy, so watch your step.”

“That’s why you haven’t got any friends, big shot. You’re too big.”

“I got lots of ’em, boy. Don’t you worry.”

“But I do,” said Charley, and he smiled.

“Well, don’t. I don’t. Good riddance to those bastard friends.”

“What happened?”

“I run outa dough, that’s what happened, you bastard friend!”

“I know how it is, big shot. They sponge on you while you’re good for it and—”

“Naw. My friends is loaded. They don’t sponge.”

Charley waited.

“Know how I lost my dough, buddy?”

“At the tables.”

“The tables! You couldn’t lose that much dough at the tables! In the Crash, boy, in the big Crash!”

That was a long time ago. So must have been Delmont’s friends. He lost his dough in the Crash, sold his place on Ischia, stuck around, drifted, ended up the way he was now. Maybe he still had an income, some rich aunt back in the States. . .

“Made it all myself, boy. Every cent! I was made for that market, boy. When I hit New York from down New Hampshire way, I started running circles around that market. I—”

“That’s enough,” said Charley, but this time he let the man have the bottle. He hadn’t had any friends since ’29.

“And now number four,” said Charley and then he waited a minute because his head was going like mad. There was a head inside a head and they went in opposite directions.

“You don’t look healthy,” said the drunk. “Maybe you think I stink or something.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you’re laughing up your sleeve and calling me a liar, you sonofabitch.”

Charley hardly caught the tone of his voice so he just said, “Yeah,” and held his head.

When the drunk was all over him with vicious kicks and nails clawing it would have been easy to make him stop. But the drunk might pass out. He might go cold and never answer number four. Charley pushed him off like he was saving the guy. Then the drunk stopped. He was panting in the middle of the room, wanting to fight— better yet, wanting to do some big damage.

“What did you call me, buddy?”

“I called you a liar.”

“You? Calling me?”

“That’s right,” said Charley and he tried to think hard how to get to the point. “Because you can’t prove a thing,” he said finally. “All night you’re gassing at me, about Egypt and Amir, about landing here without passport, about being Italian and U.S.A. all at the same time—”

Charley waited. One thing about drunks, they always haul out the billfold and prove everything with papers. They haul out a library card to prove they can read. They haul out a baby picture to show they can make babies. And when really pressed they come up with their Mason’s card where it says Smith or something to prove they are Smith or something.

“Okay,” said Delmont, and he felt he had landed a sucker.

He got the suitcase and opened it. He looked at Charley over his shoulder. “Stand back, buddy. You’re peeping.”

When he turned back to the suitcase and pulled out underwear, someone in the next room gave a low laugh.

“What you say, tourist?” And the drunk spun around.

But Charley just stood there looking blank. His hands had started to tremble but he kept his face blank. And then the laugh again, from the next room.

“Out of my way!” the drunk said, and charged to the door. Charley saw how he threw it open and heard the crack when he tore into the next room. Then Charley didn’t listen any more. He turned to the suitcase.

First there was more underwear. There was a revolver in one of the socks and there was an unfinished letter.

And an Italian passport.

It was dog-eared and ancient. It had expired in 1938 and the picture in it was Delmont all right, looking meaner because there was muscle in his face and looking flashy as a matinee idol, with mustache, hair on the head, and a flower in the pinstriped suit. Delmont had changed from bastard to bum.

There was a sheet folded along old and worn creases and it said: Monarchy of Italy . . . hereby grants . . . to Richard Delmont, Citizenship of the Sovereign State of Italy. And some other details.

There was an old ration card, dated 1944.

There was a driver’s license.

A war registration, showing Delmont unfit.

Then the scream.

It brought Charley back, and all the noise from next door made awesome sense. “I got my buddy next door!” Delmont was screaming, “and once I call the cops we give testimony! I bet when your wife hears . . .”

Charley moved fast. The drunk would scream enough to stir up the whole house, and the larger the audience the sooner the carabinièri.

The girl was on the bed holding a sheet in front of her and the man stood there naked and didn’t care how it looked. He took a short step toward Delmont and talked low. Just the voice alone should have scared Delmont.

“The carabinièri!” yelled the drunk. “You aren’t married, you raping bastard, and the kid’s no more than twelve if she’s a day!”

Before Charley was halfway into the room Delmont reached for the sheet and tore it away from the girl.

There wasn’t a chance to get a good look at her. The man jumped at Delmont like a snake striking prey. Let the bastard get killed, Charley thought. He was out in the corridor again when he froze. Maybe it was the gasp from the girl, or the wet sound out of Delmont’s throat, but he turned and saw the man pull the knife out, and the drunk sank to the floor seeping blood.

He had to know. Charley came back and knelt next to Delmont, shaking him to find if he were still alive. The man had his pants on, and he slapped the girl’s face to make her move. He got her up, threw a coat over her shoulders, and pushed her toward the door. He stopped with his shirt half on, grabbed the girl’s arm with one hand and with the other one pointed the knife toward Charley. He held it steady.

“It was you,” said the man. “Look at him, Rosa.” He shook the girl. “It was this one!”

“It was this one,” she said, and the man tossed the knife across the drunk’s belly. It landed right next to his hand but he couldn’t use it. The drunk was dead.