Читать книгу A House in Naples - Peter Rabe - Страница 7

CHARLEY STOPPED RATTLING the aspirin box.

“If they look too hard we got a problem,” he said.

“So run,” said Joe.

It caught Charley by surprise, as if Joe was showing him the door but didn’t think he was going to use it himself.

“So run,” Joe said again.

Charley got up. When it stung him where the bandage was he hardly noticed.

“Run! I’m through running, you bastard! I’m sticking where I am because I like standing still for once, and I’m not doing you any favors and lam out of here pulling the chase after me. If they get me, Joe, they get you!”

“Not me, Chuck. With me everything’s legit.”

Charley sat down. He was grinning.

“Do tell. Like what, Joey? You going to marry little Fanny?” but Charley saw how the joke wasn’t making any dent. When Joe folded his arms he suddenly looked even bigger than he was.

“It’s like this, Chuck. They’re not looking for me, and if they were they couldn’t prove a thing. I been running the osteria and minding my own business at home. Right, Chuck?”

Charley nodded, kept listening.

“And if they get you, Chuck, you wouldn’t drag me into it, would you, Chuck?”

“Don’t get cute.”

“So there’s nobody after me in this country. I got Italian papers good as gold. Citizenship, Chuck. You didn’t know that, did you, Chuck?”

Charley hadn’t known that.

“Perhaps I look stupid, Chuck—”

“You do.”

“—but I’m not.”

“No, you’re not.”

“And I’ll show you why. That Corporal Lenkva you keep talking about, let’s say Uncle Sam is still looking for him. If they find him that means extradition. I can fight extradition, Chuck, because the Italians would have to arrest me—except they don’t arrest peaceful citizens that got no record and just run a tavern up in the outskirts. And here’s the payoff, Chuck. Uncle Sam’s not looking for me.”

“Oh no. They just want you to have a good time with Fanny and not bother about a little thing like a general court martial for desertion.”

Joe laughed and the sound bounced around for a while without going up or down.

“That’s the truth, Chuck. Remember that G.I. insurance? Well, it’s been seven years and more, so if somebody wants to collect they can make a request after seven years. The court declares me dead and they collect the money. That’s what my mother did. She went and had me declared dead and collected the ten thousand. So now it’s even legit for Uncle Sam. I’m dead and nobody’s looking.”

Charley thought about that and saw it was a neat setup. Joe hadn’t wasted his time. He had played all the angles. He was dead in the States and alive in Italy—with papers to prove it. When Joe said they were good as gold he must be sure they were. Joe had had ten years to find himself the best—so did Charley, except he hadn’t. He’d been glad to be standing still, to buy a residence permit once, a forged passport another time, and a birth certificate that didn’t match. He’d been standing still letting things drift, never worrying about details. But Joe, the moron . . .

“Joe, that insurance deal. I got—”

“Who’s your beneficiary, Chuck?”

“Old Benton. The old guy with the gas station.”

Joe shook his head and crossed his arms the other way. “No good, Chuck. You told me he’d died the year after you left, and had no heirs except you. Whoever you were then. And you never changed beneficiaries, did you, Chuck?”

He hadn’t. Just one of those things.

“Just one of those things, huh, Chuck? Uncle Sam figures you might be alive, the carabinièri know you are, and you know you haven’t got any papers. Messy, Chuck.”

Messy. Smart boy Charley who’d been on his own ever since he ran off from home, too smart to bother with details because details were for morons—he finally got it what a clever moron Joe Lenken was and how stupid a smart guy could be. Like all the other times when he had started to run.

“How’d you get those papers, Joe? From Del Brocco?”

“Naw. Del Brocco’s a forger. My papers are the real stuff I told you.”

“All right, where’d you get them? Don’t sit there like a lurch. You want this thing to blow wide open?”

“I told you, Chuck. I’m safe.”

Charley came around to Joe’s chair and bent down.

“Lenken, you’re safe as long as I’m safe. So don’t be coy with your Charley horse, Joe, because when I sink, you sink. Remember?”

“You’d drag me in?”

“No. But I wouldn’t make an effort to keep you out. Now listen to me. They may never get to me and then again they might. I’m leaving for Rome to see Del Brocco. Meanwhile—”

Somebody tapped on the door.

“Joey, you in there?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Joey, it’s me.”

“Who in hell—”

“Marco. I got to see you, Joey.”

“Talk through the door,” said Charley.

“That you, Charley? I didn’t know—”

“Now you do. And I’m fine. So talk.”

“They got Vittore,” said Marco. “The carabinièri just brought him into the gendarmeria. About a stolen truck.”

Marco waited, but nobody said a word behind the door. And Charley waited, hoping there wouldn’t be any more.

“That truck wasn’t stolen,” said Joe as if it was important.

Charley sucked air through his teeth and stepped to the door. “Okay, Marco. Beat it.”

Marco’s steps went away.

Charley hadn’t moved but the change was there. He looked quiet because he was holding it just a moment longer, before the fast rush to save what he could, the run for his life.

“I’m going to Rome. While I’m gone make me an alibi. Vittore might hold out a couple of days, but you make me an alibi. Then—”

“Like what, Chuck?”

“Like it was for you. Make it good, Joe, and no mistake. I’ll call you here every day, this hour. Keep your ears open and try to get Vittore out. Clear?”

It was clear to Joe he better not push Charley right then. Charley needed a name like he never did before, and this time when he started to run he meant it to be the last time. Joe saw him off that night. He watched Charley gun the motor of his Bugatti so it was good enough to jump clear across the bay.

“Addio,” said Joe.

“I’ll be back,” said Charley and then he watched the road shoot by.