Man on Fire (A Creasy novel Book 1)

by A. J. Quinnell

  He hadn’t known then, and didn’t know now, that Guido had seen himself at the same age.

  Guido always treated the boy much as he had on the first day — gruffly, always abrupt, and without the least sign of affection. Pietro, in return, retained his original cheeky, disrespectful attitude. Both knew the affection that existed, but it never showed. It was a very un-Italian relationship. Over the years, Pietro had developed into a practical right arm for Guido and, with the help of two aged waiters who came in to serve lunch and dinner, they ran the small pensione between them.

  In spite of living with him for so long, Pietro knew little of his past. Guido’s mother came to the pensione on rare occasions and was garrulous and had talked about Guido’s brother and his family in Milan, and about Julia, who had died five years before. But she was strangely silent about Guido’s own past. Pietro knew that he spoke perfect French and passable English and Arabic, and assumed he had travelled widely. He never asked questions. Guido’s reticence had rubbed off on him.

  So the new arrival puzzled him. When the bell had rung just before midnight he had assumed that Guido had returned early. The big man standing under the light had appeared menacing at first.

  “Is Guido in?” he had asked. Pietro had noticed the Neapolitan accent.

  He had shaken his head.

  “When is he coming back?”

  Pietro had shrugged. The man had not seemed surprised by this lack of cooperation.

  “I’ll wait,” he said and brushed past the boy and walked up the stairs and out onto the terrace.

  Pietro considered for a few moments and then followed him. He felt he should get angry, demand an explanation, but the feeling of menace was gone. The man was sitting in one of the cane chairs that were scattered about. He was looking down at the lights of the city. His manner and demeanour reminded the boy of Guido.

  He asked if the man wanted anything.

  “Scotch,” had come the reply. “A bottle if you have it.”

  He had brought the bottle and a glass, and then after some more thought had just asked the man his name.

  “Creasy,” he answered. “And you?”

  “Pietro. I help Guido here.”

  The man had poured the Scotch, taken a sip, and looked hard at the boy.

  “Go to bed. I won’t steal anything.”

  So Pietro had gone downstairs and despite the late hour phoned Guido at his mother’s. Guido had said, “Alright, go to bed. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow.”

  They were preparing lunch when Guido surprised the boy by suddenly remarking: “He’s American.”

  “Who?”

  Guido pointed at the ceiling. “My friend. Creasy.”

  “But he speaks perfect Italian — Like a Neapolitan.”

  Guido nodded. “I taught him.”

  Pietro’s surprise continued as Guido went on to talk at length.

  “We were in the Legion together, and afterward — until eight years ago, when I married.”

  “The Legion?”

  “The Foreign Legion,” Guido said. “The French one.”

  The boy became excited. For him, as for most people, the words conjured up all the wrong images: sand dunes, remote forts, unrequited love.

  “I joined in 1955 in Marseilles.” Guido smiled at the keen interest on the boy’s face. “I was in for six years.” He stopped chopping at the vegetables and his normally impassive face softened slightly at the memory.

  “It wasn’t like you think. It never is. They were good years — the best.”

  It was the arrival of Creasy and the boy’s obvious curiosity that triggered Guido’s memory and took him back to 1945. Eleven years old. A father dead in North Africa. A six-year-old brother, always hungry, and his own hunger. A mother whose faith and fatalism were such that her only answer to catastrophe was to pray, harder and longer, in the church at Positano.

  Guido had no such faith. He had walked the fifty kilometres to Naples. He knew the Americans were there and so food was there.

  He became one of the army of scroungers, and discovered a gift for it. He had a keen intelligence, and what he couldn’t beg, he stole. He quickly established himself, with a corner of a cellar to sleep in, among half a dozen other urchins, and he learned the ways of the Americans, their weaknesses and generosities.

  He learned which restaurants they ate in and which bars they drank in, and the brothels and the women they sated themselves in. He learned the best time to beg: when drink had fuelled their generosity; and the best time to steal: when sex and desire diverted their attention. He learned every bend and corner of the narrow, cobbled streets, and he survived. Once a week he walked the coast road back to Positano, carrying chocolate and money and tins of meat. Elio no longer went hungry and his mother prayed and lit candles in the church, her faith justified, her prayers answered.

  Hunger and necessity are poor teachers of morality. A society that cannot provide the basics of life does not get its laws obeyed. Guido never went back to live in Positano. Naples was his school, his breadbasket, and the horizon of his future. First he just survived, living like a rodent on the refuse of the city; after the mere fact of survival, his intelligence took him on. By the time he was fifteen he led a dozen others like him, organized into a gang that stole anything that couldn’t be bolted or cemented down. Childhood simply passed him by. He knew nothing of children’s games, of childlike emotions. “Right” was first survival and then possession. “Wrong” was weakness and getting caught. He learned early that boldness was the key to leadership. Others watched and waited, and when they recognized boldness, they followed.

  The Americans liberated the city and they liberated crime. Under the Fascists, first Italian and then German, the criminals had lean pickings. Without the protection of fair, democratic, and therefore pliable justice, they lost their power. Even the biggest and most highly organized criminals had been shot or thrown into jail, and many innocents as well. The Americans released the innocents, and the criminals with them. Justice and crime returned to Italy hand in hand.

  By the early 1950’s the organization had clicked back into place. Prostitutes, many of them coerced by hunger, were brought under control. The bosses assigned districts, designated pimps, and took their percentages. The wartime damage was repaired. Marshall Aid funded the reconstruction, and the bosses took their cut. Restaurants and shops and taxis and landlords began making profits again and the bosses protected them against criminals and were naturally paid for the service.

  Guido fitted neatly into this pattern. With his well-organized gang of adolescents he operated as an instrument in the reborn structure. He was recognized and rewarded as a coming young man. His particular asset was his violence — calculated, but seemingly mindless in execution. He had learned the lesson early that unexpected pain is the quickest way to get someone’s attention. He used to tell his followers:

  “Always retaliate first.”

  He was assigned an area behind the docks and his main job was to emphasize to the local small businessmen that protection was necessary. Having provided the proof, he then provided the protection. So he had prospered, and as an additional reward was allowed to operate on the docks themselves. He and his gang practiced larceny on a grand scale. As supplies and equipment for the post-war reconstruction poured through the docks, a gratifying amount was diverted and usually resold to its original consignees. With accumulated profits, he bought the building that housed the present pensione.

  It had been the house of a moderately wealthy merchant and was spacious and well-built, with a fine large terrace overlooking the bay. The merchant had died, and his two sons had been Fascists, and in the confused situation at the end of the war, they too had died. The house passed to a nephew who had also been a Fascist — but not confused. He decided to go to America, and with the money he got for the house was able to arrange the necessary papers.

  Guido bought the place in his mother’s name, since he was still a minor. Then he p
artitioned the large rooms and turned it into a brothel for the exclusive use of American officers. It did well and was known familiarly as the Splendide. Guido’s mother, unknowingly but happily, banked the profits and lit candles in the church.

  By 1954 Guido had put himself in a position to move up within the structure and foresaw a long and rising career ahead of him. But as the bosses above him prospered, so they argued, and finally they fought. The structure, nationwide, had not yet become as solidified and disciplined as in pre-Fascist days. The old bosses from the south had not yet been able to impose their authority. They had just begun to do so in Rome and in the industrial north, but they had left Naples until last. It was traditionally the least tractable city in Italy, and its criminals were no exception.

  Two factions struggled for power in Naples. Guido had had to choose, and so made the first mistake of his budding career. He aligned himself with a boss called Vagnino, and this was perhaps natural, as Vagnino’s strength lay in prostitution and the docks. But Vagnino was old, and had spent too long in prison, and lacked the will. Consequently, the war went badly for Guido and his gang. Being low in the scale of things, they were in the forefront of the battle. Within a month, half his gang were dead or had deserted, and Guido himself was in the hospital, his back and buttocks pitted with lead from the blast of a shotgun. He was lucky — he could have been facing the other way.

  While he lay on his stomach, his mentor Vagnino, tired and careless, ate dinner in the wrong restaurant and was shot to death before he finished the fritto misto.

  At this point, the police made a belated show of their authority. Newspapers and politicians demanded action. Deals were struck between the victors, led by one Floriano Conti, and the public prosecutor.

  Evidence was provided and an assorted dozen low echelon operators were tried and sent to prison. Guido was among them. Sitting stiff and sore in the caged box in the courtroom, he heard the judge sentence him to two years in prison. He was eighteen years old.

  Prison had been a terrible shock. Not the hardships or the indignity — his upbringing had prepared him for that. He discovered that he suffered from mild but positive claustrophobia, which manifested itself in acute depression. The Italian penal system of the time took no cognizance of such problems and he suffered badly.

  For two months after his release he stayed in Positano. Not in his mother’s home, but on the hills above the town, sleeping in the open, high above the cliffs and with the space of the ocean in front of him and the hills ranging far behind. He slowly readjusted and he resolved never to allow it to happen again. The experience had not reformed him, but in the future getting caught was not an option. Out there in the open, he also thought about his future. The Splendide brothel in Naples had been closed down by the police; the building was unoccupied and producing no income. In the past two years, Conti had tightened his grip on the city and cemented working alliances with influential officials, both in the police and the local government. Guido knew that to put the Splendide back into business he would need Conti’s tacit approval, so his first act on arriving in Naples was to seek a meeting.

  Conti was still a young man, in his middle thirties, and he was of the new breed of bosses. Having established his territory by violence, he now adopted the posture of the practical businessman. He realized that to take full advantage of his power it was necessary to come to arrangements with other nationwide bosses. Cooperation was the theme, and when emissaries had arrived from Palermo he had agreed to a series of meetings to establish spheres of influence and a pecking order of power.

  These meetings during 1953 — 54 were curiously similar to the election of a Pope — held in great secrecy, and the result announced by something less than a puff of smoke. A great deal of jockeying for position went on. The hard traditionalists from Calabria did not want the more sophisticated bosses from Milan and Turin to have too much power. Similarly, those in the centre from Rome and Naples wanted more of a say than had been normal before the war. Everybody accepted that there had to be order and structure and that someone had to be an arbitrator — which, in effect, meant the man of most influence.

  The bosses of the north wouldn’t accept the Calabrians and vice versa. Moretti in Rome was considered too weak and Conti himself too young.

  As usual under such circumstances, a compromise was reached. The meetings had been instigated and organized from Palermo. The boss there was Cantarella. Small, dapper, and a diplomat. He was quietly determined to re-establish Palermo as the fountainhead and he had read the signs properly. The compromise installed him as interim arbitrator. None of those present fully appreciated his cunning and political genius and were not to realize that over the next twenty years those gifts would sustain and strengthen his position. The scene was set for a long period of relative peace — and great profit for all concerned.

  Guido had been surprised and gratified by the warmth of Conti’s greeting and also impressed by the business-like appearance of the offices. The savagery of two years ago truly was a thing of the past. Bygones were bygones, Conti assured him. Things were different now. Certainly he should reopen the Splendide. They would cooperate. Financial arrangements would be made.

  Guido had left the office feeling confident. His confidence was misplaced. Conti had not forgiven. Guido and his gang had been the most lethal arm of the opposition and Conti would not allow him to re-establish himself.

  But one of the first edicts from Palermo had been that internal fratricide was to be kept to a minimum. Conti did not yet feel strong enough to defy the new arbitrator. He had an obvious solution. Let Guido reopen his brothel, and at an appropriate time Conti would withdraw his protection. The police would do his job for him and his connections in the judiciary would ensure that Guido was put away for a long time. It was a modern, progressive solution.

  Guido did not explain all this to Pietro. He started his story at the point when he received a tipoff that his protection had been lifted and that the police were coming for him. He never knew who it was who called him that night, but obviously Conti had his own enemies. It had been a terrible moment. He realized that Conti had not forgiven and he reviewed his options. They were bleak: He could hide, but not for long. Either the police or Conti’s people would eventually find him. He could fight, but he couldn’t win. Finally, he could leave the country. He never considered trusting himself to the courts. Prison was not an option.

  He had written a letter to his mother, giving her the name of an honest lawyer in Naples and instructing her to have that lawyer rent out the property and ensure that the proceeds were used for her support and Elio’s continued education. He finished by telling her that he would be away, perhaps for a long time. Then he went down to the docks where he still had friends who could hide him, if only for a few days.

  His mother received the letter the next day and went to the church and prayed. The same night Guido was smuggled aboard an old freighter and two nights later was smuggled off in Marseilles. He was twenty years old, with little money and no prospects. The next day he signed on with the Legion and within a week was in Algeria at the training camp at Sidi-bel-Abbès.

  “Were you frightened?” asked Pietro. “Did you know what to expect?”

  Guido shook his head and smiled briefly at the memory.

  “I had heard the usual stories and I thought it would be terrible, but I had no choice. I didn’t have papers. I couldn’t speak anything but Italian, and I had very little money. Besides, I figured after a year or two I could desert and come back to Naples.”

  It hadn’t been like the stories at all. Certainly it was tough, especially the first weeks; and the discipline was implacable. But he was tough himself, and the training interested him and developed latent talents. The discipline he accepted, for again he had no choice. Punishment for disobeying orders was either a spell in the punishment battalion, which was hell on earth, or, for minor offenses, the stockade, in which his case would have been worse. He was careful, there
fore, to obey all orders, and was a model recruit, which would have surprised a lot of people in Naples.

  He too had surprises. The first was the food — varied and excellent, with good wine from the Legion’s own vineyards. His mistaken concept of the Legion as an old-fashioned romantic desert army was quickly dispelled. It was highly modern, with the most up-to-date equipment and techniques. Its officers were the cream of the French army and its non-commissioned officers, promoted from the ranks, were veterans of Europe’s armies and had been battle-hardened all over the world. There was a large German contingent, whose collective memory went back only to 1945. East Europeans, who didn’t want to or couldn’t go back behind the Iron Curtain. Spaniards, who might have been debris from the Civil War. A few Dutchmen and Scandinavians, and several Belgians, some of whom were probably French, as French citizens were not accepted in the Legion except as officers. There were very few Englishmen, and only one American.

  The Legion was reconstituting itself after the shambles of Vietnam and Dien Bien Phu. Several thousand Legionnaires had been captured at that battle and over fifteen hundred killed. By its nature and composition, it was a corps invariably used as a last resort. Its history was a history of lost, last, futile battles. For a government losing an empire with poor grace, it was gratifyingly expendable.

  Such an army under such a sentence could be excused for a lack of purpose or morale, but to Guido this was another surprise, for the Legion generated its own purpose. It fed off its lack of nationalism to create its own entity. A Legionnaire was a mental orphan — the Legion itself the orphanage. Guido discovered that it was the only army in the world that never retired its soldiers. When too old to fight, a Legionnaire could, if he wished, stay on in the Legion home, or work in its vineyards or its handicraft centre. He was never forced to go out into a world he had rejected.