A House in Naples

by Peter Rabe

  Chapter 3

  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.

  Chapter 4

  Del Brocco was an artist. It meant he knew he was good, he kept no regular hours, and his prices were over the top. That was because his customers knew he was good. But Del Brocco lived in a part of Rome where the gutter was in the middle of the street and if you stood on a house balcony on either side you could drop things straight down and make the gutter.

  Charley parked on a market square and walked the rest of the way. It was dark. There were no lights, no house numbers, but Del Brocco’s house stood out. It had a seventeenth-century doorway which in itself meant little enough in that part of town. But his house was built of the biggest stones, going back to the time when they looted the Colosseum to build their dark little houses behind the walls of Rome.

  When Charley tapped on the door nobody answered. After a while a girl opened the window across the street and leaned out. Even if Charley hadn’t understood her Italian he would have known what she meant. He told her something so she closed the window and then he tapped again. He tapped three, two, one, three, which he should have remembered sooner and when the door opened, Del Brocco’s sons were there. The short one was six feet and the tall one a lot more.

  “Del Brocco. I’m Charley.”

  “He is not here.”

  “For me he is. Let me in.”

  “He is not here, signore.“

  “Don’t sign
ore me. Tell Del Brocco — ” They grabbed his arms, heaved at the same time, and Charley was where the gutter was.

  If the fall hadn’t made his side hurt like hell he might have done it differently, but he picked himself up slowly and walked to the grilled window in the front of the house. He hung his jacket on the grillework, making it drape so it looked like something, and then he went back to the gutter. He brought back a stick and punched out all of Del Brocco’s little leaded windows.

  Six foot and six foot plus came out of the door like heroes taking a town singlehanded, and just about when they started to tangle with Charley’s coat he walked through the door, banged it shut, and threw the bolt. Then he looked for Del Brocco.

  Like the two boys had said, the house was empty. There were Del Brocco’s antiques, his tapestries and expensive furniture, and his stamp collection was open on his desk. So Charley went back to the front room where the broken window was. He climbed on a carved chest, opened one side of the old window, and leaned against the grillework. “Hey,” he said.

  They ran up under the window and started to curse. After a while they stopped.

  “Where’s Del Brocco?” said Charley.

  “He is gone, he left before you came, days ago, even a week, you — ”

  “When’s he coming back?”

  One of them kept cursing and the other one complained about the window “The fifteenth-century window,” he moaned, “the irreplaceable — ”

  “Shut up a minute.”

  When they did he leaned on the sill the way the girl had done it and tried again.

  “About the window, boys, don’t worry about it. Just think what might happen to the stuff inside here and nobody stopping me.”

  They held still and listened.

  “When’s he coming back?”

  “One month and three days, signore.“

  “Ah yes. Those three days. And where is he?”

  “In prison, signore.“

  That took care of Del Brocco. And Charley. He almost felt like breaking something else but he let it go.

  “And who takes care of his customers in the meantime?”

  “Signore, no one can take care of — ”

  “I know. But who else is there?”

  “There is Alivar.”

  “Where?”

  “The bookstore on the Via Claudia.”

  “And now if you’ll hand me my jacket — shake it out a little. That’s it — ”

  They handed it through the grillework and Charley put it on.

  “When I come out, boys, I’ll tell you about the window. Nothing to worry about. I’ll explain,” he said and got off the chest and went to the door. When he had it open they were waiting for him.

  “Del Brocco told me,” he said, “not to worry about the window. It’s false, you know. The real one is up in the attic. Back where he keeps the dismantled altar.”

  They went past him to get to the attic; and Charley walked out. He didn’t know about the window, though he had seen the altar up in the attic. He thought it might be nice if there were another window.

  • • •

  This time the street was wider, letting the moon shine down to the cobblestones. Alivar’s little shop was one in a row Alivar was asleep. After ringing the bell for a while Charley said polizia through the door and that got the old man up.

  He wasn’t so old, he only looked wrinkled with severe lines running down the side of his nose and cold eyes that never changed even when Charley told him about Del Brocco.

  “You may speak English,” said Alivar. “I myself am not an Italian.”

  “So you know how it is,” said Charley.

  When Alivar nodded, Charley wondered what he had understood. They went the length of the stalls, through a back room with more books and a canopied bed, and up to the second floor. It was a bare attic, without windows, and even though it was three in the morning the heat was thick under the roof. Alivar did not sweat.

  “You need a name?”

  “The works. Birth certificate, naturalization papers, driver’s license, registration — money’s no object.”

  “It is with me,” said Alivar.

  “With me it’s only time.”

  “About one month,” said Alivar.

  “Too long. How about just a passport? An American passport.”

  Alivar laughed as if he were listening to a child. “Unobtainable,” he said.

  “Del Brocco could get me one.”

  “Yes. He is also in jail.”

  They argued a little longer, but it wasn’t any good. Alivar went down to his canopied bed and for 20,000 lire Charley stayed in the attic and slept past daylight. Then the heat drove him out.

  Charley started to make the rounds. With Del Brocco and Alivar he had run out of the high-class artisans. What came next were the defunct engravers, and when he ran out of those he saw the thieves who stole papers. In ten years’ time he had heard of most of them, and spending this day was almost like another ten years. By noon he was limping with the pain in his side, but when he ran out of aspirin by three m the afternoon he still kept going. He was running for the last time, he had to have his name — one that stuck — even if it meant it would go only on his tombstone.

  None of them were any good; cheap forgeries dolled up to be good enough for one quick look or stolen papers with a tracer on them since the minute they were lifted. It seemed to get worse by evening — everything, the heat, the rain, and the slipshod ware he was looking at. For once in his life he needed the real thing and while he kept running he kept telling himself it was going to be over soon and then he’d never run again. If he made it in time.

  Chapter 5

  Two thousand years ago Rome had a harbor, Ostia. Today Ostia is like Coney Island, with the same kind of fry odors, tinsel excitement, and brass sounds of all Coney Islands. It shuts down after a while, late at night, and only some places stay open. There is a ring of permanent buildings at the edges of Ostia, old and ratty, and that part of Rome doesn’t have the excuse of real age, of being antique. It just stinks. There are rooming houses, some dives, and the usual osterias.

  Charley sat in the crowded place and ate his Piatto del Giorno. It smelled more like fish than fish ought to. He looked at the packed bar, the tables that made an untidy clutter all over the room. There was a door to the corridor in the back and every so often somebody went there. It wasn’t the toilet. The toilet was outside, in the rear.

  Charley pushed his plate away and moved carefully in his chair, because of his side. It was nighttime, after a bad day. He still had no name. He sat and was still running. Maybe the way things were going he wouldn’t need a new name. They’d dig up the old ones and then maybe they’d give him a number.

  He ate an aspirin and ordered some coffee. The long bar was only a few feet away, but he had to yell for it because of the racket. He watched the girl wind herself his way with the cup and the pot but it took her a while. There were a lot of customers who weren’t thinking of buying coffee when she came by and then a French sailor walked up and had a discussion with her. He put his duffle bag on Charley’s table so there wasn’t much room for anything else and then his buddy came up. While they were trying to convince the girl the buddy kept sipping from the coffee she was holding. She must have said the right thing after a while because they let her pass, the sailor picked up his duffle bag, gave Charley a friendly nod, and helped put the cup and pot on the table. They took the girl by one arm each and Charley didn’t have to pay for his coffee.

  The strong stuff burned his mouth, but that’s what he wanted. Another hour before making his call, and then what? The way the pressure was building up it didn’t matter much what the phone call would say. The phone call couldn’t give him a month till Del Brocco got out of jail or till Alivar got around to fixing him up. It never occurred to him to hide for a month, to wait a month or more till he looked legal again. One way or another it had to be soon, and for good.

  “Hey, budd
y boy.”

  At first Charley didn’t hear. He was breathing carefully because of his side and he wasn’t going to make any fast movements because he felt it might end up a swing in somebody’s face.

  “Dear liddle buddy boy,” said the voice again, and this time Charley couldn’t ignore it. The smell was strong and the drunk dropped in the chair opposite.

  “Don’t feel so bad,” said the drunk. His confidential manner was ugly. “She’ll be back in maybe ten minutes, buddy boy, couldn’t take longer, and you can order more coffee.”

  “Who asked you?”

  “Who cares,” said the drunk, “as long as you’re listening.” His worn-out face made a squint and leaned closer. “And when she’s back we’re next. Them French may look hot, buddy boy, but they don’t last but a minute. Like rabbits, get it?” He laughed with his teeth showing. He didn’t have too many.

  Charley sipped coffee and looked quiet. He even had the small smile around his mouth. Let the drunk talk and maybe the time will pass faster.

  “And when she comes back we’ll show her what’s what, huh, buddy boy?”

  “All you ever got stiff on is a bottle,” said Charley and looked friendly.

  It made a pause. The drunk worked his tongue around one tooth and looked at Charley like murder.

  “You trying to beat my play?” he said. “I saw her first. I been sitting here all afternoon before you ever showed up, buddy boy, and I been watching her all that time.”

  “That figures.”

  “You American, ain’tcha?”

  Charley didn’t answer.

  “So am I. That’s why I figured I give you a break, buddy. That’s the only reason I figured — ”

  “Don’t put yourself out.”

  The drunk reached a bottle out of his coat and sucked. It wasn’t just any old hooch, but rye with an American label. That drunk had connections.