“You are stupid, man. Your girl is up there with my friend.”
Delaney slid open the cargo door. “Out,” he said. “On the passenger side.” The driver climbed over the passenger seat and got out to stand in the shaft of sunlight that was burning down into the damp courtyard. He looked up but appeared to make no sign. Delaney was pointing the gun at him through the wide opening in the side of the van.
“What’s your name?” Delaney asked.
“Feliks,” the driver said.
“How many up there?”
“One. And me.”
“Who do you work for?”
“Ourselves.”
“Come on. Who.”
“Poland.”
“Obviously. Who in Poland?”
“Ourselves.”
“Look, let’s not fuck around,” Delaney said.
“Who in Poland do you work for? Walesa?” Feliks laughed.
“He works for himself too. In Poland, everyone works for himself now. Like America.”
“You UOP?”
“What if I said yes? What if I said no? What if I said Walesa? How do you then know what is right, what is not right? You people from the West make us laugh. I told you who we work for. Ourselves. Ourselves.”
Delaney realized that it didn’t really matter anymore, that this young man before him was in fact correct. Everyone was working for themselves, when all was said and done.
“OK,” Delaney said, “we walk in together now, with no fuss. You understand? Then we go up. I take the girl out and it’s all over. I have nothing more that’s worth asking you. I won’t be calling the police. It can be over today.”
The driver said nothing. He simply stood with his arms at the ready by his sides. He looked up again briefly to the windows above.
“Go in,” Delaney said, climbing out of the van through the cargo door.
They went in to the damp dark entrance way. “OK, Feliks, now the jacket comes off,” Delaney said.
Feliks took off the jacket and held it loosely. “On the ground,” Delaney said.
The jacket dropped with a heavy thud. Delaney kicked it and the gun in it under the stairwell.
“Up.”
They climbed slowly, with Delaney far enough back to avoid a kick or another sudden move. When they got to the fifth floor, Delaney made them wait. He caught his breath. He listened. He looked at the door opposite the one where Feliks had stopped. It had a small brass plate that said “Ravena Trading.” The door they would go through had nothing on it, not even a number.
“OK, here’s how it works,” Delaney said. “You open the door and you walk straight in, fast. I’ll be with you. I will kill anybody who tries to get in my way. Right? I take the girl out; we’re gone; it’s over. Give me your car keys.”
“They are in my jacket,” Feliks said.
Fuck, Delaney thought. But he was not afraid. Not at all afraid. The rage was not far off, however.
“Pat your pockets,” Delaney said.
“What?”
“Pat your pockets, pat them. I want to hear what’s there.”
Feliks patted his pockets. Delaney thought he could hear no keys or change.
“OK. We go in. You could be dead in a minute if you fuck up. Just go straight in.”
Feliks opened the door. It had not been locked. He walked through and Delaney gave him a mighty kick to the back, which sent him reeling into the centre of the room. Feliks stumbled over a chair and fell.
Delaney saw Natalia sitting in an armchair looking very bad. Her face was pale, puffy, scraped, bruised. Her hair was damp and uncombed. She looked up and raised her hand weakly in his direction when she saw him. She looked very bad indeed. His rage came.
Then it all moved very quickly. But it was easier than Delaney had imagined it would be. Moustache saw his partner stumble through. He looked, alarmed, toward the door and saw Delaney coming in behind, bracing his gun with both hands. Moustache moved to the table where handguns lay and Delaney shot him, once, twice, three times in the centre of his chest.
Moustache fell very heavily backwards, hands grasping at ruby wounds. He made no sound as he died. He bled large amounts of bright shiny blood but made no sound. Feliks looked more surprised than afraid.
“Good,” Natalia said weakly, crying now, shoulders shaking, face in her hands. “Good, good, good.”
The rage was bad now. Too bad to talk to Natalia. Delaney felt no fear, no uncertainty, and no remorse. All was clear; all as clear as anything could ever be.
He went over to where Feliks lay, and pushed the barrel of the Browning up under his chin. He pushed it hard, harder than he had to, as hard as he possibly could.
“Did you hurt this woman? Did you hurt this woman?”
“No. Not me.”
“I’m going to kill you for hurting this woman,” Delaney said. “Do you hear me?”
“It was him. Not me.”
Delaney hit him hard on the side of the face with the gun. Blood flowed. He stood up straight, panting a little now as Feliks nursed his cut face. The Browning hung by Delaney’s side as he gathered his breath. He felt a dangerous exhilaration.
He backed away from Feliks a little and spoke to Natalia.
“Did they hurt you badly, Natalia?”
“Yes,” she said. Her sobs were pathetic, a child’s. “They put my head in the water.”
Delaney suddenly understood everything: why people do things to each other and for each other, why they seek things, why they kill each other. He stood calming himself, resting on his feet, looking at Natalia crumpled in the too-large armchair. He understood now what it was to be connected, implicated, fully engaged. He did not have anything to ask anymore, did not care who worked for whom, did not want to know who this man was sitting near his feet, bleeding from the face. He just wanted to see him dead. And he wanted to take Natalia away from there and live quietly ever after.
Delaney gave no warning. He simply fired three shots, just as he had before, and Feliks never looked up. Two shots to the upper chest, one off-target slightly, near the shoulder. Feliks collapsed backward, hard, onto the floor and died.
“Good,” said Natalia through her hands “That’s good, Francis. That’s good.”
Delaney went to her and held her. Her head shook against his stomach and she cried for a long time while he stood over her. He said nothing, simply let her cry, holding the back of her head, pressing her against him.
“Good,” she said again, muffled now.
Delaney felt nothing except certainty, complete certainty. His heart beat steadily in his chest. After the shots, the old apartment was silent. The Roman sunlight cast itself in dust-dancing shafts onto the worn wooden floor.
*
They had been given a lovely dark old room with a giant old bed and big hotel pillows. The bed was only for sleeping in, for the moment. They rested on that bed for three days, not going out at all. Natalia slept under piles of covers for most of the time. Delaney kept the drapes almost entirely drawn. He lay often on the bed beside her, holding her, stroking her hair, helping her feel safe again. He helped rub ointment onto her cuts and scrapes. He gave her glasses of water and cups of tea. They had roomservice meals. Sometimes they watched TV. No one seemed to know where they were at all.
Chapter 14
They went to Como, in the north, far from Rome, to rest some more and regroup and learn how to be lovers. Delaney had not been there for a very long time. Too long, he realized as the taxi brought them in from the small train station and he saw the shimmering water of the broad blue lake and the ferries plying this way and that. The last time he had been here was soon after his marriage ended, he remembered. He was travelling alone and had felt the intense isolation of those who travel alone in places meant for lovers.
He was not alone this time. Natali
a was beside him in the taxi. She was starting to look much better. She seemed to have enjoyed the train ride in from Milan, and had even had a little wine with the meal on the flight to Milan from Rome. The swelling in her face was gone. All that remained, externally, of her ordeal were some scrapes and scratches, healing quickly. They had not talked too much about all of that yet, not more than they had had to. That would come soon enough.
Natalia’s only concern as they left Rome was that they not be followed, that they be allowed to continue their vacation for a little longer. Delaney had made sure of it: booking the flight from a payphone, not bothering with a hotel reservation in Como at that time of the year. He organized a private car and driver to take them to the Rome airport, so they simply had to hurry from lobby to car to terminal to plane, and they were away. He would be very surprised indeed if anyone could find them now.
They checked into the Barchetta Excelsior Hotel, which looked over the Piazza Cavour to the lake. It was almost too beautiful, with old stone staircases and balustrades outside, gravelled terraces and iron tables here and there, and willing waiters to bring drinks, lunch, anything anyone wanted. Their room overlooked the lake. The hardwood floors were spotless; the upholstered armchairs and sofas were spotless and intensely white. The huge fourposter bed — light-coloured wood with crisp white linen — dominated the room but did not intimidate. They belonged in that bed together now and they felt no unease, none.
Natalia cried when she saw the perfect room and the perfect view and the perfect way the curtains billowed in through the wide-open windows and balcony doors. She was still crying too easily but Delaney knew this would pass when she came fully out of shock. That was not far off now, he could see that. She was almost better again.
They went back out immediately and walked along the edge of the lake with the tourists. Then they took a little ride in one of the boats. The Milanese bourgeoisie and their children always seemed to be in Como in force. Troops of them, with fresh, lovely, expensive vacation clothes and nothing but time on their hands, it seemed. Not a care. Delaney saw that nothing much had changed, that people still smiled elegantly to one another on boats, that drivers and boatmen still wore proper driver and boatman caps and coats, that the biggest worry here was still a missed ferry or a missed lunch.
It was still daylight when they made love for the first time.They had come back from their excursion, and the room was warm from the sunlight that had shone in all afternoon. Natalia closed the doors and windows to seal in that warmth against the cool of the evening. They had not bothered to unpack after checking in. Their bags were just where the bellman had left them at the end of the bed. They looked silently at each other in the still of the room and knew that at last the time was right.
They lay talking for a long time afterward in the heavy starched sheets. They had lain together before, in Rome, as Natalia rested for those first few hidden days, but not like this. That was a sickbed; the lying together then was for comfort, for safety, for warmth. This new bed was a lovers’ bed and the lying together now was for many other reasons, not all of them clear. But Delaney, enjoying the utter softness of Natalia’s black hair as she rested her head on his chest, and the utter softness of her back and shoulder under his encircling arm, for once did not seek too much for reasons.
“Are we falling in love with each other?” she asked, unable, for her part, to resist the urge to question.
“Yes,” he said.
“Is that a good thing?”
“Yes.”
“Would that be a predictable thing, in our current situation?”
“Possibly.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No,” he said. He could feel the movement of her cheek and mouth on his chest as she smiled, and he knew she was laughing at herself playing psychologist.
“Even in light of our previous professional relationship?” she asked.
“Such as it was,” he said. She smiled on his chest again.
“It’s something you’d better take up with your therapist,” Delaney said. “Do you know any good ones?”
“I used to,” she said.
“Where is she now?”
“I’m not sure. On vacation somewhere. Italy, I think.”
“Is she a Jungian?” he asked.
“Of course. I would have nothing to do with anyone else.”
“And what would Dr. Jung say about our situation, do you think?”
“Oh, he would probably say that I’m projecting my animus complex onto the nearest possible male figure after a period of intense anxiety.”
“Are you?”
“Possibly.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Not necessarily. Not in all cases,” she said, pulling her head back to look up at him. “Not in this case.”
“Correct,” he said.
They lay together some more in the gathering dark, unwilling to get up.
“Francis?” she said after a long time.
“Yes?”
“Thank-you for killing those men for me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“No. Don’t play. It’s such an obvious anxiety reliever. I know that you must feel, I don’t know, somehow caught by what you did back there. It’s something you’ll never be able to leave behind and I’m sorry you had to do it. But I’m not sorry they’re dead. They deserved to die. I’m not afraid to confront that feeling. The Shadow archetype.”
“I’ve already left it behind.”
“I would doubt that, Francis.”
“I have. I have absolutely no feeling about those guys at all.They’re dead. I killed them.They deserved to die. They were hurting you and would have hurt me. If I didn’t kill them, they would probably have killed us. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.”
“Denial. It’s a normal reaction.”
“I don’t think so, Natalia.”
“You’ll see,” she said. “Later maybe. In your dreams.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “But what about you? What about the psychologist who is glad to see people killed?”
“I was not glad to see them killed. I’m glad they’re dead.”
“Denial.”
“Possibly.”
They pondered all of this for a while. “Have you done something like that before, Francis?” she asked.
“No. I’m a journalist.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“You seem to know how these things are done.”
“I’ve seen things like that done, Natalia. From a distance. I’ve been around a bit on assignments. You know that. I’m no spy.”
“Until now.”
“Correct. But now strictly an amateur spy.”
“And the gun?”
“Hilferty.”
“Hilferty,” she said.
“Yes. He thought I might need it one day.”
“A reporter needs a gun.”
“Sometimes.”
“Why would you not tell me that?” she asked.
“What good would it have done for you to know? It was supposed to be just for insurance anyway.”
“And spies give reporters guns.”
“Sometimes.”
They shared the silence as she considered this. “Remind me why we are doing this, Francis,” Natalia said suddenly. “Would you do that for me?”
“Why we are doing this or why I am doing this?”
“Both.”
“I’m doing this because you asked me to help. That was at first, anyway. Now I’m doing this because I’m doing this. Because I’m in the middle of it and because it seems like the thing I should be doing. That’s good enough for me now. And because of you now, too.”
He felt her smile on his chest at this last item on the list.
“And why am I doing this?” she asked. “Would you mind?”
“Because your uncle was killed, because you loved the old guy, because he would have asked you to help him, because you need to know why he died, because you’re angry that someone killed him over this. All pretty good reasons, I think.”
“Thank-you,” she said.
“You’re welcome. I should charge money for this.”
“Yes. You seem to have a flair for it.”
“Thank-you.”
“And so we are to finish it, Dr. Delaney? In your professional opinion?” she asked. “Yes. We are. In a while.”
Eating in Como is always a great pleasure, but especially when the nights are still cool. There are dozens of warm dark places with wood-fired ovens and good wine cellars that sell baked pizzas, baked fish, baked suppers for those on brief vacations. For a few days they ate too much and drank too much red wine from small pitchers and walked arm-inarm too much. They made love too much and slept too much and, after those first few days, began to talk again too much about what was still to be done.
Natalia was stronger than Delaney would have ever expected, if he had ever been expected to imagine how she would hold up against two burly agents slapping her and punching her and pulling her hair and holding her head under water in baths. She had told them a little, she said, as little as she could, and she had made up a little. She couldn’t recall some of what she had said when it got very bad and couldn’t now say whether they might have had a chance to tell anyone else before they died.
She had told them that Delaney had agreed to help her, that they had visited people to ask them things, that they had looked at letters, yes. But she had made things up about what was in the letters — some parts she had been able to make up and other parts they had made her tell — but she did not think they had been able to gather too much. They had shown her some bits of burned letters they had managed to find in Paris, but they were small bits and she was reasonably sure they could not piece any clear story together from them. She had told them there was something hidden in Quebec, that she didn’t know what it was or where it was, and they had seemed at that point willing to wait until after Delaney’s turn before starting to hurt her again. Delaney had been right: they would have interrogated him too if he hadn’t killed them first.
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