by The Cool War
“I was sure there would be,” Hake said.
“Oh, come off it, will you? We’ve got to work together. Let’s make it easy on ourselves.”
Hake shrugged. “What’s the story?”
“Urn. Well, one of the Roman emperors used to live around here, and he took walks along this cliff. One day a fisherman climbed up from the beach to make his emperor a present of a fish he had just caught. It didn’t work out very well. The emperor was pissed off at being startled, so he ordered his guard to rub the fish in the man’s face.”
“He sounds like a mean son of a bitch,” Hake observed.
“That’s about the nicest thing you could say about him, actually. That was Tiberius. He’s the one who crticified our Lord, or anyway appointed Pontius Pilate, who did. There’s more to it. The fisherman wasn’t real smart, and when the guard let him up he wised off. He said, ‘Well, I’m glad I tried to give the fish to you instead of the other thing I caught.’ ‘Let’s see the other thing he caught,’ Tiberius said, and the guard opened up the bag, and it was a giant crab. So Tiberius had the guard give him a massage with that, and the fisherman died of it.”
“Nice place,” Hake said.
“It has its points,” said Yosper, eyeing two models displaying lingerie. “I hope you’ve been paying attention to them. Well! How about a sweet? They do a beautiful crepes suzette here.”
“Why not?” said Hake. But that wasn’t the real question; the question was why? And how? What was the purpose of this silly charade, and where did the money come from? Especially bearing in mind Mario’s remarks about his, expense account, what could possibly justify the tab they were running up in this place?
And would continue to run up—until the night ran out, it began to appear. Neither Yosper nor Mario seemed in the least interested in leaving. Finished with the crepes, Mario proposed brandies all around; after the brandies, Yosper insisted on a lemon ice “to clear the palate.” And then they settled down to drinking.
Toward midnight their waiters went off duty and were replaced by bar girls, a different one with every round and all pretty, and there had been a sort of floor show. The comedians had been pretty much a waste of time, being obliged to operate in half a dozen languages, but the strip-teasers were handsome women, a regular United Nations of them in a variety of colors and genotypes, and so were the models, hostesses and hookers who continued to stroll through the room. Hake provisionally decided that his guess about Mario’s inclinations had been wrong, judging by the way his attention came to a focus every time a new girl came near, but he was losing interest. He wasn’t just sick of being in this restaurant, he was pretty sick of Mario, too. The youth felt obliged to point out each celebrity and notoriety he recognized: “That’s the girl who played Juliet at the Stratford festival last year. There’s Muqtab al’Horash, his father owned thirty-three oil leases. He comes here to buy things for his harem off the models. Now and then he buys a model. There’s the President of the French Chamber of Deputies—” Hake felt he had been condemned to spend his life in this gaudy, raucous room that he was sick of, with Mario, whom he was sick of, and especially with Yosper, of whom he was sickest of all. The man just did not stop talking. And he was not your common or garden variety of bore, who will keep on regardless of blank expression or eyes darting this way and that, seeking escape; Yosper wanted full attention, and enforced it. “What’s the matter, Hake? Falling asleep? I was telling you that this is Italy. The national motto is Niente 2 possible, ma possiamo tutto. Everything’s illegal, but if you have the money you can do what you like. ‘S good duty, right, Mario? And heaven knows we’re entitled—”
But to what? To this endless ordeal of squirming in a shag velour armchair, while beautiful women kept bringing drinks he didn’t want? Hake had the Munich feeling, the conviction that a script was being played out that he had had no part in writing, and in which he did not know his lines. In Germany the feeling had been uncertain and only occasional—until that woman, what’s her name, Leota, had turned up and made it all concrete. Here it was real enough, but he did not understand what was going on.
Yosper was back on the subject of the emperor Tiberius, and growing argumentative. It was not the drink. He had been drinking three Perrier waters for each brandy, Hake had observed, but he was warming to his subject. Or subjects. All of them. “Come right down to it,” he declaimed, “old Tiberius was right about the fisherman. Asshole had no business coming into a restricted area, right? You can’t exercise power without discipline. Can’t enforce discipline without a little, what you might call, cruelty. Study history! Especially around here, where it all happened. When the Christians and the Turks fought naval battles over this part of the world they didn’t fool around with compassion. Turk caught a Christian, like enough they’d stick him ass-down on a sharpened stake by the helm, to keep the steersman company. Christians caught a Turk, same thing. And you know, those poor impaled buggers used to laugh and joke with the helmsmen while they were dying! Now, that’s what I call good morale.”
Mario staggered to his feet. “Excuse me,” he said, heading for the men’s room. Yosper laughed.
“Good kid,” he said, “but he has a little trouble confronting reality now and then. Symptom of the times. We all get taught that it’s bad to hurt anybody. ‘S what’s wrong with the world today, you want my opinion.”
“What’s wrong with the World tonight,” Hake said recklessly, “is I’m really tired of this place. Can’t we go?”
Yosper nodded approvingly and signaled for another round. “You’re impatient,” he said. “That’s the same as eager, and that’s a good thing. But you have got to learn, Hake, that sometimes the best thing you can do is just sit and wait. There’s always a reason, you know. Maybe we don’t know it, but it’s there.”
“Are you talking about God or Curmudgeon?”
“Both, Hake. More than that. I’m talking about duty. My family’s duty-oriented. It’s what I’m proudest of. We paid our bills. My Dad, he was gassed at Verdun, did you know that? Burned him right out. After that it took him twelve years of trying before he could knock Mom up, so I could be born. But he made it. I’m right proud of Dad. No, listen to me, Hake, what I’m saying’s important. It’s duty. That means you have to pay your dues on demand. Maybe it’s a Roman short-sword in the guts, or an English cloth-yard arrow at Crecy. Molten lead. Pungee pits. Flame throwers—you’d be amazed how much fat’ll come out of a human body. Why, when they opened the shelters in Dresden after the firestorm, there was an inch of tallow on the floor all around.”
“Or maybe,” snarled Hake, “it’s just sitting in a gin-mill on the Isle of Capri, listening to somebody trying to turn your stomach.”
Yosper grinned approvingly. “You’ve got it, Hake. That’s duty. Doing what you’re told.”
He held up, while the cocktail waitress brought them their new drinks. Behind her was another woman, slim and tanned, wearing an assortment of mood jewelry and not much else. “Speak English?” she inquired. When Yosper nodded she handed them each a card, then gracefully displayed her wares. She was more interesting than the things she had to sell; they were out of any sex shop in America. Marriage ring, divorce ring, open marriage ring; a “try it on” mood brooch in the shape of a bunny’s head, eyes dilated when the wearer was available, contracted when not; vasectomy badge, laparoscopy bow-knot choker, fertile period locket; gay shoulder-knots and SM leather wristlets. There were very few sexual interests you could not be outfitted for from her selection. She showed them all before leaving with a smile and a trail of familiar perfume.
” ‘Spalducci’s Bottega,’ ” Yosper read from the card. “Works of the devil, those places, but I have to admit the girl herself has the look of something from a better Maker. Oh, I’m not one of your religious bigots, Hake. I can understand temptation for the sins of the flesh. Didn’t Our Lord Himself stand on that mountain, while the Devil offered him all the treasures of the earth? And He was tempted. And—�
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His voice stopped. He sat up straight, peering across the tables. Mario was hurrying toward them, buttoning and zipping as he came, his face agitated. As soon as he was in earshot he called something in Italian, tapping his silver bracelet; Yosper asked a sharp question in the same language, and the two of them sped for the doors.
Hake sat there, watching them go. When they were out of sight he turned his card over. There was a message penciled on the back:
Meet me Blue Grotto 0800 tomorrow.
It was no more than he had expected when he saw that the model had been the girl from Munich and Maryland, Leota Pauket.
It was three a.m. before he got back to his hotel. Yosper and Mario, sitting grim-faced and silent next to him, refused to answer questions, curtly ordering him to stay put until called for. He didn’t need answers, or at least not from them.
And he did not stay put. He set his alarm and by six wafc on his way down to the waterfront.
The only words Hake had to discuss his intentions were “Blue Grotto” and quanto costa. They would have to serve. There was no difficulty finding the right quayside. All quaysides were right. Wherever he looked were signs in every language, urging tourists to the Blue Grotto. The difficulties were the weather, which was wet and gray, and the time of day, which was a lot too early for your average Capri boatman to be ready for a customer. The big party boats inshore were still under canvas, and deserted. Farther out on the catwalk were a cluster of smaller ones, propelled by the stored kinetic energy of flywheels; a few of them had people working around them, but none seemed up to speed. If the signore would wait just an hour, perhaps at most two… If the signore could only defer his desires until the time when the tour buses began to arrive… But Hake did not dare wait. If Leota wanted to see him in private, she would be gone by the time the traffic grew heavy.
It took time and patience. But Sergio suggested Em-anuele, who thought Francesco could help, who directed Hake to Luigi, and at the end of the list Ugo had just unclutched his flywheel. They were off.
The diamond-shaped craft whirred down the coastline, with surf pounding the base of the cliffs a few hundred yards to their left. The flat flywheel amidships was not merely the power source for the screw. It served as a sort of gyroscope as well, leveling out some of the rock and pitch of the waves. That was not altogether a good thing, as Hake perceived as soon as the first chops began to splash over the coaming. By the time they turned in toward the steep cliffs around the Grotto, he was drenched with salt water and a fairly high amount of floating oil.
Ugo explained, by signs and gestures, that as the only entrance was by sea they would now moor the power vessel to a buoy and transfer to the rubber raft they had been towing behind. “No, Ugo, not so fast,” said Hake, and began signs and gestures of his own.
When the boatman realized what Hake wanted, he exploded into Neapolitan fury. Hake did not need to understand a word of Italian to comprehend both the premises and the conclusion of his syllogism perfectly. Major premise, timing the waves and judging the currents at the cave entrance required every bit of the skill and training of a master boatman, such as himself. Minor premise, the turista clearly didn’t have the skill to navigate soap out of a bathtub. Conclusion, the best that could come of this mad proposal was that he would lose fee, tip and an extremely valuable rubber boat. The worst was that he would be sentenced for cold-blooded murder. And the whole thing was out of the question. But money talked. Hake handed over enough lire to arrange for the boatman to expect him in an hour, and he entered the rubber boat.
The raft had no draft, and thus no consistency of purpose. Hake had no skill, and so entering the cave became a matter of brute force and persistence. On a negligible ledge near the cave two slim young men were sun-> ning their already dark bodies, and Hake’s flounderings took place under their amused and interested eyes. A powerful little hydrogen-outboard was bumping against its moorings just below them. Hake wished he could borrow the boat, but saw no way to accomplish it. In any event, he was committed. The rock ledges of the low cave entrance looked seriously sharp. Avoiding puncture, Hake almost lost an oar. Reclaiming the oar, he misjudged a wave and crunched the side of his skull against the low roof of the cave. But then he was through… and suspended in space.
From the outside the Grotto had looked neither blue nor inviting, but inside it was incredible. The sun that beat through the tiny entrance came in by a submarine route. By the time it illuminated the interior of the cave all of the warm frequencies had been trapped underwater, and what glowed inside the Grotto was pure cerulean. More. The light was all below the surface. Oil slicks marked the interface between air and water, but where there was no oil there seemed to be nothing below the level of Hake’s boat: he was floating in blue space, topsy-turvy, disoriented— and enchanted.
He was also alone.
That was not a surprise in itself; it was far too early for the tour boats. But it was already past eight o’clock. Finding the boat and arguing with its owner had taken longer than it should, and where was Leota?
A string of bubbles coming in from the cave mouth answered him. Under them was a wavery pale shape that could have been a large fish, began to resemble a mermaid and then became Leota, air tanks strapped to her back and breathing gear over her face. She moved upward through the bright water and surfaced a few yards away. She pulled the face mask off and hung there for a moment, regarding him, then swam to clutch the end of the raft. “Hello, Hake,” she panted, her voice tiny in the huge wet space.
Hake looked down at her, almost embarrassed. Apart from the straps for the air tanks, the woman was wearing very little—la minima, it was called—a brightly colored triangular scrap of cloth below her navel, held by thin cords, and nothing above. “Get in, for God’s sake,” he said.
“I’ll get you all wet and oily.”
“Get in, get in!” He leaned to starboard while she climbed in from port, and they managed to get her aboard without tipping over. They regarded each other silently for a moment before he demanded, “What are you doing in Italy?”
She threw her hair back and wiped oil from her face. “Better things than you are, at least. I never thought you’d be pushing drugs.”
“Drugs?” But even as he spoke, he knew he did not doubt her.
“That’s right, Hake. That’s what your bunch is up to. I’m willing to believe,” she conceded, “that you didn’t know it, because I don’t think it’s your style at’all. But there it is.” She turned to study the empty cave entrance for a moment. “I have ten minutes, no more,” she added. “Then you stay here for a while and I’ll go. Don’t try to follow me, Hake. I have friends—”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Look, first things first. Are you sure about the drugs?”
“Bloody damn sure,” she said. “The Italian cops put one of your boys away for it yesterday. Stopped him in that galleria in Naples, with a satchel full of Xeroxed directions for making angel dust.”
“I never heard of angel dust!”
“What they call pay-chay-pay. PCP. It’s an old drug, comes back every twenty years or so—when a new generation comes along that doesn’t know what it can do to you. One or two shots can screw up your head forever. Thing is, it’s the easiest thing in the world to make. Any high-school kid can put it together in Mom’s kitchen if he has the directions. Your boy was selling the recipe to all the ragazzi in Naples—until one of them finked to the fuzz.”
They were drifting close to the wall of the cave. Awkwardly Hake sculled them a few yards farther away, while Leota watched with amusement. He said doggedly, “I don’t want to call you a liar, but I didn’t think the, uh, the group I’m involved with would do anything like that. How do you know this person worked for us?”
“Oh, I know. Who do you think alerted the Italian narcs to plant the kid in the galleria? You want the details?” She leaned back against her air tanks and recited: “Dietrich Nederkoorn, comes from a little fishing village in Holland, deserted t
he Dutch Army three years ago, worked for your boys ever since at one crummy thing or another. About twenty-five. Gay. Beatle haircut. Blue eyes, black hair, freckles, medium height.”
“Yeah,” Hake said slowly. “I saw him in Germany. But why would we do a thing like that?”
“What I’ve been asking you all along, Hake. I don’t mean why they would. I mean why you would. For the gorillas you work for, sure, it’s tailor-made. Very cost-effective. It’s like a bite of the apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Once you get it started, it runs itself. By now there must be a million of those circulars in Italy. If Nederkoorn weren’t such an asshole he wouldn’t be in the slammer now. The process was already on the way. There’s no way in the world the Italian narcs, or anybody else, can catch up with all those leaflets and all the copies that are being made. So there goes a whole generation of Italian kids. Thousands of them, maybe millions, are going to be showing up for work stoned out of their heads from something they scored two weeks back—• if they show up at all. It’s a big success, Hake. The government’s got an all-out drive against it right now, school assembly programs, TV commercials, rock stars traveling the country to campaign against it—for all the good that’s going to do,” she said bitterly. “What kind of human being does a thing like that?”
“I wish I could tell you,” Hake said unhappily. Well, part of it he could have told her. The obsession that caused Mario and the others to practice their petty harassments with fuse-blowers and tiny floods was enough to explain Dieter’s being unable to stop. But— “But I don’t know what I’m doing in this,” he said. “All I’ve done is sit around.”
She stared at him. “You didn’t know? Oh, Christ, Hake. The reason they brought you over here was to put the finger on me.”
“I never said a word!”
“No, Hake,” she said, with no anger in her tone, “I’m sure you didn’t. I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t. You’re dumb, yes. But not treacherous. You didn’t have to. Your tickle-taster took care of it for you.”