North From Rome

by Helen Macinnes

  Camden looked at him sharply. “Say—you’ve been mixing with some peculiar people.”

  “It all began last—”

  Camden said quickly, “Before you start telling me anything, you ought to know that I’m just a very minor attaché—no more, no less. I’m not an undercover type, or one of those cloak-and-dagger characters.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since a way back. I got out of the business before I got into it. I’m a bright boy, don’t you know?”

  “What did you do in Washington?”

  “Bill, all I did was to sit at a desk and evaluate. That’s the solid, unpainted truth. I sat at a desk until everything except my brain—and maybe that, too—was going flabby. I screamed, ‘Let me out, let me out of here!’ And I got this job eventually. Liaison mostly—NATO—Naples. At least I get some fresh air and suntan.” He looked at Lammiter. “God-damn it, you tell people the truth and they won’t believe you!” He was exasperated enough to be believed. “I’ll listen to your story, Bill. But, frankly, that’s perhaps all I can do.”

  “You can always evaluate,” Lammiter said with a grin. “And your liaison work nowadays may come in useful, too.” Camden might know someone who would be interested in Brewster’s story. “I’m only following the best advice my father ever gave me. When a picture fell off the wall or a drain clogged up, he’d yell ‘Get an expert, get an expert!’ And whatever you say, Bunny, you’re the expert. I’m just a man who was curious.”

  “And now I’m curious,” Camden admitted. “Go ahead.”

  “Where was I, anyway?” He was flustered by Camden’s casual approach.

  “Expecting a car to aim straight for our spines,” Camden said cheerfully, but he looked as if he were prepared to listen.

  So Lammiter began. He began with Tony Brewster. That wasn’t the way he had intended to start his story. But sometimes an apt cue is a better starting place that the first fact of a chronological account. And there was no doubt that the very mention of Tony Brewster’s name startled Bunny Camden into complete seriousness. He listened to Lammiter’s story with full attention, and—what was just as important—real interest. It was obvious that Lammiter was telling him something that was much more than he had expected.

  They walked at an even pace, two men out for an evening stroll like so many others through the quieter streets of Rome, seemingly following no pattern of direction. By the time Lammiter had told of Rosana and her connection with the Pirotta narcotics ring; of the men around her—Bevilacqua the policeman, Joe the Sicilian, Salvatore the guide; of the princess and of Bertrand Whitelaw; of Eleanor Halley and her photographs, they, had swung in a large arc of criss-crossed streets to the Piazza dell Esedra. It was half-past ten. They could have walked the direct distance from Vittorio Veneto to the Esedra in an easy ten minutes.

  For a few moments, Camden stood looking at the vast circle of the Piazza. Traffic swirled around the enormous central fountain, brilliantly illuminated to turn the high jets of water into golden plumes. Beyond them, on the other side of the Esedra, was the giant stretch of ruined walls and arches of the Baths of Diocletian, the enormous broken piles of bricks watching, from their withdrawn shadows, the bright lights of the modern arcades that curved round the other half of the Piazza.

  “I like this fountain,” Camden said, as if they had been discussing only the beauties of Rome. “Hear it? Falling water lighted. Helps one to think, just looking at it, listening. Let’s have coffee, and a seat.”

  “This isn’t the Piazza Navona,” Lammiter reminded him in a low voice.

  “Plenty of taxis here,” Camden said. “One will get you there in five minutes at this time of night.” He led the way into the arcades and found a table that sheltered beside one of the giant pillars spaced around the half-circle of buildings to support the high curves of their arches, two stories high. Above these arches, each with its central ball of light, rose three more stories of large windows. So wide was the circle of the Piazza that the buildings didn’t seem the giants that they were. Only the people, so miniature, and the cars swirling round the fountain’s pool like little water boatmen, put the scene into human proportion. The Italians, like the Romans, built for the gods.

  Camden had chosen a table not too near the band that played in front of one of the cafés. For there, most people had gathered, either to sit at the crowded tables, or to stand, hundreds deep, as near the music as possible. Lammiter put away his mild protests, and settled comfortably to listen. It was his favourite aria from Tosca, and to judge by the silence of the crowd, oblivious to the steady hum of traffic, one of their favourites, too. Art is long, life is short. The buildings of stone looked down and approved.

  Camden had ordered coffee in crushed ice for them both. He drank slowly, watched the play of the fountains. Then, quietly, he said, loud enough for Lammiter, not loud enough for the nearest strangers to hear, “I had known, of course, about the narcotics trouble. Recently, I met one of our people from the Narcotics Bureau in Washington: he’s only one of several top men who’ve come over here. That’s how serious it is. And Interpol also has men on the job. And there was a man I met, just last month, from one of the United Nations committees. The Italians are worried, too. So are the French. It isn’t any secret in official circles. It’s one of the under-surface battles that Russia has been waging since the end of the war.”

  He looked casually around the tables. So did Lammiter. No one was near enough to overhear. Besides the vast pillars of the enormous arcade, the people seemed small and distant like figures in a Piranesi landscape.

  Camden went back to admiring the fountains. “So I knew some of your story. But I didn’t know the part Pirotta was playing. Your detective, Bevilacqua, didn’t tell us all that when he visited us at the Embassy last week.”

  “He went to the Embassy?”

  “To advise us that one of our people might find her name caught up in a mess of publicity. Nasty for everyone.”

  “Eleanor?”

  Camden nodded. “I bet there was a sigh of relief when she asked for leave today. Solved the problem of finding an excuse that wouldn’t upset Bevilacqua’s investigation. Tricky.”

  Camden looked around again. He said, “We’re out of luck. Bevilacqua usually comes here in the late evening for a quiet half-hour on his way home.”

  Lammiter looked startled. He had forgotten that Bunny always had a reason behind his actions. Bevilacqua had been his reason for coming here.

  “Oh, well,” Camden said, “let’s pay and go to a movie.” He picked up the cheque and counted out the money.

  “Look—”

  “Now, now... You’ve still got fifteen minutes.” Camden rose. And Lammiter followed. Under the arcade, side by side with shops, now closed, and the innumerable cafés and some third-class hotels, were several movie houses. Camden led the way quickly into the nearest large opening lined with the still photographs of an American gangster movie whose title and actors were complete strangers to Lammiter. “Part of our cultural exchange,” Camden said with resignation. They paid, and entered a stone-floored passage, bleakly lighted, bare of furnishings or decorations, which twisted around behind the backs of the arcade’s shops, with the booming sound of giant voices drawing nearer and nearer. Suddenly, Camden and Lammiter were inside a large open-air theatre entirely enclosed by high buildings.

  They stood for a moment, to accustom their eyes to the darkness of the sky overhead. Apart from the ghost-light from the distant screen across the back of high houses, and a few shaded windows up in the buildings, and the stars above, there were no lights. The rows of collapsible wooden chairs were well filled, but most of the audience preferred the centre and even the front seats. (The better to hear everything, Lammiter thought, as the booming ricocheted from wall to wall.) This left the back rows, sheltering under a pergola of vines overhead, almost empty, except for a scattering of couples.

  Camden groped his way carefully to two seats at the far corner of an em
pty back row. Here, even the loud voices from the screen (two men fighting over a loose-haired, loose-mouthed blonde), were cut down in volume and in clarity. It was possible to talk guardedly, and to listen. It would certainly be impossible for anyone to overhear.

  Camden came straight to the point. “Now we’ll discuss Mr. Evans. What does Brewster want us to do?”

  “He wants to see you.”

  Camden let that pass. “But what can anyone do about Evans? There’s no law against being a Communist. No law against a man visiting Italy from Russia.”

  “Unless his papers are false.”

  “Yes. That’s why I’d like Bevilacqua to hear that part of the story. He could set something in motion!”

  “Brewster says there isn’t enough time for that. What about the British? They’d also set something in motion, I’m willing to bet.”

  “Extradition? I don’t think Brewster wants that—not just yet.”

  Lammiter felt stupid. “I guess not,” he said lamely. No quick answers, he told himself: think, you lummox, think before you open your big mouth.

  “It would be interesting to find out who the men are Evans is going to meet at Perugia, and what countries they’ve come from. That would give us the direction of Evans’s mission here.”

  “I don’t follow,” Lammiter admitted frankly.

  “We might learn from their identities where trouble is being planned. Supposing it is somewhere in the Far East then the top level agents infiltrated into that part of the world would need last-minute instructions—certainly a coordination of instructions—before any crisis was launched. Evans would be good at that. He has worked with both British and Americans. He knows where they are strong, and where they are weak. He’s just the man to place the charges of dynamite, correctly, to start a landslide.”

  “But if the Far East is going to have more trouble, why did he come to Italy? I’d have thought Bombay or Karachi or Hong Kong would have been a better centre for a meeting.” He stopped. Camden hadn’t said it was the Far East; he had only said “Supposing...” Italy was a nice central meeting point for what? Western Europe and the Middle East? “If I were you, I’d contact the British Embassy right away,” Lammiter said grimly.

  “The trouble is, Brewster isn’t exactly popular in diplomatic circles.”

  “So he told me. But if he has something new to say, won’t someone at least listen?”

  “Listen to a man who is drunk?”

  “Now—” Lammiter said quietly “—don’t you start believing that! He likes his Chianti, but he can talk and think. He is still in control.”

  “I believe you, but thousands wouldn’t.”

  Lammiter fell silent. He glared at the screen, where loud arguments had given way to gaping kisses, and the actor’s faces had swelled up to the alarming size of twenty feet. He wondered what had happened to all the excellent movies he had seen last winter. Had they been torpedoed, crossing the Atlantic?

  He lit a cigarette and let the match flare near his watch for a moment. “I’ve six minutes left,” he said. “What have you decided?”

  “Tell Brewster that I’d like to warn two men about Evans’s appearance here. One of them is a Canadian, another is English. They are good Intelligence officers, in Rome at the moment on another job. Then, when the time comes for Evans to be picked up, England and the Commonwealth can do it together.” Camden grinned. “That’s diplomacy, son.” Then he was serious again. “Secondly, tell Brewster I think he should let Bevilacqua in on the full story, too. He knows more experts in this kind of business than all the attachés in Rome put together. Between us all, we’ll have Perugia well covered.”

  “Perugia— Why is Brewster so insistent on Perugia?”

  “Why was Pirotta so insistent on keeping you out of Perugia?”

  “That was when he thought I might be an agent—” Lammiter cut himself off. “I see,” he ended.

  “One last thing—ask Brewster to give you as much information for me as possible. After all, he’s only given us one real fact, so far: that Evans is in Italy. That isn’t much to go on.”

  “Why don’t you come and see him yourself? I still think that makes good sense.”

  “I told you before—this is not my business. The experts will push me out of the picture by tomorrow.”

  “Will they indeed?”

  Camden ignored that, “But meanwhile I’ll start interesting them. That shouldn’t be difficult. Then, after you’ve seen Brewster and got his go-ahead signal, they’ll be ready to move. Right? Here’s a number where you can leave a message for me at any hour.” He slipped a card into Lammiter’s pocket. “Call me as soon as you leave Brewster. Then you can relax and concentrate on your girl.”

  “That suits me,” Lammiter said.

  “Which girl?” added Camden softly, and rose.

  They made their way out. The loose-mouthed blonde was now in full scream as her true love smacked her jaw. “You can see why our cultural attachés develop stomach ulcers,” Camden said as the shrieks hounded them into the corridor. “They spend half their dinner parties explaining that all American children don’t pull knives on their teacher because hypodermics have been taken away from them.” He stopped to search for a cigarette. “Keep your visit to Brewster short. Don’t let him start making speeches.” He seemed to remember something pleasing. “Or quote Shakespeare. Not tonight.” He struck a match. “Keep moving, pal. Stay with it.”

  Lammiter recovered sufficiently to say, “Well, good to have seen you. We must get together soon,” and walked away. Behind him, Camden had difficulty with the sulphur matches. He took a long, long time to light that cigarette. Lammiter was well alone as he came out into the Piazza.

  The golden jets of hissing water rose into the dark sky and fell, rose and fell, bathed the nymphs and their sea monsters with spun silk spray. The music was gay and happy, a joyful rendering of Oklahoma! The people liked it. Their applause drifted over the sound of engines and brakes and horns. A city of contrasts, he thought: a sense of peace mingled with constant noise, the day’s warm air and the night’s cool breeze, stone and flowing water, shadows of giant buildings and the brilliance of delicate light. And the people, relaxing from their own troubles and worries, enjoying this moment, accepting this feeling of well-being as their due and proper right. He wondered if Bevilacqua was sitting among them now, relaxing too, from the grim knowledge of his police work.

  He had let two taxis pass him. Now he signalled. “To the entrance of the Piazza Navona,” he directed. “As quickly as possible.” A smile of delight answered him. He would reach there in possibly less than five minutes. But Providence protected children and drunks and Italian drivers.

  He was still thinking of Bevilacqua, the man deep in the background whom he would probably never meet. And then he thought of Bunny Camden’s other background friends—the Canadian and the Englishman who weren’t diplomats. He’d never meet them, either. Nor the unknown men who had helped Brewster gather the small bits of information that made the whole pattern. Nor the Federal agents from Washington, now waiting at Bari. Nor the man, so deep in the background that he’d never even know all our names or nationalities, who would watch Evans’s friends in Perugia and track them back to the countries where their hidden poisons were at work.

  Camden had said, “...leave Brewster. Then you can relax and concentrate on your girl.”

  He had answered, “That suits me.”

  But now, he wasn’t so sure of his answer. It wouldn’t be easy to sit at a café table, even with Eleanor, enjoying the little world around you, when you kept remembering the background people. How far did they ever relax?

  He looked at his watch again as they neared the Piazza Navona. Eleven o’clock. He’d be a few minutes late. Not bad, considering everything. He hoped Brewster’s temper had not been too jangled by the alarm clock that kept ringing; but once he heard what had detained Lammiter, he would probably simmer down. Then Lammiter began to wonder what Brewster would
tell him tonight, once the others had left and they were alone.

  One thing was certain: whatever Brewster could tell would be stranger than Lammiter could ever invent.

  14

  The taxi jolted to a sudden halt beside the massive blocks of stone that marked the remains of the gateway to Domitian’s stadium. By night, they were dark and grim.

  As Lammiter walked quickly through the entrance and saw the light and shadows of the Piazza Navona before him, he wondered how many chariots had come thundering into this enormous circus and drawn up at the starting gate, horses quivering, drivers tense. And how many men had looked up at the waiting faces and felt a moment of fear, before the mask of pride and readiness was slipped into place again? What made them risk death? Money, Imperial favour, or the roar of the crowd?

  The crowd... The crowd was strangely silent this evening. And then he noticed they were mostly clustering together, towards the east side of the Piazza, as if the wide pavement had tilted and poured them into a massed semi-circle. The foreigners dining at the trattoria were still sitting over the coffee cups and wineglasses, but as he passed the hedge that shielded them from the Piazza, he saw that the waiters, at least, were curious. In the intervals of serving, they would group together, talking, watching the other side of the Piazza.

  He was opposite the thickest bulge of the crowd, at the centre point of all their interest. He looked, casually, hiding his sudden worry. He was looking at the house were Brewster lived. But everything was quiet, peaceful. Lights were in the various windows, in Brewster’s, too, up there on the fifth floor. He checked his impulse to cross the Piazza and mix with the crowd. The church of St. Agnes was just ahead of him, and Rosana would be waiting.

  But she wasn’t there. Not yet. He thought it wiser to cross over to the central fountain in the square and admire Bernini. The church steps felt too naked. He walked slowly round the elaborate sculptures of the fountain. A few children still played, unheeding. An old woman sat slumped on a stone ledge, too old to go running to see or even to care about seeing. A few tourists were wandering around the other fountains: he didn’t need to feel conspicuous here.