After Midnight

by Robert Ryan

  ‘I don’t know. At the very least, it shook them up real bad.’ I pointed with the barrel of the Sten. ‘And being down under your grenades can’t have been much fun.’

  ‘Maybe he’s given up and gone home.’

  I glanced at the heavens. The light from the stars was glowing stronger now, the night no longer so bible black. I peered over the fort’s wall and scanned the forest at the bottom of the rocky slope. It was motionless but for wraiths of smoke. I wondered for a mad, impetuous second whether Lindy was right, and Fausto had got the message not to mess with Jack Kirby. The answer, puncturing our premature self-congratulations, came as slow and laconic as ever.

  ‘Jaaaack.’

  Thirty-Seven

  ‘DAMN,’ SAID LINDY WITH passion. ‘I missed the son of a bitch.’

  I shushed her and listened. I could hear him coughing, and when it came again, his voice was weaker than before. ‘Jack.’

  ‘How are you, Fausto?’

  There was a pause before he answered. ‘A little bit knocked about, to tell you the truth, Jack Kirby. You bring an arsenal up the mountain with you?’

  ‘I found a drop canister. From the Liberator.’

  I thought I heard him laugh. ‘I didn’t reckon on that. You always were a lucky bastard.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  He cleared his throat and put some effort back into speaking, so his words carried. ‘You survived ditching the Mosquito. You got out of Domodossola alive. I thought it best we just kill you, but the others … they said the British would believe Fausto was dead if you told them, if you saw it. I listened to them. Stupid, eh?’

  ‘How many of the others are out there, Fausto?’

  ‘Just me.’

  I wasn’t going for that. ‘Who flew the chopper in, then?’

  ‘Ah, yes. Just me and the helicopter pilot, who is with the helicopter. He’s no part of this. Hired hand.’

  ‘Then who was on the cliff?’

  ‘Rosario. Pavel. Hey—Jack,’ he said, as if the thought had just occurred to him. ‘You did what the Germans couldn’t. You wiped out Gruppo Fausto. Congratulations.’

  ‘You weren’t Gruppo Fausto any more. Just a bunch of men living off Nazi loot with a nasty little secret you didn’t want anyone to know. A group who killed anyone who got in your way—even Allies.’

  Fausto groaned. ‘What kind of Allies were the British?’

  ‘The kind that sent you anti-tank weapons. That was a bazooka I used just then, Fausto. If you hadn’t played silly buggers with the plane, Domodossola would have had real firepower.’

  ‘If I hadn’t played silly buggers there wouldn’t have been a Domodossola.’

  Thirty-four days was all you got, I wanted to say, but my teeth were chattering, my bones were aching and I was tired. I couldn’t believe we were out here, arguing the toss over events that belonged in the history books.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Lindy. ‘Shall I get the bazooka? You still have some bombs for it.’

  I shook my head. That wasn’t how it was going to end.

  ‘Jaaack.’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘I think you might have killed me, Jack.’

  ‘You’re already dead, remember, Fausto?’

  ‘Looks like I can have a second go at it.’

  ‘Better luck this time,’ I said.

  ‘I’m hurt, Jack. I think I’m bleeding to death.’

  ‘What crap,’ muttered Lindy. ‘As if you’d fall for that.’ She saw the look in my eye. ‘Jack? Just blast the trees with the bazooka. Game, set and matchsticks.’ I shook my head.

  ‘I have no gun,’ said Fausto. ‘My old Labora has packed up on me. Can’t even finish myself off now. Unless I club myself to death.’

  ‘I could give him a hand with that,’ Lindy suggested.

  I was only half-listening to her. I had a fresh concern: if Fausto had pulled in the members of his old partisan group, then perhaps he had brought along his old lieutenant. And we’d been throwing grenades at her. Why hadn’t I considered the possibility that Francesca was with him? Because I didn’t want it to be true.

  I hurried down the steps and from the toolbox scooped up a handful of washers and bolts and pocketed them. Then I picked up the medical bag, checked the contents and added the rusted screwdriver from the scrap metal to it. I slung the kit over my shoulder, along with the Sten, and dragged the bike from the doors to clear my way out.

  ‘What the fucking hell are you doing?’ hissed Lindy over my shoulder.

  ‘He’s in pain out there.’

  ‘Oh, bollocks to that. He’s just been trying to kill us both. Why don’t you fire the goddamn bazooka at him and have done with it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And if he kills you? What then? What about me?’

  There was a screech of metal on stone as I dropped the CrossCountry. A new thought came to me. ‘Lindy, I need a favour.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your sweater. You got anything underneath?’

  ‘Only underwear.’

  ‘I need the jumper, if you can manage without it for a while.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll live,’ she sneered. As she took off her jacket and stripped off the heavy ribbed sweater, I held her arm and looked at the wound. It was a thin red line, nice and clean. I took the sweater and she replaced her jacket. I took my own jacket off and pulled her jumper over my sodden T-shirt. The sweater was good and heavy and loose, just what I needed.

  ‘Stay here. If there is any shooting, make a run out of the gates and to the right. Downhill. You can pick up the trail back past the meadow. Stay in the forest till dawn—’

  ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To see if he’s telling the truth.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Being alone.’

  She understood now. ‘You think she’s out there, don’t you?’ I didn’t reply. ‘That’s why you won’t use the bazooka. You think she’s with him.’

  ‘It didn’t even cross my mind until just now. But I hope not.’ If Francesca was with him, especially if she was hurt or worse, then I was going to wish it had been me in that plane, not Furio.

  ‘And if she is? If she’s chosen Fausto?’

  ‘I have to see. This has to finish face to face, I realise that now. I have ghosts to lay to rest.’

  I could tell she was wondering how I could care for a woman who, at best, had lied to me all along. No doubt I’d be asking myself that same question at some point. But I did care. As I turned, Lindy grabbed my bicep. ‘He’s not some spirit from the past, Jack. Be careful. He’s flesh and blood.’

  And he’s better than you, my inner cynic reminded me. I took her hand off my arm. ‘I know.’

  The left-hand door’s ancient hinges creaked loudly as it swung back and I stepped out into the blueish light of a moon struggling from behind the clouds. I looked down at the contorted shape of Ragno, his crisped hands raised to cover his face. I was glad I couldn’t see it. I took half a dozen paces beyond the body and stopped. I crouched, considering my options. I was exposed now, right out in the open. If the story of his gun failing was a ruse, there was probably enough starlight for Fausto to drop me where I stood. Then again, Laboras did have a tendency to overheat and malfunction if used on full automatic for any length of time.

  To be on the safe side, I had to make sure he let me cross to the forest before he tried anything. If he really was injured, then I had something that could get me close to him. ‘Fausto. I’ve got morphine. It’ll help.’

  ‘You are well prepared, Jack. You always carry drugs with you?’

  ‘Surrettes, from the cylinder. I’ll come and give them to you. No shooting. Truce.’

  ‘Game of football between the trenches, perhaps?’

  ‘Something like that. I need your word, Fausto.’ I cupped my ear to catch his answer, scattered by the breeze. ‘You have my word, Jack. This war is
over. Finished.’

  Lindy hissed something to me from the battlements behind, but I ignored her. She was probably just trying to supply commonsense, and I had no need of that right now.

  I slithered along the sloping path towards the trees. Halfway down, I spotted a clump of larger rocks to the right and headed for them, traversing the scree. I sat down, my back against the largest boulder, shielding me from Fausto. The damp and cold had penetrated even the sweater and I began to shiver. With unsteady hands I took the magazine from the Sten and laid out my motley collection of nuts and bolts and washers on the flat stones beside me. Then I searched the medical bag until I found what I was looking for—a roll of heavy, fabric-backed sticking plaster. I tore some strips off with my teeth and went to work. It was true, I reflected, that Fausto was better than me. At least I recognised that. It might just give me the advantage I needed.

  Five minutes later, I reached the edge of the woods and its dense ground-cover of pine needles. I listened for something other than the sound of my breathing and the slow drip of rainwater off the branches. The blackness between the trunks seemed almost solid. ‘Fausto?’ There was no reply. I moved along the edge of the wood, past jagged trees which had been split by the grenade blasts, revealing pale innards. The stench of explosives was still heavy. Every few feet I repeated his name. After twenty-five yards I doubled back, not wanting to commit myself to entering the forest until I knew exactly where he was.

  ‘Fausto, if you don’t answer, I’m going back up to the fort, along with my morphine.’

  ‘I’m here.’

  His voice was loud in my ear, and I turned, bringing up the Sten, but something solid caught me under the chin and lifted me off the ground. I was out cold before I hit the pine needles.

  I woke up sitting against a rough trunk on a mostly dry patch of ground, just on the edge of a small clearing. My lower face ached and my head was thumping. I moved my hands and legs to confirm I hadn’t been bound or restrained in any way. That was a bonus. I patted the ground around me. The medical bag and Sten were both gone. I touched my jaw, trying to ascertain if anything was broken, but it moved freely, if painfully, in the socket. I could taste blood; my tongue explored my mouth and found a loose tooth.

  ‘You’re OK.’

  He was standing on the other side of the clearing, his face pale in the new moonlight. His hair was darker than I recalled, there was a trim, neat beard and he seemed more drawn, his cheeks shaded with hollows. The sardonic smile, though, was still unmistakably Fausto’s.

  ‘Hello, Jack.’

  ‘You nearly took my head off.’

  ‘I still might.’

  ‘It’s been a while, Fausto.’

  ‘Yes, it has. Good morphine, by the way.’ He indicated the first-aid kit at his feet. ‘Thanks.’

  It was as if I’d made him a cup of coffee. He always was very cool, Fausto. And furbo, a sly one, I reminded myself.

  ‘You’re really hurt?’ I asked.

  He sounded surprised that I asked, as if it were inconceivable that he would lie. ‘One of my legs looks like steak tartare for about half its length. There is metal in there, I can feel it scraping the bone. Or I could before the drugs.’

  ‘And you’re alone?’

  Fausto smiled. ‘She’s not here, if that’s what you are thinking.’

  He hobbled forward, using the Labora as a walking-stick by pressing the barrel onto the ground and holding the stock. It was just long enough for the job. He held my Sten in his right hand. He must have been telling the truth about his old machine pistol: it had finally let him down. It was an antique, after all, a relic of a war even older than mine. As he moved nearer, I could see that his left trouser leg was torn and jagged, and something that belonged on a butcher’s slab was peeking through.

  ‘What happened, Fausto? When did you become a money-grabbing crook?’

  He laughed. ‘Is that what I am? I fought my war for nine years, Jack. After eight of them I realised that everyone was out for what they could get. Everyone. All had an eye on the world after the war. You British particularly. I helped free Domodossola. After that, Fausto’s war was run. Italy was going to be the same old whore, a mess, a bel casino,’ he said, ‘and I was tired, Jack, so tired. It was time to think about myself, maybe for the first time. You know my father gambled away our farm? Then he hanged himself. Then the man he still owed money to took my mother and put me in the home for foundlings. I was three months old. I think I was owed a fresh start.’

  I detected something I had never heard from the old Fausto: self-pity. ‘Don’t give me excuses. You did what you did.’

  ‘Yes. I did what I did.’ He let out a long sigh. ‘We have business to complete.’

  ‘I thought I had your word about not killing me.’

  ‘Ah. I said that war is over. Finished. A lot of dead men. No more killing over things that are long passed.’

  He waited for me to say something, but I knew he’d tell me what was on his mind if I bided my time.

  ‘Francesca, though, Jack. That is not so long past, is it?’

  ‘Is she all right?’ I asked, trying to keep the panic from my voice. ‘You haven’t harmed her?’

  ‘None of your business. She should never have been any of your business.’

  ‘You had her followed,’ I said flatly, as it dawned on me that he knew about our night together.

  ‘Not at first. Not when I thought she was on my side, just throwing you the odd bone of work for old times’ sake, or swatting you away like a troublesome fly when you came up here poking about. But later, yes, I did have her followed. Right to your bed.’

  ‘So you aren’t killing me for Ragno or Rosario, for finding out you killed Jimmy Morris, or about your ruse with Conti and the art treasures that feathered your nest all these years.’

  He didn’t deny the charges. ‘No.’

  ‘You are killing me for screwing your wife?’

  ‘It’ll do,’ he said bitterly.

  I was a bloody fool, not realising that making Fausto a cornuto, a cuckold, might be the real motive behind all this slaughter. Men have died for a lot less in Italy. He let the Labora drop, and steadied the barrel of the Sten with his left hand. My mouth went very dry as he pointed it at my chest. ‘It’s a good reason to kill a man, I think,’ he said, the emotion gone now. ‘Better than war or politics.’

  Fausto made sure the slider through the trigger mechanism was set to single shot, pulled back the bolt, re-aimed the weapon at my heart and squeezed the trigger.

  Click. You always half-expected a Sten to jam, even on single shot, so Fausto checked the magazine had shells in it and worked to clear the chamber and try again. He knew guns, and he was fast, but that fumble was all the time I needed. I reached up under my jumper and pulled out the pistol that I had taped to my chest in the hope he wouldn’t do a thorough pat-down.

  I shot him twice with the Colt before he even realised he’d been had. His eyes bulged in shock, his arms flew out wide and Fausto fell back, crashing into the soft carpet of needles.

  Who’s furbo now? I thought.

  I crawled over to him, but he was gone already. He looked younger, more like I remembered, as if death had lifted the last two decades from him. I should have felt something, but I didn’t. I had a lot of mourning to do, and there wasn’t room for a man I had thought dead for twenty years. It had been borrowed time for him, that was all.

  I unpeeled his cooling fingers from the Sten gun, pulled out the magazine and fetched the rusted screwdriver from the medical kit. I used it to flick out the steel washer that I had slotted into the face of the breech, the one that had stopped the bolt and its firing pin a precious three millimetres short of the cartridge. I’d known he was better than me, and I had taken a chance on him ending up with my gun. I checked the action on the empty chamber, then replaced the mag. Now I had a working Sten.

  The noise behind me made me roll over and aim it, but a familiar voice said, ‘Jack?’
>
  I lowered the barrel and looked up at her as she came from the shadows. She had her own machine gun in her hand, pointing at me. It was none too steady.

  ‘Do you mind?’ I asked.

  She looked down at the weapon. ‘Oh, sorry. I thought you might need some help. Looks like I was wrong.’ She slung the gun over her shoulder. ‘Well done,’ she added, without conviction.

  I used the Sten to lever myself to my feet, straightened up and set about returning her sweater. ‘Don’t you ever do what you’re told?’ I asked.

  ‘Not usually, no,’ said Lindy, pulling the jumper down over her head. ‘What about you?’

  I laughed. I felt twice my age, wet, exhausted and bruised, not to mention surprised to be alive. I’d killed the man who once kept me on as BLO because he thought I was a soft touch. Maybe I had been, back then. Not any more, though.

  I looked down at Fausto. His face already seemed waxy, like a shop-window mannequin’s. I thought of all the questions I had wanted to ask him. There were lots of answers that had died with Fausto. Zopatti, for one, was going to be mad at me for not bringing him back alive. ‘Fuck him,’ I said aloud.

  ‘What?’ asked Lindy.

  ‘I was just thinking,’ I said, ‘that I never do what I’m told either. Let’s get out of here, eh? I think we’ve run out of people to kill.’

  As I walked away towards the treeline, I stopped and turned once more and looked at Fausto’s corpse, a dark stain on the forest floor, a bad man in a good place.

  Thirty-Eight

  THE NIGHT HAD TURNED bright by the time Lindy and I made it to the helicopter in the meadow, the moon a large crescent behind it, illuminating our way, the clouds dispersed to shadows. The bodies of Lang and the others were still there in the wild grass, more victims of Fausto and his sly machinations.

  The nervous chopper pilot, who must have thought World War Three was being rehearsed up the road, didn’t need much persuading by two gun-toting maniacs that it was best to get out of there before morning and the police arrived. With the storm passed, there was enough light for him to get us from Val Grande and over the mountains in safety. On the way back, we dropped the Stens into the lake, where they belonged. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to do the same with the Colt. Not yet.