“All right,” she said, and the words were so soft as to be barely audible. “If you’re staying, I’ll stay with you.”
“Like hell you will.”
“I want to, Gianni.”
“Why? You think there’s a chance for another million in selling out Peg and Vittorio’s safe house?”
That one reached her, twisted all the way in, and stayed.
Gianni dropped her plane ticket on the table and rose. “The only place I want you is on this flight.”
He left her sitting there and went to get his bag off-loaded.
Then he watched her walk across the tarmac and board the plane. She was the last one on.
He was still watching as the big Boeing roared down the runway, lifted off, and disappeared into the haze.
The thought occurred only then. How had she known it was Durning?
He rented another car and drove past Positano and up into the mountains above Ravello. He found the overgrown trail leading
to the safe house and was back there by midafter-noon.
No one was in sight and the place was still.
Then Vittorio Battaglia came out from behind some brush and trees and walked slowly toward him. He had a necklace of grenades
around his neck and was carrying a submachine gun.
“I didn’t recognize the car,” he said. “What did you do? Steal it?”
“I haven’t hot-wired a car since the last time with you. And that was twenty-one years ago.”
“Hey, it’s like swimming and fucking. You don’t forget.”
“How did you know a car was coming? You got something rigged?”
“About a quarter mile down the trail. Photoelectric. Battery powered.”
They stood looking at each other.
“Where’s Mary?” asked Vittorio.
“Probably just leaving Rome for New York.”
“And you?”
“Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
“Still have to be a fucking hero, don’t you?”
Gently, Gianni Garetsky gave him the finger.
They walked up to the house together.
P
AULIE FIGURED HE’D
been there with the two men now for part of yesterday, all of last night, and most of today.
He remembered it being sometime late in the afternoon when the one called Dom came around with that bullshit story about a
party, then whacked him out good. Now it was late afternoon again.
In between, he’d slept and had all those crazy dreams. Then he woke up with that bad smell inside him every time he breathed
or swallowed, until it finally made him sick and he vomited. He still felt kind of sick, but Tony said that was just from
the chloroform they’d given him so he’d stay quiet, and promised he’d feel better soon. Tony wasn’t as full of bullshit as
Dom, so Paulie believed him. But he still liked
Dom better. Even though it was Dom who whacked him in the head when his back was turned.
Paulie still didn’t know what was going on. They kept saying he had nothing to be scared about, that he’d be let go as soon
as his father made a business deal with some big shots. But he wasn’t sure how much of that to believe. He figured Dom and
Tony were a couple of Sicilian mobsters, holding him to make his father do something he didn’t want to do. He knew all about
that from the movies and TV. He guessed he was what they called a hostage. Either his father did what they wanted,
or else.
Paulie didn’t know where he was. All he saw through the windows were mountains and trees. There was no sea, no road, no other
houses, and not a sign of anything he could recognize.
To keep him from trying to run away, they had him on a long chain. One end of the chain was attached to a pair of handcuffs
on his ankle. The other end was locked into place around a water pipe. Otherwise, they didn’t bother much about him.
There were things that came to him without his knowing how. He saw the way Dom and Tony looked at him and at each other, and
understood they didn’t like being stuck up here with him any more than he liked being stuck with them.
Time passed. The minutes leaked into hours and hours ran into each other. There were no beginnings or endings. Early in the
day, the sun shone into the house and made the walls a pale yellow. Later on, everything got to be duller, cooler, less bright.
The boy thought about how he’d paint the light on different walls at different times of day. He wished Dom had brought his
paints and brushes along after he’d knocked him out and put him in the car. They’d be nice to have now.
Then, thinking of his paints, he thought about his mother and father, how they’d be worrying about what might have happened
to him. When he didn’t come home in time for dinner, his father would probably go out looking for him and find all his stuff
down there by the water.
What would his father think then? That he’d gone swim
ming off the rocks like he wasn’t supposed to, and drowned? He pictured his father looking for him, calling his name, not
finding him, and finally going home with his painting things. He saw his mother and father crying together, and for the first
time since all this happened, the boy himself cried.
Worried that one of the men might see him, he quickly dried his eyes. He didn’t want them thinking he was a crybaby. Which
made him doubly careful about making sure they didn’t see him sucking his thumb.
Sometimes he wandered around as far as his long chain would let him. It made him feel like a dog on a leash. He didn’t think
he’d like it very much, being a dog.
Other times, he thought about escaping. He decided the first thing was to somehow get hold of one of the keys. There were
two of them. One for the handcuffs on his ankle. The other for the lock holding the chain to the water pipe. Tony kept both
keys in his pants pocket. The boy wished Dom had the keys instead. Or at least kept one of them. Dom was always drinking wine
or beer and taking naps on the couch. So there might be a chance of a key falling out of his pocket, or something.
Once, he tried sitting down next to Dom on the couch to see how it would be. His skin gave off a lot of heat and it felt warm
being so close. He could tell Dom liked him. He guessed it was because he reminded him of his little brother before the truck
rolled over him. Dom liked to muss his hair, and give him these little shoves, and put up his fists like he wanted to fight
him. “This is some tough kid,” he’d say to Tony. “He don’t take no shit from nobody. Took some real hard whacks with a billy
to put him out. That’s the kind of tough head he’s got. Watch him, Tony. Come on, kid. Hit me. Hard as you like. Give me a
good one right here on the jaw.”
The boy would swing at him then. With all his might. But somehow no jaw was there when his fist got to it, and Dom would laugh.
Tony never laughed. He just shook his head and rolled his eyes like Dom was crazy.
Both men had guns.
They wore them in belt holsters and never took them off. When Paulie thought about escaping, his best plan was to
grab Dom’s gun while he was dozing on the couch. Then he’d aim it at Tony and ask for the keys. If Tony didn’t hand them over,
he’d shoot him and take them. He’d never shot anybody in his life, but he didn’t think he’d mind too much having to shoot
Tony. The boy didn’t know about Dom. He didn’t think he’d like having to shoot Domenico. But if he had to, he guessed he could
do it.
Didn’t Dom himself say he was some tough kid?
Lots of kids got killed. He kept seeing it on the TV news and in the papers. And it wasn’t just a lot of make-believe stuff
like in the movies. The news didn’t fool around. They showed it like it was, with all these little kids getting blown up by
terrorist bombs, and crashing in cars and airplanes, and getting shot, stabbed, and beaten to death by all kinds of creeps.
Paulie hoped Dom and Tony weren’t going to have to kill him. But if they did, he wondered which of them would do it and if
it would hurt. He’d once seen a dead little boy lying by the side of a road after an accident. The kid lay there all bloody,
and Paulie had never forgotten it.
He imagined himself lying on the floor the same way, and the thought of it made him wish things.
It made him wish he’d painted more pictures.
And given his mother and father more hugs.
And looked at more of those big, white, puffy summer clouds.
And eaten more ice cream.
And been more able to stop sucking his thumb.
T
O BE ABLE
to appreciate and be amused by the mixed blessings of irony had to rank high among life’s more underrated gifts.
So thought Henry Durning as he sat listening to himself being eulogized as that year’s recipient of the Washington Press Corps
Honor in Government Award, a distinct and almost instant outgrowth of his peaceful solution to the Olympian standoff.
The citation itself, being read now to a large and distinguished black-tie audience, was intended to embody and convey the
full spirit of the award.
“Attorney General Henry Durning reminds us all,” said the speaker, “by his personal example both in and out of office, of
our moral obligation to confront those tragedies of the human condition that continue to haunt the world in good times as
well as bad.
“All who have enjoyed even the briefest association with this man feel as if they have had a glimpse of greatness in the guise
of justice and compassion.”
A standing ovation followed the reading. The ovation went on and on and on, while Henry Durning sat there on the dais, eyes
suddenly brimming and no longer amused, and felt himself losing what remained of what he had always been pleased to consider
his mind.
It was close to midnight and he was riding home in the back of his official limousine.
The sound, the sight, the full heart-stopping emotion of the ovation rode with him. It was impossible to lose. The fact was,
Durning didn’t want to lose it. He felt it as a core moment in the days and years of his life… beyond irony, beyond not caring,
beyond even the easy, knee-jerk cynicism of his usual defenses.
It was prima facie evidence of his contribution, of the always reassuring fact that he was something more than the poor, less-than-admirable
creature he was increasingly discovering himself to be. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. Other than for this, it
had not been his greatest day.
None of the news from Italy was good. Another brief meeting with Don Donatti had established the fact that Irene and Vittorio—and
the two men who had been sent to take care of them—were still among the missing and had contacted no one about their son.
The single positive piece of information from Donatti was that John Hinkey and the Beekman woman had been taken care of. That
problem was over.
But even this had its negative side when Brian Wayne reacted to the news with more than his usual panic.
“You had them
killed?”
Durning had looked into the FBI director’s eyes, heard the shrill pitch of his voice, and poured him a generous shot of bourbon.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. But Christ! Not this!”
“They were about to blow everything wide open, Brian. How would you have handled it?”
“I’m no murderer.”
“And I
am?”
Durning had asked.
“I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” said the FBI director.
Durning had looked hard at his friend’s eyes. Clearly, not too much more.
That had been this morning, and the attorney general had neither seen nor spoken to him since. Wayne and his wife were supposed
to have been at tonight’s award dinner. But Marcy had called to say that her husband had come down with a touch of something
and wouldn’t be able to make it.
Durning had a fair idea what the “touch of something” was. He even knew its name. It was called fear.
Not good.
Poor Brian. He’s definitely not made for this. But then, who is?
I am.
He must have dozed off.
When he glanced out the car window, they were almost in the area of Georgetown where he lived. The streets glistened and he
opened a window and felt a mist of rain on his face. He breathed deeply and the air smelled sour going into his lungs. Was
it an omen? Was there suddenly something out of place in the heavens that was following him?
He sometimes had such presentiments. Not that he really believed in this kind of voodoo. If he had a problem in this realm,
it was in not believing in anything outside of his own
sight, sound, touch, and mortal limitations. Which automatically cut him off from both God and the devil, and this in itself
left him pretty lonely. Where did that leave him to go for comfort?
They pulled up in front of his house, and the chauffeur opened the door for him.
“What time in the morning, Mr. Durning?”
“The usual.”
Tommy saw the award plaque in the attorney general’s hand.
“Congratulations, Sir. I heard the presentation. I’ve listened to a lot of them over the years and they’re mostly bullshit.
But not yours. Every word they said was true. I feel honored to be working for you.”
“Thank you, Tommy. I appreciate that.”
Durning stood in the drizzle as the limousine drove off.
He didn’t see the other car until he turned and started up the brick walk to his house. The car was parked about fifty yards
down the block, and he probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all if the door hadn’t opened at that moment, putting on the interior
lights.
A woman got out and started toward him through the mist. She was slender, almost wraithlike, and she moved with a certain
grace. Watching her approach, Durning had the sense he had seen her before.
Then she passed beneath a streetlight, and for a brief moment he was almost sure he had seen Mary Yung’s face.
I’m twice mad,
he thought, and everything he had felt and fantasized about her all these past days was suddenly packed so solidly inside
his chest that it was hard to breathe.
She stopped three feet away and they stood staring at each other.
“It
is
you,” he said.