“I want it,” Aldo said, too quickly, then cursed himself again. Fear brought trouble. Showing need brought more than trouble.
Zozo plucked an invisible something—lint, dust, a speck of blood—from the cuff of his long-sleeve shirt, pursed his lips, reached up, and squeezed the end of his nose between thumb and second finger. “Now,” he said, drawing out the word. Aldo felt a coating of sweat on the back of his neck. He didn’t move. “Now, the British and the Americans have come to our doorstep, all the way from Sicily. Think about that. They landed in July, it’s September. They’ve already fought their way from southern Sicily almost as far as Napoli. Seven hundred kilometers. In two months. Let’s say they keep coming. Let’s say the Nazis run away, north. Let’s say that, in their haste, our German friends leave behind . . . materiale. Bullets, rifles, blankets, the tires on their damaged trucks, the uniforms on their dead.”
He paused, and the quieter brother, Ubaldo, the true killer of the trio, picked up the conversation as if speaking lines he’d carefully rehearsed. “One day these things could be value.”
“Of value,” Zozo corrected him.
Ubaldo grunted and averted his eyes.
“What’s my job in it?” Aldo asked.
Zozo squeezed his nose again, as if trying to make it smaller. “You have your men who used to help you at the port?”
Aldo shook his head. “Old, dead, disappeared.”
“Find new ones. We can tell you where these valuable objects might be located. Even now, before the Allies come. Trucks at the edge of the city. Two lonely soldiers on the road. You can take your men and . . . liberate the Nazis of their weapons and clothing and other supplies, liberate the trucks of their tires. Guns, grenades, and bullets are especially welcome. You will work mainly at night. You will be told where to find the material and then where to bring it.”
Aldo squirmed in his seat. The three men were watching him. A drop of sweat streamed down his left side, armpit to hip. The plan sounded suspicious to him. Where was the market for German military equipment? It was one thing to take tires from a stranded truck, but German soldiers weren’t going to give up their arms voluntarily. And, with a single exception—many years ago and completely justified—he was not a killer.
Still, what were his options?
“You accept?”
“I accept.”
Zozo nodded. “The pay”—he rubbed his right thumb against two fingers—“will be generous.”
Aldo nodded his gratitude, but something wasn’t right, he could feel it.
“Go, then. You’ll be contacted. Tomorrow. Next day. Day after. Find at least one other man. We’ll give you something to help you in your work.”
“I have a knife.”
Again, the twist of a smile.
Another stupidaggini, Aldo thought. A knife would be nothing against German soldiers. By this point in life, he should know when to keep his mouth closed. He stood and thanked them; shook each hand, one after the next; then turned his back and felt their eyes upon him, a line of electricity running up his spine. He started to say more, but in this company, it was important to act with confidence. The fewer questions, the better. One thank-you was enough. He strode toward the tunnel entrance, the hair on his neck standing at attention, a tingling in his fingers. And then he was crouching and climbing the stone ramp in darkness, guided by one sliver of light showing at the edge of the door in the back room of Ristorante Il Castello.
Still alive.
Seventeen
It was late afternoon by the time the entourage entered Naples. Although many of the street signs had been destroyed in the bombings, Colonel Scholl was able, using a military map, to see that they were driving down Via Duomo, then turning left onto Tribunali, and pulling up in front of Castel Capuano, a long, boxy, four-story building with a square clock tower in front. He climbed down from the armored car, told his driver to find some food for himself and the rest of the men, brushed the dust from his uniform, and looked up. Four officers, standing in a neat row, saluted him. He returned their salute. One of them, a captain, thin-hipped and elegantly tall, led him through the front door, through an elaborate marble foyer, and up four flights of stairs. The office that had been prepared for him offered a view out over a thin slice of the city, all the way to the port, and boasted a pair of glass doors that opened onto a balcony from which he had a more expansive perspective. Once Scholl was set up there—shown the desk and files, the telephone and teletype—the handsome captain who’d accompanied him up the stairs, Nitzermann, he said his name was, asked permission to leave.
“No, stay with me a moment, Captain. And no need to stand so stiffly at attention like that. We’ll be spending a lot of time together. I want you to tell me something.”
“Anything, Herr Colonel.”
“The women of this city, are they . . . available to our men?”
He tried to ask it in as casual a way as possible, a superior officer worried about morale, but Nitzermann, whose skin was as smooth as a baby’s and nicely tanned, seemed already to be regarding him with suspicion.
“I wouldn’t know, sir. I haven’t been here that long. I was in Africa, then Sicily.”
“Yes, of course. I wondered if you’d heard anything. Diseases and so on.”
The young captain gave him a blank look, as if he couldn’t imagine where the diseases might come from, or what kind of diseases they could be. His mouth, somewhat crooked, was twisted further in puzzlement. At last, he said, “I’ve heard there is typhus and malaria, sir. That’s all.”
“Fine, fine. Not among our men, I take it?”
The captain shrugged, causing Scholl to wonder, not for the first time, if intelligence could exist alongside good looks. He adjusted the clasp of his belt, thought of pressing on with the inquiry, then changed direction. “Tell me, what else should I know about Naples? What should I know that the briefings and books don’t tell me?”
The captain’s confusion deepened, his cheek muscles pinched into dimples, eye contact unsteady. “I don’t know what you mean, sir,” he said at length.
“Your impressions. Of the people here, the people who have now switched from friends to enemies at the direction of their little king. Speak freely. What have you heard about them?”
“Hungry, sir. I’ve heard they are hungry.”
“Beaten down?”
The captain’s neck twitched. “Some of them, yes, sir. From what I understand.”
“Then what’s this I hear about pockets of resistance? Are those reports accurate?”
“Scattered and small, sir, but yes, there have been skirmishes. Nothing we haven’t been able to handle to this point.”
“Really? Then why was I sent here? If these things could be handled without me.”
“Because the Italian generals, sir. They . . . the Fascist generals. Mussolini’s men. They . . .”
“Speak freely.”
“I sensed, after the . . . the surrender, the betrayal, that the Italians could no longer depend on their troops to keep order, and that we could no longer depend on them and the other officers to . . . act correctly.”
“And the generals are where now?”