States and alive in Italy—with papers to prove it. When Joe said they were good as gold he must be sure they were. Joe had had ten years to find himself the best—so did Charley, except he hadn’t. He’d been glad to be standing still, to buy a residence permit once, a forged passport another time, and a birth certificate that didn’t match. He’d been standing still letting things drift, never worrying about details. But Joe, the moron . . .
“Joe, that insurance deal. I got—”
“Who’s your beneficiary, Chuck?”
“Old Benton. The old guy with the gas station.”
Joe shook his head and crossed his arms the other way. “No good, Chuck. You told me he’d died the year after you left, and had no heirs except you. Whoever you were then. And you never changed beneficiaries, did you, Chuck?”
He hadn’t. Just one of those things.
“Just one of those things, huh, Chuck? Uncle Sam figures you might be alive, the carabinièri know you are, and you know you haven’t got any papers. Messy, Chuck.”
Messy. Smart boy Charley who’d been on his own ever since he ran off from home, too smart to bother with details because details were for morons—he finally got it what a clever moron Joe Lenken was and how stupid a smart guy could be. Like all the other times when he had started to run.
“How’d you get those papers, Joe? From Del Brocco?”
“Naw. Del Brocco’s a forger. My papers are the real stuff I told you.”
“All right, where’d you get them? Don’t sit there like a lurch. You want this thing to blow wide open?”
“I told you, Chuck. I’m safe.”
Charley came around to Joe’s chair and bent down.
“Lenken, you’re safe as long as I’m safe. So don’t be coy with your Charley horse, Joe, because when I sink, you sink. Remember?”
“You’d drag me in?”
“No. But I wouldn’t make an effort to keep you out. Now listen to me. They may never get to me and then again they might. I’m leaving for Rome to see Del Brocco. Meanwhile—”
Somebody tapped on the door.
“Joey, you in there?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Joey, it’s me.”
“Who in hell—”
“Marco. I got to see you, Joey.”
“Talk through the door,” said Charley.
“That you, Charley? I didn’t know—”
“Now you do. And I’m fine. So talk.”
“They got Vittore,” said Marco. “The carabinièri just brought him into the gendarmeria. About a stolen truck.”
Marco waited, but nobody said a word behind the door. And Charley waited, hoping there wouldn’t be any more.
“That truck wasn’t stolen,” said Joe as if it was important.
Charley sucked air through his teeth and stepped to the door. “Okay, Marco. Beat it.”
Marco’s steps went away.
Charley hadn’t moved but the change was there. He looked quiet because he was holding it just a moment longer, before the fast rush to save what he could, the run for his life.
“I’m going to Rome. While I’m gone make me an alibi. Vittore might hold out a couple of days, but you make me an alibi. Then—”
“Like what, Chuck?”
“Like it was for you. Make it good, Joe, and no mistake. I’ll call you here every day, this hour. Keep your ears open and try to get Vittore out. Clear?”
It was clear to Joe he better not push Charley right then. Charley needed a name like he never did before, and this time when he started to run he meant it to be the last time. Joe saw him off that night. He watched Charley gun the motor of his Bugatti so it was good enough to jump clear across the bay.
“Addio,” said Joe.
“I’ll be back,” said Charley and then he watched the road shoot by.
Chapter Four
DEL BROCGO WAS AN ARTIST. It meant he knew he was good, he kept no regular hours, and his prices were over the top. That was because his customers knew he was good. But Del Brocco lived in a part of Rome where the gutter was in the middle of the street and if you stood on a house balcony on either side you could drop things straight down and make the gutter.
Charley parked on a market square and walked the rest of the way. It was dark. There were no lights, no house numbers, but Del Brocco’s house stood out. It had a seventeenth-century doorway which in itself meant little enough in that part of town. But his house was built of the biggest stones, going back to the time when they looted the Colosseum to build their dark little houses behind the walls of Rome.
When Charley tapped on the door nobody answered. After a while a girl opened the window across the street and leaned out. Even if Charley hadn’t understood her Italian he would have known what she meant. He told her something so she closed the window and then he tapped again. He tapped three, two, one, three, which he should have remembered sooner and when the door opened, Del Brocco’s sons were there. The short one was six feet and the tall one a lot more.
“Del Brocco. I’m Charley.”
“He is not here.”
“For me he is. Let me in.”
“He is not here, signore.”
“Don’t signore me. Tell Del Brocco—” They grabbed his arms, heaved at the same time, and Charley was where the gutter was.
If the fall hadn’t made his side hurt like hell he might have done it differently, but he picked himself up slowly and walked to the grilled window in the front of the house. He hung his jacket on the grillework, making it drape so it looked like something, and then he went back to the gutter. He brought back a stick and punched out all of Del Brocco’s little leaded windows.
Six foot and six foot plus came out of the door like heroes taking a town singlehanded, and just about when they started to tangle with Charley’s coat he walked through the door, banged it shut, and threw the bolt. Then he looked for Del Brocco.
Like the two boys had said, the house was empty. There were Del Brocco’s antiques, his tapestries and expensive furniture, and his stamp collection was open on his desk. So Charley went back to the front room where the broken window was. He climbed on a carved chest, opened one side of the old window, and leaned against the grillework. “Hey,” he said.
They ran up under the window and started to curse. After a while
