back and forth. She looked at the place as if she would learn something there. “I want you committed to me,” she said.
The taxi driver said nothing the whole trip, which wound around Naples in an apparently incoherent way, first up toward the Vomero, then down again, then well out toward Mergellina, then back. Bonner did not try to make sense of it. He supposed they were being followed to make sure that Bonner hadn’t brought a tag from the ship. He could have told them he hadn’t. He’d checked. He supposed the taxi driver was one of them, and that if Bonner didn’t check out he’d turn and he would have a silenced nine-millimeter and he’d go pfft! with it right into Bonner’s chest.
Oddly, most of what Bonner thought he knew about this business he had got from movies. If he’d known that the taxi driver was really only a taxi driver, he’d have been deeply confused.
Finally, the driver turned back up toward the Vomero, and, halfway up, pulled over to the side and motioned for Bonner to get out. It was a road, not a street; there was a weedy verge and some trash, but nothing close by like a house or a café. Bonner got out and stood there. He was going to ask if he was supposed to pay, when the driver reached back and slammed his door and drove off.
Bonner found himself on a curve, from which he could look down over the rooftops and terraces of several apartment buildings. The other way, across the road, there was a wall, and, above it and set well back, more apartments. It was an isolated place in the midst of the city. He looked down the road and saw nothing; glancing up, he saw, where the road curved out of sight, a small bulge of green and a bench.
“That’s it,” he muttered aloud. He began to trudge toward it. The sun was brutal. Bonner did not like this uphill walking in the heat. His anger bubbled up again like heartburn, and he told himself again that he’d really let them have it for calling him in again so soon. They’d had a deal! Well, he’d give them an earful. He rehearsed the sullen speech he had been making up during the long taxi ride.
The sounds of the city came up to him—motorcycles, horns, a couple of women shouting. The view opened wider as he walked; he could see the palace, the Castel’ dell’ Uovo, then the bay and the carrier riding out there at anchor. A civilian ferry was tied up next to it, taking on more liberty personnel. It looked like a toy next to the ship.
He walked on, sweating, hating this part of it, which always upset him and made his gut surge. He’d have a bad night, he was sure, up all the time with the crud. Nerves. He was breathing heavily, too, from the climb. At last he came to the bench, and he stood there, and up ahead about fifty yards he saw a car pulled over. The door opened and a man got out.
Bonner sat on the bench. There was a green metal railing around the little grassy bulge in the road. It was a wonderful viewpoint. He could see the carrier, Vesuvius, the castle, half the city, rolled out from his feet like a figured carpet. It was a great vantage point. But frankly, Bonner wouldn’t give you the sweat off one ball for the greatest vantage point in the world.
He turned and looked at the man. He didn’t try to hide his surprise. “Carl!” he muttered.
“A long time, Sheldon.” The man sat down on the bench. He was small, nondescript wore glasses that were only glasses and had no style. He was the only man in the world who called him “Sheldon.” His courtesy seemed based on a respect that was, itself, almost more valuable to Bonner than money. No one called him “Sheldon.”
“I didn’t know it would be you, Carl.” Already, he was apologizing, nervous; they always managed to do this to him, even though they must have had lots more to be nervous about than he did. How did they do that? It threw him off, to have Carl there. He had thought it would be some stranger.
“Please accept my apology for interrupting your liberty this way, Sheldon. I know how unfair it seems to you.”
“Oh, hey—that’s okay, Carl—” He had his speech rehearsed, even down to an explosion of anger. Now here Carl was, a really important man, apologizing for the whole thing.
“I wouldn’t call you out except for something very important, Sheldon. I want you to believe that.” Carl bent a little forward, his voice urgent. He was wearing warmups and a light nylon jacket and kept his right hand in the jacket pocket, but Sheldon didn’t think anything about that, because Carl was the man who had recruited him and was a very high official and must have dozens of people to do dirty work if there was any to be done. Carl, in fact, was one of the two people in the world whom Bonner trusted. The other was his son.
“There have been some changes,” the man called Carl said. He spoke in a flat, Americanized accent without any trace of his origins. “I have made a change. And so I wanted to share this with you and see if the change fits into your strategies. To see whether you would say yes or no to this change.”
“What kind of change?” Bonner hated change.
“You see, Sheldon, we had a problem. A structural problem. I know, you see, that you feel you have not been paid well. I was trying to find money for you, I mean the kind of money that you deserve, in a place where there was no money to be had. What I mean is, there is no money there any more. I am not immune to money myself.” He smiled, as if this humanizing trait were a source of wonder. “I wasn’t being paid enough, either, my friend. There seemed to be an assumption that I would work for love. Of what, I ask you? History? A corrupt system? It seemed to me contradictory that they impose the ‘free-market economy’ and then ask me to do without. So—”He turned more toward Bonner, his right hand still deep in his pocket. “I’ve changed employers, Sheldon. I want you to come with me.” He smiled. “I’m afraid I must have a yes or no today.”
“Changed to who?”
“Who has money?”
Bonner looked into his eyes. “The ragheads,” he said. “Or the Japs, but you wouldn’t go there. The ragheads?”
“They’re very excited about you coming with me. ‘What can you bring?’ they asked me. I told them, some of my stars, like you. You most of all—my star of stars. My best!”
Bonner grinned, but his gut was churning. A change would mean relearning everything, he was sure. New people, new codes, all that shit he hardly understood as it was. “I dunno,” he said.
“I hope you say yes,” Carl murmured.
“Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t you, Carl. You’re the best, you’ve never let me down. But jeez, this last two years—” Bonner made a face. Carl was the very one he had wanted to complain to, and now here he was and Bonner was tongue-tied. He tried to stare at the castle so he wouldn’t see Carl’s eyes, and he said quickly, “I think somebody’s been skimming my money. There just hasn’t been enough!” Bonner jerked his shoulders, then his head. He made a futile gesture with his left hand, the hand closest to Carl. He laughed nervously, then tried to rush at the prepared anger. “They’re nickel-and-diming me, I can’t live on what I’m getting! It’s insulting, is what it is. I’m taking the risk and they’re paying me like minimum wage, like I’m bringing them goddam burgers or something instead of what I am.” He had begun to stammer and he stopped, leaned back into the hard wood of the bench. He rubbed his forehead. “My taxes on my house are more than they paid me last year all put together. I told the guy in Norfolk, the pudgy guy, I need some things. They may not mean much to you; to me, they’re important. I need a new boat. He as good as said I’d get one. Then, nothing!” He had actually worked himself up this time, and he let the anger burst out. “They’re cheating me!”
“I’m
