“I know you did. But I had to leave it to the last moment.” She indicated a side turning. “We go down here.”
Two streets away, in the Via Oriani, we came upon a large Fiat limousine standing with its engine running. Inside it was Zaleshoff. As we came up, he got out.
“All right?” he asked the girl.
“All right. Couldn’t be better. They won’t be able to get this side for another three-quarters of an hour at least.”
“Good.” He nodded to me. “Nice work. Hop in.”
I got in the back and he followed me. The girl got into the driving-seat.
Reaction had set in. For some reason I had begun to shake from head to foot.
Zaleshoff offered me a cigarette. I took it.
“Well,” I said acidly, “what do we do from now until half-past ten to-night? Hide?”
He lit his own cigarette and stretched himself luxuriously on the cushions. “Now,” he said comfortably, “we’re going to enjoy ourselves. Step on it, Tamara.”
We drove out along the autostrada to Como, went for a trip on a lake steamer and had dinner at a restaurant overlooking the lake. I enjoyed myself enormously. The sun had only just gone down by the time we had finished our dinner and for a time we sat out on the terrace drinking our coffee and smoking.
The stars were almost dazzlingly bright. At one end of the terrace there was a clump of cypresses looking like thick black fingers against the blue-black sky. There was a smell of pine resin in the air. I had forgotten about my companions and was thinking of Claire, wishing that she had been there, when Zaleshoff spoke.
“What are you going to do when you get back to England?”
I came out of my trance and looked towards him. I could see his shadow and that of the girl and two cigarette tips glowing.
“How did you know I was going back to England?”
I sensed rather than saw his shrug. “I guessed from your manner. There’s been an atmosphere of suspended animation about it.” He paused. “This business has kind of taken the heart out of the Spartacus job, hasn’t it?”
“This business and other things.” I felt suddenly that I wanted to talk to someone about it; but all I did was to ask a question. “Do you know a man named Commendatore Bernabo?”
“The guy you bribed to get that machinery order?”
I jumped. That was something about which I had not gone into details with Zaleshoff.
“Yes, that’s the man. But I didn’t tell you that either.”
“These things get around. Bribery’s an old Italian custom.”
“There are a lot of old Italian customs I don’t like.”
He chuckled. “For a business man, you’re a bit fussy, aren’t you?”
“I’m not a business man. I’m an engineer.”
“Ah yes. I was forgetting. My apologies.”
“Besides, I still have a bruise or two on my body.” I hesitated. “I suppose I shall have to get another job.”
“Making shells instead of selling the machinery for making them?”
“There are other things for an engineer to make.”
“Sure!” He paused again. “I thought you told me that you only took the job because you couldn’t get anything better.”
“I read in a trade paper yesterday that there’s a shortage of skilled engineers at the moment.”
I heard him blow smoke out of his mouth. “Yes, I read that article too.”
“ You read it?”
“I read a lot of things. That article was, if I remember, based on the statement made by the managing director of an armament firm, wasn’t it?”
To my annoyance, I felt myself blushing. I was glad that it was dark.
“What of it?” I said indifferently. “Someone’s got to do the job.”
He laughed, but without good humour. “The stock reply according to the gospel of King Profit. Industry has no other end or purpose than the satisfaction of the business man engaged in it. Demand is sacred. It may be a demand for high explosives to slaughter civilians with or one for chemical fertilisers, it may be for shells or it may be for saucepans, it may be for jute machinery for an Indian sweat-shop or it may be for prams, it’s all one. There’s no difference. Your business man has no other responsibility but to make profits for himself and his shareholders.”
“All that’s nothing to do with me.”
“Of course it isn’t,” he rejoined sarcastically, “you’re only the guy that makes it possible. But you also may be the guy that gets squashed to a paste when those shells and high explosives start going off-you and your wife and kids.”
“I haven’t got a wife and kids,” I said sullenly.
“So what?”
“Damn it, Zaleshoff, I’ve got to eat. If there’s a shortage of skilled engineers and I’m a skilled engineer, what do you expect me to do? Get up on a soap box?”
“In a year’s time, my dear Marlow, the same trade paper will be telling you that there are too many skilled engineers. Too many or too few-too much or too little-empty stomachs or overfed ones-the old, old story. When are you English going to do something about it?”
“Are you speaking as an American or a Russian?”
“What difference does it make? Isn’t it common-sense to replace an old, bad system with a better one?”
“You mean Socialism?”
I must have said it derisively for he laughed and did not answer.
“The moon’s rising,” said Tamara suddenly. I looked. A curved sliver of yellow light was visible above the trees.
“Picture postcard,” commented Zaleshoff; “but good picture postcard.” He got up. “It’s time we went.”
We paid the bill and in silence began to walk back to where we had left the Fiat. The way lay down a lighted road. We were about half-way down it when, without thinking, I looked over my shoulder.
“No,” murmured Zaleshoff, “they’re not there. We left them behind in Milan.”
“I wasn’t…” I began. Then I stopped. He was right. I had got used to the idea of being followed. Things, I reflected bitterly, had come to a pretty pass. I had a sudden nostalgia for home, for London. I would go home next week, get away out of this miserable atmosphere of double-dealing, of intrigue, of violence. It would be fine to see Claire. The night I got back we would go to the Chinese place to eat. You didn’t get a moon or stars like this in London, but there you weren’t followed by Italian detectives in Homburg hats. The Boy Scouts didn’t march as well as the Balilla, but there were no loudspeakers to bawl stuff at them about the beauties of war.
And then, for no particular reason, I found myself thinking of something Hallett had once said. It had been after lunch and we had been looking at some newspaper photographs of a Nazi mass demonstration. I had made some comment about the efficiency of German propaganda methods. He had laughed. “It’s efficient because it’s got to be. The British governing class never has that particular worry. In England, people read their newspapers and kid themselves.” But then, as I was always reminding myself when I thought of things Hallett had said, the man was a Socialist. And Zaleshoff I believed to be a Communist, a Bolshevik agent. It was time that I pulled myself together and behaved like a reasonable being. It was sheer lunacy to go through with this plan of Zaleshoff’s.
I had had one very forcible warning. Next time I should no doubt be dealt with in the same way as Ferning had been dealt with. I made up my mind.
“By the way,” I said, as I got into the car, “I’ve decided to call this business off this evening.” As I said it I felt ashamed. But there was, I told myself, no other way.
Zaleshoff had been about to follow me into the car. He stopped. The girl turned her head and giggled.
“A bad joke, Mr. Marlow; but then I always said the English sense of humour was distinctly…”
“Just a minute, Tamara.” Zaleshoff’s voice was quiet enough, but the words were like drips of ice-cold water. “You are joking, aren’t you, Marlow?”
“No.” It was all I could manage.
“A bad joke, indeed!” he said slowly. He got in the car and sat down heavily beside me. “May one inquire the reason for this sudden decision?”