He dumped the rest of the coffee, put his clothes on and ambled out of the room.
The long and silent hall was empty, the ceiling lights economically dimmed down. There was a dank, musty smell that he had not remembered, and a large, semicircular water stain by the Chinese couple’s door that he had not noticed before. Rather poor management, he thought; would there be anyone in the lobby? Maybe an all-night coffee shop to get something to eat?
The lobby was also dimmed-down and silent, but he managed to wake the desk clerk long enough to get change, and from the automatic vending machines he got candy bars, a Rome Daily American, and even an Arabic-language daily published in Naples. Then he returned to his room.
Reminding himself that he was not in Capri for pleasure, he pulled the covers off the bed and spent the next hour reading and eating candy bars, lying on the floor. After an hour or so he made the trip down to the lobby again for some fifty-lire change and ultimately fell asleep, with the light on, on the floor.
At ten the door buzzer woke him.
The room was now intolerably hot, and his bones ached from the floor, but he opened the door. It looked like the girl who had met him at the hoverport, but was not. It was male. “Mario?” he guessed.
The youth smirked. “Yes, of course Mario,” he said. “But you did not recognize me as a signorina, did you? We must not often be seen together, you see—Hake! What insanity have you been up to?”
“What? Oh, you mean why the room is this way. Well, we had a power failure. And I nearly froze to death on that bed.”
Mario’s eyebrows rose. He switched on the air-conditioner and said, “Why did you not use the bed heater? What heater? Oh, Hake, you are such an innocent 1 Here, this switch on the side. You set it to whatever temperature you would like. Thirty-five if you want it, or even more.”
“Oh, hell.” Now that it was explained, it was perfectly obvious. He dialed it to forty degrees, promising himself at least a nice warm nap. As he straightened up, Mario was approaching him with what looked like an elaborate silver-filigree bracelet. “Hey, what’s that for?”
Mario snapped it on his wrist. “So that you may enjoy that bed with the companion of your choice, or with none at all,” he said good-humoredly.
“It’s a sexual-preference thing? I’ve never seen it.”
“A local custom,” Mario explained. “If you wear this it indicates you do not wish anyone to inaugurate a sexual approach to you. See, I also wear one. Without it on, you would be kept quite busy and it would perhaps interfere with your duties. You will find that such bracelets are quite scarce on Capri, for after all why else would anyone come here?”
“Well—” said Hake.
“Oh, do not fear, when you are off duty you may remove it! Now, do you wish to shower, or at least dress?”
“I suppose so. Oh, and listen,” Hake said, “I haven’t been wasting my time. I managed to get a couple of papers last night, and checked all the stories about religion.”
“Very commendable, Hake,” Mario said, glancing at his watch.
“There wasn’t an awful lot, but there was one stroke of luck. I found an editorial in something called, what is it, Corriere Islamica di Napoli about an interesting youth cult. There’s this fellow in Taormina—”
“That is splendid, Hake, but please, your shower. We must hurry. Of course you will want a coffee? Then you can tell me all about it. But the taxi is waiting, and my expense account—well, you know what it is like with one’s expenses!”
Actually Hake did not know. He had never had an expense account from the Team. But if what Mario had meant to imply was that his expenses would be scrutinized it seemed to Hake strange that they should take a taxi all the way to Anacapri to sit and drink morning coffee in an open-air restaurant exactly like twenty-five others they had passed on the way; and then to take another taxi all the way back to a restaurant that turned out to be a block from Hake’s hotel, for the lunch Mario insisted he had to have at the stroke of twelve. It seemed to Hake that Mario was not a very efficient secret agent. In fact, flaky. The Mario of Munich and the rest of the flu-spreading trip had been subdued and deferential; this one was more like a plumbing salesman on a tour.
And when the lunch came Mario picked at it. He was obviously much more interested in the nearly nude dancers in the floor show than in eating. He divided his time between staring at them as they whipped off their peasant skirts to reveal nothing much beneath, and nudging Hake and peering at his face excitedly. Hake felt distinctly uncomfortable. Mario had been much the same on the patio at Anacapri, where bar girls in bikinis had served them their cappuccinos. In neither place did he seem very interested in the Islamic youth cult Hake had boned up on out of the Arab-language newspaper and a few discreet questions to the Lebanese night porter at the hotel.
It all seemed like an awful waste of time to Hake, and the situation did not get better. After the lunch Mario had barely picked at, he said, “Well, perhaps it would be as well for you to rest this afternoon. I will meet you for dinner. And then we will plan our activities for tomorrow.”
“What activities? Look, Mario, I came here on a specific mission, and Curmudgeon said it was of the highest priority.”
“Ah, Curmudgeon,” said Mario, shrugging easily. He took a nail-clipper from his pocket, signaled for the check and began manicuring his already perfect nails. “At Headquarters what do they know of us in the field, eh? You are doing very well, Hake. There is no need to try to impress the home office with your diligence. In our work it is always essential to move with precise knowledge, according to a plan. Speed? Yes, sometimes. But caution and precision, always.”
“But—”
“Hush!” Mario gestured at the waiter, coming to bear away check and credit card. “Have the goodness to postpone this conversation to a more opportune time,” he said coldly. Then he dropped his napkin—on purpose, as it appeared to Hake—and bent down to retrieve it. There was a quiet but definite sputtering sound from under the table. The lights went out, and Mario sat up, rubbing his fingers.
Hake stared. “Mario! What the hell did you do?”
“I warn you again, Hake, not here! Have they taught you nothing in Texas?” Mario whispered furiously. They sat in angry silence until the waiter returned, carrying check and card, his expression embarrassed. Hake could not understand a word of the Italian, but the sense was clear enough. Due to this wholly unforeseeable interruption to the electricity, the computer was unable to process the credit card.
Mario held his hand up forgivingly. “Capisco,” he said. “Va bene. Ecco—due cento, tre cento, tre cento cinquenta, e basta. Ciao.”
“Grazie, grazie, tanto, arrivederla,” said the waiter, clutching the wad of lire gratefully.
And walking along the crowded street, on the short block back to the hotel, Mario said, “Yes, of course it was I. Why do you think I selected that table? There was an electric outlet beneath it for the cleaning. Have you not been taught, it is the little things that add up?”
“And last night in the hotel. Did you do that, too?”
“Of course I did, Hake. Both the electricity and the flooding. I wedged the lock in that room door, and when I left you I turned on their taps, just a trickle, with a washcloth stuffed in the drain. Were you not taught such things?”