Cora was right.
He needed medical help.
“Yes. I will. When this is over.”
Brancati studied Dalton’s face, looking for evasion, for equivocation, and decided after a time that Dalton was telling the truth, at least that he believed what he was saying to Brancati right now. Whether in the cold light of morning he maintained that resolve was an issue only Dalton himself could confront, and in the end what Dalton did about Dalton’s demons was none of Brancati’s business. He had his own, far too many, and would not care — in fact would savagely resent having them evoked, called up from the pit, by a stranger, even a benevolent one, even over fine white wine and a marvelous sambuca.
“Good. Enough. I intrude. Forgive me. Well, so you really were a soldier,” he said, pouring some more sambuca into a glass, changing the subject without much tact but with charming determination. “I recognized this right away. I said so, did I not? And how, where, did you soldier?”
“Army. Special Forces, for a while. Then Intelligence.”
“With your American Defense Intelligence Agency?”
“Yes. Before that I was a G2.”
Brancati’s polite expression showed no understanding of the phrase. Dalton realized that Brancati was too polite to ask.
“In our army, S2 mean an officer assigned to Intelligence. And G2 means that same thing, only at the Brigade level.”
“Brigade-level Intelligence? And you saw action?”
“Yes. Some. Syria. The Philippines. And I was in the Horn.”
Brancati took this in, his eyes widening slightly. “When?”
Dalton picked up his glass, sipped at it, looking at the candles, thinking about the Horn, about little fires in the black African night, stiffening corpses, knives in the moonlight, the feel of a man’s face in your left hand, his beard rasping against your palm, the steel in your right hand vibrating as the blade cuts so deep into the throat that it grates against the man’s spine. The gasping, the weakening convulsions, fresh blood on your forearm, warm as coffee.
“Ten years ago.”
“During the Janjaweed Rising?”
“Unofficially, yes.” A short answer, and as such a palpable hint, which Brancati deliberately ignored, his expression hardening.
“We were there too. My brigade. With the UN. An armored brigade of the Centauro Division. Under that Canadian general. We lost fourteen men. Taken as prisoners, abandoned by — by that Canadian — then butchered like veal calves.”
“In Kismayo?”
Brancati had a blind look, his mind in the past.
“I was in that sector,” said Dalton. “Your relief column got turned away.”
“Sent back,” said Brancati. “By that… clerk.”
“You were supposed to have a safe passage. That unit, I mean.”
“Ha! Guaranteed by that Canadian. His ‘guarantee’ was as empty as his huge square head. No matter. No consequences for him. He wrote a book and became a big man at the United Nations. He goes on television to weep about how difficult it all was for him, how much he suffers from the nightmares, from the guilt, although he insists that he himself did all that courage could do. No. His guilt is at one remove, he is only remotely guilty. For this the Canadian government calls him a great hero of their people. He sits in their government even now, smoking cigars, granting interviews.”
“Bugger the Canadians,” said Dalton.
“No. Tonight I will not bugger the Canadians, as so many of the best of them lie buried in little towns and villages all over Tuscany, killed fighting the Nazis in the last good war. But certainly tonight we must bugger the Horn of Africa. And we must not overlook the officers. Particularly we must bugger all the officers.”
“You’re a major yourself, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding, his expression grave. “Bugger me first of all. You too are an officer?”
“I was. I’m not in the Army anymore.”
“No. You are a spy. Tonight we will bugger all the spies too.”
“Well, technically, I’m not really a spy.”
“You are evasive, Micah. I begin to think you do not wish to be buggered. No. I agree. In this you speak the simple truth. You are not a spy. You are too memorable. I have never met a memorable spy. Men who are memorable cannot become spies. Your true spy is always a half man. He is deformed in his aspect. He has bad skin. He is impotent. Stunted. Fat. Bald. Abito che non calza.”
“Suit but no socks?”
“Yes. They have no socks. It means they are… come si dice?”
“Out of place? Misfits?”
“Yes! Misfits. All spies are misfits. But not all misfits are spies. You are, although very handsome — such a bella figura — you are also a kind of misfit. I say this without offense, I hope. I too am a misfit. We do not fit our places. Our times. Our times are out of joint with us. Dante said that. Or perhaps it was Shakespeare, that black Irish thief. You are with the Central Intelligence Agency, but you are not a spy. What it is you do for them?”
Dalton, deciding not to debate the nationality and criminal propensities of Shakespeare, settled for “I think you know.”
Brancati grinned, a flash of intense white in the rosy gloom of the cubicle, his mustache bristling above this like a thicket of thorns.
“Tu fai pulizie. You are a ripulitore. You clean up. You are a—”
“A cleaner. Yes. That’s what I do.”
“You will not take offense,” said Brancati, leaning forward, coming in close, breathing sambuca on Dalton’s cheek, “if I tell you that you are not so good at this cleaner job. With respect, you are something of a fornicator from upward.”
Dalton could not work that out right away, so he said nothing.
“Perhaps your heart is not in it. You have taken Mr. Naumann’s death very personally. It has deranged your judgment. Now you are exploded, a known spy, you are seen drinking with an officer of the Carabinieri, you have started a vendetta with the Croatians, and a magnificent Italian fanciulla rejects your suit of love. All this you have accomplished in only five days.”
“Fornicator from upward? Do you mean I’m a fuck-up?”
“Yes! A fuck-upper! I said it wrong?”
Dalton raised a glass. “No. God, no,” he said, laughing a good, deep laugh that felt like his first in a hundred days. “Here’s to fornicators from upward everywhere.”
“Salute! To you as well. And to me. We are all fornicator-ups in our own ways. Allora, I will help you, if I can, since I believe that you very much need my help. This Sweetwater man, you have a real name for him now?”
“No. I haven’t had a chance to run him in the Agency databases.”
“Why not? You were in London.”
“London was pretty hectic.”
“How will you ‘run’ this search?”
“I’ll start with the name.”
“Sweetwater?”
“Yes. See where it takes me.”
“Good. A start. Cora — she has told me I may call her Cora—”
“So I see.”
“Yes. What a woman! Una ragazza magnifica. If I were not married… but I am most powerfully married. Now, I have decided to help you. In whatever way I can. This depends on much. I expect you to… to share?”
Stallworth won’t like that, Micah.
“As much as they’ll let me, Tessio.”
Brancati studied him for a time over the lip of his glass.
“Okay. Allora. Now I have something to show you, my friend.”