Rex Stout - The Black Mountain

Telesio knew it too. When he stopped the car in the courtyard of the stuccoed house, and we got out and followed the path to the door, he spoke to Wolfe and Wolfe turned to me. “We’ll undress in the hall and throw these things outdoors.”

We did so. Telesio brought a chair for Wolfe, but I said I didn’t need one. Our first donning of those duds was in that house, and so was our first doffing. I won’t go into detail except for Wolfe’s shoes and socks. He was afraid to take them off. When he finally set his jaw and pitched in, he gazed at his feet in astonishment. I think he had expected to see nothing but a shapeless mass of raw red flesh, and it wasn’t bad at all, only a couple of heel blisters and a rosy glow, and the toes ridged and twisted some.

“They’ll be back to normal in a year easy,” I told him. I didn’t have to ask him for help with the water heater because Telesio had already gone up and turned it on.

Two hours later, at a quarter past one, we were in the kitchen with Telesio, eating mushroom soup and spaghetti and cheese, and drinking wine, clean and dressed and sleepy. Wolfe had phoned to Rome and had an appointment with Richard Courtney at the embassy at five o’clock. Telesio had arranged for a plane to be ready for us at the Bari airport at two-thirty. I never asked Wolfe for a full report of his conversation with Telesio that day, and probably wouldn’t have got it if I had, but I did want to know about two points, and he told me. First, what did Telesio think of letting Stritar cop the eight grand? He had thought it was unnecessary, immoral, and outrageous. Second, what did Telesio think of what Wolfe had said to Stritar about Danilo Vukcic? Did he agree with me that Wolfe may have put Danilo on a spot? No. He said Danilo was a very smooth customer, and for three years Stritar had been trying to decide whether he was coming or going, and in what direction, and nothing Wolfe had said would hurt him any. That relieved my mind. I had hated to think that we might have helped to reprive Meta of her provider of flour to make bread with. I was telling Fritz only yesterday he should go to a certain address in Titograd and learn how to make bread.

There had been a three-way argument in two languages, which made it complicated. Wolfe’s initials were not on his bag, but they were on his made-to-order shirts and pajamas. How much of a risk was there that Zov would snoop around and see them, and get suspicious, and also maybe get a bright idea? Wolfe thought it was slight, but we ganged up on him and he gave in. The shirts and pajamas were left behind, to be shipped by Telesio, and Telesio went out and bought replacements, which were pretty classy but not big enough. My bag had my initials on it, but we agreed that AG wasn’t as risky as NW — that is, they agreed, and I said I did, not caring to start another argument.

Telesio drove us to the airport in the Fiat, which still didn’t have a dent, though he hadn’t changed his attitude on obstructions. There were more people and activity at the airport than there had been on Palm Sunday, but apparently word had been passed along by the signor who had legalized us, for Telesio merely popped into a room with our passports and popped right out again, and took us out to a plane that was waiting on the apron. With tears in his eyes — which didn’t mean he was suffering, because I had noticed that they came when he laughed — he kissed Wolfe on both cheeks and me on one, and stood and watched us take off.

Since on our way in we hadn’t left the airport, I couldn’t say I had been in Rome, but now I can. A taxi took us through the city to the American embassy, and later another one took us back to the airport, so I know Rome like a book. It has a population of 1,695,477, and has many fine old buildings.

When we entered one of the buildings, the embassy, we were ten minutes early for our appointment, but we didn’t have to wait. A young woman who was fair enough at the moment but would have two chins in a few years if she didn’t take steps was obviously interested in us, which was natural, since Wolfe declined to give our names, saying only that we were expected by Mr. Courtney; and she had been briefed, for after a quick survey trying to guess whether we were CIA or just a couple of congressmen trying to be cagey, she used a phone, and before long Richard Courtney appeared, greeted us diplomatically without pronouncing names, and escorted us within, to a little room halfway down a long, wide corridor. Three chairs were about all it had room for without crowding. He invited us to take two of them and went to the third, which was behind a desk stacked with papers.

He eyed us. Superficially he was still a distinguished-looking college boy, but a lot more reserved than four days earlier. From the way he looked at us, he wasn’t exactly suspicious, but he intended to find out whether he ought to be.

“You said on the phone,” he told Wolfe, “that you wanted to ask a favor.”

“Two favors,” Wolfe corrected him. “One was to let us get to you without mention of names.”

“That has been done. I’ve mentioned your name, since you phoned, only to Mr. Teague, the Secretary. What’s the other one?”

“I’ll make it as brief as possible. Mr. Goodwin and I came to Italy on an important and confidential matter, a private matter. During our stay on Italian soil we have violated no law and committed no offense, except the minor one of being abroad without our papers. Our errand is satisfactorily completed and we’re ready to go home, but there is a small difficulty. We wish to sail tomorrow from Genoa on the Basilia, but incognito. The success of our errand will be compromised if it is known that we are sailing on the ship. From Bari I telephoned the Rome office of the steamship company and was able to reserve a double cabin in the names of Carl Gunther and Alex Gunther. I want to go there now and get the tickets. I ask you to telephone them and tell them it’s all right to let me have them.”

“You mean to guarantee that you’ll pay for them when you get to New York?”

“No, I’ll pay for them in cash.”

“Then what’s the favor?”

“To establish our bona fides. To approve our being listed under different names than those on our passports.”

“Just that?”

“Yes.”

“But my dear sir” — Courtney was relieved and amused — “that’s nothing. Thousands of people travel incognito. You don’t need the sanction of the embassy for that!”

“That may be. But,” Wolfe persisted, “I thought it desirable to take this precaution. With all the restrictions imposed nowadays on people who wish to move around, or need to, I wanted to preclude any possibility of a snag. Also I prefer not to undertake lengthy explanations to a clerk in a steamship office. Will you phone them?”

Courtney smiled. “This is a pleasant surprise, Mr. Wolfe. Certainly I’ll phone them. I wish all the favors our fellow citizens ask for were as simple. And now I hope you won’t mind if I ask for a favor from you. After I told Mr. Teague, the Secretary, that you were coming here this afternoon, he must have spoken of it to the Ambassador, because he told me later that the Ambassador would like to meet you. So if you can spare a few minutes, after I phone?”

Wolfe was frowning. “She’s a woman.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“I must ask your forbearance. I’m tired clear to my bones, and I must catch a seven-o’clock plane to Genoa. Unless — will you take it ill and change your mind about phoning?”

“My God, no!” Courtney laughed. He drew his head back and roared. It struck me as pretty boisterous for a diplomat.

At noon the next day, Friday, we sat in our cabin on B deck on the Basilia. She was to sail at one. Everything was under control except one thing. At the Forelli Hotel in Genoa we had eleven hours sleep on good mattresses, and a good breakfast. Wolfe could walk without shuffling or staggering, and my bruises weren’t quite as raw. We were listed as Carl Gunther and Alex Gunther, had paid for the tickets, and had a little over six hundred bucks in our jeans. It was an outside cabin, twice as big as our cell in the Bari can, with two beds and two chairs, and one of the chairs was upholstered and Wolfe could squeeze into it.