Alan Furst - The Foreign Correspondent

“No, they can’t. Up there, you have to deal with the peasants.” To Emil, the word was simply descriptive.

“In Genoa, then.”

“Yes. I know of one very good possibility, likely a few more will occur to me. Can you give me a day to work on it?”

“Not much more.”

“It will do.” He wasn’t quite ready to leave. “Printing presses,” he said, as though he were saying romance or summer mornings. He was, evidently, in the normal course of life, more of a guns and bombs man. “Call the number you have. Tomorrow, around this time of day. There will be instructions for you.” He turned and faced Weisz. “A pleasure to meet you,” he said. “And please be careful. The state security in Rome is becoming concerned with Genoa. Like all dogs, they have fleas, but, lately, the Genoese flea is beginning to annoy them.” He made sure Weisz understood what he meant, then turned and, after a few steps, vanished into the crowd.

25 June.

Weisz worked his way through the alleys of the waterfront district, and was at Grassone’s room by nine-thirty.

“Signor X!” Grassone said, opening the door, and happy to see him. “Have you had a good day?”

“Not too bad,” Weisz said.

“It continues,” Grassone said, settling himself in the rolling chair. “I’ve found your newsprint. It comes down in freight cars, from Germany. Which is where the trees are.”

“And a price?”

“I took you at your word, about the big rolls. They price the stuff in metric tons, and for you that would be something in the neighborhood of fourteen hundred lire a metric ton. How many rolls I don’t know, but that should keep you in paper, no? And we beat the local price-or the local price wherever you’re printing.”

Weisz thought it over. A man’s suit cost about four hundred lire, a cheap apartment rented for three hundred a month. He assumed they would be buying at a thieves’ price, and, even with fat commissions for Grassone and his associates, would still be getting the newsprint below the market rate. “That’s acceptable,” he said. On his fingers, he went from lire to dollars, twenty to one, then British pounds at five dollars a pound. Surely, he thought, Mr. Brown would pay that.

Grassone was watching him work. “Comes out good?”

“Yes. Very good. And, of course, it stays a secret.”

Grassone wagged a heavy finger. “Don’t you worry about that, Signor X. Of course, I’ll need a deposit.”

Weisz reached into his pocket and counted out seven hundred lire. Grassone held one of the bills up to the desk lamp. “Such a world we live in, these days. People printing money in the cellar.”

“It’s real,” Weisz said.

“So it is,” Grassone said, putting the money in his drawer.

“Now, I don’t know when and where-it could be a few weeks-but the next thing we’ll want is a printing press, and a Linotype machine.”

“Do you have a list? Size? Make and model?”

“No.”

“You know where to find me.”

“In a day or so, I’ll have it.”

“You’re in a hurry, Signor X, aren’t you.” Grassone leaned forward and flattened his hands on the desk. He wore, Weisz saw, a gold ring with a ruby gemstone on his pinkie. “I see half of Genoa in here, and the other half sees my competitors, and not much goes wrong, because we take care of the local police, and it’s just business. Now here you are, starting up a newspaper. Fine. I wasn’t born yesterday, and I don’t care what you do, but, whatever that is, it’s liable to make some of the wrong people mad, and I don’t want it coming down on my head. That’s not going to happen, is it?”

“Nobody wants that.”

“You give me your word?”

“You have it,” Weisz said.

It was a long walk back to the via Corvino, thunder rumbling in the distance, and flashes of heat lightning on the horizon, out over the Ligurian Sea. A girl in a leather coat fell into step with him as he crossed a piazza. In a warm, husky voice, she wondered if he liked this? Or maybe that? Did he want to be alone tonight? Then, at the apartment house, an old couple passed him, going downstairs as Weisz climbed. The man said good evening, the woman looked him over-who was he? They knew everybody here, they didn’t know him. Back in the apartment, he dozed, then woke suddenly, his heart racing, from a bad dream.

In the morning, the sun was out, and, in the streets, life went on at full throb. The waiter in the cafe knew him now, and greeted him like a steady customer. In his newspaper, La Spezia had beaten Genoa, 2–1, on a goal in the final minute. The waiter, looking over Weisz’s shoulder as he served coffee, said that it shouldn’t have been allowed-hand ball-but the referee had been bought, everybody in town knew that.

Weisz telephoned Matteo at Il Secolo, and met him an hour later in a bar across the street from the newspaper, where they were joined by Matteo’s friend from the Giornale and another pressman. Weisz bought coffee and rolls and brandies; the munificent visitor from out of town, confident, and amusing. “Three monkeys go into a brothel, the first one says…” It was all very relaxed, and amiable-Weisz used their names, asked about their work. “We’ll have our own print shop,” he said. “And good equipment. And, if sometimes you need a few lire at the end of the month, you only have to ask.” Was it safe, they wanted to know. These days, Weisz said, nothing was safe. But he and his friends were very careful-they didn’t want anybody to get in trouble. “Ask Matteo,” he said. “We keep things quiet. But the people of Italy have to know what’s going on.” Otherwise, the fascisti would get away with every lie they told, and they didn’t want that, did they? No, they didn’t. And, Weisz thought, they truly didn’t.

After Matteo’s friends left the bar, Weisz wrote down a list of what would have to be bought from Grassone, then said he would like to meet the truck driver, Antonio.

“He hauls coal in the winter, produce in the summer,” Matteo said. “He does an early run up the coast, then he’s back in town about noon. We could see him tomorrow.”

Weisz said that noon was a good time, decide where, he’d be in touch later in the day. Then, after Matteo had gone back to work, Weisz called the number for Emil.

The young woman answered immediately. “We’ve been waiting for your call,” she said. “You are to meet him tomorrow morning. At a bar, called La Lanterna in one of the little streets, the vico San Giraldo, off the piazza dello Scalo, down by the docks. The time is five-thirty. You can be there?”

Weisz said he could. “Why so early?” he said.

She didn’t answer immediately. “This is not Emil’s habit, it’s the man you will meet at La Lanterna, he owns the bar, he owns many things in Genoa, but he’s careful about where he goes. And when. Understood?”

“Yes. Five-thirty, then.”

Weisz called Matteo after three-to learn that they would meet the truck driver at noon the following day, in a garage on the northern edge of the city. Matteo gave him the address, then said, “You made a good impression on my friends. They’re ready to sign on.”

“I’m glad,” Weisz said. “If we all work together, we can get rid of these bastards.”

Maybe, some day, he thought, as he hung up the phone. But more likely, they would, all of them, Grassone, Matteo, his friends, and everyone else, be going to prison. And it would be Weisz’s fault. The alternative was to sit quiet and hope for better times, but, since 1922, better times hadn’t shown up. And, Weisz thought, if the OVRA didn’t like Liberazione in the past, they’d like it even less now. So, at the end of the day, when the operation was betrayed, or however it fell apart, Weisz would be, one way or another, in the next cell.