Harry Turtledove - The Gladiator

"Well, I don't exactly remember," Moretti said instead of saying he had no idea, though that had to be just as true.

"I'd really like to find out," Annarita said.

Comrade Moretti scratched his mustache again. Had Gian-franco said something like that, the chief janitor would have run him out of his office. Annarita was much prettier than Gianfranco. That shouldn't have had anything to do with anything, which wasn't the same as saying it didn't.

"Hey, Ernesto!" Moretti yelled.

"What's up?" Ernesto Albosta called from the back room. A moment later, the assistant janitor came out. He wasn't impressive. He was short and skinny and slouchy and had crooked teeth. He wore ratty overalls and a cap pulled down low on his forehead. But Moretti was only the front man for the housekeeping staff. If you needed something fixed, Albosta was the one to see. If you needed to find something out, Albosta was the one to ask.

"Who were the guys who did the elevator?" Moretti asked.

"I don't know where the devil they found 'em," Albosta answered. "They're not even a Milanese outfit. The fix was in somewhere-you can bet on that."

"So where are they from, then? Bergamo? Como? Pia-cenza?" Moretli named three cities not far away.

But Ernesto Albosta shook his head each time. "Farther off than that. I think Rimini. Yeah, that's right-they're called By the Arch Repairs, from the Roman one in the middle of town there." He spread his hands. "How's an outfit from over by the Adriatic supposed to get work here? Somebody knows where the bodies are buried, all right."

"Sounds like it," Morelti agreed. "Now I'm going to wonder if we've got to worry about the elevator dying on us in two weeks. If it does, I guarantee you we'll never see those worthless bums again."

"Got that right," /Ubosta said, and slouched away scratching himself.

Marcantonio Moretti nodded to Annarita. "Now you know," he said, as if he'd known himself.

"Yes. Thank you." Annarita got out of his office as fast as she could while staying polite.

Now she knew-but she wondered what she knew. She couldn't remember whether the repair truck had plates from Italy or San Marino. In detective stories, people always noticed stuff like that. She'd paid no attention, though.

Still, there was a fair chance those had been Eduardo's friends looking for him. They hadn't found him. Were they still in Milan, checking other places where he might be? Or had they given up and gone away? She couldn't begin to guess.

Neither could Eduardo when she told him what she'd learned. "That's… too bad," he said. She got the idea he'd clamped down on something stronger. He sighed. "I have to go to San Marino, then, and hope they're not watching the border."

"My family and the Mazzillis are going to Rimini on vacation in a couple of weeks," Annarita said. " San Marino would be easier as a day trip from there than it would going straight from Milan."

"Is Rimini here full of Germans and Scandinavians trying to get sunburn and skin cancer on the beach?" Eduardo asked.

"Si. Some of them hardly wear any clothes at all." Annarita sniffed. "You can probably have a good time even if you don't get up to San Marino."

"Nothing wrong with looking. When you do more than look, that's when life gets complicated," Eduardo said. "Maybe you and Gianfranco can come up to San Marino with me. What could look more innocent than a guy with his cousin and her boyfriend?"

What could give me better cover? he meant. Annarita understood that. She didn't mind. What her parents would think… was bound to be a different story. Of course, if she didn't tell them ahead of time, they wouldn't have a chance to find reasons to say no.

Italy slowed to a crawl in August. It didn't get as hot in Milan as it did farther south, but it was muggier here. Everybody who was anybody got out of town for a while. Doing business often took time-Gianfranco thought about the elevator in his building. Trying to do business in August was a fool's errand.

"It will be good to get to the beach," his father said as they packed for vacation.

"If we can get to the beach," his mother said darkly. "All those foreigners there in as little as the law allows…"

"Well, we've got the hotel reservations. The place is only a couple of blocks from the sand," his father said. "It's where we stayed last year. You liked it then, Bella."

"I wasn't talking about the hotel," Gianfranco's mother said.

Gianfranco kept his mouth shut. Anything he said in a discussion like this could and would be used against him. If the swim trunks he packed were his skimpiest pair, then they were, that was all. He didn't have to mention it.

"Have a good trip," Ernesto Albosta said as Gianfranco's family and the Crosettis brought their bags down to the lobby. The elevator made that much easier. Albosta sounded mournful, and no wonder. He was stuck in town in August. Marcanto-nio Moretti, by contrast, was on holiday somewhere a little north of Rome.

The Crosettis drove a little Fiat. Their bags barely fit into the trunk. They and Cousin Silvio barely fit into the car. Gian-franco's father had a Mercedes. Gianfranco had always taken that for granted. His father had waited a long time to get the car. Nobody, not even a Communist Party official, could avoid that. But when he got it, he got the best.

On the autostrada, the Mercedes soon left the Fiat behind. The highway ran east and a little south, past towns and farms that had been there since time out of mind. Whizzing past those brick buildings in the countryside, Gianfranco wondered how much history they'd seen. A century and a half earlier, Germans and Americans would have fought over them. A century and a half before that, they might have watched Napoleon's army march past. Before that… Well, how old were they? He had no idea.

When he asked his father, he got a shrug for an answer. "Annarita might know about stuff like that," his father said. "Me, I don't much care. I'm a practical man, I am."

"If you want to be practical, keep your eyes on the road," his mother said.

"Haven't hit anything yet, have I?"

"Sometimes I think you're trying to."

When they started going on like that, Gianfranco stopped listening. He'd heard it too many times before. They rolled along the autostrada, and then stopped rolling and started crawling. Gianfranco's father said several things that made his mother cluck. "It doesn't count if you're in the car," his father said defensively.

"Oh? Since when?" His mother didn't believe a word of it.

"It's an old rule I just made up," his father said. His mother snorted.

At last, they got past the slowdown. Three small cars were scrap metal, and a truck had some good-sized dents. Everybody put the pedal to the metal on the autostrada. When accidents happened, they were often bad ones. "I hope the people are all right," Gianfranco's mother said. He hoped so, too, but he wouldn't have bet on it.

A little past Bologna, his father pulled off the road for a rest stop: snacks, espresso, and a pause to use the bathrooms. The Mazzillis were just getting into their car when the Crosettis pulled into the same parking lot. "Fancy meeting you here!" Gianfranco called, waving.

"That was a nasty wreck," Annarita's father answered. "See you at the hotel."

"You sure will." Gianfranco's father unlocked the car. Anybody who lived in a big city learned to lock it all the time. Otherwise, enterprising people took things according to their abilities and their needs. The Mazzillis got in and got back on the highway.

A Roman triumphal arch sat right in the middle of Rimini 's main square. Somewhere not far away would be that repair shop. Cars went under the arch as if it were built as an overpass. Italy had a long, long past. Every so often, it stuck out an elbow and poked the present. South of Rome, there were still stretches of the Appian Way with the paving Roman legionaries had marched on. It must have been easier on their feet than it was on the springs of modern cars and trucks.