Sure, it was five o’clock of a fine April Sunday afternoon, Palm Sunday, and our plane was unscheduled, and Bari is no metropolis, but even so you might have expected to see some sign of activity around the airport. None. It was dead. Of course there was someone in the control tower, and also presumably someone in the small building which the pilot entered, presumably to report, but that was all except for three boys throwing things at a cat. From them Wolfe learned where a phone was and entered a building to use it. I stood guard over the bags and watched the communist boys. I assumed they were communists because they were throwing things at a cat on Palm Sunday. Then I remembered where I was, so they could have been fascists.
Wolfe came back and reported. “I reached Telesio. He says the guard on duty at the front of this building knows him and should not see him get us. I phoned a number he gave me and arranged for a car to come and take us to a rendezvous.”
“Yes, sir. It’ll take me a while to get used to this. Maybe a year will do it. Let’s get in out of the sun.”
The wooden bench in the waiting room was not too comfortable, but that wasn’t why Wolfe left it after a few minutes and went outside to the front. With three airplanes and four thousand miles behind him, he was simply full of get-up-and-go. It was incredible, but there it was: I was inside sitting down, and he was outside standing up. I considered the possibility that the scene of his youthful gestes had suddenly brought on his second childhood, and decided no. He was suffering too much. When he finally reappeared and beckoned to me, I lifted the bags and went.
The car was a shiny long black Lancia, and the driver wore a neat gray uniform trimmed in green. There was plenty of room for the bags and us too. As we started off, Wolfe reached for the strap and got a good hold on it, so he was still fundamentally normal. We swung out of the airport plaza onto a smooth black-top road, and without a murmur the Lancia stretched its neck and sailed, with the speedometer showing eighty, ninety, and on up over a hundred — when I realized it was kilometers, not miles. Even so, it was no jalopy. Before long there were more houses, and the road became a street, then a winding avenue. We left it, turning right, got into some traffic, made two more turns, and pulled up at the curb in front of what looked like a railroad station. After speaking with the driver Wolfe told me, “He says four thousand lire. Give him eight dollars.”
I audited it mentally as I got my wallet, certified it, and handed it over. The tip was apparently acceptable, since he held the door for Wolfe and helped me get the bags out. Then he got in and rolled off. I wanted to ask Wolfe if it was a railroad station, but there was a limit. His eyes were following something, and, taking direction, I saw that he was watching the Lancia on its way. When it turned a corner and disappeared he spoke.
“We have to walk five hundred yards.”
I picked up the bag. “Andiamo.”
“Where the devil did you get that?”
“Lily Rowan, at the opera. The chorus can’t get off the stage without singing it.”