“Good Heavens, no. There was a time when sixty kilometers through those hills was only a frolic for me, but not now. We’ll go across to a spot I used to know, or, if time has changed that too, to one that Paolo—”
The phone rang. I was up automatically, realized I was disqualified, and stood while Wolfe crossed to it and lifted it to his ear. In a moment he spoke, so it was Telesio. After a brief exchange he hung up and turned to me.
“Paolo. He has been waiting for Guido to return from an excursion on his boat. He said he might have to wait until midnight or later. I told him we have decided on a plan and would like to have him come and discuss it. He’s coming.”
I sat down. “Now about my name...”
VI
There are boats and boats. The Queen Elizabeth is a boat. So was the thing I rowed one August afternoon on the lake in Central Park, with Lily Rowan lolling in the stern, to win a bet. Guido Battista’s craft, which took us across the Adriatic, was in between those two but was a much closer relative of the latter than of the former. It was twelve meters long, thirty-nine feet. It had not been thoroughly cleaned since the days when the Romans had used it to hijack spices from Levantine bootleggers, but had been modernized by installing an engine and propeller. One of my occupations en route was trying to figure out exactly where the galley slaves had sat, but it was too much for me.
We shoved off at three p.m. Monday, the idea being to land on the opposite shore at midnight or not long after. That seemed feasible until I saw the Cispadana, which was her name. To expect that affair to navigate 170 miles of open water in nine hours was so damn fantastic that I could make no adequate remark and so didn’t try. It took her nine hours and twenty minutes.
Wolfe and I had stuck to the stuccoed hideout, but it had been a busy night and day for Telesio. After listening to Wolfe’s plan, opposing it on various grounds, and finally giving in because Wolfe wouldn’t, he had gone again for Guido and brought him, and Wolfe and Guido had reached an understanding. Telesio had left with Guido, and I suppose he got a nap somewhere, but before noon Monday he was back with a carload. For me to choose from he had four pairs of pants, three sweaters, four jackets, an assortment of shirts, and five pairs of shoes; and about the same for Wolfe. They weren’t new, except the shoes, but they were clean and whole. I picked them more for fit than looks, and ended up with a blue shirt, maroon sweater, dark green jacket, and light gray pants. Wolfe was tastier, with yellow, brown, and dark blue.
The knapsacks weren’t new either, and none too clean, but we wiped them out and went ahead and packed. At the first try I was too generous with socks and underwear and had to back up and start over. In between roars of laughter, Telesio gave me sound advice: to ditch the underwear entirely, make it two pairs of socks, and cram in all the chocolate it would hold. Wolfe interpreted the advice for me, approved it, and followed it himself. I had expected another squabble about armament, but quite the contrary. In addition to being permitted to wear the Marley in the holster, I was provided with a Colt.38 that looked like new, and fifty rounds for it. I tried it in my jacket pocket, but it was too heavy, so I shifted it to my hip. I was also offered an eight-inch pointed knife, shiny and sharp, but turned it down. Telesio and Wolfe both insisted, saying there might be a situation where a knife would be much more useful than a gun, and I said not for me because I would be more apt to stick myself than the foe. “If a knife is so useful,” I challenged Wolfe, “why don’t you take one yourself?”
“I’m taking two,” he replied; and he did. He put one in a sheath on his belt, and strapped a shorter one to his left leg just below his knee. That gave me a better idea of the kind of party we were going to, since in all the years I had known him he had never borne any weapon but a little gold penknife. The idea was made even clearer when Telesio took two small plastic tubes from his pocket and handed one to Wolfe and one to me. Wolfe frowned at it and asked him something, and they talked.