The Black Mountain

275 "That was indiscreet but necessary. We are here on an important and confidential matter, and our presence must not be known." I thought he was doing fine. His asking Arnold to phone the embassy would make the consul suspect that we were on a secret job for the State Department, and if he phoned and Courtney told him we weren't that would only make him think the job was supersecret. He didn't get the embassy, at least not from there. He got Telesio, let Wolfe talk to him, and then sat and chewed the fat with us until Telesio arrived with the passports. Wolfe had pressed it on him that as few people as possible should know we were there, so he didn't tell even the warden our names. He made another phone call, and another signor came, who looked and acted more important than a warden, and he looked at our passports and made it legal for us to breathe. When we left with Telesio they shook hands with us, perfectly friendly, but I noticed they avoided any close contact, which was understandable. They knew where we had been for five hours, that we hadn't been alone, and that some of our companions were leaving with us. Telesio knew it too. When he stopped the car in the courtyard of the stuccoed house, 276 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 277 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 deprive 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 278 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 Flat, 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 signer 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 279 of 1,695,4773 and has many fine old buildings.