Silver Stars (Front Lines 2)

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e of the carabinieri has a rifle, the main guard, while the other two lounge in chairs probably stolen from a local trattoria. The lounging men must be in their fifties. The one with the rifle might be fourteen at best. Italy is running out of men to put uniforms on.

“Papers,” the child soldier demands brusquely, eyeing their bruises curiously.

“Questo è il signor Rizzo. Io sono sua moglie.” This is Mr. Rizzo, and I am his wife. It’s a bit formal, but she figures anyone approaching an armed man would be likely to be formal. And she mangles the pronunciation in such a way as to suggest that her bruised face is the cause.

She explains to the guard that they have been robbed and her husband so badly beaten he can barely speak. The guard takes this in with the slowness of a dull and disinterested mind, then he summons the others, who saunter over trailing a cloud of tobacco smoke to be told the same story.

There follows ten minutes of sympathetic tut-tutting, followed by labored explanations that they can do nothing, nothing, signora, they have orders to stay here on guard. But when they are relieved they will naturally tell their superiors, who are certain to go rushing forth to find and arrest the malefactors.

Right.

Rainy has a pack of Italian cheroots supplied for verisimilitude and offers them around. And then they are on their way with barely a cursory glance at their forged papers.

The beach is still on their left, but it is increasingly obscured by one- and two-story houses and apartment buildings, with taller apartment blocks, some three and four floors tall on their right. They pass a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, and the rich smell of coffee wafts toward them. Rainy sees a counter with a plate of pastries at the end and is suddenly famished, and although she’s never been much of a coffee drinker, the smell is enticing.

“Let’s stop in,” Cisco says.

“Let’s not,” Rainy says regretfully. “I’m sure your uncle will feed us.”

One of the advantages of having a battered face is that polite folk look away from you, and even the curious look first at the bruises, not at the eyes. Rainy keeps her head down and her eyes raised, glancing quickly into each face they pass, checking for signs of unusual interest. But the Italians in Salerno on that morning have better things to worry about.

Following the instructions Vito the Sack provided, they now turn inland, into the heart of the city. The sides of several buildings carry the painted slogan of the Italian Fascist party: “Credere! Obbedire! Combattere!”

“Believe, obey, fight,” Rainy translates in a quiet voice.

“And there’s the bastard right there,” Cisco says. He nods toward a massive but time-faded stencil of Benito Mussolini, looking less stern than comical as someone has thrown a pot of paint at the portrait. The black paint struck Mussolini’s eye and dribbled down so it looks now like absurdly long eyelashes drooping down to his chin.

“I never would have thought you cared about Mussolini one way or the other,” Rainy says.

“The Fascists have been tough on our people. On legitimate traditional businesses.”

“Organized crime.”

Cisco shrugs. “You say potato, I say potahto.”

They take a wrong turn and end up in a cul-de-sac of a cramped square facing the cathedral. Arched breezeways are to their right and left. The cathedral, the duomo, carries through the arches on its lower level before rising to form a plain peaked-roof middle. A square tower topped by a round bell tower looms up behind the church and to the right. It’s grand by American standards, but a long way from being Saint Patrick’s, the big cathedral on Fifth Avenue.

That thought carries Rainy away for a moment, far away, to New York. The New York of her father and mother, the New York of Halev. Homesickness swells within her, and she very nearly tears up.

A file of nuns walks past in ankle-length black with their faces framed by snow-white coifs and wimples. An old man with fantastically bowed legs hobbles by, leading a thin cow on a rope. There are more people in the street as the town comes to life.

Rainy is as curious as any tourist, and there is a part of her that keeps thinking, Wow, I’m in Italy! But she keeps her head down and eyes open. Two Italian soldiers, officers, both looking as if they’ve passed a night of debauchery, lurch past, blinking owlishly in the sunlight.

After another half hour they find the street and then the house. Cisco pushes in front of Rainy and bangs on the door. It is opened quickly by a squat man dressed in rusty black, who demands angrily to know who they are and why they are banging on doors.

“I’m Cisco Camporeale,” Cisco says, and the guard’s face goes blank in surprise.

“Camporeale?”

“Yeah. Si.” Cisco points at his chest. “Me-o am Francisco Camporeale, the don’s nephew from America. You know? New York.”

Something in that convinces the man, who lets them in and checks the street before shutting and locking the door behind them. They are in a cool, mildew-smelling entryway at the bottom of a flight of stairs. From up those stairs comes the sounds of clinking dishes and conversation, the sounds of a family at breakfast.

The guard apologizes with a shrug and pats Cisco down, looking for weapons. He looks disapproving when he finds none. He searches Rainy’s bag but does not go further. He calls up the stairs, and a moment later a man in his late twenties, a sort of sturdier version of Cisco, comes galloping down, wiping his mouth with a napkin. He wears a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow, dark slacks, and what appear to be very expensive leather shoes. He is tall, olive complected, with brown eyes and an amazing shock of black hair. Each strand seems weighed down somehow and yet bounces with each step, letting a long strand fall down to bisect one dark, amused eye.

In Italian he asks who they are.