This Time We Love Read online

  THIS TIME WE LOVE

  Mack Reynolds

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  THE WORD “WOP” is derived from guappo, meaning urchin. Its objectionable connotations are as widely understood in Rome as they are in Brooklyn or South Side Chicago and it is at least as dangerous to use the word there.

  Which was why Max Fielding’s eyebrows had risen when the term, sneeringly and not in humor, drifted out over the softer babble of Italian, French and English in the Caffè Degli Artisti on Via Margutta. He was waiting to be served at the bar and it was going to take a few moments until the harassed barmaid got around to him. The place was crawling at this time of night with artists and models, bohemians and beatniks, international bums and the inevitable deviates who congregate in the world’s art centers.

  Max was in no hurry. In fact, he didn’t particularly want a drink. He was prowling. Out looking at and for life, easily, hands in pockets.

  He let his eyes drift across the room, seeking the speaker aggressive enough to brand his national hosts with a derogatory label. In his travels, Max Fielding had run into the genus ugly americanus before and wasn’t happy with the type. In fact, he was inclined to avoid the tourist routes where he was most apt to run into his fellow citizens.

  He chuckled inwardly. The voice belonged to a nattily dressed, goateed fellow of about forty who wouldn’t have gone a hundred and twenty pounds dripping wet and carrying a suitcase. Max wondered all over again why it was that most of the world’s troubles seemed to start with small men. Give a man six feet of altitude and a couple of hundred pounds of brawn and he’ll go out of his way to avoid a fracas, but trim half a foot and seventy pounds from him and he’s a Bantam rooster.

  This particular pint-sized rooster was facing up to two sharply attired locals who even from across the room registered out of bounds in this retreat for beards, paint-bespattered corduroys, denims and berets. They didn’t even look particularly Roman for that matter. Neapolitan malandrinos, Max would have guessed. He couldn’t hear what any of them were saying at this distance.

  The square-rigged barmaid sailed up. “Che cosa desi-dere bere, Signore?”

  Max automatically turned on his middle-aged-biddy charm. He grinned at her, said, “Un bicchiere di Castelli bianco, bello.”

  She looked at him, then laughed. On the face of it, she hadn’t been called beautiful for many a year. “Un Americano adulatore … molto raro,” she giggled, reaching for a wicker-bound bottle.

  Max put his right hand to his heart and let despair wash over his easygoing face. “Could I be less than sincere before your radiance, bello?” he said in Italian.

  She laughed again; pushed the glass forward, shot a flushed glance at him, and hurried away to a demanding trio at the far end of the counter. Max chuckled to himself. In Rome, in a bottiglieria or caffè, you paid when served. She’d forgotten to collect.

  He turned his back to the bar and leaned against it, glass in hand. He sipped the wine and rolled it around on his tongue. Max wasn’t particularly happy with the highly touted Castelli wines of Lazio, the environs of Rome. As Italian vintages went, he preferred a Ruffino or Brolio chianti.

  His eyes went around the room, weighing, evaluating. He’d just pulled into town that afternoon and was moderately tired from the drive down from Venice. And for that matter from the evening preceding which had started at Harry’s Bar, that Venetian oasis of Americans, and had wound up in the palazzo of a marchesa. The marchesa had as damnable a set of predilections as Max Fielding had run into in a rather eventful life devoted largely to seeking off-trail experiences. The fact of the matter was, the marchesa turned out to be a voyeur who had artfully turned Max over to the ministrations of a servant girl, one of the lushly blooming blondes found only in the north of Italy, a throwback to German invasion of centuries before. At first he’d been somewhat disconcerted by the disappearance of his hostess but had eventually gone on to spend a pleasant two hours of diversified pleasures before ever discovering that his titled pick-up had the room so rigged that there was a peephole in one of the medieval tapestries. At that point, the simpering maid had been dismissed, and the marchesa, her face flaming with naked lust, took over his services. All his resources had been called upon, he remembered wryly, before the night was through.

  He had to grin ruefully, thinking back about it. It was the only time his sexual activities had been observed by a third party since college days when the football team had taken on that season’s campus nymphomaniac in a gang arrangement that could have been possible only under the stimulus of the gallon of applejack they’d put away after a victory.

  There were several Italian girls present in the Caffè Degli Artisti who called for a second evaluation. They were somewhere in their late teens or early twenties, those years when Latin women are the most attractive in the world, bar none. The unbelievably full, yet erect breasts, the perfect bellies and waists, the rounding of incomparable buttocks, the fineness and length of legs, trimness of ankles, smallness of feet, made then uniquely attractive.

  Then there were two or three Americans. Well, one really. The other two weren’t actually up to Max’s standards. Hell, tonight not even the one really made any difference to him. An overly sincere-looking type, the feminine side of the half-lost, half-assed, beatnik generation, deliberately trying to minimize her attractive features. Blue denim pants, a man’s checkered flannel shirt, no makeup, a shockingly inept hair-do. She probably talked a fine line of Zen Buddhism — while in bed.

  He sipped the wine, let his eyes go on.

  Another night he might have made some effort to join one of the political arguments, one of the tables swapping the latest in international dirty jokes, or even the group in the garden surrounding a guitarist and banjo player and making with such old-timers as Sweet Sue. Max couldn’t ever remember having seen a banjo in Italy before, nor, for that matter, Sweet Sue being rendered in an Italian accent. Render, he reminded himself, means to tear apart.

  He wondered what had happened to the feisty drunk who had the gall to call Italians wops in their own country. Max sought him out, finally located him on the far side of the room pounding his fist with gusto on the top of a pinball machine which already registered tilt.

  A pinball machine, Max thought unhappily. Rome is being invaded by the barbarians. He had read somewhere that they had even opened a snack bar in the Colosseum.

  His eyes went on, idly, then came back for a double take. The two toughs with whom the little fellow had had his beef earlier were seated several tables from the pinball machine, ponies of grappa before them. They were looking at the American without bothering to disguise their malevolence.

  Max was of the opinion that Italy is the only country in the world where villains actually look the part. In America, England, France or anywhere else, you’d be hard put to pick a murderer out in a gathering of furniture salesmen — or preachers. But in Italy mobility of facial expression is such that a native planning a crime no more vicious than to cross against a red light shows it all. An Italian scheming to avoid the conductor on a streetcar manages to work up an expression that’d win him an actor’s job as a stereotype Mafia member in Hollywood.

  These two had plans for Mr. Drunken American. That Max could see.

  He shrugged, in a twing
e of irritation. It was none of his affair. Max Fielding was out on the town, enjoying himself. He liked to wander around the world’s metropolises. Drop into a bar. Stroll through the amusement areas of town. Flirt around a little. If he was in the mood, pick up one of the local girls for some horizontal refreshment. He liked to drink the national beverages, sample local food specialties.

  Max looked back to the pinball machine, idly observing the belligerent little man’s furious attempts to run up even a moderate score. He was doomed to failure. Fury doesn’t tend toward the delicate touch.

  Even at this distance, Max could make out snatches of a tirade on the goddamn dago way of lousing up a perfectly good machine made in God’s country … bunch of crooks in this bar … deliberately set machine so you can’t run up a score.… The language tended toward the foul side. Not that it made any difference. The management couldn’t understand the words, and the Americans present were of the type that couldn’t care less.

  His eyes returned to the two sharpies. He placed them now. Rome’s art colony is to be found on Via Margutta and the streets and alleys that lead off it; an area of the city devoted to the bohemian in much the same way as is Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan, or the Latin Quarter on the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris. But the denizens of the art colony are many other than artists. For every painter there is an expatriate alcoholic, for every writer there’s a vacant-faced, long-haired poet so misunderstood by editorial clods that he is fated never to be published, for every composer or musician there’s a pot-smoking weird, for every hard-working model a charity sister who has found that giving it away is incredibly easy in art colony circles. And, as the colony grows and its fame spreads as a center of hedonistic living, there is attracted the thrill seeker, usually blessed with more money than the artist affords. The type might be an alimony widow far from the home town’s critical scrutiny, or a retired businessman starting out late in life for a playboy’s career but loaded with the prime ingredient — money.

  The thrill seeker zeros in on the art colony, searching for the bohemian life — whatever that is. Running up rents and prices, overtipping in the bars and restaurant hangouts, throwing parties featuring champagne and hors d’ oeuvres rather than the red wine and cheese sandwiches formerly known.

  And the word goes out among the locals, be they Mexicans in San Miguel Allende, Spaniards in Torre-molinos, or Italians in the Via Margutta. If you want an easy lay without consequences, free drinks, free food, just hang around the foreigners who pretend to be artists. It’s a sure thing.

  These two, Max decided, were of that type. A couple of Italian toughs from either another part of the city or out of town, looking around for some of the pseudo bohemians they’d heard were such an easy thing. How they’d got into the hassle with the drunken American, Max didn’t know, but from the looks of them, they’d for the present forgotten about the round-heeled women or free liquor at a crashed party, and were laying plans to redeem the honor of Italia, and perhaps roll a drunk while at it.

  Well, once again, it was none of his affair. His glass was empty so he turned and caught the barmaid’s eye.

  “Cuore di mio cuore …” he began, “Heart of my heart …” holding up his glass to indicate his need.

  She approached, laughing at and with him, and for a moment there was that in her face which revealed the beauty of yesteryear. It came to Max that this heavy-set woman of forty-five or so had once undoubtedly been as desirable as any girl of twenty now in the room. He felt a gentle twinge for her. Hard enough on a man, the flight of youth; it must be tough indeed on a beautiful woman.

  “Ah,” she said, “il Americano Signore adulatore.”

  He protested his innocence. “We Americans are never flatterers, bello, but we have a rare sense for true beauty. And, ah heart of my heart …”

  Even as she poured his wine, her mocking chuckle fell off and her attention had obviously left him. She was frowning now in the direction of the door. Max looked into the bar mirror. The Neapolitan-looking toughs were disappearing through the door.

  Max turned and his eyes went around the room quickly. The feisty American with the inadequate beard and the loud mouth wasn’t present. Max turned back to the barmaid. She was scowling unhappily.

  Max said to her suddenly, Cattivo, eh?”

  She darted a worried look back to his face. “S,” she said. “Molto cattivo. Very bad. The little one, he is only so brutto when he is very drunk. And always he tips well. He has a good heart, perhaps, the little one.”

  Max came to a sudden decision. He slipped his hand into his pocket, brought forth a five-hundred-lira piece and flipped it to the bar and turned to leave.

  “Tuo cambio, Signore …” she began.

  He turned and grinned back over his shoulder at her. “No change,” he said, still moving toward the door. “Heart of my heart, so overwhelmed were you by my great charm that you failed to charge me for my first drink.”

  She laughed after him.

  Little Max, he told himself as he pushed through the door and out onto Via Margutta, the Boy Scout. Bring the color back to a middle-aged biddy’s face by a bit of inane flattery, and then go charging out into the night to rescue a fellow American silly enough to get nastily drunk in a cheap bar on a dark street.

  Dark the Via Margutta was at this time of the night. Max shot a quick glance to his right, then left. The three of them were to the left. The American was weaving along in that gait of the drunk, the attempt to achieve dignity when all dignity is gone, the human animal at his most pathetic. The two Italians were following, fifty feet behind, and obviously in no hurry to catch up.

  Max guessed their strategy. The Via Margutta, center of Rome’s art colony, is a drab street but two blocks long and so located that there are only three alley-like entries to it. It lies a hundred feet or so off the Via del Babuino which leads from the Piazza del Popolo to the Spanish Steps, and is somewhat difficult to find by the uninitiated. At the far end of the Via Margutta it connects with the larger traffic artery by the short, alley-like Via Alibert, and though Via Margutta might be dark, it is not nearly so much so as Via Alibert.

  The two were waiting for the drunken American to round the corner before closing in on him. That was obvious. Max hurried his own pace, managing to turn into Via Alibert only shortly behind them.

  Quick as he had been, though, the conflict was already begun. The feisty little character was backed against the brick wall of a colorless, dark apartment building, his fists held ludicrously high in what he evidently believed to be a boxer’s stance. The Italians were coming in, evidently wanting to get it over with quickly before they were observed.

  “Ogay, you wop bassers,” the American was slurring. “Take ya on one at a time. One atta time … bassers.”

  But they weren’t interested in that routine. They didn’t have the time to be bothered. They were about on him.

  Max snapped, “Rallentare, ragazzi! Hold it, boys.”

  They spun, confused. They’d evidently been too concentrated on their campaign to have noticed a fourth member of the parade from the Caffè Degli Artisti. Max put his hands in his pockets and lounged against the wall twenty feet up from them, trying to give an impression of nonbelligerence.

  One of them snarled in English, “Go about your business. This has nothing to do with you.”

  Max grinned amiably, shook his head. “He’s drunk,” he said, as though that explained everything.

  The little guy said, “Hey, pal, wanta help me fight these here two Dagos? You take the one with a face like a poodle’s ass and I’ll — ”

  One of his would-be assailants spun on him and spat an Italian obscenity.

  The little guy was making flailing motions with his hands. “Put up the old dooks,” he demanded. “Put up the dooks, bassers.” At least he had guts, Max decided. Both of his attackers were large men by Italian standards, one as large as Max himself and the other almost so.

  Max said easily, in Italian
, “He’s drunk, and a very small man besides. It would be dishonorable to take advantage of him. Admittedly, he is brutto — but very drunk, and it means nothing.”

  It was the wrong approach. Max had been afraid it would be. There were two of them and only one of him. The drunk didn’t count as a combatant, no matter how brave his words.

  The one who had spoken in English let his eyes run quickly up and down Max’s body. He saw an easygoing American, big, but soft-looking. Yes, undoubtedly soft. He muttered, low in his throat, “Gino …”

  Gino was in obvious agreement, without needed exchange of words. The two of them turned their backs on their original victim and came swiftly toward Max.

  Yes, it had been the wrong approach, Max sighed. He stood erect and brought his hands from his pockets. His arms were out slightly from his body, his palms slightly forward.

  “Ragazzi,” Max began gently, “boys, I’m warning you. I have had training in this, in the American Marines. Let us all call it a night and — ”

  Gino snapped, “Another bragging American moccio …” and they were on him, moving in with speed and from nearly opposite directions.

  Max turned his side to Gino, bent slightly and lashed out with his foot, giving added leverage to the kick and considerably more power than had he kicked forward with his toe. The vicious blow landed slightly under the kneecap, and Gino caved forward, a grunt of pain, shocked pain, blurting from him.

  Ignoring his other opponent entirely in a gamble to eliminate this one, Max stepped briskly forward, clasped his two hands together in a double fist and brought them upward, crushing into the agonized man’s chin and throat. Without waiting for Gino to fall, Max spun to meet the blows of the other’s partner. A single heavy one raked along the side of his head — amateur stuff.

  Max’s right hand darted out. His fingers, rather than clinched in a fist, were pointed, almost spearlike. His hand lanced into the other’s body, immediately below the center of the rib cage — the solar plexus. The Italian’s face went empty in complete pain and he staggered, helpless. Max stepped closer, brought his knee up swiftly into the other’s groin.