A Glancing Light

darkened shop window. I had passed from fatigue through hilarity, and was now in a state of mellow calm, content to let the still- exuberant Max carry the conversation. He was giving one of his glories-of-Italy lectures.

'Chris, just think for a moment where a city like Bologna fits in the great scheme of things! Guido Reni, Galvani, Marconi, the Gregorian calendar ... Look at this, look at this!' He gestured vaguely about him. 'Some of these buildings date from the 1300s.'

'True.'

More vague arm movements. 'This colonnade we're walking in, this building I can reach out and touch—' He demonstrated. 'It was standing here when Columbus discovered America. Think about that!'

Well, not quite. The 'imprisoned' columns of this particular building's facade, the finicky, corrugated texture of its walls, marked it as late Mannerist, somewhere around 1590. But why argue? It obviously made Max happy to think otherwise. Besides, what was a hundred years in the great scheme of things?

'Chris, I'd never go back to the Land of Round Doorknobs, never. Not to live. I've never regretted moving here, not for a minute.'

'Mm.' When he got like this, I was never sure which of us he was trying to convince.

'Do you realize it's practically midnight, and we're walking the streets in complete safety? Can you do that in America?'

'You can in Winslow,' I couldn't help saying. I wasn't so sure about Seattle or New York. Or Bologna, when it came down to it, considering the stories at dinner. I glanced nervously around. Across the street a man and a woman, arms wrapped around each other, were quietly mooning along, walking the other way. Half a block behind us, in the darkness, a car coughed softly and started up. It couldn't have been more peaceful.

'Ah, Chris,' Max raved on, 'just think about it. How do you compare two and a half thousand years of history to— to Michael Jackson and—and McDonald's?'

In some deeply buried vault, patriotism stirred. 'Now wait a minute, Max, you're comparing unlike things. Besides, I think the Italians would be happy to trade in some of that history if they could.'

'Oh, you mean Mussolini? The Borgias?' He dismissed them with a wave. 'Every culture has—What are we stopping for?'

I pointed to the street sign on the corner of a building. 'Via Montegrappa. My hotel's down here.'

'Oh.' He was crestfallen. 'You wouldn't want to have one more drink?'

'No, thanks.' Overeating, overdrinking, and jet lag had finally, irrevocably, caught up with me. All I wanted to do was fall into bed. 'You want to come in and call a cab?'

He shook his head contemptuously. 'To go six blocks?'

Max lived on the other side of Via Marconi, in a section where big, block-like, modern apartment houses had replaced buildings destroyed in World War II. 'You going to have time to get together again for dinner in the next couple of days?'

'Sure, anytime.'

'Day after tomorrow? Come by the gallery about six, and we'll go from there.'

'You're on. See you then.'

I turned onto the unlit Via Montegrappa, which was more medieval alley than Renaissance boulevard, while Max continued down Indipendenza. After a quarter of a block I stopped abruptly, listening hard. I wasn't sure what had alerted me. Something. I stood stock-still. What had I heard? No, nothing. Behind me, on Indipendenza, an automobile had driven slowly by, that was all. I'd heard the engine purring, the tires crackling on the pavement.

I started walking again, puzzled, replaying the sounds. Something wasn't right. The car had been going too slowly, cruising at a walker's pace. In the direction Max was going. The same car I'd heard before, the same quiet engine? Is that what had caught my attention? The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I turned and made quickly for Indipendenza, thinking about all those bullets falling out of Paolo Salvatorelli. Via dell'Indipendenza was empty and silent. It was still raining, but the clouds had thinned, and moonlight glistened on the wet street. I stood still again for a moment, straining to hear. There was a scraping noise, sounds of scuffling, a muffled grunt. With my mouth suddenly dry I ran to the corner where Max would have turned to head home.

He was there, a few yards down Via Ugo Bassi, struggling awkwardly with two men, a tall, lean one in a leather jacket, and a fat, bald monster with a neck that was thicker than his head, and arms and shoulders like Conan the Barbarian. The tall one was roughly shoving Max backward a step at a time, his palms flat against Max's chest, the way a kid does when he's daring another kid to do something about it. Max was stumbling back, trying to hold his ground, making small, outraged noises.

Just as I came in sight of them the fat, muscular one drew back his fist and punched Max in the face. If you have never heard the sound made when a powerful adult male hits someone in the face with all his might—and I guess I hadn't—it comes as a surprise. It isn't the crisp krak of old movies or the explosive crump of new ones. It's nothing at all like the clean slap of a boxing glove. It's a mushy, hollow sound, bare knuckles grinding against bone, and it makes your knees weak to hear it.

At least it made my knees weak. The man drew back his fist again.

'Hey,' I said.

I know you will be amazed to learn that they were not paralyzed with fright. They didn't even jump. They just turned very slowly and looked coldly at me for a long time, which didn't do anything for my knees. Meanwhile, Max slid down the wall of the building, moaning softly. The two men glanced at each other. I think they nodded. The bull-necked one calmly turned back to Max. The tall, thin one walked toward me, not hurrying. Sauntering, in fact, with his hands held out a little from his hips, gunfighter-style.

Part of me wanted to run, of course. All right, all of me wanted to run. I'm fit enough, and I don't think I'm any more cowardly than the average man, but I'm an art curator, for God's sake, and these were professional thugs, as even I could tell. This was out of my line; I didn't go around getting into fights in bars. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd been out-and-out angry with anyone. Well, not unless you count the divorce proceedings, which hardly seems fair.

My legs were aching to turn and run. Believe me, all the ready-made rationalizations leaped to my mind: What was the point of getting Max and me killed or maimed? What did I think I could do against two bruisers? Wasn't running and shouting for the police, for any kind of help, the best thing I could do for Max?

But I didn't run. I can't claim I was being terrifically brave, because I couldn't stop trembling, but I simply couldn't turn tail and leave him there, and I couldn't make myself start bawling for help, either. I stood my ground, my fists knotted. My stomach, too, if it comes to that.

He came up to me and stopped, examining me with his head tilted to one side. I saw that he wasn't really thin; he was hard, with flesh like weathered teak. He was bigger than I'd thought, two or three inches taller than me, and he'd taken a few punches in the face himself. His brow was spongy with scar tissue and his nose had been pounded into a flat, formless lump that sat like a codfish fillet on the middle of his face. The top half of his left ear was gone. He looked very, very tough, very seasoned.

'Back off, fuckface,' I snarled. Not my usual m.o., I admit, but I'd heard somewhere that the best thing to do in situations like this was to establish your authority at the outset.

He didn't back off. Far from it. His right hand—I never saw it coming, but it must have been his right hand; the stiffly extended fingers of his right hand—dug upward into the left side of my abdomen, just beneath the rib cage. The pain was extraordinary. For a horrible instant I thought that I'd been stabbed, that he'd slipped a stiletto under my ribs and up into my lung. I gagged, momentarily unable to breathe, or even to gasp. He drew his hand swiftly back, diagonally over his shoulder, the fingers once again rigidly extended. This, I realized, was going to be a blow to the throat with the edge of his palm. Clutching my left side, incapable of doing much more than warding him off, somehow I had the presence of mind to tuck my chin into my shoulder and step into the blow, toward him rather than away.

As a result, it was his leather-clad upper arm, not his hand, that caught me in the temple, not the neck. Not an enjoyable experience, but a lot better than it might have been. I could draw breath again, and I realized thankfully that I hadn't been stabbed. While his left arm was caught in the crook of my neck and shoulder I punched him just under the armpit— a little gingerly, because 1 wasn't used to hitting people, and then again, harder. His torso jerked and a whoosh of warm air blew onto my cheek. I smelled something sweet on his breath; tarragon. I