The little man savoured it, peering again down the bar. ‘If ABCO men hear me talk like this, I am dead before tomorrow.’
‘Oh, don’t be so bloody silly. We’re not in Algiers now. But speak in French, if you’re worried. What about the consumption of a Tiger tank?’
‘Fifty litres to the kilometre. Less than one mile to your ten gallons. So how the hell they do it? All sea lanes blocked, no controls of the air, enemy fronts closing on both sides — and Rumania falling to the Russians in the summer of 1944. Yet they still kept their monstrous war machine running to that last day, defending that last Berlin street in May 1945!’ He smacked his brow with excitement. ‘Holy Mary, I ask you, how did they do it?’
For the moment Hawn forgot about Anna. Not only did he now have the idea, but it was beginning to take root. He had great respect for the astuteness and integrity of the Principe, even if the man might not still be one of the profession’s chosen few. There was a story here. There must be. It was just a matter of digging it out. It only amazed him that no one had thought of it before.
Prince Grotti Savoia insisted on buying him another beer, but he refused. ‘I need something to go on, Principe. I can’t just stand outside the Danieli with a placard saying that ABCO supplied the Nazis with oil. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?’
The Prince’s face had become crumpled, miserable. ‘I know people — I know names — things I can’t write. They don’t allow me to write any more. They are so frightened of these fucking Red Brigades.’
‘I know about that,’ Hawn said soothingly, ‘but can you tell me some of these names? Somebody who might give me a lead. It doesn’t have to be somebody who’s necessarily involved. Those sort of people aren’t going to talk anyway.’
A white flash glared in their faces and a lean dark man came over and gave a ticket to a man along the bar. The lean man was obviously a professional photographer, and his client was a fat-cheeked man with a porkpie hat. Hawn thought that the Prince was perhaps too drunk to have noticed; but he seized Hawn by the wrist and whispered, with dramatic fury: ‘Vite! Out of here. They have their spies already on us!’
Hawn quietened him down and got him outside. A siren was wailing somewhere in the city. The Prince began to cry. ‘Sounds like Algiers, nest-ce pas?’
‘Principe, why don’t we talk about this tomorrow? I’ve got a date and you’re drunk.’
‘I am drunk. God I am drunk. I am drunk with disgust for life. For the evil things that men do while good men die challenging them.’
‘Goodnight.’
‘No, please, please, a moment!’ The Prince’s eyes were wandering down the empty waterfront, seeking out some friendly face, or perhaps a foe. His mind seemed to be wandering too, persistent only in refusing to let Hawn leave.
Hawn said, for good measure: ‘You said you had names — somebody I could contact, who would put me on to this story?’
‘Yes, there is a man. In London. Very convenient for you. A bon-viveur, terrific gambler, lives well — very well by the standards of you miserable English.’
‘His name?’
‘Shanklin. Meester Shanklin. No “Sir”, no “Lord”. But very important. One of ABCO’s premier franc-tireurs. How do you say?’
‘Sharp-shooter. I may have come across him. ABCO has a lot of people like that tucked away in the background. They only bring them out when there’s trouble — the kind of trouble the Government prefers not to get involved in.’
‘Bastards! Brigands!’ The little Prince seemed to be only half listening. ‘This Meester Shanklin give you a good story. He knows a thing or two. Deep secrets, dead secrets about the ABCO organization.’
‘You want me to get him into trouble?’
‘You don’t get him into trouble. But maybe he drop you in a big shit. Drop both of us. He knows that ABCO did big oil deals with the Nazis, on behalf of British and Americans.’
‘Not officially?’ said Hawn.
‘Officially? What is officially? Nothing an oil company like ABCO does is ever strictement officiel. I tell you, they are brigands.’
‘How many people have you talked to about this, Principe?’
‘Oh I talk, but nobody listens. Why should they listen to an old fool like me?’ He laughed, a sharp odd sound in the damp stillness. ‘But you listen, eh, Scaramouche?’
‘Yes, I’m listening.’ Hawn could already smell, above the salty sewage, more than just a fantasy scented with aniseed. ‘Do you know any other names?’ he said gently.
The Prince leant as far over the parapet as he could reach, and hung squinting perilously into the dark water. ‘Maybe I know. But this is business, Scaramouche. You write this story — maybe you make a big fortune. World exclusive. You smash ABCO. The biggest political scandal of the twentieth century.’
‘You said nobody would print it.’
‘I only say, if they did. Now you embarrass me. I must make business. I must live.’
‘I’ll make a deal with you. Tomorrow, when you’re sober. In the meantime, keep this to yourself. As you said, it could get you into a lot of trouble.’
‘You find me at Harry’s.’
‘At Harry’s.’
They embraced, and as Hawn moved off in the direction of his hotel, he had the feeling that his definitive study of the Medicis, made over the last few months, might be rather dull stuff. For the Medicis had worked with poison, with pikes and swords and staves, and their sole transport problem had been horses. They hadn’t had to grapple with a budget of several million tonnes of crude oil a week, and worry about where it came from.
Supposing the old Principe were right,
