Nightwork

He sighed, and I left him rewrapping the chain and putting it back in his pocket.

As I walked away, I realized that any hope I might have had of fading unnoticed into the populations of Europe was derisive. Wherever I went I would be picked out, by anyone who had the slightest interest in me, as an American. I considered growing a beard.

The next day, feeling that perhaps I would never pass this way again, I took the rapido to Venice, a city that I believed, rightly as it turned out, would be even sadder at that season than Milan. The misty canals, the sad hooting of boat-homs, the black water and mossy pilings in the gray Adriatic winter light did much to restore the sense of my own dignity and erase the memory of the athletic frivolity of St Moritz. I read, with satisfaction, that Venice was sinking into the sea. I lingered on, in a cheap pensione, visiting churches, drinking a light white wine called Soave in bare cafés along the sides of the Piazza San Marco and watching Italians, an occupation that I found I enjoyed. I avoided Harry's Bar, which I feared would contain a hard core of Americans, even at that season. There was only one American I wanted to see and I had no reason to believe he would be found in Venice that week.

The little excursion had done me a great deal of good. My nerves, which had been shattered in Switzerland, now seemed dependable. I arrived at the Hotel Excelsior in Florence on the evening of the thirteenth of February confident that I would handle myself capably when the moment of confrontation arrived.

After an excellent dinner I wandered through the streets of Florence, stood awhile before the monumental copy of Michelangelo's statue of David in the Piazza della Signoria, musing on the nature of heroism and the defeat of villainy. Florence, with its history of plots and vendettas, its Guelphs and Ghibellines, was a fitting city in which to meet my enemy.

Not unnaturally, I slept badly and was up before the light of dawn broke over the swollen Arno beneath my window.

Even before I had my breakfast I questioned the concierge about the schedules of flights from London to Milan and the most convenient rail connection from Milan to Florence. By my calculation the lady would arrive at five-thirty-five.

I would be in the lobby of the hotel at that hour, strategically placed so as to be able to observe any female who signed in at the reception desk. And any man, slightly shorter than myself, who might accompany her or move to greet her.

I drank a great deal of black coffee all that day, but no alcohol, not even a beer. Out of a sense of duty to my role as a tourist, I wandered through the Uffizi Gallery, but the glorious display of Florentine art spread through the great halls made no impression on me. I would come back at another time.

I made one purchase, at a little souvenir shop, a letter opener, shaped like a stiletto, with a chased silver hilt. I refused to think of the exact reasons for the purchase, and pretended to myself that I had merely taken an idle and innocent fancy to it when I had happened to see it lying in the display window.

Late in the afternoon I bought the Rome Daily American and installed myself in one of the ornate chairs in the hotel lobby, not too ostentatiously close to the entrance and the reception desk, but with a clear view of the critical area. I was wearing my own clothes. I didn't want to warn anyone off with the houndstooth jacket or any of the brightly striped shirts that had come along with it.

By six o'clock, I had read the newspaper over twice. The only arrivals at the hotel had been an American family, stout, loud father, weary mother in sensible shoes, three lanky, pale children in identical red, white, and blue anoraks. They had driven up from Rome, I overheard; the roads were icy. By an act of will, I restrained myself from going over to the concierge to ask him to find out if the train from Milan was running late.

I was reading the column of social notes, which I had skipped before, and learned that in Parroli someone I had never heard of had given a party for someone else I never had heard of, when a hatless blonde woman of about thirty came through the door, followed by a quantity of expensive-looking luggage. I made a conscious effort to control my breathing. The woman, I noted automatically, was pretty, with a long, aristocratic nose and a bright slash of a mouth and was wearing a heavy, wrap-around, brown cloth coat that was, even to my inexperienced eye, beautifully tailored.