Mario pulled the drapes and went to bed. It was dangerous to let his imagination go. Besides, he had an early fare, a Frenchman with a travel-guide company who wanted to see Livorno, all of it. It was a flat day rate.
He went to sleep wondering if there was a subtle way of frisking a man for a wire. He could simply say, Regolazione nuova! and feel him up. There were two problems with this. One, the Frenchman might be — he had heard so many were — homosexual. A man such as Mario could never be too careful in this regard. Two, a wire is hard to feel, certainly nothing like his Luger, an honest weapon. He might miss the wire, relax, even get comfortable with the garrote expert, and, while talking about, say, Jerry Lewis movies with the killer … a knobby, hot chain through his esophagus with two little jerks, left, right—no, he put it all from his mind. He could not afford to let his imagination do irrational things. He needed his sleep. It was a good thing, really, his wife was not present to pester him all night. He would be in no shape to defend himself.
When he picked up his Frenchman the next morning, he marveled at the accuracy of rana, the pejorative applied to the French, he had always thought, with no basis except in fantasy. Now he saw, instead, that frog was no fantasy, no pejorative even. The man attempting to wedge himself into the cab was jowled, top-heavy, and looking at him through eyeglasses that so magnified his eyes — in fact, his whole upper face — that Mario, looking into the man’s pupils, which were the size of roasted chestnuts, thought he saw things in them. It was crazy, but he thought he saw a yo-yo in the frog’s left eye. It was something round and moving around on a string, that much was for sure.
The Frenchman packed himself in finally and pushed his heavy, green-tinted glasses up onto his nose, which adjustment made his eyes even larger. It was like looking into windows at an aquarium. Mario saw, deep in the black pools, what he thought were the two little white sphincters of the optic nerve junctions.
“What are you looking at?” the Frenchman asked.
“Can you see me, masseur?”
“Too well,” the Frenchman said.
Mario was relieved to hear the Frenchman could see. Taking a tourist, much less a travel writer, who could not see around all day to see things was not his idea of fun. “Masseur, excuse me if I appear unkept. I was up most night without sleep.”
“I see. Your manners are ruined by restlessness. You are all movement even at night.”
The words all movement startled Mario. He did not know why.
The Frenchman whipped out a small notebook and wrote something down. On the cover of the notebook Mario saw a small inflated doughy figure of a man he recognized — the tiny, bulbous Michelin man. All movement! All movement and fantasy! From the psalm of the modern Italian in modern Italy who belied the legends. It was fantastic! The man might have even been the writer of the Scripture! Mario intended to ask but was now absorbed by how much the Frenchman resembled not only a frog but the Michelin logo itself, the pneumatic, happy clown that sold tires for the largest tire manufacturer in the world. How had Michelin gotten a writer who just so evoked the company image? Had they based the logo on this man? Had they other men in the employ who looked like the clown? The possibilities were many. It was all fantastic. Suddenly he could see beneath the soft, froggy exterior only his concern of the night before — a piano wire cinched into the corpulence with the apparent innocence of just another ring of fat, of which there might be hundreds. It would be useless to frisk the Frenchman — he would never even detect a gun in all that meat.
“Masseur, I have dread to give offense, because so presto I seize that you may be a much important writer personally to me. But if you are making to carry a wire, it will be vietato.”
As soon as he delivered himself of this warning, he felt foolish. The Frenchman was so tightly packed into the cab that his arms were pinned immobile against the doors. Only in fantasy was there danger. “Anyway,” he said, by way of apology, “one wire would not hurt much.”
The Frenchman glared at him.
At the first bar they passed, a favorite of his, Mario jumped out and went in and got himself a caffè, leaving the Frenchman stuffed in the standing cab. He told Neutro, the bartender, that he was tempted to multiply the day rate by three because he had three times the weight of one man in his taxi. “Such a thing would be perfectly legal,” he said.
“Such a thing would anger. You are not capable of so fantastic a suggestion.”
“Such a thing must to have a opposite and a equal reaction, Neutro. Newton, Sir Isaac.”
Neutro shrugged. Mario was forever quoting science to him. They were equals as nonpracticing scientists.
Mario drank a tall glass of mineral water and announced, “Neutro, I once saw a flea drink a glass of water and swell to twice its original size.”
“Preposterous. You know full well, Dottore, that the flea would burst. Bernouli.”
“You contradict me?”
“Science herself contradicts you, Mario Moscalini.”
“A cognac portare via.”
“As you will.”
Outside, Mario carefully handed in the pony of cognac to the Frenchman, who struggled to get his hands up to take the glass, but appeared to be genuinely grateful. Mario cautioned himself that this might be entirely his imagination. He could not trust a man this large, this unpassionate, this unnimble.
Getting in the cab, Mario saw, across the street, carrying a large loaf of bread and waving cheerfully at him, his wife. This was curious, because there was no bakery nearby. He decided at that moment to drive the Frenchman first to the large new vineyards of his friends the Buffala brothers, because he knew that the Michelin guide did not yet contain reference to a business so new. And if the Frenchman’s appetite for the morning cognac was any sign — he had poured it smoothly into his mouth in one motion of his tiny, cramped hands and sighed appreciatively, almost whimpered — there was a good bet he might have a good time tasting the Buffalas’ special wines.
Passing the spot where the sailor had jumped fare on him the day before, Mario again saw his wife. How she got across town so fast was a mystery. She waved to him again but, he thought, not quite so cheerfully this time. She will see, he thought. She will learn. He looped the block several times looking for the sailor. It was fantasy, of course, to expect to find him, but he was prepared to be illogical if that was the only price for avenging yesterday’s loss. He stopped at a second bar for a second caffè and another cognac for the wedged Frenchman. He phoned the Buffala brothers to warn them he was bringing so important a tourist.
“Adriano, for this one, I suggest you say the wine is radioactive. That is best with a Frenchman. They are advanced.”
“The radioactive defense, you think?”
“Yes. You do not want a Frenchman considering mummies. They don’t believe in that. They are advanced.”