A laugh. “In the Fatherland, we would be lucky for lard.” He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, inhaled slowly, enjoying the sensation.
Cracco joined him. Terzo.
Kohl examined the Chesterfield. “At home, we make cigarettes from lettuce leaves. When we can find lettuce. And your country, Italy, is no better. Ah, what those bastards have done to her.” Then, a shrug. He smoked half the cigarette down, stubbed it out, and put the rest in his pocket. “The shipment will arrive this evening. You and I will pick it up.”
“Good, yes. But Geller tells me we have to be very careful. The ones we need to be particularly wary of are the FBI and the OSS, the intelligence service.”
“There is a specific threat?”
“It seems so. But he doesn’t know what, exactly.”
“Well, if this is to be my last meal, I’ll have another.” Kohl laughed and nodded at the empty bowl before him. “You would like some more pie, yes?”
Lard, thought Luca Cracco and shook his head.
After the late lunch, Heinrich Kohl vanished into the forever-migrating Midtown crowds. Gray and black greatcoats and fedoras for the men, overcoats and scarves for the women, some of whom wore trousers against the cold, though most were in cotton lisle stockings—which had replaced silk after the start of the war.
Luca Cracco descended beneath Grand Central Station and caught the subway shuttle for the trip of less than a mile to the Eighth Avenue IND line. He took a southbound train to West Fourth Street and walked to the bakery, which Violetta was closing up. It was a quarter to five and the shelves were nearly empty—only a few loaves remained. She would now return home. Beppe and Cristina were in the care of Mrs. Menotti, the woman who lived in the basement of their apartment building. A widow, she earned money by doing laundry and overseeing the children of the couples in the building who both worked, as many families now had to do.
Luca and Violetta had met ten years ago at the Piazza di Spagna, near the bottom of the famed steps. He had approached and asked if she knew which house the poet John Keats had lived in. He knew exactly which dwelling it was, but he was too shy to directly ask if the raven-haired beauty would have a cappuccino with him. Three years later, they were married. Now, they were both heavier than then, but she, in his opinion, was more beautiful. She was quiet on the whole but spoke her mind, often with a coy disarming smile. Cracco believed her to be the smarter of the couple; he was given to impulse. Luca was the artist, Violetta the businesswoman. And woe to any banker or tradesman who tried to take advantage.
He told her about Kohl and the meeting.
“You trust him?”
“Yes,” Cracco said. “Geller vouches for him. And I asked certain questions that only the real Kohl would know the answers to.” A smile. “And he asked me questions, too. I passed the test. The dance of spies.” He thought, as he often did: Who would have guessed, when he came to America—to avoid the looming war, for the sake of his future children—that he would become a soldier, after all.
“I need to get the truck.”
He could have gone directly to the parking lot from lunch with Kohl, but he’d wanted to stop by the bakery. And see his wife.
She nodded.
Nothing more was said of the assignment. They both knew its danger, both knew there was a chance he might not be coming back this evening. He now stepped forward and kissed her quickly on the mouth and told her he loved her. Violetta would not acknowledge even this glancing sentiment and turned away. But then she stopped and spun around and hugged him hard. She went into the backroom quickly. He wondered if she was crying.
Cracco now walked out the door and, hands in pockets, turned and headed east to collect his bread delivery truck; you could spend an hour finding an empty place to park in this neighborhood, so he paid a warehouse $3 a month to leave the vehicle there. He maneuvered carefully as he walked; the streets and sidewalks here were not as meticulously cleared of ice and snow as the more elegant Upper East and Upper West Sides. And, as always, there was the obstacle course of people, all ages, bundled against the freezing air and hurrying on errands this way and that.