After scrambling back to the other side of the freight train, Pino tried to be as light on his feet as possible and moved forward with the boxcars between him and Leyers, thankful to hear the clunking of heavy metal objects the closer he got. Thunk. Thunk. Clunk.
He caught the rhythm of the timing and moved with it, one foot to the other, until he felt he’d drawn even with the group, and then one knee and hand to the other as he crawled under the freight train. He peeked out the other side to find himself fewer than ten meters from the general.
Leyers had the flashlight aimed at the cinders between the rails, so the men worked in the glow of a light at their feet. Pino could see one man in the boxcar above Leyers handing out narrow rectangular objects that he couldn’t quite make out as they were passed above the waist from one man to another and into the opposite boxcar, which was a rusty-orange color.
What the hell was—?
The third man in line fumbled and almost dropped one. Leyers shifted the flashlight beam, shone it on the object in the man’s hands, and Pino had to fight not to gasp.
It was a brick, a brick made of gold.
“Das ist genug,” Leyers said, telling them in German, “That’s enough.”
The four slave laborers looked at the general expectantly. He waved with the flashlight toward the boxcars, indicating they should shut and lock them.
Pino realized the gold transfer was complete, which meant Leyers would soon be heading toward the station and the Fiat. He crabbed backward slowly, and then quicker when he heard the door to the boxcar above him sliding shut.
He was back on his feet on the other side of the train when the second boxcar door shut. Pino danced away on his tiptoes and to the side of the cinders where weeds grew and muffled the sound of his passing.
Within a minute, he was clambering up onto the train platform. The freight train’s locomotive grumbled at the far end of the track. The wheels creaked, whined, and gained speed. The couplings between the cars ground. And every rail tie crossed made a solid, steady thump, thump, thump. And still Pino heard the flat crack of gunshots clearly.
The first one he doubted. But not the second, third, or fourth, which were spaced at intervals of two to four seconds and coming from Leyers’s direction. It was all over in less than fifteen seconds.
The two OT soldiers whom Leyers had ordered away from the transfer site came out onto the platform as if they, too, had heard the shots.
With horror and growing anger, Pino thought, Four slaves dead. Four witnesses to a gold diversion dead. Leyers had pulled the trigger. He’d cold-bloodedly executed them. And he’d planned to do it long before tonight.
The last of the freight train boxcars passed the platform and thumped off into the night, carrying a fortune in what Pino assumed was looted gold. There was a fortune out there in the train yard, too. How much gold had there been?
Enough to kill four innocent men, Pino thought. Enough to—
He heard the crunch of General Leyers’s boots before he saw him as a shade of darkness out there in the moonlit night. Leyers flipped on the flashlight, played it on the platform, and found Pino, who raised his forearm to block the beam and had the quick, panicked thought that the general may have decided to kill him, too.
“There you are, Vorarbeiter,” General Leyers said. “Did you hear those shots?”
Pino decided dumb was his best strategy. “Shots, mon général?”
Leyers came to the platform, shaking his head in bemusement. “Four of them. All clean misses. I’ve never been able to shoot worth a damn.”
“Mon général? I don’t understand.”
“I was transferring something important to Italy out there, protecting it,” he said. “And when I had my back turned, the four laborers took their chance and ran for it.”
Pino frowned. “And you shot them?”
“I shot at them,” General Leyers said. “Or rather, over them and behind them. I’m a horrible marksman. I didn’t care, really. I don’t care. Good luck to them.” Leyers clapped his hands. “Take me to Dolly’s, Vorarbeiter. It’s been a long day.”
If General Leyers was lying, if he’d killed the four slaves, he was also a superb actor or someone who had no conscience, Pino thought as he drove back to Milan. Then again, Leyers had been shaken by the Jews of Platform 21. Maybe he had a conscience when it came to certain things and not to others. The general seemed in a happy enough mood during the ride, chuckling to himself or smacking his lips with satisfaction every once in a while. And why not? He’d just stashed away a fortune in gold.
The general said he’d done it for Italy, protecting it, but as Pino pulled the Fiat up in front of Dolly’s, he remained skeptical. Why would Leyers protect anything for Italy after he’d stolen so much from the country already? And Pino had heard enough stories in life to know that men acted strangely, irrationally, when gold was involved.
When they reached the apartment on the Via Dante, General Leyers climbed out of the car with the valise in his hand.
“You have the day off tomorrow, Vorarbeiter,” Leyers said.
“Thank you, mon général,” Pino said, bobbing his head.
Pino needed a day off. He also needed to see Anna, but he was obviously not being invited to go upstairs for a glass of whiskey.
The general made a move toward the front door, but then stopped.
“You may use the car tomorrow, Vorarbeiter,” he said. “Take the maid anywhere you want to go. Enjoy yourselves.”
The next morning, Anna came down the stairs to the lobby just as Pino was coming through the front door. They both nodded uncertainly to the crone blinking on the stool, and then left, laughing and happy to be in each other’s company.
“This is nice,” she said, taking the passenger seat next to him.
Pino felt good to be out of his OT uniform. He was someone completely different. So was Anna. She wore a blue dress, black pumps, and a fine wool shawl around her shoulders. She’d put on lipstick, and mascara, and . . .
“What?” she said.
“You’re just so beautiful, Anna. You make me want to sing.”
“You’re so sweet,” she said. “And I’d kiss you if I didn’t want to smear Dolly’s expensive French lipstick.”
“Where shall we go?”
“Somewhere pretty. Somewhere we can forget the war.”
Pino thought about that, and said, “I know just the place.”
“But before I forget,” Anna said, reaching in her purse and handing him an envelope. “General Leyers says it’s a letter of passage, under his signature.”
It was astonishing how attitudes changed when Pino showed the letter to sentries along the route to Cernobbio. Pino drove Anna to his favorite spot on Lake Como, a small park near the southern end of the lake’s west arm. It was a clear, unusually warm, breezy autumn day. The sky was a thin blue, and snow dusted the tallest crags, the mountains and their reflection in the lake like two joined watercolor paintings. Pino felt hot, and took off his heavy shirt, revealing a sleeveless white T-shirt.