The Most Beautiful Race in the World

Before I knew which end was up and could stand for my honorable instincts, Truffi had us talked into it. He'd called the meeting; we sat around a table in a corner of the plaza, nobody else around us, all the waiters shooed off.

Truffi--dark, deep-eyed, long-jawed. He was an amazing driver; we five were the best in the world at that time; the best in Italy, so, the earth's best.

"It is hundreds of thousands in lire, more than a hundred thousand in the American dollar," Truffi said, opening his right hand and shutting it as if he had a girl in it. A very wonderful girl. "That's the first prize, the big raffle prize. And it will go to some peasant. A national racing lottery, to some peasant! Now, what I am saying is, I am saying we go to the peasant first. To one of the five people who will win these five tickets."

"You mean we go to the peasant when the ticket is won; and before the race in which we five participate," said Arito. He was our oldest, and fattest; he had eyelids like a lizard's. He shut those eyelids and smiled gently. His face was rich and dark, like a big pudding. "Just get your crooked facts straight, Truffi," he murmured. "Me, I like the idea. When it comes to that much money my backbone is a pillar of ectoplasm."

Truffi said, "Correct. All right, we guarantee a win for this peasant. That means we split six ways. Out of a lousy season--and my God, haven't we had a lousy season!--we gain a few roses."

His damn-everything eyes--like hot tar--raked us one by one. Nobody talked back. Here we were, the flower of Italian racing, planning to trick humanity, trick our nation and the world. It had indeed been a terrible season, what with the rains, the national depression, and such things as Mussolini; they were events of God which a good honest racing driver should never have had to trouble his head about.

I nodded, and Truffi's eyebrows arched in two perfect caterpillars as he nodded back; he then looked over at Fione. Fione--somehow he always resembled a flea, small, quick, somewhat wise--grinned. "I stand with Truffi."

D'Angelo fidgeted for a second under Truffi's eyes. Then D'Angelo, his face a thoughtful devil's--he was our youngest--coughed politely. "I stand with Truffi and," he jerked his head at me, "you, Castello, and you, Fione."

He looked sidewise at Arito. "And you, Arito," he said. "Hey! That makes all of us!"

Then Arito belched for joy, everybody sat up higher, and everybody looked exactly what he was thinking: which was that it was a wonderful idea, an inspiration. We were all so broke. We were all such national heroes. We were all tired of giving blood for insufficient money. We were all thinking of the more than 100,000 American dollars, the full amount of the lottery's first prize, broken into good spending lire, and cut six ways. We shouted for the waiters and ordered and drank up with grace and enthusiasm. We put the bill for the drinks on Truffi's tab; it had been his idea.

• • •

That was in May; in June the drawings were held, and published in all the papers. We met in Truffi's kitchen, in his villa for which he was forever a couple of months behind on the rent. A nice place on a hill, nobody and nothing but trees around for acres.

We had a little trouble choosing the ticket winner we wished to bribe. Each of us, it turned out, wanted to bribe the person who held the ticket on him, personally; for a while each of us defended his choice, carefully pointing out in the newspaper photos the trustworthy lineaments of our man or woman. It struck us after a while--over the fifth bottle of grappa--that we all wanted to win. Even in a put-up job, we wanted to win. It was a singular revelation. Finally, we stirred the five names in a hat, blindfolded D'Angelo, thickly, so he couldn't cheat, and had him pull the name. He pulled the name of the man who held a ticket on Truffi to win.

Immediately, Truffi's small chest--like a bantam rooster's--expanded about 12 inches, and he was ready to crow. How we envied him; all he had to do now was coast in, let us make it look hard for him, while we made it so easy. And he would get what we wouldn't; the same amount of money, yes; but the cheers, man, the cheers!

The name of the dodo who held Truffi's ticket was Stanguenetti, and his reproduction in the newspaper made him resemble a religious mongoose. He lived in a village about 30 kilometers out in the country. Next night, as the two who were supposed to be best with words and conviction, Fione and I drove down to call on this Stanguenetti.

He was a farmer; Rossellini could have made a great series of movies just from the smell of his boots. We sat on a fence, downwind of those boots. Fione said mournfully, "A filthy year for the crops."

"A man can use more money, constantly," I said.

"God's truth, expressed with wit, Signor Castello," said Stanguenetti.

Fione said delicately, "Now your regal daughter whom we met a moment past, Stanguenetti, would she not like golden gowns, perfumes, a trip to Capri, perhaps even Paris?"

Stanguenetti picked at the fur in his nose. "What did the brat ever do for me? Now, look. What the hell are you here for? You're big-time drivers. You, Fione; you, Castello. OK. I hold the ticket on Truffi. That adds up."

Fione sighed. "Move your feet just a little farther away, please. That's better ... all right, Stanguenetti, the first point is, can you keep your mouth shut?"

It turned out that he could. This was the answer to every one of his prayers--that he could cheat the government, which, as he put it, was being ruined swiftly by that wheat-shoveling bastard, Mussolini, who made the trains run on time and made the working class a laugh for every worker; and at the same time, he could cash in hugely.

Just in the spirit of general good will, we also had him sign an ironclad secret contract--not quite in blood, though that's what we sweated--stating that the six-way split was understood by him, and that he was 100 percent for it. We figured if he tried to back out later, we could produce the document and threaten to drag him down with us. I found myself loving him. On the way home, Fione driving, I said, "The working class of Italy is its lifeblood. You can depend on it in a pinch."

"Yes," Fione said, between his teeth, because he does not even like to talk while driving as a civilian--he never trusts a civilian driver, and he is a fine old man today--"Viva for him. Evviva!"

• • •

The race was July 18th. No rain; a perfect day. It burst over me like a great blossom the second I woke up. I rushed to the window and looked out. Already the boys on the motorcycles--in that city they come out of the cracks like ambitious roaches--were hitting one another and breaking up their machines down in front of the hotel. The officials were chasing them away from the roped-off part of the course. Some of the motorcycle boys were throwing bottles at the officials. And it was only a bit after seven o'clock. Everything was very propitious.

I dressed quickly in my whites; the dazzle of the trousers, the blue stripe on the white shirt made me square my shoulders at myself in the mirror. "Come, Castello," I said. "Tonight you will be comparatively rich. And, barring acts of God, you will be alive. That is a new feeling."

I went so far as to do a small dance, an impromptu tarantella. When I stepped out in the hall, there was Truffi. He strutted mildly as we walked along. "How I slept," he said. "A baby couldn't do it. Dishonesty is healthy."

"True," I said. "But remember Dead Man's Corner. It is where we have our duel on the one-hundredth lap. We dice for honors."

"Make me look good," he said. "Make yourself look fine, but me better. Quiet, now."

We had come out into the lobby. All the kids with their autograph books open came running up--about as many for me as for Truffi, I was glad to note. I squinted importantly, frowned, and signed my name with flourishes, thinking hard of my share of the money. Envy is for small men, and Truffi is smaller than I.

Photographers jumped around, blinding us. Reporters asked for statements. I said this was a solemn moment; Truffi said it was a noble challenge. Out in the sun, I nudged Truffi and whispered, "I'll make it look marvelous, for the honor of the country."

"That's the correct spirit," Truffi told me. Then we were marching down a lane between people who with reluctance stepped back so we might get to the machines. I kept wanting to plant a kick on Truffi. I used forbearance.

D'Angelo trotted over from his machine. Soft-voiced, he said, "You son of a bitch, Truffi, if you crowd me beside the gasworks--"

"Oh, I will have to do a little crowding," Truffi said. "Think of your bank account and yield. I will be thinking of your bank account also."

Biting his lip, D'Angelo walked away. Fione appeared beside us. He said, confidentially, "I have arranged to lose my steering wheel during the end of this thing. I will make it tremendous."

Truffi frowned with slight distaste. "Don't overact," he said. "Anything makes me sick, it's an act grabber. I am the star, this trip."

Cocking his eyes skyward, Fione said with softness, "I've been wondering ... when we put those names in a hat, at your house--who held the hat?" With a finger he stabbed Truffi's chest. Truffi then spoke very loudly for the benefit of the people now clustering around: "And I wish you a great race as well, old comrade!"--and some damned fool cheered.

Slouching, doleful, appearing extremely baggy, Arito ambled over to us. He said, "I bet a little dough on myself. To make it look good. But hell, I'm the real favorite; I couldn't get decent odds."

Expansively, Truffi said, "I'll pay you back every cent you have invested in yourself."

Arito's sleepy eyes looked Truffi up and down. "You're insufferable," he said, and turned and oozed off.

Then the engines were being warmed, and you couldn't even hear the engines for the people, or see the grass for them. In the cockpit of my machine I checked everything. The rewards ahead kept jumping in front of my eyes; sliding coins and mint-new, crackling lire. From the corners of my eyes I could see Truffi on the left, D'Angelo on my right. I thought: It will be nice and will give that goddamned Truffi a jolt to let him worry a little bit. I will get a jump on him and let him stew awhile. From D'Angelo's face I could tell he was thinking the same. Even money is no good unless you can get at least a tiny kick from making it.

Beyond D'Angelo I could see part of Fione's head: an ear and a cheekbone (continued overleaf) below the helmet. And then Arito's--just a slab of the jowl. No doubt they were thinking as I was.

The starter's flag came rippling down and everything moved.

• • •

You can never remember the jockeying at the start. You can only remember the point when you get out of it. And when something like position starts to show up. You can't hear anything over the engines and the crowd. D'Angelo came up fine in the small pack--five is nothing; it is a dream, a breeze--but I was just enough ahead of D'Angelo so he couldn't get first position. I had it. There was nothing in front of me but the course.

In that city, on that course, you have to begin changing down and braking in a peculiar way at the first bend, if you wish to keep both your teeth and your position. It is done with rapidity. I cannot tell it as quickly as it is done. The feet move like a mad animal's. But they move correctly--heel and toe, brake and gas, so and so. The hands also are on fire. It is a good accustomed fire. Journalists do not write well of this and I don't blame them. Copulation is comparable, but only when one is young and freshly inventive. Yet this thing goes on and Truffi is an old man, retired and happy, and I am, too. It is strange.

In the mirror I glimpsed Truffi back there. He seemed to be shouting unspeakable things. I turned for a whistling second and lifted my left hand from the steering wheel to thumb my nose at him. The body of my machine was pounding wonderfully. It wasn't as streamlined as they became later, but it would do. It was shaking my heart to jelly. The engine was giving fabulous response.

The first lap went like this: down through the city, all the city bends, the long straight past the three churches, with men and boys and young girls, charming girls even when seen in a flash, on the roofs and clinging to the steeples of two of the churches; then the ending of the lap, out into the country and back again and around and up on the narrow, shadowed stones between the buildings, and finally into sun flooding out before the hotel where we had started. On the far side of that first lap I looked into the mirror again. Hey-ho! Truffi had dropped back to fourth. Between me and that crazy rooster were D'Angelo and Fione. Trees went streaming by. It's nice country out there in the suburbs, very pleasant. Arito was just behind Truffi. In fact, Arito was really dogging it, which was, for Arito, miraculous.

Why was he dogging it, that fat calm man? Not until we were past the hotel and into the first bend again, with my hands and feet and back muscles working for me and my brain off somewhere else, did I get another look at Truffi in my mirror. This time he was much farther back--a good 600 meters. For the first time, I lifted my right foot--at a point on the course where I'd never ordinarily have done this in 10,000,000 years. D'Angelo drew up alongside me. I swung over toward him. We were two or two and a half inches apart. I could read his tachometer with clarity. He could read mine; they read the same.

I jerked a thumb backward. Nodding, D'Angelo shouted: "Trouble! It's his carburetion!"

Simultaneously, Fione came up on my inboard side and hung there. He made a slight pass at me--this, for the benefit of people who were standing on, and hanging from, a tall rock just beside this section of the course. I responded with a modest pass at Fione.

Then, "What the hell?" Fione yelled wonderingly. "What's with Truffi?" With my face and my shoulders I told him I didn't know. Fione grimaced, called, "I'll keep pace awhile--" and gunned on around D'Angelo and me.

I signaled D'Angelo to move ahead, too, and he gunned up just behind Fione. Now a glance in the mirror showed me Truffi even farther back ... and Arito, like somebody following a truck on a narrow road, right behind Truffi. What a lemon this was becoming!

They were both at least a thousand meters back. This was getting to be no contest. It was getting damned serious. Ahead, D'Angelo and Fione had slowed up once more, perhaps in sympathy and certainly because they were puzzled. We'd all cut down speed to about 30 kph. The one saving point was that we'd reached the countryside again. There weren't so many people out here. And we were heading into a stretch where there were no people; only a couple of cows in a field, chewing whatever they chew all day.

I braked hard, spun, corrected, braked again, and didn't spin out. I turned and waved to Truffi to stop. He did, masterfully; so did Arito, on his tail. For this breath of time there was no one else but us in sight. Us and those cows. Ahead, I could hear D'Angelo and Fione drumming along; I could tell they had cut their speed even more. They were worried because we weren't yet in sight.

Shadows of roadside boulders cast gloom over Truffi and Arito and me as we got out of our machines for a swift conference.

Truffi exploded: "My God, this is embarrassing! My God, I hold my foot to the floor boards and nothing, nothing! Like riding a merry-go-round!"

Arito said with dark melancholy, "We should not simply stand here; somebody might see us. We might all be disqualified. Together. It's unfortunate; I was all set to buy this chicken farm, and--"

"This, that, and double it on your chicken farm," Truffi said. His ears were flaming and his strong nose had gone white. He gripped my shoulder. "Stand behind me, Cassy; you and Ritti and all of you. Now, you've got to. You've got to lose this goddamned race no matter what ..." He wheeled around. "Ritti!" Arito was waddling toward Truffi's machine; by the time Truffi got to him, he had the bonnet up. Truffi howled. "What the screaming holy impossible are you doing?"

Very placidly, if with considerable worry, his chins shaking, Arito said, "I'm no mechanic ... but I was thinking, if we could change carburetors--you take mine, I yours--if there's time--"

Truffi very nearly blew across the landscape. Even the cows raised their ears. When he had finished blasting, Truffi yelled, "Quick, back in your machine, you weird, gross ape! Somebody is no doubt coming right now--they'll send an ambulance, we've been here long enough to grow beards ... oh--my --God." His great black eyes popped wide. Mine, too; and Arito's. Because here, from behind, came D'Angelo and Fione, running nearly neck and neck; they saw us in time to make loud rubber-stinking stops. The cows ran away across the pasture, udders flapping. The day was surely fine, small blue and white-and-gold flowers everywhere, much clover smell on the air. "Don't get out, they'll find us all stopped and shoot us," Truffi screamed, waving Fione and D'Angelo back into their cockpits.

Rather meditatively, Arito said, "We could change cars, but I imagine somebody would notice ..."

From his cockpit D'Angelo called, "You bastard, you bastard, Truffi! We've completely lapped you!" He was furious, waving his fists. "Think of Stanguenetti! Think of that poor farmer!" He was also almost crying.

Bringing a ghost of order among us, Fione shouted sternly: "They don't know we've lapped him. Now he has to keep in front, at all costs. At all costs! You and I, Angie, we stay here, he let Truffi go ahead and make a lap, then after that he stays ahead--all the way home!"

Of course, by home he meant for the rest of the race. My jaw dropped. But it was not only practical, it was the only thing to do. The race was for 115 laps. Shutting my mouth, I ran for my car; Truffi bounded into his; Arito, like a brown bear in deep thought, scratched his behind as he settled himself in his mount. In a cloud of blue exhaust (continued on page 66)Most Beautiful Race(continued from page 60) smoke, his engine truly coughing now, the machine bucking a trifle, Truffi set off ahead of us. He vanished from sight around the bend very slowly. Arito gunned his engine.

I said, "Shut up, Rittil" He stopped the gunning, and then, again, we could all hear Truffi's car spitting its way around. It would surely make a resplendent sight, creeping past the hotel.

D'Angelo, who must have been doing some figuring, called to me, "Cassy, it would be more natural if you and Ritti showed up behind him. Just don't get too close. You don't have to lose another lap; just Fione and I have to stay here."

I said OK, and gave the nod to Arito, and we put our machines in gear and pulled off. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds before we came up alongside Truffi, one on each flank. Truffi was staring straight ahead; his knuckles seemed stark white on his steering wheel.

None of us was going fast enough to limit any understandable conversation.

Leaning out a bit, I said, "Look, Truffi, it's not so rotten--at the pit maybe you can get a new carb; or something ..."

I felt quite bad about him, you know. He was so cocky, and you hate to see the feathers lie flat.

In a voice he managed to keep fairly low, just over the coughing of his engine, Truffi said, "It is more than the so-and-so, unspeakable, mother-kissing carb." His big jaw was out a foot. He didn't trust himself to look at me. Now and then he lifted both hands from the steering wheel and slapped his own ears. "The whole machine feels generically unsound. It's coming apart in unison, Cassy. All we can do--"

At length, then, he turned around to face me. This didn't matter; if he'd hit something, nobody would have been hurt; jostled, but not shaken. He looked like the world's end, concentrated. "All we can do--" Truffi choked. We were now coming out of the country stretch, from the pastures and trees into the populous part. Ahead, people wedged along the roadside tighter than fence posts, tighter than olive pits in olives. Truffi's voice broke. "All we can do is pretend everything is fine." And then he was grinning, hard, for the people along the road. We could have reached out and shaken hands with these people. We could have talked a little; inquired about their health, their families.

All of them stayed very hushed, wondering, awed, as we went by. The three of us grinned and stared directly in front of us. Truffi was slightly in the lead. It was all very sedate. All grinning. All staring straight forward.

Truffi's pit stop didn't help. Very shortly after he limped into his pit, Arito and I headed into ours. Then D'Angelo and Fione came very carefully around and with caution drove into their pits. All five of us, in the pits ... my mechanics looked at me white-eyed, as if the world had gone brutally mad. I said, "Work slow. Truffi's going to be in his pit for a while."

My oldest mechanic, Tiponi, craned around to inspect me and said, "Concussion. You have been grievously whacked."

I said, "I've got this one in the bag, you fool. Work slow. I need time to breathe in."

Tiponi threw his wrench down. It bounced quite a lot.

"You need time to breathe, maestro. You need it to what? To sleep?"

He turned around and went away. I didn't see him till much later; it was years before he began to trust me again.

The crowds, mothers and fathers and children, lovers and aunts, uncles and babies and cats, were absolutely quiet as we all came out of the pits. The signal for us to do this was Truffi, crawling out ahead of us, obviously in no better condition than before. We would never dare to pass him. For, if we passed him, we would never be able to lessen our speed enough to let him catch up and pass us. As we came out I could see small knots of officials arguing wildly. Five of us in the pits together ... a clump of three, then another two joining the first three ... now all five leaving together ... it was a case to make any official head spin, the blood rise.

Quietly we navigated out of the city, into the suburbs, through the countryside. I managed to find a cigarette and light it. It was small trouble, there was no true wind stream.

We were strung out now in a careful line. We passed a group carrying lunch baskets over its collective arms. There were seven; each man in his Sunday best, the women in shining black with shawls and headclothes. As we passed they ceased to eat; bread, wine hung in the air; they gaped. Their heads turned slowly to follow us. That was all. I could personally feel their eyes on the back of my neck for a long time.

Behind me, that round, sound driver Arito said, "There's a donkey cart. I think I can hit it."

It was something one might have prayed for--a donkey cart, all right, its driver oblivious to the fact that the course was closed to other traffic. No doubt he lived down a side lane. Arito and I--and the others behind us--half stood and watched while Truffi went sneaking, closer and closer, to the cart's rear wheels. The donkey's hoofs made a gentle noise in the dust. The driver, asleep, slept on. The cart was constructed of wicker.

Standing in his cockpit, Truffi remarked to the cart with a kind of anguished politeness, "Move aside, please. We're racing."

Waking, the driver veered around, blinked, and said, "Naturally, signori." He clucked to the donkey, which changed its course a trifle and kept on. Then, for a while, it was touch and go--but Truffi was in luck; it was level ground with no hills, and at length he managed to pass. From the back, Truffi appeared a shade more like himself, a shade cockier; it was the first moving thing he had passed for some time. The back of his neck had more rigidity, and he waved to us with triumph.

"Now, hit it," I said to Arito. "Not with violence. And afterward, be sure to get the man's name--so full restitution can be made."

With huge dignity, Arito grunted, drove around me and advanced upon the cart. He was within a few inches, judging his point of contact nicely, when the driver came erect again and protested: "You will strike me!"

Hands off the steering wheel, palms spread widely, Arito shrugged.

The driver whipped up the donkey. He also caused it to trot toward the opposite side of the road. Arito, enjoying this challenge, immediately changed direction, and the driver, glancing back judgmatically, changed his direction again. A dozen times the two, Arito and the donkey driver, zigged, zagged and zigged--until at last, with a satisfying though humble crunch, Arito managed the job. Then the donkey stopped, and Arito said with fat gladness, "You've crushed my radiator." He got out; the driver of the cart descended. The last I saw, they were talking with easy animation, perhaps about the weather. Not about cars, or racing.

D'Angelo developed sparkplug difficulty. He developed it by stopping, getting out, lifting his bonnet and disconnecting two plugs. Later he said it helped him monstrously. It gave his engine a significant cough and stutter, as though it had developed some fabulous mechanical tuberculosis.

As for Fione, at the 200th lap he shut his eyes and casually, with immense flair, drove off through a fence, into a field inhabited only by several sheep and singing larks, and went on driving until his machine rolled down a moderate slope and came to rest in an even more moderate creek--depth, two inches. He was saved from drowning by a party of drinkers, too far gone to hate us all, who had through opera glasses observed the (concluded on page 154)Most Beautiful Race(continued from page 66) debacle; they fed him and gave him spirits to keep him in fighting trim as they hauled him off in the race ambulance, which at this time made its only appearance of the day.

During the same lap and after Fione had left us for the duration, I drew level with Truffi on the country stretch and said evilly, "It was at Dead Man's Corner you reminded me to duel. There, we'll duel."

Just ahead lay the bend in question; we were negotiating it a moment later at a pace that let me see each sparkle of mica in the rock which stood in the bend's right-hand side.

Truffi sighed. "Fifteen laps left. Will they stone us, do you think?"

"It's a possibility," I said.

Presently he said, "Thank God there are no American or British journalists handy. Thank God our glorious dictator kept this one in the country. Cassy, I am sorry my greed did this to us."

I reached out and patted his shoulder; he needed it. "Not alone yours, Truffi. Ours. And we share that, too."

Then I rolled ahead of him, pulled hard right, and at approximately ten kph, hit the mammoth rock. It gave me a dent, nothing worse. So I was forced to drive off the course and seek out a better rock, which took off my oil pan.

• • •

That evening the hotel lights shone joyous and welcoming. But as we five walked in, fresh from the incredibly stiff ceremony of cup giving, no men crowded forward to shake my hand or any of our hands. No woman warm with the need to sleep with a courageous driver came toward me. Even children stared with chill and cocked their noses. Little Fione said, "I am dispossessed. Goddamn it, at my age, after all I've done ..."

Then two things gave me a whisper of cheer. One was Stanguenetti, who winked and leered from around a lobby column. The other was the gorgeous young woman, sleek as new wheat and gowned by some flesh-loving Tintoretto, who strode up and took Truffi's hand and whispered something into his ear. He excused himself and walked off with her. Watching them go, or rather watching her go, I thought there was something familiar about the sumptuous rear of the lady. But I could not quite place it.

• • •

For a few days after that we were more or less barricaded, then the summons came--not from Mussolini, but from another high official. We were escorted to his state chambers. He had a forceful mustache, a sign of privilege--Mussolini didn't like mustaches.

As soon as we were seated, another door opened and Stanguenetti came in. After him came the girl who had tapped Truffi for honors the night of the race. As Truffi sat up, frowning and alert as a nervous horse, I recognized her. It was Stanguenetti's daughter--Fione and I had seen her, very briefly, the night we made plots with that larcenous farmer. She hadn't, then, looked like this ... suddenly a vicious, bad thought came to me, and I nudged Truffi. "Truffi," I hissed, "you spent a night with this." He nodded. "In your pocket," I went on, "you had a sacrosanct document. The one Fione and I made Stanguenetti sign, so he could never, with grace, withdraw from our six-way bargain. Truffi, where is that contract?"

"The damnedest thing," he whispered. "She wouldn't take any money ..."

I went pale. I hardly needed to hear the official when he began, quite smoothly, telling us that Signor Stanguenetti had, in light of the questionable circumstances surrounding the race, and because of his intense patriotism, decided to split his winnings 50-50 with the nation. The official was in it with the Stanguene this up to his fat neck, but even so, that left the Stanguenettis, father and daughter, with plenty. I think I felt worst while we all posed, Stanguenetti's hairy arm around my shoulders, for the newspaper photographers. Then the Stanguenettis had gone, the official gave us his blessing and let us go, and we five slunk off to our table in a corner of the plaza. We sat looking at Truffi for a long time, then fat Arito laughed.

"I hope she was good," he said. "Not your fault, really. You'd never seen her before. But by God, I hope she was worth our money, all of it. Was she?"

Truffi reflected. "Yes, pretty good. You know, I've had worse." Then we all laughed, there being little else to do, and ordered drinks; we put them on Truffi's tab.