Street Boys (19 page)

12

PIAZZALE MOLO BEVERELLO

The large oil tanker was moored off the long dock, a series of thick ropes wedged around iron pillars keeping it in place. Two large overhead spotlights, running off a generator, cast a glow across its rusty exterior. The tanker had arrived in port earlier that afternoon, its hulk filled to capacity with thousands of gallons of fuel, enough to keep the Nazi tanks roaming the streets of Naples until their mission was completed. Small rivers of water spewed from three circular openings at its base, the rumble of its loud engines brought down by the crew to a low throttle. There were a dozen guards patrolling its upper railings, submachine guns tucked behind their shoulders, eyes focused on the lapping water beneath them and the dark city streets beyond.

Connors, Maldini and Vincenzo were crouched behind a wooden shack, two hundred feet from the bow of the tanker. Nunzia and two boys were at the other end of the pier, crammed inside a small ticket booth. Connors slid to his chest and crawled along the ship side of the dock, a few feet removed from the glare of the lights, the shadows of the Nazi soldiers on patrol lining the length of the platform. He turned back toward Vincenzo and waved him forward. The boy slid in alongside him, his movements as quiet as falling leaves, makeshift bomb in his hands, Maldini’s wristwatch imbedded in the center of the mechanism. “How much time?” Connors asked, his eyes on the bomb.

“Forty-five minutes like you told me,” Vincenzo said. “Thirty to get there and strap it to the tanker and fifteen to get away.”

“Sounds about right,” Connors said, nodding and checking his own watch. “I’ll leave you my pack and rifle. I’ll lay the bomb down and you help the others do what they need to do.”

Vincenzo shook his head and pulled back from Connors. “I’ll put it on the ship,” he said.

“Maybe we should have worked this out before.” Connors’s voice was low but his anger apparent. “I wasn’t counting on you turning into a jerk. Any idiot with wire, tape and explosives can make a bomb. But you need to have some clue about what you’re doing to lay it in there.”

“Have you ever done it?” Vincenzo asked. “Stuck a bomb on the side of an oil tanker in the middle of the night?”

“That’s not the point,” Connors said. “It’s a risky move. One mistake and those soldiers will spot it and they’ll be on us in seconds.”

“That’s why I should be the one to go,” Vincenzo said. “You can fight the Nazis off better than me. And after that, you can figure out a way to get the others out of the city.”

“It does bother me when what you say starts making sense,” Connors said, reaching for the rifle slung across his back. “I’ll leave Maldini behind to give you some cover.”

Vincenzo lowered his head, the bomb held in the palm of his hands, and slithered off toward the cool waters of the bay. Connors turned and crawled back to the side of the shack, Maldini hunched down beside it. He flipped off his pack and handed it to the older man. “I filled it up with grenades,” he said to Maldini. “First smell of trouble, scatter them across the upper deck of the ship.”

Maldini took the pack and reached inside, pulling out one of the grenades. “I see our general got his way again,” he said with a sly grin.

“He should be a lawyer, not a general,” Connors said. “The kid could argue his way out of a firing squad.”

“He knows those waters and their currents well,” Maldini added. “And he moves like a ghost. He’s gone before you can hear him coming. Me, I can wake a room just by breathing.”

“Nunzia’s waiting,” Connors said, hands braced against the wood, checking the guards above, eager to make his move.

“She smiles more since you’ve been around, American,” Maldini said.

Connors turned away from the guards to look over at Maldini. “She’s going to help me blow up a tank. It’s not what I would call a date.”

“Do you come from a family with money?” Maldini asked.

“Hardly,” Connors said. “My dad works two jobs. My mom works, too, part-time. The house is small, barely big enough to hold our family.”

“A house?” Maldini said. “You have a house? That’s not poor. Is your bathroom in the house or outside?”

“In the house,” Connors said. “Both of them.”

Maldini shook his head in wonder. “A house with two bathrooms,” he said. “This the Americans call poor. In my
casa
, I have to walk down two flights of stairs to go to the bathroom. Outside. And pray no one else is using it.”

“We’re not rich,” Connors insisted. “We live from paycheck to paycheck. Like millions of other Americans. It’s no different.”

“Does your family have a car?” Maldini asked.

“Yeah,” Connors said. “But it’s a used car.”

Maldini leaned his back against the side of the shack, closed his eyes and smiled. “A garage, too, I bet,” he whispered. “It must be good to be rich.”

Connors looked at his watch and then at Maldini. “When I get back, I’ll tell you all about paid vacations and sick leave,” he said.

Connors hunched down on his knees and scooted off into the darkness. He ran along the edges of the Calata Beverello, heading toward Nunzia and the boys. Maldini rested his head on the edge of the shack, grenade still in his hand. “Only in America do people get paid to be sick,” he muttered.

Vincenzo swam along the edges of the large tanker, using his feet and chest muscles, hands holding the device aloft. He swam in next to the rusty hulk, oil-tarnished water splashing into his open mouth. His shoulders bumped against the ragged side of the ship, old paint chips slicing into his skin. He glanced up above him, trying to avoid the glare of the overhead lights, and saw the muzzle of a machine gun at rest against the top rail. He turned and faced the side of the tanker, his nose jammed against it, and placed the bomb at eye level. He squeezed it into the smoothest area he could find and held it there with thick strips of tape.

There were twenty minutes left on the timer, more than enough time for him to get away and for Connors and the others to complete their task. Vincenzo put an ear up to the watch, making sure it was still ticking, even as the grimy water lapped just under the base of the bomb. He gave a final look up at the Nazis standing guard and silently swam away.

Connors poured kerosene on the rear of the tank, drenching the parked vehicle in the flammable liquid. He held the five-gallon drum tight against his chest, moving about with quiet steps, eyes on the lid of the tank. He soaked the rear treads and poured some under the base, Nunzia and the boys hidden in darkness behind him. He left the empty drum under the tank and walked backwards to the spot where he knew the others would be. Nunzia waited for him, another drum filled with kerosene in her hand. “This is the last of it,” she whispered.

“The boys know what they need to do?” Connors asked, nodding over at the two silent teens standing beside Nunzia.

“We’ll do our job,” one of them said, in a voice slightly louder than it should have been. “Don’t worry about us.”

Connors took the drum from Nunzia and looked into her face, its beauty glimmering even in the dark well of a dangerous night. “I’m American,” Connors said. “I worry about everything.”

Connors inched back to the tank, uncorked the drum and poured the kerosene out in a straight line, allowing it to follow him as he stepped away from the silent machine. He knew from earlier surveillance that there were only two soldiers inside the tank, both by now asleep. The other three had gone up to the tanker to spend time with those on guard. He paused to look up at the ship, wondering if Vincenzo’s handmade bomb would have any impact against such a massive hulk. He was surprised that they were able to get so close to the ship without being spotted, the overconfidence and carelessness of the Nazis playing perfectly into their hands. The Germans should have had guards on the ground as well as on the tanker. They also had enough tanks to position three to guard against any attack, two on the dock and one hidden off on a side street. In the course of any battle, Connors had learned, it’s never the better soldier who survives. It’s often the one who takes the time and pains to eliminate all elements of surprise. On this first day of fighting at least, the street boys had done all of that to their advantage.

Connors rested the empty drum by his feet, peering down the dark street at the thin line of kerosene he had left behind. He handed his cigarette lighter to the oldest of the two boys. “Check the time on your watch,” he told him. “Wait ten minutes and then drop a light right where I’m standing.”

The boy nodded, clutching the lighter in the palm of his right hand.

“Then run to the rooftop and send out one of the pigeons with the message for the others,” Connors said.

“We know,” the boy said impatiently. “Nunzia’s told us this a number of times.”

Connors turned and glared at him. “And we’re going to keep telling you until you can give it to me backwards,” he said. “The idea’s not just to do it, but to do it and get out alive. Once the Nazis see the light from the flames, they’re going to start shooting. And it won’t be at me or at Nunzia. It’ll be at you.”

Nunzia put an arm around the boys. “They’re as afraid as we are,” she said in softer tones. “They’re just trying not to show it.”

Connors looked at her for several seconds and then turned to the boys. “Make sure your feet are clear of the gas line,” he said, his manner calmer. “Drop the lighter and when you run, make sure to keep your heads down. Run at normal speed, even when you hear the gunfire. You’ll conserve energy and get a lot farther if you do it that way. Panic always slows you down.”

“What if there are Germans on the path?” the youngest boy asked. He was about twelve, his dark eyes thick as craters, his face freckled and innocent.

“Then you plan as you go,” Connors said. “Look for a sewer and jump in. Find a tree and climb it. You have to be able to do something they can’t do. That’ll keep you safe.”

“Maybe I should stay with them,” Nunzia said. “You know the streets well enough by now to get around on your own.”

Connors looked at the boys and then back at Nunzia. “No,” he said. “We hold to the plan.”

“The idea is to keep them alive,” Nunzia said.

“The idea is to keep everybody alive,” Connors said.

“
Ho capito,
” the oldest boy said, gazing up at Nunzia and giving her a big smile. He was fourteen, sleek of build, with short clipped hair and a long row of missing teeth. “The American worries for you,” he said.

“All we have to do is drop the lighter and run,” the younger boy said, clasping his right hand inside her warm grasp. “Even I can do something that easy. And I have Valerio with me. There’s no need to worry.”

“If the road is blocked off, make for the hillside,” Nunzia said. “It’s too dark for them to follow you up there.”

“Don’t be afraid to use your guns if you have to,” Connors told them. “But only if you have to.”

Nunzia gave them each a hug and then turned to follow Connors, both fading into the shadows. “Everybody falls in love in Naples,” Valerio said, shaking his head. “Even Americans.”

Vincenzo, still wet and chilled from his swim and a run up a side road, stood alongside Maldini, watching as Connors and Nunzia approached from a side street on their left. As he ran, Connors looked at his watch and silently ticked down the seconds.

“Now,” he whispered.

The tank explosion lit up the harbor below them, a rich bubble of flames hurtling toward a starless sky. A ship alarm sounded and lights were turned on up and down the pier, all working off the single generator the Nazis had activated. “We should have cut off their electrical,” Connors said, shaking his head. “Then they wouldn’t know which way to look. My mistake.”

“A mistake that won’t matter, American,” Vincenzo said, “soon as the bomb on the tanker goes off.”

“It should have gone off already,” Connors said. “It was timed to go with the tank. That was two minutes ago.”

“Be patient,” Maldini said.

A dozen soldiers with machine guns lined the perimeter of the pier, crouched down and waiting to shoot at the slightest movement. Two tanks came rumbling down Via Acton and three others were speeding across Via C. Colombo, all primed to protect the port and the oil tanker. “That bomb doesn’t go, we’ll never get another shot at that fuel,” Connors said.

“The bomb will work,” Vincenzo said.

“I’ll have an easier time believing that, General, after I hear a loud explosion,” Connors said, his voice a mixture of anger and frustration. “But right now, all I see is one tank down and lots of ticked off Nazis.”

Maldini sat on a large rock and stared at all the activity on the pier. Off in the distance, they heard the blasts from Nazi tanks and the rumble of buildings that fell and crumbled. The streets of Naples were now a series of bonfires as the enemy assault continued into the late-night hours. “No matter what we do to them, they have won,” he said. “They have defeated Naples. If they leave on their own or are chased out, they have won.”

“You can’t defeat a city, Papa, until you defeat its people,” Nunzia said. “The Nazis have destroyed Naples, but they have not destroyed us.”

“There is no great victory to achieve,” Maldini said. “No matter what, those that remain will stand on piles of rubble as we watch the Nazis leave.”

Connors stood on a bluff and looked down at the burning streets, his binoculars resting on a knot of grass by his side. “It makes no military sense, what they’re doing,” he said. “It’s not about holding a position or strengthening a defense. None of that comes into play here. It’s only anger and hate that fuel their actions. The Nazis don’t fight to win. They fight to destroy.”

“Get some rest,” Nunzia said, “all of you. Futile or not, we have more battles to fight tomorrow.”

Vincenzo walked farther down the hill, crouched on his knees and stared at the oil tanker, tears flowing along the sides of his face. In his right hand, he held a small statute of San Gennaro. The saint’s arms were spread out and a peaceful smile crossed his face.

The massive force of the blast knocked Maldini off the rock and sent him rolling down a short hill. Nunzia was tossed next to a pile of rocks. Connors jumped to his feet, rifle at the ready. Vincenzo sat on the edge of the hill, his fingers digging into the dirt, the statue of San Gennaro at his side, his face lit from the glow of the blast below.