The Last Days of Il Duce Read Online Free

too; though these last were my business, you might argue, and no one’s sin but my own.) Still, Wong paid my retainer and if he wanted me to deliver the valise, then that’s what I’d do.
    â€œYou don’t have to worry, Jimmy. I’d kiss every whore in Chinatown for you.”
    I laughed but Jimmy did not think it was so funny. He was a family man. “It’s not for me. It’s a client delivery. From my point of view, it never happened.” Then he handed me eight hundred dollars payment for delivering the package. I wondered how much had been Jimmy’s cut.
    â€œCome on, Jimmy. What’s in the package?”
    Jimmy Wong did not justify this with an answer. In his eyes was that sad expression I’ve seen before, when people wonder why it is I’ve thrown my life away. I reached over and touched the valise. Soft leather, very smooth, nice to the touch. As I examined it, Wong went on examining me, with more or less the same look, like that of a lamenting parent, a small gleam of hope in the eyes. I wondered if he really saw me, or if for him it was not so much different than studying that ancient picture. I unclasped the valise and bounced the big envelope around in my hands. It felt like more cash in there, all bundled up. Then I took the other, thinner envelope, and ran it between my fingers.
    â€œA love letter in here? A picture of the Golden Gate Bridge?”
    Jimmy said nothing. Instead, his eyes were reproving, as if more concerned about my foolishness then the contents of the envelope. His eyes were suddenly ancient, regarding me as a child. It could be a drug deal, I guessed, or blackmail money. Or maybe just some peculiar Chinese business, documents from Hong Kong, paper lanterns, it didn’t matter. I picked up the envelopes and stuffed them back into the case.
    â€œAll right. I could use the eight hundred.”
    Jimmy nodded. There was the barest trace of a smile. He walked me out to the elevator and punched in the code. He put one hand on his waist-band, and with the other hand he slid a piece of paper into my coat pocket. His cheeks glistened under the white light.
    â€œThis time, Mr. Jones, you go down in style,” he said.
    Inside the elevator I took out the piece of paper and read the address he had written there. It was a few blocks away, down Kai-Chin Alley. Nearby were the Friendship Housing Projects, a vast yellow building scrawled with Vietnamese graffiti. Street punks lounged on the doorsteps, sharp-looking youngsters who hunched their shoulders as they smoked and cast long looks down the alley. They acted as if they did not see you, as if a white man carrying a black leather case were invisible to their eyes, but I knew the people to whom you are invisible are the most dangerous of all. I had a friend who thought he was invisible like this during the fall of Saigon and ended up a sorry GI, drunk, pants down, disemboweled in Ho Chi Minh Alley.
    I walked past the Viet punks, thinking maybe they were the same ones who’d asphyxiated the graying Chinaman the night before down at the Ching-Saw Hotel. When I looked back the Viets were gone and this bothered me more than if they had still been there. I felt like bolting but I was only half way down the alley. So I walked it slow, like a man who had business here, and found the number I was looking for. It was a dirty white door with a peephole in the middle. I knocked and waited. The alley smelled like piss.
    I could feel my heart beating inside my head and I did not like the sensation. I glanced toward the safety of Kearny Street, where some young Midwestern girl was walking by with a camera. I knocked again, perhaps sooner then I should have, then the door burst open. The man who looked at me had the eyes of one to whom the whole world is invisible. His skin was paler than Wong’s and the room behind him smelled of fish. His eyes were the eyes of a killer, I thought, and when he took the leather