Tony could think of a lot of uses for shaped charges in the business. Blowing concrete-sheathed structural steel, for example. And if you put a bunch of small shaped charges around the base of a smokestack, you could really drop the sonofabitch in on itself.
The only thing Tony found wrong with the limpets was that you could hardly put a couple of them in your luggage and board the airplane in Miami.
He didn’t think now that he would be able to lay his hands on a dome-shaped piece of steel, even make one himself. But he could probably weld together a box—thin steel on the bottom, heavier on the sides and top—which would be maybe nearly as good as a dome. He would have to figure out some way to magnetize it. And he would try to mold some explosive himself into a shaped charge. If he could do that—he thought he could, with a big pot of boiling water—then he would have something just about as good as what the Navy showed him.
The one thing Tony could absolutely not figure out—with people around like Lieutenant Greene, Chief Norton, and Bo’sun Leech, who knew all about explosives and ships—was why they weren’t down here, instead of a Gyrene fly-boy, Ettinger, and him. When Ettinger came to his apartment, he talked to him about that. Ettinger thought it was probably because Frade had connections in Argentina, and he and Ettinger spoke Spanish.
That was true, maybe. But Ettinger was supposed to be the communications sergeant of the team, and so far they didn’t even have a telephone, much less a radio.
This is really one fucked-up operation!
He walked to the edge of the water and bought an ice cream and a Coke from a street vendor. The ice cream was all right, but the Coke was room temperature. And the bottle was in shitty shape. When Tony was in the eighth grade at St. Teresa’s, they took them on a tour of the Coke place. Half a dozen women there did nothing all day but sit at a conveyor belt and push off bottles that had chipped tops, or just looked bad. He wondered then what they did with all the bad bottles.
Now I know. They load them on ships and bring them down here.
He found an old-timey ship—it had both masts for sails and a smokestack—tied up at the stone wharf. Tony could read enough of the sign on the wharf to find out that the ship had sailed to Antarctica. He gave in to the impulse and bought a ticket and went on board.
A guy in what looked like some kind of Navy uniform guided him around. Tony scarcely understood what he was saying; but the map he pointed out showed that the boat had gone to the Antarctic not once, but half a dozen times.
Whoever sailed down there on this little thing really had balls. But what the hell, so did Columbus.
The guy kept talking too fast for Tony to understand much of what he said; but Tony nodded and shook his head and said “sí” a lot, and he had the idea when the tour was finished that the guy really didn’t suspect that he was an American.
He gave him some money, and from the way the guy beamed, suspected he had given him way too much.
Well, fuck it! Lieutenant Frade gave me two hundred bucks for miscellaneous expenses. This is a miscellaneous expense. I’m looking at ships.
When he went back on the wharf, he was tempted to have another ice cream, but remembering the room-temperature Coke, decided that wasn’t such a hot idea.
Maybe I can find a restaurant with some Italian food, and something cold to drink. Then I will go buy some fucking wire. If they ask me what I want it for, I’ll tell them I’m putting in a telephone extension.
He found what he was looking for: Ristorante Napoli. It was three blocks down a narrow cobblestone street, on the ground floor of a run-down building with light-blue shutters. The shutters were painted with what looked like watercolor paint that didn’t cover the wood underneath all the way.
Every other Italian restaurant in Chicago is called Ristorante Napoli.
Inside, it was a dump. A small room and eight rickety tables covered with oilcloth. He walked in and looked down at one of the tables, not pleased with the cheap tableware and the battered glass, into which was rolled a thin paper napkin. But then the smell of basil, garlic, and fennel came to his nostrils, and he sat down.
A waiter, or maybe the owner, a none-too-clean white apron around his waist, walked into the room.
“Buenas tardes, Señor.”
“Parli Italiano?”
“Of course. You are Italian?”
“Yes.”
“From the North,” the man said, and then tapped his ear. “I myself am from Napoli, but I can hear the North.”
Actually, I’m from Cicero, Illinois. I don’t think I should tell you that, so if you think I am from the North of Italy, fine.
“Where?”
Shit! I know as much about Italy as I do about Argentina. Zero. Zilch.
“Far north. Up by the border.”
“Perhaps near Santa del Moreno?”