Free Win, Lose or Die by John Gardner Page A

fine, soaking misty rain that is even more unpleasant than an out-and-out downpour.
    This was a city that time had forgotten, Bond reflected, as he eased the uncertain hired Fiat behind an unsteady lorry overloaded with bottled water. Naples had never regained its status as a tourist resort. Instead it had become a transit point.
    People arrived at the airport, maybe stayed a couple of nights to “do” Pompeii, and were either whisked off to Sorrento, or made this journey down to the ferries for Capri or Ischia, the two islands that form the gate to the Bay of Naples.
    Constantly the two islands were regarded as passeor out-dated, yet that was where the tourists or socialites went. The only people who stayed were the Neapolitans, or NATO sailors from the various naval vessels which tied up off the coast, in the safety of the bay. For sailors it was one hell of a city with its blatant red-light district and the area running down the foothills between the Castle Sant’Elmo and the Municipal Building. This last was crowded with bars, clip-joints and gaudy fleeting pleasures. It was known, like George V Street in the old Malta days, as The Gut. The Gut saw every possible depravity. It was, Bond thought, near enough like some parts of Pompeii must have been before Vesuvius slammed its lava down over the city. The traffic moved about six feet, and again ground to a halt, while shouts from drivers and police filtered back through the closed, steamy windows of the car.
    In summer the earth-red houses and terracotta roofs of Naples soaked up the sun and filled the streets with dust; in winter the same walls seemed to blot up the rain so that the buildings took on an even more crumbling look, as though they might turn to sludge and slide into the sea. Over it all, threatening Vesuvius glowered.
    At the Ischia and Capri ferry points, cars and ramshackle wagons stretched back, clogging the restricted space. A large black limo tried to jump the line, and Bond watched, amused, as a police-officer leaned into the car and backhanded the uniformed chauffeur. In London the cop would have been in big trouble.
    Here, the driver probably knew he would never work in Naples again if he complained.
    After the frustration of the slow shuffle from the airport, the waiting cars and wagons boarded the ferry with relative speed, though with much shouting, waving of arms and protestations to God and the Blessed Virgin.
    Bond left the car on the vehicle deck, and climbed through the crowd of passengers to seek out a reasonably sheltered part of the ferry. Shouldering his way to the little bar he reluctantly bought a plastic beaker of what was supposed to be coffee. The liquid tasted like sweet, coloured water but at least it moistened his throat. Once at the Villa Capricciani he would be able to pick and choose for himself.
    As the ferry began to move out into the bay, Bond looked back across the black, oily water, wondering what Naples had looked like in its days of glory. Once its beauty was inspirational.
    Parthenope the Siren had thrown herself into the sea for love of Ulysses and was washed up on the golden shore that became the Bay of Naples. “See Naples and die’, Bond smiled to himself. The old Italian saying had a double edge at one time: see Naples and die for its beauty; then the second edge when the seaport had become the focal point of typhoid and cholera. Now? Well, there had been slums and depravity here for decades, with an increase since the end of World War Two. He decided that the old phrase could become triple-edged now that AIDS was spreading across the world like the new Black Death. But the same was true of most ancient ports.
    Perhaps it was the thought of age and decay, of lost glory and of the current world tensions, that plunged Bond into feelings of concern and anxiety as the coastline shrank in the ferry’s wake.
    Undercover once more, he knew the risks for he had gambled his life in this way on many occasions before. He