Free Street Boys by Lorenzo Carcaterra Page A

house. The walls were built thick enough to keep out the harshest summer heat and the most chilling winter winds. The marble steps leading to the oak-wood front door were expansive, black iron handrails helping to guide the path. The entryway had the look and feel of a palace hidden in the middle of paradise. A palace he now needed to bring to ruin.
    “Has the house search been completed?” Von Klaus asked Kunnalt, standing alongside him.
    “Yes, sir,” Kunnalt said. “The last of our men should be coming out at any moment.”
    “And what did they find?”
    “It’s been pretty much gutted, sir,” Kunnalt answered. “A few paintings left on the walls. Some furniture scattered about in the downstairs rooms. Nothing that appears to be of any value.”
    Von Klaus turned to Kunnalt and smiled. “At least not to us,” he said. He walked a few steps closer to the house, gazing up at the windows to each room, every one shiny and clean. “For an abandoned home, it’s very free of dust, don’t you think?”
    “I hadn’t noticed, sir,” Kunnalt said, in step behind the colonel. “Perhaps it hasn’t been left empty very long.”
    “Have the house searched again,” Von Klaus said. “And this time, look beyond what it is the owner wants you to see.”
    “Looking for what, sir?” Kunnalt asked.
    “This is the home of a very rich man,” Von Klaus said. “And more than likely a very smart one as well. A man like that would plan ahead. He wouldn’t flee from such a place like a crazed peasant with all the valuables he could carry on his back. He would make sure those valuables would be safe, hidden from all eyes. They are in this house, Kunnalt. And I would wager that when you find them, you will also find that man.”
    Kunnalt snapped his heels, gave the colonel a crisp salute and walked back toward the front entrance to the house, shouting out orders as he moved. Von Klaus reached up and grabbed a tree limb resting just above his head. He snapped off a batch of thin, red grapes and held them in his hands. “I would have preferred wine,” he whispered, pulling the grapes from their stems. He leaned back against the side of his tank, eating the grapes one at a time, and waited.
    It was just after dusk when the colonel looked up and saw Kunnalt leading an elderly man in a soiled suit out of the house. The man had hair the color of snow and a beard as thick as a farmer’s hedge. He was short but stout and moved with the quiet dignity of one bred to wealth. He walked with his head raised, his eyes fueled by an angry fire.
    “You were right, sir,” Kunnalt said, standing in front of the colonel, the man just off to his right. “There were a number of hidden passageways throughout the house, each of them leading to a series of large underground rooms.”
    “And what were in these rooms?” Von Klaus asked, gazing over at the man.
    “As you expected, sir,” Kunnalt said with an air of admiration. “Old portraits in large frames, wooden boxes filled with jewelry and several yellow envelopes sealed and stuffed with money.”
    “Which room did you find him in?” Von Klaus asked, tilting his head toward the man.
    “He was in the subbasement, sir,” Kunnalt said. “Hiding in a small closet off the main hall.”
    “Everything you found belongs to me,” the old man said in a hard voice. “And to my family. Anyone else who takes it is nothing more than a thief.”
    “That’s a fine-quality suit you have on,” Von Klaus said to him. “And it is a truly beautiful home that you own. In addition, you have all this wealth stored inside of it, enough to feed all that’s left of Naples. Every Italian from Rome down has been stripped of all possessions. The only ones left untouched, as you seem to have been, are the Blackshirts. The Fascists. Which would make you a follower of Mussolini. Is that correct?”
    “I believe in Il Duce,
si
,” the man said, not backing down. “And I always will.”
    “Loyalty is