The Etruscan Net [antikvár]

1. Monday Evening: Two MenAt ten minutes to seven that Monday evening, two men got out of the fast train from Rome at Florence main line station. Both v/ere dressed in charcoal grey suits, cut in the Roman fashion, and carried bulging suitcases, Both, although it was a warm summer evening, wore gloves. The first man out was tall and thin and had a face which first attracted your attention and then made you look away. It was difficult to be certain whether it had been broken up by nature or by hard wear. The nose was bent. The temples were hollowed out in a way which suggested skin stretched over vacancy. The sides of the face, from prominent cheek bones to pointed jaw, were seamed with creases which could have been natural, but had the look of scars.The second man was of medium height, stout but not fat. With his rounded olive cheeks, soft brown eyes and sulky mouth, he had the look of a bad-tempered girl.The two men were the last to dismount. Domenico, doyen of the Florence porters, had already escorted one party to the taxi-rank, and now came bustling back with his hand-truck and a genial, 'Valigie, signori.' The men, who were walking slowly along the platform, took no notice. They continued to walk.Domenico was a Florentine, and of the truculent and independent nature for which that City is noted. Also, his seniority in the station demanded some recognition. He was on the point of making a sharp comment when something checked him. Recalling the incident afterwards, he found it difficult to say what it was. A look in the eye of the tall man? Or was it something less definable altogether? He thought of it as a smell. His brown nostrils wrinkled. He said, under his breath, 'Mafiosi.' But he waited until the men were twenty yards up the platform and out of earshot before he said it.The crowd on the cross-section of the station was thinning out. The two men watched it without interest, and then, as if moved by a common thought, swung to the right, towards a row of new and empty telephone booths. The tall man selected the one next to the end, dumped his suitcase on the floor, and opened the directory9U It.