Perhaps that's bragging.
But she's lovely.''
''Where should we meet P''
''Should we have breakfast at the Florian, on the right hand side of the square?
The square should be flooded and it will be fun to watch.''
''I'll be there in twenty minutes if you want me.'' ''I want you,'' the Colonel said and hung up.
Coming out of the telephone booth he, suddenly, did not feel good and then he felt as though the devil had him in an iron cage, built like an iron lung or an iron maiden, and he walked, gray-faced, to the concierge's desk and said, in Italian, ''Domenico, Ico, could you get me a glass of water, please?''
The concierge was gone and he leaned on the desk resting.
He rested lightly and without illusion.
Then the concierge was back with the glass of water, and he took four tablets of the type that you take two, and he continued resting as lightly as a hawk rests.
''Domenico,'' he said.
''Yes.''
''I have something here in an envelope that you can put in the safe.
It may be called for either by myself, in person, or in writing, or by the person you have just put that call through to.
Would you like that in writing?''
''No.
It would be unnecessary.''
''But what about you, boy?
You're not immortal, are you?''
''Fairly so,'' the concierge told him. ''But I will put it in writing, and after me, comes the Manager and the Assistant Manager.''
''Both good men,'' the Colonel agreed.
''Wouldn't you like to sit down, my Colonel?''
''No.
Who sits down except men and women in change of life hotels?
Do you sit down?''
''No.''
''I can rest on my feet, or against a God damned tree.
My countrymen sit down, or lie down, or fall down.
Give them a few energy crackers to stall their whimpers.''
He was talking too much to regain confidence quickly.
''Do they really have energy crackers?''
''Sure.
It has something in it that keeps you from getting erections.
It's like the atomic bomb, only played backwards.''
''I can't believe it.''
''We have the most terrific military secrets that one General's wife ever told another.
Energy crackers is the least of it.
Next time we will give all Venice botulism from 56,000 feet.
There's nothing to it,'' the Colonel explained. ''They give you anthrax, and you give them botulism.''
''But it will be horrible.''
''It will be worse than that,'' the Colonel assured him. ''This isn't classified.
It's all been published.
And while it goes on you can hear Margaret, if you tune in right, singing the Star Spangled Banner on the radio.
I think that could be arranged.
The voice I would not describe as a big one.
Not as we know voices who have heard the good ones in our time.
But everything is a trick now.
The radio can almost make the voice.
And the Star Spangled Banner is fool-proof until toward the last.''
''Do you think they will drop anything here?''