What If?

MUSSOLINI'S GOLD by John Kimmey '44 Tower, 1981. 205 pp. $1.95 THE ENDLESS TUNNEL by Howard H. Hilton '48 Tower, 1980. 262 pp. $2.25

The reviewer leaned back again in his desk chair. His ancient Smith-Corona loomed before him, demanding. It had been demanding since morning. Beside it lay the two paperbacks. You've got to start writing about them sometime, he told himself. So start!

But start with what? What's your angle? How do you get a handle on these two fiction writers, neither of them youngsters surely, who publish their first thrillers within months of one another but who write as if they'd been turning them out all their lives? What's the right metaphor for that? No answer came.

The reviewer rose, walked to his window, stared out over the Green. A single hunched figure slogged across the diagonal toward Reed Hall, two others crossed Wheelock Street, against the light, down at the Inn corner. The cold rain continued to fall, unrelenting. The reviewer scowled; the gray afternoon scowled back. No help out there. Not a metaphor in sight. Behind him he half-heard the muffled staccato of a typewriter; it came from an office across the hall where other writers weren't wasting their time staring. The sound was insistent: clack, clack, clack-clack-clack clacketa. Hmm . . . Slowly the Hanover monochrome out the window began to dissolve; other, different images began to form, fade, reform.

Walter Mitty that nom de plume John Kimmey is a transparent fraud! leaned back in his desk chair. His typewriter sat before him, demanding. A World War II adventure thriller? Sure, why not? You just follow the formula. It's sure-fire. First, you start from facts, something you've actually experienced. That makes your background authentic. But after that it's all imagination; the fiction begins. It starts with a question: What if ... ? And then what if... ?

Okay, so first the facts. Everyone old enough to remember World War II knows that a few days before Italy fell, Mussolini tried to get out of the country. He planned to head north, up toward Como, maybe beyond. And everyone remembers that the Italian partisans caught up with him just short of Como, shot him and his mistress Claretta Petacci, and strung the corpses up by their heels from a girder in Milan. Who can forget the newspaper pictures of that! That was fact. And now we know another fact, too: The O.S.S. had a good many teams of skilled agents in place behind enemy lines to help the partisans and harass the Germans and Italians as they retreated into northern Italy.

But now for the fiction: What if... ? What if you were to suppose that Mussolini also took with him a half a billion in gold on his flight north? What if the O.S.S. knew about it early enough to parachute a special mission in from Switzerland with orders to capture II Duce alive and to "liberate" his gold? But what if the partisans, mostly communist-run, also found out about Mussolini's heist and desperately wanted his gold for their own political uses?

And then what if you were to create a young sergeant a radio operator, say, call him Vic del Greco, Dartmouth '44, make him a member of the O.S.S. special mission, and set him down in the middle of all the chaos, the anarchy, the killing. What if you were to let Vic tell your story first-hand, as eye-witness, participant? And then, what if ... ? What if... ?

Mitty leaned forward in his chair. Rapidly he banged out the first sentence of his book: "Florence signed off at six-twenty, and I quickly decoded the message on the one-time pad: 'Ben and gold leave Milan tonight for Valtellina. Seize and hold at Como for Ist Div. Corvo.' " Mitty sat back, pleased. The typewriter seemed to go on effortlessly, as if by itself: clacketa, clacketa, clacketa. Mitty smiled. Nothing to it!

Walter Mitty that pseudonym Howard Hilton wouldn't fool a child! leaned back in his desk chair. His typewriter sat before him, demanding. Another disaster thriller? Well, maybe but haven't they been overdone lately? The Towering Inferno, for instance. And aren't they all written to the same formula anyway? Of course they are, but it's not the formula that matters; it's what you do with it. So use the formula, only this time give it a new twist like claustrophobia maybe.

You start the formula starts from facts. Fact one: Downtown Boston traffic is a muddle beyond comprehension, especially on holidays. Fact two: Boston drivers are, by common consent, deranged, aggressive destroyers. Fact three: To get from Boston to Logan Airport you have to go through Callahan Tunnel, which means you go down 80 feet, 40 feet below the bottom of the harbor plus 40 more feet of water on top of that. Facts, all facts.

Now for the fiction: What if ... ? What if you were to suppose that on a hot Fourth-of July Sunday afternoon 22 people in seven cars were to start down into Callahan Tunnel in a random line from the Boston side, all on their way to Logan? What if they were to find themselves strung out behind an overloaded semi carrying two immense pre-stressed concrete T-beams? What if the semi were to jackknife precisely at the bottom of the tunnel sealing off access to the east entrance? And then the clincher: what if the tile and concrete facing of the tunnel were also to collapse into an impenetrable pile of rubble behind the seven cars and thus seal off all access to the west entrance as well? Claustrophobia indeed! But on the other hand, what if ... ? What if ... ?

Mitty leaned forward in his chair. Quickly he banged out the first sentences of his book: "Even over the sound of the traffic, Officer Solomon Jones could hear the tinkle of crashing tile. He stood up in his control booth, iooKea up ana aown tne iengtn ot tne tunnel, and spotted the point in the ceiling where some new tiles had fallen." Mitty sat back, pleased. The typewriter seemed to go on effortlessly, as if by itself: clacketa, clacketa, clacketa. Mitty smiled. A piece of cake!

The reviewer turned from his window, went back to his chair. The Smith-Corona still loomed; the copy paper was still clear, not a word on it yet. You've got to start somewhere, he reminded himself again. There's a formula for your sort of writing; you know that. So start! He leaned forward, hesitated, slowly tapped out a short sentence. He paused, began again. A second sentence down on paper. They came hard, very hard.

Oh hell! The reviewer tore the copy paper from his machine, crumpled it, lofted it toward the wastebasket. He rolled a fresh sheet into the Smith-Corona, and he sat back, displeased. His typewriter did not go on, clacketa, clacketa, clacketa. Reviewers' typewriters seldom do. That's why they're reviewers, not novelists. But oil the other hand, what if ... ? What if... ?