Pronto

Pronto is a crime novel by the American writer Elmore Leonard, published in 1993. It introduces three principal characters and then sets them moving against one another, and it was filmed for television in 1997.

Harry Arno is an ageing Miami bookmaker with a long memory of the Second World War and a plan: he has been taking a little from the profits of his boss, Jimmy Capotorto, for years and has put away close to a million dollars in a Swiss account. He wants to stop working and live in Rapallo, on the Italian coast, where as a young soldier he once spoke to Ezra Pound.

The federal government decides to use Harry as a lever, spreading the word about his skimming so that he will be forced to ask for protection and give evidence. Harry works out what is happening and leaves for Italy before they can put the plan into effect. Raylan Givens, a deputy U.S. Marshal who has already lost him once, is given the job of bringing him back, and the two of them circle each other across two continents while other people with worse intentions follow the same trail.