Stiletto (19 page)

Her eyes widened for a moment with an expression he did not understand, then went blank and guarded. She did not speak.

“Why did you do it?” he asked, the stiletto steady in his hand.

She looked up at him. Her voice was as empty as her eyes. “I told you before. It was my job. I didn’t ask questions of Matteo. Did you?”

The yellow light seemed to flame up in his eyes. “That was different. I kept my oath.”

“And so did I,” she said. “The only difference was in the manner in which we were paid for what we did.”

“I ought to kill you!” he said harshly.

She felt the point of the stiletto press against her throat. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the top of the seat. “Go ahead,” she said wearily. “It really doesn’t matter. Matteo will not tolerate my failure any more than he did your success.”

He did not speak and the silence that followed seemed interminable. She felt the fever rise suddenly within her, radiating through her body like a shock wave of heat. The image of the tiger leaped into her mind. In another moment, she would not be able to control the auto-orgiastic convulsions that were already taking possession of her loins. “Go ahead! Get it over with!” she cried wildly. Death would still the tiger too.

Again he did not answer and she opened her eyes. His face was bathed in perspiration and she could feel the trembling of his body against the seat. A sudden recognition came to her and she saw herself deep inside him. “Oh, God!” she cried faintly, reaching up to him. They were so alike.

She heard the stiletto drop to the floor of the car as she felt his lips seek her throat and cover the tiny bleeding wound left there by the knife. The danger and the excitement were over and they were the same for him as they were for her. They only served to whet the appetite of the tiger.

***

He stopped the car in front of her hotel. “Get your things and meet me at the airport in two hours,” he said.

“You will be careful?” she asked, looking at him.

He nodded confidently. “We will be on our way back to New York before anyone knows what happened. Somehow I must get in touch with Emilio. He will straighten this out.”

She pressed his hand and got out of the car. She watched him drive off and then went into her hotel.

***

He walked into the lobby of El Ciudad and over to the desk. “My key, please,” he asked of the clerk who had his back toward him.

The clerk turned around. “Count Cardinali!” he exclaimed, a note of surprise in his voice. He reached for the key behind him and placed it on the desk. “The race—”

Cesare interrupted him. “My generator burned out.”

“I am sorry, señor,” the clerk said. He brought up an envelope and gave it to Cesare. “The Baroness left this for you.”

Cesare opened the note. It was in Ileana’s handwriting.

“Sorry, Darling, I could not wait for your return. Have left for New York with a rich Texan who insists that we do some holiday shopping. Love, Ileana.”

Cesare smiled to himself. He should have known that Ileana had a reason not to meet him in Cuernavaca. He looked up at the clerk. “What time did the Baroness leave?” he asked.

“About eleven o’clock this morning,” the clerk replied with a knowing smirk.

Cesare nodded and started toward the elevator. He checked his watch. It was about seven o’clock. Ileana was probably in New York already.

Baker leaned across his desk and stared at Ileana. “Why did you come back? You were supposed to stay with him.”

“I was afraid, I told you.” Ileana looked at him nervously. “I had a feeling that he was going to kill me. That he knew…”

“What made you feel like that?” Baker asked quickly. “Was it something he said or did? Something you saw?”

Ileana shook her head. “It was nothing like that. It was just that flap on the suitcase that I told you about. When I touched it I had the feeling that death had taken possession of his soul. So I came back.”

“But you never saw a stiletto there,” Baker said. “I have a flap like that in my valise. It’s for my toothbrush holder and razor.” There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” he called.

An agent entered, carrying a teletype. He put it on Baker’s desk. “This just came in from Mexico City,” he said. “They found the bodies of Allie Fargo and some hood in a deserted hut on the desert about a half mile from where Cardinali’s car went off the road.”

Ileana rose excitedly. “See! I was right!”

Baker looked up at her. “Maybe if you had stayed, we would know more about this.”

“Maybe, also, I would be dead!” Ileana snapped. “I don’t like this at all.”

Baker looked up at the agent. “Where is Cardinali now?” he asked.

“On his way back to New York. His plane is due at Idlewild in the morning,” the agent replied. “He has a woman with him.”

Baker turned back to Ileana. “A woman?” he asked. “Is that why you came back?”

“Don’t be silly!” Ileana snapped.

Baker began to smile. “I’m beginning to get the picture. He found another girl friend and told you to beat it.”

Ileana rose to the bait. “That’s not true,” she retorted. “I know the girl. She’s his mechanic.”

“His mechanic?” Baker said skeptically.

She nodded. “Her name is Luke something. His regular mechanic was ill and he hired her down there.”

Baker turned back to the agent. “Wire down there and get me the rundown on her.”

“Yes, sir,” the agent said. “Do you want Cardinali picked up when the plane lands?”

Baker shook his head. “That won’t do any good. We have nothing to hold him on. Just have a car ready for me. I want to see where he goes when he lands.”

The agent left the room and Baker looked across the desk at Ileana. “You better go back to the hotel and stay as close to him as you can.”

“I will not!” Ileana said quickly.

“He won’t harm you as long as he doesn’t know about us.” His voice hardened. “Or would you prefer deportation?”

“Being deported is better than being dead,” she retorted.

“Moral turpitude is a pretty serious charge,” he continued. “It means you will never be able to enter this country again. And it doesn’t look pretty in the newspapers.”

She stared at him resentfully. “In Europe they are much more understanding. They realize some women are not made for work.” She took out a cigarette and tapped it nervously on the desk.

Baker lit it for her and leaned back. He knew he had her now. “I think we Americans know that too.” He smiled. “It’s just that we don’t talk about it.”

She drew deeply on her cigarette. “I am beginning to get the impression that sex is considered un-American!”

He stared at her for a moment then he leaned across the desk. When he spoke his voice was almost gentle. “You’re frightened, aren’t you?”

She looked up into his eyes, then she nodded slowly. “At first I thought it was all a big joke. But now I realize it is not. I am beginning to get very frightened.”

He got to his feet and walked around the desk to her. “Try not to, Baroness,” he said slowly. “We’ll keep an eye on you. And I promise we’ll get you out of there at the first sign of trouble.”

***

The young agent with Baker whistled as he saw Luke get into the taxi with Cesare in front of the airport. “Say, that guy does pretty good with the dames, doesn’t he, chief?”

Baker nodded. He watched the cab pull off. “Better get started,” he said.

The agent pulled the car out into traffic. Another car cut in front of them. He looked over at Baker. “Want me to jump in front of him?”

Baker shook his head. “No, it’s all right. Stay where you are. We can’t lose him on the expressway.”

They rode along silently for about ten minutes until they had almost reached the curve at Jamaica Bay. Baker looked at the car in front of them curiously. It still kept its position between their car and Cesare’s taxi. Now it began to pick up speed and swung into the left lane. A feeling that something was going wrong began to come over him.

He had been in this business too long to disregard hunches. He opened his coat and loosened the revolver in its holster. “Stay with that car,” he told the younger man. “I don’t like it.”

Obediently the agent swung into the left lane. “That car is acting peculiar,” he said. A sound of muffled explosions came back to them. “They’re shooting at him!” he shouted.

“Hit the gas!” Baker yelled back at him, whipping out his gun. He leaned out the window and fired at the car in front of them.

Cesare’s taxi was going off the road on to the shoulder of grass as they sped past it. Baker couldn’t tell whether anybody in it had been hurt. He fired his gun again.

A bullet hole appeared in the back window of the car directly behind the driver. The driver pitched forward across the wheel and the car plunged wildly off the road toward the bay. Just before it hit the water, Baker saw the door open and the man come tumbling out.

They were on the grass now and coming to a stop. Baker leaped from the car and took off after the running man. “Stop!” he shouted, firing a warning shot in the air.

The man turned for a moment. Baker saw something glint in his hand. There was a ping as the bullet went by him, then the sound of the shot.

Baker flung himself to the ground. The man was running again. Baker aimed low, for the man’s legs. He squeezed the trigger gently. He wanted this one alive, to talk. His first shot missed. He fired again.

This time the man tumbled headlong to the ground. He rolled over and over and down a slight crest of the ground.

The young agent came running up, his gun in his hand. He looked down at Baker. “You okay?”

Baker began to get to his feet. “I’m okay.”

“The one in the car is dead,” the agent said.

Baker looked at him. “Go and look at the one over there. I tried to hit him in the legs.”

The agent ran off and bent over the fallen man. “This one’s dead too!” he yelled back.

Grimly Baker began to place his gun back in the holster. Cesare’s voice came from behind him.

“You’re a good shot, Mr. Baker.” He was smiling.

Baker stared at him almost balefully. The man must have nerves of ice. He had just been shot at, two men had been killed and his voice was as calm as the day they met in his office. “You can’t tell me they weren’t shooting at you this time, Mr. Cardinali,” he said, trying to keep his voice as calm as the other’s.

Cesare shrugged his shoulders. “No, I can’t, Mr. Baker.” A kind of mocking challenge crept into his eyes. “What I don’t understand is—why?”

Baker’s eyes grew cold. He felt the pretenses slip away from him now. “And I suppose you don’t know why Allie Fargo was killed in a shack not a half mile from where your car went off the road in Mexico either?”

Cesare smiled. “I did not even know that he had been killed. You see I did not read the newspapers.”

“You can account for your time on the road?” Baker asked.

“Of course I can,” Cesare said. “I was with my mechanic every moment. You can check with her. She is still in the taxi, repairing her makeup.”

“You’re pretty good at coming up with women to alibi you,” Baker said sarcastically.

Cesare was still smiling. “Most fortunate,” he agreed.

Baker stared at him for a moment as a police car came speeding up. “Go ahead, Cardinali, have your fun,” he said angrily. “Just remember, we won’t be around all the time to protect you!”

***

The cab pulled over to the curb and Cesare got out. He leaned back into the cab. “Wait here,” he said to Luke. “I have to run up to the office for a moment.”

The receptionist seemed surprised to see him. He went by her into the general office. There was a group of employees standing around the water cooler. They looked up as he approached and scattered to their desks. He nodded to them and went into his office.

“Come inside,” he said as he walked through Miss Martin’s anteroom.

Inside his own office, he turned to her. “What’s going on out there? Why aren’t they working?” he demanded.

Miss Martin looked at him. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Of course, I’m all right,” he snapped.

“We just heard over the radio that somebody took some shots at you on the way into the city,” she said.

“What excuse is that for them to be standing around doing nothing?” he asked angrily. “They are being paid to do their jobs, not to gossip.”

“There is nothing for them to do,” Miss Martin said.

“What do you mean, nothing?” He was getting angrier. “Why not?”

She picked up a telegram lying on his desk and gave it to him. “Our franchises have been revoked. That’s the last one. It just came in about an hour ago.”

He looked down at it and then picked up the other telegrams from his desk. They all read practically the same. The two Italian companies, the two English companies, the French company and the Swedish company. He looked up at her. “When did this happen?” he asked.

“It began the morning you left for Mexico,” she said. “I don’t understand it. It was almost as if someone gave the signal.”

He looked down at the telegrams in his hand again. Angrily he threw them back on the desk. The Society was so sure of itself. So sure he would be dead that they didn’t need to continue the franchises with his company. He would have to reach Matteo now. This business had gone far enough.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Cardinali,” Miss Martin said sympathetically. “I tried to reach you but you had already left the hotel for the race. I guess it was because of all that business in the newspapers.”

He didn’t answer. He was thinking. Someone would have to get a message to the postmaster in his village in Sicily. He was sure that Matteo was in the country somewhere but he could spend the next twenty years and not find him. His secretary’s voice cut into his thoughts.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

He stared at her. “What else is there to do?” He shrugged. “Give everybody their severance pay and lay them off. Tell them we’ll call them back as soon as the situation clears up.”

“Do you think it will?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, starting for the door. He stopped and looked back at her. “And, frankly, I don’t give a damn!”