The Black Mountain (4 page)

but I have to admit it was Hitchcock in London and Bodin in Paris who finally put him onto Telesio in Bari, and if he hadn’t found Telesio we might still be looking for Caria and for the murderer of Marko. I also admit that I regard myself as the one for hunches around this joint, and I resent anyone homing in,

even Wolfe. His part is supposed to be brainwork. However, what matters is that if he hadn’t got in touch with Telesio and talked with him forty buck’s worth,

in Italian, the Tuesday after Stahl’s visit, he would never have got the calls from Telesio. There were three of them. The first one came Thursday afternoon while I was out tracking down a lead that Fred thought might get somewhere.

When I got back to the office just before dinner Wolfe snapped at me, Get them here this evening for new instructions.

Yes, sir. I went to my desk, sat, and swiveled to face him. Any for me'

We’ll see. He was glowering. I suppose you have to know. I had a call from Bari. It is now past midnight in Italy. Mrs. Britton arrived in Bari at noon and left a few hours later in a small boat to cross the Adriatic.

I goggled. How the hell did she get to Italy'

I don’t know. My informant may, but he thinks it necessary to use discretion on the phone. I am taking it that she’s there. For the present we shall keep it to ourselves. The new instructions for Saul and Fred and Orrie will be on the ground that it is more urgent to disclose the murderer than to find Mrs.

Britton. As for -

Saul will smell it. He’ll know.

Let him. He won’t know where she is, and even if he did, no matter. Who is more trustworthy, Saul or you'

I would say Saul. I have to watch myself pretty close.

Yes. As for Mr. Cramer and Mr. Stahl, we owe them nothing. If they’re still looking for her they may find someone else. He sighed way down, leaned back,

and shut his eyes, presumably to try to devise a program for the hired help. So the first call from Telesio didn’t stop operations, it merely changed the strategy. With the second one it was different. It came four days later, at two-thirty A.M. Monday. Of course it was half-past eight in the morning at Bari,

but I was in no shape to manage that calculation as I yanked myself enough awake to realize that I hadn’t dreamed it - the phone was ringing. I rolled over and reached for it. When I heard that it was a call from Bari, Italy, for Mr. Nero Wolfe I told the operator to hold it, turned on the light, went and flipped the switch controlling the gong that splits the air if anyone steps within ten feet of the door of Wolfe’s room at night, and then descended one flight and knocked.

His voice came, and I opened the door and entered and pushed the wall switch.

He made a magnificent mound under the electric blanket, lying there blinking at me.

Well'he demanded.

Phone call from Italy. Collect.

He refuses to concede the possibility that he will ever be willing to talk on the phone while in bed, so the only instrument in his room is on a table over by a window. I went and switched it on. He pushed the blanket back, maneuvered his bulk around and up, made it over to the table in his bare feet, and took the phone. Even in those circumstances I was impressed by the expanse of his yellow pajamas.

I stood and listened to a lingo that I didn’t have in stock, but not for long.

He didn’t even get his money’s worth, for it had been less than three minutes when he cradled the thing, gave me a dirty look, padded back to the bed, lowered himself onto its edge, and pronounced some word that I wouldn’t know how to spell.

He went on. That was Signer Telesio. His discretion has been aggravated into obscurity. He said he had news for me, that was clear enough, but he insisted on coding it. His words, translated: ‘The man you seek is within sight of the mountain.’ He would not elucidate, and it would have been imprudent to press him.

I said, I’ve never known you to seek a man harder or longer than the guy who killed Marko. Does he know that'

Yes.

Then the only question is, which mountain'

It may safely be presumed that it is Lovchen - the Black Mountain, from which Montenegro got its name.

Is this Telesio reliable'

Yes.

Then there’s no problem. The guy that killed Marko is in Montenegro.

Thank you. He twisted around, got his legs onto the bed and under the blanket,

and flattened out, if that term may be used about an object with such a contour.

Folding the end of the yellow sheet over the edge of the blanket, he pulled it up to his chin, turned on his side, said, Put the light out, and closed his eyes. He was probably asleep before I got back upstairs.

That leaves four days of the three weeks to account for, and they were by far the worst of the whole stretch. It was nothing new that Wolfe was pigheaded, but that time he left all previous records way behind. He knew damn well the subject had got beyond his reach and he was absolutely licked, and the only intelligent thing to do was to hand it over to Cramer and Stahl, with a fair chance that it would get to the CIA, and, if they happened to have a tourist taking in the scenery in those parts, they might think it worth the trouble to give him an errand. Not only that, there were at least two VIPs in Washington, one of them in the State Department, whose ears were accessible to Wolfe on request. But no.

Not for that mule. When - on Wednesday evening, I think it was - I submitted suggestions as outlined above, he rejected them and gave three reasons. One,

Cramer and Stahl would think he had invented it unless he named his informant in Bari, and he couldn’t do that. Two, they would merely nab Mrs. Britton if and when she returned to New York, and charge her with something and make it stick.

Three, neither the New York police nor the FBI could reach to Yugoslavia, and the CIA wouldn’t be interested unless it tied in with their own plans and projects, and that was extremely unlikely. Meanwhile - and this was really pathetic - he kept Saul and Fred and Orrie on the payroll and went through the motions of giving them instructions and reading their reports, and I had to go through with my end of the charade. I don’t think Fred and Orrie suspected they were just stringing beads, but Saul did, and Wolfe knew it. Thursday morning Wolfe told me it wouldn’t be necessary for Saul to report direct to him, that I could take it and relay it.

No, sir, I said firmly. I’ll quit first. I’ll play my own part in the goddam farce if you insist on it, but I’m not going to try to convince Saul Panzer that I’m a halfwit. He knows better.

I have no idea how long it might have gone on. Sooner or later Wolfe would have had to snap out of it, and I prefer to believe it would have been sooner. There were signs that he was beginning to give under the strain - for instance, the scene in the office the next morning, Friday, which I have described. As for me,

I was no longer trying to needle him. I was merely offering him a chance to shake loose when I told him the memo from Cartright of Consolidated Products needed immediate attention and reminded him that Cartright had once paid a bill for twelve grand without a squeak, and it looked hopeful when he shoved the paperweight off the desk and dumped the mail in the wastebasket. I was deciding how to follow through and keep him going when the phone rang, and I would have liked to treat it as Wolfe had treated the mail. I turned and got it. A female voice asked me if I would accept a collect call from Bari, Italy, for Mr. Nero Wolfe, and I said yes and told Wolfe. He lifted his instrument. It was even briefer than it had been Sunday night. I am not equipped to divide Italian into words, but my guess was that Wolfe didn’t use more than fifty altogether. From his tone I suspected it was some more unwelcome news, and his expression as he hung up verified it. He tightened his lips, glaring at the phone, and then transferred the glare to me.

She’s dead, he said glumly.

It always irritated him if I talked like that. He had drilled it into me that when giving information I must be specific, especially in identifying objects or persons. But since the call had been from Bari, and there was only one female in that part of the world that we were interested in, I didn’t raise the point.

Where'I asked. Bari'

No. Montenegro. Word came across.

What or who killed her'

He says he doesn’t know, except that she died violently. He wouldn’t say she was murdered, but certainly she was. Can you doubt it'

I can, but I don’t. What else'

Nothing. But for the bare fact, nothing. Even if I could have got more out of him, what good would it do me, sitting here'

He looked down at his thighs, then at the right arm of his chair, then at the left arm, as if to verify the fact that he really was sitting. Abruptly he shoved his chair back, arose, and moved. He went to the television cabinet and stood a while staring at the screen, then turned and crossed to the most conspicuous object in the office, not counting him - the thirty-six-inch globe -

twirled it, stopped it, and studied geography a minute or two. He about-faced,

went to his desk, picked up a book he was halfway through - But We Were Born Free by Elmer Davis - crossed to the bookshelves, and eased the book in between two others. He tuned to face me and inquired, What’s the bank balance'

A little over twenty-six thousand, after drawing the weekly checks. You put the checks in the wastebasket.

What’s in the safe'

A hundred and ninety-four dollars and twelve cents in petty, and thirty-eight hundred in emergency reserve.

How long does it take a train to get to Washington'

Three hours and thirty-five minutes to four hours and fifteen minutes,

depending on the train.

He made a face. How long does it take an airplane'

Sixty to a hundred minutes, depending on the wind.

How often does a plane go'

Every thirty minutes - on the hour and the half.

He shot a glance at the wall clock. Can we make the one that leaves at noon'

I cocked my head. Did you say We'

Yes. The only way to get passports in a hurry is to go after them in person.

Where do we want passports for'

England and Italy.

When are we leaving'

As soon as we get the passports. Tonight if possible. Can we make the noon plane for Washington'

I stood up. Look, I said, it’s quite a shock to see a statue turn into a dynamo without warning. Is this just an act'

No.

You’ve told me over and over not to be impetuous. Why don’t you sit down and count up to a thousand'

I am not being impetuous. We should have gone days ago, when we learned he was there. Now it is imperative. Confound it, can we make that plane'

No. Nothing doing. God knows what you’ll be eating for the next week - or maybe year - and Fritz is working on shad roe mousse Pocahontas for lunch, and if you miss it you’ll take it out on me. While I phone the airline and get your naturalization certificate and my birth certificate from the safe, you might go and give Fritz a hand since you’re all of a sudden in such a hell of a hurry.

He was going to say something, decided to skip it, and turned and headed for the kitchen.

We got back home at nine o’clock that evening, and we had not only the passports but also seats on a plane that would leave Idlewild for London at five the next afternoon, Saturday. Wolfe was not taking it like a man. I had expected him to quit being eccentric about vehicles, since he had decided to cross an ocean and a good part of a continent, and relax, but there was no visible change in his reactions. In the taxis he sat on the front half of the seat and gripped the strap, and in the planes he kept his muscles tight. Apparently it was so deep in him that the only hope would be for him to get analyzed, and there wasn’t time for that. Analyzing him would take more like twenty years than twenty hours.

Washington had been simple. The VIP in the State Department, after keeping us waiting only ten minutes, had tried at first to explain that high-level interference with the Passport Division was against policy, but Wolfe interrupted him, not as diplomatically as he might have under that roof. Wolfe asserted that he wasn’t asking for interference, merely for speed, that he had come to Washington instead of handling it through New York because a professional emergency required his presence in London at the earliest possible moment, and that he had assumed the VIP’s professions of gratitude for certain services rendered, and expressions of willingness to reciprocate, could reasonably be expected to bear the strain of a request so moderate and innocent.

That did it, but the technicalities took a while anyway. Saturday was crowded with chores. There was no telling how long we would be away. We might be back in a few days, but Wolfe had to have things arranged for an indefinite absence, so I had my hands full. Fred and Orrie were paid off. Saul was signed up to hold down the office and sleep in the South Room. Nathaniel Parker, the lawyer, was given authority to sign checks, and Fritz was empowered to take charge at Rusterman’s. Theodore was given bales of instructions that he didn’t need about the orchids. The assistant manager of the Churchill Hotel obliged by cashing a check for ten grand, in tens and twenties and Cs, and I spent a good hour getting them satisfactorily stashed in a belt I bought at Abercrombie’s. The only squabble the whole day came at the last minute, as Wolfe stood in the office with his hat and coat on, and I opened a drawer of my desk and got out the Marley .32 and two boxes of cartridges.

You’re not taking that, he stated.

Sure I am. I slipped the gun into my shoulder holster and dropped the boxes into a pocket. The registration for it is in my wallet.

No. It may make trouble at the customs. You can buy one at Bari before we go across. Take it off.

It was a command, and he was boss.

Okay, I said, and took the gun out and returned it to the drawer. Then I sat down in my chair. I’m not going. As you know, I made a rule years ago never to leave on an errand connected with a murder case without a gun, and this is a super errand. I’m not going to try chasing a killer around a black mountain in a foreign land with nothing but some damn popgun I know nothing about.

Nonsense. He looked up at the clock. It’s time to go.

Go ahead.

Silence. I crossed my legs. He surrendered. Very well. If I hadn’t let you grow into a habit I could have done this without you. Come on.

I retrieved the Marley and put it where it belonged, and we departed. Fritz and Theodore escorted us to the sidewalk and the curb, where Saul sat at the wheel of the sedan. The luggage was in the trunk, leaving all the back seat for Wolfe.

From the woebegone look on Fritz’s and Theodore’s faces we might have been off for the wars, and in fact they didn’t know. Only Saul and Parker had been shown the program.

At Idlewild we got through the formalities and into our seats on the plane without a hitch. Thinking it wouldn’t hurt Wolfe to have a little comic relief to take his mind off the perils of the takeoff, I told him of an amusing remark I had overheard from someone behind us as we had ascended the gangway. My God,

a voice had said, they soak me thirty dollars for overweight baggage, and look at him. Seeing it didn’t produce the desired effect, I fastened my seat belt and left him to his misery. I admit he didn’t make a show of it. For the first couple of hours I hardly saw his face as he sat staring through the window at the ocean horizon or the clouds. We voted to have our meal on trays, and when it came, fricassee and salad with trimmings, he did all right with it, and no snide remarks or even looks. Afterward I brought him two bottles of beer and was properly thanked, which was darned plucky of him, considering that he held that all moving parts of all machinery are subject to unpredictable whim, and if the wrong whim had seized our propellers we would have dropped smack into the middle of the big drink in the dead of night. On that thought I went to sleep, sound.

When I woke up my watch said half-past two, but it was broad daylight and I smelled fried bacon, and Wolfe’s voice was muttering at my ear, I’m hungry.

We’re ahead of time, and we’ll be there in an hour.

Did you sleep'

Some. I want breakfast.

He ate four eggs, ten slices of bacon, three rolls, and three cups of coffee. I still haven’t seen London, because the airport is not in London and Geoffrey Hitchcock was there at the gate waiting for us. We hadn’t seen him since he had last been in New York, three years before, and he greeted us cordially for an Englishman and took us to a corner table in a restaurant, and ordered muffins and marmalade and tea. I was going to pass, but then I thought what the hell, I might as well start here as anywhere getting used to strange foreign food, and accepted my share.

Hitchcock took an envelope from his pocket. Here are your tickets for the Rome plane. It leaves in forty minutes, at twenty after nine, and arrives at three o’clock, Rome time. Since your luggage is being transferred directly to it, the custom chaps here don’t want you. We have half an hour. Will that be enough'

Ample. Wolfe dabbed marmalade on a muffin. Mostly I want to know about Telesio. Thirty years ago, as a boy, I could trust him with my life. Can I now'

I don’t know.

I need to know, Wolfe snapped.

Of course you do. Hitchcock used his napkin on his thin, pale lips. But nowadays a man you can trust farther than you can see is a rare bird. I can only say I’ve been dealing with him for eight years and am satisfied, and Bodin has known him much longer, from back in the Mussolini days, and he vouches for him.

If you have -

A cracking metallic voice, probably female, from a loudspeaker split the air. It sounded urgent. When it stopped I asked Hitchcock what she had said, and he replied that she was announcing that the nine-o’clock plane for Cairo was ready at Gate Seven.

Yeah. I nodded. I thought I heard Cairo. What language was she talking'

English.

I beg your pardon, I said politely and sipped some tea.

I was saying, he went on to Wolfe, that if you have to trust someone on that coast I doubt if you could do better than Telesio. From me that’s rather strong,

for I’m a wary man.

Wolfe grunted. It’s better than I hoped for. One other thing - a plane at Rome for Bari.

Yes. Hitchcock cleared his throat. One has been chartered and should be in readiness. He took a worn old leather case from his pocket, fingered in it, and extracted a slip of paper. You should be met on arrival, but if there’s a hitch here’s the name and phone number. He handed it over. Eighty dollars, and you may pay in dollars. The agent I deal with in Rome, Giuseppe Drogo, is a good man by Roman standards, but he is quite capable of seeking some trivial personal advantage from his contact with his famous American fellow. Of course he had to have your name. If it is now all over Rome, I must disclaim responsibility.

Wolfe did not look pleased, which showed how concentrated he was on his mission.

Any man only one-tenth as conceited as he was couldn’t help but glow at being told that his name was worth scattering all over Rome. As for Hitchcock, the British might be getting short on empire, but apparently they still had their share of applesauce. A little later the loudspeaker announced in what I guess was English that the plane for Rome was ready, and our host convoyed us out to the gate and stood by to watch us take the air. As we taxied to the runway Wolfe actually waved to him from the window. With Wolfe next to the window, I had to stretch my neck for my first look at Europe, but it was a nice sunny day and I kept a map open on my knee, and it was very interesting, after crossing the Strait of Dover, to look toward Brussels on the left and Paris on the right, and Zurich on the left and Geneva on the right, and Milan on the left and Genoa on the right. I recognized the Alps without any trouble, and I actually saw Bern.

Unfortunately I missed looking toward Florence. Passing over the Apennines a little to the north, we hit an air pocket and dropped a mile or so before we caught again, which is never much fun, and some of the passengers made noises.

Wolfe didn’t. He merely shut his eyes and set his jaw. When we had leveled off I thought it only civil to remark, That wasn’t so bad. That time I flew to the Coast, going over the Rockies we -

Shut up, he growled.

So I missed looking toward Florence. We touched concrete at the Rome airport right on the nose, at three o’clock of a fine warm Sunday afternoon, and the minute we descended the gangway and started to walk across to the architecture my association with Wolfe, and his with me, changed for the worse. All my life,

needing a steer in new surroundings, all I had had to do was look at signs and,

if that failed, ask a native. Now I was sunk. The signs were not my kind. I stopped and looked at Wolfe.

This way, he informed me. The customs. The basic setup between him and me was upset, and I didn’t like it. I stood beside him at a table and listened to the noises he exchanged with a blond basso, my only contribution being to produce my passport when told to do so in English. I stood beside him at a counter in another room and listened to similar noises, exchanged this time with a black-haired tenor, though I concede that there I played a more important part, being permitted to open the bags and close them again after they had been inspected. More noises to a redcap with a mustache who took over the bags - only his cap was blue. Still more, out in the sunshine, with a chunky signer in a green suit with a red carnation in his lapel. Wolfe kindly let me in on that enough to tell me that his name was Drogo and that the chartered plane for Bari was waiting for us. I was about to express my appreciation for being noticed when a distinguished-looking college boy, dressed for a wedding or a funeral,

stepped up and said in plain American, Mr. Nero Wolfe'

Wolfe glared at him. May I ask your name, sir'

He smiled amiably. I’m Richard Courtney from the embassy. We thought you might require something, and we would be glad to be of service. Can we help you in any way'

No, thank you.

Will you be in Rome long'

I don’t know. Must you know'

No, no. He perished the thought. We don’t want to intrude on your affairs -

just let us know if you need any information, any assistance at all.

I shall, Mr. Courtney.

Please do. And I hope you won’t mind - From the inside breast pocket of his dark gray tailored coat that had not come from stock he produced a little black book and a pen. I would like very much to have your autograph. He opened the book and proffered it. If you will'

Wolfe took the book and pen, wrote, and handed them back. The well-dressed college boy thanked him, urged him not to fail to call on them for any needed service, included Drogo and me in a well-bred smile, and left us. Checking on you'I asked Wolfe.

I doubt it. What for'

He said something to Drogo and then to the bluecap, and we started off, with Drogo in the lead and the bluecap with the bags in the rear. After a stretch on concrete and a longer one on gravel of a color I had never seen, we came to a hangar, in front of which a small blue plane was parked. After the one we had crossed Europe in it looked like a toy. Wolfe stood and scowled at it a while and then turned to Drogo and resumed the noises. They got louder and hotter,

then simmered down a little, and finally ended by Wolfe telling me to give him ninety dollars.

Hitchcock said eighty, I objected.

He demanded a hundred and ten. As for paying in advance, I don’t blame him.

When we leave that contraption we may be in no condition to pay. Give him ninety dollars.

I shelled it out, was instructed to give the bluecap a buck and did so after he had handed the luggage up to the pilot, and steadied the portable stile while Wolfe engineered himself up and in. Then I embarked. There was space for four passengers, but not for four Wolfes. He took one seat and I the other, and the pilot stepped on it, and we rolled toward the runway. I would have preferred not to wave to Drogo on account of the extra sawbuck he had chiseled, but for the sake of public relations I flapped a mitt at him.

Flying low over the Volscian hills - see map - in a pint-sized plane was not an ideal situation for a chat with my fellow passenger, but it was only ninety minutes to Bari, and something had to get settled without delay. So I leaned across and yelled to him above the racket, I want to raise a point!

His face came around to me. It was grim. I got closer to his ear. About the babble. How many languages do you speak'

He had to jerk his mind onto it. Eight.

I speak one. Also I understand one. This is going to be too much for me. What I see ahead will be absolutely impossible except on one condition. When you’re talking with people, I can’t expect you to translate as you go along, but you will afterward, the first chance we get. I’ll try to be reasonable about it, but when I ask for it I want it. Otherwise I might as well ride this thing back to Rome.

His teeth were clenched. This is a choice spot for an ultimatum.

Nuts. You might as well have brought a dummy. I said I’ll be reasonable, but I’ve been reporting to you for a good many years and it won’t hurt you to report to me for a change.