The Black Mountain (5 page)

Very well. I submit.

I want to be kept posted in full.

I said I submit.

Then we can start now. What did Drogo say about the arrangements for meeting Telesio'

Nothing. Drogo was told only that I wanted a plane for Bari.

Is Telesio meeting us at the airport'

No. He doesn’t know we’re coming. I wanted to ask Mr. Hitchcock about him first. In nineteen twenty-one he killed two Fascisti who had me cornered.

What with'

A knife.

In Bari'

Yes.

I thought you were Montenegrin. What were you doing in Italy'

In those days I was mobile. I have submitted to your ultimatum, as you framed it, but I’m not going to give you an account of my youthful gestes - certainly not here and now.

What’s the program for Bari'

I don’t know. There was no airport then, and I don’t know where it is. We’ll see. He turned away to look through the window. In a moment he turned back. I think we’re over Benevento. Ask the pilot.

I can’t, damn it! I can’t ask anybody anything. You ask him.

He ignored the suggestion. It must be Benevento. Glance at it. The Romans finished the Samnites there in three hundred and twelve B.C.

He was showing off, and I approved. Only two days earlier I would have given ten to one that up in an airplane he wouldn’t have been able to remember the date of anything whatever, and here he was rattling off one twenty-two centuries back. I went back to my window for a look down at Benevento. Before long I saw water ahead and to the left, my introduction to the Adriatic, and watched it spread and glisten in the sun as we sailed toward it, and then there was Bari floating toward us. Part of it was a jumble on a neck stretched into the sea, apparently with no streets, and the other part, south of the neck along the shore, had streets as straight and regular as midtown Manhattan, with no Broadway slicing through. The plane nosed down.

From here on, please have in mind the warning I put at the front of this. As I said, I have had to do some filling in, but everything important is reported as Wolfe gave it to me. Sure, it was five o’clock of a fine April Sunday afternoon.

Palm Sunday, and our plane was unscheduled, and Bari is no metropolis, but even so you might have expected to see some sign of activity around the airport.

None. It was dead. Of course there was someone in the control tower, and also presumably someone in the small building which the pilot entered, presumably to report, but that was all except for three boys throwing things at a cat. From them Wolfe learned where a phone was and entered a building to use it. I stood guard over the bags and watched the communist boys. I assumed they were communists because they were throwing things at a cat on Palm Sunday. Then I remembered where I was, so they could have been fascists.

Wolfe came back and reported. I reached Telesio. He says the guard on duty at the front of this building knows him and should not see him get us. I phoned a number he gave me and arranged for a car to come and take us to a rendezvous.

Yes, sir. It’ll take me a while to get used to this. Maybe a year will do it.

Let’s get in out of the sun.

The wooden bench in the waiting room was not too comfortable, but that wasn’t why Wolfe left it after a few minutes and went outside to the front. With three airplanes and four thousand miles behind him, he was simply full of get-up-and-go. It was incredible, but there it was: I was inside sitting down,

and he was outside standing up. I considered the possibility that the scene of his youthful gestes had suddenly brought on his second childhood, and decided no. He was suffering too much. When he finally reappeared and beckoned to me, I lifted the bags and went. The car was a shiny long black Lancia, and the driver wore a neat gray uniform trimmed in green. There was plenty of room for the bags and us too. As we started off, Wolfe reached for the strap and got a good hold on it, so he was still fundamentally normal. We swung out of the airport plaza onto a smooth black-top road, and without a murmur the Lancia stretched its neck and sailed, with the speedometer showing eighty, ninety, and on up over a hundred - when I realized it was kilometers, not miles. Even so, it was no jalopy. Before long there were more houses, and the road became a street, then a winding avenue. We left it, turning right, got into some traffic, made two more turns, and pulled up at the curb in front of what looked like a railroad station.

After speaking with the driver Wolfe told me, He says four thousand lire. Give him eight dollars. I audited it mentally as I got my wallet, certified it, and handed it over. The tip was apparently acceptable, since he held the door for Wolfe and helped me get the bags out. Then he got in and rolled off. I wanted to ask Wolfe if it was a railroad station, but there was a limit. His eyes were following something, and, taking direction, I saw that he was watching the Lancia on its way. When it turned a corner and disappeared he spoke. We have to walk five hundred yards.

I picked up the bags. Andiamo.

Where the devil did you get that'

Lily Rowan, at the opera - The chorus can’t get off the stage without singing it.

We set out abreast, but soon, the sidewalk was just wide enough for me and the bags, so I let him lead. I don’t know whether one of his youthful gestes had been to pace off that particular route, which included three straightaways and three turns, but if so his memory was faulty. It was more like half a mile, and if it had been much farther the bags would have begun to get heavy. A little beyond the third turn, in a street narrower than any of the others, a car was parked, with a man standing alongside. As we approached he stared rudely at Wolfe.

Wolfe stopped practically against him and said, Paolo.

No. The man couldn’t believe it. Yes, by God, it is. Get in. He opened the car door. It was a little two-door Fiat that would have done for a fender for the Lancia, but we made it - me with the bags in the back, and Wolfe with Telesio in front. As the car went along the narrow street, with Telesio jerking his head sidewise every second to look at Wolfe, I took him in. I had seen dozens of him around New York - coarse, thick hair, mostly gray; dark, tough skin, quick black eyes, a wide mouth that had done a lot of laughing. He began firing questions, but Wolfe wasn’t talking, and I couldn’t blame him. I was willing to keep my mind open on whether Telesio was to be trusted as a brother,

but in less than a mile it was already closed about trusting him as a chauffeur.

Apparently he had some secret assurance that all obstructions ahead, animate or inanimate, would disappear before he got there, and when one didn’t and he was about to make contact, his splitsecond reaction was very gay. When we got to our destination and I was out of it on my feet, I circled the Fiat for a look at the fenders. Not a sign of a scratch, let alone a dent. I thought to myself, a man in a million, thank God. The destination was a sort of courtyard back of a small white two-story stuccoed house, with flowers and a little pool and high walls on three sides.

Not mine, Telesio said. A friend of mine who is away. At my place in the old city you would be seen by too many people before I know your plans. Actually it was two hours later that I learned he had said that, but I’m going to put things in approximately where people said them. That’s the only way I can keep it straight.

Telesio insisted on carrying the bags in, though he had to put them down to use a key on the door. In a small square hall he took our hats and coats and hung them up, and ushered us through into a good-sized living room. It was mostly pink, and one glance at the furniture and accessories settled it as to the sex of his friend - at least I hoped so. Wolfe looked around, saw no chair that even approached his specifications, crossed to a couch, and sat. Telesio disappeared and came back in a couple of minutes with a tray holding a bottle of wine,

glasses, and a bowl of almonds. He filled the glasses nearly to the brim, gave us ours, and raised his.

To Ivo and Garibaldi! he cried. We drank. They left some, so I did. Wolfe raised his glass again.

There is only one response. To Garibaldi and Ivo! We emptied the glasses. I found a comfortable chair. For an hour they talked and drank and ate almonds.

When Wolfe reported to me later he said that the first hour had been reminiscent, personal and irrelevant, and their tone and manner certainly indicated it. A second bottle of wine was needed, and another bowl of almonds.

What brought them down to business was Telesio’s raising his glass proposing,

To your little daughter Caria! A woman as brave as she was beautiful! They drank. By then I was merely a spectator. Wolfe put his glass down and spoke in a new tone.

Tell me about her. You saw her dead'

Telesio shook his head. No, I saw her alive. She came to me one day and wanted to go across. I knew about her from Marko, on his trips to meet them from over there, and of course she knew all about me. I tried to tell her it was no job for a woman, but she wouldn’t listen. She said that with Marko dead she must see them and arrange what to do. So I brought Guido to her, and she paid him too much to take her across, and she went that day. I tried -

Do you know how she got here from New York'

Yes, she told me - as a stewardess on a ship to Naples, which was mere routine with certain connections, and from Naples by car. I tried to phone you before she got away, but there were difficulties, and by the time I got you she had gone with Guido. That was all I could tell you. Guido returned four days later.

He came to my place early in the morning, and with him was one of them - Josip Pasic. Do you know of him'

No.

Anyway he is too young for you to remember. He brought a message from Danilo Vukcic, who is a nephew of Marko. The message was that I was to phone to you and say these words: ‘The man you seek is within sight of the mountain.’ I knew you would want more and I tried to get more, but that was all Josip would say. He hasn’t known me for many years as the older ones have. So that was all I could tell you. Naturally I thought it meant that the man who had killed Marko was there, and was known. Did you'

Yes.

Then why didn’t you come'

I wanted something better than a cryptogram.

Not as I remember you - but then, you are older, and so am I. You are also much heavier and have more to move, but that is no surprise, since Marko told me about you and even brought me a picture of you. Anyway, now you are here, but your daughter is dead. I can’t believe how you got here. It was only Friday,

forty-eight hours ago, that I phoned you. Josip came again, not with Guido this time, in another boat, with another message from Danilo. I was to inform you that your daughter had died a violent death within sight of the mountain. Again that was all he would say. If I had known you were coming I would have tried to keep him here for you, but he has gone back. In any case, you will want to see Danilo himself, and for him we will have to send Guido. Danilo will trust only Guido. He could be here - let’s see - Tuesday night. Early Wednesday morning.

You can await him here. Marko used this place. I believe, in fact, he paid for this wine, and he wouldn’t want us to spare it, and the bottle is empty. That won’t do.

He left the room and soon was back with another bottle, uncorked. After filling Wolfe’s glass he came to me. I would have preferred to pass, but his lifted brows at my prior refusal had indicated that a man who went easy on wine would bear watching, so I took it and got another handful of almonds.

This place isn’t bad, he told Wolfe, even for you who live in luxury. Marko liked to do his own cooking, but I can get a woman in tomorrow.

It won’t be necessary, Wolfe said. I’m going over.

Telesio stared. No. You must not.

On the contrary. I must. Where do we find this Guido'

Telesio sat down. You mean this'

Yes. I’m going.

In what form and what capacity'

My own. To find the man who killed Marko. I can’t enter Yugoslavia legally, but among those rocks and ravines what’s the difference'

That’s not the problem. The worst Belgrade would do to Nero Wolfe would be to ship him out, but the rocks and ravines are not Belgrade. Nor are they what you remember. Precisely there, around that mountain, are the lairs of the Tito cutthroats and the Albanian thugs from across the border who are the tools of Russia. They reached to kill Marko in far-off America. They killed your daughter within hours after she stepped ashore. She may have exposed herself by carelessness, but what you propose - to appear among them as yourself - would be greatly worse. If you are so eager to commit suicide, I will favor you by providing a knife or a gun, as you may prefer, and there will be no need for you to undertake the journey across our beautiful sea, which is often rough, as you know. I would like to ask a question. Am I a coward'

No. You are not.

I am not. I am a very brave man. Sometimes I am astonished at the extent of my courage. But nothing could persuade me, known as I am, to show myself between Cetinje and Scutari day or night - much less to the east, where the border crosses the mountains. Was Marko a coward'

No.

That is correct. But he never even considered risking himself in that hive of traitors. Telesio shrugged.

That’s all I have to say. Unfortunately you will not be alive for me to say I told you so. He picked up his glass and drained it. Wolfe looked at me to see how I was taking it, realized that I would have nothing to take until he got a chance to report, and heaved a deep sigh.

That’s all very well, he told Telesio, but I can’t hunt a murderer from across the Adriatic with the kind of communications available, and now that I’ve got this far I am not going to turn around and go home. I’ll have to consider it and discuss it with Mr. Goodwin. In any event, I’ll need this Guido. What’s his name'

Guido Battista.

He is the best'

Yes. That is not to say he is a saint. The list of saints to be found today in this neighborhood would leave room here. He passed a fingertip over the nail of his little finger.

Can you bring him here'

Yes, but it may take hours. This is Palm Sunday. Telesio stood up. If you are hungry, the kitchen is equipped and there are some items in the cupboard. There is wine but no beer. Marko told me of your addiction to beer, which I deplore.

If the phone rings you may lift it, and if it is me I will speak. If I do not speak you should not. No one is expected here. Draw the curtains properly before you turn lights on. Your presence in Bari may not be known, but they reached to Marko in New York. My friend would not like blood on this pretty pink rug.

Suddenly he laughed. He roared with laughter. Especially not in such a quantity! I will find Guido. He was gone. The sound came of the outer door closing, and then of the Fiat’s engine as it turned in the courtyard and headed for the street. I looked at Wolfe.

This is fascinating, I said bitterly. He didn’t hear me. His eyes were closed.

He couldn’t lean back comfortably on the couch, so as a makeshift he was hunched forward. I know you’re chewing on something, I told him, but I’m along and I have nothing to chew on. I would appreciate a hint. You’ve spent years training me to report verbatim, and I would like you to give a demonstration. His head lifted and his eyes opened.

We’re in a pickle.

We have been for nearly a month. I need to know what Telesio said from the beginning.

Nonsense. For an hour we merely prattled.

Okay, that can wait. Then begin where he toasted Carla. He did so. Once or twice I suspected him of skipping and stopped him, but on the whole I was willing to accept it as an adequate job. When he was through he reached for his glass and drank. I let my head back to rest on my clasped hands, and so was looking down my nose at him. On account of the wine, I said, I may be a little vague, but it looks as if we have three choices. One, stay here and get nowhere. Two, go home and forget it. Three, go to Montenegro and get killed. I have never seen a less attractive batch to pick from.