“Everyone’s heard all about me,” Destamio said, apparently unconscious of the destructive effect of the fumes on throat and lungs. “That’s the trouble. They believe all them lies printed in the papers, and think I got no more right than a mad dog. Me, I’m a peaceful man. I just wanna be let alone.”
“I guess none of the other guys in the Syndicate wants much more than that,” Simon agreed commiseratingly.
“Lies, all lies,” Destamio grumbled without much show of heat.
He went on in a monotone, as if reciting a story that had been told too many times, to reporters, police officers, and the more inquisitive members of the judiciary: “I go from Italy to the States with a few bucks and invest it in the trucking business, and I make a little dough. I make a little more dough because I like playing the ponies, and I’m lucky. So maybe I make a mistake not reporting some of my winnings, and they make out I got more money than I can account for earning. It’s discrimination, that’s what it is. Just because I’m Italian and some guys in the rackets are Italian, they call me a racketeer. I love America, but they give me a dirty deal.”
The record ground to a halt, and Destamio lowered the level of liquid in his glass by a full inch.
Simon recalled the rest of the story now, including some details that Gopher Destamio had neglected to include. The early record was vague, but included two or three arrests on minor charges and a short term spent in jail for assault with a deadly weapon before Destamio had graduated to the upper ranks of the Syndicate. Thereafter his presence had been reported at mysterious assemblies in remote mountain cabins, and his name regularly cropped up in popular magazine articles about the unpunished aristocracy of the underworld. Although, like others similarly mentioned, he exhibited extraordinary restraint in not suing such calumniators for libel, no one seemed able to prove anything positive against him until the accountants of the Justice Department found enough discrepancies in his financial records to build a case around.
The legal duels that followed were expensive both for the Government and for Gopher, and as usual only the lawyers showed a profit. Uncle Sam was able to lay hands on less than a tenth of the amounts claimed for liabilities and penalties, and could only retaliate by depriving Destamio of his newly acquired citizenship and deporting him back to the land of his birth. What Italy thought about this was not reported, and indeed the Italians never seemed to have been asked if they wanted him.
“So you know all about me, Saint,” Destamio said. “And I know a lot about you. What I don’t know is why you get so interested in me all at once. Why?”
The question was thrown in a conversational, almost offhand manner. But Simon knew that this was the bonger, the $64,000 question, the whole and sole reason why he had been brought there with such ambiguous courtesy. Many things might hang upon his reply, among them perhaps the further duration of his own life.
Yet the Saint seemed even more casual and indifferent than his host, and the hand holding his cigarette was so steady that the smoke rose in an unwavering column through the still air. He answered truthfully as well, having decided a little while ago that that would be the most uncomplicated and productive policy. Also he wanted Destamio’s reaction when a certain name was mentioned again.
“I’m still wondering,” he said, “what happened to Dino Cartelli.”
CHAPTER TWO:
HOW ALESSANDRO DESTAMIO MADE A BID, AND MARCO PONTI TOLD STORIES
1
If the Saint had expected some pyrotechnically dramatic response, he would have been disappointed. Either the name meant nothing to Destamio, or he had been waiting for the question and knew in advance how he would field it. The racketeer only grunted and shook his head.
“Cartelli? Don’t know him. Why ask me? What makes you so nosey about me, anyhow? All the time I get reports how you’re asking questions about me. A man in my position don’t like that. Lotta people would like to see me in trouble, and I gotta take precautions.”
“Like having my clothes cut up?” Simon inquired icily.
Destamio grunted again—a porcine reflex that seemed to be his opening gambit to all conversation.
“Maybe. Some guys get too nosey, they get worse than that cut up. You ain’t answered my question: why should I know about this Cartelli?”
“Because that’s what a man called you at the Arcate the other night. He seemed certain that you were Dino Cartelli. I heard him.”
Simon waited for the grunt, and it was more explosive than ever.
“Is that all you got on your mind? The guy was nuts. The world’s full of nuts.” Destamio snapped his fingers and squinted at the Saint. “Say—now I recognize you! You were the guy at the next table who gave Rocco the squeeze. I didn’t recognize you till now. I pulled out because I try to stay outa trouble here. I got enough trouble.” He sat back and chewed the black and dreadful stump of his cigar, staring at the Saint with piggy eyes. “You swear that’s all the interest you got in my affairs? Because some nut calls me by a wrong name?”
“That’s all,” Simon told him calmly. “Because this nut, as you call him, was murdered that night. So he may have known something that would make a lot more trouble for you.”
For a long silent moment Destamio rolled the cigar between his fingers, glaring coldly at the Saint.
“And you think I bumped him to shut him up,” he said finally. He flicked ashes over the balcony rail, towards the sea far below, and suddenly laughed. “Hell, is that all? You know, Saint, I believe you. Maybe I’m nuts, but I believe you. So you thought you had to do something to get justice for that poor dope! What’s your first name—Simon? Call me Al, Simon—all my friends call me Al. And pour us another drink.”
He was relaxed now, almost genial in a crude way.
“Then your name never was Dino Cartelli?” Simon persisted, obviously unimpressed by the other’s abrupt change of manner.
“Never was and never will be. And I didn’t knock that nut off, neither. You let coincidence make a sucker outa you. Here, let me show you something.”
Destamio heaved himself up and led the way back into the living room. He pointed to what at first appeared to be a decorative panel on the wall.
“Lotta bums go to the States change their names and don’t care, because their names never meant nothing. But I’m Alessandro Leonardo Destamio and I’m proud of it. My family goes as far back as they ever had names, and I think the old king was an eighty-second cousin or something. Look for yourself!”
Simon realized that the panel was a genealogical chart complete with coats of arms and many branchings and linkings. The scrolls of names climbed and intertwined like cognominal foliage on a flowering tree of which the final fruit bore the glorious label of Lorenzo Michele Destamio.
“That was my papa. He was always proud of the family. And there’s my birth certificate.”
Destamio stabbed a thick thumb at another frame which held a beribboned and sealing-waxed document which proclaimed that the offspring of Lorenzo Michele Destamio would go through life hailed as Alessandro Leonardo. It looked authentic enough—as a document.
“And you’ve no idea why this man, what was his name—William Charing-Cross—should have been killed?” Simon asked.
“No idea,” Destamio said blandly. “I never saw him before. Wouldn’t have known his name unless you told me. But if you’re worried about him, I can ask a few questions around. Find out if anyone knows anything. Anything to make you happy…Hey!” He snapped his fingers as he was reminded of something else. “I was forgetting what the boys did. Be right back.”
He walked into an adjoining room, and after a while Simon heard the unmistakable thunk of a safe door closing. Destamio came back with a thick wad of currency in his hand.
“Here,” he said, holding it out. “Some guys working here get too enthusiastic. That wasn’t my idea, all they did to your stuff. So take this and buy some more. If it ain’t enough, let me know.”
Simon took
the offering. On top of the stack was an American hundred-dollar bill, and when he flicked his finger across the edges other hundreds flashed by in a twinkling parade of zeros.
“Thank you,” he said without shame, and put the money in his pocket.
Destamio smiled benevolently, and chewed another half-inch from his mangled cigar.
“Let’s eat,” he said, waving a pudgy hand towards a table already decked with silver and crystal in another alcove. “And we can talk about things. A guy can go crazy here with no one to talk to.”
He sat down and shook a small hand bell noisily, and the service began even before the ornamental Lily arrived to join them.
Al Destamio did most of the talking, and Simon Templar was quite content to listen. Whatever Lily’s other talents might have been, aside from her hair-raising ways with a car, they were obviously not conversational. She applied herself to the food with a ravenous concentration which proved that her svelte figure could only be a metabolic miracle, and Simon had to summon some self-control not to emulate her, for in spite of his grossness Destamio employed an exceptional cook.
There was only one topic of conversation, or monologue to describe it more accurately, and that was the depravity of the US Department of Justice and its vicious persecution of innocent immigrants who succeeded in rising above the status of common laborers. But about all that Destamio revealed of himself was his remarkable mastery of the ramifications of the income tax laws, which seemed a trifle inconsistent with his claim to have only violated them through well-meaning ignorance. Simon was not called upon to do more than eat, drink, and occasionally make some lifelike sounds to show that he was paying attention, since the oracle was clearly entranced enough with the gargled splendor of his own voice.
Hence the Saint was able to disguise an occasional unfocusing of the eyes, when his mind wandered underneath the monotonous discourse, groping for another missing item of information which he felt might provide a key to some of the riddles of the past two days, but which kept eluding him as exasperatingly as an itch that could not be scratched.
At last the coffee wound up the repast, and Destamio yawned and belched and announced his readiness for a siesta. Simon took this as his cue for an exit, and was given no argument.
“Glad I could get to know you, Saint,” Destamio said, pumping his hand with the heartiness of a professional politician. “You have any more problems, you come to me. Don’t try to be a big shot by yourself.”
The incredibly discreet Lily appeared once more in the role of chauffeuse, now wearing a cashmere sweater and Capri pants so tight that if she had been tattooed the mark would have shown through. Simon was delighted to observe that she was not tattooed.
As she resumed her attempts to make the Alfa-Romeo behave like a scared mountain goat, he felt that he had to make one parting effort to discover whether she ever talked at all.
“Do you live here or are you just visiting?” he queried chattily.
“Yes.”
He gazed at her for quite a long time, figuring this out, but what could be seen of her face gave him no help. He decided to try again.
“Do you ever get away?”
“Sometimes.”
That was a little better. Perhaps it only required perseverance.
“I hope I’ll see you again somewhere.”
“Why?”
“I’d like to know what your face looks like. Would I recognize you without glasses?”
“No.”
Always the same pulse-stirring voice, vibrantly disinterested in everything.
“Is Al a jealous type?”
“I don’t know.”
The Saint sighed. Perhaps after all his charm was not absolutely irresistible. It was a solemn thought. At any rate, she was evidently capable of holding out for the duration of the short ride to the heliport. But he had to keep on talking, because the other haunting hint of knowledge that he had been seeking had suddenly given up its evasive tactics and dropped out of the recess where it had been hiding.
“Do you know why he was called ‘Gopher’?” he asked.
“No.”
“Well, I won’t burden your mind with it. When you go back just tell him that I know. I suddenly remembered. Will you do that?”
“Yes.”
They were at the heliport, and a flight was about to leave, the vanes of the ’copter swishing lazily around. But the Saint wanted to be sure that his message would get through. As he levered himself out of the bucket seat, he stopped with the door still open and pulled out the sheaf of crisp greenery that Destamio had given him, fanning the leaves under her nose while he ostentatiously peeled off one of them.
“Tell him, I liked these samples. The only thing wrong is, there weren’t enough of them. Show him this so he knows what you’re talking about. Tell him it’s going to cost a lot more now, because of the ‘Gopher’ business. Do you think you’ll get that straight?”
She nodded placidly.
“Congratulations,” said the Saint.
He shut the car door, and leaned over it. There was one final touch he could not forego, vain as it might seem. Although it should certainly help to make his point.
“And if you want to find out whether he’s jealous, tell him I did this,” he said.
He bent further and kissed her on the lips. They tasted like warm paint.
2
The helicopter leaped skywards, and Simon’s spirits soared with it. What had begun as the most trivial happenstance, sharpened by a curt sequel in the newspaper, had grown into the adumbration of a full-scale intrigue.
He had some of the sensations of an angler who was expecting to play with a sardine and instead has hooked a tuna. What he would do with the tuna on such a flimsy thread was something else again, and no one but Simon Templar would have made such a point of setting the barb so solidly. But it was one of the elementary tricks of fishing to make the fish work for you, and the Saint felt cheerfully confident that his fish would not waste much time sulking on the bottom. As soon as the ‘Gopher’ barb sank in…
To share that optimism, some readers may have to overcome the limitations of a sheltered life, and be informed of its connotations in some circles where they may not ordinarily revolve. In some of the far-fetched variations of American slang, a gopher (aside from his primitive zoological determination to be a small rodent of retiring but horticulturally destructive habits) can also be a bumpkin, a ruffian, or a toady. These are general terms, not confined to the so-called “under”-world with which Destamio must have had some illustrious connections. But in the idiom of that nether clique, a “gopher” is either an iron or steel safe, or the technician who specializes in blowing open such containers in order to obtain illegal possession of their contents.
This was the idiomatic detail which gave the lie to everything Destamio had tried to sell him, and which had to connect with the sudden demise of James Euston, Esquire, a former bank clerk. And the certainty of it added no little brilliance to Simon’s esthetic appreciation of the golden afternoon clouds gathering behind Ischia.
When the helicopter landed at the Naples harbor station, he remained in his seat until the pilot came and said courteously, “This is the destination of your ticket, signore.”
“I’ve decided to go on to Capodichino.”
“Then there is an extra charge.”
“How much?” Simon asked carelessly.
He was not nearly so concerned about being branded an arrogant plutocrat, which he could survive, as about being caught in an even swifter riposte by Al Destamio, which he might not. Even in the few minutes for which he had been airborne, Lily could have returned to the villa, Destamio could have picked up a telephone and contacted henchmen on the mainland, and the Naples heliport might be no safer than a booby-trapped quagmire.
On the other hand, an arrival at Capodichino might confuse the Ungodly still more, and possibly leave them standing flatfooted.
Once he had decided on that detour
, Simon realized that he had no need to return to Naples at all. His baggage had been rendered practically worthless anyhow, and from a phone booth at the airport he promised to come back later for whatever was worth salvaging. There was anguished disbelief in the manager’s voice when Simon guaranteed that he would take care of the bill at the same time, but the Saint allowed his heart to be hardened by the thought of how much more joyfully surprised that entrepreneur would be when the payment actually arrived.
A kiosk sold him a book about the glories of Sicily, after some argument, for very little more than the price printed on the cover, and left him just enough time to catch the evening plane to Palermo.
Palermo was even hotter than Naples, and there are few air-conditioned hotel rooms in Sicily, despite the suffocating need for them, but by a combination of seasoned instinct, determination, good luck, and extravagant bribery, the Saint succeeded in securing one. This involved staying at a hotel with the hideously inappropriate name of The Jolly, which was anything but. However, it gave him a restful night, and he was able to console himself for the cost with the reflection that it only made a small dent in Al Destamio’s advance donation.
In the morning, after a leisurely breakfast, a shave with a cut-throat razor borrowed from the valet, and in relatively clean and spruce linen by courtesy of the ingenious manufacturers of wash-and-wear synthetics, he strolled over to the local office of the City & Continental Bank (Foreign Division) Limited, to which the hotel porter had only been able to direct him after his memory was refreshed by a reasonable honorarium. In fact it was such a modest building, evidently maintained principally as a convenience for touring clients, that there was barely room for its impressive name to spread across the frontage.
A dark-haired girl with Botticelli eyes smiled up at him from behind the counter and asked what she could do for him, and it required some discipline not to give her a truthful answer.
Vendetta for the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 4