He led her past the saloon entrance and up the steps of the house. The door was open and they walked into the hallway. A single naked bulb hung overhead and cast a dim yellow light.
She looked up at him. “Who are we going to see?” she asked.
He looked down at her. “Matteo, of course,” he answered matter-of-factly.
“But I thought he couldn’t enter this country,” she said in surprise.
He smiled at her. “So do many others.” He took her arm again. “Come.”
They walked up one flight of stairs to the next floor. Cesare stopped in front of a door. He knocked on it.
“Come in. The door is unlocked.” Matteo’s voice came through it.
Cesare opened the door and they entered the room. She was surprised to see it was a comfortably furnished office. She did not expect it in a building such as this. Cesare closed the door behind him.
Matteo looked up at them from behind a desk. “Don Cesare! And Miss Nichols too. I am surprised.”
Cesare left her standing at the door and walked over to the desk. He stood there looking down silently at Matteo.
Luke looked curiously around the room. It was just like a regular business office. There was another desk in the corner with a typewriter on it. Next to it was a file cabinet and next to that was a small curtained alcove that probably led to the lavatory. The only thing strange about the room was that there seemed to be no windows in it. Matteo’s voice came to her and she looked back at them.
“You have asked for a meeting, my nephew,” he said.
Cesare nodded. “I have come to talk to you about a misunderstanding between us.”
“Yes?” Emilio inclined his head.
“When we last met, you said to me that I have done my work well. That the Society was pleased.” Cesare’s voice was low.
Emilio nodded. “That is true.”
“Then why is it they ask my death?” Cesare asked calmly.
Emilio folded his hands across his stomach and leaned back in the chair. He looked up at Cesare. “You are young, my nephew, and there are many things you do not understand.”
“What things?” Cesare asked.
“The Society owes its existence to one simple rule,” Emilio said blandly. “One simple rule that helped it survive many wars and many difficult times of strife and built it to the power it is today. And this rule is our strength. ‘No one man can exist who threatens the security of more than himself.’”
“I have not broken this rule,” Cesare said quickly. “Except at the request of the Society to protect certain of its members.”
Emilio’s voice was still patient as if he were speaking to a child. “It is regrettable, of course, but that knowledge is now a dagger at our throats. You see, already the police suspect you and if somehow your knowledge should become available to them—” He didn’t finish his sentence.
“They will discover nothing from me,” Cesare said.
“I believe that,” Emilio agreed. “But vast harm would be done if we both are in error. The others have not the same confidence as you and I.”
“Why not?” Cesare demanded. “I have kept the oath. And I want nothing from them.”
“That’s just it,” Emilio said quickly. “That is what concerns them. A man who wants nothing has nothing to protect. You are not like Dandy Nick, or Big Dutch and Allie whom you have already eliminated. They had reason to be loyal, they had something to protect, profits to contribute. While you, my nephew, bring us no profit, produce nothing. You are a dilettante, interested only in the excitement and danger like a little child.”
“So, because of Dandy Nick, they ask my death?” Cesare asked.
Emilio looked up at him. He held his hands apart expressively in a gesture of helplessness. “For that reason you must keep your oath to the Society.”
Luke saw a movement behind the curtain. “Cesare! Look out!” she screamed in sudden terror.
Cesare whirled so quickly that her eye did not follow the stiletto flying from his hand. It plunged into the curtain and into the man hidden behind it in the alcove. The man’s hands gripped the curtain and fell with it to the floor, ripping it from its hanger. A gun fell clattering to the floor near Luke.
Cesare knelt quickly by the man, pulling the curtain from his face. He looked back at Emilio. “It is Dandy Nick!” he said harshly. “Now according to the law there is no one I threaten!”
“There is still one, my nephew,” Emilio said softly.
Cesare stared up at him. “Who is that, my uncle?”
The gun appeared in Emilio’s hand. “Me,” he said quietly. His finger began to tighten on the trigger. In a way, it was a shame, he thought almost regretfully. Cesare could have become one of the great ones, one of the Dons, but there was something missing.
He was so lost in his reverie that he did not see Luke squeeze the trigger of the gun she had picked up from the floor. The impact of the bullet in his shoulder tumbled him backward from his chair, the gun flying from his hand.
In a moment, Cesare was upon him, the stiletto high in the air over his head. “No! No!” Matteo screamed. “I will speak to the council! They will listen to me!”
Cesare was laughing wildly now. “It is too late, my uncle!” he shouted. “Their own rules condemn you! With your death, I am free!”
Luke watched, frozen in horror, as the knife came down again and again into Emilio’s body. “Stop, Cesare!” she screamed. “It’s enough!”
Slowly Cesare rose from behind the desk. He turned toward her, the wild maniacal light beginning to fade from his eyes. He was smiling by the time he reached her. He took her arm and opened the door.
He looked back into the room and then down at her. “You know,” he said softly with a laugh, “he was beginning to believe he really was my uncle!”
***
He opened the door of his apartment and they went inside. He crossed to his desk and sat down. He pushed aside the stack of mail and took out a checkbook and began to write in it.
Luke came up behind him and gently began to massage the back of his neck. “It’s good to be home,” she said softly.
He finished writing the check and turned around, holding it up to her. “Here!” he said harshly.
She stopped massaging his neck and stared down at him. “What’s that for?” she asked.
His voice was flat and his eyes were the eyes of a stranger. “You said you wanted a Ferrari. Now you can pack your things and go!”
She stared at him, unbelieving. There was a sickness in her stomach, a nausea that was creeping up in her. It was happening again. The same thing was happening again! “You think—” Her voice choked for a moment. She could taste the bitter bile from her stomach. “You think that is why I stayed with you?”
He got out of the chair and walked roughly past her to the liquor cabinet. He poured himself a drink and swallowed it. He turned back to her. “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he said. “We are finished!”
She had to tell him. Maybe if he knew she was pregnant, he wouldn’t feel like that. It wasn’t his fault. He had been through so much. “Cesare, what am I going to do now? I am… I don’t…”
He reached behind him in the cabinet, opened the little door and took out the small dark bottle. He placed it on the cabinet near the whisky. “I don’t care what you do,” he interrupted her. “But you have a choice. You know what is in this bottle. A few drops and in three minutes—oblivion! Very painless. I give it to you!”
He walked past her to the door. She followed him. “Cesare!” she cried. “Where are you going? To her?”
He smiled slowly, his voice was cruelly soft. “Yes. I am tired of you. I’ve had enough of lying with you on coarse bleach-smelling sheets, of your plebeian attempts at lovemaking! You were right in what you said the first time we met. She can give me more in ten minutes than you can in ten days. And you’ve just proved it!”
Her hand reached for his lapel. “You don’t want me anymore?�
�� she asked dully.
He brushed her hand away. “That’s not quite right,” he said coldly. “I don’t need you anymore!”
The door closed behind him and she stood there for a moment staring at it. Then she turned and slowly walked back to the couch. It had happened again. She looked over at the vial of poison standing on the edge of the liquor cabinet. He was right. It was the only way for someone like her.
She got to her feet and started for it when the nausea came up in her. She ran to the bathroom wildly and bent over the sink, retching. Tears began to burn in her eyes. She retched again and then her stomach was empty. Slowly she sank to her knees and placed her head against the cool porcelain. The tears came rolling down her cheeks. There was no doubt about it now.
27
He turned the key in Ileana’s door and walked into the room. The lights were on and he could hear the sound of the water running in the shower. He smiled and walked over to the bathroom door and called to her. “Ileana!”
He heard the water stop, then her voice. “Cesare! Is that you?”
“Yes.” He laughed. “I’m back.”
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he called. “Hurry out. I have something important to tell you!”
He turned from the door. It was time for them. The time for adventure was over and the time for family had begun. He knew now what his father had meant when he said to him, “Do not let the name die, my son. Take care not to waste all your seed.”
He heard her call through the door. “Be a dear, will you, and hand my makeup case in through the door to me? It will never do for you to see me without lipstick. It’s on the night table.”
He laughed to himself, thinking of all the times he had seen her without lipstick. But he might as well get used to her little vanities. It would be a part of their life together.
He walked over to the night table and picked up the small case by the handle. The snaps were open and the case opened outward, the lower half spilling its contents on the floor. Still smiling, he knelt to pick them up. He tumbled the lipsticks and the compacts back into the case and began to pick up the cards and letters still on the floor.
Idly he looked at them. What junk a woman carried. Credit cards and charge plates. The last letter caught his eye. It was marked Official Business U.S. Government. It was addressed to Ileana from the Department of Immigration. Automatically he began to read it.
“At the request of Mr. George Baker of the Federal Bureau of Investigation we herewith advise you that your request for a visa as a permanent resident alien has been approved. Please bring this letter and your passport to our nearest office so that proper entry may be made accordingly.”
Slowly Cesare got to his feet, the letter still in his hand, the makeup case forgotten on the floor. He had opened the bathroom door before he fully understood what the letter meant. She had been working for Baker all the time. There could be no other reason for him to help her.
She was standing before the mirror tying her robe around her. She looked up into it and saw him. She spun around swiftly at the expression on his face. “Cesare! What is wrong?” she cried. Then she saw the letter in his hand. Her eyes widened.
He stood there in the doorway, his eyes cold and dead. “Why, Ileana, why? You came to me as a friend for help and I helped you. Why?”
She stared up at him. “I had to, Cesare. They gave me no choice!”
“I don’t believe that, Ileana,” he said, walking toward her. “You still could have told me. We could have fought this together.”
She watched him raise his hand slowly. Oddly enough she wasn’t afraid now that it was happening. She wondered if the others had felt the same way. “Don’t do it, Cesare,” she said calmly. “You can’t get away with it now. They’ll know it was you.”
He stared down at her, his hand hesitating.
“Don’t, Cesare,” she said quickly, trying to take advantage of his hesitation. “You’re sick. Let me help you!”
“You’ve helped enough,” he said bitterly. “I was even fool enough to think of marrying you!”
She tried to dart past him to the door and never saw the blow that tumbled her unconscious to the floor.
He stood there looking down at her, breathing heavily. His mind raced. He dared not use the stiletto. There had to be a way to make it look like an accident.
As he did with Barbara. He opened the bathroom door and looked out into the bedroom. He saw the French doors leading to the terrace. The idea crystallized in his mind. A suicide was even better.
He picked her up swiftly and carried her to the terrace doors. He opened them and looked out. The night was silent and the snow had started to fall in big white flakes. He stepped out onto the terrace and carried her to the parapet. He placed her limp body on it for a moment and looked at her.
Her face was white and still and small. Somewhere in his mind he could hear the sound of her tinkling laughter. She would have made a lovely bride for him. He touched her lightly and she rolled over and was gone.
He did not stop to look down after her. He turned and hurried back into the room and out into the hall.
***
He came back into his living room and walked toward the couch. He stopped as Luke came to the bedroom door. “You still here?” he snapped.
She didn’t answer.
He turned from her and sank into the couch. “What are you waiting for?” he almost shouted. “Get out!”
He leaned forward and placed his head in his hands. He rubbed his neck wearily. Luke walked over to the liquor cabinet and poured a drink into his glass.
She came around in front of him and held it out. “Here,” she said.
He took it and swallowed the whisky in one gulp. He put the glass down on the table before him and looked up at her. “Now get your things and go,” he said harshly.
Silently she turned and went into the bedroom. He leaned his head back against the couch wearily. He was so tired. Tomorrow he would go away somewhere and do nothing but lie in the sun. He closed his eyes. It had been such a long time since he had been in the sun. He started to get to his feet. He might as well go to bed.
He brought his head forward but something had gone wrong. It was as if his feet had gone to sleep. He pushed himself from the couch but that didn’t help either, there was no strength in his arms.
Luke came out of the bedroom, carrying her valise. She walked by him without speaking.
He felt the perspiration break out on his forehead. “Luke! Help me,” he called. “I feel strange!”
She turned to look at him. “I can’t help you now, Cesare,” she said in a low voice.
He stared at her for a moment, then he looked at the empty liquor glass on the table before him. Suddenly comprehension came to him. “You bitch! You’ve poisoned me!” he shouted. “I should have killed you in the desert!”
“Maybe you should have,” she said unemotionally. “I told you I never wanted to be a loser again.” She turned to the door and opened it.
Baker and several men stood there. They pushed her back into the room with them. Baker looked down at him. He turned to Luke. “What’s the matter with him?” he asked.
A vague memory stirred through Cesare’s mind. He stared up at them, his face tightening.
“He’s dying,” Luke said.
“Lucrezia!” Cesare suddenly screamed.
Baker sprang into action. “Get a doctor up here!” he snapped to one of the men.
“It’s too late for that.” Luke began to laugh. “The only thing that will help him is a priest!”
“Get a doctor anyway,” Baker said quickly. “And get her out of here!”
Strang came into the room as Luke and the agent went out. “The Baroness will be okay,” he said. “She’ll have to stay in bed for a few days but there are no bones broken!”
Cesare looked up at them. “But Ileana is dead!”
Baker shook his head. “Her terrace was on a
set-back. She only fell one flight. And that was broken by an awning.”
Cesare began to laugh.
Strang looked at Baker. “What’s the matter with him?” he asked.
“He’s dying,” Baker said. “He took poison!”
Cesare looked up at them. That was the biggest joke of all. The fools should know that the Borgias did not poison themselves. For a moment he almost told them what had really happened, then he kept it inside him. Let it be one more thing the stupid carabinieri would never find out. He laughed again.
Baker leaned over him. “Where are Matteo and Dandy Nick?” he asked.
Cesare looked up at him. He was smiling. “Dead. They are all dead.”
“Why did you do it, Cardinali? Why?” Baker asked quickly. “You never wanted what they did. You had everything going for you.”
Cesare tried to focus his eyes on Baker’s face. It was blurring in front of him. “My father used to say that too, Mr. Baker, but the only reason he took me into the house was to carry on the name. And I don’t know whether you would understand it either. There are only two things in life that mean anything. Birth and death. Everything else in between—living—is nothing. Empty.”
He paused to catch his breath. “It is only when you dip your hands into these that a man is really alive. That’s why you go inside a woman. To be born again. That’s why you stand there watching me die, sharing the excitement of my death. You feel more alive this moment than you ever felt before!” He leaned his head back against the couch, the perspiration running down his face in rivulets.
“The man’s mad!” Strang said hoarsely, his face white. “Stark, raving mad!”
Cesare raised his head to look at the policeman. It was taking all his strength just to see through the veil that was falling in front of him. In the distance he could hear the sound of an infant crying. Maybe the man was right. Maybe he was mad. What was a newborn baby doing, crying in a place like this? Suddenly the knowledge came to him. It was his child that was crying. That was what Luke had tried to tell him. She was carrying his child within her.
Stiletto Page 18