“I’m starving,” he said to Dominic.
Dominic looked up and down the street. There wasn’t a cafe in sight. “Go into the hotel and have them make you a sandwich. But make it snappy. If you don’t find me here when you come out, go back to the hotel and wait. Bonazzi may start off while you’re away.”
“Okay.” Junior climbed out of the car and trotted up the terraced entrance to the hotel. Dominic fired up a cigarette and opened the newspaper he had brought along. He read in snatches, his eyes flicking constantly to the front of the hotel. The parking area for the guests seemed to be in the rear, for every now and then a car came from a driveway on the side. At the sight of each car, he sat up straighter and looked closely. He decided to buy a pair of binoculars at the first opportunity.
Within a few minutes, Junior was walking swiftly towards the car. He pulled open the door. “Hey, Bonazzi, another guy, and the two girls are checking out.” He climbed inside. “They should be coming out any minute.”
His words were no sooner spoken than a porter appeared from a service door to one side of the main entrance pushing a cart loaded with four or five suitcases. A moment later, four people exited the hotel. Even at the distance of fifty yards or so, Bonazzi was readily identifiable. He was nattily dressed in a light brown sports jacket, fawn slacks, a bright yellow shirt with matching scarf, and suede and patent leather shoes. The man with him was a tall, bulky, athletic type, dressed as sportily. His face was flat, indicating time spent in the ring. The two girls were slender, cool looking, well groomed, not the Mama Mia sort, but show girls or models.
They led the porter to a gleaming, silver colored Mercedes sedan bearing Swiss license plates parked near the entrance. The porter stowed the suitcases in the trunk, was tipped, and the four climbed into the car. George Bucci sat behind the wheel next to one of the girls while Bonazzi took the rear with the other.
The car came out of the driveway, turned left onto the wide boulevard, and started towards Dominic’s vehicle. Dominic hunched down in his seat and turned his face away until it passed by, then he cut across traffic to make a U turn and followed it up.
Bucci drove swiftly to one of the city’s exterior boulevards, along it to an expressway, and in fifteen minutes reached the Autostrada.
Dominic gave a grunt of surprise when the Mercedes took the south bound lane. “Holy Mackerel,” he said to Junior. “They are headed towards Genoa. I wonder why they are going in that direction.”
“Maybe they are planning to visit Rome,” said Junior.
Dominic trailed the Mercedes moving along the Autostrada at high speed. “No. There are five Autostradas out of Milano, and this isn’t the one for Rome. But the way that guy’s driving, we’ll lose him in no time.” He leaned forward as he pressed the medium sized car to the limit, barely able to keep the other vehicle in view.
Within ten minutes they had lost sight of Bucci. Dominic slowed down, realizing that his speed of over ninety miles per hour was downright dangerous for his Fiat. He cursed under his breath at the no speed limit on the super highway.
“What are we going to do now, Uncle Dom?” asked Junior.
“I don’t know. Just keep going until nightfall, I suppose. You’ll have to wait to eat, though.”
“I’ll manage.”
Dominic slowed down as they came in sight of a huge service area. “This is the last one before Genoa,” he remarked.
“Hey, Uncle Dom!” said Junior, pointing excitedly towards one side of the parking section near the restaurant. “Isn’t that their car?”
Dominic swung into the service area. His heart jumped when he saw Swiss plates on a silver Mercedes.
“That’s it,” said Junior. “I remember the number.”
They drove past the restaurant and stopped at a gas pump on the far side near to the exit leading back to the Autostrada. “Get us something to eat,” he said to Junior. “But if you see Bonazzi coming out, get back here pronto.”
Junior leaped out of the car. Dominic motioned to a gas attendant and held up a five hundred lira note. “Fill me up, quick,” he called out in Italian. Within seconds, gas was streaming into the tank while two boys were washing the windows. Once serviced, he paid the attendant and stood by the car, his eyes fixed intently on the Mercedes.
A short time later Junior trotted up with a bag full of food. “They are still inside,” he told his uncle. “At one of the tables, eating. They’re nowhere near finished.”
They got in the car. Dominic drove to a parking area where they could still see Bonazzi’s vehicle. “We were lucky they take an hour to serve a meal here. Otherwise he would have been on his way again.”
Junior opened the bag, taking out meat sandwiches, cakes, and half a dozen bottles of beer. The two began eating. When Junior had gorged himself, he sat back in the seat and closed his eyes with a sated sigh. Dominic ate a couple of sandwiches, drank a bottle of beer, then lit a cigarette.
Bonazzi and his party came out of the restaurant half an hour later. Once in the car, Bucci, eased out of the service area onto the highway. Dominic took up a position a short distance behind. This section of the Autostrada contained curves and sharp bends, so he kept them easily in sight most of the time. Soon Bucci reached the turnoff for La Spezia and Pisa, but continued straight ahead.
“That narrows down the choice,” said Dominic. “They can only go south to Genoa or west along the coast.”
“Is there anything special on the west side?” asked Junior.
“There’s a number of fine resort towns on the Mediterranean that way. Alassio, Imperia, San Remo. But the fanciest part of the Italian Riviera is on the other side of Genoa, at Santa Margherita and Portofino.”
A short while later Bucci drove by the main Genoa exit and followed the west turn of the Autostrada.
“Chalk off Genoa,” said Junior.
“You know something,” said Dominic. “I think they’re headed for the French Riviera. July is a dandy time to be there. If so, they won’t run away once we reach Imperia. The Autostrada ends there and the road along the coast is terrible.”
Soon they came in sight of the calm, blue Mediterranean off to the left side. It was a beautiful day for sailing, and several yachts were cruising offshore among small fishing boats out checking their net floats. The sky was pure blue, the air clear and bracing, evident signs of a recent mistral which had blown clouds from the heavens.
They lost sight of the Mercedes again, but picked it up at the toll gates at Savona. Forty-five minutes further on the Autostrada ended at Imperia. Here the road was a narrow two lanes which curved constantly, went up and down hills and passed through the center of towns. Speed was out of the question. The small Fiat proved its worth darting in and out of traffic to keep the other car in view.
Bucci stopped once in San Remo to buy soft drinks for the people in the car. By mid-afternoon they arrived at the French border.
There was a block on the Italian side, the guards inspecting passports of those leaving the country and asking drivers of cars with foreign licenses to turn in forms permitting them discounts for gas. Passing through the French immigration and customs was the merest formality. Soon they were a few cars behind the Mercedes as it traversed the lovely resort town of Menton, skirted thimble-sized Monaco, and reached Nice. They had arrived at the worst possible time, and inched through congested after work traffic until leaving the Boulevard des Anglais, where they picked up some speed.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later, Bucci left the highway and turned towards the most fashionable resort on the Cote d’Azur, Juan-les-Pins. He drove through the jewel-like town to the Belles Rives, an ultra swank hotel overlooking the town’s white, sandy beach and the exclusive Port Gallice, a private yacht marina.
Dominic parked down the street as Bonazzi, Bucci and the girls stepped out of the Mercedes and stood about while two porters took out their suitcases, then they entered the hotel.
Dominic looked at his watch. Almost seven o’clock
. “It appears that our boy is going to bed down for the night. Junior, you’ll have to take a train back to Milano to get our suitcases.”
“I can’t understand why I couldn’t get an international driver’s license. Then I could rent a car to drive there and back.”
“You have to be twenty-one, that’s why. It’s the law.” He poked his head out of the window and asked a passerby for directions to the railroad station, then turned the car around.
“Hey,” said Junior. “You speak French, too. That’s keen.”
“It’s not much trouble learning when you know Italian and Spanish.”
The station was found to be across the street from the post office. There they learned that a train for Genoa would come by in an hour. Connections, though, from Genoa to Milano were bad, so Dominic told Junior to take a taxi and to hang the expense. They ate a quick supper at a nearby restaurant, and when Junior had been properly placed aboard the train, with instructions to telegraph his expected time of return in care of General Delivery, Dominic checked into a moderate priced hotel a block away. The room clerk raised his brows when he saw no luggage, but avoided complications by the time tested method of asking for payment in advance. After washing up, Dominic strolled through the exclusive resort town, finding all stores open and doing a landslide business at prices which curled his hair. Every hour or so he inspected the front of Bonazzi’s hotel. The Mercedes remained parked on the same spot. At midnight, he turned in for the night, the stores still open and full of customers.
Early the next morning, Dominic was back on duty observing Bonazzi’s hotel. None of the group came out of the building, so at noon he gave up his fruitless watch and walked to the rear of an apartment house standing next door. From there he saw that the hotel had a perfectly tended patio and private beach. Bonazzi and his friends were sunning themselves on chaise lounges positioned around an umbrella-shaded table on which a waiter was laying out lunch. Dominic went off for his own lunch, returning just in time to see the group step out the front of the hotel and walk the couple of hundred yards to the entrance of the yacht marina. A slim man was waiting for them. He ushered them to a nearby boat slip. Dominic stepped onto a low wall to see better. Soon he was rewarded with the sight of the group sailing out of the port in a rented speedboat.
Walking back to his car, he climbed inside and drove to the post-telegraph-telephone building. A telegram from Junior was waiting there, saying he would return to Juan-les-Pins late in the evening.
Dominic placed a call to Chicago. It went through after only two hours of waiting. Mario answered the phone.
“Mario, this is Dominic. Get Papa right away.” Ettore came to the phone at once. “Papa, we’re in Juan-les-Pins, France, about fifteen miles from Nice. Our friend is here, with a bodyguard type and two girls.”
“Do you think he’ll stay put for a while?”
“I can’t tell. But he certainly didn’t drive all the way from Milano just for a couple of days.”
“All right, I’ll take a plane tomorrow. Where can I contact you?” Dominic gave the name, address and telephone number of his hotel. “If you have to leave, Dom, I’ll stay there at the same hotel until you contact me.”
“Okay, Papa. How’s Vince?”
“Fine and dandy. Walking around like new, except for that arm.”
“Any further news on the card players?”
“Not yet. Mike and Bob are working on it, but I don’t think we’ll learn much there.”
Dominic said goodbye, paid for the call, then drove to Cannes, six or seven miles to the west. In this modern, highly sophisticated city of 70,000, he found a sporting goods store where he bought a pair of Zeiss binoculars. He casually commented on the fine shotguns and rifles standing in the racks, and allowed himself to be sold a nine millimeter carbine and a twelve gauge automatic shotgun. The salesman tried to sell him a box of birdshot for the shotgun, but when Dominic stated he was interested in deer and boar hunting, he was provided with slugs which could tear an animal to ribbons. He inquired about revolvers or pistols. The salesman said they could be obtained, but only for tourists and for delivery when the purchaser was about to leave the country. There was also the small matter of obtaining police approval first, which was, according to the shrug of the salesman, an unadulterated pain in the ass. In an aside, he told Dominic that hand weapons were more readily available in Italy, where the arms stores handled all the paper work for the police and delivery was made a day or two later on the spot.
Junior got back to Juan-les-Pins in time for a late supper. Having slept most of the way back to France, he was wide awake and eager to prowl the town and perhaps try out a French Mama Mia. With Dominic’s blessing, he squeezed in sufficient time to touch base with a French whore whom he named Miss Oh La La. He decided she was as bland as a plate of overcooked noodles.
Ettore arrived the following afternoon, having managed to secure a flight out the very night of their conversation. Dominic, informed by cable of the swift crossing, met the connecting flight from Paris at the Nice Airport. He found Ettore, unable to sleep well on aircraft, showing his fatigue by a grimness about the mouth. Once Ettore was checked into a room at the same hotel, the three held a council of war.
“Vince is very disturbed about us taking action until we break down the statement of that fellow, Peter Valenti, the one who said Bonazzi played cards with him during the time Maria was murdered,” said Ettore.
“Is he the one who Lieutenant McPherson said was reliable?” asked Dominic.
“Yes. I’m somewhat at a loss myself. Mike said he investigated Valenti carefully and that his reputation is good.”
“It’s a trick somehow,” said Dominic. “I don’t know how he worked it, by threats or payments or some other gimmick, but it’s definitely a slight of hand job.” He leaned forward from the edge of the bed where he was seated. “Papa, why don’t you go home and let me do what has to be done.”
Ettore shook his head. “I don’t think we’ll ever have the whole story, but I feel in my bones that Bonazzi murdered your sister. So I’m listening to my bones. And I must be part of what takes place. Do you have any ideas?”
“He doesn’t follow any set pattern yet. We’ll have to take him on the wing.”
“You said he has girls along.”
“Yes. “
“We’ll have to get him off by himself. I won’t allow any danger to the girls.”
“What about his friend, Bucci?” asked Junior.
Ettore looked up from his hands. “We’ll leave him alone unless he interferes. If so, he is an enemy.”
The following morning they again took up the close watch on Bonazzi’s group. For two more days the couples remained within the hotel grounds, sunning themselves on the private beach, taking brief swims, or renting a speedboat at Port Gallice to cruise the islands offshore. One night the group dressed up for a walk into the center of town to gamble at the glittering casino. The streets were full of people, so the DiStephanos bided their time.
The next evening the group again left the hotel, all dressed up, and got into the Mercedes. Dominic, Ettore and Junior trailed them closely in their Fiat as Bucci drove out of town, along the shore road through the village of Golfe-Juan, and stopped in a private parking lot across from a restaurant standing isolated on a lonely stretch of beach. Dominic pulled to one side with lights dimmed. They watched the group cross the road to a fish restaurant noted throughout the region. Once they were inside, Dominic switched on his lights, drove past the parking lot, and stopped his car alongside the road a hundred or more yards further on. Reaching in the back, he took up the shotgun and loaded it carefully.
“I’ll take it, Dom,” said Ettore.
“He’s mine, Papa. I’m doing it for all of us.”
“I’ll take the rifle, then.”
“Okay, but stay here to back me up. Junior, get behind the wheel. If anything happens to me, you’ll have to drive.”
The heart of Junior had been poun
ding so hard for the past half hour that he was afraid they could hear it. “Okay, Uncle Dom. But can’t I go with you to help?”
“No. Too many people will focus attention on us. Stay in the car, no matter what.”
Dominic stepped out and moved at once into the bush bordering the road. Since this was a much traveled highway, automobiles passed frequently. Dominic often melted into the heavier bush to escape notice. He halted about twenty feet from the parking area containing the Mercedes and a number of other cars. Across the road the front of the restaurant was brightly lighted showing the shallowness of the beach over there which made parking on this side mandatory. He drew back into the bushes and squatted, knowing that his wait would be a long one. He must also wait for an opportunity to get Bonazzi without endangering the girls. If one didn’t present itself, he would still wait. He could wait forever, he knew. Time went slowly. He smoked several cigarettes, cupping them in his hand to shield the glow. An hour passed. A second hour. He came alert now and then when customers walked out of the restaurant, dodged through traffic to cross over to their cars, and drove off. The headlights did not pierce the bush behind which he was hidden. He was not hungry. Ettore, Junior and he had eaten before taking up their station. But his lips twisted wryly when he discovered he had only two more cigarettes left in his pack.
The door to the restaurant opened. Bonazzi’s party exited. Dominic tensed. The two girls ran across the road, chatting and laughing as they approached. Dominic’s muscles grew tight as a passing car held up Bonazzi and Bucci for a few moments. Good luck! They started across, Bonazzi on the near side towards Dominic. Good! Good! Keep coming! Closer they came! Halfway across, then three quarters. They reached the entrance to the parking area. The girls were standing by the doors of the Mercedes.
I Contadini (The Peasants) Page 15