by Helen Wells
Toni hopped out of bed as fast as he was able. He put on a robe, then hurried to the door. He looked surprised and terribly pleased.
“Why, hello, Mrs. Nicholas,” he said. “I am honored that Val’s mother has come to see me. Please come in.”
She smiled at Cherry, then handed Toni the bowl of fruit.
“Thank you, Toni, but I won’t come in now,” Mama Nicholas said gently. “I hope you like the pears. The fruit man sent us such fine ones.”
They chatted in low voices. Cherry admired Mama Nicholas for her friendly gesture. Not wanting to intrude, Cherry busied herself straightening Toni’s bed. The bedclothes were tangled. As she smoothed them, the postcard he had been writing fell to the floor.
Cherry bent to pick it up. The postcard had landed message side up and she could not help seeing it. Ordinarily Cherry would have scrupulously avoided reading the postcard. But she had reason to suspect and mistrust Toni. Hadn’t she better read that postcard for her own safety? And maybe Val’s? Toni’s handwriting and spelling were wretched—he was practically illiterate. The postcard was addressed to Marco, Central Garage, Rosalia, Italy.
Italy! Was Rosalia near Milan—near those shops listed in the notebook? Cherry noticed that Toni had put special-delivery postage on the postcard. Cherry was troubled. Despite her strong feeling of guilt about reading another person’s mail, she quickly glanced at the message. It said:
Dear Marco: Hurt my shoulder on the way back, so maybe I can’t meet you this Sunday. That American girl is my nurse. But don’t worry about her and the ski instructor. I feel better, so you be there if good weather.
Toni
Cherry felt afraid. She did not understand all of the cloudy message, except that she and Val figured in the plans of Toni and someone named Marco.
She could hardly wait to talk alone with Val that evening. At the desk she left a note for him: Must see you. She hurried through dinner, then went into the chateau’s quiet, empty library.
Val joined her in a moment. “You look so anxious,” he said in a low voice. “What’s happened?”
“Something dangerous for you and me.” She repeated almost word for word Toni’s message.
Val frowned. “So we must—unknowingly—have some part in their scheme! Whoever they are. Who is Marco?”
Cherry shook her head. “Don’t know. We’d better find out. There’s one sure way to do it—go to Rosalia.”
“Yes, but discreetly. And as soon as possible, if we’re to protect ourselves. ‘Don’t worry about her and the ski instructor,’” Val quoted. “What does Toni take me for. A fool? A victim?” His face darkened. From the bookcase he took the atlas and opened it to a map of Italy. “Let’s find Rosalia.”
They pored over the map. The village of Rosalia lay just on the Italian side of the Swiss-Italian border, at the foot of Il Guardiano Mountain, which straddled the border.
“It isn’t far from here.” Val studied a map of Switzerland on the facing page. “You see, Cherry?” With his finger he traced the route between here and Rosalia.
“It’s not far at all,” Cherry said. “I could go there tomorrow instead of sightseeing. I could hunt up Marco.”
“Alone? It’s not safe!” Val objected.
“But you aren’t free to go until Sunday, and Toni plans to go on Sunday. I don’t think we can afford to wait, do you?” Val had to agree. Cherry smiled up at him. “I appreciate your concern for me. Don’t worry.”
“I still don’t like it,” Val muttered. “Eh bien! I’ll work out a travel plan for you. And please be careful!”
CHAPTER VII
Cherry Crosses a Border
RED AND PURPLE BOUGAINVILLEA VINES FLOWERED ON the old stone wall that surrounded Rosalia, and spilled over the roof of the bus shed. Cherry took off her coat in this mild sunshine. She had traveled so few miles south today—first by cogwheel railway winding like a snake down mountainsides, then by buses descending perilously steep mountain roads, to this hilly village. Her trip had been down, down, down.
“How strange to see grass and flowers right next to snow!” Cherry thought. Snow edged the green pastures and whitened the low mountains around Rosalia. She noticed a funicular railway and a few cable cars in the distance going up the nearest mountain.
She started walking along the main street. It led to an old church; nearby was a cluster of country people at an outdoor market. They stared at Cherry, and smiled. One old farmer said, “Signorina, benvenuto, welcome. May I help you?”
Cherry spoke little Italian. She got out her Italian-English phrase book and asked, “Where is the post office, please?” The old man directed two children to lead Cherry two streets over to the piazza.
In the piazza stood another old church, a cobbler’s shop, a café, a wineshop, and a grocery store. The children indicated, pointing, that the local post office was a desk in the grocery store. Cherry went in there with her Italian-English phrase book in her hand. The woman behind the counter noticed the book and motioned to her customer, a man with a dog. He said to Cherry:
“You can put that dictionary away, miss. I’m from Chicago. My wife and I are here to spend a month with my cousins. What can we do for you?”
“Small world! I’m from Hilton, Illinois,” Cherry said. “Can you or this lady direct me to the Central Garage?” Should she inquire about Marco by name? Better not. “And can you please tell me who owns the garage, or who works there?”
The man with the dog was only able to tell Cherry the garage’s location, and that “It is small, not very good. Enough for this village, but—The Santini Garage in the next big town is the best garage for miles around, if your car needs a repair job.”
“Well, not exactly—but thank you for your information.” Cherry remembered another question she must ask, in fairness to Toni. “Is there a Mrs. Peter in this village? Or I may have her name wrong—a woman whose son is Toni Peter?”
The man asked the woman behind the counter. She vigorously shook her head.
Well, of course Toni might visit his mother on some Sundays in another town, Cherry thought.
After a little conversation, Cherry started for the Central Garage. The directions she had been given led her away from houses to the farthest edge of the village, to a tree-sheltered lane. Halfway down the lane, Cherry cautiously paused.
Ahead of her, the Central Garage stood half in a field. It was a large, wooden, ramshackle building. A heap of junk metal stood outdoors near the single gasoline pump. Cherry heard men’s voices.
A tall, heavy, rough-looking man in work clothes came out rolling a tire. His head was a little too small for his body. He examined the tire in the daylight, frowning, then shouted into the garage. Cherry caught a few words.
“This tire is no good, not able to patch.”
The second man’s voice came from the garage. “—pay you more, Marco—for materials—to fix it—”
Her gaze was riveted on Marco, who evidently owned or ran the garage. Marco yelled back in a temper, “No! No good!…You buy a new one—from me—”
The customer came to the doorway, holding a telephone on a long wire. He was an ordinary enough man in a worn suit. In his other hand he waved a pair of short ski poles.
“Eh, Marco! What does a big fellow like you want with such little ski poles?”
“I make them for my short friend, Toni, and you better put those back where you found them.”
“You’re joking! Since when does a garage make ski poles?” the man asked.
Marco let his tire fall with a thud and yelled:
“What do you care? Why so many questions? I have scrap metal here, so I use it to earn a few extra liras. Make your phone call, stupid—”
When Marco stood upright with his arms dangling, he looked like a hulking ape, Cherry thought. She edged deeper into the tree shadows.
“Stupid yourself,” the man yelled back at Marco. “I don’t know any short guys here named Toni who ski.”
Marco snorte
d. “Did I say my friend Toni is from around here? No!”
“Would you make me a pair of ski poles?” the man asked jokingly.
“No!” Marco swore and wiped his sweating face with his big hands. Just then the man’s call came through, and he turned away, speaking into the phone.
Marco, still furious, picked up the tire and a hammer, striking ringing blows on the tire’s metal rim. The tire tipped, slipped out of his hands, and rolled in Cherry’s direction. Marco ran after it in long strides, caught the tire—and peered through the leaves straight into Cherry’s startled eyes. He pointed the hammer at her.
“You! There! Ragazza! Girl! What are you doing? Listening? I’ll teach you not to spy on me!”
He pushed aside branches and walked threateningly toward Cherry. Marco was a remarkably big, crude, and powerful man. She wished she had not come here alone.
Backing away, she almost fell into a ditch. It took her a few moments to recover her footing. Marco, so near now that she smelled the pungent grease and dirt on his clothes, suddenly shouted at her:
“You’re the American girl—that nurse! The one Toni knows! You got no right to be here!”
He swung the hammer high in the air, aiming to hurl it at her. Cherry ran blindly toward a stand of trees—could she find cover in there? But she ran into a wire fence concealed by overgrown vines.
“It’s a job to climb over. Anyway, I’d be an easy target,” she realized, panting.
She ran again, hugging the fence, stumbling on the weeds, Marco yelling somewhere near her.
“Marco! Ah, che cosa!” The other man had come out of the garage and he started to laugh. “Where do you run to with that hammer?” Marco, distracted, stopped and turned.
In that instant Cherry ran onto the road and sped away for all she was worth. Behind her, she heard both men laughing. She ran until she reached a cluster of houses. From this road she could walk to the piazza, and from there to the bus shed.
“I’m lucky I got away,” Cherry said to herself as she gasped for breath. “That Marco is mean. Too mean for a boy like Toni to associate with. Wonder what Toni has to do with him?”
She realized that the garage could be a convenient place for racketeers. It was isolated; it had that rarity here, a telephone; it was located very close to the border and the mountain passes, in an obscure, sleepy village.
She was walking along rapidly when a red sports car ahead caught her eye. Cherry stopped and stared. Then, as she saw no one was around, she entered the piazza and while walking, looked as closely as she could at the red car. It was parked in front of the grocery store. It was a small, toylike, English car, like a square red box on wheels. She tried to read the license number, but the plate was partially covered with mud.
“I could swear this is the same car that that patient with the gun—Hendrix—drove!” Cherry thought with dismay. “And I’m almost as sure this is the same flashy red car I saw Toni driving like mad around Eagle’s Peak.”
Toni connected with Hendrix? It was such an ugly possibility, she suddenly felt weak.
“I’ve got to sit down somewhere and rest,” Cherry said to herself. “And I’ve forgotten to eat lunch.”
She went into the village’s one and only restaurant-café. Hendrix might be in here. She would rather not encounter that unpleasant man and his threatened reprisals.
The café was dim and quiet inside. To Cherry’s relief, the only persons in the café were a woman carrying a baby on her left arm and stirring a steaming pot of sauce with her free hand and an old man drowsing over his coffee and newspaper. The woman smiled at her, brought her soup, bread, cheese, and fruit. Cherry relaxed in the silent café, thinking.
When she was ready to leave the café, the red car was still parked outside. In pidgin Italian Cherry asked the woman of the café, “Do you know whose car that is?”
“No, I am sorry,” the woman said.
“Have you seen this car before, signora?” Cherry asked.
“Ah, si, yes, a few times in the past two weeks just past.”
Cherry thanked her and walked back to the bus shed. She faced a long, spectacular ride back up to Eagle’s Peak, but she was in no mood for admiring the scenery.
That Friday evening in Eagle’s Peak, Cherry told Val that Toni had told her he had rented the red car, but somehow she didn’t believe him. She asked Val if he had learned anything about it.
Val answered, “That Toni is something! Why, I asked him, and he told me he’d borrowed the car from a friend of his. A man called Jack, who was in town just overnight.”
Then the friend was Jack Lenk, Cherry thought, because that day she had seen Toni and Lenk together on the street. Lenk’s car…. Cherry went to her room to think, to concentrate.
So the red sports car was just as likely Lenk’s as Hendrix’s! Two men with the identical car—or one man in two guises?
Well, first Hendrix had come to the clinic. After that, she had seen Lenk here in Eagle’s Peak.
“So Hendrix with the cut hand is probably Lenk with the healing hand!” Cherry reasoned. “Jack Lenk is Hendrix in disguise!”
But why would Hendrix impersonate Lenk—of all the people in Switzerland? If Lenk were a rich man or influential or famous—but he so obviously was a man who worked hard for his living.
A further question troubled her. Cherry recalled Jacob Lenk on holiday in Lugano as being middle-aged, quiet, and shy. The man called Jack Lenk here in Eagle’s Peak seemed to be a nervous, impatient man, a compulsive smoker…. Hendrix had the same traits.
As for Hendrix-Lenk she knew little. Who was he? What had he been up to with a gun in his pocket? And a badly cut hand? Something evil and violent? Yes, she could believe so, now that she had seen Marco, for Marco was connected with Toni, Toni with Madame Sully and Jack Lenk, and Jack Lenk—or Hendrix with—Who was the head of the ring? Or the key, pivotal figure? Cherry sighed. “Maybe it’s someone I haven’t even seen or heard of. I’ll try the process of elimination.”
Not Toni, too young and flighty. Not Marco, too ignorant and excitable. Madame Sully? It wasn’t likely that the aging, once-famous actress was head of a ring or racket, though she might be useful as a front, a cover-up. The man who called himself both Jack Lenk and Hendrix? Yes, he was tough enough to be possibly the key man.
Who was Hendrix, alias Jack Lenk? Then she remembered something in his medical record—of course! The Medic Alert disk he wore had his serial number on it. Through Medic Alert she could trace his true name, home address, next of kin. She thought about writing to Medic Alert to inquire.
Saturday she explained the situation to Dr. Portman and obtained his permission to write.
Early Sunday morning Toni vanished. As usual and as per his postcard to Marco.
Cherry and Val were unsurprised and ready, equipped with skis, poles, and Val’s binoculars. They promptly followed Toni. This was according to the plan they had agreed upon.
Since Cherry’s visit to Rosalia the day before yesterday, she and Val had had a long, searching talk. Val was angry at what she had seen and deduced so far.
“The impudence of Toni,” Val said, “to deceive me and my father, and still live in our house!”
Toni had recovered fairly well. Though his strained shoulder still was sore, he could handle his ski poles. Cherry felt sure he would keep his appointment with Marco. But where? Not necessarily at the garage in Rosalia. And for what purpose? Val had been the one to propose that he and Cherry follow Toni—on skis.
“Toni takes his skis and poles with him when he starts out every Sunday. So we’ll have to travel on skis, too. Are you willing to make the trip, Cherry?” Val had asked her. “It won’t be easy.”
“You know I want to go with you.”
The trip on skis, in the silent white wilderness, was longer than any Cherry had ever undertaken. Crossing snow valleys, skiing down long, empty slopes was difficult enough without the strain of keeping judicious distances behind Toni. He must not see them
! Yet they must not for more than a minute lose sight of his diminished figure schussing at unchecked speed downhill, flying along in his red sweater, a moving red dot in the sun and snow.
Toni bobbed in and out of view, especially at ski-lift stations. To get up these mountains, in order to ski down, the skiers rode the ski lifts. These were open seats with a metal bar that the attendant snapped shut across your waist. The chairs hung suspended from a continuously moving steel cable.
“Don’t look down,” Val called to Cherry from his chair.
A great rocky chasm yawned below them. Her feet, heavy in boots and skis, dangled in midair as the ski chairs inched steeply upward on the cable.
Across Mont d’Argent and Mont Vert, and now to Il Guardiano’s summit, Val and Cherry followed Toni. For five tense minutes Val thought they had lost him. He came into view again far below, among granite mountains. They stopped on a plateau of snow to watch where Toni would go next. Val squatted and used his binoculars.
“He’s heading toward Rosalia,” Val said. “Just as we expected.”
“I noticed a funicular railway outside Rosalia,” Cherry said.
“Good. That means Marco can easily come up into the mountains to meet Toni in some lonely place. Ready now? Down we go!”
Down they skied, following Toni diagonally down the steep south wall of Il Guardiano Mountain. Somewhere on this wild, deserted slope they must be crossing the border. Cherry’s left ski grazed rock. Wasn’t the snow cover growing spotty? The wind always blew the snow off in areas like this one.
Val, ahead of her, signaled, “Watch it! Careful!” They dared not call out in this echoing silence. Val swung to a stop, pointing.
Far below, Toni took off his skis and swung them up across his shoulder. Then he scrambled down the rest of the rocky slope. Waiting for him was a man. They carried their skis and poles, standing together now in a field where the snow lay thinly on a rocky pasture. Val handed Cherry the binoculars.
“Is it Marco?”