was sure. I had called the man on Eric Street "Walsh" all the way through this conversation. I had been careful to do that. I remembered, too, the big fellow with the Palm Reach suit and the toothpick I'd seen across the street from the rectory. A vast wonder began to fill me. What had been a complicated matter to begin with was now a labyrinth of complications.
Antuni moved his hands restlessly along the desk's edge. He turned his head stiffly from side to side a time or two, trying to ease whatever was clawing inside his throat. Suddenly he began to cough, a harsh tearing sound like canvas being ripped. His hands tightened around the chair arms until his knuckles stood out white as sugar lumps. Tears squeezed from under the closed lids of his eyes as jagged pain twisted his face into a mask of agony the color of old snow.
By the time the spasm passed, Antuni's cheeks were dripping with perspiration and the lines around his mouth seemed deep enough to draw blood. He clawed a handkerchief from a pocket of his robe and mopped his face and neck. When he spoke again the words seemed wounded things barely able to crawl from between his lips.
"Dreenks, Callie."
The blonde climbed off the couch and moved her hips over to the liquor cabinet. She made the journey seem like a long, wearying trip across miles of monotonous prairie. Even drawing open one of the walnut panels was a job of work for her. She managed to turn her head without using both hands to do it, looked back over a flawless shoulder at Lola North and me and raised a thin high-curved eyebrow an eighth of an inch.
I wet my lips in anticipation. "Scotch and plain water," I said. I might even have been drooling a little. "Miss North ?"
"Nothing, thank you."
It was a faraway voice, clear enough but without any inflection to the words. I looked at her. Up to now I had been too occupied elsewhere to pay her much attention. She was sitting as relaxed as an old maid at a burlesque show. Her eyes were opened very wide and were fixed on a corner of Antuni's desk. They gave the impression of having been that way for a long time. To the casual glance she probably looked all right, but underneath she was inches away from hysteria. The touch of a hand would have sent her running up the nearest wall.
I didn't understand it at all. Being brought here at the point of a gun to face Louie Antuni's brown glare might have done that to her, but all that was past us now. The atmosphere of distrust and chill menace we had first walked into had been dissipated when I brought Bishop McManus' name into the conversation.
Antuni finished tucking away his handkerchief. "You steel hun' for Wirtz?" he mumbled.
"If you mean Walsh—yes."
"Name eesa Wirtz, Meester Pine."
"That may help me."
"For Hees Grace, hah?"
"That's it."
"How much he'sa pay you ?"
"What everyone who hired me pays. Thirty a day. And too few at the price."
"How you like feefty gran', Meester Pine ?"
"I'd have to keep my conscience to enjoy it."
A corner of his upper lip twitched. It might have been a smile, I never did find out. "An hones' man. I like hones' men, Meester Pine. Now an' then I meet one, but always far apart."
There was nothing in that for me to talk about. I would
have liked to light a cigarette but I thought the smoke would probably bother him.
Very slowly Antuni said, "Fin' Wirtz for me, Meester Pine. First."
In the brief silence following his words I heard Lola North catch her breath with sudden sharpness and the sound surprised me into looking at her. All her attention was still on that same corner of Antuni's desk, but the small white hands resting on the arms of her chair were balled into tight fists. Interesting as a reaction and possibly worth discussing—at an opportune moment. This didn't seem to be it.
To Mr. Big I said, "Why do you want him found, Mr. Antuni ? You think he put that knife in your man ?"
While I waited for an answer, the blonde swayed over and put a sweating glass in my hand. From her expression she might as well have been putting it on a table. The liquid in it was exactly the right shade of amber and there were two of the coldest ice cubes in the world bathing there.
I tilted the glass and took three long satisfying gulps. When I brought the glass down again my inner self was up off the canvas and flexing a bicep. The blonde was back at the cabinet and bringing out a chrome ice bucket holding a bottle swathed in a towel.
She undulated over to the desk, placed the works in front of Antuni and removed the towel, bringing to light a quart of champagne. The label was gaudy in the way French champagne labels are, and this was a brand I had never heard of. She drew the cork like an expert, getting a solid popping sound, filled a crystal goblet and put it where Mr. Big could reach it without straining. Then she went back to the couch and forgot us.
Antuni lifted the glass, twirling the stem slowly between the bones of thumb and forefinger while eying the contents
without pleasure. Then very quickly he drank half while his free hand dug once more into the chair arm. He could wear out a lot of chairs the way he treated them.
He put the glass down with a small thump and massaged his throat with fingers that shook perceptibly. "Eesa no good for me. Makes the heart burn all night sometimes."
I said, "Then why drink the stuff?" It seemed the logical question.
His expression said I was an idiot. "Wha'sa matter weeth you, hah? Don' you know Louie Antuni dreenks only the best? I guess you don' remember the old days, hah?"
That let me see under the disease-ridden shell for the first time tonight. Here was an old man, a dying man, passed by and forgotten but still with enough money to supply himself with wine that disagreed with him and women he couldn't use. Yet he was still the Big Guy to himself and the boys he could hire; still the cop buyer and the jury briber; still the man who could order out the heavy artillery when the need arose.
Something of what I was thinking must have shown on my face. A trace of color flickered in his sunken cheeks and a shadow of his earlier anger burned in his brown eyes.
"Sure," he said, and the bitterness was unmistakable now, "Old Louie he'sa almos' finish. The doc he'sa say, 'Brain tumor, Louie. Maybe tonight, maybe eet'sa nex' year sometime.' All right. Sometheeng een my throat, too. The doc don't talk about thees, but Louie he'sa know. Hell weeth eet. Ever'body he'sa die sometime, hah ?"
It was a long speech for him and it wore him out. I drank some more of my highball and glanced sidelong at Lola North while I waited. The radiator hissed away in its corner and the rain sounded far away. I tried looking at the blonde but she was beginning to wear on me and I gave it up. My head
still ached, but nothing like it had ached two hours before.
The watch on my wrist pointed out that eight o'clock was still ten minutes away. I could hardly believe it. Tonight was to have been a quiet night: a bed and a book and a bottle next to a bucket of ice. Poor old Pine. The simple pleasures were seldom for him.
Antuni drank the rest of the wine in his glass. It took another minute for him to recover from it, then he leaned wearily back in his chair, folded his arms once more across his chest and began to talk.
"You wan' to know why I say fin' Wirtz for me. Okay. Now I tell you a story, Meester Pine. Two, three months ago some pieces of paper she'sa come into thees country. A man and a woman breeng them from old country. These papers she'sa very valuable—more so than you can theenk."
He stopped there and breathed a while, resting his voice. I knew, of course, what the papers were, but he was supplying details I knew nothing about.
"The woman left thees man when they get to California. I don' know what happen to her; maybe he'sa keel her; ees no matter. But other people know about these papers an' wan' them very much."
He stopped again, this time to tilt the bottle with an unsteady hand and fill his glass. He made no move to drink any of it, however, but wet his lips with his tongue instead and went on with the story.
"Now comes a man name of Jafar B
aijan. Thees Baijan ees very strange man, Meester Pine. Nobody he'sa know heem, nobody he'sa see heem, only few people know about heem. He'sa beeg-shot crook, Meester Pine, an' such a smart man. Only a job now an' then. Maybe years apart. An' only the beegest jobs he pull."
"What the books would call an international criminal," I
said. "A behind-the-scenes guy who could get away with the Crown jewels if he put his mind to it and thought they were worth the bother. The pulp-paper magazines wore that one out years ago."
He sneered a healthy sneer. "Thees ees very funny to you, hah? Old Louie he'sa soft een hees head, hah? Jus' wait. You don' meet Jafar Baijan yet, Meester Pine, but you weel. Pretty soon I tell you why you weel."
He sipped a little of the champagne, not enough this time to hurt him much. He said, "Anyhow, thees man who breeng papers to thees country wan' to sell them. He'sa go to expert on old papers to get them like—like ..." He groped for the word he wanted. "Like pedigree they the real theeng. You understan' thees, Meester Pine?"
"To get them authenticated," I said.
"Yes. The papers she'sa left weeth thees expert. An' that same night the man who breeng these papers to thees country, he'sa tortured and then beat to death in hees apartment. Jafar Baijan do thees to heem, Meester Pine."
He waited for me to say something. I sat there and I swished the liquid in my glass and looked knowing and interested and said nothing. The blonde on the couch appeared to be sleeping.
"Okay," Antuni said. "Expert ees man named Wirtz. I don' ever talk to heem, so I don' know for sure what goes on een hees head. But I theenk eet would go like thees:
"Wirtz he'sa fin' out man who geeves heem papers he'sa been keeled. Wirtz he'sa look over, these papers and he'sa know what they are. Okay, now he sell these papers, be feech, no one know about heem. So he'sa get een hees car and come to Chi to sell papers to Beeshop. Okay?"
"Okay," I said.
"Only—" he dragged out the word—"Wirtz he'sa forget
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one theeng: man that geeve heem papers he'sa tortured before he'sa keeled. He'sa tortured; that means who deed eet he'sa want to know sometheeng. He'sa keeled; that means he'sa talk first. Okay?"
"Clear," I said, "like glass. Okay."
"Fine. So the keeler—thees Jafar Baijan—^he'sa know Wirtz have these papers. He follow heem to Chi to get them. But by thees time I know about these papers too. I wan' them very much. So I try to get them. First."
I said, "How did you learn about the papers and the story behind them?"
Antuni nodded and sipped at his glass. "Thees you don' have to know. Louie steel have many friends, Meester Pine. Man who first have papers offer to sell them to a man een California who ees friend of mine."
"Okay," I said. "I don't know how this friend of yours knew the papers finally got into Wirtz's hands. But you could probably explain that too—if it mattered. Thing is, you found out Wirtz had been to see the Bishop while His Grace was out of town. That told you who Wirtz was trying to do business with. What I don't understand is why you didn't nail him when he went back there three days ago."
Antuni shrugged hugely. "He'sa don' have papers when he'sa go there then. Thees I know because papers too beeg to carry aroun' een pocket. Would need beeg envelope or briefcase. I wait until he go back weeth such theeng. Only he'sa never go back. An'we lose heem."
"How did that happen?"
He flushed a little under his old-snow color. "Vito he'sa watch rooming house. While Wirtz ees on way to see Bee-shop, Vito maybe go to hees room to look for papers. Maybe Wirtz he'sa come back too soon an' keel heem there. Or maybe Baijan who do eet. Ees no matter. Either way, Wirtz
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ees afraid. He'sa know somebody after these papers. So he run away."
By this time his old sick throat could hardly get words through it. More to give him a rest than anything else, I got up and went over to the cabinet to put together a fresh drink. It would have been a shame to wake up the blonde over such a small matter.
I returned to my chair, crossed my ankles and leaned back, waiting for Antuni to give me the rest of it. Lola North was a little less stiff in the face, a little nearer to leaning back now. But not a great deal. Her eyes had moved some, too—away from the desk and up to the lamp standard on it.
A minute or two and Louie Antuni was ready to talk again. He pushed his glass aside and leaned his forearms on the desk top while his eyes went over the collection of planes and hollows that make up my face.
"These papers," he mumbled. "Now I tell you about them, hah ? Maybe eet'sa soun' crazy when I tell you. All right. I don' theenk eet'sa crazy, an' I don't care what you theenk. Okay?"
"Okay," I said.
"These papers she'sa very old. Two thousan' years old. Thees alone ees very strange, hah ?"
"Not because of their age," I said, just to be contrary. "There are Egyptian papyri floating around three times that old."
"Hah!" That took care of Egypt and her scribes and my erudition. "Thees ees nothing to what I tell you now."
He took a deep, unsteady breath, and the flames wer^ suddenly back in his eyes. "Meester Pine, the writeeng on these papers she'sa put there by Jesus Christ!"
Very quickly he made the sign of the cross with two shak-
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ing fitigcrs, then sank back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Those last few words seemed to ring in the sharp silence settling slowly over the room. The l)londe dozed on. Thunder grumbletl outside as though from another planet. Seconds were born in pain and travail and grew into minutes and were thrown on the dust heap of Eternity. I fought to keep down a yawn.
The brown eyes across from me opened slowly. The flames in them were gone now, leaving two gutted cinders in skeletal sockets. Twice the thin unsteady lips parted and closed again as the ravaged throat strained to form words.
And when finally the words did come, they were sorry shreds of sound, audible but no more than that.
"Meester Pine, I have done bad theengs een my life. I don't have to tell you thees; ever'body he'sa know about Louie Antuni. Pretty soon Louie, he'sa dead. But first I wan' to make my peace weeth God an' the Church. When I die I wan' a Requiem Mass an' to be put in consecrated groun'. You understan' thees, Meester Pine?"
Out of an ocean of awe, I nodded.
He coughed a little, not much, nothing like before, and got out his handkerchief and patted it against his forehead.
He said, 'T weesh to geeve these words of Our Saviour to the Church. Thees ees vei-y beeg theeng for the Church, you understan'. You help me to do thees, Meester Pine. You help me to do thees one good very beeg theeng and maybe the bad theengs Louie Antuni he'sa do weel not matter too much."
I said, "As far as I know, Raymond Wirtz has the manuscript. Bishop McManus has hired me to find Wirtz for him. Presumably he doesn't want Wirtz without the manuscript, although I'm sure he would take the manuscript without Wirtz. If that's clear.
"I'd suggest I bring Wirtz to you, provided I can find
him. You, in turn, buy the thing from him, if you can meet his price. Then together you and I would go to the Bishop and make dehvery. I include myself, Mr. Antuni, because the Bishop is my original client in this and he's entitled to all the service I can give him."
He nodded somberly. "Like I say before, Meester Pine, you are hones' man. We do thees like you say—and v^hen papers she'sa een Beeshop's ban's, I geeve you feefty gran',"
"It sounds like a lot of money," I said.
He might not have heard me. He rubbed the handkerchief lightly between his palms, frowning. "One theeng more I mus' talk about, Meester Pine. Jafar Baijan. I have learn many theengs about heem, an' yet I know notheeng. He ees very smart—more smart than you and me together. He ees keeler—he'sa keel anybody een hees way. You don' meet heem yet, but I theenk you weel, all right. Your name she'sa in newspaper about being in Wirtz's room. So you weel meet heem . . . an' he weel try to kee
l you, I theenk."
"What does this mastermind look like?"
He shrugged hugely. "I don' know thees. Nobody knows thees I am told. Maybe Baijan he'sa not even a man. Maybe he'sa woman. Maybe he'sa Callie, here, who'sa make the dreenk for you. No, Meester Pine, I don' know thees."
"It certainly leaves the field wide-open," I said. "It's possible that Baijan has already found Wirtz and has the manuscript. That would explain why Wirtz is missing."
He seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes open and his head off his chest. He was old and tired and suffering, and his story was told. So much talking had emptied all the limited strength out of him.
He brought up his hand with an effort and pressed something under the edge of his desk. The door opened almost at once and Riley was standing there.
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"Yeah, Louie?"
"My friend Meester Pine he'sa leaving. An' hees friend. Take them where you fin' them and be sure notheeng she'sa happen they don' like. You understan' thees, Riley?"
"Yeah, Louie."
I put my glass down after emptying it, got the coats ofiF the couch and helped Miss North into hers. She seemed in some sort of trance. After I scooped my hat oflf the floor, I said, "We came in my car. I can get along without an escort, but thanks just the same, Mr. Antuni."
He nodded, his head barely moving, his eyes almost closed. "Eef sometheeng she'sa come up, you call me, hah? Number she'sa Kedzie 7324."
He added a word that might have been Italian for good-by and held out a hand that was as light and fragile as four straws from a whisk broom.
I shook it gently, said, "Thanks for the drink," to the blonde on the couch, got a blank look in return, and steered Lola North by the elbow toward Riley at the door.
On the way through, I glanced back over my shoulder. Mr. Big was still sitting the way I had left him. His eyes were closed all the way now, his head tilted forward and his lips moving in and out under shallow breathing.
The Long escape Page 8