In the Hour Before Midnight

by Jack Higgins

  “Why don’t you pull the other one,” she suggested crisply.

  I was still holding the A.K. at the trail. I dropped it at my feet and put the Uzi beside it. “Look, no hands.”

  She wasn’t impressed. “What about the thing in the holster?”

  I removed the Smith and Wesson, laid it down, then walked back three paces, squatted against a holly-oak and took out my cigarettes.

  “Like one?”

  She shook her head. “I want to live to a ripe old age.”

  “If you think it’s worth it.” I lit one myself. “Now I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen and then you can shoot me—if you still want to.”

  “We’ll see,” she said calmly. “Only make it quick. I haven’t had any breakfast.”

  So I told her in a few brief sentences and when I was finished, her expression hadn’t altered in the slightest. “Let me get this straight. My stepfather told you I was abducted by Serafino Lentini and held to ransom. That he paid up, but that Serafino decided to have his own wicked way with me after all and kept the money into the bargain?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “A lie, Mr. Wyatt, from beginning to end.”

  “I thought so.”

  She showed her surprise. “I don’t understand.”

  “I happen to know that because of injuries sustained under police interrogation some years ago, Serafino Lentini isn’t physically capable of taking that kind of interest in any woman.”

  “But if you knew that, if you realised there was something phoney about my stepfather’s story from the beginning, why did you come?”

  “I’ve always been insatiably curious.” I grinned. “The money was good and he made you sound rather interesting. Tell me, did you really sleep with the chauffeur when you were fourteen?”

  I certainly cracked that iron composure of hers with that one. Her eyes widened, she gasped and what I can only describe as a virginal flush tinged her cheeks.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s obvious now that he has an unusually inventive streak.”

  “You want the facts? I’ll give them to you.” She wasn’t pointing the Beretta at me any longer and she looked mad. “As they say about life insurance, I’m worth more dead than alive. My mother left me everything in trust with my stepfather as executor. Something of a mistake on her part. I’m twenty-one in another three weeks and get personal control of the whole thing. If I die before then Hoffer gets the lot. Two and a half million sterling.”

  It certainly made what he was paying us sound very marginal indeed.

  “The only true thing he appears to have told you,” she went on, “is the fact that he gave Serafino Lentini twenty-five thousand dollars, but for a different reason. I was to be ambushed when driving alone to visit friends at Villabla one evening, robbed and shot dead beside my car where I would be easily found and identified, apparently just another victim of a bandit outrage.”

  “But Serafino wouldn’t play?”

  “He intended to at first. Standing there beside my car that evening after he and his men had stopped me I thought my last hour had come. I don’t think I’ll ever be as close to death again.”

  “What made him change his mind?”

  “He’s told me since that he liked the look of me. That I reminded him of his younger sister who died in childbirth a year ago. I think the real truth is that he doesn’t like my stepfather. It seems they had dealings before although he’s never told me much about that.”

  “Then why did he do business with Hoffer at all?”

  “He wanted money—big money. He’s enthusiastic about only one thing—the idea of emigrating to South America and leaving this life behind. I think I’m alive because it suddenly struck him that it would be rather amusing to take Hoffer’s money and not carry out his side of the bargain.”

  “So he whisked you off to the mountains?”

  “I’ve been with him ever since.”

  “Doesn’t it ever worry you that he might change his mind on another whim?”

  She shook her head. “Not in the slightest. Since I explained the real facts of the situation he and his men are only too well aware which side their bread is buttered on.”

  “But of course,” I said softly. “All they’ve got to do is keep you alive long enough and you’ll have all the money in the world.”

  “Exactly. Once things are settled satisfactorily, I’ve promised to get them out to South America with a hundred thousand pounds to split between the four of them.”

  So now all was revealed. Or was it? A great deal that had puzzled me was now explained, but there were several things which still didn’t make any kind of sense.

  She voiced one of them for me. “One thing I can’t understand. What were you supposed to do once you got your hands on me?”

  “Take you to Hoffer. He’s meeting us himself on the Bellona road.”

  “Didn’t he expect me to say anything to you? Weren’t you supposed to notice when you got here that I wasn’t the slave of Serafino’s passion that he made out?”

  Which had been worrying me for some time and yet I could think of no possible explanation except for the one she offered me herself a moment later.

  “Which takes us back to square one,” she said. “The only logical explanation. That you dropped in to finish me off along with Serafino and his men. Then my stepfather goes to the police, wringing his hands, giving them some story about how he’s been afraid for my life and didn’t dare seek official help before, but now he can’t go on. The police make an official search and find what’s left of us.”

  “Wouldn’t they want to know who was responsible?”

  “There are several groups in the mountains just like Serafino and his men, and there’s no love lost.” She shrugged. “It would be reasonable to suppose that one of them was responsible. All very sad, but nice and tidy for my stepfather. When you think of it, it is the only explanation that makes any kind of sense.”

  Her hand started to bring up the Beretta again. It was her eyes that warned me and the sudden, pinched look about the mouth, not that I was particularly alarmed.

  I came up in an unnecessarily spectacular spring, got my shoulder to her knees and had her on her back in a moment. Once on top, the war was over, although a certain amount of wriggling continued until I clamped a knee across each of her arms.

  I held up the Beretta and slipped the safety catch. “It just won’t fire until you do that. Try again.”

  I dropped it on her chest, got up and turned my back on her. I lit another cigarette, an ostentatious bit of theatricality and when I turned again she was standing staring at me in bewilderment, the Beretta swinging loosely from one hand and pointing directly into the ground.

  “But it still doesn’t make sense,” she said.

  She was right—it didn’t. The only thing which filled her true circumstances was that we had been sent to kill her and we had not.

  Or had we . . . ?

  It was suddenly cold and my throat went dry. No, it wasn’t possible and I tried to push the thought away from me. Burke would never have stood still for a thing like that.

  In any case, I wasn’t allowed to take it any further. Someone jumped on my back, an arm clamped around my throat and down I went.

  Someone once said that God made some men big and some small and left it to Colonel Colt to even things up. As a philosophy where violence is concerned, it’s always appealed to me and like most relatively small men, I’ve never been much good at the hand-to-hand stuff.

  The arm about my throat was doing a nice, efficient job of cutting off the air supply. I was choking, there was a roaring in my ears. Somewhere the girl was shouting and then he made the mistake of moving position and I managed an elbow strike to his privates.

  It was only half a target and there wasn’t much zip behind it, but it was enough. I was released with a curse, rolled over twice and fetched up against a holly-oak tree.

  Not that it did
me much good. My head went back with a crack and the muzzle of a rifle was shoved into the side of my neck.

  TWELVE

  * * *

  THE M.I. .30 calibre is the semi-automatic rifle that got most American infantrymen through the Second World War, which meant that the one which was about to blow a hole in me now had been around for quite a while. On the other hand, it had obviously been cared for like a lover. The stock was polished, the gunmetal shone with oil and the whole thing looked as lethal as anyone could wish, just like the man who was holding it, Serafino Lentini.

  “Serafino, stop!” the girl shouted in Italian. “You mustn’t shoot him—you mustn’t!”

  He was wearing an old corduroy suit, leather leggings to his knees and the face beneath the cloth cap was recklessly handsome in spite of the week-old stubble of beard and the dirty black patch over the right eye. A gay lad, this, a bravo straight out of the sixteenth century. I could almost see him in doublet and hose. A kiss for a woman, a blow for a man. I smiled, remembering the old joke. Very funny, except that with this boy you’d probably get a knife in the gut if you got in his way.

  The two men behind him were just a blur, it was his face that loomed large for me in all the world at that moment. He grinned wolfishly and pushed off the safety.

  “Careful,” I said. “Cursed is the man who spills the blood of his own.”

  The old Sicilian proverb had about the same effect as a good stiff hook to the chin. His eye, that one good eye of his, seemed to widen, but most important of all, the barrel of the M.I. was removed from my neck.

  “Quick,” he said. “Who are you?”

  “Barbaccia’s grandson. We’re kin through my grandmother’s family.”

  “Mother of God, but I remember you as a boy.” The safety catch clicked on again, the most reassuring thing to happen for some time. “Once when I was fourteen, my old man went to see the capo on family business. I had to wait at the gate. I saw you walking in the garden playing with a dog. All white with black spots. I forget what they call them.”

  “Dalmatians,” I said and remembered old Trudi for the first time in years.

  “The capo’s American grandson in his pretty clothes. God, how I hated you that day. I wanted to rub mud in your hair.” He produced a stub of cigar from one pocket, lit it and squatted in front of me. “I heard you and the capo didn’t get on after they got your mother that way.” He spat. “Mafia pigs. Still, from what I hear, he’s almost swept the board clean.”

  I wanted to ask him what he meant, but the occasion didn’t seem appropriate. He reached over and fingered my jump suit.

  “What’s all this? When I first saw you through the trees I thought they’d brought the troops in again.”

  By now I had everything in focus including the girl and the two specimens who were examining the assault rifle with interest. They were in the same unshaven condition as Serafino, the same ragged state. Each of them had a shotgun slung from the shoulder.

  I sat up wearily. “I can’t go through all that again. Ask her.”

  He didn’t argue, simply turned and went to Joanna Truscott. They moved away a little, talking in low tones, and I got my cigarettes out. As I lit one, the man who was taking a sight along the barrel of the A.K. lowered it and snapped a finger.

  I tossed the packet across. There was a definite physical resemblance between them and I said, “You’re the Vivaldi boys, I suppose.”

  The one with the rifle nodded. “That’s right. I’m August—he’s Pietro. Don’t expect much from him, though.” He tapped his head. “He has his difficulties and he can’t speak.”

  Pietro did a semblance of a jig and his mouth opened, exposing half a dozen black stubs and nothing else. He had a great foolish grin that reminded me strongly of the Cheshire cat. I suppose he had exactly the same smile on his face as he blew someone’s head off.

  In fact the head might very well be mine, which was a cheering thought and then Serafino came back and I could tell from the look on his face that everything was going to be all right.

  “It’s ironic,” he said. “When I remember how often old Barbaccia has tried to have me put down. But then, we are not of the blood.”

  A nice distinction, but sufficient.

  “Can I have my weapons back?” I asked.

  “I don’t know about that, we could do with them ourselves.” He was obviously unwilling, but decided to make a gesture. “Give him the pop-gun back. Hang on to the others.”

  August handed me the Smith and Wesson, looking more than happy, and I pushed it into the spring holster. Had they only known it, at that range I could have given each of them a bullet in the head within the second.

  We went down through the trees in a line, Serafino and I together at the rear. Apparently he still had Hoffer’s twenty-five thousand buried in an old biscuit tin somewhere in the area. He thought the whole thing very funny and laughed frequently in the telling.

  “So, I’ve killed a few people in my time. That’s life.” He scratched his face vigorously. “I did a couple of jobs for Hoffer when he was having trouble with construction workers on the new road through the mountains. Leaned on one or two and then we dumped some trade unionist down a crevasse. And then he gets in touch with me through a friend and lays out this job concerning the girl.”

  “Did you know who she was?”

  “Not a hint. He told me she was a blackmailer—that she could ruin him unless she had her mouth closed for keeps. I’d insisted on payment in advance so I had the cash anyway and when I saw her, I liked her.” He grinned ruefully. “Not that I’m half the man I used to be so she’d nothing to worry about there.”

  “Yes, I heard about that.”

  He laughed uproariously. “Life, it’s a bastard, eh? No, I liked her for the way she stuck out her chin and stood up straight when she thought I was going to shoot her. It put me off, her standing there like some princess from Rome. Then it struck me as how funny it might be to put one over on Hoffer, seeing I already had the cash. He’s a rat and anyway I don’t like Mafia.”

  He spat again, I stumbled, put off my stroke to such an extent that I almost lost my balance. I grabbed him by the arm. “Hoffer is Mafia?”

  “Didn’t you know? One of those American syndicate boys the Yanks deported during the last few years.”

  And my grandfather hadn’t said a word. “Does the girl know?”

  “Not really.” He shook his head. “Oh, she thinks he’s a swine all right, but this is only her second visit to Sicily. To her, Mafia is the two lines in the tourist handbook that says it’s a romantic memory.”

  Which was reasonable enough. What would she know, spending the greater part of the year at some fancy English boarding school and most of the rest following the social round in France, Switzerland and the usual places. We had something in common there.

  “So Hoffer is working for the Society over here?”

  “Do me a favour.” Serafino seemed surprised. “You know the rule. Once in, never out. He’s the last of half a dozen similar.”

  “What happened to the others?”

  “Two pressed the starters in their Alfas and went straight to hell. The rest were ventilated in one way or another as I remember. They had the knife out for Barbaccia, but they made a big mistake. The old wolf was a match for all of them.”

  “The attempt on his life,” I said. “The bomb which killed my mother, who was responsible for that?”

  “Who knows?” He shrugged. “Any one of them. Does it matter? Barbaccia will have had all of them before he is through.”

  My flesh crawled at the enormity of it. Vito Barbaccia, Lord of Life and Death. He was well named. I shuddered and went after Serafino who was striding ahead, whistling cheerfully.

  The shepherd’s hut looked as if it had been there since time began. It was constructed of rocks and boulders of various sizes, the gaps in between filled with dried mud and the low roof consisted of sods on top of oak branches.

  At tha
t point the stream had turned into a brawling torrent, descending rapidly through several deep pools, disappearing over an apron of stone about fifty yards below.

  The hut was built into a sloping bank in a clearing beside the stream and looked remarkably homely. A couple of donkeys grazed nearby with three goats and half a dozen chickens moved in and out of the undergrowth, pecking vigorously at the soil.

  A boy of eighteen or nineteen, presumably the Joe Ricco Cerda had mentioned, crouched over a small fire, feeding the flames beneath a cooking pot with sticks. Except for his youth and red Norman hair, he was depressingly similar in appearance to the rest of them. The same cloth cap, patched suit and leather leggings, the same sullen, brutalised features. He got up, staring at me curiously, and the Vivaldi brothers joined him, crouching to help themselves with a dirty and chipped enamel mug to what vaguely smelled like coffee.

  Serafino and Joanna Truscott sat on a log by the stream and he produced from somewhere another piece of cigar and lit it. He looked up into the grey morning. “Still it doesn’t make sense.” He shook his head. “I’d give a lot to know what Hoffer is playing at.”

  “Perhaps the whole thing is simpler than we think,” Joanna said. “Maybe he assumed you would do anything for money.”

  “He could be right there,” I agreed, but somehow it didn’t sound too funny because it sent me off on another train of thought, one I wanted to avoid, but Serafino wouldn’t let it alone.

  “These friends of yours, you can trust them? They’re not making a monkey out of you?”

  I thought about it hard and tried to sound confident. “Anything is possible in this life, but I don’t think so. There’s one way to find out, of course.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I’ll go and see them.”

  He nodded, biting on his cigar, a frown on his face. Joanna Truscott said, “You could make them an offer on my behalf if you like. It would be nice to turn the tables on my stepfather for once.” She picked up a stick, snapped it between her hands. “He married my mother for money, did you know that? When she wouldn’t give him any more, he got rid of her.”