changes that were going to be made for you. Only for you. The way I must
look. The courage I must develop to stand against the conventional. The career
I must enter. All for you. All for the time when we would meet again.”
She was serious about it. Florentine tall and beautiful, Neapolitan
intense and shining-eyed, certainly a little crazy. I said, “You were that sure
we’d meet again?”
“We have, haven’t we?”
“Bianca, I’m thirty. You can’t be far from it. It’s ridiculous to pretend
we’re still kids together eating ice cream at Tre Scalini.”
“True. But I wasn’t a little kid that New Year’s night when I found that
just looking at you made my head spin. And when I was far from being a child
a stranger named Jan van Zee walked into my office, and there was that feeling
again. A stranger, mind you. You didn’t know how I had to struggle against the
temptation to touch his hand, to let him know how shaken I was by his
presence.” She stared closely at my face. “The eyes, that’s what it must have
been. They were the same eyes. And something about the voice.”
I was being hypnotized by this. I shook myself out of it. “You always did
go in for the operatic style. It seems worse than ever now.”
“Why? Because I’m not ashamed to let you know my feelings for you?
But I have a right to. I’ve won that right. I’m independent in all ways. I live
alone on what I earn. I owe favors to no one. I’m as free as any man to declare
my feelings.”
“Fantastico,” I said from the heart. “And in all this have you
considered my feelings in the matter?”
“Yes.” She had to nerve herself to come out with it. “I told myself that
once you understood my devotion you’d have to respond to it. You’d be a fool
not to. I believe I can offer you more than any other woman can, if you’re man
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enough to live with it. But I am frightened now because of what you’ve gotten
yourself into. This insane vendetta. And it is because of Anneke, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I escaped an accident they engineered. She died in it.”
“Ah, dear God. And the child?”
“Never had a chance to be born. Does that change your mind a little
about my vendetta?”
She was badly shaken. She stood there uncertainly, then made a helpless
gesture. “David, you think you want to make those men pay for their guilt in
her death, but it goes deeper than that. It’s your own guilt you want them to pay
for. You became involved in their enterprise, and you made her your partner in
it.”
This was too much. It had to be ended right now.
I said, “How much money did you expect me to contribute to your
clinic?”
“But that isn’t what I —”
“How much?” I said it so sharply that she looked alarmed.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Umberto thought perhaps a hundred thousand
lire. It’s desperately needed if we’re to continue our work. And the cause is
good.” Then she added with a sort of defiance, “You must have seen that for
yourself.”
“I did. So what would you say to a hundred million lire?”
“A hundred million?” she said in stupefaction. “My God, with that
amount —”
“But there’s a condition attached. I’ll give you a check for it on the spot,
but you must be on the first plane leaving for Rome tomorrow. In Rome you’ll
forget everything you’ve learned about me. Everything. You’ll give my mother
my regards, you’ll tell Umberto I was generous for old time’s sake, and that
will be the end of it. The money is all yours, but only on those terms.”
It took her time to find the words. “You must realize you couldn’t have
found a more brutal way of dealing with me, don’t you?”
“I imagine waking anyone up from a childish dream is always a little
painful. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want your pity. I just want you to open your eyes and really see
me. Look at me, David. Don’t you find me attractive?”
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“Alarmingly so.” 1 knew instantly, from the brightening of her face, that
it had been a mistake to let this slip out.
“And you approve what I’ve made of my life, don’t you?”
“No,” I said, “not if I’m the reason for it. As long as you hold to that
nonsense you’re still living a schoolgirl dream. You’re not really what you
think you are.”
“I don’t agree.” Whatever she felt, she was now being remarkably selfpossessed
about it. “Even if I did, I can tell you that it’s far more rewarding to
live my kind of dream than your kind of nightmare. If I’m still the little girl of
the Piazza Navona, what are you? A de’Medici bravo of five hundred years
ago?”
“And this kind of talk,” I said, “is one reason why you’ll be better off in
Rome with no remembrance of me. You may find it hard to believe, but here
you’re a danger to me and to yourself.”
“I do find it hard to believe.”
That made sense in a way. She had never been properly introduced to
Mijnheer X and Monsieur Y and Mister Z. The screen treatment she had read,
and which thus identified them, only drew them in bare outline.
I managed to get the file of letters out of Costello’s room without rousing
him. I brought it back to the sitting room and handed it to Bianca. “Read all
this if you really want to see what you’re trying to get yourself into.
Meanwhile, since I don’t have your endurance, I’m going inside to get some
sleep. Just wake me whenever you’ve finished your reading.”
She weighed the folder in her hand. “What is this?”
“The documents in the case. You have my word for it that everything
there is very close to the facts.”
In the bedroom, as I peeled offjacket and shirt, I realized that her valise
and sandals were growing distractions better put out of sight. When I brought
them into the sitting room she was already sunk deep in an armchair scanning a
page, an unlighted cigarette drooping from her lower lip. She looked up at me.
“Letters from Jan to David?”
“Right. But disregard the dates. They were all written only a little while
ago.”
I got into bed, angrily wondering if I could fall asleep when I was so
aware of that presence on the other side of the door. It seemed extraordinarily
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foolish that under these circumstances it should be on that side of the door.
And, simultaneously, it seemed a gross betrayal of Anneke that I should allow
myself any such thought.
I was wakened by a cool hand pressed to my forehead and opened my
eyes to bright sunlight and a view of the bedside clock marking the time as a
few minutes before eight. Bianca was seated on the edge of the bed beside me,
but through the door of the sitting room I heard sounds of activity.
“The chauffeur,” said Bianca. “He seems pleased to have so many
ashtrays to empty.”
“He would be. Have you read all the letters?”
“All. But they suddenly end where you — where van Zee was to take the
money from Zuric
h to Luxembourg. What happened then?”
She listened intently as I answered that at length. Then the hand moved
down and came to rest against my cheek. A pleasant feeling, and a dangerous
one. She said, “So now it all becomes clear. You’re using the letters to show
those men you know all about Jan van Zee. That way you can make them do
what you want. Which of them is already dead?”
“L’inglese. Leewarden.”
“You drove the others to kill him?”
“Let them do it.”
“I understand. But, David, do you understand that with your kind of
wealth you could buy the most clever lawyers — the most powerful
friends —”
“As you can see, I don’t need them.”
“You mean you’d get no pleasure from settling it that way.”
“None,” I said. “But that’s beside the point. Your clinic is the point.
Your good works. And the money I’m ready to donate to them, but only
according to the terms laid down. Have you decided what to do about that?”
“First answer one question. If I do leave for Rome at once, will you join
me there as soon as you can?”
“When I can.” It seemed to be the only way of breaking this maddening
deadlock. Then — even though Anneke was suddenly sharp in my mind,
looking wounded by it — I found myself wondering what it might be like if I
were speaking more truthfully than I intended.
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“Meglio tardi che mai,” said Bianca. Better late than never, words she
evidently lived by. She stood up. “I’ll wait for you there.”
“Bianca —”
“I’ll wait for you there,” she said calmly. “Meanwhile I’ll do it your
way.”
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Iwas already at breakfast in the sitting
room when she emerged from the bedroom, bathed, freshly clothed for the
homeward trip, and apparently serene of spirit.
Over our coffee and brioche, we talked. It went awkwardly for me at
first, because uppermost in my mind was the realization that ten long years had
passed since that disastrous New Year’s Eve in Rome, and here I was across
the table from a poised and apparently mature female who had spent those
years in a handcrafted ivory tower waiting for her knight to come riding up
again on his white steed. Talk about Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astalot. Or about
pinning your childish and loony faith on an unlikely conjunction of the planets.
So I was jolted to discover that it was more a case of Rapunzel than
Elaine, the Lily Maid. A ladder had once been lowered from that tower.
“Umberto’s partner in the clinic,” Bianca explained. “It went on a few
months and that was it. Finito. A sweet man but terribly conventional. We
couldn’t keep going on like this, he said. Either we must marry or end the
affair. So I ended the affair.”
“Was he serious about marriage?”
“Oh, yes. He was quite infatuated with me. He was outraged when I
refused his kind offer.”
As any castoff lover had the right to be. But what right did I now have to
be annoyed by this information? Before I could come to grips with that
question, Bianca said, “I’ve been wondering. Your Shakespeare had his
Prince Hamlet carry out his vendetta by means of a play presented to the
murderer. Is that what inspired you to make a film?”
“No. As a matter of fact, although only you and I and Signor Costello
know it, there isn’t going to be any film.”
“But all those people involved in it —”
“They’re being very well paid for very little effort.”
“I see.” Then she came right to the point. “That girl, Grete. Is she your
mistress?”
“Somebody else’s.”
“Good. I’ve been very jealous of her up to now. I’m too easily jealous
really. The old insecurities, I suppose. That week you devoted yourself to
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Sophia Changouris I used to dream up ways of killing her. Or, better yet,
humiliating her. Give her warts that couldn’t be removed and a mustache that
couldn’t be shaved.”
“She’s not still Milos’s girl friend, is she?”
“Not after your mother found out about her. And speaking of your
mother —”
“Time to go,” I said. “Your plane leaves in less than an hour.” I handed
her the check for the hundred million lire. “Negotiable at once.”
“Molto grazie.” She carefully folded the slip of paper. “I’ll be waiting
for you in Rome as long as I must. I still feel that dealing with those men your
way is a kind of madness, but I know it’s a kind of madness you won’t be
released from until everything is settled as you want it to be. So I’ll wait.”
A kiss? A tender farewell? But no, what she offered was a handshake,
so I settled for that. A firm, decisive handshake, all business. Quite a case, the
Signorina Bianca Cavalcanti. Dreamy-eyed romantics were one thing to
contend with, but a hard-headed romantic?
Harry, the lady’s valise in hand, led the way across the marvelously
baroque lobby of the Meurice toward the front door where the car was already
parked, and we followed without saying a word. Then Bianca suddenly seized
my arm, drawing me to a halt. “That man,” she said. “The one sitting there
against the wall. I saw him at Rome in the airport, then here on the bus into
Paris. He seemed to be watching me.”
“That’s natural.”
“No. I had the strangest feeling he was following me. And here he is
now.”
“Where?” I said. “But don’t turn around.”
“Behind us there, pretending to read a newspaper. I know it’s the same
man. He wears a patch over his eye.”
“A small man? With gray hair?”
“Yes.”
I wheeled around. No one of that description was in sight. Bianca
looked bewildered. “He’s gone. But he was there. And you know him too?”
“Yes.” I motioned Harry over and told him to stand by for further
instructions. Then it was back to the elevator and up. In the crowded elevator
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Bianca opened her mouth to speak, but I shook my head warningly. In the
hallway she burst out, “Who is that man? How do you know about him?”
“Well, for one thing,” I said, “he tried to kill me last night.”
“Ah, no!”
“Ah, yes. But obviously he didn’t succeed. Now be patient a few
minutes.”
“But he tried to kill you! Can’t you see what you’re doing is terribly
dangerous?”
“Pazienza e corragio, signorina.”
Costello opened the door, looked at my companion, and remained
blocking the doorway. “What’s she doing here?”
“She knows all about it, Ray, but take it easy. She can be trusted.” I
prodded Bianca past him, and he closed the door behind us, not happily. I
motioned her to a chair and she seated herself, hands clasped tight in her lap.
Costello’s face was stony. “I’m listening,” he said.
“I suppose I should have told you about it right off,” I said, “but
somebody tried to knock me off on my way back to the hotel this morning. A
little old gent with an eyepatch
. First with a hit-and-run, then with a knife. I
laid him out before any damage could be done, but a few minutes ago Miss
Cavalcanti spotted him in the lobby here. There’s no question he’s the same
man. Is all that clear so far?”
“Sure. Frenchy put out a contract on you.”
“But consider this,” I said. “Miss Cavalcanti also tells me that our little
friend with the eyepatch trailed her all the way here from Rome.”
“Used her to bird-dog you?” He turned to her. “You sure?”
She nodded, wide-eyed.
“But why?” Costello said to me. “Frenchy knows where you are.”
“He does,” I said. “That’s why I don’t think he’s the one behind this.”
“He has to be,” Costello said. “He’s the only one in the picture, unless
you figure the Dutchman has started putting out contracts instead of doing his
own killing.”
“I don’t figure that.”
“Then,” Costello said stubbornly, “it’s Frenchy. But look. Suppose the
guy with the eyepatch was only out to scare you? Suppose the lady here is the
real target, know what I mean? If they get hold of her —”
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“They could have had her already, Ray.”
“They wouldn’t have been sure about her until she walked right into
your room. All right, all right, I know I’m pushing, but what else do we have to
work on?”
I thought this over. “One chance in a thousand,” I said. “In ten thousand.”
“Even at those odds it’s still a chance. You want to risk it?”
Again I thought it over. “No,” I said.
Bianca had been worriedly following this. Now, in ripely accented
English she said to me, “I do not understand either about this man. But I
understand I have made troubles for you. Whatever I can do about it —”
“Troubles for both of us,” I said. “Do you know what a hostage is?”
“Hos-tage?”
Costello said impatiently, “Lady, it’s just possible that certain people
now figure that you and Mr. Shaw have something big going when you travel
all that distance just to put in a day with him. So the question is, if they grab
you, what the hell is he supposed to do about it? Kapeesh?”
“Capisco, signore,” Bianca said scornfully. “But I can take care of
myself wherever I am. The fact that I am a woman —”
“Oh, sure,” said Costello. He turned to me. “How the hell did you get
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