“You can’t let personal feelings push you around in this, Silas.”
“I know. I’ll be careful. I know about the racket. If you don’t crack up with busted nerves and end up sitting in a corner crying like a baby, you get a knife in the gut or get shoved from a subway platform or you just disappear into Siberia having the personality brainwashed out of you. I’ve been trying not to think too much about Ellen, but I let go when this Bruno Bellaria came charging at me. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Forget it. I think we’re still in the clear, if we get this cleaned up.”
They worked swiftly. Durell carried the dead man up the hill to the access road above the chalet. Si Hanson removed all traces of the brief, lethal struggle in the shrubbery. Durell put the dead man in the parked Opel and Si joined him there.
“Follow me and pick me up when I ditch this,” Durell said.
He drove the rented car carefully down to the highway. Si followed in his red Florida. Traffic had slackened somewhat, but there were still occasional lights in the villas on the lake shore, and a few boats still moved out on the placid water. He turned toward Geneva, although he would have preferred a more remote spot; but time pressed him, and when he found a side lane that led to the water’s edge, he turned into it, driving between thickly fenced shrubbery. At the end of the lane there was a drop of about thirty feet into the lake. The nearest house was a hundred yards to the west, and it was dark. If anybody occupied it, Durell hoped they were sound sleepers.
It did not take long to set the Opel on the slope, start it, and jump out. The car smashed through the rustic barrier at the end of the lane and hung there for a heart-stopping moment. Then it fell, with its burden of the dead Bruno Bellaria behind the wheel. The noise seemed enormous, and heavy waves battered the shore. Durell stood at the broken fence and saw that a swimming float had been struck by the plunging car and was dragged halfway under the surface by its mooring chain. It was too bad, because it meant that the car and Bruno would be found in the morning; but it couldn’t be helped.
He walked back to Si. “It’s a good thing we’ll be in Rome in a couple of hours.”
“Zuccamella is a good man,” Hanson said. “He’ll nail Jack at Fiumicino Airport. It ought to be simple.”
“I’m glad you find it simple,” Durell said. “But Jack doesn’t have the scrolls with him, remember? He hid them somewhere; or else, if we accept what Ellen said before she died, he was double-crossed and somebody else has the paintings and Jack is off on a private vendetta of his own. He took a big step when he swiped Tuvanaphan’s property. He can’t ever go back to his old life. And he knows we’re after him now. He’s not a fool. He got a hammer-lock on us with the stuff he forced Ellen to give him. So we can’t just walk up to him and collar him.”
“Why not?”
“Suppose he’s arranged to get the Fremont stuff to Pacek if we nail him?”
Si looked pale. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“We’ll have to walk lightly,” Durell said. “And don’t forget we’re dealing with the cream of Italian society in Count Apollio. So we’ll play it by ear as we go. Let’s get to the airport first.”
“About the Countess Francesca . . .”
“We’ll have a little talk with her,” Durell said grimly. “Sooner or later.”
chapter eight
FRANCESCA awoke with a memory of fear and confusion. The persistent sunlight shining in her eyes annoyed her. Cesare’s naked arm was heavy where he had flung it across her breast in his sleep. She sighed and closed her eyes again and listened to his breathing in the bed beside her, and she smiled, remembering the heat of their reunion last night. It had only been four days, yet he behaved as if she’d been away a year. Once his jealousy of Jack Talbott had been put to rest, everything was all right. Wonderful, in fact.
She turned gently and looked at his narrow face and harsh mouth. She could never study him without feeling a little fear, and yet she loved his cruelty, as she loved everything about him. Really, he belonged in the Borgia times, in Firenze, with his fine aristocratic nose and short, curly black hair and conspiratorial eyes. Not to mention, she thought with an inward smile, his total lack of morals.
Well, she was no better. And she felt a dangerous luxury in admitting it. But then, everything was dangerous—being here with Cesare, and what they had done together. It was the zenith of cruelty, in a way. She was as cruel as Cesare, or would be judged so, if everything came to light too soon. They had taken steps that could never be retraced, but she didn’t care. It was done, and she was happy. Soon the old life would be over forever.
She slid carefully out of bed and stood naked beside Cesare in the hot, sunny hotel room. It was ten o’clock in the morning. From below the open windows, she heard the sea crash on the rocks below Montecapolli, not far from Sorrento. The Monte-capolli-Imperiale was quiet, except for someone shouting on the tennis court. From the windows she could see across the misty bay to the dim cone shape of Vesuvius, and beyond, partly smothered by more smog and mist, the vague complex of Naples. Nearer at hand, the sea was so intensely blue that it hurt her eyes.
It was really too hot to bear it, Fran thought, and she moved languidly to the bath, her body pale and soft except where the sun had touched her face and arms. Cesare still sprawled on the tangled bedsheets. He didn’t really know her at all. He thought he was playing a monstrous joke on Bernardo Apollio, taking her this way. Some day she might tell him the truth. But not now. It all depended.
The water pressure at the Montecapolli-Imperiale was irregular, and everything was tepid, overheated by the September sun. She showered with voluptuous pleasure, as if she could rinse away the occasional terrors she had felt yesterday. Talbott could never find her now, she thought. He’d be angry, because she had made a fool of him, but Cesare could take care of things from this point onward.
From the bath window she could look straight down the cliffside to the terrace where people were breakfasting. American tourists, she thought. When they watched her pass yesterday, with her Rome coiffure and haughty carriage, moving as Bernardo had taught her to move, they never dreamed she had once been plain Frannie Smith, slinging hash at Joe’s Diner in Oscalum, Missouri.
To the left of the terrace was the beach where the local fishermen drew up their red and green boats among the delicately hulled yachts moored there. Their long fish nets were spread over the black sand. Most of the tourists here were still asleep—the Americans, whom she hated because they reminded her of what she had been; the noisy Germans; the tidy Swiss; and the careful French. She looked farther out across the vaporous Bay of Sorrento to the dim mountains of the Amalfi Drive, indistinct in the morning haze, and then to her right to Naples, an hour’s drive away along the mainland autostrada.
When she returned to the bedroom, she knew Cesare was awake, although his eyes were closed. She was sensitive to his breathing, as she was intimate with everything about him. His naked, muscular body was like an antique statue, awakening lively and abandoned things in her. She let the sea wind dry her skin as she stood before the mirror at the foot of the bed. Cesare was watching, and this was exciting, too. She ran her hands across her breasts and down her hips and thighs, satisfied with her reflection, satisfied that he couldn’t complain. . . .
“Frannie Smith . . .”
His drowsy voice shattered her mood as if the glass had been smashed. “Don’t call me that!” she said in anger.
“Cara . . .” He smiled lazily.
Her Italian was Rome-accented. “I’m Francesca Lucchesi di Apollio,” she snapped. “Do I look like a Fran Smith?”
“Certainly not.”
“Look at me!” she shouted. “Do I look like her?”
“I can see you. And hear you.” His drawl was lazy. “And you sound like her, no? Come here, cara.”
“Call me by my right name, first.”
He sighed. “Francesca.”
“Again!”
“Fran
cesca, I love you. What time is it?”
She pouted. “A little after ten.” Her black hair was piled exotically on top of her small, finely shaped head. She had powdered her body after the shower and put on violet eye makeup and splashed her rich and musky perfume all over herself. Cesare favored it. She felt him study her and she shivered, as if he had caressed her.
He saw the shiver and laughed. “You slept well?”
She relented and smiled. “Thanks to you, darling.”
“You have a terribly autocratic temper, countess. One learns all the bad things first, like the naughty words of a new language, eh? First the tantrums of the nobility, then—perhaps —the genuine traits of a lady. Come here.”
She knew what he wanted and she knew she would yield, but she held back, sulking. “It’s late. I must go back, darling.” Abruptly his eyes darkened and he pushed his long, muscular legs out of bed. “That’s enough, Fran. Never tell me what to do. You accomplished the job in Geneva very well. You made a fool of that Talbott—although I wonder how far you had to go . . .”
“Far enough,” she said sulkily. “I hate him. I’m afraid of that man.”
“He is confused by now, perhaps in the hands of the Americans.” Cesare laughed harshly. “Charged with theft, yet without the goods, eh? A pretty mess for them.” He moved to her across the sunny hotel room and held her; his skin felt rough. “You must understand that every word is important now—too important for jealousy or tantrums. You must do everything I say, without question, without argument, you see?”
“Darling, let’s not quarrel.”
“I do not quarrel. You obey me. Is that clear?”
“Yes. You’re hurting me, Cesare.”
“But you were not so afraid of Talbott that you did not enjoy some part of the affair, you bitch,” he said softly. He smiled. “You are basically a whore, Frannie Smith.”
He slapped her hard as he held her, nude, against him. Her head snapped back with shocking pain. At the same moment he released her and her naked foot slipped on the tiled floor. She stumbled against the mirror. The glass felt cold and hard against her naked body. Her eyes reflected astonishment.
“Why, you no-good . . .” she began in English.
“Ah-ah.” He laughed. “Frannie Smith again?”
“Listen, you bum, nobody slaps me around.”
“Back in that—what did you call it—that hash house, eh?” He pinned her painfully to the mirror. “It does not take much to remove the veneer that Count Apollio so carefully applied, trying to make you a lady, does it?”
She moaned. “Oh, you’re no good, Cesare, you’re a son of a bitch—”
“And you are really a common little tramp, right?”
She steadied herself with a deep breath. Even this was exciting, and she forced her anger aside and spoke quietly.
“Why did you do that, Cesare?”
“Good. This voice is better. You were supposed to waken me at nine o’clock sharp, cara.”
“Yes, but you were sleeping so peacefully.” She faltered, afraid of him, yet drawn to his harsh physical presence. “I didn’t have the heart to disturb you, honey.”
“You are a fool. I told you, every detail is of importance now. You tell me everything went all right in Geneva. But my brother Bruno has not telephoned yet, has he?”
“Not yet. Please let go of me, Cesare.”
He released her, his dark eyes smoldering. “You think Bruno is an old, simple-minded fool, a stupid fisherman? Ah, but he taught me the meaning of hatred, the continuity of enmity through the generations. A genius of hatred, that is Bruno. It kept him alive through some bad times, you see.”
“Yes, he taught you well, you, the baby brother. And he made you evil, too, a real bad one, Cesare.”
“You say this because I took you from your husband?” He smiled crookedly. “And what kind of husband is Apollio to you?”
“You know what he is.”
“Yes, a cipher of a man. And Bruno did it to him. And I thank Bruno for it.” His dark eyes were bleak and brooding. “And you, Francesca, my naked one? I am your husband’s sworn blood enemy, part of a vendetta between our families that goes back two hundred years. But you share my bed, betray your husband with his worst enemy. How cruel and evil can woman be?”
She frowned. “But it’s not my feud, Cesare.”
“You married it. And the blood that spills should concern you.”
“You’re not going to kill him,” she said quickly.
“No,” Cesare said. He let her go. “But I have you, his wife. And next to that, what is most dear to him? His honor, of course, the honor of Apollio. And I shall destroy that, cara.” His tone became brisk. “And now get dressed. There is much to be done today, and thanks to you, I am late already.”
She stood on the balcony over the bright blue sea while he showered, and fear coiled in her again. Frannie Smith, she thought bitterly—the Contessa di Apollio. She had come down a long and hazardous road, and she owed nothing to anyone. She knew what it was to fight and claw for a decent meal, for a room of her own away from the drab Missouri farm she knew as a girl. She had used men as rungs in a ladder to work her way up, driven by a demon to better herself. In the process, she had educated herself. Between the intervals of men, she taught herself how to talk and walk. It had been ludicrous, of course. She made many mistakes. But step by step, she overcame them. The men were useful—the young and the old, the fat and the lean, the lusty and the variants.
She began by slinging hash in the diner, taught herself a tap routine, and left with the first flash act she could find. St. Louis led to Chicago, then New York. She was never a good dancer; but she made up for it with her body, with the art of love that she learned as she went from man to man.
Cesare was right. She was a bitch, a whore. It had been easy, because men came naturally to her and she enjoyed them all.
But money, big money, the hot and driving core of her ambition, escaped her until she got to Europe, when Johnny Scarpa organized the flash act to tour Morocco and Marseilles. She was still Frannie Smith then. But she recognized opportunity when that private act aboard Apollio’s yacht was ordered. Instinct told her at once all about the count. She had accepted his invitation to remain as his guest aboard the yacht. Why not? One man was not that much different from another.
But Bernardo Apollio was different. Handsome, elegant, refined to the point where he was suspect in Frannie Smith’s eyes. She was aware from the beginning that there would be an “arrangement.” He wanted a wife, but he would have none of the society women he knew, and he did not explain why. He wanted someone unknown, unrelated to his past. It was a deal—especially when she learned he was one of the richest men in Italy.
His eyes held a grave sadness that she hadn’t understood then. He was like a sleekly bred greyhound, soft-spoken, inordinately proud. His friends were few. Mostly, he lived like a hermit in his island palazzo on Isola Filibano, occasionally visiting the villa here at Montecapolli or the chalet in Switzerland. He pointed out that she would be bored. She did not believe it. Not with all that money. But it was true.
And he never slept with her.
She had never seen him naked, nor did he ever make any advances. A cipher, Cesare called him. A nothing as a man.
He taught her to be gracious, coached her in Italian, in the manners suitable to a countess. She had a native wit that helped her grasp the outward forms easily, and he was pleased with her. But they never made love together.
Nor did he ever settle any money on her.
She had to ask for every lira she wanted. He never refused. But there was nothing left over for a private nest-egg. So the money wasn’t enough. Not without a man to go with it.
Well, Cesare was a man, certainly. And if all went well, she’d have the money, too. Little Frannie Smith would have everything she’d ever wanted.
Her face still smarted where he had slapped her. She turned quickly when he came out of the bath, wearing
gray slacks and a white shirt open at his bronzed throat.
“You will go to Naples at once, cara,” he said abruptly. “I have been thinking about Bruno. He can take care of himself, but he has not returned, and you must go to the Hotel Sentissi for me. You can use my car.”
“Alone?”
“Of course, alone. I am due at the monastery. For two weeks, the local people set their watches by my coming and going to scratch the dust off their old relics; and this morning, of all times, you have made me late.”
The thought of Naples on this hot day was depressing. She said petulantly, “Surely the frescoes can wait. You can come with me.”
“And the Dwan Scrolls? Everything else is ready.”
“Cesare, will we really get a lot of money for them?”
“Yes.”
“And we’ll be rich, you and I?”
He smiled and said, “Very rich.” He touched her cheek with his rough fingertip. “Now be a good girl and obey me. I am worried about Bruno. You are sure he mailed the scrolls to himself at the Sentissi?”
“I was with him at the General Post Office in Geneva. After Talbott handed them to me at the villa, I went with Bruno and we mailed them. It went well, except that he forgot the receipt, as I told you, and left it in the villa somewhere. So I went ahead to the border and he went to the chalet to hunt for it. We didn’t want to leave anything useful for the Americans.”
“How could he have forgotten it?”
“He was excited, I guess. I told him to hide it in his shoe, but he put it on a table in the bedroom. We went off without it and he had to go back, that’s all. He’ll turn up.”
Cesare frowned. “Well, the paintings must be at the Sentissi now. Understand, Francesca, we walk in danger. The Americans will look very hard for us.”
“They don’t know about us. They’ll look for Jack.”
“And if they catch Talbott? He will speak of you. So we make no mistakes. You go to Naples and bring the scrolls to me, at the monastery. And then I make the arrangements with your husband.” Cesare laughed. “First his wife—then his honor.”
Assignment Sorrento Siren Page 7