Pronto (18 page)

He said in Italian, "Do you see that suit?" It hung over the back of a chair in the bedroom. She raised her head to look and said yes. "I have twenty suits, each one costing at least ... wait. One million two hundred thousand lire. Do you know why I came to Rapallo?" He waited for her to say no. "I came to kill someone. A man also from Miami Beach." He saw her eyes and how afraid she was, trying not to move. He said, "When I went to America they gave me a shotgun and five thousand dollars. That's... six million lire, to kill someone." He watched her eyes again as he told this girl who didn't know him that he had killed people and saw how it frightened her. He said, "I'm not going to hurt you. I was married to a woman like you, from the country, uh? Perhaps I'm still married to her, I don't know." He said, "I found out five thousand dollars wasn't enough for killing someone, so after that first one I got more. Once I got thirty million lire. Then, this is funny, I tried to give the same amount to a man so I won't have to kill him and he wouldn't take it. Can you understand that?" He waited, but could see she didn't know what he was talking about. He said, "I have all the money I want, but I work for a fool. So the time will come I'll pay someone to kill him. Maybe bring someone over from here and give him five thousand dollars. There is always someone who'll do it. Did you know that?" She stared at him with her frightened eyes, brown ones, without blinking. Now she blinked. It was hard to find someone who wasn't in his life to talk to. Almost always it was a woman. This time a whore, yes, but still not someone in his life. He told her again, "Don't be afraid of me. I'm not crazy. I won't even ask you to do something you don't like. All you have to do is listen to me. All right? Do you want some wine?" She shook her head no, barely moving it. He said, "Do you believe there are people who want to kill me because I kill other people?" She didn't move or nod or shake her head. "There is always someone who wants to kill me. I get new ones all the time. The fool I work for I think would like to have me killed and a punk who works for me would like to do it, but he doesn't have the nerve that it takes. You know the word punk? A young guy who acts tough, but has had no experience. I used to ridicule him in front of others and then they would start on him. You know. But I see now it's a waste of time. If he's nothing to me, why should I bother? Do you agree?" She seemed to nod. He looked at her pale comfortable body, a pillow to lie on, red marks on her stomach from tight elastic bands. Her breasts lay flattened, sagging to opposite sides. He moved his head down and over her until their brown centers were staring at him, unmoving, the woman and her breasts waiting for this to be over. She would come to life later, telling the other girls about the man who killed people, rolling her eyes, saying how afraid she was and maybe exaggerating, making him vicious, the kind of guy who scared whores to death and enjoyed doing it. When he was on her again, moving, and she was moving, he said, "I was kidding you. I don't kill people." He said, "Really. I was joking." He watched her trying to smile.

While they were eating Nicky thought of asking the Zip about the whore -- How was it, any good? -- but decided to keep quiet and neither one of them said much. When they were finished and the Zip was having an espresso, Benno came in and they talked to each other in Italian for a few minutes. Nicky watched the Zip looking at him as he said something to Benno, still in Italian. Right after that Benno left. "This is the most I've spoken the language in ten years," the Zip said. "I think in it most of the time, but don't get a chance to use it. I told Benno to get you another gun."

Nicky gave him a nod and sat there wondering what the Zip was up to. If he was playing some kind of game with him. Setting him up. Otherwise it didn't make sense.

Like now, the Zip saying, "Maybe you'll have another chance at the cowboy."

Putting him on.

The Zip saying, "He left his hotel, checked out. We find out he's up in the hills again around Montallegro, or he was. He disappeared. Maybe he came back, sneaked down in the dark, but I don't think so. We wait till tomorrow, go up there and look around. One thing I know, we find the cowboy, we find Harry. And we find the other people, too, the colored guy and the woman, Harry's girlfriend. They must all be in the same place now, hiding. So we go from house to house up there from two directions. Where they going to go? I told Benno's guys, six hundred thousand lire to whoever finds the house."

Sitting there stirring his coffee and telling him all this shit like they were old buddies.

Nicky said, "When's he getting me my gun?"

Chapter
Eighteen.

Wednesday morning, a few minutes before six, Harry moved along the upstairs hall, the heels of his leather slippers slapping the bare wood floor, boards creaking, from the master bedroom to Joyce's room. He pulled the covers back and crawled in with her and waited for her to open her eyes. After about a minute, when he couldn't wait anymore, Harry said, "You awake?"

Now they were looking into each other's eyes from the edge of one pillow to the next. She said, "What?" And then, "What is it?" with a note of alarm in her voice.

"Nothing."

She closed her eyes and after a few moments opened them again. They stared at each other.

"Everything's okay?"

"Fine, quiet."

"You're all right?"

"Reach down and see."

He felt her hand slip inside his pajama pants.

"Aw, you brought me a present."

"It's still there?"

"Sorta."

He waited.

She said, "It's coming back."

"Your magic touch."

She said, "I've been here three days, and this is the first time you've made any kind of move."

"We've had a lot on our minds."

"We don't anymore?"

"It's different now," Harry said. He'd awakened this morning with a hard-on, which hadn't happened yesterday or the day before. That was one difference.

She said, "Because Raylan's here?"

In the bedroom across the hall, or else downstairs. He and Robert Gee were taking care of security, dividing the watch between them, making up rules about going outside or turning lights on in certain rooms. Harry had to admit Raylan being here also made a difference, and said so.

"It's not that I like him personally; I can't see us becoming buddies. But I'll say this, you know he's one of the good guys."

"And the bad guys," Joyce said, "are still after you. So things aren't that different."

"No, but I feel like I've got more of a choice in the matter. I can go back if I want. Unless he's giving me a bunch of shit. If I had a phone I'd call Torres and find out for sure." Harry was quiet for several moments, feeling Joyce's magic hand on him. He said, "What do you think?" Meaning, did she think he was ready to perform.

She said, "I think Raylan's telling the truth. He's not here as a cop trying to extradite you. He has nothing to gain."

"Outside of some self-respect. He could be getting back at me. Twice, you know, I made him look pretty dumb."

"He was glad to see you," Joyce said. "I could tell."

"Of course he was."

"You know what I mean. He wasn't gloating. He likes you, he was glad he got here before those other guys."

Raylan had scared hell out of them last night and almost got shot sneaking up on the house and around through the garden. Robert Gee had aimed a shotgun through the French doors of the library and blown half the leaves off an orange tree. He was about to fire again when Raylan yelled out who he was and Joyce recognized his voice. Someone Harry knew, all right, the same U. S. marshal last seen at Joe's Stone Crab telling stories, now arrives like Santa with Joyce's purse, her passport, her clothes, and full of good cheer about a dispensation, the wheels turning to get his murder charge dropped. Though according to Raylan, he'd still have to show up in court.

"The guy brought you your stuff," Harry said, "that's why you like him."

She said, "Harry, just the idea -- you know what I mean? That he even thought of doing it. With those guys watching him. It's the most considerate thing anyone's ever done for me."

Oh? Was that right?

She didn't have to overdo it.

Harry said, "He's used to picking up suitcases, doing the heavy work. It's the kind of law enforcement he's in. Guarding, watching over people, taking them from here to there. He carried my bag that time in Atlanta. I bet I could talk him into working for me. Start in the garden, get it cleaned up. First, though, I'm going to talk to him about sneaking you out of here, put you on a plane."

"It wouldn't work, Harry. They've seen me."

"There might be a way."

She said, "You remember Cyd Charisse?"

"In the movies? Yeah, the dancer. But I don't recall what she looks like."

"Because she looks different every time you see her," Joyce said. "There was a story about her in People I read on the way over. Four pictures of her and she looked like a different person in each one."

"She was married to Tony Martin."

"She still is. The point is," Joyce said, "if I were Cyd Charisse I could walk past them in broad daylight, it wouldn't matter. I'd look different than I did before. But since I'm not Cyd Charisse, Harry, I think we'll all be going back together. You know you'll have to sooner or later."

"That's what he says, but I don't think the cops or the state attorney care one way or the other. Nobody's investigating Jimmy Cap anymore. Pretty soon no one'll even remember how this whole thing got started. Next year some reporter from The Miami Herald will come over here to interview me, do a story... 'Whatever Happened to Harry?' You wait and see. In the meantime, how we coming down there?"

"I think we're losing it."

"You sure?"

He waited.

"It's not going to work, Harry."

He made a face.

"Nuts."

Robert Gee told Raylan, "That hat's you," saying Raylan knew how to wear it, just a touch over one eye. Raylan told Robert Gee he'd almost shot it off his head last night. "I felt the breeze."

They were in the kitchen now, 6:30 a. M., cleaning weapons: the two pistols Raylan had taken off Nicky and the Italian guy, his own revolvers, Robert Gee's Browning auto, his pump-action Remington, and the Beretta he'd gotten for Harry who kept leaving it, Robert Gee said, anyplace he sat down. They talked about serving in the military as they adapted to one another, Raylan learning you could use a made-up name in the French Foreign Legion, but they sent your prints to Interpol and if you were wanted anywhere they threw you out. This was at Aubagne near Marseilles before they sent you to Corsica for sixteen weeks of basic training. "Running your ass all over the countryside." Raylan asked was it as tough as Marine boot camp, as seen in the movie Full Metal Jacket and he had experienced. Robert Gee said it was like that only worse, 'cause they said all that bullshit to you in French. The officers and most of the guys being French, the rest East Germans, Portuguese, Spanish, Yugoslav, hardly any brothers. He said they didn't wear those hats with the hankies to keep the sun off your neck or shoot Arabs anymore. "You see Beau Geste? You wonder now why they were shooting those Arabs, huh? From the fort waaay out in the middle of the desert, nobody even living around there?" He said if you used your real name and could prove it, they'd let you become a French citizen when you got out. Robert Gee told them no thanks. He had been in the U. S. Army and served a tour in Vietnam while Raylan spent his Marine hitch at Parris Island on the rifle range, instructing. Robert Gee did five years in the Foreign Legion in Corsica and Djibouti while Raylan was in South Georgia at the training academy. Robert Gee, Raylan decided, knew how to soldier. But could he shoot?

Robert Gee said, "I'm better than fair."

Raylan said, "Then why didn't you kill me last night?"

They talked about the house, how to defend it, walking through the ground-floor rooms studying views from the windows, fields of fire, and agreed it couldn't be done. Four marines or legionnaires with automatic weapons might hold out a few days if they never slept. The four here now would never make it, one to each side of the house, no communication between them. Knock one out, it was over. The Zip could bring a gang of people, put the place under siege. Feint coming in the back and drive a car through the front door. There were all kinds of ways in.

Robert Gee said, "So what do you think?"

Raylan said, "We got no choice, have to make a run. What's on the other side of Montallegro?"

"Nothing, goat trails. You go back down the way you came. Go to the police, if you get that far, what do you tell them? These guys are picking on us? These Italian guys with thirty million lire to give away? The police won't move till a crime's been committed. You know that."

"They might've already been contacted by Miami Beach PD," Raylan said.

And they might not have.

So think of something. Work out a way to make a run.

In the meantime try to make the place look vacant. Keep the shutters closed. No smoke coming out of the chimneys. Try to keep Harry from going outside. Make a run or before you know it the Zip's people would be by to check. Knocking on the front door or poking around looking for the cars, a gray one and a blue one. It would happen within a few days at the latest; there weren't that many villas up here that a wealthy bookmaker might lease. Raylan had found the house asking around. The Zip could do the same, check real estate offices in town, find the one Harry used. That wouldn't be too hard.