Vendetta for the Saint. (26 page)

He took aim with the razor again, at the
Saint’s
other cheek,
but this time it was easier for Simon to
wait passively for the contact. If the man
had any
serious
butchering intentions, he would scarcely
have passed up his first and best opportunity.

“What happened in Mistretta?”
Simon asked,
studiously
speaking like a ventriloquist without us
ing any external muscles.

“I don’ know an’ I don’ wanna. I don’
want-a no
beef wit’ da
Mafia. But dey been onna phone, I got
one-a da t’ree phones in dis crummy dump, an’ I
gotta pass on da word. I hear how you look,
how
you speak
English, how everyone should watch for
you.”

There
was no point in any more pretense.

“Do
they know I came over here?”

“Naw. It’s-a kinda general warning. They
don’
know where you
are, an’ everybody calls up ev
erybody else to
keep-a da eye open.”

“So you weren’t being such a Sherlock
Holmes
after all when you spotted me.”

“Don’ ride me, mister. I wanted to ‘ear
you talk,
find out what
kinda feller you are.”

“Why didn’t you cut my throat just now when
you had the chance, and maybe earn yourself a reward?”

“Listen, I don’t ‘ave to kill you
myself. I coulda
just let
you walk by, then talked on da phone. Let
da Mafia do the job. I woulda been sittin’ pretty,
an’ mos’ likely pick up a piece o’ change too. So
don’ ride me.”

“Sorry,” said the Saint. “But
you must admit it’s
a bit
surprising for anyone to find such a pal in these parts.”

The barber wiped his razor and stropped it
again
with slow slapping strokes, and
examined the
gleaming edge against the
light from the doorway.

“I ain’t your pal, but I ain’t-a no pal
o’ da Mafia
neither. They
done nothin’ for me I couldn’t ‘a
done better
for myself. Kick in, protection, just
like-a
da rackets in Chicago. Only in Chicago I make-a more money, I can afford it
better. I know
da score. I shoulda
stayed where I was well off; but I thought I could take it easy here on my
Social
Security an’ what I’d-a saved up, an’ just work
enough to pay da rent. I should-a ‘ad my ‘ead ex
amined.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t turn
me in.”

“Listen, when I get dis call, dey gimme
your
name. Simon
Templar. Probably don’ mean
nothin’
to dese peasants; but I been around. I know who you are. I know you made
trouble for lotsa racketeers. Dat’s okay with me. I’d-a turn you in in
a second, if it was my neck or yours. But I don’
mind if I can get you outa dis town—”

Suddenly there was the snarl of a motor-
scooter’s exhaust coming up from the valley
and
roaring into the
square like a magnified hornet
with
hiccups. The barber stopped all movement to
listen, and Simon could see the blood drain
out of
his face. The
scooter’s tempestuous arrival at this
torpid hour of the day obviously meant trouble,
and trouble could only mean the Mafia. While
the
barber stood
paralyzed, the mobile ear-splitter
added a screech of brakes to its gamut of sound
effects, and crescendoed to a stop outside
the shop
with a
climactic clatter that presaged imminent dis
integration.

“Quick!”
Simon whispered. “A wet towel!”

Galvanized at last into action by a command
that connected helpfully with established
reflexes of professional habit, the barber stumbled over to
the dual-purpose cooler and dredged up a
sodden
serviette from
under the ice and remaining bottles.
He scuttled back and draped it skilfully around
and over the Saint’s face as ominous footsteps
clomped on the cobbles, and the beaded door-cur
tain rattled as someone parted it and pushed
through.

It was an interesting situation, perhaps
more ap
pealing to an
audience than to a participant. The
barber was in a blue funk and might say anything;
in fact, to betray the Saint, he didn’t even
need to say anything, he only had to point to the customer
in the chair. He owed Simon nothing, and had
frankly admitted that he would not hesitate over a
choice between sympathy and his own
skin. The
Saint could only wait,
blind and defenseless, but
knowing
that any motion might precipitate a fatal
crisis. Which was not merely nerve-racking, but
diluted his capacity to enjoy the exhilarating
chill
of the refrigerated wetness on
his face.

Out of necessity, he lay there in a supine
im
mobility that called for
reserves of self-dominance
that
should have been drained by the razor-edge
ordeal of a few minutes ago, while the rider
rattled questions and commands in incomprehensible an
swers, but at last the curtain rattled again
and the
footsteps
stomped away outside and faded along
the sidewalk.

The towel was snatched from Simon’s face and
the chair tilted up with precipitate
abruptness.

“Get out,” rasped the barber, from
a throat tight
with
panic.

“What was he saying?” Simon asked,
stepping
quietly down.

“Get-a goin’!” The man pointed at
the door with
a shaking
forefinger. “He’s a messenger from the
Mafia, come-a to call out all da
mafiosi
in
dis vil
lage. They found
out you didn’t go down to da
coast
from Mistretta, so now they gonna search all-
a da hills. They don’ know you been here
yet, but
in a coupla
minutes they’ll be out lookin’ ev
erywhere an’ you
ain’t-a got a chance. They kill
you, an’ if
they find out you been ‘ere dey kill-a me
too! So get out!”

The Saint was already at the door, peering cautiously through the
curtain.

“What was that way you were going to
tell me to
get out of
town?”

“Fuori!”

Only the fear of being heard outside muted
what
would have
been a scream into a squeak, but Si
mon knew that he had used up the last iota of hospitality that was going
to be extended to him. If he
strained it another
fraction, the trembling barber
was almost
certain to try to whitewash himself by
raising the alarm.

The one consolation was that in his frantic
eagerness to be rid of his visitor the
barber had no
time to discuss
payment for the beer and salami or even for the shave, and the Saint was grateful
to be able to save the few coins in his pocket for another
emergency.

“Thanks for everything, anyway,
pal,” he said,
and
stepped out into the square.

4

Propped
upright in the gutter outside, the unguarded scooter was a temptation; but
Simon
Templar had
graduated to automobiles long before
vehicles of that type were introduced, and it would
have taken him a perilous interval of
fumbling to
find out how
to start it. Even then, it would have
provided anything but unobtrusive transportation;
indeed, the noise he had heard it make under
full
steam would be
more help to any posse in pursuit
of him than a pack of winged bloodhounds. Regretfully he decided that
its locomotive advantages
were
not for him.

He strolled across the square to the corner
from
which the main
road ran downhill, schooling
himself
to avoid any undue semblance of haste, but
feeling as ridiculous as an elephant trying
to pass unnoticed through an Eskimo settlement. The first
few shutters were opening, the first few
citizens
emerging torpidly
from their doors, and he was
acutely
aware that in any such isolated community
any stranger was a phenomenon to be observed
and analyzed and speculated upon. The best that
he could hope for was to be taken for an adven
turous tourist who had strayed off the beaten
track, or somebody’s visiting cousin from another
province who had not yet been introduced around.
When there was no outcry after the first few pre
carious seconds, it suggested that the barber had
ultimately decided to keep quiet: if he shouted as
late as this, the messenger might remember the
towel-draped anonymity in the chair and wonder
.
. . Therefore the Saint could still hope to slip through the trap before the
jaws closed.

And as each stride took him farther from the
town center and the risk of total
encirclement, his spirits rose to overtake the physical resurgence that
the interlude of refreshment and recuperation
in
the barber shop had quickened—so
much that
when he saw a
hulking and beady-eyed ruffian star
ing fixedly at him through every step that led
through one of the last blocks of the village
build
ings, it was
only a challenge to the oldest recourse of Saintly impudence, and he walked deliberately
and unswervingly into the
focus of the stare until it
wavered
uncertainly before the arrogant con
fidence of his approach.

“Ciao,”
said the Saint condescendingly, with a
superior Neapolitan accent. “He will be
coming in
a few minutes.
But do not glare at him like that, or
he will turn back and run.”

“What
am I to do, then?” mumbled the bully.

“Pretend to be busy with something else.
After he
passes, whistle
Arrivederci, Roma,
very loudly. We
shall hear it, and be waiting for him.”

He strode on, disdaining even to pause for ac
knowledgement of the order, though the back
of
his neck prickled.

But it worked. He had broken another cordon,
and the way he had done it proved how much he
had recuperated. He felt his morale beginning
to
soar again. More nets
would be cast, but his inexhaustible flair for the unexpected would take him
through them.

In a few more moments he had left the last
cot
tages behind,
and then a curve in the road took him
altogether out of sight of the village and the
watcher on the outskirts who should now be
watch
ing the
opposite way anyhow.

He quickened his step to a gait which from
any distance would still have looked like a walk, attracting less attention
than a run, but whose deceptive
ly
lengthened stride covered the ground at a speed
which most men would have had to run to keep
up
with. At the same time his
eyes ceaselessly scanned
the
barren ridges on either side, alert for any other
sentinels who might be watching the road
from the
heights. The
road wound steadily downhill, mak
ing his breakneck pace possible in spite of the sti
fling heat, and he kept it up without sparing
himself,
knowing that
the canyon he followed could be either his salvation or a death trap.

If he had not met the goatherd on the
summit, and then had to stop in the last village, he might
have had more latitude of choice, perhaps
spending
a night in the
trackless hills and continuing across
country until he could drop down into Cefal
ù
,
which he should have been able to locate from
some peak if he was in the
approximate area which
he
had deduced from his glimpse of Etna. But that was impossible now after where
he had been seen.
So far he was ahead of the
chase, and had suc
ceeded in out-thinking it
as well, but that advan
tage would be
lost as soon as the reports filtered in
and were coordinated. His only hope now was to
reach the coast before he was completely cut off,
and lose himself in the crowds which could still
be
treacherous but could give better
cover than any
scrawny growth on the stark uplands.