Vendetta for the Saint. (28 page)

He fired a single shot into its gas tank to
eliminate it from further participation in the
pursuit, and set off again at a mile-eating
trot that
tried to ignore
the heat.

The mountain road twisted and doubled back
upon itself like a tortured serpent. At some
of the
turns, when no
unscaleable cliff or other geological
barrier intervened, a rough footpath short-cir
cuited the loop for the benefit of
pedestrians.
The Saint took
advantage of all of them without
slackening
speed, although some of them dropped
at forty-five degree angles and any slip might have
meant violent injury.

The slopes were broken and rough, with little
but cactus and thorny
bushes holding their super
ficial
shale together, and twice he picked his own
route across the pebble-strewn beds of
gullies
gouged by
torrents of some mythical rainy season
rather than following even the slightly more
cautious trail worn by previous short-cutters.

He
was in the middle of one of these when he
heard the anguished whine of an automobile’s
straining gear-box coming up
the valley from
below, and he did not need to
call on his clair
voyant gifts to divine
that no innocent tourist con
veyance
would be in such a screaming rush to get to the drab
cittadina
at the
head of that forsaken
gorge.

There
was no cover in the flat stream bed, and he
would be instantly noticeable from anything
cross
ing the stone
bridge forty yards away. The bridge
itself offered the only possible concealment, but
that meant running towards the approaching car
with the certainty of being still more
conspicuous if
he failed to win the
race. Simon sprinted with grim
determination,
the loose rocks spurting from under
his
feet and the shrill grind of the car coming closer
with terrifying rapidity. He dived under the shad
ow
of the bridge’s single arch only a heart-beat before the car rumbled over it
and yowled on up
the grade.

The Saint allowed himself half a minute to be
sure it was out of sight, and to let the heaving
of his
lungs subside. Then he climbed
the bank to the
road above.

His decision not to try to help himself to
the
scooter had
vindicated itself even more promptly
than he had anticipated.

But now, through a gap in the hills ahead, he
could see the benign blue Mediterranean less than
a mile away.

It was only a question of whether he could
reach
it before the
hunters turned around and overtook
him again.

VI

How
the Saint enjoyed another Reunion

and
Marco Ponti introduced

Reinforcements

Simon knew how
far he had come from where he
had
abandoned the cart, and could figure how long
it would take the second automobile to climb to
that spot. In his mind’s eye, as he ran, he saw
the
car braking, the examination of
the sleeping
scooterist, the reviving and questioning of the
peasant. In that way he kept a sort of theoretical
clock on the progress of
developments behind him
against which
he could continuously measure his
chances
of reaching the coast before the pursuit
turned their car around—in itself a substantially time-consuming
maneuver on that narrow road—
and set off to overtake him. And his
spirits rose
with every stride as his
glimpses of the sea came
closer and
the picture in his mind was still not fran
tically ominous.

Even in his athletic prime he would have had
to
leave the four-minute mile
to the specialists, but on a downhill course and under the spur of life
preservation he thought he could come close. And on the
highway there would be buses and trucks, and
beside it the coastal railway as well …

Every run of bad cards must have a break, how
ever brief, as every gambler knows; and as the
Saint reached the main
road at last, and his vis
ualization
of the most imminent menace still had
the warriors up the hill only now looking for a
place to turn their oversize chariot, it seemed to
him that his turn was veritably setting in. For
less than a hundred yards away on his right, a heavily
laden
autobus
was grinding noisily towards
him,
with the inspiring name PALERMO
on the front
to indicate its destination.

There were no other vehicles in sight at this
moment, and no surly characters with artillery in their
pockets to bar his way. The next steps
towards escape only had to be taken across the highway, and
called for no additional effort beyond
flagging
down the
driver.

Brakes protested, and the bus lurched to a
stop.
Simon climbed
in, the door slammed behind him,
and he was on his
way again.

But as he paid his fare, he felt that his
arrival was
causing a
minor stir among the passengers. It was
a local bus, and the riders seemed to
consist mostly
of
regional habitants and their produce, progeny, and purchases. Perhaps that was
the cause of their
interest:
the Saint was a stranger and obviously a
different type, and for lack of anything
better to do
they would
study and speculate about him. Yet
there seemed to be an undercurrent of tension run
ning counter to this simple bucolic
curiosity. Un
less he was
excessively self-conscious, he felt as if
the other passengers were allowing him far
more
room than they
gave each other. In fact, he had a
distinct impression that they were moving as far
away from him as the packed conditions would
al
low.

Considering the aromas of garlic and honest
sweat which pervaded the interior in
multiple com
binations with
other less readily recognizable perfumes, it was somewhat disturbing to
speculate on
what exotic odor
he might be diffusing about
which
even the best Sicilian wouldn’t tell him. Per
haps he was being unduly sensitive; but the
events
of that day
and the previous night would have undermined anyone’s confidence in his
popularity or social magnetism.

He tried his most innocent and endearing
smile
on one of the
women nearest to him, who was staring into his face with a fixed intensity
which sug
gested either
extreme myopia or partial hypnosis,
and she
crossed herself hurriedly and squirmed
back
into the engulfing crowd with a look of
startled panic.

He hadn’t been imagining things. Someone had
already identified him, and
the whispered word had been passed around.

The fact could be read now in the tense
lines of
their bodies,
their petrified immobility or nervous
fidgeting, and the way their eyes fastened on him
and then slid away when he looked in their
direc
tion. The
Saint’s description had clearly been
circulated throughout the entire district, with
promises of reward for finding and/or threats
of
punishment for hiding him, and in every crowd
there was likely to be one who had heard it.

There didn’t seem to be any Mafia hirelings
on
the bus itself, or they
would already have gone into action; but he could expect no allies either. None
of
these people might actively try to attack him,
nor
would they give him any aid or comfort.
Even if they were not sympathizers with the Mafia, they
had been terrorized for so long that they would
do
exactly what the organization had ordered.

The bus ground protestingly up the grades
and
clattered
recklessly down the alternating slopes
that made up for them, obedient to the latent
death-wish of the normal Italian driver; and with
each kilometer the suspense drew tauter, but not from the inherent
uncertainties of Sicilian public
transportation.

Sometimes the conveyance stopped to pick up
new travellers or to let others off; and
Simon did
not need
extrasensory perception to know that as
soon as telephones could be reached the wires
would be humming with reports of his sighting.

And at each stop there was a rearrangement of
seating and standing room,
until there were only
men
around him, uneasy but grim. He wondered
how much longer it would be before one of
them
might be
tempted to try for a medal, and he moved
his hand to rest it near the butt of the gun
under his shirt.

If the pressure seemed to be creeping too
close to
an explosion
point he would have to get off before Palermo. It might be a wise precaution in
any case.
He had no idea
how long the full trip would take,
but it would certainly be long enough for a wel
coming delegation to muster at the terminus.
The
equation of
survival that had to be solved required
a blind guess at the unknown length of time
he
could stay with the bus to
gain the maximum es
cape
mileage, before warnings telephoned ahead would have a reception committee
assembled and
waiting for him
at the next stop.

He
had been keeping most of his attention on the
other riders, who had packed themselves
closer to
suffocation in
their desire to keep beyond con
tamination range of
him, but he had been careful
to reserve
some portion of his awareness for the
outside
world through which they travelled. He
was
not concerned with noting all the spots of
scenic interest, but with observing any other vehi
cles whose occupants might evince unusual
interest
in the one he rode in. And
now his circumspection
suddenly paid
off. A large American sedan pulled
around
from behind the bus with a screaming
horn,
as if to pass it, and then simply stayed level
with it, while swarthy faces carefully scanned the
interior.

Trying not to make any sharp conspicuous
movement, Simon edged farther towards the op
posite side, bending his knees and slumping
his
spine to
diminish his height, and trying to keep the heads of other passengers between
the parallel car
and the
smallest segment of his face which would
let him keep an eye on it and its occupants.

It
was a good try, but there was a typically neutralist consensus against it. As
his fellow travellers
also
became aware of the car keeping alongside,
they separated and shrank away, either as a p
harisaic way of pointing him out without
point
ing, or to
remove themselves from the line of fire if
there was to be any shooting. Either way, the
result
was
disastrously the same. A lane opened up across
the bus, with passengers trampling each other’s
corns on both sides but leaving a clear space be
tween Simon and the windows. Even the seated
riders
found themselves suddenly irked by the
burden
on their buttocks, and got up to join the
sardine pack of standees.

Simon Templar, willy-nilly, was given as
unobstructed a view of the men in the car as they were
given of him.

But after the first glance there was only
one face that held his attention: the face of the man in front,
beside the driver. A fat, reddened, unshaven
face
that cracked
in a lipless grin like a triumphant liz
ard as the recognition became mutual.

The face of Al
Destamio.

Simon wished he had been wearing a hat, so
that
he could have
raised it in a mocking salute that seemed to be the only possible gesture at
the mo
ment. Instead,
he had to be content with giving his
pursuer a radiant smile and a friendly wave which
was not returned.