Street of the Five Moons (24 page)

I knew that making a call to Munich wasn’t going to be easy. The intricacies of the Italian telephone system are incomprehensible to anyone who is used to the high-priced but efficient manipulations of Ma Bell. For instance — how do you make a long-distance call from a pay phone when the small change of Italy consists of dirty crumpled little paper bills? But money talks, and I had some left from what John had given me. After a long, agitated exchange with the operator, the proprietor of the tobacconist’s shop finally consented to take every cent I had and let me make the call. It was about three times what a call to Alaska would have cost, but I was in a hurry.

The greedy little so-and-so hovered over me, ready to snatch the phone from my hand if I talked more than three minutes. Finally, after a series of buzzes and shrieks in three different languages, and a misconnection with a garage in downtown Frankfurt, I heard the familiar voice of Schmidt’s secretary.

“Gerda,” I shouted. “It’s Vicky. Give me Herr—”

“Ah, Vicky. Where are you?”

“Still in Rome. Let me talk to—”

“You lucky girl.” Gerda sighed, a long, expensive sigh. “How is Rome? I’ll bet you have found a nice Italian friend, haven’t you? Tell me what—”

“Gerda, I can’t talk,” I shrieked, glaring at the proprietor, who was breathing garlic over my shoulder. “Quick, let me talk to Schmidt.”

“He isn’t here.”

“What?”

“Signorina, it is already two minutes—”

“Shut up! No, not you, Gerda.”

“What did you say, Vicky?”

“Signorina, you have told me you would only speak—”

I turned away from the fat, hairy hand that was trying to grab the phone from me.

“Gerda — where is the Professor?”

“He had to go out. Tell me about the night clubs.”

“Signorina!”

“When will he be back?”

“Oh, soon. Was he expecting a call from you?”

“Yes,” I screamed, spinning around as the proprietor made another grab at the phone. The cord wound around my neck.

“Signorina, you cheat me! I call the police—”

“You blood-sucking leech, I paid you twice what this call will cost!”

“Vicky, who are you talking to?”

“You, unfortunately! I was supposed to call Professor Schmidt at five, Gerda. It’s vital — an emergency.”

“Your voice sounds funny,” said Gerda interestedly.

“That’s because I am being strangled by a telephone cord,” I said, jabbing my elbow into the tobacconist’s stomach.

Gerda giggled.

“You are so funny, Vicky. Always we say here, Vicky is the one who makes us laugh.”

“
Polizia! Polizia
!”

“Who is calling the police?” Gerda asked. “Oh — oh, is it a robbery, your emergency? Vicky, you should not be calling Herr Professor Schmidt; you should telephone the police.”

“Gerda,” I said, between my teeth, “tell me when Professor Schmidt will be back. Tell me now, this instant, or I will send you a bomb in the mail.”

“But at five, of course,” said Gerda. “He said you would be calling then. Vicky, have you bought any clothes? The boutiques of Rome are famous.”

I glanced over my shoulder. The tobacconist had never had any intention of calling the police, his cries had only been an attempt to scare me off. He had summoned more effective assistance. From the rear of the shop came a huge woman brandishing a frying pan. I dropped the phone and ran.

I ran all the way down the Viale Trastevere till I reached the river, not because I feared pursuit from the angry spouse of the tobacconist, but because my frustration demanded rapid movement. It was unreasonable of me to be angry with Schmidt; I couldn’t expect him to sit in his office all day waiting for me to call, when I told him I would telephone at a specific hour. But now I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t telephone Munich police because I had no money.

I collapsed onto one of the benches along the boulevard by the Tiber. People looked at me oddly as I sprawled there, streaming with perspiration and gasping for breath, but I didn’t care. What bothered me was the fact that I wasn’t thinking clearly. The situation wasn’t all that bad; there was no reason for me to get in a state just because I couldn’t find Schmidt. I had no watch, but I knew it must be late in the afternoon, and Schmidt would be sitting in his office like a good little spy in a couple of hours at the latest. In the meantime, I could go to the Rome police and get things started. I could call Schmidt from the station. It was the only sensible thing to do. So why did I have the feeling that time was running out — that every second now was a matter of life and death?

I respect hunches. Sometimes they are the product of irrational, neurotic fears, but I am no more neurotic than the next person, and a good many of my “premonitions” have been caused by subconscious but perfectly rational thinking. As I sat there with the cool breeze from the river fanning my hot face, I knew there was something I hadn’t taken into account — some fact, observed but not yet consciously catalogued, that was responsible for my present state of uneasy tension. I put my head down into my hands, pressed my knuckles into my skull, and tried to think.

Bright against the black background of my closed eyes, in full living color, came Helena’s face, black and swollen, framed by the swirling masses of her silvery hair.

I opened my eyes in a hurry. The sun was halfway down the sky, its mellow rays gilding the golden domes and spires of Rome. The shadows were lovely soft colors, not gray, but shades of blue and lavender and mauve.

Go back to Helena’s death, I told myself. Never mind why she was killed; just take the fact itself and go on from there.

Once she was dead, some smart guy — The Boss, perhaps — got the idea of killing two birds with one stone. It is very difficult to pass off death by strangulation as an accident. By putting Helena’s body in John’s apartment they provided the police with a murderer, and discredited anything John might say about them.

John was their big problem. Not me; I couldn’t prove anything. Give them a few hours in which to dismantle the workshop and hide any other incriminating evidence, and I would have a very hard time nailing them. The kidnapping, the hours of imprisonment in the cellars, the homicidal chase across the gardens — all my word against theirs. By this time the little room tinder Luigi’s studio might be full of extra canvases, or bales of hay. Thanks to the lists John had given me, I knew the names of the collectors he had sold things to, and eventually I would be able to track down the fake jewels. But the gang didn’t know I had that information. They couldn’t be greatly worried about me.

John was a horse of a different color. He knew names and details, and he would talk, to clear himself of a murder charge….

Alarm bells began ringing in my brain. Something didn’t make sense. A murder charge might discredit John’s testimony, but the police were bound to check up on the things he told them, and that wouldn’t be too good for the gang. They could count on his silence if he was not provoked; he couldn’t accuse them of fraud without incriminating himself. But murder…

They knew where his apartment was located. (Another alarm bell jangled; I ignored it, that was a side issue, and I was nose down on another trail, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t arrive at the conclusion I was already anticipating.) They had taken Helena’s body to the apartment, and then…. No. No, of course they wouldn’t call the police. They could call later, if the concierge didn’t discover the body, but not right away. Because there was a good chance that John would return to the apartment before he left the country. He had to have that passport. And when he returned…

Then I remembered. I knew what it was that had been nagging at my subconscious, the unnoticed fact that had started those alarm bells ringing. It was such a little thing — just a small metal insignia on the hood of a car. I don’t care much about cars, and my attention had been focused on more important details in that scene, as John was heaved into the waiting vehicle, but the emblem had registered, all the same. The car had been a Mercedes. Romans are great believers in making a
bella figura
, but I doubted they would go so far as to buy a Mercedes for their policemen to drive around in.

I started up off that bench as if I had been stabbed, then forced myself to sit down again. I had already committed one catastrophic error of logic. From now on I had to consider all the angles.

John had never been under any illusions as to who our pursuers were, I realized that now. I was developing a deplorable tendency to think of him as surrounded by a rosy halo of heroism, but helping me to get away hadn’t been noble, it had just been common sense. Together we could never have made it. He was counting on me to come to his rescue. Why he thought he could count on it I couldn’t imagine — but of course he was right. Only I didn’t know how to go about it.

John had told me to call Schmidt. With my boss to back me up I could convince the Roman authorities of my bona fides much more quickly, but even assuming I could enlist police assistance, where was I supposed to look for John? They wouldn’t take him to the palace or the villa. Maybe they would just kill him immediately.

Again I forced my brain away from a series of nasty technicolor images — all the possible methods of mayhem and torture John might be experiencing at this moment — and tried to think positively. They wouldn’t kill him, not if he got a chance to talk first. John had a few heroic qualities — more than he liked to admit — but he also had a very devious mind. I knew the way that mind worked, and I could make a good guess as to the type of story he would tell. Incriminating documents, photographs, statements — all in my hot little hands. Yes, he would tell them that, damn his eyes, with no qualms about endangering me. As he would have said, he wasn’t that noble.

I wondered why they hadn’t chased after me, onto the roof. They must have known I was with John. Hell, they must have seen us go in together. Several answers suggested themselves. For one thing, they wouldn’t be anxious to be seen galloping around the roofs of Rome. They had made quite a bit of noise breaking into the apartment, and it behooved them to get out in a hurry before someone called the real police.

I had it figured out now, clever me. I almost wished I hadn’t. John was in the hands of Pietro and his friends, who were probably calling the police now, if they hadn’t already done so, to inform them that there was a dead woman in an apartment just off the Viale Trastevere — an apartment rented by a blond Englishman. When Helena was identified, Pietro would be prepared with a convincing story. Alas, the murderous foreigner was his missing secretary, who had seduced and then murdered his mistress. The police would look for John — and they would find him. But not alive.

I couldn’t sit still any longer. I started across the bridge, weaving in and out of the traffic at top speed. No local police station for me; I was going straight to the center, on the Piazza San Vitale. It was a long walk, but I didn’t have money for a taxi.

I was about halfway across the bridge when another idea hit me. It was such a brilliant idea I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before. I kept on walking, and as I went I fumbled around in the bottom of my purse. I always have odds and ends at the bottoms of my purses, even when I have owned the purse for only a few hours. I almost cheered when my fingers found a crumpled, limp scrap of paper. It was a battered hundred-lira note, which had somehow escaped my notice when the blood-sucking tobacconist was relieving me of my worldly wealth. I had just enough money for one local phone call.

I bought a
gettone
from the clerk behind the counter of the first café I came to, and dashed to the phone. There was no telephone book, of course, but the operator gave me the number. I identified myself, and was put through to the secretary.

The principessa wasn’t in her office. With a little pressure I got her home address from the secretary. I don’t know what I would have done if she had lived out in one of the suburbs. I didn’t even have bus fare. Fortunately her house was on the Gianicolo, not far away.

I could call Schmidt on her telephone. And even if she didn’t believe my story, she could vouch for me to the police. I wondered why it had taken me so long to remember that I had a prominent reference, right here in Rome.

Europeans like privacy. They don’t put up cute little picket fences, they build walls. The principessa’s house was a fairly modest modern structure, but the walls were very high. The gate stood invitingly open, however, and I walked along the graveled path between beds of flowers up to the front door.

Before I could search for a bell or a knocker, the door was opened by the principessa herself.

The rays of the declining sun cut straight across the garden, so that she stood pilloried against the darkness of the hall as if by a searchlight. She was wearing a long silky robe of brilliant scarlet. It was belted tightly at the waist and clung to her hips and breasts like plastic wrap. The light was not flattering to her face. I saw sagging muscles and wrinkles I had not noticed before.

“Oh,” I said startled. “Did — I guess your secretary must have told you I was coming.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I wouldn’t have come if it hadn’t been an emergency.”

“That is quite all right. Do come in.”

She stepped back, with a welcoming gesture. The hall inside was dusky, all the shades drawn against the heat of the day. Suddenly I was so tired my knees buckled. I caught at the door frame.

“Poor child,” she said warmly. “Something has happened. Come in and tell me about it.”

She put out her hand to help me. It closed over my arm with a strength I would not have suspected, and drew me in. The door closed, and we were in semi-darkness.

“This way,” she said, and preceded me along the hall, past several doors that were closed or slightly ajar. She opened a door at the end of the hall. Sunlight flooded into the dark.

The
salone
was a long room with a fireplace on one wall and a series of windows looking out upon a green garden. I collapsed into the nearest chair, and Bianca went to a table. Ice tinkled.