Chapter 11
George's story was quite a tale. And one of tail.
In the privacy of his office, he didn't go into any details, but he didn't have to because it was one that I'd heard many times. He fidgeted a lot and paused often to get it into chronological order, and when he'd finished it followed the basic pattern, with a few exceptions.
Ever since he joined in the Foreign Service, he'd wandered away from Terry and the marriage bed occasionally, and on one of the occasions years ago someone had been there to record the bed meeting on film.
He hadn't been aware of it until less than a year ago. Suddenly in Rome, Zora had appeared and it had been easy for her to lure him into a tryste, but when he'd reached for her she'd reached into her purse and confronted him with a photograph. The two naked figures on the bed were clearly identifiable.
George, was one. The other was a girl who had been featured in the newspapers as one of the Communist leaders in the Bologna area. It was simple blackmail. The girl needed a visa to get to the States and it was up to George to get it for her. Either that or the photo of him would be made public. Both in Rome and in Washington.
George had gotten her the visa and she'd disappeared, and then he'd been forced to do the same thing for two men. He'd had the opportunity then to get out of Rome, and happily he'd come to Genoa, hoping that they wouldn't bother him again. They had.
Zora bothered him. Now she needed a visa. He objected, but now she promised him the negative, and he'd agreed.
Consequently, that very morning at nine o'clock George had met Zora in a small bar, as she'd instructed him. He'd given her the visa, and she'd given him the negative plus a handful of prints, and she'd promised to leave Italy immediately.
When George returned to the Consulate, Johnny Longo had been waiting for him. Johnny had revealed that the Greek with the long last name had been murdered with a vase, and that Zora, his mistress, was the prime suspect. The police throughout Italy had been alerted, as well as the border guards and Interpol.
"So, that's the way the matter stands at the moment," George concluded. "Zora has the visa and she's going to try to get out of Italy, and into the States with it. The moment she hits the border she'll be picked up and they will find the visa that I issued her." He shook his head. "Without the authority to issue it, it will cost me my career."
Now I understood the look that had passed between Zora and George at the cocktail party, and I realized that George had been forced to go see her the afternoon I'd been at his apartment with Terry. Apparently Terry's suspicions about him and Zora were completely unfounded.
Then the full impact of what he'd told me hit. I'd bedded down with a beautiful blonde Communist murderess. I sure knew how to pick them.
George was staring numbly at the floor. "I left this office at quarter to nine. Longo dropped by here the first time at nine o'clock, to tell me that Zora had killed the Greek. Fifteen goddam minutes' difference! If I'd known-if Longo had been here when I left-I could have taken him with me when I went to met her, and he could have picked her up. I could have gotten the negative back eventually, and that would have ended everything. Fifteen minutes!"
"Don't give up yet, George."
He shook his head. "I can't think of any way to stop her now."
"George," I asked, "did Longo mention what time last night the Greek had been killed?"
"Some time between eight and nine o'clock."
Only a corpse had probably been in the apartment when I was banging on Zora's door last night because she'd obviously run. She'd have had to hide out until this morning so that she could meet George and get the visa. And she'd hidden out in my bed.
He got up now, walked wearily to the window and looked out. "All this for a little piece of tail. Remember the story about the torn cat walking across the railroad track and a train comes along and cuts off a piece of his tail? Then when he goes back to pick up the chopped-off piece of tail, another train comes along and chops off his head, the moral of the story being: don't lose your head for a piece of tail." George sighed audibly. "My head has been chopped. That's the way I feel at this moment."
"I wish I knew how I could help you, George, but at the moment I'm at a loss, especially for words."
"You've helped me a lot already, just letting me tell you all about it. I haven't been able to talk about it, I haven't been able to say a word about it to anyone. Its torture keeping something like that bottled up inside of you. After a while you think you'll go out of your mind."
I stayed with him a while longer, merely trying to sound sympathetic and understanding, but I knew now why Washington had sent me here. Apparently it had' 'been discovered that George was letting Communists into the States. Washington couldn't figure out why, but they wanted it stopped. I knew exactly how I was going to write up my complete report when I walked out of his office.
I closed the door softly behind me and saw Pat Gordon sitting at her desk. She was still pretty cute.
Her eyes sparkled when she saw me, "Hello darling."
"Hi, doll."
"Luigi told me you were in there with Mr. Heatherington. I could hardly stand it, waiting for you to come out." She jumped to her feet and came around the desk. She stood close to me, with her glance on my face. The fingers of one hand slipped inside the front of my shirt.
"How have you been, Chris?"
"I've been fine, Pat."
"I've missed you terribly, Chris."
"Have you really?"
She nodded. Then she stood on her toes and whispered. "I love you, Chris."
This wasn't my day. I'd just learned what kind of a woman I break beds with, and now this one was telling me she loved me.
"Do you love me, too?" she was asking, her voice shrilling with urgency.
I was remembering Trixie and Angelina, and suddenly I had the feeling there had to be a moral somewhere. They hadn't insisted on a thing, no one had even pretended that it was the greatest love story of the century. It was just sex. They wanted it, needed it, acquired it, and enjoyed it. And they were honest enough to admit it.
Pat's hand was tugging at my shirt front now, the way a child might tug at its mother's apron. She was asking, quite insistently, "You do love me, too, don't you, Chris? Tell me you do, because I love you so much. So very much."
I wanted to shove her away from me, but the memory of her loneliness stopped me.
"I like you very much, Pat, but I don't love you."
That must have hurt her more than a violent shove, because tears welled up in her eyes and her teeth ground into her lower lip.
Gently I said, "You shouldn't get serious about me, Pat. Just because you're lonely and you need someone-you can't buy love after a night in bed."
She ducked by me with her head down, turned left at the door and hurried down the hall.
I left the consulate and drove back to Santa Margherita. While I steered the car around the curves and rode the horn continuously, the way all drivers perform in Italy, I kept thinking a-bout the story George had told me, and the strange way in which fate often touches people's lives.
I'd been sent to Genoa on an assignment that I especially didn't want, I'd had nothing but luck from the very beginning, including some sex, and very easily I'd accomplished everything I'd been asked to do. What could I do for an encore?
Now as I drove into Santa Margherita and parked near the hotel, I came up with a few definite conclusions. I didn't want to get involved with the police about Zora, I didn't want to sea her again, and I didn't want to get involved with George's personal problems. Terry.
I wanted to go into the hotel and get into my trunks, and I wanted to get some sun, swim a little and, just think about girls with eye-catching sweaters.
Then two guys wearing expensive slacks and sports shirts closed in on me the second I got out of the car, and each one used a hand to feel my biceps. Friendly chaps they were too, grinning and nodding at me as though we'd been sharing pizzas most of our lives.
The right hand of the one on my right was in a small briefcase, made of soft leather and highly-polished. He said, "Inside this is a gun. My finger is on the trigger." He paused to smile. "Come along, Joe."
The mention of the gun didn't impress me, but the way in which he told me about it did. So we three bareheaded lads strolled through the crowd, unhurriedly, the two of them grinning and chattering softly to me in Italian. The round-faced chap on my left even turned halfway around twice to watch the stuff in short-shorts walking by.
I suddenly realized that the sun was very hot, and I was getting more uncomfortable by the second. The fact that I'd just been thinking about relaxing, and swimming and looking didn't help matters.
They strolled me down a narrow side street, made a few right turns and a left, and headed for a grey Mercedes sedan. I made a point to memorize the license plate. TO-24818.
The next moment I was in the back seat of the Mercedes with the man holding the briefcase. The other one slid behind the wheel.
The hand came out of the briefcase now, and it really held a gun. It was black and short and ugly, a foreign make, and it had a big round hole in the muzzled. About a .38 caliber, I guessed.
The gunman with the long narrow teeth asked, "Where is she, Joe? Where is Zora?"
The one in the front had turned around. He placed a hairy forearm on the back of the front seat, propped his chin on the wrist, and got ready to listen.
If they'd been police I would have asked them for their identification. If they hadn't had a gun I would have asked them why they wanted to know.
Under the circumstances, I said, "I don't know where she is."
"Where did she say she was going when she left you last night?" the man with the gun asked.
"She didn't tell me."
"Don't lie," he said, as though he were reprimanding a child. "Don't protect her. She's nothing to you."
"I'm telling you the truth," I said. "I was asleep when she left. I don't know where she was going. I don't know where she is now."
"She must have told you something last night." The humor crinkled the corners of his eyes. "About where she'd be today, I mean."
"Not a word."
Roundface laughed softly and spoke in Italian.
"Si, si," the man with the gun agreed. Then he said something in Italian to his partner.
If he'd pulled the trigger at that moment it would have missed me. That's why I dove for his gun hand.
I got it in both of my hands and kept the gun muzzle headed away from me while we wrestled and fought in the back seat. I was doing very well, until something chunked against the back of my head.
I tumbled forward into a big black vat and I never hit bottom.
When the blackness began to seep out of my brain again I heard a motor running, and I felt the vibration of its gears and driveshaft long before I opened my eyes. Occasionally I heard the metallic ting of a rock hitting the underside of the car.
I smelled dust and the scent of rubber and upholstery. Finally I opened my eyes and sneaked a peek. I was lying on the side of my face on the floor of the back seat with my legs doubled up and the bottom of my shoes pushing against the side of the door. Apparently I'd been in that position for quite a while because my knees ached. So did the back of my head.
I felt something in the middle of my back, weighting me down. Shoes? They were shoes all right, and they had feet in them. I guessed they belonged to the man with the gun.
The brakes were jammed on abruptly and the momentum of it shoved me forward until most of my weight was resting on the bridge of my nose. I felt the car making a sharp turn, and then it was moving slowly, rocking and pitching, as though we were moving over a rutty road. After several minutes of that the car eased to a stop, and the motor was turned off.
My eyes were closed again. Chris Cody in the role of Playin' Possum.
Then they popped open because I'd been jolted roughly in the seat of my pants with the side of a shoe. With a foot in it. The door opened and I could finally stretch my legs, but a moment later the two of them had dragged me outside and propped me up against the side of the Mercedes.
The sun was still shining brightly, blinding me, but I was able to distinguish trees in my line of vision. I blinked and held onto the car door to keep the dizziness from dragging me down to my knees.
The one with the round face grabbed an arm and helped me keep my balance. The one with the gun moved in front of me. He spoke softly and patiently.
"We want to know where we can find Zora. If you remember, please tell us."
"I don't know where she is. She left my room during the night. I don't know what time she left. I don't know where she was going when she left. And I don't know where she is now."
"Don't lie, Joe."
"I don't know anything about her."
I felt myself being shoved roughly away from the side of the car, and as I stumbled forward, trying to keep from falling, that same something crunched against the back of my head again.
Not hard this time. Just a stunning blow, making my eyes rattle in their sockets and driving me to my knees.
"Where did she go?" I heard one of them ask.
"I don't know."
Pow!
I got rapped on the head again. I fought back the haziness and realized I'd slumped forward, with my nose digging into the ground. I pulled myself up, propping myself onto my arms and hands and feeling the tickling warmth running over my upper lip, and realizing that my nose had started to bleed.
Telling the truth hadn't been appreciated. I decided to lie.
"Where did she go?"
"To the airport," I said. "She took a cab to the airport. She was taking a plane out of Genoa."
"An Italian plane?"
"I guess."
"From the Genoa airport?"
I nodded.
"She had a reservation?"
I nodded again.
The sap socked viciously into my shoulder, right at the spot where my neck connects with my shoulder. It felt like a giant hammer, and it slammed me to the ground. My entire arm was numb and the spot throbbed, but I shoved myself upright again.
"There is no airport in Genoa," a voice said.
I remembered that mother had told me never to lie.
"You lied," a voice said.
"Yes, I lied."
"So, where did she go?"
"I don't know."
Things got confused and very mixed up after that. The giant hammer kept pounding into my shoulder, knocking me down each time. Each time my face hit the ground I could dimly see the sharp-pointed Italian shoes a foot away. I didn't want them in my teeth, and so I kept shoving myself away each time they knocked me down.
I had to swear I wasn't lying. I had to swear on my mother's head I wasn't lying. I had to swear on whatever was holy to me that I wasn't lying.
I don't know which one convinced them, but suddenly a tremendous rap on the back of my head ended it.
There was black emptiness and I slid into it, happy and grateful to be left alone.