The Big Stiffs Page 4

  A new man at the paneled front desk favored me with an expressionless stare as I came up the drive into the lobby. A fast glance at the pigeon-holed rack behind him showed no mail or messages or calls for Camera Numero Veingte Cinque. Room Number Twenty Five was mine. And the new desk man hadn't been on duty when Captain Santini's flying squad had descended on me earlier in the day. His bored attitude gave him away.

  When I asked him for the room key, he went all owl on me, comically. Blinking his eyes rapidly, tightening his mouth like the spring on a cheap watch and pulling his hand back as if I had leprosy. I showed him my teeth, said nothing and marched across the lobby, disappearing behind the door of the tiny foyer which led to Room Twenty Five. I was sure his eyes drilled holes into my back the full distance. There was no blaming him, really. Rome couldn't have been the most exciting place in the world to a homegrown Italian. Especially on one more molto humido day.

  Locking the door of the room, I got organized in a hurry.

  The luggage and attaché case were neatly placed on the floor between the white cane chair and the cedarwood bureau. Checking them took only a few careful minutes. Everything seemed to be as before. Santini had kept his promise. I was still the owner of plastic explosives, gimmicked pistol-lighters, ammunition and assorted James Bond weapons. Again, it was surprising that the Captain should be so charitable, whether I was authorized or not. Licensed or not.

  Nothing had been touched or rearranged.

  Everything looked to be in working order.

  Frowning, I placed the thick brown leather diary among my shirts and socks in the suitcase. My diary-keeping days were over. As far as Rome was concerned. Writing wasn't going to solve things.

  Food was no longer a problem because I had stopped en route from the lock-up to stoke down a ham and cheese sandwich and two cups of American coffee in a sidewalk restaurant near the Piazza del Popolo.

  Sitting there in the muggy night, staring up at the lovely obelisk in the center of the setting, had calmed me down considerably after the farce with Hugo, Alfredo and Gino. The moon was a white balloon and it wasn't saying Yankee, Go Home!

  But now I was thirsty. Drier than Utah at high noon.

  The little refrigerator in the corner of the room, provided by the Villa Del Parco for all its patrons, was a never-empty store of soft drinks, beer, wine and sundry other goodies. I found a small bottle of aranciata and took care of Utah. Aranciata is nothing more than orange pop but it helped kill the heat. There was no point in hitting the joy juice just yet. A big night loomed ahead. I had to be on my toes to beat somebody to the punch. Somebody with curious ideas about Embassy documents and errand boys.

  I lit a Camel, thought very carefully for about five minutes, and reached the only conclusion possible. Time was a crucial factor, now, and there wasn't very much of it left. Mission-Time, that is.

  I got comfortable on the slightly lumpy bed and picked up the phone. Wherever you may wander, telephones look and operate pretty much alike. And they serve the very same purpose, too.

  "Prego?" said the man on the desk out there in the lobby. He no longer sounded bored. Just eager and slightly nervous.

  "Could you get me an outside number, please?"

  "Si, as you wish, Signor. Numero---?"

  I gave him the special listing I had been given by the President for the American Embassy building on the Via Veneto. One that was not printed in the directory of Rome. Despite the hour, the line could not be busy. The party known as Flood was expecting to hear from me.

  Twenty four hours had gone by. Far beyond the planned rendezvous time but that shouldn't matter, anymore. Someone was supposed to be waiting. Flood, specifically. He couldn't move without me.

  The Roma Telephone Company was miles behind Bell. There were about fourteen clicks and twenty one buzzes of electrical sound and Room Twenty Five was getting hotter, when someone in that mysterious U.S. Embassy Building on the Via Veneto finally got on the line.

  "Yes. Who's calling, please?"

  The voice was guarded, unaccented. Male. A voice that might belong to an unctuous librarian or a self-satisfied bank manager.

  "In nineteen hundred and twenty-nine," I declared, "Mel Ott of the New York Giants batted three forty nine, hit forty two home runs and drove in one hundred and fifty one base runners."

  A strangled sound, half snarl and half surprise, spluttered and died. When the voice came back, it had steely control of itself.

  "And how old was he when he accomplished all this?"

  "Twenty. They don't hardly make them that way anymore. He was The Little Giant."

  "So it would seem. And who won the Academy Award for Best Actress in nineteen hundred and fifty four?" The pre-arranged code was working.

  "Grace Kelly. And I didn't believe it for a second."

  "Great God Almighty!" the placid voice exploded, all pretense put aside. "Where the hell have you been, Mister Noon?"

  "You wouldn't believe that, either. I'll tell you when I see you. I am going to see you, Mr. Flood. Aren't I?"

  "Yes, you're going to see me! These damn papers are bringing me to the brink of Perdition! Man, do you realize how important this matter is---" Flood was amazing me. You'd expect a diplomat or whatever the hell he was to have more poise going for him. But then again, maybe he was new at real Cloak-and-Dagger games. "Oh, I've heard of you, Mr. Noon. And your reputation for success. You like doing things your own way. You're always given your head. But if this is an example of your recklessness, I'll be damned if I know why the Chief---"

  "Don’t lecture me, Flood. He doesn't and you can't. Just tell me where and when, huh?"

  He caught hold of whatever cool he might own and a deep sigh floated over the wire. When he spoke again, a great relief rather than an almost feminine pique filled his tone.

  "You're right. Spilled milk is spilled milk, isn't it? Do you know where the Spanish Steps are?"

  "Sure. Bernini's Tub at the bottom and the Trinita dei Monti at the top. The Tub is cracked and filthy but the church is beautiful. And now the Steps are a regular Hippie Heaven. Last time I looked."

  "Good. You're climbing in my estimation already. It is now roughly nine twenty eight. Could you be there at exactly ten thirty?"

  "No sweat. It's only twenty minutes from the hotel. Do we meet on the Steps?"

  "No. Far too risky. Let's say I'll be at the front door of the church itself. Right behind the obelisk. There's very little street light up there. That can be cover enough."

  "You will have the documents with you?"

  "Yes." Flood grew very officious on me, now. "With your further instructions. Of which I know nothing. You have a black attaché case, according to the file I was given on you. Bring it along. When we meet, we will exchange cases. Mine will contain what you came for. Don't speak to me at all. We'll work out the transfer depending on the layout when we arrive there. Understood?"

  "Understood. I know what you look like, Mr. Flood. They ran some movie film for me before I left D.C. But just to play this safe, what can you do to certify that you're the man I'm having this nice chat with? Standard Operating Procedure, old boy."

  He thought about that, taking a healthy pause.

  "This line is scrambled, of course. But that's good thinking. Very well. I'll unbutton my coat---it has four buttons and is a dark blue, raglan-sleeve topper---and then I'll rebutton it again. Now, what can you do to set my mind at ease? There are so many damn doubles in this infernal business."

  "I'll whistle the first five bars of You're The Top. Over and over again. You up on your Cole Porter, Mr. Flood?"

  "You're not funny," he suddenly erupted all over again. Bristling like a porcupine interrupted while eating. "Really, Mr. Noon, this is a very serous piece of government business all around. I wish you'd stop romanticizing. If you would only realize---"

  "Another lecture? Okay. No more clowning. Do you know anything at all about three women being murdered----their bodies left in water fountains? Or anyth
ing about bombs being planted all over Rome?"

  "For God's sake, man! What are you talking about now? If this is another example of your flip, sarcastic---"

  "Ten thirty, Flood," I said, cutting him off, for his astounded reaction had told me he didn't know what I was talking about. "Sharp. See you then. Start practicing on your buttons."

  I hung up on him while he was still making strangling noises.

  For men like him, men like me are always pretty hard to take.

  With the phone replaced in its black bed, there was nothing more to puzzle over. Contact had been made. The time schedule was way off but Mr. Flood still seemed to be in possession of the Top Secret documents. Captain Santini's routine and the attendant delay didn't seem to have brought any cockroaches out of the woodwork. It was all very strange, didn't make sense and maybe I was off in my diagnosis of the situation but the set-up was still solvent. I had expected practically anything and everything when I phoned the Embassy but there it was. The Status was still Quo. Three drowned and murdered dolls and explosive devices suddenly didn't seem to have a blessed thing to do with what had brought me to Rome.

  There was little else to do except meet Flood, pick up the new black attaché case and go back home to the White House with the goods.

  It all looked so easy at nine thirty five, Roma time.

  Those could have been Very Famous last words.

  What was waiting for Flood and I on the darkened Spanish Steps at ten thirty defies description. Or explanation.

  And analysis.

  And belief.

  I was walking into a slaughterhouse and I didn't know it.

  With my eyes wide open.

  And screaming.

  Seven people would be dead before the clock in the stone face of the Trinita dei Monti struck eleven.

  Seven.

  Count them.

  Seven!

  And no less than six of them would be innocent bystanders.

  Great God Almighty.

  To quote Mr. Flood.

  "He made the trains run on time."

  Tribute to Benito Mussolini

  SLAUGHTER ON THE SPANISH STEPS

  Hot darkness hung over the Monumental Steps like a changeless weather forecast. The Steps had only been there since 1722 but Time, uncounted millions of people--tourists, natives and what-have-you--had left no footprints on the great stone stairway. There were three climbing tiers of wide, sprawling stairs, bordered on each side by banks of July flowers, wildly colored, scented and mainly crimson. Seen in the Roman night, enveloped in blankets of muggy warmth, crowded with hordes of idlers, lovers and Hippies all waiting for their next check from home---an American Express office right down the block from Bernini's water fountain did a gold-rush business---the Spanish Steps rose proudly, with a traditional kind of implacable serenity, untouched by the advance of Civilization. The Bomb, Vietnam, Civil Rights and Cancer cut no ice here. None at all. The pound could devaluate, the lira crumble but the Steps would be there forever. Guitarists filled the close night with four-four rhythms, teenage couples giggled and did their own thing, the Old Ones tottered by, out of the mainstream if anybody asked them but alive and part of the picturesque setting just the same. The round Italian moon was a half-baked pizza riding overhead. Beaming down romantically.

  I marched up the darkened stairs, heading for the two small matching gardens filled with mountains of more flowers. Right above their florally-rich patterns, the towering stone obelisk stood eternal guard duty squarely before the massive double doors of the Trinita dei Monti. The twin cupolas of the old church rose upward into the sky. Twin turrets atop a feudal castle. The black attaché case tucked under my right arm would have fooled anybody. It wasn't empty because it was not stuffed with two editions of the daily periodicals to lend an aura of some weight. There was no telling what might come up. Flood's agenda for the evening could need some fast improvising. In any case, there was nothing and no one else to think about as I moved up the Spanish Steps. Not even the Keats-Shelley Room down below which was closed until the morning. Vera Cacciatore had gone home.

  Unisex Hippies, girls and boys lost in the usual costumes of long hair, jeans, love beads and peace necklaces, had used each tier of the stairway to set up sidewalk businesses, huckstering curios, artwork and oddments in the charms and notions line, to feather their Roman nests with whatever scratch the traffic would bear. La Dolce Vita danced on but it always needs some money to make it work at all. I ignored everybody, hardly looking to the left or the right. The time was uncomfortably close to ten thirty. Another autoista, a possible reject from the Mille Miglia, had whipped me from the Villa del Parco, stopping directly alongside Bernini's Tub at the base of the Steps in fantastically breath-taking minutes. The stair climb took almost five minutes more. It was literally jammed with humanity.

  Suddenly, I was over the top, the stairs behind me, the impressive façade of the Trinita dei Monti, a healthy spit away. Flood was right. A solitary street lamp seemed to be all that illuminated the area. The curving, cobbled street, bending crookedly off to the center of town, leading toward the very middle of the celebrated Via Veneto, was like a dark and menacing alleyway. Without the full moon, the church environs would have been blacker than a bishop's cassock. Visibility was poor, as it was.

  There was no sign of Mr. Flood of the United States Embassy.

  There was nobody near the front doors of the church.

  There was only a white ice cream truck, garishly emblazoned with painted facsimiles of its wares. A gaggle of six people flocked around the vehicle, pushing and clamoring for ices, gelati, aranciata and cola, to kill the thirst brought on by the after-sundown humidity. I elbowed around the mob, stepping across the tarred street toward the front stairway leading into the Trinita dei Monti. The gigantic stone obelisk dwarfed us all. Like a great stone finger pointing skyward.

  It didn't seem to be a night for Religion, either. The church front was serenely desolate and untouched. Of course, there might be a packed house inside. I couldn't know otherwise unless I went in. I only knew that nobody was going in. That Mr. Flood was late for the appointment. That God was unwanted that night.

  He must have known something nobody else did.

  The way things turned out.

  The small city that is Rome, built on seven hills, was ready for another piece of gory history. Not unlike the Colosseum variety of A.D. when Constantine was trying on his first pair of Emperor sandals. And trying to talk his bloodthirsty fellow Roman citizens out of human carnival doings in the huge old stadium---amphitheater-circus. The Arena, with all its brutal Games. The Nero kicks.

  My .45 was riding high in its shoulder harness. The black leather attaché case itched strangely in my fingers. I peered all around the half-lit darkness surrounding the Trinita dei Monti, on the lookout for Mr. Flood. The ice cream truck customers filled the night with cries and murmurs of glee, impatience and just plain exuberance in equal parts. No tourists, they. Their collective uproar was pure Italian. With all the stops out. Lusty and loud.

  Overhead, the round church clock, set in the left tower below one of the twin cupolas, showed a disappointing ten forty five. Flood wasn't only late. He was dangerously over-due for a man with an imperative, undercover mission. I tried not to worry, standing in the shadowy recesses of the church's angled stone stairway, leading up to the front doors. But it was a sweat, all the same. Secret operators should always keep their rendezvous on schedule.

  Minutes flew by, each one worth a drop of perspiration and fear.

  And then, on the verge of some kind of decision, one way or the other, I saw him. Saw him the way I didn't want to see him.

  Quick. All in a flash, like a magic trick. A conjuring act.

  With a stunning burst of realization. And wonder.

  He was running.

  Running for his life.

  Toward the church, toward me, burgeoning out of that yawning darkness of the side street winding downward to the Via Vene
to.

  There was no need to whistle You're The Top anymore.

  He was wearing a dark blue, four-button, raglan sleeve topped, all right, but he was strangely hatless and the bald gleam of his round skull bobbing atop a tall, angular body, as he swept under the solitary street light, was a shining blur of trouble. His face was a rictus of agony. Either from the exertions of a very long run or something else I couldn't see. I never did find out. All at once, the whole scene, the set-piece, the tableau, was that ancient achingly familiar one of Oh, Oh! Something's gone wrong!

  The awesome signs were unmistakable.

  Diplomats don't have to run. And Mr. Flood was galloping.

  The black attaché case swinging from his flapping arm was a duplicate of the one I held. And the pounding tattoo of Flood's shoes slapping the paved sidewalk, as narrow as the lane was, echoed like the drumbeats of doom. In a furious medley of leather and stone.

  He spotted me within flying seconds, his open-mouthed face closing in a fast smile that would have warmed my heart under other circumstances. He looked like a pilgrim seeing Christ. With a gasp of breath, he redoubled his efforts and plunged on toward me. From more than thirty feet away. I sprang down from the church steps to meet him, going for the hardware under my left armpit. The Colt .45.

  Suddenly, the Roman night was alive with terror.

  And other sounds besides Flood's thundering footfalls and the gabbling chorus of customers across the small areaway in front of the Trinita dei Monti.

  Flood, racing and lurching toward me, shouted something.

  It was a warning, a cry for help and a plea. All in one blurting expulsion of vocal force. The .45 jumped into my hand as I bridged the distance between myself and Flood.

  Almost, that is. I never did get to him in time.

  The miss was worse than the proverbial mile. A disaster.

  When I saw the woman, it was too late to do anything about her. Or change things. Like Mr. Flood, she loomed like an apparition from somewhere behind the hurtling figure of the man from the Embassy, out of the darkness like a monster in a bad dream. A ghoul.