The Big Stiffs Page 6

With the same abruptness and lightning-swift speed that it had begun. It was almost like being spanked into birth by that very first doctor in any man's life. Or any woman's.

  Someone had slapped me, too.

  Hard across the face, using each cheek for a landing pad for two forceful, punishing, open-handed slaps. My head rang like the big gong on the opening credits of Gunga Din.

  Reverberations of fear and surprise set up deafening choruses in my head. Rolling around like charging, clanging fire trucks.

  "Come on, you bastard," a harsh, female voice grated close by, literally punching out the nice words. "Snooze time's over for you, man. Rise and shine now. We're all out of rainchecks. You know what' s good for you, you'll quit stalling and open those baby browns, honey. Come on, now! Wake up. Kate Arizona wants to talk to you."

  She was still slapping me when I opened my eyes.

  I had to before she knocked my head clean off my shoulders.

  She proved to be just the girl that could do it, too.

  "How can a nation that belches understand

  a nation that sings----?"

  Fortunio Bonanova as the Italian

  General in Five Graves to Cairo (1943)

  THE FIELD OF VILLAINS

  It was dungeon time in Roma, all over again. Noon, A.D.

  I've been down the track too many times in the Unconscious League, to be able to react any differently. It's always pretty much the same. They knock you out in one place and you wake up in another one. The real wonder of it is that my brains aren't permanently scrambled or my senses thoroughly disoriented. There is no fool quite like an old private detective. Concussions or sleeping pills, it doesn't matter. Smart apples should know better.

  This time there was a woman called Kate Arizona.

  And a dark box-like room with wood and plaster walls looking like two-months old gingerbread. There was a hurricane lamp on the floor in one corner, shooting an amber swath of illumination. Just enough to see by. What I was seeing wasn't exactly heartwarming.

  My head felt like a crowded, cotton-filled hornet's nest but there wasn't any time left to worry about that. The sand was down.

  The woman who called herself Kate Arizona looked like she couldn't have cared less. I didn't ask her. I knew she didn't.

  Warm breezes filtered in through an oblong aperture behind her somewhere that must have passed for a window. There was no glass, no bars, no anything. Just a solid opening through which some stars and the ample rays of the moon were visible. I didn't know where I was but it certainly wasn't the Via Veneto. This seemed more like country, with some puny prison in the middle of nowhere. Maybe not even Rome.

  It took racing seconds to know that my hands were bound behind me and my legs laced at the ankles. In both cases, it seemed like strips of torn sheeting had been used. Not that it mattered too much. They had dumped me unceremoniously on the hard stone floor waiting for me to come to and they had nothing to worry about, really. I say they because the woman sitting before me, literally lording over the scene, had a machine gun idly laid across her lap. And behind her, a blocky figure of a man stood, as if he were waiting in the half-darkness for a signal or a command of some kind from the woman. The man was motionless.

  The woman had to be in charge. It stuck out all over her.

  Not just because of the machine gun, which I could now see was that familiar, ugly old destroyer, the German Schmeisser, the most used submachine gun of War Two. It's compact, stream-lined, easy to carry and thoroughly murderous. I didn't have to remember Nazi Europe to know that, either. I'd had a perfect demonstration on top of the Spanish Steps. The woman on the chair, a three-legged stool that might have sat before a piano, wasn't wearing a trenchcoat anymore but she had to be the girl in the gloom with the long, dark, flowing hair.

  The Schmeisser had a thirty two round magazine, when loaded.

  Kate Arizona had obviously emptied it in front of the Trinita dei Monti. But a fresh magazine, long and lethal, shone in the glare of the hurricane lamp. The gunmetal grey was somehow ghastly.

  She had stopped slapping me only because I had opened my eyes. She inclined backward on the three-legged stool, surveying me with some grim sort of inner satisfaction. Time enough for me to do a once-over on her. But once-over would never be enough for the Kate Arizonas of this world. She was as unique as the Sistine Chapel though the analogy is distinctly paradoxical. There was nothing saintly about the woman. Rather, she could have posed for the devilish bas-reliefs on the Doorway to Hell. If there is such a door. Such a masterpiece.

  Even sitting down, with the machinegun cradled across her lap, it was screamingly obvious she was more than six feet tall. The squared width of her shoulders, the enormity of her bustline bursting under the confines of a black, turtle-neck jersey and the jutting prominence of her knees encased in sausage-skin tight matching jeans more than indicated great size. Black, calf-length boots, with fantastically thick heels, were riveted to the dark floor with stanchions. But even if all that weren't enough, the woman's face said it arrogantly, regally and vulgarly. Like a neon sign announcing a new restaurant being opened. I'm Kate Arizona, fellows. Look at me! Try pushing me around!

  The face staring down at me with pure Woman's Lib hatred for the last of the red-hot male chauvinists, was frightening. Mask-like.

  Her triangular face mounted with a bold, hawk nose and full-lipped carmine mouth with cheekbones stolen from a Medici statue and a complexion that shouted of Indian blood of some kind, was a replica of a warpathing Apache at massacre time. I tried to hang onto my nerve. Apart from anything else, the long, dark flowing hair, practically reaching down to her hour-glass arched hips, was the final barbaric, pagan touch that made of her whole façade one staggering female valentine. She was a woman, all right, but more than that, she fully suggested the brutal strength and rock-like bestiality of a savage human being. What had happened on top of the Spanish Steps would be fly-swatting to such a woman. Nothing more, nothing less.

  I knew that too as I shifted around on that dark floor, trying to tighten my muscles and gather my loose nerve-strings. The shadowy figure behind Kate Arizona grunted something that sounded like "Allora" and Kate Arizona nodded and placed one of her enormous hands on the butt of the Schmeisser. She was staring down at me. Her eyes told me all I might ever want to know. I was no more than another fly to her. And I had a snowball's chance in Hell of not melting into nothing.

  Her eyes were violent, stirring. They never seemed to keep still. As if she was always thinking. Was always furious. And unkind.

  "Where the hell is it, you sonofabitch?" she suddenly hit me with the question in a voice somewhere between a roar and a rasp. One booted foot kicked me smartly in the right thigh, making a cramp with astonishing speed. Instant charleyhorse. I put my teeth together.

  "You ask real nice, lady." I tried to smile. "Where is what?"

  She looked like she wanted to kick me again but suddenly she smiled. An Ilse Koch-Death's Head smile and nodded again, as if to herself. An incipient laugh rolled around behind the big chest.

  "Okay. We'll do it your way. Just once. And then we'll do it my way. I'll give you that much chance to think it over. Now, from the top. You made a deal with Flood. He brought his attaché case and you brought yours. You were going to swap. Okay? You following me? My cue to horn in on the party. But there's a catch. Flood plays games. Or he didn't trust you, either. His attaché case was filled with the wop telephone book Got that? And yours, you sweetheart, well, you must be saving day-old Dago newspapers. Check? Check. So okay. Flood double-crossed you, I figure. He didn't bring those documents that we're all so fired up about. But maybe he was just playing it safe. Maybe he wanted to be sure of you. See you first before he handed over a key to a locker or something. Maybe directions to where the papers are. Anyhow, brown eyes, I see it that way. And what I see that way, I follow through on. Flood's dead, right? He can't tell me anything. But you---sweetheart. You're here with me. Kate's real sweet on you. Bu
t you got to talk. To tell me things. Or old Kate's going to have to start bouncing you off the monuments. You do understand me, Mister? Or do you think I'm just a big girl who likes to talk up a good fight?"

  The news hit me harder than she knew. I tipped my hat to dead Mr. Flood. He'd had more brains than I thought. But the news left me exactly nowhere. Deep in the soup. And there was no spoon up my sleeve.

  "You don't have to convince me," I said. "Just tell me why you chopped down those people---maybe you hate people who like ice cream?"

  A surprised frown made her cruel eyes jump into another mood. For a moment, she stared down at me as if I was insane. And then she lifted the Schmeisser from her lap as if to demonstrate it for me.

  "Damnedest thing, cowboy. Wouldn't have believed it could happen. You know this thing wouldn't shut up? I wanted nobody but Flood and maybe you for extras in case you got too close. But this damn toy got away from me. Ran like a bucking bronco in my hands---"

  "It can do that," I said coldly, "if you've never handled a machine gun before. So you wasted seven people to get Flood and that attaché case. That's pretty damn lousy if you ask me---"

  "Nobody asked you!" she bellowed, eyes jumping again, the Schmeisser suddenly leveling at me with angry speed. "You just answer my questions. No sermons from you , boy."

  "No sermons," I agreed. "But you're barking up the wrong boy. I was just running an errand for my Uncle Sam. I didn't know what Flood was bringing me and that's Gospel. In my kind of work, they never tell errand boys anything. How did you let him gallop ahead of you like that, anyway? You could have caught him long before he got to the church on time. "And left that crowd alone."

  Kate Arizona leaned from her chair, letting the Schmeisser dangle alongside one of her incredible hips. She moistened her red mouth and gave me the once-over this time. Her expression was odd.

  "He was nuts, that's way. We were waiting for you to come out of the woodwork. We knew he was meeting a contact man. That part was easy. So I handled it myself. The dumb bastard had no sense. I jumped out of an alley, stuck this in his face and asked him real nice for the bag. So what does the jerk do? Turns and runs like a wild hen. I didn't catch up to him until he hit the lights around that church. No need for all those folks to die. But that dumb Flood had to play hero. What the hell for? A crummy bunch of papers!"

  "Sure. A crummy bunch of papers. And here you are and here I am and your boyfriend back there in the shadows is the bashful type but he's here, too." I shook my head as trapped as I was. "Where are we anyway? The condemned man has a right to know."

  "The Roman Forum," Kate Arizona snarled, "but that doesn't mean I want to hear any speeches from you, Noon. Got that? You just start telling me where those document are. It's nice and dark and quiet out here and all the tourists are back in their beds in their hotels. And just to let you know how little chance you have of the cavalry coming in the nick of time to save your ass---there's no guards or cops around these ruins, it's darker than a bat's gullet and there's even a nice little pond out there where they used to drown the Vestal Virgins in the good old days. So you don't want to go for a cold, long dip for keeps, you better come up with some good answers for me."

  "Et tu, Noonus," I murmured and she glared down at me.

  "You cracking funny, pal?" The Indian-hued face was livid.

  No way. There isn't a laugh left in me. I was just thinking about Caesar, Brutus and all those cats. And me without my toga."

  "You think about something else," she glowered, moving the Schmeisser up again in her big hands. "Like those documents."

  "Kate," I said. "May I call you Kate? I swear to God I don't know where they are. Maybe if you told me what they were, or what they're supposed to be, I might think of something. My President, he doesn't tell me anything. It's a lousy arrangement, I know, but that's how it is. I'd tell you in a minute if I could---"

  "Noon, you're flirting with Death---" Sheer venom edged her tone.

  "I believe you, Kate. Remember, I've seen you in action. You remind me very much of an old mass murdered I used to know---"

  She got up from the chair, red lips pursed in a snarl, face worried and drew back her right leg to give me a crushing boot into the face. I twisted my head, trying to scramble over on my side but the blow never came. Suddenly, the shadow in the background had stirred and a very familiar voice filtered almost lazily out of the darkness.

  "Prego, Signorina. You are wasting your time with him. It is his method of combating his fear. To be smart, to make the jokes. But were you to ask my advice, I would tell you this is all for nothing. Signor Noon is not an imbecile. If he knew, he would tell us, I think. It seems the United States is as guilty as the rest of us. They keep their secrets, too. Even from the very men they assign to the task. Ah, que cosa significa---!"

  "You shut up," Kate Arizona barked, revolving on her stool to hurl the challenge at the man behind her. Even as I rotated full-face in the direction of the voice, straining to see the moustached kisser of Captain Michele Santini, a thousand bees were bussing all around me. "You're the damn smart one, aren't you? You had him under lock and key trying to break him your way and it didn't work, did it? We had to let him out so he could make the contact with Flood. Well, up yours, you guinea fuzz. I still had to take over but by Christ, I'll handle it from here on in. Don't worry about the cowboy here. He'll open up like a hot virgin when I start using the pliers on his pubic hairs. Just you wait and see. Nobody's ever stood up to that one and neither will this slob. Stand back Santini, and watch him blab."

  "Signorina, no insults please---you go too far---"

  The Schmeisser leaped in her hands, cocking with a metallic click of the bolt. Kate Arizona's might height and tremendous size would have made John Wayne think twice. Santini who had come forward so that his swarthy Romany face was revealed in the glow of the lamp, recoiled a step but an angry line throbbed at the right corner of his mouth. Kate Arizona was almost a full head taller. Santini's uniform was gone with the wind, too. He was now dressed in a plain brown suit with foulard tie. He never looked handsomer. Or more Italian. The very slight corporation, visible in Captain's uniform, was hidden in a suit.

  Mastroianni incarnate, now.

  "Butt out, Santini," Kate Arizona boomed in a low voice that was about as intimate as a bull fiddle in the middle of a crescendo. "If you want to live to eat more spaghetti, you'll do it my way."

  "There is no need for name-calling, woman. Nor can I endorse these tactics you so carelessly employ. Madonna---to kill so many persons is---barbarous." Santini was afraid of her but he was holding his ground. Seldom have I admired a man more. Both for his words and his deeds. Kate Arizona threw her head back and laughed, still pointing the Schmeisser at him. "Are we animals then, Signorina?"

  "Sure we are, you Catholic hypocrite. But you like the money, don't you? Just remember the price and what's in the kitty for all of us when we hand over those documents and maybe you won't worry your fool head about people, huh? Fifty thousand dollars apiece, Santini. And double that---if we get the documents before Saturday. That was the deal. That's still the deal. Now---do you still want to take Noon's word for it? That he doesn't know anything, that he's an innocent little lamb with no brains at all? Don't make me laugh, Santini!"

  Captain Michele Santini did not want to make her laugh.

  He wanted fifty thousand dollars.

  Double that too, by Saturday. If he and she could work it.

  Suddenly, he no longer cared about t my well-being. And why should he? It was clearly not the world he had made. Or wanted to make.

  "Allora," he muttered, squaring his broad shoulders resignedly. "We are, as you say, still in this together. Yet, do me the courtesy of refraining from these very biased remarks of yours about my country, my people. I do not like them, Signorina Arizona. They make my blood boil. And it is foolish of you to anger me. So do we understand each other? It may seem a small thing to you---"

  "Sure, sure." Disgustedly, sh
e waved him off and turned back to me. "Wouldn't want to hurt your feelings for the world, Santini. But get those pliers from my bag in the corner, will you? Times' awastin' and I'm dying to find out what this big, strong cowboy owns. Looks like a good stud but you never know for sure until you got your two hands on 'em---" The relish in her voice was unmistakable.

  I closed my eyes for a second, trying to think.

  Trying not to think.

  If I'd had any doubts about her brutality, they had faded fast.

  I was caught in the dead center of a very bad, very unfunny joke, one that could begin, a funny thing happened to me on the way to the Forum…a stone's throw from the Temple of The Vestal Virgins.

  Happened to me with pliers.

  "You know, Noon," Kate Arizona jeered, chuckling hellishly as Santini made some rustling noises in a far corner of the little room, doing her bidding, "I've never seen a Mickey Finn work so fast. Wasn't more than a lump I dumped into your first drink when the waiter came by my table. I'd stopped there to catch my breath, too, realizing what a gag Flood had slipped over on me. Wasn't any trick at all to tell all those Via Veneto bastards you was my sick boyfriend. I got you out of there in jig time, too. Santini was parked just across the street, waiting for me in his station wagon. Guess things worked out pretty well for me, all around. Getting you makes all the difference there is, cowboy. Otherwise this caper would be a rotten mess."

  "What makes you think it still isn't? I told you. I don't know anything about those documents you want. You're wasting more time."

  I'd never been more earnest in my life but she was listening.

  She laughed louder at that, a jarring crash against my eardrums.

  "Then we'll sure as hell find out right away, won't we? Maybe just about four plucked hairs from now. Huh? There's a bundle of alfalfa in this for me, kiddo, and you ain't the jasper who's going to keep me from getting my mitts on it. I want out of this goddammed Roma and those papers are my one-way ticket, Noon. You think that over."