The Big Stiffs Page 7

  Kate Arizona's wickedly venomous face was a photograph from the Inferno as Captain Michele Santini handed her the pair of pliers. Sadly.

  They gleamed cruelly in her strong fingers as she transferred the Schmeisser from her lap to the stone floor. Glinting jagged teeth.

  She clicked the jaws together for effect and the message was very clear. The ugly grating, rasping sound was an overture to agony.

  A prelude to all the personal hell there can be.

  And there was no way out, either.

  No way at all.

  It was midnight in the Land of Villains.

  Where vestal virgins were buried alive when they broke their vow of chastity. Losing more than just their special privileges.

  I wasn't a virgin, certainly. Sometimes, I think I never was one.

  But I can scream just as loud as anyone else. Maybe louder.

  And die, also.

  Just like everybody else.

  I can do that bit, too. As we'll have to someday. All of us.

  I'd always wanted to pick my own time to do it in, though.

  Kate Arizona wasn't going to give me that chance.

  She wasn't going to do anything but get some ghoulish kicks with a pair of pliers while she dreamed dreams of fifty thousand dollars dancing around in her mean, unforgettable head.

  If I wasn't a grown man, I would have cried.

  Out loud.

  Nobody would have heard me, though.

  Like the lady said, Roma was asleep.

  Tourists and all.

  And the recent edition of the Games was about to begin.

  Kate Arizona's Games.

  The Tournament of the Testicles.

  Me against the pliers.

  "Andiamo," Santini said in a curiously dead voice, do what you will, Signorina."

  Or, Let's Got, Kate!

  "Rome wasn't built in a day."

  Legendary

  THE COLOSSEUM CAPER

  I had to do something, though. You always have to do something. No matter what. Or else we're all just a bunch of poor jackasses who have absolutely nothing to say about what happens to us. With no control over the cards that fall our way. Kate Arizona had given me five mismatching pasteboards, no two alike, not even a flush in spades. She held all the aces. The Schmeisser, the situation, Captain Michele Santini and my fair body. I was lying in on a rigged game, with no chance of winning, but there is something in me that never will sit still for Terror and Death.

  Or Brutality.

  With or without .45 Colt automatic, I'm dangerous.

  Always a threat.

  I rolled around on the floor, forcing myself half-erect by shinnying up on my haunches, using my lashed arms and legs as levers to accomplish the contortion act. Kate Arizona watched me with cold and curious satisfaction, towering upward so that her dark head almost touched the low ceiling of the room. There was a bated, fixed and ominous set to her hawk face. Her full red lips were closed together in a fierce biting arrangement. The tell-tale signs of sadism or voyeur's pleasure at the wriggling of her victims. Full-length she was a monstrous shadow. Behind her, Santini's solid form was like a Mutt and Jeff contrast. Santini seemed frozen in ice. He was motionless again. An onlooker who might not condone what was supposed to take place but clearly would take no action to stop it. The Schmeisser rested against one of the three legs of Kate Arizona's stool. The pliers dangled with limp reality from the fingers of her powerful right hand. For a long moment, nobody was talking. Everybody was just looking at me, as if wondering what I was going to do next. The night was young, obviously, and Miss Arizona was in no hurry anymore to start counting my short hairs.

  A warm wind fanned in through the rectangular window. The hurricane lamp, protected by glass and metal, did not bat an eye. The clustered stars still twinkled but the moonlight had moved a little. Nothing sounded from outside. Nothing at all. Not even a passing jetliner. The Forum probably had never resembled a cemetery more.

  Breathing hard, holding my lashed hands as a brake to the floor beneath me, to remain sitting, I stared at Kate Arizona.

  She stared right back at me, enjoying every insane second of the situation. Maybe reveling in the prospect of unclothing a man. Her eyes gave her away even more than the carmine mouth did. She was in full fly, now. Exposed in all her brutal glory. Perversion, as well as greed, ran whatever motors she owned. I kept that in mind as I launched into the last remaining fight left in me.

  The gleaming pliers flexed in her hands, suddenly. The metal jaws clicked impatiently as she made snipping motions with it at the empty air between us. As if I hadn't got her message already.

  "Kate, listen to me---"

  "Scared, huh? Stewing in your own sweat. Well, go on, condemned man. I like to hear 'em squeal before the party starts. More fun that way. Unless, of course, you suddenly decided you know a helluva lot more than you did. That happens sometimes, too. Guy all of a sudden, quick like a rabbit, remembers everything. Including the name of the first dame he ever tattooed way back when. You were saying, Noon?"

  The gloating, almost lascivious tone of her words put nails under my steaming skin but I kept my head. Panic would spoil it all. Captain Santini coughed in his patch of darkness, as if he was embarrassed. But still not embarrassed enough to forget about the money.

  "About Flood," I said. "You chopped him good, all right. Never saw a guy so bullet-riddled. But he did manage to get out a few words before he died. Maybe you saw me reach him. Maybe you didn't---"

  She snorted. The sound was a firecracker going off in the small room. "You bastard. I knew you were holding out! I saw nothing after I grabbed that case and beat it. All I wanted to do was get out of there. So Flood talked, huh? Then he did tell you something---"

  "He did," I lied, trying for sincerity as if it were the sina qua non of survival. I'd gambled that she had to high-tail it in all that shoot-out uproar and she had. Santini was stirring, again. His shadow stiffened, alertly, to catch every lying word. "He was smart, like you said. Couldn't trust that it would be me showing up. So he dummied up that attaché case. But I didn't know that until you told me. But dying so fast, he took his last chance and told me where the documents were. How I could go about getting them. He just had enough breath left to tell me and then I had all to do to get out of the area myself with all those dead people lying around and the whole damn neighborhood yelling its head off."

  I took a deep breath and Kate Arizona bent down, thrusting the pliers full into my face. Her mammoth bosom was rising and falling in the black jersey. Mingled disappointment and satisfaction were waging war somewhere inside her. You can't play your bestial games with a man who you want to tell you something you want to hear. Have to know. I was banking on that, too.

  "Go on. What's the rest of it?"

  "That's it. I know exactly where the papers are. How to get them. But if you touch one part of me with those pliers, you're not going to know. Fact is, you need me walking and healthy to get your hands on them. That's how the tortoni crumbles, baby."

  For a long, painful moment, she was mad. Madder than anybody can be without doing something about it. She cursed, balled her free fist threateningly, twirled the pliers, cursed again and then to work it all off, nudged me none too gently with one of her cruel boots.

  "A bluff," she snarled. "How do I know it's not a bluff?"

  "You've still got the gun, Kate, and the pliers. I'm still all tied up for delivery. You can't take a chance, can you? Think about the money you want. You and Santini. And Saturday's double bonus. What have you got to lose except a little time? All I can tell you is you work me over with those pliers and you'll have to kill me before I say a word. Only fair to tell you I have a very high pain threshold. On the level. I kid you not. I can take plenty. And I'd force you far enough to kill me first. See what I mean?"

  "Signorina," Santini murmured, but cutting in quickly, all the same. "He speaks good sense. What he says is true. I know his sort of man. He will bear much be
fore talking. Let us deal with him. As he himself says, there is little to lose. Only time."

  "Bravo, Santini," I sighed. "You'll be a Major yet."

  Kate Arizona snorted again. But she had stopped swearing, at least. Once more, she peered down at me, trying to read my face. The she straightened and tossed the pliers away. They skittered across the floor, clanging hollowly. Reaching down, she swept up the Schmeisser and aimed it dead center at my heart. No bore ever looked bigger.

  "All right, all right," she growled sullenly. "You got your time, cowboy. And you better make it good. There's other things beside pliers for four-flushers. I'll put your balls through a meat slicer if this is a trick. What do we have to do to get those papers?"

  I kept the triumph out of my face, controlling a surge of relief so warm-blooded and torrenting, it felt like the thunder of bongos in my veins. It was poker, for sure. Bluff like hell with your pair of crummy threes. But it had worked, dammit. Worked like a Swiss clock.

  "It's your lucky night, Kate," I said, "in spite of your lousy opinion of things. Those documents are so close to us right now, you'll have your hot little hands on them in no time at all."

  "Spell that out," she commanded warningly. "And toot sweet. I've had about all the funning around I'll take from you, Noon."

  "Who's funning with you?" I showed her a fool smile to take some of the sarcasm out of the remark. "All we have to do it walk out of this little nest about a thousand yards down the road and voila--those documents you want so very badly. You won't tell me what they are, will you? Why they're worth so much on the open market?"

  "No, I won't," she snarled. "You tell me just what you mean and stop clowning around. What the hell are you giving me?"

  Santini had moved further into the center of the room so that he was almost directly abreast of her, matching her absorbed stare down into my face. For a second, both their watching faces were a study in the dazzling appeal that money has for certain kinds of people. Certain kinds of murderous bastards. Bastards, Incorporated.

  "Untie me," I said. "Let me get my arms and legs working again. You can keep me covered all the way. Flood made it all easy for us. Just a coincidence maybe that you should pick this garden spot for your little party for me. But there it is, coincidence or not. What you want is in the Colosseum. Cross my heart and hope to die. But I can't tell you how to find it until I'm in the place myself. Flood's directions were so crazy I wouldn't know how to tell you to look. Know what I mean? But once we're there and I can fix the location---" I let that hang, shrugging. Counting on her greed and her partner's to take my cooperation for what it was worth. Old Santini snapped at the bait like it was his favorite Italian cheese. A happy smile creased his face and he forgot himself and poked Kate Arizona gleefully in the side. She jerked at the push but caught herself in time and then shook her head, almost wonderingly.

  "The Colosseum," she echoed. "You gotta be kidding. That rat-hole's bigger than a Texas ballpark, Noon---"

  "All the same. That's where the documents are. Do we or don't we go look? Thought you were in a big hurry. Saturday---remember?"

  "See, Signorina?" Santini chortled. "Did I not tell you the man would see things the way we wish if only we understand him---"

  "Shut up," Kate Arizona muttered ominously, not growling any longer. "It smells, that's what. That arena will be crawling with tourists. Even this late at night. And it's pretty dark in there, lights or not. I don't buy this---hiding important papers--"

  "I have a flash, Signorina Arizona," Captain Santini declared dismissively. "And in any case, it is as Signor Noon says. He has cooperated, he has told us what we want to know. Why do we now hesitate? Why do we delay?"

  "Your move, Kate," I said, simply. "The Captain's put you in check. Personally, I think he makes a lot of sense."

  "All

  "Your move, Kate," I said, simply. "The Captain's put you in check. Personally, I think he makes a lot of sense."

  "All right, all right! Sold, Mr. Noon."

  Suddenly, she had stepped back, swinging up the Schmeisser to low port. She might have moved off the cover of The Nazi Playboy, in her jeans, jersey and hell-bent-for-leather look. Her cruel eyes pinned me with deadly purposefulness. Her stunning appearance was one for all the books. Dirty books, whip cult manuals and hate tomes.

  "Santini's going to untie you, cowboy," she purred in a low animal voice. "Then we'll take that walk. You in the front, us right behind you. There's a path out there that will lead us right down to the Arch, out of all this monument crap. We'll leave the station wagon where it is. Parked on the incline above the main drag. You're right. That cheesebox is close enough from here. But just remember this. I'll be right behind you all the way. One funny move, one piece of funning and Mister you ain't ever going to be good for any woman again. Not ever. I'll fill you so full of lead they'll need a derrick to lift you. I'm not going to tell you again, Noon. You're delivering those documents to us or I'm delivering you to the cemetery."

  "You made yourself perfectly clear," I said, trying not to shudder. "Message received." Mentally, I was gauging my chances.

  "Untie him, Santini," Kate Arizona directed, stepping back more to get a good view of the proceedings. "And watch him."

  Captain Michele Santini untied me. With loving alacrity.

  As if his life depended upon it, as though I were a holy Roman relic, as if I held the key to his personal dreams of happiness and a long life. Or at the very least, twenty years' back pay in the Carabinieri. I wondered where Hugo, Alfredo and Gino were. Probably out busting tourists if they weren't part of their superior's individual pursuit of the almighty dollar. It was hard to say.

  Roma has a very curious effect on the senses, all right.

  Even as the strips of sheeting fell away, restoring some freedom and blood to my cramped muscles, a line from Julius Caesar raced through my mind, coming at me with random but striking aptness.

  …the evil men do lives on…the good is oft interred with their bones… or something like that. My Shakespeare is shaky.

  I stretched in the heart of the little room, working arms and legs into responding units. Santini and Kate Arizona circled around me warily, hawks picking on the chicken slated for the kill.

  "Start walking," Kate Arizona barked, hardly above a whisper. "And just remember this gun in my hands and what happened in front of that church. It runs away on me---right? Kill the lamp, Santini and tag along---I hope you're right about the cowboy. For your sake as well as his. I've had enough of this horsing--"

  "I'll try," I promised, "to remember."

  "Si," Santini mumbled, clattering toward the lamp in the corner of the room. She'd given him something to chew on too.

  And he didn't like the taste of it. Not one bit.

  I started walking.

  Out toward that shining Roman moonlight.

  And God alone knew what else.

  There was more out there than can meet any tourist's eye.

  Especially private eyes.

  "Would you have me late for the Games?"

  Charles Laughton as Nero in

  The Sign of the Cross (1933)

  QUO VADIS, NOONUS?

  The Roman Forum was eerie in the warm moonlight. Under a muggy, star-filled sky, with the round pizza moon in full sail, it was like a trip back through Time. Kate Arizona and Captain Michele Santini probably couldn't have cared less as they piloted me through the standing ruins of Ancient Italy. Under our carefully treading feet, the layers of earth and rubble which had carpeted the Forum for more than a thousand years lay quietly and somehow sacred in the darkness. There should have been some sort of man-made illumination and there was. Huge floodlights, strategically placed for the eyes of the world beyond Roma, threw pale amber swaths of exposure but Lady Kate was having none of that. With the Schmeisser pertinently nudging the small of the back, she was steering a course far away from the circle of lighting, threading our little midnight patrol through clumps of foliage and groves of tree
s.

  It was a cemetery atmosphere. A necropolis of silence. A hush.

  Still, there was a world to see. And marvel over. Despite the sticky situation, the panorama had its traditional high spots and focal points of interest. Marble columns rose like tall sentinels along the pathway. Scattered slabs of white blocks, more like headstones and tombstones, littered the area with random solemnity. The pale slate-grey arch looming before us seemed like a gateway or an entrance to the hilly expanse leading down toward the Via Del Corso, which could rival the Los Angeles Freeway at any high noon of a Rome day. Behind us, the tri-columned monument which marked the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, poked upward like a grim reminder of the facts of Time and Life. Erosion, wear-and-tear---all things will crumble sooner or later. The-bigger-they-come-the-harder-they-fall. All over Italy ancient monuments, pedestals and statues were beginning to topple on their foundations and bases. Nature always wins the pot, inevitably. Yet, moving slowly and cautiously among those Roman remains, there was no escaping the awesome mood and drama that permeated the landscape. This was the Forum. Caesar had walked here, talked here and was slain here. By Cassius and Brutus and the rest of the jealous plotters who had sought to keep Rome free of dictatorship. You can hardly find real estate like that, even in America, except for Ford's Theater in D.C. where Honest Abe got his. But here, the stakes had been even higher. A man against a country. The country had won. I had the screwy sensation that I ought to be wearing a toga as Kate Arizona's Schmeisser hurried me along the rocky terrain. Santini was bringing up the rear. There were only the three of us and the fiendish, big lady had used one of the small dungeon-like structures lost among the ruins to house me as her prisoner while she asked all her questions.

  She must have known the ground like a native. A paisano.

  Ahead of our small party, the massive, indented formation of the Colosseum, with its chewed-down outline resembling nothing less than a huge, round drum, lay on the horizon, over the massed shadows of the trees. The Arch of Constantine, just to its left, gleamed and shone on the thoroughfare, an eternal beacon in the night. A way-station separating both halves of Rome. The city half and the country half. Far off to the right, the Palantine, one of the seven hills, rose like a forest of deep green, faintly visible in the hazy glow of electric lighting surrounding the vast dimensions of the great old arena. The dark niches and apertures in the rounded shape of the Colosseum, no longer filled with the statues of Gods and Goddesses, as they had been before the Goths came, showed like cavities. Enormous patches of darkness in the biggest cavity the world will ever know. Or see. The Colosseum of Rome.