A Clear and Present Danger (2 page)

As he left the square, he heard the muffled sounds of a siren in the distance.

Madame Vilbel wept. Her face was a series of hideous black-and-blue lines made by rivers of mascara and eyeliner. The harsh
white light of a police torch shone on her, heightening the ghastly appearance.

Barlow Hurgett’s two Congressional companions stood bug-eyed and trembling as police went about the customary tasks of preserving
a murder scene for forensic examination: chalking the outline of the body, pushing ghoulish onlookers back beyond a barrier
of sawbucks, searching windows and rooftops for any unusual activity, taking names, and trying to make sense of initial statements.

The Congressmen were confused further by the fact that everything was playing in German.

One of them said, “We don’t say anything until the Embassy sends us lawyers.” Hearing this, the other man soiled his trousers.

A police photographer danced around the body, quickly shooting the bloody scene before the medics would drag away his subject.
The photographer knew the fat man at his feet was dead, but nevertheless he would have to be quick about his work. Medics
threw a fit when he asked for more time for all his shots, even when he was obviously photographing a corpse. As if anything
could be done for the corpse!

Another police car arrived, this one unmarked by flashers and sirens. A plainclothesman stepped out the passenger side of
the front seat and made his way through the tight knot of curious locals.

He spoke briefly to the chauffeur of the Mercedes limousine, who demonstrated with gestures how the American had stepped out
of the Mercedes and then seemed to trip and fall, face down.

The detective continued listening to the chauffeur while looking toward the upper windows of a hotel across the square from
Madame Vilbel’s.

Every window was lit, he noticed, except one. The fifth floor. Not only was that particular window dark, he saw, but it was
halfway open to the chill night air.

The detective signaled to a pair of uniformed officers, pointed to the window, and said, “We’re going up.”

An extremely nervous concierge turned over a house passkey to the policemen after telling them, honestly, that he had no clear
idea of who held the room on the fifth floor.

“This kind of place,” the detective joked with the officers as they scaled the staircase, “employs people who don’t notice
a thing.”

The detective was not surprised to find the room empty. He was, however, surprised to find so conspicuous a piece of evidence
as the cartridge shell on the window sill.

Frowning with curiosity, he took a small leather pocket-bag from its place on his shoulder, zipped it open, and removed a
tweezers and a glassine packet in which to drop this clue. The police laboratory would give it a closer look in the morning.

But then he noticed the paper cylinder inside the shell. He fished it out, gingerly, using the tweezers. He unrolled it and
read:

Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien!

The uniformed officers watched as he examined the bit of paper. Then the German detective shrugged, and said to his colleagues,
“I don’t know what this is, men. I don’t happen to read French.”

TURIN, Italy, 17 November 1980

Andreotti DiNicolini told his American visitors that he had something special for them.

He rose from the table and snapped a finger at the ubiquitous steward, who glided over from his station to refill glasses.
The steward poured carefully from a linen-wrapped blottle of
Château La Mission Haut Brion
, vintage 1928.

Crossing from one corner of his massive office suite to the other, DiNicolini wondered if his rivals at Renault-Dauphin had
served the Americans so sumptuously; he wondered, conversely, if he were treating them too generously at this stage. How does
one know, after all, how to properly grease a deal with Americans, the Americans being so righteous about such commonplace
European business expenses?

DiNicolini wanted this merger and he would do anything—absolutely anything—to see it through. The wine and these cigars, he
thought, as he opened a Moroccan-bound humidor at the edge of his marble desk, were trifles. And so were the women he might
be expected to deliver—unless these two wanted men, a situation he had encountered in the course of doing business more than
once lately. The real worry would come when the Americans began hinting about off-the-books cash transactions.

But these days, DiNicolini figured, what with the “Abscam” business he’d been reading about in the international press, perhaps
he didn’t have much to worry about when it came to cash payments. At least, the demands would be somewhat reduced.

Andreotti DiNicolini, the dashing young director of international development for Fiat Motors Italia, Ltd., might soon take
his place among the industrial heroes of Western Europe if only he could bring this one off. If only he could duplicate what
the French had accomplished last year, a limited partnership with American Motors Corporation. Duplicate, hell! DiNicolini
would do considerably better than Renault. He would merge Fiat with one of the American “Big Three” automakers! He, Andreotti
DiNicolini, would oversee the merger of Fiat with Chrysler Corporation!

The conditions were exactly right for such a deal. The movie actor the Americans had just elected as their President had given
a highly unfavorable response to a reporter’s question about continued government loans and loan guarantees for Chrysler;
the city of Detroit, Turin’s sister “Motown,” faced the desperate possibility of thousands more workers out of jobs, a grim
prospect for a city in the throes of the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

DiNicolini’s task was to convince his two visitors that only in merger could the real competition be effectively challenged—the
Japanese competition.

He was confident that he could swing one of the visitors to his way of thinking. That would be Richard Samuels, member of
the U.S. Senate and, according to some voices in the American press, the logical Democratic challenger to Ronald Reagan in
1984. And besides, DiNicolini had reason to believe that Samuels had profited personally and rather significantly from the
Renault-American Motors deal.

But the other man would be a difficult case, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that he was an Italo-American, Frank Riggio
by name. Riggio was chairman of the board of Chrysler, a progressive businessman who was, unfortunately, scrupulously honest.
How he had gotten so far was beyond DiNicolini’s understanding. How Riggio had gotten so far in the automobile business was
beyond anyone’s understanding.

The steward stepped out of DiNicolini’s path as he returned to the table at which the Americans sat.

“Anything more?” the steward asked.

DiNicolini pointed to his own glass and the steward filled it. Then, when DiNicolini gestured to the ashtrays, which contained
the remains of one cigar per man, the steward allowed the slightest trace of a grin to interrupt his poker face.

The steward carefully stacked the ashtrays on his serving tray and stared at them oddly as he backed away from the table.
Before disappearing into the pullman kitchen that was part of the office suite, DiNicolini said to him, “Some espresso, Anthony.”

DiNicolini looked to the faces of his guests, who agreed that espresso would indeed be the fine finishing touch to the meal
they had just completed and the wine they had drunk. He looked again at the steward.

“Right away, please.”

Anthony nodded and backed through the kitchen door.

“Now then,” DiNicolini said, attending to his guests once more, “here is what I promised.”

He extended his hand, which contained a pair of crisply wrapped Individuates, which Senator Samuels correctly gauged at ten
dollars a copy. Riggio mumbled an appreciation and struck a match.

“I’ll just put this one away for now,” Samuels said, tucking the cigar into an interior pocket of his coat. “That is, if you
don’t mind?”

Riggio and DiNicolini were both already happily puffing away on theirs. Riggio shrugged his shoulders and DiNicolini swept
his right hand through the air, dismissing Samuels from any obligation to participate in the smoking ritual.

“Had one already, as you know,” Samuels said. DiNicolini detested Samuels’ habit of beginning every sentence with a verb.

“Clogs up the heart, absolute murder,” Samuels continued, “or so says my doctor. Can’t have more than one stogie a day and
my ration’s up, see. Got to save room for the caffeine.”

DiNicolini smiled pleasantly at the Senator as he wondered how much cash it would take to buy him. Whatever, it would be worth
the investment. Samuels might very well be President in four years. And why not? The Americans had been proving for years
that they were capable of electing absolutely anything to the highest office in the land.

“Coffee, now that’s bad, too,” Samuels prattled on, “but since I had just one cup of that, and that was way back early in
the morning, well, I suppose I can manage that espresso stuff now in the afternoon.

“When in Rome, you know, and all that.”

Samuels thought this last remark particularly funny and began snorting and laughing simultaneously.

Riggio shifted uncomfortably in his chair, clearly bored by his fellow American’s small chat. If there was business to be
done, then by god let’s get at it, he thought. He had a fair idea of what DiNicolini would propose, of course, and he knew
he had no choice but to consider it. In fact, his only objection at this point of the game was the presence of Samuels, a
necessary evil in the age of enabling legislation.

Samuels would be needed to introduce a variety of Congressional bills for whatever business context it would take to salvage
the Chrysler Corporation. It would make Samuels a hero in the eyes of the national liberal constituency for bringing about
a quasi government-industry partnership, and it would make Samuels a hero in the more immediate constituency of Michigan,
where his actions could save thousands of jobs. Also, the deal would fatten Samuels’ Swiss accounts. What a racket!

DiNicolini, of course, was thinking the same thing. He said to Samuels, “We shall have the espresso soon, Senator.”

Riggio could take it no longer. “How will your government react to what you are about to propose?” he asked, jarring DiNicolini
from insignificant concern.

DiNicolini cleared his throat.

“What I am about to propose, Mr. Riggio, is a matter which is easily soluable insofar as it may concern the Italian government,
as there is, practically speaking, no such thing as an Italian government,” DiNicolini said.

He was pleased to hear Riggio laugh.

“Should we merge our operations,” DiNicolini continued, “or at least a part of them, which, I can clearly tell, is what you
have correctly anticipated as my proposal, my government will be only too happy to endorse the enterprise.

“This I can guarantee you, Mr. Riggio. As I said, we have virtually no government. The Queen of England is due here this week,
and no one in Rome can think of whom she should see. No one is able to determine who is head of state.”

Riggio laughed again.

DiNicolini finished his wine and said, “You may laugh, but this is the truth. In Italy today, someone like your Jimmy Carter
would be considered politically charismatic.” He looked toward the kitchen door. Where the devil was the steward?

“Don’t sweat the Congress,” Samuels chimed in, directing his comments to Riggio. “Been over that path before, right?”

A bit of ash fell off Riggio’s Individualé. He cupped a hand and caught it. He looked about somewhat helplessly for an ashtray.

“Sorry,” DiNicolini said. He rose from the table, now angered by the steward’s slowness. “I’ll get those ashtrays.”

Inside the kitchen, Anthony hurriedly finished what he was doing as he heard DiNicolini’s words and his approaching footsteps.
Sweat trickled down his back, beneath his starched steward’s jacket.

DiNicolini pushed through the door, brusquely, and came face to face with his steward, who held a coffee service in a tray,
along with clean ashtrays.

“Sir?” Anthony asked. It appeared to his employer that nothing was amiss.

“Well… just carry on.”

DiNicolini turned then and reentered the dining area of his suite, briefly embarrassed at having engaged in the triviality
of checking Anthony’s progress. He was still uneasy with Anthony. The old fellow who had been his steward for so many years
had unexpectedly resigned one day a month ago, suggesting that his nephew, Anthony, fill in. He had heard the other day from
Anthony that the old fellow had unexpectedly died in his sleep.

DiNicolini resumed his seat at the dining table. Anthony placed an ashtray near Riggio. He set the other between DiNicolini
and the nonsmoking Senator, then circled the table to serve each man a demitasse of espresso.

As Riggio and DiNicolini talked business, and as Samuels mentally calculated his fee for bringing the two industrialists together,
the steward quickly returned to the small kitchen.

Once inside, Anthony opened a cupboard and removed a black leather briefcase. From it, he took a suitcoat that matched the
dark trousers he was wearing, a pair of brown tortoise-shell glasses, a false mustache, a charcoal gray Borsalino, and a somber
four-in-hand.

He removed his steward’s jacket and bow tie, placing these items neatly into a drawer where they were customarily stored.
Then he patted the mustache into place with a drop of spirit gum. The necktie, suitcoat, and glasses went on next. He now
looked every inch the properly uniformed European businessman.

He inspected the kitchen, giving it a final going-over, for he never would return. Everything was in order, everything spotless.
He placed the laboratory instruments he had been using into the briefcase and snapped it shut.

The Borsalino in one hand and the briefcase in the other, he left DiNicolini’s suite through the kitchen door that connected
with a private corridor leading to the main hallway of elevators and offices of lesser men.