Assignment - Palermo (14 page)

“The locals and Rome Interpol pegged Adolfo as their pigeon last month after the big hoo-hah about heroin refining here by the Fratelli della Notte. When were things different in Naples? But a few kids were caught when one died of an overdose, and the newspapers complained. Adolfo refined heroin as a sideline. I must say, I don’t think the Fratelli worked that street so much. But trying to clean them out is like trying to clean up the Augean Stables, old Cajun.” McElroy paused. “Adolfo was a weak flower, and the carabinieri had high hopes for him. Sooner or later they figured to nail him to the wall, screw him, and make him vomit all he knew, including dope on his precious aristocratic mother in her precious aristocratic palazzo on the Riviera de Chiaia.”

“And now he’s dead,” Durell said.

“Now he’s dead,” Onan echoed, and downed his Stravei-Campari-gin mixture. “It needs some soda.” “Do the cops want me?”

“If they catch you, yes.”

“Then I’d better move on.” Durell stood up with care. “I’m worried. Kronin thought he had me in a box. He said O’Malley and the girl defected. I’d better go see.”

“And if they have?”

“Then I’m up the creek.”

“Do you want a lead, old Cajun?” McElroy grinned. “I’ve got a bypass out of that creek, but I don’t know where it will take you. Ever hear of the Baron Uccelatti?” “It’s a familiar name. I’m worried about O’Malley and Gabriella.”

“Well, they went thataway, partner.”

“To Uccelatti? How do you know?”

“Private plane taxied right up the Castel dell’ Ovo off the Partanope, near the rattrap apartment you took. Relax. You can’t catch them this minute.”

“Did they go willingly?”

“Who knows? They went. Laughing and smiling and the girl holding O’Malley’s arm. One of my cabbies saw the whole thing. No visible guns in their backs.”

“And the other two? Bruno and Joey?”

“Vanished. Lots of ratholes for rats in Naples, Cajun. Have some more bourbon. I’m not offering you my Stravei. It’s hard to get. They don’t export it to the States yet, either.”

“What about Baron Uccelatti?”

“His plane. One of the richest men in Italy. Private yacht anchored at Palermo in Sicily right now. By air it’s a short hop. They’ll be landing in twenty minutes.” McElroy consulted his Omega. His complicated model looked like an instrument off the panel of a seven-o-seven. “Yup, twenty minutes. But I don’t advise you to follow.”

“Why not? It’s my job.”

“They went willingly, Cajun. And you don’t tangle with the
barone
. Next to Old Uncle he’s top man in the hierarchy of the Fratelli della Notte.”

“All the more reason,” Durell said.

“You’re out of your mind. You’ll have to live on the pills, or your shoulder will cramp you more than a bit.” “I’ll go now,” Durell said. He stood up.

“Take your tux,” McElroy advised. “Or I’ll get one for you. Baron Uccelatti is a very high-living personality. Very formal. Like he’s got a swarm of bikini girls all around him on that floating palace of a yacht. You’d look like a bum among them.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” Durell said.

McElroy sighed and pulled again at his big ears. Durell wondered why they weren’t longer.

“That’s what I figured,” McElroy said. He tossed Durell an Alitalia ticket envelope. “Your plane leaves in forty minutes for Palermo. I’ll give you a supply of juice pills. Happy hunting.”

HE BORROWED a book from Onan and read it on the plane to Palermo. The book dealt with castles and archeological sites on Sicily, and Durell searched it carefully for places that began with “San Gi—.” He hoped Adolfo Cimadori’s last words meant something. He hoped that Adolfo, out of his petty soul, had tried to spite his murderers by telling him where to find Vecchio Zio.

He found names such as San Giorgio and San Giuliano and San Gilo and San Giovanni and checked them against the sites marked on the folded map in the back of the book. They all seemed a long way from Palermo. And Palermo was where Gabriella began her trip fifteen years ago to visit Zio. It hadn’t taken her too long, although she had slept in the car part of the way. Still, fifteen years ago Sicily had scarcely recovered from Operation Husky, and the roads were notoriously bad after the invasion chewed on them. She couldn’t have gone more than twenty or thirty miles. But in which direction? He couldn’t guess. He gave it up and took another of Onan’s pills. His shoulder ached for a time and then the pain went away.

Long ago he had been intrigued by Sicily’s eternal fascination, but he wished his return were under better auspices. The air at Boccadifalco Airport was immediately languorous, almost subversive with its soft appeal. It was dusk when he arrived, and the lights of Palermo around the Conca d’Oro were beads of pearls strung on the throat of the bay. Looming and brooding to the north like some ancient deity was the bulk of Monte Pellegrino, dominating this city of Carthaginians,

Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Norman conquerors, and that fantastic Swabian, Frederick II.

There was the usual crush and confusion at the airport, but he had no difficulty finding a taxi.

The taxi found him.

The man jumped out, saluted dramatically, and said, “At your service, signor. I am here through the compliments of Signor McElroy.”

He was short and dark and looked like an Arab except for his blue Norman eyes. He was chewing a mandarin orange, and the taxi was redolent with the scent of citrus with a solid base of garlic.

“Why don’t you announce it with a trumpet?” Durell objected. “Do you work for McElroy?”

“Si, signor. A great honor. This is his taxi. A branch of his business at Napoli. And my name, signor, is Michelangelo Cefalu.”

“All right, Mike. I suppose you have a hotel all picked out for me?”

“Certainly. The Villa del Golfo, at Acquasanta. Very fine, very expensive. You are rich Americano, no?” “No,” Durell said. He was aware of Thompson’s currency in his money belt. It would eventually present bookkeeping problems for K Section’s accountants. “The room is reserved?”

“All is in order. Please to get in.”

The trip was short, fast, and wild. An A.Li.S. helicopter beat the languid air overhead as they left the airport. He ate an orange out of a paper bag he found on the back seat of the taxi—after peeling it carefully.

The Villa del Golfo sprawled in its own park near the Piazza Acquasanta, a vast pile of architecture stamped with Palermo’s unique history. The rooms held mosaic relics from surrounding ruins, and the windows were carved with Moorish filigrees. In the garden there were palm trees, oranges, and almond trees in flower, like a galaxy of earth-bound stars twinkling in the night. Durell was expected, although the hotel was filled with visitors to the local dog show and the restaurant jammed with tourists and proud Palmeritans.

His window faced the darkly glittering sea that had carried the galleys of Rome and Phoenicia and the ships of Aragon. There were tennis courts, and the parking lot was filled with a remuda of Mercedes, Ferarris and several Fleetwood Cadillacs. The orchestra in the dining room played “Gondolf, Gondola,” and sounded lonesome for Venice. Durell fanned the room for listening devices, then showered and ordered dinner sent up, a meal that included the Sicilian pasta con sarde, with a bottle of Faro wine. He began to feel lonely, too. The wine smelled of orange blossoms and bergamot. He took his glass out to the balcony and surveyed the beach and the waterfront.

There was a yacht basin not far off, and it was easy to spot Baron Uccelatti’s
Vesper
. She was an auxiliary schooner of 110 feet, snow-white and floodlit, moored in wealthy exclusiveness some distance from the smaller boats that crowded the basin. The teak decks seemed aswarm with people, but it was too far off to make them out. Some were diving and swimming in the warm waters of the bay, tended by two small power boats that belonged to the Vesper. Most of the swimmers were girls, and most of what he could see of the girls was a lot of tanned and glorious skin.

He wondered how to manage a meeting with Baron Uccelatti. The informality aboard seemed promising, but it might also be an invitation to play Daniel in the lion’s den. His shoulder began to ache again. The waterproof bandage was itchy. He flexed his left arm tentatively and tried to lift it with speed and accuracy, as if using a gun. The pain stabbed him, and he gave it up. He would have to fly on one wing. He owed something for this to Karl Kronin.

Then someone tapped discreetly on his door.

Presumably no one knew he was here but Onan McElroy. He asked who it was and heard the thick voice of Michelangelo Cefalu and opened it, using standard DUA procedure (Dangerous, Unknown Approach). It was just as well. The taxi driver was not alone. A tall man in a dinner jacket—he remembered McElroy’s suggestion for his wardrobe—stood behind the Sicilian in a way that meant that Mike had a gun pointed at his back.

“I’m sorry, Signor Durell—”

“No matter. Who is your friend?”

“No friend, signor—”

The man in the dinner jacket spoke precise English. “I am sorry, too, sir, but it is necessary. We would not want you to refuse the baron’s invitation.”

“No, I wouldn’t want to do that. What am I invited to?”

“He requests the pleasure of your company, sir,” said the tall man. “Please do not disappoint him. He knows of you, you see. He looks forward to your visit to the
Vesper
.”

Cefalu made pathetic, apologetic noises. So much for Onan McElroy’s help.

“It’s fine, Mike,” Durell said. “You can go.”

The formally dressed man nodded. When Cefalu scuttled away down the hotel corridor, Durell could not see a gun in the newcomer’s hand. But it didn’t necessarily mean there hadn’t been one before. The man smiled pleasantly.

“I am authorized to tell you, sir, that you are given safe conduct and will be escorted back to the hotel before midnight.”

“How much is the safe conduct worth?”

The other stiffened. “As much as Baron Uccelatti makes of it. He is a man of honor, if that relieves your fear.”

“It would take more than that to relieve me,” Durell said. “But nothing ventured, nothing gained, to coin a phrase. Lead on, my good man.”

The man flushed, nodded, and waited for Durell to get his coat.

It was not a long walk to the yacht basin. The sea breeze was like a powder puff, and the scent of lemons made a counterpoint to the fading music from the Villa del Golfo. After a hundred yards they turned down a darker side street and came to an elaborate iron gate, which his escort opened with a touch of a finger on a small lion’s head, and then they crossed a private garden lumpily shadowed with oleanders and palm trees. The lawn was like a Sarouk carpet. Ancient Roman statues loomed like shrouded ghosts in the gloom. Their feet made gritty noises as they walked along a shell path to the opposite gate.

Beyond the gate there was a glisten of water, a gleam of polished teak and brass, the lift and fall of a boat tender at a private dock. But they never reached it.

From the darkness beside the gate came quick leaping movements, a dull sound like the flat of a cleaver striking meat, a curse in Palmeritan accents. Inevitably Durell felt something slam into his wounded shoulder. The pain screamed down his arm, and he felt as if his fingers might drop off. His well-dressed guide made a small choking cry and went down and skinned his face on the oyster-shell path. He skidded a few feet and wouldn’t need to shave for a while. Durell stepped to one side and leaned against a palm tree and watched two figures relieve the prone man of wallet, watch, gun, knife, small coins, cuff links, shirt studs, gold key chain, gold cigarette lighter, and gold cigarette case. There was a short grunting argument about the patent-leather shoes, and one of the shadows deftly removed them. Then he saw the glitter of a stiletto over the unconscious man’s throat, and he pushed away from the palm trees, breathing thinly, and said, “Hold it, Mike.”

Cefalu whirled. “Why? He would kill you!”

“I doubt it. And put back the loot.”

“Have no doubts. They plan to kill you.” Michelangelo Cefalu turned his dark face upward, perplexed. “Have you no gratitude?”

“He was taking me to Uccelatti, where I wanted to go. True, it wasn’t on my terms. Put back the loot.” Cefalu said, “Two Fratelli wait on the dock. The water there is very deep. An accident, a stumble, a blow on the head and—poof! I have orders from Signor McElroy to protect you. Palermo is a wicked town, Signor Durell.”

“Yes. Full of thieves. Don’t kill him.”

There was a quick argument between the taxi-driver and his friend. The second man settled for the shoes and trotted away. Cefalu dropped the oddments he had stolen back on the unconscious body, looked at Durell with sad solicitude, and clucked as he touched Durell’s shoulder. “You are bleeding!”

“It’s an old war wound. It bleeds when I’m frustrated.”

“Come, we will attend to it. Not back to the hotel yet. They will look for you there. We will go to my place. There is much to be done tonight.”

They walked out of the garden and back to the street the way they had come, turned down an alley, crossed a small piazza with a Norman church, went down another alley, and came to Mike’s taxi. On the way Durell took two of Onan’s pain-killers. In the cab Cefalu used a first-aid kit from under the front seat and deftly applied a fresh bandage to Durell’s injured shoulder. Cefalu clucked again. -

“What a nuisance. It inhibits you, eh?”

“I wish you hadn’t interfered, Mike.”

“What would you do? Go aboard and be slaughtered like a lamb? Demand that Uccelatti release the girl and turn her back to you? Pay ransom for her? No, no. The barone needs no money. He has everything and everyone you want, eh? Your friend O’Malley and the girl.”

“And two other men. Brutelli and Joey Milan.” “No, he has no others. They escaped, I think. Guglielmo, my friend with the passion for shoes, saw it all. They jumped overboard, those two, and swam ashore before you arrived. There was a small regatta in process, you understand, and many people watching from the quays. It was impossible for Uccelatti to stop them.” Cefalu paused. “Maybe we should find them first, eh?”