The moment she stepped through the doorway, my eyes and ears blocked out all other sights and sounds of the cocktail party. I was completely overwhelmed by her.
She was tall, about five-nine probably, with a beautiful mane of honey-colored hair that billowed and swirled around her bare shoulders as she glanced regally around the room. She was statuesque, with a body so perfect it could have been put together with a computer. Her dress was molded to wonderful hips and a flat stomach, a small waist. Her breasts were large and lush and bite-sized, and entirely self-supporting in the dress. Beneath the hem of it there was enough calf showing to promise wonderfully shaped legs.
Her eyes were smoky, tiny flecks of fire showing beneath the long lashes as her glance hit me and then moved on to the hostess. The two women appraised each other critically for a moment with neither showing a sign of recognition. Then she glanced briefly at the host and I caught a slight flicker as though she knew him and in that instant had shared some personal secret with him.
Now the blonde's escort was introducing her to the hostess and then to the host. He played it straight, and it was a great performance. If they had shared the same bed, then I'd completely underestimated George Heatherington.
Suddenly the chatter of the party broke into my thoughts and I remembered Pat Gordon had directed her question at me.
"And how do you like Genoa, Mr. Cody?" she'd asked.
Glancing down at her now I saw that she was still waiting for my answer. "I'm sorry," I said. "I like it very much, although I just arrived this morning. And please call me Chris."
We continued to chit-chat and I met the Italian who joined our group, Giovannia Longo, a police official from the local Questura's office. "Call me Johnny," he said with a grin. "It's much easier."
The other man was a swarthy, heavy-set individual who said his name was Nick, and that he was in shipping. Before long we split up and I moved on, picking martinis off the tray each time the white-coated waiter came around.
I met and talked briefly to other members of the American Consulate, members of European consulates, diplomats from South and Central American countries; and they all had their women with them, sleek and attractive things of a dozen different nationalities. Diplomats tend to be stiff and formal at first, but give them a couple of belts of booze and they get loose. Maybe that's the way they get the high-level treaties and pacts signed, but it's also an easy way to get into trouble.
That's why I'd come to Genoa on this special assignment.
There were reports that George Heatherington could get Washington into trouble. Washington wanted to know exactly what he was up to and to stop it before it got out of hand.
While I moved about, I glanced occasionally at the blonde, knowing that I was going to get her and talk to her. And more, if possible. It didn't make any difference to me whether she was George Heatherington's cutie, or the wife of the President of Italy. A woman like that makes me think big. Especially after several martinis.
She certainly wasn't ignored because every time I looked in her direction I saw that she was surrounded by men. The women were keeping an eye on her too, appraising her with cold, analytical glances.
I was about to make my move when Terry Heatherington suddenly stepped up to me. "How are you doing, Chris?"
"Your party's a success."
She picked a fresh highball off the tray the waiter was holding out to us. "Don't stop now," she said, glancing at the tray.
"I wouldn't think of it." I picked off a fresh martini.
"Cheers." Terry stepped up close to me and held out her drink. I touched my glass to hers and then I was looking right down into the cleft between her tanned breasts.
"How do you like the scenery around here?" Her glance never left my face.
"It's not bad," I said. "At first glance."
"Then you're waiting for a good look?"
"I'd like to see everything there is to see." I glanced downward again. Her breasts were full and firm and exciting, even though she was slender, looking like a fashion model with that hungry look in her cheeks.
"How about tomorrow?" she asked.
"What about tomorrow?"
"I'd be happy to show you a few things here in Genoa. We could start by going for a swim at the Lido."
"Sounds great, Terry."
"How about ten-thirty?"
"I'll make it a point to set my alarm clock, ant me to drop by here?"
"Yes," she said, "do that." Her glance shifted to the right, and I knew she was watching her husband, George, who was talking to the blonde. The corner's of Terry eyes tightened momentarily, but that was the only visible reaction. Finally she took a quick sip of her drink.
"Who is she?" I asked.
"The blonde?"
When I nodded she said, "Her name is Zora something or other. It all sounded Greek to me, her last name. She came to the party with the Spaniard. Senor DeSoto."
"Ole," I said.
"Haven't you met her?"
When I shook my head Terry said, "Come on. But remember we have a date tomorrow morning."
George had just walked away, and for the first time that night the blonde was by herself. She was picking a smoked oyster off a tray as we came up to her.
Terry said, "May I introduce Chris Cody, fresh off the boat from America."
Looking at her up close for the first time was even more exciting than I'd expected. Her skin was light golden, almost creamy in texture, her eyelashes long and dark, and her eyes were those of a cat. They were watching me critically as we shook hands. She pulled her hand out of mine too quickly.
"I'm not going to bite you," I said, "even though I'd like to."
I saw the surprise in her glance change to humor. "If that's a compliment, I thank you."
The voice was low and electric in quality. I studied the general area from which it had originated. Then I said, "The way I bite, it has to be a compliment."
Terry spoke up. "Excuse me, but I'd better say goodbye to some of the guests who are leaving."
After she'd departed Zora asked, "So you're fresh off the boat from America?"
I nodded. "And where are you from?"
She slipped the oyster into her mouth and Chewed it briefly before answering. "Does it matter?"
"Not really."
She dropped the toothpick into an ashtray and then a guy from American Export Lines joined us, bringing the waiter with him, and he became a real busybody, making sure everyone was supplied with drinks.
She took a scotch and soda and I had another martini. By that time the guy's wife had arrived to keep an eye on him and a second later there was a crowd around Zora. She politely excused herself and joined Senor DeSoto. Moments later they were saying goodnight to the host and hostess and then she was gone.
The guy from American Export said, "Damn, oh damn, she is something." He made sure his wife didn't hear it.
"What do you know about her?" I asked.
"Nothing. I've been in this town for eight years and I've never seen her before tonight."
"That Spaniard-is he new in Genoa, too?"
"No. But he's pretty secretive about her. Claims she's just an old friend."
I remembered the way she and George had looked at each other when she'd arrived and I recalled that George had been in Rome before coming to Genoa.
"Come on, Peter," the woman said, "forget that blonde. We've got to get to that dinner party."
I told them both good night. The guests were leaving now and I didn't want to be the last one to depart. When I stepped up to George and Terry to say goodnight, I found that a group of people were getting ready to go out and eat. They insisted I come along with them, and suddenly Pat Gordon was at my side, clinging to my arm, and begging me to go with them.
Coaxing I like.
We all went to a restaurant on a narrow side street, and we had a feast with lots of wine and it was after midnight when we came out again.
A vice consul dropped me off at the hotel and he promised to drop off Pat on his way home. When I shook his hand I felt the limp wrist so I knew he would. I kissed Pat Gordon goodnight and got out of the car.
Pat smiled. "We'll have to do it again, sometime."
"We haven't even done it the first time yet," I said.
Pat smiled. "You're a devil. Too bad my boss is George Heatherington. Anyway, Ciao."
I waved and the car pulled away.
I went into the Savoia Majestic. The lobby was deserted and while I got my key at the desk I left a call for ten in the morning. As I walked to the elevator I remembered the night before, the last night aboard ship and the way I'd finally gotten to Trixie.
I remembered after we'd touched glasses in her stateroom we took a sip of our champagne. Then she asked, "Are you trying to get me drunk?"
"You're the heiress," I said. "What's the usual reason for buying a lovely girl champagne?"
"Because you want to make love to me."
"It's been on my mind during the crossing," I told her.
Trixie was the sole heir to a plastics fortune; and now as she'd just turned twenty-one, she was on her way to Switzerland to study art. Swiss art had never impressed me, but what the hell. Trixie impressed me.
Her eyes were brown, and so was her hair, and she wore it long and straight. A fairly attractive face, nothing spectacular, but what a body! Long, perfect legs, a high, hard bust, and a firm, rounded fanny; but along with all that she seemed deliciously soft. She had the type of equipment that turned me into a grabber.
We'd spent a lot of time together the last few days, walking around the deck, playing shuffleboard, drinking and dancing, and the rest. We'd had a lot of fun. Good, clean fun. This was the first time I'd ever gotten inside her stateroom.
Now she was saying, "And because this is the last night on board ship, you want to go. It's now or never. So, using the excuse you wanted to help me pack, you dropped by, ordered the champagne, and here we are."
"Well, you found me out," I said.
She smiled. "It was pretty obvious, Chris."
I drained my glass and pulled the magnum out of the bucket. I refilled her glass, then mine, and dropped it back into the ice again. "A toast," I said, "to your future."
She touched her glass to mine and while she was looking up at me, I leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were soft and wanting, and she pushed her head up a bit and crushed her mouth harder against mine. Then she gasped and stepped away from me.
I thought it was passion but then I realized she'd tipped her glass and spilled some of the chilled champagne down the front of her.
"Oh," she said disgustedly, and set her glass aside. There was a long damp spot following the row of buttons down the front of her blouse. I unbuttoned the top one and I intended to go right down the line.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm trying to take this off so you won't catch cold."
Her arm came up and pushed me aside. "I'll take care of it, thank you."
She wore her way through the suitcase scattered about the floor, went into the bathroom and shut the door.
I turned around and filled my glass, thinking how life's disappointments can drive a man to drink. I drank.
Then I heard the bathroom door opening behind me and I heard her say, "I've got a clean blouse around here somewhere."
I turned around.
Trixie was bare from the waist up. Her breasts were beauties that firmed upwards, the nipples dark red and nubby. One thought kept running through my mind: she didn't have to come out without her brassiere, now did she? I shoved my empty glass into the ice bucket and stepped over to her.
"Here it is," she said, picking up a greenish silken blouse.
I tore it from her hands and tossed it aside. She was laughing as she whirled around and tried to get out of my reach. I was glad that she did. It gave me a chance to grab her.
I caught her from behind, with my hands going around her and each one fastening to one of her breasts. It was like squeezing a couple of luscious oranges in the summer sun, except that her skin was wonderfully smooth. She tried to get away from me, but not very hard, and we fell against the wardrobe trunk. I picked her up then, squirming and kicking, and headed for the bed.
"What are you doing? she asked.
"I'm going to make love to you." I dropped her onto the bed, and it was a very good bed. She bounced. Then I started getting out of my clothes.
"Turn out the light," she said.
I punched the cord button and the lights went out. In the darkness I could hear her breathing rapidly and rustling about, and I guessed she was taking off the rest of her clothes. If she wasn't, I would help her.
The moment I was undressed I stepped up to the edge of the bed, leaned forward, and I sent my hands out, searching for her. She found me first. Her hands slid up my arms, went around my neck and then she pulled me down on the bed. I sent my right hand along her heated, silken hip, down her bare thigh, and then I checked the flaming flatness of her stomach. My lips found hers in the darkness and then as I came down she came up to meet me, to welcome, to bring me down to her level. Horizontal.
But only for a moment because she suddenly became uncoiled like a spring, slamming those beautiful hard breasts against my chest and hammering her hips against mine. She was firm, and strong, and very active but there was still that wonderful softness about her that permeated through her and enveloped me passionately and hungrily.
The liner lurched cooperatively and I heard her little cry and then her hands and fingers were digging and torturing my back in rhythm to the surges and the swells and it seemed, as though we were riding in a little boat in the middle of the silent wonderful darkness.
To keep a steady course, I got busy with the paddle and then we began our journey through the night, tipping and swaying and listing, each pressured stroke moving us forward through the exquisite tropical void.
And then came the first sudden gust of a heated gale that shuddered our closeness and shook us violently, and suddenly the shore was in sight ahead of us, beckoning to us, and I became caught up in her vicious reactions to get to it quickly and then we were powering and thundering frantically together.
Closer and closer came our objective and wild and savage lunges churned up the world about us until the waves rocked and twisted the boat, shoved it into oblivion to be suspended for long excruciating moments, and then we came down hard and crashed onto the rocks and we were spilled out upon a shore that was covered with a million precious jewels that flickered and flashed about us and then we clung to each other and let the wonderful heated surges of ecstasy enclose us and wash over us.
Chapter Two
The elevator sliding to a halt on my floor pulled my thoughts back to the present, and after I'd shoved the door open I stepped out of it and started down the hallway to my room. I saw the pairs of shoes outside the doors, placed there by the hotel guests upon retiring, so that they would be shined during the night. I wondered briefly whether Trixie had already arrived in Switzerland and whether she'd put her sandals outside the door, whoever she might be.
After my visit to her stateroom, I'd gotten involved with the porters the next morning, and I never had an opportunity to say goodbye to her when the boat docked at Genoa.
Now as I got to the door of my room, I unlocked it, stepped inside and turned on the light.
I couldn't believe it.
It had been hot during the day, and although it was now past midnight, it was still balmy. Even in the hotel room. I suppose that was why Trixie was sleeping nude in my bed, and it also must have been why she hadn't pulled the sheet over her.
She was lying on her left side, with her right leg pulled up and bent a little. A beautiful sight. Just to be sure I wasn't dreaming, I pinched myself and then I walked over to the bed and pinched her fanny.
That awakened her and she flipped over on her back. She squinted her eyes sleepily against through every restriction and confinement to rocket unchecked onto the straightaway. Then we were coasting out of control, holding onto each other powerfully and frantically so that we wouldn't fall off, and everything moved beautifully and continued for long moments until we'd lost our momentum and there was only the pleasurable and relaxed slowing down and finally stopping.
Finally I found Trixie's damp hair caught in the pressure between her cheeks, grinding into the side of my face. And even with my teeth still clamped cruelly onto the lobe of her ear, I found that I was seeing Zora standing seductively before me and I could not get her out of my mind.
When I awoke in the morning, I felt Trixie beginning to stir beside me. I glanced at the watch and saw that it was not even eight yet. Trixie was catching her train a bit after nine-thirty. So I touched her hip lightly with my hand, and sleepily and languidly she turned to me, and already it was mutually and silently agreed that we'd have one for the road. A long delicious meeting to say our goodby.
After that Trixie scurried back to her room and I ducked into the shower. Later we met downstairs in the lobby. Trixie looked fresh and lovely and snug as a well-fed cat.
I walked over to the train station with her. We planned to make her departure one of embraces and lovely moments, but at the last second she got involved with the porter taking her bags to the train. "My watch is running slow. I'm late. Goodby, Chris."
"So long, Trixie."
She hurried down the wide concrete steps and a second later she was lost in the crowd.
When I turned around to leave I saw that one of the uniformed ticket sellers was watching me. He winked elaborately and then twisted the tip of one forefinger into the center of his cheek.
"Bellissima!" he said reverently. "Very beautiful, that girl."
At that second I wondered what he'd do when he saw Zora. Now that I was thinking about her again, I wondered just what I'd do. After I took off my skis, that is.
Outside the station I saw a bar across the street and I walked over there and went inside.
I'd just ordered my espresso and standing at the counter getting ready to sip it when Johnny Longo walked in. The moment he saw me, a grin lighted up his face.
"Johnny," I said, "you're up pretty early this morning."
He glanced at his watch. 'Ten o'clock is not very early for me."
"You just reminded me about something. I'm supposed to be out at the Heatherington's shortly."
Johnny was wearing a coat and hat, even in the heat. Now he unbuttoned his shirt collar and loosened his tie. 'The party is still going on?"
"Terry-Mrs. Heatherington, is going to show me around Genoa today. And I believe she said something about going to the Lido."
Johnny rolled his eyes. "It was a very good party."
"Terrific." That made me think about the moment Zora had arrived. "Do you remember that blonde there last night? Zora, I believe, was her name."
He stared thoughtfully at the espresso placed before him. "Yes. She's very beautiful."
"What do you know about her?"
He pulled his head back and the little brown eyes were studying me guardedly. "What do you mean?"
The tone of his voice and the look he gave me was pure cop. A cop in Burbank, Beverly Hills, or Baltimore. Or any other town. It teed me off a bit, but I covered my annoyance.
"A woman like that gets a man to thinking. You know how it is."
He nodded and looked away. "Si, I understand. I met her for the first time last night."
I had the feeling he really didn't understand. First of all he'd given the impression he'd had to concentrate to remember her from the night before. That didn't make sense. Not when she was so beautiful and he was an Italian. Italian men react differently to beautiful women.
"Oh, well," I said. "I'll have to go through the rest of my life just dreaming about her."
"It could be worse," he said.
I didn't know how it could be, but I didn't want to discuss it any further. I apologized for having to run; we shook hands, and I went outside and got a cab at the railroad station.
I punched the doorbell of the Heatherington apartment and a few seconds later the door was opened by one of the servants who'd been passing out the hors d'oeuvres the night before.
"Chris Cody to see Mrs. Heatherington."
She stepped back and I stepped inside.
"I'm in the front room, Chris," Terry called out.
She met me in the living room and of course we were very formal and shook hands. Terry was wearing a light, coral-green housecoat and holding a tall glass of something red in her left hand.
"How are you this morning, Terry?"
"Well, I'm better than I was." She held up her glass. "How about a Bloody Mary?"
I declined. "I guess I'm just a sissy."
She excused herself and went into the kitchen. When she returned a few minutes later, I noticed that her glass had been refilled. "Let's go out on the terrace, Chris."
There was a table out there with an umbrella and four rattan chairs. While we were getting settled she told me about the hideous hangover she'd had that morning, and that if it hadn't been for the Bloody Marys she'd have died long ago.
By that time the maid came out with a tray loaded with orange juice, coffee, and some brioche, deposited it, and went back inside.
"Eat hearty, mate, it may be days before we see land again."
"This is terrific, Terry." I helped myself.
"No hangover this morning?"
I shook my head. "A party as nice as yours never gives me a hangover. This is a real treat. Espressos are fine, but American coffee can't be beat for breakfast."
While I ate, she drank, and we made light, polite chit-chat. Then she was telling me about their two children going to school in Lucerne.
"Can you imagine that, an old bag like me having two daughters in their early teens?" She brought up her feet and flipped open her house-coat, showing me her legs, shapely and tanned, up to her knees.
I admired them as I settled back with my final cup of coffee. "They're very nice legs. I mentally complimented you on your figure last night."
She crossed her legs and flipped the sides of the housecoat together again. "I hope you had fun at the party."
"I really did. I had a wonderful time."
She took a quick sip of her drink. "We used to have some fabulous parties when George was assigned to embassies. Embassies-large Foreign Service posts-are more fun than a small post like this one in Genoa. Lots of things going on, lots of action."
She paused to laugh softly. "I'll never forget one night while we were stationed in Buenos Aires. It was a huge party given by the Ambassador, and held in one of the plushiest hotels. When things were really going well someone missed the wife of an Argentine general. Moments before one of their Consuls had also disappeared. With everyone feeling good we all decided to go look for them. We finally found them under a palm tree out in the garden. The zipper on his trousers got stuck and he was frantically trying to get it working while she was down on her hands and knees, frantically searching for her diamond earrings."
"It sounds like fun." What else could I say?
She was smiling as she recalled the incident. "Those are the things that you can expect to liven up things at larger posts. At smaller posts, things are on the smaller scale. I doubt if any of the guests at my party got laid before the night had ended."
"I wouldn't bet on it," I said casually.
She sat up and peered intently at me. "Touche. Not that sweet Pat Gordon-George's secretary?"
"I wouldn't know, Terry."
She got to her feet. "Want to go to the Lido now?"
I just remembered. "I left the hotel without my swimming trunks. Do I have time to run back and get them?"
"George has a pair he's never worn." She glanced at my waist, then below it. "They'll fit you, I believe, but you're probably bigger than George."
"We never measured."
"We'll have to do it sometime. Come on."
I followed her inside and a moment later she handed me a pair of flame-colored trunks. "Try these on. The second door on your right is a guest bedroom."
I went inside, tried them on, and I found them to be a perfect fit. I took them off and dressed again. When I stepped out Terry had disappeared. So I went out on the terrace to wait for her.
My breakfast dishes had been cleared away, and I sat down in one of the chairs and lit a cigarette. Briefly I remembered the way Terry had scrutinized Zora the night before, and I wondered whether Terry had an inkling of the thing between her husband and Zora. It might have been only my imagination.
But that's why I'd been sent to Genoa, to find out what George Heatherington was involved in and to get a full report back to the States. It had been a very easy procedure, getting me over here without arousing his suspicions. Working for that other agency in Washington, they'd merely given me this assignment and for all intents I was now on vacation. After getting off the boat and checking into the hotel I'd gone to the consulate and met George Heatherington. Because I was a government man and on vacation, he'd extended his hospitality and invited me to his cocktail party.
It wasn't exactly honorable, but I'd accepted Terry's invitation so that I could talk to her and find out all I could about her husband's activities.
I heard Terry calling my name now, and following the sound of her voice, I finally got out into the kitchen. The cook and the maid were standing to one side while Terry was corking a large thermos. She was now wearing a matching light-colored skirt and blouse, with bright lei designs in each, and she'd slipped on a pair of high-heeled wooden clogs.
"Our martini jug," Terry explained. She nodded towards a large beach bag beside her. "Want to pack it for me, Chris?"
I dug out two heavy beach towels that had been jammed into it. Underneath I saw her bathing cap, and personal items. I shoved the things to one side and settled the thermos into the bag. Then I stuffed the towels back in again, to keep the jug from tipping over and leaking. Heaven forbid.
"And the glasses," Terry reminded me. She handed me two small ones and I tucked them into the folds of the towels. When I straightened up with the beach bag Terry was slipping on her sunglasses and saying something in Italian to the maid and the cook. They listened intently, nodded in unison, and finally both of them got pleased looks on their faces as we departed. I had my borrowed trunks clutched in my hot hand.
After we were in the elevator Terry said, "I hope that's everything." She ticked off on her fingers, "Martini jug, give the servants the rest of the day off, martini jug, bathing cap, martini jug, trunks for you, martini jug-"
The elevator stopped and we came out of there and got into a red Mercedes Benz. She drove fast and in a few minutes we were at the Lido.
I carried the beach bag while Terry picked up the key to the dressing room at the desk. We walked past a small bar and a large dining room, and then we started down a long flight of stone steps. Off to the right and below us I could see a large swimming pool with a high board, and then in front of me and extending to the left were rows of cabins set back about thirty feet from the edge of the Mediterranean.
Terry went into the cabin and when she came out I saw that she'd merely taken off her blouse; she was wearing her suit underneath. And now her fingers were working at one hip and the next moment the skirt unwrapped itself and she tossed it aside.
At that second I knew that it hadn't been the martinis at all the night before that had made her look so good to me. She had a terrific figure. And she knew it. Otherwise she wouldn't have been wearing the white bathing suit.
She noticed that I was staring at her. She glanced down her front and then asked, "Is something wrong?"
I shook my head. "Please be informed that you're a long ways from being an old bag."
"Thank you," she said appreciatively. "Now enough of this lovemaking. Take off your clothes."
When I'd slipped on my trunks and came out again I found Terry sitting in a metal chair with her feet propped upon a little stone ledge. Another chair was beside her and she was holding two martinis.
She said, "Take this one before it gets hot and spoils."
I took it and sat down.
"Cheers, Chris."
"Cheers. Thanks for having me to your party last night, and for being such a wonderful hostess and guide today."
"Like the feller said-you ain't seen nothin' yet." After we'd touched glasses she added, "I have to apologize for forgetting the olives."
"The hell with it," I said. "Let's rough it today."
We sat back in our chairs, relaxed, and talked idly of Genoa and Rome and the rental on the cabin here at the Lido, and the way Italian men like to pinch women.
She told me about her arrival in Rome, her very first time in Italy. It had been necessary for her to get from her hotel to the embassy in a hurry. Normally she would have taken a cab, but because a bus was just leaving from the front of the hotel, she'd decided to take it rather than wait for a cab. Naturally, the bus had been crowded. They always were. The moment it had started up she'd felt a strange hand and fingers through the back of her dress. It hadn't really been a pinch. More like a gentle massage. And it had upset her. The entire bus had been in an uproar before she got the driver to stop and let her out. That had happened the second day after she'd arrived in Italy, before she'd been aware that being pinched was considered a compliment by many women.
Terry added, "Since then I've been getting it pretty regularly. You never know when you'll get it, either. Sometimes when you're standing on a busy street, looking at a display in shop window, you'll get a nice, painful pinch."
I glanced over at her firm thighs and fanny and I could understand the urge. But before I gave in to it I brought up the thermos and found that there was just enough left to fill our glasses one last time.
"What a shame," I said, squeezing the last drop into my glass.
"We'll just have to whip up another batch, Chris." After a sip she asked, "Do you feel like taking a swim?"
"Well, I don't know," I hedged.
"The sea's not too clean today," she said.
It was news to me but I said, "Yes, I suppose.
"There's probably oil on the surface, from the port. It happens once in a while."
"That's right."
"Oh, the hell with the swimming," Terry said.
We drank the rest of our martinis and I was beginning to feel as reckless as she'd sounded. I glanced at her and felt like a sissy because she'd had the Bloody Marys and she was still functioning wonderfully.
She asked, "I wonder what time it is?"
When I told her it was after two she said, "It's still too hot to be driving around Genoa looking at the sights."
"Way too hot," I agreed.
"The best thing to do is go home and mix up some more martinis. One has to stay in the shade during this heat."
"You said it, Terry."
"Actually there isn't much to see in Genoa," she continued, "an old cemetery, Columbus' old home, the port-and that's about it. Plenty of churches, art galleries and museums, of course."
"Terrible," I said.
"Unless you're interested in old stuff."
"Just in young stuff."
"Pat Gordon?"
"Oh, come on now," I kidded her.
She got to her feet. "All right. Shall we get dressed? You may use the cabin while I visit the little girls' room."
When I'd dressed and came out of the cabin too, I saw Terry returning. She picked up her blouse and skirt. "I'll only be a second, Chris."
"I'll get the things together," I said. It didn't take me very long and then Terry stepped out of the cabin, wearing the blouse and the skirt and carrying the white bathing suit in her left hand.
I straightened up quickly because I knew she wasn't wearing anything underneath, and yet her breasts were riding high, firmed straight out as if they were propped, the nipples pushing at the material of her blouse.
I vaguely realized that she was handing me her bathing suit, and I must have stuffed it into the beach bag. I put my trunks in on top of the heap and then we walked to her car. A few minutes later we were back in the apartment.
The servants had apparently gone. The drapes had been drawn over the big window overlooking the Mediterranean, and it was nice and cool in the apartment. Terry asked me if I'd like to come into the kitchen and help her with the drinks. While I got the ice tray out of the refrigerator and busted the cubes free, she brought in a fresh quart of gin and a little-bitty bottle of vermouth and set them on the small table near the end of the sink.
While I was putting the ice cubes into the mixer she was tearing the seal off the bottle. In doing that, she leaned against the edge of the table, pulling aside the material of her skirt and revealing an exciting bare leg, all the way from her ankle to the inside of a firm thigh.
A little ripple of panic stirred through me and I wanted to get out of that apartment. A little more gin and a little more of her bare leg and I was afraid of what might happen. Up to that moment I hadn't asked her any questions about George that I wanted to; and there was another reason. I didn't want to make a pass at her and maybe make a stupid ass of myself.
She was saying now, "We'll make a full batch because George promised he'd leave the consulate early this afternoon. He'll probably be here within the hour."
"Wonderful." I breathed a sigh of relief. "I really haven't had an opportunity to visit with him."
"He was planning to meet us at the Lido for lunch, but he had a luncheon date at the last moment. Anyway, he'll be home soon."
Terry brought out some hors d'oeuvres left over from the party, and we took our food and drinks into the living room and put them on the coffee table in front of us. Then we sat down on the couch and ate and talked and had some more of the martini juice.
Suddenly from somewhere in the house I heard the telephone. Terry excused herself and walked barefoot out of the room to answer it. I couldn't hear any of the conversation, but she wasn't gone long.
When she returned I noticed that the corners of her eyes had tightened up a little, just like the night before when she'd watched George talking to Zora.
"Anything wrong?" I asked.
She slumped onto the couch and held out her glass. "Fill me up," she said quietly.
After I'd poured she said, "Help yourself, Chris."
I did. Then I sat back and watched her sipping thoughtfully and steadily at her martini. Finally she said, "That was George on the phone." She was trying to sound casual. "He won't be home until later this evening. Something apparently came up and he has to go out of town."
I tried to joke about it. "I wonder who tried to sneak across the border."
"I doubt if it's that serious," she said.
"Well, let's hope not. Let's not have any international incidents today. This is a day for drinking. Cheers, Terry."
She started to raise her glass, but suddenly she slammed it down on the coffee table. The glass didn't break, but she did.
"Oh, hell!" she said bitterly. "I've got to get it off my chest."
"Is it that bad?"
She nodded. "I've been sweating out that phone call all day. Ever since I saw that blonde last night I could feel it coming. But today, just for once, I was hoping that this time it was all going to be different, that this time he'd live up to the promise he made last time, and the time before that, and all the other times before that. It wasn't going to happen anymore, not today, not ever, I told myself ever since I got up this morning. I've just been kidding myself."
I was thinking about George, recalling that he was tall and lanky with a narrow face. His hair was black and straight and he wore it parted on the left side, and there were flecks of grey in it on the sides. He didn't impress me as being overly virile and sexy, but I'd seen some less impressive figures fighting off the beauties. So maybe George did have something. Definitely, if he had a little thing swinging with Zora.
I said, "Maybe George is honestly out on some official business. Don't condemn him so quickly."
She squeezed my hand gratefully. "Thanks for trying to help, but it's no use. I know the pattern too well."
"How long has it been going on with this-Zora?"
"It started last night," she said positively.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course. It was the first cocktail party we had here in Genoa, and it was the first time George met her. The last woman, a brunette, we left behind in Rome. That's one of the reasons I encouraged George to take the job as principal officer at this post. I wanted to get him out of Rome and away from that woman. And I was hoping that maybe-just once-the thing wouldn't repeat itself here in Genoa."
She bit her lower lip and shook her head. Then she finished her martini. Before I could reach out and help she'd poured herself another one.
"I'm all right now. Thanks for putting up with my problems."
"Don't let it bother you, Terry." After a pause I asked, "Do you know where Zora lives?"
Terry shook her head. "All I know is that she's a friend of that Spaniard. She wasn't on our guest list. He just happened to bring her along."
"Is he in the diplomatic corps?"
"He's in shipping, I believe." She suddenly twisted herself around so that she faced me. "Are you interested in Zora, too?"
"She's a lovely woman," I said. I sipped at my martini, thinking how I might tell Terry that I planned to bust it up between George and Zora, and at the same time try to bust something of Zora's myself.
I didn't get a chance to say it.
"I'll be damned!" Terry said angrily as she jumped to her feet. "If you aren't just like him!"
She stepped into the center of the room, her fingers clawing and tearing at the buttons along the front of her blouse. She tore it off her and flung it aside, and then her fingers were working at that spot on her waist, and the next moment she'd whipped off the skirt and hurled it aside. There just wasn't any more for her to take off.
"Take a look," she said. "What do you see?"
Chapter Four
I saw a pair of firm, jutting breasts, the flat stomach, lean and luscious flanks, the wonderfully curved lines you see only on a very young woman. And then the thought kept running through my mind that Terry wasn't a bag at all, and that she was wonderfully exciting in the nude, and what the hell made George stomp around out into the woods trying to sow wild oats when he had this at home waiting for him twenty-four hours a day.
"I don't think I'm bad," Terry was saying as she ran her hands seductively up her sides. "I don't think I'm put together badly, do you?" She started moving towards me.
She was getting so close to me now that I could smell her heat and perfume. "Is that what makes you want to find her? Is that why George is always chasing something new? Or do you think he's spoiled? Maybe you've been spoiled. Maybe you haven't really made love to an exciting woman."
"Do you think that Greek, that Zora, is put together any better? Do you think she's a better lay than I am? Do you think she knows how to do it any better? Let's see," she said breathlessly. "Let's just see."
She came in between my legs and slowly let herself sink down on top of me. She brought her mouth down on mine, hard, and she was shoving her hips viciously against me, smothering me with her mouth and hot breath and pushing against me until I lost my balance and we slid off the couch and onto the floor between it and the coffee table.
The fall jarred her mouth off mine and now I could hear her panting as her hands began digging frantically at my belt buckle and getting me open.
"Let's just see," she said between gasps, "let's see how I am. I want you to tell me. I want you to tell me how I compare with the others. Tell me if I'm good, or bad, or not worth a damn." The moment she'd come towards me I'd noticed the fierceness in her glance that turned to unleashed passions, and briefly the thought had come to me that her violence and heat would completely overpower me, and there was the whisp of uneasiness that my virility might not meet her expectations. Or mine. But then as she smothered me I felt the immediate unbounded reaction, and I knew that the match was not one-sided.
Initially I'd remained passive, not wanting to take the initiative, but now with the flurry of her hands against me I began to help her as much as I could. The second I was completely free we slammed together violently, forgetting the hardness of the floor and the cramped quarters between the legs of the couch and the coffee table, shifting and squirming and moving a-bout, my hand swiping my belt buckle aside so that it wouldn't bruise her thigh and feeling her hand, wonderfully urgent and helpful.
We were breathing so raggedly because of our urgency and passion that we could no longer kiss, and with my face pressed up tightly against her cheek I could hear her moaning each time we moved. Then the movements were coming so fast and in such quick succession that she could no longer break up the sounds and now it was a steady agonizing sound that began low and vibrant then increased in pitch as her throat tightened.
And then I no longer heard her because I was caught up in the splendor of her violence and reactions, hearing only the booming of the blood in my ears and through my body, boiling and drumming so forcefully that I was afraid it would tear me apart. There was a sudden flash of light, blinding in its brilliance, that ripped me wide open, and I followed through to become engulfed in the all-consuming splendor of her passion.
After awhile when everything came back into focus again I remembered that she'd asked me a question, and now I had to give her an answer.
"Don't you ever worry about a thing, Terry."
That made her very happy and she began to relax. Before long she'd lost all that frantic fierceness that had possessed her a short time ago. Everything about her became soft and warm, and tender, and we moved onto the couch where she stretched and squirmed languidly while I mouthed the wonderful breasts, beautifully white, the soft and heated skin, contrasting sharply with the dark tan of her luxurious body. She was delightfully supple and very passionate, and this time we neither rushed nor used force or violence. Not until we'd explored each other slowly and leisurely and then it came over us both simultaneously, the wonderful waves and surges of urgency, and we moved deliriously, pausing, accelerating, abruptly losing control of the moments and then becoming unleashed, brutally, savagely, and tortured by the pains of ecstasy.
Then I had to give her another answer. "The most, Terry. Really."
And when she'd gone to get dressed I remembered that last remark and I found myself analyzing it. If Terry were the most, how would I describe Zora? Was there a superlative for the most?
It occurred to me then why George might be doing what he was doing, and I knew I had to get Zora, too. Just to find out how good she really must be.
I didn't tell Terry about that. Neither one of us mentioned Zora's name again, but I finally said to Terry that I'd better leave. She'd put on the house coat she'd worn that morning, and now she walked me to the door.
"I said, 'Take care now, Terry."
"Perhaps the three of us can get together sometime, before your vacation ends."
"I hope so," I said, but I knew it would never happen.
When I got outside the building it was still quite warm. I began to walk towards town and by the time I found a cab stand, I'd begun to perspire. I asked the driver to take me to the hotel, but as we were going through downtown I glanced out the window and saw Pat Gordon fight her way through the pedestrian traffic and enter a drugstore.
"Hold up," I told the driver.
He glanced over his shoulder, his black eyebrows screwed down to reveal his confusion.
"Halt," I said.
"Alt?"
I nodded.
He still didn't understand. "Alt?"
The meter had just kicked over 400. I tossed a five-hundred Lire note at him. Before he'd stopped completely I had the door open and had hopped out.
In the drugstore I found Pat at the counter, paying for her purchases. She took her change and when she turned around she caught sight of me. "Hi, Chris."
She was wearing high heels, a beige skirt, and one of those see-through white blouses, looking willowy and very cute.
"You're pretty cute," I told her.
"I know," she said. "You told me last night."
I didn't remember that so I changed the subject quickly. "Where's the party tonight?"
"There isn't any that I know about."
"Well, let's get one going," I said. "Come on."
"Now?"
"Certainly."
She frowned as she glanced down at her pocketbook. "Well, I don't know-"
"-you've already got a date," I said disappointedly.
"No. It's just that I wanted to do a little more shopping. I don't come downtown very often."
"Be my guest." I took her arm and guided her out the door. We spent a couple of hours shopping, getting the things she needed for her apartment, and then I got a cab, and over her weak objections had the driver take us to the hotel.
In the bar we had martinis, and after the second one she said, "I have to go home now."
"You said that twice in the cab."
"I know, but it's true." She smiled. "I want to freshen up for my date tonight."
"What time shall we make it?"
We decided on eight o'clock, and after she'd departed I went into the hotel and talked to the man at the desk. I told him I'd like to get a hotel reservation somewhere on the Riviera, beginning tomorrow. He stated it might be difficult finding a vacancy because of the tourist season, but he assured me he'd do his best. After that I asked him about the possibility of renting a car. That apparently was much easier because he promised to have one waiting for me in the morning.
While I shaved and showered I reviewed the things I'd learned about George. Because I'd still discovered nothing about his official activities that might need investigating, I'd made a date with his secretary.
I spent some more time in the bar while waiting for eight o'clock, and as I came out of the hotel I found I was floating. I'd been drinking all day with nothing to eat, except for the snacks Terry had brought out.
I was feeling good when I stepped into Pat's apartment, and she stepped back quietly and a-way from me, as though I were the mad rapist. Driving to the restaurant she sat on the far side of the seat, with her hand near the door handle as though she were going to jump if I winked at her.
Compared to the way she'd been the night before, she seemed an entirely different person. I tried to make conversation; but all the while I was thinking that I could look forward to a dull miserable evening.
She'd recommended a restaurant at the outskirts of town, one that was perched on the side of the cliff overlooking the sea.
She spent a lot of time with her first glass of wine but once she'd finished it and I'd refilled her, glass, I noticed the color in her cheeks and her eyes began to sparkle. She was wearing a plain beige dress with short sleeves and a scoop neck, and it was very attractive on her. At first glance she would have passed for a teenager.
I tried to get her to talk about George but she said that she'd been here such a short time that she knew nothing about him. She had only been in the Foreign Service for six months, and Genoa was her first post. She was from a small town called Plainville in the Midwest and until she'd departed for Washington, she'd never been out of her home state.
When we'd finished eating she mentioned going to a night club. "It's one of the best night clubs in Genoa. I've never been there, but I'd like to go."
I slid into the cab, shoving over so that I was sitting close to her, but this time she did not move away. Neither did she object when I put my arm around her shoulder.
Instead, she said, "You're quite a wolf. Do you know that?"
It jolted me. It was the type of high-class chatter I used to get from girls in grade school, whenever I hung around trying to wrestle a kiss. It was tough trying to remain a gentleman. I said, "I am a wolf, and I want to howl. Let's sing."
She thought that was funny and we started singing. The cab driver glanced around at us as though he were trying to figure out if we were sick.
I was.
Sick and disgusted with myself for being out with Pat Gordon when I could have been out with someone else. Zora. The more I thought a-bout Zora, I realized that I should be out at this minute, trying to find her. I became more disgusted at myself and I even considered making some excuse to Pat and taking her home instead of to the night club.
But when I glanced at her and saw that she was having a ball, singing about the time she'd had on the railroad, I couldn't do it.
The night club was crowded but we managed to get a table right at the edge of the dance floor.
A five-piece band was playing softly with a slow, stomach-massaging beat, and a half dozen couples were doing just that out on the floor.
I told Pat, "Good enough not to be disappointing."
She nodded a bit vaguely as she continued to look around wide-eyed, and in a sort of wary and guarded way.
After we'd gotten our drinks, I asked her to dance.
"I'd like to visit the powder room first. Excuse me."
After she'd gone I sat down again, and a few moments later a dark-haired woman of a-bout thirty, with lines around her mouth twice that old, slid into the chair vacated by Pa. She was wearing a pink smock that hung loose on her and buttoned down the front.
"Hello, Americano."
"Howdy."
"You want to buy me a drink later?" Her large, weary eyes were watching me carefully.
"Why?"
"Maybe you like me."
"I have a date," I said.
"You want to sleep with me?"
"At the moment I'm all booked up."
Her glance flicked in the direction Pat had gone. "You no sleep with her tonight," she said positively.
She wasn't getting an argument out of me. "That's life."
"Si." She got up slowly and then took her time walking back to the bar and settling down on a stool.
When Pat returned I'd finished my drink and the band had taken a break. After I'd reordered I told her I'd been propositioned during her absence. Just for the shock value.
"So was I," she said lightly. "Once on my way to the powder room, and again on the way back."
Then the band was filing back in, and the M.C. was getting his microphone set up on the edge of the floor. They tried, but it wasn't much. A juggler, a guy riding a bicycle, a girl who sang Neapolitan songs, a dance team, and then we were being prepared for the big finale.
The M.C. introduced her as a harem dancer from the Far East. He must have meant far east Genoa, because it was the same woman who had dropped by in the pink smock. Now she was wearing a filmy pair of pantaloons, and nothing above the waist except a blue rock in her navel.
Her ribs were visible and she had narrow breasts with nipples at least an inch long. She looked tired and she danced the same way.
After the show I wanted to dance, but Pat said she'd rather get home because it was getting late.
The night was turning out true to form. When I got the bill I saw that the Scotch we'd been drinking had cost me four dollars a shot.
While we were riding to Pat's apartment she sat close and warm beside me and I had my arm around her, listening to what must have been her version of romantic chatter. Like how strange it still seemed to her that after dark Italian law required cars to drive with their parking lights on in the cities, and how she was sick and tired of riding the bus to and from work every day.
When the cab pulled up in front of her apartment building I told him to wait. Before I got out with her. "We can always call another one," she said. "I have a phone."
"It's getting late, Pat."
"But I wanted to offer you a drink of Scotch," she said disappointedly. "Ballantine's."
"Well now, that's different."
On our way up to her apartment she told me how sorry she was that she'd suggested we go to a club where Scotch was that expensive. Especially when she had Scotch in her apartment, all I wanted, and it was free.
I agreed with her, although at the moment I could visualize maybe a dusty half pint bottle of the stuff stuck away in one corner of the kitchen cupboard, probably behind the powdered coffee and the peanut butter jar.
But as it turned out, she was a girl who had a lot of Scotch. A full case.
While I was opening a bottle she was getting out the glasses, ice, and soda. I poured a couple of good jolts, I thought. But when I set down the bottle she picked it up and added some more to each glass.
I asked, "Are we going to get drunk?"
"Why not?"
I couldn't think of a good reason why not, and that's the way we started out.
Chapter Five
Her apartment consisted of three small rooms, the kitchen, the bedroom, and a living room. There was a bathroom, too, and it was smaller than most stall showers. It had the basic plumbing, but the bath tub was one of those short, sit-down jobs.
When I came out of the bathroom, I found Pat in one corner of the living room, going through some record albums.
"Say," I asked, "did they build the bathroom to fit the tub, or did they put in the tub because it fit the bathroom?"
She laughed. "I don't know. I never thought about it." After she'd stacked some records on the record player she said, "This is my pride and joy."
It was an expensive hi-fi and as the arm swung over and dropped onto the music, the music came out in rich, full tones, with a splendid range. If she'd turned up the volume, it would have collapsed the walls.
She added, "I brought it with me all the way from the States, and guarded it with my life. I don't know what I'd do without it." She brought up her glass and drained the last quarter of it. "How about a refill?"
"All right." She waited while I finished mine. Taking my empty glass she said, "Sit down, Chris. I'll be right back."
The record player was in one corner of the room and in another corner was a stack of magazines, topped by a pile of books. The only furniture in sight was one black, straight-backed chair and a chaise lounge covered with a satiny material. The color? It had to be a titty-pink.
I eyed it suspiciously for several moments and then I sat down on it, near the end with the back rest. When Pat returned with our drinks she said, "It's not much of an apartment, I'll admit, but it's the only one I could find that my rental allowance would cover."
She handed me my glass and then kicked off her shoes. "Now if I had the allowance of a consul or a vice consul I could have a fairly decent place." She sat down beside me and tucked one leg under her. She used her left hand and arm to prop herself upright.
"You don't look comfortable," I said.
"I'm all right."
"I've got an idea. Low bridge."
She ducked her head as I swung my right leg over the top of her, and then swiveled my butt backwards until my shoulders were resting up against the back rest. "Now you can stretch out between my legs and lean up against me. Come on."
"All right." She got up and turned out the bridge lamp burning near the phonograph, and then she came back and settled down the way I'd suggested, with her shoulders resting against my chest and her head in the hollow of my shoulder.
"Am I too heavy for you?" she asked.
"Not at all."
The only light in the apartment now was the tiny glow coming from the phonograph. It was very dark at first, but then as my eyes became accustomed to it there was more than enough light for lying there, sipping Scotch and soda, and listening to the music.
Neither one of us spoke a word and the only sound in the room, other than the music, was when we'd bring up our glasses and take a sip, and the ice cubes tinkled in the glass. It was a pleasant sound, going very well with the good Scotch smell when I brought up the glass, mixed with the wonderfully clean scent of her hair and the soft aroma of her perfume.
When I finished my drink I set the empty glass quietly onto the floor because I'd noticed that for some time now she'd stopped sipping at hers. She was holding the half-empty glass with both hands in her lap, still and motionless, and I thought she'd fallen asleep.
Then she stirred slightly and a moment later I felt the quick series of little jolts shaking her Shoulders. When she put her head forward, I knew she'd started to cry.
She sat up quickly then, swung her legs off the chaise, and perched on the edge of it with her back toward me.
"Hey, come on," I said quietly. I swung my leg over the top of her again and slid close to her, putting my hands on her shoulders. She made a slight movement, as though she were trying to shake me off.
"Don't cry," I said. "It'll turn out all right." I didn't know what in the hell was wrong but you can never guess when a woman with too much to drink gets a crying jag. You always start out by saying, "It'll turn out all right."
"I doubt it," she finally said.
"Sure it will. You just wait and see."
"Stop talking to me as though I were a teenager drunk the first time!"
I gave up. "All right, Pat."
"Go fix yourself another drink!"
"Thanks. How about you?"
She sniffled and shook her head.
I went out into the kitchen and after I'd found the switch I turned on the light. I took my time building my drink so she'd have plenty of time to pull herself together. The last record suddenly ended and in the stillness I heard a door being closed.
I walked my drink back into the living room, found her gone, and saw the bathroom door was closed.
I turned on the bridge lamp and went through the records scattered around the floor. I picked out about a half-dozen nice easy ballads and some piano solos. After tinkering with the dials I finally got the arm to swing over and get into the groove. Now when she came out of the bathroom I'd check to see if she was all right, and then I was leaving.
I sat down on the chaise and about five minutes later she came out of the bathroom. I didn't know what she'd done in there, but you couldn't have guessed that she'd been crying previously.
Quietly she went over and picked her glass off the floor. After a healthy swallow she put it back down again. "Want to dance, Chris?"
"Sure."
She didn't dance too well but she danced very close with her head pressed against my chest. After a few moments she said, "I guess apologies are in order."
"Forget it."
"No," she said, "I want to apologize and I will. You may think it was the liquor, but it wasn't."
"Of course it wasn't."
"It was the music." Her arm tightened around me, holding herself firmly against me. "I've played it often when I was here alone and lonely, and I guess it made me feel that way again tonight."
After a quick pause she continued, "I've been so homesick and miserable since I've been over here. Chris, you don't know how bad it's been. This stupid little apartment, and nothing to do, and no place to go."
When she stopped talking I was certain she'd begun crying again, but when I glanced down I saw that her eyes were closed, with no sign of tears.
I said, "Things will be a lot better after you've adjusted."
"I've been adjusted to it a long time now. Resigned to it would be a better way to put it. That day when I went down and applied for a job overseas, it seemed about the most romantic and exciting thing that could happen to me. A new and strange foreign country, nothing but cocktail parties and formal affairs, the streets literally jammed with counts and princes, international playboys, the jet set, and beautiful villas to live in."
She sighed deeply before she continued, "I've been to Rome once since I've been here, to visit a girl I'd met in Washington. The two of us later spent two days in Naples. I've had four dates with Italian men, but they're different than I'd imagined. Every man at the consulate is married, except the vice consul you met last night, and he doesn't appeal to me. The rest of the time I've spent right here in this apartment, reading, playing records, and trying to fight off the loneliness that's gnawing at my insides."
I wanted to leave before she began crying again, but I was afraid that if I suggested it, she might start off again.
Suddenly she asked, "Shall we sit down a-gain-the way we were before?"
"Why not?"
After we'd gotten settled, with the lights and our drinks close at hand the way it had been earlier, Pat said, "Maybe I really cried because it was so nice, and I was so happy, and I was remembering how unhappy I'd be again after tonight."
"Don't think about the future. Live only for the present and enjoy yourself."
"That's what I made up my mind to do-while I was washing my face," she said happily.
"Good."
She shifted around until she was on her side, and then the fingers of her right hand slid under my ear and around to the back of my neck and she pulled my head downward, fitting her mouth against mine. The touch of her hand was pleasant, and I kissed her very gently and carefully because her lips were a bit too tight and the mouth not completely relaxed.
Then she asked, "Will you stay with me tonight-I mean, will you sleep with me?"
Would you believe I was too surprised to answer her immediately?
She whispered, "Please, Chris, I want you to-very much."
I couldn't refuse and take a chance on her starting to cry again. Neither did I have to agree because she shifted onto her back again, as before, with her head resting on my shoulder.
She said, "You'd probably rather not because I'm not very experienced at that sort of thing."
I put my hand on her shoulder, letting my fingers lightly stroke the spot under her ear, down the side of her neck, and finally I slid my hand down the inside of the front of her dress.
"I've only done it once before," she said. "While I was in high school. It wasn't much fun, and I didn't like it. I hated it more than I liked it. But thinking about it since, I think the second time would be wonderful."
My fingertips were now in the warm tight cleft between her breasts but the brassiere was giving me a problem.
Suddenly she sat upright and her hands went to the back of her dress.
"There," she said. Then she settled down again.
She'd unhooked the brassiere in the back and now there was plenty of room in the dark, hot little pockets for my hand. I let it roam and play around, slowly and gently at first, because I could feel her suck in her breath each time I touched a spot I hadn't touched before.
She was lying perfectly still, except for a hand that had begun to stroke my leg erratically. I kept my hand stroking erratically, the fingers straight, letting the flatness of my palm barely touch and massage the front of one breast, then the other, and before long I could feel the nipples begin to swell and harden and come out, looking for the party.
Pat began to squirm and talk at the same time. "Many nights I've been lying right here, all alone, with a drink I didn't want, the music playing, thinking and imagining and wishing for a time like this."
Her breasts had firmed up hard now, swollen and surging hotly against my palms. I massaged them each in turn, gently, and then I pinched and mauled the nipples with my thumb and forefinger, and each in turn, too. The rougher I became, the more she squirmed and the faster she talked.
"Maybe that's a dirty thing for a-girl to be thinking about-about that. You hear of boys thinking about those things with girls, but with a girl you seldom hear it-but I have thought, have thought about it a lot-and even though that first time was-thinking about it now it seems wonderful-so very wonderful I could barely stand it-got hot and hungry thinking about it-craving it-be gentle with me-but do it to me-won't you-do it-you, you-Chris-I want you!"
She flipped over on her side, so quickly and unexpectedly, my hand almost got trapped in her brassiere, but I jerked it out in time. And now she wanted to kiss me, her mouth searching eagerly for mine, and when she found it I felt her feverish lips and the tip of her tongue that was a restless flame. Stretched out on top of me, her body throbbed harder and more roughly against me with each moment.
Suddenly she whipped her mouth off mine, jumped to her feet, and began pulling off her clothes. "Hurry. Please!"
She started before I did, but I hurried and we finished up in a dead heat. The force of her impact, slamming herself against me, made me grab her and hold tightly to her and then we sank down on the chaise again, my hands and fingers slowly caressing and touching all of her in the dimness.
She asked, "Is it all right here?"
"Of course."
"Have you ever done it on one of these things?"
"Never."
"Then let's do it here."
"Right here."
"Hurry."
"Yes."
"Even though we've got all night?"
"All night," I assured her.
"Isn't it wonderful?"
"Yes."
"Do you think I'll do all right?"
"Pine. But you talk a lot," I said.
"You talk to me. Tell me what to do and tell me nice things."
I made up my mind she was going to forget all about that other first time and that she'd remember this time because it would be so much better than anything she'd ever imagined when she'd been here alone in the darkness.
I moved slowly and easily, carefully, and gently, always being careful to go much slower than she wanted me to, and before long she was calling me dirty little names, cursing me for making her wait and suffer and telling me how she was going out of her mind and that she couldn't stand another second of the torture.
When the time came for the fulfillment of everything she'd begged for, she loosened a violent shriek that sent the blood scalding through my veins, she momentarily became limp and motionless but just as quickly recovered, now a violent fantastic little savage. Her hunger was a cavernous seething thing that tormented us both in a beautifully cruel and unlimited oblivion through which we crashed and smashed to finally crumple exhausted and spent into the warm pulsing void of finality.
After she'd put on a robe and I'd dressed, she was so worn out and sleepy I was afraid she'd topple over any second. I asked her to call me a cab and in between wonderfully relaxed yawns she managed to get it done.
I kissed her gently good night and told her I'd probably see her at the consulate one of these days. She smiled and nodded drowsily, and I went out the door.
Chapter Six.
When I returned to the hotel and asked for my key, the clerk also handed me a note that had been left in my box. I unfolded the slip of paper and saw that they'd gotten me a reservation at the Hotel Continental in Santa Margherita.
I flopped wearily into bed, but it seemed only a second later that the phone was ringing. When finally I found my ear and pressed the phone against it, the clerk advised that it was nine-twenty and that my car was waiting downstairs.
I thanked him and went back to sleep.
I came downstairs at noon, had a good lunch, and then got into the Fiat and drove out to Santa Margherita. After I'd located the hotel and checked in, I took a stroll along the promenade that was next to the sea. It was now almost three o'clock in the afternoon and there were many out walking.
Blondes, brunettes, redheads, in-between shades, they were all there, beautifully suntanned, with tiny waists and firm round fannies and tremendous busts, and they were wearing shorts, short-shorts, Matador pants or Capris, short and skin-tight, with scraps of blouses or tight sweaters. Apparently the manufacture and sale of brassieres had been discontinued some time ago.
I could feel my heart pounding and my knees trembling, and I decided to sit down quickly somewhere and gradually get adjusted to my new surroundings. There was a sidewalk cafe nearby and I slid into a chair.
After I'd ordered a pot of tea I leaned back and watched the action. For a couple of hundred lire I was watching the greatest show on earth.
It was while I was squeezing lemon into my tea that I heard the low, throaty voice to my right.
"I say, you're not really English, are you?"
The voice belonged to a young woman and the accent was unmistakably British. I pulled my head around until I saw her, and she didn't appear to be a Limey.
She was young, about nineteen, and dark, wearing a green sweater and silvery matadors. Her coffee-colored hair was parted on the left side, and except for a few soft waves it fell straight down to her shoulders. Her eyes were very dark and large and very beautiful, her lips full and sensuous. Her figure-she was really stacked!
She had artistic hands, slender fingers and long strong nails that were painted a dark red. A heavy silver bracelet dangled from her left forearm. And the nipples of both breasts were trying to dig their way out through the green sweater front. She also had a pot of tea on the table in front of her, I finally noticed.
I said, "You're not British either."
She smiled and shook her head. "I'm from Milan."
"Then why the accent?"
"I went to school in London."
"How's everything these days in Piccadilly?"
She shrugged. "I haven't been there for years."
After that one thing led to another, and before long I'd put my teapot next to her little teapot, and moved over to her table.
I found out that her name was Angelina and that she was studying law at the university, but presently was on a week's vacation. She emphasized, "Because I have to have some sun and I have to have a man."
"Just like that," I said. "When you need a man you go out and get one."
"Yes. Any healthy girl needs sex. Just the way she needs food, or wine, or a good night's sleep." Her hand snaked over and squeezed my thigh. "And I think you're my man."
"Where do we go-your place or mine?"
She laughed, and finally answered, "Not now, it's impossible."
"If you're going to argue about it, forget it."
Her hand patted my thigh and then moved away again. "I like you. You're all right. How about tomorrow for our sex, Cristoforo?"
"Think you can stand it-waiting that long?"
"One more day, I think so." She shoved her chair back and stood up, her movements as smooth and graceful as a tiger's. "I'd rather have it with you now. But I can't. I have an appointment. I'm invited to a party on a boat this evening. With school chums, and a professor of mine."
"What about the professor?" I kidded. "Haven't you considered him? He gives you what you need, you give him something he'd enjoy, and you also wind up with good marks as a bonus."
"Once with him was enough," she said wearily. "Until tomorrow then. Ten o'clock in the morning right here."
I settled back in my chair and watched her cross the street and continue along the sidewalk, and as long as she was in sight I noticed that every man passing her had to stop and take a long second look. Probably because she was so young and healthy.
I poured the rest of the tea into my cup and then I took my time finishing it. I thought a-bout driving to Portofino but at the last moment I decided to take a walk around town first, the way the tourists were doing.
I'd been strolling for about twenty minutes when I passed a shop that specialized in leather goods. I almost collided with Zora who was coming out.
We didn't touch, but I felt as though an elbow had been rammed into the pit of my stomach. Now that I was seeing her again she seemed even more beautiful than the night of the cocktail party.
She was wearing a rich, virgin white sheath dress with her arms bare to the shoulders, and golden sandals. One hand held a small white leather purse. Her hair looked like honey in the sun, making her sunglasses appear even darker. I couldn't see her eyes, but I noticed the corners of her mouth came up a bit as she recognized me.
"Signor Chris," she said, extending her hand.
I took it in mine and held it for a moment because it was cool and soft, and I liked the way it quickened my pulse. "How are you, Zora?"
"I'm fine. How do you like being a tourist?"
"It has nice moments," I said. "This happens to be one of them."
Gently she pulled her hand away. "Somehow I never expected to see you again." We moved over to the side of the entrance as two older women wanted to go inside.
"Neither did I," I said. "Especially the way you left the party the other night without even saying goodbye."
"I didn't realize you were the host." She'd put a little frost on that.
"Neither was I aware that you'd not been invited."
For a brief second I saw those wonderful lips tightened, but then she relaxed with a smile. "There are some things about you I failed to notice the other night."
"You should get to know me better, Zora. You might really be surprised what I'd come up with."
She glanced away and shook her head. "I'm afraid that's impossible."
"Impossible to know me better-or to be surprised?"
"I'm sorry." Her glance swung back to me. "I must be going now. I have more shopping to do."
"I'd like to see you again, Zora. Could we have dinner some night? Perhaps tonight?"
"No, tonight I have an appointment, a very important one. Goodbye, Signor Chris." She offered her hand but I didn't touch it.
I said, "You can always tell George you decided to have dinner with me. He'd understand."
Her hand stayed up for a few seconds; finally she lowered it to her side. "Yes, I suppose I could do that."
"Certainly."
"Would you mind if we made it, about eleven, and not for dinner? I do have an appointment-with someone-earlier in the evening, but I will be home at about ten-thirty."
"Eleven will be fine."
"Do you want my address?"
Those words sounded innocent enough, but the question was loaded. The sunglasses were fixed on me, like two shotgun muzzles. I had to come up with the right answer.
"I can always get it down at the port." I didn't know what I meant by that but apparently she bought it.
"I'll save you the trouble," she said.
She told me she lived on Via Caffaro, and the number of the building, and the apartment number. "Be sure to be there no later than eleven, because the downstairs doors are locked at that time."
"I'll remember that."
"Ciao," she said softly, then walked away and disappeared around the corner of the building.
She was gone, completely out of sight, but for some reason the warm air around me continued to crackle with electricity. I could feel it and I could almost smell the danger but I couldn't really analyze it.
Then I decided it was because of the way I'd reacted to her physically, and I let it go at that.
I wandered around town some more and then I returned to the hotel and slept until seven-thirty. Then I got up, cleaned up, and had only one martini because the bartender used too much vermouth, and I had dinner in the hotel dining room.
By the time I'd driven into Genoa, found Via Caffaro, and a place to park, it was a little after ten-thirty.
The shops were all shuttered now and the street was deserted, except for a young woman and a small child who were walking down the opposite side from me. I paid little attention to them until the little girl began to chatter excitedly. The next moment I saw the mother pull the girl's panties down, and then the child squatted down and urinated in the gutter.
Now I understood why the warm air smelled so badly in the narrow streets of Genoa.
The heavy wooden doors to Zora's apartment house were still standing ajar. When I stepped inside, I found myself in a corridor that was dimly lighted by a tiny bulb burning over a Madonna. I saw the elevator directly ahead of me, but when I came up to it, I realized that you needed a key to get the door open.
Zora hadn't told me about that, although she'd told me she lived in the penthouse apartment. I tipped my head back and saw the stairs heading into the wild blue yonder. There must have been at least a hundred.
Actually, there were one hundred and eight, because I counted each one as I plodded upward. Now as I reached the end of the line I leaned up against the wall for a couple of minutes and tried to catch my breath. Then I punched the doorbell.
That gave me more time because no one came to answer the door. I rang a second time.
This time I heard soft footsteps and the door suddenly swung open.
"Come in, Chris," Zora said warmly.
"Thanks." I stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind me.
"I just remembered you had to walk up those stairs. I'm very sorry, Chris."
"That's quite all right." I'd muttered many uncomplimentary things on my way up, but they were all forgotten now.
Her blonde hair was beautifully alive and vibrant, as though she'd spent all day brushing it. She was wearing a white blouse with short sleeves that seemed to find a lot of pleasure in restraining those tremendous breasts. Her slim waist tapered into classic hips that were snuggled in a pair of yellow shorts. Her legs were long and beautiful, with slim ankles, and she was barefoot.
We were in a small hallway, the floor being entirely of light blue polished marble; and against one wall stood a large and antique dull-brown vase that could have been dug up in Pompeii. Glancing to my right through an open doorway, I looked directly into her bedroom. The bed was king-sized, and it was on a platform, raised about a foot above the level of the floor.
Zora was saying, "Shall we go out on the terrace? It's much cooler out there."
"By all means."
I followed her through the living room and everywhere I looked I saw modern and expensive furnishings, with the unmistakable touch of an interior decorator. The place had class and it whispered of wealth.
We went up three small wooden steps, and then we were out on the terrace. It was illuminated dimly by the light coming out the open doorway from the single lamp burning in the apartment. But in the dimness I could see the three luxurious lounge chairs with pillows, and a low round glass table. On it was a bottle, two brandy snifters, a pack of Chesterfields, a gold lighter, and an ashtray.
"Genoa-as seen through the yes of a bird." Zora's hand waved towards the edge of the terrace.
The building was two stories higher than those around it, making the view unobstructed. Looking straight ahead, I could see a thousand lights, haphazardly twinkling in the night, although here and there the lights formed a straight line as though the streets had been put there to restore some semblance of order.
"So that's Genoa," I said.
Zora moved closer to me, then pointed with her right hand. "Over there, to the right of the lighted church steeple, you can see the Mediterranean. And directly head of us, about where you see the Stock Cognac neon, is the Borse-the Stock Exchange-at the edge of Piazza Ferrari."
"The piazza with the fountain in the center?"
"The big one. Are you oriented now?"
With her standing so close to me, I could smell the soft and subtle muskiness that was both her and her perfume, and it came rolling in like fog, and it webbed around me and clogged my throat.
I found that my hands and arms were going out to her, taking her and bringing her softness and warmth toward me. She was as light as a shadow, but still as real and as hot as a flame that burned the front of me.
The moment my lips found hers I felt the breath going out of her; and her mouth was searing and wanting, and clinging to mine. Then her tongue darted through my teeth, flicked and probed and jabbed and searched, and I felt the hair standing up at the back of my head, the skin had tightened across my shoulders, and something like a million and a half volts crackled up and down my spine.
Just as quickly as she'd come into me, she pulled herself away again and slipped out of my embrace. Her face was as sweet as that of an angel, but through the screen of her eyelashes her eyes glittered like those of a tiger. One that you have been tracking and it had doubled back and it is now waiting in ambush for you.
In that moment I wanted her more than I'd ever thought possible, but I was afraid that if I put out a hand again and touched her she'd claw my face to shreds. Unconsciously I found myself moving away from the edge of the terrace, and then I recognized the same feeling I'd had that afternoon at the leather shop. I knew then if I wanted to play with her I'd have to watch out for my life.
She was saying now, "I hope you won't insist on going out tonight."
I shook my head. "Not if you don't want to."
"It's such a warm night. Why don't we just stay here? I thought you might like some brandy. Or would you prefer something else?" She moved over to the table.
"Brandy's fine."
Watching her work the cork from the bottle and spill a little liquid into each glass, I realized that I'd been parroting practically everything she'd said. It disturbed me, this feeling of being in her power and at a disadvantage, but the tightness was in my chest, and my arms and legs felt as though they were weighted down by some heavy invisible web, slowing me down, numbing my thoughts, and there was nothing I could do to break free from the spell which she had somehow woven around me.
And then in the back of my mind, I was seeing her again as I'd seen her the first time at the cocktail party, and at the same time I could feel touching me, all of me touching her, and the wave of savage heat spilled over me, my clothes felt too light, my mouth was dry and my tongue clogged up my throat.
Chapter Seven
"Here you are, Monsieur."
I took the snifter from her hand and when I heard the clink of glass, I realized that she'd touched her glass to mine.
"Good luck, Zora."
"Thank you." She went over to a chair and stretched out on it. "Why don't you take the other one, Chris? This one-nearest to me?"
It was about three feet away from hers, and when I'd gotten settled and glanced over at her, I noticed that it had been placed parallel to hers, but downward about a foot. Her shoulders were now settled against a mound of pillows, just exactly and as effectively as Cleopatra might have done it in her day, with her head almost a foot higher than mine. I turned over onto my side to face her and in the dimness I was now looking straight across and seeing the slow rise and fall of her exquisite breasts.
She asked, "Would you like a cigarette?"
"No thanks." I brought up the glass and just before I drank, I smelled the brandy's delicious bouquet, and when I tasted it I found it to be smooth and expensive.
That first sip helped, as though I'd just stepped out of the night into the sunlight. I took another one.
I said, "You never did tell me where you're from, Zora."
"This interests you very much?"
"You have me at a disadvantage. You know I'm from the States. The only thing I know a-bout you is that you're a very beautiful woman."
"Thank you for the compliment." She paused to glance down at the glass she was holding. "To feel at a disadvantage, especially with a woman, must be quite upsetting to a man." She brought her head up to look at me. "And for you, knowing nothing about me, it is unbearable, I can see."
"Well, I won't jump up and down and throw a fit if you don't care to tell me." I dissipated the ripple of anger with another swig of brandy.
She laughed softly, a sound not unlike a silken purr. "I find you wonderfully amusing."
The anger flared up again and before I could control it I said, "Then why don't you just double over and have yourself a big laugh?"
She came off her chair quickly and settled beside me, the snifter clinking softly as she set it on to the table. Then her hand pressed against my shoulder, moving me onto my back.
Those soft and wonderful lips were pressing hotly and wetly onto mine, her tongue digging deep and frantically inside my mouth, while her hand ran lightly along the side of my face, down my chest, all the way down, and then it travelled back the same route again.
It was a wonderful and delightful feeling, being smothered by her while her mouth fed on mine, with her hair falling down on the sides of her face, tickling deliciously and enveloping me with its muskiness.
I still had my glass in my right hand, she'd moved that fast, but my left hand was free. I grabbed a handful of hair at the back of her head, clenched my fingers and jerked her head back.
The pain showed around her mouth and the hurt pushed a cry through clenched teeth, but she didn't fight me.
"You lovely, wonderful bitch," I said. Then I turned her loose.
She dropped her head onto my shoulder, nuzzling softly and gently in close to the side of my neck, with the touch of her lips and her hot breath sending shivers down my back.
She whispered, "I didn't mean that you make me laugh. Like an idiot-or a clown."
"Forget it."
I moved my arm around her but she slid out from under it, standing up again as quickly as she'd moved down beside me.
"Would you like some more brandy?" she asked.
"Please."
She took my-glass, then hers, and moved over to the table. While she was pouring the brandy I watched her, but I didn't really see her because I was thinking about her, trying to make my mind up with a good analysis of her. The feeling of not knowing her at all, the way she reacted-almost erratically, and the surprising things I was learning about her made her that much more intriguing. Quickly and unexpectedly she became aroused, passionate and wanting woman, and in the next instant she changed, backing off, wary as a panther, as though nothing had really happened moments before.
The soft light illuminating her suddenly vanished, and then I realized that the lamp in the apartment had gone out. I had seen or heard no one moving about inside. Now the music began, drifting softly over the terrace.
As though she'd read my thoughts she said, "It's now midnight. The light just went out."
"Did the maid turn it off?"
"It's automatic." She brought my glass to me. "There is no one here but you and me."
After she'd handed me my brandy she returned to her chair again, stretching out on it as before with the pillows supporting her back.
She asked, "May I offer you a cigarette now?"
"No, thank you."
The way she'd asked me and the way I'd answered had sounded as though it could have been a part of any conversation that might have taken place through the centuries: a man alone with a woman who is there entirely for his pleasure. The expensive brandy, the new and modern apartment, with the lights going out and the music coming on at a certain time, the beautiful mistress-all expensive things for some man's enjoyment.
Who was he? Who was the man paying the bills?
Whisping through my thoughts came Zora's soft voice and I realized that she was telling me about the warm wonderful summer nights she remembered as a girl in the tiny village in Greece.
I waited for her to continue but she became silent again, and the only sound remaining on the terrace was the music.
This time I didn't ask her point-blank to tell me about herself. I took advantage of the mood of the music and the darkness and the warmth of the air and the brandy, and I spoke softly and gently to her, probed with considerate questions, and she briefly sketched part of her past.
She'd been orphaned While a child, raised by an aunt and uncle who cared little for her but took her with them as they went to Yugoslavia, then on to Trieste, where they abandoned her. It was difficult finding enough food to eat, but there were a number of couples who befriended her, and eventually, as she grew older, men began to take an interest in her.
One day she met a man who fed her and clothed her, and found a place for her to live. As he'd promised, he brought her out of Trieste, and because he was married he put her up in the apartment in Genoa.
I'd heard and read much about the experiences about the destitute and homeless, but none of it had ever seemed quite as sad as she told it.
I got up and set my glass down on the table, then I sat down on the edge of her lounge chair. She handed me her glass and I put it down on the floor.
Leaning forward I could see that her eyes were closed, with the lashes long and soft on her cheekbones, and she was perfectly motionless as my hands slipped in between her shoulders and the pillows. Without saying a word I tried to make her understand how her story touched me, and just exactly how I felt about her at that moment.
Gently I let my lips brush hers, then my mouth stroke her cheek, the side of her neck, down to her shoulder, into the hollow of her throat, and up again on the other side of her neck. I felt her arms going around me, and I could hear happy sounds in her throat, soft, purry-soft sounds, and I felt her quickened breath on my upper lip as my lips crept up to her mouth and found her lips again.
I kissed her tenderly at first, then I began working my mouth tightly down on hers, savoring all of it, searching deeply within it and drinking the sweetness of it and its heated darkness, and tasting the tangy bite of the brandy that still lingered on her flaming tongue.
In the darkness, we embraced passionately, but unhurriedly, as we relished each delicious movement, lips touching and caressing lightly, petal softly, hands stroking and moving about over clothes, and seams, and buttons, without haste and without hurry, feeling, finding, stroking, caressing, getting to know each other, completely, all of each other, the movements of the hands and fingers quickening and becoming urgent with the increased tempo of our breathing.
And suddenly the wonderful growing painful wanting within me grew large and impatient, and I sent my hand to her stomach and let the fingers pull the bottom of her blouse out of the shorts, felt the hot, smooth, bare skin of her stomach, turned the hand and tried to slip it, fingertip first, under the tightness of her shorts at the waist.
Her arm pressed tightly across her abdomen, stopped me. Then her hand took mine and then gently moved it to her hip.
"No," she whispered, moving away. The fingers of her soft hand came up to caress my cheek. "Not tonight, cherie."
"Why?"
"It's impossible."
"When?"
"I'm not certain." she kissed me gently on the mouth. "You understand everything don't you."
I understood. "He's coming by tonight," I said.
"Perhaps."
"Do I know him?"
She shrugged. "Is that important, my dear?"
I stood up, still trying to catch my breath, my glance unable to leave her. "How about tomorrow?"
"Perhaps. It is possible."
I stepped away and she came to her feet quickly, her arms slipping around my neck. She pressed tightly against me, swiveling and grinding her hips into me as our lips locked and we clung to each other for long, wonderful moments.
"Yes, tomorrow," she said breathlessly. "Come by at the same time as you did tonight. I'll arrange everything. Is that all right, my dear?"
I nodded. It wasn't really all right because it was painful, wanting her so badly at that moment, but this was all for tonight, and I knew it, and there was nothing else for me to do.
"I think it's better if you leave now." She began shoving the tail of her blouse into the waist band of her shorts.
A final, definite act. The end, finis, for now, and no mistaking it.
She tossed her head abruptly, sending the hair away from the side of her face. "I'll show you out."
Following her through the apartment, pausing a moment while she turned on a lamp, and then standing in the doorway, I again realized numbly and disgustedly, the way she'd smothered me and overpowered me, and moved me to do as she wished me to do.
"Until tomorrow night," she whispered. Her lips then framed a silent kiss. "Good night."
She was easing the door shut, I was moving backwards, and the next moment it had clicked shut in my face.
I started down the stairs, moving slowly at first because the blood clogged my groin and thighs, and the dark mists of wanting still swirled behind my eyes. Then, gradually, I began to feel better again, and before long I was coasting down the last few flights of stairs.
Driving back to Santa Margherita, I began to feel the tiredness settling over me, as though I'd been trying to swim upstream for a week. Remembering the hours I'd spent with Zora and trying to recall all the details of it, the entire thing was a bit hazy, as though it had only been a dream. The more I thought about it the more stupid and senseless it seemed, and I became disgusted with myself.
Now that I could think clearly about her. I realized that she'd worked me over the way a cheerleader teases the star quarterback in a shadowed corner of the library. Just so he'd come back again, hoping that the next time with her would be different.
That made me feel like an inexperienced kid, necking and fumbling around with a girl, just for the feeling, and I even considered not going back to her apartment again. I tried to talk myself into forgetting about her, but it was no use.
I had to go back. I had to get to her.
And so I told myself that the next night would be different. She wouldn't put me off again. This I knew. I kept thinking about it, about her, and how it was going to be. Just to convince myself that it would really happen, I suppose.
Even after I'd returned to my hotel and crawled into bed, the lovely image of Zora was still under my eyelids and would not let me sleep. I could see her again, at the cocktail party, looking at George Heatherington, and I wondered about the two of them, wondered whether she'd put him through the same torture. Then I thought about the guy who was keeping her, trying to imagine What he looked like, and all the rest.
Lying there in the darkness I didn't want to think of those two guys anymore because I wanted to think only of Zora, that lovely, exciting bitch, giving herself completely to me. The feeling kept haunting me-that I should stay away from her, that I should forget about her and concentrate on the job I'd been sent over here to do; but I quickly shot down every good reason I could find to stay away from her.
I knew that I'd be back in her apartment the next night. I'd be there. Even if it killed me.
And that's the way things almost turned out.
I didn't know about it at the time. I was too busy fluffing up my pillow and hoping I'd eventually get to sleep.
Chapter Eight
The following morning, a little after ten, I was at the sidewalk cafe again, having orange juice, a couple of rolls, butter and jam, and coffee. It was a beautiful day. The sea was as blue and as clear as the sky, and the sun had gilded the mountainside with its golden warmth.
I'd almost forgotten my date with Angelina, and when I'd awakened it was already late, but I scrambled into my clothes after I'd shaved. I hoped now I hadn't missed her. While I ate, I sat there as I had the day before, and watched all the stuff going by.
Then in the distance I caught sight of Angelina, coming toward me, lovely and dark-skinned, carrying a small straw purse. Today she was wearing sandals, tan short-shorts, and a bright yellow sweater. No bracelets. No rings. And still no brassiere.
"Ciao, Cristoforo," she said, dropping her purse into a vacant chair and then sitting down at my table.
"You look absolutely lovely this morning, Angelina."
"Not sexy?"
"That too. Very sexy."
"Good." She looked up at the waiter who was looking down the front of her sweater. "Espresso."
After he'd reluctantly turned away, she said, "What a glorious morning."
"How about some breakfast, Angelina?"
She shook her head, making the long dark hair swirl around her shoulders. "I never eat breakfast. You go ahead and finish yours. You'll need your strength with me."
"What's the schedule?"
A vertical frown line appeared briefly between her eyebrows. "Don't you remember?"
The waiter had brought her espresso, and now he was standing beside her, still enjoying the front view of Angelina. She leaned against me and the next moment she was whispering in my ear.
"I want you to make love to me until I tell you to stop." Her breath and lips tickled. Straightening up again she said, "And don't be a sticky wicket about it. I'm counting on you to drive a-way all my frustrations."
"Well, you can count on me," I said.
Her long slim fingers were ripping open the tittle envelope of sugar. Now the waiter walked away.
She asked, "Then you meant what you said yesterday? And your promise a moment ago?"
"Every word of it."
"How utterly exciting."
"How was the party last night?"
"Stimulating. We talked about man and his disadvantage when coping with the moral code."
"That's all?"
Her glance was sympathetic. "My dear, we didn't even finish. The discussion will resume again tonight."
"I see." I'd finished eating, and now I concentrated on my coffee. "That gives us all day together."
I saw the wonderful wanting creep into her lovely eyes as she looked at me, and then she clenched her teeth as the agony overwhelmed her. "Mama Mia," she finally said.
I was beginning to feel some pain myself. I shoved aside my coffee cup. "Come on, Angelina."
"Where are we going?"
"We'll find a spot. My hotel room."
"Oh, not now."
"When?"
"Later."
"What do you want to do until then?"
"We'll think of something," she said.
She began by taking a stroll to Paraggi. We followed the narrow road out of Santa Margherita, walking along the left edge of it to face the oncoming traffic, and alertly jumping off the hardtop every time a vehicle came towards us. The outer edge of the road was the steep and jagged coastline of the Mediterranean itself.
All the cars and scooters moving along the road honked every time they came around a curve, and because the road was nothing but curves, they were honking all the time.
After we'd walked about a quarter of a mile we suddenly came around a sharp curve, and a big sign fifty yards ahead announced that we'd arrived at Paraggi.
It was a magnificent sight.
The village consisted of fewer than a dozen buildings huddled at the end of a small narrow cove, with a small parking lot on one side of the road and a tiny strip of sandy beach on the other side.
At that point there was an open-air restaurant and, extending from it along the northern edge of the cove, was a row of beach cabins. The colors were fantastic. Bright reds, light blue, bright greens, and vivid yellows were the cabins and the umbrellas and the chairs and the tables and the awnings. The sea was a hushed bluish-green hue because of the reflection in the water of the steep and lush green hills that cupped it.
"You like my Italy?" Angelina asked.
"I pity the people who are color blind."
"Come on," she said, taking my hand, "let's go for a swim."
Some of the people were sprawled out in beach chairs under their umbrellas, and a dozen or so were swimming around in the cove. There were a few small rowboats tied up and available for rent, as well as the double pontoon affairs made of light wood, with a wooden seat on them, and equipped with a pair of oars.
Angelina was positive that the latter was exactly what we needed, and I rented a white one. The man told me he'd put it into the water while we changed into our bathing suits. I ducked into a cabin and pulled on a pair of trunks I'd brought along while Angelina disappeared into another cabin.
When I came out Angelina had already changed, and she was waiting for me.
Sylph-slender and as brown as a pecan, she stood at the water's edge, looking out at the sea. To describe her as wearing a snow-white bikini would have been an exaggeration, for she was wearing two tiny scraps of white cloth. The one around her chest completely failed to cover her goodies. The scrap of cloth below fared slightly better, but not much.
I stood in front of her and took a good look. "Mama Mia," I said.
She laughed, showing fine white teeth. "You are going to turn out all right." Then she bent down and shoved the pontoon boat into deeper water. "Let's get aboard our yacht, Christoforo."
I sat on the wooden seat while I rowed out of the cove. The entire thing was a bit lop-sided because Angelina had stretched out on her back on one of the pontoons. The weight of her pushed the pontoon down so that she was submerged in a couple of inches of water, with her long hair floating darkly alongside the pontoon as we moved away from the shore.
A motor boat skittered by about a hundred yards distant, and when the ripples kicked up by it finally reached us the little waves jumped over her ankles and legs and got in between her thighs and caressed them gently. Angelina stretched her arms out alongside her head, letting her fingers trail in the water while her beautifully slender, lithe body twisted and squirmed as though I were scratching her back.
Unfortunately, I wasn't.
I was busy rowing and feeling the sweat running down my sides, burning from the shear sight of her, and maybe from the sun, too.
By that time we were completely out of the cove and almost a mile from shore. Angelina suddenly got to her feet and balanced herself briefly on the pontoon. The next moment she dived off, piercing the water as cleanly as an arrow, and disappeared.
I dropped my oars, stood up on the seat, and then dove in after her. I felt the wonderful first quick-chill shock of the water, then the next layer of warmer water, and finally the cool depth of it. I opened my eyes, not really expecting to see Angelina because I'd gone much deeper than she had.
I Shot up to the surface and when my head came out of the water I looked around for her.
I didn't see her. Then I understood.
While I'd been submerged she'd evidently came up and dived in again. On the seat she'd tossed the two pieces of her bikini.
A second later she surfaced beside me, one hand holding onto the pontoon while the other one swept the mass of hair away from her face. Her happy face was wet, and the silvery droplets of water were clinging to her shoulders and the mounds of her lovely breasts.
They were just below the surface of the clear water, and I could see that they were keen, sharply-pointed, standing out straight from the front of her, wonderfully firm and chocolate brown in color and looking like two sculptured cones.
"I say," she said, "it's like heaven down below."
I went out for her, hoping to get the feel of heaven, but she slipped away from me and disappeared in the water. I tried to find her, all of her, in that wonderful world of blue, but she was a fast and elusive swimmer. I spent some time trying to catch up with her, but I gave up when I ran out of breath. I swam back to the yacht, sat on a pontoon and let my legs dangle in the water. The two scraps of white were still on the seat. Sooner or later she'd have to come out of the water. I wanted to see how she managed that.
She managed it very easily.
She crawled onto the front part of the opposite pontoon, and then she stood up, balancing herself with her feet.
She was a goddess.
The tanned, lusty body glistened in the sunlight and the drops of water clinging to her sparkled as brightly as diamonds. The muscles in her thighs and abdomen rippled under the velvety skin as she knotted the end of the cloth at her hips.
Italian women usually have tufts of hair in their armpits and a mat of it on their legs. Angelina was an exception. She'd shaved all over.
The next moment she'd slipped the other piece of white around her chest and knotted the ends in back. She glanced over at me. "Good show, what?"
All I needed now was the changing of the guard. I said, "May there always be an Italy!"
She settled down on the seat and picked up the oar. "I'll row back to shore."
I let her row for a while and then I took over. She relaxed on the seat beside me, fluffing out her hair occasionally so that the sun would dry it. We decided that when we got back to shore we'd walk to Portofino for lunch.
We had white wine, rice with bits of mussels cooked in it, and fresh shrimp, fried in their shells, their hot aroma making my mouth water.
"Delicious," Angelina said.
"I'm with you."
"All the way?" she asked impishly.
"Don't you forget it."
After we'd eaten we took a walk around the tiny harbor. It was full of fishing boats, sailboats, motor boats, a few cabin cruisers, and there were seven glistening yachts anchored in the bay.
We walked along the shore and saw the white-coated waiters moving about the decks with trays of food and drinks, serving the guests who lolled under the umbrellas in their bathing suits while music played in the background.
"Now, that's living," I told Angelina.
She shook her head. "I venture to say they are all spoiled, pampered, and sexually impotent."
"Really?"
"The last stage of moral decline is owning a yacht."
"What a way to decline."
"Are you really envious of them?" She paused to peer into my face.
"Not really." Now that she'd made me think of it seriously, I felt no envy. I was having a wonderful time. Then I remembered Zora and the night before. That was the only disappointing part of the last few days. But there was always tonight.
Angelina asked, "How about going out for a long walk?"
"We've been doing that all day."
"It'll do you good," she said. Then she smiled. "Strike that. It will do me a lot of good."
"I'm ready. Do we walk on the water or in the hills?"
She'd already started climbing a set of narrow stone steps. "When in doubt, go up," she said.
We climbed the steps slowly, pausing often to get our breath, and to look down the side of the hill onto the harbor. Finally the steps became a faint trail in the woods, and eventually we were on top of the hill.
This time when we rested, all of Portofino was spread out far below us, and the yachts now looked no larger than rowboats and the people walking about resembled insects. The Mediterranean was that clear deep blue, and occasionally a speed boat sliced through the water, cutting a foamy white wake. In the distance we could pick out a few white specks that were sailboats, and very far away there was a black spot that must have been an ocean liner.
The trail we'd been on led up to a lighthouse that was situated on the top of the hill that jutted over the sea. There were a number of sightseers here, just as we'd met and passed many on the steps and the trail leading up here. Now Angelina slipped her hand into mine and we turned to the right, walking slowly westward, and generally following the back of the ridge we'd just climbed.
We were off the beaten path and the number of other sightseers began to diminish, and before long we didn't hear or see anyone else. We wandered aimlessly through the woods, and whenever there was a break or clearing in the trees, we were able to look down the south side of the ridge. It was quite steep, and far below us we could see the water and the huge, jagged rocks of the shoreline.
Angelina's hand squeezed mine. "Do you want to go down there?"
"If we go down we'll have to make the long climb back up."
"I know," she said quietly. "That's why no one ever goes down there. It is peaceful and beautiful, and quite deserted.!'
So we climbed down the steep side of the hill, taking our time and searching out the faint trails that made walking easier. About a half hour later we were at the bottom, at the level of the sea, moving through a mass of huge boulders.
It was wonderfully quiet with no sound at all except the occasional scratch of my shoe soles and her sandals as we moved forward. The awareness of being alone with her made my heart beat faster, and it must have touched her too, because she began to squeeze my hand more tightly until I could feel pain in her grasp. Without saying a word we both began to look for a spot that we needed and wanted and had to find quickly.
We found it a few minutes later. It was a small cove, formed by the big rocks on the seaside and the steep side of the hill. About a hundred feet above us a sharp outcropping edge of rock blocked out any view from above. We moved silently into the sun-warmed oval.
Suddenly Angelina stopped, and her glance swept the area. "Mama Mia."
Her voice was very throaty, about three notches below its normal level. "Beautiful, wonderful world."
Her arms crossed at her waist, the fingers grabbing at the bottom of her blouse. "Get undressed. Hurry."
The blouse came off, over her head, and the shorts, dropped from her waist, and she'd stepped free of her clothing long before I could get my clothes off.
Chapter Nine
Beautifully desirable with the sun kissing her lithe, supple body, she stood waiting while I finished getting undressed, watching every movement I made, her glance caressing every part of me as it came into view, and the moment I was completely undressed she grabbed my hand and sank down on the soft sand pulling me down on top of her.
I wanted to kiss her stomach and her lovely breasts, but her bands grabbed my ears and pulled my head up, towards her face, making the rest of me move in and up against her, finding her and quickly joining.
"Come along. Hurry!"
She spoke the words hoarsely and a bit harshly, and then her lips tightened and all I could hear were the low rumblings in her chest. I tried to catch her mouth with mine, but her head was rocking violently back and forth and I could not nail her lips with mine.
As I found her and moved into her, she became a fierce, strong, hurting, wild and undulating fury, and the strange animal sounds were coming faster and louder, and I could smell the scent of her and it enveloped me and quickened me, and I wanted to hurt her and tear her and torture her he way some savage animal might torture its mate.
That's the way we did it.
Fast and furious and volcanic. Like a couple of wild animals. Then just as quickly it was finished and we lay spent and tired and worn out and using all the energy we had left to catch our breath.
Finally I moved away from her and stretched out on the warm sand beside her, feeling the soft, smooth and hot glow of her skin against my shoulder, hip and thigh. I kept my eyes closed against the glare of the sun while the drumming of my heart and the throbbing of my blood returned to normal again.
Before long I felt her moving beside me, discovered that I was no longer touching her, and the next moment a shadow had fallen across my closed eyelids.
"Mama Mia, Mama Mia," She kept saying, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.
Her face was registering pleasure, then contorted with pain, while the mass of long hair shifted and surged and swirled around her shoulders, around her neck and face, the shoulders twisting and turning and dipping while the muscles in her waist and thighs rippled and tremored under skin, while her hands stroked and touched and ripped my skin and I wanted to feel more of the pain and more of the pleasure, felt like dying, suffering a sweet memorable death, painful and excruciatingly pleasant, but every moment, every thrust, every bounce, every movement, I was willing and ready to die, if she wanted to kill me.
She came close.
And it was wonderful.
The volcano erupted and she tried to smother its fire, and its devastating violence, and with every scrambling effort her movements became useless and less vigorous and before long she crumpled, defeated, and yet extremely happy, and glowing, and very complimentary, and the frustrations were gone and there was relaxation and peace and serenity, and we slept after that, nude and happy in the sun.
When the sun finally slipped behind the mountain and shadowed us, we got dressed and made the long climb back up again and walked back to Santa Margherita.
Passing the sidewalk cafe I asked her, "Would you like a spot of tea?"
"No thank you," she said. Her hand found mine and squeezed it; and there was moist tenderness in her glance. "But I do want to thank you for everything." She frowned briefly. "I'll be thinking of you often, back at the University."
"You're going back to Milan already?"
"Tomorrow, I suppose. I'm very eager now to get back to my studies." Her smile was dazzling. "Cheerio, Christoforo."
She pulled her hand out of mine and hurried away.
"Angelina-"
She didn't falter in her stride and she didn't look back. I watched her lose herself in the crowd, and then I walked back to the hotel.
The way she'd walked away from me, I couldn't help but recall the way Trixie had walked out of my life. Twice.
Angelina was eighteen, and Trixie was twenty-one. They were basically the same. Attractive. Well-educated. Intelligent.
And they were uncomplicated. The basic instincts were there and they were recognized as part of life. When you were hungry you ate, and when you were thirsty you drank, and when men and women needed each other, that need was taken care of, too. No tears, no regrets, no shame, no excuses, and no recriminations. Partings were quick and clean, without tears, and without remorse or sticky consequences.
Honestly. That was the best policy.
As I unlocked the door of my hotel room I came to the conclusion that maybe European women had found the answer to all life's complications and frustrations. Then I thought about Zora, and my theory went out the window. Who in the hell could figure her out?"
Tonight I'd get at the moment of truth. To get ready for that I stretched out on the bed and took a nap.
All the fresh air, walking, and miscellaneous activity with Angelina had tired me out more than I'd realized. If the maid hadn't awakened me by coming into the room to turn down the bed, I'd probably have slept right through the night. As it was, I'd slept an hour longer than I'd planned.
I broke several records getting showered and dressed, and I still had time for a good dinner in the hotel dining room.
I scared hell out of three scooters on my way to Genoa, and when I parked the car I glanced at my watch. It was nine minutes before eleven.
The downstairs doors of Zora's apartment building were still open. I made the slow climb up the stairs, and then I waited several minutes to catch my breath before I rang the doorbell.
As on the night before she didn't answer my first ring, and so I leaned on the button a second time. I waited, and then I rang the third time. Zora didn't answer, and then it was obvious to me what had happened.
Chris Cody had been stood up.
I went down the stairs, getting more disgusted with myself with each step. Last night she'd probably already known how it was going to turn out tonight. She'd planned the entire thing, and at this moment she was probably finding me very amusing again.
By that time I was downstairs again, and I saw a short, middle-aged man, locking the front doors. When he saw me he studied me carefully for a moment and then he asked me something in Italian.
Or it could have been Greek. It was the same to me. I shrugged and tried to indicate I didn't understand.
Punching a finger at his chest, he said, "Portiere."
"I'd guessed that much. Maybe he knew the whereabouts of Zora. With a puzzled frown I asked, "Signorina Zora?"
He came over to the stairs, shoved his head back, and pointed straight up.
"No," I said.
"No?" he asked, peering at me.
"No." I repeated.
"Si, si," he said, jabbing the air with his finger. He muttered something in Italian about Signorina Zora; but I couldn't even guess what he was talking about.
He glanced at me, shrugged at me, and stared at me.
I stared right back at him and then I shrugged. After that I went outside and walked back to the car. The portiere either knew she was in the apartment, or felt she must be there, because he hadn't seen, her going out that evening. She'd known it had been me ringing the doorbell, and she hadn't answered.
I drove over to the Savoia and ordered a double Scotch and soda at the bar. Before I'd had my first sip I'd cooled off enough to write off the entire experience. I'd never find out what Zora was really like.
I took my time driving back to Santa Margherita, with the window rolled down to let in the cool, salt smell of the sea. On the other side of Nervi I came upon an accident and I waited more than an hour before the highway was open and the traffic began moving again.
Reluctantly I went up to my room; but when I turned on the light I realized that history does repeat itself.
There was another woman in my room.
Zora.
She'd been standing near the window that overlooked the sea. "Cherie," she said softly, coming towards me. Her arms came up wanting to embrace me, but I grabbed her shoulders and held her away.
"What are you doing here?"
"I've been waiting for you to come home."
Big deal. I stepped around her, walked over to the chair and shoved it aside. "That wasn't the way we'd planned it last night, Zora."
"I know." Her face was very sad and troubled as she went over to the foot of the bed. "But you understand my situation, don't you?"
Now that the shock and surprise of finding her there had worn off, I had an opportunity to take a good look at her. She was wearing a dark brown dress made of some soft and expensive material. It was cut simply, with her arms bare and the collar cut low and square in the front, and it fit her superbly. But on second thought, it might have been she who fit the dress superbly.
I couldn't pull my glance away from her, and she knew it.
Kick her ass out the door a little voice chirped in my ear, but it was drowned out by recollections of last night. Make her explain, I told myself, maybe she does have a good and honest reason for not being home tonight.
So I asked, "What happened tonight?"
"Certain things," she said quietly, "came up today. I had the feeling he might be getting suspicious about you and me."
"Who is he?"
"Does it really matter?" she asked. "Does it make that much difference to you-now that I'm here?"
"No." I hadn't really wanted to find out who he was.
"To prevent him from finding us together in the apartment, I thought it best that I come to you, my dear. You understand, don't you, what would happen to me if he found out that I was with you tonight-especially in his apartment?"
"I can guess," I told her.
"It would be the same as before. He would put me out and I would be like I was before, without papers and without an opportunity to live a happy life because I am a foreigner, not Italian." She shuddered abruptly. "I couldn't go through that torture-not again."
Now the anxiety in her eyes gave way to tenderness. "I'm sorry if I disappointed you earlier tonight. But there was nothing else I could do. There was no way to get to you any sooner.
At that moment my mind began coming to life, remembering what had gone on before, and what she'd said. Now I asked, "How did you know I was staying here?"
"I called the Savoia. They told me you'd moved out to this hotel?"
I'd tried to trip her up, but she'd had the right answer. I nodded, but there were a few other things still bothering me.
"Do you forgive me now, Chris?" She came towards me to stop a few feet in front of me.
The nearness of her and that stirring musky scent of hers in the perfume reached out and touched me and enveloped me again, and I began to feel the blood warming my body, numbing my limbs and brain.
I felt myself moving forward, vaguely wondering how the Greeks described the moment of truth.
She slid very slowly and pleasantly into my arms, swiveling all of her urgently as she dug in and willowed tight against me. Her eyes were closed and her lips parted slightly as I brought my mouth down onto hers.
That kiss lasted a lifetime, and with her snugged up against me, with her tongue busy and her hands working around my shoulders, down my back, up my sides, around my ears, and through my hair, and with my chest getting so clogged with wanting that I couldn't breathe, the back of my head feeling like it was going to explode, and I thought my pants would break open any moment. I began to work my mouth away from hers, and the next second she'd slipped away from me again and turned out the light.
Then she came back to me, moving silently and swiftly through the dimness, put her hands on the front of my chest and walked me backwards until I felt the edge of the bed against the calves of my legs. She shoved me gently downward until I was lying flat on my back on the bed. I sent out my hands, searching for her, wanting to feel her, all of her, her bareness, but she pushed my hands firmly aside.
"I will undress you, my dear."
I helped by kicking off my shoes while her hands unfastened the top button of my sport shirt. Her fingers pulled aside my collar, and then she lowered her head and her soft warm moist lips were caressing and nibbling at the V-part of my chest she'd just exposed by undoing another button. Then she finally went on to the next button and there was a newly-exposed area of my chest which her mouth began to explore, caress and kiss, working her way slowly and steadily right down the front of me.
I was going out of my mind because it felt as though I were lying in a bed of tacks and needles, all heated, hot and flaming and burning points, and she was now out of my reach and I couldn't touch her anymore, couldn't grab anything, couldn't hold onto anything, and the room began to twist and reel and tilt, then fogged up pink, then dark, then light (and finally a brilliant red that became uncontrollable.)
I came off the bed like a rocket, kicking a-side my trousers and shorts and ripping the shirt off my back, and then I saw her in the dim comer, the dress just coming off over her head. I got to her a split second later, vaguely noticing that her lovely mass of silken blonde hair was mussed up when she'd pulled off the dress, making her look wonderfully wild and wanton, and evil and exciting.
I went to her, finding her, and driving her against the wall, pressing myself tightly against her and she was smashing herself viciously against me in return. I could feel her churning and twisting and grinding below and there wasn't any cloth between us now, no shorts, no panties. Except that her breasts were still covered.
I got her out of that brassiere quickly, and then she drilled me in the chest with those two beautiful, hot, hard burning points. Then holding onto each other tightly and savagely, with lips burning and aching and smashing and mauling each other, we began spinning, reeling, staggering, as we made our way over to the bed, found it by feeling it against our legs, flopped onto it, rolled and tossed and shifted, until I was finally the commander.
In the darkness I found her, then found the deeper seething darkness and moved into it, feeling the heat becoming more intense as I ventured forward, the scent of her smothering me and making me dig deeper into that darkness, searching, trying, groping, accomplishing, no more trying, her back arching and straining and helping, helping, and I heard the crash, and the damned bed must have broken beneath us, both of us moving in unison in the darkness, together, together, groping, fighting, ignoring the bed that had broken.
It must have broken badly because we were now on a slant with our heads lowest, and then we drove towards the end of the darkness, the wonderful, breath-stopping, exciting darkness that wasn't darkness at all now but bright reeling daylight and cartwheels and somewhere in the distance I heard screams and shouts and wild muffled sounds that resembled the wail of a tortured cat on a misty night and I plunged forward to stop it.
I hung on the edge of a black void for several delicious moments, and then hurtled forward, and I got lost down in the bottom of a soft, seething, all-enveloping beautiful something that sheltered and engulfed me and comforted me because I was spent, and tired, and weary, and wonderfully relaxed, only a shell now because everything had gone out of me and found the sublime.
Chapter Ten
Much time elapsed before I discovered that my cheek was pressed tightly against her moist soft one, and it stayed that way because I couldn't move away. Finally I began to realize that she was completely motionless.
"Zora," I whispered in her ear.
She didn't reply, and she didn't move a muscle.
Slowly I moved away from her and sat up. Then my hand found the light cord button that dangled over the head of the bed. I flicked it on.
Her eyes were closed and her lovely face was relaxed, looking angelic in its repose the way her damp hair was spilled around her head. Her face was very pale, and she hadn't stirred with the flash of the light.
Then I realized that she must have fainted at the finale.
I found myself staring at her exquisite body, savoring its soft curves and lines, until my glance finally moved down to her waist.
There was a livid and red, ugly and distorted two-inch wide scar running erratically, like a finger of lightning, from her right hip bone to the left groin, looking even more grotesque because she was really a brunette.
I pulled my glance away, brought it back up to her face with the high, sculptured cheekbones, the swollen and full red lips, then to her wonderful breasts, swollen and standing proud and erect even though she was lying on her back, back down to the graceful curve of her hips, the firm thighs and shapely legs. She was perfect in every respect.
Except for that damned scar.
I looked at it again, but unseeing this time, and I remembered the way she'd turned out the light tonight before she'd undressed, and the way she stopped me last night from going down into the tops of her shorts, and later the way she'd hurriedly stuffed the blouse down into the waistband of her shorts again.
I wondered now how it had really happened, and when, and whether it had been an accident, or whether someone had cut her open on purpose, to mar that otherwise beautifully perfect body.
Then a wave of compassion swept over me, and I felt my heart fill and it seemed to turn over several times. I reached up and turned out the light.
I sank down on the bed beside her, and searched until my lips found hers. They were cool and unresponsive and I kissed her tenderly and so considerately until eventually I felt her begin to respond, then finally stir. The next moment her arms went around me and her fingers tenderly stroked the back of my head.
"Cherie?" she asked softly.
"What?"
"Did I really?"
"Yes, really?"
"I mean-did I really faint at the end?"
"Yes."
She pulled her head forward and pressed it tightly to her breasts. "That has never happened to me. Never."
"Then I'm glad it happened tonight."
She sighed luxuriously. "Why is my head down here? It is very low."
"The bed broke."
She laughed silently. "Everything happened tonight."
I remembered seeing the scar under the light. "Yes," I agreed, "everything."
Her fingers were caressing my ear and the side of my face. "Cherie?"
"What?"
"Does this fainting at the end happen to many women-with you?"
"It has never happened before. I have heard about it though."
"I have heard about it too. But I never thought it could happen to me." After a lengthy pause she asked, "Does it happen only once?"
"I don't know."
"Only once in a lifetime? Or could it happen twice?"
I said, "Everything is possible-even twice in one night."
I kissed soft warm perfumed valley of her breasts, and then I kissed her breasts, those luscious, lovely exquisite breasts that were poised like mountains, their peaks pointed turgid nipples that reacted joyously each time the tip of my tongue contacted them, pulsing violently and proudly, and at the same time she was undulating, all of her becoming aroused again, and I lost the weariness and the emptiness that had weighted me down, and the blood began to fill me up again and I felt strong and violent and the wanting within me became just as wild and turbulent as before.
This time we began more slowly and gently, languidly kissing and caressing, tarrying, toying, teasing, tickling. But soon the desire and the flames flared up savagely and violently, and there was no more moving slowly and carefully, only the viciousness, and the hurts, and the terrifying, and the bed didn't break a second tune, nor did she faint this time.
Then some time later, wearily and slowly, we moved ourselves around until our feet were pointing downward, following the slope of the bed, and I put my arm around her and pulled her close and she snuggled against me and put her head into the hollow of my shoulder.
I fell into a deep sleep, the drugged, bone-weary, black-pitted type of sleep, and when I opened my eyes again and looked about, the sun was already in the room.
Zora was no longer there.
I couldn't even guess at the approximate time she might have awakened and departed.
It was another brilliantly beautiful day, with the sun at its very best. I enjoyed it completely as I breakfasted outside, and I would have liked to dawdled over my coffee for several more hours, but this was the day I had to drop by the consulate.
Driving into Genoa, I found my thoughts returning to the night before, and now that it was no longer dark, the things I remembered doing and seeing the night before seemed a bit unreal. There were moments during the morning when I was certain that Zora hadn't been there at all, but the bed had been broken when I awakened, so the rest of it had to be true too.
The parking lot directly across the street from the consulate was filled, and so I drove on until I found a parking lot on a neighboring street. I paid my hundred lire to the attendant; and then I began walking towards the Consulate.
Johnny Longo of the Questura's office was standing at the edge of the sidewalk as though he'd been waiting for me.
"Johnny," I said as we shook hands, "how have you been?"
"Fine, fine." He grinned and nodded. "And you?"
"Wonderful."
"How about a coffee?"
"That's a great idea." I followed him into a bar and we both ordered espresso.
"The weather remains hot," he said.
"It's not so bad, Johnny."
"You like the hot weathers?"
"When I'm in Europe, I'll take anything."
His face was flushed and he'd already loosened his tie, but he was still wearing his hat and jacket. As an after thought he said, "Maybe September will be cooler."
The bartender set the two cups in front of us. Johnny held the silver sugar bowl and I scooped out a teaspoonful of sugar. "Thanks, Johnny."
While he was helping himself to the sugar he asked, "By the way, did you ever find that woman-Zora?"
I concentrated on stirring in my sugar. "I haven't had much time. I've been relaxing out at Santa Margherita."
"Did you see her last night?"
I finished stirring, and I put the spoon down, very carefully. He was still smiling, but he was talking like a cop.
I grinned at him, as though we were still discussing the weather, "I couldn't be that lucky, Johnny."
"The portiere of the building she lives in reported an American had been there last night, about eleven o'clock, looking for the signorina. The description he gave me made me think of you, immediately."
"Really?"
Johnny nodded. After he'd taken a sip of espresso he said. "I was hoping it had been you there last night."
"Why?"
"Because if you'd been there and seen her, I you might know where she is today."
"Come on, Johnny," I kidded, "don't tell me you're trying to find her now, too?"
He nodded. "We are trying to find her. We, the police, want to talk to her."
I finished my espresso before I asked the next question. "And why do the police want to talk to her?"
"Murder."
My stomach muscles tightened but I kept my voice casual. "That means someone was killed."
"She killed her lover by breaking a vase over his head in the apartment."
I thought of George, realizing that if it were he whom she'd killed I'd have to write reports of explanation to Washington for the rest of the present administration. I was afraid of the answer, but I had to ask the question. "Do I know him-her lover?"
"Nick Galopolos, it was. He was at the cocktail party. I believe I was talking to you when he joined our group."
"That right," I said. "I remember him now."
Johnny shoved aside his empty cup. "Well, I have much work to do."
"Thanks for the espresso."
"Prego."
We parted outside and I continued on to the consulate. I doubted whether Johnny had believed the things I'd told him, and he'd check it all out later. I remembered seeing a big vase in Zora's apartment that first night, and now wondered whether it had been the one he'd mentioned as the murder weapon. Had she killed Nick before eleven, before I arrived, or afterwards? Maybe he had gotten suspicious about us and waited in the apartment for her return. A few words, threats, the flare of anger, and she could have grabbed the vase and hit him with it. That was the nice solution.
Inside the consulate an Italian clerk took me in to see George because Pat was momentarily away from her desk.
When I stepped into his office, he came around his desk and said solemnly, "Hello, Chris."
"How's everything going, George?"
"I can't complain," he said. Waving me to a chair he then went over and settled onto the couch. "I've been thinking about you, Chris."
His face was grim.
I should have stayed in Santa Margherita, I told myself. The tone of his voice and the look on his face probably meant that he wanted to talk about Terry and that day at the house.
Then he continued, "I have to talk to somebody, Chris. You're a fellow employee, so to speak. I can't talk to Terry about it, or my friends." He pulled up his glance, and I saw that his eyes were drugged with worry. "I've got problems."
"They can't be that bad, George."
He shook his head as though he didn't want to listen. "I've gotten myself in a rotten mess, one that will probably ruin me. I've got to tell you about it. I need your advice.
That was exactly what I'd come over to Europe for. To learn all about George's problems. But he'd never get advice from me. That would come directly from Washington.
And because he'd volunteered the information I didn't even have to tell him what I intended to do with it.
Chapter Eleven
George's story was quite a tale. And one of tail.
In the privacy of his office, he didn't go into any details, but he didn't have to because it was one that I'd heard many times. He fidgeted a lot and paused often to get it into chronological order, and when he'd finished it followed the basic pattern, with a few exceptions.
Ever since he joined in the Foreign Service, he'd wandered away from Terry and the marriage bed occasionally, and on one of the occasions years ago someone had been there to record the bed meeting on film.
He hadn't been aware of it until less than a year ago. Suddenly in Rome, Zora had appeared and it had been easy for her to lure him into a tryste, but when he'd reached for her she'd reached into her purse and confronted him with a photograph. The two naked figures on the bed were clearly identifiable.
George, was one. The other was a girl who had been featured in the newspapers as one of the Communist leaders in the Bologna area. It was simple blackmail. The girl needed a visa to get to the States and it was up to George to get it for her. Either that or the photo of him would be made public. Both in Rome and in Washington.
George had gotten her the visa and she'd disappeared, and then he'd been forced to do the same thing for two men. He'd had the opportunity then to get out of Rome, and happily he'd come to Genoa, hoping that they wouldn't bother him again. They had.
Zora bothered him. Now she needed a visa. He objected, but now she promised him the negative, and he'd agreed.
Consequently, that very morning at nine o'clock George had met Zora in a small bar, as she'd instructed him. He'd given her the visa, and she'd given him the negative plus a handful of prints, and she'd promised to leave Italy immediately.
When George returned to the Consulate, Johnny Longo had been waiting for him. Johnny had revealed that the Greek with the long last name had been murdered with a vase, and that Zora, his mistress, was the prime suspect. The police throughout Italy had been alerted, as well as the border guards and Interpol.
"So, that's the way the matter stands at the moment," George concluded. "Zora has the visa and she's going to try to get out of Italy, and into the States with it. The moment she hits the border she'll be picked up and they will find the visa that I issued her." He shook his head. "Without the authority to issue it, it will cost me my career."
Now I understood the look that had passed between Zora and George at the cocktail party, and I realized that George had been forced to go see her the afternoon I'd been at his apartment with Terry. Apparently Terry's suspicions about him and Zora were completely unfounded.
Then the full impact of what he'd told me hit. I'd bedded down with a beautiful blonde Communist murderess. I sure knew how to pick them.
George was staring numbly at the floor. "I left this office at quarter to nine. Longo dropped by here the first time at nine o'clock, to tell me that Zora had killed the Greek. Fifteen goddam minutes' difference! If I'd known-if Longo had been here when I left-I could have taken him with me when I went to met her, and he could have picked her up. I could have gotten the negative back eventually, and that would have ended everything. Fifteen minutes!"
"Don't give up yet, George."
He shook his head. "I can't think of any way to stop her now."
"George," I asked, "did Longo mention what time last night the Greek had been killed?"
"Some time between eight and nine o'clock."
Only a corpse had probably been in the apartment when I was banging on Zora's door last night because she'd obviously run. She'd have had to hide out until this morning so that she could meet George and get the visa. And she'd hidden out in my bed.
He got up now, walked wearily to the window and looked out. "All this for a little piece of tail. Remember the story about the torn cat walking across the railroad track and a train comes along and cuts off a piece of his tail? Then when he goes back to pick up the chopped-off piece of tail, another train comes along and chops off his head, the moral of the story being: don't lose your head for a piece of tail." George sighed audibly. "My head has been chopped. That's the way I feel at this moment."
"I wish I knew how I could help you, George, but at the moment I'm at a loss, especially for words."
"You've helped me a lot already, just letting me tell you all about it. I haven't been able to talk about it, I haven't been able to say a word about it to anyone. Its torture keeping something like that bottled up inside of you. After a while you think you'll go out of your mind."
I stayed with him a while longer, merely trying to sound sympathetic and understanding, but I knew now why Washington had sent me here. Apparently it had' 'been discovered that George was letting Communists into the States. Washington couldn't figure out why, but they wanted it stopped. I knew exactly how I was going to write up my complete report when I walked out of his office.
I closed the door softly behind me and saw Pat Gordon sitting at her desk. She was still pretty cute.
Her eyes sparkled when she saw me, "Hello darling."
"Hi, doll."
"Luigi told me you were in there with Mr. Heatherington. I could hardly stand it, waiting for you to come out." She jumped to her feet and came around the desk. She stood close to me, with her glance on my face. The fingers of one hand slipped inside the front of my shirt.
"How have you been, Chris?"
"I've been fine, Pat."
"I've missed you terribly, Chris."
"Have you really?"
She nodded. Then she stood on her toes and whispered. "I love you, Chris."
This wasn't my day. I'd just learned what kind of a woman I break beds with, and now this one was telling me she loved me.
"Do you love me, too?" she was asking, her voice shrilling with urgency.
I was remembering Trixie and Angelina, and suddenly I had the feeling there had to be a moral somewhere. They hadn't insisted on a thing, no one had even pretended that it was the greatest love story of the century. It was just sex. They wanted it, needed it, acquired it, and enjoyed it. And they were honest enough to admit it.
Pat's hand was tugging at my shirt front now, the way a child might tug at its mother's apron. She was asking, quite insistently, "You do love me, too, don't you, Chris? Tell me you do, because I love you so much. So very much."
I wanted to shove her away from me, but the memory of her loneliness stopped me.
"I like you very much, Pat, but I don't love you."
That must have hurt her more than a violent shove, because tears welled up in her eyes and her teeth ground into her lower lip.
Gently I said, "You shouldn't get serious about me, Pat. Just because you're lonely and you need someone-you can't buy love after a night in bed."
She ducked by me with her head down, turned left at the door and hurried down the hall.
I left the consulate and drove back to Santa Margherita. While I steered the car around the curves and rode the horn continuously, the way all drivers perform in Italy, I kept thinking a-bout the story George had told me, and the strange way in which fate often touches people's lives.
I'd been sent to Genoa on an assignment that I especially didn't want, I'd had nothing but luck from the very beginning, including some sex, and very easily I'd accomplished everything I'd been asked to do. What could I do for an encore?
Now as I drove into Santa Margherita and parked near the hotel, I came up with a few definite conclusions. I didn't want to get involved with the police about Zora, I didn't want to sea her again, and I didn't want to get involved with George's personal problems. Terry.
I wanted to go into the hotel and get into my trunks, and I wanted to get some sun, swim a little and, just think about girls with eye-catching sweaters.
Then two guys wearing expensive slacks and sports shirts closed in on me the second I got out of the car, and each one used a hand to feel my biceps. Friendly chaps they were too, grinning and nodding at me as though we'd been sharing pizzas most of our lives.
The right hand of the one on my right was in a small briefcase, made of soft leather and highly-polished. He said, "Inside this is a gun. My finger is on the trigger." He paused to smile. "Come along, Joe."
The mention of the gun didn't impress me, but the way in which he told me about it did. So we three bareheaded lads strolled through the crowd, unhurriedly, the two of them grinning and chattering softly to me in Italian. The round-faced chap on my left even turned halfway around twice to watch the stuff in short-shorts walking by.
I suddenly realized that the sun was very hot, and I was getting more uncomfortable by the second. The fact that I'd just been thinking about relaxing, and swimming and looking didn't help matters.
They strolled me down a narrow side street, made a few right turns and a left, and headed for a grey Mercedes sedan. I made a point to memorize the license plate. TO-24818.
The next moment I was in the back seat of the Mercedes with the man holding the briefcase. The other one slid behind the wheel.
The hand came out of the briefcase now, and it really held a gun. It was black and short and ugly, a foreign make, and it had a big round hole in the muzzled. About a .38 caliber, I guessed.
The gunman with the long narrow teeth asked, "Where is she, Joe? Where is Zora?"
The one in the front had turned around. He placed a hairy forearm on the back of the front seat, propped his chin on the wrist, and got ready to listen.
If they'd been police I would have asked them for their identification. If they hadn't had a gun I would have asked them why they wanted to know.
Under the circumstances, I said, "I don't know where she is."
"Where did she say she was going when she left you last night?" the man with the gun asked.
"She didn't tell me."
"Don't lie," he said, as though he were reprimanding a child. "Don't protect her. She's nothing to you."
"I'm telling you the truth," I said. "I was asleep when she left. I don't know where she was going. I don't know where she is now."
"She must have told you something last night." The humor crinkled the corners of his eyes. "About where she'd be today, I mean."
"Not a word."
Roundface laughed softly and spoke in Italian.
"Si, si," the man with the gun agreed. Then he said something in Italian to his partner.
If he'd pulled the trigger at that moment it would have missed me. That's why I dove for his gun hand.
I got it in both of my hands and kept the gun muzzle headed away from me while we wrestled and fought in the back seat. I was doing very well, until something chunked against the back of my head.
I tumbled forward into a big black vat and I never hit bottom.
When the blackness began to seep out of my brain again I heard a motor running, and I felt the vibration of its gears and driveshaft long before I opened my eyes. Occasionally I heard the metallic ting of a rock hitting the underside of the car.
I smelled dust and the scent of rubber and upholstery. Finally I opened my eyes and sneaked a peek. I was lying on the side of my face on the floor of the back seat with my legs doubled up and the bottom of my shoes pushing against the side of the door. Apparently I'd been in that position for quite a while because my knees ached. So did the back of my head.
I felt something in the middle of my back, weighting me down. Shoes? They were shoes all right, and they had feet in them. I guessed they belonged to the man with the gun.
The brakes were jammed on abruptly and the momentum of it shoved me forward until most of my weight was resting on the bridge of my nose. I felt the car making a sharp turn, and then it was moving slowly, rocking and pitching, as though we were moving over a rutty road. After several minutes of that the car eased to a stop, and the motor was turned off.
My eyes were closed again. Chris Cody in the role of Playin' Possum.
Then they popped open because I'd been jolted roughly in the seat of my pants with the side of a shoe. With a foot in it. The door opened and I could finally stretch my legs, but a moment later the two of them had dragged me outside and propped me up against the side of the Mercedes.
The sun was still shining brightly, blinding me, but I was able to distinguish trees in my line of vision. I blinked and held onto the car door to keep the dizziness from dragging me down to my knees.
The one with the round face grabbed an arm and helped me keep my balance. The one with the gun moved in front of me. He spoke softly and patiently.
"We want to know where we can find Zora. If you remember, please tell us."
"I don't know where she is. She left my room during the night. I don't know what time she left. I don't know where she was going when she left. And I don't know where she is now."
"Don't lie, Joe."
"I don't know anything about her."
I felt myself being shoved roughly away from the side of the car, and as I stumbled forward, trying to keep from falling, that same something crunched against the back of my head again.
Not hard this time. Just a stunning blow, making my eyes rattle in their sockets and driving me to my knees.
"Where did she go?" I heard one of them ask.
"I don't know."
Pow!
I got rapped on the head again. I fought back the haziness and realized I'd slumped forward, with my nose digging into the ground. I pulled myself up, propping myself onto my arms and hands and feeling the tickling warmth running over my upper lip, and realizing that my nose had started to bleed.
Telling the truth hadn't been appreciated. I decided to lie.
"Where did she go?"
"To the airport," I said. "She took a cab to the airport. She was taking a plane out of Genoa."
"An Italian plane?"
"I guess."
"From the Genoa airport?"
I nodded.
"She had a reservation?"
I nodded again.
The sap socked viciously into my shoulder, right at the spot where my neck connects with my shoulder. It felt like a giant hammer, and it slammed me to the ground. My entire arm was numb and the spot throbbed, but I shoved myself upright again.
"There is no airport in Genoa," a voice said.
I remembered that mother had told me never to lie.
"You lied," a voice said.
"Yes, I lied."
"So, where did she go?"
"I don't know."
Things got confused and very mixed up after that. The giant hammer kept pounding into my shoulder, knocking me down each time. Each time my face hit the ground I could dimly see the sharp-pointed Italian shoes a foot away. I didn't want them in my teeth, and so I kept shoving myself away each time they knocked me down.
I had to swear I wasn't lying. I had to swear on my mother's head I wasn't lying. I had to swear on whatever was holy to me that I wasn't lying.
I don't know which one convinced them, but suddenly a tremendous rap on the back of my head ended it.
There was black emptiness and I slid into it, happy and grateful to be left alone.
Chapter Twelve
Quite a while later, it seemed, I regained consciousness again. I felt as though I were on a big swing that rocked and brought waves of nausea, and then I felt that my arms and shoulders were numb and sore and stiff, and my head hurt, and there was a soreness around my eyeballs as though I'd been staring cross-eyed too long.
Before I moved or opened my eyes I listened to see whether they were still there but I didn't hear a thing. Finally I pried my eyelid apart. A bug's eye view of the ground was all I had.
I pushed myself into a sitting position, still keeping my left arm and hand out for a prop. The sunny world around me spun and jiggled. After I'd blinked my eyes a number of times, I could see that I was alone, near those same trees. A small clump of trees, they turned out to be as they came into focus.
I spent about a half hour there, trying to get myself oriented, and enjoying the fact that I was still alive. My fingertips probed the back of my head and I found that my skull was still in one piece. The skin on both shoulders under my shirt was black and blue, but no bones were broken. I felt the dried and crusted blood at the end of my nose and around my mouth.
When I dug out my handkerchief I checked the rest of my pockets. They hadn't stolen a thing. Then I spit into the handkerchief and rubbed my face with the dampness until it felt as though I'd gotten rid of the dried blood.
There was no reason why I was being so neat because there wasn't a human being around and not a house in sight. I let my glance make another three-hundred and sixty degree sweep. Nothing.
Slowly and shakily I got to my feet and looked around some more. If Italy was so over-populated, why wasn't there someone living nearby? I moved about ten yards away from that clump of trees. Up to that moment they had blocked out part of my view. Now, about five miles away, I saw a number of white dots which had to be houses of a village clinging to a hillside.
I was at the bottom of a long and narrow canyon, its sides not too steep but heavily wooded with shrubs and trees. About seventy yards away I could see a small dirt road that seemed to extend the full length of the canyon. It probably led to that village on my right. All I could see to the left was the canyon stretching into the distance, but it seemed as though the hill to my left tended to become smaller, while to my right they became larger.
I didn't know where I was, I couldn't guess in which direction I had to go to find the Riviera, or Genoa, but I thought if I went in the direction where the hills became smaller, maybe they'd peter out eventually and there would be the sea.
Studying the ground around me. I could see the tire tracks made by the Mercedes. I found the spot where the car had turned around and I followed the tracks down to the dirt road. Here, the two sets of tracks turned to the left, generally eastward towards the hills that seemed to get smaller. That's the direction I started walking.
I hadn't been walking very long before I got real sick and tired of it. I didn't mind walking five or even fifty miles with a chick like Angelina, but I didn't care at all for picking them up and setting them down because a couple of bastards left me stranded in a strange part of a foreign country, and I wasn't sure I was even headed in the right direction.
The more I thought about those two guys the hotter I got. I'd made up my mind I wasn't going to get involved in this thing with Zora. She had her problems, George had his, and I didn't want any part of either one. They had their problems, and I had mine. I just wanted to be left alone, to relax now and enjoy myself. But the guy with the gun and the one with the roundface had spoiled it.
The thing that was really annoying was that they'd worked me over with a sap, just because I'd been telling the truth, and then they'd left me out here to walk back.
The worm would have to turn sometime. When I visualized What would happen the next time we met, I immediately began to feel a lot better. I'd enjoy messing up their nice clothes, or putting a few dents in that nice, shiny Mercedes.
By that time I'd come to a wide, flat area where the ground was as level and smooth as a table top. The fiat surface was only about fifty yards in diameter, and way off to the side of it I could see a few metal braces and some bricks, as though a house might have stood there once.
There was still no human being in sight.
Then I glanced up the road in the direction I was headed and I saw a dark moving speck in the distance, coming completely into view as it passed a bend in the road. I watched it for a while and then I recognized it as a horse pulling a wagon. I waited for it to come closer and before long I could see that it was flat-bedded wagon with four rubber tires on the wheels. I couldn't see anyone on the wagon.
The horse was walking along slowly, and following the road, and it and the wagon were turning out to be the best means of transportation I'd ever seen. I stood patiently by the side of the road and waited for it to come to me.
When the horse and wagon were about ten yards away, I was able to see the driver. He was lying on the wagon, near the front part of it, with his coat folded under his head and sound asleep. The reins of the horse had been tied to the front of the wagon, and the horse was apparently taking him home.
I studied the horse and the wagon and the guy snoring while he lay on his back. Then I rechecked the wide flat area.
I walked carefully up beside the walking horse, soothing it quietly with my voice until I was moving alongside its bobbing head. I reached up with my hand, took hold of the bridle, and I began to lead it to the right, over the wide smooth area, then swung it slowly and carefully around to the left, turning it and the wagon around in a large circle. Without giving the horse a chance to break stride, I kept leading it down the road again, in the direction it had just come from.
The horse wanted to slow down, probably quite disappointed not to be going home to the hay in the stall, but I talked to it, softly, and I kept walking it, leading it by the bridle. After about a hundred yards it stepped out again, walking with that steady and smooth gait.
I turned loose of the bridle, and then I stepped off the side of the road. When the back of the wagon came by, I jumped on it, and I had my ride.
The guy was still snoring loudly on the front of the wagon, and from that distance he smelled as though he'd fallen into a vat of wine. I didn't disturb him.
I stretched out on my back on the wagon bed and clasped my hands under my head to keep the moving wagon from jolting me too much. I looked up at the clean blue sky, and I enjoyed the warmth of the sun. Before long I'd dropped off to sleep.
The shrill sound of a woman's voice awakened me. I sat up quickly and saw that we were coming to a small village. I could see that the road led into the small square located in the center of the village.
I jumped off the wagon, and I walked quickly to the right, following the edge of a tiny corn patch and angling towards the rear part of the village.
Within a few minutes Td reached the first stone building. I turned left at the second one, and I was now walking down a narrow street, littered with all kinds of crap. Kids were playing outdoors on doorsteps, rags of laundry hung out of windows, and a goose honked at me as I strode down the street.
Now three ugly women, dressed in black dresses and wearing black shawls, came out of three separate doorways. They grabbed the children nearest them and shoved them inside the buildings. Then they stared silently at me as I went by. I smiled and nodded, but they seemed too surprised to be friendly.
At the end of the street, where it joined the square, I found a bar, and I went inside. It was deserted, except for the girl standing at the window watching something outside.
"Espresso," I told her.
Reluctantly she stepped away from the window and got busy with the steaming urn. Then I heard the rising sound of many voices, suddenly swelling very loud, and coming from somewhere outside and nearby.
I looked out the door and saw that about twenty men and women were crowding around the horse and wagon that had just stopped in the center of the square. Everyone was chattering and yelling, and waving wildly with his arms Except the driver of the wagon.
He got up slowly and looked around with a puzzled expression on his dark face. He yawned scratched his ear, glanced bewildered at his wagon, and then suspiciously eyed the horse.
Women began shrieking with laughter and men doubled up and choked and coughed and laughed and snorted and slapped their legs, while the poor guy on the wagon just threw out his arms and stared at them with a pained and puzzled look on his face. Before long he started grinning, then laughing, and finally he was caught up in the merriment of the occasion. A few minutes later he walked to the front of the wagon and untied the reins. Good-naturedly he pulled the horse around, and they moved out of the square, heading in the direction they'd been going before I came along'.
The girl was chattering and laughing as she set the coffee in front of me. She'd been watching the activity through the window. She seemed to be trying to explain something, and I could only nod my head and grin.
When she quieted down I asked, "Taxi?"
She frowned and shook her head. Then the words really spouted from her, and it was a lot more difficult getting a ride out of that village than into it.
First she had to establish the fact that I was an American, and that took quite a bit of doing. Then she scurried out into the square and chattered furiously, and she brought back an old man who apparently had told everybody he could speak English. All he could say was "Good morning." Of course everyone in the square had to see what was happening, and they were all jammed now into the bar.
Everyone was yelling and talking and swinging their arms, and acting out individual roles, and it was a comical game of charades. Some were driving wagons, some motorcycles, some cars. One guy even put on a hat like a cab driver, and with all that I finally made them understand that I wanted a ride to Santa Margherita, and they made me understand that the village had no taxis, no cars, no horses, and only four bicycles.
The thought of a bicycle was tempting. I was getting desperate.
At that moment a lad of about nineteen pulled up outside on a thundering motorcycle. Before he could get off they'd all swarmed outside and swooped down on him, talking, yelling, pointing at the motorcycle, at the road, at me in the bar, and then they shoved him inside the bar and held him and made him stand close in front of me, almost on my toes.
The lad must have loved garlic. I tried to move backwards, away from him, but they had me hemmed in.
He seemed reluctant at first to take me into Santa Margherita, but I pulled out a five-hundred Lire note and put it into his hand. The audience ooh'd and aah'd and began looking at him as though he'd just been elected mayor.
That swung him over to my side.
The entire crowd followed us outside and as he started up the motorcycle I crawled on behind. We shot out of there in a thundering roar with the big blue cloud of smoke cottoning up behind us, and with all the townsfolk cheering us on.
It was gratifying to learn that I had been headed in the right direction, and before long I caught sight of the sea glistening in the distance. When we came to a main road I recognized it to be the one going from Genoa to Santa Margherita.
He dipped the bike low and turned left, and about fifteen minutes later he'd deposited me in front of my hotel. I thanked him and gave him another thousand lire. He swept off his cap and thanked me.
"Get yourself a new set of rings," I said.
"Si, si," he agreed.
I went into the hotel and got the key from the clerk. Although he handed it to me without a word, there was a strange look on his face, something like amazement mixed with disbelief. I couldn't understand the reason for it, but I assumed I still had some blood on my face.
Then I met a maid in the hallway. She was walking towards me, carrying a stack of linens. She pulled up abruptly the moment she saw me, and clasping the linens to her breast, she stood motionless, only her eyes moving as I went by her. My face really had to be a mess, I thought.
I unlocked the door and stepped into my room, wanting to take a look at myself in the mirror. Without closing the door I stepped to the mirror and looked at myself, but there was nothing on my face to explain the reactions I'd gotten from the clerk and the maid.
As I turned away from the mirror I saw the maid coming into my room and walking over to the bed. They'd fixed it while I was out. She still held the linens against her with one arm. Now she bent over the bed and punched it with her free hand.
"Bene, bene," she said.
"Thanks for fixing it."
She straightened up, looking long and adoringly at the bed, and then she looked at me in the very same way. Her eyes were moist, and an admiring glance later moved over me from head to foot, and back again.
"Molto bene," she said softly and very complimentary. Her hand went to the bedspread a-gain, and for a moment she stroked it, almost lovingly. Then she turned, walked slowly out the room and shut the door.
With the bed breaking and all I could only come to the conclusion that in their opinion, last night I'd become a man.
I spent a long time in the shower, letting the hot water beat down on my neck and shoulders to melt the knots in my muscles and ease the dull, throbbing pain. By the time I'd toweled dry and dressed, dusk had crept into my room. I felt a lot better now. I still had a slight headache but it was no worse than you get from cheap booze.
While I was having dinner, I reviewed what had happened during the day. I wondered whether the two guys had found Zora by now, or if they were still looking for her. It was possible that they needed more information and they might come back again. That was the part I didn't like.
Several times I'd tried to guess how they fitted into this mess with Zora. They were definitely the bad guys in this little drama, but who were they working for? Were they out to revenge the Greek? Were they Commies? If Zora were mixed up with the Commies, perhaps they frowned on her trying to get out of Italy and into the States. They wouldn't like it if Zora was running out on them, especially if she were doing it quietly and on her own. Whoever it was that wanted to find her meant business, and it bothered me, realizing that they could still think I'd been lying and come back again.
I didn't want to go for another ride, and I didn't want to get another beating like I'd had that afternoon. Next time the ride might be much longer. How could I be sure they'd stay off my back?
I hoped the police had caught up with Zora already, but she was too smart to try to get out of the country now. She'd hide somewhere and wait until they relaxed the alert again.
By the time I'd finished dinner, I'd made up my mind to drive into Genoa and talk to Longo. I'd tell him what had happened and find out whether she'd been picked up. If she'd been found I could relax and enjoy myself and the guys wouldn't foe bothering me again.
Chapter Thirteen
It was getting dark when I drove out of Santa Margherita, and I watched the mirror to be sure no one was following me. I couldn't exclude the possibility that I might have a tail. They might hope that if I knew where Zora was hidden I'd go to meet her, and they'd find her then through me.
I noticed nothing that looked suspicious. I even made it a point to glance at all the cars I saw, watching for the Mercedes with the T0-24818 license plate.
Passing the town of Nervi I glanced to my left and I noticed that someone had recently strung up a bunch of lights along the edges of buildings, on top of church steeples, and outlining the crosses. Apparently they were getting ready for a celebration, or it might be a religious holiday.
I drove on, and when I was about five minutes' drive away from the Lido, I came around a curve and my headlights hit the license plate of a car just coming to a stop, facing me, and on the opposite side of the street.
The grey Mercedes. TO-24818.
It was pure luck seeing that car again, because if I'd been hunting it, I couldn't have found it in a thousand years. Maybe the Great Equalizer wanted me to square things-giving me a chance to get in my licks.
I braked over to the curb just as a guy got out from under the wheel of the Mercedes. He went around the car and stepped up on the sidewalk. By the glare of the street lamp nearby I recognized him as the one with the gun that afternoon.
An hour ago I'd been happy to leave well enough alone, to forget about the way they'd treated me, but now I couldn't wait to get my hands on him.
I flipped out my lights and turned off the ignition key. For a second I thought he was going into the small church that was perched at the edge of the sea, but at the last moment he turned left, and he seemed to be going down a flight of steps.
I hopped out of my car and scurried across the street. Then I saw that there was a long flight of stone steps leading down to the sea. He was walking slowly, and he was about halfway down.
I could see a small cove below, with a lot of fishing boats bobbing around in the water, many of them were turned upside down on the gravelly beach. A small village was huddled back in the cove, with the stone buildings butted right up against a steep cliff.
There were quite a number of people out, taking a little evening stroll. Many were sightseers and tourists, and I noticed that most of them were eating ice cream cones. Now I remembered one of the waiters in the hotel telling me about the tiny fishing village of Boccadasse. It was noted for its excellent ice cream.
When my quarry had reached the bottom of the steps, I started down. I saw him walking towards his left, beginning to mix in with the people, and I hurried so I wouldn't lose him. When I reached the bottom of the steps I saw that he'd stopped at the edge of a small crowd of people. They were all standing in front of a brightly-lighted ice cream shop where four uniformed girls were filling cones. He fished into his pocket and I assumed he was getting some ice cream, too.
I moved on towards my right so that I'd be in the darkness along the front of the buildings where I could observe him without being seen. His turn came up eventually. I watched him get his cone and pay for it.
Up to that moment it had been my guess that he merely come down here to get some ice cream and then he'd go back up the steps again. But he didn't do that. He turned and came in my direction, walking slowly, and keeping an eye on the cone because the ice cream was melting a little and beginning to run down his fingers.
So I kept moving away from him, and always ahead of him, but staying in the shadow of the buildings. The only reason he never saw me was because he was concentrating on licking ice cream that was dribbling down the side of the cone, licking that which spilled on his fingers, and glancing down at his front occasionally to see whether he'd messed up those fancy clothes.
By that time I couldn't move alongside the buildings anymore; because twenty feet farther was the water's edge. Fortunately, I found a narrow passageway between two buildings, and I began backing into it. It was only about five feet wide and the buildings rose straight up on both sides. One good thing about it, the passageway was almost pitch dark.
I could hear his steps coming nearer now, and I knew that if he entered the passageway he couldn't help but see me. I peered over my Shoulder and in the direction he was headed. The side of the cliff rose abruptly. The passageway ended there.
If he entered it I was trapped.
He did.
At that second I felt an opening beside me, and I slipped into it. It was an open doorway, with only darkness inside. I didn't know whether I was standing in someone's hall or front bedroom. He was coming nearer, his steps sounding louder every second. In a moment he'd reach the doorway.
I decided to take him, even though he probably hadn't finished his ice cream. The moment the dark outline of him moved by the doorway I chopped him hard in the back of the neck. I caught him as he fell forward, pulled him up, and then clipped him with my fist.
He crumpled silently, and I dragged him inside the dark hallway. I searched him quickly, and I found the keys to the Mercedes Which I took. He had no gun, no knife, neither the sap. I didn't care about his identification.
By that time my eyes had accustomed themselves to the darkness, and I surveyed the narrow hallway. Two oars were leaning up against the wall in one corner. Behind them on the floor appeared to be a roll of fishing line. I felt of it, found it strong, and I tied his hands and feet. I guess the pain of the line cutting into his skin speeded up his revival.
Squatting down beside him I whispered my question. "Are you still looking for Zora?"
He didn't answer me.
I chopped him smartly across the Adam's apple with the heel of my hand. That started him coughing and wretching and squirming; and for a moment I thought he might choke. He didn't.
Again I asked, "Are you still looking for Zora?"
"No."
"Did you find her?"
He didn't answer until I brought up my hand again.
"Yes," he said quickly. "We found her."
"Where is she?"
"Upstairs."
"You're kidding."
"No. She's upstairs."
"Now you listen to me," I said softly. "I want the truth."
"It's the truth," he said. "She's upstairs in the room. Go see for yourself. Go up the little street. Take the first door on your right. Go upstairs, you'll see."
"Who's up there with her?"
"She's by herself. There's no one else with her."
This time I really let him have it across the apple, and it took him several minutes to get over it.
When he'd settled down again I asked, "Where is she?"
"She is upstairs."
"Where's your buddy?"
"He-he's with her."
"Is there anyone else up there?"
He shook his head vigorously. "No one else. Believe me, it's the truth."
"All right."
I tied my handkerchief across his mouth, and tight enough so that it was almost rubbing up against his epiglottis. Then I dragged him into the rear corner of the hallway.
I stepped out into the narrow passageway and listened for a moment. The only sound audible was that of the people talking and laughing in the vicinity of the ice cream shop. I couldn't understand why there weren't any people in these buildings. Maybe this was the time of day when they went out for fresh air and a long walk.
Moving silently to my right I found the door that he'd recommended. It was slightly ajar, and I stepped inside. I saw a small flight of stairs ahead of me, and I moved up them slowly. I'd forgotten to ask him which room the two were in, but as it turned out it didn't matter. There was only one door upstairs.
It was closed, but along the bottom of it I saw a faint and narrow strip of light.
Now, how to get in?
I couldn't think of any of those fancy tricks they use on television when the hero wants to enter a room where trouble lies in wait. So I just knocked.
I heard the scrape of a chair inside, then slow and heavy footsteps coming nearer. There was the sound of a wooden latch being lifted. The door opened and the one with the round face was framed against a pale lighted background.
If Knute Rockne had seen me take him out with that shoulder block, I'm sure there would have been Five Horsemen. I heard his breath go out with a whoosh, and something snapped inside him when he hit the floor. It was probably only a rib, because it didn't slow him up. He was on his feet the same instant as I was.
My right shot for his face but he ducked, and I missed him.
I was off balance for a split second, but I caught a glimpse of someone else in the room. Then his knee boomed into my guts. I staggered backwards, trying to regain my balance. I crashed against the wall, and the force of it stunned me momentarily. He dove on top of me. Now his hands had found my throat, and he was beginning to put on the pressure.
I twisted and bucked and squirmed and tried to tear his hands away, but his fingers were digging in that much harder. I tried to shove my fingers into his eyes but he kept twisting and turning his head. By that time the blood was roaring in my ears, the pressure was building up in my head and setting off a string of exploding firecrackers. My lungs screamed for air. I clawed and ripped at the fingers around my throat. Nothing helped. The end wasn't far off, and I had to do something quickly if I wanted to five.
Fuzzily, I could see him gritting his teeth as he put on the pressure, and his nose seemed about a foot away from mine. I formed up all the saliva I could find in my mouth.
Then I spit the whole mess right into his face.
When it hit him he jerked back, relaxing his fingers for a split second. That's all I needed. I tore his hands away from my throat and jolted him in the groin with my knee. That doubled him over slightly. And that was the turning point.
I scooted out from under him, and I was on my feet when he got up. He got three of my fingers jabbed into one eye. He had trouble seeing me now, and he didn't know what to do a-bout the fists I was slamming into his guts and into his face. I unloaded the big one right on the point of his chin.
That ended all his problems of trying to see. He sort of folded up and slid to the floor. I dove on top of him, but he didn't move. Neither did I for several minutes because I was too weary and winded.
Then I searched his pockets. I found the gun in the back pocket and I transferred it to mine. I also felt a lump in another pocket. When I'd worked it out, I could see the little pouch filled with bird shot. The leather felt as soft as a baby's skin. Italian leather goods are first rate. I didn't want the sap, and so I tossed it across the room.
I stood up then and looked around. On the floor was a burning candle stuck in the top of an old straw-covered wine bottle. There was a homemade rickety stool, and there was a narrow and old wooden bed with a stained and discolored tick on it.
On top of that was Zora, tied hand and foot, and gagged. Her eyes were open, watching every move I made.
First I went to the door, stuck my head outside and listened. There was no sound of anyone stirring within the building. I eased the door shut and dropped the wooden latch in place.
Then I walked over to the bed. After I'd untied the sailing rope tied around her beautiful ankles, I used it to tie the guy's hands behind his back. The rope I took off her wrists I transferred to his ankles. By that time Zora had ripped off the gag.
"Oh, cherie," she said, "how can I thank you?"
"I don't know," I said.
She began rubbing her wrists while I took the gag she'd tossed aside and used it on the guy. Then I went over to bed and sat down on it.
"I'll rub your ankles," I said. "You keep working on the wrists."
"How did you find me?" she asked.
"That's quite a story."
The smell coming from the bed was almost unbearable, a strong biting scent of urine, as though a chronic bedwetter had slept on it for a half a century.
I had to stand up. Then I asked, "Who is this man?"
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe a kidnapper."
"Who would pay a ransom to get you back?"
She smiled. "Maybe you, my dear, don't you think?"
I said, "Tell me about Nick."
"Let's get out of here first." She swung her legs off the bed and started to get up.
The smell was bad enough to make me want to agree to that, but I wanted to talk first. I set my hand on her shoulder and shoved her down again. "Not until you tell me a few things."
"What is it, my dear?" Her eyes widened with surprise.
I couldn't tell whether it was because I knew about Nick, or because I'd set her down on the bed again. I asked, "Did you kill Nick?"
"Yes," she said. "And I would do it again if the same thing happened."
"Why?"
"Because-the way he treated me."
"What did he do?"
"If I tell you, will we go then?"
"Then we'll go," I promised.
According to Zora, Nick had befriended her. He was one of the directors of a freight shipping line, and he'd bought the apartment in Genoa, and she'd become his mistress. He'd been wonderful to her, until about a month ago. Then he'd changed, suddenly becoming jealous and very demanding, and insisting that she never go out of the apartment. When she heard he had been invited to George and Terry's cocktail party, she'd talked him into letting her go with his partner, DeSoto, who had also been invited.
Nick, of course, had been at the cocktail party with his wife, and he'd become very upset by the way the men had been attracted to Zora that night. The night following the cocktail party he'd seemed almost insane with jealousy. He'd screamed at her, telling her he couldn't stand other men looking at her with the naked lust showing in their eyes.
The night I'd been at her apartment, Nick had gone to Milan on business, but he hadn't left Genoa until after dinner. That's why she'd stalled my coming to see her until late.
The following night, the second time I was to see her, Nick had told her he was driving to Rome that afternoon, but at eight o'clock he suddenly Showed up at her apartment. At first she'd thought he was merely checking up on her, but it was much worse than that.
He'd brought with him a strapping, illiterate deck hand. Nick explained to her that if she was going to let every man in town pant over her, then it should be done right. Nick was going to have the deck hand make love to her while Nick stood around and watched. Then, Nick, assured her, he was going to throw her out of the apartment.
When Nick came at her she went into a rage. She grabbed the vase in the hallway and smashed it over his head, killing him. When the deckhand saw what happened, he ran out of the apartment. Then she panicked, too, and she fled. She knew that as soon as Nick's death was discovered, the police would be looking for her. She didn't know where to hide.
Then she thought of me, and she found out I was staying at the Hotel Continental. She came to my room because, first of all, she wanted to spend a night with me, and secondly, she wanted time to think about how she was going to explain the death of Nick to the police. She'd slipped out of my room early in the morning again, she explained, because she didn't want me to get involved with the police because of her.
"Now you know everything," she said quietly.
I'd heard quite a story, but I doubted whether I knew everything. "What about the part with George?" I said.
"With George?"
"Yes. George Heatherington."
She shook her head, as though she didn't understand at all. "What do you mean, my dear?"
"The blackmail."
"I don't understand," she said. "What are you talking about?"
Because of the tone of her voice and the puzzled frown on her face, I was almost willing to believe her. For a moment I doubted the things George had told me. Maybe he had lied to me, but I didn't know why he should.
I had to get several things straightened out. I nodded to the trussed man on the floor. "Was he the only one that kidnapped you?"
"No," she said quickly. "There was another one. There were two of them working together."
"Where is the other one?"
"I don't know. He left quite some time ago."
"How did they kidnap you?"
Anger flashed in her eyes. "I was walking up the street, on my way to turn myself in to the police, and they came up to me and with a gun and made me get into the car. They brought me here and tied me up."
"And you don't know who they are?"
"I can't even guess," she said, glaring at the man on the floor.
"All right," I said, "let's get out of here."
She stood up quickly, her face worried. "Will you take me to the police?"
"Not right away," I said. "Not until the two of us have had a long talk with George Heatherington."
"All right." She sounded relieved and headed for the door. Suddenly she stopped and then came back a step. "I almost forgot my purse. It's under the edge of the bed, I believe. Would you get it for me, please?"
The bed was so low I practically had to get down on my stomach to look under it. After a moment I saw the purse. It was a large brown leather one, with a long carrying strap, and it was the type that a woman can sling over her shoulder.
As I picked it up, I remembered the visa George had given her. I wondered whether it might not be in her purse.
That's when I heard a quick footstep beside me. I spun around. Too late.
Zora had sapped the sap.
It slammed against my left temple, I felt myself falling and I felt the purse being ripped out of my hands.
Chapter Fourteen
The blow hadn't knocked me out. I was stunned and dizzy, and I seemed momentarily paralyzed. I could see her running out the door, but I couldn't seem to make my legs respond. When I got to my feet precious seconds later, I bounced off the wall as I tried to steer myself through the doorway. Finally I got through it and stumbled down the stairs.
I saw Zora running out of the narrow passageway, and I started after her. She ran towards the crowd of people who were moving around the beach, then she was weaving, and ducking as she slipped through them.
By the time I'd worked my way through the crowd, Zora was already running up the flight of steps. I sprinted towards them and when I reached the bottom one, a little girl toddled out from somewhere and stood swaying and smiling in my path. I had to pull up sharply, to avoid running into her and knocking her down. A woman lunged forward, grabbed the child and screamed angrily at me. I ignored her and scampered up the steps. At the top I glanced about, but I didn't see Zora.
Then I caught a glimpse of someone jumping into a convertible with the top down. It was a woman with blonde hair. The next second I noticed the puff of smoke spurt from the exhaust, and the convertible shot away.
I took the town car-the Mercedes-simply because it was headed in the direction Zora was going.
My German horses under the hood went to work, and before long I caught sight of the convertible and Zora's hair whipping wildly in the wind. After another half mile I'd pulled up to within fifty yards of her, and I stayed right there. I saw that the convertible was almost new, and I wondered whether it was Zora's or whether she'd taken it because it had been parked with the key in the ignition. It didn't make any difference, because she knew how to drive.
To keep up with her, I kept the kilometer needle above the 100 mark. We roared along the narrow road, with our tires screeching on the tight turns, and the pedestrians and bicyclists jumping off the road like scared chickens.
Zora was headed for Nervi, and at that moment I was already mentally picking out the spot where I was going to try to pull up beside her and cut her off.
At that second she barely missed a scooter coming towards her, and now he was headed straight for me. I swerved to the right, and he cut to his right. The scooter hit a kilometer stone marker, and the rider went sailing off in one direction while a loose wheel flew off in another direction. There was a streetcar ahead of Zora now, coming towards Genoa. On a sharp curve Zora passed it and I stayed right behind her and did the same thing.
Then I saw a big wood-burning truck coming towards us. Or rather, the driver of the truck saw us because he pulled off the road. Zora missed the truck, but I heard my left rear fender scrape some part of the truck as I shot by.
Now we were on the outskirts of Nervi, and I expected Zora to take the road that went around it. I'd hoped for that because then I could cut her off. For some reason she headed right into the narrow one-way street leading into the center of the town. That was where she made her mistake.
Coming toward her, up that one-way street, was a religious procession. There was a priest out in front and a bunch of altar boys, and strung out behind them for about three blocks were a mass of singing citizens, walking about ten a-breast and taking up every bit of the street. I could see a statue being carried on a high platform, and a mass of flickering candles twinkled in the hands of the crowd.
I held my breath, expecting Zora to plow right through them, but she suddenly slammed on her brakes, with the convertible swerving violently and finally slowing down. Before it had stopped completely she was out of it and slipping in between the oncoming crowd and the wall of the buildings on the right.
I braked hard and stopped about a yard short of hitting the convertible. I shot out of the Mercedes and ran after her. The procession had stopped now, with only the priest moving forward. I almost knocked him down, but I swerved to one side just in time.
Then I slipped in between the people and the buildings, feeling the hot wax burning my face and arms as I jarred hands and arms of the people while burrowing through the crowd. I'd lost sight of Zora, but I kept going down that street until I was out of the procession. Behind me the people had begun singing again, and in the distance police whistles were beginning to shrill.
I pulled up when I hit the end of the street. To the right I saw the big square, the center of Nervi, and it extended toward the sea. There was a wide sidewalk on each side of it, but both were quite dark because they were lined with trees. On the right sidewalk, and about a hundred yards away from me, I caught sight of a slim figure walking very fast.
If Zora had been a brunette all over I never would have caught sight of her again, but that blonde head was as prominent as a beacon.
As I started down the sidewalk, I saw her cut sharply to her right and duck into what appeared to be a tunnel. Now I really sprinted. I found that the tunnel was for pedestrians, and that it led down to the water. I hurried through it, and when I came out on the other side, I was on a wide cement sidewalk.
I recognized it immediately as the world-famous Nervi promenade that skirts the edge of the sea for perhaps a mile.
I glanced to my right, but Zora wasn't in sight. I looked to my left, and I saw her, walking quickly so as not to attract attention, and weaving in and out of the people who were taking a walk.
I didn't run. I just walked quickly, always keeping her in sight. There were a number of bars located on the edge of the promenade, some of them with small bands playing. Couples were dancing out in the open, and the tables and the chairs were occupied with folks having drinks.
The sea was about thirty or forty feet below the level of the promenade at this point. The bank dropped sharply downward, right at the edge of the walk, and below me I could see the water surging and foaming around huge, jagged boulders.
Some of the people on the promenade were standing at the edge of the walk and looking down at the sea below. Others merely walked very slowly. The fact that Zora and I were the two fastest walking people on the promenade didn't attract any attention.
Suddenly I saw Zora glance over her shoulder, and now that she'd seen me, a surprised look crossed her face. She broke out into a dead run. So did I, and when she was no more than twenty feet away from me, I sprinted.
I leaned forward and grabbed her shoulder. She ducked away, twisting and squirming and slipped out of my grasp. I lunged after her and grabbed her arm. The purse banged against the side of my head. I saw stars. She fought savagely and got away from me again.
What a tigress.
And the filthy names she was calling me. In English.
She jerked out of my grasp, spun around, and started to run. Her foot slipped off the edge of the walk, one knee buckled, and the next instant she was tightroping along the edge of the promenade. If she fell to the right, she'd go over the side.
I grabbed for her hand, but all I got was a handful of air. The hand had disappeared. And so had Zora.
I leaned over the side and peered downward. Forty feet below I could see a large boulder.
Zora was draped motionless over one side of it. One hand was in the water, moving gently with the surge of the sea.
People were shouting and yelling now, and I knew they would be at this spot in a minute. Quickly I clambered down the steep sides of the wall, holding onto bushes and shrubs to keep from falling. I crawled over the mossy, damp and slippery rocks until I'd reached her side. I lifted the hand out of the water and felt for her pulse. There wasn't any.
Zora was dead.
Bobbing around nearby in shallow water was her purse.
Above me I could hear the voices getting louder. That meant people were beginning to gather. I opened the purse and quickly rummaged through the mass of stuff inside. I finally found her passport and the visa and some other papers. I stuffed the entire handful into the front of my shirt. I hoped I had everything George had given her, but I didn't have time to check because the voices were directly above me now. I closed the purse and set it into the water, the way I'd found it.
When I glanced up I saw nothing but eyes staring down at me. A second later a Carabinieri, with drawn Beretta, began climbing down the side of the wall.
He yelled something to me in Italian, but you seldom understand even your mother tongue at a time like that. I stood perfectly still and waited for him to come to me.
The only thing for me to do was to ask him to take me to his leader. When he was close enough I said, "Take me to Dottore Longo."
He seemed bewildered for a moment, but then his face brightened as he glanced up at the crowd. Johnny Longo was on his way down to us.
Longo gave me a quick glance, and then he clambered over the rocks to Zora's side. He bent over her for several seconds, and then he straightened up again.
To me he said, "Well, I see we meet again."
I nodded. "And I'm glad to see you, Johnny."
We were being joined by three more Carabinieri, as well as a man in civilian clothes who must have been Johnny's partner.
Longo spoke briefly to them and then he looked at me. "We can go now."
"Anything you say, Johnny."
I followed him back up the side of the wall to the promenade. The crowd became very quiet as we moved through them, but the moment we started walking away, they began chattering excitedly again.
Neither Longo nor I said a word as we walked along the promenade, through the tunnel, and then up the walk on the left side of the square. There weren't many people out in the town of Nervi, and the narrow street that had been jammed up a short time ago was now deserted.
Johnny said, "We'll drive back to Genoa in the Mercedes."
It had been moved out of the one-way street, standing now at the far end where the street joined the main road. I wondered who'd moved it. Maybe the priest had done it so that his procession could get through. And then I remembered the two guys I'd tied up.
Johnny slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes, and I got into the front seat beside him. I said, "There were two of them-they may still be tied up in Boccadasse."
"Not anymore," he said. "We already found them."
I asked, "Do you want to hear what happened?"
"Yes. But wait until we get to the Questura. There's no need in telling your story twice."
"All right."
Chapter Fifteen
I came out of the Questura later, walked to my car which they'd brought in, and drove leisurely back to Santa Margherita.
They'd asked me a lot of questions and I'd answered them, but there were a lot of questions bothering me and although I'd asked some of them, I hadn't gotten any answers.
Now that I was on my way back to the hotel I began to feel old and worn out. It was like the feeling you get after you've been trying to wave in winners all afternoon at the track, and you've been getting nothing but close seconds or bad fourths. I'd been keyed up and on edge for the last day. Now that the excitement had ended, I was aware of all the juice I'd used up.
My thoughts returned to the moment of Zora's fall and her death, and I felt the surge of sadness and depression. Most of all I had the feeling of something lacking, a big incompleteness. I still had questions about her that needed answers, and there were many things about her I either wanted verified or denied. Had she really been a Communist, a murderess, a blackmailer, and all the rest, those things that made her completely bad? Or had there been something good about her, something that might tip the scales a little in her favor? That was the nub of the entire thing. That was the reason everything seemed unfinished and incomplete.
I had to have a final and accurate accounting of Zora, and I would get that from George, and the police, and the State Department, but at the moment I wanted to think no more about it.
I parked the car at the hotel but I didn't feel like going inside. I wanted to take a long walk.
I started out, taking the road that led to Rapallo. Up ahead of me I could hear a girl with a beautiful voice singing the Ave Maria. A mandolin seemed to be her accompaniment. When she'd finished there was a bit of applause, and as I approached the spot I saw that there was a group of about a dozen people sprawled out at the water's edge. I could hear them talking in Italian, laughing softly at times; and when I was about ten yards away from them a young man began singing a lively Italian song. Every time he got to the chorus the rest of the group joined in, whistling in unison.
It was a happy song. I sat down on a rock and listened to them, and before long I was beginning to feel a lot better.
There must have been about twenty verses to that song. When it finally ended, the entire group was laughing gaily as they applauded. Then one figure detached itself from the others and walked towards me.
Even in the darkness there was no mistaking that figure.
Angelina.
I stood up slowly, and the last few steps she practically ran towards me. I put out both my hands; and she grabbed them with hers and squeezed tightly, those long nails cutting into my skin.
Happily she said, "Ciao, Cristoforo."
"Ciao."
She was smiling, her teeth shining beautifully and contrasting with the darkness of her skin. "Mama mia," she said, "I was afraid I would never see you again."
"I thought you were going to Milan?"
She shook her head. "I decided to go back tomorrow."
"That's nice," I said.
She glanced briefly back at the group. Then she said, "Come and join us." She led me by the hand.
I asked, "Are these your school chums?"
"No. I just met them tonight. I came up on them about an hour ago, just as you did now."
We stepped into the midst of the group, and I saw that there were more than a dozen of them. There were an equal number of boys and girls, some of them sitting on the rocks, some sprawled out, others leaning with their shoulders resting against each other.
Angelina spoke to them in Italian, and then she was leading me through the group, introducing me to each in turn, and I was nodding to each as I shook a hand.
I saw that the mandolin was being held by a dark handsome guy with curly hair. At the moment his free arm was around a blonde. Scattered around the group were about a dozen straw-covered bottles of wine. After I'd been introduced to everyone, we sat down in a vacant spot within the group.
The moment we were settled a half dozen hands were passing one of the bottles towards us. Angelina took it and set it down in front of us, and from somewhere she produced a squat heavy glass and poured into it from the bottle. It looked very dark in the dimness.
She handed me the full glass. "I hope you don't mind sharing the glass with me?"
"Of course not." I took a sip of it and found that it was an excellent dry red wine. I drank about half of it and handed the glass to Angelina. She finished it and refilled the glass.
They sang some more, I sang Three Blind Mice for them after some coaxing, and the applause was spontaneous and long. After that we all had more wine. While the guy noodled around on the mandolin, Angelina said, "I'm so happy that you came by."
"It was a wonderful surprise finding you here, Angelina."
She said, "I put on my best frock tonight, hoping I'd see you. Then when I didn't find you anywhere, I wondered whether you'd already left Santa Margherita."
"I was busy for a while this evening," I said.
"I understand. You were probably killing some woman with sex."
"No. I've been as celibate as a monk."
"Good."
At that moment another girl began singing, and we had more songs and more wine and finally the party broke up. Angelina and I were the only ones remaining.
I told her, "I enjoyed that very much."
"It was nice, wasn't it?" Then she asked, "Want to finish up the little wine left in our bottle?"
"It would be a shame to leave it and let it turn into vinegar."
I sat down again, letting my back rest up against the flat side of a big rock. Angelina settled down close beside me and put her head on my shoulder. We finished up the wine, passing the glass back and forth between us and not saying anything, just listening to the little busy sounds of the sea playing around the rocks.
I'd had my arm around her shoulder, and now I felt her hand move my hand downward, suggesting it go inside the front of her dress. I let my hand slide down the warm smoothness of her chest, and then it hesitated a moment because it didn't know whether it should go to the right, to the left, or in between those beauties. Then it went to the right.
My hand found her wonderful bare hot breast, and my fingers cupped it and squeezed it, so she'd really feel it.
"Mama mia," she whispered, sucking in her breath.
I knew what she was thinking #bout at that second. But, at that instant I was thinking about Zora again, remembering the night we'd spent out on the apartment terrace. That didn't seem exactly cricket-thinking about Zora while I-was squeezing Angelina. So I pulled my hand out again and let it hold her bare upper arm.
She asked. "What's the matter?"
"I'm afraid," I lied, "one more squeeze like that and you can't tell what might happen."
"For example?"
"You might get raped."
"Really, old boy?"
"Really, old girl."
"I'd like that. I'd like to get raped." She snuggled in close against me, and we were both silent again.
After several minutes Angelina said, "I'd like some coffee. Would you like some, too?"
"Where can we find a cup of coffee this time of the night?"
Angelina stood up. "Come on. I'll show you."
I got up and took her hand, and we started walking back towards Santa Margherita. When we got to the main square we walked right through the dark and deserted center of it, finally going down a narrow side street with Angelina always leading the way.
Eventually she pulled up at a small doorway, and I helped her push open the single wooden door. After I'd stepped inside with her, we closed the door silently behind us again. It was dark and I couldn't see a thing, so I let her continue to lead me by the hand.
We walked up a narrow flight of stairs, and after the third landing she led me down a narrow hallway. Again she opened a door. This time she turned on a light.
The single bulb hanging in the center of the ceiling of the tiny room was about 15-watt size. It barely illuminated the small bed standing in one corner, the one-burner hot plate on a narrow wooden table, and a few pieces of woman's clothing scattered about.
Angelina explained, "One of my school chums rents this room. It gives her a place to stay when she comes down from Milan on weekends."
"Where is she now?"
"In Milan."
Angelina was standing in the center of the room and directly under the light. It was the first time I'd seen her wearing address, and it had no fancy frills, but it fitted her nicely. She wore no jewelry, or lipstick, but she looked wonderfully fresh and alive and beautiful.
She asked, "Now would you like some coffee?"
She'd noticed the way I was looking at her I suppose, because now she tossed her head, sending her hair back over each shoulder, her movements graceful and animal-like. And exactly the way Zora had always done it.
Just thinking about Zora I felt the blood beginning to roar and pound in my ears and I could hear her again coming towards me in the hotel room after having just turned out the light, and I pushed her image aside and for an instant I saw Angelina the way she'd looked that afternoon down at the cove, but in the next moment I was seeing Zora again as she shoved me backwards down onto the bed.
"Coffee, old boy?" Angelina's voice was coming to me from what seemed a great distance.
I didn't want any coffee. That was the last thing I wanted. I wanted to forget about Zora. Now and forever. And I could do it, with Angelina helping me. She had to help me with that.
Angelina's eyes were dark and strangely piercing. "What would you like then?"
She put her hands on her hips, and then with her feet and legs apart, she watched me. Desirable. And daring me to get her.
I started for her.
She slipped out of her dress. When I put out my arms to take her, she stepped quickly to one side. The next second she'd turned out the light. I heard the faint sounds of her moving bare feet, and her voice suddenly came to me from the opposite side of the room.
"So you want me, Cristoforo?"
"Yes."
"Then you'll have to find me first."
I'd noted the one small window on one side of the room, but it apparently was shuttered because there were only very narrow bands of light visible, leaving the room almost in complete darkness. I bumped my shins against the side of the bed trying to find her, but I didn't even get close. I was at a disadvantage because she had her shoes off and I didn't. I kicked off mine. Now I was ready to get serious.
I caught her as she was trying to duck under my right arm and slip by me. My hand slid down her bare back until it felt the elastic of her panties. I gripped and I thought that would hold her.
She suddenly became a mass of writhing, twisting, scratching, and biting fury. I had a tiger by the tail, and I couldn't let go. I wanted to turn her loose, but if I did I'd have to hunt her down again, and I was getting bored with that.
With her still fighting and kicking me, I grabbed both her arms and finally pulled them around to the back of her. Then I shoved and wrestled her over to the bed, and I flopped her down, face first. I pulled the belt out of my slacks and used it to tie her wrists together behind her back.
I took my time getting out of my clothes.-Before long I noticed that her movements were coming more slowly. The longer I dawdled the more tired she became. She was motionless by the time I kicked off my slacks. I thought the fight had gone out of her then. So I took the belt off her wrists.
Then the fun really began.
Passionately and very powerfully, she overwhelmed me, clinging to me and forcing herself against me time after time in a fierce and abandoned way which sent the blood hurtling through my body and before long I was carried away by her lust and savagery, wanting now only to hurt her and remember me for a long time, and as we continued I discovered that I was no longer thinking about Zora, but I was thinking only about Angelina, remembering that afternoon in the cove, and even though we were in the dark I could see all of her outlined in front of me, feeling rapturously all those things which my eyes had seen and relished out in the sun.
And as though I were out in the sun now, the room seemed to glow in a wonderful excruciating brilliance that burned my skin and sent my heart pounding violently, becoming caught up now in her thunderous movements, coordinating each one with her with the same viciousness, and suddenly she drove upwards and caught me and brought me back down again and then dumped me into the maddening agonizing whirlpool that she'd stirred up the moment she'd turned out the light.
And never again did I think of Zora. Not the second time, nor the third time, nor the times after the sun had already come up.
