His feet sank into the earth; his shoes crunched broken glass. He stood in front of the window and raised the flashlight.
He lost his breath in an involuntary gasp as two pairs of animal’s eyes were suddenly caught in the blinding shaft. They darted up, startled yet furious, and a terrible muted screeching was heard as the creatures fled into the darkness of another part of the house. There was a crash. A crazed, frightened animal had collided with an unstable object of china or glass.
Adrian breathed again, then shuddered. His nostrils were filled with an overpowering stench, a putrid, rotting aroma that caused his eyes to water and his throat to swell and choke. He held his breath and he climbed over the window ledge. He pressed his open left hand against his mouth and his nose, filtering the foul stench; he cast the beam of the flashlight over the enormous room.
The shock of it staggered him. The figures of two dead men, one in torn robes strapped to a chair, the other half-naked on the floor, were hideous. The clothes were torn by animal teeth, flesh ripped out by animal jaws, dried blood made moist by animal urine and saliva.
Adrian reeled. Vomit spewed out of his mouth. He lurched to his left; the light caught a doorway and he lunged into it gasping for breath, for air that could be swallowed.
He was in the study of Savarone Fontini-Cristi, a man he never knew, but now hated with all the hatred of which he was capable. The grandfather who had triggered a chain of killing and suspicion that in itself brought more death and greater hatred.
Over what? For what?
“Goddamnnn youuu! …”
He screamed uncontrollably; he gripped the high back of an old chair and threw it crashing to the floor.
Suddenly, in silence and in full knowledge of what he had to do, Adrian stood immobile and aimed the flashlight on the wall behind the desk. To the right, he remembered, beneath a painting of the Madonna.
The frame was there, the glass shattered.
And the painting was gone.
He sank to his knees, trembling. Tears welled his eyes and he sobbed uncontrollably.
“Oh, God,” he whispered, the pain unbearable. “Oh, my brother!”
PART
THREE
29
Andrew pulled the Land Rover off to the side of the Alpine road and poured steaming hot coffee into the lid of the thermos. He had made good time; according to the Michelin map he was ten miles from the village of Champoluc. It was morning; the rays of the early sun shot up from behind the surrounding mountains. In a little while he would drive into Champoluc and buy the equipment he needed.
Adrian was far behind. Andrew knew he could slow down for a while, think things out. Besides, his brother was walking into a situation that would paralyze him. Adrian would find the bodies at Campo di Fiori and panic; his thoughts would be confused, indecisive. He wouldn’t know what to do next. His brother wasn’t trained to confront death from violence; it was too far removed from him. It was different for soldiers: It was different for him. The physical confrontation—even the bloodshed—primed his senses, infused him with an intense feeling of exhilaration. His energies were peaked, he was confident, sure of his movements.
The vault was as good as his. Now was the time to concentrate. Study each word, each clue. His took his father’s Xeroxed pages and held them up, catching the morning light through the windshield.
… In the village of Champoluc was the family Goldoni. According to current Zermatt records, they exist still and are scattered throughout the area. The present head of the family is one Alfredo Goldoni. He resides in the house of his father—and father before him—on several acres of land at the base of the mountains in the west outskirts. For generations, the Goldonis have been the most experienced guides in the Italian Alps. Savarone employed them frequently, and beyond this, they were “northern friends”—a phrase my father used to distinguish men of the land from those in the marketplace. His trust was placed in the former far more quickly than in the latter. It is possible that he left information with Alfredo Goldoni’s father. With his death, arrangements would be made to pass this information on to the surviving eldest child—whether man or woman—as is the Italian-Swiss custom. Therefore, should Alfredo not be the eldest, look for an older sister.
North, into the mountains—between the railroad clearings Krahen Aüsblick and Greier Gipfel, I believe—is a small inn run by the family Capomonti. Again, according to Zermatt (I made no inquiries in the Champoluc district to avoid raising suspicion) the inn, too, still exists. I gather it has been somewhat expanded. It is currently under the management of Naton Lefrac, a descendent by marriage of the Capomontis. I remember this man. He was not a man then, of course, for he was one or two years younger than I, the son of a merchant who dealt with the Capomontis. We became quite good friends. I recall clearly that he was much beloved of the Capomontis and the hope was that he would marry a daughter of the house. Obviously he did so.
As children—and young men—we never went into the Champoluc without staying at Locanda Capomonti. I have recollections of warm welcomes and laughter and roaring fireplaces and much comfort. The family was simple—in the uncomplicated sense—and extremely outgoing and sincere. Savarone was particularly taken with them. If there were secrets to leave in the Champoluc, old Capomonti would have been a rock of silence and trust.…
Andrew put down the pages and picked up the Michelin road map. Once again he traced the minute markings of the Zermatt railroad, his concern returning. Of the many clearings his father recalled, only four remained. And none bore the name of hawk.
For the hunting picture in the study at Campo di Fiori was not as his father remembered; it did not show birds being flushed from bushes. Instead, there were hunters in overgrown fields, their eyes and weapons leveled forward as hawks flew lazily above in the distant sky; an artist’s comment on the futility of the hunt.
His father said that the clearings were called Eagle’s Peak, Condor’s Lookout, and Crow’s Summit. There had to be a clearing with the name hawk in it. But if there had been, it no longer existed. And a half century had gone by; obscure railroad clearings below Alpine passes scores of miles apart were not landmarks. Who recalled the precise location of a trolley stop thirty years after the tracks were covered with asphalt? He put down the map and picked up the Xeroxed pages again. The initial key was somewhere in these words.
We stopped in the center of the village for a late lunch, or afternoon tea, I cannot remember which—and Savarone left the restaurant to check the telegraph office for messages—I do remember that. When he returned he was very upset, and I feared our trip to the mountains would be canceled before it began. However, during the meal another message was delivered and Savarone was both placated and relieved. There was no more talk of returning to Campo di Fiori. The dreadful moment had passed for an anxious seventeen-year-old.
From the restaurant we dropped by the shop of a merchant whose name was German in sound and spelling, not Italian or French. My father was prone to order supplies and equipment from this man because he felt sorry for him. He was a Jew and for Savarone, who fought bitterly against the czarist pogroms and dealt on a handshake with the Rothschilds, such thinking was indefensible. There is a blurred memory of an unpleasant incident at the store that evening. What the unpleasant incident specifically entailed, I have no recall, but it was most serious and provoked my father to quiet but definite anger. A sad anger if, again, memory serves. I seem to have the vague impression that details were withheld from me, but now, so many years later, it is only an impression and could well be false.
We left the merchant’s shop and proceeded by horsecart to the Goldoni farm. I remember showing off my Alpine pack with its straps and hammer and cleats and forged double-clamps for the ropes. I was terribly proud of it, believing it signified manhood. Again there is a dim impression that while at the Goldonis’ an undercurrent of distress was prevalent, but not obvious. I cannot tell you why this feeling remains after so many years, but I rel
ate it to the fact that I had difficulty holding the attention of the male Goldonis while exhibiting my new pack. The father, an uncle or two, and certainly the older sons seemed distracted. Arrangements were made with one of the Goldoni sons to meet us the next day and take us into the mountains. We stayed at the Goldonis for several hours before leaving to resume our journey by cart to the Locando Capomonti. I do recall it was dark when we left, and, as it was summer, the hour had to be past 7:30 or 8:00.
What were the facts, thought Andrew. Man and boy arrived at the village, had something to eat, bought supplies from a disliked Jew, went to the house of the guides they were hiring, and a spoiled child was insulted because not enough attention was paid to his mountain-climbing equipment. The relevant information was reduced to the name Goldoni.
Andrew finished the coffee and screwed the lid back on the thermos. The sun was higher now; it was time to move. Exhilaration filled him. All the years of training and experience and decisions in the field had prepared him for the next few days. There was a vault in the mountains and he would find it!
Eye Corps would be paid in full.
The soldier turned the ignition and gunned the motor. He had clothing and equipment and weapons to buy. And a man named Goldoni to see. Perhaps a woman named Goldoni; he’d know shortly.
Adrian sat in the darkness behind the wheel of the stationary car and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. He could not erase the taste of sickness in his throat any more than he could erase the sight of the ravaged bodies inside the house from his mind’s eye. Or the stench of death from his nostrils.
Sweat rolled down his face, produced by tension he had never known, a fear he had never experienced.
He felt the need to vomit returning; he suppressed it by inhaling rapidly. He had to find some semblance of sanity, he had to function. He could not remain in darkness, in an immobile car for the rest of the night. He had to pass through the shock and find his mind again. It was all he had left: the ability to think.
Instinctively, he pulled the pages of his father’s memories from his pocket and switched on the flashlight. Words had come to be his refuge; he was an analyst of words—their shadings, their subtle interpretations, their simplicity and complexity. He was an expert with words, as much an expert as his brother was with death.
Adrian separated the pages, reading slowly, meticulously. Child and man had come to the village of Champoluc; there were immediate impressions of discord, perhaps more than discord. When he returned he was very upset … I feared for our trip. There was the shop of a Jew, and anger. What the unpleasant incident specifically entailed, I have no recall … it was most serious and provoked my father. And sadness. A sad anger if, again, memory serves. Then the anger and the sadness faded away, replaced by vague feelings of distress and embarrassment; the child was not heeded by those whose attentions he sought. The father, an uncle or two, and certainly the older sons were distracted. Their attentions were elsewhere—on the anger, the discord? The sadness? And these obscure recollections were in turn displaced by memories of warmth, and an inn north of the village, a warm welcome, which was like a dozen other similar welcomes. This peaceful interlude was followed a short while later once again by vague feelings of distress and concern.
At the Capomonti inn there is little I can recall specifically except a warm welcome, which was like a dozen other similar welcomes. One thing I do remember was that for the first time in the mountains I had my own room, no younger brothers sharing it with me. It was a significant departure and I felt quite grown up. There was another meal, and my father and old Capomonti drank a good deal of whiskey afterward. I recall this because I went to bed, thinking of the next day’s climbing, and later heard loud, belligerent voices below, and wondered if the noise might wake the other guests. It was a small inn then and there were perhaps three or four others registered. This concern was unusual for I had never seen my father drunk. I do not know to this day if he was, but the noise was considerable. To a young man on his seventeenth birthday, about to be given the present of his life—a real climb in the Champoluc—the thoughts of a weakened, angry father in the morning were disturbing.
It was not the case, however. The Goldoni guide arrived with our supplies, shared breakfast with us, and we departed.
A Capomonti son—or it might have been young Lefrac—drove the three of us several miles north in the horse-cart. We bade him good-bye and it was agreed he would meet us at the same place late in the afternoon on the following day. Two days in the mountains and an overnight camp with adults! I was overjoyed for I knew we would make camp at a higher altitude than was ever possible with younger brothers in tow.
Adrian put down the pages on the seat of the car. The remaining paragraphs described sketchily remembered hills and trails and views that seemed to overlap. The journey into the mountains had begun.
Specific information might well lie in these rambling descriptions. Isolated landmarks might be revealed, and a pattern emerge; but which landmarks, which patterns?
Oh, God! The painting on the wall. Andrew had the painting!
Adrian suppressed his sudden alarm. The painting from Savarone’s study might narrow down the location of a clearing, but what then? Fifty years had passed. A half century of ice and water and summer thaws and natural growth and erosion.
The painting on the wall might well be one clue, perhaps the most important. But Adrian had the feeling that there were others as vital as that painting. They were contained in the words of his father’s testament. Memories that survived fifty years of extraordinary living.
Something had happened fifty years ago that had nothing to do with a father and son going into the mountains.
He had found part of his mind again. He was exercising his ability to think. The shock and the horror were still there, but he was passing through to the beginnings of sanity.
… Bear in mind, the contents of that vault are as staggering to the civilized world as anything in history.…
He had to reach it, find it. He had to stop the killer from Eye Corps.
30
Andrew parked the Land Rover by a fence bordering a field. The Goldoni farmhouse was two hundred yards down the road, on the left; the field was part of the Goldoni property. There was a man driving the tractor along rows of upturned earth, his living body turned in the seat, watching the progress behind him. There were no other houses in the area, no other people in sight. Andrew decided to stop and speak to the man.
It was shortly past five in the afternoon. He had spent the day wandering about Champoluc, buying clothes, supplies, and climbing equipment, including the finest Alpine pack available, filled with those items recommended for the mountains, and one that was not. A Magnum .357-caliber pistol. He had made these purchases at the much-expanded shop referred to in his father’s recollections. The name was Leinkraus; it had a mezuzah on the doorframe of the front entrance. The clerk behind the counter allowed that Leinkraus had been selling the finest equipment in the Italian Alps since 1913. There were now branches in Gstaad and Lake Lucerne.
Andrew got out of the Land Rover and walked to the fence, waving his hand back and forth to get the attention of the man on the tractor. He was a short, stocky Italian-Swiss, ruffled brown hair above the dark eyebrows, and the rugged, sharp features of a northern Mediterranean. He was at least ten years older than Fontine; his expression was cautious, as if he were not used to unfamiliar faces.
“Do you speak English?” Andrew asked.
“Passably, signore,” said the man.
“I’m looking for Alfredo Goldoni. I was directed out here.”
“You were directed correctly,” replied the Italian-Swiss in more than passable English. “Goldoni is my uncle. I tend his land for him. He can’t work for himself.” The man stopped, offering no further clarification.
“Where can I find him?”
“Where he always is. In the back room of his house. My aunt will show you to him. He likes visitors.”
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br /> “Thank you.” Andrew turned toward the Land Rover.
“You’re American?” asked the man.
“No. Canadian,” he replied, extending his cover for any of a dozen immediate possibilities. He climbed into the vehicle and looked at the man through the open window. “We sound the same.”
“You look the same, dress the same,” countered the farmhand quietly, eyeing the fur-lined Alpine jacket. “The clothes are new,” he added.
“Your English isn’t,” said Fontine. He turned the ignition.
Goldoni’s wife was gaunt and ascetic-looking. Her straight gray hair was pulled back, the taut bun a crown of self-denial. She ushered the visitor through the several neat, sparsely furnished rooms to a doorway at the rear of the house. There was no door attached; where once there’d been a sill in the frame, it had been removed, the floor leveled. Fontine walked through; he entered the bedroom. Alfredo Goldoni sat in a wheelchair by a window overlooking the fields at the base of the mountains.
He had no legs. The stubs of his once-massive limbs were encased in the folds of his trousers, the cloth held together by safety pins. The rest of his body, like his face, was large and awkward. Age and mutilation had extracted their price.
Old Goldoni greeted him with false energy. A tired cripple afraid of offending a newcomer, grateful for the all-too-infrequent interruption.
The introductions over, the directions and the journey from town described, and wine brought by a sullen wife, Fontine sat down in a chair opposite the legless man. The stumps were within an arm’s reach; the word grotesque came repeatedly to his mind. Andrew did not like ugliness; he did not care to put up with it.
“You don’t recognize the name Fontine?”
“I do not, sir. It’s French, I think. But you’re American.”
“Do you recognize the name Fontini-Cristi?”
Goldoni’s eyes changed. A long-forgotten alarm was triggered. “Yes, of course, I recognize it,” replied the amputee, his voice also changing, his words measured. “Fontine; Fontini-Cristi. So the Italian becomes French and the possessor American. It’s been many years. You’re a Fontini-Cristi?”
The Gemini Contenders: A Novel Page 36
