Follow That Blonde

by Joan Smith

  There were hundreds of cars parked beyond the Forum. Nick took the idea that if we skulked in the shadows, Claude might show up to claim one of them, and he'd beat the truth out of him. We also kept our eyes open for a black Jag.

  “There's another parking lot,” Bert said. “Not everybody knows about this one. I led you here because I wanted the girls to see the Forum from the deck first. It's the best view. Want I should take a nip over to the other lot, Nick?"

  “Sure, why not?"

  Bert trotted off alone. Nancy said, “We should have worn sneakers, Lana.” She looked down at her ultra-high heeled sandals, that she wore in an effort to diminish her ankles.

  Nick went to see if the car had been broken into. I don't know how he could tell. He had locked it, but the front door on the passenger's side was already so mangled that a mere crowbar to the door would hardly be noticeable. He didn't think anyone had been working on it. We stood around for another ten minutes, scanning everyone who came or left the lot, then Bert came back.

  “Zilch. Zippo,” he said. “Anything happen here?"

  “No. We might as well leave,” Nick told him.

  We all piled in. Nick put the key in the ignition, turned it. Nothing happened. He kept turning it harder and ramming his foot on the gas, but there wasn't even a sniffle from the engine, much less a cough or wheeze. “I hate the infernal combustion engine!” he growled.

  “It requires gas, my friend,” Bert told him. “Have you let it run dry again?” The bored way he said it indicated this was a fairly frequent occurrence.

  “The gauge only fell to empty this afternoon. I can usually run a day or two on empty."

  I heard Nancy in the back seat mutter, “The man needs a keeper."

  Although I was annoyed with her, I tended to agree. There is no excuse for a man's running out of gas unless he's on a back road with his girlfriend.

  “I'll have a look under the hood,” Bert said, and I got out to let him out.

  Nick, with apparently zero knowledge of cars, got out and checked all the tires for flatness. When they proved innocent, he kicked them for good measure. We all stood around, knowing in our bones the tank was empty. And even if it wasn't, I didn't have much faith that Bert could resuscitate the engine. He reached into the darkness, took out a little box of wax matches (from the Risorgimento) and lit one. Nancy held it for him, and kept lighting more matches as he examined the rat's nest of belts and fans and things, muttering, “That seems all right,” as he worked. He pulled at a nest of wires, jiggled the metal dome they were attached to like an octopus and said, “Ah ha! Just as I suspected! He's been at this distributor cap. It's loose. If he took the rotor, we're S.O.L.” He unscrewed the dome with all the wires sticking out of tubes on top and said, “Yup, it's gone. He took out the rotor. We might as well call a garage."

  “What does it look like?” I asked.

  “It's a little black cylinder, pointed on one end, that goes on here,” he said, pointing to a small shaft. “He wouldn't have left it lying around. He took it out so we couldn't leave."

  I think it is perhaps impossible for a man to keep his head out of a car with the hood up. Nick was there, probing around. “He must have been in a hurry if he left the cap loose. Maybe he just tossed it in here.” He began feeling around.

  “You have to open the car to get under the hood. Someone did break in,” I said. Nick grunted assent.

  Nancy held matches while they searched, and I stood back to be out of the way. I looked idly around the ground, not thinking it very likely I'd find the rotor. It struck me as strange, by which I mean suspicious, that Bert had found the trouble so quickly. Was this one of the things all men knew and women didn't? Was it like keeping score in football and hockey, and steering with the palm of the hand? Or did Bert know because he had advance knowledge? Maybe he had done it himself, when he ran off from the basilica to look for Nick and Claude. He'd been gone quite a while.

  And if so, why had he done it? In case we spotted someone and wanted to follow him/her? Was he working with Boisvert? Or perhaps with Claude, or the Contessa whom he had been so eager to phone? Or the whole gang of them? I stepped back as a couple of women came toward their car, and felt something crunch under my foot. I looked down and saw a little black thing, not much bigger than my thumb. I picked it up; it was a cylinder with some metal on one end.

  “Is this what you're looking for?” I called.

  Nick came running. “She found it!” he laughed. “The guy must have just tossed it over his shoulder. Good work, Lana!"

  Bert put the rotor back in and restored the distributor cap. The car, despite the gas gauge that registered empty, started up on the first try. “Where are we going?” Nancy asked.

  “Home first, to check up on my Frageau,” Nick replied.

  “Don't you think we should cruise around a bit and see if we can pick up Claude's trail?” Bert suggested.

  That too sounded suspicious. If Bert had disabled the car, intending to delay us, he must be chewing nails that I had found the rotor. Why hadn't he gotten rid of it more permanently? “Let's go right home,” I said.

  “He must be around here some place,” Bert insisted. “Let's tour around the Campidoglio."

  “Since someone put Nick's car out of commission, he obviously wants to keep Nick away from his house. I think we should go there immediately,” I said.

  “Maybe whoever did it just wanted to stop Nick from following him, in case he was seen,” Bert countered.

  After a little more discussion, we all got into the car and Nick headed straight to his place. I kept thinking how Bert had tried to delay our going there. Though actually he was the one who first suggested we go back and check the oven. I wanted to like Bert and trust him, but at every turn, he seemed to act suspiciously. And if he was involved in some dirty deal behind Nick's back after Nick treated him so generously, I didn't intend to let him get away with it.

  CHAPTER 14

  We rushed in and all ran directly to the kitchen. The Frageau was there in the oven, undamaged. We felt we had earned a drink, and opted for a corked bottle of wine, in case someone had been slipping a mickey into an opened bottle. We sat around the glass-topped coffee table.

  “I wonder why Claude was following me,” Nick said.

  “Maybe he was planning to shoot you,” I suggested.

  Nick gave a lazy smile and said, “Wishful thinking."

  Bert shook his head. “At least he'd didn't take a potshot at you. Of course that may have been the intention. Maybe that's why he rigged your car, so you'd be standing around—easy to pick you off."

  A shiver of fear ran up my spine. This rather slick suggestion detoured any taint of suspicion from Bert, and annoyed me. “We don't know that Claude rigged the car. For that matter, it wasn't Claude who shot at Nick. It was Boisvert's friend."

  “Boisvert obviously brought more than one friend,” Bert said. “It's as plain as the nose on your face. Where we ran into Claude was at the Risorgimento, where you girls saw Boisvert. He flipped when you told him you were Frageau, Lana. He lied to Nick, and he's French. What do you want, a sworn statement?"

  “He's right,” Nick said, frowning.

  “If his intention was to shoot you, why didn't he do it?” I asked. “You were standing around the car, right out in the open. He could have got you."

  “Maybe he couldn't get a clean shot,” Bert suggested. “You should get yourself a bullet-proof vest, Nick. And wear a helmet."

  “Comforting thought!” Nick got up and closed the drapes. “He might be out there now. He must lurk nearby, or how did he know we were going to the Forum?” A tingle of fear ran around the room as we sipped at the wine for courage.

  “How did you know what was wrong with the car, Bert?” I asked.

  “That's the oldest trick in the book. We used to do it to old Gouty Buckland's car at high school. Every Friday afternoon the poor guy couldn't get his car started. It took him a month to catch on. He was convin
ced rotors wore out in a week—vanished. He started carrying a spare in his glove compartment. What a dope."

  I did remember the joke of Mr. Buckland's car always failing him after school on Friday. The kids used to stand around the street, watching him try to get it going. It explained Bert's lighting on the rotor tonight. But it didn't account for his reluctance to come right home. Maybe our early arrival was all that prevented Claude from breaking in and stealing the Frageau.

  It was still not very late, and there was some talk of our continuing our night on the town. “We made it home in one piece. Let's stay put,” I suggested.

  “We've talked ourselves into a state of siege,” Nick objected. “Nobody's trying to kill me. We promised you a night out. We're going to deliver.”

  “First you'd better put the Frageau in some safe place,” I said aside to Nick, while Bert was busy with Nancy.

  “I'll hide it in the wine cellar,” he said, and took it out of the room. I noticed Bert watched him, but he couldn't see which way he went.

  “Where's Nick taking the picture?” he asked.

  “He's going to put it under his bed,” I said blandly, “in case Claude has designs on it."

  Nick came back and I hastily turned the conversation away from where Nick had hidden the picture. “So, where shall we go?” I asked brightly.

  We talked about that while we went to the car. Bert said he was hungry, and kept mentioning different restaurants. Nancy and I wanted to go downtown and walk first, to see Rome by night, maybe do the Italian equivalent of pub crawling. I wondered if Bert's hunger was designed to give him access to a phone. Just as we were getting into the car, he said, “Just hold on a minute, will you? I have to answer nature's call.” He ran back to the house, and I stayed out of the car, watching the windows to see where lights went on. I noticed he had his own key to Nick's house. Nick kept the doors locked, especially at this time.

  The light in the front hallway went on. None upstairs— but then I didn't think he planned to move the painting. He was just using the phone to let his friends know the house would be empty. I strolled down past the driveway to get a view of the studio, that faced the left side. If he used the phone, he did it by touch. The lights didn't go on. Bert reappeared in about the length of time it would take to go to the washroom—or make a phone call. He had those matches from the Risorgimento.

  Nick turned left off the main road before we reached the Corso. I didn't know my way around Rome very well, but I knew he wasn't heading right downtown, and asked where he was going.

  “Just curious,” he said. “I'm going to drive past the Contessa's place, and see if she has company."

  “Do you mean Boisvert, or Claude, or who?"

  “Boisvert, or the man who shot at me, or Claude, or even Maria. She was at the party. I don't know who. We probably won't see anything at all, but I'm just curious to learn what Rosa's involvement in all this is. I wonder if she got in touch with Boisvert this morning."

  “You won't get very close with those dogs patrolling the grounds."

  “You don't have to get very close to watch."

  “With your eyes you'd have to have your nose glued to the window."

  “You're going the wrong way, Nick,” Bert called. He hadn't overheard our private conversation.

  “Just a slight detour."

  “Where to?"

  “Contessa Lingini's, to see if any of our ‘friends’ are there,” Nick said.

  “Don't forget you're running low on gas. Why don't you try to find a station?"

  With a phone, so he could alert the Contessa? Every word Bert uttered, every move he made came under scrutiny. More often than not I found something suspicious, but never enough to air my suspicions in front of his friends. Nancy would only get angry, and Nick trusted his old buddy. And I'd been wrong about Bert before. Nick paid no attention to the idea of an empty gas tank requiring gas. He drove to the Pincian Hill and parked in the shadows with a view of the villa across the street, not close enough that we'd be spotted. There were plenty of lights on, but we didn't intend to go window peeking. We just sat and looked. Her Bentley wasn't in view. There was a small, dark red car the driveway, not the Jag that Boisvert's man drove when he shot at Nick.

  Bert leaned his head over the seat and said, “It seems she has company."

  “Possibly,” Nick agreed. “Or that could be the Conte's car, or more likely a friend's—maybe even a car she provides for the servants. I'm going to check out the license plate so we'll recognize it if we see it again. You get in the driver's seat, Bert, in case we want to take off in a hurry.” He got out and scuttled closer to the villa, straining his eyes. He wasn't wearing his glasses, so I joined him. “Can you make anything out?” he asked.

  “The big numbers on the back say R something LO on top, 2439 on the bottom. There's one of those stickers with the wolf suckling Romulus and Remus.” These were very common in Rome. Nancy had bought one to take home for her Escort.

  “Do you think we should risk crossing the street and trying for the windows?"

  My answer was an unequivocal, “No."

  “You go back to the car."

  “Nick, you won't be able to see anything anyway."

  “Let me borrow your glasses. You're short-sighted, too.” He actually reached out his hand for my glasses.

  “I have an astigmatism. Nancy's right. You do need a keeper.” There was a childlike simplicity to Nick that could always surprise me, and touch off a hitherto buried maternal instinct. Perhaps it was the artistic streak that kept him free of reality. Such things as cars needing gas, individual prescriptions for people's spectacles, and the destructive power of pit bull terriers didn't occur to him.

  I took his hand. “You're going back to the car."

  He cocked his head to one side to think about it. We were in this pose, me yanking at his arm, Nick contemplating, when the front door of the villa opened. Nick, the ass, came to attention and made a motion of going closer to see who it was, and possibly getting his head blown off in the process. I held him back and we both watched as the man on the doorstep looked up and down the street. Within a second, he'd be looking across the road. I put my arms around Nick's neck and pulled his head down to mine. Lovers, like children, are free of suspicion, and unlike children, are not at all an uncommon sight in the shadows of Rome at night.

  When I had his head safely averted and his physique disguised by hunching over me, I whispered, “Now we can look. Who is it?"

  A dark glitter of eyes, a smiling flash of white teeth, and an increased pressure of his arms told me Nick had forgotten the man. “Who cares?” he asked softly, and kissed me. For a breathless moment, I forgot the man, too. It's the unexpected embraces that thrill. The air of danger added something to the experience of being thoroughly embraced by an accomplished Adonis. He crushed me against his chest with a mannish vigor. One hand rose to fondle the nape of my neck, and firm my head for the attack.

  “I knew you couldn't be all ice,” he murmured in my ear. That compliment cooled my ardor somewhat, and brought me back to reality. With a frosty gaze I said, “Well, do you recognize him?"

  Nick squinted across the street. I looked, and had no difficulty recognizing Claude. He was still in the white shirt he'd worn at the restaurant. The Contessa called to him softly from the doorway in her lovely French, but with an air of exasperation. “Don't do anything else till you hear from me. You'll spoil all my plans."

  "C'est mon affaire aussi," he called back, rather angrily. It's my business, too.

  “It's Claude,” I told Nick.

  “I'm not deaf, just blind. I recognized his voice. He was reporting to her that he'd spotted me—and probably rigged my car. We'll follow him."

  We waited till Claude got in his car and pulled out, so that he wouldn't recognize us. He turned left, and we hurried toward the Alfa-Romeo. Just as we approached it, Bert coasted alongside us. Nick's car, unfortunately, was pointed the other way. I couldn't blame that on
Bert. In fact, it seemed he was really trying to be helpful. I clambered in the backseat with Nancy, Nick got in front with Bert at the wheel, but by the time they got turned around, Claude had disappeared down some side street. We drove around for a while, looking for him, but without success. We told Bert and Nancy what we had heard as we drove.

  “We've lost him. Like looking for a nickel in a haystack,” Bert said. I noted the Freudian slip. He had an obsession with money. “Shall we go to a bar?"

  “Maybe we should go back to Nick's place,” I said. “Because of the painting."

  “Yeah, under your bed's the first place they'll look for it,” Bert warned Nick.

  “It isn't under my bed. I hid it in the wine cellar."

  Bert didn't turn around, but I could feel his eyes narrowing. His voice was just a little thin when he said, “I must have misunderstood. I thought Lana said you were hiding it under your bed."

  So he now knew that I still harbored a few suspicions of him. I didn't bother inventing any misunderstanding, with naive Nick there to contradict me. There was no point. I just felt lousy instead. We drove home and had another glass of wine and some bread and cheese. Bert and I sat across from each other, both letting on nothing had happened. Nick checked the cellar and reported that the Frageau was safe. He left it there for safekeeping through the night.

  “What do you think the Contessa meant by telling Claude not to do anything else?” Nancy asked. “Do you think she was referring to his tailing you to the Forum, Nick?"

  “Probably. I don't know what else he's been up to. More interesting is his complaint that it's his business, too. That doesn't sound as though they're working together, exactly. More like one of them horned in, don't you think?"

  “It sounds as if Claude is the horner-inner,” Bert said. “He said ‘too.’ It was his business, too—that kind of implies it's mostly Lingini's business, doesn't it?"