"Would you undertake to persuade him?"
Sarti appeared to hesitate.
"You are my client, signor. When I accept a client, I give him my whole support. It is how I built up my business. This is difficult and dangerous. I could be prosecuted, but, nevertheless if you wish it, I would be prepared to take the risk to give satisfaction."
"Your motives are as impressive as il Signor Veroni's," I .said.
He smiled mournfully.
"I am here to serve," he said.
"What do you imagine a vineyard in Tuscany would cost?" I asked, looking directly at him. "Did you think to ask him?"
He met my eyes without any effort.
"I did touch on the subject. Il Signor Veroni isn't entirely without means, signor. It would seem he is lacking half the required sum: ten million lire."
Ten million lire!
That would clean me right out. During my fifteen years as a newspaper man I had managed to save just that amount.
"And for that sum he would be prepared to hand over all the copies of this report and say nothing to the police?"
"I don't know, signor, but I could ask him. I believe I might be able to persuade him."
"Would you need any encouragement to do that? I mean would there be a fee for the work?" I asked. "Frankly, ten million lire would leave me flat. If there was to be a rakeoff for you, you would have to get it from Veroni."
"That could be arranged if it were necessary, signor," Sarti said simply. "After all, I shall be paid for my work on this case by il Signor Chalmers. I think you mentioned that the fee would be a substantial one. I wish to be of service to you. It is by being useful to one's clients that one keeps them."
"That is a sterling thought," I said. "Then you will see what you can arrange?"
"Immediately, signor. I should have news for you in a few hours. Will you be at your apartment at one o'clock?"
I said I would.
"Then I will be able to tell you if I have been successful or not."
He got to his feet, gave me a mournful bow and waddled across the room and out of my sight.
I had no doubt that il Signor Veroni didn't exist and that Sarti had been hired by someone to watch Helen. Nor had I any doubt, if I were going to pay up, the ten million lire would go directly into Sarti's pocket.
There wasn't much I could see that I could do about this. There might be a way out, given a little time to think of one. It depended if I could gain time.
I returned to my apartment and waited.
Sarti didn't telephone until two o'clock. By then I was pacing the room and sweating.
"The arrangement we spoke about has been successfully concluded, signor," he said when I answered the telephone.
"Would Wednesday morning be convenient for you to settle the conditions?"
"I can't do it before Thursday," I said. "It will mean selling ..."
"Not over the telephone, signor," Sarti said, sudden agony in his voice. "It is always unwise to discuss anything of this nature over an open line. Thursday would do. Our associate has asked me to deal with you. I will call on you at midday on Thursday."
I said I would be expecting him and hung up.
II
I spent the next hour chain smoking and viewing the whole set-up from every angle.
I couldn't be in a bigger mess if I had deliberately set out to look for trouble. I was not only heading to be arrested for murder, with enough evidence against me to make a conviction certain, but I was also being blackmailed by two unscrupulous thugs.
With this hanging over me, I made a discovery. I found I no longer cared whether I had the foreign desk at Western Telegram or not, nor did I care two hoots how Chalmers would react if he learned I wax the man with whom his daughter had planned to spend a month at Sorrento.
Thinking about the way I had handled this thing, I realized what a fool I had been not to have called the police when I had found Helen's body. If I had done so, Carlo wouldn't have had time to alter Helen's watch or rig the rest of the evidence against me. If I had gone back to the villa to call the police I would have found the note I had left for Helen before Carlo had got there.
I told myself it was up to me to get out of this mess. I had been fool enough to get into it, now I had to be smart enough to beat these two thugs at their own game.
I didn't have much time. I had to hand over every cent of my savings to Sarti on Thursday unless I had thought of some way to fix him. I would have to take the consignment of dope to Nice on Friday unless I could pin Helen's murder on Carlo.
I thought about Carlo. I had very little evidence against him. I had two cheroot butts; one that I had found on the top of the cliff head, the other I had found in his room. That wouldn't be enough to convict him of murder. What else was there? I had proof from the telephone number scribbled on the wall that Helen knew Myra Setti, and it could follow from that that she also knew Carlo, but that wasn't strong enough to convince a jury. Frenzi would swear he had seen Helen and Carlo together, but as she went around with a number of other men while she was in Rome, that didn't amount to much either.
I took out of my wallet the T.W.A. air ticket that I had found in Carlo's desk and examined it. Was this of any value to me? Carlo had been in New York three days before Helen had left Rome. Maxwell had hinted that Helen had left for Rome because she was involved in Menotti's murder.
I suddenly sat bolt upright. Both Maxwell and Matthews, who should know, had said it was practically certain that Setti had ordered Menotti's death. Had Carlo been sent to New York to do the job? Was he Setti's gunman? Menotti had been killed on the night of June 29th. According to the air ticket, Carlo had arrived in New York on the 26th and had left for Rome on the 30th. The dates fitted. What was more, Helen had also left on the 30th, and within four days she was apparently friendly with Carlo. It had puzzled me how she could have got to know him so quickly, unless she had met him in New York.
Was that the hold Helen had on Carlo, always assuming that she had been blackmailing him? Maxwell and Matthews had mentioned a mysterious woman who had sold Menotti out. Maxwell had said it was believed that woman had been Helen. Again this made sense. Suppose Carlo had known Helen was a drug addict, and on his arrival in New York had contacted her. He might have offered her a sum of money or a free supply of drugs to sell Menotti out. She would have let him into her apartment. Later, thinking about it, she may have realized how easy it would be to put pressure on him for more money or more drugs. What better hold could she have had to blackmail him than the threat of the electric chair?
I got to my feet and began to pace up and down. I felt I was at last getting somewhere.
I went over in my mind the conversation I had had with Carlo. He had admitted that he was in Sorrento at the time Helen died. Why had he been there? I couldn't believe he had gone there deliberately to kill Helen. If he had wanted to kill her he could have done it in Rome instead of going all the way to Sorrento. With my mind working like a buzz-saw, I continued to pace up and down. It was several minutes before I remembered the photograph I had seen in Myra's lounge of her in a white swimsuit and which had looked vaguely familiar to me. It was then that I remembered the lone, inaccessible villa built into the cliff face I had seen when I had been looking for Helen. I remembered I had seen a girl, half-hidden by a sun umbrella, who had been sitting on the terrace of the villa. I was sure now that the girl had been Myra Setti.
If Myra owned the villa, Carlo would probably go down there quite often, and that would probably account for the fact that he had been there when Helen had arrived.
I told myself I'd take another look at this villa, after I had attended the inquest.
Feeling I had got as far as I could with Carlo, I aimed my attention to Sarti. There was only one way to make; him hold off, and that was to throw a scare into him, but I didn't kid myself I could do it. If anyone could throw a scare into him, Carlo could, and I suddenly grinned. It seemed to me to be a good idea to play Carlo of
f against Sarti. It was in Carlo's interest for me to keep clear of the police.
Without hesitation, I dialled Myra's number. Carlo answered the call himself.
"This is Dawson," I said. "I want to talk to you in a hurry. Where can we meet?"
"What's it all about?" he demanded, his voice suspicious.
"Our arrangement for Friday can blow up," I said. "I can't talk over an open line. We've got competition."
"Yeah?" There was a snarl in his voice that I wished Sarti could hear. "Okay. Meet me at the Pasquale Club in half an hour."
I said I would be there and hung up.
I looked out of the window. It was raining again, and as I put on my raincoat the telephone bell rang.
"There's a call for you from New York," the operator told me. "Will you hold on?"
I guessed it was Chalmers and I was right.
"What the hell's happening?" he demanded when he came on the line. "Why haven't you called me?"
I was in no mood to take anything from him right at this moment. It was because he hadn't bothered to keep any kind of control over his rotten little daughter that I was in this jam.
"I haven't time to keep calling you," I snapped back. "But now you're on the line, you may as well know that we're heading for a scandal and a stink that even you won't be able to keep off the front pages of every paper except your own."
I heard him draw in his breath sharply. I could imagine his face turning purple.
"Do you know what you're saying?" he demanded. "What the devil …?"
"Listen: I've got a date and I'm in a hurry," I broke in. "I have indisputable proof that your daughter was a drug addict and a blackmailer. She went round with degenerates and criminals and was Menotti's mistress. It's common talk that it was she who put the finger on him, and she was probably murdered because she was fool enough to try to blackmail his killer."
"My God! You'll be sorry for this," Chalmers bellowed. "You must be drunk or insane to talk this way to me. How dare you tell such lies! My daughter was a good, decent girl ..."
"Yeah, I've heard that one before," I broke in impatiently. "But wait until you see the evidence. I have a list of names of fifteen men with whom she was intimate and whom she blackmailed because she had to have money to buy drugs. This isn't something I've dreamed up. Carlotti knows. There's a private dick who has been shadowing her ever since she arrived in Rome, and he has pages of evidence with dates and details that you can't shout off."
There was a sudden silence at the other end of the line and, for a moment, I thought we had been cut off but, listening carefully, I could hear his heavy breathing.
"I'd better come out," he said at last, and in a much milder tone. "I'm sorry I bawled at you, Dawson. I should have known you wouldn't say anything against my daughter without proof. This is a shock to me. Perhaps it's not so bad as it sounds."
"This isn't the time to kid yourself," I said. "This is a mess and we've got to face it."
"I'm tied up until Thursday," he said, all the iron out of his voice by now. "I'll be in Naples on Friday. Will you meet me?"
"If I can I will, but things are happening so fast, I can't look that far ahead."
"Can't you talk to Carlotti? Can't we get an adjournment at the inquest? I've got to have time to study this thing."
"It's a murder case," I said. "There's nothing either of us can do."
"Well, try. I'm relying on you, Dawson."
I grinned mirthlessly at the opposite wall. I wondered how much longer he would rely on me. I wondered what he would say and do if I told him I was one of the fifteen men who had fooled around with his precious daughter.
"I'll talk to him," I said, "but I don't think he'll listen."
"Who killed her, Dawson?"
"A guy called Carlo Manchini. I can't prove it yet, but I'm going to have a try. It's my bet he killed Menotti and your daughter sold Menotti to him."
"This is fantastic." He really sounded as if he had taken a knock. "Anything I can do at this end?"
"Well, if you can get the boys to dig into Menotti's background," I said, "they might turn up something useful. See if they can get anything on Manchini and Setti. I want a hookup between those two. See if they can get any dope on what Helen was up to and if she did go to Menotti's apartment."
"I can't do that!" His voice rose to a shout. "I don't want anyone to know about this thing! This has got to be hushed up, Dawson!"
I laughed.
"You have as much hope of hushing this up as you've got in keeping an H-bomb explosion quiet," I said, and dropped the receiver back on its cradle.
I waited for a brief moment, then put a call through to police headquarters. I asked if Lieutenant Carlotti was on duty. The desk sergeant said he thought he was in his office. He told me to hold on. After about a minute wait, Carlotti came on the line.
"Yes, Signor Dawson?" He sounded smooth and unexcited. "Is there anything I can do for
you?"
"I'm just checking on the inquest. It's at eleven-thirty. That right?" I said.
"That is right. I am flying down to-night. Do you wish to come with me?"
"Not to-night. I'll catch the early morning plane. How's the investigation going?"
"Satisfactory."
"No arrest yet?"
"Not yet, but these things take time."
"Yeah." I wondered if I should tell him that Chalmers was yelling for an adjournment, but I decided it wouldn't do any good. "How about la Signorina Chalmers's apartment? Are you through there yet?"
"Yes. I was going to tell you. The key is with the porter. I took the police guard off this morning."
"Okay, then I'll get busy and have the place cleared. Did you notice the telephone number scribbled on the wall in her lounge?"
"Oh, yes," Cariotti said. He didn't sound very interested. "We checked it. It is the number of la Signorina Setti, a friend of la Signorina Chalmers."
"Did you know that Myra Setti is the daughter of Frank Setti, whom you boys are supposed to be looking for?"
There was a pause, then he said coldly, "I was aware of that."
"I just thought it might have slipped your mind," I said, and hung up.
III
Carlo was waiting for me in the Pasquale Club. He was drinking wine and smoking a cheroot. He waved to me as I crossed the empty lounge to join him.
"What's biting you?" he said. "Have a drink?"
I shook my head.
"You said if I played with you, you'd play with me," I said. "Okay, here's your chance."
He tilted back his chair, blew smoke towards the ceiling and listened with haLF-closed eyes as I explained about Sarti.
"Old man Chalmers told me to put a private eye to work, digging into his daughter's background," I said. "I didn't imagine Sarti would dig so deep. He's dug me up."
Carlo looked at me, his face expressionless.
"So what?"
"So he's blackmailing me for ten million lire. If I don't pay, he's handing the information he's collected over to the police."
"How bad is the information?" Carlo asked, tilting his chair further back and scratching his jaw with a dirty finger-nail.
"As bad as it can be. If the police get this information from him, I'm cooked. I haven't ten million lire –nothing like it. If you want me to do this run to Nice for you, you've got to do something fast."
"Such as what?"
"That's up to you. I don't suppose you want to spring ten million lire, do you?"
He threw back his head and sounded off with his raucous laugh.
"You kidding?" He let his chair come to earth with a crash that shook the room, stood up and hunched his shoulders. "Come on, pally. Let's go and see this bum. I'll fix him."
"He's probably out." I wasn't anxious to get mixed up in this. "Why don't you call around at his office to-morrow? I'd come with you, but I have to be in Naples to-morrow to attend the inquest."
He put his enormous hand on my arm. His fingers dug into my mus
cles.
"He'll be in. This is feeding time. Come on, pally. This is your mess. You and me will fix him together."
He led me out of the bar, across the sidewalk to where the Renault was parked. We got in, and he sent the car shooting away from the kerb.
"The office will be shut," I said, flinching as Carlo narrowly missed a man and woman who were crossing the street.
Carlo leaned out of the car window to curse them, then pulled in his head and gave me his wide, animal grin.
"I know where the punk lives," he said. "He and I have done a couple of jobs together. He loves me. There's nothing he wouldn't do for me."
I gave up, and for the rest of the reckless drive I said nothing.
You Find Him – I'll Fix Him Page 18
