“I think I can figure it out, sir,” Martin said. He had been doing all of Fortinbras’ thinking for three years, ever since he had become Senior Executive Assistant Producer. By next year, he figured he should be able to take over Fortinbras’ position.
There could be no denying it, Fortinbras was stupid; but he was not absolutely stupid. He was planning to fire Martin immediately upon completion of this assignment. But that was his own little secret which he told to no one, not even his analyst.
5
The Hunt Ministry in Rome was a huge modern building in a pseudo-Romanesque style with Gothic overtones. Up its wide white steps of antiqued stone bounded Marcello Polletti, yesterday’s demolisher of the Baron von Richtoffen. As he hurried upward, various sinister-looking figures dressed entirely in black detached themselves from the balustrade and surrounded him.
“Hey, mister, you wanna buy a pocket-sized metals detector?”
“It’s no good against a plastic gun,” Marcello said.
“As it happens,” a second one said, “I got a detector for plastic, too.”
Polletti smiled wanly, shrugged, and moved on.
A third man said, “Excuse me, sir, but you look like a man who could use a good spotter.”
Polletti shook his head and continued up the stairs.
“But you need a spotter,” the man insisted. “How do you expect to identify your Hunter except through the highly trained services of a spotter? Now me, I got my primary certificate in Palermo and my second-degree rating in Bologna, and I also have letters of recommendation from numerous grateful clients.”
He waved a sheaf of tattered papers in Polletti’s face. Polletti made murmuring sounds of regret and ducked past him. He came to the great bronze doors of the ministry, and the black-suited men slouched resignedly back to their stations along the outer balustrade.
Polletti walked down busy hallways and hurried past dusty exhibits of Hunt weapons, past world maps showing Hunt concentration points, past guided tours where badly shaven guides in tattered uniforms were lecturing on the history of the Hunt to tourists and schoolchildren. At last he reached the office he wanted.
As a bullet strikes its target, so Polletti moved in a straight, flat trajectory, and at considerable velocity, to a desk marked PAYMENTS. Behind it sat the payments clerk, a man especially chosen for his stiff, grim, uncompromising demeanor, and also for his hunched shoulders, scrawny neck and steel-rimmed spectacles.
“I’ve come for my prize money,” said Polletti, handing the clerk his identity card. “Perhaps you heard about how I blew up Baron Richtoffen at the horse show. It’s in all the papers.”
“I never read the papers,” stated the clerk. “And I also do not listen to or indulge in chatter about bicycle races, soccer games, or Hunts. What did you say your name was?”
“Polletti,” said Polletti, slightly crestfallen. He spelled the name for the clerk.
The clerk turned to his filing cabinet, which listed all Hunters and Victims in the Rome area. With skilled clerkish fingers he riffled the cards, and plucked out Marcello’s like a chicken pecking a grain of corn.
“Yes,” the clerk said at last, after examining the photograph of Polletti on the file card with the photograph of Polletti on Polletti’s identity card, and then comparing both representations with the real (or allegedly real) Polletti who stood before him.
“Is everything in order?” Marcello asked.
“Quite in order,” the clerk said.
“Then may I have my prize money?”
“No. It’s already been claimed.”
Polletti looked for a moment like a man stung by an adder. But he quickly regained his composure and asked, “Who drew it?”
“Your wife, Signora Lidia Polletti. She is your wife, is she not?”
“She was,” Marcello said.
“You are divorced?”
“Annulled. Two days ago.”
“It takes a week, and sometimes ten days, for changes of marital status to reach this office. You could lodge a complaint, of course.”
The clerk smiled a smug little smile to show what he thought Marcello’s chance would be of ever recovering the money.
“It is of no consequence,” Marcello said, and turned and walked out. One does not show one’s feelings to a clerk; but one needs money just as badly as a clerk, and probably a good deal worse. That Lidia! She could move like a rocket when money was concerned.
Outside the ministry, Marcello started to cross the street. He was rather surprised when a beautiful blonde girl ran up to him, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him passionately. It was not the sort of thing that happened every day; and as usual, when it did happen, it was at the wrong time and he was in the wrong mood.
He began to pull away; but the girl clung to him, wailing, “Oh please, please, sir, just take me across the street and as far as the entrance of the ministry. I’ll be able to take care of myself after that.”
Then Marcello understood what was up. Gently he removed her hands from his neck and stepped away. “I can’t help you,” he told her. “It’s against the law. You see, I’m in the Hunt myself.”
The beautiful blonde girl (she could have been no more than 19 or 20, or 28 at the most) watched Marcello back away, and realized that she was exposed, utterly and mercilessly, in the wide sunlit street. She turned and ran for the ministry.
A Maserati (that particular model was popularly known as The Victimizer) burst out of a side street and rushed headlong at her. The girl dodged like a matador evading a bull. But this particular bull had disc brakes, which he applied with vehemence, slewing his car to a stop in a half circle around the girl. The girl’s face had hardened. From her shoulder bag she drew a bulky machine-pistol, snapped the stock out and the safeties off, and let loose a blast.
But it was sadly obvious that she had neglected to load armor-piercing bullets. Her shots glanced harmlessly off the Maserati’s gleaming snout, and the driver, biding his time, leaped out the opposite side of his car and chopped her down with an antique Sten gun.
When it was all done, a policeman stepped out of the shelter of a doorway, saluted politely, and checked the Victim’s card, then the Hunter’s, which he punched.
“Congratulations, sir,” the policeman said formally. “Also my apologies.” He handed the man a ticket.
“What’s this?” the man asked.
“Traffic ticket, sir,” the policeman said. He indicated the Maserati, broadside across the road and blocking traffic.
“But my dear fellow,” the man said, “I could not have performed the kill without making an emergency stop.”
“That is as may be,” the policeman replied. “But we can make no exceptions, not even for Hunters.”
“Ridiculous,” the man said.
“The young lady has also broken the law,” the policeman noted, “since she crossed the street against the light. But we waive the fine in her case since she is currently deceased.”
“Suppose she had shot me?” the man asked.
“Then I would have fined her,” the policeman said, “and I would have overlooked your traffic violation.”
Polletti walked away. Squabbles over minor matters bored him almost as much as squabbles over major matters.
He had gone less than a block when a blood-red sports convertible pulled up beside him with a screech of brakes. Polletti flinched instinctively and looked around for shelter. As usual, there was none. It took him a moment to realize that the woman behind the wheel was only Olga.
She was a slim, dark, elegant young woman, exquisitely though somewhat theatrically dressed. Her eyes were large and black and very shiny, like the eyes of a jacklighted wolf. She was an extremely attractive woman if you liked the type, which could best be described as homicidal schizophrenic paranoiac with kittenish overtones.
Men like to play with danger; but not every day. Polletti had been playing with Olga for the better part of 12 years.
“I saw,�
� Olga said darkly. (She always spoke darkly, except when she was speaking hysterically.)
“Saw? What did you see?”
“Everything,” she told him.
Polletti essayed a smile. “Then if you saw everything, you surely realized that there was nothing to see.”
Polletti reached out to put a hand on Olga’s shoulder. Olga slipped the car into reverse and backed a few yards. Polletti dropped his hand and walked back to her. “My dear,” he began again, “if you saw it all, then you surely realize that there was nothing between me and that unfortunate young lady.”
“Of course not,” Olga said. “Not now.”
“Not now or at any other time,” Polletti said. “You must believe me, Olga, I never saw her before in my life!”
“You have lipstick on your mouth,” Olga observed, darkly but with a touch of hysteria.
Polletti hastily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “My dear,” he said, “I can assure you that between me and that unfortunate child—”
“You’ve always liked them young, haven’t you?”
“—there was not, and had never been, anything, anything at all.”
“Nothing but dreams, eh, Marcello?”
They stared at each other for some seconds. Olga was quite obviously waiting for further explanations, which she would triumphantly refute. Polletti said nothing at all. The expression on his face had changed from ritual supplication to habitual boredom. One owed something to the woman one had lived with for 12 years; something, but not this.
Abruptly he walked away from the car and began looking for a taxi. Olga slipped into gear and speeded the car straight at him, braking with only an inch or two to spare.
Without a word, Polletti got in beside her.
Olga said, “Marcello, you are a liar and a cheat.”
Marcello nodded, closed his eyes, and lay back against the upholstered seat.
“If I didn’t love you so much, I would kill you.”
“You may yet,” Polletti said, his eyes still closed.
“Quite possibly,” Olga said. “But first you must see me in my new dress.” She laughed and squeezed his arm. “I really think you’ll like me in it, Marcello. I really think so.”
“I’m sure of it,” Polletti said, his eyes still closed, his head reclined on the upholstered seat.
“Why are men such pigs?” Olga asked the world at large. Receiving no answer, she slammed the car into low and took off down the street like a hurricane chased by a tornado. Polletti kept his eyes closed and engaged in several baseless fantasies.
6
A great delta-winged passenger jet circled the air high over Rome. Receiving the signal, it left the stack and came down over Fiumicino Airport. Various flaps lifted, others dropped; the jet touched down, the engines were reversed, a small tail parachute popped out, opened, and dragged a big tail parachute behind it. Brakes were applied, prayers were muttered in the pilots’ compartment, and the massive aircraft came to a reluctant stop.
The doors were opened, and a mixed bag of human beings emerged. Among them was a tight little group of three homogenous men and one striking woman. A special hostess led this foursome to a nearby helicopter while the common herd were taken by bus to the airport terminal.
The four boarded. The helicopter clawed its way into the sky and soon was over Rome. Caroline had immediately taken the seat of honor beside the pilot. Martin, Chet, and Cole were crowded into the rear seat. Martin, who had been upgraded for the duration of this one assignment to the lofty rank of Senior Production & Location Producer (Executive), was scribbling in a notebook. Chet, next in line, was chewing his lip thoughtfully. Cole, as the junior member, could do nothing but look bright and energetic.
Martin turned from his notebook and glanced down through the plexiglass floor. “Hey, isn’t that St. Peter’s?”
“That’s it, all right,” Chet said.
“You think they’d rent it to us for a day or two? Lot of ironic contrast if we got the kill there, huh?”
“I could be dressed as a nun,” Caroline said dreamily.
“I’m afraid St. Peter’s is out,” Chet said. As Martin’s Senior Executive Production Assistant, and therefore second in command, he had necessarily done a good deal of preliminary research.
“I don’t mean the church,” Martin said. “All we’d need is the square, with maybe a few background shots of the church itself.”
“They won’t let us do it,” Chet said.
Cole said, “Why don’t we just shoot it in a studio?”
His two seniors glared at him. “You can just forget that idea,” Martin said severely. “This is a documentary, remember? This is the real thing.”
“Sorry,” Cole said. “Hey, what’s that over there?”
“Trevi Fountain,” Chet said. “Pretty spot.”
“Yeah,” Martin said, “it is a pretty spot.” He turned to Caroline. “What do you think, baby? You kill him there, we tilt down to show Polletti’s corpse floating in the water, then reverse to show you, smiling triumphantly but with just a touch of sadness, tossing a couple of coins at him. Then we bring up the street noises hard and you walk away slowly down a long cobblestoned street and we fade out.”
Chet said, “I don’t think any of the streets around the Trevi Fountain are cobblestoned any more.”
“So we build a cobblestoned street,” Martin said impatiently, “and if they don’t like it we take it down after the sequence is shot.”
“It plays,” Chet said judiciously. “It really plays.”
“It’s got class,” Cole said. “It’s really got class.”
They all turned to Caroline. Caroline said, “No.”
Martin said, “Now look—”
“Now you look,” Caroline said. “It’s my kill, my tenth kill, and I want it done big. You know what I mean, big? I mean really big.”
“Big,” Martin repeated. Chet chewed his lip thoughtfully. Cole looked bright and energetic.
“That’s right, big,” Caroline stated. There was a steely note in her voice which none of them had ever heard before. Martin found her self-assurance somewhat dismaying. He didn’t like it. Give a woman a few kills and she thinks she can do anything.
“There’s no time for big,” he explained. “We gotta shoot this thing tomorrow morning.”
“That’s your problem,” Caroline said.
Martin reached under his sunglasses, found his eyes, and rubbed them. Working with women was tough enough; working with women killers was downright unrewarding.
Chet said, in a quiet, tentative voice, “Uh, I have a kinda idea for a location. What about we use the Colosseum? That’s it down there.”
The helicopter swooped low, and they all studied the massive, half-ruined oval.
“I didn’t know it was so big,” Cole said.
“I like it,” Caroline said.
“Well, sure, it is pretty nice,” Martin said. “But look, baby, it takes time to make arrangements for a place like this, and we haven’t got much time. Wouldn’t you maybe settle for the Trevi Fountain or the Borghese Gardens?”
“Here is where I will perform my kill,” Caroline said implacably.
“But the arrangements—”
“Uh, Martin,” Chet broke in, “it just happens that I thought you might go for this place, so I took the liberty of taking out an option on it; you know, just in case.”
“You did?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. The idea struck me late last night, and of course I didn’t want to go over your head, but I also didn’t want to wake you up with what was maybe just a hair-brained scheme. So I called Rome and went ahead and did it and I assure you I didn’t want to go over your head or anything like that—”
“Forget it,” Martin said, clapping him warmly on the shoulder. “You did just right.”
“I did?” Chet asked.
“You did, and that’s a fact. Caroline’s satisfied, the rest of us here are satisfied, so
let’s get down to work. We gotta spot in our cameras and decide how to bring on the Roy Bell Dancers, and a lot of other stuff. So let’s get cracking, huh, kids?”
Caroline, smiling beatifically, said, “I’m going to kill in the Colosseum! It’s like some kind of a wild kid’s dream come true.”
“Sure it is,” Martin said. “But we gotta get moving now, get everything set up, locate this Polletti and bring him in on time—”
“I’ll take care of that,” Caroline said.
“That’s fine,” Martin said. “The rest of us will have our hands full anyhow. Hey, driver, let’s move!”
The helicopter swooped toward the Via Veneto. The four passengers lay back, smiling and relaxed. Martin was thinking that it was about time he got rid of Chet before Chet got rid of him. Optioning the Colosseum out from under him like that had been just a little too cute.
7
Polletti was walking in darkness, a complete and utter darkness. That was bad enough. But worse than the darkness was the complete and abnormal silence. It was a tomblike silence—tomblike was a very natural image for a man in his position. He saw himself in the desolation and quietude of incipient death, and he was frightened, nervous, and bored all at the same time. He was chewing a piece of gum and also his lower lip, since no one could see him except through an infrascope. His hands were loosely bent at hip level in the ready position, an approved three inches from his body. He moved ahead warily, straining to receive even the faintest of sense impressions.
Suddenly he caught the faintest glimpse of movement, behind him and to his left—a bogie coming toward him at 7 o’clock, one of the worst possible positions for a right-handed man.
The 10th Victim Page 3
