Assignment Sorrento Siren

by Unknown Author

  There is a moment now and then when unity is achieved with a slow look, a smile that goes deep. She wore her dark hair brushed smoothly back in a French knot at the nape of her neck. Small jeweled earrings that matched her gold dress

  winked close to her head. She lifted a hand and started to rise and then Durell was beside her.

  “Sam. Oh, Sam, I’m such a fool. But it’s been so long. I felt as if my heart had stopped.”

  “Mine, too. You look wonderful, Dee.”

  “You don’t. What happened to your ear?”

  He touched it. “Is it bleeding again?”

  “It looks as if a cat chewed on it. Our gal Fran?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “You went to see her first, didn’t you? I waited in my room as long as I could, but. . ."

  “Love me, Dee?”

  “Always. I’m certainly a fool. And shameless.” A faint flush touched her cheeks under her wide gray eyes. She was the most beautiful woman in the world for Durell. He touched her hand and she stood up. “Where do you want to go, Sam?” “Somewhere for a drink and talk.”

  “Our kind of talk? In public?”

  “That’s for later.” He smiled. He knew her so intimately, every nuance of her marvelous body, every fine aspect of her mind. “I need your help now. Can you leave this children’s game?”

  “Of course. I was just making notes for a feature story to cable home. These people are only slightly insane, darling. I’m much worse—about you.” She took his arm and he felt the pressure of her breast against him. “Do you need my help in your work? Is that it?”

  “Sort of.”

  “How ironic. All these years you keep me out of your real life, darling, by insisting I can never be part of your work. I dreamt about this moment often, about a time when you’d need me like this. I’d laugh at you and make you crawl.”

  He smiled. “I do, anyway, for you.”

  “Not so I notice it. You’ll pay a heavy price, my good man. Are you sure it will be worth it?”

  “Dee, I just want a little information, nothing else.”

  “Oh, no. All or nothing, that’s my motto.”

  “It’s too dangerous to take a bigger part in it, don’t you understand? I don’t even like to be seen with you when I’m working. It makes us both vulnerable.” He thought of Pacek; the Czech could exact almost any price, if he got his hands on Deirdre. And then he thought, No, I wouldn’t pay it. I’d have to let her go. Given a choice between finishing this job and Deirdre, I’d have to forfeit Deirdre. It couldn’t be otherwise, in this business. You can’t make rules for others and not for yourself. Then he thought of Talbott and how Ellen Armbridge had died, and he tried to imagine how he would feel if something like that happened to Deirdre. But he could not. And he could not tell her about it, either. He took her arm and led her to the street above the beach and looked for a taxi. There were none, but there was a sidewalk cafe a block away, and he walked toward it with her. He thought she was trembling slightly. He said, “It’s really dangerous just for you to be seen with me now, Dee. Can’t you believe that?”

  “I believe it. And I don’t care. Whatever happens to you, I want to happen to me, too.”

  “We’ve gone over all this before.”

  She sighed. “Yes, and we will again. I get such nightmares, Sam—I sometimes think I can’t stand it, I’ll just fall apart, wondering where you are and what you’re doing.”

  “It’s just my job,” he said.

  “Why must it be you? Why couldn’t you be an ordinary auto salesman or an advertising executive; and then we could have a home in the suburbs and a lot of kids. . . .” She paused and smiled ruefully. “I know it’s your job and you’ve got to do it. But sometimes I hate it and cry over it. And over the two of us.”

  He ordered Cinzanos at the bar and they sat under a striped canopy at a small wooden table with wire chairs. It was too early for the cafe to be busy, although the Piazza Vittoria nearby was filling up. Across the waterfront street, the Bay of Naples sparkled happily in the sun. A cruise ship was coming in from the direction of Ischia, and the little ferry to Capri bounced on the bright blue water. Southward, the conical summit of Vesuvius thrust up through the haze in the sky.

  “Sam, this is so nice, I wouldn’t even let myself dream it could happen,” Deirdre said. “Do you know how often I just stop work and feel overcome with wanting you? But you can’t do that, can you? It would be too dangerous for you.”

  “It’s a matter of maintaining perspective,” he said.

  “Oh, Sam, aren’t you ever coming home? Won’t we ever live like ordinary people again?”

  He knew what she meant, and he tried to picture a life where you didn’t have to wonder who waited for you behind every door you opened, or think twice about turning a comer carelessly. He did not know if he could live such a life again. Deirdre sighed, sipped her vermouth, looked at the bright

  arc of the bay. Traffic whispered on the street, but it was like a shadowed, serene cave under the striped awning. An image of Jack Talbott’s ferocity touched him; he put it aside.

  “All right,” she said. “What do you want to know? How can I help you, Sam? You asked me about the Countess di Apollio, nee Frannie Smith. It’s a hateful point to start.”

  “Is she really so disliked, Dee?”

  “It isn’t a matter of snobbery. I don’t care which side of the tracks she came from, or how she pulled herself up by her garter belt.” Deirdre smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry. Just talking about Francesca makes me sound like an alley cat. You’ve met her, I gather. Quite a dish, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to bed with her?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Oh, damn you,” she whispered. “I love you and I hate you, darling. Will you go to bed with me?”

  He grinned. “Any time.”

  “I’m not like Francesca, though. If she wants you, she’s got good taste; but she lacks a soul, Sam. Did you ever meet someone who gives you the chills and knows she has no soul? That’s Frannie Smith—amoral, despicable, a bitch.” -“Why are you so down on her?”

  “Do you know Count Bernardo Apollio?”

  “Not yet. I hope to.”

  “He sees no one he doesn’t select first. Anyway, Apollio has one of these vendettas going that are prevalent from Sicily on up to the Campania. The other family is named Bellaria.” She looked at him with alert gray eyes. “You know about this?” “Some.”

  “There are three brothers. Rafael, the eldest, is quite gentle and lives and fishes on Isola Filibano. Bruno, the middle one, is vicious, lives on hate. The youngest—much younger than Bruno or Rafael—is Cesare. A handsome brute, I must say. A touch of an archaeologist, a classic art expert.”

  “A collector?”

  “No. A digger. Restorer. Handsome and talented.”

  “So?”

  “So our darling Fran, the wife of Apollio, chooses his worst enemy to go to bed with—namely, Cesare Bellaria. She wins the brass ring for indecency. Everybody knows about it, at least in the decadent circles I’ve traveled with lately.”

  “Does Apollio know?”

  “He couldn’t. It’s not possible.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Apollio would cut him to little bits and feed him to the fish.” Deirdre grinned roguishly. “Apollio is a handsome and cultivated gentleman. I could go for him, myself. But he’s also got that sort of temperament, Sam, that could make the whole thing blow up into an awful tragedy.”

  “So the husband is the last to know,” Durell mused.

  “Isn’t he always?”

  He said bluntly, “Would you say that Apollio is an unscrupulous art collector, Dee?”

  “A thief? Buying stolen masterpieces?” She shook her head. “No. If you’re after the count, you’re on the wrong track. I’d say it was impossible.”

  He trusted her judgment, but it left a hole in the pattern that had been forming in
the back of his mind, and he wasn’t sure where to go from there. Deirdre touched his hand and he said: “I’d like to judge Apollio for myself. Do you have any idea where he is right now?”

  “Of course. We’ll be neighbors—that gang on the beach over there, and Apollio—on Isola Filibano tomorrow. Right now he’s at his villa in Montecapolli, though. Cesare Bellaria is in Montecapolli, too, working on some monastery ruins. It’s incredible that Cesare’s cuckolding of his worst enemy hasn’t caused Vesuvius to explode.”

  “The count isn’t that much of a recluse, is he?”

  “I couldn’t get you to see him for diamonds, darling.”

  “But can you get me to Isola Filibano?”

  She looked long at him. “I might, Sam.”

  “Wangle an invitation for me with that crowd of creeps on the beach, will you, Dee?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to help you kill yourself, Sam. You’re always telling me to stay out of your business, and now you want me to help you with this; but of course you won’t tell me anything about it. I hope you notice what a good girl I’ve been, containing my curiosity and not asking you a word about what you’re really after.”

  “You know I wouldn’t tell you, anyway.”

  “I know, but all the same, my feminine instincts make me wonder about your interest in our Frannie. I wouldn’t take you to Isola Filibano without going myself, you know. That’s one of the conditions, whether you think it’s wise or not. That’s the way it is, darling. All or nothing, this time. If you want my help, you take me with you.”

  He grinned. “That may not be as hard as you think. Are you staying at the Sentissi tonight?”

  “Are you making me a proposition?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, sir. But I won’t be in Naples. The whole crowd is moving to Montecapolli for more pictures this evening, and then we go to Isola Filibano.”

  Durell was thoughtful. “What sort of place is this monastery where Cesare Bellaria is working?”

  “Picturesque, isolated, on top of the mountain. Not many people go there. It’s not a tourist attraction yet.”

  “It might be useful,” Durell said slowly, “if you could induce your camera people to use it as a background for their publicity shots tonight.”

  Deirdre stared at him. “Just what are you up to?”

  “I’m not really sure, Dee. Just stirring up the pot.”

  She looked at him critically. “You’re grim about this one, aren’t you? I can tell by the way your eyes get so dark when you think about it. You’re not with me at all, darling.”

  “I’m sorry, Dee. It’s a question of time. And some good people may get killed, if I’m not fast enough or smart enough or lucky enough.”

  She shivered slightly, although the air was warm with bright sunlight and an atmosphere of September gaiety hovered over the city. “Let’s not talk about it any more. Let’s just talk about ourselves, Sam. Tell me that you missed me, please. Tell me how much you want me.”

  He felt alarmed. “What is it, Dee? What are you looking at?” “That man who came into the cafe and sat down behind you. The way he stares at you . . .”

  Durell turned and saw, seated at the next table, Major Anton Pacek.

  chapter eleven

  PACEK smiled and lifted his wine glass in a salute. He looked like a frog, his wide mouth loose and open. In his Russian-made dark suit that fitted him like a box, and a light wide-brimmed fedora, he looked out of place on the sunny Neapolitan waterfront.

  Durell turned away again. He did not want to alarm Deirdre or betray any special interest in her, either. Maybe Pacek wouldn’t attach any importance to her. If he did, and if he used it, the thing could act like a hammerlock on Durell’s movements. Pacek was quicker and smarter than he had supposed, getting down here so soon. It did not seem possible that he had been tailed down through Italy, but it never paid to second-guess someone like Pacek. He also knew that Pacek would start digging for information about Deirdre, inevitably.

  “Is that man a Russian?” Deirdre asked quietly.

  “A Czech.”

  “I don’t like his looks. Why is he smiling at you, Sam? Does he know you?”

  “He knows me. And now he knows you. I may have to kill him.” He saw her surprise, and added briefly, “We’ll get out of here now. Don’t take my arm. Act formally, as if we’ve only recently met. I’ll take you back to the beach. But keep an eye out for him, and when I see you tonight, let me know if he’s been hanging around— or any other persistent strangers.”

  “All right, Sam.”

  “And don’t go anywhere alone from now on.”

  He paid the camerare, left a tip, and escorted Deirdre out of the cafe into the sunshine. He did not look at Pacek again, and Pacek did not follow. Neither did anyone else. Deirdre was silent on the way back to the beach where the photographers and models were still screaming at each other while the motion-picture greats lolled in their canvas chairs at the buffet tables among the scurrying waiters. He did not kiss her when he left, not knowing what eyes might be watching and not wanting her to seem important to him.

  He left word at the consulate for Si Hanson and returned to the newspaper office to do more reading about Apollio and his art collection. Perhaps Pacek’s appearance was one of those unfortunate accidents. He tried to make himself believe this and then recognized the folly of wishful thinking and accepted the fact that he had placed Deirdre in danger almost before he could begin here.

  Since there was nothing more to do in Naples, he rented a Fiat and drove to Montecapolli, just above Sorrento. The place was a fishing village clinging to the steep mountainside above the Amalfi Drive, with a sweeping view of the Bay of Naples to the north. The heat was suffocating. There was a small beach below the Imperiale and another nearby of black

  sand where the fishermen’s nets were spread on stakes. Durell parked in a small lot next to the tennis court and went into the hotel. It was long past noon, and he had no trouble reserving a room. He left word at the desk for Silas and went out to look at the town.

  He did not approach the Montecapolli monastery at once. Accessible only by a narrow footpath, it perched on a high crag above the village; its buttresses and ruined walls overgrown with vines. In the village piazza there were tourists gathered, and now and then a bus lumbered through the town. To the east were the high villas clinging to the cliffside that plunged down into the sea.

  He walked to the gate of the largest house, where the familiar emblem of goats capering above a rayed sun indicated the House of Apollio. The flower-bordered lane was quiet and peaceful. An antique iron bell made a harsh clanging when he pulled on the chain and stirred up a small group of hummingbirds in the shrubbery.

  Durell gave his name to an elderly gatekeeper and waited, watching the hummingbirds return to the shrubbery. He was surprised when the man returned in less than five minutes and opened the heavy, iron gate. He had expected to be summarily turned away. There was a brief emerald lawn, a flight of white marble steps to a loggia, a walk around a balustraded terrace to the back of the square stone villa. There were two sun umbrellas and tables here, facing a small allee formed of carefully trimmed cypress trees that accented the whites of antique marbles from Pompeii and Herculaneum. The stone Chinese lanterns in the garden did not seem inappropriate.

  Count Apollio was a man who smiled rarely. His face was a serene, narrow mask, classically handsome and dignified. Breeding had refined the delicate head that was both strong and intellectual, then refined it again to carve his Roman nose and chiseled mouth. Yet even as they shook hands, Durell felt that something was lacking. Perhaps it was in the way Apollio moved, or the careful grooming of his smooth gray hair. His elegance was too great to discount as either affectation or effeminacy.

  His chiseled mouth smiled; nothing else changed.

  “I have received you as a matter of courtesy, Signor Durell.” His English was precise, Oxonian. “I trust your visit will be brief,
since I can anticipate its object. I shall not waste your time or mine, you see. I was informed less than an hour ago that a man from Isola Filibano was found drowned in Lake Geneva, near my villa there. Are you in a position to verify this statement?”

  “I am. The man was Bruno Bellaria,” Durell said.

  “You are sure of this?”

  “Quite certain.”

  Apollio looked down at his hands. They trembled ever so slightly. A little smile touched his lips, and then he sighed. “I am sorry.”

  “Sorry? He was your enemy.”

  “My affairs are no concern of yours. My enemies are mine to deal with, on my own terms. I am sorry he died this way. I would have arranged it—otherwise.”

  “You feel cheated, is that it?” Durell asked.

  “You are a perceptive man.” Apollio sighed again. His eyes seemed to look for an instant into a past that was both ugly and regrettable, and for a moment an expression of intensity shaped his mouth that made his hatred for the dead man almost tangible enough to touch. It went beyond all ordinary emotion, Durell thought. It was much too great to have had its roots in some ancient rivalry between two noble houses. This was the twentieth century, and however much the Count reverted to past codes, there was something too personal in his voice and attitude toward Bruno Bellaria’s death to be explained by such notions.

  When Apollio looked at Durell again, his handsome face was once again a polished mask.

  “The world is a better place now, with that man dead. You are an American, Signor Durell, and my wife, who recently visited Geneva, was the friend of a Signor Talbott who worked in your consulate there. Am I correct in this?”

  “Remarkably,” Durell said, and waited.

  “Your lack of surprise pleases me, sir. I live a reclusive life, but I am not out of touch with matters that concern me or threaten the pattern of existence I have chosen.”

  “What else do you know, Count Apollio?”

  “I do not invite you to be seated or join me in a drink. Such courtesy would be hypocritical. You are not welcome here.” Apollio frowned slightly, and something more clouded his eyes. His hair was a pale yellow where it wasn’t gray, a heritage of Norman and Bourbon blood. His slender height was like a fine steel blade. He wore a pale blue jacket, a silk shirt open at the throat with an Ascot scarf, fine slacks and open mesh black shoes. It was cool on the garden terrace, and a breeze blew through the boxwood and cypresses from the Bay of Sorrento.