He smiled. "Forget it. Just believe me."
"All right. So the Capo of Capos wanted you out."
"Wanted me dead. Tried to tell me twice already. Once in Corsica. Once in Naples. I was down there on a delivery."
"Naples? That's where The Mosquito comes from."
He looked at me sharply. "You get around."
"I was told."
"By whom?"
"Never mind."
"When the second hit failed…"
"The one at your villa in Corsica?"
He frowned at me. "Yes." He waited. Then: "When that one failed, I decided to get out of the business. That's when I came to you people."
I nodded. "I know all about that." I did not. But there was no use listening to his story. I would have no way of knowing whether it was true or false.
"Good. When we started from Corsica on the yacht, I brought along Vanessi."
"To take your place?"
"Yes. When we got to Valencia, we stayed in port for a day, and I stayed ashore when they left."
"The
Lysistrata
sailed on without you?"
"Exactly. Vanessi played Rico Corelli."
"And when they landed at Malaga, Vanessi was still playing Corelli?"
"Yes." He paused. "With the help of Tina Bergson."
"Did Vanessi go into Malaga?"
"No. He stayed on the yacht. We thought it would be better that way. Then there would be no slip-up. I mean, in case someone recognized him."
"Could anyone in Malaga identify you?"
"Not a chance," laughed Parson.
"Then?"
"Then you got in touch with Tina and she came in to meet you."
"Right."
"I figure somebody picked up your trail, followed you out to the yacht, got into the scuba gear, and made the hit."
"Who?"
"Moscato, of course. Who else? He knows all about me. And he must have had his eye on the yacht when it came in. He merely timed it while you were near the craft, to implicate you."
"Why didn't Moscato recognize you?"
"He knows about the yacht, about Tina, about the meeting with you people…"
"I see. But he didn't really recognize you."
"Right."
"And he made the hit and injured Tina."
"Thank God she wasn't killed!"
I watched him. He reached into his pocket and brought out a pack of American cigarettes. He lit one and waved out the match. Last time he had brought out a Spanish cigarette. But then, of course, he was playing the British secret agent, Barry Parson. He was a consummate actor, and knew how effective the right props were.
"How is she now?" I asked.
"You mean, what is the word from the clinic?"
"Yes." He knew.
"She's coming along."
"When will she be able to join you?"
He hesitated. "Soon."
"After we've had the meeting with my partner?"
"Right." He smiled. "Listen, Tina is part of the deal. You know that, don't you?"
"I do," I said. "But first, we want to meet and then we can discuss details."
He nodded. "That's all that matters now."
"One thing puzzles me."
"What?" The smoke drifted up in front of his face. In the windshield of the Renault I could see the reflection of his features as he puffed on the cigarette.
"How did you ever get on The Mosquito's trail in Torremolinos?"
He laughed. "Neat, huh?"
"Very neat." I paused. "Too neat."
His eyes slid to mine. "What're you saying?"
"I'm saying I can't buy your story all the way, Corelli. You break into a deal when I have The Mosquito cold, and then you play Barry Parson, secret agent. What gives?"
"Let's back up," Parson said seriously. "Look. I knew you were after The Mosquito. Granted?"
I nodded. "You could guess that, certainly. But why were you in Malaga in the first place? I mean,
you,
Rico Corelli. You were hiding out in Valencia. Why come down to Malaga to expose yourself unnecessarily?"
"Insurance," he said slowly.
"Insurance?"
"I was safe from the time I left the yacht in Valencia. You understand?"
I nodded.
"Okay. The heat was on the yacht till the minute the hit was made by The Mosquito. Right again?"
I considered. "All right. Let's assume that. You were supposed to be at Sol y Nieve at that point."
"That's what I
told
Tina."
"I guessed as much. I mean, why did it help to come to Malaga? That was my question."
"I wanted to find out more about you." He shrugged. "I mean, my life is wrapped up in a pretty little package. I'm going to the States. And you and that girl you've got there are my keepers. Right?"
"Right."
"So I wanted to see how you shape up.
There was a long silence. I stared at him coldly. He was watching me just as coldly.
"Where did you pick me up?" I asked.
He sighed. "All right. Look. You were on the prowl. I knew you were going to try to locate Moscato. Right?"
"I suppose so."
"I just waited around until I found you."
"Had you identified me before?"
"Oh, sure. I watched where Tina went."
"And then you followed Juana and me that night?"
"Sure, sure."
"To the villa."
"Right. By the time you hit that prostitute — the one that did the threesome with Moscato and the other broad — I knew we were in business. I just followed you."
"But why did you break in through that back way when I had Moscato dead to rights?"
His eyes held mine. "We all make mistakes, don't we?"
I shrugged. "Okay. But why the cover story, then?"
"The Barry Parson jazz? I just dusted that one off the shelf," he said, lapsing into Barry Parson's British accent. "And it seemed the thing to do at the moment. What am I going to do, come on strong and say, 'Well here I am, good old Rico Corelli! Now that doesn't make much sense, does it?"
I laughed. "I still don't like all this doubling up and tripling up. You could have made the contact right then and there with Juana. You slept with her there, and once again here. Why didn't you just give her the information, and have her check it out?"
He nipped the cigarette a moment and looked out through the windshield. The snow was falling, but more lightly now. I looked up and saw the reflection of our two faces peering out at the gloomy night.
His eyes were watching me.
"I never trust a bedroom," he said with a frown. "I mean, not even my own. That place I rented in Torremolinos. How do I know Moscato hadn't taped me even before I followed you to his place? After all, he thought he had killed me on the yacht. But maybe that was a trick. Right? Maybe it wasn't Moscato there, maybe Moscato had me figured all the time and was waiting for me. How could I know?"
I sat there.
"And this hotel. I don't trust anything. Not a thing. I think there are bugs in every room. I had to go through with the future meeting, because it was part of the initial plan. I do not like to deviate from initial plans, because it leaves too much to chance. Because we already knew each other, I simply played it cool and went right on from there. I'm sorry if it offended your sense of order."
It made sense.
"Now what?" I asked.
"We set up the meeting between the girl and me," said Parson, all business-like again. "To deliver the microfilm."
"Where?"
"Well, you know what I think about the hotel. That lets out any room there. And I don't like to mingle with the people at the Prado Llano. Look, what about the ski run?"
I considered. "It's plenty deserted there, all right — at times. No bugs in the snow, either." I laughed, wondering how true that was.
"The hell with the snow. You can shoot a person a mile away with a telescopic lens." He shivered. "I don't like that at all."
"But if no one knows you're Corelli…"
"Who says? Also, there's another bad point. If Moscato is still around — and I'm sure he is after Arturo bought it — he's going to be keeping his eyes on you and on your broad, right?"
"On Juana?"
"Of course! So, I've got to see her somewhere that's conspicuous, and protected at the same time."
I shrugged. "That's not an easy bill to fill."
"No? What about one of those cable cars? When you're in one of them you're isolated, alone, and safe!"
I thought about it. "A gondola? I see what you mean. Get on it with her and travel up together. While you're there, locked in the cable car, you can make the delivery in a controlled environment, and nobody will be the wiser. Is everything on film?"
"Right."
I sat there thinking. "But someone could still take a pot shot at you from the slope."
"That's where you come in, old man," Parson said, lapsing back into British U. "You get on your skis and stand at the Borreguilas station and cover us as we come up."
I thought about it. I liked it. The more I thought about it, the better I liked it.
"I'll buy it," I said.
"What time?"
I said, "Ten a.m. tomorrow?"
"Right," said Parson. "I'll stay away from Juana. I don't want any complications when we're so near to closing the deal."
"Good luck," I said.
He stood in the snow, tightening up his wind-breaker. I could feel the cold whipping in through the open door, even though the snow had let up almost completely.
"You start," Parson said. "I'll follow you down."
I nodded.
He slammed the door on me and hurried around the monument where he vanished from sight.
* * *
The Renault started up without any trouble. I let ft warm up for a few moments, then waited until I saw the Simca appear around the corner of the monument, its headlights slanting down toward the makeshift roadway. Then I drove off, crawling along the short access road to the highway. I waved to Parson in the rearview mirror.
I saw the Simca following me, its headlights shimmering in the falling snow.
The twists and turns were quite sharp, requiring constant braking and downshifting. I was beginning to enjoy the challenge of the roadway when I felt the first sogginess in the brake system.
I was coming down through a valley of black mica upthrust where the road had been blasted in a V groove. At the end of it I could see the pavement make a quick sharp right turn.
In the middle of the straightaway I started to brake and felt slippage. I thought I had inadvertently come across a frozen spot in the road, and tried again. But it was not a frozen spot at all.
Once again I applied the brake to get some traction for a downshift, but the brake did not seem to transmit any power to the wheels.
I pushed frantically on the shift stick but I was traveling too fast now to engage, and I could not get down into the lower gear.
I had the brakes down to the floorboard as I went into the graded curve, but it was much too fast a speed. Luckily the curve was very well graded. I made the turn. But immediately I was faced with a quick S-turn to the left, in the opposite direction, and I pushed on the brakes again, hoping that the roadway would give me traction here. But I could feel nothing but soggy ineffectiveness.
Nothing.
I thrust the wheel over hard and made the turn. The roadway straightened, but pitched downward as the highway went into a long flat traverse across the face of a high cliff-like slope. At the end of the traverse I could see a hard-angled switchback with a large highway sign of warning ahead of it.
I pushed down the brakes again, but got no response at all. I shoved on the gear stick, but could not get it down a notch. I began to twist the wheel back and forth, trying to get a snow-plowing type of friction to reduce the speed of the Renault so I could get the damned thing down into a lower gear.
No luck.
I saw Parson's lights behind me, and I wondered if he was watching me in the S and puzzling over my unaccountably bad driving.
I flashed the lights two times as a kind of signal for help.
The curve came closer and closer, and I was doing absolutely no good at controlling the Renault's speed. I thought of going across the inner drainage ditch, but decided that the chance of smashing the axles and tearing the wheels off was too great to risk. Besides that, I might wind up smashed flat against the schist cutbank that rose from the ditch with the steering wheel growing out of my back.
The tires screaming, I thrust the wheel around to the left to take the turn too fast. I smashed into the rising cutbank on my right. The Renault caromed off the cutbank and went directly toward the outer rim of the road, which had about a foot of rock piled below a white-painted wooden guard rail that continued for twenty feet or so.
I slammed sideways into the guard rail, tore off something from the side of the Renault, and then caromed back toward the cutbank. But I pulled hard and straightened out the car again.
Ahead of me the roadway continued to descend rapidly. A hundred yards away I could see the roadway turning sharp right, with another wooden guard rail protecting the turn, and a very large sign in front of the turn.
I could never make that turn.
I heard the thunder of an engine next to my ear and I turned quickly.
It was Parson.
He was gunning the Simca past me, and shooting down the roadway ahead.
I wondered what in hell he was trying to do. I thought of yelling out to him, but did not.
He cut in front of me and I almost screamed at him to get out of my way or be hit.
I was pushing on the stick shift again, trying frantically to get down a notch, but it was useless.
Parson was directly in front of me. I almost closed my eyes, waiting for the crash.