Part 11 (1/2)
The guy was still out of it, marginally conscious babbling something in the old tongue.
Booze, Bolan knew, often talked-but never in its own words. It merely released those which were ordinarily repressed by a more prudent consciousness.
He patted the Kid's face with a cold towel an growled, ”Talk American, dammit.”
”Agrigento . . . told 'em . . . h.e.l.l . . . the best see . . . h.e.l.l's coming and we got to. Don Cafu, luck that guy . . . I told 'em, I told 'em.. . .” ”Gradigghia,” Bolan prompted.
”d.a.m.n right, I told 'em. All or nothing. But .. s.h.i.+t!”
”What'd you say about Agrigento?” It was a Sicilian province, one of the early homes of the Mafia.
”Don Cafu says a thousand a day. Can you beat that? A day?” The guy sn.i.g.g.e.red, choked, retched -Bolan yanked his head to the side of the bed and he vomited some more, onto the floor.
The interrogation went on, Bolan patiently probing through alcohol-wreathed mutterings and mumblings and retchings. It ended ten minutes later with the guy bawling his heart out and promising over and over to do better next time.
Bolan quietly a.s.sured him that he would, and left him with his heartbreak.
He rapped lightly on the door to Philippa's room and went in.
She was sitting up in bed, pillows plumped behind her, gazing broodingly at a small, personal- sized bedside television.
She looked up briefly at his entrance, then returned her visual attention to the TV. ”Privacy,” she said in a low, unemotional tone. ”That's what I like about this house, the total privacy.”
”Put some locks on the doors,” Bolan suggested. ”Put in a word to Papa on that, will you?” she replied acidly.
She was not looking at him, not yet.
Bolan moved a chair to the bed, lowered himself into it, relaxed, lit a cigarette. He knew immediately that he'd done the wrong thing. It was the first relaxed moment he'd had all day, and it all came out-all the stress, all the vital systems too highly peaked for too d.a.m.n long, all the small physical damages overlooked and awaiting their proper share of attention.
He was bushed.
His stomach growled and clutched at its neglect.
Overused and abused arms and legs ached. A dull throb was finding room to play at the back of his neck and along the base of the skull. Hot little twinges told of raw places in the flesh of his chest and shoulders.
In that moment of self-awareness, he also found a new awareness of the girl. She didn't look her thirty-two years, except where her mad showed through. She was wearing a frilly pink bed jacket with silk roses closing the front of it .. . and she looked great. Bolan was reminded once again that Italian women are among the world's most beautiful.
She switched off the television with a jerk and turned to the unbidden visitor with a sigh. ”Did you come in here just to stare holes through me?” she asked him.
He replied, ”No. I came in to relax a moment with the pretty lady who plays a h.e.l.l of a mean piano.”
She looked fl.u.s.tered, then smiled and told him, ”You look tired.”
”I am tired.”
”Want a drink?”
He shook his head. ”That would lay me out for sure. Okay if I call you Phil?”
She said, ”Hear, hear. The man is asking, not telling.”
”I played one of your records without asking, too. Sounded great. I'll bet you could make a living out of that.”
She said, ”There's another word to put in on Papa.”
He told her, ”No need to. Phil, you need to leave this house.”
”I needed to leave this house ten years ago,” she replied in a flat voice. ”Make that twenty.”
”Shut up, I'm serious.”
She blinked oversized eyes at him several times, then told him, ”We really are in trouble, then.” ”You know it.”
”What's going on? Who are you? Where is-?”
He cut in with, ”h.e.l.l is going on. Who I am isn't important. What I want is. I want you out of here. Tonight.”
Her eyes inspected the blank television screen for a moment before she replied, ”It's not much, but it's home. The only home I have. I'm not leaving it.”
”Grow up,” he said tiredly. ”And get out.”
They were his parting words. He left her with perplexity and silent curiosity surging across that pretty face. He went out of there.
The house captain nodded to him from the little alcove which led to the Don's bedroom. Bolan went down there and asked the guy, ”What time is it?”
”It's eight, uh, seventeen.”
”At ten seventeen you make sure I'm on my feet and wide awake,” Bolan commanded.
”Yes sir. Where will you be?”
”Where will an empty bed be?”
The captain smiled and pointed to a door halfway along the hall. ”There's one in there.”
”Then, that's where I'll be,” Bolan told him, and went there.
The spare bedroom smelled musty and long unused. A small bath adjoined. The furnis.h.i.+ngs were simple but adequate-clean. Bolan opened the lone window and brought fresh air inside, then leaned out to orient himself. It was a back room, but angled to the regular lines of the house. The carport was directly below at ninety degrees. He could see the north and west walls from the window, now and then a moving shadow as yardmen patrolled.
What, he wondered, the h.e.l.l was he doing here?
He was, he answered himself with a tired sigh, preparing to take a shower and lie down for a nap in the enemy's camp.
Standing in, he darkly reflected, for a lump of clay that was slowly turning to dust in the trunk of that car down there.
And standing out, like a clay pigeon, for the first thing that came in off the numbers.