The Spanish Connection (5 page)

"All right. He suspected someone was trying to kill him. Because of his arrangement with us?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"If he knew someone was out to hit him, why did he walk right into a trap?"

"He did
not,"
said Tina. "He did not walk into a trap. That is the point."

I turned and stared at Juana. A bizarre thought was taking form in my mind. I gripped Tina's hand hard.

"Go on," I urged her.

"It was not Rico on the yacht," said Tina finally, her eyes rolling at me pleadingly.

So! No wonder it had all been so quick!

"No?"

"No. The man you talked to was not Rico Corelli. He was a man Rico knew for years. His name was Basillio di Vanessi. A Sicilian."

"What about Rico? Was he on the yacht?"

"No. Rico is at Sierra Nevada. As soon as the meeting on the yacht ended, we were to notify him — and then you and he would meet at the ski resort. This preliminary rendezvous was a test. In the test Rico used a gernini."

"A gernini?"

"Yes. A — how is it? — a twin!"

"A double," said Juana.

"Yes! You know, to see if anyone was trying to kill Rico. You see?"

"Or to kill me," I mused.

"That is right."

"Then it's Vanessi who's dead, and not Corelli?"

She said, "Yes. That is the truth."

Juana pushed me aside and stood by the bed. "You're lying," she snapped. "I can tell."

Tina half sat up in bed, her eyes wild. "Why do you talk to me like that?"

"You're not telling the truth! Corelli
is
dead! And you're trying to set us up with a phony!"

"It is not true! I swear it!" Tina's face was covered with perspiration.

"I don't believe it!" Juana was bearing down hard.

"Rico is in the Sierra Nevada now. We let him off the yacht at Valencia. I can prove itl"

"How?"

"I… I…" Tina broke down. She began sniffling.

"How?" cried Juana, reaching down and shaking her hard.

Tina winced and groaned in pain. Her tears flowed. "It's the truth!" she sobbed. "Corelli is alive!" She was weeping openly now. "In Valencia there are records of his departure from the yacht!"

Juana straightened, her eyes narrowed but satisfied. "We can check that out."

I pushed Juana gently aside, giving her a significant and understanding glance. Juana had guts, and I liked that. Now we knew that Corelli was alive.

"Where is he?" I asked Tina.

"I told you. At Sierra Nevada." Her eyes rolled in terror.

"But…"

"He will tell
me
where he will meet you."

"He is incognito at the resort?"

Tina nodded desperately. "Yes, yes! Oh, Mr. Peabody, I am so sorry everything went wrong."

"You should be!" I snapped.

"You will go up there to meet him?"

"No way!"

"No?" Her face fell apart.

"No!" I was emphatic.

"Why… why not?" She burst into tears once again. "He will… he will… kill me!"

"Yes," I said quietly. "I believe he will."

It is not easy to project thought waves from your brain to someone else's. I have tried it for years, with total lack of success. Yet at this moment I knew I
had
to communicate with Juana Rivera by brain wave only — real ESP stuff.

I directed my gaze at her face, and thought very hard. I thought:
Come to her rescue, Juana. You're the good guy; I'm the heavy.

Juana stared back at me, coloring as if she were embarrassed to be scrutinized so thoroughly by a man.

I knew my original thought had not penetrated. Probably my errant thought had, however.

The hell with it,
I thought finally. I have a feeling she caught that one.

I turned to Tina and snapped: "No way!" I said again. "It's all over. You've lied to us for the last time. No meeting."

Juana's eyes narrowed, and I could almost follow her thought processes as she traversed the convolutions of play and counterplay.

"Wait a minute," she said quickly. "We can't just leave Spain without seeing Mr. Corelli!"

Tina stopped sobbing and turned to look at me hopefully.

I stared at Juana as if she were some kind of garden worm on a fresh salad. "Oh, yes we can!" I said angrily. "They've lied to us, and that's the end of it."

"But what about the information Corelli is supposed to give us?"

"We don t need it."

"You don't need it," Juana pleaded, "but
I
do! I'
m
the one who was sent here to get it. You're only a bodyguard!"

I glanced at Tina to see how she was taking our little dramatic improvisation. She had turned into a spectator at a fast tennis match.

"I'll contact AXE," I growled, doing a kind of late-vintage Bogart. "The mission is scrubbed!"

"Let
me
talk to them!" Juana said, becoming agitated now. "I've a great deal at stake in this!"

"We shouldn't be talking in front of
her,"
I said grudgingly, waving at Tina.

"I don't care who hears! This is
my
assignment!"

I considered, pretending to weigh the consequences. Finally I said, "Are you really willing to go on and meet Corelli?"

Juana nodded. "Of course! Just because
you
fouled up the first encounter…"

"And you?" I interrupted, turning to Tina. "What guarantee can you give us that well be meeting the real Corelli at Sierra Nevada?"

"I've already told you! You'll know when you get the correct information."

I shrugged.

Juana burst in, "We've got to meet Corelli," she said. "It's terribly important to me!"

"Good girl," I thought. Keeping my face impassive I leaned down over Tina. "We'll give it one more try."

She closed her eyes in relief and smiled.

"You'll have to cooperate closely with us, Tina," I told her. "There's no reason to assume that the killer will go home now. He'll want to kill you, too."

Juana frowned. "Why? If he was paid to kill Rico Corelli, he's worked out his contract."

"But he's bound to find out about his mistake. The Mafia knows Corelli isn't dead — or will very soon. Then the hit man will be after Tina — to lead him to Corelli!"

Tina sniffled.

"We'll put a guard on this room," I announced. "I'll tell Mitch Kelly."

"But a trained killer can get in anywhere. How will the guard know who to watch out for?" Juana asked.

I frowned. "We have no idea who the killer is. He'll just have to keep
everybody
out."

"But we do know," said Tina suddenly, sitting up and wincing with pain at the sudden movement.

Juana and I turned to her with our mouths open. "Do know what?"

"Who the killer is. He's a man called The Mosquito. It must be. He's a professional murderer. His real name is Alfreddo Moscato."

"How do you know?"

"Because a hired killer tried to penetrate Rico's villa in Corsica six months ago. There were a lot of traps and devices along the walls, so he could not get in. But when he tried, he tripped wires that took infrared pictures. Rico had the pictures developed and he found out it was Moscato."

"Does Rico Corelli
know
Moscato?"

"No. They never saw each other. One of Rico's people recognized Moscato."

"Then you re saying that Moscato does not know Corelli by sight, and he thinks he
has
killed him."

Tina nodded. "I didn't think of that, but, yes, I'd say so."

"What else do you know about Moscato? Anything that might help us identify him?"

Tina's face turned pink. "He likes girls a lot," she admitted.

"Anything more than that?"

"He likes them in pairs," Tina blurted out, embarrassed.

"In pairs?" I asked with amusement.

"It isn't funny!" snapped Juana.

I turned back to Tina. "He has a habit of triple-decker sex?"

"Yes," said Tina. "It's a thing with him. He does it every time before he goes out on a job. It loosens him up."

"Maybe we can use that knowledge to find him before he finds us."

"Finds us?" Juana repeated blankly.

"He's certainly going to try to pick up the trail to Corelli again. Because he doesn't know him on sight." I stared at the shuttered window. "And the easiest way for him to pick up Corelli is to watch us."

Juana's eyes lit up. "Then we make ourselves obvious in Malaga, and he comes after us."

"No. We go find him first." But there was something else I had to straighten out. "Tina, how am I going to contact the
real
Corelli?"

She turned away. "You'll have to wait until he calls me."

"But how will he know where you are — I mean, hidden away in this special clinic?"

She shrugged. "He will. I can guarantee it"

"I don't want to go up to the ski resort and sit there waiting for him," I said.

"The doctor says I'll be all right in a few days."

I nodded. "Then we'll wait. Meanwhile, we'll try to swat The Mosquito. I'd like to see him out of circulation while we're working this meet."

I briefed Mitch Kelly quickly, and he was on the phone in a minute conning the Malaga Commandant into assigning a member of the Guardia Civil to watch over Tina Bergson. On the drive to the hotel I filled Kelly in on the direction the operation had taken.

He said he hadn't heard that The Mosquito was in Malaga, but of course he had put out no feelers in that area. He seemed to think I was criticizing him. I assured him I wasn't.

"The underworld," he said. "Why don't you take a look?"

"What underworld?"

"The Malaga stews," he said. "That's where they'd know about The Mosquito. Hell, you and Juana look perfectly legit. You could be a couple of swinging expatriots trying to hire a bodyguard. I've got a contract who knows the stews inside out. His name is Diego Pérez. Look, I'll send him to you this evening. He'll squire you around."

I glanced at Juana, all prim and uptight about my male chauvinism.

"Okay. Let's take a shot at it."

We finished the ride in silence.

As soon as we got back to the hotel I heard my phone ringing.

It was Kelly.

"One. I've set up the deal with Diego."

"Good."

"He's five feet seven, smooth-looking, tiny mustache, and very intelligent. Don't let tie fancy exterior fool you."

"Right"

"Two. I just decoded a signal from Interpol."

"Interpol?"

"I sent them a description of the dead man, along with prints. It's not Corelli. It's Vanessi all right"

I nodded. "Then Tina is telling the truth."

"Yes. Good luck tonight, Nick."

Diego Pérez turned out to be exactly what Mitch Kelly had described — a smooth-looking escort type who wore flashy but right clothes and kept up a steady stream of inconsequential conversation to amuse the ladies, in this case, Juana Rivera.

"I am Diego Pérez," he told me when I let him in.

"How do you do?" I said. "This is my wife Juana."

"A lovely lady," he said bowing. I sneaked a glance at Juana. She was trying to keep her face stiff, but I could see temper flaring inside. She suspected I might be laughing at her.

"Mr. Kelly has told me the object of our evening," Diego said briefly, giving me a significant glance.

"Where do we start?" I asked.

He named a place, and we called a cab and got in. Diego sat with Juana, beaming and making small talk in Spanish and then in English. I stared out the window.

In Malaga you would not really know where the stews began and the clubs ended. We started at a restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean just beside the harbor in a section of the town called La Malagueta. The sun sank over the surface of the Mediterranean, and we ate our sea food and drank our wine and cognac. The waiters lit the candles set up in colored glasses and night settled down.

"I have an idea, Diego," I said.

"An idea?" Diego began to smile. He liked intrigue.

"I am a wealthy American tourist. You can tell by the way I throw my money around. I am out with my wife. But I am bored with my wife. I want not just a simple peasant girl to take to bed. I want two!"

Diego was ecstatic. "But how do you account for the presence of your wife, Señor?"

"She is with you, Diego."

His face broke into a beaming smile. "Ah!"

"And when we find two girls who work in pairs, we find out whether or not they have been asked to perform within the last few days — especially last night."

"I see!" Diego's face was a study in fascination, "Then we go."

"Right. Let's see what develops."

We began hitting the discothèques in Malaga. The European discothèque is essentially a dark place with a low ceiling, and very few windows. Small tables are placed around a platform in the middle. There are various types of decorations hanging from the ceilings — dried moss, belts, ropes, garters, g-strings, bras, whips, almost anything imaginable.

There is always music piped in loudly from a stereo tape set-up somewhere. The speakers blast noise in all directions, from hidden recesses. Strobe lights flash multicolored illumination in all directions. Color slides of nudes and couples in various positions of sexual intercourse are projected on the walls. The noise is fantastic.

Then all the strobe lights cut out, and a group of guitar players stroll onto the stage. A flamenco dancer — male or female — appears.

We hit half a dozen places before midnight, with negative results.

"Well?" I asked Diego after awhile.