“About goddamn time!” Reardon muttered savagely under his breath, and dropped to the pitching deck of the small fishing boat, feeling it heel under his weight.
Dondero was watching him with a smile. “I heard you give the password. Advance, friend. Hey, you got the stuff!” His smile faded. “It isn’t wrapped. It’ll be all wet.”
“Yeah.” Reardon climbed down the narrow companionway after Dondero, happy to be out of the rain, but still not overjoyed to be involved in the idiotic scheme at all. He tossed the damp bundle onto one of the two bunks that lined the outer bulkheads of the small cabin, walked over to the head and helped himself to a towel, vigorously wiping his head with it. “You’ll probably be wetter after tonight if you go through with this ridiculous idea,” he said darkly. “Probably a lot wetter,” he added ominously, “when we fish you out of the bay.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel good,” Dondero said. He was unfolding the bundle. “You’re just mad because you didn’t think of the idea yourself.” He shook out a wrinkled dirty white shirt that had been at the bundle’s core and slipped it on over his undershirt, buttoning it up to the collar. He considered himself in the mirror. “I’ve got a picture of my great-grandfather taken somewhere in the Abruzzi when he was a young man, and he wasn’t wearing a tie, either. Now I know where I get my good looks.”
He kicked off his sneakers, slipped out of his dungarees, and pulled on the trousers of his black silk suit. He started to bring up the zipper and suddenly cringed.
Reardon looked at the other’s grimace unsympathetically. “What’s the matter? Catch yourself?”
“No, they’re wet! Why the hell didn’t you at least leave the pants on the inside?” He pulled on the jacket and studied himself in the mirror. He turned to Reardon for approbation. “How do I look?”
“Like your great-grandfather. All ready to be laid out.” Reardon bent to a small cabinet beneath the cabin’s desk, brought out a bottle of brandy, and lifted a glass from one of the gimbal-type holders there. He straightened up, poured himself a generous drink, and took it down in one gulp. He gasped and stared at the bottle. “Good God! Where did you get this stuff? What is it? Fermented bay water?”
“You have no taste,” Dondero said with the air of a connoisseur. He bent down, brought up another glass, and reached for the bottle, but Reardon took the glass from his hand, setting it down on the desk.
“Are you intent on committing suicide? He’d smell the liquor on your breath. We don’t give prisoners brandy before releasing them, and we don’t stop at bars with them on the way to trading them for sergeants. It isn’t regulations.” He looked at the bottle and wrinkled his nose. “Anyway, we don’t give prisoners this kind of brandy, or they’d have us up on cruelty charges.”
“If you hate it so much, quit polishing it off,” Dondero said. He dropped down on one of the bunks and slid into his shoes, reaching down to tie them. He straightened up and looked at his watch. “How much time before we have to leave?”
“About five minutes,” Reardon said. “And give me that watch. We also don’t furnish prisoners with timepieces before trading them for sergeants; anyway, not Timex watches, made in America.”
“I forgot. Anyway, they probably sell Timex in Italy, too, or Patrone could have bought it here. If I really wanted to take the part of an Italian visitor, I ought to be wearing about six of them.” But he still took off the watch and handed it to Reardon, and then stared down at his hands. Then he stood up and studied himself in the mirror again. “Not bad. I hope.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Incidentally, how did you get the stuff out of the apartment?”
“Johnny Merchant was watching the place. I told him I was going to shake the joint down. Since we had no instructions to break in, and since we had no warrant — and since Johnny is a smart cop — he went around the corner for a beer while I went through the closets.” Reardon shrugged. “The stuff was in my car, stuffed down behind the seat, when he came back.”
Dondero’s preoccupation momentarily took a back seat to his admiration.
“You know,” he said, “you’d make a great criminal, James. Remind me not to leave any valuables around the apartment from now on.” He started to look at his wristwatch and then remembered he didn’t have it. “Hey, let’s get going, huh?”
“If you insist,” Reardon said, and poured himself one for the road. Dondero was getting a bit up-tight sitting around, and if he was going through with his idiotic scheme, at least he shouldn’t be allowed to get overly worked up ahead of time. Reardon slugged the drink down, grimaced again at the taste, and went to the companionway ladder. “Up we go.”
Dondero grunted and followed. He paused long enough to lock the hatchway cover and then made his way behind Reardon down the length of the convoluted dock to the jetty. Reardon splashed through the puddles to the Charger, ducked inside hastily, and leaned over to unlock the opposite door. Dondero clambered inside, slammed the door shut behind him, and wiped water from his face.
“And I’m going to stand out on an open bridge in this weather waiting for somebody to pick me up?”
“As you’ve been so fond of saying — this was your bright idea.”
“Yeah. I got to be crazy, huh? What a night!” He tried to peer through the window and gave up. “Man, I don’t care if this guy’s picking me up in a boat, or a car, or a helicopter — I hope whatever it is has a roof, is all.”
Reardon looked at him. “You can still change your mind.”
“Change it for what?”
Reardon studied the set face a moment and then started the engine. Dondero’s mind was made up, and it was apparent in the hard jaw and narrowed eyes. Reardon sighed and put up the headlights; he started the windshield wipers and defroster, and started to drive down the muddy lane toward the main road. He bumped over the curb into the highway, checked in both directions for traffic, and started the long drive toward the city, leaning back and trying to wriggle into a more comfortable position in his wet clothes.
“Incidentally, I saw Patrone this evening,” he said conversationally.
“Oh?” Dondero was looking at him expectantly.
“He’s a little bigger than Lazaretti, but not all that much. A little smaller than you.”
“And needs a shave like me, I hope,” Dondero said with a grin, and rubbed a hand over his own stubble.
“And needs a shave like you do, and like Lazaretti did,” Reardon said. His eyes were steady on the deserted, rainy road; his hands steady on the wheel. “And you were right. He speaks English.”
“I’m always right—”
“Except when you get bright ideas. Anyway, my guess is when he was pretending not to speak English, it was probably just to be hard-nosed with Zelinski.” He smiled. “Which almost puts me on his side.”
“Me, too.”
“He tried to pull the same routine on me, only before I even saw him I took the trouble to call Rome and talk to some police captain there. He checked for me, and Patrone’s got a sheet. Nothing major; nothing to stop him from getting and holding a passport. Small-time stuff. He used to make his living escorting visiting Americans around Rome — which is difficult if you don’t speak English — and every now and then, according to the cops there, servicing some of the lonely American ladies—”