Lime allowed no reaction to show; he puffed on his cigarette. After a moment he slammed the rim of his shoe into Mezetti’s shin.
Mezetti doubled up holding his leg against his chest and Lime stiff-armed him in the face. It tipped Mezetti backward, the chair went over and Mezetti rolled on the floor.
The agents picked up Mezetti and the chair and positioned him where he had been before. Mezetti was about to snarl when Lime took the needlenose pliers out of his pocket and used them on the top of Mezetti’s right ear. Squeezed. Pulled upward, and Mezetti strained to come along but the agents held him down on the chair.
Lime let the ear go and prodded the points of the pliers up into the hollow under Mezetti’s chin. Mezetti’s head strained back like a dental patient’s.
Chad Hill was watching it all with alarm and disapproval.
Lime kept digging with the pliers until Mezetti began to bleed small droplets under the jaw. When Lime withdrew the pliers Mezetti felt his chin and saw the blood on his fingers. The last of the bravado drained out of him as if a plug had been pulled.
“All right. Which one was supposed to meet you here? Sturka? Alvin Corby? Cesar Renaldo?”
Mezetti licked his lips.
Lime said, “Put it this way. You can tell me or you can try to hold out. You’ll get pretty bloody and the pain will be a lot more than you can stand, but you can try. But even if you don’t tell me anything I’ll let them understand that you did tell me. On the other hand if you’re realistic we’ll keep your name out of it until we’ve nailed them all.”
Abruptly he japped the pliers into the back of Mezetti’s hand. Blood started to flow freely; Mezetti clutched his hand.
Lime turned to Chad Hill. “It might be a good idea to let word out that he’s cooperating anyway. It may force Sturka to move.”
It was strictly for Mezetti’s benefit; Lime was certain Mezetti didn’t know where Sturka was. Of course Sturka knew that too; a news release wouldn’t force Sturka’s hand.
“I don’t know where they are. That’s the truth.” Mezetti’s voice was a defeated monotone. He was looking at the desk, keeping his eyes down.
Lime said, “I want you to be very, very careful of your answer to this question. How many of them are there?”
It was a calculated way of putting it. It didn’t sound like a fishing expedition; it sounded as if he already knew the right answer. He drummed the pliers against the desk.
It came out slow, reluctantly. “Four of them. The ones you named and Peggy Astin.”
“It’s a bad idea lying to me,” Lime said. He lifted the plier points against the pit of Mezetti’s chest and began to twist and grind.
“That’s the truth for God’s sake.”
Lime kept grinding.
“Look if you—Christ get that fucking thing off me!” Mezetti was trying to squirm away from the pliers but the two agents held him pinned in the chair. He began to reek with the sweat of fear.
Abruptly Lime withdrew the pliers. “Now.”
“If you know so much you know I’m telling the truth. Shit.”
“But there’s outside help isn’t there?”
“Well Sturka knows people all over the place. He’s got contacts you know.”
“Name them.”
“I don’t——”
“Raoul Riva,” Lime said, and watched.
It puzzled Mario. Lime dropped it. “When you left that boat on the shoals you killed the skipper. Then what did you do?”
He made it sound like another test. Mezetti said, “It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill him.”
“You’re as guilty as the rest, you know that.”
“For God’s sake I didn’t kill anybody.”
“You threatened to kill the pilot who flew you up here from Gibraltar.”
“That was just to get him to cooperate. I didn’t kill him, did I?”
“What did you do after you killed the boat owner?”
Lime was toying with the pliers and Mezetti slumped in the chair. “We had another boat waiting.”
“You still had Fairlie in the coffin?”
Mezetti’s eyes grew round. He swallowed visibly. “Off and on. We didn’t keep him in it when we were out at sea.”
“Where did you go from there?”
“Down the coast.”
“To Almería.”
“Well that was the other boat,” Mezetti said. “I mean we did a couple of hundred miles in a truck about half way down the coast. We didn’t have time to do the whole thing in boats—it was too far.”
“All right, you used a truck. Who set it up?”
“Sturka did.”
“No. Sturka arranged for it but Sturka wasn’t the one who put the truck there for you. Who delivered it?”
“I never saw the guy.”
“It was Riva wasn’t it?”
“I never heard of any Riva.”
“Hold him,” Lime said. He stood up and posted himself beside Mezetti and gently pushed the points of the pliers into Mezetti’s earhole. When he felt it strike the eardrum he put slow pressure on it; he held Mezetti’s head against the pressure with his left hand. “Now who was it Mario?”
Mezetti started to cry.
Lime reduced the pressure but kept the pliers in Mezetti’s ear and after a little while Mezetti hawked and snorted and spoke. “Look I never even met the guy.”
“But you’ve seen him.”
“… Yeah.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sturka called him Binyoosef a couple of times.”
Chad Hill said, “Binyoosef?”
“Benyoussef,” Lime said absently, scowling on it. He withdrew the pliers. “A fat man with a bit of a limp.”
“Yeah,” Mezetti said dismally. “That’s him.”
Lime sat down facing him across the desk. “Let’s go back to that garage at Palamos where you made the tape recordings.”
“Jesus. You don’t miss much.”
“Now you were packing things up. You had Fairlie in the coffin. The coffin went in the hearse. Corby drove the hearse. The rest of you cleaned up the place—wiped it for fingerprints, gathered up everything you’d brought with you. Now everybody gets into the hearse.
“But somebody had to switch off the light and close the garage door. You did that.”
“Yeah. Christ did you have the whole thing on television?”
“Sturka told you to go over and switch off the light.”
“Yeah.”
“Then you walked out and pulled the garage door shut. You wiped your fingerprints off the door and got in the hearse.”
“Yeah yeah.” Mezetti was nodding.
“Sturka watched you switch off the light didn’t he.”
Mezetti frowned. “I guess he did, yeah.”
“Then maybe when you came to close the garage door he handed you a rag to wipe it with.”
“Yeah. Jesus Christ.”
Lime sat back brooding. It was what he’d had to know.
After a moment he changed the subject. “You went ashore at Almería. Did everybody go ashore?”
“Just me. I rowed in on the raft.”
“The rest of them stayed on the boat? What was the plan?”
Mezetti was looking at the pliers. “Jesus Christ. You’re going to kill me anyway, aren’t you?”
“We’re going to take you back to Washington. You’ll get killed but not by me.”
“Pig justice. A fascist gas chamber.”
“A gas chamber has no politics,” Lime said mildly. “Your friend Sturka gassed a whole village once.”
The mistake he’d made was stopping to think. It had given Mezetti time to reflect on the hopelessness of his position. It was going to be harder to get more out of him now; the pliers would open his mouth but he’d start trying lies. An extended interrogation would fix that; put pressure on and keep it up until they got the same answer every time.
But Lime didn’t have that sort of time. He stood up and handed the pliers to one of the agents. “Take him down to Lahti.”
It was about nine o’clock. Chad Hill trailed him into the police office. Lime’s coat was heavy and steamy with moisture; he got it off and threw it across the chair.