“Go on.”
“Look, Simon, I’m only part of the front. All the big shots try to look like legitimate businessmen, and part of the act is having a pretty secretary who doesn’t look as if she came out of a reform school typing course. Aiello has his finger in quite a few legitimate businesses, enough to keep me busy with correspondence and phone calls and filing. I know it’s all a front and he knows I know it, but it’s the kind of thing you never say out loud. I don’t get to see the books and I’ve never even been in the same room when he had the safe open. The safe isn’t in the office, you know — it’s in the library. But I’ve absorbed enough loose talk to know they keep dynamite in that safe. Aiello isn’t the only one who uses it. Vincent Madonna has things in it. So does Pete DeAngelo and any number of others. It’s like a central clearing station for all of them — it’s an old vault they bought from a California bank that went out of business.”
“How old?”
She blinked. “How should I know?”
“It’s not a silly question. If it’s old enough, it’s easy to crack — and they wouldn’t keep top-secret dynamite in a cracker box.”
“Of course they would,” she snapped. “My God, Simon, sometimes Aiello keeps a hundred thousand dollars in cash lying around the office in unlocked drawers. Nobody has the nerve to rob the Mafia.”
“Apparently,” I remarked, “somebody did.” It occurred to me this was the first time I’d ever heard her use the word Mafia. I said, “Who else knows about this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they haven’t discovered it yet. What time is it?”
“Nine-thirty.”
“He didn’t have any appointments for today. But Madonna and DeAngelo drop around when they feel like it. So do a lot of other people; it’s like a clubhouse up there. I know I haven’t got much time — God, Simon, when I saw the mess I knew all of it, right in that split second, I knew I was in terrible trouble. I don’t know what to do.”
I watched her for a moment, then headed for the bedroom. “Stay put a minute,” I told her, and went to the phone by the bed. I dialed Nancy Lansford, my neighbor down the road, a two-hundred-pound spinster who lived on a small inheritance and spent the winters taking tourists and school children on nature walks in the desert. She owed me a few favors — her house was full of polished rocks I’d given her. She was a relaxing old windbag, tart and practical as only a fanatically conservationist old maid could be.
She answered breathlessly on the fifth ring; I identified myself.
“Oh, Simon, good morning, isn’t it a beautiful day?” She had a reedy, chirping voice. “I was outside watching a buzzard with my field glasses. Aren’t they remarkable birds? Why, only last week I—”
I cut her off: “Nancy, I need a little help.”
She answered immediately: “Name it.”
I grinned into the phone. “I may have some visitors this morning and I’d like to have a little advance warning if they decide to come. Would you let me know if any cars start up the road toward my place?”
“Of course. But why—”
“I haven’t got time to explain,” I said. “If anybody drives by your house, just dial my number, let the phone ring twice, and hang up. Don’t wait for me to answer, just hang up after two rings. Got it?”
“I’ve got it. I must say you sound very mysterious.”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” I said, thanked her and hung up.
When I looked around, Joanne was standing in the doorway, her eyes wide. She narrowed them and said, “I was eavesdropping.”
I nodded. “If they want to find you, this is one of the first places they’ll think of looking. I’ll feel better with a few minutes’ warning.” Nancy lived three miles away, at the foot of my road.
She said, “I’m glad — because I’m sure they’ll be after me.” She went back into the living room. When I got there she was back on the couch with her coffee, lighting another cigarette. She was addicted to menthol cigarettes and strong coffee.
She said, “You never asked me any questions, but I suppose you must have figured out that they had something on me, to keep me — loyal.”
“Yeah,” I said, without inflection.
“It was in that safe.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t want to tell you. What difference does it make? Papers, tape recordings, pictures, movie films. It was there. Now whoever took it has it, and I’m scared of what they may do with it.”
There wasn’t much for me to say. I waited. Presently she resumed: “Naturally they know I knew it was there. They’ll assume I wanted to get my hands on it so they wouldn’t have a hold over me any longer. And they’ll assume I told you about it, and you and I cracked the safe, to get it, and got rid of Aiello somewhere. They’ll assume that,” she added with a shudder, “because if fantasies came true, it’s exactly what I would have done.”
“You mean you were planning to burgle the safe?”
“Don’t be silly, I wouldn’t know how. But I wanted to — a silly dream, I guess, but it was the only hope I had. I even thought of conning you into helping me do it.” She slanted a smile at me, twisted and nervous. “The irony is, I didn’t do it, but they’ll blame it on me, anyway.”
She made a face, drew her shoulders together, and sat hunched forward with her elbows between her knees. “Simon, I’m scared to death they’ll kill me for something I didn’t do.”
I sat down by her and squeezed her arm. She pulled away, out of my reach. “Don’t — please. Don’t try to comfort me, I didn’t come here for that.”
“What do you want me to do, Joanne?”
She shook her head violently. “God knows. I’m just running blind. I ran to you because I thought you could protect me. Just another stupid dream — what can you do? Nothing. But here I am. Simon, I haven’t healed over — I’m still in love with you, if it has to be said — but I don’t want this madness to be an excuse for us to start things up again. I meant what I said last winter and I want to leave the air clear, not have that hanging between us, because I just don’t have the strength. That empty safe has nothing to do with the way you and I feel about each other, or did feel or will feel. I know we gave each other something we both needed — anyway, something I needed — to feel alive again and persuade myself there was some little bit of hope left somewhere.”
Her voice trailed off; she was tense, expecting an argument. I wanted desperately to give her one. But I had my own injuries. I looked down at her: she sat hunched, brooding, ready to jump, hating the dismal trap she was in. She couldn’t accept it with the bleak resignation of a tough alley broad because that wasn’t her style; she had never belonged in the world they had trapped her in, which was one reason, I supposed, why she was valuable to the mob. She was animated, tidy and alive, slightly vain, often careless with risks, ruthlessly amorous yet amazingly — even after all of it — innocent of malice. She drove too fast and drank too much; she ran a headlong race with life, graceful in spite of the daily bitterness she must have felt, chained to them; and incredibly, all of it had left few marks on her. I hadn’t seen her in months before this morning; she hadn’t changed at all, except for the tight lines around her mouth and eyes that were evidence of the strain of the moment. She was still, as always, girlish, lively, saucy, defiant. Remember me? she had said once — I’m the girl with the cauliflower heart.
I stood up. “All right,” I said. “Neutral corners — I’ll keep my hands to myself. Let’s get this figured out.”