"Mongo the Magnificent!" he cried, rushing forward with one hand outstretched. "Gee, if you only knew how glad I am to meet you! You're like a legend around here!"
He almost made me feel guilty for my thoughts. I shook his hand. It was wet. "We can talk old times later, Danny. Right now I'd like to ask you some questions."
His eyes clouded. "Gee, Mongo, what kind of questions?"
"It looks like somebody's trying to take over my circus," I said.
Lemongello's eyes flickered to the ground, then climbed back up to my face. "You mean 'your circus' because you used to work-?"
"No, Danny," I lied. "I mean my circus because I'm a part owner. Half, to be exact."
"I didn't know that," Danny said after a long pause.
"Is there any reason you should?" I asked evenly.
"Well, Phil and I talked some, especially during the past year, and I guess I'm surprised that he never mentioned that he shared ownership with anybody."
I glanced at Nell. She had retreated to a corner of the trailer and was stroking her beard. I glanced back at Lemongello. "You and Phil talked a lot, Danny?"
"Yeah. We're good friends."
"And you were the one who got the circus an invitation to come here?"
"Yes. I'm proud of the circus. Maybe Nell told you; I come from San Marino, and I guess I wanted to show off for the hometown folks, so to speak. I'd already written a letter to Mr. Vaicona, one of the Regents, and he'd said it was okay. I talked to Phil, and the rest was simple. He went out of his way to get here."
"I keep on hearing about this Vaicona. There are two Regents, aren't there?"
Danny nodded. "Arturo Bonatelli is the other one. He's been on vacation for the past two weeks."
"Did Phil ever mention anything to you about selling the circus?"
Lemongello tapped his foot a few times on the floor. It was the gesture of a nervous man who was trying to appear thoughtful. "He first mentioned it to me about six months ago," Danny said at last. "He said he was getting tired of the grind and had enough money to live out a good retirement. I guess all he was waiting for was a good offer."
"Uh-huh. And he got one here, obviously."
"That's right. There's a Mr. Fordamp who bought the circus."
"So I hear; Phil's half and my half."
"I don't know anything about that."
"What's all this business about sealing the country off because of an epidemic?"
"There's meningitis on the other side of the mountain," Danny said easily. "Nothing too serious, but San Marino's whole economy is based on tourism, so they want to make sure nothing happens to any visitor. I'm sure the quarantine will be lifted in a few days. By the way, how did you get-?"
"One more thing, Danny. Doesn't it seem strange to you that Phil would leave without saying good-bye to the people he'd worked with over the years?"
The boy thrust his hands into his pockets and studied my face. I imagined I could hear him making up his next lie in his head.
"The last time I talked to Phil he was pretty strung out," Danny said tightly, avoiding my eyes. "He was really anxious to get started on his retirement. I suppose leaving the way he did was just his way."
"But that wasn't his way," I said evenly. I waited for Danny to say something. He remained silent. "I think somebody's trying to pull a swindle, Danny. What do you think?"
He said something, but I didn't really listen to his answer. I was sure Danny Lemongello was lying; and if he thought at all, he wouldn't have put himself in a situation where he would have to lie. His mouth stopped moving and I slapped him on the back, thanked him, and ushered him out of the trailer.
I decided it would be pushing my luck to try talking my way past Marshmallow Mouth again, so I made my exit from the circus through a small patch of weeds in back of Nell's trailer. I climbed out of the valley, then headed toward a police station I had seen on my way through town.
The entrance to the station was manned by a handsome San Marinese policeman who looked more than a little embarrassed about the whole thing. He had a clean-cut face, firm and honest. We nodded to each other as I passed inside.
It wasn't much of a police station as police stations go-small, very old, obviously not intended as a maximum security prison, but as a way station for the occasional drunk who floated in on the cheap San Marinese cognac.
There was a man sitting inside. What I could see of him was dressed in expensive clothes. There was a big bulge under his right armpit. A pair of Gucci shoes with feet in them were propped up on a scarred wooden desk in front of a metal plate that read Chief. The other end of him was hidden behind a newspaper. I went and stood in front of the desk. The paper didn't move.
"Who's in charge here?" I asked in Italian.
"I am," came the muffled reply.
"I want to report a missing person."
The paper came down slowly to reveal a pair of ice-cold black eyes. A jagged scar ran from his hairline down across the bridge of his nose to the left side of his mouth. The scar tissue that had formed over the lip had puckered up his mouth into a perpetual leer. His name was Luciano Petrocelli, and he was an unlikely candidate for police chief; I'd last seen his picture in the New York Times in connection with an article describing how the Italian police were banishing certain suspected mafiosi to a small fishing village on an island off the coast of Sicily. Petrocelli was to have been the leading resident. The climate apparently hadn't agreed with him.
"How'd you get away from the circus?"
I repeated that I wanted to report a missing person.
"There aren't any missing persons in San Marino, buddy. Everybody is accounted for."
"Well, I don't think he's so much missing as kidnapped."
The brows came together and the eyes focused on my chest, like the cold, black barrels of guns.
"There ain't nobody been kidnapped in San Marino, dwarf. You're talking crazy."
"As long as I'm here, I'd like to visit a prisoner."
Petrocelli grunted and put the newspaper back up to his face. I had the feeling he was able to watch me through it. "We don't have any prisoners in San Marino."
"I'm talking about the man called Jandor. He's supposed to have killed somebody. Don't you have him here?"
Petrocelli put the paper to one side and leaned forward in his chair. "He a friend of yours?"
"Yes."
"You've got some pretty dangerous friends, dwarf. Also, you ask too many questions. Why don't you take my advice and get out of San Marino?"
"I can't. You've got the country sealed off, remember? Also, there's a small matter of my missing partner selling a circus that's half mine. What are you going to do about that?"
A vein in the side of Petrocelli's neck was beginning to throb. I'd have ducked if he had a gun in his hand.
"If you're not out of here in one minute, dwarf, I'm going to throw you in the can with your friend."
I was out of the police station in something under a minute, and in the Marinello's souvenir shop in less than ten. Molly greeted me warmly and took me into living quarters in back of the shop to have some cognac with her husband. I passed on the cognac and offered a question instead.
"This is a nice little country you've got here," I said. "What's to prevent somebody from taking it over?"
John Marinello tossed down one slug of cognac and poured another. His eyes were glassy.
"The law," he said. "We have a constitution, like in the United States. We elect our leaders. If they do not obey our laws we get rid of them."
"By voting them out of office, like in the United States?"
John put his glass down. He had a puzzled expression on his face. "That's right. Why?"
"Let's suppose for the sake of argument that someone, for reasons unknown, was in a hurry and didn't want to be bothered with a formality like an election. Let's suppose this person or group wanted to fill all the key posts in San Marino with their own men. How would they go about it?"