I found myself ducking bullets like a deer on the run. I half-ran, half-fell the rest of the way down and dived behind a snowbank for cover. I realized that I didn’t have a gun with me. It was a hell of a time to remember that little oversight.
Luigi must have realized it, too. He was coming closer now, out in the open, waiting for me to pop my head up so he could draw a bead. I was at his mercy-—a quality I judged him to be somewhat short of—and he knew it. And I knew it.
As he drew closer, my mind worked like a revved-up propellor. It came up with an outside chance. I picked up a small rock and began packing ice around it as fast as my fingers could move. Pretty soon I had a killer snowball. I shot to my feet fast then, and fired it before Luigi could have a chance to aim.
It hit the mark. The ball of ice zinged off his wrist with bone-crunching force and the pistol went spinning out of his hand. I raced toward him then. He raced for where the gun had fallen. We reached our objectives together.
Luigi grabbed the gun. I grabbed Luigi’s arm. Luigi grabbed my groin. I grabbed a lungful of pain and a handful of Mafia throat. Luigi grabbed for air and the gun went sailing a second time.
He tore loose. But this time, instead of lunging for the gun again, he fooled me by sprinting for the base of the cliff. He was fast. Too fast. By the time I reached the bottom of the snow-packed embankment, he was already scrambling up it.
I made a grab for his ankle and got a solid kick in the face for my trouble. My nose started to bleed. It slowed me down enough so that, by the time I’d followed him to the lop, he was already in his car and starting the motor. He zoomed off before I could reach the Porsche.
Luigi was driving an MG. I figured the Porsche to be the better car. What I didn’t take the time to ponder was the fact that Luigi was an experienced racing driver. I was pretty good behind the wheel, but I simply wasn’t in his class.
It wasn’t too long before he drove this point home to me. I kept on his tail pretty well as we whipped down the straightaway. But it was the curves that provided the real test. He took them like a cyclist, on two wheels, leaning into the wind, not shifting down, but accelerating with the arc. I stayed with him, leaning on the Porsche, pressing with my faith in the car and trying to ignore my doubts about myself as a driver.
It became a pattern. He set it and I followed it. And then, when I least expected it, he altered it. That was the moment that almost proved fatal for me.
The MG shot around a curve and immediately into a hairpin turn. Still taking Luigi’s lead, I gunned the motor around the curve and screeched into the “V” turn myself. He was waiting for me. He must have braked sharply and U-turned as soon as he lost me in his rear-view mirror. Now he shot toward me on the inside. As he sped past he swerved the MG so that his front bumper smacked solidly against the rear fender of the Porsche. It was a beautifully timed maneuver to push me over the edge of the mountain road to the abyss below.
It came uncomfortably close to succeeding. It was as if the back wheels of the Porsche went out from under me. It slid into a sidewise skid. I reacted instantaneously with the only action that had a chance of saving me. I accelerated and used the momentum of the skid to point me straight toward the snow-packed mountain and away from the drop. I waited for the split instant before impact to hit the brakes. I slammed into the side of the mountain and everything went white before my eyes.
White, not black. Fortunately the point at which I’d struck was more snowbank than mountain rock. I plowed into it like an enthusiastic Arctic ice-cutter. My neck whiplashed as if it were a yo-yo being manipulated by a spastic. My teeth played a marble tournament in my mouth. And my tummy wrapped itself around the steering wheel so fervently that the horn blasted a tattoo against the vertebrae of my spine.
By the time I was able to dig myself out of the igloo I’d plowed in the mountainside, Luigi was well out of sight. It took me another twenty minutes to extricate the Porsche. I figured he was probably halfway to Sicily by then. There was no point in trying to catch up with him. So I gave up the chase and headed back to the Friedriksenn chalet.
Friedriksenn was in the library. Just as I entered the phone rang. I could tell from his face that he was hearing the news about Anna Del Vecchio’s death. His craggy face seemed to crumble as he listened. He was having a hard time holding the tears back as he hung up the telephone. He sagged into a chair and looked at me mutely.
“I know,” I said sympathetically to save him the effort of an explanation.
“I loved her, Mr. Victor.” His voice was old and tired. “I loved her as I have loved no other woman. She was everything to me."
“I’m sorry.”
“You guessed about us, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“She was my mistress. And she loved me, too. She loved me as nobody else has ever loved me."
“Of course she did.” I saw no reason to disillusion him, although Anna Del Vecchio had certainly given me reason to doubt the genuineness of her affections for Friedriksenn.
“I was very jealous of her," he admitted. “Foolish of me. She never gave me the slightest cause.”
“If you were jealous,” I couldn’t help asking, “then how come you let her go off with Tortorizzi so calmly?”
“It was only for a drive.”
“I know, but still—”
“I wasn’t jealous of him.”
“Why not?”
“Two reasons,” Friedriksenn explained. “First of all, I always had a strong suspicion that he was a homosexual. Anna and I had discussed it, and she thought so, too.”
“And the second reason?”
“She detested him. I knew that. If she was ever going to be unfaithful to me, Luigi would have been the last man she’d choose.”
“Then why did she agree to go driving with him?”
“She disliked him, but she was crazy about speed. She always loved the thrill of traveling fast. She knew Luigi was an expert racing driver. I suppose that outweighed her feelings about him.”
“I see.”
We fell silent for a long moment. Finally Friedriksenn spoke again. “The police think Luigi may have killed her deliberately. From the marks her body left as she hurtled from the car, they believe she was pushed. And he fled the scene, which is certainly suspicious. But why? Why would he want to kill her? And if he killed her, did he kill Maria as well? Why would he want to kill either one of them?”
“I don’t know,” I lied. I had a reason for lying. I didn’t know if Friedriksenn knew that his wife was Gina Moretti, that she’d been a prostitute before she married him. If he didn’t, I figured it was up to Carmella to decide whether or not to tell him. He’d been no saint himself, but many a husband has a double standard when it comes to his wife. I saw no reason why I should compound his grief at the moment.
“I can’t believe she’s dead.” Suddenly the tears were pouring down his cheeks. “It’s so senseless.”
“Why don’t you go up to your room and try to rest,” I suggested.
“Yes. Thank you for your kindness, Mr. Victor.” He got to his feet and started for the stairs. I watched him mount them, a broken figure of a man, showing his age, carrying more than the weight of the years he had lived.
Alone, I mixed myself a drink and stretched out in an armchair. It had been a pretty active day and it felt good to relax. I was still relaxing, savoring a second Scotch on the rocks, when Carmella wandered into the library.
“Where is everybody?” she greeted. “This house is like a tomb. Haven’t Luigi and Anna come back yet?"
I filled her in on what had happened.
“How awful’” She accepted the drink I handed her and took a deep gulp. “You say Luigi killed her‘? And Maria, too? But why? Why would he do such a thing?”