I gunned the engine because I did not want to lose sight of the Jag.
The edge of the road showed in my headlamps, and I involuntarily put on the brakes to test the drag. I was relieved to feel the tension in the bands.
I took the Renault around the turn and I could see Tina Bergson's red Jaguar halfway around the wide horseshoe bend. She was driving slowly, but then she accelerated, just as I caught sight of her.
The car seemed to leap ahead in the darkness, the lights bouncing upward on the road, almost as if they were climbing the sky. And then — as I could hardly believe my eyes — the Jaguar bumped up against the cutbank, almost smashing into the rock wall head-on.
Turn, Tina! I yelled involuntarily. "Turn!"
Whether she did or not I do not know, but the next thing I saw was the Jaguar headed not for the cutbank but for the outer rim of the road. "Tina!"
It was a lost cry.
The Jag gained speed and went over the edge, almost as if it had been trained to do a very shallow swan dive into a pool.
The headlamps caught the jagged mica schist below, the patches of snow snuggled in the schist, and lit a tangle of lights and reflections in the snow, then the car burrowed into the rocks, bounced off, turned over and over, the headlamps describing a pinwheel in the night, and smashed with a grinding roar into a segment of sharp rocks near the bottom of the barranca.
There was a moment's silence.
Then a high flaring blast of fire shot into the sky, and a loud explosion ripped through the air. Smoke billowed up past the orange flames, harsh, choking black smoke.
The fire soared and then fell back into the wreckage of the twisted Jaguar and began eating slowly at the metal. Smoke rose slowly, then, the fire dancing along the edges of the red steel and the clear glass and the colored plastic.
Shaken, I drove carefully along the highway and made the spot where the red Jag had gone over the edge. I looked down. All I could see was a break in the rocks imbedded in the shoulder at the edge of the roadway.
I parked the Renault, pulled the key, and climbed out. It was cold on the highway. I walked over to the edge of the road where the Jag had gone through the rocks. I stood there, staring down at the displaced stones and followed the charred black line on the schist below to the spot where a bright red fire was crackling over the remains of Tina Bergson and the red Jaguar.
In only brief moments the first of the hotel guests came zooming up in a Fiat, parked and joined me at the edge of the roadway. Ogling.
And then more came.
And more.
Thrill-seekers.
They made me sick.
I climbed down the rocky slope, using my pocket flash, and passed the charred section of rock where the red Jag had first hit, and finally reached the section near the car itself.
But the flames were eating at the wreckage and it was impossible to stand any closer without burning myself.
Arm across the top of my head, I stood there and waited.
A fire truck screamed up on the roadway, and soon a big fireman in a ski jacket and loaded with a portable extinguisher came crashing down the slope and began to spray the burning wreck.
I shuddered.
The fireman stood there, staring at tie charred wreckage. A Guardia Civil joined him and pointed a flashlight at the burned car. The light's beam was more powerful than mine.
I came closer.
I saw it, then.
There was a charred body in the front seat. What was left of it was black and smouldering.
Tina.
All that was left of the golden girl with the golden skin.
I turned away, sick.
I must have sunk down on a rock near the wreckage and lapsed into a land of mental funk. Someone joggled my arm and shoulder. I realized a voice had been speaking to me for some moments.
I stirred.
"Nick."
It was Kelly.
"She's dead," said Kelly. "Damndest thing."
"I guess she just felt it was all over and she'd better run." I sighed. "She knew Rico Corelli would be after her for the rest of her life."
"But Corelli didn't even know!"
"He would find out. That's why he left," I said. That was the way I had it figured.
"I checked out that name, Nick."
I looked up, frowning. I did not understand what he was getting at.
"There's no Mario Speranza registered at the hotel."
I sat there thinking about that. "But that's the name she gave the clerk."
He nodded. "The clerk says he told her that. The clerk says that it was then that she went out of her skull."
I stared at the wreckage below us. "Are you saying that Rico Corelli never was at Sol y Nieve at all?"
"I'm saying that he certainly hasn't been here — or at any other hotel in the Sol y Nieve — for the past month or so. If his cover name is Mario Speranza."
"But then…"
"Don't you see it? Maybe he knew about Tina. Maybe he knew she had hired a hit man to kill him."
I shook my head to clear it. "And all that jive about the meet was simply to set up Tina Bergson's death?"
"Not at all. I'm saying that Rico Corelli must have known about Tina Bergson and Barry Parson. And he just didn't come to the resort at all. Everybody else thought he was here — the hit man the Mafiosi hired, the hit man Tina hired — and us, because we wanted to meet Corelli. Everybody was here but Corelli!"
"Then where is the son of a bitch?"
Kelly shrugged. "I think we'd better put a signal out to Hawk and start all over again."
We got up to climb the hillside, but I could not leave it alone.
I turned and looked down at the wreck again.
"Why did she go out that way?"
Kelly shook his head. "She was a beautiful woman, Nick. Beautiful women do dumb things. She must have loved Corelli. And hated him, too."
"Or loved that money," I said.
"You don't think much of people do you, Nick?" Kelly sighed.
"Should I? Should I, really?" I calmed down. "I guess she figured it was a better way to go than to run all over the world trying to get away from Rico Corelli's paid guns."
"She'd never know when he was going to hit her," Kelly observed dispassionately.
"I wonder where the bastard is now?" I mused half aloud.
Fifteen
We were the first ones down for breakfast next morning. In spite of Juana's glowing look, she was spiritually depressed. I laid it to the fact that we had botched our assignment.
We had a Continental breakfast and sat in the bright light of the sunshine eating it. I suggested a morning of skiing before departing from Spain, but she demurred.
"I just want to pack up."
I nodded. "I'm going up to the Veleta and do a run or two."
She nodded, her thoughts far off.
"A penny?"
She failed to respond.
"Two pennies?"
"What?"
"For your thoughts. What's the matter?"
"I guess I was thinking about the waste of human life. Tina Bergson. Barry Parson. The Mosquito. Rico Corelli's first double. And even Elena Morales — wherever she is."
I reached across and gripped her hand. "It's the way of the world."
"It's not a very nice world."
"Did someone promise you it was?"
She shook her head sadly.
I paid the bill and went out.
It was cool but very still on the Veleta. The sun shone brightly. There was a good covering of powder on the surface of the run. I got my binocs out and scanned the slope. As I explained once before there were two runs from the top of the Veleta.
I decided to take the longer run this time, the one that branched out to the left as you went down. I was just putting my glasses back in their leather case when someone climbed over the rocks from the cable car turn-around and came toward me.