Then the barber shrugged and turned away to wipe the lather from his lethal weapon on the edge of the scarred rubber dish kept for that purpose.
“I don’t understand you,” said the Saint, to keep the conversation going.
“You bet you do, Mac. I been sitting ’ere lookin’ out, you can see down da road to da first turn, an’ that ain’t where you come from. No, sir. You come over da mountain from Mistretta, an’ you sure got ’em stirred up over there.”
He took aim with the razor again, at the Saint’s other cheek, but this time it was easier for Simon to wait passively for the contact. If the man had any serious butchering intentions, he would scarcely have passed up his first and best opportunity.
“What happened in Mistretta?” Simon asked, studiously speaking like a ventriloquist without using any external muscles.
“I don’ know an’ I don’ wanna. I don’ want-a no beef wit’ da Mafia. But dey been onna phone, I got one-a da t’ree phones in dis crummy dump, an’ I gotta pass on da word. I hear how you look, how you speak English, how everyone should watch for you.”
There was no point in any more pretense.
“Do they know I came over here?”
“Naw. It’s-a kinda general warning. They don’ know where you are, an’ everybody calls up everybody else to keep-a da eye open.”
“So you weren’t being such a Sherlock Holmes after all when you spotted me.”
“Don’ ride me, mister. I wanted to ’ear you talk, find out what kinda feller you are.”
“Why didn’t you cut my throat just now when you had the chance, and maybe earn yourself a reward?”
“Listen, I don’t ’ave to kill you myself. I coulda just let you walk by, then talked on da phone. Let da Mafia do the job. I woulda been sittin’ pretty, an’ mos’ likely pick up a piece o’ change too. So don’ ride me.”
“Sorry,” said the Saint. “But you must admit it’s a bit surprising for anyone to find such a pal in these parts.”
The barber wiped his razor and stropped it again with slow slapping strokes, and examined the gleaming edge against the light from the doorway.
“I ain’t your pal, but I ain’t-a no pal o’ da Mafia neither. They done nothin’ for me I couldn’t ’a done better for myself. Kick in, protection, just like-a da rackets in Chicago. Only in Chicago I make-a more money, I can afford it better. I know da score. I shoulda stayed where I was well off; but I thought I could take it easy here on my Social Security an’ what I’d-a saved up, an’ just work enough to pay da rent. I should-a ’ad my ’ead examined.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t turn me in.”
“Listen, when I get dis call, dey gimme your name. Simon Templar. Probably don’ mean nothin’ to dese peasants; but I been around. I know who you are. I know you made trouble for lotsa racketeers. Dat’s okay with me. I’d-a turn you in in a second, if it was my neck or yours. But I don’ mind if I can get you outa dis town—”
Suddenly there was the snarl of a motor-scooter’s exhaust coming up from the valley and roaring into the square like a magnified hornet with hiccups. The barber stopped all movement to listen, and Simon could see the blood drain out of his face. The scooter’s tempestuous arrival at this torpid hour of the day obviously meant trouble, and trouble could only mean the Mafia. While the barber stood paralyzed, the mobile ear-splitter added a screech of brakes to its gamut of sound effects, and crescendoed to a stop outside the shop with a climactic clatter that presaged imminent disintegration.
“Quick!” Simon whispered. “A wet towel!”
Galvanized at last into action by a command that connected helpfully with established reflexes of professional habit, the barber stumbled over to the dual-purpose cooler and dredged up a sodden serviette from under the ice and remaining bottles. He scuttled back and draped it skilfully around and over the Saint’s face as ominous footsteps clomped on the cobbles, and the beaded door-curtain rattled as someone parted it and pushed through.
It was an interesting situation, perhaps more appealing to an audience than to a participant. The barber was in a blue funk and might say anything; in fact, to betray the Saint, he didn’t even need to say anything, he only had to point to the customer in the chair. He owed Simon nothing, and had frankly admitted that he would not hesitate over a choice between sympathy and his own skin. The Saint could only wait, blind and defenseless, but knowing that any motion might precipitate a fatal crisis. Which was not merely nerve-racking, but diluted his capacity to enjoy the exhilarating chill of the refrigerated wetness on his face.
Out of necessity, he lay there in a supine immobility that called for reserves of self-dominance that should have been drained by the razor-edge ordeal of a few minutes ago, while the rider rattled questions and commands in incomprehensible answers, but at last the curtain rattled again and the footsteps stomped away outside and faded along the sidewalk.
The towel was snatched from Simon’s face and the chair tilted up with precipitate abruptness.
“Get out,” rasped the barber, from a throat tight with panic.
“What was he saying?” Simon asked, stepping quietly down.
“Get-a goin’!” The man pointed at the door with a shaking forefinger. “He’s a messenger from the Mafia, come-a to call out all da mafiosi in dis village. They found out you didn’t go down to da coast from Mistretta, so now they gonna search all-a da hills. They don’ know you been here yet, but in a coupla minutes they’ll be out lookin’ everywhere an’ you ain’t-a got a chance. They kill you, an’ if they find out you been ’ere dey kill-a me too! So get out!”
The Saint was already at the door, peering cautiously through the curtain.
“What was that way you were going to tell me to get out of town?”
“Fuori!”
Only the fear of being heard outside muted what would have been a scream into a squeak, but Simon knew that he had used up the last iota of hospitality that was going to be extended to him. If he strained it another fraction, the trembling barber was almost certain to try to whitewash himself by raising the alarm.
The one consolation was that in his frantic eagerness to be rid of his visitor the barber had no time to discuss payment for the beer and salami or even for the shave, and the Saint was grateful to be able to save the few coins in his pocket for another emergency.
“Thanks for everything, anyway, pal,” he said, and stepped out into the square.
4
Propped upright in the gutter outside, the unguarded scooter was a temptation; but Simon Templar had graduated to automobiles long before vehicles of that type were introduced, and it would have taken him a perilous interval of fumbling to find out how to start it. Even then, it would have provided anything but unobtrusive transportation; indeed, the noise he had heard it make under full steam would be more help to any posse in pursuit of him than a pack of winged bloodhounds. Regretfully he decided that its locomotive advantages were not for him.
He strolled across the square to the corner from which the main road ran downhill, schooling himself to avoid any undue semblance of haste, but feeling as ridiculous as an elephant trying to pass unnoticed through an Eskimo settlement. The first few shutters were opening, the first few citizens emerging torpidly from their doors, and he was acutely aware that in any such isolated community any stranger was a phenomenon to be observed and analyzed and speculated upon. The best that he could hope for was to be taken for an adventurous tourist who had strayed off the beaten track, or somebody’s visiting cousin from another province who had not yet been introduced around. When there was no outcry after the first few precarious seconds, it suggested that the barber had ultimately decided to keep quiet: if he shouted as late as this, the messenger might remember the towel-draped anonymity in the chair and wonder... Therefore the Saint could still hope to slip through the trap before the jaws closed.