“Is that all you got on your mind? The guy was nuts. The world’s full of nuts.” Destamio snapped his fingers and squinted at the Saint. “Say — now I recognize you! You were the guy at the next table who gave Rocco the squeeze. I didn’t recognize you till now. I pulled out because I try to stay outa trouble here. I got enough trouble.” He sat back and chewed the black and dreadful stump of his cigar, staring at the Saint with piggy eyes. “You swear that’s all the interest you got in my affairs? Because some nut calls me by a wrong name?”
“That’s all,” Simon told him calmly. “Because this nut, as you call him, was murdered that night. So he may have known something that would make a lot more trouble for you.”
For a long silent moment Destamio rolled the cigar between his fingers, glaring coldly at the Saint.
“And you think I bumped him to shut him up,” he said finally. He flicked ashes over the balcony rail, towards the sea far below, and suddenly laughed. “Hell, is that all? You know, Saint, I believe you. Maybe I’m nuts, but I believe you. So you thought you had to do something to get justice for that poor dope! What’s your first name — Simon? Call me Al, Simon — all my friends call me Al. And pour us another drink.”
He was relaxed now, almost genial in a crude way.
“Then your name never was Dino Cartelli?” Simon persisted, obviously unimpressed by the other’s abrupt change of manner.
“Never was and never will be. And I didn’t knock that nut off, neither. You let coincidence make a sucker outa you. Here, let me show you something.”
Destamio heaved himself up and led the way back into the living room. He pointed to what at first appeared to be a decorative panel on the wall.
“Lotta bums go to the States change their names and don’t care, because their names never meant nothing. But I’m Alessandro Leonardo Destamio and I’m proud of it. My family goes as far back as they ever had names, and I think the old king was an eighty-second cousin or something. Look for yourself!”
Simon realized that the panel was a genealogical chart complete with coats of arms and many branchings and linkings. The scrolls of names climbed and intertwined like cognominal foliage on a flowering tree of which the final fruit bore the glorious label of Lorenzo Michele Destamio.
“That was my papa. He was always proud of the family. And there’s my birth certificate.”
Destamio stabbed a thick thumb at another frame which held a beribboned and sealing-waxed document which proclaimed that the offspring of Lorenzo Michele Destamio would go through life hailed as Alessandro Leonardo. It looked authentic enough — as a document.
“And you’ve no idea why this man, what was his name — William Charing-Cross — should have been killed?” Simon asked.
“No idea,” Destamio said blandly. “I never saw him before. Wouldn’t have known his name unless you told me. But if you’re worried about him, I can ask a few questions around. Find out if anyone knows anything. Anything to make you happy... Hey!” He snapped his fingers as he was reminded of something else. “I was forgetting what the boys did. Be right back.”
He walked into an adjoining room, and after a while Simon heard the unmistakable thunk of a safe door closing. Destamio came back with a thick wad of currency in his hand.
“Here,” he said, holding it out. “Some guys working here get too enthusiastic. That wasn’t my idea, all they did to your stuff. So take this and buy some more. If it ain’t enough, let me know.”
Simon took the offering. On top of the stack was an American hundred-dollar bill, and when he flicked his finger across the edges other hundreds flashed by in a twinkling parade of zeros.
“Thank you,” he said without shame, and put the money in his pocket.
Destamio smiled benevolently, and chewed another half-inch from his mangled cigar.
“Let’s eat,” he said, waving a pudgy hand towards a table already decked with silver and crystal in another alcove. “And we can talk about things. A guy can go crazy here with no one to talk to.”
He sat down and shook a small hand bell noisily, and the service began even before the ornamental Lily arrived to join them.
Al Destamio did most of the talking, and Simon Templar was quite content to listen. Whatever Lily’s other talents might have been, aside from her hair-raising ways with a car, they were obviously not conversational. She applied herself to the food with a ravenous concentration which proved that her svelte figure could only be a metabolic miracle; and Simon had to summon some self-control not to emulate her, for in spite of his grossness Destamio employed an exceptional cook.
There was only one topic of conversation, or monologue to describe it more accurately, and that was the depravity of the US Department of Justice and its vicious persecution of innocent immigrants who succeeded in rising above the status of common laborers. But about all that Destamio revealed of himself was his remarkable mastery of the ramifications of the income tax laws, which seemed a trifle inconsistent with his claim to have only violated them through well-meaning ignorance. Simon was not called upon to do more than eat, drink, and occasionally make some lifelike sounds to show that he was paying attention, since the oracle was clearly entranced enough with the gargled splendor of his own voice.
Hence the Saint was able to disguise an occasional unfocusing of the eyes, when his mind wandered underneath the monotonous discourse, groping for another missing item of information which he felt might provide a key to some of the riddles of the past two days, but which kept eluding him as exasperatingly as an itch that could not be scratched.
At last the coffee wound up the repast, and Destamio yawned and belched and announced his readiness for a siesta. Simon took this as his cue for an exit, and was given no argument.
“Glad I could get to know you, Saint,” Destamio said, pumping his hand with the heartiness of a professional politician. “You have any more problems, you come to me. Don’t try to be a big shot by yourself.”
The incredibly discreet Lily appeared once more in the role of chauffeuse, now wearing a cashmere sweater and Capri pants so tight that if she had been tattooed the mark would have shown through. Simon was delighted to observe that she was not tattooed.
As she resumed her attempts to make the Alfa-Romeo behave like a scared mountain goat, he felt that he had to make one parting effort to discover whether she ever talked at all.
“Do you live here or are you just visiting?” he queried chattily.
“Yes.”
He gazed at her for quite a long time, figuring this out, but what could be seen of her face gave him no help. He decided to try again.
“Do you ever get away?”
“Sometimes.”
That was a little better. Perhaps it only required perseverance.
“I hope I’ll see you again somewhere.”
“Why?”
“I’d like to know what your face looks like. Would I recognize you without glasses?”
“No.”
Always the same pulse-stirring voice, vibrantly disinterested in everything.
“Is Al a jealous type?”
“I don’t know.”
The Saint sighed. Perhaps after all his charm was not absolutely irresistible. It was a solemn thought. At any rate, she was evidently capable of holding out for the duration of the short ride to the heliport. But he had to keep on talking, because the other haunting hint of knowledge that he had been seeking had suddenly given up its evasive tactics and dropped out of the recess where it had been hiding.
“Do you know why he was called ‘Gopher’?” he asked.
“No.”
“Well, I won’t burden your mind with it. When you go back just tell him that I know. I suddenly remembered. Will you do that?”