The Devil's Dozen

Six

“We have no reports on a Vera Cesare. First of all, there’s very little dope on Mafia women. Second, Cesare is not a Sicilian name. There are only one or two women in the whole international Mafia and none of any consequence.”

I listened to what had to be the least informative radio transmission AXE analysis had ever sent. Around me, noses twitched. Thousands of rabbits huddled in cages, peeking out of little beady eyes. The stench was tremendous, and my own nose twitched from time to time. It had been explained to me that since Turkey was on the Russian border and was the Eastern command post of NATO and since AXE transmitters didn’t dare send too strong a signal into the Istanbul radio net, our safe house in Istanbul had to have an oversized antenna. The whole rabbit warren was the receiver, which was a damn clever idea unless you were the person sitting in it and taking down a message.

“Computers and analysis disagree with your theory that she is a daughter of an important Mafioso. Mafia family women do not engage in business ever.”

I waited impatiently for the five seconds of radio wave transmission and computer decoding time to pass.

“Bull,” I finally exploded. “Women have been important advisers to a lot of Mafia families.”

Five seconds passed.

“Not as ‘soldiers,’ though,” the answer came. “Our estimation is that she is just a professional criminal hired for the job.”

Five seconds.

“Do you have any records, hearsay or gossip, about Mafia females at all? Anything that’s outside the usual run of adultery?”

Wait. Smell the rabbits.

“One curious story came in a few months ago,” the voice crackled. After a voice has been transmitted, scrambled and unscrambled, it is metallic, more artificial than human. “Do you remember Frank Musio, also known as Lover? A captain on the West Coast. His body turned up on Big Sur. Not drowned. Poisoned. Cantharidin. He’d been seen with a young woman. Hard to believe any woman would do that sort of thing, though. Anything else?”

I broke contact.

Outside the air was relatively fresh, wonderfully so, in contrast to the rabbit house. It was an experience I knew I’d recall the next time I ordered hare in a French restaurant.

Vera was in the Lancia we’d switched to after getting rid of the Citroën. I was sure the boys in the band had taken the Citroën’s license number, and even if we’d changed the plates, it was too easy to spot a sedan with one side crushed. So, in a suburb of Istanbul, Vera and I had stolen the Lancia, and she was as cool a thief as I’d expected her to be. Now she was catching a few minutes sleep while I called in. There was no way for her to follow me through the labyrinth of a Turkish ghetto and no phone near enough for her to call from. She would be getting the car seat cozy and warm.

Cantharidin, I pondered as I weaved through hovels back to the Lancia. Cantharidin is also known as Spanish Fly; in fact, it’s taken from a species of Spanish fly. Even high school kids talk knowingly about the incredible aphrodisiacal powers of Spanish Fly, how they heard about a friend of a friend of a friend who gave his girl Spanish Fly and the police had to pull her off the gear shift. As if that were a funny story.

Cantharidin stimulates the genitals all right. The sexiness comes first, then a burning sensation in the mouth, nausea, vomiting blood, difficulty swallowing, pain in the loins, blood in the urine, diarrhea, prostration, and coma. Twenty-four grains can cause death.

Could Vera give someone that much Cantharidin?

“Were you having a good dream?” I asked as I slid into the car beside her.

“Not bad. You made all the arrangements?”

“Yes. There’s a boat that goes to Athens. I will go on it third class and you will go first class. The authorities would be suspicious if we traveled openly together.”

“Why?”

“It would be a statement that you are a prostitute in a Moslem’s eyes. There’s no reason to cause you that embarrassment.”

“You are a very unusual man, Raki.”

Suddenly she made me strongly aware that we were alone at night in a car. Her eyes were nearly luminous in the faint fight. I could feel the warmth from her body. I could very easily imagine my lips on hers and my hand inside the blouse of her dress, going close to the source of that warmth.

“You’re not a very ordinary girl yourself, Miss Cesare.”

“Vera, please.”

“Vera.”

And there, despite all my private warnings, I kissed her. My hand went into her honey-colored hair and pulled her face to mine. Her lips were already open, and her tongue was sweet and eager. She placed my hand on her breast. Through the silk the peak of her breast hardened. As if she could read my mind, her fingers began undoing her buttons. Pulling one sleeve down, she slipped her bra off her shoulder and guided my hand in. Then she brought my head down.

Her breasts were even larger than I thought they’d be but young, very firm, and slightly salty from a day of driving.

“Do the seats go down, Raki?”

Her smile was not flirtatious but earnest. She was as aroused and hungry as I was.

“Not in this model, Vera. There’ll be enough hotel beds to come if you want to wait”

There was to be no waiting. Her hand was at my belt, pulling it open, and when it was open smiling with appreciation. Her fingers caressed me boldly, urgently. Her head went down with a deep kiss that was long and erotic and drew every nerve I had below my belt.

Unbuttoning the rest of her dress, she pulled off her pants and, facing backwards in the car, straddled me. The golden skin of her belly ended in a gold blur. She descended while I rose, and I found her ready, tight and soft. I cupped her buttocks, cool in the night air, and eased her down very slowly. Her fingers grasped my hair, and I heard her breathing stop inch by inch.

In the dark, barely seeing each other, we made love. It wasn’t just an act of sex, a release after the day’s long tension. We recognized something in each other. Something similar, shared. At that one moment, she groaned and threw her head back, thrusting herself as far onto me as she could, her thighs locked, and we came, together. In that orgasm in the dark we were in every way one person.

“Raki!”

She held my head between her breasts and rocked back and forth, spent but still very much warmed by the mutual glow.

In the flame of the match Vera had an angel’s face. She lit the cigarette in her mouth and passed it to me with a kiss. An hour had passed since we made love but our desire still burned brighter than the flame. She blew it out.

“Raki, you have known very many women. Do they all fall in love with you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“And you? Do you fall in love?”

“Very rarely.”

“A killer, a racecar driver, a smuggler, and a perfect gentleman. I could love you.”

Her words were serious. She took the Sobranie from my mouth, inhaled, and passed it back.

“But I won’t,” she let the smoke drift out. “I can’t. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” the hypocrite in me said. The barrier between us was much greater than Mafia and Turk, but I let her carry the guilt for drawing the line in our relationship.

Perhaps she even thought it was a measure of trust that I was planning to let her out of my sight for the ship ride. The truth was that I didn’t care if she made contact outside of Turkey. I could deal with that. The core of the plan, my false Turkish identity was most vulnerable in Turkey, and I had to keep her away from all contacts until we were out of the country.

“You really do have the perfect plan?” she asked softly.

“Perfect.”

“I hope so. For both our sakes.”

I kissed the valley between her breasts.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked gently.

She reached behind me and pulled something from the back of the seat. In the light of a match I looked at it. Vera’s little cache was a glass cylinder with one sharp, brittle end. A clear fluid resided inside.

Vera’s eyes, a soft cocoa brown, reflected mine, as her fingers snapped the cylinder in half. The fragrance of strychnine wafted upward, as she poured the liquid on the floor.

“I put it between the seats while you were making your call. I was ordered to use it unless I was positive you could make the shipment.”

I kept looking into her eyes. They weren’t so soft, I realized. They were like the eyes of an expensive Burmese cat.

“No,” she answered an unsaid question. “I wasn’t supposed to make love with you. That was the last thing I was ever supposed to do.”

Vera might have been telling the truth, but I couldn’t help thinking of Frank Musio floating on the California tides with a bodyful of poison.