Louise's Gamble (25 page)

‘You go,’ Enzo said. ‘I can’t make it.’

‘We don’t have to go far,’ I said. ‘Just to the elevator and down a couple of floors.’

The hall was empty, but I could hear excited voices in the apartment across the way. It wouldn’t be long before Mayflower Hotel security would arrive.

The elevator was empty. I punched the button for two floors below.

Enzo leaned heavily on me, blood seeping through the makeshift bandage I’d bound to his shoulder.

‘You saved my life,’ I said to Enzo. ‘Thank you.’

‘It was my duty,’ he said. As the elevator door opened Enzo slumped.

‘Walk, damn it!’ I said. ‘It’s just a few steps!’

Enzo struggled down the short hall to Joan Adams’ apartment. I knew she hid a key behind her name card on the door.

In seconds I was inside and the door was locked again.

I figured Joan would still be at the ball, but instead she rose from the sofa, dressed in a silk dressing gown.

‘What the hell!’ she said. ‘Louise!’

‘Please don’t ask questions,’ I said. ‘Trust me! We need help!’

‘So I see,’ she said. ‘Let’s get your friend into the bathroom before he bleeds all over the carpet.’

We sat Enzo on the toilet and removed the blood soaked towel. We peeled off his coat and shirt. Joan examined his back.

‘There’s no exit wound,’ she said. ‘That’s bad. He needs a doctor quickly.’

Joan owned a surprising cache of first-aid supplies. Enzo groaned and flinched in pain as we cleaned his wound with iodine and dressed it with a thick gauze pad secured with a strip of towel.

Enzo’s livery tunic and undershirt were stained with blood. So was my new, beautiful ball gown.

‘We need to get out of the hotel,’ I said.

‘I can lend you a coat. As for your friend, I’m a big girl. I might be able to find a shirt he could wear. Is security looking for you? Have the police been called?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. Orazio must have summoned help. What he would tell the help when it arrived I couldn’t imagine.

‘Joan,’ I said, ‘you’re not asking me any questions.’

‘Would you answer them?’

‘Probably not.’

‘OK then.’

‘
Signoras
,’ Enzo said, wincing with pain. ‘You must not endanger yourselves to help me. Take me to the service elevator. I will go the sub-basement and attempt to escape that way. If I am arrested I will confess to everything.
Signora
Pearlie, cover yourself with your friend’s coat and go to the lobby and get a cab.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You saved my life. We’re both getting out of here.’

A knock sounded at Joan’s door.

‘I’d better answer that,’ she said.

I heard her talking to two men but couldn’t hear the conversation clearly.

Joan’s front door closed, and she came back into the bathroom. ‘Let’s get you to the sofa,’ she said to Enzo. ‘You’ll be more comfortable.’

We helped him lie down and cushioned his head with one of Joan’s silk pillows.

‘That was a Mayflower security guard and a DC policeman,’ Joan said. ‘Orazio Rossi told them that you, Louise, attempted to steal Alessa Oneto’s jewelry. Enzo was your accomplice, supposedly.’

‘That pig!’ I said.

‘Surely this can be cleared up?’

‘Joan,’ I said, ‘I can’t be arrested and searched right now.’

She raised an eyebrow at me.

‘I have a Top Secret document in my possession.’

‘What will we do?’ Enzo said. ‘The police will be all over the hotel by now.’

‘I know.’ I turned to Joan. ‘I could leave the document with you, and Enzo and I could surrender to the police. We can make up our own story, and it would be our word against Rossi’s.’

‘That is good,’ Enzo said, sitting up, and wincing. ‘We could say that Rossi was attempting to take advantage of you, that I heard your screams as I passed by on an errand!’

‘That’s quite a tale,’ Joan said. ‘I can see the front page of
The Washington Post
now. Reporters will be everywhere, questioning everyone. Who knows what could come out? What Sebastian and Lucia might say? Our employer would be furious.’

I stared at Joan. ‘You know all about this, don’t you!’

‘About what? I need to make a phone call.’ She dialed the hotel operator. ‘I need you to deliver a message to the man sitting on the banquette to the left of the door to the coffee shop. He’s wearing a chauffeur’s uniform,’ she said into the receiver.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘Calling the cavalry. Would either of you like a glass of water? Or maybe something stronger?’

I requested water, while Enzo accepted a shot glass of bourbon, tossing it back in one gulp.

‘By the way,’ I said to him. ‘How did you happen to be outside the Oneto apartment door?’

‘I was watching you,’ he said. ‘When I saw you at the ball with Rossi, I knew you must still be questioning Countess Alessa’s death. I determined to follow you. Rossi had left the door of the apartment unlocked. When I heard the sounds of your dispute, I rushed inside.’

‘But why did you decide to protect me?’

‘Honor,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Tradition. I failed to see that Countess Alessa was in danger. I didn’t want anything to happen to you.’

I rounded on Joan. ‘You were watching me, too!’

‘I admit I was. I had instructions to keep you under surveillance. When I saw you leave the ball with Rossi I thought the best thing for me to do was to come to my apartment in case you needed me.’

‘Who instructed you to watch me, and why? I don’t understand.’

A soft knock sounded at the door. Joan opened the door. Colonel Melinsky and Myrna slipped inside.

I stared open-mouthed at them as the truth dawned. It wasn’t a coincidence that they were at the Mayflower together tonight. I remembered that Betty told me Myrna had found a new apartment. Of course! OSS had set her up at the Mayflower Hotel as an agent! Tonight she had joined Melinsky as his ‘date’ to watch me!

‘How could you!’ I said, furious. ‘You set me up!’

‘We thought it would be best this way,’ Melinsky said.

‘What way?’ I said. ‘Why? How did you know I was even going to be here tonight!’

‘You know he can’t tell you. Hush and listen,’ Myrna said.

‘No time,’ Melinsky said. ‘We need to get Louise and – who are you?’ he asked Enzo.

‘Enzo Carini,’ Enzo said. ‘I work in the silver room. I followed when
Signora
Pearlie went upstairs with
Signore
Rossi.’

‘He saved my life, no thanks to you,’ I said. I was so angry that I forgot to tell him I had Alessa’s information.

‘Come, I will explain,’ Melinsky said. ‘We must get the two of you out of the hotel.’

‘What about Rossi and his story?’ I asked.

‘We will take care of Mr Orazio Rossi,’ Melinsky said.

‘He killed Alessa. To keep her from delivering the take to us. Did you know?’

‘No,’ Melinsky said. ‘We suspected Alessa was murdered. But we weren’t sure by whom or why.’

‘Joan and I need to get Enzo to a hospital,’ Myrna said. ‘He’s still bleeding.’

‘We need to get you away from here, too,’ Melinsky said to me.

Joan fetched a black cloak from her wardrobe and threw it over my shoulders. Melinsky took me by the arm and led me out into the hall to the stairs.

‘Down to the second floor,’ he said, quietly. ‘We have been watching Rossi,’ he continued, almost whispering. ‘He is a member of a radical group, communists, that intend to seize the government of Sicily as soon as the island is liberated. When Alessa contacted you, we were afraid that Rossi would discover her plan and threaten the alliance between the Mafia and the Office of Naval Intelligence.’

I stopped on the landing. ‘You . . .’ I didn’t dare call him the names I wanted!. ‘You kept me in the dark! You knew Alessa had been murdered! You faked my suspension! You let me think my job was in jeopardy!’

‘Keep moving, please,’ he said.

I stood my ground. ‘You meant for me to keep trying to solve Alessa’s murder and find the information she brought from New York, without backup! I was out there naked!’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, almost dragging me down the steps to the Seventeenth Street lobby and then out into the street.

Jack waited for me there, holding open the door of a decent car for once, a maroon Cadillac LaSalle.

‘We judged that the operation would go best if you were ignorant of most of the details,’ he said. ‘That way whatever you did would look, well, personal.’

And if I got in trouble OSS wouldn’t be involved!

Melinsky hadn’t trusted my competence enough to brief me completely. During the entire operation he knew Rossi was dangerous, that he might find out what Alessa was doing, but he’d never told me. Would Alessa still be alive if she’d been warned about Rossi? I’d never know.

What I did know, however, was that it was in my best interest not to say anything. But I could think what I wanted – and I thought Platon Melinsky and all the other men at OSS who’d deceived me were louses.

‘Louise,’ Melinsky said, ‘please understand. The information Alessa had was more important than her life. I’m so sorry we never found it, but this is wartime. Sacrifices must be made.’

I reached into my bodice and pulled out Alessa’s missive and jammed it into his hand.

‘You got it!’ Melinsky said. ‘Why didn’t you say so!’

Again I bit my tongue, but I couldn’t contain one comment.

‘The blood had better come out of this dress!’ I said.

EPILOG

H
ell’s Kitchen Park was dank and dark at midnight. A cold wind swayed the bare branches of nearby trees, and their susurration muffled the noise of the traffic on Amsterdam Avenue. I’d armed myself with a hooded flashlight, my knife – wiped clean of Orazio Rossi’s blood – and a police whistle.

I glanced at my watch. Turi was late.

I’d been so lucky to find him. It occurred to me that if Alessa had used the false last name di Luca in honor of her father, that Turi might have used it, too, as his bastard son. Sure enough the New York dockworkers’ union rolls listed one Salvatore di Luca, a winch operator assigned to Pier 84.

He slid on to the bench next to me. I saw little of Alessa in him. He was stocky and muscular, with jet-black hair, black eyes, where Alessa’s were blue, and large hands with thick fingers.

‘Thank you for coming,’ I said.

Turi shook his head. ‘It is I who must thank you. I saw in the newspapers that my sister had died, but I never believed it was suicide. And I’d assumed our mission was a failure. Until a few days ago.’

‘When the “sleeper” was arrested?’

‘Yes, and when no one came to kill me afterwards. My children still have a father. Can you tell me what happened to Alessa?’

‘She was murdered by Orazio Rossi, her husband’s private secretary. He was a member of the Italian Communist Party in exile. He found out from—’

Turi raised his hand. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said. ‘It is best I don’t know. There are so many spies on the docks. Nazis, and even Reds. One of them must have followed me to my meetings with Alessa. And I was so careful! I so badly wanted to deliver my
capo
to American intelligence in a way that would not get me killed. Instead Alessa died.’

Turi broke down, burying his head in his hairy hands, sobbing softly until tears trickled through his fingers.

I wept, too, with a hand on his shoulder.

Turi lifted his head, pulling a bandanna out of a pocket and wiping his face. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what will happen to Rossi?’

I hated to tell him this. ‘OSS has swept the entire incident under the carpet. Alessa’s death is still listed as a suicide.’

Turi turned to me, incredulous. ‘No!’ he said.

‘Rossi is on his way to England. As soon as Sicily is liberated he will return there to spy on the communists in return for his freedom.’ Just saying those words made me angry. I couldn’t fault OSS for recruiting Rossi. He could prove to be a valuable double agent. But the injustice of it rankled. I’d blinded Rossi in one eye when we fought in Alessa’s bedroom, but that was a small price for him to pay for her murder.

‘What ship did he take?’ Turi asked.

‘To England?’ I said, surprised. ‘I don’t know. But I can find out.’

‘Send me a telegram as soon as you learn it. I know many Mafia
soldati
in the merchant marine union. Rossi will, sadly, drink too much in the saloon and fall overboard before his ship docks in London.’

AFTERWORD

I
n 1946, as a reward for his wartime cooperation, Mafia boss ‘Lucky’ Luciano was paroled on condition that he leave the United States and return to Sicily. He died at Naples International Airport in 1962 of a heart attack, but was buried in Queens. Two thousand people attended his funeral.