Bloody Passage - Jack Higgins [26]
We pushed our way through the crowd to one side and negotiated the stage door with no difficulty as Barzini was obviously known. Angel Carter's name was on the door of a dressing room in a corridor at the rear and we walked outside. She was still singing up there on the stage, presumably an encore. When she finished, the audience stamped and cheered again, but this time it didn't do them any good. The band broke into a fast quickstep and a moment later she came down the steps.
As she reached the bottom, an astonishing thing happened. Two men in evening dress who had been standing there talking in low tones suddenly grabbed her.
The larger one, a thoroughly nasty-looking specimen, said in Italian, "Okay, baby, you're coming out with us tonight."
"Definitely!" the other one said and ran a hand up her skirt.
They were both obviously pretty drunk. I took a step forward and Barzini pulled me back. Angel Carter pulled free and delivered a high karate kick to the big man's jaw and the effect of that stiletto heel was devastating. At the same time, she put a knee into the other man's gut and gave it him again in the face as he keeled over.
Such was the vigor of the movement that her blond wig came off and all was revealed, for underneath was a very old-fashioned GI haircut. Angel Carter was a man.
He stamped down the corridor, clutching the blond wig and cursing fluently in very explicit Anglo-Saxon.
"Good evening, Angelo," Barzini said.
Carter stopped dead and glared at him, "And what in the hell's good about it? I'm sick of getting touched up by drunken bums every night. I quit. If you've got anything better to offer, come in. If you haven't, get lost."
He walked into the dressing room, skirt swirling, and slammed the door.
Barzini grinned. "Like I said, a very exceptional woman." He opened the door and we followed him in.
Angelo Carter was seated at a dressing table dialing a phone number. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. Barzini gave him a light and Carter started to speak in rapid and fluent Italian to some girl called Rosanna, telling her that he'd be calling just after midnight.
"His mother was Italian, which explains the Angelo," Barzini said. "Father, American."
Angelo slammed down the receiver, reached for a bottle of Scotch and poured about three fingers into a tumbler. Barzini said, "So you're going to do the second show?"
"Only because I owe you," Angelo said. "But, after that, finish. Final and definite." He swallowed half his whisky and looked across at Langley and me. "What's this supposed to be? Open night?"
"I'd like you to meet a good friend of mine, Major Grant," Barzini said. "You've got a lot in common."
"No, I haven't," Angelo said firmly. "Not with any major I ever heard of."
"You were both in Vietnam."
Angelo was about to finish the rest of his whisky. Instead he paused and eyed me speculatively. "You were in Nam? What outfit?"
"Special Services Executive," I told him.
"Jesus!" He turned to Barzini. "That's the military branch of the Mafia. You're in bad company, Aldo."
"Angelo was in the Green Berets," Barzini said. "I always understood they cut a neat throat, isn't that so, Oliver?"
"So they say." I lit a cigarette and said to Angelo, "A long way from the Mekon."
"Don't rub it in, friend," he said. "I did a drag act in a troop show when I was in a Saigon military hospital, just for laughs. It was supposed to be a one-night stand and here I am, three years later, the toast of Europe." He shook his head. "No, Aldo, I'll do your second show for you, but after that, you'll never see me in skirts again."
He tossed back the rest of his whisky and Barzini picked up the bottle and poured him another. "That's a pity, Angelo, because I've got a new contract for you and the terms are really quite excellent."
"They always are," Angelo told him sourly.
"Twenty thousand dollars," Barzini said. "Only one performance required."