The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [1]
The Don held up his hands in a placatory gesture. ‘Business is business,’ he said. ‘I make no moral judgement.’
‘In order that there might be no possibility of misunderstanding,’ Vilmio said, ‘what do you reckon I’m up to?’
Before Fabrizzio could answer, the door at the far end of the great drawing room opened and in came a bikinied figure, carrying a tray. ‘Coffee!’ she called; and the one word was of the purest Brooklyn, undefiled.
3
Max Vilmio looked up in irritation. ‘Maggie!’ he said.
‘I told you we were not to be disturbed. Get lost.’
The blonde head shook at him reprovingly as she surveyed up the room. ‘I know you Eyeties. Can’t get going till you’ve had your fix!’ She giggled. ‘Hark at me! Still, I should know.’
She dumped the tray of little espresso cups onto the glass coffee table, so incongruous in the ancient palazzo with its velvet drapes and Moorish rugs.
‘We’re talking business here, babe,’ said Vilmio.
‘You got it, Daddy-o. I’m gone already. See? Watch me go!’
So the four men watched her backside retreat to the door, where she turned to give them a wink and a farewell wiggle.
The coffee was ignored. The Don, no longer smiling, turned-to the thin man by his side. ‘Consigliere,’ he said.
‘Show Signor Vilmio the contract.’
Max glanced at the sheet of paper he was offered. He seemed unimpressed. ‘A lot about percentages, yeah. Not much detail of what I can expect in return.’
The consigliere spoke for the first time. ‘Protection,’ he said.
4
Max Vilmio burst out laughing. ‘I’m not some punk running a liquor store in the Bronx. Protection against your hoods? Come on!’
The old man shook his head. ‘We are suggesting nothing so crude, Signore. Your – your line of business is well established in these parts. You can expect jealousies to arise which might have unfortunate consequences. With our contacts we can –’
But he was interrupted. ‘My line of business? You’re guessing again, Don Fabrizzio.’
‘I think not.’
‘Well? What exactly am I up to? In a word.’
Fabrizzio looked at him with a slight frown. The man was not playing the game according to the rules. The Sicilian subtlety which ruled all such negotiations should forbid such plain speaking.
‘In a word?’ he said at last. ‘Whores.’
Elspeth looks in horror at the still smoking automatic in her hand and unwillingly lifts her eyes to the impossible sight of the old man’s body. How could such a thing have happened? And what is she going to do now?
The noise of the door heralds the arrival of the person she fears most in all the world, the erstwhile drug‐ smuggler from Valparaiso, Garcia O’Toole, who is in Scunthorpe 5
visiting his Irish aunt and happens to have heard the shot as he…
‘Oh phooey,’ said Sarah Jane Smith aloud. ‘That’s just plain silly.’ Yet Garcia had got to turn up and catch Elspeth or she’d never get them in bed together.
Standing up, she clasped her fingers behind her back and stretched her arms to ease the stiffness in her shoulders.
The dapple of light on the wall, reflected from the ripples in the harbour, reminded her that she was supposed to be on holiday.
Abandoning Elspeth to her fate, she wandered over to the window and perched on the sill, closing her eyes to the glare of the Mediterranean sun, and leant back, revelling in the coolness of the spring breeze on her skin.
Perhaps the whole enterprise was a non-starter, she thought. It was all very well dudgeoning out of Clorinda’s office like a mardy adolescent… Huh! Who’d want Clorinda for a mum? Bad enough having her for an editor.
Couldn’t she see that the Dalek piece was the biggest scoop of all time, the soft cow? As if Sarah would make up a story as far out as that; as if she’d pretend she’d been to another planet and all; and invent a living city and mechanical snakes and stuff.
6
It wasn’t as though it was the only time it had happened.
Every time she’d been with the Doctor in his TARDIS