The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry [82]
“Mafia.”
“Yes, Chicago. Frankie is an important American.”
“But why? What would you need with him? You’ve got all the guns you need.”
“You never have all the guns you might need. You know how it is. One of the bolshoy chirey has an idea—do you know what that phrase means? The big boils—that’s what we call our senior officers, as if they will burst at any moment. It tells you something about the KGB. Anyway, someone had an idea in Moscow. I carried it out in the field. It was a contingency plan. Maybe someday they’d need a clean killing in the States. Then they’d have a man.”
“But it was insecure.”
“The Mafia is insecure? No one has ever convicted Frankie Pigeon of anything. It was compartmented very tightly. Frankie didn’t know who we were. He likes money, a little on the side. It wasn’t easy to find a man like Frankie—most of these gangsters won’t deal with outsiders.”
“How often did you use him?”
“Never, unless we used him last month. The idea all along was to employ him on a one-time basis against a target we couldn’t reach. He’ll never be used again.”
Klimenko was shivering violently, and Christopher felt the cold seeping through his own raincoat.
“Really, we must get under cover,” Klimenko said. “It’s getting light.”
“What was Pigeon used for?”
“That I don’t know. But consider the sum involved. Consider the date.”
“I have,” Christopher said.
“I can give you a piece of hard information, Paul. Frankie Pigeon is a sentimental man. He always spends the twelve days of Christmas in the village of Calabria where he was born. He brings his wife and children with him on Christmas Eve and stays until January 7.1 can show you on a map where he’ll be.”
“You can show me in the car,” Christopher said.
Sitting in the front seat beside Christopher, Klimenko drew a sketch of the roads leading to Frankie Pigeon’s house in the hills above Catanzaro. on the toe of the Italian boot. He handed it to Christopher.
“He takes two men with him,” he said. “I don’t know what their security arrangements are. He likes to hunt rabbits in the early morning and talk with the farmers in the evening. He goes for walks before dinner.”
“I thought you said you didn’t keep in touch.”
“I kept myself informed.”
“Is there anything else about this man Pigeon—as a person, I mean?”
“The weakness?” Klimenko said. “He’s a snob—he’s been bilked of thousands by genealogists attempting to prove that his mother’s family, the Cerruti, are bourgeoisie from the north of Italy; but all the Cerruti are Sicilian from way back, shepherds and shoemakers. That’s of no use to you.”
“Then tell me something that is useful.”
“Frankie Pigeon is a hypochondriac. He’s morbid about germs—washes his hands all the time. He has a servant who spreads sterilized towels over the floor for him to walk on in hotels. He boils his coins before he touches them, won’t handle paper money at all because of the danger of disease. You recognize the pathology—it’s common enough in murderers.”
The bleak shape of Monte Testaccio loomed above the car, with a cross mounted at its summit. “What’s the name of that hill?” Klimenko asked.
Christopher told him. “It’s made entirely of pottery—the jugs the ancient Romans used to transport wheat and honey from the eastern Mediterranean. It will appeal to your Leninist sense of irony that the Monte Testaccio, a dump, is the only remaining trace of the common people of the Roman Empire.”
Klimenko laughed, coughed, and covered his mouth. “What are the arrangements?” he asked.
Christopher gave him an address and a key. “Be ready at five o’clock, precisely on the hour. The man who comes will say his name is Edward Trelawny. You’ll reply, ‘Do you still have Shelley’s heart?’”
“Almost twelve hours. Can’t it be sooner?”
“No. One last thing, Gherman—don’t talk to anyone else about Frankie Pigeon for fourteen days. Then you can spill it.”
Klimenko was swiveling his head, watching the approaches to the car.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes. I