Holden surpassed Matlock’s expectations. Several times he nearly laughed out loud as he watched Holden take hundred-dollar bills—rushed into Webster by a harassed, nervous Alex Anderson—and flick them nonchalantly at a croupier, never bothering to count the chips but somehow letting everyone at whatever table he was at realize that he knew—to the dollar—the amount given him. Holden played intelligently, cautiously, and at one point was ahead of the house by nine thousand dollars. By the end of the evening, he had cut his winnings to several hundred and the operators of the Windsor Valley breathed grateful sighs of relief.
James Matlock cursed his second night of terrible luck and took his twelve-hundred-dollar loss for what it meant to him—nothing.
At four in the morning Matlock and Holden, flanked by Aiello, Bartolozzi, Sharpe, and two of their cronies, sat at a large oak table in the colonial dining room. They were alone. A waiter and two busboys were cleaning up; the gambling rooms on the third floor of the inn had closed.
The husky, Aiello and the short, fat Bartolozzi kept up a running commentary about their respective clientele, each trying to upstage the other with regard to their customers’ status; each allowing that “it might be nice” for the other to become “acquainted” with a Mr. and Mrs. Johnson of Canton or a certain Dr. Wadsworth. Sharpe, on the other hand, seemed more interested in Holden and the action in England. He told several funny, self-effacing stories about his visits to London clubs and his insurmountable difficulty with British currency in the heat of betting.
Matlock thought, as he watched Sammy Sharpe, that he was a very charming man. It wasn’t hard to believe that Sharpe was considered a respectable asset to Windsor Shoals, Connecticut. He couldn’t help comparing Sharpe to Jason Greenberg. And in the comparison, he found an essential difference. It was told in the eyes. Greenberg’s were soft and compassionate, even in anger. Sharpe’s were cold, hard, incessantly darting—strangely in conflict with the rest of his relaxed face.
He heard Bartolozzi ask Holden where he was off to next. Holden’s offhand reply gave him the opportunity he was looking for. He waited for the right moment.
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss my itinerary.”
“He means where he’s going,” injected Rocco Aiello.
Bartolozzi shot Aiello a withering glance. “I just thought you should drop over to Avon. I got a real nice place I think you’d enjoy.”
“I’m sure I would. Perhaps another time.”
“Johnny’ll be in touch with me next week,” Matlock said. “We’ll get together.” He reached for an ashtray and crushed out his cigarette. “I have to be in … Carlyle, that’s the name of the place.”
There was the slightest pause in the conversation. Sharpe, Aiello, and one of the other two men exchanged looks. Bartolozzi, however, seemed oblivious to any deep meaning.
“The college place?” asked the short Italian.
“That’s right,” answered Matlock. “I’ll probably stay at Carmount or the Sail and Ski. I guess you fellows know where they are.”
“I guess we do.” Aiello laughed softly.
“What’s your business in Carlyle?” The unidentified man—at least no one had bothered to introduce him by name—drew deeply on a cigar as he spoke.
“My business,” said Matlock pleasantly.
“Just asking. No offense.”
“No offense taken.… Hey, it’s damned near four thirty! You fellows are too hospitable.” Matlock pushed his chair back, prepared to stand.
The man with the cigar, however, had to ask another question.
“Is your friend going to Carlyle with you?”
Holden held up his hand playfully. “Sorry, no itineraries. I’m simply a visitor to your pleasant shores and filled with a tourist’s plans.… We really must go.”
Both men rose from the table. Sharpe stood, too. Before the others could move, Sharpe spoke.
“I’ll see the boys to their car and show them the road out. You fellows wait here—we’ll settle accounts. I owe you money, Rocco. Frank owes me. Maybe I’ll come out even.”
The man with the cigar, whose name was obviously Frank, laughed. Aiello looked momentarily perplexed but within seconds grasped the meaning of Sharpe’s statement. The men at the table were to remain.
Matlock wasn’t sure he’d handled the situation advantageously.
He had wanted to pursue the Carlyle discussion just enough to have someone offer to make the necessary calls to Carmount and the Sail and Ski. Holden’s refusal to speak about his itinerary precluded it, and Matlock was afraid that it also implied that he and Holden were so important that further introductions were unnecessary. In addition, Matlock realized that as his journey progressed, he banked more and more on the dead Loring’s guarantee that none of those invited to the Carlyle conference would discuss delegates among themselves. The meaning of “Omerta” was supposedly so powerful that silence was inviolate. Yet Sharpe had just commanded those at the table to remain.
He had the feeling that perhaps he had gone too far with too little experience. Perhaps it was time to reach Greenberg—although he’d wanted to wait until he had more concrete knowledge before doing so. If he made contact with Greenberg now, the agent might force him—what was the idiotic phrase?—out of strategy. He wasn’t prepared to face that problem.
Sharpe escorted them to the near-deserted parking lot. The Windsor Vally Inn wasn’t crowded with overnight guests.
“We don’t encourage sleeping accommodations,” Sharpe explained. “We’re known primarily as a fine restaurant.”
“I can understand that,” said Matlock.
“Gentlemen,” began Sharpe haltingly. “May I make a request that might be considered impolite?”
“Go right ahead.”
“May I have a word with you, Mr. Matlock? Privately.”
“Oh, don’t concern yourself,” said Holden, moving off. “I understand fully. I’ll just walk around.”
“He’s a very nice fellow, your English friend,” Sharpe said.
“The nicest. What is it, Sammy?”
“Several points of information, as we say in court.”
“What are they?”
“I’m a cautious man, but I’m also very curious. I run a fine organization, as you can see.”
“I can see.”
“I’m growing nicely—cautiously, but nicely.”
“I’ll accept that.”
“I don’t make mistakes. I’ve a trained legal mind and I’m proud that I don’t make mistakes.”
“What are you driving at?”
“It strikes me—and I must be honest with you, it has also occurred to my partner Frank and to Rocco Aiello—that you may have been sent into the territory to make certain observations.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Why?… From nowhere comes a player like you. You got powerful friends in San Juan. You know our places like the back of your hand. Then you have a very rich, very nice associate from the London scene. That all adds up.… But most important—and I think you know it—you mention this business in Carlyle. Let’s be honest. That speaks a whole big book, doesn’t it?”
“Does it?”
“I’m not foolhardy. I told you, I’m a cautious man. I understand the rules and I don’t ask questions I’m not supposed to ask or talk about things I’m not privileged to know about.… Still, I want the generals to realize they have a few intelligent, even ambitious, lieutenants in the organization. Anyone can tell you. I don’t skim, I don’t hold back.”
“Are you asking me to give you a good report?”
“That about sizes it up. I have value. I’m a respected attorney. My partner’s a very successful insurance broker. We’re naturals.”
“What about Aiello? It seems to me you’re friendly with him.”
“Rocco’s a good boy. Maybe not the quickest, but solid. He’s a kind person, too. However, I don’t believe he’s in our league.”
“And Ba
rtolozzi?”
“I have nothing to say about Bartolozzi. You’ll have to make up your own mind about him.”
“By saying nothing, you’re saying a lot, aren’t you?”
“In my opinion, he talks too much. But that could be his personality. He rubs me the wrong way. Not Rocco, though.”
Matlock watched the methodical Sharpe in the predawn light of the parking lot and began to understand what had happened. It was logical; he, himself, had planned it, but now that it was taking place, he felt curiously objective. Observing himself; watching reacting puppets.
He had entered Nimrod’s world a stranger; possibly suspect, certainly devious.
Yet suddenly, that suspicion, that deviousness, was not to be scorned but honored.
The suspect honored for his deviousness—because it had to come from a higher source. He was an emissary from the upper echelons now. He was feared.
What had Greenberg called it? The shadow world. Unseen armies positioning their troops in darkness, constantly on the alert for stray patrols, unfriendly scouts.
The thin line he had to tread was precarious. But it was his now.
“You’re a good man, Sharpe. Goddamn smart, too.… What do you know about Carlyle?”
“Nothing! Absolutely nothing.”
“Now you’re lying, and that’s not smart.”
“It’s true. I don’t know anything. Rumors I’ve heard. Knowledge and hearsay are two different kinds of testimony.” Sharpe held up his right hand, his two forefingers separated.
“What rumors? Give it straight, for your own sake.”
“Just rumors. A gathering of the clan, maybe. A meeting of very highly placed individuals. An agreement which has to be reached between certain people.”
“Nimrod?”
Sammy Sharpe closed his eyes for precisely three seconds. During those moments he spoke.
“Now you talk language I don’t want to hear.”
“Then you didn’t hear it, did you?”
“It’s stricken from the record, I assure you.”
“O.K. You’re doing fine. And when you go back inside, I don’t think it would be such a good idea to discuss the rumors you’ve heard. That would be acting like a stupid lieutenant, wouldn’t it?”
“Not only stupid—insane.”
“Why did you tell them to stay, then? It’s late.”
“For real. I wanted to know what everybody thought of you and your English friend. I’ll tell you now, though—since you have mentioned a certain name, no such discussion will take place. As I said, I understand the rules.”
“Good. I believe you. You’ve got possibilities. You’d better go back in.… Oh, one last thing. I want you … we want you to call Stockton at Carmount and Cantor at the Sail and Ski. Just say I’m a personal friend and I’ll be showing up. Nothing else. We don’t want any guards up. That’s important, Sammy. Nothing else.”
“It’s my pleasure. And you won’t forget to convey my regards to the others?”
“I won’t forget. You’re a good man.”
“I do my best. It’s all a person can do …”
Just then, the quiet of the predawn was shattered by five loud reports. Glass smashed. The sounds of people running and screaming and furniture crashing came from within the inn. Matlock threw himself to the ground.
“John! John!”
“Over here! By the car! Are you all right?!”
“Yes. Stay there!”
Sharpe had run into the darkness by the base of the building. He crouched into a corner, pressing himself against the brick. Matlock could barely see the outline of his form, but he could see enough to watch Sharpe withdraw a revolver from inside his jacket.
Again there was a volley of shots from the rear of the building, followed once more by screams of terror. A busboy crashed through the side door and crawled on his hands and knees toward the edge of the parking lot. He shouted hysterically in a language Matlock could not understand.
Several seconds later, another of the inn’s employees in a white jacket ran through the door pulling a second man behind him, this one obviously wounded, blood pouring from his shoulder, his right arm dangling, immobile.
Another shot rang out of nowhere and the waiter who had been screaming fell over. The wounded man behind him went pummeling forward, crashing face down into the gravel. Within the building, men were shouting.
“Let’s go! Get out! Get to the car!”
He fully expected to see men come scrambling out of the side door into the parking lot, but no one came. Instead, from another section of the property, he heard the gunning of an engine and, moments later, the screeching of tires as an automobile made a sharp turn. And then, to his left, about fifty yards away, a black sedan came racing out of the north driveway toward the main road. The car had to pass under a street light, and Matlock saw it clearly.
It was the same automobile that had plunged out of the darkness moments after Ralph Loring’s murder.
Everything was still again. The grayish light of dawn was getting brighter.
“Jim! Jim, come here! I think they’ve gone!”
It was Holden. He had left the sanctuary of the automobile and was crouching over the man in the white jacket.
“Coming!” said Matlock, getting off the ground. “This fellow’s dead. He was shot between the shoulders.… This one’s still breathing. Better get an ambulance.” Holden had walked over to the unconscious busboy with the bloodied, immobile right arm.
“I don’t hear anything. Where’s Sharpe?”
“He just went inside. That door. He had a gun.”
The two men walked carefully to the side entrance of the inn. Matlock slowly opened the door and preceded Holden into the foyer. Furniture was overturned, chairs and tables on their sides; blood was glistening on the wooden floor.
“Sharpe? Where are you?” Matlock raised his voice cautiously. It was several seconds before the reply came. When it did, Sharpe could hardly be heard.
“In here. In the dining room.”
Matlock and Holden walked through the oak-framed arch. Nothing in either man’s life had prepared him for what he saw.
The overpowering horror was the sight of the bodies literally covered with blood. What was left of Rocco Aiello was sprawled across the red-soaked tablecloth, most of his face blown off. Sharpe’s partner, the unin-troduced man named Frank, was on his knees, his torso twisted back over the seat of a chair, blood flowing out of his neck, his eyes wide open in death. Jacopo Bartolozzi was on the floor, his obese body arched around the leg of a table, the front of his shirt ripped up to the collar, revealing his bulging stomach, the flesh pierced with a score of bullet holes, blood still trickling out over the coarse black hair. Bartolozzi had tried to tear his shirt away from his battered chest, and a portion of cloth was clutched in his dead hand. The fourth man lay behind Bartolozzi, his head resting on Bartolozzi’s right foot, his arms and legs extended in a spread-eagle pattern, his entire back covered with a thick layer of blood, portions of his intestines pushed through the skin.
“Oh, my God!” muttered Matlock, not fully believing what he saw. John Holden looked as though he might become sick. Sharpe spoke softly, rapidly, wearily.
“You’d better go. You and your English friend better leave quickly.”
“You’ll have to call the police,” said Matlock, bewildered.
“There’s a man outside, a boy. He’s still alive.” Holden stuttered as he spoke.
Sharpe looked over at the two men, the revolver at his side, his eyes betraying only the slightest degree of suspicion. “I have no doubt the lines have been cut. The nearest houses are farms at least half a mile from here.… I’ll take care of everything. You’d better get out of here.”
“Do you think we should?” asked Holden, looking at Matlock.
Sharpe replied. “Listen, Englishman, personally I couldn’t care less what either of you do. I’ve got enough to think about, enough to figure out.… For your own
good, get out of here. Less complications, less risk. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, you’re right,” Matlock said.
“In case you’re picked up, you left here a half hour ago. You were friends of Bartolozzi, that’s, all I know.”
“All right.”
Sharpe had to turn away from the sight of the murdered men. Matlock thought for a moment that the Windsor Shoals attorney was going to weep. Instead, he took a deep breath and spoke again.
“A trained legal mind, Mr. Matlock. I’m valuable. You tell them that.”
“I will.”
“You also tell them I need protection, deserve protection. You tell them that, too.”
“Of course.”
“Now, get out.” Suddenly Sharpe threw his revolver on the floor in disgust. And then he screamed, as the tears came to his eyes, “Get out for Christ’s sake! Get out!”
22
Matlock and Holden agreed to separate immediately. The English professor dropped off the mathematician at his apartment and then headed south to Fairfield. He wanted to register at a highway motel far enough away from Windsor Shoals to feel less panicked, yet near enough to Hartford so he could get to Black-stone’s by two in the afternoon.
He was too exhausted, too frightened to think. He found a third-rate motel just west of Stratford and surprised the early morning clerk by being alone.
During the registration, he mumbled unpleasant criticisms about a suspicious wife in Westport, and with a ten-dollar bill convinced the clerk to enter his arrival at 2:00 A.M., single. He fell into bed by seven and left a call for twelve thirty. If he slept for five hours, he thought, things had to become clearer.
Matlock slept for five hours and twenty minutes and nothing much had changed. Very little had cleared up for him. If anything, the massacre at Windsor Shoals now appeared more extraordinary than ever. Was it possible that he was meant to be a victim? Or were the killers waiting outside, waiting silently for him to leave before committing their executions?
Mistake or warning?
By one fifteen he was on the Merritt Parkway. By one thirty he entered the Berlin Turnpike, taking the back roads into Hartford. By five minutes past two he walked into Blackstone’s office.