Free The Way to Dusty Death by Alistair MacLean

bottles of scotch in his room? Run along, girl, and get dressed. We’ve got to leave for -this bloody reception in twenty minutes — without, it seems, your precious Johnny.’
    She remained seated, her face quite without expression, her unblinking eyes irremovably fixed on MacAlpine’s. After a few moments his expression softened and he smiled. He said: Tm sorry. That was quite uncalled for.’
    Dunnet held the door while she hobbled from the room. Both men watched her go with pity in their eyes.

CHAPTER FIVE
    To the Grand Prix racing fraternity of the world, as to seasoned travellers everywhere, a hotel is a hotel is a hotel, a place to sleep, a place to eat, a stopover to the next faceless anonymity. The newly-built Villa- Hotel Cessni on the outskirts of Monza, however, could fairly claim to be an exception to the truism. Superbly designed, superbly built and superbly landscaped, its huge airy rooms with their immaculately designed furniture, their luxurious bathrooms, splendidly sweeping balconies, sumptuous food and warmth of service, here one would have thought was the caravanserai nonpareil for the better-heeled millionaire.
    And so it would be, one day, but not yet. The Villa-Hotel Cessni had as yet to establish its clientele, its image, its reputation and, hopefully and eventually, its traditions and for the achievement of -those infinitely desirable ends, the fair uses of publicity, for luxury hotels as for hotdog stands, could be very sweet indeed. No sport on earth has a more international following and it was with this in mind that the management had deemed it prudent to invite the major Grand Prix teams to accommodate themselves in this palace, for a ludicrously low nominal fee, for the duration of the Italian Grand Prix. Few teams had failed to accept the invitation and fewer still cared to exercise their minds with the philosophical and psychological motivations of the management: all they knew and cared about was that the Hotel-Villa Cessni was infinitely more luxurious and fractionally cheaper than the several Austrian hotels they had so gratefully abandoned only twelve days ago. Next year, it seemed likely, they wouldn’t even be allowed to sleep stacked six-deep in the basement: but that was next year.
    That Friday evening late in August was warm but by no means warm enough to justify air-conditioning. Nevertheless, the air-conditioning in the lobby of the Hotel-Villa Cessni was operating at the top of its bent making the temperature in that luxuriously appointed haven from the lower classes almost uncomfortably cool. Common sense said that this interior climatic condition was wholly unnecessary: the prestige of an up and coming status symbol said that it was wholly necessary. The management was concerned with prestige to the point of obsession: the air-conditioning remained on. The Cessni was going to be the place to go when the sun rode high.
    MacAlpine and Dunnet, sitting side by side but almost concealed from each other’s sight by virtue of the imposing construction of the vast velvet-lined arm-chairs in which they reclined rather than sat, had more important things on their minds than a few degrees of temperature hither and yonder. They spoke but seldom and then with a marked lack of animation: they gave the air of those who had precious little to get animated about. Dunnet stirred.
    ‘Our wandering boy is late on the road tonight.’
    He has an excuse,’ MacAlpine said. ‘At least, I hope to hell he has. One thing, he was always a conscientious workman. He wanted a few more extra laps to adjust the suspension and gear ratios of this new car of his.’
    Dunnet was gloomy. ‘It wouldn’t have been possible, I suppose, to give it to Tracchia instead?’
    ‘Quite impossible, Alexis, and you know it. The mighty law of protocol. Johnny’s not only Coronado’s number one, he’s still the world’s. Our dear sponsors, without which we couldn’t very well operate — I could, but I’ll be