Free Assignment - Palermo by Edward S. Aarons Page A

boat.”
    “What did he look like—this other man and his friends?”
    Jean laughed. “ Voyons . Bald, dressed for the city, like you. Walked with a limp. Hard yellow eyes. I would not let him have my boat at any price.”
    He had described, briefly, Karl Kronin. . . .

    Durell scanned the mountainous Riviera coast with care. Eastward the resort hotels nestled in their coves and harbors with glittering opulence. To the west, sunlight reflected on a trailer camp located on a small rocky promontory. There was scrub brush, pines, a dark, coarse sand beach, then an area of private villas hugging the steep coast. Jean abruptly throttled his engines.
    “ Voila . The Manta , monsieur. Below Madame Kronsky’s house. The yellow one. She has not yet come down for the season.”
    “You’re sure it’s the right boat?”
    “I know it well. No one is aboard, though.”
    The sailboat they sought had been beached on the crescent sands of a tiny inlet under the yellow villa. The trailer camp was a mile to the left, the aluminum trailers and brightly colored tents half-hidden in the pines.
    “Take us in,” Durell ordered.
    They eased gently into the rock-bound little cove. No other boats were in sight. The boy kicked their stern about with a flat ripple of exhaust, which echoed back from the steep slopes. They grounded twenty feet from the red sloop. “She is not here, dad,” Jean said.
    “We’ll go ashore and find her.”
    “You wish me to accompany you? I thought you wanted to be alone with her, monsieur.. A rendezvous—” “She’s in trouble. Have you a weapon aboard?” _ The young French boy’s eyes gleamed an electric blue. “I have a Remington—pump gun, is it? I use it for the target shoot. I was right, then. I think you are an agent—a cop, hein ?"
    “I’m not a cop,” Durell said shortly.
    “Then it is five hundred extra for me and the gun ashore. In advance.”
    Durell paid him. “All right.”
    He waded through the cold water and walked across the dark coarse sand to the red sloop. There was no sign of Gabriella. But a clear set of small footprints led across the beach and a deserted terrace under the closed villa. Jean followed, his rifle held easily in the crook of his elbow. He looked tough and competent. Durell was sure that Gabriella had come here for a specific purpose. But her prints led away from the trailer camp to the left. If she had sailed here for a meeting with O’Malley, she’d have headed for the camp. On the other hand, if it was Kronin who had hired the other boat to follow her, then he was desperately far behind. She might have been cut off from her goal. Still, he saw no sign of another charter boat, and when he asked Jean, the blond boy shook his head.
    “Papa Simone’s boat is not here.”
    “It should be.”
    There were only the girl’s prints, and this was briefly reassuring. Gabriella had walked close to the water’s edge and then clambered over mossy rocks into the woods. Her path then became more difficult to follow. Sunlight dappled the soft turf like gold coins. She wore sneakers, however, and here and there a tread was visible. Durell quickened his stride. Beside the graveled road that led to the shuttered villa she had halted uncertainly, taking a few steps in several directions. Then her prints changed abruptly as she began to run along the gravel, the toe marks deeper. Something had frightened her away, driving her up the mountainside.
    “Hurry,” he told the boy.
    A few moments later they came across several sets of prints in the raked gravel, made by running men. They cut across the steep promontory and turned to follow Gabriella Vanini’s trail.
    “Two men,” Jean said. “Will they be armed?”
    “Yes. So be careful.” .
    “What has the girl done, eh?”
    Durell’s reply was cut off by a thin, faint scream from the woods above. It could have been the lonely cry of a bird, but he knew it wasn’t. It came from beyond the private driveway that looped