Luciano's Luck Read Free Page A

splitting the flesh to the bone, before clutching him by the throat. They fell across the table and rolled over the edge to the floor and Carter was aware of one blow after another to the body and the pistol exploding between them. Somehow, he found himself up on one knee, twisting the other's wrist up and around until the bone cracked and the Walther jumped into the air, landing in the hearth. The German screamed, his head going back, and Carter punched him in the open throat with knuckles extended. Schafer rolled over on to his face and lay still and Carter Si! j and ran into the hall. He grabbed for the shotgun, . -n_ jt over his shoulder as he made for the front door. There was a dreamlike quality to everything. It was as f he was moving in slow motion, no strength to him, so fhat even opening the front door was an effort. He leaned gainst the balustrade of the porch, aware now that the front of his jacket was soaked with blood, not Schafer's but his own. When he slipped a hand inside his shirt he could feel the lips of the wound like raw meat where a bullet had ripped through his left side. No time for that, not now for he was aware of the sound of vehicles approaching on the road, very fast. He went lurching down the steps, picked up the bicycle and hurriedly retraced his steps through the garden to the rear gate. He reached the shelter of the pine trees below the villa, turned in time to see a truck and two kubelwagens appear on the main road above him. Carter didn't wait to see what would happen, simply pushed on through the trees until he came to the woodcutter's track that ran all the way down through the forest to Bellona. Just enough light to see by if he was lucky. He flung a leg over the broken leather saddle of the old bicycle and rode away. There wasn't a great deal to remember of that ride. The trees crowding in on either side, deepening the evening gloom, the rush of the heavy rain. It was rather like being on the kind of monumental drunk where, afterwards, only occasional images surface. He opened his eyes to find himself lying on his back, the rain falling on his upturned face, in a ditch on the edge of the village, the bicycle beside him. The pain of the gunshot wound was intense now, worse than he would have believed possible. There was no sign of the shotgun and he forced himself to his feet and stumbled along the track through the swiftly falling darkness. The smell of wood smoke hung on the damp air and a dog barked hollowly in the distance, but otherwise there was no sign of life except for the occasional light in a window. And yet there were people up there, watching from behind the shutters, waiting. He made it across the main square, pausing at the fountain in the centre to put his head under the jet of cold water that gushed from the mouth and nostrils of a bronze dryad, continued past the church and turned into a narrow side street. There was an entrance to a courtyard a few houses along, barred by an oaken gate, a blue lamp above it. The sign painted on the wall in ornate black letters read Vito Barbera - Mortician. A small judas gate stood next to the main door. Carter leaned against it and pulled the bell chain. There was silence for a while and he held on to the grille with one hand, staring up at the rain falling in a silver spray through the lamplight. A footstep sounded inside and the grille opened. Barbera said, 'What is it?' 'Me, Vito.' 'Harry, is that you?' Barbera said, this time in the kind of English that came straight from the Bronx. 'Thank God. I thought they must have lifted you.' He opened the judas gate and Carter stepped inside. 'A damn near-run thing, Vito, just like Waterloo,' he said and fainted. Carter surfaced slowly and found himself looking up at a cracked plaster ceiling. It was very cold and there was a heavy, medicinal smell to everything that he soon recognized as formaldehyde. He was lying on one of the tables in the mortuary preparation room, his neck pillowed on a