James Chase - This Way for a Shroud

“He’s not here. If he had stayed, maybe we shouldn’t have had to ask for Ferrari, but he didn’t stay. I’ve got to save the organization. There’s only one man who can do it for me — Ferrari!”

The name Vito Ferrari struck a chill into Seigel’s heart the way the name Inquisitor must have struck a chill into the heart of a heretic in the Middle Ages.

Vito Ferrari was the Syndicate’s executioner. Fantastic and unbelievable tales had been told of his cruelty, his ruthlessness, his crimes and his lust for blood. He had become a legendary figure in the underworlds of the world.

Seigel knew that if he ever stepped out of turn, it would be Ferrari who would be sent by the Syndicate to kill him. To have asked Ferrari to come to Pacific City was like asking for Death itself to pay a visit, and Seigel stared at Gollowitz with horrified eyes.

“You must be crazy!” he said.

Gollowitz again spread out his fat hands.

“It is either he or the organization. I didn’t want to have him here. If you had shown you could handle this thing, do you imagine I would have sent for him?”

Seigel started to say something when a knock came on the door.

Seigel started, then spun around to face the door, his eyes sick and frightened.

“Come in,” Gollowitz said.

Dutch pushed open the door. There was a blank, stupid expression on his face, like the face of a man who comes out into the sunshine after sitting through a two-feature programme.

“There’s a guy asking for you,” he said to Gollowitz. “He says you’re expecting him.”

Gollowitz went a shade paler. He nodded his head slowly.

“That’s right. Let him in.”

Dutch looked at Seigel questioningly, but Seigel turned away. Dutch plodded across the room and opened the door that led into the outer office.

“Come in,” Seigel heard him say.

Seigel stood waiting, his heart thudding against his ribs. Although he had heard Ferrari’s name many times during his career of crime, he had never seen him, nor had he seen a photograph of him. He had, however, conjured up in his mind a picture of him. He had imagined him to be a great ox of a man, coarse, powerful, brutal and ferocious. With the reputation such as Ferrari had, no other picture would satisfy Seigel. It came as a considerable shock to him when Vito Ferrari came quietly into the room.

Ferrari was an inch or so under five feet; almost a dwarf, and there was nothing of him except skin and bone. His black lounge suit hung on him as if draped over a tailor’s dummy made of wire.

Seigel was immediately struck by Ferrari’s extraordinary walk. He appeared to glide over the parquet floor, as silently and as smoothly as a phantom, as if his feet were treading on space, and when Seigel looked at his face, he was again reminded of a phantom.

Ferrari’s face was wedge shaped. He had a broad forehead that tapered down to a narrow square chin. His nose was hooked and over-large, his mouth was a thin line as near lipless as made no difference. His yellowish skin was stretched so tightly it revealed the bone structure of his head and face to give him the appearance of a death’s head.

His small eyes were sunk so deeply into dark-ringed sockets as to be almost invisible, but when Seigel looked closer it seemed to him he was looking into the fixed, unnatural eyes of a wax effigy.

Both Gollowitz and Seigel were so startled by Ferrari’s unexpected appearance that they remained staring at him, unable to utter a word.

Ferrari took off his black hat. His thick mass of dark hair was turning a little grey at the temples. He put the hat on the desk and then sat down in the chair Seigel had occupied.

“A woman and man, that’s right, isn’t it?” he said. He had a queer husky voice that sent a chill up Seigel’s spine. It was the kind of voice you might hear come from the mouth of a medium at a séance.

Gollowitz hastily collected himself.

“I am very glad to have you here,” he said, and was aware that he was gushing without being able to help himself. “It was very good of Big Joe…”

“Where are they?” Ferrari interrupted, his sunken eyes on Gollowitz’s face.

Gollowitz gulped, stuttered and looked helplessly at Seigel.

“You mean these two you’ve come to take care of?” Seigel asked, his voice off-key.

“Who else?” Ferrari said impatiently. “Where are they? Don’t you know?”

“They are in a hunting lodge in Butcher’s Wood,” Gollowitz told him hurriedly. He had received detailed information from McCann only this morning. “I have a map here.” He opened a drawer in the desk, took out a neatly prepared plan and pushed it across the desk.

Ferrari picked it up, folded it into four and put it in his pocket without looking at it.

“How do you want me to kill them?” he asked.

“I’ll leave that to you,” Gollowitz said. “But it is essential that both of them should appear to the accidentally.”

Ferrari pursed his thin lips.

“When are they to the?” he asked, sitting down.

“Wouldn’t it be better to discuss the means of getting at them?” Gollowitz suggested, stung by Ferrari’s arrogant tone. “If it were all that easy I wouldn’t have sent for you. They are guarded night and day. No one can get near the lodge without being seen. There are police dogs, searchlights and a small regiment of police guarding the only approach to the lodge. There are six picked detectives, all expert shots, who take it in turns to guard these two. Two women detectives never leave the Coleman girl for a moment, even when she’s asleep. Two detectives guard Weiner in the same way. It’s not a matter of when they are to the, but how we’re going to get at them.”

Ferrari ran a bony finger down the length of his nose while he regarded

Gollowitz the way a scientist would regard an unknown microbe.

“I asked you when they are to die,” he said.

Gollowitz looked over at Seigel and shrugged his fat shoulders.

“As soon as possible, of course,” he said curtly.

“Very well. When I have studied the map and have looked the place over, I will give you a date,” Ferrari said, speaking in slow, precise English with a noticeable Italian accent. “It will probably be in two days’ time.”

“You mean you will kill them in two days’ time?” Seigel exclaimed. “It’s not possible!”

“It won’t be possible for both of them to the in two days’ time,” Ferrari said, “but certainly one of them will the in this time. Both of them could go within two days if you didn’t insist their deaths should appear accidental. Two people to the so quickly would be too much of a coincidence.” He looked across at Gollowitz. “You are quite sure you want them to the accidentally?”

“It is essential,” Gollowitz said, secretly pleased to make Ferrari’s task even more difficult. “If the newspapers suspect they have been murdered they will raise such a stink there may be an inquiry, and we can’t afford that.”

“Yes.” Ferrari ran his claw-like hand over his hair. “Very well, one of them will go in two or three days’ time. We’ll have to consider what to do with the other when the first job has been taken care of.”

“You’ll forgive me for being sceptical,” Gollowitz said dryly, “but we have discussed ways and means of getting at these two, and we have failed completely to find a solution. You talk as if the job’s already done, and yet you haven’t even had the opportunity to study the ground.”

Ferrari again ran his finger down his nose. It seemed to be an unconscious habit of his.

“But then I am an expert,” he said quietly. “You are an amateur. You have approached this job in the wrong frame of mind. You have looked for difficulties. You have told yourself that it is impossible. You have defeated yourself; the situation hasn’t defeated you.” He leaned back in his chair and interlaced his bony fingers, resting them on his crossed knee. He looked like something not of this world, Seigel thought, watching him in a kind of sick fascination. When Ferrari crossed his spindly legs, both feet swung free of the ground. “I approach a job with confidence. I have never failed, and I don’t intend to fail. I have had much tougher jobs to handle than this one.”