"Oh--" he shrugged. "I have not said that. What do you want?"
"Food, a doctor, and a place for three of us to hide for a while."
He pursed his lips. "To hide, is it?" He frowned. "That is very grave,
Weels. Why should I hide you from what is undoubtedly your just
punishment?"
"Because," I said steadily, "I have a telephone number. Which can be
traced. Defoe doesn't know you've escaped, but that can be fixed!"
He laughed angrily. "Oh-ho. The assassin turns to blackmail, is that
it?"
I said furiously, "Damn you, Zorchi, you know I won't turn you in. I
only point out that I can--and that I will not. Now, will you help us
or not?"
He said mildly, "Oh, of course. I only wished you to say 'please'--but
it is not a trick you Company men are good at. Signore, believe me,
I perish with loneliness for you and your two friends, whoever they
may be. Listen to me, now." He gave me an address and directions for
finding it. And he hung up.
Zorchi's house was far outside the city, along the road to New Caserta.
It lay at the bend of the main highway, and I suppose I could have
passed it a hundred thousand times without looking inside, it was
so clearly the white-stuccoed, large but crumbling home of a mildly
prosperous peasant. It was large enough to have a central court partly
concealed from the road.
The secretary, spectacles and all, met us at the door--and that was a
shock. "You must have roller skates," I told him.
He shrugged. "My employer is too forgiving," he said, with ice on his
voice. "I had hoped to reach him before he made an error. As you see, I
was too late."
We lifted Benedetto off the seat; he was just barely conscious by
now, and his face was ivory under the Mediterranean tan. I shook the
secretary off and held Benedetto carefully in my arms as Rena held the
door before me.
The secretary said, "A moment. I presume the car is stolen. You must
dispose of it at once."
I snarled over my shoulder, "It isn't stolen, but the people that own
it will be looking for it all right. _You_ get rid of it."
He spluttered and squirmed, but I saw him climbing into the seat
as I went inside. Zorchi was there waiting, in a fancy motorized
wheelchair. He had legs! Apparently they were not fully developed as
yet, but in the short few days since I had rescued him _something_ had
grown that looked like nearly normal limbs. He had also grown, in that
short time, a heavy beard.
The sneer, however, was the same.
I made the error of saying, "Signore Zorchi, will you call a doctor for
this man?"
The thick lips writhed under the beard. "_Signore_ it is now, is it? No
longer the freak Zorchi, the case Zorchi, the half-man? God works many
miracles, Weels. See the greatest of them all--it has transmuted the
dog into a _signore_!"