“Don’t believe all you hear from an uncle.”
Teri discovered the bandage on his nose and gently touched it. “You’ve been hurt.” Her voice held a blend of concern and distress. “Did Uncle Bruno do that? Did he threaten you?”
“No, I was climbing some stairs and tripped and fell,” he said, slightly distorting the truth. “That’s all there was to it.”
“What is this all about?” the guide asked in exasperation. His gun hand was beginning to droop. “Will the young lady please be so kind as to tell her name?”
“I am the niece of Bruno von Till,” she said testily. “And I don’t see how that concerns you.”
There was a sharp exclamation from
the Greek and he took a couple of steps forward, studying Teri’s face closely. For almost half a minute he stared at her, then slowly, with deliberate ease, raised the gun level again, still pointing at Pitt. Once, twice he tugged at his moustache, nodding in thoughtful perplexity.
“You may speak the truth,” he said quietly. “Then again you may be lying to protect these two unpleasant looking scum.”
“Your ridiculous insinuations are of no importance to me,” Teri thrust out her chin, matching its protruding uplift with her breasts. “I demand you put down that hideous gun and leave us alone. My uncle has great influence with the island authorities. One word from him and you’ll find yourself rotting your miserable life away in a mainland prison.”
“I am well aware of Bruno von Till’s influence,” the guide said indifferently. “Unfortunately it makes little impression on me. The final decision concerning your arrest or release rests entirely with my superior in Panaghia, Inspector Zacynthus. He will wish to see you. Any lies to him and your immediate futures shall be very lamentable indeed. If you will all please step behind the wall, you will find a pathway leading approximately two hundred yards to a waiting car” He swung the gun from Pitt to Teri. “A warning, gentlemen. Do not entertain any thoughts of a foolish move. If I detect even a slight facial tic on either of you, I shall place a bullet in the brain of this delicate and lovely creature. Now, shall we proceed?”
Five minutes later they all reached the car, a black Mercedes parked inconspicuously under a copse of fir trees. The driver’s door was open and a man dressed in a spotless ice cream suit sat casually behind the wheel with one foot solidly planted on the ground outside. At their approach he rose and opened the rear door.
Pitt looked at the man for a long moment. The contrast between the neatly pressed white suit and the dark ugly face presented an impressive picture. About two inches above Pitt’s own height, the man looked like a chiseled stone colossus, and just as solid. He had the largest set of shoulders Pitt had ever seen, and must have weighted at least 260 pounds. The face was misproportioned and strikingly repulsive, and yet there was a strange sort of beauty about it; the kind that artists sought to capture on canvas. Pitt wasn’t fooled. He could read a man who had an indifferent attitude toward killing. His paths had crossed many times with lovable looking brutes who murdered as if it were a run-of-the-mill, everyday routine.
The guide stepped back and walked around to the front of the car. He nodded at the other man.
“We have guests, Darius. Three little goats who have lost their way. We will take them to Inspector Zacynthus. They can stage their little act for him.” He turned to Pitt. “You will enjoy the Inspector’s company; he is an excellent listener.”
Darius soberly gestured at the back seat. “You two In here, the girl rides in front” His voice was what one would have expected, deep and rasping.
Pitt relaxed against the seat and ran through a dozen different plans for escape, each with less chance of success than the previous one. The guide had them by the testicles as long as Teri was present Without her, he thought, he and Giordino stood tossup odds of overpowering the guide and grabbing the gun. There was also the possibility that if they made an attempt the guide wouldn’t have the courage to shoot a woman, but Pitt wasn’t about to risk Teri’s life to find out. The guide bowed with obviously forced courtesy.
“Be a gentleman, Darius, and offer the lovely young lady your coat. Her ... ab .. . prominent attractions might prove embarrassing and somewhat distracting as we drive.”
“Don’t bother,” Teri said contemptuously. “I’ll not wear that bloody ape’s coat. I have nothing I want to hide. Besides, it’ll give me great pleasure to see a greasy worm like you squirm.”
The guide’s eyes grew cold, then lie united thinly and shrugged. “As you wish.”
Teri lifted her negligee lightly around her thighs and climbed into the car. The guide followed, sandwiching her between him and the bilking Darius who hunched over the steering wheel. Then the Mercedes’ diesel engine knocked into life and the car started rolling over the narrow, twisting road; on many stretches edged by deep and marsh covered ditches. The guide’s flickering eyes bounced from Pitt to Giordino and back again, never once twitching the automatic glued to Teri’s right ear. His determined vigilance and unflagging concentration was, it seemed to Pitt, unduly fanatical.
Pitt, warily watching for any negative sign from the guide, very slowly extracted a cigarette from his breast pocket and just as slowly lit it.
“Tell me, whatever your name is . . .“
“Polycitus Anaxamander Zeno,” the guide offered. “At your service.”
“Tell me” Pitt repeated without an attempt at pronouncing Zeno’s full name. “How did you happen to be coiled back there at the passage when we came out?”
“I have an inquisitive nature,” Zeno said through a twisted smile. “When I perceived that you and your friend had mysteriously disappeared from my tour, I asked myself: What would those two surly looking characters find in the ruins that would interest them? The answer eluded my humble mind so I turned my gawking entourage over to a fellow guide and returned to the amphitheatre. You were nowhere to be found. Then I spied the broken bar in the gate. .. no great feat I assure you; I know every stone and crack on the site. Certain you would reappear, I sat and waited.”
“You’d have felt like an idiot if we hadn’t”
“It was only a question of that. There is no other way out of the Pit of Hades.”
“The Pit of Hades?” Pitt’s curiosity was aroused.
“Why do you call it that?”
“I find your sudden interest in archaeology quite unexpected. However, since you ask . . .“ There was puzzlement in Zeno’s eyes, yet a mixture of attention and amusement. “During the golden age of Greece, our ancestors held their criminal trials in the amphitheatre. This location was chosen because their juries consisted of one hundred elected townspeople. It was their contention, and a very wise one, that the more people who rendered a judgment, the more just the verdict. In a matter of circumstantial evidence, the defendant, if decided guilty, was given a choice of instant death or the Pit of Hades”