The Black Mountain

Not in Montenegro. Stritar took no chances on our changing our minds and deciding to go to Belgrade, where we would probably mention the eight thousand dollars and the promise of more to come. He fed us there in his office, on meat and cheese and bread and raisins that he had brought in, and a little after dark took us down to the street himself and put us in a 1953 Ford, a different color from Jube Bilic's. Our destination was Budva, a coast village which Wolfe said was five miles north of the spot where we had been landed by Guido Battista two nights before. During the hour and a half that it took to cover the thirty miles, the driver had no more than a dozen words for Wolfe, and none at all for me. As he delivered us at the edge of a slip and ex269 changed noises with a man waiting there, it started to rain. It rained all the way across the Adriatic, but the boat was a few centuries newer than Guide's, with a cabin where I could lie down. Wolfe tried it too, but the bench was so narrow he had to grip a bracket to keep from rolling off, and finally he gave up and stretched out on the floor. The boat, with a crew of two besides the skipper, was fast, noisy, was rated 500 v.p.m., which means vibrations per minute, and was a steeplechaser. It loved to jump waves. No wonder it beat Guide's time by nearly three hours. It was still raining, and dark as pitch, when it anchored in choppy water and we were herded into a dinghy some bigger than Guide's. The skipper rowed us into the wall of night until he hit bottom, dumped us on the beach, shoved the nose of the dinghy off, hopped in, and was gone. Wolfe called to him, "Confound it, where are we?" He called back, "Where you're supposed to be!" "The genial sonofabitch," I remarked. With the sweaters draped over our heads, and flashlights, we headed inland. A road going to Molfetta, a fishing village two miles away if we had been landed in the right 270 place, was supposed to be only two hundred yards from the shore, and we found it, turned left, and trudged along in the rain. It was 3:28 A.M. when we hit the road. I was thinking that when we got to the stucco house in Bari I would have Wolfe translate the directions on the water heater in the bathroom. We made it to Molfetta, knocked at the door of a white house with trees in front, and Wolfe spoke through a crack to the man who unlocked it, and handed him a slip of paper. He was about as genial as the skipper had been, but he agreed to drive us to Bari, twenty-five kilometers down the coast, for five thousand lire. We weren't invited in out of the rain. We waited under a tree, a European species called a dripping tree, while he put on some clothes, and when he appeared on the driveway in a little Flat we climbed in the back and sat on wet fannies and were off. I took my mind off the wet by thinking. Wolfe had reported in full on the boat. There were some aspects that seemed to me a little sour, such as donating the eight grand to that character, but I had to admit he was justified in making his proposal as tempting to Stritar as he possibly could. The only bad flaw was that we didn't have Zov, 271 and no guarantee that we would get him again. He was to sneak into Italy at Gorizia, as he had before, I don't know how often, and meet us at Genoa. Wolfe explained that even if Stritar had been willing to send him with us through Bari, having him along would have made matters very difficult. I was going over it when suddenly the car stopped, the left front door opened, and a beam of light focused on the driver. A man in a raincoat was there. He asked the driver some questions and got answered, and then opened the rear door, aimed the light at us, and spoke. Wolfe replied. It developed into quite a chat, with the man insisting on something and Wolfe insisting back. Finally the man shut the door, circled around the hood to the right front door, got in beside the driver, spoke to him, and twisted in the seat to face us. His hand, resting on the back of the seat, had a gun in it. I asked Wolfe, "Am I supposed to do something?" "No. He wanted to see our papers." "Where are we going?" "Jail." "But my God, aren't we in Bari?" "Entering it, yes." "Then tell him to take us to that house and we'll show him the damn papers." 272 "No. At the risk of having it get across the Adriatic tomorrow that I am here? Impossible."