Stiletto by Harold Robbins Page B

nail down. He doesn’t believe in leaving any witnesses around. Either his own or someone else’s!”

10
    Baker stood in front of the automobile showroom on Park Avenue. Through the windows the sleek foreign cars shone with their highly polished newness. Lettered simply in small silver block letters on the glass entrance doors were the words:
Cesare Cardinali, Imported Automobiles
.
    He opened the door to the showroom and walked in. There were several customers looking at cars and he stood around for a few minutes. One of the customers left and the salesman came toward him.
    He was a tall silver-haired man and wore a morning coat and a small flower in his buttonhole. He looked more like a stockbroker than an automobile salesman. “Can I help you, sir?” His voice was inquiringly polite yet somehow aloof.
    Baker smiled to himself as he thought of the difference in the approach to a customer here and at the Smiling Irishman where he had bought his car. He shook his head slightly. “I would like to see Mr. Cardinali.” He asked, “Is he around?”
    A disapproving look came over the salesman’s face. “Mr. Cardinali never comes into the showroom,” he said haughtily.
    “No?” Baker smiled. “Then where can I find him?”
    “I’m sure I don’t know,” the salesman answered. “But you might try the office.”
    “Where is that?” Baker asked gently. He had long since learned not to be annoyed by snobs. Too many of them proved empty shells once their props were removed.
    “On the fifteenth floor. You can get the elevator in the lobby through that door.” The salesman indicated an entrance on the side.
    “Thank you,” Baker said.
    “Not at all,” the salesman replied, walking politely toward another prospect who had just entered the showroom.
    Baker walked into the lobby and waited for an elevator. This was one of the new buildings on Park Avenue. Everything was automatic, even the elevators had music piped into them. Cardinali was for real, he thought. He had it made. What could it be that tied a man like this to the Syndicate?
    He remembered the incredulous expression on Strang’s face when they had gone over the I.D. report.
    “I don’t get it,” the captain had said. “This guy’s got everything. Title. Money. War hero. Fame. Where does he fit in with the mob?”
    That was the question that bothered them all. And there were the soft points that bothered him. The soft edges around the hard facts that reached out toward something that could not be explained factually. For example there was the war record. Cardinali had cooperated with the Allies in the undercover job prior to the invasion of Italy and had received a medal for it. Still he had killed five of his contacts on that mission while all the others on the same mission, and there were more than twenty agents, found it necessary to eliminate only four people among them. Then there was the matter of Cardinali’s uncle who had been murdered. Of course, Cardinali had been far away but soon after, though he had been broke at the end of the war, he began to make it big. There were the fast cars and the races, and in almost no time at all Cardinali had become a figure in international society. True, there were others like him. De Portago who was killed in that race. Cesare had been in that race too. He had been set down for unnecessarily reckless driving. There had been other races too where he had been set down. Twice the implication had been that he was responsible for the deaths of other contestants. But nowhere was there any clue that pointed to a connection with the underworld.
    The elevator doors opened and Baker came out into a softly lit reception room around whose walls were prints of famous automobiles. The receptionist sat at a small desk in the far corner.
    “Can I be of help, sir?” she asked.
    Baker nodded. “I would like to see Mr. Cardinali.”
    “Do you have an appointment?” the girl asked.
    Baker shook his head.
    “May I have