Stiletto Read Online Free PDF Page B

playing nervously with his tie clasp, Allie Fargo was tearing at his nails with his fingers, even Dandy Nick was doodling on the yellow pad before him. The noise grew louder.
    Big Dutch leaned over toward him. “I wonder who they bringin’ in,” he said.
    Dandy Nick grinned. It was an unhealthy grin of fear. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he said.
    Matteo shut them up with a gesture, his eyes watching the courtroom door. The others turned to look.
    First a couple of detectives appeared in the doorway, then the witness. He stumbled for a moment and a cop put out a hand to steady him.
    Big Dutch leaped to his feet with an angry roar. “It’s Dinky Adams, the son of a bitch!”
    The judge’s gavel rapped on the desk. The witness took several more steps into the courtroom. His face seemed to be glazed with fear. He stumbled again. He looked down the courtroom toward the defendants’ table. He opened his mouth as if to speak but no sound came out. Only a tiny dribble of blood appeared in the corner of his lips. A tortured look came into his eyes and he stumbled again and began to fall. His hands clutched at Baker’s coat. But he couldn’t get a grip and slid down to the floor.
    Pandemonium that the judge’s gavel could not control broke out in the courtroom.
    “Lock the doors!” Strang shouted.
    Big Dutch leaned over to say something to Matteo. “Shut up!” Matteo snapped, his dark eyes glittering in his impassive face.
    ***
    The clerk looked up and smiled as Cesare appeared in the doorway. “I have the papers ready for you, Mr. Cardinali, if you’ll just sign here.”
    Cesare took the pen from his fingers, scrawled his name on the papers and gave the pen back to the clerk. “Thank you,” he said, picked up the papers and walked out.
    The tight feeling was still in his chest as he stepped out into the bright sunlight. He blinked his eyes. Barbara waved to him from the car. He smiled and waved back to her, the papers in his hand flashing whitely.
    Barbara smiled up at him mischievously as he crossed the curb to the car. “Congratulations, Count Cardinali.”
    He laughed as he walked around the car and got into it. “You haven’t read the papers, my dear. It is no longer Count Cardinali. It is just plain Mr. Cesare Cardinali.”
    She laughed aloud as he started the motor. “Just plain Cesare. I like that. I think it has a nice homespun quality.”
    Cesare looked at her as he moved the car out into traffic. “You know, I think you’re teasing me.”
    “No, I’m not,” she said quickly. “I’m really very proud of you.”
    The tension was gone from his stomach now as they turned the corner away from the building. “Light a cigarette for me, will you, darling?” he asked. There was a heat growing in his loins, he could feel a pulse beating in his thighs.
    She placed the cigarette between his lips. “I wonder what my mother would think,” she said lightly. “Going off for a week with a man. Not married to him. Not even engaged.”
    He saw her smile out of the corner of his eye. “What your mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
    Barbara was still smiling. “Of course, she might understand it if I were going with a Count. Europeans are different that way. But with just a plain mister—”
    Cesare interrupted her. “You know what I think?”
    She looked at him, her eyes wide. “No. What?”
    The pain in his loins was growing unbearable. He reached for her hand and put it on the hard muscle of his thigh. The smile suddenly vanished from her face as she felt the tension in him. He turned his face toward her and for a moment she could see hundreds of years into his eyes. Then a veil dropped over them.
    “I think your mother is a snob,” he said.
    She laughed and they fell silent as he turned the car into the Midtown Tunnel and the parkways to the airport. He drove by reflex, automatically, as his mind went back to Sicily, to his home. He had been there just a few weeks ago. But already it