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!"