So I sat there, watching the television and waiting. Rena was too nervous to stay in one place. Zorchi had mysterious occupations of his own. I sat and stared at the cathode screen.
Until the door opened behind me, and I turned to look.
Rena was standing there. Her face was an ivory mask. She clutched the door as her father had a few hours before; I think she looked weaker and sicker than he.
I said, for the first time, "Darling!" She stood silent, staring at me. I asked apprehensively, "What is it?"
The pale lips opened, but it was a moment before she could frame the words. Then her voice was hard to hear. "My father," she said. "He reached the place where he was meeting Slovetski, but the expediters were there before him. They shot him down in the street. And they are on their way here."
XVI
It was quick and brutal. Somehow Benedetto had been betrayed; the expediters had known where he had come from. And that was the end of that.
They came swarming down on us in waves, at least a hundred of them, to capture a man, a girl and a cripple—Zorchi's servants had deserted us, melting into the hemp fields like roaches into a garbage dump. Zorchi had a little gun, a Beretta; he fired it once and wounded a man.
The rest was short and unpleasant.