“That’s our affair. You need merely to know that we will pay two thousand dinars to be driven twenty-three kilometers — or six American dollars, if you prefer them.”
Bilic’s narrow eyes in his round puffy face got narrower. “I do not prefer American dollars and I don’t like such an ugly suggestion. How do you know I own an automobile?”
“That is known to everyone. Do you deny it?”
“No. But there’s something wrong with it. A thing on the engine is broken, and it won’t go.”
“My son Alex will make it go. He’s an expert.”
Bilic shook his head. “I couldn’t allow that. He might damage it permanently.”
“You’re quite right.” Wolfe was sympathetic. “We are strangers to you. But I also know that you have a telephone, and you have kept us standing too long outside your door. We will enter and go with you to the telephone, and you will make a call to Belgrade, for which we will pay. You will get the Ministry of the Interior. Room Nineteen, and you will ask if it is desirable for you to cooperate with a man who calls himself Toné Stara — describing me, of course. And you will do this at once, for I am beginning to get a little impatient.”
Wolfe’s bluff wasn’t as screwy as it sounds. From what Telesio had told him, he knew that Bilic would take no risk either of offending a stranger who might be connected with the secret police, or calling himself to the attention of headquarters in Belgrade by phoning to ask a dumb question. The bluff not only worked; it produced an effect which seemed to me entirely out of proportion when Wolfe told me later what he had said. Bilic suddenly went as pale as if all his blood had squirted out under his toenails. Simultaneously he tried to smile, and the combination wasn’t attractive. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said in a different tone, backing up a step and bowing. “I’m sure you’ll understand that it is necessary to be careful. Come in and sit down, and we’ll have some wine.”
“We haven’t time.” Wolfe was curt. “You will telephone at once.”
“It would be ridiculous to telephone.” Bilic was doing his best to smile. “After all, you merely wish to be driven to Titograd, which is natural and proper. Won’t you come in?”