Colombo grunted. He tapped the machine with his forefinger. He said impassively: “I have heard it all. It, is lies.” He banged his fist on the table so that the glasses jumped. He bellowed furiously: “It is lies, lies. Every word of it.” He jumped to his feet. His chair crashed down behind him. He slowly bent and picked it up. He reached for the whisky bottle and walked round and poured four fingers into Bond’s glass. He went back to his chair and sat down and put the champagne bottle on the table in front of him. Now his face was composed, serious. He said quietly: “It is not all lies. There is a grain of truth in what that bastard told you. That is why I decided not to argue with you. You might not have believed me. You would have dragged in the police. There would have been much trouble for me and my comrades. Even if you or someone else had not found reason to kill me, there would have been scandal, ruin. Instead I decided to show you the truth – the truth you were sent to Italy to find out. Within a matter of hours, tomorrow at dawn, your mission will have been completed.” Colombo clicked his fingers. “Presto – like that.”
Bond said: “What part of Kristatos’s story is not lies?”
Colombo’s eyes looked into Bond’s calculating. Finally he said: “My friend, I am a smuggler. That part is true. I am probably the most successful smuggler in the Mediterranean. Half the American cigarettes in Italy are brought in by me from Tangier. Gold? I am the sole supplier of the black valuta market. Diamonds? I have my own purveyor in Beirut with direct lines to Sierra Leone and South Africa. In the old days, when these things were scarce, I also handled aureo-mycin and penicillin and such medicines. Bribery at the American base hospitals. And there have been many other things – even beautiful girls from Syria and Persia for the houses of Naples. I have also smuggled out escaped convicts. But,” Colombo’s fist crashed on the table, “drugs, heroin, opium, hemp – no! Never! I will have nothing to do with these things. These things are evil. There is no sin in the others.” Colombo held up his right hand. “My friend, this I swear to you on the head of my mother.”
Bond was beginning to see daylight. He was prepared to believe Colombo. He even felt a curious liking for this greedy, boisterous pirate who had so nearly been put on the spot by Kristatos. Bond said: “But why did Kristatos put the finger on you? What’s he got to gain?”
Colombo slowly shook a finger to and fro in front of his nose. He said: “My friend, Kristatos is Kristatos. He is playing the biggest double game it is possible to conceive. To keep it up – to keep the protection of American Intelligence and their Narcotics people – he must now and then throw them a victim – some small man on the fringe of the big game. But with this English problem it is different. That is a huge traffic. To protect it, a big victim was required. I was chosen – by Kristatos, or by his employers. And it is true that if you had been vigorous in your investigations and had spent enough hard currency on buying information, you might have discovered the story of my operations. But each trail towards me would have led you further away from the truth. In the end, for I do not underestimate your Service, I would have gone to prison. But the big fox you are after would only be laughing at the sound of the hunt dying away in the distance.”
“Why did Kristatos want you killed?”
Colombo looked cunning. “My friend, I know too much. In the fraternity of smugglers, we occasionally stumble on a corner of the next man’s business. Not long ago, in this ship, I had a running fight with a small gunboat from Albania. A lucky shot set fire to their fuel. There was only one survivor. He was persuaded to talk. I learnt much, but like a fool I took a chance with the minefields and set him ashore on the coast north of Tirana. It was a mistake. Ever since then I have had this bastard Kristatos after me. Fortunately,” Colombo grinned wolfishly, “I have one piece of information he does not know of. And we have a rendezvous with this piece of information at first light tomorrow – at a small fishing-port just north of Ancona, Santa Maria. And there,” Colombo gave a harsh, cruel laugh, “we shall see what we shall see.”