The Wrong Venus (11 page)

“It’s going to take a lot of money to smuggle you out of France. So we finish the book, and Merriman—that is, Sabine Manning—pays for it.”

Kendall grinned. “He’ll love that.”

“He wins, too. If the police get you, he’s finished. Apparently they can’t trace you to the Manning house, or they would have already. There are some men staked out across the street, but I’m pretty sure they’re just the people who’re trying to kill you.”

“Oh, that’s all? Anybody got a corkscrew?”

Roberto produced a Swiss army knife from his pocket. Kendall passed him the bottle. Colby indicated the furniture, and asked Martine, “Where’d you get the props?”

“From Roberto’s apartment,” she said. As soon as she’d seen the papers and realized they were going to need help—provided Colby and Kendall were able to survive the night without being killed by the kidnapers or arrested—she’d called mutual friends until she located him. He said he could get the moving van; Henri was a friend of his.

When Colby had called, she’d arranged a rendezvous point, and left the Manning house in the Jaguar, followed, of course, by one of the mob that had it staked out. After she’d finally shaken him at a traffic light, she drove through the Bois until she was sure, and met them, leaving the Jaguar parked near the Invalides. She would pick it up again on the way in, so there would be nothing to connect her with the van at all.

So far, so good, Colby thought. “But just how do we slip her out of France? Hide her in among a couple dozen other six-foot blondes?”

“Relax.” She smiled, with a confident wave of the hand. “We’ll come up with it. Heavens, we’ve got twenty-four hours.”

And we’ve got good old Roberto to help us, Colby thought; that was all the situation had lacked, having your friendly neighborhood pickpocket to hold your coat during the fight. He looked around at Roberto, however, saw the way the latter was eying Kendall, and realized he might have jumped to the wrong conclusion about those two cracks back there beside the stream. Roberto hadn’t been trying to knife him with Martine. He’d only been trying to cut his throat with Kendall.

It wasn’t that they weren’t good friends and boon companions. They were, and had been for a long time. Roberto was amusing company, undeniably talented as a painter—he turned out the best Utrillos since Utrillo—and a prince of a guy who’d give you his last hundred francs. Except that while you were in the bank to see if it was counterfeit he’d disappear with your girl. He respected no right of ownership or prior claim. They were all, in his view, simply part of the public domain, like National Parks, and any old friend zeroing in on a really outstanding girl with Roberto around had only to drop his guard for a few minutes to go home on his shield. But here, apparently, it was Kendall he was after.

He suddenly remembered Miss Manning. Roberto had never answered his question. “Hey, Roberto,” he began, and noted, too late, that Martine was violently shaking her head, “where’s Sabine Manning?”

The other’s head jerked around, the good-looking, normally pleasant face set in a defiant scowl. “How would I know?” he asked. “I’m supposed to be her mother?”

“Okay, okay,” Colby said, heeding Martine’s signal at last. “I just asked.”

“Don’t bother. I haven’t seen her for six months.”

“I came off without a rostrum, but you can use this box if you want to.”

“You think I’m going to marry some woman forty-three years old?”

Colby was beginning to be a little burned himself. “Why don’t we just drop it? Consider I didn’t ask.”

Roberto muttered something else, while both Martine and Kendall looked at him curiously. Colby shrugged. What was the matter with the sorehead? It wasn’t like the old sunny Roberto at all. Of course, it was possible he might have considered Colby was mounting a little guerrilla attack of his own, but he wouldn’t have reacted that way. He’d been around too long to needle that easily.

And now that he thought about it, Martine had tried to head him off before, too. She’d abruptly changed the subject. So she had asked the same question and been snapped at herself. Roberto? Acting like a high-school kid or somebody with a guilty conscience? The mystery of Sabine Manning seemed to be growing murkier all the time. She’d been gone only seven months, and if Roberto hadn’t seen her for the past six, where was she and what was she doing?

Colby finished shaving with the cordless electric razor Martine had brought in her handbag. It was apparent from their stop-and-go progress and the sounds of traffic around them that they were well into the city now. He and Roberto stripped down to their shirts and shorts, to the accompaniment of Kendall's hushed contralto behind them (“. . . she will leave you, and then . . .”) and put on the blue denim trousers and jumpers.

Martine studied them appraisingly and buttoned the top button of Colby’s jumper to hide his tie. “You’ll do,” she said.

They put on caps. Kendall corked the bottle of wine and got into the crate; it was long enough for her to lie flat on the bedding of excelsior. Colby dropped his clothing and the briefcase in on her feet and gave her her handbag. Roberto produced a hammer from a toolbox in the forward end of the van, and they began to nail on the short planks forming the top of the crate, leaving enough space between them for good circulation of air. As they put the last one in place, she winked, and closed her eyes. In five minutes, Colby thought, she’d be asleep.

The truck stopped. Henri came back and opened the doors. Martine got out, followed by Roberto, who would ride in the cab the rest of the way. The doors closed and they rumbled ahead in traffic once more. Colby was aware of increasing tension, and tried to reassure himself. The weeping gorilla was the only one of the mob who’d recognize him, and there was slight chance he’d still be around now that he was known to the people inside the house.

Fifteen or twenty minutes went by. Then he felt the truck swing in to the curb, stop, and reverse a few feet. Cab doors slammed, and there was the sound of footsteps. The rear doors opened. It was Roberto. They were in front of the Manning house, and directly behind them at the curb was Martine’s Jaguar.

“We’re surrounded,” Roberto said softly. “Four men at least. Henri’s gone to the door first, so it’ll look right.”

“How close are they?” Colby asked.

Two in the next block, pretending to have something wrong with their car. One in a car just ahead of us, and one right across from us, painting. Easel set up on the sidewalk.”

“Maybe it’s Braque,” Colby said bitterly.

“This is the place. Commence,” Henri called out from the house. He came down the walk.

“The sofa,” Colby said. Taking the box first might attract too much attention. He hopped down, not even glancing across the street, and helped Roberto slide it out. They went up the walk with it, and in the front door.

The salon looked like a back room during the closing hours of a political convention. Dudley, throwing off clouds of cigar smoke, was pacing up and down through a litter of newspapers with a haunted expression on his face, while Martine was snarled in a cocoon of tape as she tried to set up and test a recorder at a table on one side of the room. In front of a phono-radio console tuned to a news broadcast, Madame Buffet and the cook were ecstatically waving their arms and crying out,
“Ooooh lala! . . . incroyable . . . formidable . . .”
 into the torrential delivery of the announcer. As they put the sofa down and started to go back, Dudley blundered into it and sat down. He ground a hand across his face and muttered, “Oh, Jesus Christ!”

“Relax,” Colby said. “Everything’s under control.”

“No savvy, no savvy!” Dudley waved him off and started to pace again. Colby was congratulating himself on his disguise until he realized Dudley had also failed to recognize the English language. “Testing,” Martine said, “one, two, three—”

“... materializing out of nowhere aboard a truckload of sheep,”
the voice from the radio ran on, charged with lyricism and an awed awareness of history,
“like some ravishing Valkyrie from a Teutonic legend, to descend on this sleepy little village that will never be the same again. . . .”
Colby closed the door and they went back down the walk.

As casually as he could he shot a glance along the street. Roberto had called it with chilling accuracy. On the opposite side in the next block the two men were still standing beside the raised hood of their car, pretending to be interested in its vitals. Just ahead of the truck one man alone in another car didn’t appear to be doing anything, but was probably watching them in the mirror. On the opposite sidewalk under the chestnuts, the painter, clad in a smock and beret, appeared to be sketching the house, oblivious to all else. All four would have guns, and they weren’t playing—not with this much muscle deployed around the place just on the chance Bougie might try to come back.

Henri was up in the truck, pushing out the crate. Just as they reached it, the painter left his easel and strolled across the street toward them, a tall, cadaverous figure with a hatchet face and the coldest eyes Colby had ever seen. Except once before, he thought, and they belonged to the same man. It was Pascal Decaux.

He tried to still the panic within him; there was little or no chance the man would remember the interview or the drink they’d had together. It was over a year ago, and Decaux had been distraught with grief, anyway, over the matter the police were investigating, the rather grisly suicide of a colleague who had shot himself and then jumped into the Seine with a Peugeot transmission. He couldn't remember all the reporters who interviewed him on these somewhat frequent occasions.

“Anybody got a light?” Decaux asked. Henri snapped his lighter and held it out. Decaux inhaled deeply and swept the interior of the van with an idle glance. “Nice day.”

“Very nice,” Henri agreed. Roberto and Colby nodded. They gave a tug at the crate, and then wished they hadn’t. It was only seven feet long, and maybe he wouldn’t notice it.

Decaux looked at it. “Pretty heavy, eh?”

Henri shrugged. “Not too bad. Just books.”

“Anybody happen to have the time?”

Colby waited, but apparently he was the only one with a watch. He glanced at it. “Eleven-ten,” he said.

“Thanks. . . . Nice watch.” Decaux shifted his gaze from the gold-cased Omega Constellation to the threadbare blue denims and then down to the expensive English brogues. Colby wondered if he were dripping blood into them or if it was only sweat. The chill eyes returned to his face. “You’re not French?”

“No,” Colby said. “Czech.”

“I thought so. The accent. But I keep thinking I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

“In Prague, maybe,” Colby said. “Czrncrjk’s Bar and Grill? Across from the station—”

“Could be. . . . Well, careful of the books.” With a wintry smile at his little joke, Decaux nodded to the FRAGILE sign on the side of the crate and went back across the street.

They staggered up the walk with it, every step an agony of suspense. Then they were inside and the door was closed. The confusion seemed to be worse. Either the cook or Madame Buffet had turned up the gain on the news broadcast, apparently on the theory that if it were loud enough Dudley could understand it.

Madame Buffet was attempting to translate. With a heave like Mays cutting off the runner at second, she spread her arms into wings, and cried out,
“Voilà!”
—this police—with great astonished he flies into the beaujolais of Monsieur le Maire—!”

“All right, all right!” Dudley clapped his hands to his temples. “Never mind!”

Colby began ripping off the jumper. The cook was near enough his height, only an inch or so under six feet. “Bring in the rest of it,” he said to Roberto. “And don’t stay together, space it out.”

Martine had already hurried over. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s Decaux across the street.”

“Oh,
no!”

“And he’s spotted me. Or knows he’s seen me before. So we can’t fast-shuffle him now. Hell count.”

“Georges—the cook.”

“Right.” Roberto and Henri had already gone out, and he’d forgotten to bring in the hammer. He called out to Madame Buffet, “Bring something to open the box with.” She hurried toward the kitchen.

Colby cut back the gain on the radio so he could hear himself think. He sat down on the sofa, called Georges over, and began to remove his shoes. He explained what he wanted. “There’s not much danger.”

“Danger—hah!” Georges snapped his fingers. Gascons were without fear. “But what does it pay?”

“Five hundred francs and a new suit. You’ll have to have something to come back in. Make it tonight, take the rest of the day off.”

“What’d he say, what’d he say, what is it?” Dudley implored of Martine. Georges and Colby began to undress. Dudley stared at them, his face twitching, and cried out, “For the love of God, will somebody tell me—?”

Martine started to explain. At the same moment Roberto and Henri came in with the overstuffed chair and the rug, while Madame Buffet trotted in from the kitchen with a cleaver. Georges was putting on the blue denims and Colby’s brogues. Colby, clad only in shirt and shorts, began prying planks off the top of the case with the cleaver.

“Wrong end,” Kendall said from inside, “unless you want me to come out feet first.”

“Get to you in a minute,” Colby said. “I’m after my pants and some money.” He reached in for the briefcase, zipped it open, and took out a sheaf of one-hundred-franc notes. Stripping off ten of them, he handed them to Georges. Dudley’s mouth dropped open, and it occurred to Colby this was probably the first he knew that they had recovered the ransom money. “Kendall saved it for you,” he said, tossing the briefcase aside. He put the cap on Georges’ head and studied the effect. He’d pass, unless Decaux came across the street again.

Roberto and Henri came in with the lamps. Colby slipped up to the front window and parted the drapes an inch to peer out. Decaux was still on the opposite walk, busy at his easel. He shook hands with the two, and said, “Thanks a million. Cover Georges as much as you can till he gets in. Then take it away.”

They went out. Colby continued to watch. Decaux appeared to glance at them once as they came down the walk, but remained where he was. Georges got in back. They closed the doors and climbed in the cab. The truck pulled away. Neither of the cars followed it. That could be either good or bad. Maybe they’d suspected nothing at all, but neither would they have any further interest in the truck if they’d guessed what was in the box.

“What do you think?” Martine asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But this is another ball game now, with that guy out there.”

“Well, it’s only for one day. When the book’s finished, we smuggle her out—”

“How?”

“I’m working on it. . . . But let’s get her uncrated. She’ll want a bath and change before she starts.”

Colby whirled and began prying planks off the upper end of the box with the cleaver, forgetting for the moment that he still had no pants on. “What’s bugging Roberto?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Martine said. “But when I asked him about Miss Manning I thought he was going to bite my head off.”

Colby tore off another plank and tossed it aside. One more would do it. “You suppose he stole something from her?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Martine said. “She’d give him anything he wanted—”

The doorbell chimed.

Colby started to swing around, his nerves taut, but Kendall was just raising up in the box. He pushed her down and then turned. He was too late. Madame Buffet was already at the door, with Martine right behind her, trying to head her off. She swung it open. Directly in front of them was a man in a postal uniform with a telegram in has right hand, holding it out.

Colby lunged between them. He still had the cleaver in one hand, but he caught the outstretched arm in the other and twisted it down and away from Martine at the same time as he yanked inward. The man shot through the doorway on top of him. He staggered backward and they crashed to the floor beside the box. They hit the briefcase, which fell over, spilling bundles of francs out on the rug. Colby dropped the cleaver and got both hands around the other’s forearm, searching for the cylinder and trying to clamp the triggering mechanism. He couldn’t feel it. It must be further up. The thing to do was go down the sleeve from inside and get it from the back.

The man, strangely, was offering little resistance, merely making some kind of hiccupping sound. Colby got his hand inside the sleeve of his coat at the shoulder and ran it all the way down until his fingers protruded from the cuff. Nothing.

He withdrew his arm. The man rolled over, removing his face from the pile of banknotes, stared at Colby’s untrousered legs and the cleaver lying on the rug just beyond them, and began to slide backward, still making the hiccupping sound. Colby let go and sat up. “Maybe he was just delivering a telegram.”

Martine nodded. “I wouldn’t rule it out entirely.”

The man was still inching backward, white-faced, watching Colby with great staring eyes. He nodded eagerly. Telegram,” he whispered. He set it on the rug between them and backed away from it some more, careful not to make any sudden moves. “Nice telegram . . . all for you. . . .” He felt the box behind him and put a hand up on it to push himself erect. As he did so he was looking down inside it, at Kendall’s bare feet stretched out on their bedding of excelsior. With a hoarse cry he whirled and lunged for the door, slamming into Madame Buffet and spilling her on the rug as he went past. He was gone.

Colby slammed the door and locked it, and helped Madame Buffet to her feet. Kendall sat up and began to climb out of the box. Martine turned away from the window, where she’d been watching through the parted drape. “He’s on his bicycle and out of sight.”

“You suppose he’ll tell anybody?” Colby asked, pulling on his trousers and Georges’ shoes.

“And be committed for observation? What was the point of trying to get into his coat with him?”

“That was the way they killed Pepe,” Kendall explained. “A postman with a gadget up his sleeve.”

“Oh.”

Kendall turned to Colby. “That man you were talking to out there, that asked for the time—”

“Pascal Decaux. Hoodlum, professional trigger-man, sort of French version of Murder, Incorporated.” He felt the hair begin to lift on his neck. “The voice?”

She nodded. “It could be. Ax-blade for a face, and looks like the terminal stage of something?”

He gestured toward the drapes. “The Sunday painter across the street.”

She peered out. So instead of just a consultant called in to remove witnesses, Colby thought weakly, Decaux was the murderer himself. Kendall looked around and nodded. “He’s the one.”

For a moment there was silence. They all looked at each other. Then Martine said, “Well, he still doesn’t know you’re in here. He’s just waiting for you to come back.”

Madame Buffet hadn’t been able to follow all this English. She appealed to Colby.
“L’homme qui a tué le petit Pepe—le— le swingaire?”
He nodded.

Dudley was leaning numbly against the wall, staring at nothing. His lips moved. “And all I wanted,” he whispered, “was to get a book written.”

“Cheer up, Merriman.” Martine had recovered a little of her old bubbling confidence. “We’ll be in production in twenty minutes, and you’ll have your book by tomorrow morning. . . “ She caught sight of the telegram then, still lying on the rug, and stooped to pick it up. “After what the poor man went through to deliver it, we could at least look at it. It’s for you. From Nice.”

Dudley shook his head. “I don’t know anybody in Nice.”

She tore it open and unfolded it. It seemed to be several pages. She turned back to the last one. “Hey! It’s from Miss Manning.”

Oh-oh, Colby thought. There was utter silence for a moment as she flipped the sheets back and began to scan the first. “Merriman,” she said gently, “you’d better sit down.”

“Go ahead,” Dudley said. “Nothing else can happen to me.”

“Monsieur Merriman Dudley, Seven Rue et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” she said. “The text reads:
Urgent you retain services best available public relations firm to commence immediate task of complete eradication my unfortunate image as writer of sexy drivel, and simultaneous promotion of emergence new Sabine Manning, historian, submarine archaeologist, and student of ancient Mediterranean cultures Stop After six months intensive work, research now essentially complete for my new book, an exploration in depth of mysterious and hitherto unexplained similarities between bronze metalwork of Phoenician galleys circa one hundred and fifty B.C. And those of latter-period Roman republic, hinting strongly at cartels or industrial espionage transcending national loyalties before and during Third Punic War Stop—”

Dudley collapsed on the sofa with his face in his hands. Martine looked at him with concern, but went on:
“—Stop You can readily understand that in view of great importance of this work it is imperative that its appearance be unstigmatized by even any residual impression in public mind linking name Sabine Manning with previously published sex rubbish—”

She broke off. Dudley had been quietly sobbing, but now he began to giggle. “Punic Wars,” he tittered. “Writing a book about the Punic Wars.” With a great howl of laughter, he dropped to his knees on the rug in front of the couch.

“Get some water,” Colby snapped to Madame Buffet and lunged for him. Hauling him up, he dropped him back on the sofa and slapped him across both sides of the face. “Snap out of it!” The laughter cut off, and Dudley stared at him without comprehension. “Haul ass,” he muttered. “Call Air France—” His eyes closed and he slumped back.

“Poor Merriman,” Martine said.

“And he almost had it made.” Kendall spread her hands. “Where do we go from here?”

“Maybe I’m a masochist,” Colby said, “but is there any more?”

“Yes,” Martine said. She continued reading.
“Cannot emphasize too strongly that all publicity releases must, repeat must, deplore present shoddy state of writing and publishing worlds in their pandering to and promotion of unhealthy preoccupation with sex Stop Yacht now undergoing repairs and refitting here, so will be personally available coming week or ten days for cocktail parties, interviews and/or press conferences as arranged by chosen public relations firm Stop—”

There was a sudden outcry somewhere in the rear of the house, followed by a crash and a volley of indignant French. Colby whirled. Madame Buffet had gone to the kitchen after water, but the footsteps pounding up the hallway toward them were too heavy to be hers. “Down, get out of sight!” he snapped to Martine and Kendall as he jumped back against the wall beside the door. They dropped behind the sofa and box. The man shot into the room, drawn automatic thrust out before him, saw nobody but the unconscious Dudley, and started to turn. Colby pushed off the wall and hit him from behind with the hardest diving tackle he had ever made.

The man’s head snapped back with a whiplash motion and then banged against the floor as they came down. The gun came to rest on the rug in front of them. Colby grabbed it up by the butt, rapped him on the head with it and then once more for insurance, and sprang up. Kendall and Martine emerged from their hiding places. “If he comes to,” he said to Kendall, “bounce him off the wall.”