Robert L. Fish

The Tricks of the Trade

This book is dedicated with admiration

and respect to the memory of

an old friend

“The Great Merlini”

CLAYTON RAWSON

Book One

1

To André Martins, it was wonderful to be back in his beloved Paris, his sprawling, lively, beautiful, romantic, exciting, fantastic Paris. How long had it been? He shook his huge, tousled head, reaching up to scratch under the cheap cap he had pushed back on his curly white hair. Maybe it was better not even to think about it; memories were dangerous things. It had been a damned long time, far too long, that’s all he knew; but now he was back, and bulldozers and tanks wouldn’t get him away again. He strode along, enjoying every second; the air seemed to smell better, the sun to shine more brightly, and he felt young again — or at least younger. Paris in September! Perfection! Actually, he suddenly remembered, it was the first of October, but what the hell! Close enough.

He crossed the Porte de Maillot with an insouciance that came from having lived in Spain, where they not only drove as recklessly as they did in Paris but where they had fewer cars and therefore greater mobility in pedestrian pursuit. Gaining the far curb, he paused a moment to glance down the Avenue de la Grand Armée toward the Arc de Triomphe. Home! With a smile of deep satisfaction on his weather-beaten face, he took a deep breath and continued on his way, enjoying the shade of the trees along the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. He had dropped off the metro a good deal before his destination, preferring to climb into the upper world and enjoy his Paris a bit. He had also wanted to take the time to savor the pleasure of the surprise he had in store for his old friend Kek Huuygens.

The luxury apartment building was ahead of him. His eyebrows went up at the degree of affluence implied; he had known that Kek was eminently prosperous, but this looked like the apartment of ministers, or black marketeers. He checked the address on the marquee and then shrugged; it was the correct address, or at least the last one he had had. Could they have built a new building on the spot since he had last heard from Kek? It would be too disappointing; he put the thought aside and pushed through the heavy swinging glass doors, entering into a cool, dim interior. After the bright sun of the street it took several moments for his eyesight to adjust; after the wait he located the concierge’s built-in corner desk to his left and made his way to it.

“M’sieu Huuygens, please? His apartment number?”

He smiled genially down at the tiny man behind the desk, relieved now that it was apparent the name Huuygens was not unfamiliar, that Kek actually did live there. The sudden look of suspicion on the small, wrinkled face did not surprise André in the least; his appearance invoked suspicion more often than not. He removed his benign gaze from the little uniformed man and stared about the lobby a minute. Posh, very posh. Nice. And he would bet the flowers were real. The whole décor earned his approval... He brought his attention back to the concierge to discover the guardian of the gate had moved from behind his counter and now stood four-square — or more like two-square, André thought — before the elevator door. Possibly the little man was deaf?

“M’sieu Huuygens. Kek Huuygens,” André repeated in an elevated tone. “His apartment number, please?”

The little man tilted his head and looked up. From his vantage point André appeared quite mountainous, a series of lumpy foothills climbing higher and higher to be topped by a craggy, snow-capped peak wearing a wrinkled cap. He appeared somewhat the size of King Kong, which the concierge remembered vaguely from his youth; what the big man did not appear, however, was the type visitor usually admitted to the apartment of a fine gentleman such as M’sieu Kek Huuygens. This uncouth giant obviously lacked the savoirfaire one expected in visitors to this very superior apartment building — visitors not using the servants’ entrance or the service doorway in the rear, that is.

“Are you expected?”

André grinned, taking the little man into his confidence. On a day like today it was impossible to have secrets.

“No. As a matter of fact, I hope to surprise him.”

And who would not be surprised, the concierge thought with irritation, to open a door and find a duplicate of the Abominable Snowman facing him? Nor did the little concierge doubt for a moment that the surprise would scarcely be pleasant; this one, in addition to looming over normal-sized people like the Matterhorn, also had a face that looked as if it had been run over by a taxi and repaired by an intern. The concierge brought to mind Marshal Foch and Willie Pep, neither very large men, and determined not to be intimidated by mere size.

“I’m afraid M’sieu Huuygens is not at home,” he said coldly. His tone clearly added the words, To you.

“And I am afraid,” André said pleasantly, “that I would require M’sieu Huuygens to advise me of that fact in person.” His smile did not abate in the least. He reached over and lifted the concierge politely, so that they were face to face. The little man had the sudden feeling there were miles of empty air beneath his feet. The face before him seemed to be enlarged, its pores visible like a view in a shaving mirror or the close-up of the villain on a wide movie screen. The face opened, showing huge blocks of teeth; it was speaking to him. “M’sieu Huuygens — his apartment number, please?”

The concierge swallowed convulsively; the altitude gave him a ringing in his ears. He doubted that either Marshal Foch or Willie Pep had ever faced a challenge quite this threatening. In a far less dangerous position, if he recalled his distant days as an élève of history, even Napoleon had seen fit to surrender.

“Six fourteen,” he murmured faintly and felt himself descending, to be deposited gently back on his feet, with the solid footing beneath him restoring his courage. He straightened his uniform with a tug, shot his cuffs, and brushed himself off. No telling what the monster had touched before! It would be a pleasure calling the flics when this one was denied admission to 614. May they bring truncheons, pistols, and loaded capes and may the large one not know that the cloaks contained weights sewn into the hem, not to drape more gracefully, but precisely to teach troublemakers a lesson!

“Thank you,” André said graciously, remembering his mother’s teachings, and turned to the elevator.

The elevator operator had been watching the scene in the lobby from within the elevator cab, behind the protection of the closed door, peeking through the little, wire-embedded glass window. André became aware that the cab was at his floor. He bent down, glowering through the glass and pressing the bell button deafeningly at the same time. The door opened reluctantly and André found himself facing a gnome as tiny as the concierge; the gnome was rubbing his ear resentfully. And were there five more, André wondered, and if so what do they do? Man the boilers and sweep the halls? And if so, where is Snow White?

“Good evening,” he said to the operator with a slight bow and entered the small cab. “Six, please.” He waited a moment, staring ahead to the street, and then looked down at the tiny man curiously. “I said, the sixth floor, please. Do you take me up, or do I take you up?”

The door slid closed with a grudging click, as if it shared the management opinion of this interloper. They rose in that majestic accoustical purity reserved for the vertical conveyance of the very rich, with the elevator operator staring stonily at the door. André approved of the transport, even as his mind on another plane prepared for his meeting with Kek Huuygens. It had been years — not since they had seen each other in Lisbon, in fact. It would be good to see Kek again — if he was home, that is. André hoped fervently that his old friend was home; he had a strong premonition that should Apartment 614 be deserted or refuse him entrance, he might well encounter police when he descended, and he was in far too good a mood to wish for trouble. Besides, it would do his newly regained passport little good to return home and get into a fight with the flics the very first day! Maybe later, but not the first day...

The elevator slid to a stop with the faintest hint of motion; the door opened with a mechanical whisper. André found himself unconsciously following its example.

“Thank you,” he said in a subdued tone of voice and walked quietly across the carpeted corridor to tap diffidently on the door of 614, almost directly opposite the elevator. He suddenly seemed to realize that while inaudibility might be properly appropriate to the edifice, it scarcely resulted in doors being answered unless the tenant happened to have his ear to the panel; at the same moment he discovered the doorbell set quite conspicuously in the door jamb and pressed it firmly. He swung about with a broad smile, presenting his back to the little peephole which he knew might be used. Facing him was the elevator operator. André winked at him in friendly fashion, forgiving all, and waited. There was the sound of the peephole cover being opened and closed, and then the further sound of a key being turned in a lock. André grinned widely, not only anticipating Kek’s surprise and delight, but also the consternation of the elevator operator at the reunion. He waited a moment and then swung around.

His wide grin maintained for a moment, frozen, and then turned into a painful grimace. He was facing a very pretty girl in a very pretty dress, and he automatically knew that she was neither the cook nor the daily cleaning woman. He swallowed, his face reddening.

“I’m sorry,” he stammered and swore to himself on his father’s honor that as soon as he escaped he would go downstairs, tear the concierge into pieces fit for bouillabaisse, and distribute them along the various mail slots back of his own desk. For luck! It not only would teach the little nain not to play games with visitors, but it would undoubtedly also prove a boon to the tenants of the building. He pictured himself receiving laurels from the tenants; it saved him from facing the girl, who was frowning at him in speculation. He reached up and took off the cheap cap, wishing he could have afforded a haircut.

“I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly aware of his age and his hands and his feet and his size and their size, and that his nose had been broken and his face scarred, and that his white hair was standing out in uncontrolled spikes. “I was looking for a friend of mine... a Kek Huuygens... And the concierge...”

The girl’s face cleared. She grinned at him, a friendly grin. “You’re André.”

“...the little son of a — I mean, the little — well, he told me downstairs that this was the apartment. Six-fourteen—” It occurred to him the mistake might have been his; he stepped back to look the top of the door in the eye. No, the number was right. “I’m sorry, mademoiselle— It wasn’t my fault—”

“André Martins.” The girl bobbed her head vigorously, convinced she was right. Her shoulder-length blond hair swirled at the motion and then settled back, swaying protectively about her neck; her eyebrows cocked at him, daring him to deny it.

“—but when I get downstairs—” André paused to stare in astonishment. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re André Martins. Right?”

“You know me? How?” He looked behind him, as if the answer might be in someone feeding the girl cue cards, as he had seen on television, and then turned back. It occurred to him that possibly he owed the tiny concierge an apology, but the thought didn’t bother him greatly. Another thought followed too quickly, explaining the mystery. “I didn’t know Kek had married.”

“He hasn’t,” the girl said. “Yet.” She grinned at him, a pixie grin showing small but perfect teeth. Her skin, he noticed, was blemish-free, tanned, undoubtedly by the tennis court rather than cosmetics. “He’s a stubborn man, but I expect you know that. Unfortunately for him, I am too. You’ll cut the cake yet.” She stood aside, smiling at him. “Come in. My name is Anita.” She shook hands, giving him a strength of grip that surprised him, stood back as he entered, and closed the door behind him. The elevator operator sighed and reluctantly took the cab downward. “Kek’s in the living room.”

She led the way down a corridor, her soft skirts swaying about her in the narrow hallway. Soft lighting illuminated paintings on both walls; the large man sank self-consciously in the heavy pile of the rug. It came to him that possibly it had been a mistake to drop in on Kek unannounced like this. And unkempt. He didn’t fit into this milieu. He belonged in another scene; the docks were his area. Maybe it was a mistake to try to renew ties fashioned so many years before; maybe he should have called Kek on the phone and met him someplace else — at a bar someplace, maybe. Or maybe it would have been better not even to have come. It was a long time, and people went their ways, and they changed. They forgot; usually it was a lot easier to forget. He smiled to himself wryly. Only he hadn’t changed; he was as ragged and broke and as much a failure as he had always been.

The girl stood aside once again, allowing — almost forcing — André to enter the living room first. Kek Huuygens was standing behind a bar in one corner of the large, sunny room, carefully pouring drinks, his attitude that of a person who properly respected liquor. Three glasses stood before him. André looked about the luxuriously appointed room and then back at Kek. Huuygens was a man in his early forties, a bit above medium height, athletically built, his thick, curly hair beginning to be touched with gray. His slate-gray eyes were calmly judging quantities as he poured; his strong, handsome features were as André remembered.

“Hello, André.” His wide-spaced eyes studied the other man with apparent impersonality, but there was a hidden twinkle in them, and his mercurial eyebrows were slanted sharply, a characteristic André remembered. It indicated curiosity. André froze, his hand on his cap still. Kek probably wondered why he was here; or rather, Kek probably thought he was here to borrow money! He would have turned and left, but the girl blocked the doorway.

“Hello, Kek. Look, I was just—”

“You’re late,” Huuygens said calmly and continued pouring.

André shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs. Late? It began to appear to him that his surprise — to mix a metaphor — was on the other foot.

“Late?” He knew he sounded stupid, but that was because he was stupid, he told himself, and crossed the room to the bar, dragging a stool back and half-sitting on it, staring at Huuygens. Huuygens nodded to him politely and slid a glass across to him. Anita took her glass and retired to a sofa at the far side of the room, watching the two men.

“Argentinian,” Huuygens said, indicating the amber liquid in the glasses. “It’s called Reserva San Juan. A nice combination of the best elements of the brandies of France and Spain. Or France and Portugal, if you prefer.”

André stared at him a moment and then upended his glass. He set it down without commenting on the quality of the cognac he had just drunk; in point of fact he had not even tasted it.

“What’s this ‘late’ business?” he asked suspiciously and reached for the bottle, refilling his glass with half an eye, his main attention fixed on Kek. “How could you even know I was coming?”

Huuygens sipped his drink, nodded in appreciation for its flavor, and placed his glass on the bar.

“I hear things,” he said simply. “Especially about old friends — and particularly old friends I’m interested in. You left Lisbon over a year ago and moved to Barcelona—”

“Things were dead in Lisbon.” André spoke almost without volition; the entire situation was impossible.

“—and you didn’t do much better in Barcelona, even with the leads furnished you by Pereira—”

André shrugged. “When it was raining business sense, God gave me a fork.” Light suddenly struck. He looked up, frowning. “You told Pereira to give me those leads!”

“Yes,” Kek said equably. “At any rate, they didn’t work out as well as we both hoped, so when you finally got a pardon from the French government—”

André was forced to grin. “One of the few advantages, I admit, of changing republics.” The cognac was making its presence felt; the strangeness of the meeting was fading, replaced by a friendly warmth.

“Yes,” Kek agreed and continued. “As I said, you left Barcelona yesterday, heading for Paris. I knew you’d come to see me as soon as you got here — or at least I hoped so. I also calculated you’d try to save the fare of an airplane.” He glanced at his watch, smiling. “The train from Barcelona arrived several hours ago—”

“Train!” André snorted and poured himself another drink. “What train! Bus! Then the metro. Then a spot of walking. The metro,” he added, “doesn’t smell like it used to.” He frowned in reminiscence, as if the bad smell of the metro was one of the things he had missed during his exile, now taken from him by strangers, and drank his drink.

“Ah,” Huuygens said in understanding, and nodded, pleased that the mystery was resolved. “That’s why, then. At any rate you’re here, and I’m very happy.”

“I’m rather pleased myself.” André wiped his lips on his cuff and looked at the bottle. It would be pressing hospitality of even an old friend to have more than three drinks. If it were offered, of course — Kek seemed to have read his mind; he poured another drink for André and raised his glass.

“Here’s to luck.” He drank and set his glass down. “Well, enough of this lovemaking. Where are your bags?”

“At the bus terminal. I came right over. I’ve got to get a room someplace and get settled, and then—”

“You’re staying here.” It was Anita speaking from across the room. “Your room is all ready.” Her eyes smiled at him. “Extra-length bed and all.”

André swung to face her. “No, no! Look—”

“You look,” Huuygens said calmly. “You saved my life three times in the old days, and then we lost track of each other until Lisbon and that affair of those miniature paintings, and that was a long time ago.” He shrugged. “It seems about the only way not to lose track of you is to keep you in sight. So you stay here.”

“You don’t seem to have much trouble keeping people in sight,” André said dryly. “Anyway, I can’t—”

“Besides,” Huuygens said evenly, interrupting, “I’m sure we can be useful to each other.”

André frowned and shook his head. “Kek, Kek! You should know me well enough to know I never took charity in my life, and I’m too old to start now. Besides — you need me on one of your jobs?” He snorted. “You’re known everywhere as the best smuggler in the world, and the smartest. Me? I didn’t even get away with bringing in a few lousy cases of cigarettes from Algiers right after the war! Miles from Marseilles and the police boat picks me out like I’d put out an SOS or something!” He shook his head decisively. “Thank you, but no. I’ll drink your liquor and have a meal on you from time to time, but no.” He looked up almost defiantly. “And I didn’t come to borrow money, either.”

“Are you all done?”

André raised a hand. “Don’t say it, because I’ll only repeat the whole thing.”

“And Anita says I’m stubborn! You listen to me—”

He was interrupted by the sudden sharp ringing of the telephone. All three swung around to face the unexpected sound. Kek’s eyes narrowed; it was an unlisted number, available only to those who were acquainted with the true nature of his vocation. Anita came to her feet, putting down her glass, moving to the telephone on the desk. There were times when Kek preferred not to be home to certain calls.

“Hello?”

The sound of a voice could be heard, muted, filtered through the receiver, audible to the two men in the quiet of the large room. Anita nodded, quite as if her caller could see her; she looked around.

“It’s a Señor Sanchez. He’d like to see you. He says he has an important job for you.”

“Ask him where he got my telephone number.”

Anita returned to the conversation on the telephone. A moment later she turned again; there was a slightly mischievous smile in her eyes. She covered the receiver with her hand.

“He says he got it from a very reliable source.” She paused a moment for effect. “He says he got it from an old friend of yours. You may remember him — André Martins.”

“Me?” André sat erect in shock. “Never!” He crossed himself and then paused to think. “Sanchez? Luis Sanchez? From Barcelona?” Anita shrugged her lack of knowledge. “It has to be him; he’s the only one who would even know my name.”

Kek looked at him. “Who is he?”

“A sour apple,” André said and made a face. “A real loss to society.”

“A lot of my clients are,” Kek said, grinning. His grin faded. “You never gave my name? Or mentioned this number?”

“Never!” André raised his hand. “Not only not to Sanchez, but to nobody. However,” he added, bringing his hand down, “I know it’s available, and it certainly would be to anyone with Sanchez’s connections. As well as the fact that we know each other and that we’re old friends.”

“Well,” Kek said, thinking about it, “at least he doesn’t sound like police. And people who lie to me I find interesting.” He looked at Anita, patiently holding the telephone mouthpiece cupped. “When does he want to come over?”

“Now, he says. He’s in a bar just down the street.”

“Good enough.” Kek smiled. “Tell him to come along.”

Anita spoke into the telephone and hung up. Without being bidden, she came to the bar, placed the cognac bottle on the glass shelf back of the bar, and set the used glasses in the sink beneath the counter; Kek’s interviews with perspective clients were nondrinking affairs. She wiped the surface with a towel and hung it up neatly. Kek came from behind the bar, pulled a chair around to face the corridor, and then looked sideways at André.

“How well do you know this Sanchez?”

“Well, if he’s the one from Barcelona, and he must be, then I know him well enough,” André said. He didn’t sound particularly proud of the acquaintanceship.

Kek thought a moment, a frown on his face, and then dropped into the chair. He looked up. “Take a good look at him through the peephole when he rings. Annie will let him in. You stay out of sight until he’s left.”

“Why?”

Kek smiled at him. “Call it a hunch.”

“All right,” André said agreeably, seeing no reason to argue, especially against a hunch. He moved to his feet, following Anita toward the front door. The bell rang just as he came up to it. One look through the withdrawn peephole cover was enough; he put the cover back in place and nodded vigorously to Anita and then went on back to the end of the corridor, pushing through a swinging door. He found himself in the kitchen and let the door swing shut softly behind him.

It occurred to him that possibly Kek was right. Maybe they could be useful to each other. Because in André’s experience, anyone who dealt with Señor Luis Sanchez or his friends at times needed more than brains. Sometimes a little muscle came in handy.

He looked at the refrigerator door with a pang, remembering his last meal, a long time ago, and then forced himself to go and sit down at the table, staring through the curtained window at the parkland across the street. He also hadn’t come to visit an old friend just to raid an icebox...

2

Señor Luis Anselmo Sanchez y Miranda was a tall, painfully thin man with a narrow face, cavernous cheeks, thin lips, and a large nose revealing flaring nostrils over a hairline mustache. His wedge-shaped forehead was split geometrically by a sharp widow’s peak that made him look slightly satanic; the black hair that flowed back on each side seemed polished, as if by wax. His eyes were hooded, his skin mottled, and his teeth could have stood both straightening and cleaning, but what his personal features lacked in beauty was at least partially compensated for by his clothing; he was impeccably dressed in a tight checkered suit favored by Spaniards of a certain type.

He glanced about the elegant room appreciatively, waited until Anita had excused herself — his black eyes following her with even greater appreciation than they had exhibited for the nudes on the walls — and then graciously accepted the seat offered him by a casual wave of his host’s hand. The bright light from the windows struck his eyes, but not so forcibly as to cause him to consider a change in seating; he appreciated the intelligent purpose that had led Huuygens to seat him there. And for what Señor Sanchez had in mind, an intelligent man was what he required. In fact, what he required was Kek Huuygens himself, and nobody else, and a little momentary discomfort was a small price to pay for obtaining those invaluable services.

There was a moment of silence, broken by Sanchez. “A lovely apartment...”

“Thank you. We find it most comfortable.” The tone Kek used was sufficiently polite but clearly hinted that he was sure his visitor had not come for the sole purpose of complimenting the furnishings. He tented his fingers, watching his guest above them. “You say André Martins gave you my telephone number?”

“Yes.” Sanchez nodded easily, neither overanxious to prove his good credentials nor hesitantly, as if trying to avoid the matter. It was well done, and Kek gave him credit for it. “He claims to be an old friend of yours, m’sieu.” It was a statement but ended on a slightly rising inflection.

“He is. Although I haven’t seen him in years. He went to Portugal; I went to the States...” One good lie deserves another, Kek thought, and leaned back, prepared to play the verbal chess game to conclusion. Move and countermove...

“Ah!” Señor Sanchez folded his pencillike fingers into a bundle which he deposited in his lap; they lay there like sticks. He seemed to relax a bit. “Yes. Luckily I’ve been able to be of some help to poor André from time to time — small jobs, occasional loans. A fine fellow, André, and strong as a bull, of course.” His French, Huuygens was pleased to see, was excellent; it would have been more difficult to conduct the charade in Kek’s Spanish, but far from impossible. Languages were vital to his profession. The thin man’s rich voice became sad. “Not too successful, André, I’m afraid — no businessman — but still, a fine fellow...”

What an actor! Kek thought. He kept his voice noncommittal. “As I say, I haven’t heard from him in years. What’s old André doing in Lisbon these days?”

“Not Lisbon. Barcelona. He came to Spain a year ago, at least. As to what he’s doing—” Sanchez shrugged. “A little of this and a little of that. I try to see to it the poor fellow doesn’t starve. He can’t return to France, you know. Some trouble with the police, I hear. A pity. He talks about Paris quite often.”

“It must be difficult. Trouble with the police, I mean.” Kek suppressed a yawn. “Well, be sure and give him my regards when you see him.” His tone relegated poor André Martins and his problems back to the oblivion in which they apparently existed. He pressed his tented fingers together tightly and then released the pressure; it was as if he was preparing for business. “And just exactly what did Martins tell you about me, señor?”

The man across from him hesitated a moment and then leaned forward slightly. It was something like watching a carpenter’s rule unfold.

“He told me you could help me with a problem I have.”

“A problem?”

“Yes. To be exact, M’sieu Huuygens, I have a suitcase which I should like to have taken through customs—”

“So?” Kek stared at him curiously. “What did André say that made you think that should interest me?”

Sanchez smiled. “I understand your caution, m’sieu, but believe me, you have no need of it with me. I am in much the same business as you — among other businesses, of course. I am well aware of your reputation and your talent for — well, for such things.” He tried to make out the expression on the shadowed face across from him, but without success. “Let me put it another way, m’sieu. Let us take a hypothetical example...”

“That might be better,” Kek agreed equably. “What example should we take?”

“Let’s take the case of a person who wished to bring a suitcase through customs without — well, shall we say without bothering the customs officials too much?”

Kek sighed gently. “If you wish to consider either the example or the suitcase hypothetical, fine; but let’s leave the rest of the language veritable, shall we? Semantics can get complicated at times.” He tapped his tented fingers together. “Now, let’s take the hypothetical case of a person wishing to smuggle a suitcase through customs.”

“Fair enough,” Sanchez said and grinned. “All right. Could such a thing be done?”

“I imagine so. Though I still fail to see why this should interest me.”

“With your permission, a little patience, m’sieu, I believe I can show you how it could interest you in a while. But first, you say it can be done?”

“I should say so. Taken from where to where?”

“From Buenos Aires to Barcelona.”

“And what would this hypothetical case contain?”

Señor Sanchez looked slightly disappointed at what he obviously considered a faux pas on the part of his host.

“Considering the fee I’m sure will be asked — a fee I’m equally sure will not be hypothetical — I should imagine the contents of the suitcase could remain secret.”

Kek shrugged. “Possibly by some, but certainly not by me. It appears, señor, that André did not tell you enough about me. Or possibly he didn’t know, since it’s been a long time. But let me say this: I can’t picture myself taking a hypothetical suitcase into Spain containing, say, narcotics, for example.”

“For no amount of money?”

“For no amount of money.”

“And if it didn’t contain narcotics?”

“Then it obviously would contain something else. Which would not have to be a secret.” He shook his head. “Let me suggest that I cannot imagine anyone, myself included, taking a suitcase through customs without knowing what he was carrying.”

There were several moments of prolonged silence, followed by a deep sigh. The hawklike profile pivoted, the hooded eyes studying the room without actually seeing any of the beauties it contained. The black, hooded eyes returned at last to Kek’s face as if calculating something.

“All right, m’sieu. My reticence is simply due to the fact that you will probably not believe what I am about to tell you—” He paused.

Kek nodded inwardly. You may be quite sure I won’t believe it, he silently assured the man across from him and waited. Sanchez seemed to find it hard to continue; his locked fingers writhed in his lap, like disturbed twigs. At last he looked up. “To tell you the truth, M’sieu Huuygens,” he said, “the suitcase will contain nothing more illegal than parchment.”

“Parchment?” It was a lovely lie, Kek was forced to admit.

“Parchment.” Having made the plunge, the words came easier for Señor Sanchez. He unlocked his fingers, placing his hands on his bony knees. “M’sieu Huuygens, I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but it is the truth. A good many of the land titles to the most important pieces of property in the city of Buenos Aires depend for their legal validity on nothing more than the fact that the original grants given by the Spanish crown to the original owners have disappeared — or had disappeared, that is, until quite recently. Then, in an — an old church in — but the name is unimportant; let us simply say in a section of the city that once was a small village but is now a suburb, a part of Greater Buenos Aires, some of these original land grants were discovered. They had been there for years, put away in a drawer. The man who discovered them did so by pure accident, but he was smart enough to realize their potential worth, and—” He hesitated, slightly embarrassed.

“Stole them?”

Sanchez seemed relieved to have the naughty words spoken by someone with less sensibility than himself. “I’m afraid that’s right.” He shrugged delicately. “Actually, you might more properly say restole them, because of course they were the true grants to the land, and I’m sure the original owners didn’t give up either the land or the grants all that easily. In any event, most of the descendants of the original families live in Spain, and many of them in Barcelona. They were approached recently by this—” Again the slight hesitation.

“Thief?” Huuygens suggested politely.

“—the man who had located the parchments. However, he did not have the actual documents with him of course; he was afraid to take them through customs. They would have taken quite a bit of explaining, as you can well imagine. So the families commissioned me to go to Argentina and view the documents.” He shrugged. “I was convinced of their authenticity. And their potential value.”

“You are an expert on documents?”

Sanchez grinned; on his thin face it looked like a rictus.

“M’sieu, I am an expert on making money.”

Which is probably the first true statement said in this room since your arrival, Kek thought. Still, there is no doubt the man has a wonderful imagination. His grandchildren must enjoy his stories.

“But why bring the documents to Spain at all?” Kek asked. “The land they refer to is, after all, in Argentina.”

The thin man shook his head decisively. “No, no, m’sieu! To attempt to present the parchments in an Argentinian court would be ridiculous. A good part of what is now the city of Buenos Aires is involved. The government there simply could not allow such a claim to be considered for a moment. The documents would be impounded, declared fraudulent, and destroyed. Even in Spain—” He sighed. “My principals are important people, but I’m sure that even in Spain we shall have problems. But the documents are Spanish in origin, and there, at least, it’s felt we might have a chance.”

Huuygens nodded, as if seeing the logic of the other’s position. It was an imaginative story, he had to admit; he wondered whether Sanchez had come prepared with it or had made it up on the spur of the moment. However, he decided to play along a bit more.

“How big a suitcase are we talking about?”

“A normal suitcase.” Sanchez held out his pencillike fingers. “About so wide. A few feet. Nothing extraordinary.” He smiled. “Still, a bit too big to carry through customs under one’s coat.”

“The only thing I ever carry through customs under my coat,” Kek said, “is me. And I usually have more trouble with that than I do with anything else.” He changed the subject. “What’s the weight of this suitcase?”

Sanchez considered. “Fifteen kilo, I’d say. A bit more than thirty pounds. Not heavy at all.”

Which, heavy or not, would make a lot of parchment, Kek thought, and pitied the number of sheep called upon to furnish it. “Why a suitcase, necessarily?” he asked. “I assume the parchment is rolled; at least it was customary in those days. Wouldn’t folding harm it? Why not a tube of some sort?”

Sanchez considered him evenly. “Because, m’sieu, you will have to transport the material somehow to get it to Spain, and a tube with a lock on it might arouse the curiosity of a porter, or an airline baggage handler, or a clerk—”

“Locked? This suitcase will be locked?”

“Extremely well locked, m’sieu.” Now that the subject had been broached, Sanchez sounded determined to settle the matter for all time. “The suitcase will be locked and will remain locked, m’sieu. That is a vital condition. The value of these documents might prove a temptation to anyone, even to someone with your reputation for dealing fairly with clients. We are not talking about a paltry painting now, m’sieu, or a valuable book. We are talking about most of the city of Buenos Aires.” He waited for some response; Huuygens remained silent, watching him over his tented fingers. Sanchez took this as a form of acceptance and continued. “Well, m’sieu, what do you think? It can be done?”

“Oh, yes. It can be done, all right.”

“May one ask how?”

Kek looked at him sardonically. “One may ask, of course, but one would not be answered. After all, señor, the suitcase is still hypothetical, but my means of making a living is not.”

Sanchez smiled, accepting the answer. It was one he would have given himself. His smile faded. “And the charge would be? The cost to us?”

“Ah, that’s the problem, you see.” Kek frowned at the carpet and then brought his eyes up. “I’m not sure I want the job. A locked suitcase...” He smiled apologetically; even in the shadows Sanchez could see the boyish lift of the lips and the gleam of the white teeth. “Without intending any disrespect, señor, I don’t know you; that is a second thing. I would need to check your credentials. Say, with someone like André...” He waited for a reaction from the man across from him and gave him high marks for retaining his composure. “If I could find him after all these years, of course. But if not, with someone else. I have other contacts in Barcelona.”

Sanchez released a shuddering breath. Huuygens, at least, was interested! “Would ten thousand, American, plus any expenses involved induce you to take the job without wasting time?” He waved a hand impatiently. “Not that I worry about your checking on me, M’sieu Huuygens. I’m not of the police, and that’s all that should interest you. I’m well known in Barcelona, and that fact can easily be established by a simple telephone call.”

“I’m afraid I would want more than a simple telephone call to convince me, señor.” Kek came to his feet in an easy motion, indicating the interview was over, at least for the moment. “I shall have to let you know, Señor Sanchez. Where can I reach you?”

“How long before you can give me your decision, m’sieu?”

“Three or four days, I should think. A week at the very most.”

Sanchez unfolded himself, coming to his feet reluctantly. He seemed ill-disposed to leave the matter where it stood; he looked as if he blamed himself for not having been more successful in his mission.

“You are sure you would not care to decide right now?”

“Quite sure.”

Sanchez sighed. “Then as soon as possible, please, m’sieu. There is a lot of money involved, and other people. And we can’t even begin to prepare our case without the documentation.”

“It won’t be long, I promise. And your hotel?”

“No hotel,” Sanchez said and smiled. “I also value privacy. But the number is 35-24-471.”

Kek marked it down. “You’ll hear from me.” He set the pencil back on the desk and led the man by the arm down the corridor to the front door.

Señor Sanchez glanced about as if in the hope of seeing the lovely lady again, as if sight of her might at least partially compensate for the failure to leave with Huuygens firmly committed, but the soft lighting of the hallway merely illuminated the paintings and nothing more and the doors leading from it were all firmly closed. He paused a moment at the outer door, waited while Kek unlatched and opened it, and then wet his thin lips with the tip of his tongue. He looked as if he were hoping a few extra words — possibly one more argument — might change the other’s mind and close the deal on the spot; but he also seemed to realize it was not possible. He drew a deep breath.

“Until later, m’sieu,” he said, and his sadness seemed genuine.

“Until later,” Kek said pleasantly, and closed the door behind him. The man in the hallway heard the lock snap shut; he sighed again and turned toward the elevator.

The cognac was back on the bar, the glasses refilled. Anita sat on a bar stool watching the men, one long, well-formed leg tucked beneath her, the smoke from her cigarette curling about her face, causing her to half close her eyes. André reached over for his glass and snorted indelicately.

“Luis Sanchez giving me a helping hand! What a story!”

“He didn’t want you to starve,” Kek explained and grinned.

“Let him worry about his grandmother starving,” André said flatly and dropped the subject. “Ten thousand American and all expenses, eh? You see how it goes? If I got an offer of a job like that, it would be for ten francs and bus fare. Still,” he added, thinking about it, “they’d probably be getting gypped, because I wouldn’t have a clue as to how to go about it.” His eyes came up. “How in hell do you smuggle a whole suitcase through customs without having them open it?”

“Easily.” Huuygens waved the matter aside. “That’s the least of the problems.” He frowned across the bar. “André, what do you really know about this Sanchez character?”

“You mean, other than the fact that he practically supports me?” André smiled sourly. “Well, I know this much — you name it, and if it’s illegal, he’s involved in it. Black market, prostitution, fencing—”

“Narcotics?”

“He’s in everything. Narcotics included.”

“He said the suitcase wouldn’t hold narcotics. He swore it.”

André almost choked on his drink. He set his glass down on the bar and stared at Huuygens in astonishment.

“Have you been listening to me? Or to that ten thousand dollars? He swore it didn’t hold narcotics? That almost convinces me it must. My friend, you can trust Luis Sanchez about as far as you can kick the Arc de Triomphe.” He considered his words and amended them. “Uphill, that is. Barefoot.” He thought about it some more and added, “Against the wind.” He returned to his drink, sipped, and then put the glass down, a smile forming on his face. “Still,” he went on slowly, his eyes glistening in good humor, “there’s no good reason why the suitcase couldn’t be opened and checked. Even if it’s locked.” He rubbed the tips of his fingers on his jacket lapel suggestively and winked across the bar. “I don’t want to brag, but I used to be pretty good at that sort of thing in my early days. I can’t have forgotten all of it.”

Kek smiled at him. “The thought also occurred to me, but what happens when we open it and find it’s not what he claims it is? Tell the man we caught him fibbing? That’s a pretty serious insult to a Spaniard, you know.”

“I know,” André said sympathetically and smiled.

“Besides, by that time I would have agreed to take the case through customs; and I hate to go back on my word. It would be a very unpleasant situation.” He changed the subject. “Who does this Sanchez work for?”

“Sanchez?” André shook his head. “Nobody. He works for himself.”

“Not in this deal,” Kek said. “I’m sure he’s not the top man. He made me his offer of ten thousand dollars, and that was that. You could almost hear the wheels going around in his head when I walked him to the door. He would have given his arm to have upped the ante and closed the deal then and there. But since he didn’t” — he raised his shoulders expressively — “it seems obvious he wasn’t authorized to.”

“Well,” André said slowly, “if Sanchez is just a junior partner in the deal, then it has to be a very big deal, indeed. Luis Sanchez doesn’t usually play second fiddle to anyone.” He looked at Kek. “So he says the suitcase doesn’t hold narcotics. What story did he make up? Gold?”

“He wouldn’t have said that.” Anita entered into the conversation and the two men looked at her with interest as she leaned over, brushed ash from her cigarette, and then leaned back again. André was intrigued by her statement.

“Oh? Why not?”

“Because,” Anita told them calmly, “he said the suitcase weighed thirty pounds or a bit more. Take away the weight of the suitcase itself, no matter how light it is, and what do you have? With gold worth about five hundred dollars a pound?” She shrugged. “He’d be paying more than half just to get the stuff past customs. I don’t imagine he’s in business just to keep Kek in cognac...”

Kek smiled at her proudly and winked at André.

“Not to mention,” he added, “that gold is as easily converted to currency in Argentina — if not more easily — than in Spain. And with currency you simply put it in your pocket and walk through almost every customs in the world. Even me.” He shook his head. “You two don’t understand. It isn’t that he didn’t tell me what was in the suitcase — he did. It’s just that I don’t believe him.”

Anita paused in the act of lighting another cigarette. “What did he say?”

Kek smiled. He stared into his glass as if seeking answers to Sanchez’s credibility in the amber depths of his drink, slowly swirling the liquid. The ice cubes clinked against the glass musically and then subsided, bobbing lightly on the surface. His eyes came up.

“He said the suitcase contained documents — old parchment land grants originally given by the Spanish crown for lands that constitute most of what is now the city of Buenos Aires. He went on to say they had been stolen long ago but that these parchments prove that his friends — his clients, I should say — legally own most of the town.” He smiled. “It isn’t such a bad story, when you think about it. It’s just crazy enough, just far-fetched enough, to be almost believable. And if he dreamed it up on the spur of the moment, the man is a genius.”

“Only you don’t believe him,” André said.

“No. For one thing, thirty pounds of parchment would cover quite a few grants, and considering that the entire part of Argentina that now includes Buenos Aires was included in one grant, it weakens his story, don’t you think?”

Anita grinned mischievously. “Maybe they wrote big.”

“Then, even assuming he has a thirty-pound piece of sheepskin, there’s the fact that until the end of the eighteenth century any land grant for what is now Buenos Aires would have been an insult to the receiver; that area was considered worthless. It wasn’t until 1776, the year of the American Revolution, that the final grant was given, the final legal grant, the one that had the real value; that was when Spain created a new viceroyalty from the overall viceroyalty of Peru and made Buenos Aires its capital. Which, in case you’re interested, was done to protect the districts along the River Plate from the Brazilians—”

Anita stared at him. “A historian! I learn something new about you every day!”

Kek shrugged modestly. “Not a historian — an insomniac. When you are asleep and snoring, my darling, preventing me from getting any rest—”

“Snoring? Me?”

“You, my sweet. Someday I shall take the tape recorder into the bedroom and gather proof. At any rate,” Kek said with a grin in her direction, “at those times I read the encyclopedia until I get drowsy enough to overcome the local disturbances, and I’m all the way up to Elephants. If he’d have said Finland instead of Argentina, I’d have had to wait until next week to catch him. We won’t even talk about Venezuela.”

“Which proves I can’t snore very much, if you’re only up as far as ‘Elephants’!”

“I’m a slow reader.” Kek’s light tone disappeared. “At any rate, there was that final land grant issued, but where our friend Sanchez made an even greater mistake was in forgetting one thing: He forgot that by that year they were well past the age of parchment. The final grants of the Spanish crown were written in quill and ink, on oil paper. If anyone found that grant recently — assuming it had ever been lost — all he would have to do would be simply to mail it to Barcelona, registered mail, and forget all about the expensive services of M’sieu Kek Huuygens.” He smiled. “That’s the end of the lesson, children.”

André frowned. “So what’s in the suitcase?”

“A good question,” Kek conceded. “If it were coming from the Middle East, I’d bet on drugs; or even if he wanted to get it into Spain from France. Marseilles has become the leading producer of heroin in the world. I mention this in case either of you native-born Frenchmen need facts to brag about your native land. But drugs from South America?” He frowned and then unconsciously tugged at an earlobe as he pondered the problem. When he spoke his tone was apologetic. “André—”

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid that offer of hospitality was a bit premature. I’d like you to go back to Barcelona. With your contacts, possibly you could find out what Sanchez is up to.”

André’s first reaction was to ask how, but he contained himself. It would be tantamount to admitting that his position in the smuggling elite of Barcelona was well on the outskirts, and that the André that Kek remembered from the old days — the André of decision and forceful will — no longer existed. Better to bluff, he said to himself, and he came to his feet, grinning at Huuygens.

“I wouldn’t be surprised but what I could dig something up.” His grin widened. “On expenses, I assume?”

“Definitely. And by plane, this time — first class.” Kek smiled. “To be charged to Señor Luis Sanchez and Company — if we take on the job, that is.”

André’s face fell. “And if you don’t take on the job?”

“In that case,” Kek suggested dryly, “try to hunch down when you buy your ticket. Otherwise the airline might charge you for two seats...”

3

“He wants a few days to consider it,” Sanchez said into the telephone. His voice was conspiratorial, his skeletal hand cupping the receiver, as if that might in some way keep the words from filtering out into improper ears somewhere along the miles of long-distance wire. “I’ll have to wait around until he makes up his mind.”

At the far end of the call to Barcelona there was an unhappy sound. Señor Antonio Maria Duarte y Bertrand, the senior partner in the deal, was not pleased with the delay. Time was, after all, money. And money was Señor Duarte’s business, among many other things.

“What does he call a few days?”

“Three or four. Less than a week, he said.”

“Three or four, first! Then a week! Next it will be a month! What does he need time for?”

Sanchez shrugged. What a stupid question!

“You ask him,” he said. “He didn’t go into detail. He simply said he didn’t know me personally and that he wanted to check on my credentials. To make sure I’m not from the police, I suppose,” he added, well content that a check on his credentials would reveal quite the opposite. “And I imagine he wants to be sure he’ll be paid if he takes the job.”

“To hell with him!” Duarte said shortly. “We’ll get somebody else!”

“We will not get somebody else,” Sanchez said savagely. “Maybe you don’t care about your share, but I certainly care about mine! We will get Huuygens. Just be a little patient!”

“Patient! Why didn’t you increase the offer? Time is important, damn it!”

“Increase the offer, he says! Why didn’t you give me permission to increase the offer?” Luis Sanchez made a rude noise, properly aggrieved. What a damn shame he hadn’t the money to swing the deal himself but had to go in with this unspeakable idiot, Antonio! “You were the one who set ten thousand as the limit — not me!”

“It is, after all, my money,” Antonio pointed out, quite unaware of any illogic in his position, and then realized that further discussion along these lines would be fruitless and only benefit the Compañia Telefónica. “Why didn’t you use Rosa? That’s why you took her along, isn’t it? Wasn’t that one of your reasons?”

Sanchez risked a quick glance at the woman lying on the bed beside him, and automatically lowered his voice. “It wouldn’t have worked.”

Duarte frowned at the instrument in his hand. “He’s cierva?”

“No, no! It isn’t that. It’s simply that he’s got something — ah — better...”

Light finally dawned on Duarte. “Is Rosa listening?”

“Naturally.”

“So what do we do? Just wait?”

Sanchez paused a moment in thought. “Antonio—”

“Yes?”

“There’s a man in Barcelona; he’s named André Martins. A Frenchman or a Basque — one or the other. Do you know him?”

“This is a city of two million people! Do I know an André Martins! There must be fifty—”

“You can’t miss this one,” Sanchez said, interrupting brusquely. “He’s a giant and no chicken. He hangs around the docks, picks up a few pesetas doing this and that. He looks like a bum, has a face like an ex-prizefighter, always wears a cap, usually needs a shave, has gray hair, almost white—”

“Oh, him?” At the other end of the line Duarte nodded knowledgeably. “If it’s the one I think it is, I’ve seen him around, but I never knew his name. Why? What about him?”

Sanchez lowered his voice even farther.

“He’s a friend of this Huuygens, or he was once upon a time. Anyway, Huuygens apparently trusts him, God knows why. But I heard it before, and Huuygens practically confirmed it. Anyway, see if you can find this André. Give him—” Sanchez paused to consider and then realized there was no need to instruct Duarte on that score, “Well, give him a few pesetas — that’s a lot of money for that one — and get him to telephone Huuygens directly. For a price this André should do anything you ask him to, broke as he is.”

“Call Huuygens about what?”

Sanchez raised his eyes to the cracked plaster of the ceiling in supplication and then brought them down again. How Duarte had managed to get where he was was a continuing mystery!

“To give me — us — me a good name, for God’s sake! Have you been listening? To tell Huuygens he’ll be paid! To tell him we’re not police or customs men! Huuygens will listen to him, I tell you. And we can save some of that time you’re so concerned about!”

“If I can find this André what’s-his-name—”

“André Martins. Write it down before you forget it. And try looking if you want to find him,” Sanchez advised coldly. “Try the Porteño Bar; he’s around there when he’s got the price of a drink — there or the Cinco Puertas. Try the whole damn dock area. He’s too damned big to get lost.” His tone became sarcastic. “You won’t find him at the Ritz, so don’t waste time there.”

“I’ll look for him.”

“Thank you,” Sanchez said dryly. “And call me back if you find him, hear? I’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll call.” There was a sudden chuckle from Duarte. “Give my love to Rosa. Don’t let her tire you out too much...”

If anyone in the world tires me out, Sanchez thought bitterly, it’s you! “Good-bye,” he said and hung up without waiting for a reply. He glanced down at the curvaceous woman half sitting, half lying on the bed, watching her through half-lidded eyes. Her face had a bit too much makeup; her robe draped open, exposing undergarments that barely contained her lush flesh. Her mouth was pouting.

“Well? What did he say?”

Sanchez stared at her. “What business is it of yours?”

“I just wanted to know how long we’re going to be here.”

“It doesn’t depend on him or what he says,” Sanchez said. “Anyway, we stay as long as it takes, as long as I say. You’re getting paid by the day, aren’t you?”

Rosa ran a red tongue over even redder lips and smiled at him. “I like to earn my keep, though,” she said and swung herself from the bed, dropping the robe, holding a seductive pose a moment and then reaching behind her for the catch to her brassiere. She dropped it to the floor and cupped her full breasts provocatively, smiling at Sanchez invitingly, and then slipped a finger under the waistband of her panties.

Sanchez sighed. He must be getting old, he thought; at the moment he was more interested in the suitcase than in sex. Of all the girls he might have brought from Manuela’s place in Barcelona, he had to pick the one nymphomaniac there! Still, the fact remained that there were several days to waste, at the least, and he had to stay near the telephone in case Huuygens called, and the telephone wasn’t far from the bed...

He smiled at the thought and started to loosen his necktie. The beauty of pure logic, he thought, and watched admiringly in the mirror as Rosa completed undressing.

André Martins, wandering down the Ramblas toward the Puerta de la Paz and the port, cap tipped back on his head, hands stuffed into his pockets, wondered disconsolately why he had ever permitted Kek to hand him this impossible assignment. Why hadn’t he spoken up and said he wasn’t suited for the job? The fact was he hadn’t a clue as to where to start. True, on the plane coming down, still buoyed up by Kek’s faith, a series of minor miracles had appeared before him: A friendly bartender would lean over and whisper the answer to his problem; a girl at Manuela’s place would pause in dressing to tell him, in appreciation, that she had heard of a mysterious suitcase from her last client, etc., etc. Dreams, all dreams! The fact was, his return was a complete waste of time and money. He hadn’t the faintest idea of where to begin.

He paused in the shadow of the Columbus monument a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow and reset his cap and then continued on toward the docks. It was not that he felt the docks were a better place to begin any investigation — for no place could be better or worse if the proper place did not exist — it was simply that he felt more at home near the water. He crossed the street at the far side of the large square, continued on to the waterside, and turned up past the huge warehouses, pleasuring in the sharp salt smell of the sea, the tang of fish and kelp, the pungency of tarred rope. Ships towered above him, leviathans tethered to land by straining cables, their bilges pumping constantly; dock cranes creaked and groaned as they dipped and swayed from holds, swiveling like ill-jointed Tinker toys. Gulls wheeled in the sunlight, screaming at each other, searching the pulsing ripples of the harbor for food. It wasn’t all that bad here in Barcelona, he thought; what did he want with Paris, anyway? It was too far in the past; he shouldn’t have gone back. All he could do for his old friend, Kek, was add to his problems. Maybe it would be best if he just mailed back the money Kek had given him and get a job on one of the ships. Go away, far away. Maybe to South America — Argentina, maybe.

The thought of the country brought him to his senses. No, that wasn’t the answer; he had never run from anything in his life. He had to try, at the very least. But how?

He paused to watch a battered freighter edge its way into the harbor; from his position on the quay it seemed sure to strike the mole, but it steamed ahead, cautiously but surely. Confidence, he thought bitterly; that’s what I need. Where to start? Well, a little voice in his head said — possibly encouraged by the freighter’s entrance into the harbor — why not start with your wild dreams on the plane? The bartender, remember? Or the girl at Manuela’s place? At least failure in either of those places would be better tolerated. He tried to gain comfort from the thought, but it helped little. With a sigh he turned away from the sea and the breakwater and sought out a bar he had known since his first days in Barcelona.

The bartender was a person he had never seen before in his life. He was an old man whose wrinkles almost hid his cataracted eyes. For a moment André almost walked out, but then he squared his shoulders and strode up to the high marble counter with a slight swagger. He leaned over the counter confidentially.

“What do you hear from Sanchez?”

The bartender paused in his task of shakily wiping a glass and looked around blurrily, finally locating the source of the interruption. He had been thinking of the south.

“Who?”

“Sanchez,” André said and made himself sound impatient. “Luis Sanchez.”

The bartender shook his head sadly, his wattles swinging back and forth.

“I never heard of him, señor. But then, I’m a stranger to these parts. I come from Marbella, in the south.” He leaned over the counter hopefully. “You know it?”

“No,” André said shortly.

“Oh,” the bartender said, his voice steeped in disappointment. He started to polish a glass and then stopped again, as if remembering something. “It’s warm there,” he said, as if André had denied it. “It’s cold here. Not now, but pretty soon. I know. I was on a ship that docked here in December once.” He peered at André myopically, challenging him to doubt. “It was cold.”

“Yes,” André said.

“I just started yesterday,” the old man confided. “They won’t have me on the ships because of my sight, but I can see good enough to pour drinks.” He didn’t really sound so sure he could.

“I’m sure,” André said, wishing he hadn’t stopped in. He didn’t even feel like a drink. “Take care,” he said and walked out to the street. The old man inside looked hurt and then returned to polishing his glass, remembering the sun of Marbella.

André paused on the curb, looking about, not seeing any of his friends or even acquaintances. One lousy day gone from Barcelona and everybody’s disappeared, he thought bitterly; one miserable day out of town and even all the bartenders have changed jobs. Incredible! Well, what now? Another bar? Or Manuela’s place? Manuela’s, he decided and started off in that direction. And after the whorehouse he would sign on a ship and get as far away from Paris and Barcelona and Kek and Sanchez and everyone else as he could. What a laugh, his thinking he could simply walk down the street and people would force information on him! Kek should have given him a job requiring muscle, or even skill with his hands, and it would have been done. But a job like this, requiring not only brains but subtlety as well, a talent for investigation? Like asking a rhinoceros to tie a shoelace!

A clock struck in a nearby steeple as he entered the street that housed Manuela’s place of business. Two o’clock; he hoped someone would be awake. Two o’clock, which also meant it was four hours since he got off the plane, and he hadn’t accomplished a single thing. Nor did he expect to here. He sighed and climbed the worn steps of the familiar building, ringing the bell and entering without waiting for a response. The door was always open at Manuela’s.

Manuela herself was coming down the steps in leisurely fashion, buttoning her blouse; he closed the door behind him, shutting out the bright sunlight. The lady of the house looked at him with a degree of surprise and turned to a small mirror on the wall, checking her appearance, speaking over her shoulder.

“Hello, André—”

“Hello...” He took off his cap and tortured it with his hands, looking around the dim hallway as if he had never seen it before. In fact, it was as familiar to him as his own room. Manuela leaned closer to the glass to compensate for the poor light.

“You’re early,” she observed, looking over her image to his face in the mirror. She brought her attention back to her face, brushing a tendril of hair into place. Wetting a fingertip, she traced her eyebrows. “And Rosa isn’t here. She’s on — on vacation.”

“I didn’t come for—” He took a deep breath, moving closer to the woman, staring at her in the glass. “Manuela, what do you hear about Sanchez?”

“Luis Sanchez?” Manuela finished with the eyebrows and curled a strand of hair into a loop beside one ear. She checked herself once more and then turned to face the large man standing, waiting. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No, no. About Sanchez...” He let the words trail into silence.

“I know nothing about Sanchez. If it helps, I hear he’s out of town.” She considered him shrewdly. “What do you want with Sanchez? Did you want to borrow money?”

The repetition of Sanchez’s unfair accusation, especially coming from one he had considered a friend, was enough to try a person’s temper. “I never borrowed a centavo from Luis Sanchez in my life! That’s just one of his—” He cut the statement short abruptly, suddenly remembering that Sanchez had not made his statement publicly. “No,” he said more quietly. “I’m — I’m looking for a job.”

“Well, I hear he’s out of town, so you’ll have to wait.”

“Did he—” André floundered. What had he been about to say? Did Sanchez do what? Did he mention a suitcase? It came to him how ridiculous he must appear to the woman. What a sad waste of time. “Nothing,” he said and turned to go.

Manuela frowned. “You don’t want a girl?”

“No...” His hand was on the knob.

“Are you sick?”

He hesitated. “Yes,” he said and escaped. Manuela stared after him with a touch of pity in her large, dark, liquid eyes. It was awfully early for André to be drunk, and he looked as if he hadn’t been sleeping well lately either. Maybe she should have insisted on his having coffee and even loaned him a few pesetas to sober up on. Shaking her head, she went in to make breakfast.

It wasn’t until she had the coffee on that she remembered she had a message for the big man. She glanced out the window, but André had already disappeared around the corner. Oh, well, someone else would get it to him...

André wandered back toward the quayside from force of habit. Yes, there seemed to be no doubt but that he couldn’t possibly return to Paris and face Kek after such an abysmal failure. What a shame, after having waited so long for permission! Ah, well, water over the dam. Nor, of course, could he remain here in Barcelona, where Kek was sure to hear he was about, especially now. No, there was nothing else for it; it would have to be a ship, preferably one that went—

“André!”

— to China, if ships still sailed there. He was sure any ship would sign him on, even at his age and even with his gray hair. One thing he could do was work, and any deck boss with half an eye could see that. Of course, there was the sad fact that he had never worked on ships before, having a tendency toward seasickness, but what could one do? One might, of course, go—

“Hey! André!”

— back to Lisbon, but the truth was he had lived there a long time and hadn’t done very well. But, then, he hadn’t done very well in his life. Well, that last statement wasn’t exactly true. In the old days, working with Kek, he had done very well indeed, but—

“André!”

— that was a long time ago, and anyway, once he had his job outlined for him, there was nobody better at executing it. It was getting the idea of what to do in the first place, that was the trouble. Although in this case, even if he had been told step by step what to do, he probably would have failed—

A hand reached out, catching at his arm. A breathless voice spoke at his side.

“Man, are you deaf, or what? I’ve been chasing you and calling you for two blocks...”

André brought his attention from his multiple problems, looking down at his companion. “Hello, Raul. What’s new?” It suddenly occurred to him that he had money in his pocket, not a normal situation, and that he had found a familiar face, no small thing that day. “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.” He would toast the end of his quest before it began, but at least he wouldn’t be drinking alone.

“Good!” Raul said heartily, never one to refuse. Turning down a small street, they left the dock area and entered a maze of narrow streets well trodden by them both in the past. The cobblestones were rough beneath their thin shoes, and the paved walk reflected the heat of the afternoon. Raul led the way to a familiar bar and sank into one of the small metal chairs before a marble-topped sidewalk table; André had more trouble adapting to the bent-wire contraption. Raul turned to call a waiter and then paused, looking over his shoulder with a touch of doubt. “Are you sure you have—”

André laughed, his first genuine laugh in a long time. He reached into his pocket, bringing out a folded wad of notes, running a thumb over them. “I’m sure.”

Raul frowned at the unexpected amount of money a moment, shrugged, and turned back to the hovering waiter. “A bottle of Fundador.”

The waiter stared. “A bottle?”

“A bottle,” André said grandly and waved the money.

The waiter disappeared into the café on the double. Raul looked at the large man across from him. “I’ve got a message for you.”

André frowned. Any message he was apt to receive undoubtedly dealt with an old debt, of which he had many outstanding. True, he had money in his pocket at the moment, but it was money given for expenses, money given for a purpose, not to be used wastefully, such as in paying old debts. In fact, now that the purpose had vanished, the money would have to be returned — or what was left, at least. He sighed. It seemed that in addition to having his mind occupied by his bankruptcy of ideas, he was to be distracted further with local problems.

“What’s the message?”

Raul paused as the waiter brought the bottle. He watched the cork being removed with all the suspicion of any connoisseur confronted with a fresh possibility of distillery error, watched the glasses being put down, and watched the waiter withdraw. He reached out, pouring two drinks, and raised his own.

“Salud.”

“Salud,” André repeated. He upended the glass, swallowing the contents in one gargantuan gulp, scarcely tasting it. The warmth of the brandy spread from his empty stomach through his body. “What’s the message?” Whatever it was, it had to be faced.

Raul was not to be hurried, however; certainly not with an almost-full bottle of cognac on the table and an old friend with him who obviously had made a killing in one illegal form or another. He drank his drink, savoring it with extra pleasure for the reserve quantity warehoused in the bottle, and then reached over to André’s glass in order to refill both.

“What’s the message?” André asked again.

“Well,” Raul said, not pausing in his task, “I’m not even sure you’d be interested. Antonio Duarte wants to see you — apparently about a job, I guess — but if you’re so flush...” He recorked the bottle and raised his glass again.

“Antonio Duarte?” André frowned, his fingers reaching for his refilled glass automatically. A job? Or was that just an excuse, the bait to draw the unwary into a trap? He had, of course, never borrowed any money from Duarte any more than he had from Sanchez; in any event, Duarte was too big a man in the rackets to be approached for the loan of a few pesetas. Still, there were people who reported that Duarte, among other activities, also took on the job of collecting bad debts for a percentage — or rather, his boys did. On the other hand, it was very doubtful Duarte would handle the extremely small amounts involved in André’s paltry borrowings. Maybe it was a job? But he didn’t want a job, other than one on the ships. It seemed only honest to clear the air with Raul, at least. “I’m not looking for a job right now.”

“I didn’t say it was a job for sure,” Raul said, quite willing to drag the conversation on as long as the bottle lasted. “I just said I thought it might be. All I know for sure is that the word is out that Duarte wants to see you. I don’t really know why.”

André sighed. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another! Still, Duarte had a long arm — or his boys did — so possibly he’d best see the man before he started signing up on a vessel. Or possibly it would be better to sign up and forget Duarte. It was a difficult choice.

“Where does one find this Duarte? I only know him by sight; I never dealt with him before.”

“He’ll be at the Villarino Bar,” Raul told him. He hurriedly drank and reached for the bottle, pouring hastily.

“When?”

Raul sighed, a tragic sigh. “He’s there now,” he reported sadly and stared at all the lovely liquor remaining in the bottle. With a final sigh he replaced the cork and pushed it home. André came to his feet, smiling down in friendly fashion.

“Don’t rush,” he said and laid money on the table. “That should handle the bottle and the waiter, too.” A thought came to him, a hunch; he had long since learned to respect his hunches. He bent down, lowering his voice. “As far as you know, I have no money. I’m broke. Understand?” He straightened up, smiling, but the smile did not extend to his steady eyes. “Just pretend today is like every other day.”

Raul nodded in complete understanding. As he had suspected, the money was hotter than a phone booth in Morocco.

“Don’t worry,” he said and sipped his drink this time, instead of bolting it. “And thanks for the drinks.” A thought came to him; he looked up. “André—”

André paused in leaving. “Yes?”

“Tell Duarte I’m the one who found you, will you?”

André stared. Was there a reward out for him? A bounty? And would his friend, for whom he had just bought a bottle, be willing to profit from his capture? It was a strange world.

“All right,” he said, with no intention of complying, and turned away, crossing the street. Better see Duarte at that; he had heard the man also controlled the hiring on the docks. One thing about seeing him, he thought somberly, at least it will postpone my having to make a decision as to where I go from here, if only for a few minutes...

4

Although in general he preferred to drink in more refined settings, Antonio Duarte y Bertrand was not a stranger to the Villarino Bar. Business had taken him to the small café in the Plaza de Antonio Lopez more than once, being located, as it was, near the harbor and the various possibilities there of making money at the expense of shippers and receivers. It was also, he knew, a logical place to meet Martins; the big man would have been out of place, as Sanchez had suggested, at the Ritz. Duarte was a short, swarthy man with a barrellike figure in sharp contrast to the elegant emaciation of his temporary partner; his face was puffy and normally demonstrated a suspicious frown, his temper short, and his appetites exaggerated.

Señor Duarte was sipping a Don Carlos Primero brandy — the legitimate grandfather, one might say, of Fundador — and studying the busy square before him half angrily. He had put out the word that he wanted to see the giant André the day before, and he was properly irritated that to the moment there had been no response. True, the city was a large one, but the circle in which Duarte moved — and on the fringes of which André existed — was a relatively small and close-knit one. The little, chunky man sipped at his cognac without proper appreciation for its fineness, his mind preparing castigations for those in his organization he had assigned to locate André; one more hour was all he would give the big man to arrive and then he would tell Sanchez to forget his wild idea and get on with getting Huuygens — or someone—

He noticed the large figure far in the distance and paused in his thinking, unwilling to admit success. Yes, it was the big man. André was crossing the square diagonally in his direction, his cap pulled over his eyes almost challengingly. Duarte came to his feet, forcing a smile onto his normally dour features, greeting the big man as if they were old friends instead of meeting in person for the first time.

“Señor Martins. A pleasure. Sit down, sit down.” He himself sat and waved an imperious hand. “Waiter!”

André sat down, frowning. While the expression of friendship was obviously false, this approach equally obviously was not normal from one attempting to make a collection. Nor was it the usual approach one faced when being offered a job. Unless, of course, the job was on the order of murder — and while he had heard that Señor Duarte also accepted assignments of that nature for his boys, he was fairly sure that Duarte would not approach him in that regard, surely considering him an amateur by the fat man’s high standards. He waited while the waiter poured him a generous portion of the Don Carlos Primero; his eyebrows rose at sight of the prestigious brand. Whatever Duarte wanted to see him about, it had to be important. Don Carlos Primero cognac was not dispensed lightly.

“Your good health,” Duarte said woodenly and drank.

André nodded and drank with him, savoring the smooth, velvety touch of the brandy, a rare treat for his disenchanted palate. He set the glass down a bit reluctantly, but still determined to get the matter over in a hurry. He had a boat to catch.

“I hear you wanted to see me.”

“I did, yes.” Duarte was smiling at him, a calculating, humorless smile. He pushed his glass away, getting down to business. “Tell me — the name is André, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“Tell me, André — how would you like to make some money for practically no work at all?”

So it was a job after all! André’s face was hard put to find a suitable expression; he compromised by leaving it expressionless. “Nobody pays money for practically no work at all.”

“Except this time.” Duarte tapped his mottled nose with a thick forefinger and then raised it in the air for emphasis. “A telephone call is all. Scarcely what one could call work.”

“A phone call?” André frowned. Who paid money to have someone make a phone call for them? One possible explanation came to him, an explanation he didn’t like. “Setting up who? For what?”

Señor Antonio Duarte looked faintly amused at the suggestion. “My dear André,” he said with a touch of sardonicism, “I do not need your help in things for which you have no experience. No, this is a call that would be beneficial to everyone involved.” He leaned a bit closer, lowering his voice. “You know, or used to know, a Dutchman named Huuygens. Kek Huuygens. Didn’t you?”

His pronunciation of the name was atrocious, but that was the least of the effect of his words upon André. A feeling like a tiny electric shock ran across the big man’s nerves, but no sign of it appeared on his face; if anything, he managed to look more stonelike than ever. So this had to be the money-man, then! What a lovely pair of cutthroats — Sanchez and Duarte! He paused a moment before replying; when he spoke, he spoke slowly, as if to be clearly understood.

“I know a man named Huuygens — or I used to know him, that is, a long time ago in France. But he wasn’t Dutch. He was Polish, using a Dutch name. Actually, the man I’m referring to — I heard he took out American citizenship some time ago, but I could be wrong.” He shrugged and toyed with his brandy glass. “As I say, it’s been a long time.”

“And what does your Huuygens do for a living?”

André looked at him flatly. “What do you want to know for?”

Duarte’s face hardened; it occurred to André that even though small, Duarte had an organization that made him ten feet tall anytime he wanted to issue the order.

“I asked you a polite question,” Duarte said quietly. “I’m not from the police, as you well know. Now, let’s try it again: What does he do?”

André shrugged as if it were no skin off his nose. “He smuggles.” He pushed his battered cap back on his head, as if recognizing antagonism was no longer needed. “They tell me he’s the best there is.” There was an unaccountable touch of pride in his tone.

“That’s the one, then,” Duarte said evenly and leaned closer again. “How friendly were you with him?”

André raised his massive shoulders and let them drop. “We had our times together. Actually, I saved his life a few times. Why?”

“Saved his life?” Duarte was satisfied; his smile, while still cold, was sincere for the first time. “Then I assume he would trust you.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Of course,” André said, properly amazed at the words. “Why shouldn’t he trust me?”

Duarte paid no attention to the question, which in any event had been completely rhetorical. For once that monomaniac Sanchez had been right. His thick fingers drummed on his knee. He looked up.

“And you wouldn’t mind putting him in the way of a good thing?”

“What do you call a good thing?”

Duarte surveyed the big man from beneath half-closed eyes. He brought back his friendly smile. “I’ll be frank with you, André. We’ve made him a proposition to take a — an object — through customs for us. He says he wants time to think about it, undoubtedly to check on who we are, if he’ll get paid, how he’ll get paid — things like that. And that he won’t end up in jail on a police frame, I imagine. All reasonable precautions, but they take time, and we don’t have time. A phone call from you to him...” The words trailed off, self-explanatory.

“What is in this” — André caught himself in time — “object you want him to smuggle?”

Duarte stared at him coldly. “What difference does it make? Especially to you? I want one thing from you, and just one — I want you to call him in Paris. I have his number. Just tell him he’s dealing with reputable people.”

André frowned, thinking about the proposition, and then apparently came to a decision. He raised his eyes to look into those of Señor Duarte and then slowly shook his head.

“No.”

Duarte’s eyes narrowed; he bit back his temper. “Why not? You’ll be paid for the call and paid well. Why not call? What difference does it make to you?”

“This difference,” André said softly. His brain was functioning on all cylinders, and about time! he thought. “Let us suppose this object of yours was — let’s say — a time bomb...”

“A time bomb?” Duarte almost laughed. The imagination one uncovered in peasants! “What the devil would I want to bring a time bomb into Spain for?”

“Possibly because you might have taken out a contract on my friend Huuygens,” André said calmly. “He does have enemies, you know, or at least I assume he has. And I hear that among your other activities, you and your boys also...” He looked Duarte in the eye.

Duarte looked back at him. “I don’t take contracts outside of the country,” he said evenly. “I don’t know your friend, and I give you my word I have no desire to kill him. It isn’t a bomb or anything like a bomb. It’s a plain, ordinary suitcase.”

“Suitcases have been known to carry explosives,” André pointed out. He was beginning to enjoy himself. It just went to prove how little hard work really meant in this world. Sweat your brains out interrogating bartenders and whorehouse madames and nothing happened, but simply wait around bars and clues fairly flung themselves at you. This detective business was highly overrated as far as he was concerned.

“This suitcase—” Duarte stopped abruptly. For a horrible moment André wondered if his wild statement might have an actual basis in fact, that it might, indeed, carry dynamite. Duarte clenched his jaw and went on. He hated to discuss things with nobodies. “This suitcase happens to contain something this Huuygens has a mania against carrying. And it isn’t explosives.” He looked up calculatingly. “What do you have scruples against?”

“Poverty,” André said and grinned. “Poverty and bad brandy.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s the works.”

“Good,” Duarte said evenly. “There’s no danger to your friend in this, if he knows his business, of course. And he’d pick up a big piece of change for doing it. And you’d be well paid for telephoning him. Fifty—” He saw the look on André’s face and amended his offer smoothly. “One hundred pesetas. Just to make a telephone call.”

André considered. “Where’s this suitcase now?”

The big man was getting out of hand! “What’s it to you?”

“Curiosity is all. Where is it?” He sounded stubborn.

Duarte promised himself that some of his boys would pay a visit to this André once this matter was settled and teach him manners. Give one of these little men on the edge of smuggling the slightest smell of a big deal and they suddenly put on airs. Still, for the time being the man could be useful, and the information was unimportant in any event.

“Argentina, if you must know.”

“And before Argentina?”

“There was no before Argentina! The stuff was made—” Duarte had had enough; he clamped off the words. “Yes or no,” he said after a brief pause.

André considered the smaller man whimsically. “You ought to import the stuff legally,” he suggested. “Call it dental supplies, or something of that nature.”

Duarte’s face whitened; his mouth became mean. Suddenly he was not a short fat man but Antonio Duarte y Bertrand, a big wheel and a very dangerous man, despite his size. André wondered if he had gone too far. Duarte’s voice was grating.

“Any more comments?”

“Who, me?” André shook his head. “Like you said, it’s none of my business. The only thing is, one hundred pesetas doesn’t go very far these days...” He considered the other innocently. “... five hundred?”

Duarte’s fist slammed on the table. What he should have done, of course, was have the boys take care of this monster and then let him make his call from a hospital bed.

“Do you make the call?” He looked on the verge of explosion. “For five hundred pesetas?”

“Of course,” André said. “I don’t guarantee Huuygens takes the job; all I guarantee is to give you a good recommendation. Understood?”

“Understood,” Duarte said tightly and came to his feet without wasting further time. He walked through the bar briskly with André at his side, not at all intimidated by the difference in their heights, and entered the manager’s office without knocking. The manager looked up from his desk, momentarily prepared to denounce the unexpected intruders; one look of recognition at his uninvited guest and he forced his expression to one of respect, if not admiration.

“Señor Duarte...”

“We want to use your telephone. A private call.”

The last was said with significance; the manager understood. He straightened some papers on his desk with a poor show of at least partial independence, got to his feet, and hastily left the room, closing the door behind him. Duarte picked up the telephone, clicked it impatiently for the operator’s attention, and gave her instructions in a drill-sergeant manner. André stood at ease, glancing about the room as the call was put through. Through the open, barred window the faint sounds of the harbor could be heard in the distance, although all that could be seen from the window was the faded red-brick wall of a warehouse across the narrow street, pockmarked with ant’s nests and sporting a few tattered posters aggrandizing a famous bullfighter, plus some scrawled graffiti taking exception to the torero’s talents. André had a tendency to agree with the graffiti.

The minutes dragged by; André was beginning to consider calling in a waiter — at his own expense, if necessary — when Duarte suddenly made an unintelligible sound and thrust the receiver in his direction. André took it and listened. A telephone bell was ringing in a well, it seemed. There was a sudden silence as the international operator cut the call momentarily; a few more seconds and she was back on the line.

“Here’s your party,” she said politely, and then Kek’s voice was in his ear. It was remarkably clear.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Kek? Kek Huuygens—?”

Duarte stood on tiptoe, trying to bring his ear in conjunction with the receiver; André obliged by bending lower and then went on without pause.

“This is a very old friend of yours you haven’t heard from in years — in many years. André Martins. Remember me? From the old days in the south of France? It’s been a long time, but you ought to remember me. André Martins? From Perpignan? The big man? I used to sing all the gypsy songs...”

“André? André Martins?” Kek was delighted. “My God, it has been a long time. Still, to be honest, just hearing your voice it seems like it was only yesterday! Forget you? How could I forget the man who saved my life? How are you?”

“Fine. Kek—”

“But the operator said the call was from Barcelona; the last I heard, you were living in Lisbon.”

“I left Lisbon a year or so ago—”

“Oh? And what are you doing with yourself these days?”

“A little of this and a little of that,” André said vaguely and then got down to business. “Look, Kek, I have a message for you.”

“Oh? From whom?”

André glanced over his shoulder questioningly. The short, fat man shook his head emphatically, waggled a finger definitively, and then bent down again, pressing his ear to the back of the receiver. André returned his attention to his call.

“You wouldn’t know him by name.” There was a brief pause and he went on. “Kek, have you been thinking about a trip? A vacation trip? Say, from Argentina to Spain?”

There was a sudden silence at the Paris end of the line. When Huuygens spoke again his voice was cautious, though still friendly.

“I’m considering it. Do you know anything about it I should know?”

“I know somebody has been kind enough to offer to pay your way. Well, I’m calling to say I know these people personally, and they’re first rate. Plenty of money, too, so you don’t have to worry about the cost being a drain on them. Highly reputable — in their own line, naturally. I rate them A-one.”

“I see.” There was another pause; Huuygens seemed to be thinking. “You say you know these people personally. Have you seen them recently?”

“Extremely recently. I’ve known them for a long time, too. They can be trusted.”

“That’s good,” Kek said. “Still, I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’m pretty busy these days, you know; or if you don’t know, I am. A vacation is fine, especially a free one, but I’ll have to think about it.”

“You do that,” André suggested. “And I hope you take it. You know me, Kek, and you know I wouldn’t steer you wrong—”

“I know that, André. I’d trust you with my life.” He laughed. “I have, several times.”

“Good, then think about it, eh, Kek? And if you get to Barcelona we can get together and see each other after all these years. Talk over old times...” Or, he added to himself with an inner smile, maybe we can turn this sister act into a vaudeville skit if smuggling ever goes sour. Anita can play the banjo.

“I promise to think about it seriously. And if I should get there, how do I reach you?”

“There’s a place here called Manuela’s. Everybody knows it. It’s a... well, a sort of club. They always know where I am. I move a lot.”

“Well, maybe I’ll see you in Barcelona, yet. It’s been good talking to you, André. Take care.”

“I will, Kek. You take care, too. Ciao.” André depressed the telephone lever, putting the receiver back in its cradle. He turned to Duarte. “Good enough?”

Even Duarte had been impressed. “Excellent!” he said and dug an overstuffed wallet from his pocket. He counted out ten fifty-peseta notes and thrust them at André. For a moment he considered adding an extra hundred as a tip and then abandoned the idea. For a tip he would overlook the big man’s lip and not put his boys on him. He reached up and patted André on the shoulder. “We may be able to do business again sometime. No scruples, eh?”

“Don’t make it sound any better than it is,” André said and grinned. He stuffed the bills into his pocket, feeling them wedge against the wad already there. Money, money, money, money — it was either feast or famine. If this kept on, he’d have to buy himself a wallet, something he had not required for years. Ah, well, he thought with a smile, at least he had made expenses, and that was always pleasant...

“Cocaine,” André said calmly into the telephone.

“Cocaine?”

“There isn’t the slightest doubt. It’s the only major drug that comes principally from South America, and since I called you this afternoon—”

“With somebody practically sitting in your lap?”

“With somebody blowing garlic in my face. A man named Duarte, Sanchez’s partner. Anyway, since I called you, I’ve been doing some checking. I practically put it to Duarte that it was cocaine — I asked him why he didn’t import it legally as dentists’ supplies, and I thought he was going to have his boys after me. Which I don’t mind telling you is not the most comfortable feeling in the world. Anyway, I guess we ended up friends, so that’s no problem. In any event, I started checking.”

“And?”

“And,” André said, a bit smugly because of his success, “not long ago Sanchez spent a month in Bolivia. He sent a postcard from there to Manuela’s girls, the whole bunch—”

“That’s that club you mentioned?” Kek laughed.

“Well, sure, I went back there — I mean, it was all in the interests of the investigation. Anyway, he sent this postcard from a place called Talma. I checked it out at the library. It’s nearly on the Argentinian border and on the edge of the Chaco — and the only possible thing a man like Sanchez could do there, or anyone else for that matter, would be to arrange to buy coca leaves. I’m sure he didn’t go for his health. I don’t know where he had the stuff actually made, but my guess would be right in Buenos Aires.”

“I see.” There was silence as Kek digested this information. “And when will you be back?”

“Any other information you want dug out?” André sounded airy.

“No, that’s all.”

“Then the first plane in the morning. And then a taxi, all the way. Portal to portal.”

Kek laughed. “Which you richly deserve. And your room will be ready, and this time you can stay in it.” He became serious. “You know, André, when I asked you to go to Barcelona, I really didn’t have too much hope of your getting any information at all. I wouldn’t have known where to start. Just digging out Duarte, in only a few hours, was miraculous—”

“It was really nothing,” André said modestly.

“I know better. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

“Good night, Kek.”

André hung up, feeling good, and started to take off his shirt. It had been a long day, and while the bed in his cheap hotel room would be hard, he knew, he also knew he would sleep without problems. He climbed into bed and pulled the thin sheet over his chest. One final thought came to him before he fell asleep — the following morning before catching his plane he would have to dig Raul up and give him the price of another bottle...

5

Señor Antonio Duarte was stunned. It was impossible! He glared at the telephone in growing anger, convinced that Sanchez had managed to mishandle things again.

“He won’t? What do you mean, he won’t?”

“I mean exactly what I say,” Sanchez said evenly. “He’s refused.”

“What did you say to him to make him refuse? I heard this André speak with him. I heard every word they said. This André couldn’t have been better or more convincing. It was a good idea, his calling Huuygens, even if you did think of it—”

“Except it didn’t work,” Sanchez said imperturbably.

If the thin man in Paris was exhibiting exceptional calmness in face of the disaster, the fact was lost on Duarte. All he knew was that after having been assured by all competent authority that this Kek Huuygens was the only man in the world for the job, and after having put up the funds and having tracked down this André, the hijo de madre in Paris had turned them down. And he had given 500 pesetas to the big-mouthed giant, too! It all had to be Sanchez’s fault!

“So what did he say? Why did he turn it down? He’s in business to make money, isn’t he?”

“He didn’t explain,” Sanchez said calmly. “He just said, quite pleasantly, that at the moment he was otherwise occupied and that as far as I and my proposition were concerned, he was apt to be otherwise occupied indefinitely.”

“The bastard!” Duarte was close to fuming. He had been told, and finally convinced, that without Huuygens they would be taking a terrible chance trying to smuggle it into Spain. And the thought of having to sell it in Argentina, with the subsequent loss in profit, was enough to make a person kill. In Barcelona he controlled the trade; in Argentina he would have to deal with brokers and distributors in a producing market, and for what he would get out of it he would do better to stand on the corner of Florida and Corrientes and peddle it by the packet. “So what do we do?”

Sanchez smiled at the telephone; there was a touch of cruelty in the thin grimace.

“M’sieu Huuygens said he wouldn’t take our suitcase through customs, but on the other hand, many of us say things in haste and come to change our minds after further thought...”

“You mean you think you can get him to change his mind?” That idiot Sanchez, pulling that scare business! “How?” One way occurred to him; it was the first way that always occurred to him. “Offer him more money. Double the ten thousand! Triple it!”

“I already did,” Sanchez said quietly. “He still refused. But I have a feeling I know someone who might prevail on him, even if his old friend André did not—”

“Who?” Duarte said impatiently, in no mood for mystery, and then saw a possibility. “Rosa?”

“In part,” Sanchez said.

“In part? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it says. Rosa will be helpful. In part.” Sanchez looked at the telephone commiseratingly, as if Duarte were before him. “Don’t worry. It will come out all right.”

“How long—”

“A few days more,” Sanchez said soothingly. “Only a few days more. We’ve waited this long, we can afford to wait a few days more. And the material is safe with Schneller in Buenos Aires where it is.”

The explosion he had hoped to avoid did not come. When Duarte spoke his voice was quiet. Too quiet, Sanchez suddenly realized.

“This is the last chance,” he said softly. “I have had enough excuses. If I write off five million dollars, I intend to write off several people with it. Good morning.”

There was a click in Sanchez’s ear. He set the telephone back and looked at it thoughtfully a moment; then he smiled, confident. What he had in mind was bound to work; no need to worry Duarte or his boys. He looked over at the bed. Rosa, nude and lazily smoking a cigarette, returned the look queryingly.

“Get dressed,” Sanchez said quietly. “You wanted to earn your pay? Well, let’s get started.”

Rosa shrugged and rolled over, sitting up. She crushed out her cigarette and scratched her stomach. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Play darts,” Sanchez said cryptically and studied the seated woman. Getting fat, he thought, and wondered why eventually they all got fat...

Anita, her empty shopping bag under her arm and her purse squeezed tightly, was on her semiweekly shopping trip. The Halles Centrales were gone from the Rue Bergère, moved to the outskirts, and Anita missed them sorely. She missed the friendliness of the stalls, the leisureliness of strolling through the ancient pavilions enjoying smells implanted over centuries. It was not that sources of household needs were not available on almost every corner; she was at the moment, in fact, heading determinedly for the Supermarket Gourmet in the Porte de Maillot. It was simply that to anyone Parisian born and bred there was neither fun nor satisfaction in patronizing one of the fluorescent-lit, sterile, boxlike anthills. One could scarcely haggle with a price stamped on a tin, or pinch a handful of plastic wrap, or even scream at a check-out counter girl; and if not, what purpose to shop at all? It was Anita’s belief that one might as well eat in restaurants all the time and be done with it.

She crossed the Avenue de la Grande Armée with cars braking dangerously to allow her passage, the drivers courting disaster to pivot their heads and watch her trim figure swing along. She approached the wide glass doors of the market, her mind reviewing her shopping requirements, and was about to push through into the interior when she felt a sharp sting on her thigh and involuntarily flinched. In the impatient crowd pushing past her into the store it was impossible to distinguish the silly idiot who had been so careless as to allow an open pin, or some such sharp-pointed implement, to extend lethally from some package or garment. She rubbed the painful spot a moment, muttering unladylike sentiments, and then let the crowd carry her inside the market.

It was remarkably warm inside the place, warmer than she recalled ever having encountered it, and particularly exceptional for that time of year. It also seemed even noisier than usual. She drew to one side to dig into her purse and pull out a handkerchief, dabbing at her damp brow, and then bravely marched on to the first counter, determined to complete her shopping and leave. She reached out to check a mountain of fresh shrimp stacked high on a bed of ice; the touch of the ice was like an electric shock. She withdrew her hand at once, as if it had been burned. She shook her head, trying to clear away the fuzziness that had suddenly developed, but only seemingly succeeded in increasing the hum that had begun in her ears. The lights in the ceiling were beginning to enlarge, swirling ever more rapidly. My Lord, she thought in amazement, I’ve never fainted in my life but I believe that’s what I’m going to do! She closed her eyes, fighting the sickening sensation, and then crumpled to the ground in a heap, neither particularly dramatic nor graceful.

Fortunately, no one stumbled over her body in the crowded aisle. A crowd formed instantly, staring down at her almost reverently; one lady bent to pull Anita’s skirt down into a more respectable position and then straightened up again quickly, as if fearful someone might suspect her of angling for the fallen purse. And then a tall, thin man pushed through the crowd and knelt quickly and professionally beside the woman on the floor. He felt her pulse and looked up at the faces gaping down at him.

“I’m a doctor,” he said with simple dignity in an accented French. “This woman is seriously ill—” His gaze swung from face to face. “Will someone be kind enough to call a cab? There’s a rank, I believe, just around the corner.”

The store manager had finally arrived. He looked worried, as if somehow the establishment might be charged with the responsibility. “There’s a cot in the washroom...”

“Hospital!” the doctor said firmly.

“Of course. Much better. Much better,” someone said, the tone putting the manager in his place. It was a good-looking woman with perhaps just a trifle too much makeup and with a terrible accent.

There was a multiple sigh of relief from the assemblage, including the manager. While not callous, they were still sufficiently human to be relieved when decision-making was taken out of their hands. A teen-age student ran to hail a taxi from the rank while Sanchez bent down and, with a strength remarkable for one of his apparent fragility, lifted Anita and bore her from the store. He deposited her inside the cab, gave an address to the driver, followed her inside, and closed the door firmly. Those of the crowd who had followed him to the curb stared after him and then, when the cab had turned a corner and disappeared, stared at the spot where the cab had stood, glorying in having witnessed an event, a happening. Like Anita, many also felt that shopping per se these days was dull.

Behind, Rosa made sure her hypodermic needle was firmly imbedded in the small potato in which she carried it and then made her way to the street and to the cab awaiting her with her many packages. For Rosa had also been shopping.

To his cabdriver Sanchez was no longer a doctor but rather a distrait husband.

“She works too hard,” he said in a worried tone. He saw the cabdriver’s eyes go to the rearview mirror and then saw the bushy eyebrows rise. Even unconscious, Anita did not look as if she labored in the mines or handled a wrench on an automotive assembly line. “On stage half the night,” Sanchez added hurriedly, “and then insisting on getting up to cook my breakfast and clean the house and then the shopping, not to mention rehearsals...”

His voice dwindled away, proud of the scene he had just played. The cabdriver glanced in his mirror again at the still, pale face of the girl and mentally shook his head. Anyone who looked that gorgeous getting up to make breakfast for this skeleton-head? Ah, well, it took all types. The skinny guy had to have money coming out of his nose, and money never did any harm with girls. Women! He leaned back, steering with one hand, speaking over his shoulder. “Sure you don’t want a hospital?”

“No, no!” Sanchez said quickly. “She has these spells all the time. She works too hard. She—” He realized he was repeating himself. “Her own doctor... much better... familiar with her case... I’ll call him as soon as we’re home...”

“Right!” said the driver, in perfect agreement. He could understand a distrust of hospitals. On one occasion he had brought a passenger to the emergency room of a hospital with nosebleed; the nurses there had him, the driver, in a wheelchair with a thermometer in his mouth before he could get a word in edgewise, while his passenger, handkerchief to nose, stood to one side and watched him with lugubrious and resentful eyes. It had cost him, he recalled, a good tip.

He glanced in his sideview mirror to make sure another automobile was nearly upon him in the process of passing and then cut in front of it with a chuckle, tramping on the accelerator. If you couldn’t pull stunts like that when you had a sick woman in your cab, and a perfect excuse for any flic that stopped you, when could you, for heaven’s sake? Eh, answer him that!

The driver swung about the Gare Montparnasse, cut down the Rue Odessa, shot past the old cemetery, turned down a side street, and pulled up before a shabby building, disappointed for once that no police had attempted to stop him for speeding. The thought was replaced by another almost instantly as he raised his eyes to the cheap sign advertising furnished flats to be rented by the day, week, or month. So if the skinny guy wasn’t rich, what did he have? The driver sighed, accepted the money for his fare, offered halfheartedly to assist with the lady — an offer that was firmly rejected — and drove off muttering to himself at the size of the tip. Sanchez took a deep breath and staggered through the doorway with Anita in his arms.

The female dragon who acted as concierge for the broken-down building hurried forward suspiciously on his entrance, her mustache bristling. To her Sanchez pretended to be neither doctor nor distrait husband. He was, rather, a concerned cousin.

“My wife’s cousin, actually,” he explained, almost apologetically. “We were strolling in the park, going to meet my wife for lunch, as a matter of fact, when suddenly—”

He broke off, profoundly relieved to see Rosa herself enter the seedy foyer, her arms weighted down with packages. He broke into a torrent of Catalonian on the offhand chance that the concierge might understand a little Spanish — she looked just underhanded enough to do so — explaining the story he had concocted for the old lady, and then turned to smile in apology at the concierge for his unforgivable lack of courtesy in not speaking her language.

Rosa could see no reason whatever to explain anything to this harridan; they paid their rent and that was all there was to it. She had worked under madames who looked a lot more forbidding than this hag and had never let one of them browbeat her in her life. Nor did she intend to start at her experienced years.

“Open the elevator door,” she commanded the old lady in terrible French.

Sanchez was amazed to see the old woman hastily pull open the door to the decrepit self-service lift and quickly stand back, either in fear of Rosa or that the whole thing might collapse under the burden of occupancy. Sanchez staggered in with Anita; Rosa followed with her packages. She frowned unvoiced instructions through the peeling paint of the open grillwork; the concierge instantly pulled the door closed and stepped back again. Rosa managed the button with her elbow; they rose amid creaks and clanks occasioned by age and an economy of lubricants on the part of the management.

Rosa tipped her head downward; Sanchez was amazed to find he actually understood she was referring to the concierge. “You don’t explain anything to those types,” Rosa said categorically in Spanish. “You simply tell them. Once you begin to explain, they get all sorts of ideas.”

Sanchez looked at her with new respect and then brought his mind back to business.

“You rented the equipment?”

Rosa stared at him. “What do you think this stuff is I’m dragging? Twins?” She saw the look on his face and realized there was a limit one could push either flippancy or feminine superiority with a caballero type such as Sanchez. She modified her tone. “Camera, plenty of film, tripod, flash equipment...”

“What about the developer and the enlarger?”

Rosa’s first reaction was to tell him she only had two hands, but the truth did not permit this impudence.

“The man will develop and print the pictures for us. Don’t worry; he thinks they’re just for sale on street corners.” Her smile disappeared as her business instincts, never far from the surface, took over. “It’s not a bad idea. Save some of the negatives. They’ll sell like soap back at Manuela’s.”

The elevator came to a shuddering halt and settled back, resting, relieved to be finished with one more in an apparently endless vertical hegira. Rosa shifted her bundles enough to release the door latch; they made it into the hallway and down the uncarpeted passage to their room. Rosa shifted her load again and managed the doorknob; at long last they were finally inside. Sanchez dumped Anita unceremoniously onto the bed and fell into a chair, exhausted. Rosa put her packages aside, lit a cigarette, and grinned down at him.

“You scarcely look in any condition to pose with your girlfriend.”

Sanchez paid no attention. He leaned forward, wincing, and put a hand back, investigating his spine. Unaccountably, it had not snapped under the strain. He waited until his heart was pounding less furiously and looked up.

“I’m not going to pose with her.”

“You’re not?” Rosa looked around the room as if a third man, a hired stud, might be there, possibly hiding. Her dark eyes came back to the seated man, worried. “Then who did you get? That stuff I shot into her doesn’t last forever, you know.”

“I know. I didn’t get anyone.”

Rosa’s frown of nonunderstanding turned into one of alarm. “You mean this is a kidnapping?” She shook her head violently, her thick hair flying. “No, sir! Count me out! They still have the guillotine in this country!” A further thought came to her under the sardonic eye of the man resting in the chair. “But then I don’t get it. Why all the photographic junk?”

“I didn’t say nobody was going to pose with her. I simply said that I was not...”

“Then, who—?”

“You’re going to pose with her,” Sanchez said and instantly raised a bony hand, warding off possible argument. His eyes were cold. “It will be much more effective for our purpose, believe me. She might confess to a momentary lapse with a man and maybe even get away with it with this Huuygens. He looked like one of the new, modern breed, the so-called civilized — in quotes — type.” There was a sneer in his voice; he wiped it away. “But with a woman?” He shook his head decisively. “Never in a million years! Even Huuygens would draw the line at that. I know.” His tone indicated he was judging the other man by his own standards and was very sure of their validity. “You pose.”

Rosa took a deep breath. “You had me worried there for a minute!” She suddenly grinned. She kicked off her shoes, crushed out her cigarette, and started to unzip her dress, speaking over her shoulder. “It’s easy to see you never worked at Manuela’s. You should see what goes on upstairs after all you boys have had your kicks and gone home...”

She slipped the dress down, stepping out of it, and started on her brassiere. She moved over in her stockinged feet to be before the mirror, watching herself undress. The brassiere slipped to the floor; she brushed her nipples lightly with her fingernail, watching Sanchez in the glass. Sanchez stared at her in minor shock. Rosa winked at him lewdly and turned from the mirror, continuing her strip, watching the unconscious girl on the bed as she did so.

“So I pose with her,” she said and smiled in a manner Sanchez found hard to interpret. “Who’s complaining?”

Sanchez, well aware that his labors had made him miss a meal, something his physique did not lend itself to, stepped from the elevator with Anita in his arms, her purse dangling helplessly. From her weight he was sure the girl he was carrying had never missed a meal in her life, although he had to admit it didn’t seem to cause her any unnecessary curves. Rosa followed along, a small package in her hand. The tripod and other equipment could wait for the time being; it was the film that was all-important. The concierge watched them owlishly, picking on a wart.

“My cousin — that is, my wife’s cousin,” Sanchez said to the old lady apologetically, worriedly, “she doesn’t seem to respond. We’ve tried everything we can. I’m afraid we’ll need to see a doctor after all, or take her to a hospital—”

Rosa stepped in front of him imperiously, interrupting.

“Taxi!” she commanded fiercely, and the old woman scurried out the door onto the sidewalk. She waved one down, looking like a scarecrow in a high wind as she did so. She even held the door as they entered, received a glare from Rosa, and hastily closed it after them. Sanchez looked at the made-up woman beside him with a faint frown. Between one thing and another — not to mention the passion of the scenes he had just finished photographing upstairs — he had come to a definite conclusion: In the future it would be another girl that received his custom at Manuela’s place...

6

Anita was irritated. Someone was shaking her, and rather roughly at that, and she thought it a shabby thing to do, particularly considering that she was so very, very tired and didn’t like being shaken even when she was quite rested. It reminded her of when she was a child, and it also disturbed her hair. She intended to tell Kek about it at the very first opportunity. He’d make the mean person stop shaking her!

She tried to squirm away from the insistent hand, to turn on her side and pull the covers over her, up over her head, so she could go back to sleep in peace, away from all the interruptions and aggravations. But her hand, groping feebly for the blanket, encountered nothing. Someone, in addition to that miserable shaking, had also had the gall to steal the blankets, and when she finally woke up that someone was certainly going to hear about it!

The hand refused to obey her unspoken commands. It now seemed aided by a voice, a rasping, irritating voice. If this kept on, sleep was going to be impossible.

“Madame!”

She pushed feebly at the interfering hand, rolled slightly, and felt herself sliding. There was a faintly humorous aspect to it; she hadn’t fallen out of bed since she was a child. She started to smile at the memory and then winced sharply as her head suddenly began to throb with pain. She came to rest, leaned back, and was pleased to discover that while her legs seemed to be unduly cramped by some obstacle before them, at least there was support for her head.

“Madame!”

This was impossible! The shaking, which had stopped momentarily, was now being enforced again. Obviously this exasperating intruder would not be content until he had been told off, and Anita was just in the mood to do it. She opened one eye with an effort and stared blearily at the pockmarked, mustached, and unfamiliar face leaning over her. She thought she had never in her life seen anything as revolting.

“What do you want?”

The figure above her reared back in a neat combination of justified resentment and a sort of admiration for the nerve of the pretty girl wrinkling her nose at him.

“What do I want!” The eyes rolled upward and then came down to stare at Anita. Her hand unconsciously pulled down her skirt. The man raised his eyes again at this completely unwarranted gesture. “I’ll tell you what I want, if you can understand what I’m saying. I want you to go away. I come out from having my lunch and what do I find? You — sleeping it off in my taxi! Go somewhere else to sober up. I need my cab to go to work. I have a family to feed!”

“Taxi?” What was the man talking about? Anita forced herself up from the floor of the cab and slouched on the worn seat, leaning back. Her head was not only aching miserably, but it was also spinning dangerously and her stomach felt queasy. If this unspeakable animal didn’t stop both his incessant jabber and his breathing of sour wine fumes in her face, she would do more than merely occupy his taxi; she would undoubtedly throw up all over it.

“Yes, taxi.” The driver looked at her sardonically. “I’m sure you mistook it for a box at the opera.” At least six martinis, he judged. When would women learn to be content with plain wine?

Anita held her head and then glanced over the cabdriver’s head. The street was a small one, deserted, and at first glance appeared unfamiliar, but then she recognized a boutique she occasionally patronized on the far corner and noticed the stream of traffic pouring across the main artery just a few hundred yards along. Memory returned to a small extent — she had been shopping for groceries. She had gone to the Supermarket Gourmet in the Porte de Maillot. She looked at her watch and finally managed to focus on the tiny face — two o’clock. Two o’clock? Four hours since she left home, and here she was nowhere near the Porte de Maillot but over near the Louvre! Or maybe even longer than four hours — it didn’t even have to be the same day...

“Madame!” Now that the woman was awake, communication was possible, though difficult. “Why don’t you — ah — recuperate somewhere else? The bistro over there, perhaps? The food is good, and you can probably use some. And I do need my cab. I have to make a living and I was not lying about the family.”

“What is today?”

“Christmas,” the driver said sarcastically.

It cost Anita a severe pang behind the eyes to bring her glare to bear on the wavering face before her, but she managed it.

“I asked you—”

“Tuesday,” the driver said hastily and honestly. The lady seemed to be sobering up faster than most, but still... “Madame, seriously. Let me help you out—”

“Quiet.”

It had been unbearably hot in the supermarket, she remembered that. She had gone to the shrimp counter and the ice had been hot. She frowned. Hot ice? No puns, she instructed herself sternly; but it had been a fact. The ice had burned her. And after that? Four hours... Where could she have been? Certainly not in this — or any other — taxi all that time. Then?

“Madame!” The driver decided that talking was useless; a policeman was the only solution. He hated to call on the law, his natural enemy, but could see nothing else for it. He looked about, well aware that a policeman was never around when you required one. He sighed and studied his unwelcome guest. Certainly the lady was beautiful and certainly well dressed, obviously not a fille de joie, but none of these facts helped get her out of his cab. The Magasin du Louvre was close by and at that hour taxis were in great demand. “Madame! Please!”

“Oh, be quiet!” Anita said crossly and pressed her hand to her head. She looked at the driver coldly, considering him for the first time as a person instead of merely a bothersome hand and an aggravating tongue. “If you want to earn money with your taxi, stop talking so much and start driving. The Avenue du Maréchal Favolle...”

She gave the number and then had a frightening thought, one that had also occurred to the driver at the same time. She opened her purse and was relieved to see that her wallet was intact, bills poking out. The cabdriver also saw the money; he hopped into his seat and took off with a jerk before his odd passenger changed her mind and asked for a bar instead. In which case he’d probably not get paid. Anita looked around for her shopping bag, shrugged to find it missing, and leaned back in the jouncing vehicle, wishing she had chosen one with better springs in which to take her nap.

But where had she spent those four lost hours? Walking? But even overlooking the blackout, walking could not account for the difference in distance from the Porte de Maillot; she could walk that in twenty minutes to a half hour. Unless she was walking in circles... In a cinema? Sitting on a park bench? Without knowing it? She closed her eyes, trying to put the problem out of her mind for a moment, trying to concentrate instead on willing her pounding headache to abate, but the icy fear of where she might have been or what she might have done continued to intrude.

The cabdriver, while possibly no master of the mot pour rire, was nevertheless excellent at his trade. He crossed the river on the Pont des Artes in favor of the lesser traffic on the Left Bank, eschewed the avenues and boulevards fronting the river in favor of a series of smaller but less crowded streets, quite accurately assuming his fare to be more interested in speed than architecture, traversed those streets with a better-than-average scattering of pedestrians, crossed back to the Right Bank on the Pont Bir-Hakeim to miss the Trocadéro and the crowds of tourists there, and shot down the Rue de la Tour as if trying to make up for the time lost in pointless discussion back at their starting point. He swung into the Avenue du Maréchal Favolle with gusto and pulled up to the curb before the apartment with a slight flourish. The cessation of motion brought Anita from her reverie; she climbed down and paid the driver. If he had any notion that fuzziness would make madame overtip, he was quickly disabused of the idea. With a grunt and a scowl he put the cab in gear and pulled away. Money for martinis they had in abundance, he thought bitterly, but a decent tip for a hard-working cabbie? Never. He should have put the meter on while trying to wake her!

Kek opened the apartment door at the sound of her key in the lock. He frowned at her, his gray eyes searching her face.

“Where on earth have you been?” He noted the missing shopping bag and returned to her face. “What’s the trouble?”

Anita smiled painfully. “Were you worried?”

“Of course I was worried.” He led the way into the living room and moved behind the bar, reaching for glasses. “You’ve been gone more than four hours. I asked André to go down to the market and look for you; I wanted to stay here in case you called. Where have you been, for heaven’s sake?”

“I’d love to know where I’ve been,” Anita said wearily. She sank into a chair, putting her hand to her pounding head. Kek paused in the act of taking down a bottle.

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I say, darling. And no drinks for me, thank you just the same. I feel as if I’d had about ten of them as it is. Without tasting them,” she added wryly. “Or enjoying them.”

Kek put the bottle aside and came from behind the bar. He walked over and looked down at her. His voice no longer exhibited irritation at her having given him a fright; nor did he sound curious when he spoke. Rather, his tone was emotionless, but his eyes were steady and alert. As always, Anita felt the wonderful sensation of being protected when she was with the man.

“All right,” Kek said evenly. “Tell me what happened. Everything. And exactly as it happened.”

Anita shrugged helplessly. She shook her head. “Nothing happened, darling. That’s what’s so strange. I remember thinking that the market was uncommonly hot and wondering why they didn’t turn on the air conditioning, and I remember walking over to the counter with shrimp, they were special this week, and I remember the ice burned me — I know it doesn’t make sense — and then the next thing I knew this cabdriver is shaking me and screaming at me and I was in a cab over on a side street near the Magasin du Louvre with nobody around and it was two o’clock.”

“That’s all?”

“All except I thought the top of my head was coming off. And it still feels that way.” Anita smiled at him; even forming the smile caused her head to ache. “Darling, could you get me some aspirin?”

“Of course.” Kek went to the bar and came back with two pills and a glass of water. He watched Anita swallow them and took back the glass, setting it on the bar. He drew up a footstool and pulled it close, looking at her steadily.

“All right. Where was the cabdriver when you got into the cab? What did he say?”

“He says he was in a small restaurant bar down the street having lunch.” She looked at Kek and suddenly felt a wave of protectiveness sweep over her. How odd, she thought; a moment ago I was the one who felt protected! “Don’t look so serious, darling. I have a headache, is all. I’ll be fine in a short while.”

“Was anything missing you were carrying? Money?”

“Nothing. Oh, my shopping bag. I probably dropped it when I fainted—” She nodded. “I remember that, too. I remember that I said to myself that I was going to faint and I never had before.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s strange.” Anita frowned. “Now you mention it, I seem to also remember being in bed. Twice—”

“Twice?”

“I think so. The last time, I recall, I tried to reach down for the covers. I wanted to pull them over my head to make the cabdriver go away. He was shaking me, like my mother used to do to make me get up in time for school.”

“Did you get his number?”

Anita shook her head. “Darling, he had nothing to do with it, I’m sure. He was just an innocent bystander.” She looked at Kek, a smile on her face, but it was a worried smile, unsure of itself. “You’re the one who’s been reading the encyclopedia — what does it say about amnesia? You had to go that far to get to ‘elephant’...”

“As a matter of fact, I remember reading the section on amnesia,” Kek said quietly. It was obvious to Anita that Kek took the matter quite seriously; she knew he hated mysteries, or at least mysteries he did not concoct himself for some customs official or other. “It’s a form of hysteria and does have short forms, but you haven’t been suffering from amnesia.” He got to his feet, beginning to pace the room. “If you fainted, you certainly weren’t wandering around in a faint... Someone must have picked you up, put you in that cab. Which means that cab must have been at the Porte de Maillot when you fainted...”

“Darling,” Anita said firmly, “forget that cab! He couldn’t possibly have driven me around for four hours. Without being paid? It’s absurd.”

“Then another cab,” Kek said stubbornly. “If you remember the bed and covers, you should remember someone putting you in the cab.”

“The cab was the bed, or at least the second bed,” Anita said and remembered something else. She giggled and then cut it short as her head protested. “I remember I thought I was falling out of bed, but I was just sliding down in front of the back seat.”

“If somebody didn’t bring you to this last place and put you in the cab and then pay the driver to take you someplace—”

“Nobody did,” Anita said. “The driver wanted me out, believe me. If somebody had paid him to deliver me someplace, he would have done it and left me on the curb. No, someone probably saw an empty cab and dumped me in.” She smiled. “I’ve often thought of using empty cabs to get rid of lots of trash when I’m on the street.”

“Which still explains nothing,” Kek said. “Especially why you should faint in the first place.” He sighed. “You don’t remember anything?”

“Darling, I’ve said—”

“All right,” Kek said and came to his feet. He smiled apologetically. “In any event I shouldn’t be interrogating you. You get to bed. I’ll call a doctor.”

“I don’t need a doctor,” Anita insisted. “I never fainted in my life! It was—” She hesitated helplessly. “Well, I guess it was just one of those things.”

Kek stared at her a moment and then suddenly grinned. “You might be right. There’s one possibility we’ve completely overlooked. It might, indeed, be just one of those things. I’ll tell the doctor to bring along a rabbit when he comes...”

7

The smooth, deep, accented voice on the telephone was one Anita recognized, but it had somehow taken on an oddly sinister tone, as if the man at the other end of the line was trying to tell her something beyond the words he was employing. She glanced across the room. André, reading the morning newspaper, lowered it and looked at her inquisitively over the top. She raised her shoulders in a Gallic shrug of nonunderstanding, tapped ash from her cigarette into an ashtray, and returned her attention to the instrument.

“No, Señor Sanchez. M’sieu Huuygens isn’t here at the moment.”

“I know,” Sanchez said softly. “I saw him leave — waited until he left before I called, as a matter of fact.” There was the briefest of pauses. “Is anyone else there?”

Anita frowned. And what business is that of yours? she wondered.

“No,” she said evenly.

“Good,” Sanchez said. There was no surprise in the voice; he had been sure before he called that Anita was alone. There might, of course, have been a day servant, but that would scarcely interfere with his plans. “In any event, my business wasn’t with him, madame; it was with you.”

“With me?” Anita began to feel a faint stir of unease.

“Yes.” There was a brief pause again. “I understand you were so unfortunate as to be taken ill yesterday while shopping at the supermarket in the Porte de Maillot...”

The stirring came to a climax in a small electric shock.

“Go on.” Anita waited, suddenly alert. Across the room André sat a bit more erect, his newspaper forgotten, frowning at the expression on the girl’s face. The accented voice waited an appropriate number of seconds for proper effect and then continued smoothly.

“You must be curious as to what happened, where you were for those four hours or more between the supermarket and your coming awake in that taxicab...”

Anita suddenly found herself angry; her anger wiped away her fear. “What do you know about it?”

Sanchez chuckled, the small laugh of someone sharing an amusing experience with another. “Quite a bit, I assure you, madame. I was, believe me, in a position to take notice. In fact, I’m sure you would find it to your distinct advantage to discover exactly what I do know about yesterday.”

“And how do I go about that?”

“Very simply,” Sanchez said cooperatively. “You meet me.”

“You come here,” Anita said on impulse. Her voice clearly indicated that the burnt child shunned the fire.

“I’m afraid not.” Sanchez sounded more amused than regretful. “One never could guarantee not being interrupted. M’sieu Huuygens’ schedule, I imagine, must be rather elastic. Or other friends might drop in; or even trades people — you never did finish shopping yesterday, did you? All those possible interruptions... No, I suggest someplace where we will not be disturbed.”

“And if I don’t come?”

The lightness disappeared, replaced by an implacable coldness that threatened, and not lightly. “Then you will find out about those missing hours in what our American cousins call the hard way. No, madame, I suggest quite sincerely that you come. For your own well-being.”

Anita took a deep breath, wondering why she had been playing so hard to get. She had known from his first words that she would meet Sanchez where and when he wished.

“All right. Where?”

Sanchez hid his satisfaction behind a mask of suavity. “Suppose we do it this way — you descend the elevator of your building. You start to walk north on your side of the street, in the direction of the Porte Dauphine. You keep walking until I come along in a taxi and pick you up.”

“All right.”

“And start now,” the voice said coldly. “I’ll be waiting.” The telephone clicked in her ear. She hung up and looked at the big man across the room. André laid aside his newspaper, aware that something was in the air. Anita’s face was expressionless.

“That was Sanchez—”

“Sanchez?”

“He wants to see me alone. About what happened yesterday.” She sounded more relieved than unhappy. “Which means, at least, I’m not losing my mind.” She smiled faintly. “He tried to sound threatening. As if I would be afraid of what he’s going to tell me.”

André snorted and came to his feet, towering in the room. He started to roll down his shirt sleeves, preparatory to putting on his jacket.

“Afraid? Threatening?” Paris was not Barcelona, nor Sanchez Duarte and his boys. André buttoned his cuffs and reached for his jacket. “Either the little man is joking or he’s suddenly gotten delusions of grandeur. I’ll squeeze him through his own right ear like a baker decorating a cake!”

Anita shuddered at the description but shook her head decisively. “No. You stay right here. To begin with, he seems to know what happened at the market yesterday, and I need to know—”

“You’ll know,” André said grimly and slipped into his jacket. “He’ll tell you everything, including his grandmother’s birthday!”

“You will stay right here!” Anita suddenly sounded irked. “I’m sure Kek wouldn’t want Sanchez to know you’re in Paris.”

“Why on earth not?” André demanded, amazed. “The deal’s dead, so what’s the difference?”

“Because if they found out you helped kill it, they wouldn’t be very happy about it.”

“So let them be unhappy,” André suggested. “It’s good for the soul. And will help them appreciate happiness, when they ever see it.” He came back to the subject. “Let me meet Sanchez instead of you. He’ll tell me about yesterday, don’t worry. And have a week or so in a hospital for his sins as a dividend. He won’t—”

Anita held up her hand; the look on her face silenced him.

“He won’t what? So you push him around, so what? You won’t kill him, and even if you did, how on earth would that help? All it would do is to bring in police, which is the last thing any of us want. And if he didn’t tell you about yesterday? Then I’d never know.”

“But—”

“Anyway,” Anita went on, “he won’t harm me. This is Paris in the daytime, not the Casbah at midnight. And I can handle Señor Sanchez. Besides,” she added, “he would be sure I’d leave a note for Kek telling him where I was going, and he’d also be sure the world would be too small a place for him if anything happened to me.” She smiled at André. “Don’t worry. I’ll be safe.”

“All right,” André said doubtfully. “But—”

“And don’t try to follow me,” Anita said briskly, reaching for her purse. Now that she was ready to leave for the meeting, she seemed almost businesslike about it. “He’s somewhere close enough to the building to have seen Kek leave and to be ready to pick me up. He’d spot you in five seconds. That build of yours doesn’t exactly lend itself to hiding,” she added, not unkindly.

André sighed, defeated. “I suppose you’re right.”

Another thought came to Anita. She paused. “And one more thing. I don’t want Kek to know of this.”

André stared in astonishment. “Why on earth not?”

“I don’t want him to worry. He had enough worry over yesterday. Tell him I went out to meet an old girlfriend who’s come to town and called.” She looked at André seriously. “That’s more than a simple request — that’s a plea. Please don’t try to help me by telling Kek.”

“But—” André rubbed one fist into the palm of the other and stared at the rug. He hated being in a helpless position. He suddenly remembered something else and looked up. “You can’t go. You’ve got to stay here. The doctor’s coming again in an hour.”

“I doubt I’ll need him,” Anita said and took a light coat from the closet. She put it on and moved to the door. Her voice was dry. “I have a strong feeling Señor Sanchez can explain yesterday much better than any doctor.”

“But Kek said you should—”

“However,” Anita added with her pixie grin, her hand on the knob, “if the doctor brings a rabbit with him, put it in the icebox and we’ll have it for dinner.” Her face became sober. “And no word to Kek. You promise?”

“I—” Her violet eyes were fixed on his. André sighed and shook his head. “No word to Kek. I promise.”

“Thank you.” She closed the door behind her.

André stood and stared at the panel in indecision and then made up his mind. Maybe no word to Kek, but that didn’t mean he had to stay home with his thumb in his ear! He reached into the closet for his cap and then put his eye to the peephole. The elevator was just engulfing Anita. He nodded in satisfaction, waited until the cab door had slid shut, and left the apartment almost at a run. The stairway was the only thing for it; he took the steps three at a time, swinging around landings with the newel post as a pivot, clattering downward with no regard for the silence normally preserved in such an edifice. He burst through the door to the lobby and slowed down to a more respectable pace, walking almost sedately to the street door and peering cautiously around the lintel.

It was impossible! Anita was nowhere in sight!

He turned and marched back to the desk of the little concierge; the tiny man was pointedly paying no attention to his antics. It had finally come across to him that this uncouth monster actually was a friend of M’sieu Huuygens, hard as that was to understand, and that he was also slightly mad, as witness the manner in which he had just entered the lobby. He became aware that he could not avoid the giant forever and looked up, tense as always with this horror. The ogre was glaring at him as if something were his fault.

“What happened to madame?”

The concierge stared. He had expected anything but this. “What?”

André’s voice tightened. It promised action in a hurry if a satisfactory response was not tendered, and at once. “I said, what happened to madame?”

The concierge stared. What had happened to madame was what every tenant in the building prayed would happen to them once in a while. He drew himself up.

“Madame came down in the elevator and a cab pulled up just as she came to the door, and that’s just luck at this hour, and she took it, naturally, and—”

But he was talking to empty air. André had stamped back to the door and out into the street. He stared down the sidewalk, swearing under his breath. But then, he was forced to concede, whatever else he was, Sanchez had never been stupid. How better to reduce the chances of being trailed than to allow the minimum of time for the opposition to find means of trailing? The concierge was right; taxis were rare in the area. He marched back into the lobby and savagely punched the button for the elevator. The fact that the cab was not waiting did nothing to improve his temper. He peered through the glass; at long last he noted the cables descending silently in the gloom of the shaft. A moment later the door opened with its usual diffidence; he entered, glaring downward. The gnome shuddered, closed the door as quickly as he could, and pushed the lever over.

André was borne aloft, kicking himself mentally for having missed Anita in the lobby. And, far worse, for having made that idiotic promise...

8

The taxi that had pulled up as soon as Anita emerged from the apartment building now swung right into the Avenue Foch, took the short arc around the Etoile, and started down the Champs-Elysées. Anita would have liked to show her enjoyment of the ride — the day was a sparkling example of autumn at its best in Paris, and the scenery had always been her favorite in the world — but she felt it would not be germane at the moment. She glanced from the window rather than face the man at her side; the trees bordering the broad boulevard were still rich with plumage; the people walking briskly along past the elegant shops seemed happy to be alive, to be in Paris, to be walking down the Champs-Elysées. The sidewalk cafés were busy despite the faint touch of chill in the air, with people sipping their hot chocolate behind the protective barrier of journals or sipping a morning bière while watching the girls. Even the police directing the heavy traffic seemed to be in good moods.

Anita, having established her mood of unease since entering the car, decided the sight-seeing had been sufficient. She turned to Sanchez, her nervousness apparent.

“Now, what did you want to tell me about yesterday?”

“All in good time,” Sanchez said and shrugged lightly. He reached over casually and took her purse before she could clutch it. “May I?” His eyes went to the driver’s back warningly, and Anita subsided. Sanchez opened the purse, riffled through its contents quickly, and closed it, handing it back. “You’ll have to pardon me, but I would not want a” — he looked at the driver’s back again and, instead of speaking, made a revolver of his thumb and forefinger, flexing the thumb — “pointing at me when I least expect it.”

“I never carry—” Anita dropped the subject as being time-consuming and without purpose. “What about yesterday?”

“As I said, all in good time.” Sanchez glanced from the window of the cab in leisurely fashion and then looked back at the girl. She was quite upset, he was pleased to see, even though she managed to hide it rather well. Still, there was no doubt. It was a good sign, he felt. He smiled at her gently. “Where would you like to go?”

“Go?” She stared at him with a combination of stupidity and fear. Sanchez continued to smile. Why did men such as Huuygens always get themselves stupid girls? Just because they were beautiful? It scarcely seemed reason enough.

“Yes, go. You’re not being kidnapped, you know. You came of your own volition.” Sanchez kept his voice low, but his tone contained a note of humor, so that the driver, should he hear, would know it was all in fun. He spread his hands expressively, offering the world. “The Louvre? Or a sidewalk café? Merely someplace where we can speak together for a few minutes undisturbed.”

“The Louvre—”

“An excellent place to talk, actually,” Sanchez said. “The Cour Carrée, or the Pavilion de l’Horloge — marvelous for privacy, although I must admit they have an echo, even for whispers.” He suddenly grinned, showing his stained and crooked teeth. “And quite appropriate, the Louvre, when you think about it. All those nudes...”

“What do you mean?” The sudden tightening in the girl’s voice, the quick clutching of her fingers, clearly showed her growing panic. Sanchez cautioned himself not to rush things; panic in a taxi could be embarrassing.

“On the other hand,” Sanchez went on, quite as if Anita had not spoken, “possibly a bench in the park would be better. Fresh air.” He looked sideways at her, as if querying her opinion. “Or, better yet—” He smiled at the thought that had just come to him and leaned forward, giving new directions to the driver.

The cab obediently turned down the Avenue Alexandre III and pulled to the curb at the river, facing the bridge. Sanchez descended first and handed Anita down quite gallantly. She looked about with a frown as he paid the cab, almost as if the location were strange to her, and then felt his skeletal fingers on her arm. She walked beside him docilely, like an automaton; he hoped she would not collapse completely when they came to business. They came to a wide set of stone steps and descended. At the foot of the stairway a quai edged along the water’s edge, bifurcated by trees; stone benches provided resting places. The curve in the river hid the Ile de la Cité, but in the opposite direction the steel lacework of the Eiffel Tower shone against the deep blue of the sky. An artist was seated on a camp stool trying to capture its beauty; to Sanchez’s relief he glared at them for their intrusion, folded his stool and easel, and tramped away, muttering. Sanchez led their way a bit along the quay to a bench that promised privacy and made a slight bow, indicating the stone seat.

“Madame...”

Anita sat down abruptly, clutching her purse tightly. The hard, slightly damp surface of the bench seemed to fit into the nightmare quality of the scene as she envisioned it. She turned to Sanchez, fighting for composure, trying to appear assured, ready for whatever terrible revelation he might produce.

“Señor... you promised, you said... about yesterday...”

“Ah, yes; yesterday.”

Sanchez prayed the girl would hold out through the entire affair. It was evident he would have to choose his words with care or he was apt to have a hysterical woman on his hands. Could Rosa have used too much of the drug? Well, it was a little late to worry about that. He reached into his inner jacket pocket and brought forth an envelope, but instead of handing it over, he merely tapped it idly against the knuckles of his other hand. His eyes were fathomless.

“What I need, of course, is help,” he said quietly. They might have been discussing the requirements of a cocktail party or an investment on the bourse. For a moment Sanchez wondered if perhaps he was going about it a bit too carefully; the girl looked at him with complete blankness in her lovely eyes. He decided to plow on along that course for a while longer, at least. “Your help,” he added quietly.

The girl drew in her breath. “My help? But I thought you were going to give me your help...” She looked at him piteously. “Please don’t play with me, señor. About yesterday—”

Sanchez came to the conclusion that he was somehow handling the thing wrongly and with time he would probably end up making a complete hash of the matter. In which case, he thought, he could imagine Duarte’s reaction. He would just have to take his chances on the girl going to pieces. He took a different tack, holding out the envelope in one thrust.

“Perhaps madame would care to see these.”

It was a statement, not a question. Sanchez watched the girl with narrowed eyes as she reached out with unsteady hands and took the packet from him. She opened the envelope and brought forth the photographs; Sanchez heard her catch her breath, saw her shocked expression. She looked sick a moment; he could imagine the thoughts fighting each other in her horrified mind, imagine her disgust and shame at the poses she was viewing. Sanchez answered the unspoken thought in a dry voice, like a professor expounding to a class.

“Much more effective,” he assured her, pleased that she had not screamed or fainted. “And if you are worried about it, madame, nothing happened that is not in the pictures. It was a temptation, I admit, but one which I managed to control.” He looked over her shoulder at the pictures; Anita blushed and tried to place her hand over them protectively. When this failed she turned them over on her lap with unsteady fingers, staring away from him, refusing to face the leer that had appeared. “They came out well, don’t you think?”

“You’re — unspeakable—”

“A simple matter of necessity, madame.”

“Necessity!” Anita swallowed. She was pale but, Sanchez was glad to see, under control. She faced him with contempt. “That is not me in those pictures. Not me. What I do not participate in consciously and willingly has no effect on me.”

Sanchez smiled sardonically. “As a philosophical concept, madame—”

“And I am not madame; I am mademoiselle.”

“As a philosophical concept, mademoiselle,” Sanchez said, in no whit disturbed by the interruption, “it is one I am forced to admire. As a practical approach, though, it has several weaknesses, especially in this particular case. You will note the pictures make you appear to be participating quite consciously. Even enjoying it, I might say. Actually,” he said a bit smugly, “the photography is rather good, if I say so myself. I mean, as far as the facial expressions are concerned; those eyes closed in passion, those fingers clutching, your mouth in one of them...” He grinned. “You are remarkably plastic, madame, if I—”

“Mademoiselle!”

“Ah, yes. Mademoiselle. In any event, as I say, your philosophy is admirable. Unfortunately,” Sanchez said, a twinkle in his eye, “do you honestly believe that M’sieu Huuygens would be philosophical about these pictures? Or would be so incredibly naïf as to believe you were unaware of what you were doing, when one can see so clearly the, ah, disclaimer of that on your face?”

Anita paled. She bit her lip and came to a decision. “All right. How much do you want?”

“Money? Mademoiselle, you insult me.”

She started in surprise; a wild hope appeared in her eyes. “But if you don’t want money—?”

Sanchez took his time answering. He had reached the proper point; the girl was terrified but not unmanageable, sickened but not demoralized. The right words would be needed here.

“I gather, mademoiselle, that you have a certain amount of influence with M’sieu Huuygens?”

Anita’s surprise and fear were neatly combined. “I... he likes me...”

“I am sure of it,” Sanchez said gallantly. “He would be an idiot if he did not. When I said I needed help, mademoiselle, I meant I needed help with M’sieu Huuygens.”

Anita blanched. It was evident the full purpose behind the kidnapping and the photographs was now being explained. “You mean you want me to... to influence Kek? To do what you came to ask him to do the other day?”

“Exactly.” Sanchez smiled at the quick intelligence, although he had to admit he had done everything but hire a skywriter to paint it in monstrous letters against the overhead blue. But at least she understood.

“But I couldn’t. Don’t you understand?” Anita appealed to him piteously. “Don’t you see? I never asked Kek for anything in my life; that’s the reason he likes me...”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him this one favor this one time,” Sanchez said sadly. “Otherwise the pictures go to M’sieu Huuygens.”

Anita moaned in her throat. She stared at him, her eyes wide, her expression one of extreme alarm, almost of terror. “Oh, no! No! You wouldn’t show them to Kek!”

“I honestly would prefer not to,” Sanchez said and meant it.

“But you can’t show them to Kek,” Anita wailed. “You mustn’t show them to Kek. He would—” She bit the words to silence; they had been too terrible to say.

“‘Can’t’ and ‘mustn’t’ are just words, I’m afraid,” Sanchez observed sadly. “One can and must what one must. At times it is unpleasant, I admit, but—”

“Please! You don’t know Kek! He... he would kill me...” Her eyes came up, brimming with tears. “I’ll pay—”

Sanchez raised a skinny hand abruptly. “Please. I want no money from you. All I want is for you to convince M’sieu Huuygens to help us on this one project. Which I am sure you can do, if you really try. After all,” he went on a bit querulously, sounding sincere for the first time, “what the devil difference does it make to him? Thirty thousand dollars and all expenses for a measly few days’ work! Is he so damn rich he can throw away money like that? And he turns it down for God knows what reason! A suitcase full of paper — or parchment, I mean!”

For the moment he had convinced himself that his precious suitcase actually did only contain paper — parchment, rather. He sighed and looked at her, lowering his voice as if somebody might suddenly hear them, or as if his words merited extra attention on her part. “Thirty thousand dollars, mademoiselle, buys a lot of perfume, or fur coats, or whatever pretty girls like. I’m sure you can manage to persuade him without my having to show him those pictures.”

There were several moments of silence.

“I can try,” Anita said at last, dully, almost hopelessly. “I can try, but I can’t promise anything.”

Sanchez shrugged philosophically. “One does what one can do, mademoiselle. However, in your case, don’t fail. Because, much as I should hate to do so, I would send them to M’sieu Huuygens. Believe me.”

With a sudden gesture Anita flung the envelope from her. It landed in the dark water of the river and floated away, dipping and bobbing on the surface. Beyond it one of the river nightclub boats passed, chugging its way to a new location, with aproned men working like mad on the deck to prepare it for the evening’s cruise.

Sanchez reached into the pocket on the other side of his jacket and brought forth another packet.

“Prints cost money, mademoiselle,” he said reproachfully, with a glint of black humor in his eyes. “I still have the negatives.”

She turned to him in pleading, her voice breaking. “But no matter what, you must not show them to Kek! He’d... he’d—” Her voice was approaching hysteria. To Sanchez’s relief she brought herself under control before her voice claimed attention from the upper reaches above the quay. She came to her feet listlessly, as if realizing further discussion with the blackmailer would be useless, staring at the new envelope in her hand as if wondering what it was. Realization came and she handed it back with repugnance.

“Keep them,” Sanchez said magnanimously. “Look at them frequently on your way home. Because you don’t have forever in which to convince your boyfriend.” He paused for effect. “Two days.”

“Two days!” Anita’s hand went to her mouth.

“Two days,” Sanchez said firmly and came to his feet, looking at his watch. His eyes moved to the girl. “Well, mademoiselle, we’re wasting time. Let me call you a taxi.”

He put his hand on her arm; she shook it off with loathing. Sanchez smiled at the gesture and led the way back to the stone steps. They mounted in silence. Sanchez, peering sideways, saw the look of despair on the girl’s face. He smiled to himself. She would try and try hard, and with the figure he knew her to have, if this girl couldn’t sell Huuygens the Eiffel Tower, let alone a minor smuggling job that also paid a small matter of thirty thousand dollars plus, then M’sieu Kek Huuygens would be well advised to visit a psychiatrist.

They came to the roadway and Sanchez raised a thin arm. A taxi swerved about and drew to the curb. Sanchez opened the door, helped Anita in, and pressed money on the driver.

“Take the lady home,” he said. “Avenue du Maréchal Favolle...”

He gave a tiny bow toward the passenger in the rear of the cab, straightened up, and watched the cab move away, turning over the bridge. He smiled, satisfied. For the second time in this miserable affair he had had a good idea, but for the first time it had been well executed — mainly because he did it himself instead of leaving it to Duarte. God knows what that imbecile André had said over the phone! In any event, it was about over with. The question now was whether to celebrate alone or with Rosa. He had to admit she deserved a bit of the credit; maybe dinner at the Singe d’Argent, and after that possibly he would change his mind and give the girl from Manuela’s place a break again.

The success of his meeting with Anita had quickened his blood...

9

Anita let herself into the apartment silently and walked slowly and wearily down the corridor to the living room, the deep pile of the carpeting muffling her footsteps. Kek was sitting in an easy chair, reading; he looked up with a smile, came to his feet, and walked back of the bar.

“You look tired. I’ll fix you a drink.” He reached for a bottle and glasses. “Hard day?”

“You can’t imagine.” Anita put her purse aside, brushed her fingers through her hair to fan it out, and walked over to the bar, pulling out a stool. She looked around. “Where’s André?”

“Out.” Kek poured the drinks and slid a glass over the counter. “He has a lot of old friends in Paris and a lot of time to catch up with.” He looked at her a bit curiously. “He said you went to visit an old girlfriend. Was it all that tiring?”

“Terrible,” Anita said and sipped her drink gratefully.

“I thought seeing old girlfriends was just terrible for men,” Kek said and grinned. “André also said you didn’t see the doctor.”

“I had to go out.” Anita finished her drink and pushed her glass back for another. Kek’s eyebrows went up. Anita laughed. “No, it wasn’t all that bad — just tiring.” She sipped and set the glass down. “Kek, would you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t say it so lightly,” Anita warned. “I mean, any favor. Without questions. With no exceptions.”

Kek studied her face a moment and then shrugged. “Probably. Why?” He suddenly grinned. “Are you sure you didn’t see the doctor? Maybe in the elevator? You’re beginning to ask the sort of questions pregnant women are supposed to ask.”

“Except I’m not pregnant. Just answer me.”

“I did. I said probably.”

Anita shook her head. “That’s the wrong answer.”

“Oh, why?”

“You’re supposed to say no.”

“You don’t want the favor after all? You’ve changed your mind?”

Anita laughed. “That’s not it at all, you idiot. You’re supposed to say no, and then I’m supposed to use my charms and wiles on you—”

Kek’s eyebrows went up. “In that order?”

“—in that order, to get you to change your mind. Because if you don’t change your mind, I’ll be sorry.”

Kek’s eyes suddenly narrowed. His voice became sober. “How sorry?”

“This sorry...” Anita took the envelope from the pocket of her dress and slid it across the bar.

Kek took it and removed the photographs, his face expressionless. He studied the top one a moment and then looked up, frowning.

“I never knew you had a mole on your thigh, and you would have thought I might have noticed, one time or another...”

“A mole?” Anita shook her head and dug a cigarette from a box on the bar. “I don’t have a mole on my thigh.”

“You don’t? But... oh, I beg your pardon. It’s on the other girl. You two are so tangled up it’s a bit hard to tell.” He put the first picture behind the others and carefully considered the second. “Now this is an interesting position...”

“Which?” Anita reached out to take the picture in question and nodded in agreement. “It is, indeed. My only question is, is it feasible, do you suppose?”

“Acrobats might,” Kek conceded and continued on to the third.

Anita lit her cigarette, waited a moment, and then reached over, taking back the pictures. “That’s enough. You’ll grow up to be a dirty old man.”

“Yes,” Kek said and moved his glass on the bar, watching the little damp circles it made. He looked up, his face serious. “Would you like my honest opinion?”

“Of course,” Anita said and finally lit her cigarette.

“Well,” Kek said critically, “if you ask me, the lighting could have been better. The shadows detract, I think. And your girlfriend, I’m afraid, is over the hill. Though please don’t quote me. She looks the type to carry a knife.” He shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid you wasted an afternoon. I doubt they’ll sell.”

“They were taken in a hurry,” Anita said apologetically. “And as for the girlfriend, as you call her, beggars can’t be choosers.”

“So true, so true.” Kek drank the balance of his drink and set the glass aside. “And that, I suppose, accounts for your lost four hours yesterday. By the way, who is she? My competition, I mean?”

“She didn’t leave a card,” Anita said. “And I never had the pleasure of being introduced.” She sipped her drink and put it down. “With the sharp memory of all people after the fact, I now remember getting pricked sharply just as I was going into the Gourmet. I thought it was just some idiot careless with a pin, but I guess I was the idiot.”

“We can’t all be perfect,” Kek said and frowned. “I don’t want to be curious, but you’ve forgotten to tell me just who the salesman of the pictures is.”

“Oh? So I did. But I thought you’d be smart enough to figure that out...”

Kek smiled. “I am. It was Señor Sanchez, of course.” His smile faded. “A hypodermic in a crowded market. Cute. And I’m sure if you went back to that counter selling hot ice, the girl there would tell you all about the kind man with the foreign accent who was nice enough to take care of you...”

He started to pour himself another drink and decided against it. Liquor and planning never mixed with Kek Huuygens. He studied the carpet without seeing it, and smiled at something, although the smile was rather grim. His eyes came up.

“And what did Señor Sanchez have to say today? Exactly?”

“What you know he said. He was sorry, but what could he do? If I didn’t extend my charms and wiles, in that order, and convince you to take a suitcase of something someplace, he would be forced, etc., etc.”

“And you replied?”

Anita laughed. “My darling, you should have seen me. Critics should have seen me. Bernhardt would have been forgotten, Duse put out to pasture. I was superb. I pled — or is it pleaded? I wept. I wrung hands. I begged piteously.”

“And Sanchez?”

“He’s no critic, I gather,” Anita said, wrinkling her nose. “He was unmoved; I imagine he’s not used to finer stuff in the theater. He kept going back to the charms and wiles bit.”

Kek thought a moment and then leaned across the counter.

“Charms and wiles, eh? Well, I’d hate to have the man go to all that trouble for nothing. Start to exert the charms.”

Anita leaned over the bar counter and kissed him tenderly. The tenderness began to give way to passion. She ceased abruptly and sat back, breathing a bit rapidly, smiling at him.

“My ex-girlfriend would be jealous if she’d seen us right now,” she said lightly and then paused, a slight frown on her face as Kek winked at her and came from behind the bar. She watched him walk toward the desk. “What are you going to do? Those were just the charms; you haven’t seen the wiles yet...”

Kek grinned at her cheerfully, picked up the telephone, referred to a piece of paper on the blotter, and began to dial. He waited until he heard the circuits go into action, cupped the receiver, and looked up at Anita. His eyes were twinkling.

“After all,” he said chidingly, “you couldn’t allow me to see those nasty pictures, could you? Think how disgusted I’d be, how shocked. Think of my loss of faith in you. And the fact is you did exert the charms, even if, as you so rightly point out, we never got to the wiles—”

“So?”

“So we accept Señor Sanchez’s offer, of course. We carry his suitcase,” Kek said gently and smiled at her with love. His face sobered up. “I just hope André hasn’t forgotten all he used to know about locks...”

Book Two

10

Seen from the upper floor of the Plaza Hotel, the chimney pots of Buenos Aires stretched out like a field of tree stumps in a curiously stepped clearing. With its blotches of green marking scattered squares and parks, it was reminiscent of Paris, especially with the incessant honking of horns from the crowded streets below orchestrating the scene. From his height Kek could see the Calle Florida, made into a flowered mall since his last visit; he turned in the other direction and enjoyed the unchanged sight of the Plaza Britannica, with its line of red buses waiting patiently at the curb to take tourists in the mornings up the river to Tigre and its interwoven maze of waterways or at night down to La Boca for the local flavor of the cantinas and the native bars.

The arched roof of the Retiro railroad station loomed beyond the formalized gardens of the plazas, resembling Waterloo or King’s Cross in London; and past the station and the parks he could see the passenger docking slips with the River Plate over their shoulder, reddish-brown and endless, a silt-laden sea. From the height of his room the shore of Uruguay could be seen as a faint shadow on the horizon; a tiny ship trailed wavering smoke as it traversed the channel from Montevideo. Kek looked down again at the crowds jamming Florida and Charcas and smiled; as always it struck him how different the Argentinian was from other South Americans. A Brazilian, for example, looked as if he was browsing when he was shopping; the Argentinian, in contrast, usually looked as if he was shopping when he was merely browsing. The city was called by its inhabitants the Paris of South America, but its people seemed more like Berliners. This Hans Schneller who was supposed to deliver the suitcase to him would, he was sure, fit in well here.

The telephone rang as he consulted his wristwatch, wondering at the delay. He walked over to the desk and raised the receiver, pleased that things were starting.

“Hello?”

“Señor Huuygens?” The voice was Teutonic in accent, heavy and wheezing.

“Speaking.” Kek assayed French and was relieved to be answered in the same language. He could have conducted the conversation in German but preferred not to. His experience in general had led him to believe that there was an advantage in using a language less familiar to an opponent, although he had to admit this had not seemed to work with Señor Sanchez.

“This is Señor Schneller,” the thick voice said. “I am in the hotel lobby. You — you changed your room, I see. I called the one I had reserved for you, but some child answered, and then the child’s mother, so I checked with the reception.” The wheezing voice tried to hide its querulousness and failed signally. “You did not like the room I reserved for you?”

“It was simply that I prefer being on an upper floor,” Kek said and made his voice apologetic. It was true, of course, that had Herr Schneller reserved the tower suite of the hotel, Kek Huuygens would then have said that he preferred a room on a lower floor. It had been a long time since Huuygens had accepted a room reserved for him by a client or anyone connected with a client; adjoining rooms could also be rented and all sorts of naughty surveillance equipment installed. It was a sad commentary on the people he found it necessary to associate with in his business, but a true one. If adjoining rooms had to be rented, Kek Huuygens preferred to rent them himself and usually did.

As Herr Schneller should know, Kek thought with a disapproving glance at the telephone and wondered why it should make any difference to the man.

“As you wish,” Schneller said stiffly and finally managed to mask his disappointment.

“Yes,” Kek said and dismissed the subject of housing. “Will you be coming up?”

“Of course,” Schneller said, amazed at the question, and hurriedly hung up.

Kek moved back to the window as he waited, using the time to consider where he would dine that evening; there was no point in speculating on Schneller or the suitcase when they would both be in his room in minutes. Restaurants, he thought — one thing was certain, nobody could complain about the restaurants in Buenos Aires. They had to serve the best food in the world. He was in the process of making his ultimate selection between the grillroom of the hotel itself, La Cabaña, or the Little White Horse, when the doorbell of his suite rang. It was a sharp, brief, no-nonsense ring. Typical, he thought with an inner smile and walked over and opened it.

Señor Schneller filled the opening. He was so much like the image Kek had created in his mind from hearing the voice that for a moment he had the feeling they must have met before — a touch of déjà vu that passed as quickly as it had come. One never could truly forget people like Schneller. He was a large man, larger than Kek had anticipated, but Huuygens was sure that what appeared to be fat beneath the vest and jacket was solid muscle. His clothes appeared to have been forced over his bulky frame, possibly against his will; he seemed in constant danger of splitting the seams. His broad, flattish face was pale and shaved so closely that it glistened, the tiny veins etched darkly on the ivory skin. His eyes were a watery, washed-out blue, almost colorless, and his hair was cut in a brush, standing up like a used broom. He stood at military attention for a moment and then brought his heels together, clicking them lightly, making a short half-bow from the waist.

“M’sieu Huuygens.”

“Herr Schneller.”

Kek waved his guest in. The big man entered and for the first time the suitcase he held behind his back came into view. He turned and locked the door behind him, walked over to the desk, and seated himself on the small hard-backed chair there. It was not a comfortable chair, but its position beside the tall window afforded him the light he required. He brought the suitcase into his lap and with his other hand reached for his belt, producing a monstrous key ring on a thin leather strap. One key was laboriously selected, and for the first time Kek noticed the chain that passed through the suitcase handle and was fastened to a thin steel band that went around the thick wrist. Properly careful, Kek thought and watched in silence. The chain was released and removed from the handle; another key was found which unlocked the steel cuff. Schneller set the suitcase down and unhooked both keys from the ring, wheezing all the while. The two keys, the cuff, and the chain were all placed on the desk. Schneller turned, looking up.

“Delivered,” he said in a flat tone and reached for his pocket again. This time he came up with a packet of yellow cigarette papers and a sack of tobacco. He tapped grains into a slip of paper, puffing as he did so, and rolled the cigarette expertly with one hand. It was raised to the tongue, licked, and finished in a gesture so quick as to be almost invisible. Kek watched with interest. He had not seen anyone roll a cigarette for many years; he had to admit Schneller did it well. As he did most things well, Kek thought, and turned his attention to the suitcase.

“That’s it, eh?”

“That’s it.” For one brief moment the hard face relaxed a bit, even displaying the semblance of a smile. It was something like watching wax melt and then re-form. “It’s a problem carrying a suitcase through the lobby of a hotel; every bellboy wants to earn a tip by helping. And hiding a chain under a jacket sleeve doesn’t help, I assure you.” He tipped his head backward, even as he fumbled in a pocket for a match. “You might want to use the chain.”

“I might.” Kek sounded as if the question of whether he might use the chain or not was strictly his own affair. He walked closer, looking down on the suitcase he had contracted to carry through Spanish customs. Across from him Schneller finally located a pad of matches on the desk; he applied fire to the cigarette and puffed pungent smoke deep into his lungs, for which he was rewarded with a coughing spell which he finally managed to control. He sat wheezing a bit; when his breathing was better he leaned backward and placed the spent match with almost geometrical precision in the center of the ashtray and then looked up at Kek’s face with a faint smile, trying to judge the other man’s reactions.

The suitcase, Kek saw, was about two feet long, a foot and a half high, and possibly seven or eight inches in depth — what the Americans called a one-suiter, if his memory served. It had a rigid frame and body and was covered in a brown plastic embossed in a simulated leather grain. Unlike normal suitcases, however, he noticed the latches on either side were not furnished with key locks but instead were smooth; the security of the case depended entirely on a combination lock provided beneath the handle. This was partially concealed — but with no attempt to hide — by a genuine leather identification tab which snapped in place to cover it. With the exception of the locking mechanism, the small suitcase was similar to thousands, if not millions, to be found in use in any country in the world.

Kek hid the smile of triumph that automatically came to his lips. He hadn’t really even needed André for this one; combination locks of that size could be opened without even drilling. Or the hinge pins could be removed and replaced without a sign.

The man who had delivered the case lounged as easily as he could in the hard chair, puffing steadily on the cigarette pasted in one corner of his mouth. He watched Kek’s study of the suitcase almost with amusement. When he spoke the butt, stuck to his lower lip, bobbed in cadence with his speech, smoke jetting out to surround each word. His voice was husky, on the constant verge of coughing.

“I imagine Sanchez explained about the suitcase?”

Kek looked slightly surprised. “Explained?” He shrugged. “No, nothing beyond the fact that I’m to deliver it in Barcelona.”

Schneller smiled, a swift twisting of his thick lips wiped away as quickly as it had come. He picked the cigarette butt from his lower lip, turned to wipe ash from it, and then turned back quickly, as if something might possibly have happened to his beloved suitcase in the momentary absence of his attention.

“That’s all? Rather odd,” he said and carefully replaced the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “However, since I have a slight personal interest in the suitcase not being tampered with — slight, but in this case rather substantial — I’d better explain certain things. For example—” He paused for one last gargantuan puff on the flimsy cigarette; it rose in near-flame and he quickly crushed it out, relapsing in a coughing fit. When he had his breath he wiped his eyes and began again. “For example,” he repeated, “I built the case myself — built it from scratch, not adapted it — so perhaps I’d best tell you of some of its — what’s the word? Qualities? Advantages? Features?” He nodded, satisfied he was not being egotistical. “Features.”

There was a note of pride in his voice. A cold feeling began to form in Kek’s stomach. The big man reached into his pocket again for his tobacco and cigarette papers. A second cigarette was formed and lit, a second coughing fit indulged in; at last Schneller was ready to continue, smoke spewing with the words.

“The case,” he said, “is a work of genius, and I am not bragging. A masterpiece. Under the plastic cover the sides are made of fiber-glass and polyester resin, hand-formed to shape, much like the new boats one finds today. It is extremely strong and impossible to penetrate without—” He coughed, apologetically this time, as if the possibility of getting into the case was a subject best not to mention. “Within the case, between the body and the decorative lining, is a fine copper wire mesh. As I’m sure you know, copper is an excellent conductor of electricity. This mesh is connected to a series of long-life batteries, arranged so that should one of them fail for any reason at all, the others would — will, I should say — continue to function.”

He took the cigarette from his lip and turned to remove ash. His tone had been that of a professor conducting a lecture; a blackboard pointer, Kek thought, would have seemed more appropriate in his heavy hand than the dwindling cigarette. The small butt was carefully replaced and Schneller went on.

“When the case is closed and locked, as it is now, an electrical circuit is opened. Conversely, when the suitcase is opened — or if the case should be forced, of course, or the sides punctured, or the hinges or latches tampered with in any way — then the electrical circuit is closed. And the circuit—”

He paused to take a final puff on his cigarette, began to cough, and bent over, fighting for breath. He managed to crush the cigarette out and sat erect, drawing in great gobs of air. When his voice was once more under control, he went back to his theme. Whether he was bragging or warning, his audience was listening intently.

“—the circuit,” he repeated, “will detonate four sticks of dynamite which are contained in a separate sealed compartment inside. This compartment, also containing the detonator, is completely cast in acrylic. This is to prevent anyone from trying to insert an inert gas into the case, in the hopes that the gas might prevent sparking and, hence, explosion.”

His almost colorless eyes mocked Huuygens, as if the stocky, gray-eyed man watching him so expressionlessly might actually have considered trying to circumvent his genius with some such childish means.

“Do you understand?” he asked gently.

Huuygens considered the man. It occurred to him that possibly, for one time in his career, he had bit off more than he could chew. His face continued to reflect nothing but polite interest, however, as he answered.

“I understand what you’re saying,” he said. “I don’t quite understand why you think this should interest me.”

Schneller smiled wolfishly. “Curiosity,” he said, “killed a cat. We wish to be sure it does no harm to a courier.”

Kek smiled with him. “I share your concern.” He looked down at the case, his voice mildly curious. “There is, of course, a means of disarming the mechanism? I assume the parchment is not intended to remain inside forever?”

“Parchment?” Schneller frowned in nonunderstanding.

“The contents,” Kek reminded him gently and wondered at the stupidity of Sanchez in not properly briefing his crew. Still, it was nothing as compared to his own stupidity in taking on the job in the first place. “I mean, I gather someone will eventually wish to open it? In Barcelona?”

“Oh. Oh, yes. Of course there is a means of disarming it. It is in the combination lock.” The pale-blue eyes laughed at Kek, unafraid to give the answer — anxious, in fact, to give the answer. He sat a bit more erect, watching Kek as if to make sure his words were being followed with the attention they deserved. “The lock has four numbers for completion. You—” he smiled, “I don’t mean you, personally, m’sieu, but you can fool around with it as much as you like without danger; you can hit the first number of the combination by accident or even, for the first number, of course, by design. You might even hit both the first and the second number by accident, although the chances are rare. If by the ten thousand-to-one chance you should happen to hit them and then fail to hit the third number exactly before you reverse for the final time, you are getting close to trouble. However, you still have a chance to live, assuming you are not deaf...”

“Deaf?”

“Yes,” Schneller said proudly. “There is a warning. A bell.” He leaned over, stretching, and drew the suitcase to him. He took it in his lap, bending over it, and then looked up. “With your permission, m’sieu. If you would just turn your head a moment?”

Kek turned his head obediently, staring at a picture on the wall. It was an Ada Peacock original, a bright watercolor of a Peruvian girl striding barefoot down a mountain road, her shoes dangling from her neck, leading a burro on which her derbied bridegroom sat holding the baby. Despite the chill he had received listening to the exposition on the suitcase and its invulnerability, Kek was forced to smile at the warm colors and the happy look of fulfillment on the girl’s face. It did not take a suitcase full of cocaine to make everyone in the world happy, he thought, and then had his thoughts interrupted by the sudden sharp ring of a bell. He turned back.

“You see?” Schneller was quite pleased by the cleverness of his invention. He spun the combination; the sound ceased at once. “Separate batteries,” he said in proud explanation. “Otherwise one could let the bell ring until the main batteries were dead and could not spark the detonator.” He set the suitcase down and pushed it away from him with one foot and then leaned back smiling genially. His pale eyes dared Huuygens to find something he had overlooked. “So, as I say, care should be taken in playing with my suitcase. Because should anyone be so foolish as to disregard the warning of the bell, and should this person continue on to the final number—”

He winked jovially, as if he were in the midst of a risqué story coming to the final punch line, and then suddenly flung his hands up in the air dramatically. His twinkling little eyes widened in comic exaggeration.

“Blooey!” he said and settled down. His smile became gentle, almost childlike. “You understand?” he asked quietly.

Kek understood all too well. His voice was even. “I understand.”

“You are not surprised?”

I should not have been, Kek thought, but I am. “No,” he said.

“I expect not.” Schneller sighed, a gargantuan sigh, like a magician whose best trick has failed to impress. “I imagine it’s the sort of thing you would think of yourself if you needed to ensure privacy to the contents of a case...”

There was a slight touch of disappointment in the accented voice; the full lips were turned down a bit at the corners. Kek felt there was no harm in reassuring the man; somebody should feel reassured, he thought, and he certainly didn’t.

“Except I should not have been able to build it.”

Schneller took heart from the statement.

“It is unusual,” he said, and now he was speaking honestly, not trying to impress but to explain. “Since the first combination lock in the early sixteen hundreds they have used bar tumblers and pin tumblers. A child could open them. My case has steel ball bearings under springs. To open it the ball bearings must each be in its proper socket, like those aggravating toys where one must roll little tiny balls into tiny depressions without dislodging the others. Only mine can’t be dislodged. And all four must be put into place in proper order, or first the bell rings and then—” He sighed. “Someday I shall patent it...”

“Quite successfully, I’m sure,” Kek said politely. He wished the big man would go so he could start thinking. He glanced at his watch and looked up. “That’s all then?”

“Yes.” The large German seemed reluctant to leave, or possibly it was reluctance to part with his suitcase. He reached into his pocket for tobacco and paper, beginning to roll another of his thin cigarettes. “Tell me, m’sieu...” He paused, watching his thick fingers at work.

“Yes?”

Schneller seemed to be making up his mind about something. He licked the cigarette and smoothed it and then considered Kek strangely.

“Tell me, m’sieu. You had trouble entering Argentina?”

“Trouble?” Kek seemed more amused than disturbed by the question. “Nothing more than usual. What makes you ask?”

“There was a search?”

“There’s always a search,” Kek said easily and wondered what the other had on his mind. “But, as I said, nothing more than usual. Why?”

Again there was that hesitation. Schneller looked down at the small yellowish tube in his fingers as if surprised to discover it and then shoved it in the corner of his mouth, but he did not light it.

“What I’m getting at is this: M’sieu Huuygens, you have a reputation for being the most adept smuggler in the world. I know you are searched wherever you go, and I know you use your own passport and refuse to consider using a false name. I am sure a Telex has gone out to all major airports everywhere saying you are here in Argentina, and they will all be wondering why you are here — and, of course, what you plan to smuggle in from Argentina...” He ended his statement on a rising inflection, making it a partial question.

“Unless, of course,” Kek said easily, “they think I was bringing something into this country.”

“No.” The large man shook his head decisively. “You were searched, were you not? And nothing was discovered?”

Kek laughed. “I am always searched. And nothing is ever discovered.” His laugh faded, replaced with a frown. “Just what are you getting at, Herr Schneller?”

Schneller finally selected the right words. “M’sieu Huuygens, as I’m sure you know, that suitcase is very valuable. Should you fail to deliver it in Barcelona for any reason at all, whether it was your fault or not, I doubt if either Señor Sanchez or Duarte would be very forgiving.”

“I’m sure they would both be very nasty,” Kek agreed pleasantly, but his sharp gray eyes were studying the big man closely. “However, since I have no intention of failing...” He shrugged, his meaning clear.

“Still,” Schneller said stubbornly, it never does any harm to have some form of insurance. For example, you obviously have some plan for getting into Spain. You probably feel it best to do so alone. However, it’s my opinion you would be much better off with a companion—”

Kek’s eyebrows went up. “You mean a woman?” His eyes were joking.

“No, no! I mean—”

“You mean a bodyguard.” Kek shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I can’t work that way.”

“Then at least let us know your plans. You’ve been assured of payment; I understand it’s in an escrow account merely requiring Sanchez’s signature. So it seems to me the need for secrecy is past. I feel we have a right to know how you plan to get it into Spain—”

Kek looked at him. “We?”

“We. All of us with a stake in the matter.”

“I’m afraid it’s impossible.”

“Then at least let us have people at the various places you will be passing through. For protection...”

“Against what?” Kek asked curiously. “The danger is from customs, and how do you propose to protect against that?”

“No, no,” Schneller said and removed the unlit cigarette from his lip. He looked at it a moment and laid it aside, bringing his attention back to the stocky man. “The question is how you propose to protect against that.” He leaned forward, oozing respectability and good intent. “Believe me, m’sieu, the time for secrecy is past. You have the suitcase; you are guaranteed payment. There is no need for secrecy at this point.”

“You honestly believe that?”

“Quite,” Schneller said as convincingly as he could. His eyes had narrowed. Despite his best efforts, his fingers showed the strain; they curled slightly along the crease of his trousers.

“Fair enough,” Kek said lightly. “You start the no-secrecy bit. Give me the combination of the lock — and stay here while we open the case — and I’ll be happy to tell you my whole story.”

The look of anticipation on Schneller’s face disappeared as if wiped away by a huge hand, replaced by a cold glare of fury. The pale eyes considered the other man for several moments. He came to his feet slowly and moved toward the door.

“Very cute, M’sieu Huuygens,” he said. His face was expressionless other than his eyes; they were alive with malevolence. “I wish you luck in getting your suitcase through customs.”

“Thank you,” Kek said in the same tone. He held up a hand. “One thing, Herr Schneller. You say you have an interest in the suitcase getting to Barcelona; you can help by seeing to it that I am not constantly followed. I have trouble enough getting myself and my luggage through customs without having to explain a watchdog to the officials.”

There was a moment of silence.

“We all have troubles,” Schneller said at last. His tone was wooden. He twisted the lock and pulled the door open. “Good-bye, m’sieu.” He nodded abruptly, his face stiff, and walked heavily down the hallway, not bothering to close the door.

Kek walked to the door. He watched the large, bulky man punch the elevator button viciously and then closed the door softly. He locked it and walked over to tap on the door of the adjoining room. It opened and André appeared. He was grinning widely.

“It’s a pity Anita wasn’t here. If ever I heard a demonstration aimed at curing the smoking habit! However...” He looked down at the suitcase. “So that’s it, eh? And our friend wanted to know how you intended to get it past Spanish customs, eh?” He shook his head in mock sadness. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a nosey guy.”

Kek looked at him without smiling. “You heard?”

“Of course I heard,” André said disdainfully. “I’ve got ears like a beagle and your friend didn’t exactly whisper. Besides, you wanted me to hear.” André’s grin faded. “He asked a good question, though. Just how do you expect to get it in?”

Kek looked at him solemnly. “If you were listening,” he said seriously, “you know that’s by far the least of the problems. The proper question is, how do we open the damn suitcase?”

11

In the oversized hands of the man from Perpignan the suitcase took on the proportions of an attaché case. It came to Kek Huuygens that in all the years he had known André he had never before seen him properly dressed and with his hair properly trimmed; the Parisian tailor who had outfitted him had done a good job, and with the suitcase in his hand he looked like a prosperous businessman ready for the office, blown up from life-size. Like a businessman on a billboard, Kek thought and watched.

André began by shaking the case sideways, his ear pressed against it. As far as Kek could tell, there was no sound from the interior. André nodded and came to his feet. He carried the suitcase to the bed where he could examine it in greater comfort, sat down, and took it in his lap. He studied the latches carefully and turned it over to consider the pin hinges at the bottom. To his eye they all appeared normal, although the workmanship was far better than the normal manufacturer provided. He put the case aside momentarily, came to his feet, and went into his own room to return with a magnifying glass and a stethoscope. First he repeated his examination of the outside of the case, using the lens to restudy the hinges, latches, and lock. This done, he picked up the stethoscope, plugged it into his ears, and held the listening mouthpiece against the combination lock.

“Turn the dial,” he said. “Slowly.” He smiled into the gray eyes watching him intently. “Very slowly, my friend. And let us hope he’s either a liar or as good a locksmith as he claims.”

“There’s a bell—”

“I know. I heard it.” André closed his eyes to concentrate better. “I prefer those at Notre Dame.”

He pressed the stethoscope tightly against the combination lock as Kek turned the dial slowly. André’s eyes opened for a brief second at something, then closed again; his forehead wrinkled in concentration. Kek continued to inch the dial around steadily; he completed one turn and started on another. There was a frown on André’s rugged face, difficult to interpret. He opened his eyes, noted the position of the dial, and shook his head.

“Other way now.” He closed his eyes again, his huge hand dwarfing both the mouthpiece of the stethoscope and the lock, pressing the two together with surprising gentleness.

Kek reversed directions. André suddenly opened his eyes.

“Go back again...”

Kek went back slowly, watching André. André listened some more, watching the dial, and then shook his head in disgust. “I’m hearing things. Keep going.”

Kek went on until the dial pointed to zero again. André sighed, removed the stethoscope, and slid it into his jacket pocket. He added the magnifying glass and stared at the suitcase somberly.

“Either he’s bluffing or it’s a lovely job. Actually,” he added, a touch of professional envy in his voice, “it’s a lovely job whether he’s got it rigged to blow up or not. You can’t hear a thing.”

“If it’s any use,” Kek said, “when he spun the dial to shut off the bell, he turned it counterclockwise.”

André shrugged. “His story was that the case blows up if anyone hits the right number after the bell. Which means the last number is reached going clockwise.” He looked up. “All that gives us is the original direction to start. In a four-number combination you’d start by going counterclockwise.”

“Isn’t that some help?”

“Well,” André said, “if you want to look on the bright side, it brings the chances of finding the right combination by accident — or trial and error, as far as that goes — from about two million to one down to about one million to one.” He sighed and stared at the case. “A really lovely job. If the lock is built with ball bearings under springs, they’d just roll up into their proper socket in turn and there’d be no sound at all. And with the springs, you couldn’t shake them out of place or sequence or into any particular socket. Beautiful...”

“If you call that beautiful.”

“Well,” André said, “there’s always the chance your friend Schneller just rigged a bell and no dynamite at all.”

Kek shook his head. “He wasn’t bluffing. You just heard him; you didn’t see him.”

“I don’t think he was bluffing either. Why should he?” André put the suitcase on the floor. He leaned back against the pillows, dwarfing them, his feet sprawled out half on the bed, half on the floor. “Anyone capable of building that neat a job could rig a booby trap in it easily enough. And for that much cocaine?” He turned his head, staring down at the suitcase almost with admiration. “No. I’d say the thing is one large, economy-sized grenade.”

“And you can’t open it.” It was a flat statement, not a question.

“Not without blowing up the hotel,” André said and smiled ruefully. “And considering what they charge for rooms in this place, you can imagine the cost of wrecking fifteen or twenty of them.”

“Not to mention us,” Kek said. It was a poor attempt at humor to lighten his disappointment.

“True.” André shifted position, settling down. “So where do we go from here? Wait until we’re somewhere over the ocean and gently drop it in?”

Kek shook his head. “No. I deliver it, contents and all...”

André’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He hitched himself up on his elbows. “After all you’ve said about never handling narcotics? And after Sanchez tried to make a pincushion out of Anita?”

“One thing has nothing to do with the other,” Kek said and frowned. “I thought I’d deliver him a slightly different cargo than he shipped, and let him and Schneller argue about where the original went, but I never considered not delivering at all. It’s my own fault for taking on the job, but I did and I’ve never failed to deliver yet.” He smiled faintly, an unhumorous smile. “Anyway, airlines frown on people opening doors at thirty thousand feet up.”

“There is that,” André admitted.

“More important at the moment, since it seems the suitcase will remain unopened, is our friend Schneller...”

“Schneller? You mean the delivery boy? What’s he look like? I heard him, but I missed his face.”

“You missed little. A big blond man, as big as you. And as strong, probably. And nastier, I should judge. A storm-troop type.”

“Who smokes too much.”

“Who smokes too much,” Kek agreed.

“What about him?”

Kek frowned at the man on the bed. “Do you remember how curious he was about how I planned to get the case into Spain and how helpful he’d like to be?”

“Well,” André said, his tone asking Kek merely to be reasonable. “You can hardly blame him. Knowing how to get it into Spain could be useful. For taking other suitcases into other countries in the future.” He smiled. “As I said, I wouldn’t mind having the secret myself.”

Huuygens shook his head decisively. He began to pace the room.

“No, that wasn’t his reason. He was after my itinerary.” He paused to look at André. “Think a moment. If you were paying someone to carry a suitcase worth millions of dollars from one place to another, what would you do?”

“You mean, other than putting in a little package of dynamite to prevent undue curiosity?”

“Of course,” Kek said a trifle impatiently. “The dynamite itself may be a threat, but actually it’s ridiculous. How would it help you if your messenger got himself blown to pieces? You’d still lose your suitcase and everything else.” He shook his head. “No. You’d take out better insurance than that.”

“I would?”

“You would. You’d have him followed.”

André nodded, smiling. “You’re probably right. I’m a very untrusting guy.” He quirked a curious eyebrow at Kek. “So you expect to be followed?”

“I don’t expect to be,” Kek said evenly. “I have been. Ever since I got off the plane this morning.” He saw the look on André’s face. “I wasn’t too surprised. I expected it.” He paused in his pacing. “Look, this Schneller comes into a strange hotel room and hands over a suitcase supposedly worth a fortune to a complete stranger. He doesn’t ask for identification; he doesn’t take any precautions at all. Why?”

“Because it’s not the right suitcase?”

“I think it’s the right suitcase. Why make two cases that complicated? And why hand over any suitcase to a stranger? No, it’s because he knows I’m Kek Huuygens. And how does he know? Because I’ve probably been followed since I left Paris by one of Sanchez’s people. Or, if not, because Schneller’s people picked me up when I got here — which I think is the case, because I didn’t feel followed before, if you know what I mean, and I expected to be.” He resumed his pacing, still talking. “Schneller’s people saw me go through customs today, and someone in customs identified me to him. And he was doing it, of course, for Señor Sanchez.”

André frowned. “So why ask you to take along a bodyguard if he has a shadow on you?”

“Because you can shadow a man fairly easily in a city, if you have enough men to do it, but on a trip it would help a lot if one had a definite itinerary—”

The telephone rang sharply. Kek looked at his watch as if surprised that time had passed so quickly and walked over to the desk, lifting the instrument.

“Sanchez,” he said to André, even before listening, and then paid attention to the call. “Yes? Yes, this is M’sieu Huuygens. Ah, hello, Señor Sanchez. How’s the weather in Barcelona? High winds and rain, you say? What a pity! It’s much better here — medium cirrus clouds and intermittent sunshine...”

André was staring at him. Kek cupped the receiver and grinned at the man on the bed.

“Sanchez likes codes; or maybe he’s brushing up on a bit of his French he doesn’t use very often. In any event, that bit of nonsense means it’s really me talking to him, and that I’ve taken delivery of the suitcase from Schneller.” He turned his attention to the telephone again. “I beg your pardon? I’m sorry, the line wasn’t too good there for a moment.”

“I said, there’s someone here who would like to speak with you.” Sanchez’s voice was suave; the cold, superior smile on his skeletal face could almost be seen over the miles of cable. Kek’s smile was wiped away instantly; his jaw tightened as he waited. There was only one person it could possibly be!

There was the briefest of pauses and Anita was on the line.

“Kek? Hello, Kek?”

Huuygens glared at André, his face hard. “They’ve got Anita!”

“Again?”

“Again!”

“That girl’s kidnap prone—”

“She certainly is!” Kek spoke into the phone harshly, his eyes narrowed. “What happened?”

“They brought me here in a car, in a trunk through the border guards, I suppose. I don’t know; I was asleep. That’s the second time I was stuck with a needle!” Anita sounded irked by the repetition. “I hope these people know how to properly sterilize needles—”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m all right now. I had a sore — it was sore for a while from the needle, and I had a headache at first again, but not so bad this time” — Anita sounded as if she were developing an immunity to needles — “but they’re treating me fine now. The woman who’s watching me — not the one you know — is teaching me needlepoint... That’s appropriate, isn’t it?”

“Anita! Forget the needlepoint! How are you?”

“I said I was fine. The thing is, I’d wanted to have the living room repapered as a surprise while you were gone, but now I won’t get a chance to—”

“Anita! Will you forget the living room! How are you?”

“I’m fine, dear. I told you that.” Anita suddenly seemed to realize her predicament and its effect on Kek. “I’m sorry, Kek. I know how upset this must make you—”

“Upset!”

“If you’d marry me,” Anita said reasonably, “these things probably wouldn’t happen. People almost never kidnap married women. I suppose because they figure the chances are too great nobody would pay the ransom.”

“Anita!” Kek’s tone brooked no nonsense. “Get off the line and let me talk to Sanchez!”

“All right, dear,” Anita said soothingly. “But you really mustn’t worry about me. I’m fine. Honestly I am. And I’m doing an antimacassar for your big chair, purple and green. It will match the wallpaper if I ever get a chance to—”

“Anita!”

“All right, dear,” Anita said. “Have a good time in Buenos Aires. And hurry home.”

There was a brief pause and then Sanchez was on the line.

“Ah, M’sieu Huuygens—”

“Listen, Sanchez! Why the necessity of holding Anita when you’ve got the suitcase foolproof?”

“Ah, m’sieu — insurance...” If Kek felt any surprise at hearing his own word come back to him he made no immediate comment. Sanchez continued. “True, you cannot open the suitcase, but you might well fail to deliver it. I am aware of your reputation for treating clients honestly, but there’s too much at stake here for us to depend just on your good word. As for madame, you have my word she will be treated well—”

“If you so much as touch her, I will kill you,” Kek said in a conversational tone.

“I am well aware of your regard,” Sanchez said with a touch of amusement. “There would be little point in bothering her otherwise. As long as you complete your mission, of course. I want the suitcase in Barcelona by next Sunday at the latest. Do you hear?”

Kek took a deep breath. There was obviously nothing he could do at this distance in the matter of Anita. He could, however, clear up a suspicion he had been forming since hearing Anita’s voice.

“How much insurance do you need, Sanchez? If you’re so anxious for my success, you should know that having me followed will only lead to trouble. And failure. And if it does...”

“Followed?” Sanchez chuckled deprecatingly. “Why should I have you followed? Especially since I have your young woman here? No, no, Huuygens, don’t imagine little people back of bushes. Nor would I suggest you search for excuses. I’m rather disappointed...” The voice hardened. “Concentrate, instead, on getting the suitcase here. By Sunday!”

There was a click and the sound of the dial tone. Kek replaced the telephone in its cradle and stared at the carpet, his mind considering this new angle. André cleared his throat.

“What did Anita say?”

Kek frowned savagely. He had not been amused by the exchange with his lovely Anita. “She says she’s fine and maybe I ought to marry her, since married women seldom get kidnapped.”

“She’s probably right,” André said and feigned agreement. “I know I’ve never felt the urge to kidnap one.” He straightened his face, coming back to the more important subject. “What did Sanchez have to say for himself?”

“Sanchez said he wants the suitcase in Barcelona by Sunday. Which is no problem.” Kek resumed his pacing. “He also said he isn’t having me followed — as he put it, why should he? And why should he, indeed?” His eyes came up steadily. “And that, my friend, is a problem.”

André considered him a moment and then nodded in understanding. “You mean it looks as if your friend Schneller is overstepping his authority a bit, eh?”

“I’m afraid,” Kek said and went to stare out of the window.

“And,” André went on, warming to his theme, “if Schneller is having you followed, not for Sanchez, he must be doing it for himself. Right?”

“Right.”

“And if he knew where you were going, and when, he might just be able to arrange to have someone waiting for you along the line. And you would be left holding the bag. I mean, not holding the bag,” he amended in the interests of accuracy and sighed. “It’s getting harder and harder to find a crook you can trust these days.”

“Too true,” Kek said absently and continued staring into the street, his mind busy with the problem.

“It would also mean, of course, that your friend Schneller would have to do something to prevent your being around afterward,” André said, expounding his theory further. “Something like killing you. Because you’re the type to go crying to Sanchez and tell him the big, bad man from Buenos Aires slapped your wrist and took away all your candy.”

“That’s me,” Kek said and grinned without turning around. “Just a poor sport.”

“And Sanchez might just believe you. So Schneller can’t leave you around.” André became serious. “So what do we do about it? Take Schneller along and drop him into the ocean?”

“They still object to opening plane doors at thirty thousand feet. Besides,” Kek said, looking down, “if Schneller has any idea of taking the suitcase away from me, he’d probably hire somebody to do the job, much as he’d hate to—”

“Hate to?”

“About all that Sanchez told me about the man is that he hates to spend money. A maniac tightwad. But he’d pay to have someone take me; it would be worth it to him. After our little talk he knows I’ll have an eye out for him; and he’s like you in one respect — he’s hard to hide.” He frowned. “And the people he could hire just in Buenos Aires that I don’t know come to about six million. Not to mention a lot of others in other cities.”

André saw a hole in the argument. “Except,” he said, “if he takes the suitcase away from you before Spain, how will he get it through customs?”

“He doesn’t want it in Spain, for heaven’s sake! That’s the last place he wants it. He wants the bag and me to disappear together, all right, but anywhere else. They buy cocaine in lots of places these days.” The crowds he was staring at without seeing in the streets below seemed to suddenly give him an idea. “You know...”

“What?”

Huuygens suddenly turned, smiling. “It would be better, wouldn’t it, if Herr Schneller took on the job of taking the suitcase away from me? Personally? Rather than some unknown thug he could hire that I wouldn’t know or recognize?”

“I suppose. But how do you get him to do it?”

“It might just be possible...”

He held up a hand against interruption and began pacing the room. The people in the street had reminded him that it was easier to lose a man in a crowd than in an empty street. His idea had begun to take form. It was rough at that stage, which was natural, but that did not bother him; he knew instinctively it was a workable concept. He began to put some of the details in, staring at the girl leading the burro, but not seeing the picture at all. Suddenly it struck him that that was exactly what he was planning to do: lead a burro. The smile on the girl’s face was transformed to his own.

Insurance, Schneller had said, and Sanchez and he had both repeated the word. Well, this wasn’t exactly insurance, but it was a chance to get Schneller off his neck at least. He had always known how he was going to get the suitcase past the customs in Spain; the nice thing about this new plan was that it did not interfere with the original scheme at all. It did not, unfortunately, also include a means of teaching Señor Sanchez a lesson for sticking pins into girls, but that was a problem that would have to wait. One enemy at a time — today Schneller, tomorrow Sanchez. He let his thoughts go back to his new scheme, taking it from the beginning; now the little tumblers — unlike those spring-loaded ball bearings in Schneller’s suitcase — began to drop into place with almost audible clicks. Nor did any warning bell ring as the outlines of the plan began to solidify. He checked it over one final time and then turned to the patiently waiting André.

“André, we’ll need a bit of shopping—”

“For anything interesting?”

“Suitcase covers, two of them. You know, those canvas things...”

André frowned. “I haven’t seen one of those in years.”

“They still have them in luggage stores. My suitcase is roughly the size of one. With covers on they’ll be pretty hard to tell apart from a distance.”

André’s eyes lit up. “The old shell game?”

“Something like it. Except you’ll be taking one of the walnut shells with you when you leave.”

“That’s cheating,” André said, scandalized, and swung himself from the bed. He pulled the unaccustomed necktie into place, straightened the jacket, and ran his fingers through his nearly-white gray hair. “Two suitcase covers coming up! I gather you want me to do the shopping? If you’re being followed? Down two flights by stairs and then the elevator,” he added sotto voce, as if repeating instructions, and then looked up, frowning, doing a double take. “Hold it! What do you mean, I’ll be taking one of the walnut shells with me. Aren’t we traveling together?”

“No. You leave tonight; I go tomorrow.”

André shook his large head stubbornly. “No, sir! Not with that storm-troop type after you! We didn’t come together because there was a reason; now there’s a reason we go back together, and we do!”

“We don’t!” Kek said definitely. “There’s also a reason. And I suppose it’s about time you found out what the plans are.”

“Well, thank you very much,” André said stiffly and sat down again on the bed. He got up to tug on his trousers, protecting the unusual crease, and then sat down again, waiting. Kek stopped his pacing and stood facing the big man, beginning to outline his plan. André listened with no expression on his face, although at one point he smiled and then immediately brought his face back to its immobility. When at last Kek finished there were several moments of silence. Then André sighed and came to his feet.

“It could work,” he said slowly. “I don’t mean the smuggling; that’s perfect. I mean the thing with Schneller. Still, in everything, there are a couple of things I’m not too fond of—”

Kek faced him, unsmiling. “Just a couple?”

“Mainly. First, I don’t like the fact that you still don’t know how to teach Sanchez a lesson and still plan on giving him that suitcase...”

“And?”

“And suppose that Schneller doesn’t follow the bait? Suppose he doesn’t react the way you expect him to?”

Huuygens sighed and turned to look out of the window again out over the city, but not seeing it.

“Then,” he said, “we may be in trouble...”

12

Through the closed door of his apartment, Schneller could hear the sound of the telephone ringing. He fumbled his key ring into his hand, singling out a key, and hurried it into the lock, turned it quickly, and then searched for the key to a second lock, for the first time sorry he had been so thorough in his home-protective installations. He managed the auxiliary at last, the soft incessancy of the sound through the paneling a goad to his fingers. He swung the door aside as an irksome barrier, hurried across the room, his key strap dangling, and snatched up the instrument.

“Hello?” His voice was wheezing badly. One of these days, he promised himself, he had to stop smoking — and instantly he reached to touch the security blanket of the tobacco sack in his pocket as one might touch an amulet.

“Herr Schneller? Max Gross, from the Gerhardt Agency—”

“One second.” Schneller crossed the room, tucking the monstrous key ring into his pocket; he closed and locked the door and returned to the telephone, catching his breath. He sat down on the desk chair, overflowing it, speaking with more control. “All right. Go ahead.”

“Yes, sir.” Max spoke in German. “The subject left the Plaza Hotel about half an hour ago — two o’clock, precisely. He proceeded—”

“Was he alone?”

“Alone, yes.” It seemed to Max to be a rather odd question; Huuygens had been alone since he had arrived at Ezeiza Airport early that morning and could scarcely have picked up a companion since then without having been seen. However, Herr Schneller was paying for the surveillance, and Max was a firm believer in rendering unto Caesar.

“Well? Go ahead!”

Max came out of his reverie. “Yes, sir. Anyway, the subject proceeded to the British United Airways office in the Calle Maipú between Paraguay and Córdoba. It’s not far from the hotel and he walked. I followed the subject, taking all precautions not to be observed. Since the subject obviously was unaware of the surveillance, I proceeded into the office behind him. There was only one girl on counter duty, so I was able to obtain a place in line behind the subject and remained there while he transacted his business. The subject picked up tickets — it must be assumed they had been ordered by telephone prior — I mean, previously. I was therefore able, because of my position, to hear all that transpired.” Max giggled, veering from the agency vernacular a moment. “I couldn’t have helped hearing him if I’d tried—”

“Get on with it!” Schneller said gratingly. Why in the devil did every agency moron refer to a person as “the subject” instead of by name? And the rest of that garbage they used to replace plain German! This Max What’s-his-name was a fool. What kind of detectives was he paying for, anyway?

“Yes, sir!” Max said hurriedly. “Anyway, the subject leaves Buenos Aires the day after tomorrow—”

“The day after tomorrow? What’s he hanging around for?”

Max had no idea, but he didn’t seem to feel it politic to say so. Herr Schneller appeared to be a bit on edge this morning.

“Possibly to sight-see, sir. He may be a stranger here, taking advantage of his—”

“Get on with it!”

“Yes, sir! The subject leaves the day after tomorrow, Thursday, at seventeen twenty-five — that’s five twenty-five in the afternoon, sir — from Ezeiza Airport on British United Airways for London, arriving there at fourteen fifteen Saturday. That’s two fifteen in the after—”

“I know! I know! Keep quiet a second...”

London, eh? Schneller frowned at the desk blotter. Why would Huuygens pick an airport as large as either of the two major ports in London? He obviously would expect to be searched, since he always was; and they were far from fools in London. Besides, the chances of smuggling anything the size of a suitcase through customs in London had to be the devil’s own task. And when you were through, where were you? Still far from Spain, and on an island to boot. And even worse, of course — getting this Huuygens alone for the purpose of taking the suitcase from him in a busy place like London, with police all around, could also be a major problem...

“What airport?”

“Gatwick,” Max said, proud that he — or rather, the counter girl — had overlooked no detail.

Well, Schneller thought, at least Gatwick isn’t quite as crowded as Heathrow, but it still is a very busy airport. Possibly there was another answer? After all, just because a man buys a ticket for a certain destination doesn’t necessarily mean he has to go there.

“Any stopovers?”

“Two. Rio de Janeiro and Las Palmas in the Canaries. But he’s not staying in London; he’s going on,” Max added hurriedly, suddenly realizing that Herr Schneller was misunderstanding his information.

“Well, for God’s sake! Don’t make me drag it out of you word by word!” Good Lord! What was this incompetent’s name? Max? Really, Gerhardt would hear of this!

“Yes, sir. The subject changes planes in London, same airfield, Gatwick, also to British United, for Gibraltar. He leaves Gatwick at twenty-one forty-five and gets into Gibraltar — North Front Airport — at twenty-three fifteen. That’s” — Max realized he was close to repeating an error — “fifteen minutes before midnight. No, forty-five,” he amended hastily and anticipated a further question. “No stopovers on that leg. And that’s as far as his ticket goes.”

This Huuygens is really laying a trail, Schneller thought, and was happy he had been wise enough to put Gerhardt and his men on the job, even though it was just pure luck that a mental cripple like this Max should have gotten so much of the finer details.

“Now, what about luggage? Was there any mention of it? For example, what about the transfer from one plane to the other at Gatwick?”

“They put it from one plane to the other in London — the company does, that is. The girl said so; she said he’d have no worry on that score. He puts his bags in at Ezeiza here and doesn’t get his hands on them until Gibraltar.”

There was a pause as Schneller considered this information. Gibraltar, of course, made a lot more sense than Gatwick. Actually, it made a lot of sense. It was small, minute when compared with London, with far less traffic and far, far less staff. The intermediate stops were well forgotten; if Huuygens bought that detailed a ticket just to get off at Rio de Janeiro to throw anyone off his trail, he’d still be almost as far from his ultimate destination and still face all the same problems. No, Gibraltar made real sense — although how the man planned to get it from Gibraltar into Spain would be interesting. Actually, it would be even more interesting to know how he planned to get it out of the airport in Gibraltar. Interesting but nonessential, since M’sieu Huuygens had his, Schneller’s, permission to get it past customs any way he, Huuygens, chose; he, Schneller, would see to it that he, Huuygens, would be relieved of the custody of the suitcase in short order. This bit of cerebral gymnastics completed, Schneller went on with his calculating.

Actually, Gibraltar was ideal from his own point of view; from the Rock it would be no great problem to get it onto a ferry to Spanish Morocco. A few pesetas bought a lot of closed eyes and turned heads in that part of the world. And in Morocco it should be simple to make a very lucrative deal for the stuff. He returned his attention to the telephone and the waiting Max.

“Where did Huuygens go when he left the airline office?”

“I don’t know. I imagine Willi took over and picked him up,” Max said. “I couldn’t walk out of the airline office behind the subject after standing in line so long; it would have looked suspicious. I had to stay and ask the girl a lot of stupid questions” — Schneller raised his eyes to the ceiling — “but Willi and Herr Gerhardt himself were right behind us, so I’m sure they picked the subject up. That was the arrangement. They should be calling you as soon as—”

“All right! All right!” Schneller brought his eyes down, glaring. God, what a talkative idiot! “Go back to the hotel and be prepared to help the others when they get back. If they need you.” He was paying good money for this donkey?

“Yes, sir.”

“And good-bye!”

“Yes, sir,” Max said sadly and hung up, reluctant to stop talking. The reporting was the part of detective work he liked best.

The big blond man set the telephone back in its cradle and pulled his tobacco and papers from his pocket, beginning to roll a cigarette without conscious thought, forcing his mind from the irritation of Max Gross. So Huuygens would arrive at North Front in Gibraltar around midnight three days hence. Friday. The question of why the delay in Buenos Aires an extra day when he had a job to do was a bit irksome but really not essential. Probably his plan for getting through customs in Gibraltar required his arrival there on Friday, rather than earlier. That must be it. In any event, it was nothing to worry about.

Friday... More than ample time to get someone from Germany down there. Or, better yet, to arrange for two men; one to join the flight at Gatwick in London and actually accompany Huuygens and the other to be waiting in Gibraltar. It would be pretty hard for even the clever M’sieu Huuygens to give the slip to the two of them — not the two men he intended to hire for the job. And they would hold him someplace privately until he could get there and handle the rest himself. It would be necessary to get rid of M’sieu Huuygens, but that would occasion no great sadness on his part; it would be, in fact, a job he would handle himself with great pleasure. He pictured the stocky man’s neck between his strong fingers, allowed four or five seconds in his mind for slowly increasing pressure — long enough to remind the man behind those bulging gray eyes that it did not pay to get cute with Hans Schneller — and then suddenly flexed his thick thumbs, completing the garroting. He could almost hear the neck snap.

He tugged at the knuckles of his fingers as if in relief after the strangling he had just imagined; then his smile faded. Imagination was one thing, but facts were another. Between the expenses involved in the hiring of the Gerhardt Detective Agency with half their men, plus the two from Berlin — who did not work cheaply — the cost of this hijacking would be considerable. Not that it wasn’t worth it— Worth it? Ten thousand times over — but, still, money didn’t grow on trees. True, he had had the suitcase in his hands after Sanchez had been and gone with the combination — and maybe he shouldn’t have given him the combination either, but that was water over the dam — and possibly he should have just gone off with it. But no; Sanchez or that partner of his would have had him followed for the rest of his life, which probably wouldn’t have been long, and who needed it when a simpler solution was at hand? This was much better — let the blame fall on Huuygens. In fact, make sure the blame falls on him. No suitcase, no Huuygens. He could even go to Barcelona and commiserate with the others on the loss...

His smile returned. He stretched his hand to place his call to Berlin; the telephone rang as his fingers touched the smooth plastic. He brought the receiver to his ear in the same easy motion.

“Yes?”

“Schneller? This is Gerhardt. What’s the matter with your telephone? I’ve been ringing every few minutes and it’s been busy.”

“You’ve got a talkative operative named Max Something on your payroll. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter. You wanted reports, didn’t you? You scream enough about how much they cost, so I thought you’d be interested in getting one, that’s all.”

Now that Huuygens’ itinerary was in his hands, it was far less important to have the man constantly followed; still, it certainly did no harm, and he had promised Gerhardt at least two days’ employment for at least four men. A pity, under the circumstances, but he could not back out now; Gerhardt was an old friend. Still, as Gerhardt said, they were costing him so he might as well get the reports. No sense in throwing away the money.

“All right,” Schneller said mildly. “So report.”

“All right,” Gerhardt said, still not completely mollified. “My man Willi picked up your man outside the British United Airways office on Maipú. Max was inside with him. He—”

“I know,” Schneller said and finally lit his cigarette. He coughed once and started to subside when another fit caught him. He managed to control it at last, speaking with effort. “He was picking up his tickets there—”

“His tickets?” At the other end of the line Gerhardt shook his head disgustedly at the phone. Why did every client try to second-guess the agency? “Tickets nothing. They must have been booked solid, because from British United he went around the corner on Córdoba to Air France—”

Schneller felt a cold hand grip his stomach and twist. The match in his fingers burned down to his hand; he woke up with a muffled curse and dropped it on the rug, stamping it out.

“—and Willi was right behind him. Your man bought a ticket for Paris — Orly Field. His flight leaves Ezeiza at eighteen hours on Thursday, day after tomorrow, and gets into Orly at fourteen fifty-five on Friday, their time.”

Schneller took a shuddering breath, coughed on his cigarette, and took it from his lip, crushing it out viciously. He felt as if he had been betrayed. Betrayed? He felt as if he had been clubbed on the back of his bull neck. Why in the devil would Huuygens — Or did that dumbhead Max make a mistake? But, no — his information had been too complete. Then, what in the name of—

One possibility suddenly occurred to him, the only one that made sense at the moment. The tickets had to be for different people. Of course! Huuygens had an accomplice, a confederate. And they would meet someplace, which is why he had booked flights leaving at approximately the same hour. And why he booked on Thursday; it was probably the only day both airlines had flights that stopped at the same place. Rio, possibly, or Las Palmas... He began to feel better.

“What stopovers does it have?”

“Two,” Gerhardt said. “Brasília and Dakar.”

Schneller felt bad again. There was, of course, the possibility that Huuygens and his confederate planned to meet halfway from their destination — halfway between what? London and Paris? In the Channel? That way lay madness... Then—? The shock had not worn off, it had merely been put aside temporarily. His mind was beginning to function again.

“And from Paris where is he booked?”

Gerhardt had always known that Schneller was clever with his hands, but he had never credited him with excessive imagination.

“From Paris to Perpignan,” he said with more respect. “A six-hour layover in Paris and then less than an hour’s flight to Perpignan. He’ll be getting there at twenty-one o-five.”

“Still from Orly?”

“Yes.”

“What about his luggage?”

“Willi said they put it on the plane at Orly for him — transfer it, that is. Checked in here, delivered in Perpignan.”

“And that’s the end of the line.” It was a statement.

“Yes. At least as far as the ticket he bought from Air France.”

The tight feeling began to leave Schneller; he had panicked for nothing. Obviously, Huuygens was no fool. He had simply taken the normal precaution of laying a false trail first in order to guarantee not being followed. He probably canceled his first ticket as soon as he got back to the hotel; in all probability he had paid by credit card—

“How did he pay?”

Gerhardt was ashamed not to know. “Willi didn’t say.”

“No matter.”

It was unimportant. There were no confederates; a smart man did not use them — unless they were essential, he amended hurriedly, thinking of Berlin. No. Huuygens was working alone and Perpignan was his true destination. It was fortunate he had arranged for Gerhardt to put enough men on the job so that he had not been led astray by that first booking. And equally fortunate that his call to Germany, according to the international operator, would not go through until six o’clock that evening, so that he had not as yet given definite instructions. He could now direct the men differently: one to Orly to join the flight with Huuygens, and the other to Perpignan to wait. Otherwise the scenario would be the same.

He frowned down at the desk blotter, his eyes narrowing. Or... just suppose Huuygens was being cute again — apparently a habit of his — and the second was the false trail, and not the first? In that case it would be better to have four men on the job: two for the Perpignan trip and two for the Gibraltar trip. He shook his head, his light-blue eyes murderous. This thing had damned well better work out, because the expenses were getting out of hand! Still, thirty pounds of pure cocaine — if everything worked out, that is. But what if it didn’t? He’d be the rest of his life paying off... He put the terrible thought from him and returned to the telephone.

“All right,” he said. “Where is he now?”

“I have Gomez following him.”

“Gomez?” For a moment it didn’t register. Gerhardt had an Argentinian national on his payroll? He kicked himself for thinking of inconsequentials at a time like that. “All right. Stay with him. At least until your two days are up.” No sense in paying and not getting the work done.

“We will,” Gerhardt said briefly and hung up.

Schneller’s hand reached unconsciously for his tobacco and papers. Perpignan, eh? Really even a better spot for Huuygens to try to cross the Spanish border than Gibraltar. Not very far from the coast, and a small fishing boat on a dark night, and a brief run to Barcelona. Except that M’sieu Huuygens would never leave Perpignan alive... Or Gibraltar — whichever...

Kek Huuygens strolled in a relaxed manner down the Avenida Santa Fe. It was six in the evening, that most perfect hour in October in Buenos Aires, and he was pleased to be on that most perfect of streets. The windows of many fine shops beckoned, and Kek paused every now and then to savor their wares, wishing he could bring some of them back for Anita. And also to determine that the small, swarthy figure following him continued to be reflected in the various polished glasses. Satisfied that he had not lost his little shadow, he crossed the road at a leisurely pace and pushed his way cheerfully through the glass door into the Alitalia office.

A lovely girl detached herself from writing up a ticket and approached, smiling, pleased to have been interrupted in the boring task, and especially by this handsome stranger. Behind Huuygens Gomez was having trouble with the heavy door. Kek was about to turn and open it for him when a departing customer took care of the emergency. Gomez came to stand behind Kek; Huuygens leaned over the counter.

“Do you have space to Rome?”

The girl automatically looked at the wall clock and then shook her head sadly. She hated to disappoint this nice-looking man. “It’s too late for today, and I’m afraid we’re booked for tomorrow. A pity; we had a no-show—”

“I was thinking of Thursday,” Kek said and smiled.

“Oh, we can get you out on Thursday,” the girl said; her tone indicated two things: that she would willingly put another passenger off to accommodate him, and that she was free until the plane left. She reached for her clipboard, wondering why more men in Buenos Aires did not have curly hair and gray eyes beneath jagged eyebrows. Behind Huuygens, Gomez stared about at the colorful posters on the cream walls, the perfect picture of a man waiting his turn in a queue. His swarthy face was emotionless, but inwardly he was exulting. The only Argentinian in the agency, and he would be the one who would have the information the big, blond client wanted; he, Gomez, would be the one who would report the wanted facts...

When a little less than twenty minutes later he did exactly that, he was surprised — and not a little disappointed — at the reception his information received.

“What!”

“Yes, sir,” Gomez repeated earnestly. “To Rome the evening after tomorrow at eighteen fifteen hours. Via Freetown and Casablanca. A layover of five hours at Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome, and then another Alitalia flight nonstop to Marseilles...”

He waited for the praise that, inexplicably, was not forthcoming.

“Tell Gerhardt to ring me as soon as he can,” Schneller said abruptly and slammed the telephone down.

His heavy features were twisted in frustration and anger; his big fist pounded the desk top softly. This Huuygens was playing with him! He was being cute again, knowing that Schneller abhorred cuteness! London, Paris, Rome! A joke, that’s what Huuygens was playing, a lousy, miserable, verdammt, unfunny joke! What was he trying to do? Make him, Schneller, hire half of Berlin as well as most of the Gerhardt Agency? Make him go broke following that damned suitcase? Whose suitcase was it in the first place? Who built it? Could Huuygens have built it? No! He admitted it himself! Well, then, him and his damned unfunny jokes! Well, he wouldn’t fall for it. Damn right he wouldn’t! He’d — He suddenly remembered the call to Berlin he had just completed; his hand shot out for the telephone, determined to cancel all instructions until he could see light in the puzzle, his mind composing curses for Huuygens and all of his relatives, past and future, but before he could raise the receiver, the instrument rang. He snatched it up. It was Gerhardt.

“Gomez just got in touch. He said you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes! Take your men off Huuygens — your — your — your so-called operatives! Detectives! My good God!”

“What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter, he says! He’s making idiots out of us, that’s what’s the matter! Your men must stand out like-like—” Schneller gave up on a proper comparison. “What are they wearing? Cowbells? That miserable Schweinhund will lead them from one airline to another like the pied piper all night long, or until they close! That bastard is just trying to—” Schneller suddenly clamped his jaws closed. He was talking too much; the details were no affair of Gerhardt’s. He also realized he was talking nonsense. “I’m sorry, Gerhardt. I’m upset. Forget what I said. Keep your men on him until he goes to the airport, but put on different men. He’s wise to everyone you’ve had on him so far. I’m sure.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very sure.” He paused, thinking. His burst of temper seemed to have acted as a catharsis; for the first time in a long time, it appeared to him, his mind was clear, his thoughts precise. “Gerhardt—”

“Yes?”

“They have a transportation desk in the hotel, don’t they?” Where had his mind been for the past twelve hours? It was so painfully obvious that Huuygens had merely used the phone in his room.

“Yes...”

“Can you find out if Huuygens booked passage from there? Or can you arrange to hear if he books passage anytime tonight or tomorrow? And then let me know?”

Gerhardt nodded. It was obvious that Schneller suspected the other trips to be false; after the reports he had received, he concurred.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “If I can, it will cost money.”

“Forget the money,” Schneller said, even as his own words knifed deep into his heart. Gerhardt’s bill was going to be enough to get the country out of debt! “Can you do it?”

“I can try.”

“Then try. And let me know — do you hear? I’ll be right here.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Gerhardt said and hung up.

It was nearly midnight when the detective called back. Nearly a bottle of schnapps and a sack of tobacco had been consumed to make the wait endurable. Schneller snatched at the phone.

“Yes?”

“Gerhardt.” The detective’s voice was smug, filled with satisfaction. “I think this time we have what you want. Finally. I had to dig the clerk out of bed, since the office is closed, but I believe you’ll find it was worth it.”

He waited for some comment, but Schneller merely wheezed heavily into the receiver, waiting. Gerhardt took a breath and went on.

“He leaves for Lisbon tomorrow. One stop at Viracopos — that’s the airport for São Paulo — and nonstop from there. He—”

“Tomorrow? Not Thursday?”

“Not Thursday. That was as fake as his destinations. Tomorrow.”

“Which makes sense, a lot more sense,” Schneller said and nodded to himself. “Go ahead.”

“Tomorrow, seventeen twenty-five, by KLM. He changes planes in Lisbon to TWA to Madrid, has a stopover there, and then flies to Zaragoza by Iberia. He made the reservations by phone from his room as soon as he checked in; they were all confirmed by noon and the tickets issued and delivered long before he started that trip of his around to the airline offices.”

Cute. You’re a real cute one, M’sieu Huuygens, Schneller thought. And that bit of going right into Spain — of course! Why bother with the problems of going past a customs barrier at an airport and getting past the frontier both? Of course he would fly into Spain; it was the only thing that made sense. Why Zaragoza? Who cares! God, he must have been asleep when he let Huuygens pull all that garbage over on him! But he was awake now. Two can be cute, M’sieu Huuygens...

“Very good,” Schneller said with deep satisfaction. This was the true data, and about time! “How long is he in Lisbon?”

“If schedules are met, five hours.”

“And in Madrid?”

“He has a stopover there with an open ticket from Madrid to Zaragoza. I have no idea how long he plans to stay. I can get you the Iberia timetables, if you want.”

“It’s not important,” Schneller said and smiled at the telephone. “Very good, Gerhardt.” The compliment would probably cost him extra, but it was worth it. One possible flaw occurred to him. “Is there any way Huuygens can find out we have this information?”

“None,” Gerhardt said with conviction. “He handled the ticket purchase from his room and the clerk delivered the tickets to him; when he did, Huuygens gave the clerk a large tip — a very large tip — with the instructions that his booking was to remain a complete secret.”

“Then, how—”

“I simply gave the clerk a larger tip,” Gerhardt said calmly. “A much, much larger tip. And pointed out that I am here in Buenos Aires, whereas M’sieu Huuygens would be leaving, and therefore it would be wise to treat my deal with him a bit more confidentially than he treated M’sieu Huuygens’ deal. No. He won’t say anything.”

“Good,” Schneller said and tried not to think about the much muchness of the bribe, trying to concentrate on the good news instead. “Gerhardt, could you bother that clerk again?”

“For what I gave him I could bother him fifty times. Why?”

“I’d like plane schedules. Not just from Buenos Aires,” Schneller said, his brain really racing at last. It felt as if it had been freed from a fog-ridden prison. “From anywhere nearby. Montevideo. Asunción. Rio. São Paulo.” He bent closer to the telephone, his thick fingers toying with the tobacco pouch in his pocket, his mind fitting his facts into their proper slots neatly and definitively. “I want to get to Lisbon before he does. I’m sure he’s planning on getting out of Lisbon before anyone who might possibly be following him is aware he’s even left town. If I can get a quicker plane from Rio or São Paulo — Lufthansa, possibly, or Varig, or maybe even PAL — early this morning...”

“And to get to any of these places to catch your plane? Would you take a private charter?”

Schneller sat back in his chair. He had not considered a private plane; they had to cost a fortune! Still—

“If you have to,” he said bravely. “But then try for Montevideo, or Asunción. Not someplace too far...”

“I’ll be in touch,” Gerhardt said, not one to waste time, and hung up.

Schneller slowly lowered the receiver into place and leaned back, smiling, massaging the knuckles of one hand with the wide, calloused palm of the other, picturing his lethal fingers at work. Lisbon, eh? And then what was the man’s plan? Madrid and then where? Zaragoza? Whoever heard of it? Well, no matter. It was probably more of his smoke screen, in any event. Lisbon, yes, but after that nothing more for M’sieu Huuygens. He flexed his fingers and smiled more grimly. Oh, you’re a cute one, all right, M’sieu Huuygens. I’ll compliment you in person very quickly.

Nor will I need any help in the matter, he thought with satisfaction. No, M’sieu Huuygens, you will not get me to hire half of Berlin. I’ll do very well alone. Now that I know where you’ll be and when, I don’t need help. I’ll bet you are laughing right now, hein? Well, you thought I’d waste money on a young army, eh? You really figured I’d stay in a fog forever; you figured—

Good God! He had completely forgotten he still had not called Berlin back! Was it too late! Damn! Two men, one to Orly and another to Perpignan — and two more, one to London and the other to Gibraltar! Could they have already left? Four men and their expenses, and all needless! Damn that miserable Huuygens! This was all his fault; one more thing to pay for!

His hand shot out for the telephone, even his cigarettes forgotten for once.

13

It was a beautiful spring afternoon, warm and sunny, and the hired car hummed along smoothly, eating the miles of the wide parkway. The concrete sang beneath the tires, the open windows brought in the rich scent of newly mown grass. The city lay far behind, invisible even on that endless plain; here in the outskirts the bustle of the center seemed to belong to a different era as well as a different area. Little private housing developments, each styled quaintly, came and went like turreted villages of the past, their walled boundaries marching alongside the speeding car and then falling away to be replaced by another. On the distant horizon low clouds gave a simulation of hills, the only break in the monotony of the plain.

Kek Huuygens leaned back comfortably in the rear seat, his mind on the steps still to be taken to assure his success. His plan as far as Schneller was concerned was, he knew, a chancy one, but it had possibilities; even had it been more foolproof, though, it still would have required the supplemental help of a bit of luck, and he had to hope this would be around when needed. True, he always did his best to encourage luck to aid him, and this time had been no exception.

For example: Certainly by now even as stupid a person as Herr Schneller should have come to consider the possibility that the myriad destinations to which M’sieu Huuygens had purchased passage were all smoke screens. Certainly by now Herr Schneller should have come to consider the probability that M’sieu Huuygens had used the transportation desk in the hotel. And certainly by now Herr Schneller should have been able to rout out the clerk and bribe him enough to discover the ticket issued to Lisbon. Do not disappoint me, Schneller, Kek thought; do not be too bright, but do not be any more stupid than necessary, either. I have left you ample time to get to Lisbon ahead of me; be there when I get there so I can get you out of my hair once and for all. I have a suitcase to deliver, and you are promising to become a nuisance...

He glanced through the rear window of the hired car, wondering as he did so what purpose the check served. There was no indication that any of the many cars traveling in the same direction on the parkway behind him were necessarily interested in him. Or not interested in him, as far as that goes, he thought; it was a public highway, open to private detectives as well as virtuous smugglers. And it made little difference. In an hour he would be on his way, and if Schneller was not waiting for him in Lisbon, he’d have to worry about everyone around him from then on. Be stupid, Schneller, but not too stupid...

He turned back, facing the front, and then had to reach quickly for the strap as his driver swerved sharply through the wide gate and then straightened out into a lesser curve to bring the car to a stop before the main entrance of the airport. He descended and waited on the curb as his bag was hauled out from the driver’s seat. He paid the man and looked about. As he had known from his inspection of the premises on his arrival the previous day, a porter appeared almost instantly, his combination luggage truck and ticket stand filled with baggage checks for all airlines. Kek handed over the suitcase most willingly.

“KLM.”

“Yes, sir!” The porter picked up the suitcase, satisfied himself that its weight did not require verification, and reached for a KLM baggage ticket. “And your destination, sir?”

“Lisbon,” Kek said cheerfully.

“Yes, sir. Lisbon,” said the porter and drew a ticket properly marked LIS. He looped it around the handle of the covered suitcase, ripped off the stub in the same gesture, and handed it over, his palm out. Kek slipped it into his pocket, fumbled some change loose, and then stopped. His face was bright with embarrassment. The porter had a cold feeling something was going to cost him his tip.

“Sir?”

“I’m sorry,” Kek said and looked it. “I’m afraid my mind was wandering. Did I say Lisbon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m terribly sorry. I must have been thinking of something else. I meant Amsterdam.”

The porter smiled, relieved. “No trouble at all, sir.” He ripped the baggage tag from the handle, replaced it with one properly stamped AMS, and handed Kek the stub. Kek put it in his pocket and then remembered the old stub. He brought it out, tore it up, and dropped the pieces into a receptacle.

“Sorry,” he said, smiling self-deprecatingly, and tipped most generously.

“No trouble at all,” the porter assured him, pleased with the outcome of the matter, and wheeled the bag away.

Step one... Kek took a deep breath and walked into the large terminal, crossing the main lobby, his footsteps echoing hollowly on the polished terrazzo, his eyes routinely checking the faces of those he passed. There was none familiar, but then he realized he was being foolish. If Schneller had hired thugs to stay with him, he wouldn’t spot them in a one-second check. Forget it and hope he saw Schneller in person in Lisbon...

He walked over to the check-in desk of KLM and handed over his ticket envelope. A flaxen-haired lovely with perfect teeth and a well-filled blouse beneath her uniform jacket accepted the envelope; she took some of the contents and left some in the share-and-share alike of airlines throughout the world, punched, stamped, and stapled the remainder, clipped a seat assignment to the tattered remnants, and handed it back. Kek accepted it and wandered away, pitying the poor accountants who had to make sense from the paper chase that had to result from such a system.

A raucous screech from a wall-mounted loudspeaker was apparently being repeated; Kek managed to interpret it as the first call for his flight and made his way to a queue forming before a KLM standard. He relinquished his ticket; it was returned to him more mutilated than ever and he moved on. A uniformed policeman was diligently going through hand luggage on a small bench in the aisleway; Kek, empty-handed, passed on to be politely but thoroughly patted in a search for firearms by a second policeman. Behind him as he continued toward the plane the precautions against potential hijackers continued. Now that would really be smuggling, he thought with a smile, and entered the plane. I wonder how I’d go about smuggling a plane from one place to another without using the threat of a gun? Guns took all the skill out of it. A nice problem, and one with which to while away some of the long hours of the flight, except that he had a more important problem that required solution in the very near future. Could he hand over that suitcase to Sanchez without in some way punishing him for his impolite promotional methods in getting him to take the job? Honor demanded it...

He found his seat and sank into it. Too early to begin to worry about the problem of Sanchez and his just retribution; time now for step one-and-a-half. Step one-and-a-half was never written down or even memorized in the course of a Huuygens scheme; when practical it came between steps one and two. Step one-and-a-half involved getting outside of a few solid drinks once step one had been safely accomplished. The sad thing, of course, was that he would have to wait until takeoff before he could prevail on one of the stewardesses to fulfill the requirements. A pity, he thought, and leaned back, staring from the window of the plane at the terminal building and the file of people waiting to enter the cabin. Maybe he shouldn’t wait for step one-and-a-half to begin thinking of Sanchez’s payment; time was running out...

The night had come and passed; morning had been heralded by breakfast trays, with the inevitable tangle of serving stewardesses and passengers fighting for rest-room priority, toothbrushes in hand; this had been followed almost immediately, it seemed, by the confusion of cocktails and lunch. Now at long last the aisles were cleared, the last infant settled, the magazines retrieved, and the stewardesses now sat back in the galley, exhausted, tucking wisps of hair back under their caps and projecting their thoughts ahead to Schiphol and home.

The seat-belt warning was flashed on; as if in response, the 707 shuddered slightly as its landing gear was lowered. It locked in place with a thump that, as always, reminded passengers that after all airplanes were only machines and like all machines subject to sudden and unaccountable failure. The flaps came down, motors whining piteously; the plane’s speed was checked. Weary travelers scratched bearded cheeks and leaned to look through the windows, seeking communion with solid earth, watching the city of Lisbon reveal itself slowly beyond the frothy edge of the huge ocean they had just traversed. It had been a boring flight — the best kind to the minds of both passengers and crew — and most of them were thinking of clearing immigration and customs and then going somewhere for a hot bath and a better rest than the convoluted position demanded by aircraft seating permitted.

Most, but not all. Kek Huuygens’ thoughts were on neither. To begin with, he knew it would be a good ten hours more until a hot bath or rest would be possible; as for immigration and customs, he gave them no thought. His plans would work out or not; if not, alternate plans would be called for. His thoughts, therefore, were free of such mundane paths and were concentrated instead on perfecting the idea that had come to him in the long night. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, which had proven such a complication once upon a time when Kek had been attempting to aid a certain M’sieu Vries Waldeck get five million dollars into the United States, had more than repaid him. How lucky that Anita’s snoring — well, restlessness, say — had gotten him as far as “Elephants”! Now, assuming the prestigious encyclopedia was not in error — an unconscionable thought — he was fairly sure he knew how to teach Señor Sanchez a lesson. And one with a moral he could consider for some time.

It was a practical possibility, Kek was sure, although he would be pleased to have André’s advice and consent. It would scarcely do to blow themselves up in putting his scheme into practice; no matter how meritorious the idea, it was bound to be considered a failure in that circumstance.

He smiled happily to himself and stared down. The stained concrete of the Portela Airport in Lisbon was swirling upward to meet them; they touched down with a jar. The huge reactors instantly reversed themselves, jamming passengers back into their seats, and then released them as if by magic. The plane rolled gently down the runway, proud it had made it, and settled down, preening, before the terminal building. Seat belts were unfastened; people came to their feet in a daze, groping for belongings, amazed to be alive. There was a muffled clatter as the door was attacked from without, sunlight streamed into the cabin, and the huge bird began dropping passengers.

Kek followed the straggling line of loaded-down people into the terminal, squinting his eyes against the glare of sunlight reflected from the white building. In the distance the even blocks of apartment buildings along the Avenida Gago Coutinho stood etched against the horizon. Kek passed inside, waited his turn in immigration, presented his passport to have it stamped, and continued on past the bustling luggage racks to the customs area. An inspector detached himself from a group at the main desk and walked over, shaking his head.

“The senhor will need to get his luggage first—”

“I have no luggage.”

“No luggage?” It was quite unusual but not completely unknown. The inspector shrugged; it was not his province to see that passengers were properly accoutered. “Then, your passport, please? And your declaration form?”

Kek handed them over. The inspector frowned at the name, checked the face against the photograph in the booklet, and then nodded. He did not seem to be as surprised as most customs inspectors to find the famous — or infamous — Kek Huuygens at his station in the Lisbon customs. He nodded again and tipped his head, retaining possession of the passport. His voice was politeness itself.

“M’sieu Huuygens?”

“Yes?”

“If you could come with me, please?”

Kek stared. “May I ask why? Since I have no luggage?”

“Please...”

Kek shrugged hopelessly and followed along. They went through the gate, along a narrow aisle, and paused before a door. The inspector tapped on it with diffidence. A brusque voice from within bade them enter. The inspector opened the door and stood aside for Huuygens to go in first. Kek walked in. The inspector handed him his passport, backed out, and closed the door behind him. Kek turned. His eyes widened in surprise. Then he smiled in honest delight.

“Michel!” Michel Morell, assistant police chief of Lisbon and an old, old friend, sat behind a battered desk in the small room. It was stuffy in the room; a fan stood on a bracketed shelf in one corner, but it was not operating, nor did it appear to be in shape to operate. The assistant chief of police was looking at Kek steadily.

“Hello, Kek.”

Kek grinned. “Is that all the enthusiasm you can build up after all these years? How have you been? You’re looking well.” He looked about the shabby office as if noticing it for the first time. His face fell. “What happened, Michel? A reduction in rank?” He went on without awaiting an answer. “Imagine seeing you! Somewhat of a coincidence — I ran into André the other day—”

“I know,” Morell said quietly, interrupting. He picked up a pencil, beginning to twiddle it, watching it rather than Kek. “And it’s no coincidence. And there’s been no reduction in rank. I’m still with the police, not with customs, but in Portugal we have a bit more authority than in many other countries. Over many things.”

Kek swung his hand to indicate the office. “Then—”

“This isn’t my office. I came here to see you—”

Kek smiled. “That was nice!”

“—I heard you were passing through our city” — Morell looked up from the pencil; he smiled briefly, unhumorously — “and I thought it would be nice to make sure you did just that. Pass through, I mean.”

Kek frowned. “You heard I was passing through?”

“Yes.” Morell tossed the pencil aside. “I also saw André. Yesterday, in fact. He dropped into my office downtown for several reasons, one of which was to talk over old times. He mentioned he’d run into you on the street in Buenos Aires and that you’d be coming through Lisbon today on KLM—”

“André said that?” Huuygens sounded disappointed.

“Don’t blame him,” Morell said and shrugged. “He thought it would be a good idea if the three of us got together for old time’s sake.” He shook his head a bit sadly. “Old André isn’t too smart — he never was — but he meant well.”

“I suppose so,” Kek said and sighed. “However, I prefer my comings and goings to be treated with the same confidence with which I give them to people. Well, it makes no difference. However,” he went on, his face brightening at the thought, “we are all here together, so why not have that reunion?”

“For many reasons,” Morell said. He sounded almost bored with the conversation. “The main one being that you have a plane to catch.”

“I’ll postpone it!”

“You’ll take it,” Morell said evenly.

Kek looked at him, hurt and puzzled. “But why? I thought we were friends.”

“We were. And we are, anyplace except Lisbon.” Despite his. vaunted composure, Morell could not keep a touch of bitterness from his tone. “The last time you were here, friend, you very nearly got me fired. Worse, you came close to getting me imprisoned. And all for what I later heard were only a packet of miniature paintings—”

“Only!” Kek drew himself up. “They happened to be worth a fortune!”

“And that was worth putting me on the spot?”

“It had nothing to do with the miniatures, and you know it. It... it was necessary to... to get your help. The miniatures had nothing to do with it. And I knew you’d fall on your feet. You always have.”

“Thank you,” Morell said dryly. “In any event, do me a favor. Your plane to Madrid leaves in five hours, I am told. Be on it.”

“I have every intention of being on it,” Kek said stiffly.

“Good.” Morell’s black eyes studied the man before him. “No luggage?”

“None.”

“Which will save it being either searched or impounded,” Morell said and came to his feet. He hesitated a moment and then shrugged, a small dapper man with a frozen face and an erect, soldierly stance. “Sorry, Kek. I know the miniatures had nothing to do with it. As for my actions today, I hope there are no hard feelings.”

“I suppose everyone has to do his job as he sees fit,” Huuygens said sententiously and opened the door for Morell. “Well, we still have five hours. Let’s go downtown and have a drink.”

“I suggest you do your drinking alone,” Morell said with no expression, “and in the terminal.” He motioned Kek to precede him from the small office and closed the door behind them. He led the way past the customs gate to the main lobby of the terminal, Kek keeping pace with him. Morell paused in the center of the large room. For the first time he appeared a bit unhappy at his actions. “Good-bye, Kek.”

“Good-bye.” Kek put out his hand; Morell shook it hard. Huuygens put out a hand, claiming the other’s attention for a few more moments. “By the way, Michel, you said André dropped in to see you for several reasons. What were the other ones?”

“Just one other one. He was robbed,” Morell said. He sounded impatient with André.

“Robbed?”

“Yes. Can you imagine?” Morell shook his head. “I tell you, old André isn’t the man we used to know, believe me. In town five minutes, not even out of the airport proper, and somebody takes his suitcase away like candy from a baby! He says his back was turned for a second and the man — or woman, or whatever — must have picked it up and ran. He didn’t see a soul, but he still expects us to catch whoever did it and get his things back. André robbed like a child! Can you imagine?”

“Hardly...”

“Well, we all get old, I suppose.” Morell sighed, thought a moment, and then came from his reverie. He raised a hand. “Well, take care, Kek.”

“I shall. And you too,” Huuygens said softly and watched the military carriage of the dapper policeman as Morell walked out to his car. So André had been robbed of his suitcase, eh? My, my... He heard a small voice at about the level of his hip pocket and turned.

“Senhor?” A small boy was pushing an envelope in his direction.

“Yes?”

“A man said to give this to you. He said—” The boy swallowed; it seemed hard to believe now. “He said you’d give me” — the sum was really too much! — “fifty escudo...”

“He did, did he?”

Kek bit back a smile. If he was being watched, as he sincerely hoped he was, amusement was not indicated at this point. He took the envelope from the boy and handed him a fifty-escudo note; the lad scampered away before minds could be changed. Kek slit the envelope, removed a key, and pointedly searched the empty cover for a note he knew would not be there. He frowned at the number on the key and started toward one side of the large room. A loudspeaker suddenly exploded, announcing the final call for the continuation of his flight to Amsterdam. Kek paused to listen, his face expressionless, and then continued on toward the lockers, his senses keyed.

From his vantage point on the narrow balcony overlooking the main chamber of the airport terminal, Hans Schneller had seen Kek emerge from the customs in company with a small, dark man; he had seen them exchange a few words, shake hands, and part. He did not understand the role of the small, dark man in the nature of things, but he didn’t care. Huuygens was here before him, and that was all that was important, because where Huuygens was, the suitcase was sure to be. He continued to watch, peering about the edge of his opened newspaper; the revolver he had carried in the false bottom of his overnight bag was now in his jacket pocket ready for use, lost in the mountainous folds; its pressure against his heavy thigh was reassuring.

He saw the boy approach Kek with the envelope and saw Kek tip the boy and tear the envelope open. Schneller frowned. What was this? He saw Huuygens study the key as if surprised to see it; Schneller suddenly smiled. What an actor! Even at that distance he no longer had any doubts as to what he was seeing; he didn’t know how in the devil Huuygens had managed the legerdemain, but there was no doubt in his mind that the key was for one of the luggage lockers lining the walls of the chamber. Nor was there the slightest doubt as to what the locker contained. How the devil had Huuygens done it? No matter... He came to his feet, prepared to move swiftly down the flight of steps to the main floor. Huuygens was striding purposefully toward a stand of lockers almost directly beneath him. The newspaper was laid aside. It was time to act.

He came down the steps with surprising lightness in a man his size, walking up behind Huuygens. His hand was in his pocket, smothering the gun. Huuygens was fitting the key into the door of the locker. The stocky man paused in the act of opening the door and then spoke over his shoulder.

“You should stop smoking, Schneller. That wheeze of yours can be heard a block away.”

Schneller smiled grimly. His voice was little more than a whisper and he kept his lips rigid, prison-style, but it carried clearly to the other. “There’s a gun on you, Huuygens.”

Huuygens turned around slowly. His face was expressionless. He saw the bulge made by Schneller’s hand dug into the pocket. His eyes came up, curious.

“Why?”

“You know damn well why! Playing games still, eh? Still being cute, eh?” The smile seemed engraved on the large, flat face. “I saw the boy give you the key. Well, use it. Open the locker.”

Huuygens shrugged, a shrug of defeat. “If that’s what you want...”

“It’s what I want.”

Huuygens turned back. He twisted the key in the lock and pulled the door open. From behind him Schneller chuckled.

“A suitcase cover! I didn’t know they made them in these days of plastics. Not exactly the best disguise in the world, but I suppose my combination lock did attract attention.” His voice sobered. “All right. Take it down. That’s right... Now, set it on the floor. That’s right... No suspicious moves. Now turn and face me. That’s right... We’re just old acquaintances having a word with each other. Can’t you smile every now and then? Well, maybe not... All right, that’s enough conversation. Now we say good-bye. You will walk ahead of me; I will pick up the case and be a few paces behind. And no tricks. If you try to make a run for it, I’ll shoot you here and now...”

The proprietor of the newsstand had been watching the two but with no undue interest; now he turned to service a customer. Kek had the suitcase down and had straightened up.

“Very good,” Schneller said approvingly. “When you get outside you will turn left. I have a car in the parking lot. I’ll point it out to you outside. You will drive, I’ll be in the backseat. I’ll give you the keys when we’re in the car...”

Kek looked toward the door. A policeman there yawned and turned to stare into the driveway leading to the building. Did Morell leave word that he was to be stopped and turned back if he tried to leave the terminal building? Let us hope not, Kek prayed; it could ruin a fine plan.

“Let’s go...”

They were moving across the terminal now, Schneller carrying the suitcase easily in one hand. Kek walked ahead of him leisurely, approaching an exit. Time, he thought, and almost glanced at his wristwatch, though the actual hour had nothing to do with it. Come, come, André; let’s not cut it too fine! He need not have worried, for at that moment there was the sound of a scuffle behind him. He swung around and was not too greatly surprised to see André, with one huge hand gripping the suitcase handle. André’s face was indignant.

“Hey! My suitcase!”

Schneller was almost taken off guard; he managed to maintain his grip and tugged angrily. “Who the devil — Get your damned hands off my suitcase!”

“Get my hands off? Get my hands off?” André stared at the big blond man in amazement. “That’s my bag, you crook!” He turned, still holding the handle, his eyes sweeping the room. “Ah! Hey, police! Police!”

“Let go, you fool!” Schneller’s temper exploded. He swung around, his huge fist aimed at André; only the fact that his other hand was gripping the handle kept it from being a lethal blow. It struck André on the side of the head, knocking him to his knees, but the big man from Perpignan kept his grip on the suitcase. He struggled to his feet, murder in his eyes.

“Let go!” Schneller screamed. He was beginning to panic. Just when he had his hands on both Huuygens and the suitcase! And how did this ox withstand that blow? A policeman was hurrying over in response to the clamor. Schneller’s jaw tightened. He dragged out the pistol, shoving it in André’s face. “Let go, damn it!”

André’s face seemed to solidify to solid rock. He let go of the handle of the suitcase and in the same motion brought his huge fist up, crashing it against Schneller’s jaw. The blond giant was stunned momentarily; before he could recover his wits, a pile-driver blow to his stomach doubled him over. The coup de grâce was administered by another hamlike fist smashing at the back of the exposed neck. Under that battering the huge Schneller collapsed to the floor with a thud, his breath driven from him; the revolver stretched before him, useless. A policeman pushed through the crowd that had gathered, unbuttoning his holster.

“What’s the trouble here?”

“Hit me when I wasn’t looking!” André said furiously and then came back to the proper matter. “Bastard had my suitcase!” His voice had changed to indignation. “Swiped it yesterday! Must have ducked it into a locker and figured he could walk out with it today, just like that!” He rubbed a bruised knuckle.

The policeman studied him a moment and then looked down. He bent over and picked up the gun, examined it, and slid it into his pocket. The look on his face promised trouble for the man on the floor; guns in Portugal are less approved by the police than in most countries. He rebuttoned his holster and looked up at André.

“You can identify the contents of the suitcase?”

“Of course.”

“And you reported the theft?”

“Naturally.” André looked hurt at this suggestion of dereliction. “At headquarters. Actually, to Senhor Morell himself. An old friend of mine, I might add,” he said significantly.

The policeman looked at him without expression.

“Well,” he said, “let’s all go downtown and see what this is all about.” He was not loath; airport duty consisted mainly of returning lost children to frantic parents or being mistaken for a porter. He squatted beside the unconscious man, put handcuffs on him first as a precaution, and then began to slowly slap his face, trying to bring him out of his coma. André waited patiently.

It was nearly three hours later, and André had returned from headquarters. He and Kek were sitting on the outside terrace beyond the balcony of the terminal, having a long cool drink at one of the wire tables. André chuckled.

“Our friend Schneller isn’t too bright. Trying to tackle the entire police department, can you imagine? He’d be well advised to stop smoking if he wants to take on some of the thugs on Michel’s payroll two or three at a time. He’ll be lucky if he gets away with just attempted theft; the way Michel was talking, I have a hunch they’ll lock him up and make him eat the key. Striking a policeman!” He sounded shocked at the very idea.

“You should have explained to him,” Kek said with a smile and glanced at his watch. The KLM flight to Amsterdam should have arrived by now; time to get on with the job. And André had a plane to catch, as well. He drank up and motioned to André to follow suit.

“Lots of time,” André said. “Ten minutes before my flight, at least.” He drank up nonetheless and set his glass down. “Did Michel come up to your expectations?”

Kek laughed. “Dear Michel! He never disappoints. I knew he’d elect himself a one-man greeting committee.”

“I still don’t understand why you wanted him to be—”

Kek looked at him humorously. “Because, my friend, any regular customs inspector would have taken one look at my name and put me through a complete physical search. Such a thing would be repugnant to Michel, even if it occurred to him, and especially with a friend. And I had something on me I didn’t care to explain. This.” A baggage check stub appeared in his fingers as if by magic. He slid it back into his pocket and came to his feet, smiling. “Well, time to get to work.”

André also rose. “And I’ve my plane to catch.” He picked up the suitcase he had fought so hard to take from Schneller. “I’ll meet you in Zaragoza. When does your plane get there?”

“About eight or nine, depending on Iberia. Get us some decent rooms, and rent a car—”

“I know.”

“And stop in a hardware store and get me a big screwdriver and a roll of copper wire. And some batteries — large flashlight batteries will do, although batteries with terminals would be easier—”

André paused in moving off. He stared at the other man in alarm.

“A screwdriver and wire? Look, Kek — if you’re planning on trying to jump that circuit and then pry the suitcase open, do me a favor. Wait until I’m far away. Schneller may not be overbright, but he’s a damn good mechanic. You’ll blow yourself and the case all over the province!”

“Oh ye of little faith...”

“And why batteries? They have electric lights in Zaragoza! Unless you don’t want to see what you’re doing.”

Kek smiled at him gently. “Don’t worry about it. Just be sure to buy the stuff.” He looked at his wristwatch as the loudspeaker blared. “And there’s your plane. I’ll see you tonight.”

“All right,” André said, but he sounded dubious. He hefted the suitcase easily and walked off with a frown on his face. The batteries were beyond explanation completely, but the screwdriver and the wire? It sounded like asking for trouble...

Kek watched him go, waited a proper interval, and then followed the big man back into the terminal. He trotted down the steps to the main floor, paying no attention to André, marching toward an airline gate a bit ahead of him. Steps two and three — Morell and Schneller — had been taken care of. Now for step four — getting the suitcase into Spain without disturbing the even lives of the Customs Inspection Service. And then for step five, and the most important one at the moment: Sanchez...

He turned at the bottom of the steps, moving toward the KLM desk, wiping the easy expression from his face, replacing it with a scowl. It was a pity he was going to make a clerk there suffer, but — to coin a phrase — one could not make an omelet without breaking heads. It was sad that spirits also had to be broken at times...

14

The dapper young man behind the KLM desk looked up politely. His expression changed to one of concern as he noted the look on the face of the man glaring at him over the counter. Whatever had annoyed the gentleman, it must have been something serious, and the young clerk sincerely hoped it did not involve either himself or the airline he represented. This husky, gray-eyed man with the tough jaw looked as if he could be unpleasant when he wanted to, and this seemed to be one of the times he wanted to.

The young man came to his feet quickly, advancing to the counter.

“Sir?”

“Would you mind telling me what kind of an airline you people are supposed to be running?” Kek asked truculently and mentally apologized to Royal Dutch Airlines, one of his favorites.

“Sir?”

Kek glared. “In addition to all other annoyances, does KLM also hire clerks who are deaf?”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but if you have any complaint, I’ll be only too happy to do what I can...”

“Then I suggest you try magic,” Kek said sourly. He dug into a pocket and brought out a ticket stub. “This, in case you’ve never seen one before, is a receipt for baggage. I arrived on your flight eight thirty-two from Buenos Aires three hours ago and I’ve spent that time looking for my suitcase! Three hours! I’ve had porters looking for it, I’ve spoken to the people who bring the luggage from the plane to the terminal, but do you think they ever bother to look at what they’re doing? Never! Irresponsible, that’s what it is! I went to the baggage master—”

“I’m sorry—”

“Sorry! Who cares if you’re sorry or not? I’d scarcely expect you to be happy! But that doesn’t get me my bag, does it? Is that the way you people handle baggage?”

“Oh, no, sir,” the young man said fervently and wished he had either taken the day off or chosen another line of endeavor completely. “We seldom lose luggage, but accidents do occur, you know—” He reached under the counter for a form and slid it hesitantly across the counter, anticipating an explosion. “If you’d care to fill this out...” He swallowed. “Our liability is limited to—”

“The devil with what you think your liability is limited to! Do you think I’m intimidated by a flock of small print on the back of a airplane ticket? Don’t be silly! And I don’t fill out forms, for your information, without my lawyer’s approval!” He looked at his wristwatch, his handsome face dark with righteous anger. “Three hours! That flight’s in Amsterdam by now! It takes less time to get from Lisbon to Amsterdam than it does to find a suitcase, for God’s sake!” He glared and muttered. “Amsterdam!”

A thought came to the young clerk, out of thin air.

“Sir — maybe your bag was mis-ticketed...”

“How the devil could it have been mis-ticketed? I have a stub right here that says Lisbon, doesn’t it? You may be deaf but you can read, can’t you? How could even the most misguided employee of yours manage to put a tag on a suitcase for Amsterdam and then give me a stub for Lisbon? Even at your company?” He snorted.

“Sometimes tags come off in transit, sir, or get mutilated. And sometimes, if it happens at the departing airport, the baggage handling people try to remember—”

“Try to remember? Who gave them which for where? A guessing game? Good God! What a way to handle luggage!”

“I mean, sir — we usually take any unidentified luggage to the home airport, sir. In this case, Schiphol...”

Kek shook his head at this new evidence of mismanagement.

“My God!” he said and then gave in grudgingly. “Well, I suppose it’s a possibility, even if a small one.” He waited a second and then looked up, glaring at the red-faced young man. “Well, what are you waiting for? You’ve got a teletype to Amsterdam from here, don’t you?”

The young man snapped erect. “Oh, yes, sir, we do. We do!” He disappeared into a back room only to appear again almost instantly. “A description, sir—?”

“Why?” Kek asked tartly. “Do you expect to find a dozen extra suitcases that have been mis-ticketed in Amsterdam? I wouldn’t be surprised! Well, it’s a one-suiter, brown plastic; it’s in a plaid-design canvas suitcase cover.”

“And your name, sir?”

“You’ll be wanting my fingerprints next, I expect! The name is Huuygens, Kek Huuygens. The bag has an identification tag under the handle — if one of your people hasn’t torn it off by now—”

“Yes, sir!”

The boy hurried back into the rear room; the sound of the teletype starting up could be heard, stammering electrically. Kek bit back a rather shamefaced smile; acting the part of the heavy did not particularly please him, but in this case it was essential. He wanted reactions to be automatic, not reasoned. He only hoped the boy was adding a bit of description about his recalcitrant customer. When it was all over, he promised, he would manage to apologize in some fashion — write them it was part of Candid Camera, or something. There was a pause in the rattling noise, a sharp ring, and then the stuttering returned. Kek waited, giving every indication of impatience. At long last the young man emerged from the back room. He was weak with relief.

“We’ve located your suitcase, sir. It was ticketed for Amsterdam. How, we don’t know, but they have it at Schiphol, sir.”

If he expected this news to transform the terrible-tempered client across the counter from him, he was doomed to disappointment.

“And what am I supposed to do? Run up to Schiphol and claim it?”

“Oh, no, sir!” The young man was shocked at the very idea. “We’ll fly it back on the first plane—”

“And I’m supposed to wait for it here? My dear young man, I have a plane to Barcelona that leaves in less than two hours. TWA flight one eighty-six. Can you fly my bag back here before I embark?”

The young man’s face fell. And everything had been going along so well, too! “I’m afraid not, sir.” Suddenly he brightened, coming up with the suggestion seconds before Kek would have led him to it. “But we could fly it to Barcelona from Schiphol, sir. You could pick it up there.”

Huuygens considered this possibility. His face clearly indicated that he wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect of continuing on without his bag, but there seemed to be no other solution.

“Well, all right,” he said at last with poor grace. “But do me a favor; put on that teletype the fact that I fully intend to carry this matter farther! It’s pretty bad when a paying customer has to go chasing all over an airport to get his bag, simply because of the errors of someone else someplace else!”

“You won’t have to chase around, sir. We’ll have a representative bring it to you in the international division, sir. It’s where you arrive when you get into Barcelona from Lisbon. Between immigration and customs, sir. You’ll be paged, sir.”

“I know where it is! This isn’t the first trip I’ve ever made, you know!” Kek said testily. “Well, if that’s the best you can do... Get back to your teletype and tell them to send it to Barcelona, or they’ll have it in Beirut, or someplace equally outlandish! And you can definitely inform your management that they haven’t heard the last of this matter, believe me!”

He turned away abruptly without a word of thanks for the young man who had located his suitcase. The clerk sighed, shook his head, and went back to his teletype to beg the folks in Amsterdam to please for God’s sake get the maniac’s bag on the first plane to Barcelona. Then he put through the call letters for Barcelona to give instructions and commiseration to the poor devil there who had to deliver the suitcase to this unreasonable customer.

Kek climbed the steps to the balcony and walked out onto the terrace. He still had over an hour for his plane, and a drink would taste good and take the savor of his play-acting away. He sat down at a table and waved for a waiter.

So far, so good. His widely traveled suitcase was about to be shipped off to Barcelona while he would shortly take off for Madrid. He shook his head sadly, but his eyes twinkled. What a way to run an airline!

Trans World Airlines flight number 186 banked sharply in the high, cold air, moving into its landing pattern for Barajas Airport in Madrid. Above the tilted wing Kek could see the mountains, snow-capped and formidable, looming to the north. The plane straightened for its final leg; the city of Madrid tipped straight in the distance. Madrid, seen from the air, gave the appearance of a walled encampment; the apartment buildings marched to the end of the wide avenues and then stopped abruptly. There appeared to be no suburbs as other cities had, no gradual dwindling of structure or tone of neighborhood, no increase in vegetation. Madrid, Kek always thought, looked as if it had been made by some gigantic chef in the form of a huge brick-colored five-layer cake, with the chef, his creation finished and neatly trimmed, wiping away the excess dough.

The plane touched down on the high plateau, rolling to a stop before the terminal. Kek awaited his turn to leave the plane, not overly surprised at the sharp chill in the air. October in Madrid was vastly different in temperature from October in Lisbon; here winter came early and stayed long. He wished he had brought along a topcoat but then reflected it would merely have been one more piece of clothing for the Madrid customs people to maul and wrinkle. Anita complained enough as it was about the condition of his clothes when he returned from a trip.

He descended the steep aluminum steps and followed the straggling line of passengers into the terminal building, grateful for the heat provided even this early in the cold season. With the others he stood patiently in line at immigration and received, eventually, the usual stamp to add to the already large collection in his passport. With a sigh at the inevitability of the search he knew would be forthcoming, he walked into customs and handed his passport to the first inspector he saw, prepared for the worst.

He was not disappointed. The inspector he had selected, he suspected, had been passed over once for advancement and was determined not to have it happen again, if dedication to his job could prevent it. He went about his task of searching Kek with a thoroughness and eagerness equal to anything Huuygens had encountered anywhere before. Still, he was sure that with any other inspector the result would have been the same; it was an occupational hazard with him. By the time the enthusiastic inspector reluctantly gave up and allowed Kek to leave the little private office, the other passengers had all cleared customs and left the depressing area deserted, the luggage counters twisted and littered with tags and papers. Kek walked into the terminal lobby, straightening his jacket and consulting his wristwatch.

Six in the evening, Madrid time. Almost twenty hours since he had left Ezeiza in Buenos Aires, and still more time to be spent and work to be done. The thought of a hot shower, followed by a good meal both preceded and accompanied by Don Carlos Primero, was pleasant to contemplate, but unfortunately the schedule did not permit. Ah, well, he said to himself, nobody forced you to take up smuggling as a career... He sighed and walked over to the KLM counter, prepared to carry on his charade. A young man moved over to take care of Kek and his problem; he might have been a brother to the one in Lisbon. Kek felt sorry for the whole family.

“Sir?”

“A suitcase,” Kek said with a weariness not all simulated. “The name is Huuygens.”

The clerk frowned uncertainly. “I beg your pardon?”

“A suitcase,” Kek repeated, his voice a trifle sharper. “A brown suitcase in a plaid canvas cover. With an identification tag under the handle. Clearly marked with my name, which happens to be Huuygens.”

“I’m sorry. Do you mean you left it here with someone? I don’t believe I’ve seen any suitcase—”

“No!” Kek shook his head impatiently. “Listen carefully,” he said, speaking distinctly and spacing his words in a manner used with the hard-of-hearing or the mentally deficient. “I flew from Buenos Aires to Lisbon by KLM, flight number eight thirty-two. I arrived in Lisbon around noon or a little before. My suitcase did not. I complained to the KLM people in Lisbon. They checked by teletype and verified that some idiot somewhere along the line had apparently mis-tagged my bag and that it had gone on to Amsterdam. They said they would fly it to Madrid so that it would be here when I arrived. I have now arrived. I am asking for my bag.” He studied the young man carefully, as if to make sure his masterful and cogent exposition had not been wasted. “Do you have the faintest idea of what I’m talking about?” he asked curiously.

The young man shook his head. “They were going to send your suitcase here to Madrid? We’ve heard nothing about it.” A thought occurred to him. “It would have been held between immigration and customs—”

“I just came through there,” Kek said.

“Yes, sir. I would have known, anyway...” The young man shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir.”

Kek visibly forced down his anger, sighing in frustration instead. He ran his hand through his thick, curly hair, pounded it softly on the counter, and looked about the lobby as if seeking some reason to control himself. It was too much! This massive demonstration of absolute, complete disorganization was not to be tolerated! He brought his eyes back to the pale youth waiting on the other side of the counter.

“Tell me,” Kek said quietly, the totality of his irritation now plainly beyond a mere exhibition of temper, “what does it take to get one’s luggage from your company? Dynamite? Blackmail? A personal acquaintanceship with a director? Don’t be afraid — tell me and I’ll try to arrange it.”

The young man’s face was red. “They always let us know about luggage that has gone astray and is being sent to us, sir,” he said. “We have to see it’s picked up from the stewardess and held at the customs barrier. And we’ve had no—”

“—word about a suitcase for me,” Kek finished. “And there’s been more than ample time for it to have arrived.” He nodded and leaned forward confidentially, his voice quiet. “Tell me something: Do you suppose your people in Amsterdam would be greatly disturbed if we broke an apparent rule and teletyped them to ask WHAT IN HELL THEY’VE DONE WITH MY SUITCASE?”

The young man jumped back from the blast, his face white.

“No, sir,” he said hurriedly. “I’m sorry. I’ll get right on the teletype to them and find out what’s happened.”

“Thank you,” Kek said courteously. “And tell them that I’m a patient man but my patience is fraying. As are the cuffs of my shirt, and if I get some rare skin ailment from wearing it endlessly, I shall sue them for my doctor bills. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll tell them...”

“Thank you,” Kek said politely and watched the young man escape into the rear room of the airline section. He was sorry to be so brusque, but there was nothing else for it. He stopped worrying about it and wandered over to buy a Paris-Match to pass the time. He came back and leaned on the counter top, reading the inevitable article in that magazine on mountain climbing; he had come to the usual statistics on comparative avalanche damage, when the young man sidled up on the other side of the counter and cleared his throat. He was bearing a strip of yellow paper torn from the teletype machine and he looked as if he were on his way to the dentist.

“Sir...”

Kek looked up from the magazine article; this year Chamonix had managed to outdo Kandersteg in both damage and deaths. French pride was assuaged. “Yes?”

“There’s apparently been some—” The young man faltered on the word “mistake.” Still, “error” would be no better, and he was sure that a reprise of “mis-tagged” would bring down the vaulted ceiling. He swallowed painfully. “Your bag is just coming into Barcelona on a plane now, sir...”

Kek stared at him, utterly stunned. The magazine lay forgotten.

“May I ask what it’s doing in Barcelona? You did say Barcelona, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir. I don’t know, sir. I mean, they sent it there.”

“They sent it there. To Barcelona. Where it’s coming in to land. And where it will wait.” Kek’s voice was conversational. “Tell me, since I have neither immediate nor long-range plans for visiting Barcelona, how long do you think my bag will wait for me before it decides it’s tired of waiting and just goes off?”

The sarcasm did not further unnerve the young clerk; he was beyond that. His voice had a tone of quiet desperation, as if he were merely waiting for his shift to end so he could go somewhere and get drunk.

“I’m sorry about the difficulty, sir, but it’s only an hour’s flight from Barcelona to Madrid, sir. We don’t fly that leg, but Iberia has frequent flights, almost every hour. I’m sure I can arrange to have your bag here in Madrid in three or four hours at the most.”

Kek smiled grimly. His gray eyes narrowed but did not leave the other’s face.

“My entire life is being directed for me by one small suitcase and one large group of incompetents!” He straightened up, tapping the folded Paris-Match dangerously in one palm for emphasis. “I have an important appointment in Aragon — in Zaragoza, to be exact — and my flight leaves in exactly thirty minutes. As you know, Iberia does not have flights to Zaragoza every hour; this is the last flight today. To miss this flight would mean—”

“Could I ask where you go from Zaragoza, sir?”

Kek stared at him in astonishment.

“Are you suggesting I give up my business and take on the profession of chasing my suitcase? Or that I spend the rest of my life in this shirt as a penance for traveling on your airline? Or that... that—” He gave up, shaking his head in amazement at the implied suggestion. “This is truly unbelievable!”

There was a moment’s silence; then the young man cleared his throat.

“Possibly we could get your suitcase to you in Zaragoza, sir. Iberia flies there from Barcelona—”

“They do?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do they have any more flights today?”

“One moment, sir...” An official airline guide was unearthed and leafed through. The boy’s moving finger slid down a column and paused. He looked up in obvious relief. “They only have one flight, sir, but it’s an evening one. They could still make it today...”

Kek looked at him. “Well! Do you suppose your company can manage to get my suitcase to Iberia for its flight without shipping it to Zanzibar or Chicago this time?” The young man stood silent, watching the man across from him as if paralyzed. Kek broke up the coma. “Does your teletype run itself? Or would your expertise be of any help?”

“Yes, sir,” the young man mumbled and staggered away.

Kek returned to his Paris-Match. He finished the article on mountain disasters, the one on the latest fashions (pant-suit bikinis for winter wear), and was starting on the normal explanation of France’s failure in World Cup football when the young man returned. He seemed to be sleepwalking.

“Your bag is just coming off our Amsterdam-Barcelona flight now, sir. They’ll be able to catch the Iberia flight to Zaragoza, sir. It will be waiting for you when you arrive, I’m sure,” he said in a dazed fashion.

“Thank you,” Kek said politely and nodded abruptly. He marched off, carrying the folded Paris-Match like a colorful baton, moving toward the doorway leading to the bar.

Still half an hour to go, and it might as well be spent usefully. And he really had to write a letter to KLM one of these days apologizing for his conduct, he thought with a smile, and pushed into the dimness of the cocktail lounge while visions of cognac danced in his head.

Kek hadn’t known that DC-3’s were still flying, and he was inordinately pleased a little less than an hour after leaving Madrid to know that the same number were as had been when he left the capital. Happy and slightly surprised, he climbed from the small plane, deafened and shaken but all in one piece, and made for the small building that served Zaragoza as terminal, weather station, taxi stand, and sightseeing object for local residents. It was many years since Kek had found himself at a small airport, but if his scheme actually worked, as it had every indication of doing, he promised himself that small airports would see him frequently. Until the word got out that Kek Huuygens was traveling to small airports, of course, at which time a new ploy would be required. He had no doubt that at that time a new ploy would be invented.

He followed the other three passengers into the building, basking in the warmth of the evening, now that the high plateau of Madrid had been left. A small counter in one corner advertised Iberia Airlines, and he made his way to it. It was deserted. He rapped on it a bit sharply. A wizened old man came from behind the coffee counter and walked over, drying his hands on an apron. His face was dark with distaste. This time Kek was politeness itself.

“I beg your pardon, but the Iberia clerk—”

“That’s me. What d’you want?”

“A suitcase was supposed to be delivered here for me? By Iberia, from Barcelona?” And wouldn’t it be too bad if KLM really made a mistake this time and his suitcase was on its way to Madagascar or someplace?

“Your name Huuygens?”

Kek did not allow the sweep of relief to show on his face. “Yes.”

“Boys who delivered it said you’ve been giving the kids from KLM a pretty rough time along the line,” the old man said. He didn’t look pleased with the man facing him; it was true that as Iberia’s agent in Zaragoza he did not hold as glamorous a position as agents in bigger cities, but he felt a kinship with the others. “Not their fault a suitcase gets lost, you know...”

Kek smiled at him. The perfect answer occurred to him.

“Tell the boys to pass the word back along the line that I’m an inspector with KLM. I was merely checking the politeness and efficiency of the boys. They all passed with flying colors,” he added, the smile still on his face. “My suitcase?”

The old man was far from mollified with the explanation. To his mind inspectors were as bad as complaining customers — worse, in fact. Stool pigeons, the lot of them.

“My suitcase,” Kek repeated. The smile was becoming strained.

“Well, all right...” The old man bent down behind the counter, tugging. The case came up; he set it on the counter, his hand still on it as if for protection.

“Thank you,” Kek said evenly and picked it from the old man’s hands. He nodded once in thanks and walked outside.

And that was that. It had been just as simple as he had envisioned. Merely have his suitcase chase him from airport to airport until it caught up with him at a local airport without customs service...

15

A car’s lights flashed on from the parking lot; there was the sound of a motor catching, an engine revving up. The car’s lights backed out and turned, swinging about the lot, illuminating it, and then drawing closer. The car pulled up before the entrance and André leaned over, opening the door. Kek slid in, placed the suitcase on the backseat next to its mate, and slammed the door. André grinned at him and gunned the car down the driveway, heading for their inn.

“Any trouble?”

“None,” Kek said wearily. “It went just about as scheduled.” He sighed. “I’d better not travel on KLM for a while, though. I have a feeling I’m not in their best graces.” He looked across the car. “Did you get us rooms?”

“Best in town,” André said expansively. His face fell a bit. “It’s still not the Ritz, you understand.”

“And the screwdriver and the batteries? And the wire?”

André paused at a crossroad, checked traffic, and then turned into it. He glanced at Kek sideways. He didn’t sound happy.

“I got them, but I think we’re asking for trouble trying to force that case. We both agreed it couldn’t be opened without blowing the two of us to kingdom come. And even if we don’t scatter ourselves all over Zaragoza, if there are any signs of tampering... Well, don’t forget that Sanchez still has Anita.”

Kek looked at him. “Do you think I’m forgetting that?”

“No,” André said. He looked uncomfortable. “But you know what I mean—”

“Look,” Kek said quietly. “We brought the suitcase into Spain despite Herr Schneller and customs both. Now we’re going to teach Señor Luis Sanchez not to be impolite to young ladies. And not to get M’sieu Kek Huuygens to bring narcotics to him across national boundaries!”

“Except that killing ourselves doesn’t sound like much of a lesson to Luis Sanchez—”

“We’re not going to kill ourselves. I hope. Anyway, we’ll discuss it in the morning,” Kek said and yawned deeply. His eyes suddenly opened wide as he thought of something else. “I hope you have some decent cognac in your room.”

“Plenty. But about the suitcase—”

“Forget it until tomorrow. Trust me.”

“I trust you,” André said, “and I know you know a lot, but you don’t know too much about locks—”

“I said, trust me,” Kek repeated and grinned in the darkness. “Or, rather, trust me and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Between us we know just about everything...”

A good night’s sleep and a typically Aragonian breakfast did much to bring Kek Huuygens back to his normal spirits; forgotten was the long, tiresome plane trip, the irritation of the personal search suffered in Madrid, and even the mental discomfort of playing the part of the boorish airline passenger with the lost suitcase. Even Hans Schneller, now undoubtedly wishing he had not pitted himself against Kek Huuygens — not to mention André and the entire Lisbon police department — played no part in his thoughts. His concentration was dedicated entirely to Señor Luis Sanchez and the punishment he merited. When he thought of his plans he was forced to grin.

They paused outside the breakfast room of the inn. The morning sun coming over the hills to the east touched the sill of a low window, sending their shadows grotesquely down the long corridor. Kek looked up at his large companion.

“André, those things you bought yesterday—”

André nodded. The mystery was to be revealed at last, and about time. “They’re in the car. I’ll get them.”

“No,” Kek said. “Just bring the car around. I’ll pay the bill and get the bags. This isn’t the place to—” He broke off.

“To do what?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s what I think we should be doing about it,” André said. “Nothing.”

“The car,” Kek said and started climbing the steps to their rooms. André went outside, shaking his head. The suitcase was dynamite — real dynamite — and only fools played with it. Fools or very stubborn people like someone he knew...

The car was parked in the rear of the inn, outside of an old barn. André walked around the car as if to make sure it hadn’t been stolen in the night, then made a second tour, this time for the time-honored purpose of kicking the tires. Their excellent condition was testified to by the fact that they did not collapse under the monstrous boot. Whistling, he climbed back of the wheel and drove around to the front of the inn. Kek was standing there with the two suitcases; he set them in the back and got in.

“You know your way?”

“Me?” André looked hurt. “I hitchhiked to Barcelona from Lisbon a year ago and got myself stuck in these parts for three days. Know it? Like a native.” He turned onto the main highway and speeded up. “If I’d been here another two days, I could have voted.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Kek said. “Once we get out of town, find us a small road off to one side — going to a farm or something. I want a place that’s deserted.”

“Deserted places are what they have around here in abundance, but why?” He brought his attention back to the road in time to miss an elderly bicyclist pedaling along on the edge of the road. André pulled past and brought his attention back to Huuygens. “I’d hoped you had given up your notion of messing around with the suitcase.”

“Just one small mess around,” Kek said, but there was no humor in his voice. His eyes were somber as he studied the countryside. Suddenly he pointed. “How about that road there?”

André sighed. This Kek was a stubborn, stubborn man! Hard-headed. But not to be denied. The big man touched the brake, slowed down, and turned the wheel; they bumped from the smooth asphalt to a rutted dirt road that wound off into the rolling hills, quickly taking them from sight of the highway. André’s hands were loose on the steering wheel; they swayed and bounced with the dips and rises. They had gone on for about five minutes when Kek put his hand on the other’s arm.

“This should do it...”

André obediently pulled the car from the road to the grassy shoulder and brought it to a stop. Kek climbed down, pulled the suitcase from the backseat, and then looked up at the big man.

“The stuff—”

“Look, Kek—”

“Yes?”

André paused at the tone the other man used; there was danger in it. He sighed helplessly and opened the glove compartment. The items were dug out and handed over.

“Fine,” Kek said. “Now, you drive on about five hundred yards and wait until I wave to you. The book didn’t say anything about blowing oneself up doing this, but there’s no sense in taking any more chances than necessary.”

“You better let me handle any blowing up,” André said evenly. “That used to be my profession, in case you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget,” Kek said and flashed a brief, sudden smile. “The only thing is I read the encyclopedia, and you didn’t.” The smile disappeared.

André looked at him a moment and shrugged. There was no arguing with the man. He put the car into gear and bumped along the shoulder rather than attempting to dip back to the road at that point. It seemed clear that Kek was planning to blow the suitcase up from a distance, something quite obviously impossible at the inn. That would explain the spool of wire and the batteries, but why the screwdriver? To make contact with something? As an old dynamiter, André was hard put to understand the means Kek planned.

Nor why he had gone through all the trouble of smuggling the suitcase successfully into Spain just to dispose of it. It could have been destroyed as easily in Argentina; they sold wire and screwdrivers and batteries down there as well. A further thought made the whole thing even more inexplicable — without the suitcase, what did Kek plan to say to Luis Sanchez? After all, the skinny man from Barcelona still held Anita...

The whole thing didn’t make sense. He awoke from his reverie to find himself much more than five hundred yards away and, in addition, around a bend in the road. He also found himself hunched over the wheel, as if in anticipation of the explosion’s roar. He dipped back into the road, managed to turn around in an old cart path, and rocked back over the ruts in the direction he had come from. He negotiated the curve and began to brake as soon as he saw Huuygens; Kek was waving him on. André stepped on the accelerator and instantly braked again. It would benefit nobody to break a crankshaft or axle!

He drew up before Huuygens, frowning. Kek climbed into the car, dragging the suitcase after him. He placed it in the rear, tossed the other items into the glove compartment, and looked at André.

“Let’s go.”

André frowned. “What happened?” He put the car in gear; they bounced along the rough road. “Change your mind?”

Kek laughed. He seemed much more relaxed.

“No, I didn’t change my mind. It’s just that the Encyclopaedia Britannica and I work fast.” He leaned back. “I think I’ll take a nap. We still have a big day ahead. I’ll spell you driving when we leave Barcelona. Try to pick out the soft spots in the road.” He closed his eyes and then opened them. “By the way, I called Sanchez this morning before breakfast. We’re to meet him at noon at a place called Villarino Bar. In the manager’s office. Do you know it?”

“Know it?” André said. He sounded insulted. “I called you from there. That’s where I finally ran Duarte to ground.”

“Fine!” Kek’s eyes were twinkling. “Sanchez was quite pleased we were ahead of schedule. May he stay pleased for a long time! Poor Schneller...”

Poor Schneller? André frowned. Where did Schneller come into the picture? Of course there were many reasons for saying “Poor Schneller,” but none of them seemed appropriate in the circumstance. André glanced at the man beside him.

“Poor Schneller?”

“He’ll have a lot of explaining to do for a long time to come,” Kek said cryptically and closed his eyes a second time.

The high-crowned asphalt highway leading east from Zaragoza winds alongside the twisting Ebro River through the rolling hills of Los Monegros; at Mequinenza one is given a choice of routes to get to Barcelona. It was early; André decided on the longer but more scenic way, through Ascó and Reus, dipping down to the Mediterranean at Tarragona and taking the road along the bluffs above the sea, coming upon Barcelona from the south. The day was brilliant with sunshine and tiny, puffy white clouds against a sky as blue as the sea that accompanied them.

André handled the car with ease; at his side Kek slept peacefully. It was the bumping over cobblestones and the increased sounds of traffic that finally brought him from his nap. They were well within the city. He yawned and sat up, looking around.

“Where are we?”

“Barcelona,” André said, a bit proudly.

“So soon?” Kek yawned and looked at his watch. “No — right on time. How far to the Villarino?”

“About three blocks,” André said. “It’s in the Plaza de Antonio Lopez.” He slowed down and stopped for a policeman directing traffic.

Kek frowned in thought. “Take a turn around the plaza when you get there; point the place out to me. Then stop around the first corner and let me out. And wait for me there.” He anticipated the argument and answered it. “Muscle wouldn’t help if there’s trouble; I’m sure Sanchez is prepared for any contingency along those lines. And there’s going to be no trouble.” He smiled. “Not for us...”

“Well, all right,” André said. He didn’t sound as sure as his companion, but he was prepared to go along with him for the time being at least. “But if you aren’t out of there in fifteen minutes—”

“Just don’t call the police,” Kek said and laughed.

André was not amused. He turned into the square, passing a large truck, and made a turn around it, jerking his head toward the bar. It wasn’t really necessary; the Villarino was well advertised by a huge sign that covered the width of the building. André pulled around the next corner and stopped; Kek got down and dragged the suitcase free.

“This shouldn’t take too long—”

“It better not,” André said ominously. “You sure you don’t want help?”

“I want you right here with the car, ready to go.”

He winked at the big man behind the wheel and walked around the corner and back toward the bar. If the Encyclopaedia Britannica was worth the price, the adventure of the suitcase should end on a note that would not only repay his time and trouble, but also repay Sanchez for his poor manners with women. He threaded his way through the marble-topped tables, deserted at that hour of siesta, and came into the cool dimness of the bar. Two men leaning on the long counter considered him carefully. One studied the suitcase a moment and straightened up.

“Huuygens?”

“That’s right.”

“You alone?”

Kek looked at him. The man looked a bit confused and then tipped his head. “This way.”

He led the way to the back of the long room, turned into a corridor, and tapped on a door at its end. Without waiting for a response, he swung the door open and jerked his head in command for Kek to enter. Kek smiled at him genially and walked into the room.

The first thing his eyes sought and found was Anita. She was sitting quite calmly near the window, smoking. She smiled at him and nodded but did not speak. Kek turned. Sanchez was sitting at the manager’s desk, his thin fingers tapping the blotter restlessly. A short, fat man sat beside him — Duarte, Kek decided. Four men, tough-looking and obviously armed, completed the complement, standing at various places along the wall, making the room appear smaller than it was. Kek brought his attention back to Anita, speaking over Sanchez’s head.

“How are you, honey? Did they treat you well?”

“Fine, dear. I’m a bit tired, though...”

“We’ll be leaving soon, sweet.” He smiled at her and turned to Sanchez, the smile still on his face. “Here’s your suitcase, señor. A paper to sign and I believe we can complete our business.”

“In a moment...” Sanchez reached out and took the suitcase from him. He fished a monocle from a pocket, screwed it in place, and studied the combination lock. Whatever markings had been put there to determine authenticity apparently he found. He smiled, looked at Duarte as if to say I told you so, and nodded at Kek.

“You have the escrow paper?” Kek reached into his pocket and handed it over. Sanchez studied it a moment, signed it with a flourish, and handed it back. “There we are. A pleasure to do business with you, m’sieu.” His head turned to look at Anita. “Mademoiselle, your company was a pleasure.”

Anita looked at Kek, surprised it had been that easy.

“We can go?”

“I’d just like to wait and see the suitcase open, if I could. After all—”

“You can go, m’sieu.” It was Duarte, and both his voice and his face were hard. “You did your job and you’ve been well paid for it. I suggest you and your — your girl — go quickly and quietly.”

Anita came to her feet eagerly. Kek shrugged.

“If you put it like that, of course... Good afternoon, gentlemen.” He paused at the door, his arm around Anita’s shoulder. “By the way, in the future I suggest you get someone else to run your errands. I don’t care for your methods.”

“Don’t worry,” Duarte said flatly.

“Thank you,” Kek said, as if in gratitude, and ushered Anita out.

He led the way through the empty bar at a reasonable pace, but once in the street he took her arm and hurried her toward the car. She followed along willingly. André had the car door open for them as soon as he saw them come around the corner. They crowded into the front seat with him; the big man stepped on the accelerator, wheeling away from the curb, turning toward the avenue leading from the square to the west. Kek put his hand out.

“No— Wait. You know that little street that goes past the manager’s window in the back? There was a window—”

“I know it.” André frowned. “What about it?”

“Pull in there a minute.”

André stared at him a second and then shrugged. He obediently swung the car around. Kek was grinning. They passed the bar, turned a corner. André braked slightly and swung hard. They bounced into a narrow alley. The open window of the manager’s office could be seen a bit farther along. Kek dropped his voice.

“Don’t pass it. Stop here.”

André brought the car to a halt; the engine pulsed quietly. He looked at Kek, frowning. Kek had his hand up in anticipation; there was a look of glee on his face. Suddenly André’s attention swung to the window. There was the sharp sound of ringing, instantly cut off. Both André and Anita stared at Kek. He still held his hand up, commanding them to wait, his face hard put to contain his laughter. The sound of the strident bell came again and again was instantly cut off. Kek winked at André.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

André backed the car from the alley; he swung the wheel and headed them for the river avenue and the road north to Mataró and eventually the border.

“All right,” he said. “What was that all about?”

Kek was laughing. “Bless that encyclopedia! And bless Anita’s snoring—”

“I do not snore!”

“—and bless Schneller’s use of steel balls in his soundproof lock...” Kek saw the questioning look on the other two faces and relented. “‘Electromagnetism,’” he said softly. “Not too far from ‘Elephants.’ A bit of wire wound around — preferably soft iron, but a steel bar like a screwdriver will also work — hooked to a battery, and you have a magnet. With a lot of power. More than enough to scramble Herr Schneller’s little steel balls in their little sockets...”

Anita stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

André understood. “You mean the suitcase can never be opened?”

“Not without blowing up.” Kek grinned. “Think of the beauty of that as a lesson to Señor Sanchez! To have millions of dollars in cocaine in his hands and not be able to get to it!”

“He’ll get hold of Schneller—”

“Good! They can sit there together, trying the numbers, and listening to that beautiful bell ring. And Schneller will explain that something must have gone wrong, but nothing could have gone wrong, and they’ll be sure Schneller removed the cocaine and changed the combination, and he’ll be hard put to explain, and they’ll all just sit there and try and try again and again—” His face sobered. “Eventually, of course, the batteries for the bell will wear out, and then—”

André glanced at him. “In Schneller’s words: Blooey?”

“No,” Kek said. “They’re not that insane. I think they’ll just sit and stare at it and visualize the contents...”

“You’re nasty,” André said and grinned.

“Yes,” Kek said and dropped the subject. He pulled Anita to him and kissed her tenderly. He touched her cheek softly with a finger, tracing it along the firm line of her jaw, looking up at André. “I know I said I’d take over the driving after Barcelona, but right now I’m occupied...”

“Be my guest,” André said politely.

“Thank you.”

“When we stop for anything,” Anita said, “we really should get in the back seat.” She grinned at Kek. “I never did get to practice those wiles on you.”

“I think the car needs water,” André said gallantly and pulled from the highway...

Content

Robert L. Fish
The Tricks of the Trade

Book One

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Book Two

10

11

12

13

14

15