Текст книги "The Diving Dames Affair "

Автор книги: Peter Leslie

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Twenty minutes later, after the voluptuous eighteen-year-old with the flashing eyes had brought their second round of refreshments, O'Rourke leaned back in his chair and sighed.

"So what you feel might be useful," he said, "is a bit of a rundown on any set of circumstances that might link together the few facts you have and the disappearance of Mr. Williams?"

"That's about it, yes."

"The car accident, the murders, the death of the old man followed immediately by the departure of your friend for Brasilia, the cabled references to rivers and dams, the visit here to the public works bureau – plus, of course, the pretense that the women belonged to this, comic missionary body," the Irishman said, ticking the items off on his fingers one by one. "Seven positive items to balance one negative: the absence of news from your friend." He drained his coffee cup, took the liqueur glass still half full of the acid-yellow Basque digestive in one hand, and wheeled himself away towards the apartment with the other.

"Make yourself at home," he said over his shoulder, and we shall see what we can do. Though it's a case, mind, where I wish we had the use of a computer!"

Illya gulped down his schnapps and sipped the cold beer, relaxing in his chair as the drowsy sounds of afternoon washed over him. Bees probed the trumpets of petunia and busied themselves over the geraniums. An electric blue dragonfly darted under the vines, hovered for a moment in the shade, and then flashed away again into the sun. Across distant roofs the sounds of traffic rumbled.

From where he sat, he could see through a window into a room that seemed to be O'Rourke's office and workroom. There were gray steel filing cabinets along one wall, bounded at one side by the dials and pilot lights of a powerful transmitter, and on the other by two complex tape units with vertically mounted spools and a twelve-channel console. There was nothing to rival the comprehensive anarchy of the Irishman's old head quarters in Casablanca, but there were several tables covered in a chaos of magazines and newspaper cuttings – all of them, Illya guessed, ring outlined and coded and annotated in his own private, multi-colored system of cross-indexing. From time to time the man in the wheelchair himself was visible, crossing and recrossing the window, searching among pile's of paper for pencils or notes, burrowing for the telephone. Once a tall, slim man with a heavy moustache, whom Illya thought he had seen once before, at the airport, came in and talked earnestly for some minutes.

And finally O'Rourke returned, the wheelchair spinning expertly to a halt beside the table, with his bands full of cuttings.

"You're in luck," he said. "I think we can help you… but first I have to ask – you know, the embarrassing bit! I have to -"

"Payment in advance, of course," Kuryakin said, reaching for his wallet. "Business as usual, in fact! What's the price?"

"Well now, you may recall that in the other place – we mention no names at all, in case there is any odium attaching to our former life! – in the other place there was the subscription system, for military attaches and the like continually wanting snippets of information and gossip about their rivals and so on and so forth?"

"Yes, I remember.

"And then there was the straight transaction – for every major piece of information obtained according to contract, one thousand dollars."

"Yes. I remember that even better."

"Just so. Well, here, I'm happy to say, the price is less – both because I'm only starting and you can't charge big league prices in the provincial games, and also be cause I have so far got lower overheads."

"Excellent. What is the new price – nine hundred and ninety-nine?"

"You should never joke about money, Mr. Kuryakin," O'Rourke said reproachfully. "It is the one commodity we can never do without. The price is five hundred dollars."

"Plus twenty-five percent service charge?"

"Plus fifteen per cent. Here, I have less staff – and my service charge was just that: it all went to staff."

"Fine. Any state tax here – for protection, I think it; was?"

"Ten percent only."

"Ten percent! It was one percent in – you know where."

"Sure, this is a modern country. You have to pay for advances in techniques."

"In all truth, the additional charges seem to come to within one percent of what they were before – however you split them up and whatever you call them!"

"On a sum only half the total to begin with, Mr. Kuryakin; on the smaller sum."

Illya shrugged ruefully and peeled off six hundred-dollar bills from his roll. He opened his wallet and added two tens and a five. "There you are, you old rogue," he said. "Now give!"

"The fee buys you to the right to the invective," the Irishman said placidly, folding the money and stuffing it into the breast pocket of his shirt. "And anyway, we've come up with something right away."

"And that is?"

"Dams, me boy. Dams. There are not but two in construction at the moment for which you could use Brasilia as a jumping-off point: one at Guadalara and the other at a place called San Felipe do Caiapo. And the first of these is a government project, all public observation platforms and conducted tours and I don't know what all. So I doubt not 'tis the other we're after."

"And where is this other?"

"San Felipe? In the hills – and bare and barren they are, too! – behind the new city of Getuliana that they're after building. 'Tis a private enterprise, this, that some hook of a European talked the government into okaying, and the whole shoot comes under a small holding company run by a contractor named Moraes."

"You mean that all the subcontractors working on the dam are really tied up with this man's firm?"

"And those building the city, too. The whole blessed shoot!"

"That should be something for a monopolies commission to see!"

"It should that. But that's not all. Wait'll I tell you, boy: you remember telling me about that organization when I was in the other place . . . the boyos that blew up me dump and had me runnin'?"

"You mean Thrush?"

"I do. You recall you told me this was an international conspiracy of financiers, scientists, industrialists and political extremists who had only one aim – to rule the world?"

"I do."

"And you remember you said that Thrush had no allies, only enemies; that it might play off east against west or vice versa, but that it would never ally itself with either?"

"Yes."

"And that, in furtherance of its aims, it could draw on the latest electronic and other scientific aids – whole armies and air forces if necessary? And furthermore that it concentrated on infiltrating into every country by means of taking control of existing organizations?"

"Yes."

"And that when this was done, the organization continued to fulfill its ostensible role, though in fact below the surface it was dedicated to further the aims of Thrush?"

"Yes."

"And that organizations so perverted were termed 'satraps' and came under the control of Thrush's Central Council and the Ultimate Computer they use for policy making?"

"Yes, yes – but I don't quite -"

"Well, then," the Irishman said, pausing for breath at last and sifting back in his wheelchair, "what would you say if I was to tell you that there had been a considerable interest in Thrush in my office ever since they put me out of business over there… and that I had made it my business to keep tabs on those boyos from time to time?"

"I should say it was very natural."

"You would, eh? Then you would not find it excessively unlikely that I'd know a bit more than the next man if those gentlemen were involved in anything?"

"No, I suppose not."

"Good. For I can tell you, Mr. Kuryakin, beyond any doubt, that there are twenty-eight sub-contractors employed on the construction of the San Felipe dam and the city of Getuliana – all hired through Moraes and his company. And every single one of 'em is a Thrush satrap!"

Illya whistled softly. "I see!" he said. "That does put a different complexion on the inquiry – and lend an air of urgency, too.'

"It does that. And I can tell you some other things, too. First, that the so-called D.A.M.E.S. has been hired by a consortium of these firms to assist with resettling peasants dispossessed by the dam; second, that their behavior in the up-state region has caused a lot of comment; third, that the city of Getuliana is far behind schedule in building – the locals say it is only a blind to cover the unscrupulous lining of pockets, but more informed gossip considers it a blind for something else… And the last point is Just a name: Wassermann."

"Wassermann?'

"Yes. A European financier who has settled here with great success. In economic circles here and in Sao Paulo, one talks, in money matters, of the Wassermann Test: if a given amount of capital has doubled itself within two years – then two to one it's a Wassennann project!"

"I see. What he has got to do with this dam, then?"

"He chiseled the concession to build the city and the dam from the government. The whole deal lies within his giving, as it were. And he gave it all to Moraes. That's all."

"No hard and fast news of my Mr. Williams?"

"He asked questions in Brasilia. He asked questions in Goiás. He hired a car. It was returned – not by him. That's all."

"And the old man?"

O'Rourke spread his huge hands. "Who knows? They say there are an unusual number of American undesirables in the country, particularly up-country. And that these are balanced by bad men from other places. You can draw your own conclusions…. Now, let me write you a few notes with names, addresses and telephone numbers that you can memorize, and that will be all."

He pulled a small pad from an inside pocket and began scribbling on the topmost page. After half a minute, a thin, insistent piping sounded at the side of his chair.

He unhooked the tiny two-way radio and held it to his ear. "Yes," he said curtly. "What is it?... No, I'm busy at the moment – Oh. Yes. Yes, perhaps you'd better come in, Raoul. We're on the terrace."

As he finished writing and handed the sheets to Illya, the tall moustached man that the agent had seen in the office walked onto the roof garden.

"You'd better tell Mr. Kuryakin what you told me," O'Rourke said. "Raoul here keeps a watch on arrivals and departures at the airport and generally has a finger on the pulse, you know."

The tall man bowed and spoke directly to Illya. "The senhor may not know it, but he has been followed ever since he left the New York plane," he said softly in Spanish-accented Portuguese. "The watcher booked into the same hotel, parked opposite the police headquarters when you were there, followed you to the district office and tailed you back to the car rental place, busied herself with a water-oil-tire checkup during the time you spent inside, was three behind you in the queue at the library, and finally followed you on foot until you en countered the boss here."

"Busied herself," Illya said faintly. "You did mean that the tail was feminine?"

"But yes. The senhor can see for himself." Raoul strode to the edge of the terrace and parted the vines. "See – by the bookshop window on the other side of the court, occupying herself with the bin of secondhand volumes: a very beautiful young lady with dark hair..."

Chapter 6

A Lady Is Unmasked

BY THE TIME Illya had memorized the contents of the sheets given to him by O'Rourke and had taken his leave, it was almost dusk. The obvious thing to do now was to follow Solo to Brasilia as quickly as possible and try to pick up his trail near the dam. He went accordingly to the airline offices to inquire about planes.

And with him went the girl. Now that he knew he was being followed, the Russian watched her technique with interest – and it acted in some small way as a salve to his wounded professional pride to see how expert she was. She never hurried, she never dawdled, she never did anything obvious like staying too long at the wrong shop window, and yet she was always there; she was never close enough to notice, yet she was never too far behind to catch up and follow an unexpected move; she anticipated intelligently, after being already on the far side of the road before he had himself crossed; she varied her distance skillfully, and she made such masterful use of other people as cover that Kuryakin found it difficult to keep his eye on her for long enough to form an impression of her looks. Since he was determined that she should not realize he knew of her existence, he contented himself with occasional sideways glances at shop windows and occasional reflections from a cupped hand over a lens of his sunglasses. From what he could see, the girl was slender, about his own height, with a lean jaw-line and chiseled features thrown into dramatic relief by long dark hair drawn severely back by a crimson bandeau. Her suit was in some lightweight navy material with white revers, and she carried slung from one shoulder, unfashionably, a big white handbag on a strap.

To his surprise, the airline offices were shut. And so, he saw as he looked around, were the neighboring stores and offices.

"Excuse me," he said, stopping a passerby, "do you know if these shops – the airline office in particular – will be open again later?"

White teeth flashed in a dark face. "Open later?" a deep voice chuckled. "Tonight? Man, you must be jokin'!"

"But I thought... Usually they're open until..."

"Usually is other days. You must be out of your mind! Don't you know what day it is?" the man said, passing on with a wave of his hand.

Illya saw a modern hotel across the road and went into the foyer. There seemed to be an extraordinary number of laughing, chattering people about in noisy groups. Some of the women were wearing paper hats.

"Excuse me," he said to the reception clerk. "I wonder if you could possibly find out for me whether there is a plane tonight -"

"Tonight!" the clerk exploded. He reached under his counter and came up with a half full bottle of champagne. "Tonight is not for planes, senhor," he caroled.

"Have a drink. Be my guest – tomorrow we can think about airplanes" Strident giggling cut short his harangue and a group of teenage girls with linked arms infiltrated his cubbyhole to carry him away shouting and waving his bottle. Illya shrugged his shoulders and went out again. From behind him a burst of laughter and the sound of breaking glass were cut short by the closing of the swinging doors.

In the streets, now that he noticed it, there was an air of subdued excitement, a purpose and a direction to the knots of people hurrying all the same way. And there was a noise – distant, imprecise and exciting – that he suddenly realized he had been aware of deep in his subconscious for some time.

It was a composite, even a complex, sound… rising, falling, altering in pitch, almost hammering away at the threshold of hearing. And gradually, bit by bit, he came to separate the various components: there were voices, many many voices; there was the faint sound of musical instruments; there was clapping, cheering, shouting, laughing; there was the sound of multitudes of feet – and over and above everything there was a persistent muttering and thumping of hundreds of drums.

Almost against his will, Illya found himself carried along with the main body of the crowd. Darkness was thickening and strange illuminations flared over the roof– tops to the east. Here was an opportunity to lose the tail if he wished to. Should he do so – or should he deliberately encourage the girl to keep in touch so that he could turn the situation to his own advantage later? He decided to let her stick. He wanted to find out exactly why she was following him and on behalf of whom.

Now suddenly the road erupted into an open space on the far side of which stretched Copacabana Beach.

Kuryakin halted, amazed at the astonishing sight which met his eyes. The place was jam-packed with people, weaving and dancing and bouncing to the disparate music of at least a dozen different bands – guitars, mandolinas, accordions, flutes, an occasional trumpet or trombone, and everywhere the insistent pounding of percussion. There were hand-hit conga drums, timbales thrashed with flat sticks, tomtoms, snare drums, maraccas, claves, guiros and, above all, bongos beaten in a complexity of rhythms so intoxicating as to be irresistible. Into the surging mass of dancers flooding the spaces between the bands, a parade with huge papier-mâché masks, banners, and bobbing balloons in the shape of vast and grotesque beasts was forging its way, spear headed by its own group of buglers. Great monsters in bright crêpe paper and wood floated in the air on wires, surrounded by clusters of more ordinary balloons and lines of ornate lanterns. Beyond, the enormous beach was black with people against the lines of phosphorescence rolled shorewards by the incoming tide.

As he watched, the sky was split by jots of fireworks fountaining into the dark from further along the promenade. A cheer burst from the celebrating throng and the dancing redoubled in energy.

It was, of course, Illya remembered, the season of Carnaval – and in Rio, Carnaval is something more than a religion! No wonder the man he had asked about the shops opening had been surprised.

More than half of the people in the colorful crowd were either garlanded or in some kind of costume, and around the square stalls and booths were selling streamers, paper hats and masks.

He turned – just in time to see, out of the corner of his eye, that the girl following him was buying a mask at a corner stall. It was a tall thing – a beaked animal rather like a North American Indian totem pole, with huge round eyes – and the wearer's own viewpoint was a slit halfway up the neck lost among a cascade of paper feathers falling almost to the ground.

Very well, the Russian thought with an inward smile. Carnaval disguise is a game with room for more than one player…

He turned aside and selected a giant head for himself, an outsized turnip shape with the orientally bucolic features of a Chinese coolie, surmounted by the three tiers of pagoda-shaped hats. From within the hollow sphere of this mask, he surveyed the merrymakers, who now stretched as far as he could see in either direction along the promenade. It would be a nice exercise in subtlety to swing the roles around so that it was really he who was following the girl... by making sure that she followed him in the manner – and the direction – he wanted.

The density of the crowd made it harder to execute than to plan, however. He was continually caught up and hurried along in tidal waves of merriment – and when this happened, it was almost impossible to regulate his pace so that the girl was sure to be able to keep up. Nor was he able, so far, to burst out of the crowd altogether.

Struggling to beat his way against the tide, he caught isolated snatches of conversation as groups of people were carried past.

"Watcha say, boy! Slake it a while from this one, man…"

"Fabulous, just fabulous..."

"…ever been kissed by a man with a beard before?"

"Hey, Charlie! Over here, Charlie… Hey, Charlie!"

"… so colorful, I just can't bear it. Oh, look…"

"You got room for one more on that arm, handsome?"

"The drums go dudder-dudder bidder-bodder beeden dooden dada – the same rhythm all the time – had you noticed?"

"... so beautiful, so lovely. I should like to…"

"Charleee!..."

The mask with the bird's beak and the paper feathers bobbed now near, now further away. Several times Illya was in danger of becoming separated from his follower by phalanxes of laughing, singing dancers with linked arms. Once he did lose sight of it altogether when an unexpected display of frenzied acrobatics from a girl in a tight blue dress attracted a howling circle of admirers between them. Then he caught sight of the mask again, further to the left than he had expected, and plunged in pursuit.

He strove, without making it obvious, to place himself in a position from which the girl could discreetly take up the chase again – for she must have lost him as much as he had lost her. But she had apparently given up, for he realized now that she was trying to reach the fringes of the crowd.

Try as he would, he could not overtake her and put himself in view – there was always some segment of the noisy throng which obtruded just as he was getting near...

They had drifted away from the seafront now and were pushing their way up a narrow street towards one of the heights which lay behind the old town. On all sides the throbbing of the combos, the rattle of tambourines and the yowl of electric guitars filled the air. The roadway was filled with a stream of papier-mâché mandarins, Popeyes and mythical beasts, all pressing down towards the sea. But the population here was predominantly colored, the laughter more boisterous, the dancing less inhibited.

Kuryakin followed the beaked mask as it threaded its way to the top of the street, across a cobbled square, and up a steep, stepped path traversing the side of a bluff sprinkled with wooden shacks among the trees. Several times the grotesque headed turned in a questing way – almost as though she knew that she was being followed and wanted to make sure he was still there, the agent thought with a frown.

He quickened his pace as the girl in the Carnaval mask sprang agilely across a gap in a ruined wall and began to climb a street – it was more of a path, really – so steep that it had to be buttressed every two yards with risers of planking pegged into the hard earth.

Again the beak swung his way as he closed the gap between them. The shanties clinging to the sides of the cliff were ablaze with light and shaking with music. This was getting ridiculous – he must approach her right away. Now…

As he panted up the steps, his eyes came level with the girl's hurrying heels. How odd, he thought, that she should be wearing rope-soled espadrilles with a smart town suit. Suddenly suspicious, he sped up, drew level with her—and halted. The girl in the mask had stopped outside the door of one of the huts. A dim light burned behind a window looking onto a tiny porch.

"Now just a minute…" Illya began, when the girl turned toward him, raised a pair of slender arms, and lifted the beaked mask from her head and shoulders.

"Man, I thought you was never going to catch up," she said with a silvery laugh. "Still, I guess it saves us walkin' all the way up here to get a drink, eh? And it is Carnaval time…"

The Russian stood rooted to the spot. Above the girl's plump cheeks, lustrous violet eyes twinkled in an eighteen-year-old face the color of mahogany.

–

He was still cursing himself for not realizing that the vendors of Carnaval masks would sell many of the same type in one evening when he got back to his hotel – footsore and still a little humiliated at the embarrassing explanation he had had to make to the girl on the heights. All in all, it had not exactly been his day: when he hadn't realized it, he had been tailed; when he had wanted to be tailed, he had lost the follower; except for the good fortune of finding O'Rourke, all his inquiries had drawn blanks; and now he had made a fool of himself!... Better to write the whole day off, have a nice refreshing bath, and get up early to catch the first available plane: to Brasilia tomorrow!

He unlocked his door, switched on the lights in his room and checked his personal "signposts" to make sure it had not been searched in his absence.

Dropping the ridiculous coolie's head on a settee, he dragged off his jacket and strode through to the bathroom to switch on the taps.

"This absurdly large perforated thing is a silencer," the girl said. She was sitting on the edge of the tub. "The gun behind it is small. It's a Berretta, and unless you shoot terribly accurately, you haven't a hope in hell of stopping a man with one. The only thing is – I'm afraid I do shoot terribly accurately."

She rose swiftly to her feet. "Now – into the other room, if you please," she said briskly. "There are one or two questions I want to ask you..."

Chapter 7

Trespassers Will Be Liquidated

ILLYA KURYAKIN slumped into an easy chair, sighed, and broke open a pack of cigarettes. "Look, I don't know who you are..." he began.

"Put that down," the girl rapped. "I've seen that one before: the first cigarette to come out of that pack is a bolt of metal, painted white. It comes out fast, because there is a powerful spring inside the pack – and it hits me right between the eyes. By the time I've recovered consciousness, you have the gun."

The agent shrugged and tossed the pack onto the bed. There were unusual glints of copper in the mass of dark hair, he saw in the bright lights of the hotel room, and the face was even more rakish and thoroughbred than he had thought

"All right," the girl was saying, "we'll have your hands lying along the arms of the chair if you please… that's it… and now perhaps you'll tell me just exactly who you are and what you're doing here."

"Surely we have the roles reversed?" Kuryakin murmured. "Those are my lines you are saying."

The girl tossed her head impatiently. "I lose my temper easily," she warned, "and a slug from a Berretta can be very painful – through the ear or a wrist, for example."

"Oh, come now," the Russian said easily, leaning forward to rise from the chair. "You know very well you wouldn't use that thing, even if it is silenced."

He dropped abruptly back into his seat. He had seen the almost imperceptible whitening of the knuckle as the girl put the first pressure on the trigger. "So-ho," he said softly. "We really would have used it, would we? Or else we know enough to bluff – knowing also that a professional couldn't afford to take a chance on it."

"All right, all right," the girl said. "So you read the sign, which told me what I wanted to know too; so let's just assume we're both professionals shall we, and go on from there?... I repeat: Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"My dear young lady, there is no secret about that: you could have found out simply by coming up to me and asking. There was no need for all the melodrama."

"I'm waiting."

"My name is Illya Kuryakin; I live in New York; and I am in Rio looking for a friend who has disappeared."

"What was his name and what was he doing here?"

"His name is Williams, I hope. He was investigating something for some friends of mine."

"Investigating what?"

"I'm sorry, but I do not think that is any of your business."

"That's just where you're wrong," the girl said. "It is just that which makes it my business. For these friends of yours on whose behalf the so-called Mr. Williams was investigating are actually friends of mine – and they have never heard of Mr. Williams!"

"Friends of yours?" the Russian echoed. "You're working for the D.A.M.E.S.? But this is ridiculous!"

"I did not say I was working for the Daughters of America Missionary Emergency Service. Your Mr. Williams affected to be doing that: he went all over, asking questions and searching around, claiming to be a lawyer briefed by the organization. This was not true; nor is there a New York lawyer named Williams with his particular description. Naturally enough, therefore, there are a number of interested parties wanting to find out what gives.

"I see. And you represent which one of them?"

"So, to begin with," the girl said, ignoring, his questions, "I ask you once more: Who sent you here? And who sent Williams?"

"The same people."

"Thank you very much. And there's no use pretending to be a member of the C.I.A., the Brazilian counter intelligence service, or any special branch of the Rio police. I have friends in many places arid I have checked them all."

"I wouldn't presume," Kuryakin said. "I wasn't aware that this matter impinged in any way on espionage… Look, a man has disappeared. I'm trying to find him. That's all."

"Are you working for any American organization?"

"No."

"Any Brazilian organization?"

"No."

"Any underworld group? Any international organization?"

"I told you. I'm hired. To find a man. The hirers are clients and their identity is privileged information. You know that."

"I'm not a policewomen. I have a gun on you. I don't have to observe the niceties of legal protocol. You're a private detective?"

Illya glanced over the girl's shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "All right, Petersen," he said. "Don't hurt her – just take the gun."

The weapon remained steady as the girl said evenly, "The French windows are locked. The catch makes quite a noise when it is operated. The balcony is nine floors up. There is no drainpipe, no fire escape connecting with it, and no way of reaching it from the neighboring rooms... Do you think I'd sit here with my back to the windows if I hadn't checked all this, for God's sake? I thought we agreed to consider each other professionals."

"My apologies for underestimating both your training and your intelligence," Illya said dryly. "What is your name?"

"Coralie Simone, if it matters. Don't you ever smile?"

"Only when something amuses me. Don't you?"

"I'm too busy to notice. Now… once more: Who hired you?"

"An organization calling itself Thrush," the agent said blandly.

"I never heard of it. What's that?"

"A syndicate of powerful and ruthless men dedicated to the overthrow of all legal government and the eventual despotism of the world."

"I don't believe you."

"Don't believe what – that there is such an organization, or that I am hired by it?"

"I don't believe either of them."

"Well, I've heard of candor," Kuryakin said, "but this really is something..."

Although the affair of the windows had not fooled the girl into turning around – he hadn't thought it would – the subsequent exchange had sufficiently diverted and held her attention for him to do what he wanted to. He was sitting fairly well forward in the chair, his forearms lying along its padded arms. The chair, he knew, ran very easily on its castors across the tiled floor. Imperceptibly as he had talked and held her eyes with his own, he bad drawn his feet back under him and edged his hands forward so that the fingers now dropped over the front ends of the chair arms. His center of gravity now should be such that, if the chair was suddenly removed from under him, be could stay in the same squatted position and not fall over. He flexed his muscles experimentally. Yes. He could make it.