“We’re quite alone, just us two,” said the Saint softly. “I promised you a little gift, and I am a man of my word — something to add a touch of realism to whatever you have planned for Mr Alisdare.” He handed Talon a plastic bag.
“This is a gun,” the Detective said flatly.
“Brilliant. I’ll recommend you for a promotion. Don’t touch it. It has Alisdare’s prints all over it. It may come in handy.”
The disgusting man’s lower lip quivered with emotion, and the Saint controlled a near overwhelming impulse to split that lip with a strong right uppercut.
“Thanks, Saint. I don’t know why you’re helpin’ a guy like me, especially after I used your name and all.”
If Talon expected compassionate warmth and comraderie to issue forth from Simon Templar, he was summarily disappointed.
“If you ever mention my name again, even in passing, I promise I’ll have you killed. Period. Do you understand me? For your information, I do have a gang. I have instructed them to watch your back tonight when you meet Alisdare, except if you mention my name. If you do, it will be the last thing you ever say. Observe that simple rule, and if only one man walks away alive from your little meeting, that one man will be you.”
Had Talon been face to face with a ferocious jungle cat, he could not have been more terrified than he was at that moment. It was as if every primal and dangerous aspects of the Saint’s personality were manifest before him as twin shafts of ice-blue light reflected in the cold depths of Simon’s ethereal azure eyes.
Not another word was spoken, Talon bent down to retrieving his keys, and the Saint was gone. He listened for Simon’s footsteps but heard only the erratic buzzing of a flickering fluorescent light and the gentle waves of Lake Washington lapping against the outer rim of the garage. He let out a long, laborious sigh, tucked the plastic bag under his coat, and clumsily stuffed another smoke between his thick, dry lips. It shook so hard he could not light it. A sudden cold breeze blew in from Lake Washington, whistling between the lot’s solid concrete columns, and his baggy body wobbled and shuddered in response.
Detective Dexter Talon, alias Tex Nolan, muttered an unseemly expression under his labored breath as he plopped into the driver’s seat, started the ignition, and activated the electronic garage door opener attached to his visor.
The Saint, from a vantage point of concealment, watched the large garage gate rise in response. He saw the Plymouth pass out of the lot, drive up the incline and turn right on the one-way street. In the back of Talon’s car were most of the contents from Salvadore Alisdare’s personal safe. Most, but not all. There was one item retrieved from Emerald City that was, at that very moment, being returned to its rightful owner. And the Saint smiled, for he knew that neither he nor Little Buzzy, nor any of Seattle’s children of the night, would ever see Dexter Talon again.
The Saint exited by simply reversing his clandestine method of entrance, and allowed himself a few minutes of peaceful repose. He sat on the park bench situated to the building’s North, as would any comfortable Madison Park resident, and admired the scenic panorama. A young couple walked a large dog along the sidewalk, and a few boats peppered the lake with bright running lights. To his left, the Evergreen Point bridge stretched across Lake Washington. To his right, although his vision was partially blocked by high-rise condominiums, majestic Mt. Rainier seemed to rise in snow-covered glory behind the Mercer Island Floating Bridge. He soon stood from the bench and walked purposefully towards the high-rise’s front door, arriving exactly at the moment an elderly lady, having been carefully delivered home by relatives, turned her key in the lock.
“Allow me,” said Simon graciously, holding open the door.
She had one minor moment of suspicion, but the man smiled so sweetly, and was so deliriously handsome, that he could never be a burglar or a purse snatcher.
“I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before,” said the woman sweetly as the elevator door enclosed her with the Saint.
“I’m in town on business,” said Simon without elaboration.
“How nice,” she responded automatically, “My son-in-law is an accountant. He and my daughter took me to see that silly Pirate movie with Emilio Hernandez in it. It had all sorts of noisy action, but you know young people like that sort of thing.”
The Saint smiled and nodded.
“What kind of business are you in?” The woman’s desire for conversation remained acute, and although the elevator door opened on the 3rd floor, she waited for his answer before exiting.
“Diamonds,” said the Saint warmly, “I evaluate Diamonds.”
“Oh. Well, if you have any spares...”
They both laughed, she left, and Simon pushed the button for floor number 8. The night’s events were clicking together with the predictability of precision tumblers. He pictured Talon parking that old Plymouth on upper Madison, preparing for the penultimate rendezvous. As for Salvadore, Simon was not concerned about the little man with the wet brow and unsavory predilections. He knew Alisdare was in good hands.
2
“Unhand me, you villains!” Alisdare wailed and flailed but to no avail. The two elegant men had him sussed and trussed, having first tossed him as a chef would a reluctant salad.
“Templar and I had a deal, honest,” objected Salvadore, who had been bleating and pleading ever since the two malevolent gents manifested themselves unannounced within the supposedly secure confines of Emerald City Catering.
Prior to the dramatic interruption, Alisdare disconnected his make-believe SeaQue answering machine and checked the contents of his personal safe. As he expected, it was essentially empty. The jittery fellow made several unkind comments to himself about Simon Templar, and wished that the Saint had at least left him his micro-recorder.
“You are the noisiest little fellow,” remarked Peter Quentin as he disdainfully stuffed a serviette in Alisdare’s gapping yammer.
Salvadore, bereft of speech, yelled with his eyes.
“Calm down, fruitcake,” advised Roger Conway, “you’re liable to pop a ventricle.”
“Really,” concurred Quentin, “if you realized how committed we are to your eternal future, you’d be waxing positively rhapsodic.”
“Rhapsodic?” Conway questioned the word’s very existence.
“Similar to Quixotic, only more syncopated,” explained Peter.
As for Alisdare, he was unamused and thoroughly traumatized. He had allowed himself several moments of self-congratulatory indulgence on his way into Seattle during which he gloated over his superior intelligence, celebrated his outwitting of Simon Templar, and anticipated further milking of a reluctant bovine named Dexter Talon. Now, much to his dismay, two roughs cut from cloth similar to the Saint’s were making his life a living hell.
Conway and Quentin’s immediate leap from Sea-Tac’s British Airway’s terminal into the mid-most heart of a full-throttle Saintly adventure was the perfect antidote to international jet lag. With nothing to hide and minimal luggage, they passed swiftly through airport security, discovered two young men holding aloft a clumsily scrawled drawing of a familiar stick figure, and immediately knew there was more adventure on the menu than simply a birthday surprise for Barney Malone.
They quickly absorbed the verbal rush of information and admiration poured forth by Dan and Ian, experiencing an adrenaline tinged nostalgia for those precious years past when nights of adventure and days of danger were common occurrences. A brief perfunctory reunion and strategy session with the Saint outside the Westin strengthened their resolve to reinforce their reputations for justifiable outlawry — reputations modified in recent years by enviable financial success in diversified business interests consolidated under the auspices of their self-named firm. The inescapable fact that their empire’s initial capitol funding derived from exploits chronicled in earlier editions of the Saga was never far from their minds, nor were they from the thoughts of a devil-may-care rascal with fire in his ice-blue eyes and a never-ending penchant for improbable and profitable escapades. Roger Conway and Peter Quentin long ago resigned themselves to the unalterable reality that their lives and fortunes were forever wedded, directly or indirectly, for better or worse, to the sign of the Saint.