His car met them at Athens, and he drove Craig to the hotel on the Piraeus where his clothes were stored. Craig turned to him then, and spoke softly in English so that the chauffeur wouldn't understand. "I'm sorry I couldn't ask you along," he said. "I mean that, Stavros."
"I believe you," Stavros said, and smiled. "Sometimes I think you're more Greek than I am."
Graig left him then, for a bath and a shave, and clean, expensive clothes. The kind you ought to wear when you go to meet your boss.
* Chapter 7 *
I told you to get yourself fit, not start a private war," Loomis said.
"It looked as if it might be your sort of show," said Craig. "I thought I'd better look around."
"Look around," Loomis snarled. "You knifed a man." "He knifed himself."
"Don't rationalize at me," said Loomis. "I'm not your analyst." He began to dismember a broiled lobster, a revolting performance.
'There's Dyton-Blease and the bit of pottery," said
Craig.
"Giants went out with the brothers Grimm. He's just a biggish feller who thinks he's found Achilles' thunder jar," said Loomis.
"In a lead canister?"
"Chap's a loony," said Loomis. "They get very nervy sometimes, loonies. I'll let the technical lads have a look —but you're wasting their time."
*· Craig went back to his own lobster, and for a while there was no sound except Loomis's grunts and the crackle of the lobster's shell as it tried to defy him, without success.
"Mind you, the girl sounded interesting," said Loomis. "Pity you lost her. We could do with some chums in the Haram."
"I could find her," said Craig.
"Not now. I want you watching Naxos." "What about the big man?"
Loomis said: "His turn will come." His voice was utterly certain.
Craig said: "That bit of pottery had a pattern on it. Selina's dresses had the same kind of design."
"So?" asked Loomis.
"She told me a lot about the Haram," Craig answered. "She loved every inch of it—you could tell that—all except the mountain. She was afraid of that. The Naked Place, she called it."
"Hussy," said Loomis.
"Nothing grows there," Craig said. "It's just a mass of sandstone, with some outcrops of blue stuff. Soft. Easily worked. Looks very pretty. At one time her people used to use it for making water jars, that sort of thing. Not any more."
"They turn the tap on like everybody else," Loomis snarled.
"It's lethal. You handle it for too long—and you die. Like leprosy, she said, only worse."
"You been at the horror comics again," said Loomis.
Yet Craig knew the fat man was taking in every word. All right. Let somebody else sweat after it. He'd go for a cruise on a yacht.
"You want me to leave it then?" he asked.
"Leave what? You haven't started anything," Loomis said. "I want you to go and keep Naxos alive."
Craig looked round the restaurant. There was nobody behind them, and the nearest customer on either side was ten feet away. Before them was nothing but the Aegean, gleaming blue as if another sun lay on its bed. Loomis didn't have to lower his voice, but he might at least wipe his mouth.
'Tell me about Mrs. Naxos," he said.
"Her name's Philippa—known as Flip. A blonde. Good legs. Fat just enough and thin just enough. What they call a dish." Loomis produced the word with sly triumph, like an inept conjurer who really has got a rabbit this time.
"Used to be a drug addict. Naxos got her cured. Then he married her. He'd stick his hand in the fire for her. If you don't do your stuff he may have to."
"Who am I watching for?"
"Ah!" said Loomis. "A bit tricky, that. Zaarb's got a new security chief—a feller called Schiebel. Used to work for the Russians. They thought his work was a bit too crude, so they got rid of him."
"Any description?" Craig asked.
T got this," said Loomis.
He handed Craig a photograph. A thin man with blond, close-cropped hair and pale, narrow eyes. He wore choice, urbane casual clothes and he looked as hard as nails.
"Got a series of burn scars on his right shoulder," said Loomis.
"Speaks perfect English. He worked in London for a bit. Trained in their Executive Division—you know what that means."
"He's a Idller," said Craig.
"That's right. It also means he's good, bloody good. All the same, you should be able to handle him." He smiled expansively. "We got his fingerprints too."
"My God you've been working," said Craig, and Loomis beamed.
"Where did you get them?"
"From the comrades."
"The Russians gave you his dossier?"
"All pals now," said Loomis. "Live and let live. All that. Zaarb's a Stalinist sort of place, d'you see. They've gone off Russia. They brought the Chinese in. Schiebel asked for asylum there. Oh yes, the Russians gave us his dossier. Matter of fact if you knock him off they'll give us a few other bits and pieces as well. Chinese stuff. We could use some Chinese stuff."
"He must know a hell of a lot," said Craig.
"He does. Mind you he was blown last year. Grierson got on to his girl friend before he went to Zaarb. She told us the lot. Only the Russians don't know that."
"What happened to her?"
"He killed her," said Loomis. 'Took his time about it. He's nasty, Craig." Craig looked at the photograph again.
"He looks German," Craig said.
"He is," said Loomis. "Hitler Youth leader. The Russians picked him up in Leipzig in '45. He killed three of 'em first. He was sixteen years old then."
"They took him alive?"
"He was good. They did a conversion fob on him— made him a Stalinist. Trouble is he's stuck there. Couldn't adjust to Khrushchev."
"Neither could the Russians," said Craig, and went back to the photograph.
"Well he's yours now," said Loomis, and flipped an imperious flipper for Turkish Delight. When it came he ate in silence, savoring the rose-petal sweetness of it to the end, then demanded brandy. He watched Craig drink it, delighted. The brandy was an Armagnac, and very special. He'd chosen it himself, and he knew it was good, but Craig drank it out of pleasure, not for need. Loomis looked positively benign.
"You can keep the photograph," he said, "and I'll let you have a copy of his dossier. There's just one snag. He may have gone to Zurich recently. For a facelift. Probably got the burn scars fixed too. They do you a very good plastic surgery job in Zurich."
"You bastard," said Craig, then threw back his head and laughed aloud. "No wonder you wanted me for this job, Loomis. I'm the only one daft enough to take it."
Loomis looked coy, and summoned more brandy.
» » »
Naxos's yacht, the Philippa, put into Piraeus two days later. It was a converted destroyer, built on the Tyne and transformed on the Clyde into the kind of floating pleasure dome that perhaps twelve men in the world can afford to own, and three of them are Greek. It was painted the obligatory, dazzling white, its brasswork glittered like sunbeams, its ropework was pipe-clayed to the snowy virginity of a detergent ad. It carried a helicopter, a swimming pool, three powerboats, a five-piece band, a cordon bleu chef, three Canalettos, nine Picassos, a Memling, a third-century B.C. statue of Aphrodite, a doctor, and a scaled-down version of a Cunarder's catering staff. Its officers were Englishmen and a Scot, who had left the service of a famous passenger line because Naxos offered them more money. All the rest of the crew were relatives of the bosun, a gigantic Hydriote Islander who preserved a discipline that would have terrified Captain Bligh. It cost Naxos a fortune, and he loved it. It belonged to his wife.