...aircraft lurching in turbulent currents... he sat on the bucket seat with the grease gun across his knees... they sat opposite, August, Gowan and Laena... wise smiles... you have to jump soon, darling, Laena said... Soon, soon, sang August and Gowan... gray flint eyes, quick bird movement of head, Laena’s silver clothes... jump soon, out into the night, and he knew that the parachute pack was empty... they had taken it... stand up, darling, Laena said. Stand up, darling... stand up, darling... dizzy sway of the plane...
He opened dulled eyes. Most of the lights were out. A waiter was shaking him by the shoulder.
“Stand up, darling,” Laena said.
He tried to curse her. There were no words, only a thickness in his throat. She spoke rapid Spanish to the waiter. He came back with another man. They lifted him, supported him out to the waiting cab. Then the cab was hurtling through streets that tipped dizzily and Laena was scent of perfume beside him.
Once again he was being shaken. There were other men. Hallway. Elevator. Clink of key against the lock face. Room that swam in light. Bed. Darkness.
Then there was blank nothingness.
Chapter Two
Devil’s Doublecross
Pain rolled and rumbled and surged through his head, pulsing against the back of his eyes. His skin was greasy with cold sweat and the sunlight that came between the blinds was a shower of golden needles piercing his brain. He sat up and gagged, pressing hard against his lips with his knuckles.
Remembering the night, he forced his eyes open again. The room was large, sparsely furnished. He yanked the covers away, swung his feet out of the bed, cautiously stood erect on the cool tile floor. He swayed, clutched the bedpost, then walked heavily over to the closet and flung it open. It was empty. He felt his way around the wall to the door and tried the knob. It was locked. A tall pitcher of water stood on the bureau. He ignored the glass and, bracing his hip against the bureau, tilted the pitcher high, drained most of it without taking it from his lips.
He ripped a strip from the top sheet, soaked it in the remaining water, lay on the bed again, the wet cloth across his eyes.
Then he heard the grate of the key in the door. Laena Severence came in. Her gold-white hair was braided, tied with bits of colored yarn. She wore a cotton print dress, too short to be fashionable, and red sandals on her bare feet. She looked like a small girl playing house.
He said thickly, “I should have been smart enough to expect a mickey from you, Laena.”
“It was chloral hydrate. I know how miserable you must feel.”
“Your solicitude touches me deeply.”
She pulled a chair over near the bed and sat down, her back straight, her eyes on him. She said, “We are going to talk, Bren.”
“Is there anything to talk about?”
“I’ve sent the maid out. Bren, you were heading for trouble. I knew you wouldn’t listen unless I could force you to listen. I told the barman what to do for your own good, Bren. Believe me.”
“Believe you? I wouldn’t believe you if you were on fire and I stood in front of you with a bucket of water. And there’s nothing you can say that I’m interested in hearing. When I see you dead, Laena, I’ll feel that one third of a debt is paid.”
There was no expression in her eyes. She stood up quickly and left the room.
She was back in a few moments with the gun and a towel. She wrapped the towel around the muzzle.
“We’re alone in the apartment. The walls are thick. The towel will muffle the shot. Your clothes are in the closet in the next room. If you go down the back stairs, no one will see you leave.”
She thrust the gun into his hand, her fingers still holding the towel around the barrel, and came close to the bed. “Go ahead, Bren. I found out once that I don’t have what it takes to do it to myself. You have to pull the trigger.”
His finger was on the trigger. The seconds stretched out interminably. Suddenly he laughed hoarsely. “Oh, fine! You want to see just how far I’ll go. Just how serious I am. Then when the gun clicks, you can run off and tell the other two that Harris really means business. Nice act, Laena.”
He twisted the gun away from her and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked and the slug punched a hole in the plaster across the room, high up in the corner.
“That’s twice you haven’t done it, Bren,” she said unsteadily.
The scorched towel dropped to the floor. He held the gun and looked at it as though seeing it for the first time. His mouth was dry.
He laid the gun gently on the counterpane and said, “You wanted to tell me something, Laena.”
She sat down again. There was no triumph on her face or in her tone. “You are like a child with a cap pistol, Brendon. You are like a little boy mad because he caught his finger in a screen door. You said you had a report on me. Then you know that my father was an expatriate.
“In 1929, when I was five, my mother drowned in the Mediterranean. She was drunk at the time. A month later my father killed himself in a car, doing a hundred and ten miles an hour on the Paris road. There was enough money left to educate me in Switzerland. Although I was born on a French passenger ship, the little matter of my American citizenship was something that slipped my father’s mind. In 1939, when I was fifteen, I was dancing in a little club off the Rou Pigalle. I had no interest in politics.
“After the German occupation, I was still dancing. I met a young German officer. He was sweet. I was in love, I thought. He hated the war. We tried to get to Portugal together. He was captured and shot for desertion. I spent seven months in a French prison. France was no good for me after the war. Suspicion of collaboration. I wanted to come to the country where my parents had been born. I worked hard on colloquial English. I had my French papers. I went to Portugal. I danced in Lisbon.
“In Lisbon, I met August Brikel. He was nice to me and arranged forged papers. I could not get into the United States legally because of my ‘bad’ record. But I wanted to get to the states so badly that it was like an incurable disease. August helped me through the four months before I went to work for the Corner Club. I liked you when I met you. One night August came to my room and told me that I must make you fall in love with me. He said that I must quiet any suspicions you might have about what they were doing at the Corner Club.
“August told me what they were doing and said that if any trouble occurred through you, he would make an anonymous report to the immigration people. I still had my French papers, hidden away. I did what he said. But I loved you. I couldn’t bear to deceive you. And then I realized that I never could relax in the States, because just by being there I was cheating what I considered to be my country.
“When I had saved enough money, I crossed into Mexico on the forged papers, used my real papers to apply for Mexican citizenship. Now I’m an immigrants. Brikel has no hold over me. I knew nothing about Tommy. After I ran away from you I cried every night. I don’t cry any more, Bren. You are the only thoroughly decent thing that has ever happened to me. I ran away because I was doing wrong, and I was tired of doing wrong.”
He looked up at the ceiling in the long silence after she stopped speaking. He said softly, “The report wasn’t as complete as that. I... I don’t know.”
“I didn’t have you drugged just to plead my case, Bren. I know that as far as we are concerned, it’s all over. I wanted to tell you about Brikel and Gowan Teed. They have an organization here, as well as in South America. You can’t walk up and shoot either of them. You’d be dead the moment your hand touched the gun. And I couldn’t bear the thought of that.