“No. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You know something else, too, Barbry. If you even suspect the identity of the man who sentenced Ursula to death, you must realize that you, too, are in the same danger that she was. You’ve got to have help to stay alive. I can walk out—or I can stay. That’s up to you. Either way, you’ve got to face it. Alone. Or with whatever help I’m able to give you. There’s a big organization behind me, Barbry, and I can offer you whatever power they possess to help you.”
“I’m so alone. I’m so afraid.”
“You’ve been alone and you’ve been afraid ever since Ursula died. It doesn’t have to be that way any more.”
Barbry straightened slightly. “What can I do?”
Solo sighed. “I want whatever information you have on Ursula. You won’t be adding anything by telling me that she worked as a spy for Thrush. We know that. We know she was trying to break away. That’s why she was killed. What we need are the people she worked with in the immediate past inside Thrush. Anything you know about them, any of them. Maybe you even know the reason why she wanted to quit the conspiracy. Whatever you tell me I promise to keep in strictest confidence. But it might be the key that will open up this whole affair.”
Barbry Coast stood immobile and stared up at him for some seconds. He saw that she was looking at him for the first time. She had been until this moment so wrapped up in the ball of fear that her life had become that she’d been incapable of turning her attention outside her own confused, terrorized mind.
Her face was rigid, pallid. She walked away from him, moving woodenly, her thoughts spinning. She appeared hardly aware of what she was doing. She went behind a screen, dropped the robe and dressed in that same abstracted way.
At last she said, “I don’t know why I trust you. Maybe like you say I’ve got no choice. I’ve got you or nobody…Ursula trusted you, and she died…but maybe at least she wasn’t alone when it happened. Maybe the way things are with me right now that’s all that matters.”
Barbry Coast sat across the white-linen covered table in a restaurant booth. She turned the daiquiri slowly in her fingers. “You’re right. I am scared. I’ve been out of my mind. Since Ursula was killed, it’s as though I’ve been sitting around waiting for them to come for me. I knew they’d find me sometime. I changed my name, my act, everything about me—and all the time I knew it wasn’t any good.”
“I got to you first. You’re going to be all right.”
She drew little comfort from his reassurance. She’d lived too long with her desperate terror to have it easily allayed. “It’s not much of a life being a goldfish in a San Francisco night-joint, but it’s all the action they gave me, and I’m stuck with it—and I’m honest enough to tell you I’m scared to die.”
“Do you know how Ursula got mixed up with Thrush in the first place?”
She was silent for some seconds. At last she looked up. “We were doing this act. We were free—and dating a lot. We didn’t even realize that most of our dates were with military men. They were alone, had money and were looking for fun. We just got together. Then this man came along—he was a Chinese-American, a truly ugly man, though I’ve met a lot of ugly men who were nicer than the handsome ones. But not him. He told us what a high percent of our dates were with men involved in top-secret military and missile matters. He said he could get us booked only into fine clubs near these missile and military centers and that we could make more money than we’d ever dreamed of making simply by repeating to his men anything that our dates said to us. I didn’t want to do it, and I told him those men never talked about secret matters. But Ursula laughed at me, and he knew better anyhow. He said all men boasted when they drank too much, especially with women.
“Ursula went for it, right from the first. She warned me that I might get in trouble unless I agreed. When this man came back for our answer, we both said we’d agree to his deal. But he said he only wanted to hire Ursula at that time. The reason—well, he said he could contact me later.
“I got ill then, seeing that Ursula had joined this man’s organization. Suddenly we got a complete new set of bookings. But I was too nervous. I was getting ulcers worrying about Ursula and what was going to happen to us. We broke up the act. She went on working for them, and I tried to change my name and lose them. I was afraid—even then.
“Once Ursula and I met, accidentally, for a little while. She was thin, pale, nervous, tense, scared. She wanted out, but didn’t know how to get free—and stay alive.
“We had a silly code made up of hip words, and I wrote to Ursula in our secret code begging her to make a break, to get away and to turn herself in to the C.I.A., the government, anyone who could help her.”
Solo handed her the letter he had found along with the silver whip in Ursula’s suitcase. “Is this the letter?”
Barbry smiled wanly. “Yes. That’s it. It’s just a jumble of zero-cool words. The only way you can understand it is to know what the other person is talking about. Ursula knew. I never heard from her again. After I wrote her, I got frightened again. I dyed my hair again, I left Chicago suddenly, and turned up out here with my new act and my new name. But I know they’ll find me. They can find anybody they want to find.”
“Who is ‘they’? The Chinese-American that originally approached you and Ursula?”
“Yes. Him. The rest of them. But him mostly. He’ll find me if he wants to.”
“Could you make it easy for him?”
“What?” She shook her head, her eyes dilating.
“I want you to let him find you. We need you to bring him out—so we can trap him.”
She shook her head. She stared at him. Her face was milk white, and her eyes empty Her lips moved, but she did not speak. He leaped up, going around the table because she fainted suddenly, her face striking hard, straight down.
IV
ILLYA AWOKE and found himself lying curled upon a red and brown Mexican rug.
He shivered, opening his eyes. Remembering the injection given him by Sam Su Yan, he was astonished to find his mind was clear.
“Ah. He wakes up. Our guinea pig.” He heard Sam’s voice somewhere above him.
He turned his head, but the light pained his eyes, and suddenly his whole body twitched as he had seen spastics quiver.
He tried to speak, but the words were garbled, meaningless, and his tongue felt thick in his mouth.
He heard Sam’s amused chuckle, mixed with something new—a woman’s contemptuous laughter. He tried to turn again, but every time he tried to move at all, his body reacted in violent and disjointed spasms.
He stared up at Sam standing like a bony vulture above him.
“Yes.” Sam was pleased. “We are getting about the same reactions from our human guinea pig that we elicited from our other animals in the lab. Your mind is quite clear, is it?” His smile was sour. “No sense your trying to say yes or no; it won’t come out that way. The only sounds you can make are those mindless grunts of the idiot, the spastic, the victim of stroke or brain damage. Try to get up. Come on. Get up on your feet!”
Illya turned his body, aware of the tremors that went through him. When he ordered his arms to support him, his legs bent or straightened, or simply trembled while his arms flew in wild, useless motions.
Sam and the woman laughed again. She moved closer now, in lime green shift, high heels, her hair a golden red. Illya saw her as the kind of new discovery he wouldn’t want to introduce to the boys.
Sam Su Yan noticed Illya’s rapt staring at the woman. He laughed. “I’m afraid women will be of little use to you in your condition, my friend—unless you enjoy tormenting your mind by seeing what you cannot touch. This is Miss Violet Wild, Kuryakin. I’m sorry I cannot remain here any longer to enjoy the side-effects of my revenge upon you. More urgent matters demand my immediate attention. I’m sure you’ll forgive me. Miss Wild will see you safely put away.”