“I'm a deep one," I told them. “But what do you say we get moving?”
We got moving. And we kept moving through most of that day. For a long time, the jungle kept getting denser and denser. Then, in late afternoon, we came out of it and into an area of fields under cultivation. We saw an occasional peasant between then and nightfall, but we avoided them. It must have been around midnight when we finally saw the glow of city lights in the distance.
Calcutta. It was almost dawn when we entered the city proper and found out that's where we were. Both Alan and Vickie were happy that it turned out to be Calcutta. Both of them had contacts with their organizations in the city. Alan made a phone call from a restaurant we stopped at and within an hour a man arrived with some money for him. Then the three of us crowded into one room at a fleabag hotel. I rested while they made further contacts with their respective outfits and then continued the wrangling over whose prisoner I was. Each of them assured the other that the top men of their secret services would soon arrive to claim me—and to make the claim stick.
They arrived together. An Englishman with marbles in his mouth and the respectable look of a tea-leaf exporter. And an American, the sight of whom gladdened me tremendously. It was Charles Putnam, the hard-as nails espionage boss who had recruited me for this assignment back in Damascus a million years or so ago.
He didn't stay long. He didn't have to. A few words to Alan Foster turned him into my unquestioning ally. A few more to Vickie’s boss and she was instructed to cooperate with me fully no matter where such cooperation might lead. Then both men departed and the two of them looked at me with awe and respect. “What do you want us to do?" Vickie put the new feeling into words.
“Call room service and order a bottle of scotch and three of the thickest steaks they can find. After that, we'll see," I told them.
What I saw when we'd finished eating was that Vickie was exhausted. I sent her off to bed. Alan, however, like myself, wasn't tired. We decided on a stroll through the slums of Calcutta.
Really, at this point I didn't have an idea in the world. And when one came to me, it really had nothing to do with finding Anna Kirkov. Rather it was the inspiration for the paying of a recent debt.
The main thing that strikes a visitor to Calcutta-—once he gets away from the tourist traps and into the old section of the city—-is the visible proof of the lack of toilet facilities. Every inch of street -- -sidewalk and gutter alike-—is fair territory for use as an outhouse. And the people, conditioned to a lack of the niceties, use them that way publicly, following the Hindu custom of as signing specific tasks to specific hands.
Spotting one such ragged creature so engaged, paused. “Can we be sure that he's a Hindu?" I asked Alan,
“Sure he's a Hindu. Why?"
I ignored the question and approached the squatting figure. I took out my wallet and carefully counted out some money. He looked at me in amazementas I handed it to him and made some rather obscene gestures by way of showing what I wanted him to do with it. He caught on and did what the gestures suggested. I walked on with a speechless Alan, feeling quite satisfied with what I'd done.
I'd made good on the dying wish of Basra, the Baghdad cab driver. His sister would never see the money now. It had been disposed of as Basra had wished. His fee had been paid in full.
I could almost hear him chuckling in the fetid air of Calcutta. I suspected that he'd known all along that's all money is really good for. It was the game he'd appreciated, not the money itself. And I hadn't spoiled his record of winning that game.
I’d seen to it that Basra collected on his final job!
010
POLITICS MAKE bedfellows strange. That was one lesson learned during my short stay in Calcutta. Auparis’taka10 . That was another. And allies gained are quickly lost. Still another.
The last-mentioned was the first learned. It was conveyed to me by Charles Putnam. A hand-delivered message summoned me to a meeting with him the following morning. In his usual terse way, he filled me in on decisions reached and plans to be followed.
"Alan Foster and Miss Winters will be gone by the time you return to your hotel,” he told me. “Arrangements have been made for them to leave on the noon plane for Tokyo."
"Why?"
“Our information is that the Chinese may have identified both of them as agents. If this is true, we don’t want to impair your effectiveness by having you connected with either of them. So far, there is no reason to think the association has been noticed. But if it continued, it would only be a matter of time before your position was compromised."
"I see."
"Now, things have also been arranged so that you needn't return to the hotel at which the three of you were staying. A suite has been taken for you at the Regal House—one of the swankiest international hotels in Calcutta—and luggage, clothing and other appurtenance have already been installed there. You will live in a style fitting to an American scientific investigator."
“Sounds great."
“It is luxurious. However, you shan't enjoy it for long."
“How come?"
“This evening, after dinner, you will return to your quarters. At eight-thirty, you will receive a telephone call from Abhira Jayasana. He is a wealthy export merchant who ranks high in the society of Calcutta and who frequently entertains foreign dignitaries. He will invite you to spend the weekend at his estate on the outskirts of Calcutta. You will accept. Arrangements will be made for a car to pick you up and transport you there the following morning."
“And the reason for my accepting?" I asked.
“Mustafa Ben Narouz is also a house guest there."
“I see. That sounds cozy. Is there anything else I should know?"
"No. I'm sorry, but we have no information to make your task any easier."
“What about this Jayasana? Will he be on my side? How far can I count on him?"
“You can't. He is as determinedly neutral as his government has been. All he knows is that you are a prominent American scientist and it's a social feather in his cap to play host to you. One of our embassy gadabouts tipped him off to your presence in Calcutta and the invitation will be automatic with him. He was also told that you always nap after dinner, so make sure that you're in your room at eight-thirty to receive his call."
"Check.”
I left Putnam and followed instructions. The Regal House was posh. The call from Jayasana came right on schedule. And just before noon the next day I was stepping out of a chauffeured Rolls Royce and following a white-robed servant inside Jayasana's ivory-white, Oriental-style mansion.
My host greeted me in the library. Italian-cut sports clothes, Indian turban, Oxford accent, wealthy and warm —that was Abhira Jayasana. He made me feel right at home, discussed my specialty briefly, but with surprising knowledgeableness, then suggested I might like to retire to my room until luncheon, which would be at one o'clock.
There were four of us at lunch. Jayasana, myself, his daughter Samantha and an Englishman named Wilfred Cunningham. Mustafa Ben Narouz wasn't present and I gathered from the conversation that he planned to spend the afternoon in his room “writing letters," but would join us at dinner.
Samantha Jayasana was a tall, gracefully attractive girl of about twenty years or so. Her voice was soft and cultivated, her conversation literary and impersonal—an impersonality belied by the decided flirtatiousness of her sparkling dark eyes. Her skin was a reddish-brown and she wore a multi-colored sari which covered but didn't conceal the ample curves of her Junoesque body.