“I see.” There was silence as Kek digested this information. “And when will you be back?”
“Any other information you want dug out?” André sounded airy.
“No, that’s all.”
“Then the first plane in the morning. And then a taxi, all the way. Portal to portal.”
Kek laughed. “Which you richly deserve. And your room will be ready, and this time you can stay in it.” He became serious. “You know, André, when I asked you to go to Barcelona, I really didn’t have too much hope of your getting any information at all. I wouldn’t have known where to start. Just digging out Duarte, in only a few hours, was miraculous—”
“It was really nothing,” André said modestly.
“I know better. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”
“Good night, Kek.”
André hung up, feeling good, and started to take off his shirt. It had been a long day, and while the bed in his cheap hotel room would be hard, he knew, he also knew he would sleep without problems. He climbed into bed and pulled the thin sheet over his chest. One final thought came to him before he fell asleep — the following morning before catching his plane he would have to dig Raul up and give him the price of another bottle...
5
Señor Antonio Duarte was stunned. It was impossible! He glared at the telephone in growing anger, convinced that Sanchez had managed to mishandle things again.
“He won’t? What do you mean, he won’t?”
“I mean exactly what I say,” Sanchez said evenly. “He’s refused.”
“What did you say to him to make him refuse? I heard this André speak with him. I heard every word they said. This André couldn’t have been better or more convincing. It was a good idea, his calling Huuygens, even if you did think of it—”
“Except it didn’t work,” Sanchez said imperturbably.
If the thin man in Paris was exhibiting exceptional calmness in face of the disaster, the fact was lost on Duarte. All he knew was that after having been assured by all competent authority that this Kek Huuygens was the only man in the world for the job, and after having put up the funds and having tracked down this André, the hijo de madre in Paris had turned them down. And he had given 500 pesetas to the big-mouthed giant, too! It all had to be Sanchez’s fault!
“So what did he say? Why did he turn it down? He’s in business to make money, isn’t he?”
“He didn’t explain,” Sanchez said calmly. “He just said, quite pleasantly, that at the moment he was otherwise occupied and that as far as I and my proposition were concerned, he was apt to be otherwise occupied indefinitely.”
“The bastard!” Duarte was close to fuming. He had been told, and finally convinced, that without Huuygens they would be taking a terrible chance trying to smuggle it into Spain. And the thought of having to sell it in Argentina, with the subsequent loss in profit, was enough to make a person kill. In Barcelona he controlled the trade; in Argentina he would have to deal with brokers and distributors in a producing market, and for what he would get out of it he would do better to stand on the corner of Florida and Corrientes and peddle it by the packet. “So what do we do?”
Sanchez smiled at the telephone; there was a touch of cruelty in the thin grimace.
“M’sieu Huuygens said he wouldn’t take our suitcase through customs, but on the other hand, many of us say things in haste and come to change our minds after further thought...”
“You mean you think you can get him to change his mind?” That idiot Sanchez, pulling that scare business! “How?” One way occurred to him; it was the first way that always occurred to him. “Offer him more money. Double the ten thousand! Triple it!”
“I already did,” Sanchez said quietly. “He still refused. But I have a feeling I know someone who might prevail on him, even if his old friend André did not—”
“Who?” Duarte said impatiently, in no mood for mystery, and then saw a possibility. “Rosa?”
“In part,” Sanchez said.
“In part? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it says. Rosa will be helpful. In part.” Sanchez looked at the telephone commiseratingly, as if Duarte were before him. “Don’t worry. It will come out all right.”
“How long—”
“A few days more,” Sanchez said soothingly. “Only a few days more. We’ve waited this long, we can afford to wait a few days more. And the material is safe with Schneller in Buenos Aires where it is.”
The explosion he had hoped to avoid did not come. When Duarte spoke his voice was quiet. Too quiet, Sanchez suddenly realized.
“This is the last chance,” he said softly. “I have had enough excuses. If I write off five million dollars, I intend to write off several people with it. Good morning.”
There was a click in Sanchez’s ear. He set the telephone back and looked at it thoughtfully a moment; then he smiled, confident. What he had in mind was bound to work; no need to worry Duarte or his boys. He looked over at the bed. Rosa, nude and lazily smoking a cigarette, returned the look queryingly.
“Get dressed,” Sanchez said quietly. “You wanted to earn your pay? Well, let’s get started.”
Rosa shrugged and rolled over, sitting up. She crushed out her cigarette and scratched her stomach. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Play darts,” Sanchez said cryptically and studied the seated woman. Getting fat, he thought, and wondered why eventually they all got fat...
Anita, her empty shopping bag under her arm and her purse squeezed tightly, was on her semiweekly shopping trip. The Halles Centrales were gone from the Rue Bergère, moved to the outskirts, and Anita missed them sorely. She missed the friendliness of the stalls, the leisureliness of strolling through the ancient pavilions enjoying smells implanted over centuries. It was not that sources of household needs were not available on almost every corner; she was at the moment, in fact, heading determinedly for the Supermarket Gourmet in the Porte de Maillot. It was simply that to anyone Parisian born and bred there was neither fun nor satisfaction in patronizing one of the fluorescent-lit, sterile, boxlike anthills. One could scarcely haggle with a price stamped on a tin, or pinch a handful of plastic wrap, or even scream at a check-out counter girl; and if not, what purpose to shop at all? It was Anita’s belief that one might as well eat in restaurants all the time and be done with it.
She crossed the Avenue de la Grande Armée with cars braking dangerously to allow her passage, the drivers courting disaster to pivot their heads and watch her trim figure swing along. She approached the wide glass doors of the market, her mind reviewing her shopping requirements, and was about to push through into the interior when she felt a sharp sting on her thigh and involuntarily flinched. In the impatient crowd pushing past her into the store it was impossible to distinguish the silly idiot who had been so careless as to allow an open pin, or some such sharp-pointed implement, to extend lethally from some package or garment. She rubbed the painful spot a moment, muttering unladylike sentiments, and then let the crowd carry her inside the market.
It was remarkably warm inside the place, warmer than she recalled ever having encountered it, and particularly exceptional for that time of year. It also seemed even noisier than usual. She drew to one side to dig into her purse and pull out a handkerchief, dabbing at her damp brow, and then bravely marched on to the first counter, determined to complete her shopping and leave. She reached out to check a mountain of fresh shrimp stacked high on a bed of ice; the touch of the ice was like an electric shock. She withdrew her hand at once, as if it had been burned. She shook her head, trying to clear away the fuzziness that had suddenly developed, but only seemingly succeeded in increasing the hum that had begun in her ears. The lights in the ceiling were beginning to enlarge, swirling ever more rapidly. My Lord, she thought in amazement, I’ve never fainted in my life but I believe that’s what I’m going to do! She closed her eyes, fighting the sickening sensation, and then crumpled to the ground in a heap, neither particularly dramatic nor graceful.