The success of his meeting with Anita had quickened his blood...
9
Anita let herself into the apartment silently and walked slowly and wearily down the corridor to the living room, the deep pile of the carpeting muffling her footsteps. Kek was sitting in an easy chair, reading; he looked up with a smile, came to his feet, and walked back of the bar.
“You look tired. I’ll fix you a drink.” He reached for a bottle and glasses. “Hard day?”
“You can’t imagine.” Anita put her purse aside, brushed her fingers through her hair to fan it out, and walked over to the bar, pulling out a stool. She looked around. “Where’s André?”
“Out.” Kek poured the drinks and slid a glass over the counter. “He has a lot of old friends in Paris and a lot of time to catch up with.” He looked at her a bit curiously. “He said you went to visit an old girlfriend. Was it all that tiring?”
“Terrible,” Anita said and sipped her drink gratefully.
“I thought seeing old girlfriends was just terrible for men,” Kek said and grinned. “André also said you didn’t see the doctor.”
“I had to go out.” Anita finished her drink and pushed her glass back for another. Kek’s eyebrows went up. Anita laughed. “No, it wasn’t all that bad — just tiring.” She sipped and set the glass down. “Kek, would you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t say it so lightly,” Anita warned. “I mean, any favor. Without questions. With no exceptions.”
Kek studied her face a moment and then shrugged. “Probably. Why?” He suddenly grinned. “Are you sure you didn’t see the doctor? Maybe in the elevator? You’re beginning to ask the sort of questions pregnant women are supposed to ask.”
“Except I’m not pregnant. Just answer me.”
“I did. I said probably.”
Anita shook her head. “That’s the wrong answer.”
“Oh, why?”
“You’re supposed to say no.”
“You don’t want the favor after all? You’ve changed your mind?”
Anita laughed. “That’s not it at all, you idiot. You’re supposed to say no, and then I’m supposed to use my charms and wiles on you—”
Kek’s eyebrows went up. “In that order?”
“—in that order, to get you to change your mind. Because if you don’t change your mind, I’ll be sorry.”
Kek’s eyes suddenly narrowed. His voice became sober. “How sorry?”
“This sorry...” Anita took the envelope from the pocket of her dress and slid it across the bar.
Kek took it and removed the photographs, his face expressionless. He studied the top one a moment and then looked up, frowning.
“I never knew you had a mole on your thigh, and you would have thought I might have noticed, one time or another...”
“A mole?” Anita shook her head and dug a cigarette from a box on the bar. “I don’t have a mole on my thigh.”
“You don’t? But... oh, I beg your pardon. It’s on the other girl. You two are so tangled up it’s a bit hard to tell.” He put the first picture behind the others and carefully considered the second. “Now this is an interesting position...”
“Which?” Anita reached out to take the picture in question and nodded in agreement. “It is, indeed. My only question is, is it feasible, do you suppose?”
“Acrobats might,” Kek conceded and continued on to the third.
Anita lit her cigarette, waited a moment, and then reached over, taking back the pictures. “That’s enough. You’ll grow up to be a dirty old man.”
“Yes,” Kek said and moved his glass on the bar, watching the little damp circles it made. He looked up, his face serious. “Would you like my honest opinion?”
“Of course,” Anita said and finally lit her cigarette.
“Well,” Kek said critically, “if you ask me, the lighting could have been better. The shadows detract, I think. And your girlfriend, I’m afraid, is over the hill. Though please don’t quote me. She looks the type to carry a knife.” He shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid you wasted an afternoon. I doubt they’ll sell.”
“They were taken in a hurry,” Anita said apologetically. “And as for the girlfriend, as you call her, beggars can’t be choosers.”
“So true, so true.” Kek drank the balance of his drink and set the glass aside. “And that, I suppose, accounts for your lost four hours yesterday. By the way, who is she? My competition, I mean?”
“She didn’t leave a card,” Anita said. “And I never had the pleasure of being introduced.” She sipped her drink and put it down. “With the sharp memory of all people after the fact, I now remember getting pricked sharply just as I was going into the Gourmet. I thought it was just some idiot careless with a pin, but I guess I was the idiot.”
“We can’t all be perfect,” Kek said and frowned. “I don’t want to be curious, but you’ve forgotten to tell me just who the salesman of the pictures is.”
“Oh? So I did. But I thought you’d be smart enough to figure that out...”
Kek smiled. “I am. It was Señor Sanchez, of course.” His smile faded. “A hypodermic in a crowded market. Cute. And I’m sure if you went back to that counter selling hot ice, the girl there would tell you all about the kind man with the foreign accent who was nice enough to take care of you...”
He started to pour himself another drink and decided against it. Liquor and planning never mixed with Kek Huuygens. He studied the carpet without seeing it, and smiled at something, although the smile was rather grim. His eyes came up.
“And what did Señor Sanchez have to say today? Exactly?”
“What you know he said. He was sorry, but what could he do? If I didn’t extend my charms and wiles, in that order, and convince you to take a suitcase of something someplace, he would be forced, etc., etc.”
“And you replied?”
Anita laughed. “My darling, you should have seen me. Critics should have seen me. Bernhardt would have been forgotten, Duse put out to pasture. I was superb. I pled — or is it pleaded? I wept. I wrung hands. I begged piteously.”
“And Sanchez?”
“He’s no critic, I gather,” Anita said, wrinkling her nose. “He was unmoved; I imagine he’s not used to finer stuff in the theater. He kept going back to the charms and wiles bit.”
Kek thought a moment and then leaned across the counter.
“Charms and wiles, eh? Well, I’d hate to have the man go to all that trouble for nothing. Start to exert the charms.”
Anita leaned over the bar counter and kissed him tenderly. The tenderness began to give way to passion. She ceased abruptly and sat back, breathing a bit rapidly, smiling at him.
“My ex-girlfriend would be jealous if she’d seen us right now,” she said lightly and then paused, a slight frown on her face as Kek winked at her and came from behind the bar. She watched him walk toward the desk. “What are you going to do? Those were just the charms; you haven’t seen the wiles yet...”
Kek grinned at her cheerfully, picked up the telephone, referred to a piece of paper on the blotter, and began to dial. He waited until he heard the circuits go into action, cupped the receiver, and looked up at Anita. His eyes were twinkling.
“After all,” he said chidingly, “you couldn’t allow me to see those nasty pictures, could you? Think how disgusted I’d be, how shocked. Think of my loss of faith in you. And the fact is you did exert the charms, even if, as you so rightly point out, we never got to the wiles—”
“So?”
“So we accept Señor Sanchez’s offer, of course. We carry his suitcase,” Kek said gently and smiled at her with love. His face sobered up. “I just hope André hasn’t forgotten all he used to know about locks...”