1966 - You Have Yourself a Deal (17 page)

Yew shook his head.

“I wouldn’t attempt to sell it. It is much too important a piece. It should go to Christies for the world to bid for it.”

“But suppose this had to be an undercover deal? Suppose Kung didn’t want his government to know about the sale. Do you know a collector who would buy it?”

Yew regarded Girland thoughtfully, his eyes suddenly hooded.

“Yes, I know three or four collectors who would buy it.”

“What kind of price?”

Yew shrugged.

“That’s not easy. I would try for three million dollars.”

Girland drew in a long, slow breath.

“Think you would get it?”

“It is possible.”

“The whole affair would be arranged without publicity?”

“That is also possible.”

“It would have to be.”

Again Yew regarded Girland.

“My friend,” he said, “I can’t believe you are wasting your time talking this way unless you know more than you are telling me. Why not be frank? You can trust me. I am your friend. Are you acting for Kung? Does he really want to sell his pearl?”

Girland got to his feet.

“Don’t let’s rush this, Jacques,” he said. “Thanks for the information. If you had the pearl, you could sell it for three million dollars . . . right?”

Yew touched his temple with a silk handkerchief.

“Yes.”

“Fine . . . I’ll be seeing you.” Girland shook hands and walked out of the shop.

He was in a very thoughtful mood as he drove back to Eze.

* * *

In the shabby villa at Cagnes, Malik paced up and down.

“What is happening to the fool?” he demanded, his voice vicious with rage. “He has been gone three hours! What is he doing?”

Smernoff sighed and dragged his eyes away from a suntanned girl in a white bikini who was running down to the sea.

“The traffic is bad,” he said. “It would take an hour to get up the Corniche and an hour to get back. Don’t be so impatient.”

He pointed. “That girl . . . look at the length of her legs. She is really very pleasing. I would like to . . .”

“Shut up!” Malik barked. “Go and look for him, Boris. Go up to the Corniche and find out what he is doing!”

Smernoff recognised the dangerous note in Malik’s voice. He got to his feet and moved to the door.

“It will take me some time, but I will go,” he said.

Impatiently, Malik waved him away. When Smernoff had gone, Malik sat in the chair Smernoff had been using. He looked out “onto the beach. The girl in the white bikini was walking along the beach, swinging her bathing cap.

Malik watched her.

* * *

O’Halloran came into Dorey’s office. He carried a blue and white suitcase which he put on a chair.

“This is hers,” he said as Dorey put aside a file and got to his feet. “The hotel had it in their left luggage office. She told them she would collect it later.”

“I thought you said there were two suitcases?” Dorey said.

“There were. I haven’t traced the other yet. There’s nothing of interest in this one. Just clothes. I’ve been through it. Good, expensive stuff, but nothing to help us.”

Dorey showed his disappointment. He shrugged and sat down.

“How about the second suitcase?”

“Could be anywhere. We are working with Dulay and he is having every left luggage locker checked and is checking all left luggage offices. It’s a big job. Could take days.”

“How did she register at the hotel?”

“As Naomi Hill from Los Angeles. There is no doubt she is the woman. I showed the staff at the hotel her photograph. They immediately recognised her.”

“How about her passport?”

“The reception clerk didn’t see it. She told him her passport was in her luggage. She took the police card and filled it in herself. I’m checking the passport number. It’s certain to be a false one.”

“Doesn’t look as if she had lost her memory at that time, does it?” Dorey said thoughtfully. “Looks as if she was on the run.”

“I suppose we are sure she really has lost her memory?” O’Halloran said.

“Dr. Forrester seems certain about it. She might be faking.”

Dorey sat for a moment in thought. “I’ll talk to Girland. In the meantime if you are sure there is nothing in the suitcase of value, you had better put it on a plane and let her have it.”

“There’s nothing.”

“Well, then do that.” Dorey reached for the telephone. Ten minutes later, he was talking to Girland. He told him one of the suitcases had been found.

“There’s nothing of interest in it for us,” Dorey went on. “I’m having it sent down to the Nice Airport. You can get someone to collect it. O’Halloran and I have been talking about this woman.” He went on to tell Girland that she had registered under the name of Naomi Hill of Los Angeles. “We are wondering if she really has lost her memory or is faking. I want you to lay a trap for her.”

“Such as how?” Girland asked, reaching for a cigarette.

“Call her Naomi. Watch her closely. See if you get any reaction,” Dorey said. “Do you want me to send someone down there to handle it?”

Girland, thinking about the Black Grape, said, “No. I can handle it. Give me an hour or so. I’ll think what is best to do. I have an idea she isn’t faking, but you might be right,” and he hung up.

Ginny, who had been listening to all this, said, “She isn’t faking, Mark. I am quite sure of it. I’ve had a loss of memory case before now. There is this lost, vague look m the eyes that can’t be faked.”

Girland smiled at her.

“I don’t think she is faking. My boss was born suspicious. I’m going up to talk to her. Why don’t you go out on the terrace and top up your beautiful suntan?”

Ginny looked at him, then nodded.

“All right.” She paused, then went on, “She is lovely, isn’t She?”

He crossed the room and put his arms around her.

“So are you, Ginny. You have something she hasn’t.”

Ginny touched his cheek with her finger.

“What is that?”

“I’ll tell you tonight.”

She moved away from him. Girland watched her. She wandered to the french windows leading out onto the terrace, paused, then looked at him.

“All right . . . then tell me tonight,” she said and walked out into the hot sunshine.

* * *

Jo-Jo was feeling the heat. He had already drunk half the bottle of wine Ruby had given him, and he now decided it had been a mistake to drink wine. It only made him hotter. He should have brought Coca Cola. He had taken off his dirty, cotton coat and had rolled up his black shirtsleeves. Sweat sparkled on his narrow forehead as he shifted further into the shade. He had been up on the mountain now for four hours and the terrace had been deserted for all this time. He pulled the haversack towards him, looked into it and took out a demi—baguette, split in two and filled with ham and garlic sausage. He gnawed a piece off, wiped the sweat from his face and began chewing. The rifle across his knees felt hot. Suddenly he stiffened. He spat out the half-eaten lump of bread and lifted the rifle.

Here she was, and at last! he thought as far below him a blonde girl came out onto the terrace. She had on a skimpy sun suit and she sat on one of the lounging chairs. She began to spray her arms with a suntan bomb.

Jo-Jo, his mouth now dry, his body tense, lifted the rifle and peered at the girl through the telescopic sight. He had been told the woman was blonde. He knew the nurse was brunette. So this must be Erica Olsen. His lips came off his discoloured teeth and he held his breath as the cross section of the sight centred on the girl’s forehead. She had paused and was looking down into the garden, motionless. Jo-Jo knew he was being offered the perfect target. Very gently, still holding his breath, he squeezed the trigger.

Chapter Seven

H
ad Pfc Willy Jackson not been a light heavyweight champion, his life could easily have been made unbearable by the kidding and leg-pulling of his companions. But since Jackson could lick any man in his battalion, and since he was in an ugly and sullen mood, no one attempted to kid him about the way he had let the Commies walk off with this Swedish chick.

Jackson had recovered consciousness with a bruised and swollen jaw in the Bois. He had been reprimanded and was now on sentry detail at Dorey’s villa, the bruise on his jaw turning a pale yellow and green.

Sergeant O’Leary sent him up onto the Corniche to relieve Pfc Fairfax. The change of guard took place at 13.00 hrs., and now Jackson with his police dog, was taking his duties seriously.

He had been given a black mark by his Commanding Officer and that had hurt Jackson’s feelings. He decided that anyone acting suspiciously on this sun—roasted road should be challenged.

He didn’t even sit in the Jeep nor did he allow his dog to sleep.

Jackson was breathing fire and was very much on the ball.

A little after 1.30 p.m. with the traffic crawling past him in a steady stream, Jackson saw a young beatnik, carrying a violin case on the narrow sidewalk which ran along the low wall of the mountainside.

A few moments previously, there had been a gap in the traffic, and Jackson had had a clear view of the long strip of the Corniche he was guarding. There had been no pedestrians in sight, and now this young beatnik had materialised from nowhere.

Jackson hesitated only for a moment, then he shouted, “Hey, you! Just a moment!”

Jo-Jo flinched, but kept walking. He controlled the urge to run and looked as casually as he could at the distant view as if he hadn’t heard Jackson’s shout.

“You!”

Jo-Jo kept on.

Jackson snapped his fingers at his dog and pointed. The dog was out of the Jeep like a black flash, whipped in front of a crawling car, got ahead of Jo-Jo and planted itself in front of him.

Jo-Jo came to an abrupt halt

There was something deadly in the way the dog stared up at him.

For the first time in his short vicious life, Jo-Jo knew fear.

Carrying his automatic rifle at the alert, Jackson crossed the road, his eyes coldly suspicious. He came up to Jo-Jo.

“Didn’t you hear me tell you to stop?” he demanded in his excruciating French.

“Why should I stop for you, Yank?” Jo-Jo said, licking his dry lips.

“What have you got in there?” Jackson said, pointing his rifle at the violin case.

“A violin, and what’s it to you? Listen, Yank, I don’t know what you think you’re doing. I’m a French subject. Take your dog and get lost.”

“Where did you come from?”

“What’s it to you?”

“You’ve come up the mountainside, haven’t you?”

“What should I be doing on the mountainside?” Jo-Jo sneered. “If you don’t want to land yourself in trouble, you’d better leave me alone. I’m a French subject and . . .”

“I heard you the first time. Open that fiddle case!”

If it hadn’t been for the dog, Jo-Jo would have whipped out his knife, stabbed this fool and made a bolt for it. But the dog made this impossible. Jo-Jo was really scared of the dog.

“You don’t talk this way to me, Yank,” he said. “Get the hell out of my way.”

Jackson hesitated. He realised he had no right to interfere with a French subject, but this dirty, vicious looking little rat had come up the mountainside. He was sure of that and he wasn’t going to let him go.

“Look, sonny, why don’t you act sensibly? If you have nothing to hide, open the fiddle case and you can go. It’s as simple as that.”

“I don’t open anything for a goddamn Yank,” Jo-Jo snarled.

Then out of the crawling traffic appeared a French road cop, immaculate in his white helmet, his blue uniform and his glittering knee-high boots.

Jackson waved to him.

Dropping his violin case, Jo-Jo, frantic now, made a grab at Jackson’s automatic rifle. Two things happened to him at once.

Jackson’s left fist thudded against his jaw and the dog pounced, pinning his right wrist.

* * *

Girland tapped on Erica’s door. She called for him to come in. He opened the door, then paused in the doorway.

Erica was dressed. She had on a black and green sleeveless frock and she was standing in front of a full-length mirror admiring herself. She turned and smiled at him.

“Well?”

Girland, who adored beautiful women, was for a brief moment so full of admiration that he said nothing, but just looked at her.

Then he came into the room, closed the door and walked over to her.

“You look wonderful. That dress . . . it suits you beautifully.”

She again looked at herself in the mirror.

“I think it does.” She came to him and put her long fingers on his arm. “Mark, can’t I go out into the sun? I am sure I will feel so much better if only I could.”

“Not yet. Please be patient. Come and sit down. I want to talk to you.”

She sat down away from the window, crossed her long, shapely legs and looked inquiringly at him.

“Yes, Mark?”

“I want to try to help your memory,” Girland said. He took a chair near hers. “Does the name Naomi Hill mean anything to you?”

She frowned, thought, then shook her head.

“No . . . should it mean anything to me?”

From the despairing expression in her blue eyes, Girland was satisfied she wasn’t faking.

“Never mind. The one thing you do seem to remember is this black grape.”

Her eyes lit up.

“Yes. It keeps coming into my mind, but it isn’t a grape, Mark. I think it’s a pearl.”

“That’s right,” Girland said. “ I t is a pearl, and it is set on the back of a Chinese dragon.”

She stared at him, then nodded.

“Yes . . . I remember that now. Do you know about it?”

“I know a little about it. Have you got it, Erica?”

She moved uneasily. “Should I have it?”

“I think so. Try to remember. It belonged to Feng Hoh Kung.”

He could see from her expression the struggle going on in her mind. Finally, she threw up her hands.

“It’s no use. It is like trying to open a door that won’t open. There is a black pearl. I do know that. Kung . . . does he live in Pekin?”