Psychomech (22 page)

Koenig chuckled. ‘Ah! But your education is incomplete, Richard. Your geography is lacking. Obviously you have totally omitted Italy—and Italian cuisine! Green pasta, you say? Well, that narrows it down a little—I hope. I would say that is a basil pasta, and furthermore that it is a north Italian dish, where basil is a speciality.’

Garrison was unimpressed. ‘Narrows it down, did you say? Northern Italy is one hell of a lot of land, Willy.’

‘But we are talking of a place on the sea, in a bay,’ the German reminded him. ‘And did this place have a name?’

‘A name?’ Garrison pressed his knuckles to his forehead. ‘A name—yes! But—’ he smiled tiredly and brushed his brow. ‘No, that’s crazy.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Koenig.

Garrison snorted. ‘Arizona?’

‘Ah, well that
is
crazy, yes.’ Now it was Koenig’s turn to frown. ‘But not so crazy if it was spelled Arizano! That would sound much more—’ And again Garrison gripped his arm.

‘But that’s it ?’he whispered. ‘Or nearly it. It begins with an ‘A’ and ends in ‘zano’—I think.’

Koenig stood up, crossed to a bookshelf and took down a world atlas. He brought the large book back to the desk and opened it to the map of Italy. Then turning the page and turning to the index, he read out:

‘Arezzo, Ariano Irfino, Ascoli Piceno—’

‘No!’ Garrison cut him off, frustration sharpening his tone. ‘The first one was close, but… I told you, Willy, it ends in “zano”.’

The other sighed and closed the atlas. ‘A place on the coast,’ he nodded. ‘Probably in the north. Very well, it’s high time we had a holiday, you and I—especially you. Two years now, and you’ve travelled no farther than Zurich and the Harz. And if this Terri is in Italy—’

‘A holiday?’ Garrison was at once interested. ‘What do you suggest?”

Koenig stroked his chin for a moment, thought about it, then smiled. ‘I suggest we fly to Italy,’ he said, ‘hire a yacht and crew in Naples, and then—’ he shrugged, ‘we simply follow our noses—or your nose.’

Garrison nodded. ‘I could of course have a list of coastal Italian towns and villages drawn up, and take my pick of those that sound right. But—your idea sounds far more interesting. And you’re right, it would be good to get away for a week or two. Whichever, it’s a problem we won’t solve sitting here. So—when can we go?’

Koenig spread his arms. ‘As soon as you like.’

‘Today!’

And the German knew that there would be little point in arguing.

On the 2 June they set out from Naples and headed north along the coast. Their hired motor-yacht, a rather cramped eight-berther, had herself supplied Garrison with his first bearings; for her name was
La Ligurienne
. And so they forged for the Ligurian Sea, that incredibly beautiful expanse of ocean between Corsica and the Gulf of Genoa. Also,’ north had smelled right to Garrison; and of course he had Koenig’s knowledge of Italian foods!

To anyone who did not know Garrison, following up a dream in this crazy fashion must seem the very epitome of all wild-goose chases; but Garrison knew enough of himself now to realize that this was no folly. And as for Koenig: he was equally eager to see Garrison’s dream realized. To his way of thinking it would take him that much closer to reunion with his
first
master, who was not really dead but merely… waiting.

The evening of the 6
^th
, however, found their spirits dampened more than a little. They now sailed south-westward, following the coastline round towards Monaco and Nice, and it would not be long before the waters they sailed were no longer Italian but French. Considering this, Garrison’s mood was gradually turning to one of despair. Which was just the perfect time for things to take a turn for the better.

Genoa’s lights were beginning to come on, gleaming distantly astern and mirrored in a perfectly flat sea, when

Garrison sat up straighter in his chair on the narrow deck and called Koenig to his side.

His hushed voice was almost drowned by the leisurely throb and burble of the engine; he hardly dared voice his thoughts as he said, ‘Willy—we’re nearly there!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh, yes, I’m sure. Get one of the crew, will you?’

Koenig immediately brought the captain, a light-skinned Roman named Francesco Lovi, from his position at the wheel. ‘Francesco,’ said Garrison, ‘can we get up a little more speed?’

‘But certainly, Mr Garrison. Shall we put in tonight?’

‘I think so, yes.’

Lovi gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘And perhaps this time it will be the place you seek, eh? We have been to many places, but they were not what you sought.’

‘I’ll know it when I find it,’ said Garrison. ‘In fact, I believe I have found it. Tell me, what ports do you have on your charts?’

‘Oh, Savona, perhaps?’

‘Is there nothing closer than that?’

Lovi wrinkled his nose. ‘A small port,’ he said. ‘We should be standing directly off her right now. Ah, yes!’ He pointed to starboard. ‘You see the lights?’

Koenig answered him, ‘Yes, I see them.’

‘Good,’ said Garrison. ‘What’s the town called?’

Lovi shrugged. ‘I have never put in there. A tourist trap, I think. A holiday place. But Marcello will know. He was born in these parts.’ He put a hand to his mouth and bellowed, ‘Hey, Marcello!’

A huge bearded man came out from the cabin, spoke briefly to Lovi, turned to Garrison and nodded in a friendly fashion. His hairy face split in a smile.

‘She holiday town,’ Marcello rumbled. ‘Little place. Not good for rich man. Savona better.’

‘I’ll decide that,’ Garrison answered, his patience wearing thin. ‘Now please, what’s the name of the place?’

Marcello scratched his chin, shrugged, said, ‘Oh, she called Arenzano.’

Garrison felt his blood cool in a moment, forcing an involuntary shiver down his spine. Koenig, too. They looked at each other, unsmiling. Finally Garrison turned his lenses on the captain. ‘This is it, Francesco,’ he said. ‘This is the place. Tonight we put into Arenzano.’

When the captain went back to his duties and they were alone again, Garrison asked Koenig to sit beside him and said, ‘Willy, there’s something I still have to tell you.’

‘About your dream?’ The other looked at him sideways. ‘I thought there might be.’

‘When we find Terri,’ Garrison began, ‘it may well be that—’

‘—We also find trouble,’ Koenig finished it for him. ‘She’s in danger, eh?’

For once Garrison was astonished. ‘Now how in hell…?’

‘Richard,’ Koenig patted his hand in an almost fatherly manner, ‘did Thomas never explain why he employed me? I have this knack, you see—no, not an ESP facility that I’m aware of, just a knack—of sensing trouble before it strikes. Sometimes it lets me down, but not often. Thomas used to say that my prime function was to think bad thoughts before others thought them. Well, since first you told me about your dream I have been thinking bad thoughts. I am prepared—’

‘You’re a remarkable and valuable man, Willy Koenig,’ said Garrison slowly. ‘And you’re right—there was violence in my dream.’

‘How much violence?’

‘Four men, a knife—I’m not sure. But your walking stick was in it, too. And I notice that you brought it with you.’ The stick he mentioned was one that Koenig had used ever since Garrison first knew him. An ordinary stick with a crook, the German walked with it in the country and when exercising Suzy, flicked leaves with it, used it to gesture and to point things out. A casual, comfortable sort of stick, time and use had polished it black. But Garrison knew that his friend never left it lying around where idle hands might pick it up.

‘My stick, yes,’ the other quietly answered. ‘And did I use it, in your dream?’

‘Again, I’m not sure,’ said Garrison, the frown back on his face. ‘But I don’t think I should want you to use it… fully.’

Koenig nodded. ‘Then we must hope that the violence was not—will not be—too excessive. But did your dream tell you nothing of the timing of this… trouble? Like where or when it will take place for instance?’

‘My dream, no,’ Garrison replied thoughtfully. ‘It’s a feeling from inside that tells me that. The place is… there,’ he pointed uncertainly towards the shore lights. ‘Is that the right direction?’

‘Yes,’ Koenig nodded, ‘Arenzano. And the time?’

Garrison shrugged, the gesture uncomfortable, his shoulders hardly moving at all. ‘Oh, soon.’

‘Tonight, do you mean?’

Garrison turned his head to stare directly at the other, his lenses silver now in the twilight on the sea. ‘Yes, I think so,’ he finally said. ‘Tonight…’

L
ovi berthed
La Ligurienne
at the end of a jutting concrete quay, and with Garrison’s permission he and the four members of his crew went ashore. Left to their own devices, Garrison and Koenig prepared for the night’s business and half an hour later, clad in open-necked, lightweight evening suits, made their way from the motor-yacht to the seafront.

To anyone who watched them it might seem that Koenig was the blind one, or a partial cripple at least, for he was a bit slow and leaned heavily on his stick. Also, he had seemed to age by at least ten years. Garrison, to the contrary, went with the unerring certainty of a man with all his senses intact,’remembering’ something of the way from his dream and knowing a tingling sensation of deja vu which at once alarmed and excited him.

It was still quite early, not yet 9.30, but already the lights of the town were a riot of colour. The place must recently have known some festive occasion, for bunting was still in evidence across the streets and looped between the palms along the promenade. Even though the tourist season was not yet fully into its swing, the warm weather had brought people out to enjoy the balmy evening. The open-air restaurants and cafes were busy; the bars thronged with people. German, Swiss and French accents—even a few British ones—mingled strangely with the native Italian; which, together with the hooting of car and scooter horns from the road, and jukebox music from the cafes, painted a picture in Garrison’s mind of some great polyglot fairground. In other circumstances it was a picture he might have paused to absorb and enjoy, but not tonight. Tonight it only served to disorientate him.

Finding a vantage point, a hastily erected bandstand or speaker’s platform standing on the seaward side of the road that ran parallel with the curve of the small bay, the two climbed rough plank steps to where they could stand and survey the scene. ‘Describe it to me,’ Garrison eagerly instructed.

Koenig commenced a brief description of the promenade’s main features, but as soon as he mentioned an open-sided, canopied restaurant that spanned the width of an old, disused stone wharf, Garrison stopped him.

‘That last place,’ said the blind man, his voice hushed. ‘Describe it again, but in greater detail. What does it-look like, this place with the canopy?’

The wharf was no more than thirty or forty yards away, its canvas-roofed dining area bordered by fragile-looking white rails which were intended to prevent unwary or drunken customers falling into the somewhat oily waters of the bay. At the back of the covered area a brick building, probably a landing stage in the old days, had been converted into a huge kitchen and wine store. Derelict stone steps went down from a bricked-up door in the now blank wall of the kitchen to the idly washing sea. There were people seated beneath the canopy, but not many. With its commanding view of the bay, the place would be an expensive spot to eat. Quiet though business was right now, trade would doubtless pick up later in the season when more tourist money was available.

‘What of the canopy?’ asked Garrison. ‘Its colour? Is it red and yellow, with scalloped edges that flutter a little? And is there a central pole that gives the whole affair a tent shape?’

‘Yes,’ Koenig answered. ‘That’s it exactly! Is this the place?’

Garrison’s mouth was dry. He nodded.

They descended the wooden steps of the bandstand and walked along an aisle of palms to a narrow plank pier that led to the jetty proper. Seeing Garrison’s blindness, strolling people made way for him. Koenig thanked them in Italian as they passed. At the entrance to the pier a canopied archway bore the legend ‘Marios’. With Koenig taking the lead, they went through the archway and on to the pier. Because of the uneven planking underfoot, Garrison was obliged to use the iron handrail.

A second archway formed the entrance to the eating area where, beneath the huge red and yellow canopy, six great wooden tables were decorated with beermats, baskets of bread, bowls of nuts and squat bottles with coloured candles whose flames flickered a little in the slightest trace of a breeze off the sea. The place would have seemed atmospheric to anyone—to Garrison it was electric!

His sensors swept the enclosed space, forming indistinct silhouettes which his mind enhanced into 3-D images. There were a dozen people in the place: a table of five, one of four and another of three. The rest of the tables were quite empty. The group of four, two couples, were just leaving. They brushed by Garrison and Koenig, tossing back the customary ‘ciao’ over their shoulders, to no one in particular, as they went. But the two women were also speaking to each other in lowered, outraged tones; and while Garrison’s Italian was negligible, still he found himself interested in their muttered conversation.

When the couples had ducked out through the covered archway he turned to Koenig. ‘Did you catch what they were saying?’

‘A little of it,’ the other answered. ‘And it seems your ESP talent is working overtime tonight, for they were talking about the girl—the English girl—and they were feeling sorry for her. It’s a great pity, they said, and her so young and all. And the Borcinis such an inbred and boorish pack of dogs.’ He nodded towards the table of five. ‘That must be your Terri. And the four men with her—they can only be the Borcinis.’

Now Garrison’s radar gaze settled on the table at the far edge of the wharf’s platform. Seated with their backs to the white rail, beyond and beneath which the bay glittered with reflected lights, were three men and a girl. Two of the men sat on her left, the third on her right. At the head of the table, also on her right, sat the fourth man. So far the party had not seemed to notice the newcomers; but even as Garrison stared the girl laughed, then clapped her hands and called out to the waiter that he should bring her another drink. She seemed in high spirits—or perhaps in strong spirits. Her laughter had been edged with the semi-hysteria of too much hard drink, and for all her excellent Italian, still her voice had been more than a little slurred.