Pulp Fiction | The Invisibility Affair by Thomas Stratton (9 page)

"Oh, all right," Illya said. HE rummaged in his briefcase and came out with a comb, which he dipped in a bottle of dye and ran through his hair. "At least this stuff washes out easily; as long as no irate apartment dweller throws a bucket of water on me I'll be all right. Does anyone have a hat I can wear" All reporters wear hats."

"I didn't know that," said Napoleon.

"Actually they don't," Illya replied, "but they do in movies, which is where your average citizen gets his impression of reporters."

A brief conference on the communicators elicited the fact that none of Brattner's men wore the same size hat as Illya.

"I'll get along without one," he decided. He pulled a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles from the briefcase.

* * *

Illya pushed open the door of the apartment building and entered a hallway running the full length of the building. At the opposite end of the hall were stairs leading to the second floor and a door facing the alley. Two doors opened off each side of the hall. He quickly walked the length of the hall and climbed the stairs. The second floor was said out identically to the first. Shrugging, Illya walked to the nearest door and knocked. As

he waited, the needle on his wrist detector moved, and he checked it. I pointed down, indicating a source on the first floor or in the basement. Now to get a horizontal reading to spot the exact apartment.

The door opened and a somewhat harassed-looking young woman stood facing him, holding a small boy by the hand. "Yes?" she asked in a challenging tone.

"Good morning," Illya replied as cheerily as he could. "Our local paper is taking a survey and I wonder if I might have a few minutes of your time?"

"What kind of survey?"

"We're planning a series on Wisconsin's margarine laws, and we'd like the opinions of some of the local people. So you approve, or..."

"No, I do not approve," she snapped. "Any other questions?"

Illya tried to smile disarmingly. "As I said, we're planning a series on the subject and we'd like as many viewpoints as possible. It would be very helpful if you could take the time to give me your reasons."

The boy spoke suddenly and loudly. "If you're a reporter, where's your hat?"

"I'm not a reporter; I'm a surveyor."

"Then where's your transit?"

"Hush, Johnny," the woman said. Her belligerent attitude seemed to have faded a trifle. "I suppose I can spare a few minutes, if it will help get those idiots on the ball." She made no move to invite Illya inside the apartment, and he decided not to press his luck. Keeping a surreptitious eye on the detector, he pulled out his notebook and a pencil.

"Now then," he said, "if I could have your name for the record, we can get started."

"Mrs. Denver Clark," she said and spelled it out for him. She had a variety of reasons for not liking the margarine laws. Illya dutifully scribbled note, filling several pages before she paused.

"Very interesting," he said. Suddenly the detector sprang to life. Illya deliberately dropped his pencil, and got a good look at the detector needle while retrieving it. Directly across the hall. So far so good. He straightened up. "Incidentally, I've been considering moving to Cudahy for some time. You don't happen to know if any of the apartments here are empty, do you?"

"They're all occupied right now," she answered. "There's a new building a couple of blocks south that's quite nice, I've been told."

"Someone told me one of the ground floor apartments here was vacant," Illya persisted.

"No." The woman laughed suddenly. "They probably got mixed up because that nice M. Forbes took two apartments. Said he did a lot of work at home and needed the space. Such a distinguished looking man! He seems to do a lot of entertaining, but it's all very quiet and respectable. He's a widower, I understand."

The boy had been staring at Illya wrist detector. "What's that?" he demanded loudly, pointing at it.

"Why, er...it's a wristwatch," Illya replied.

"It ain't got no numbers on it!" the boy said accusingly.

"No, it's a very modern..."

"How can you tell time if it ain't got no numbers on it?" the boy demanded.

"Hush, Johnny," the woman said. "It isn't nice to ask questions of strangers."

"He was asking you questions," the boy asserted. "I wanna know how he tells time if it ain't got no numbers!"

"Thank you, madam. You've been a great help to us. Look for our series in the paper." Illya clutched his notebook and escaped down the stairway. At the bottom he pulled out his communicator and reported his findings to Napoleon. "I'm going to try to find the exact room," he concluded. "Kuryakin out."

Approaching the wall of the indicated apartment, he reached into his jacket and pulled a tiny disc the size of a dime. A wire led from it to an even tinier earplug. He placed the disc gently against the wall.

At first he heard nothing but footsteps pacing back and forth. Finally an unfamiliar voice said, "Green, will you sit down?"

"Ah, I'm tired of this joint." The footsteps halted momentarily, the resumed.

"If you must do something," the first voice said, "look in on the prisoners. We'll be moving out; get them packed and make sure Morthley doesn't make a fool of you the way he did last night."

There was the sound of a key in a lock, an inner door creaked open, and Illya heard Kerry's voice. "One might approximate the rudiments of courtesy by notifying the inhabitants of one's intentions before entering."

Illya removed the ear plug and returned the device to his pocket. Returning to the car where Brattner and Solo waited, he reported his success and pointed the location of Kerry and Dr. Morthley.

"But if they're where you think they are," Brattner protested, "they have a window in their room. It can't be that easy."

"No," Napoleon agreed. "I don't think it will be that easy. If they could be removed simply by breaking a window, they wouldn't be there. Those windows undoubtedly aren't all they seem, they do marvelous things with plastics these days. Any such obvious escape route would also be thoroughly booby-trapped. I think I have an idea, however." He pawed through the contents of his briefcase, coming up with a coil of what looked like modeling clay. "We seem to have been well supplied by Chicago with plastic explosive."

"Provided it really is explosive and not some new device that no one has seen fit to inform us about," Illya commented gloomily.

* * *

After one of the Milwaukee agents had tested a small piece of the coil several blocks away and pronounced it explosive, Napoleon began deploying his forces. Brattner and one of his men were stationed in front of the door in the hall which led to the apartment in which the prisoners were confined. Two other agents were assigned to the other on that side of the hall, which presumably led to Forbes' private quarters. One man was left outside the building with orders to halt any attempted evacuation by Thrush forces. Napoleon, carrying the coil of explosive, and Illya, carrying the bulkier coil of a rope ladder, climbed the stairway and knocked at the door of the apartment directly over the one holding the prisoners.

"I rather hope no one is at home," Illya murmured. "It will simplify matters considerably."

Footsteps from behind the door denied this possibility. The door opened and a slender, middle-aged woman stood looking questioningly at them. "What can I do for you gentlemen?" she asked staring at Illya's rope ladder.

Both agents pulled out their identification cards and showed them to her. "As you can see," Napoleon said in his suavest manner, "we are special agents for U.N.C.L.E. and we will need the use of your apartment for a few minutes."

"Yes," Illya agreed before she had a chance to answer. "This is a very important case; kidnapping, you know." Without waiting for an answer, they stepped inside, crossed the living room and pushed open the door to the room directly above the room where Kerry and Dr. Morthley were.

"This is the room we'll need," Napoleon informed the woman.

"That's our bedroom!" she protested, but the agents pushed their way in, calmly but

forcefully.

"It's all right," Napoleon said. "We'll be through in just a few minutes." To Illya he suggested, "You'd better listen in a minute and make sure this the right room."

Illya removed his listening device and pressed it against the floor. Moving from spot to spot under the wide-eyed gaze of the apartment's rightful tenant, he finally nodded,

"They're over here, in the corner."

"Good," Napoleon replied. "That gives up plenty of room to work in. Help me get the bed out of the way."

"Now, wait a minute!" the woman exploded. "What's going on here, anyway?"

"It's quite all right," Napoleon assured her. "By the way, you said your name was...?"

"Beck," the woman replied. "I'm Mrs.—now stop that! What are you nuts doing to my clean floor? I just waxed that!?

Having shoved the bed to one side, Napoleon was engaged in laying down a ring of plastic explosive. Pinching off the end, he patted it lovingly into place and capped it with a tiny detonator.

The woman laughed suddenly. "Oh, I get it! It's all a joke, isn't it?" She looked around suspiciously and her eyes fell on the rope ladder, still coiled tightly under Illya's arm. "There's a TV camera in there!" She was trying to wave into the rope ladder when the two agents took her firmly by the arms and escorted her through the door into the other room.

"Just stay out here for a second, Mrs. Beck," Napoleon told her as Illya closed the door firmly. He saw Illya nod, and squeezed down on the disc in his hand. There was a muffled roar from the other room. Napoleon opened the door, revealing a neat circular hole in the floor. Mrs. Beck gasped as Napoleon sprang across the room, grasped the edge of the hole with both hands, and lowered himself through it.

Illya slipped one end of the rope ladder over a jointed iron bar which he produced from somewhere on his person and extended to full length. As he worked, he tried to reassure Mrs. Beck. "These new plastic explosives are really very good. Same effect as a shaped charge; you'll note we got the required hole without even ruffling your bedspread. We'll have one of our U.N.C.L.E. insurance adjusters around in the morning to settle for damages." He dropped the bar across the hole, let the rope ladder uncoil down into the room below, and dropped through the opening.

Mrs. Beck sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the hole in her nice clean floor. "What does it all mean?" she whispered.

Napoleon landed on the edge of a twin bed, teetered for a moment and sprang to the floor. Kerry was trying to brush plaster out of her hair while crouching in a corner of the room, while an elderly man stood watching him open-mouthed. As Illya in turn landed on the bed and bounced to the floor, there were sounds of muffled shots as Brattner and his men assaulted the outer doors of the apartment.

"Quick!" shouted Napoleon. "Get up the ladder!"

Kerry and Dr. Morthley stared at him for a moment, then began climbing on the bed over which the rope ladder was dangling. At that moment a stinging white gas erupted from the baseboard, like a sprinkler system in reverse. Napoleon held his breath and tried to make his watering eyes focus on the door to the next room. He couldn't locate it. From the sounds behind him, Illya was helping the prisoners up the ladder. He fired twice in the general direction of the door; then suddenly the gigantic form of Andy loomed over him and he received a blow on the wrist that sent his gun spinning away from him. He swung left- handed, but Andy took the blow on his shoulder and plunged by him and he was suddenly facing a gun held by a man with a gold earring. A shot sounded from behind him, and the Thrush agent winced and disappeared into the clouds of gas. A blow from behind knocked him sprawling. He gasped to recover his breath, and received what felt like a lungful of white fire. Staggering to his feet, he tried to locate one of the doors to the room, and suddenly Brattner and another agent were there, helping him into the hallway. He leaned against the wall for a moment, sucking in clean air.

Figures appeared on the stairway, and Illya and Kerry ran to join the group. "Dr. Morthley?" Illya asked.

Brattner shook his head. "Morthley and every Thrush in there disappeared into that concentrated smog. The Thrushes were wearing some sort of nose filters; did you notice them?"

One of Brattner's agents came through the outside door of the building. "George is out cold at the side of the building. They must have got out somehow, and got away."

Napoleon's eyes and lungs were slowly clearing. He looked at Illya and Kerry and smiled weakly. "We were partly successful, anyway."

Illya nodded. "I had Kerry started up the ladder when the gas hit. Morthley had fallen down; I was trying to get him to the ladder when the big one—Andy?—showed up out of somewhere and grabbed him. I couldn't see well enough in that fog to shoot him; to likely to hit Dr. Morthley or you, Napoleon. I did wing one of their other men, though; man with a gold earring."

"That's Hunter," Brattner and Kerry exclaimed simultaneously.

"Then I saw Brattner had broken in," Illya continued, "so I went up the ladder and collected Kerry."

Napoleon peered through the open door into the apartment. "The gas seems to be thinning out," he announced. "Don, why don't you see to your man who got knocked out, and Illya and I will see what we can find in the apartment."

By now a small crowd had gathered in the hallway, staring at the tendrils of white haze that oozed through the broken doors.

"What does it all mean?" Mrs. Beck inquired of the world at large.

Mrs. Clark detached herself from the group. Still clutching the boy by one hand, she stepped toward Illya. "I suppose you think you're smart, chasing poor Mr. Forbes out like that! Well, I'll have you know it won't do you any good!" She shook her finger under his nose. "We tenants have a say as to who moves in, and if you think I'm going to put in a good word for you after this, you're crazy!"

Before Illya could reply, she stalked away, dragging the child with her. As they reached the stairs, the boy turned, produced a remarkably loud razzberry, and announced at the top of his voice, "
That
for your old wristwatch!"