The Adventurers (19 page)

BOOK 2

POWER &
MONEY

CHAPTER 1

Efficiently the doctor withdrew the hypodermic needle. He turned to the youth standing at the foot of the bed. "It will make him sleep, Dax, help him conserve his strength for the crisis that may come tonight."

The boy did not answer immediately. Instead he walked around to the other side of the bed and with a touch as tender as a woman's wiped away the moisture from his father's forehead. "But he will die anyway," he said quietly, without looking up.

The doctor hesitated. "One never knows. Your father has fooled us before. It is all in the hands of God." He felt the impact of the boy's dark-brown eyes. They looked deep and seemed to see into him.

"We have a saying in the jungles," Dax said. "For a man to place his fate in the hands of God he must be a tree. Only the trees believe in God."

The boy's voice was soft and the doctor still couldn't get used to the soft, slurring, almost accent-free French. He still remembered the struggle the boy had with the language when he had first met him seven years ago. "And you do not?"

"No, I have seen too many terrible things to have much faith."

Dax walked around the bed to the doctor's side and looked down at his father again. Jaime Xenos' eyes were closed; he seemed to be resting. But there was a gray pallor beneath his warm dark skin and his breath was heavy and labored.

"I was going to summon a priest to administer the last rites," the doctor said. "Do you prefer that I do not?"

Dax shrugged. He looked at the doctor. "It is not what I prefer that is important. What is important is that my father believes."

The doctor snapped his bag shut. "I will come back this evening after dinner."

Dax, with a last look at the bed, followed the doctor out into the hall.

When the front door of the consulate closed behind the doctor, Dax turned and went into his father's office. Fat Cat and Marcel Campion, his father's young French secretary and translator, came forward questioningly. Dax shook his head silently and crossed to the desk. He took a thin brown cigarrillo from the box and lit it.

"You'd better send a cable to el Presidente," he said to Marcel. His voice was flat, controlled. "Father dying. Please advise."

The secretary nodded and quickly left the room. A moment later the click of a typewriter came faintly through the closed door. Fat Cat cursed angrily. "By the blood of the Virgin! So this is where it ends. In this cold accursed land."

Dax did not answer. Instead he went over to the window and looked out. Dusk was falling and it had begun to rain. The rain softened the dirty gray-black buildings down the street toward Montmartre. Somehow it seemed always to be raining in Paris.

Just as it had been that night they first came here from Corteguay seven years ago. They had looked like a group of country bumpkins, their collars pulled up against their faces as ineffective shields against the sleeting February rain, their luggage piled high on the sidewalk behind them where the cabby had dropped it.

"The damn gate is locked!" Fat Cat had called back to them. "There's nobody in the house." "Try the bell again. There has to be someone there."

Fat Cat reached up and pulled the bell handle. The clang filled the narrow street and echoed from house to house. But still there was no answer.

"I can open the gate."

"Open it then! What are you waiting for?"

Fat Cat's movements were almost too fast for the eye to follow. The automatic was smoking in his hand and the reverberations were like thunder in the night.

"Fool!" Dax's father had said angrily. "Now the police will come and the whole world will know we couldn't get into our own consulate! How they'll all laugh at us." He looked at the gate. "And for nothing. It's still closed."

"No it's not," Fat Cat replied, touching it with his foot.

It had swung open creakingly on its rusty hinges. Xenos looked at him for a moment, then started through, but Fat Cat's arm blocked his path.

"'I don't like it. There is a stink to it. Better I go first."

"Nonsense, what could be wrong?"

"There is much that is wrong already," Fat Cat pointed out. "Ramirez should be here, yet the house is deserted. It could be a trap. Ramirez may have sold us out."

"Nonsense! Ramirez would never do that. El Presidente gave him the post at my own recommendation."

Still, he stood to one side and let Fat Cat lead the way up the path to the house. The grass and weeds had overgrown everything and they felt them tugging damply at their ankles. Unconsciously, Dax's voice fell to a whisper. "Do you think the front door is locked, too?"

"We'll see." Fat Cat waved them to the side of the building, then, flattening himself, he reached out carefully and turned the knob.

The door had swung open silently. They peered into the darkness inside but could distinguish nothing. Fat Cat gestured to them, and the automatic appeared suddenly again in his hand. His lips moved in a soft whisper. "I go with God!"

They could hear him stumbling about in the darkness and the sound of muffled curses, then his voice came to them almost as the lights went on. "There is nobody here."

They stood there blinking. It was as if a tornado had ripped through the rooms. There was litter everywhere, papers scattered over the floor, remnants of broken chairs piled in the middle of the room. A table in the kitchen proved to be the only furniture left in the house.

"Looters have been here," Fat Cat said.

Dax's father looked at him. There was a strange expression of hurt in the older man's eyes. As if he still could not believe what he saw. Finally he spoke. "Not looters," he said sadly. "Traitors."

Silently Fat Cat rolled a cigarette as he watched Dax's father pick up a piece of paper from the floor and study it. He lit the cigarette. "Maybe we broke into the wrong house," he offered consolingly.

Dax's father shook his head. "No, we're in the right house." He held up the paper so they could both see. It was a sheet of the official stationery of Corteguay.

Dax looked at his father. "I'm tired."

The older man reached his arm out and drew his son close. He glanced around the room for a moment, then back at Dax. "We can't stay here, we'll go to a hotel for the night. I noticed a pension at the foot of the hill as we came up. Come along. I doubt they can feed us but at least we'll get a decent night's rest."

The neatly dressed maid had curtsied as she opened the door. "Bon soir, messieurs."

Dax's father wiped his feet carefully on the doormat before entering. He took off his hat. "Do you have three rooms for the night?"

A bewildered look came over the maid's face. She glanced at Fat Cat, standing just behind the consul, his arms filled with luggage. Then she looked down at Dax. "Do you have an appointment?" she asked politely.

Now it was their turn to be confused. "Rendezvous? You mean a reservation?" Dax's father searched his limited French for the right words. "C'est necessaire?"

This had proved too much for the maid. She opened a door off the small foyer. "If you will be kind enough to wait in here, I shall call Madame Blanchette."

"Merci." Dax's father led the way in, and the maid closed the door behind them. From somewhere in the house they heard a faint sound of a woman's laughter. The room was elaborately furnished, with rich deep carpeting and soft upholstered couches and chairs. A fire glowed warmly, and on the sideboard there was a decanter of brandy and glasses.

A happy sound came deep from Fat Cat's throat. "This is more like it," he said, walking over to the sideboard. He looked back at the consul. "Excellency, may I pour you a brandy?"

"I don't know whether we should. After all, we don't know whom the brandy is set out for."

"For the guests." Fat Cat's logic was irrefutable. "Otherwise why would it be here?"

He poured the older man a glass and drank his own in one gulp. "Ahh, that's good." Quickly he poured himself another.

Dax sank into a chair in front of the fire. The warmth of the flames reached out and licked his face. He felt his eyes grow heavy with drowsiness.

The door opened and the maid ushered a handsome middle-aged woman into the room. She was faultlessly dressed in a dark velvet gown, a double strand of rose pearls around her throat and a large diamond in a gold setting sparkling on her finger.

Dax's father bowed. "Jaime Xenos."

"Monsieur Xenos." She glanced at Fat Cat, then at Dax. If she objected to Fat Cat's helping himself to the brandy she gave no hint of it. "What can I do for you gentlemen?"

"We need lodging for the night," Dax's father said. "We're from the Corteguayan consulate up the street, but something seems to have gone wrong. There is nobody there."

The woman's voice was extremely polite. "May I see your passports, monsieur? It is a regulation."

"Of course." Dax's father handed her the red leather-covered passports.

Madame Blanchette studied them for a moment, then nodded toward Dax. "Your son?"

"Oui. And my attache militaire."

Fat Cat looked pleased at his elevation, and quickly poured himself another brandy.

"You 're the new consul?"

"Oui, madame." Madame Blanchette returned the passports. She hesitated a moment, then spoke. "If your excellency will excuse me for a moment I shall go and see if there are any rooms available. It is late and we are rather heavily booked."

The consul bowed again. "Merci, madame. I am grateful for your kindness."

Madame Blanchette closed the door behind her and stood in the foyer for a moment. Then she shrugged her shoulders and went down the hall and opened a door into a room furnished even more richly than the one she had just left.

In the center of it was a gaming table, and at the table five men sat playing cards. Behind them stood several beautiful young women, dressed in the latest fashion. Two other girls sat conversing on a couch near the fire.

"Banco," one of the players called.

"Damn!" answered another, throwing down his cards. He looked up at Madame Blanchette. "Was it anyone interesting?"

"I don't know, Baron," she replied. "It was the new Corteguayan consul."

"What did he want? Information about that rascal Ramirez?"

"No," she replied, "he wanted rooms for the night."

The player who had just bought the bank chuckled. "The poor man probably saw your sign. I told you it would happen sooner or later."

"Why didn't you just send him away?" the baron asked.

"I don't know," Madame Blanchette answered in a puzzled voice. "That was what I intended to do. But when I saw the little boy—"

"He has his son with him?" the baron asked.

"Oui." She hesitated a moment, then turned to the door. "I guess there is nothing I can do."

"Un moment." Baron de Coyne was on his feet. "I would like to see them myself."

"What's the matter, Baron?" the player on his left asked. "Hasn't Ramirez stuck you for enough at this very table? He owed you more than any of us—at least one hundred thousand francs."

"Yes," agreed the banker. "Do you think you can get it back from the new consul? We all know that Corteguay is broke."

Baron de Coyne looked down at his friends. "You are a bunch of cynics," he said. "I'm merely curious to see what kind of a man they have sent us this time."

"What difference does it make? They are all the same. All they really want is our money."

"Do you wish to meet him, your excellency?" Madame Blanchette asked.

The baron shook his head. "No, just to look at them."

He followed her to the adjoining wall, and she drew back a drape. There was a small glass in the wall. "You can see them from here," she said, "but they cannot see us. There is a mirror on their side."

The baron nodded and looked into the room. The first thing that he saw was the boy asleep on the couch, his child's face drawn and tired.

"He's just about my own son's age," he said to Madame Blanchette in surprise. "The child's mother must be dead or he would not be with his father like this. Does anyone know where Ramirez has gone?"

Madame Blanchette shrugged. "There's been some talk that he has a place on the Italian Riviera, though no one knows for sure. One night last week a truck removed everything from the embassy."

The baron's mouth tightened. So that was why they had come looking for a room. If he knew Ramirez, there wouldn't be even a stick of firewood left. As he watched, the tall man walked over to the couch and put a pillow under the boy's head. There was a curiously gentle expression on his dark face.

The baron dropped the drape and turned back to Madame Blanchette. He had seen as much as he wanted. The poor man would have enough troubles once the word got around that a new Corteguayan consul was in Paris. Every one of Ramirez' creditors would be clamoring at his door. "Give them my suite on the third floor. I'm sure Zizi won't mind if I spend the night in her room."