The Night People (8 page)

He flipped through the pages of the book, half expecting some coded letter or message in invisible ink to fall to the floor. But there was nothing to catch his eye, nothing that spelled out s-p-y to the untrained observer. He returned the book to its proper space, right side up.

He next debated for several seconds on the advisability of calling the police and decided against it. The thing to do was to wipe off any of his fingerprints and return to the party. Perhaps he would not be missed, and if he was—if the police connected him somehow with the crime—well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. As for the tiny bit of alloy in his pocket, he could only hope to make contact with Falconi’s superior and pass it along to him.

The streets were deserted going back, and he saw only a few wandering romantics at a distance. A youth in the uniform of the French navy sent Win’s thoughts off on another tangent. Was there still a French navy these days, when all you ever heard about were the paratroops? France itself was now little more than a pawn, placed conveniently between Russia and America, a stamping ground for spies to meet and exchange their wares. The world was contracting somehow, catching little people and second-rate nations in its squeeze, and who was to say that the contraction was not the beginning of a final death throe?

Back at the party, he saw at once that Tonia had missed him. She found a path through the chattering groups, conversing over their drinks in a dozen languages, and headed for him. He searched the room for Martha, but she wasn’t in sight. “Win, where have you been?”

“Just out for some air, Tonia.”

“You want a cocktail?”

“These English! It’s too late in the evening for cocktails, but I’ll have some Scotch.” They worked their way to the elaborate makeshift bar and ordered two drinks. The bored bartenders might almost have been imported for the occasion. Certainly they were strangers to the usual nightlife of Feru.

“Win?”

“What?” He was having difficulty focusing his thoughts. The memories of Falconi’s corpse were too near the surface of his mind.

“Win,” she said, speaking softly, close to his ear so he could hear her over the babble of voices. “While you were gone, two of my people came looking for you.”

“Who?” At first he didn’t understand her words.

“Two of my people. They want you for something. You may be in danger, Win.”

He sipped the Scotch casually, giving not a hint of the quickened heartbeat within him. “Why should I be in danger from the Russians?”

“I don’t know. Win, but I have seen them operate before. One of them, in Paris, broke a man’s arm, while I watched. They are dangerous people.”

“And they were looking for me?”

Tonia nodded. “They asked me where you were. They will be back.”

He felt again the bit of metal in his pocket, the cause of it all. Certainly they wouldn’t harm him, an American, and yet he knew the danger was not entirely imaginary. He remembered that Falconi too had been an American.

He spotted Martha across the room and excused himself. “Thank you for the information, Tonia. I hate to be a cad, but could your party see you back to the hotel? It might be better if I wasn’t seen with you.”

“Of course, Win! Be careful. I’ll see you again before I leave.”

He rescued Martha from the clutches of a drooling Englishman who’d just about decided he could make her, and headed for the door. “Come on,” he said briefly. “I’m in a jam.”

“What kind?”

“Remember that guy Falconi?”

“Yes.”

“Somebody killed him. And I may be next on the list.”

“Win! What are you talking about? What have you been drinking?”

“Not enough, believe me. Look, I have to find someone here in Feru.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know who. A friend of Falconi’s, but I don’t know his name.”

“Win, you’re talking in riddles.”

“Did you tell me back in Paris that the hotels were filled up here?”

“Yes, with people for the festival. Feru isn’t that big a place.”

“Look, Martha, I want you to get the register of everyone attending the festival—press, judges, producers, everyone. Understand?”

“No, but I’ll get it.”

“You’re a doll, Martha. I’ll see you back at the hotel room.”

“Mine or yours?” she asked with a wicked grin.

At any other time he would have had an answer for that, but he only smiled and started quickly down the steps to his car. Then, on second thought, he said, “You’d better take the car. I’ll get a taxi back to the hotel.” He knew she’d have to drive across town to the hotel that served as registration office for the festival.

There was no taxi in sight, and he went back inside to call one. “Monsieur Chambers!” someone called, and he saw one of the French party, a minor government representative, bearing down on him. “Monsieur Chambers, the American, Monsieur Baine just called for you. He is at the theatre and wants you to join him at once.”

“Oh?” It sounded strange. He tried to remember if he had seen Baine inside. Certainly the American producer would have no reason for summoning him to the deserted theatre in the middle of the night. “Thanks for the message. I’ll see him.”

The theatre was not far from the hotel where he was staying, and Win decided to skip the cab and walk the distance. He’d seen too many movies of kidnappings in taxicabs. He remembered back seats without doorknobs, gas jets through the floor, and various other refinements. These were no longer the fantasies of his youth. Now they seemed a part of a very real game, a game of life and death.

The theatre was dark when he reached it, but the side door was unlocked. He knew Baine would not be waiting there. Only death would be waiting, probably in the person of the two Russians that Tonia had mentioned. He turned away from the door, and saw too late that he’d miscalculated one point. They’d been waiting outside the theatre for his arrival.

Two bulky, broad-shouldered shapes in the night, cutting diagonally across the street to intercept him on his route! There was no escape, unless he went through the theatre door where anything might lurk. No, he’d wait in the street for them, hoping that a passing car or two might save his life.

“Mister Chambers,” one of them said thickly. There was no mistaking that these were the Russians.

He broke into a trot, heading towards the hotel. Turning to look over his shoulder, he saw one of the men reach into his coat, but the other put out a restraining hand. They wouldn’t shoot, not while they didn’t have the star.

But they followed. He reached the hotel lobby panting for breath, seeing them across the street. Then up in the elevator, without a plan, without much of a hope. He had the terrifying thought that they might grab Martha when she arrived, and then what would he do? He felt suddenly so small and helpless, without a friend he could trust, in a foreign city where the shadows grew steadily darker.

Then he was unlocking his door, falling inside, snapping on the light to confront a tall middle-aged man he’d never seen before. The man rose smiling as he entered, extending his hand. “Didn’t mean to startle you, Mr. Chambers. My name is Tweller. I was a friend of John Falconi….”

Tweller was an Englishman, with a moustache and hair that reminded Win of Sir Anthony Eden. He carried himself like a businessman or even a politician—anything but a secret agent. Win supposed this was what made him good at his profession.

“I’m glad to see you,” he said. “Couple of Russians down in the street.”

Tweller stepped quickly to the window. “Yes,” he said. “We’ll attend to them. You’ve been playing a dangerous game.”

“Not of my liking, believe me. Falconi roped me into it with his smooth talking.”

Tweller smiled. “Yes, he was a one for that. We’ll miss him. Did you accomplish your little mission on our behalf?”

“Didn’t Falconi tell you? Didn’t you see him today?”

The Englishman shook his head. “No. I only know you went to see him tonight.”

Something stirred in Win’s mind, a vague forming of thought. He watched the Englishman strolling aimlessly, nervously, about the room, picking up objects here and there. “I gave him the thing,” Win said, on an impulse. “The Russians must have gotten it back.”

Tweller turned in the act of opening a book—a guide of some sort that was in all the rooms. “What? The Russians didn’t get it back. You didn’t visit Falconi’s room until after he was dead.”

Win felt his heart beating fast again. “How could you know that? How could you know when he died?”

The Englishman blinked. “Give me that star, Chambers, or I’ll have you arrested for treason.”

“You could know if you were there,” Win said, hurrying on. “You could know I didn’t give Falconi the star if you were there and you killed him. One of the books on his shelf was upside down. The stamping ran from bottom to top, as it does on the spines of English books. An Englishman like you might have been wandering around, looking at Falconi’s books while you talked to him. Holding the closed book in your hand, you might have replaced it upside down so that the title read in the English style. Certainly a neat man like Falconi would never have done it, nor left it long like that if he noticed it. You’re no C.I.A. man, Tweller.”

The Englishman turned full around. His hand had come out from under his coat, and he held a short foreign pistol equipped with a silencer. “All right, the masquerade is over, Mr. Chambers. Please raise your hands above your head.”

“The very gun, I imagine.” For some reason he wasn’t frightened. Martha would come, would somehow bring help.

Tweller blinked his eyes and moved backwards a step to grasp the window blinds. He closed and opened them in some sort of signal. “Don’t move, Mr. Chambers, or your troubles will be over quite quickly.”

They waited a few moments in silence, until the hall door opened. The two Russians came in, followed by Martha. “God, Martha!” he gasped out. “Where’d they get you?”

She wasn’t smiling. Her face was hard and there were lines of sadness about her eyes. “They didn’t have to get me, Win. I’m one of them.”

Around him the world seemed to collapse. There’d been a night much like this back in the States, his last time with Betty, but somehow Martha had betrayed more than just him. “What do you mean?” Knowing too well what she meant.

“God, Win, I would have done anything to keep from betraying you. Please believe me! I report information to Tweller here, and I told him you met with John Falconi. That’s all I told him!”

“You told him I left the party to visit Falconi. You must have told him that, too.”

“Yes.”

“Enough of this talk,” Tweller said, motioning with the gun. “Will you produce the Award, Mr. Chambers?”

Win felt death was very close at this moment. It was in the eyes of the two waiting Russians, and it was in the tightening trigger finger of the Englishman named Tweller. The tiny medal still rested in his pocket, but he said, quite calmly, “I don’t have it.”

Tweller smiled thinly. “You have it. Falconi was a talker. He told me you had it before he died. He was quite a talker.”

“It cost him his life,” Win said. “He was in the wrong line of work.”

“Possibly,” the Englishman agreed. “But then, for which of us is this the right line of work? I was a schoolteacher outside London ten years ago. Martha will tell you—she was a pupil of mine.”

“You taught her well.”

Tweller sighed. “One hundred years from now man might have different values for right and wrong.”

“I doubt that.”

“But enough talk, Mr. Chambers. Falconi told me you had the Award, and Martha told me he was already dead when you reached him—which of course I knew anyway. My two Russian friends just missed you at the party. Since you didn’t give the Award to Falconi, you still have it.”

“Maybe I didn’t get it from Tonia. That ever occur to you?”

“If you didn’t get it, you’d have had no purpose in leaving the party to visit Falconi.”

“All right, I had it. But when I entered the hotel a while ago I gave it to someone for safekeeping. I hid it in the binding of a book and gave the book to someone.” He wondered if they would believe the lie without searching him.

“Who?”

“One of the Americans.” A long chance, but the only one.

“All right,” Tweller said. “I’m willing to accept your word. You have exactly five minutes to get the man up here with the book. After that I will shoot you. Then Moscow can find another way out of their foolishness.”

“I’ll phone him.”

Tweller blinked his eyes. “Martha will phone him. His name?”

“Sam Wren. He’s a press agent.”

A questioning look to Martha. “What about it? Is it a trick?” Tweller asked.

She shrugged. “He barely knows Sam Wren. They met at breakfast downstairs.”

“All right, call him. Ask him to bring the book up.”

Martha asked the operator to ring Sam Wren’s room. After a few seconds’ waiting, she said, “Mr. Wren, this is Martha Myers, Win Chambers’ secretary. He’d like you to bring that book back for a few minutes, if you could…. The one he gave you tonight … That’s right, thank you.” She hung up.

“What did he say?”

“He seemed puzzled at first, but then he said he’d bring it right up.”

Tweller blinked at Win. “If it’s a trick, he dies with you.”

“It’s no trick.”

They waited then, in silence growing more tense by the minute. “I didn’t get the list for you, Win,” Martha said, almost apologetic.

“It doesn’t matter now.”

Tweller moved around in position to watch the door. He motioned to one of the Russians who drew a snub-nosed revolver, then placed his right hand behind his back, effectively hiding the silenced gun from anyone who entered the apartment. “You were clever to notice that misplaced book, Mr. Chambers. But the French print their book titles in the same manner. The visitor to Falconi’s apartment could just as well have been a Frenchman.”

“But it’s doubtful if a Frenchman would have that taste in American literature. An Englishman would, though, and especially an ex-teacher.”

There was a knocking at the door. Win felt his whole body go tense, knowing that he might be only seconds away from death. “Come in,” he called out.