The Wrong Venus (13 page)

An arrest was expected momentarily.

The night wore on. The cook relieved Dudley, patrolling the downstairs areas. Martine typed. Colby took over again, mechanically pounding out words that had lost all meaning. Martine was dozing in a chair and he had just rolled page three hundred and eighty-one into the machine when Kendall came down the hall, dressed in blue pajamas and carrying the other recorder. She set it on the desk in front of him and reached for a cigarette.

“The baby’s born,” she said. It was six forty-five A.M.

Martine was instantly alert. She went to the head of the stairs and called out to Dudley, who came running up, followed almost immediately by Madame Buffet and Georges with a bottle of champagne and six glasses.

Martine indicated the pile of manuscript. “Three hundred and eighty pages typed, and one more roll of tape on Kendall’s machine. We’ll have it ready by noon.”

Dudley looked dazed. He gave a wondering shake of the head. “Oh, boy,” he whispered, “if she’ll only stay away a little longer.”

Kendall raised her glass. “To biogenesis.”

They drank several toasts. Dudley and Georges went back downstairs. Colby and Martine explained the proposed escape route to Kendall, and gave her the folder containing her passport and the twenty-five thousand francs for Clavel’s boat captain.

“Get your bag packed,” Martine said, “but stay in those pajamas—it’ll be easier to put on the coverall. There’s nothing to it the rest of the way, if we can just get you out of here. It all depends on whether we can move Decaux. Be downstairs and ready to go by ten till eight.”

Kendall left. Colby thought of something else. “You wouldn’t have any sleeping pills in that pharmacy of yours, would you?” he asked Martine.

“Sure. Why?”

“Give me three of ‘em. For our friend downstairs.”

They went down to the salon. Colby sent Madame Buffet to the kitchen for a glass of water, a hammer, and a screwdriver. He asked Dudley to hold the gun on the man while he unbound his hands and then re-lashed them against his body so he could lie on his back.

“Okay, in with him,” Colby said. They lifted him into Kendall’s crate. Colby removed the gag.

“What’s that for?” Dudley asked.

Colby indicated the pills in Martine’s hand. “There’s no way to tie him in there so he can’t kick around and make a lot of noise. So we just put him to sleep.”

“It’ll be interesting to see how you get him to swallow them,” Martine said.

“He’ll swallow or drown,” Colby replied in French.

“But how are you going to get ‘em in his mouth?” she asked. The man’s string of curses had cut off and he’d clenched his jaw as soon as he saw the pills.

“Easy,” Colby said. He knelt beside the box and took the hammer and screwdriver from Madame Buffet. He inserted the screwdriver blade between the man’s lips, selected an incisor, and drew “Back the hammer. “Just knock out a tooth,” he went on in French, “and drop ‘em in. If he swallows the tooth too it won’t hurt him.” The man’s mouth opened in a great hippo yawn, the pills fell in, and were washed down with a swallow of water.

Colby retied the gag, and began to nail the lid on.

It was seven thirty-five. “Time to go,” he said. He took a last look through the window drapes. Decaux was nowhere in sight yet, but a car with one man in it was parked across the street. Martine gave Colby the car keys, and silently held up crossed fingers. He went out and got in the Jaguar.

A block away he met Decaux coming along the opposite sidewalk with his easel and box of paints. He sighed with relief. Decaux was infinitely the most dangerous of them, but he was probably the only one with the intelligence and daring to see the opportunity and seize it. He went on two more blocks and turned toward the Bois de Bologne. There was probably less than one chance in a hundred he was being followed, but he had to eliminate that one.

It was a beautiful morning, crisp and clear with pockets of opalescent mist that reminded him of Turner and flashes of crimson and gold on every side. His own personal choice for Heaven, he thought, would be an eternity of successive hand-picked October days in Paris. After, of course, the last automobile in it had been hunted down and beaten to death with flails. He doubled back and forth across the Bois at different speeds for ten minutes, and stopped to smoke a cigarette. Nobody was following him. He drove back to the Rue Celéste. The van was already parked at the rendezvous point, and Roberto was just pulling in with the pickup. It was five of eight.

They greeted him warmly and with suppressed but still evident excitement. “Take a look,” Roberto said proudly, opening the rear door of the camper body.

It held two bunks with mattresses and pillows, and a shelf at the forward end supported a radio and reading lamp. There were small windows on each side, well-covered with dark green curtains. Most of the floor space between the bunks was taken up with boxes of food and a small icebox. Once she was in there she was out of sight all the way to the boat.

“Good,” Colby said.

Henri sighed. “Lucky Roberto.”

“Well, I offered to cut cards, didn’t I?” Roberto said. “If it was all right with your wife—”

“The gambler!”

Roberto locked the door. They went back to the van. Colby opened the doors, hopped up inside, and began to pull on the big blue denim coverall. He put on the beret. A Peugeot pulled in to the curb behind them and four men got out. Colby knelt on the tailgate and asked, “Which one is Monsieur Voivin?”

“Me,” said the one who’d been driving. He was a heavy-set man in early middle age with wiry gray hair and a totally masculine but still somehow gentle face. He looked like a cop, all right, and a good one, Colby thought. He introduced himself and brought out an envelope containing two thousand francs. He passed it out to them, and spoke to Voivin.

“Let’s run through it once, the way Martine explained it on the phone. You pull up right behind us. Take it from there.”

Voivin ran through his part without hesitation. “Perfect,” Colby said. “In two minutes exactly.” They got back in the Peugeot.

He spoke to Henri. “And the gasoline?”

“Less than a liter. Four kilometers at the most.”

“Good. And it’s already been reported stolen?”

“An hour ago. Driven off from an address on the Boulevard Montparnasse.” He grinned. “The ignition switch is jumpered.”

Colby nodded. “Leave the engine running, the wires twisted together but out of sight under the dash.”

“D’accord.”

Colby looked at his watch. It was three minutes after eight. He felt the stirring of butterfly wings. “Take it away.”

The doors closed. They began to move.

They turned right. They were on the Avenue Victor Hugo. He looked around the dim interior of the van. It contained a disassembled bedstead, a chest of drawers, an old trunk, and a couple of small rugs. Traffic snarled around them. They swung right again, into the Rue des Feuilles Mortes, and began to gather speed. Decaux would have seen them by now and recognized the van. Brakes squealed and they swerved in to the curb.

Cab doors banged and there was the sound of running footsteps. The rear doors opened. Colby jumped down, not even looking toward Decaux, and the three of them strode up the walk. The front door opened as they hit the steps, and closed behind them. Everybody was in the salon. Martine was peering through a tiny opening in the drapes. They grabbed up the crate.

Madame Buffet swung the door open again. They squeezed through and she closed it.

They hurried down the walk, trying to keep stride. Decaux merely glanced toward them once, held up his thumb for perspective, and went on sketching. Wondering what kind of collection of damned fools he’s dealing with, Colby thought, believing they could draw him away with as obvious a decoy as this. Bougie wouldn’t be in the box. But still—why the hurry?

They set it on the tailgate and shoved. It slid on. This was where it had to be when the carload of detectives swung into the street, merely sitting there, with only Decaux knowing it had come from the house. Henri hopped up inside to help slide it back. He was out of sight of Decaux now, and facing back toward the avenue. He nodded. Voivin was coming.

The Peugeot swerved into the curb and stopped some six feet behind them. Colby and Roberto, still shoving on the box, turned at the sound. They exchanged a quick glance and assumed attitudes of studied nonchalance. The four men piled out of the car and onto the sidewalk.

Voivin gestured crisply toward the house. “Paul-Jacques, cover the back.” One man trotted back along the side of the house toward the rear door. “Let’s go,” Voivin said to the others. “Maurice will remain inside the front door and Auguste and I will start with the attic.”

They had taken two or three strides up the walk when Voivin stopped with a sort of frowning double take and looked back at the van. He waved the others on and came back. Stepping off the curb just behind Colby and Roberto, he glanced inside. “What are you men doing here?” he asked.

Roberto swallowed but managed an uncertain smile. “Well—”

“Uh—just moving stuff,” Colby said. “We’re in the moving business—like it says—the sign—” He couldn’t seem to get himself turned off.

The gray eyes probed. “Foreigner, aren’t you?”

Colby nodded. “Czech.”

“Let’s see your identity card.”

“Well, wait a minute,” Colby said. “Who are you?”

“Police Judiciaire.”
Voivin reached in his coat pocket and flashed identification in the palm of his hand. It was only an art study of a markedly uninhibited young lady, but Colby looked properly impressed. He produced his driver’s license. Voivin glanced at it and handed it back.

“What’s in that box?” he asked.

“Books,” Colby said.

“Dishes,” Roberto replied at the same instant.

“Just stuff—” Henri began, but stopped. Almost in time.

“Oh?” Voivin stepped closer, and studied the box with a speculative eye, obviously gauging its length. “And you just brought it out of that house?”

“Oh—no,” Colby said. “It didn’t come out of this house. We picked it up over in—in—”

“Well, what are you doing here?”

“We’re—uh—that is, we’re delivering it here.”

“Oh.” Voivin gave him a suspicious glance, but shrugged. “I thought you were putting it on the truck.”

“Oh, no,” Colby said. “Taking it off.”

“Okay.” Voivin turned away indifferently and started up the walk again. He turned. “Well? What are you waiting for? Take it in. It’s all right.”

“Sure. Thanks,” Colby said. “We’ve got some other stuff—we’ll take in first—”

“Why don’t you turn off your engine?”

“It’s hard to start,” Roberto said. “Weak battery—”

Voivin was still staring at them suspiciously. Henri began shoving the other things toward the rear. Roberto and Colby grabbed up random pieces of the bedstead and started up the walk, followed by Henri. Voivin turned again and went on toward the front door. When he disappeared inside they all turned and looked longingly back at the truck, but Colby jerked his head and they went on.
Not yet; wait’ll he gets upstairs.

Decaux should have it now. They’d had to get her out because the police had finally learned who Bougie was and were coming to search the place. Bougie was in the box, and in about five minutes or less Inspector Voivin of the
Police Judiciaire
was going to figure it out for himself.

He and Roberto went through the door. Voivin and the two men were standing to one side out of the way. Colby ran to the drape to peer out. Decaux was still calmly painting. And he’d heard every word; he’d simply seen through it, and it wasn’t going to work. But Henri was still on the walk. He came in. The door closed. Colby’s hands clenched.
Come on—come on—!

Decaux waved an arm and ran for the door of the cab. The man who was in the parked car leaped out of it, slammed the rear doors of the van, and ran around to the other side, making it onto the running board with a flying leap as Decaux gunned it ahead. Colby felt all the breath ooze out of him at once and he wanted to slump down. As the truck roared ahead into the next block another car fell in behind it. Colby turned and nodded.

All the tension in the room snapped at once and there was pandemonium. Martine fell in his arms. “Darling! We did it, we did it!” She pulled his head down and kissed him.

Voivin had headed for the door. With his hand on the knob, he turned to Colby, “Now?”

“Yes,” Colby said. “Don’t try to stay close. Just watch for a traffic jam.”

He and the other men ran out. Roberto was throwing off his denim coverall. He kicked it aside and shot for the door. “Go down the Rue Mon Coeur,” Martine said. “It’s nearer.”

“Back in three minutes.” He ran out. Colby was unbuttoning his own coverall. He stepped out of it and handed it to Kendall. While she was pulling it on, Martine worked the beret over her pinned-up hair, poking loose strands up inside. Colby drew the drapes and looked out. Except for the one the man had abandoned to get on the van, there wasn’t a car in sight.

Kendall kissed Madame Buffet and said goodbye to Dudley and Georges. The pickup came into view and slid to the curb. “Here he is,” Colby said. “I’ll take your bag.”

“Adieu, mes enfants.
Don’t let the bastards wear you down.” Kendall grabbed Martine and kissed her, the reckless gray eyes moist with tears, and then kissed Colby. They threw two pillows and a folded blanket onto her shoulder. The arm she put up to hold them shielded the other side of her face. Colby grabbed up the suitcase and they went down the walk. He opened the rear door and she climbed in, not turning until she was hidden inside, seated on one of the bunks. He set the bag on the other. She smiled, while tears still overflowed her eyes. “Thanks, Trooper Colby. For this and that.”

“Pas de quoi.”

“Maybe sometime in another country.”

“With luck. Goodbye, Champ.” He closed the door, hit it once with his fist, and Roberto shoved it in gear. He watched it out of sight. Three blocks ahead it turned right, still alone. Nobody was following it.

He went back inside. Martine was on the phone at a stand on one side of the salon, and Madame Buffet and Georges were tidying up, carrying out the things they’d brought in from the van. Dudley had a bottle of whiskey and some glasses. He poured two jolts, handed one to Colby, and downed his with a gulp. He sputtered, and then, for the first time since he’d known him, Colby saw him smile.

“Wow! I needed that. All I can say is, you and Martine—oh, brother! It’s finished!”

“. . . not there! Oh, no!” Martine waved to Colby, her face enraptured, and returned to the phone. “Perfect. . . . But they’ve got Decaux? . . . And you’ve already called? Good. And thanks for everything.” She hung up.

Colby had started to take his drink, but he put it down. He was too tired and too limp with reaction to swallow it. “Voivin?” he asked.

She nodded, with something like awe. “Colby, they ran out of gas in the Etoile, right in front of the east-bound lanes of the Champs Élysées—”

“Good God!”

“He says it’s an absolute madhouse. The other man managed to sneak off and make it to the sidewalk, but two agents were bawling Decaux out for blocking traffic, and when he panicked and tried to run, they grabbed him. He started to put up a fight, so they really clobbered him. They may not realize yet the truck’s on the stolen car list, but they will by the time they get him to the station and book him, and of course the tow-away crew will see the jumpered ignition switch. Voivin’s already made an anonymous call to the
Police Judiciaire
and told ‘em to look in that crate for one of the gang that killed Torreon.” She sat down, the awed look still on her face. “You just wonder. Where will poor Decaux start, to find answers to all those questions?”

“You don’t suppose he’ll tell ‘em what happened?” Dudley asked. “I mean, about this place—?”

“This place? Merriman, torture couldn’t get it out of him. Don’t you see, she might be still here, and the police’d find her. Or at least pick up her trail.”

“All I can say is, you two. Oh, brother!” Dudley poured another drink and knocked it back. He did a couple of steps of a little jig. “And this afternoon I’ll be on my way to New York!”

Colby had turned to the window again, just to savor the sheer joy of not seeing Decaux over there. At the same moment, a sleek but road-stained Ferrari swooped in to the curb with the grace of a diving falcon, and a leggy and vital-looking woman of about thirty-five with windblown dark hair bounced out of the driver’s seat and came around in front of it before her escort could open his own door. She had on a suede car coat, and one end of the silk scarf about her throat was blown back over the shoulder of it with a sort of Dawn Patrol insouciance. He frowned. She seemed to be coming here. “Who’s this?” he asked.

The man in the other seat was getting out now. He appeared to be about twenty, and could have just stepped out of a commercial for one of the more virile cigarettes, all wedge shoulders, flashing Latin eyes, and self-conscious masculinity. The woman laughed, brushed a playful hand through his hair, gestured toward the luggage in back, and came up the walk carrying a large manila folder. Her face was deeply tanned, giving her teeth that look of gleaming perfection of those of eighteen-year-old cannibals and aging screen and television personalities. Colby became aware that Dudley was standing beside him, making some kind of strangling noise. Behind him, Martine said, “No! Oh, no, it couldn’t be!”

Sabine Manning came through the door, tossed the manila folder onto a table, and threw her arms wide. “Merriman! Aren’t you glad to see me? Come kiss me.”

Dudley, with the hue of a cadaver under fluorescent light, seemed unable to move but did make a croaking sound that could have been interpreted as a welcome. She kissed him and stepped back, still holding his arms. “Merriman, you look positively ghastly. You should get out of this mausoleum and live a little. Cooped up in here with your slide rules and stock market reports making capital gains for me—you make me feel guilty. . . . And Martine,
darling,
how wonderful to see you again. . . . Carlito, sweet, just toss the bags there anywhere. . . .”

Carlito put the bags down and was soundly kissed and then programmed for the rest of the day while Colby was still trying to fight his way out of shock. “. . . go on to the Crillon—you can keep the car . . . and try to get a little rest, that is a long ride from Nice. I’ll be busy all day with the publicity people, so don’t bother to call me. Find out which
discothèque
is the one now, and pick me up here around nine. That’s a dear, and bye for now. . . .”

Carlito departed. Sabine Manning turned to Colby. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“I’m sorry,” Martine said. It was as near as Colby had ever seen her dazed by anything. “This is Lawrence Colby. Miss Manning.”

“I’m so happy to meet you, Mr. Colby.” She took his hand, held it warmly for a moment, and whirled to pick up the folder. “And it’s so utterly sweet of you to meet me here. We won’t have to lose a minute; we can get right to work on it—”

“But—”

“—first let me show you what I’m doing so you will understand why we have to give me a whole new image. You’re familiar, of course, with the horrible sexy slush I used to write—I shudder when I think of it—”

Colby tried again to edge in a word, but saw Martine nodding and making frantic gestures behind her. She wanted him to accept the nomination for some reason, though he couldn’t see why she insisted on prolonging the peril. Their only hope was flight. Miss Manning had the folder open now, and out onto the table cascaded a great pile of photographs, mostly eight-by-ten glossies, a size and type ideally suited for reproduction. She scattered and spread them. He had a blurred impression of sun-drenched seascapes and underwater scenes, the deck of a sailing yacht repeated over and over, barnacle-encrusted skeletons of ancient wrecks, aqualungs, amphorae of every description, recovered artifacts, and people. It was on the people, strangely, that his attention suddenly came to focus, and he had just started back through the photographs for a further study when he was caught up again and swept along with the Manning vitality and enthusiasm. She was addressing him.

“. . . submarine archaeology. The invention of the aqualung, Mr. Colby—or may I call you Lawrence?—has opened up a whole new world of archaeological investigation. Try to imagine it, five thousand years of the history of this cradle of civilization just lying there covered by nothing but a shallow mantle of water, waiting for the man with the aqualung to explore it. Merriman, would you ask somebody to take the bags back to my room? That’s a dear. Biremes, triremes, galleys, ships of war, whole cargoes of works of art lost on the way to Imperial Rome, and who knows, maybe whole lost cities inundated before the dawn of history—”

Colby noted that Martine was sorting through the photographs, and he had an idea she was struck by the same curious aspect of the yacht’s personnel that had attracted his attention. Aside from Sabine Manning herself, the entire membership of the expedition seemed to consist of only slightly different versions of Carlito—all Latin, sunburned, beautiful as Greek gods, of a median age of nineteen, and—thanks to the scantiness of their swim trunks—quite demonstrably and abundantly male.

There appeared to be eight or ten different ones, but then this was a six-months’ supply. No doubt the membership was fluid; only the expedition went on as an established and continuous entity.

He made another attempt to break in. “Yes, I know. I’ve read quite a bit about it, and it’s fascinating. But I’m not sure I understand why you want to change your image, just to do a book about it—”

“Lawrence, I’m surprised at you. Of course I have to change it! It’s because this is so
vital,
so important, so fantastically wonderful, I want people to know about it—and nobody would believe a word of it!” She threw her arms wide in a gesture of heroic despair. “ ‘Oh, hell, it’s just Sabine Manning—what does she know about anything but that dreary sex junk of hers?’ ” They simply wouldn’t believe I could write about something important, something that really mattered. . . . But I’d like to freshen up a little after that drive from Nice. Bring the photographs, Lawrence, and come on back to my room. We can go on with it while I’m having a bath; we haven’t got a minute to lose. . . .” She had started to turn away when she saw the hesitant look on his face, and laughed. “Heavens, I mean through the door, dear boy. I don’t expect you to scrub my back.” She smiled at Martine. “Anglo-Saxons are so adorably shy.”