O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 02 - Sabre-Tooth, page 14
Modesty called: ‘Five minutes to dress and I’ll be with you.’
She was moving towards the bedroom when Mike said: ‘Wait.’ There was an odd flatness in his voice. She turned back into the living-room. He was by the door now, facing her. In silence he held out the newspaper. She gave him one quick glance and took it.
The newspaper was L’Aurore. A headline on the front page screamed: LE WATTEAU RETROUVÉ! She stood very still, her eyes scanning the opening bold-type paragraphs.
Mike said: ‘The bloody crate fell off the back of the truck and broke open. There were big statuettes inside. Some were smashed. The Watteau was hidden inside one of them.’
He watched her as she went on reading. Her cheeks held their colour but her face might have been chiselled from marble. At last she handed him back the paper, turned away and went into the bedroom. He followed her, closing the door after him. She was sitting on the bed, hands in the pockets of her housecoat, looking out through the window that now stood with shutters wide.
‘Can they trace the crate, forward or back?’ he said.
‘Not back. Not forward now. If the Press hadn’t got on to it they could have let the crate go through and alerted Lisbon to pick up whoever collected it. But not now. I ought to feel lucky.’
He lit a cigarette and gave it to her. A moment ago her eyes had been blank. Now they were intent, not looking at anything, but hard with concentration.
‘Lucky,’ he said softly. ‘Christ. I wouldn’t call it that.’
‘I made a mistake.’ The anger in her voice was against herself. ‘I should never have sent the thing on.’
‘It was the best way.’
‘No!’ She turned to stare at him. ‘It was the safest way, not the best. I should have brought it out myself, with Willie, That’s what we’d have done in the old days. But I slipped, Mike. I’ve gone a little soft.’
‘You?’
‘Yes.’ She rose and began to pace slowly, forearms across her stomach, hands grasping her elbows. The cigarette clipped in her fingers did not tremble. ‘I’ll need to get my edges honed before I try again.’
‘Try again?’
‘What else?’ She looked at him. ‘But I’ve got to get back in form before I try anything big. Take some knocks and get hardened up, the way I used to be.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She stopped pacing and stood in front of him. ‘I wouldn’t mind what it was, providing it’s tough and pays my way for a bit.’ She shrugged and laughed shortly. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Mike. I know you’re a loner and I’m not asking to cut in on anything you might do.’
‘I’ve got nothing lined up anyway.’
‘Maybe not. But you have your ear to the ground. I’ve lost touch a little. Do you know of anything going that might interest me?’
‘You’d work for somebody?’
‘For a time, if I have to.’
He stood in deep thought for a full minute, then shook his head. ‘I’m always picking up rumours, but you can seldom tell if they’re firm.’
‘If you come across anything firm, and you think it might suit, let me know.’ She went to the window and stood looking out, smoking thoughtfully.
After a while he said: ‘What do you aim to do right now?’
‘Today?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll ring Willie in case he hasn’t seen the papers yet. Then I aim to be on my own.’ She paused, and added slowly: ‘We celebrated too soon, Mike. It’s over now.’
‘You want me to move out?’
‘I’m sorryyes.’
‘I can’t help in any way?’
She smiled at him, and now some of the tension within her had passed. ‘You’re surely not offering me a hand-out?’
‘No.’ He smiled back at her without apology. ‘That wouldn’t suit either of us, darling.’
‘It certainly wouldn’t. So what kind of help?’
‘Only what you mentioned just now. If I hear of anything I think might interest you I’ll need to get in touch. Where can I make contact?’
‘I’ll be here for another two days as planned, then I’ll be going to Tangier.’
‘With Willie Garvin?’
‘Yes. His young stray, Lucilleshe’s expecting to see him.’
‘Ah, yes. And what will you be doing?’
‘Lucille expects to see me, too. But I might also have to start arranging to sell the house there.’
‘You’ll miss that. You’ve had it a long time. But at least it should fetch plenty to give you some working capital.’
‘It had better fetch plenty. I told you, I’ve borrowed on it. But you can ring or cable me there any time in the next three weeksunless Willie and I pick up the sort of job we want on our own.’
‘Okay.’ He got up. ‘Can I have breakfast before I pack?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ There was affection in her smile. ‘I’ll come and have some with you.’
‘And a last swim afterwards?’
‘No. Afterwards you just drive away, Mike. There’s something I have to do this morning.’
Humour touched his eyes. ‘You don’t still go in for contemplating your navel?’
‘Why not?’ she said without resentment. ‘I still use yoga techniques when I want to wipe out tensions and get myself balanced. It works.’ She moved to the door. As she opened it she looked back at him and a swift urchin grin lit her face. ‘It’ll make a change from you contemplating it, anyway.’
Two hundred yards from the villa, just off the main road, a man looked up from the newspaper he was reading as he sat behind the wheel of a parked cara Simca. He wore a lightweight fawn suit, a cream shirt with a matching tie, and a soft cream poplin hat with a narrow brim. His face was thin and dark.
He looked at his watch, glanced towards the villa almost hidden among the trees, then returned to his newspaper. It was already uncomfortably hot in the car, and it would grow hotter still, but he would wait indefinitely to carry out the special task he had been given.
Discomfort was a very small matter compared with the displeasure of the master he served.
TEN
MODESTY BLAISE lay on a rush mat spread on the sand. The sun was still strong, though the hottest hour of the day had now passed. There were not more than a dozen people on the little beach east of Cascais, and the nearest group was well over fifty paces away.
Mike Delgado was goneto Lisbon perhaps, or to the airport. She had not asked his plans. At lunch-time she had rung Willie Garvin at his Lisbon hotel.
“Allo, Princess. Looks like our old mate worked it okay with his oppo.’ He was referring to Tarrant and René Vaubois.
‘Yes. It’s going well enough, Willie. But I don’t think Mike’s going to give us any lead.’
‘You tried ‘im?’
‘I made it plain that we’re in the market. He didn’t react.’
‘M’mm … you’d think he’d get to know about a party like that, sooner or later.’
‘Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe there isn’t a party. Or maybe they’re very smart. They couldn’t afford to let anyone really know the score until after he was committedand under their hand.’
‘That’s a point. So what ‘appens now?’
‘We’ll go on to Tangier in two days as arranged. I’ve told Mike he can reach me there. If he doesn’t know anything himself, at least he’ll spread the word that we’re in the market. If the right ears pick it up, we may get an approach.’
‘Okay. You doing anything tonight, Princess?’
‘No. But don’t worry about that, Willie love. I’m sure you’re heavily involved.’
A chuckle. ‘Trouble is, this one’s a romantic.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘A romantic. She wants me to spend the evening listening to one of these fado singers wailing about unrequited love. Too lugubrious for my liking.’
‘You’ve been reading the music critics again. All right, what shall we do that’s not lugubrious?’
‘Well, we better not walk around looking cheerful after what’s in the papers. The wrong people might noticeif they’re around. What about a little sail down from Estoril to look at the Boca do Inferno?’
‘Fine. I’ll cook you a supper at the villa afterwards.’
‘See you at the Estoril marina, then. About seven?’
‘About seven.’
In the afternoon she had put on black and white check gingham shorts and shirt over her midnight blue one-piece swimsuit and walked down to the beach, to swim for an hour and to lie in the sun.
Eyes closed, feeling the warmth soak into her body, she thought about Willie Garvin. She was pleased that they would go sailing together this evening. Being with Willie was always good. She thought of the day, many years ago now, when she had bought him out of a Saigon gaola hard, muscular and dangerous man, seemingly empty of humanity; a man with a dull, blurred mind twisted by resentment and suspicion.
She had seen him fight in a terrifying Thai-style contest a week earlier, in an open arena where the Oriental Boxing Federation were trying to introduce this ferocious form of combat to Vietnam. She had been awed by his speed and power, but that alone would not have tempted her to buy him for The Network. She remembered the moment soon after the knock-out of his opponent….
He was looking along the aisle of the open-air arena as he pulled on his tattered shirt, and she glimpsed something in his facea look of soul-weariness and grey despair. Following his gaze she saw the two policemen moving down the aisle. When she looked back at Willie Garvin all the bitterness and hatred had returned.
She saw the two policemen halt in front of him and speak curtly. He did not resist when they led him away. As he passed close to where she sat their eyes met. Perhaps he saw something in her face, for again the shroud of sullen anger fell momentarily away. He shrugged his big shoulders, and she saw a flash of humorous resignation in the blue eyes. Then he was gone.
She remembered being uncertain whether to bribe him out of trouble or forget him. It was those two brief glimpses of another and different man within him that decided her. And so she had bought him out and taken him back to Tangier with her, and over a period of no more than six weeks she had seen the old Willie Garvin die.
She knew, and had known almost from the beginning, that in some ways the new Willie Garvin had a better mind than hers. His skills were varied and of high quality. He absorbed knowledge without effort, and possessed almost total recall of anything he had heard or read. The new Willie Garvin walked tall and was a happy, confident man. She knew that she was the catalyst which had changed him, and in the early days this had troubled her, for she also knew that he lived by and through her, as if she were the source of his being.
She had never completely lost this sense of responsibility for him, but over the years dependence had become more mutual. They had fought and bled and won together, succoured each other in bad times, and tended each other’s wounds when the bad times were over. For the first time in her life she had found somebody she could dare to lean on, and to Modesty Blaise this was a gift beyond all purchase-price.
Other men she cherished in a different fashion, fully and with joy in the bodily consummation of an exciting relationshipbut always transiently, because in the end she could belong only to herself. All these men together counted as nothing to her beside Willie Garvin.
Yes. It would be good to go out with him tonight. They would be quite alone in the sailing-dinghy, able to relax and talknot about the job in hand, for there was nothing to be said. They could only wait now.
She decided she would get Willie going again on the writings of music critics. His exposition on that had been all too brief
Somewhere close to her a voice said: ‘Hallo.’
She opened her eyes. A man was squatting about a yard away, wearing a blue shirt, open-toed sandals and khaki shorts. He was in his mid-twenties with an angular face, dark hair and small hard eyes. He smiled and said in accented English: ‘Do you like to come for a trip in the boat with my friend and me?’
The man was Italian or Sicilian, judging by his accent. The first immediate thought that this was a simple attempt at a pick-up on the beach she rejected as soon as her eyes opened. There was a quality in the man’s attitude that set the sensitive alarms within her jangling. She knew trouble had found her. At the back of her mind there was surprise, for if this was the approach she had been trying to attract it had come impossibly soon and in an unexpectedly menacing way.
She raised herself on one elbow, looked at the man, then turned her head to look at his friend, who sat idly with a leg doubled under him, a crumpled cotton hat in his hand. The friend was a little taller but of the same stamp. A few yards from the water’s edge bobbed a two-berth convertible cruiser, One man was aboard, another stood knee-deep in the water, holding the bows to keep the boat from grounding.
Modesty said: ‘No. I don’t wish to ride in your boat, thank you.’
The man nodded across her at his friend. ‘Emilio wants very much. He say it is necessary.’
Emilio smiled with his lips but his eyes were very wary. He moved his hand and she saw that the crumpled hat screened a silenced gun. It was a Smith & Wesson Centennial, a snub-nosed hammerless revolver with a grip safety-catch. The front of the trigger-guard had been cut away. His finger was on the trigger and the grip safety-catch was depressed.
Watching his eyes she made a three-second analysis of the situation. She wore only the swimsuit and a pair of light sandals. Her hair was not piled in the chignon which on occasion contained a hidden kongo. The tear-gas lipstick was in her bedroom at the villa. There was no gun in her handbag, which lay inside the big straw beach-bag with her shirt and shorts. The handbag contained a small compact and a manicure set, lipstick, cigarettes and lighter, some money and two handkerchiefs.
Her only weapon was the large clasp of the handbag, a thing of black polished wood with two small hemispheres at the ends; it was gripped by a clip on the other side of the bag and could be jerked free to become a kongo.
The spokesman said: ‘We go now.’ He rose and stepped back. Emilio remained as before, the screened gun in his hand. She knelt up and lifted her hands to brush sand from her body. At the first movement the gun twitched a little. The spokesman, still smiling, said in a vicious whisper: ‘No! Hands by sides and move slow. Very slow. Face to me, all the time.’
She got up. ‘Do I take my things?’
He glanced round the beach, hesitated for a moment, then said: ‘We take.’ Quickly he scooped up the beach-bag and the rush mat. With a nod ordering her to follow him he moved towards the boat. She knew that Emilio was walking behind her, the hidden gun pointing at her back. Lowering her head she slid her eyes round to follow the shadow he threw obliquely on the sand. He was keeping two arms’-lengths away from hera good professional distance which permitted no easy countermove.
The man ahead splashed into the sea, waited for her, and smiled widely again for the benefit of any onlookers as he gave her a hand up into the boat. A gesture indicated that she was to sit on the port side amidships. Emilio took his seat facing her. The gun showed clearly now, hidden only from the shoreward side by the hat in his other hand.
The spokesman climbed aboard and the man holding the bows followed. She looked at him and said in Italian : ‘The name is Forli, isn’t it?’
He half-grinned and slid his eyes away from her.
Emilio spoke in Italian to Forli, his eyes never leaving Modesty. ‘You know her?’
‘I have seen her once in Catania. Four years ago. I was with Vecchi then, and she had business with him.’
The fourth man started the engine and the boat roared out in a long curve away from the beach.
Modesty said: ‘Vecchi will be unhappy concerning this. He is an old friend.’
‘Vecchi has his own problems.’ Emilio smiled, his long mouth stretching back like the mouth of a crocodile. ‘Vecchi is dead.’
The boat was heading west, parallel to the shore and half-a-mile out.
‘A cigarette, please,’ Modesty said, watching the shore, checking her position. Forli moved a hand to his pocket but Emilio froze him with an obscene curse.
‘Keep away from her,’ he said. ‘You understand, imbecile? Don’t go close to her. Not you, not anybody.’
Modestly filed away a fragment of knowledge in her mind. Whoever was behind this must be well-informed about her. He had sent four men to pick her up, and he had warned them that she was highly dangerous.
The spokesman opened her beach-bag, then the handbag, and began to check every item with meticulous care.
It was half-an-hour later that the launch idled into a rocky cove, its fender bumping gently against a crude wooden jetty. She was taken up a winding path through scrub and trees to a track where a car with a driver waited. The spokesman’s name was Ugo, she had discovered now. On his orders she sat in the front between the driver and Forli. The other three sat in the back, Emilio in the middle, his gun touching her bare neck.
In ten minutes the big car drew up outside a large and ugly villa of pink and blue ochre. It stood alone in a high clearing amid a forest of umbrella-pines. A small red Fiat was parked on one side of the villa. Ugo gave orders. She got out and her captors closed about her. The big car moved off down the dirt road. She was taken along the side of the house and across the back to a broad terrace.
Four men sat in the room which opened on to the terrace. They were playing gin rummy. Three of them, though they had the look of the city about them, were in casual beachwear. The other wore a lightweight fawn suit and a cream shirt with a matching tie. On a sofa behind him lay a soft cream poplin hat with a narrow brim. His face was thin and dark.
Two of the men in beachwear were Forli types, strong-arm thugs with little intelligence. The third was chunky with broad shoulders. Thick thighs emerged from crumpled shorts and tapered to small feet. Scanty black hair was combed sideways in thin strands across an almost bald skull. His eyes were cold and quick-moving. She marked him as dangerous more dangerous than Emilio, who had been her first choice so far.
