The Finger in the Sky Affair - Leslie Peter - Страница 16

After the second cabaret act, waiters at the place beyond the white fence pushed together three tables and started laying out glasses and napkins. Several parties had left. Obviously a larger one was expected. Soon a dozen or more people were threading their way among the other patrons to reach the long table. All of them, Solo saw when they were installed, were women—and the majority of them were in trousers. Several were very heavy around the haunches, with severe, mannish shirts and lined faces wearing a determined look. Others were willowy and slim, with voluptuous bodies below cropped hair. One red-haired girl with shining eyes wore a low-cut bronze cocktail dress. She was very beautiful.

Some of them drank pastis but the majority nursed wide, heavy glasses carrying whisky and ice. They were very gay and giggled a lot, the small conversational clumps every now and then coalescing into one big group when someone related an item sufficiently salacious, funny or astonishing to engage their attention.

The red-haired girl appeared to be the enfant terrible of the party and at the same time a kind of butt. Almost everything she said was greeted with whoops of laughter or exclamations of feigned outrage. After one low-voiced confidence entrusted to her immediate neighbors had resulted in a shriek of mock dismay, a broad-beamed woman at the far end of the table called out: "If Macnamara's going to drag us all down to her level again, at least let her for God's sake speak up so we can all hear!"

"Oh, but she isn't," the redhead's neighbor assured the woman, forcibly preventing the girl from rising to her feet and declaiming, "We're having no more of Macnamara!"

"Darling, but I insist..."

"No, Kay. No," they chorused, laughing. "Macnamara's banned!"

And they they all started to sing at once: "Tara ra-raaa, Ta-rat-taraaaa Raaa..."

They had been there about twenty minutes when Solo suddenly realized that Sheridan Rogers was among them. She had her back to them and he hoped that Illya would not notice her—for in fact she looked rather drunk, with smudged make-up, a blotchy face and hair over one eye. But unfortunately the Russian chanced to look up then, saw the intensity of his regard, and—following his eye—also noticed the girl.

"Sherry!" he exclaimed with a great deal of warmth. "What happened to you? We've been wondering all day. How nice to see you..." He rose to his feet and crossed to the fencing, leaning over to address the missing date from behind her shoulder. The girl called Macnamara bent her head and whispered something, causing Sherry Rogers to giggle and glance shyly over her shoulder at the Russian. "Hi, comrade!" she said thickly. "How goes the investi—investiga—How goes the spy hunt, eh? Found any more enemy agents under your bed?" She rose clumsily to her feet and faced him.

One of the girls in trousers murmured something behind her hand and the whole table burst out laughing again.

"That's ri'," Sherry giggled. "I don't 'spect he has!...But what are you doin' here, lover-boy? Have you come to have yourself a bit of 'xperience? Or are you still after the bold, bad villains for Uncle Sam?"

Illya had fallen back in bewilderment. "Sherry!" he began; "what happened? I thought we had a date...?"

The girl laughed raucously. "That's a good one," she cried. "A date with a dream! My li'l Russian Lull'by....What makes you think I stick aroun' for spy-catchers, comrade?"

"But, Sherry —"

"Oh, wrap it up...You make me tired. You think I've nothing better to do —" The girl's voice died away. Swaying slightly, she stared across the low fence at him for a moment, then lurched a step to one side and sat down abruptly in her chair. "I want a drink," she complained.

In the silence which had fallen over the long table the voice of one of the beefy, butch girls rang out, finishing a sentence: "... at his hair, darling! It could be one of us in drag..." A dozen pairs of eyes, bright with maliciousness and amusement, stared at the Russian as he stood dumbfounded among the red linen tablecloths. Then Helga left her seat and walked over to him. "Let's go, Illya," she said softly, touching his arm. "I'm afraid you'll do no good staying here. I'm terribly sorry but there's no doubt about it...the girl's plastered!"

Kuryakin was very quiet as Solo drove them back towards Nice. Once or twice he shook his head as though in disbelief. At length Solo glanced into the rear-view mirror, raised his eyebrows at the reflection of the Russian's glum expression which he saw there, and said seriously:

"Look, Illya—I was as astonished as you were. The girl's behavior doesn't seem to add up. But we all saw it; we all heard. And I'm sorry—believe me, I real sorry...But I guess anyone can make a mistake over somebody. In the meantime, I don't want to come on as the heavy, but we do have a job to do. We went out to keep an eye on the social life of T.C.A.'s people out here. The ones we went to watch seemed innocent enough—but don't forget Sheridan Rogers is a T.C.A. employee too."

The Russian sighed heavily. "Thank you, Napoleon," he said. "You are quite right, of course. And anyway I have long ago trained myself never to be surprised by what human beings do...at least not after the first shock. It was the...implications that were bothering me here."

Solo nodded. "I know," he said, pulling the car into the side of the road to allow an ambulance to hiss past, the blue light on its roof winking and the urgent two-tone siren blaring. "It does rather suggest a new dimension, doesn't it?"

Helga said good night and left them at St. Laurent du Var, half-way between Cagnes and the airport. She refused Solo's offer of a late meal in Nice on the grounds that she had to get back to her own apartment and see to various things. "Where do you have to get to, Helga?" he asked.

"St. Paul-de-Vence. It's not far—and look, there's a taxi stand on the other side of the road. That's why I asked you to stop here."

"But Helga—we were halfway there at Haut-des-Cagnes! Why didn't you let me take you there? Let me turn around and take you now..."

The wide mouth gleamed in a smile. "My dear," she said softly, leaning in at the window and laying a hand on his arm, "I wouldn't dream of it. You two boys get back to your hotel. I'll see you tomorrow. Promise..."

Before they reached the entrance to the airport another ambulance passed them, followed a moment later by two more.

"They're in a hurry!" Illya commented. "There must be a big pile-up on the Promenade des Anglais or something."

But he was wrong. The ambulances turned right at the airport. Beyond the spiky palms and the low, rectangular, blue-lit bulk of the terminal building, a crimson glare pulsed in the night sky. Across the dark field vehicles and people on foot swarmed towards an incandescent tangle of wreckage on the main runway.

And above them, piercing the clouds of smoke, rose a shattered tailplane bearing the three-letter monogram of Transcontinental Airways.

Chapter 9 — The silent witness

In the confusion among the frantic comings and goings of firemen, nurses, policemen, airport officials, gendarmerie and salvage corps, it was almost impossible to find out what had happened. In the excess of zeal which always afflicts officialdom on the occasion of disaster, the airport police were moving people on so fast that Solo wasn't even able to explain who they were. Eventually, they had to leave the Peugeot in one of the public parking area some distance away from the buildings and make their way out onto the apron by dodging the patrols.