The Doomsday Affair - Whittington Harry - Страница 4

Solo caught his breath, seeing what had to happen, even before the cycle’s front wheels struck the shale, volcanic rock on the roadway shoulder.

The cycle quivered, going out of control. The boy fought it, and the rear wheel bounced far out off the pavement. The boy pulled the cycle around hard. The front tire struck a pothole. The cycle bounded upward, striking against the concrete wall and going over it. Tourists in the parking area turned, screaming.

Solo slammed on his brakes. There was no sound as the cycle wheeled and skidded, going over and over down the sheer embankment toward the serene volcanic valley over a thousand feet below.

Solo let the car roll until the gas-starved engine shook, gasping. Then he stepped hard on the gas, going around the curve and down the winding road toward the far side of the island.

III

ILLYA REPLACED the pink phone gently in its cradle, cutting off the incredulous voice of the desk clerk.

He stood one more moment then, looking about this room, but not allowing his gaze to touch the corpse of the lovely spy. A breeze riffled the curtains, touched at his face. He tilted his head, seeing the sun-struck beach, the incredibly blue water and the buffalo-bulk of Diamond Head up the coast.

He shrugged the jacket up on his shoulders then and strode across the room to the corridor door. He took a deep breath, opened it and stepped out into the hallway.

“I beg your pardon.” A man’s voice, cat-soft, Orientally accented, stopped Illya.

He turned slowly, scowling because the man seemed to have materialized from the walls. A moment earlier the pink-toned hallway had appeared deserted.

For a brief moment they exchanged stares and Illya saw the shocked puzzlement revealed in the other’s face—a look quickly replaced by a flat smile.

Kuryakin peered at the man’s bland smile in the saffron-tinged face. Tall, with the lean rangy body one associated with a Texan slimmed down from hard work and meager diet, pigeon-chested, knobby shouldered, the man’s narrow head had the mongrel features of a Eurasian. Thinning black hair, high forehead, bushy brows, large nose, thin-lipped mouth, his cheeks high-planed and his inscrutably black eyes tight-lidded, Oriental. He wore a brightly colored shirt, gray slacks, hand-woven sandals and he carried a heavy cane.

Kuryakin shook his head; this wasn’t an individual at all, but rather a casual assembly of mismatched parts. He turned and moved toward the elevator.

“I beg your pardon,” the man said again.

Kuryakin gestured. “Sorry. No speak English.”

“Quite all right,” said the cat-purr voice. “I speak six languages fluently, many dialects.”

Illya shook his head again. “Sorry. I don’t understand.”

The taut-skinned yellow face stopped smiling. “You understand death, don’t you?”

Kuryakin stared at the long, glittering blade suddenly ejected from the tapered end of the cane. The man brought it up quickly and rested its needle point lightly above Illya’s buckle.

Kuryakin bit his lip. “Death I understand.”

The blade remained where it was, unwavering in the bony hand. “I need to talk with you, sir.”

“I’m in something of a hurry.”

“Shall we talk there—in your room?”

“My room?” Illya glanced toward the closed door of the room where Ursula’s body lay awaiting the arrival of hotel management and the Honolulu police. “There’s some mistake. This isn’t my room.”

He saw that faint uncertainty in the man’s lean face, as if Illya was not the one he’d expected to find here.

The doubt was transient, quickly gone. The blade inched into the fabric of Illya’s shirt.

“Inside the room, sir.”

“I don’t even have the key.”

The man stared at him a moment, produced a key ring, shook one out. Still holding the blade fixed on Kuryakin, he inserted the key, unlocked the door and swung it open.

“After you, sir,” he said.

“If you must talk, couldn’t we go somewhere for a drink?” Illya asked.

“Inside the room,” the man said. He touched at him with the blade.

Illya bowed and preceded the tall man into the room. They did not speak, both of them gazing fixedly at the lovely corpse.

Illya, looking up, felt he glimpsed the faintest tug of satisfaction about the thin lips.

“Friend of yours?”

Illya shrugged. “She just came in to use the phone.”

“Surely not in that condition.”

“Who are you?”

“You may call me Sam for the little while we will be in contact.”

“What do you want?”

“Must I want anything?”

“Obviously you do, Sam.”

“Perhaps I already have what I want.”

Illya nodded. “Then you’ll excuse me if I leave, since I am in a hurry.”

As he spoke he began to move toward the door. The tall man took one long step and brought up the dagger-like blade, touching its glittering point at Illya’s Adam’s apple.

“I insist you stay.”

“You underline your invitations so tellingly.”

Illya stepped back toward the center of the room and the blade relaxed. Illya said, “You mind if I smoke? It’s permitted even before a firing squad.”

Sam shrugged. “‘Where do you get the impression that I am less than friendly toward you? Smoke, by all means.”

Illya shook out a cigarette, faced the tall man and flicked his lighter, wondering if he would ever get an opportunity to develop this film.

He glanced around, seeing the Scotch on a table.

“Would you like a drink?”

Sam seemed to be listening for something, but he nodded, his smile bland. “Please.”

Illya poured Scotch over ice cubes in two glasses. He saw Sam was watching him carefully, but when he returned his lighter to his jacket pocket, he brought out a small white pill between his fingers. He passed his hand over his own glass, lifting the other and extending it toward the watchful Sam.

Sam shook his head. “I’ll let you drink this one. I’ll take the other.”

Illya frowned. “But—”

“My dear young fellow. I don’t know whom you think you’re dealing with here. If you hope to outwit me, don’t do it so clumsily.”

“But—”

“Oh, I know. You snapped my picture with the Japanese-made camera-cigarette lighter. I would object, but I don’t think it matters—where you’re going.”

“Do you mind giving me some hint as to where this might be?”

“And then you attempt to confuse me by heavy-handed legerdemain. The hand is quicker than the eye, eh? We love it that Americans and Russians oppose us in league with each other—the stupid unsubtle Americans and the heavy-handed Russians. You drop something in this glass and then permit me to see you apparently doctor the glass from which you will drink. Not even very clever, my heavy-handed friend.”

“If you say so.”

The black eyes smiled now, in cold assurance. “You will drink down the glass you hold out now for me. Drink it down. How do you say in the States—chug-a-lug?”

“Cheers.”

Illya held the glass of Scotch to his lips, hesitated just that fraction of an instant that would be dramatic and yet not overdone. He drank the liquid off, holding his breath.

As Illya drank, Sam smilingly took up the other glass and held it to the sunlight. Satisfied that it was free of sediment or any other contamination, he sipped at it, watching Kuryakin with ill-concealed triumph.

A heavy knock on the door stiffened both of them to alert attention.

Sam finished off the Scotch, set the glass down on the table. “For your hospitality, thank you.”

“It was my pleasure.’

“You will wait until I am on the balcony and have closed the doors. You will then admit your guests.”

“We’re eight stories up—”

“Do as I say.”

Illya shrugged and waited until the tall man crossed the room, retracting the blade of the dagger into the cane as he went. He stepped out on the balcony as the knocking grew louder and more impatient. He closed the doors and Illya saw his lean shadow through the fragile pink curtains.