The Assassination Affair - Holly J Hunter - Страница 28

"On the estate. They haven't taken it up since the show people got here."

"By the barn?"

"No. Back farther. Behind the walnut grove."

Illya made a fast decision. "I'll take the balloon, Napoleon. And the car."

"Check. And I'll take the barn in Gloryanna's car."

Gloryanna clasped her hands. "Oh, good. I can go with you."

"Nope," Solo said. "I'll drop you at home."

"Then you can't have the car, Napoleon."

"A lot of good it will do you setting here at the curb. You can't unpark it yourself."

She thrust out a stubborn jaw. "There are lots of men in this town who'll do it for me. That's my deal. Take it or leave it."

Solo uttered a short sigh. "I take it." To Illya's beginning protest, he said, "It should be safe enough. We haven' t had any threats - yet."

Gloryanna was eager. "Let's meet afterward at my house. I'll make lemonade and you can meet my Dad. He'd like to know who I'm coming into town to visit for breakfast. He said so."

"I'll bet he did," Illya grunted, and left without a goodbye.

Chapter 10

"A Plague of Locusts, Maybe"

THE QUICK RIDE into the country only emphasized the heat this day was threatening to produce. Solo loosened his collar to let his skin breathe and listened to Gloryanna's delightful babbling. He was surprised that they would be allowed entrance to the estate and the barn, but she said it was all right as long as they stayed outside. With such loose security about the place, he wondered if he were chasing a dead lead.

They turned off the road between the tall gates of the estate and followed a blacktopped driveway through a great expanse of dead lawn. A red barn grew up before them, ten trailers parked about it in haphazard fashion. The trailers were painted in garish letters advertising THE COSMIC THEATER—AN EVENING'S FUN FOR EVERYONE. There was no movement anywhere.

Far behind the barn stood a thick grove of trees, and from this vantage point Solo guessed it to be the walnut grove where Illya would encounter the balloon. Way beyond that was a green woods, deep, and running for acres. The landscape was surrealistic with its withered brown leading to green trees.

Gloryanna paid no attention to anything except carrying on about her father and how Solo had to meet him. "He isn't awfully strict, remember, but he likes to pretend he is. Don't let him scare you off."

"Do you think he might try?" Solo held up his end of the banter although his senses were now alerted for movement, for action.

Gloryanna faced him squarely, a bold gleam in her eyes. "He might. Just this morning when I was describing you, he told me, 'Gloryanna, never trust a man who has a twinkle in his eye.' I took it all in very seriously, and then I told him I kind of liked the twinkle."

"What did he say to that? Stay in the house?"

"No. He laughed. And made a remark about my red slacks."

"If I were your father, I'd make a remark about those slacks, too. They don't match your personality. They're brazen and you're wholesome."

"Wholesome! What a nasty word."

They came out from among the trailers to the foot of the barn-hill, the rise that slanted up to the double doors that were big enough to pass a hay wagon into the upper reaches of the barn. It was a gigantic structure, three stories high. The hill was matted with dead grass and well trampled, which meant well traveled.

Gloryanna halted at the foot of the hill. "This is going to be the theater. The plays will go on just inside the doors and the audience will sit down here."

"They'll get stiff necks."

"But it's nice, don't you think? Mr. Saturn wanted to use the inside of the barn, but it's such a mess. Dirty and full of old straw and spiders."

"Let's get a closer look."

Gloryanna held him back. "We can't go inside. I told you."

"I can, Gloryanna. You wait for me out here. I've got to have a look around." He headed away but she kept up with him, her red sneakers hitting the ground stubbornly. "Whither I goest," he said to himself.

At the top of the hill, set inside the doors, was an area of big planks laid down to make a raised stage on the hard wood of the barn floor. Solo's heels clicked on the wood and at the sound he eased himself to Gloryanna's right so he would have his hand free for his gun if he needed it.

Deep in the barn - and it was a huge barn - the sun light shafted through dirty windows, producing small spotlights on the floor and lighting rusty farm tools. Straw matted the corners and old bales of hay were littered about. He went deeper, past the stage.

Nestled beside the central upright was a small mimeograph machine with big bottles of ink stacked beside it. The bottles were clean and white, opaque, and labeled Red and Black. What interested him most was the paper ready to be imprinted. It was very thin, tissue-like, and gold. He didn't touch it, but Gloryanna did, holding a piece of it high. He could almost see through it.

"They're going to print their programs on this," she said. "They chop it up to make their Stardust. I watched them once."

"Put it down!" Solo commanded. "Right now." If Illya's hunch was right, that paper could be impregnated with the deadly chemical and she was getting it all over her hands.

She obeyed quickly, uneasy at the edge in his voice.

Solo poked at the paper with a pencil he found by the mimeo machine. Its presence, seemingly innocent, could indicate that the entire Thrush operation was being carried on from this one barn. He picked up the piece Gloryanna had handled and stuffed it in his pocket to send to U.N.C.L.E. in Chicago. If the report came back that it was untreated, then it was sensible to sup pose that Thrush put the chemical on it right here and that could mean the main lab was present here, too.

"Is there an upstairs or a downstairs to a place like this?" Solo asked Gloryanna.

"Yes - this is a very fancy barn. There's an extra hay loft up that wooden ladder, and below us are the stables."

"Hark!" A voice echoed through the empty barn, coming from over their heads. "The sound of intruders touches my ears. Who goes there?"

Solo stared up the ladder in amazement. Gloryanna touched his arm. "That's only Mr. Saturn."

Solo winced. "Oh, no. Does he always talk that way?"

"He's a great actor, Napoleon. Very artistic. You'll see." Solo was afraid he would see, and waited for the sight, his right hand ready to slip out his gun. But the figure that appeared on the ladder relaxed him. First came ankle-high felt boots; next a pair of off-blue trousers; then a black, gold, and red striped dressing gown. The man's head came next, underlined by a silk ascot. Mr. Saturn leaped the last few rungs and landed grace fully beside Solo. His left hand flourished an eight inch cigarette holder with a dead king-size cigarette in the end of it.

Solo estimated Saturn's height at six-foot-six, and his weight barely one-seventy. The man was so thin that one good knotted fist to the stomach would go straight through and break his backbone. His head was long and his face lumpy with bones, his artificially silver hair dropping across his temple in dramatic style. He was a caricature, something dug up out of a theater trunk.

Saturn said, poutingly, "I called out but you failed to answer. I really must insist on knowing your business here. The theater is not open."

"Oh," Solo said, then lied, "I wasn't aware of that. But I can't say I'm sorry because I did manage to meet you. You can't be anyone but Mr. Saturn, himself." Solo firmly believed that with this type, flattery would open all doors.