The Man From Uncle 02 - The Doomsday Affair - Whittington Harry - Страница 14

There was a scented perfection to her specifications, and he experienced a moment of regret because he knew in advance that he would not have five minutes he could call his own for a long time.

Solo glanced over his shoulder and she waved to him from the plane exitway, and he knew with a faint sadness that he'd never see her again.

He paused at the car-rental desk and collected the keys for the Chevrolet convertible that had been reserved in his name. He saw a slender man in a gray suit lower a newspaper when he spoke his name at the desk, and straighten as the girl repeated it. The man folded his newspaper deliberately and with an unhurried stride went to the row of public phone booths and entered one, closing it behind him. He watched Solo narrowly across the administration building to the parking area.

Solo drove at fifty miles an hour in the suburban traffic on roads that sang wetly from the recent rain. The air was bracing, the flow of traffic was a challenge that alerted tired senses, and the memory of the sudden rains that struck the Bay Area stirred more old memories.

He left his keys with the doorman at the St. Francis hotel, stood a moment listening to the luring call of the evening traffic, seeing the lights and the elegantly-dressed women. He checked into the room that had been reserved for him. He prowled it a moment, anxious to be out of it and on his way as if he were a hunter with the scent of prey nagging at him.

In the street again, he rejected the idea of getting out the car. A man stalked these hills, hearing the rattle of the cable cars, seeing the streets forking out like spokes from a hub, drinking in the excitement of the strange race of inhabitants of this place. Night in San Francisco! Solo heaved a deep sigh and strode faster, going down Market Street toward the Embarcadero.

He paused on the walk, aware of people passing him on both sides, the clatter of sounds, the winking of the lights on the purple and orange neon: the hungry pussycat. Up Three Flights.

He walked up those three flights and entered the padded doors. The hysterical clatter of sound washed out around him.

He saw the bored faces of male and female lined like crows along the padded bar, the disenchanted bartenders moving behind it, the dark mirrors, the damp smell of liquor. Music was loud, with that muffled tone of poor acoustics. The small dance space was crowded, and here and there were military uniforms to remind one that the cold war was with him, and that this frantic city was still the port of the Pacific.

He ordered a Cutty Sark Scotch and ice at the bar and then turned with it in his hand toward the place where the largest crowd was knotted. He would have been more than mildly astonished to see that this was a goldfish pool if Heather McNab had not briefed him so thoroughly at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters less than nine hours ago…

"There she is, swimming down there. Looks like one of the goldfish, doesn't she?"

"Except the goldfish are up here and she's in a tank in the basement."

"You've got to be joking."

"You don't really think she's swimming around naked in there with those goldfish, do you?"

"So what's with being naked? She's no bigger than one of the goldfish," a woman said.

"Honey, she looks better like that than a lot of us do!"

"How do they do that? Make it look like she's swimming around with the goldfish?"

"Honey, it's all done with mirrors."

"You know that's what's wrong with life? Everything. Everything is done with mirrors."

"Barbry Coast. That's what she calls herself. Look at her! I wonder what her real name is?"

Solo turned away from the fish pond, wondering if there would be any glamor left if they knew as he did that the nude swimmer's real name was Esther Kapp-myer.

"Esther Kappmyer? Sure, that's my name, but what does that prove?" She stared at Solo from the fluffy concealment of a terry-cloth robe.

"It proves you're the one I've been looking for," Solo said, leaning back in the only chair in her closet-sized dressing room in the building basement.

"What do you want with me?" She scrubbed at her dark, wave-rich hair with a bright red towel. He knew from his mirrored view of her that she was a thoughtfully designed young woman, and he saw that nothing improved her looks as much as being near her. And he saw something else. She was a frightened young female. Her dark violet eyes were haunted with something she never talked about, probably tried never to think about—the kind of fear that one never escaped, no matter how fast she ran or how often she changed her name. . "I never date customers, mister," she said. Solo gave her a smile that he hoped might reassure her. "I'm afraid my business with you is more serious than the pleasant prospect of a date with you. Do you know a girl named Ursula Baynes?"

Her eyes widened and her body tensed beneath the robe. She swallowed hard, tilted her chin. "What about her?"

"Ursula Baynes and Candy Kane. A dance act employing a silver whip. It played a lot of the larger clubs, and before it broke up it seemed to concentrate on the areas near sensitive military or missile centers."

"We used to have an act together; what about it? And we used to use silver whips. It's not what we want, mister, it's what the public will buy."

"I'm not here to censure you. I thought maybe you might be willing to talk to me about Ursula."

She batted at her head with the heel of her hand, saying, "I'm water-logged." She appeared to be busy getting her body dried and warm. But Solo had seen these signs before—she was attempting to cover up how upset she was, how nervous she had become since he'd mentioned Ursula.

He said, "She's dead. You know that, don't you?"

She nodded. "What do you want me to tell you, Mister—what's your name? Solo? That's about as believable as mine—Barbry Coast. That has a certain nothing, don't you think?"

"How well did you know her?"

Barbry Coast tossed her head. "Look. I don't want to talk about her. She's dead. What can it help to talk about her now?"

"You're not afraid that what happened to her—might happen to you?"

He saw her wince. He saw the way she shivered beneath that robe, but she forced a laugh. "Why should it?"

"I don't know. Why should it have happened to her?"

"I told you I don't want to talk about it. Maybe Ursula got mixed up in something that was bad news. In her way she was a kook. I don't know what it is you want to hear from me. I don't even want to know, because what happened to Ursula could happen to me."

"Is that what you're afraid of, Barbry?"

She tried to laugh. "Who's afraid? I always shake like this. That water's cold."

"If you'll trust me—if you'll answer some questions the best you know, I'll protect you."

She shivered, her violet eyes fixed on his. Her chin tilted slightly. "You know what? Those are probably the exact words you said to Ursula."

Solo didn't speak. After a moment, Barbry said, "I'll tell you this much. If the man who ordered Ursula's death decided to kill me, no one could protect me."

Solo stood up. He crossed the narrow space to where the girl stood, looking small and helpless wrapped in the thick robe.

"You do know the man, don't you?"

"I don't know anything."

"Is that why you're scared to breathe?"

"It's nothing to you."

"That's where you're wrong, Barbry. This is a serious business. Deadly. We don't even know yet how bad it is, only that the plot is urgent enough to have involved a personal adviser to the president of this country."