Black Champagne

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Black Champagne Page 13

by George B Mair


  And at that stage her Yoga teacher had shown her how to use a personal sacrifice as a means to power for good purposes. Given that she sacrificed something important to herself and then conditioned herself by Yoga exercises before throwing herself into a trance she could see something of the future. If she ate a few herbs before exercising she could see even more, and in the end she had discovered that the greater the sacrifice the more she was allowed to see.

  Indeed she had sometimes even been able to remember what she had seen and to discuss it afterwards with those who had heard her speak. The Indian had also taped her voice during some of these sessions and she knew that it was usually her normal voice. She seemed to continue relaxed and at ease no matter what she may have seen or tried to describe.

  And for years she had never travelled without the herbs. For her they had become the key to mysticism.

  Grant was sceptical. Drugs could induce anything.

  ‘This is not a drug,’ snapped Krystelle.

  It was the first time he had seen her slightly angry with him and he realised again what it had cost her to confide knowing as she must that it would be difficult for him to believe. He forced himself to be tactful. ‘Forgive me, honey. But I’m a bit restless. I’d like to move across to the town.’

  ‘With or without my help?’

  ‘Together, of course.’ Grant avoided glancing at his watch. ‘After you’ve done what you want to do.’

  Krystelle slipped to the floor, walked across to where he was lying and gently kissed his forehead. ‘I know what that cost you, David, and I see that you don’t believe me. But have patience. Now tell me, what do you want most.’

  She was still leaning over him, her neckline sagging to reveal the tawny cleavage of her superb figure. Her ‘top’ was caressing his cheek and he felt the warmth of her body urge him into throbbing desire. Her cool arms were locked around his neck, her hands folded behind his head, and he felt the urgent caressing strokes of her fingers against his scalp. He forced a smile. ‘You. Just you.’

  She smiled slightly. ‘And after me?’ She was still speaking a neutral non-accented English, he noticed and remembered again how her speech changed with her mood.

  ‘To start work.’

  ‘And which do you want most?’

  It was a loaded question. Yet Grant knew that he could answer truthfully. ‘I want more than anything to get the Hell out of here and start tracing Harry. Not to mention Ferguson, Rita, The Man from Asia and half a hundred other goddam things including a stockpile of drugs.’

  Krystelle’s face lit up triumphantly. ‘Then we can both make a sacrifice. We both want love. And we both want to start work. So for both of us the greatest sacrifice we can make at this moment is to have neither and that will make it easier for me to “get through.” Understand?’

  She stood up, opened the dressing robe, dropped her clothes and returned holding a snuff box. ‘My herbs,’ she said briefly. ‘I take some now, and then, in exactly five minutes I shall do my Yoga.’

  Grant knew when not to ask questions, and he also knew that she would tell him about the herbs only if and when she felt inclined. But he got a glimpse of greenish powdered leaves mixed with what looked like gleaming crystalline powder as she cautiously measured out a tiny dose on a small ivory spoon and swallowed it with a glass of water.

  At zero hour she turned towards one window and opened the sash behind the slats of a broad Venetian blind. A whiff of warm air wafted through the room and then she began her breathing exercises. He noted that she kept a careful eye on the clock and at exactly two minutes she adopted the lotus position for thirty seconds before plunging into a frenzy of muscle contractions which he knew had a name but which he could never remember, and which almost revolted him as he watched her abdominal muscles retract, her lower ribs thrust obscenely forward, and the outline of her vertebrae mark the centre line of her trunk. Her eyes were now glazing, yet she retained some sort of self control and at the end of a further two minutes slipped once more into the lotus position. Her breathing had now dropped to five or six per minute, even after exertion, and as she sat, motionless on the floor Grant saw the pulse in her neck also slow down to sixty, then fifty and then to nearly imperceptible forty-three while her pallor deepened and she seemed to freeze into a figurine carved from marble.

  And then he marked a sudden change in personality.

  The woman had, in fact, become a statue.

  He thought for one icy moment that she had actually died, as the pulse disappeared, breathing ceased and every muscle lay limp like putty beneath skin which was suddenly drab with lifelessness.

  He watched, hardly knowing what to do, until, speaking as though from the ceiling he heard Krystelle’s voice. Her lips were still closed, the merest markings on an impassive statuesque face. Yet her voice was real enough and Grant shivered in spite of himself. The room had also chilled and he no longer felt the warm current of air.

  ‘Relax, David,’ said the voice. ‘I’m far above you. It’s possible that you can see the silver thread which joins me to my body down there. But don’t move. If you cut it or damage it I shall indeed be dead. It is the thread of our future. So let it be.’

  And a flash of silver seemed to flicker in the air above the girl’s head as she spoke.

  There was dead silence for a long moment and then, again, Grant heard the voice speaking, but this time with urgency.

  ‘Harry is on the island.

  ‘He is a prisoner.

  ‘I see fish and water and a great hole.

  ‘We seem to be dead.

  ‘They are smiling.

  ‘The man is laughing.

  ‘There is also another man. He is small and smiling.

  ‘They speak to servants and we are carried to a thing that looks like a grave.

  ‘There are more fish and a monster is trying to eat someone.

  ‘I hear music. It is sad music and people are crying.

  ‘Or are they laughing? I can’t see them. It is a noise.

  ‘And there is a lot of death.

  ‘I feel cold and there is a thing plunged into my side.

  ‘Warmth is going into the ground and I am frightened.’

  Grant almost ‘felt’ the rising excitement in Krystelle’s voice but forced himself to draw coolly at the cigarette he had chosen as a change from his chain smoking cigar public image, and remembered that, like all other things in life, this horror too must pass.

  He had seen this sort of thing in the Middle East and Asia: even in floor shows in more sophisticated places, and once or twice in private houses. But this was different. It had a ring of truth which was terrifying. And then he sighed gently. The pulse had returned to the girl’s neck, there was a flicker of movement in the chest and a blush of colour in her skin as life slowly began, once again, to throb within the body of the sleeping woman.

  Her eyes were now closed but he waited, almost curiously, for Krystelle to ‘surface’ and wondered only how much she would remember of all that she had said. She was breathing almost normally, her muscles had regained tone and her heart was ticking over in the sixties when she moved for the first time and slowly stretched her legs.

  For five more long moments she lay on her back and breathed with deep pulling inspirations which returned the glow of health to her cheeks before she turned to Grant and spoke. ‘Did you hear me speak to you?’

  He nodded. ‘You said plenty. How much do you remember this time?’

  She hesitated. ‘There was death, and a grave, and a hole and fish and men who laughed. We died, I think, and I felt my life blood drain away when it became cold.’

  ‘And news of Harry?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘I have an idea that he’s still on the island.’

  Grant’s voice was soft. ‘Did I die too?’

  She looked at him oddly. ‘I’m not sure, David. There’s a blank.’

  He ran his razor over his face and cut viciously back across his scalp shaving d
own to skin in a full-blooded Yul Brynner. ‘I died,’ he said quietly. ‘But if that is what I’m due to do I’ll take plenty with me.’

  The girl paused. ‘It isn’t telling the future, David. I only have the power to see danger and get a glimpse of the present.’

  Grant finished shaving his scalp. ‘Am I very ugly?’

  Krystelle bounded to her feet and threw her arms around his neck. ‘Never, David man. Never ugly. And I shouldn’t have done that stuff. Forget it. And even if I did say things it don’t mean they’ve gotta happen.’

  Grant smiled slightly as she began to lapse into slang. It was a sure sign of excitement. ‘Forget nothing. If it’s only a hint to be careful take it as read we’ll be walking on ice because I want to live as much as anyone. And now, honey chile, battle dress. Top and cotton skirt, sandals and a head scarf, hair sliced flat and a slash of crimson lipstick with a couple of costume jewellery ear rings.’

  Half an hour later they separated, taking different paths to a hundred or two metres beyond the entrance gate, where Grant found her sitting waiting for him at the foot of a coco palm angled to 30 degrees across a ditch. She welcomed him with a swift kiss against his right hand, slipped it under her arm and then pointed for the main road back to Charlotte Amalie.

  Three miles later they paused at a gas station and drew a drink of Coca-Cola from a slot machine. An hour later they were standing below tiny Gallows Hill with Cha-Cha Town spreading ahead. ‘Action and good luck’ said Grant quietly as he pointed her towards a still open café. They had rehearsed the drill and each knew what the other expected. But they were still playing it by ear. And both knew that they would have to play it cooler than a chilled hunk of ice. Every instinct pointed to danger ahead with both men and women at work.

  Chapter Nine – ‘The end of the road’

  The Sundowner is a sailor bistro at the base of Gallows Hill and closing time can be erratic, depending on what ships are ‘in’ or what the boys are doing after night time.

  Grant remembered it as a picturesque sort of pub with nautical overtones and good rum. He was surprised to find it open at three ack emma, but took it as a good omen when Krystelle swaggered in and he heard a roar of approval.

  He smoked two cigarettes sitting near the water’s edge, revelling in the sensuous warmth of the night before trying his own luck, but when he walked into the bar he knew that he had drawn the short straw. Krystelle was being mauled by two half-drunk quadroons and the glint in her eyes showed that she was reacting bad. Everyone else was minding their own business and he sensed that she was leaving the next step to himself.

  ‘Straight Bourbon.’ He strolled easily to a table, stopping close beside her and as the barman reached for the bottle Grant took it from his hand. ‘Excuse me.’ He snapped off the end and emptied what was left over the cropped head of the older man who was drooling beside Krystelle. As the sailor turned Grant cracked him across the temple and moved only to let the unconscious body slither to the floor.

  The other man was reaching for a knife when Grant took him with a Karate chop across the neck and a straight left to the chin. There was a crash of breaking glass and the man spread out his arms, pushed over a tray and finally slipped to the deck.

  ‘You okay?’ Grant caressed the gun which lay in his left armpit. It was a moment when anything could happen.

  A flash of gratitude flickered across the girl’s eyes. ‘You’re the only man in here. That goddam trash let me get mixed with two killers and didn’t lift a hand to help.’ She spat cleanly to the floor beside the unconscious men. ‘Seems like this duo scared the pants offa them.’

  Grant rose to the cue. ‘Anything to say, barman? Were yao scared or jes’ normal?’

  The man looked at him sulkily. ‘I saw nothin’. In heah a man minds his own business.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Grant. ‘But now this is my business. Get a taxi and what ship did these busters come from?’

  The barman paled slightly. ‘S’elp me God, cap’n, ah don’ know. Maybe Miss Patsy. Maybe no.’

  ‘Locals?’

  ‘I guess not.’ The barman was now staring over Grant’s shoulder towards the door and showing a glint of unexpected fear.

  Grant looked round and almost smiled. Two boys were walking across from the door. They were jet black and aged twelve or thirteen. Their eyes were rimmed with white and their lips pouting thick. They were wearing white leather shorts, white socks folded down around their ankles, and crimson polo necks with a yellow scarf knotted under the chin. Their legs were lithe and they walked with the spring of athletes as they angled towards Grant and stopped one on either side. ‘You do this?’ The older boy was staring with an intensity of purpose which was startling, and not even his broad, mirthless smile masked a tension which Grant had seen before on the faces of men at Sotheby’s or Christie’s when bidding was high, and determination to win was blinding clients to everything except self and the seconds ahead.

  ‘They bought it.’ He nodded abruptly and was reaching for a cigarette when the boys moved with a precision which took both Krystelle and Grant completely by surprise. Grant felt a searing jab of agony sting down his right arm as an expert jabbed him on the solar plexus with a swift inward cut which doubled him up.

  He glimpsed Krystelle reaching for the bottle, but before she touched glass the two boys had dropped her with a kick across the shins and as she touched ground one leaned casually forward to land a precision blow below the right ear, while the other fondled Grant by the neck and gently throttled him into unconsciousness. The whole business was over in seconds, and it was the cleanest ‘take off’ Grant had experienced during his many assignments for A.D.S.A.D. The thing stank of high-grade professionalism and he had a last bitter instinct that this was the end of the road.

  Chapter Ten – ‘Skin against skin and muscle against muscle’

  Krystelle wakened in a cool dark room. There were no windows and Grant lay stretched below a small crimson lamp. There was a hand basin with a mirror in one corner, a flask of coffee had been left beside her own bed and there were cups on a side table which propped up a single sheet of paper.

  You may be surprised to find yourself here, but explanations can follow later. Meanwhile I suggest that you refresh yourself, have some coffee and weigh up your position . . . which is not enviable.

  It is possible, however, that we may be able to come to an arrangement so I will visit you fairly soon. But I would mention that you are under observation through closed circuit television, and so to avoid waste of time I shall arrive only when I am sure that you are both fit to discuss business.

  James Ferguson

  Krystelle sighed with irritation. But at least she was alive. And at least they had been taken to some sort of place which must matter. All of which was on the good side, while the debit column must wait to be seen. And there would be ways out of almost anything—for people like herself and David.

  She figured that they had both been drugged. Grant’s pupils were widely dilated and he was still breathing with the deep stertorous respiration which came only from artificial sleep, but she also estimated that dope apart he was okay healthwise.

  She fumbled in the pochette which was anchored to her belt, slicked her face with water, and poured a drink. The water was cold, but the coffee was both hot and strong which, for a moment made her wonder if she was at sea. Though the room was too large for a yacht and there was neither the slightest tremor of motion nor the faintest sign of movement. Which ruled out any normal sized ship and put odds in favour of a beach bungalow.

  She remembered Grant rescuing her from the drunks, but after that there was only a confused memory of two children dressed in some sort of uniform. She sensed, rather than remembered, that by some miracle they had surprised both she and Grant for long enough to take some sort of advantage. And the rest was darkness.

  But they hadn’t interfered with her personal possessions. Her watch was still working, and her cigarette lighter—her most
potentially useful possession—was still in one pocket.

  She remembered the closed circuit television, and decided to allay even the most embryonic suspicion by using it. Popular T.V. programmes and silly spy novelettes had wised up almost everyone about secret gimmicks, among which cigarette lighters were an elementary possibility. Though few would guess that the gas ejection device of her Ronson lighter operated only after giving one half turn to the screw which controlled access to the flint. She stretched herself lazily, opened a packet of Sobranies and casually flicked the lighter. Five minutes later she poured some more coffee and forced some between Grant’s lips. She then began a massage routine starting on his quadriceps femoris just above the knee and working systematically up and down until, at last, he opened his eyes.

  He looked at her curiously, lay still for over two minutes during which she knew that he was forcing himself under control and fighting to appear normal. And then he took a deep breath. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’

  He shook his head. ‘A flash of two kids dressed in white or something. Nothing else. And I’m still a bit bushed.’

  ‘Same here.’ Krystelle handed over the letter, knowing that he would prefer to pretend normality. ‘Any clues? Recognise the writing?’

  He read it slowly and then, almost absentmindedly folded it neatly into four. ‘Mahomet couldn’t find the mountain, so the mountain went and fetched him.’

  ‘You could put it that way.’

  ‘Which means he wants something. Any ideas?’

  ‘Some. But if there’s closed circuit telly for vision we’re probably wired for sound as well.’

  Grant broke into Arabic. ‘Try our luck and give.’

  The girl still hesitated. Ferguson was known to have contacts in North Africa. And then she decided to take a chance. After all it could hardly matter much even if they were monitored. ‘Maybe ties up with Harry. I told you he was a difficult man to keep in jail—or in a dump like this. Ingenious. And the tighter the corner the faster he thinks.’

 

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