The Girl From Peking

by George B Mair

  He handed her a fistful of notes. At most there would be a dozen. Enough to keep her happy. ‘But first I want to sleep, honey. You fix the hotel.’

  She grinned. ‘You look like a real gen’leman that’s gotten into trouble. What happened? Did they try take you f’r a ride?’

  ‘And I’m tired, honey. Fix that hotel fast.’

  Her expression changed. She became different, more gentle, more human. And Grant remembered that if a man was in a jam he couldn’t do better than turn for help to a pro. They all lived close to danger and knew what it meant to be on the hot seat. She was genuine. He felt safe, and steadied as she grasped his arm.

  The hotel was shoddy and the Madame a harridan. But he knew that the girl had accepted him as one of her own kind. She signed the register and together they struggled up one flight of stairs. ‘In here,’ she said. ‘An’ then go sleep. Krystelle will take care of everyt’ing.’

  She helped him out of his clothes and his last memory was of soft fingers caressing bruises on his neck while she bathed the wound and stung it with iodine.

  She was watching him almost like a nurse with a prized patient, and then she spoke. ‘Yo’ll live. But sleep now an’ leave Krystelle to straighten t’ings out. Tomorrow we’ll do the love stuff. Huh?’

  He nodded and then, with her hands stroking his brow he fell asleep.

  Chapter Eleven – ‘To die was nothing’

  Grant slept for exactly nineteen hours and wakened on the stroke of midnight to find the tawny coloured girl sitting by his bedside. He felt dirty, and his chin prickled with heavy growth when he ran his hand over his cheeks and tried to get his bearings. The room was shabby, with a patch of worn carpet covering yellow linoleum, a wash-basin and bidet against the far wall and a print of Dubarry hanging lopsided above an unlighted stove. The girl had brewed tea from a portable calor gas gadget and there was a plate of croissants beside a few bananas, a half melon and some peaches.

  The girl’s eyes alerted with satisfaction as he heaved himself upright.

  Everything had come back.

  But that drug must have been a real bomb! He could guess from his beard alone how much time had passed, and he knew that no ordinary dope would have kicked him flat for upwards of a day. This one must have been an extra special.

  While by now Tania might even be in New York or Calcutta, because it was an even bet that organisation like the stuff which he had been facing wouldn’t foul up elementary angles like the getaway.

  Especially an emergency getaway!

  The girl poured a cup of tea. ‘You like some?’

  He sipped it and his strength slowly returned. He felt his faculties swing into focus, and began to experience that same old feeling which hallmarked every emergency . . . a sort of clicking into gear of some machine inside his head so that he could even feel his brain slip into a machine-like surge of energy.

  His instinct was also working overtime, and he put more faith in that intuitive judgement of events which had made him so valuable to the department, than he did in any other aspect of living.

  He simply knew that the girl beside him was reliable.

  And he would have bet a pound or two that Tania was still in Paris.

  They had much in common, and put in her place he would have stayed to the end. An end which Peking would rate worth while.

  Which meant getting the photographs back by almost any means and disposing of Grant himself when the time came.

  But by now his own department ought to have located her. He remembered the bug and how a team had been beating the air to pick up its wavelength. The girl had swallowed the thing. So it was probable that it would stay inside her for at least twelve to twenty-four hours, and with that margin of time Juin’s men could do plenty.

  He also guessed that once they had pin-pointed her they would play it cool until the Admiral had made a decision.

  ‘Phone, Honey-chile,’ he said. ‘Where?’

  The girl held out a green silk dressing gown. ‘This way.’

  He followed her on to the landing and walked downstairs to the foyer. A couple passed him on the staircase, an elderly Englishman with a teen-age blonde whose face was hard as granite. The Englishman stared at the floor and the girl wriggled her rear as they passed. It was an invitation figured to annoy Krystelle, but business came first and he lifted the receiver. The girl stood beside him and was looking towards the tiny reception desk as he dialled the number.

  Admiral Cooper’s voice became professionally neutral when he recognised Grant and grunted out an order. ‘Make it brief.’

  ‘All safe now, sir. Got caught short. Any news of my partner?’

  He almost laughed as he picked up the tinkling reply. Like most Parisian phones reception could be temperamental. ‘She’s back at the Ritz. And for your interest she can account for every moment of her time last night.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because she spent it with reliable witnesses at the party then straight to the Ritz.’

  Grant hesitated. ‘Nothing to fault?’

  The voice was brief. ‘Nothing.’

  Grant glanced at his watch. ‘I need a little time. Will see you in two hours plus. Okay?’

  The Admiral sounded sleepy. ‘Okay. Why not sooner?’

  Grant glanced at the girl beside him. ‘A debt to pay.’

  The line went dead and he turned to Krystelle. ‘Coming?’

  She nodded. ‘But you still look groggy. Take my arm,’ she said.

  Together they returned to the room and the girl became professionally competent. ‘Strip and I’ll bath you while you shave.’

  He marked the shower in one corner.

  ‘Fine! I’m still a bit stiff. Got a fall last night.’

  The girl nodded. ‘Read about in the papers. If yo’ ask me you’re lucky to be alive.’

  She was easing him out of his pyjama jacket when he remembered. Where had she got this lot?

  ‘A friend. The Madame is cousin of my aunt. These belong her second son.’

  He relaxed. They were clean and recently ironed but his own pants were sweaty with hours of sleep in an overheated room. He dropped them and stepped under the shower while the girl scrubbed his back and he scraped at his chin with a cut-throat sent up by the cousin of her aunt.

  She dried him with a Turkish towel and pointed to the bed. ‘Lie down now.’

  Her voice was a command and he relaxed against cool sheets which she had changed while he finished shaving. And again he felt fingers massage aching muscles while she splashed him with talc powder. Her touch was gentle, yet when she triggered certain nerve centres he winced with pain until, at last, she ended and he stretched himself luxuriously.

  She pointed to a cupboard. ‘Got clothes in there. You wanna look respectable and the things you were wearing las’ night were one dead loss after that fall, so I got you a reach-me-down.’

  The terylene shirt was white and crinkly fresh as he opened the package, while the suit was charcoal grey and he estimated that it would fit him better than most off-the-pegs.

  ‘But one moment,’ she interrupted. ‘You stay right heah an’ take some more tea. The croissants are pretty good too and yo’ need food. Relax, man, an’ give me five minutes.’

  The room was warm and he could hear the sound of voices next door.

  He could also hear footsteps along the corridor and an argument about price with a chamber maid.

  A juke box was bawling out a Stones number on the ground floor and raucous laughter rising from the entrance door downstairs.

  He glanced from the window. A score of men were fooling about with a few girls. A solitary blonde stood apart with a jet black Negro who was slugging hot drink from a hip flask, and a last smattering of tourists were strolling along the Place after a final before-bed coffee. It was all very normal for Pigalle, but he poured a second cup and waited. He owed this girl plenty and he was going to pay the debt.

  His old suit was still lying where he had d
ropped it on the floor and there were notes in his wallet. He opened the finely grained leather and counted. Sixty-two mille, five hundred francs plus! His visiting cards were still in their own side pocket and a letter from Maya was filed deep within the inside lining.

  He heard the curtains of the shower ripple apart and Krystelle walked out with her body dripping and a trace of soap still lying against the curves of her nostrils. She wriggled as she threw him a fresh towel. ‘Dry me, Honey. And forget the wallet. You got plenty.’ She stared at him again. ‘But plenty.’

  He rubbed her back.

  She lifted a long shapely leg. ‘Now this.’

  Her muscles were well rounded, and he guessed that she had been born south of Jamaica. Her legs lacked the spindly look of some West Indians and her breasts were firmly high, rounded with a contour which was almost abnormal, but springing from a strongly made thorax which rippled with power as her pectoral muscles tautened when she ran a comb through hair which dropped sheer to her shoulders. Her skin was the colour of light beer and her eyes smouldered with lights which reminded him of autumn tints on a maple leaf. ‘Where do you come from?’

  She dusted herself with talc and lifted a cup of tea. ‘Guess?’

  ‘Brazil?’

  ‘French Guiana. Sinnamary to be exact. Just north west of Cayenne. My father was a French convict who settled there after doing a stretch and my mother was a Creole. But I hark back to dusky ancestors, so Krystelle is a full blooded fifty-seven varieties multi-caste.’

  ‘And the name? Krystelle? How come?’

  ‘Picked it up in a book. Use it professionally. My real name is Christine de Tourvel. Krystelle is a mixture. Like her ancestry.’

  ‘And the American overtones?’

  ‘Picked them up in the way of business. Lotta dollars from the U.S.A. floating around Pigalle.’ She buttered another croissant. ‘Eat that. You need strength.’

  He could have used a T-bone steak with trimmings but munched it gratefully. ‘Happy?’

  ‘It’s a living.’

  ‘Safe?’

  ‘Maybe. Why worry?’ She watched him wipe his lips on a tissue and pointed to the wash-basin. ‘Got a new toothbrush there.’

  She had thought of everything and he scrubbed his mouth until, at last, he not only felt clean but ready for anything.

  ‘So now you lie down an’ we talk. Huh?’ Her voice was soft, but he saw that she was serious. ‘This place is still jam-packed with police. The girls say they’re looking for a man and a woman. You’re the man. Where does the woman figure?’

  She listened as he gave a censored version of the facts: how he had left a party with a Chinese girl who had later brought along two gunmen to beat him up.

  Her eyes sparked with admiration. ‘So you’re tough. But the woman is tougher still.’

  He looked at her thoughtfully. Pigalle was a village with its own taboos. And the locals stuck together. ‘You know something?’

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘How come?’

  She lit a cigarette. ‘The woman went through a roof-light and dropped into a house. She was headin’ for the front porch but her luck ran out when a couple of my friends picked her up.’

  ‘So she’s still there.’ Grant fought to keep his voice level.

  ‘She’s still theah.’

  ‘And the men?’

  ‘My brother Frank and a friend.’

  ‘She safe?’

  Krystelle smiled. ‘No woman is safe when Harry’s around. But for the moment she’s safe.’

  ‘Why?’ Grant’s voice had unconsciously slipped into its parade ground accent and the girl looked at him curiously.

  ‘You’re steamed up. She tries to rob you but now yo’ wanna play it cool. Why?’

  He forced himself into total relaxation and flicked ash on to the carpet. ‘I’d like a word with her.’

  She rubbed her chin. ‘You look like a gen’leman. You speak like a gen’leman and for what it is worth Krystelle thinks yo’ are a gen’leman.’ She hesitated. ‘Yo’ gave me twelve mille five hundred las’ night and now you owe me twenty mille for clothes.’

  He opened the wallet and handed over thirty. ‘Take the rest for good luck.’

  She eased herself from the rush bottom chair. ‘This chair hurts my tail. Bed looks better.’

  Her arms slithered round his neck and she placed her head six inches from his mouth. She was smiling, and her teeth looked like flakes of young ivory. Her eyes were glinting with mischief and her smile seemed to stretch from ear to ear. ‘We came heah for love, David.’

  She felt him stiffen and she smiled even more broadly. ‘Sure. The name was in that wallet. David Grant. You run that ballet girl from Russia and if you’re good enough for her then fo’ sure yo’ good enough for me.’

  Her teeth ground firmly pure against his own and as he felt her body press against his belly he decided to pay his debt. Apart from anything else she reeked of desire and the unwritten law said that unless he played it her way he might never find Tania again. This girl knew her address. Which seemed to be more than the Admiral did. And if the Admiral still said that a girl called Tania could account for every moment of time then one of them was lying. But he felt safe and Krystelle’s personality radiated confidence.

  He allowed her to burrow against him and to smother his neck with kisses. Her hair teased his eyelashes and her limbs grasped him like a vice when she suddenly erupted into a frenzy of excitement which made him forget everything except the need to satisfy a woman who had given him more than he deserved.

  Until one part of him remembered how he had failed to rouse Tania, and doubt began again to fill his mind.

  She reacted to his change of mood. ‘You’re just great, David. Just great. Keep going an’ we’re heading for Paradise.’

  He felt light-headed and his voice seemed to come from a long way off. ‘Paradise isn’t always round the corner.’

  She raised her head. ‘There’s something about you that makes my hormones gel, David. Quit worrying. Every hour takes us an hour nearer the hearse, but Paradise is maybe closer than you think.’

  He felt her sigh deeply and sensed her own change of mood as she cupped his chin in her hands. ‘We all need love, David. Even a girl like me. So you aren’t buying anything. This is just between ourselves before we go outside and fix things straight again.’

  ‘We?’

  She nodded. ‘My brother’s watching the girl. You’ll get her okay. But Harry and he don’t speak much to strangers so I’ll need to introduce you.’

  Grant knew when to take a hint. There were three sides to Pigalle. For ten hours or more in every day the place was a hum-drum village, but with darkness two other worlds began to live in the shadows behind gaudy lights. Every tourist saw a glimmer of one, but the other was known only to few, and it could be more difficult to enter than Mecca or Tibet. He could understand that Harry didn’t talk much with strangers.

  He smiled and saw here eyes lighten with mischief. ‘My hormones are beginning to gel too, Honey chile.’

  One bit of him marked the difference in his own voice. Confidence had returned. The girl needed him and it would be easy to repay that debt. They paused for a long second, like boxers when the bell rings for a first round. And then, gently, they eased themselves together as though they had known one another for months. It was enough simply to be together and to live as well as love.

  Someone had once said that to love was to die a little.

  Grant shuddered into Krystelle’s arms. It was easier than that. Love was to live a little. And to live was something. Really something. To die was nothing. Everyone did it sooner or later. But how many people ever lived? Convention: society: fear: ignorance and a bomb-scared world had made living an almost forgotten art. But to love was to return to living. And living meant giving, and taking, and hoping, and succeeding, and fighting and winning.

  Krystelle had made him drunk with imagination. The girl wanted to be wanted. Just for herself.
Yet somehow she had taught him something. And in the end he was still wondering, when she switched off the light. Her voice was low pitched and contented. ‘Just let’s lie one little moment longer.’ She wriggled closer and he felt her grasp his hands with fingers which were warmly possessive. ‘That took away a lot of black memories, David. But don’t talk. Let me play it my way. I need a rest now, and I feel I can say things to you. Because you’re different.’

  The tension subsided from her muscles and he wondered again while she spoke. Her voice was soothing but the words seemed important. And she wanted to play it her way. So he would move only when she gave the sign.

  ‘Things are kind of dangerous. Tonight there are more police than girls in Pigalle.

  ‘There’s a rumour that they’re after a woman from China but Harry says they’re also gunning for a man. And, David, I don’t want anything happening to you. Not after all this. So do what I say and forget that the man should make the running, because this time the stakes are piled against you.

  ‘See, David,’ she continued after a long silence, ‘Pigalle doesn’t like things it can’t understand. And it doesn’t understand this. But Harry might want to know before he hands her over. Get me?’

  She felt Grant’s head move. ‘There are too many police for this to be something simple. It’s just got to be big. Awful big, to have so much happening. And when things are big, men like Harry want to know why.’

  ‘I understand.’ Grant stroked her hair. ‘And I’ll do what you say.’

  ‘You’ll tell him why?’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  ‘Everything?’ Her voice was anxious and Grant’s senses were tuned to every syllable.

  ‘Sure.’

  She slithered to the floor and he heard her walk to the shower. ‘Be back in a minute, and then your turn.’

  He heard a clock chime. Almost two hours had passed since his talk with the Admiral and he knew that next time it might be difficult to make another phone call. Things were moving behind the scenes and Harry wasn’t the only one who didn’t like things he didn’t understand. But he would try to keep his word. And he still felt that the girl was on the level.