“You’re—unspeakable—”
“A simple matter of necessity, madame.”
“Necessity!” Anita swallowed. She was pale but, Sanchez was glad to see, under control. She faced him with contempt. “That is not me in those pictures. Not me. What I do not participate in consciously and willingly has no effect on me.”
Sanchez smiled sardonically. “As a philosophical concept, madame—”
“And I am not madame; I am mademoiselle.”
“As a philosophical concept, mademoiselle,” Sanchez said, in no whit disturbed by the interruption, “it is one I am forced to admire. As a practical approach, though, it has several weaknesses, especially in this particular case. You will note the pictures make you appear to be participating quite consciously. Even enjoying it, I might say. Actually,” he said a bit smugly, “the photography is rather good, if I say so myself. I mean, as far as the facial expressions are concerned; those eyes closed in passion, those fingers clutching, your mouth in one of them.…” He grinned. “You are remarkably plastic, madame, if I—”
“Mademoiselle!”
“Ah, yes. Mademoiselle. In any event, as I say, your philosophy is admirable. Unfortunately,” Sanchez said, a twinkle in his eye, “do you honestly believe that M’sieu Huuygens would be philosophical about these pictures? Or would be so incredibly naïf as to believe you were unaware of what you were doing, when one can see so clearly the, ah, disclaimer of that on your face?”
Anita paled. She bit her lip and came to a decision. “All right. How much do you want?”
“Money? Mademoiselle, you insult me.”
She started in surprise; a wild hope appeared in her eyes. “But if you don’t want money—?”
Sanchez took his time answering. He had reached the proper point; the girl was terrified but not unmanageable, sickened but not demoralized. The right words would be needed here.
“I gather, mademoiselle, that you have a certain amount of influence with M’sieu Huuygens?”
Anita’s surprise and fear were neatly combined. “I—he likes me.…”
“I am sure of it,” Sanchez said gallantly. “He would be an idiot if he did not. When I said I needed help, mademoiselle, I meant I needed help with M’sieu Huuygens.”
Anita blanched. It was evident the full purpose behind the kidnapping and the photographs was now being explained. “You mean you want me to—to influence Kek? To do what you came to ask him to do the other day?”
“Exactly.” Sanchez smiled at the quick intelligence, although he had to admit he had done everything but hire a skywriter to paint it in monstrous letters against the overhead blue. But at least she understood.
“But I couldn’t. Don’t you understand?” Anita appealed to him piteously. “Don’t you see? I never asked Kek for anything in my life; that’s the reason he likes me.…”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him this one favor this one time,” Sanchez said sadly. “Otherwise the pictures go to M’sieu Huuygens.”
Anita moaned in her throat. She stared at him, her eyes wide, her expression one of extreme alarm, almost of terror. “Oh, no! No! You wouldn’t show them to Kek!”
“I honestly would prefer not to,” Sanchez said and meant it.
“But you can’t show them to Kek,” Anita wailed. “You mustn’t show them to Kek. He would—” She bit the words to silence; they had been too terrible to say.
“‘Can’t’ and ‘mustn’t’ are just words, I’m afraid,” Sanchez observed sadly. “One can and must what one must. At times it is unpleasant, I admit, but—”
“Please! You don’t know Kek! He—he would kill me.…” Her eyes came up, brimming with tears. “I’ll pay—”
Sanchez raised a skinny hand abruptly. “Please. I want no money from you. All I want is for you to convince M’sieu Huuygens to help us on this one project. Which I am sure you can do, if you really try. After all,” he went on a bit querulously, sounding sincere for the first time, “what the devil difference does it make to him? Thirty thousand dollars and all expenses for a measly few days’ work! Is he so damn rich he can throw away money like that? And he turns it down for God knows what reason! A suitcase full of paper—or parchment, I mean!”
For the moment he had convinced himself that his precious suitcase actually did only contain paper—parchment, rather. He sighed and looked at her, lowering his voice as if somebody might suddenly hear them, or as if his words merited extra attention on her part. “Thirty thousand dollars, mademoiselle, buys a lot of perfume, or fur coats, or whatever pretty girls like. I’m sure you can manage to persuade him without my having to show him those pictures.”
There were several moments of silence.
“I can try,” Anita said at last, dully, almost hopelessly. “I can try, but I can’t promise anything.”
Sanchez shrugged philosophically. “One does what one can do, mademoiselle. However, in your case, don’t fail. Because, much as I should hate to do so, I would send them to M’sieu Huuygens. Believe me.”
With a sudden gesture Anita flung the envelope from her. It landed in the dark water of the river and floated away, dipping and bobbing on the surface. Beyond it one of the river nightclub boats passed, chugging its way to a new location, with aproned men working like mad on the deck to prepare it for the evening’s cruise.
Sanchez reached into the pocket on the other side of his jacket and brought forth another packet.
“Prints cost money, mademoiselle,” he said reproachfully, with a glint of black humor in his eyes. “I still have the negatives.”
She turned to him in pleading, her voice breaking. “But no matter what, you must not show them to Kek! He’d—he’d—” Her voice was approaching hysteria. To Sanchez’s relief she brought herself under control before her voice claimed attention from the upper reaches above the quay. She came to her feet listlessly, as if realizing further discussion with the blackmailer would be useless, staring at the new envelope in her hand as if wondering what it was. Realization came and she handed it back with repugnance.
“Keep them,” Sanchez said magnanimously. “Look at them frequently on your way home. Because you don’t have forever in which to convince your boyfriend.” He paused for effect. “Two days.”
“Two days!” Anita’s hand went to her mouth.
“Two days,” Sanchez said firmly and came to his feet, looking at his watch. His eyes moved to the girl. “Well, mademoiselle, we’re wasting time. Let me call you a taxi.”
He put his hand on her arm; she shook it off with loathing. Sanchez smiled at the gesture and led the way back to the stone steps. They mounted in silence. Sanchez, peering sideways, saw the look of despair on the girl’s face. He smiled to himself. She would try and try hard, and with the figure he knew her to have, if this girl couldn’t sell Huuygens the Eiffel Tower, let alone a minor smuggling job that also paid a small matter of thirty thousand dollars plus, then M’sieu Kek Huuygens would be well advised to visit a psychiatrist.
They came to the roadway and Sanchez raised a thin arm. A taxi swerved about and drew to the curb. Sanchez opened the door, helped Anita in, and pressed money on the driver.
“Take the lady home,” he said. “Avenue du Maréchal Favolle.…”
He gave a tiny bow toward the passenger in the rear of the cab, straightened up, and watched the cab move away, turning over the bridge. He smiled, satisfied. For the second time in this miserable affair he had had a good idea, but for the first time it had been well executed—mainly because he did it himself instead of leaving it to Duarte. God knows what that imbecile André had said over the phone! In any event, it was about over with. The question now was whether to celebrate alone or with Rosa. He had to admit she deserved a bit of the credit; maybe dinner at the Singe d’Argent, and after that possibly he would change his mind and give the girl from Manuela’s place a break again.
The success of his meeting with Anita had quickened his blood.…
9
&nb
sp; Anita let herself into the apartment silently and walked slowly and wearily down the corridor to the living room, the deep pile of the carpeting muffling her footsteps. Kek was sitting in an easy chair, reading; he looked up with a smile, came to his feet, and walked back of the bar.
“You look tired. I’ll fix you a drink.” He reached for a bottle and glasses. “Hard day?”
“You can’t imagine.” Anita put her purse aside, brushed her fingers through her hair to fan it out, and walked over to the bar, pulling out a stool. She looked around. “Where’s André?”
“Out.” Kek poured the drinks and slid a glass over the counter. “He has a lot of old friends in Paris and a lot of time to catch up with.” He looked at her a bit curiously. “He said you went to visit an old girlfriend. Was it all that tiring?”
“Terrible,” Anita said and sipped her drink gratefully.
“I thought seeing old girlfriends was just terrible for men,” Kek said and grinned. “André also said you didn’t see the doctor.”
“I had to go out.” Anita finished her drink and pushed her glass back for another. Kek’s eyebrows went up. Anita laughed. “No, it wasn’t all that bad—just tiring.” She sipped and set the glass down. “Kek, would you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t say it so lightly,” Anita warned. “I mean, any favor. Without questions. With no exceptions.”
Kek studied her face a moment and then shrugged. “Probably. Why?” He suddenly grinned. “Are you sure you didn’t see the doctor? Maybe in the elevator? You’re beginning to ask the sort of questions pregnant women are supposed to ask.”
“Except I’m not pregnant. Just answer me.”
“I did. I said probably.”
Anita shook her head. “That’s the wrong answer.”
“Oh, why?”
“You’re supposed to say no.”
“You don’t want the favor after all? You’ve changed your mind?”
Anita laughed. “That’s not it at all, you idiot. You’re supposed to say no, and then I’m supposed to use my charms and wiles on you—”
Kek’s eyebrows went up. “In that order?”
“—in that order, to get you to change your mind. Because if you don’t change your mind, I’ll be sorry.”
Kek’s eyes suddenly narrowed. His voice became sober. “How sorry?”
“This sorry.…” Anita took the envelope from the pocket of her dress and slid it across the bar.
Kek took it and removed the photographs, his face expressionless. He studied the top one a moment and then looked up, frowning.
“I never knew you had a mole on your thigh, and you would have thought I might have noticed, one time or another.…”
“A mole?” Anita shook her head and dug a cigarette from a box on the bar. “I don’t have a mole on my thigh.”
“You don’t? But—oh, I beg your pardon. It’s on the other girl. You two are so tangled up it’s a bit hard to tell.” He put the first picture behind the others and carefully considered the second. “Now this is an interesting position.…”
“Which?” Anita reached out to take the picture in question and nodded in agreement. “It is, indeed. My only question is, is it feasible, do you suppose?”
“Acrobats might,” Kek conceded and continued on to the third.
Anita lit her cigarette, waited a moment, and then reached over, taking back the pictures. “That’s enough. You’ll grow up to be a dirty old man.”
“Yes,” Kek said and moved his glass on the bar, watching the little damp circles it made. He looked up, his face serious. “Would you like my honest opinion?”
“Of course,” Anita said and finally lit her cigarette.
“Well,” Kek said critically, “if you ask me, the lighting could have been better. The shadows detract, I think. And your girlfriend, I’m afraid, is over the hill. Though please don’t quote me. She looks the type to carry a knife.” He shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid you wasted an afternoon. I doubt they’ll sell.”
“They were taken in a hurry,” Anita said apologetically. “And as for the girlfriend, as you call her, beggars can’t be choosers.”
“So true, so true.” Kek drank the balance of his drink and set the glass aside. “And that, I suppose, accounts for your lost four hours yesterday. By the way, who is she? My competition, I mean?”
“She didn’t leave a card,” Anita said. “And I never had the pleasure of being introduced.” She sipped her drink and put it down. “With the sharp memory of all people after the fact, I now remember getting pricked sharply just as I was going into the Gourmet. I thought it was just some idiot careless with a pin, but I guess I was the idiot.”
“We can’t all be perfect,” Kek said and frowned. “I don’t want to be curious, but you’ve forgotten to tell me just who the salesman of the pictures is.”
“Oh? So I did. But I thought you’d be smart enough to figure that out.…”
Kek smiled. “I am. It was Señor Sanchez, of course.” His smile faded. “A hypodermic in a crowded market. Cute. And I’m sure if you went back to that counter selling hot ice, the girl there would tell you all about the kind man with the foreign accent who was nice enough to take care of you.…”
He started to pour himself another drink and decided against it. Liquor and planning never mixed with Kek Huuygens. He studied the carpet without seeing it, and smiled at something, although the smile was rather grim. His eyes came up.
“And what did Señor Sanchez have to say today? Exactly?”
“What you know he said. He was sorry, but what could he do? If I didn’t extend my charms and wiles, in that order, and convince you to take a suitcase of something someplace, he would be forced, etc., etc.”
“And you replied?”
Anita laughed. “My darling, you should have seen me. Critics should have seen me. Bernhardt would have been forgotten, Duse put out to pasture. I was superb. I pled—or is it pleaded? I wept. I wrung hands. I begged piteously.”
“And Sanchez?”
“He’s no critic, I gather,” Anita said, wrinkling her nose. “He was unmoved; I imagine he’s not used to finer stuff in the theater. He kept going back to the charms and wiles bit.”
Kek thought a moment and then leaned across the counter.
“Charms and wiles, eh? Well, I’d hate to have the man go to all that trouble for nothing. Start to exert the charms.”
Anita leaned over the bar counter and kissed him tenderly. The tenderness began to give way to passion. She ceased abruptly and sat back, breathing a bit rapidly, smiling at him.
“My ex-girlfriend would be jealous if she’d seen us right now,” she said lightly and then paused, a slight frown on her face as Kek winked at her and came from behind the bar. She watched him walk toward the desk. “What are you going to do? Those were just the charms; you haven’t seen the wiles yet.…”
Kek grinned at her cheerfully, picked up the telephone, referred to a piece of paper on the blotter, and began to dial. He waited until he heard the circuits go into action, cupped the receiver, and looked up at Anita. His eyes were twinkling.
“After all,” he said chidingly, “you couldn’t allow me to see those nasty pictures, could you? Think how disgusted I’d be, how shocked. Think of my loss of faith in you. And the fact is you did exert the charms, even if, as you so rightly point out, we never got to the wiles—”
“So?”
“So we accept Señor Sanchez’s offer, of course. We carry his suitcase,” Kek said gently and smiled at her with love. His face sobered up. “I just hope André hasn’t forgotten all he used to know about locks.…”
Book Two
10
Seen from the upper floor of the Plaza Hotel, the chimney pots of Buenos Aires stretched out like a field of tree stumps in a curiously stepped clearing. With its blotches of green marking scattered squares and parks, it was reminiscent of Paris, especially with the incessant honking of horns from the crowded stree
ts below orchestrating the scene. From his height Kek could see the Calle Florida, made into a flowered mall since his last visit; he turned in the other direction and enjoyed the unchanged sight of the Plaza Britannica, with its line of red buses waiting patiently at the curb to take tourists in the mornings up the river to Tigre and its interwoven maze of waterways or at night down to La Boca for the local flavor of the cantinas and the native bars.
The arched roof of the Retiro railroad station loomed beyond the formalized gardens of the plazas, resembling Waterloo or King’s Cross in London; and past the station and the parks he could see the passenger docking slips with the River Plate over their shoulder, reddish-brown and endless, a silt-laden sea. From the height of his room the shore of Uruguay could be seen as a faint shadow on the horizon; a tiny ship trailed wavering smoke as it traversed the channel from Montevideo. Kek looked down again at the crowds jamming Florida and Charcas and smiled; as always it struck him how different the Argentinian was from other South Americans. A Brazilian, for example, looked as if he was browsing when he was shopping; the Argentinian, in contrast, usually looked as if he was shopping when he was merely browsing. The city was called by its inhabitants the Paris of South America, but its people seemed more like Berliners. This Hans Schneller who was supposed to deliver the suitcase to him would, he was sure, fit in well here.
The telephone rang as he consulted his wristwatch, wondering at the delay. He walked over to the desk and raised the receiver, pleased that things were starting.
“Hello?”
“Señor Huuygens?” The voice was Teutonic in accent, heavy and wheezing.
“Speaking.” Kek assayed French and was relieved to be answered in the same language. He could have conducted the conversation in German but preferred not to. His experience in general had led him to believe that there was an advantage in using a language less familiar to an opponent, although he had to admit this had not seemed to work with Señor Sanchez.
“This is Señor Schneller,” the thick voice said. “I am in the hotel lobby. You—you changed your room, I see. I called the one I had reserved for you, but some child answered, and then the child’s mother, so I checked with the reception.” The wheezing voice tried to hide its querulousness and failed signally. “You did not like the room I reserved for you?”
The Tricks of the Trade Page 9