[Jan Darzek 01] - All the Colors of Darkness

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  “Thank you, gentlemen. You have been most helpful. I suggest that you go back to work now, and say nothing more about this to anyone.”

  The two attendants left, trailing profuse thanks. Darzek turned to the impatiently waiting Jean Morris and Ed Rucks. “This may be a break. It was my Miss X and Madam Z from Tuesday. If they’re repeating their disguises, we’ve got them.”

  “I distinctly heard reference to a parapluie,” Jean said.

  “The old dame shoved an umbrella through, just as she did in New York on Tuesday. Let’s go to work.”

  They quickly circled the terminal, and began picking out observation stations. Darzek was weighing the comparative merits of an unused ticket window and the Information Desk when Jean caught her breath and pawed frantically at his arm.

  “I think I see your Miss X, disguise B, waiting in the customs line.”

  “So you do,” Darzek said cheerfully. “Ed, we’ll take Miss X. Madam Z should be along shortly, and she’s yours if you can spot her.”

  Rucks nodded, and moved away. Miss X, this time a subdued brunette, passed through customs, paused for a long look about the terminal, and then walked briskly towards the ticket windows. Jean drifted after her. Darzek routed M. Vert from his office, and tersely explained the situation.

  “You wish to have her arrested?” that worthy individual demanded, his mind still on the police.

  “Certainly not.”

  “Our own security staff could detain her for questioning.”

  “Perhaps later. I’m reasonably certain that she’ll be back in another disguise, and right now I want to watch her carefully and see how she operates.”

  “Then—we are to do nothing at all?”

  “Just brace yourself for another disappearance.”

  Miss X left the ticket window, did another careful survey of the terminal, and walked towards the passenger gates. Jean Morris was at the ticket window, encountering difficulties with her U.S. currency. At a word from Darzek, M. Vert intervened. She got her ticket.

  “Paris,” she whispered to Darzek, and hurried after Miss X.

  Miss X was already stepping through the turnstile at the Paris gate. As she moved into the passageway, Darzek and M. Vert unceremoniously rushed Jean Morris to the head of the line.

  The attendant’s attention was on the passageway. “Straight ahead,” he called. Then he glanced at his instrument board, gave a matter-of-fact nod, and said, “Next.”

  “You have an acceptance light?” M. Vert demanded.

  “But of course.”

  The assistant manager turned bewilderedly to Darzek. “You must be mistaken. She went to Paris!”

  Jean Morris thrust her ticket at the attendant, spun the turnstile, and vanished into the passageway in an unladylike sprint. Darzek started after her, and was stopped by the turnstile. The attendant nodded again, and said, “Ticket, please.”

  “You cannot pass through the turnstile without a ticket,” M. Vert said. “If you wish, I shall arrange a special connection.”

  “Damn! Never mind. Jean will manage without me.”

  He seated himself near the main entrance, and Ed Rucks walked over with studied casualness to sit down beside him. “What happened?” Ed asked.

  “She bought a ticket to Paris. She went to Paris.”

  “So maybe the next disappearance will be from Paris.”

  “In that case, why did she come here? Why not go directly to Paris?”

  “Afraid of being followed, maybe. Just because they managed eight disappearances from New York doesn’t mean they have to do another eight from Brussels.”

  “Yes,” Darzek said thoughtfully. “Yes and no. This terminal has been alerted by the first two disappearances. If she was afraid she was followed, why not go to Paris via Madrid? Why return to the scene of the crime, just to pass through?”

  “All right. Why?”

  “This could be important. I never thought about it before, but their technique may not be one hundred per cent efficient.”

  “You mean she tried to disappear, and it didn’t take?”

  “I don’t know what I mean. There’s nothing to do now but wait.”

  “And keep looking for Madam Z,” Rucks said, and strolled away.

  Twenty minutes later Miss X was back in Brussels, followed closely by Jean Morris. Darzek, taking no chances on Miss X becoming suspicious of Jean, waved her off and signaled Ed Rucks to take over.

  “Go have lunch,” he said to Jean.

  “I’m not hungry. I just had breakfast.”

  “Then stay out of sight.”

  Miss X circled the lobby twice. She picked up a handful of Universal Trans literature, seated herself near the ticket windows, and apparently read it. She left the lobby and walked through an adjoining souvenir shop without purchasing anything. Finally she went to a ticket window and bought another ticket to Paris. She took a few steps toward the Paris gate, changed her mind, and sat down nearby to look through the Universal Trans pamphlets again. The puzzled Rucks made himself as unobtrusive as possible on the other side of the lobby. Darzek and M. Vert stood screened by the Information Desk, and watched.

  When finally she moved she caught all of them by surprise. With perfect timing she stepped quickly to the gate at a moment when no passengers were waiting. She was through the turnstile before the startled Rucks was halfway across the lobby.

  Acting on an impulse, Darzek ran. He ignored the open-mouthed attendant, and cleared the turnstile with a long leap to stumble half-falling into the passageway. Miss X looked back blankly. Her split second of hesitation enabled Darzek to regain his balance, and as she stepped through the transmitter he dove after her.

  M. Vert was talking animatedly with the gate attendant when Rucks arrived. He explained in English, “There is no acceptance light.”

  Rucks said dazedly, “Then she didn’t get to Paris. She’s disappeared.”

  “Oui, monsieur. And so has your Monsieur Darzek.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Ted Arnold had never felt completely at ease in the presence of a woman. When the woman was beautiful, and when she seemed on the verge of either explosive anger or maudlin tears, the only counter-tactic he could think of was flight. He said lamely, “I’m very busy right now. Perhaps later—”

  Jean Morris asked again, “But where can he be?”

  “Darzek can take care of himself,” Arnold said, and wished he felt as confident as he sounded. Jean and Ed Rucks, seated on his office sofa, looked at him glumly.

  “He’s a rare type of individual,” Arnold went on. “He’s a man of action, and also an intellectual, besides which he’s as smart as hell. He thinks on his feet. Was he planning on pulling off something like this?”

  “If he was, he never mentioned it,” Ed Rucks said.

  “Wherever he is, he’s all right. Those women never seemed any the worse for disappearing. They always showed up again, plague ’em! You say Darzek thought that trip to Paris was important?”

  “He thought it might be. He thought it might mean that they didn’t always succeed with whatever they were doing. After what happened with Madam Z, I agree with him.”

  “Ah! Tell me about Madam Z.”

  “She turned up about twenty minutes after Darzek and Miss X disappeared. She came from New York, as I found out later, and she was also wearing disguise B.”

  “Did you find out where Miss X came from?”

  Rucks shook his head. “By the time we thought to check on it, it was too late. Anyway, Madam Z bought a ticket to London. She went to London. Jean followed her, and followed her back to Brussels, and then I took over. She left the terminal and went for a walk. She browsed through a couple of shops without buying anything, she sat down in a little park and communed with nature for a while, and then she went back to the terminal. She bought another ticket to London. I was right behind her, though not as close as Darzek was to Miss X. I went to London, but she didn’t. Ever since then we’ve been waiting for them to c
ome back to Brussels and try it again. What do we do now?”

  “Get a good night’s sleep,” Arnold said promptly. “You’ve earned it. Tomorrow you can carry on by yourselves until we hear from Darzek.”

  “Carry on how?” Jean Morris demanded. “Jan didn’t have a long-range plan. Or if he did, he didn’t share it with us.”

  “I think he was playing it by ear,” Rucks said.

  “Then you play it by ear. Figure out what Darzek would have done next, and do it.”

  Both of them scowled. Watching them, Arnold made a discovery that struck him with tumultuous impact. A beautiful woman was—a beautiful woman. She was beautiful when she scowled, and when she was angry, and when she was on the verge of tears. Beauty underwent changes. It had, perhaps, dimensions and facets in infinite measure. But it did not lessen.

  Just as an ugly man’s ugliness did not lessen, even in his most heroic moments. Arnold patted his ample stomach, and fingered his bald head, and sighed. He probably had more sex appeal than the fire extinguisher outside his door, but not to a noticeable degree. It was the penalty a man paid for doing all of his thinking sitting down. Darzek, on the other hand—

  Jean Morris said thoughtfully, “I’m sure there won’t be any more disappearances from Brussels.”

  “Then you’ll have to wait until we find out where they’ll hit next.”

  “While we’re waiting,” Rucks said, “we might look at some pictures.”

  Arnold arched his brows inquiringly.

  “You’ve been taking photos of all the passengers leaving New York. That’s a lot of film. Have you had much of it developed?”

  Arnold shook his head. “Just enough to get prints of the women who disappeared.”

  “Get prints of all of it,” Rucks said. “It’d be interesting to know if the dames had any dry runs here yesterday.”

  “You’d better explain that.”

  “If a dame disappeared while supposedly transmitting to Chicago, we could check to see if she made a bona fide trip to Chicago a little before that, just as Miss X went to Paris before she disappeared going to Paris, and Madam Z went to London. I’d like to know if they always do a dry run.”

  “I would, too,” Arnold said, “though I don’t quite see that it makes much difference.”

  “And since Madam Z went to Brussels from New York, we could check to see if Miss X did, too. It may not mean anything, but that’s the way Darzek works. He says if you keep collecting information, sooner or later you’ll have something that adds up.”

  “Good idea. I’ll have a room full of prints ready for you in the morning, and you can look at pictures until we get word of another disappearance.”

  “If Jan doesn’t show up in the meantime,” Jean Morris said.

  “Right. He may have the whole thing wrapped up by morning. Do you have any idea how many people he has working on this?”

  “None at all. Jan may have put it in a ledger at the office, or he may not have bothered.”

  “If any of them show up for instructions, just tell them to carry on as before, or if they’ve finished whatever they were doing use your own judgment. You two come in at eight, and I’ll have the prints in that room Darzek was using.”

  After they had left he made a telephone call to start action on the passenger photos, and then for a long time he sat wreathed in cigarette smoke and ideas that never—quite—found a target. Shortly after midnight his door jerked open, and Thomas J. Watkins looked in with a grin.

  “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “Only during board meetings,” Arnold said. “What about yourself?”

  “I’ve been riding herd on some auditors.”

  “Don’t tell me Universal Trans has financial problems!”

  Watkins crossed the room and tiredly dropped onto the sofa. “Call it bookkeeping problems. Which reminds me. I was going to raise your salary. I’ll do it first thing in the morning. Have you heard from Darzek?”

  “No,” Arnold said. “And don’t ask me where he went. I’ve been asked that question a hundred and ninety times since he disappeared, mainly by the same two people, and it nauseates me.”

  “Universal Trans is deeply indebted to Mr. Darzek,” Watkins observed.

  “True.”

  “To put it bluntly, he has saved our necks. We’d have succumbed to panic that first day if it hadn’t been for him, and those photographs were a stroke of genius. That was a most fortunate suggestion of yours—hiring Mr. Darzek.”

  “Anyone who knew him would have thought of it.”

  “But where do you suppose he went?”

  Arnold slammed both fists down onto his desk.

  “I’d feel personally responsible if anything happened to him,” Watkins added quickly.

  “Let me tell you something about Darzek,” Arnold said. “He carries a gun, in a shoulder holster he designed himself. It’s a ridiculous little automatic, and I don’t think even an expert could spot it without searching him carefully. And he can hit a pinhead at ten feet and a dime at twenty. Wherever he went, I feel sorry for the people he found there. I’ve seen Darzek really angry just once, and that was enough to make very good Christians out of a roomful of atheists. Did you notice that there weren’t any disappearances this afternoon?”

  “That’s right. There weren’t.”

  “I’m betting there won’t be any tomorrow.”

  “In any case, there’s nothing we can do—is there?”

  Arnold shook his head. “There is one problem. Darzek hired a staff for this job, and if he should be—detained—we should advance some money to his office for the payroll, and perhaps we should see that one of his men takes charge temporarily.”

  “Certainly. Handle it as you think best, and let me know how much money is needed. Anything else?”

  “Not now, no. If I could just figure out how they work those disappearances—”

  Early Friday morning Ron Walker came to see Arnold. He leaned far over his desk, looked Arnold steadily in the eyes, and whispered, “May I ask a question?”

  Arnold grunted noncommittally.

  Whereupon Walker shouted, “What the hell is happening with Universal Trans?”

  “Plenty,” Arnold said peacefully. “New terminals opening up, business increasing, records broken almost every hour. There’s even a chance that the Russians will relent and let us open a terminal in Moscow. Go down to Public Relations, and they’ll fill you in.”

  “Damn Public Relations. Where’s Darzek?”

  “I haven’t the vaguest idea.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “Yesterday morning.”

  Walker pointed a finger. “I happen to know that he’s working for Universal Trans.”

  “I never even knew it was a secret.”

  “But you don’t know where he is.”

  “You know Darzek better than that. How long would he stay on a job if his employer made him check in every ten minutes?”

  Walker backed off disgustedly, and plopped onto the sofa. “We had an anonymous letter this morning.”

  “About Universal Trans?”

  Walker nodded.

  “Let me guess. Some woman claimed she tried to transmit to Los Angeles, and ended up in a sewer in Brooklyn.”

  “You’re warm,” Walker said.

  “Let’s see it.”

  “The boss has it locked in his safe. If true, it’s worth its weight in platinum leaf, or something. If it’s not true—but either way it’s dynamite. Did you know that a whole series of Universal Trans passengers walked trustingly into your transmitters and vanished from the ken of mortal man?”

  Arnold leaned back and gave what he hoped was a creditable imitation of a laugh. “I can go you a lot better than that. Go down to Public Relations, and tell them I said you were to see the Crank File. One guy thinks we’re changing our passengers into pigeons. He’s noticed a dramatic increase in New York’s pigeon population since Universal Trans opened.”

&n
bsp; “This is no crank letter. At least, it isn’t the usual kind of crank letter. It names names, and cites meetings of the board of directors, and even quotes what was said. It claims Darzek was hired by Universal Trans to attempt to locate the missing passengers.”

  “It names the missing passengers?”

  “No. It names directors, and quotes them.”

  “And what is your boss going to do with it?”

  “Obviously nothing at all unless he can turn up enough solid evidence to withstand a libel suit. Care to make a statement?”

  “I’d be delighted. Of the millions of people who have transmitted since Monday—Public Relations can give you the exact number—there is not even one who is unaccounted for. You may quote me. To your boss, that is.”

  “That’s fine, as far as it goes. Why did you hire Darzek?”

  “Yours isn’t the only anonymous letter that’s turned up. We’d like to know who’s writing them.”

  “I see. It sounds so plausible that it’s highly suspect. When you see Darzek—”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. He wouldn’t give me a story anyway.”

  “I sincerely hope not,” Arnold said.

  Watkins had called a special meeting of the board of directors at eleven that Friday morning. Carl Miller had insisted on it, to consider the report of his freight committee. At eleven-fifteen Arnold labored up the stairs with an armful of freight transmitter blueprints, only to find that the meeting was canceled.

  “Mr. Miller couldn’t come,” said Miss Shue, Watkins’s private secretary for more years than either of them cared to recall. “The others on the Freight Committee don’t know anything about anything. The Old Man has called another meeting for this afternoon. Four o’clock.” The tough, self-reliant and brutally competent Miss Shue was at least as old as Watkins, but she always referred to him as the Old Man, to the horror of the other secretaries in the executive offices. She would have been equally horrified to know that they referred to her as Old Shoe Leather.