Elusive Mrs. Pollifax

by Dorothy Gilman

  But she also remembered that inside this wall lived Philip Trenda, who was going to be killed in a few days. He was young and far from home and he had never wanted to come to Bulgaria, and Debby had said he liked Leonard Cohen and Simon and Garfunkel.

  She said angrily, “I like Simon and Garfunkel, too. No, I’m not ready to give up, do you understand?”

  They returned to the warehouse and sat down with cups of weak tea. The hot water was drawn from one of the furnace boilers by Volko, and Mrs. Pollifax shared three tea bags she carried in her purse. The silence proved oddly companionable. It was broken at last by Volko.

  “This is not impossible, you know,” he said thoughtfully. “The spirit counts for most. You recall, Tsanko and Boris, some of the tricks we play on the Nazis?”

  “Twenty-eight years ago,” put in Boris.

  “Da. We have fewer muscles, but the more brains,” pointed out Tsanko.

  “You really have access to explosives?” Mrs. Pollifax asked Volko.

  He made a gesture that encompassed the basement and the entire warehouse. “Access?” he said modestly. “Is all here. Mostly fireworks this month, enough for May Day in every socialist country.”

  “Well, now,” said Mrs. Pollifax, her eyes brightening. “For myself, I know a little karate. Debby, what could you contribute?”

  Debby looked astonished. “You mean you’d let me help?”

  “You’d have to,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax.

  Debby considered this with great seriousness. “I wish I could think of something,” she confessed. “I can drive a motorcycle. And I’m good on the parallel bars and the ropes, and come to think of it I know a lot about knots. All those years of summer camp, you know? Maybe I could tie up a guard.”

  Knots, motorcycle, wrote Mrs. Pollifax, pencil in hand.

  They glanced next at Boris, who sat beside Debby looking glum. “Please,” he said. “For this I know nothing.”

  “Come, come, Boris,” said Tsanko, “you were once a champion at shooting. I see the gold medals on your wall.”

  “Really?” said Georgi eagerly.

  Boris gave him a dark look. “What I shoot, Georgi, was the bow and the arrows.”

  “Oh,” said Georgi dispiritedly.

  “I am wondering,” said Mrs. Pollifax thoughtfully, “if Panchevsky Institute’s reputation may not be our greatest asset. In my experience this sort of thing induces carelessness.” Fixing Boris with a stern eye, she said, “After all, if you had a reputation like that–terrifying–what else would you need? You could relax.”

  “Already you are terrifying me,” Boris said. He smiled and the effect upon his gloomy features was dazzling. “I think you must be like one of our witches in the Balkan mountains.”

  “She thinks in a straight line,” said Tsanko. “There are no detours in this woman. So. She has made a point–Panchevsky Institute may be impregnable, but human nature is not.”

  Volko glanced at his watch. “It grows late. I suggest lists of what is available to us, and much careful thinking of this idea.”

  “And then when we’ve contacted Mrs. Bemish and Radev we can put them all together!” finished Mrs. Pollifax triumphantly. “In the meantime I’ll volunteer to visit Assen Radev tomorrow. I can try to persuade Balkantourist to arrange a tour of his goose farm. You can tell me where it is and how to find it?” she asked Tsanko.

  “It is the Dobri Vapcarow Collective farm, in the village of Dobri Vapcarow. You understand it is not his geese, this is socialist state. The geese are raised for their livers, which are one of our most successful exports to the Western world. For the making of pâté de foie gras,” he explained.

  “How very capitalistic,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax. “But I mustn’t visit this goose farm with the money still in my coat. Is there a way to remove it overnight?”

  “There is our tailor comrade,” put in Volko.

  “Good! And if the coat could be returned to me in the morning, quite early, at the Rila?”

  “You give us a busy night again,” said Tsanko, handing her a piece of paper. “This is the name of the collective. I have written it in Bulgarian and in English.”

  “What about Mrs. Bemish?” asked Debby. “She said she’d die for her brother.”

  “A momentary aberration, perhaps,” commented Mrs. Pollifax. “But yes–what about Mrs. Bemish?”

  “I know where she lives,” said Georgi eagerly. “I could telephone her tomorrow to say I have message for her. Does she know yet her husband has been killed?”

  Tsanko shook his head. “How can she know when he is buried in the rocks of Tsaravets Hill? Only Nikki will guess. But of course she will be alarmed by the absence, it has been twenty-four hours now.”

  Boris said, “You go and see this woman, Georgi, and she will tell the police about you and I will lose my best student.”

  “I’ll take the chance,” Georgi said fiercely. “Someone has to be liaison, like army.”

  Tsanko intervened with a sigh. “This is a problem for all of us. I have no desire to be seen by these two people, this Radev and Mrs. Bemish. You understand the danger for us if we can be identified?”

  Debby said joyously, “Stocking masks!”

  Mrs. Pollifax clapped her hands. “Bravo, Debby!” Seeing the others look blank, she explained. “This is what was first used in our Brink’s holdups. The silk stocking over the head blurs the features completely. I can contribute several pairs, and you’ll see.”

  “Holdups?” said Volko, puzzled. “Brink?”

  Boris said firmly, “James Cagney, Volko. You recall the American movies we enjoy so much?”

  Mrs. Pollifax checked her watch and stood up. “It’s getting late,” she said regretfully. “Debby and I should go back to the hotel before anyone wonders where we’ve gone. In any case, if I’m going to request a visit to a goose farm I’ll have to telephone Balkantourist at once.” She added sadly, “They don’t seem to like sudden jolts.”

  It was agreed that the blue car would call for them at the hotel at five o’clock tomorrow. “Do not be discouraged, Amerikanski,” Tsanko told her. “We are neither fools nor cowards. You give us hope.”

  It had been a long day and Mrs. Pollifax was looking forward to her first night of uninterrupted sleep since arriving in Bulgaria. She and Debby said good night in the hall and Mrs. Pollifax waited, watching, while Debby unlocked the door of her room, gave her a peace sign and went inside. Disguising a yawn–it was only half-past nine–she unlocked her own door.

  The lights were on. Seated opposite the door in a chair was Nevena.

  “Why, Nevena,” said Mrs. Pollifax warmly, “just the person I wanted to see!”

  “So, Mrs. Pollifax,” said Nevena grimly.

  It was at that moment that Mrs. Pollifax remembered the long list of her indiscretions with Balkantourist and the number of necessary apologies that had accumulated. She was relieved that Debby–whose presence in Bulgaria was still on tenuous grounds, as yet unrealized by both Eastlake and Balkantourist–was safely out of sight. “I was about to telephone Balkantourist,” Mrs. Pollifax said truthfully.

  “You were not in Tarnovo when the driver called for you at one o’clock this afternoon,” said Nevena.

  “No–I wasn’t,” admitted Mrs. Pollifax.

  “He waited.”

  “I left a message–”

  “He had orders to wait for you. He waited. Where were you?”

  “I was offered a ride back to Sofia. Mr. Eastlake at my Embassy had telephoned–”

  Nevena bluntly interrupted. “That we know. But”–she fixed her eyes sternly on Mrs. Pollifax–“Mr. Eastlake telephone you before I do.”

  Mrs. Pollifax blinked at this; Balkantourist had been doing some thorough detective work during the course of the day. Obviously she was in trouble here, which, with so many other things to think about, seemed tiresome indeed. “I offered to go by train,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax. “I expressed an interest in getting back to Sofia ea
rlier than you suggested.”

  Nevena threw up her hands. “I never tour anybody like you. Balkantourist is angry, very angry. You do whatever you please, it is most insulting.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You are sorry, but you continue to do what you please. You not behave nicely. It is too much, we have no choice.”

  “No choice?” echoed Mrs. Pollifax, very alert now suddenly.

  “You must go,” Nevena said coldly, rising. “You go first plane tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Pollifax sat very still. She understood at last that her first battle was being fought here, in this room, and if she lost there would be no other battles at all. She felt a deep chill rising in her and she knew that she must use this cold to become ruthless, not for herself but for the thin hope of rescuing Philip Trenda. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly to Nevena. “I’m really very sorry, Nevena. I was about to telephone you my apologies and ask if I might visit one of your great collectives, of which I’ve been hearing such splendid things. But of course if I must leave …” She sighed. “If Balkantourist says I must leave then of course I must. My daughter, Jane, will be disappointed, of course. She raises geese.”

  “She what?” said Nevena, startled.

  “She raises geese,” Mrs. Pollifax said firmly. “I have just heard this afternoon, Nevena, that your country is becoming well known for its pâté de foie gras. I had no idea. My daughter would be so interested in learning what your country …”

  Nevena stared at her. “You never mention this in your letter to Balkantourist of what you wish to see.”

  Mrs. Pollifax shrugged. “I had no idea–I thought the French were the pâté de foie gras people. The Strasbourg pâté de foie gras is so … so …”

  “French!” Nevena’s lip curled. “French?” She tossed her head. “We excel the French, they are bourgeois. We export much goose livers for the best pâté de foie gras–”

  “So I’ve just heard,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax. “And I was looking forward–”

  “The French,” Nevena repeated contemptuously. She was silent a moment and then she said cautiously, “It is possible that if your apology is acceptable–I can see.”

  “It would certainly be merciful,” said Mrs. Pollifax truthfully.

  “Okay, I see,” said Nevena. “If this is so, someone take you tomorrow, which is Friday, and you leave Saturday morning.”

  “Without a tour of Sofia,” said Mrs. Pollifax, nodding.

  Nevena said sharply, “Without tour of Sofia? You have seen Sofia!”

  Mrs. Pollifax shook her head. “Only Mount Vitosha, and then I became tired, you see, and returned to the hotel. I’ve not seen the Nefesky Cathedral, or your monument to the Soviet Army, or the Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum. Or Lenin Square, for that matter.”

  Nevena’s lips thinned. “You cannot be trusted with a car again.” But she had not said no. A lengthy silence followed, which heartened Mrs. Pollifax because Nevena was frowning thoughtfully. After a moment she lifted her gaze and regarded Mrs. Pollifax sternly. “You have no sense,” she said. “You come, you go, we cannot find you.”

  “True, Nevena,” she said contritely.

  “But you are old woman. I believe you when you say you are sorry. I make with you a compromise. If you behave very nice we take you tomorrow to collective farm. On Saturday ten o’clock you join organized tour–many peoples–of my city. Then you leave Saturday night seven o’clock sharp to reach airport nine o’clock plane.”

  Soberly Mrs. Pollifax nodded. She had at least gained forty-eight hours; it might be enough time, it had to be enough time.

  “And,” added Nevena severely, “you report to Balkantourist all the time. On such terms–”

  “I’m on probation,” suggested Mrs. Pollifax.

  “Pro-bation? I not know such word.”

  “It means,” explained Mrs. Pollifax, “that I have behaved very rudely and am being given a second opportunity for which I am most grateful, Nevena.”

  Nevena’s face softened. “You are not bad, she explained, as though she had considered this already in some depth. “But you are careless, lazy. In Bulgaria peoples are not careless and lazy.”

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded; she believed her.

  “We give you forty-eight hours, no more. But I–how you call it?–intercede for you because you are not bad, only without sense. But you make sense now, you understand? Be very, very good or you go.”

  “Thank you, Nevena,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

  “You see? We are reasonable peoples, we Bulgarians,” Nevena said, touching her almost affectionately on the shoulder. “In our anger we can be kind.”

  “Very kind,” said Mrs. Pollifax firmly, and hoped she would leave soon.

  “The Dobri Vapcarow Collective raises geese for the pâté de foie gras,” Nevena said. “At nine sharp be in lobby.”

  When she had gone Mrs. Pollifax fumbled for the slip of paper Tsanko had given her upon which he had written the name of the collective at which Radev worked: it was the Dobri Vapcarow Collective, and Mrs. Pollifax decided that her fortune, however mixed so far, was at least for the moment on the ascendency.

  18

  Debby was in Mrs. Pollifax’s room at seven. “I thought I’d want to sleep all day, but there’s too much going on,” she explained. “Mrs. Pollifax, were you serious last night? I mean, do you think there’s the slightest possibility?”

  Mrs. Pollifax groped for pencil and paper and wrote, Room may be bugged. Wait. Handing it to Debby, she said casually, “My Balkantourist guide, Nevena, was waiting for me here last night. Balkantourist feels I’ve behaved very irresponsibly toward them–as of course I have,” she added piously. “Nevena had come to suggest I leave Bulgaria at once.”

  “They’re expelling you?” gasped Debby.

  “That word was not mentioned, fortunately–it sounds a little strong. However, she’s graciously given me another forty-eight hours–if I behave myself–so that I can visit a collective farm today, and tour Sofia tomorrow.”

  “Well, wow,” Debby said, making congratulatory gestures.

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “And now I shall take a bath.”

  “I just might write a postcard to Dr. Kidd,” said Debby. “I’ll tell him I’ve eloped with a Bulgarian sheepherder.”

  Mrs. Pollifax closeted herself in the bathroom and blessed the sufficiency of hot water in Sofia: she had a great deal of thinking to do, mainly about Debby, who had been so conveniently overlooked by everyone for the moment. Debby’s thumb was healing now, they were back in Sofia, but somehow, through circumstances beyond anyone’s control, Debby had become more and more involved during the last twenty-four hours. The problem was, how much more involved should she become?

  Her being here in Sofia was dangerous. There was Nikki, who by this time would have guessed something untoward had happened to Mr. Bemish on Wednesday night. Nikki would be asking questions. Inquiries in Tarnovo would take time; they would, however, establish the fact that not only had Mrs. Pollifax survived her trip to Tarnovo but that she had left Tarnovo alive yesterday and accompanied by a young American girl with long brown hair.

  Of course there was no way to link them with Bemish in Tarnovo. The black Renault would be discovered parked on a main street in town, and the bodies of Bemish and Titko Yugov would probably never be found. But there would remain the unalterable coincidence that all of them had been in Tarnovo the same night, and that Bemish had disappeared while Mrs. Pollifax was still very much alive. It would also prove very dismaying for Nikki to learn that Debby was her companion; he wouldn’t like this. He would look for them in Sofia and place them under surveillance again. By tonight at the latest, she mused; we’ve had a day’s respite, that’s all.

  But Nikki was such an angry young man that it was unpleasant to contemplate his reactions. Their unexpected survival would certainly curb his delight at how smoothly his plot was moving toward its climax in Zurich on Monday morning.

  And if he ever learne
d that both she and Debby had been at the Embassy yesterday to witness the release of Philip’s impersonator–she shuddered. It could become very difficult for them to remain alive in Bulgaria.

  Should she suggest that Debby leave, then? She thought that if she insisted upon it Debby might consent to go as far as Belgrade and wait for news, but she would certainly rebel at going any farther. The trouble here was that Debby might talk too much in a changed environment. Belgrade would still be buzzing with gossip about Philip Trenda’s release and Debby would be eager to find other young companions again. The temptation to tell what she knew would be very strong indeed.

  But the worst of it, reflected Mrs. Pollifax, would be Debby’s terrible vulnerability in Belgrade. Nikki had already found his way there once and he presumably still owned a valid passport for travel. Who would there be to watch over Debby?

  This last realization settled it: it might be dangerous for Debby here in Sofia; it could prove equally dangerous for her to be banished to a nearby capital where Mrs. Pollifax could no longer keep an eye on her. I’ll ask Tsanko about hiding her for the next forty-eight hours, she thought, and made a mental note to see that Debby recovered her passport from the hotel today.

  “The tailor delivered your coat,” Debby announced as Mrs. Pollifax emerged from her thoughts and her bath. “The receipt’s on the bed.”

  Mrs. Pollifax picked up the receipt and read Money in coat is counterfeit. “What on earth!” she exclaimed.

  Debby nodded. “Your–uh–employers are certainly weirdos.”

  “Devious,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “Rather shocking, too, I might add.” She wondered if Assen Radev knew the Russian rubles were counterfeit. Probably. Counterfeit money did upsetting things to a country’s economy, didn’t it? If enough counterfeit Russian money circulated through a devoted satellite country it could cause some rather hard feelings toward Russia, couldn’t it? The bills would move steadily out from Sofia into the villages and among the peasants, who distrusted paper money anyway, and if a hard-working peasant sold a precious cow and found his currency was worthless it would prove quite a blow. In fact it would be heartbreaking, she thought with a shake of her head. She would have to speak very sternly to Carstairs about this when they met again. Then she remembered that Carstairs would probably have a number of biting comments to make about her involving the Underground in unauthorized activities and she decided not to think about it now and began looking for a clean pair of gloves.