by James Munro
"We might as well get drunk," said Grierson. "If anybody wants to get your friend, we haven't a chance."
"We have," said Craig. "Just one. The steward."
He led the way down to the ballroom again, to the kitchens where stewards, chefs, and sous chefs worked like demons preparing a reception for the Hilton Hotel in hell. Theseus had told them who they were, and nobody bothered. They were too busy. They went back into the ballroom again and waited until the steward came in. Craig waited until he'd put down his load of glassware and spoke softly in Greek. "Walk to the end of the hall," he said, "or I'll kill you." The steward spun round, and Craig pulled the mask down from his face, a face devoid of any emotion, not cruel, not vengeful; pitiless. The steward went. From upstairs in the duehng room came the clash of steel and Trottia's squeals of pleasure. The actors had arrived. Craig led the way to a room off the hall, the room he'd been given as an office, then grabbed the steward and shoved him. The steward slammed into the wall, moaned but said nothing.
"Yell," said Craig. "That's what respectable people do. Yell for the police."
"You would kill me," the steward whispered.
"I might," said Craig.
The steward turned to Grierson, trying to reach beyond the mask for a sign of mercy, of pity.
"Please, sir," he gabbled. "I've done nothing, I know nothing—if the gentleman thinks I've wronged—"
The words faded in a babble of terror. Craig*s hand was thrust before his face. It held a bottle of suntan lotion. The band crashed into one last rehearsal of samba.
'You've got a touch of the sun," said Craig. "You're all red. Use some of this. Go on. Use it."
"I don't need it," said the steward.
"Use it anyway," said Craig. "Go on."
"But why should I?"
"It costs two thousand lire a bottle. I'll give you ten thousand if you'll use it. Twenty thousand. I'm kinky for blokes who use suntan oil."
The steward moaned and covered his face with his
hands.
Craig grabbed his hair and pulled his head up. "Watch," he said.
He unscrewed the cap with extreme care, and turned to Grierson.
"Hold him," he said. Grierson's arms came round him, and the steward was helpless.
"What's your name?" Craig asked. "Nikki."
"Don't you like suntan oil, Nikki?" "I have an allergy," the steward said. "To this kind? Everybody does," said Craig. "Who gave it to you?"
The steward was silent.
"1 saw what it did to a piece of wood," Craig said. "Went right through it. Who gave it to you?"
Nikki moaned aloud: "Suit yourself," said Craig, and tilted the bottle.
"No," Nikki screamed. "No. It was Mrs. Naxos."
The band finished, on three hard chords like right hooks to the body.
"You're lying," said Craig, and his hand moved closer.
Nikki opened his mouth to scream, and Craig's free hand flicked him like a cobra striking. The scream became a gasp.
"We haven't much time," said Grierson.
"Nikki's got no time at all," said Craig. "Look, I'll ask you once more. Who gave it to you?"
"Mrs. Naxos," said Nikki, his voice a wheezing gasp. "I swear it. She said it was a joke. It would make you turn blue, she said."
"Then why are you so scared?" Craig asked.
"I tried it on a piece of paper."
"Who got you your job, Nikki?" Craig asked. "Who do you work for?"
The hand holding the bottle was over his head now. The bottle was tilting, tilting.
"I don't know his name," Nikki said. "I swear I don't. An Englishman. Big. Bigger than Theseus."
"And what did he tell you to do?"
"I have to take my orders from Mrs. Naxos—do whatever she says. Mr. Naxos isn't to know."
"What orders?"
"I can get her the white stuff," said Nikki. "Heroin." "How many times?"
"Not yet," said Nikki. "But she knows I've got it if she wants it."
As he spoke the band blared again, and Craig's hand tilted, spilling suntan oil on Nikki's face. The steward screamed and fainted.
Grierson cursed.
"It's on my hand," he said.
Craig shrugged.
"It's only suntan oil."
He looked at the unconscious steward.
"Let's have his jacket and pants," he said. "They may come in useful."
'Tie him up?"
Craig looked at the steward; tall, soft-muscled, running to fat.
"No," he said. "He's harmless."
Behind the mask, Grierson winced. Craig always reduced things to fundamentals. It was how he had survived. But it left no room for dignity in anybody else.
"Besides," Craig added, "Once he sees he isn't marked he won't want to run away—not without his pants."
At midnight, Craig and Grierson watched Naxos arrive. From somewhere or other Trottia had found him a carnival barge, six oars a side, two cox'ns with crossed boathooks in the prow, the flag of Greece and Venice's lion fluttering at the stern, and beneath a silken canopy supported on four brass rods, Aristides I, the pasha of petroleum, his wife beside him, indolent, beautiful, while launches, gondolas, san-dolos swarmed around them, darting like gnats, the gondolas beaked prows cruel in the lamplight.
"He's mad," said Grierson.
"No," Craig said. "Just big. Bloody big. That means big risks too. And big enemies." "Nikki's friends?"
Craig nodded. "I don't think hell be along himself— he's too conspicuous. But he'll send some pals. Look out for anybody Swyven talks to. Or Trottia. And if you have to handle anybody—keep it quiet." He chuckled. "If you can," he added. 'This place'll be a nine-ring circus."
He looked again at the flotilla. The barge's crew were dressed as eighteenth-century sailors. Andrews, at the helm, wore the tricorn hat, blue coat, bullion epaulettes of a naval lieutenant of the time of George III.
"H you need help, ask Andrews if I'm not there."
"Will do," said Grierson. There was silence as he lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply. The flotilla moved up to the steps of the palace, the coxns sprang ashore, hooked on, held the barge steady as the crowd cheered.
"It's extremely vulgar," Grierson said. "But very beautiful." They went back into the ballroom. Both champagne fountains were playing now. Stewards and barmen were poised like greyhounds.
'There's someone else we'll have to watch for,"
Grierson said. The band blared Mozart's Turkish March, and Grierson winced as Naxos came in, Flip holding his hand.
"Her," said Grierson. "Divine Zenocrate over there. She doesn't seem to like you, Craig."
Craig thought of the acid.
I'll watch her," he said. "You watch him.'*
He nodded to where Lord Byron-Swyven limped over in character and bowed to his host and hostess.
"You have all the fun," said Grierson.
Craig went over, talked to Naxos and Flip, and asked about Pia.
"Oh, she'll be along," said Flip. "You know shell be dressed as my twin sister—The poor darling! When she saw me she wanted to wear something else—but I said no. Houris never come in ones, do they, darling?"
"Anything you say, honey," said Naxos. "Some party, eh, John?"
"Fantastic," said Craig. 'Tou forgot to give me a program for the fun and games upstairs."
'The happenings," Fhp said. "We must go up there.
Now."
"No," said Craig. "You go up with me—both together."
"We can't go yet anyway," Naxos said. "We've got to get this lot under way." He nodded at an advancing crowd of guests. "We'll do as you say, John. Meet us here—two o'clock."
Craig nodded and went up the stairs to the balcony. There were fifty people in the room already, and the soft sheen of Flip's half-naked body was vulnerable to them aU. Among them he could see a courtier in crimson velvet, talking to a heutenant in the Navy of His Britannic Majesty, George III. He walked through the rooms filled with actors and dancers, ha
lf-heartedly flirting, dancing gavottes, exchanging snuff, tapping each other with their fans while Trottia twittered and fluttered in the midst. The two swordsmen were arranging their fight like a ballet, and talking about football. Only the harpsichord player seemed to be absorbed. He was playing a Bach fugue. "No, no," Trottia screamed. "It should be Scarlatti." The harpsichord player ignored him, and the great structure of sound flowed from his fingers.
Craig went back to the balcony, and evaded a columbine, two gypsies, and three Desdemonas, one of them in
her nightgown. Now there were two hundred people at least, but he spotted Naxos easily enough. This time he had two houris with him, identical in dress. Pia had arrived then. He looked down at the bar and froze. Dominating it was an enormous headsman covered in black. Black shirt, black tights, black boots, black gloves. A black skullcap on his head, and his face was covered from hair to throat in a black mask, but nothing could hide his size. With him were three bravos, chic-looking hoodlums in purple and black, with rapiers and daggers by their sides. The three were drinking champagne, but the black headsman's hands were empty and still. He was watching Naxos. Grierson climbed the stairs, paused by Craig, and lit a cigarette.
"I see we've got company," he said.
Craig nodded, and stood up.
"Go and watch Trottia," he said. "This one's mine."
* Chapter 12 *
Grierson left, and another crowd of dancers swarmed in, masking Naxos and his girls. When the crowd cleared, one houri stood alone, the other was dancing with Naxos. Craig went down the stairs and through the crowd like an arrow. The woman stood motionless, and the dancers stayed carefully back from her as if Naxos had built an invisible wall around her. Her whole body was posed, carefully, to bring out the smooth curving flow of breast and belly and thigh. From the sleek blackness of her hair to her scarlet-painted toes, she was the great Hollywood sex dream incarnate; Ah Baba's girl friend with the magic carpet all revved up and waiting. And yet, Craig thought, the whole act was quite unconscious. She stood like that because she'd been taught to stand like that. If sue sat down she'd cross her legs exactly to their best advantage, breathe in to lift her breasts from their golden cups, because that was what you did; that was what the people paid to see.
"Come and dance, Flip," said Craig. "Okay."
She came into his arms, sensed the hard power in his hands as he touched her, dry and cool on her naked golden back.
"I'm not very good company tonight," said Flip. "Just take it as it comes," said Craig. "You'll be all
right."
"No," she shook her head. "I feel terrible." They danced in silence, and her body relaxed, very slightly, against his.
"How did you know it was me, anyway?" she asked. She paused, then added, "I might have been Pia." "I just knew," said Craig.
"Oh great. If you work at it hard enough you might pay me a compliment."
Her body eased to his, supple, yielding. 'Thanks for trying anyway."
They danced past the bar, where the big headsman stood. Craig felt her shiver. He said nothing.
"I like having you look after me," said Flip. "It makes a girl feel so secure." Her fingers dug into his back. "My God, you're tough."
"I do a lot of dancing," said Craig.
"Go on. Make jokes. You don't know what it's like to need the stuff the way I do," said Flip. "You know what I want to do right now? Scream and scream until even these jerks know there's something the matter. But you're so strong —you wouldn't care about that would you?" He said nothing. "You know something? I think I was wrong about you. I think maybe you're a jerk, too. A good-looking jerk, but still a jerk."
"Put your accent back on," said Craig. "Harry had you disguised as a lady."
She tried to draw free then, to strike at him, but he held her easily, forced her body to dance. At last she said: "Darling I am sorry. I can't think what came over me," and Craig let her go.
When the dance ended, they stood next to Naxos and the other golden dream girl. Naxos said at once, "Good for you, John. Flip's too much on her own."
Craig said: "My pleasure. Hello, Pia."
The houri nodded, her eyes lit in a smile. She seemed
shyer than Craig would have imagined, more conscious of her body. Craig moved towards her but Naxos's arms came round her smooth, unblemished shoulders, turned her away from him and drew her back into the dance. They danced awkwardly together, but Naxos was awkward as a charging rhino is awkward, and this was the effect of his dancing.
"She must have gone off you," Flip said. "I haven't. I may need you yet."
"How did you get your skin so brown?" Craig asked. "Suntan oil?"
The eyes behind the mask went wary.
"Body makeup," she said. "The sort strippers use. I used to be a stripper once. Did you know that?"
"Yes," said Craig.
"And a whore, and a drug addict." "And an actress," Craig said.
T made two pictures and seven cowboy films for TV. The cowboy always got the horse."
'That's a new twist," Craig said. "But I heard you were kind to your friends."
"It got to be a habit."
"I mean sincere, generous," Craig said. "Compassionate. So why hand out suntan lotion?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Fhp said. "Let's go look at the happenings."
He shrugged and walked -towards the golden staircase. At once, Naxos steered the other houri towards them, butting his way through the dancers. By the time they reached the crowd at the foot of the stairs, Naxos and his girl were only a couple of yards behind them. The crowd opened to them, then suddenly held. The three masked bravos stood in front of them. Craig let Flip's arm go, and continued to walk, slow, unhurried. At the last possible moment, the middle bravo yielded. Craig stopped, looked first left then right, and the three fell back farther. Craig moved on as Fhp took his arm again. At the top of the stairs he waited until Naxos joined them. Pia had left him. The three pretty killers played round her like piranha fish, urging her to where the massive headman waited. A gallant in crimson velvet and a lieutenant in the uniform of the Navy of George III moved after her. Craig went to look at the happenings.
When Naxos approached, things happened all right.
The clavichord moved straight from Bach's Goldberg Variations into a Galuppi gavotte, the actors and dancers who had lounged around before, smoking, talking contracts, became graceful, dedicated beings intent only on the mindless elegance of their dance. A harlequin, pierrot, and columbine threaded their movements in a perfectly timed chase, and in the long room beyond the duel began. As they walked toward it figures in framed portraits got out and changed frames, altering the grouping of Veronese and Titian, turning elegance to obscenity, passion to eccentricity.
"After midnight they're all going to be Titian's Venus with a Dog," said Flip.
"Even Trottia?'
"Of course. It was his idea."
Craig moved on toward the duel, past the pool where a chimpanzee poled a miniature gondola and a dog on its hind legs was dressed as a doge. Near by were a female Shylock and a male Portia, squabbling over the flesh of a Bassanio who seemed neither.
After that, the swordsmen were a relief. They fought as they should have done, in their stockinged feet, the florid elegance of their knee breeches and frilled shirts a baroque frame for the cold beauty of the weapons they held—and they fought with a neat and deadly precision at first, until Naxos rumbled: "I paid these boys for fencing, not to work out chess problems."
At once they began to ham it up, and the duel became an EitoIFlynn movie, with much leaping backward onto chairs, tables overturned, whistling sword blades severing candles.
'That's more like it," said Naxos, and moved in closer, taking Philippa with him.
The duelist in the blue breeches parried a thrust in tierce, and his blade shot out in riposte. His opponent parried, the sword blades sang, blue breeches' point swerved toward Flip. Craig pushed her away, a flat-handed shove that mo
ved her into Naxos's arms, and cursed as a needle point scored icy pain across his forearm, splitting the sleeve of his shirt to show a fine trickle of blood.
"You clumsy bloody fool," said Naxos, and moved in on blue breeches, but Flip held on to him and yelled: "No, Harry. No!" and somehow Craig was between them and blue breeches' sword was in his hand and he looked at the naked, deadly point, the needle-fine score of blood on his arm.
"I thought you had buttons on these things," said Craig, and blue breeches turned pale as his shirt, stammered, scrabbled on the floor, and came up with a flat metal disk, then swore it should never have happened.
"But it did," said Craig. "Don't fight any more. I haven't got another shirt."
Flip said: "I'd better fix the arm," and Naxos nodded, massively weary now, and sat heavily down to watch Trottia play a flute while four dwarfs in court dress danced.
'Thanks, John," he said. "I'm grateful." His eyes searched for a sign behind Craig's mask. "Some party, huh?"
"The greatest," said Craig, and Naxos leaned back, but his eyes were on Trottia and he was not happy.
Flip led Craig down the corridor, and as they passed the pictures, she said in her brightest duchess voice: "Gracious, it's after midnight. Aren't they scrumptious?" And Craig, grateful for his mask, saw Venus after rosy Venus, pink-tipped white, every one, except for the Negress in the middle, and each one waved to him as she passed. Flip swayed in front of him, hips and breasts showing a rhythmic compulsion, and the graceful dancers stepped aside as his blood dripped on the rosy marble floor.
He trudged on down the fine, hating Flip and Naxos, Trottia, the naked women, even himself, then acknowledged his embarrassment, turned at the end of the room, and stared, cold-gray eyes demanding a response, until the dancers looked away and the Venuses lay still. He thought then that he was fighting the whole party, all the wealth and power of Europe. But that meant he was fighting Naxos too. The idea was stupid. He followed Flip to her room, and waited while she bathed his arm, cleaned off the blood, and peeled a Band-Aid on to the fine red scar.