Adam took her hand. It was warm and dry, while his, he discovered, was becoming cold with nervousness. “We’ll have tea after we’ve been to the Saô Juan Chrysostom Monastery.”
“Let’s skip it. It’s very much like the Jeronymos, only smaller, and less ornate.”
“I’d still like to see it.”
“Adam, you can’t be interested in sightseeing now.”
A sightseeing bus pulled up in front of the monastery, and a group of chattering young people got off. Was that the student with the spectacles again? “If we’re being followed,” he said, “we’d better act as natural as possible, and it would be natural for me to see the Saô Ju———”
Kali cut him off. “All right. Maybe you have a point. Let’s go.”
In the taxi Adam felt his hands getting colder by the moment, beginning to ooze icy moisture. He must not hold Kali’s hand and give away his tension.
The Saô Juan Chrysostom Monastery had fewer tourists than the more famous Jeronymos. It was smaller, less ornate, but there was a purity to it that reached Adam even through his whirling mind. The double cloister soared heavenward, forming a narrow rectangle about a garden with a fountain in the center. In the church itself the light had an underwater-green quality, reminding Adam that the Tagus was just outside. This time Kali gave no tourist’s spiel; her face was brooding as they walked slowly, footsteps echoing on the stone floor. They turned into an octagonal bay with a low font in the center, surrounded by seven columns. As they entered by one arch a tiny, elderly priest in a shabby cassock came in by another, bowed, and smiled at them. “May I help you?” he asked, first in Portuguese, then French. Adam answered in French.
“Well, Father, I was studying St. John Chrysostom for a school project once, and I can’t remember—what was the name of the pagan orator who taught him law?”
“Show off,” Kali whispered.
“Now let me see,” the priest said. “That would be Libanius, wouldn’t it? It was Diodore of Tarsus who instructed him in theology. I’m delighted at your interest, young man. May I inquire where you’re from?”
“New York,” Adam said.
“And the young lady? Is she interested, too?”
“No,” Kali was impatient. “I’m afraid not. Please, Adam.”
The priest smiled at Adam, his faded blue eyes twinkling. “Perhaps you will come another time and let me show you around? I am Father Henriques.”
“Thank you, Father. My name is Adam Eddington, and I’ll be back as soon as possible, I promise you.”
“Adam,” Kali said. “Sorry, Father, but we have to go.”
When they were back in the taxi Adam said, “You weren’t very polite.”
“If you’re not keeeping track of time, I am. Adam, I have to know. Are you going to let me stay with you or not?”
Adam sighed.
“Is it such a horrible prospect?” Kali asked in a low voice. “I did think that you might—that you might care about me a little. I’m not used to telling people I’m in love with them. I’m used to it being the other way around. It’s either you or the Tagus as far as I’m concerned.”
Looking at her strained face and rather wild eyes, Adam was torn between belief and doubt.
She continued, “I’m not trying to threaten you or say it’ll be all your fault if I throw myself into the river. But there isn’t any alternative for me. Everything I’ve ever cared about is all smashed. If you turn me away I don’t want to live.” Slow tears trickled down her cheeks.
Adam thumped a tight fist into a cold palm. “All right. Look. Tell the taxi driver to take us to Eiffel’s Tower.”
21
Kali leaned toward the driver obediently and the cab headed back into the city. Adam, straining to look out the window, tried to keep landmarks, street names in his mind, but the problem of Kali kept whirling about, driving away all other thoughts. He could not abandon her either to the Tagus or to the web of steel threads being woven so mercilessly by her father. But he had to go back to the Saô Juan Chrysostom Monastery, and he had to go there alone.
Why? If he believed that Kali was telling him the truth why wasn’t taking her with him to Canon Tallis the best possible thing to do?
He believed her and yet he was not quite sure. A week ago the confiding way she was holding on to his arm would have undone him utterly. Now all he felt was cold, cold inside and out.
“Why are we going to Eiffel’s Tower?”
“To give me time to think.”
“But you’re going to keep me with you?”
“I’m going to try to.”
“You’re going to take care of me?”
“Yes.”
The tower loomed up grotesquely in the street, the observation platform balanced precariously on top of the spindly elevator shaft. It was built, it seemed, out of a small boy’s erector set. Adam had never seen the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but he had seen pictures of it, and both were obviously the result of the same rackety imagination. The Lisbon Tower, however, also served a purely practical purpose. Lisbon, like Rome, was a city of steep hills, and the foot of the tower was on one street level, the observation platform on another, and riding the elevator was for many people simply a useful short cut. At any other time Adam would have been immensely pleased with it. Now he gave the wild construction the scantiest attention. As they waited for the elevator to take them to the upper level he said, “Okay, I think I’ve got things straight.”
“Tell me.”
“If you’ll do the shopping for Mrs. O’Keefe—it’s just socks and underthings for the kids, and I have all the sizes and everything written down—then I can do one other errand at the same time, and then we can meet for dinner.”
“What’s your errand?”
“Something for Dr. O’Keefe.”
Kali frowned as though this was something she needed to ponder about. Finally she said, “I’m sorry, Adam, but how will I know you’ll ever come back to me? You could send me shopping and just disappear.”
“I give you my word.”
“People’s words don’t mean much to me any more. I need something more tangible than that.”
“I don’t have anything more tangible. I’ll do my errand and then I promise you I’ll meet you wherever you say.”
Kali thought again. “Have you got your passport with you?”
“Of course.”
“Give it to me as a hostage. Then I’ll know you can’t go off and leave me.”
“I thought you trusted me.”
“I do. More than anybody else I know. But you see the people I know have been daddy and his people, and I always trusted daddy. So how can I trust anybody? Please, Adam, if you are coming back to me there isn’t any reason not to give me your passport.”
Slowly Adam took the passport out of his breast pocket. Still holding it, he asked, “Where will we meet?”
“At the Folclore, as soon after six as possible. The food’s good and you ought to hear some Fado and see some of the folk dancing.” She held out her hand. Adam put the passport in it. She began leafing through it. “Oh, Adam, what an awful picture, I’d never recognize you!” Between the next two pages was the slip of paper with Joshua’s phone numbers. “What’s this?”
“Just some phone numbers. Give it to me.”
Kali shut the passport. “Oh, no, I’m going to keep the whole thing.”
To make an issue over the numbers would be to give them importance in Kali’s mind.
Adam swallowed. His hands felt colder and colder. His feet, too, seemed to be lumps of ice. He was doing what he had promised not to do. He said, “The numbers are just for the errand for Dr. O’Keefe. I’d appreciate it if you’d let me have them.”
“Look them up in the phone book.” Kali put the passport into her bag. “You don’t trust me, Adam. I can’t bear it.”
Adam felt physically sick. His stomach clenched with fury at his ineptness, with frustration at his inability to do anything right. He did not
dare press the issue of the phone numbers further. If he could convince Kali that they were unimportant and if he could get back to the Saô Juan Chrysostom in time to deliver the Temis papers to Canon Tallis, then he could meet Kali for dinner, get the passport and Joshua’s numbers back, and no real harm would be done.
Mr. Eiffel’s elevator creaked down and groaned to a stop, disgorging a chattering group of Lisbonese on their way home, and tourists gawking at and commenting on the tower in all languages.
“Come on,” Kali said, pushing through the crowd into the elevator, pulling Adam after her.
People continued to jam in long after Adam felt capacity had been reached. He could not see the usual comforting sign to tell how many the elevator could safely hold. The air was thick with sweat, smoke, perfume. With each passing second he felt more of a sense of pressure and more as though he were going to be sick. He was pressed close against Kali and she managed to slide one arm confidingly around his waist. He was glad she had not taken the clammy hand that would have given away his intense nervousness that was bordering on fear.
They were standing near the elevator operator and Kali spoke to him in Portuguese, explaining in Adam’s ear, “He’s an old friend.”
“One of ‘daddy’s men’?”
“Really, Adam,” Kali said as the door clanged shut. “I thought I’d made myself clear.” Her voice choked up and Adam was afraid his stupidity was going to make her burst into tears there in the crowded elevator.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was gruff. He clenched his fists. He must keep in control of himself and the situation while he carried the Temis papers and while Kali had the passport with Joshua’s phone numbers.
The elevator started to creak upward. People going home from work continued their conversations or stood in stolid fatigue. The tourists exclaimed in excitement, one fat woman giving small shrieks of nervousness at the reluctant jerking of the elevator.
Just as they neared the observation platform there was a groan, a shudder, and they stopped. The operator fiddled with the controls. He said something in Portuguese, then loudly in English, “STUCK.”
There was a burst of excited, multilingual talk. Kali said in a clear voice as the fat woman’s shrieks grew louder, “It’s all right, don’t worry, this happens all the time, he’ll get it going in a moment. It’s perfectly all right, don’t get panicky.”
The operator broke through her words to call up through the roof. From both the upper and lower levels came shouts of excitement and, evidently, directions, because the operator began jerking at the controls. The elevator dropped a foot and stopped. The fat woman let out a piercing scream.
Adam could feel, particularly among the tourists, a sense of terror compounded by his own. Kali, strangely, seemed less nervous than she had all day. She said something in a very low voice to the operator, but a Frenchman, standing close to them, had evidently heard, because he said, “What was that?”
“I beg your pardon?” Kali asked icily in French.
The Frenchman accused, “You told him to stop the elevator.”
“Why under the sun would I do that? I’m in just as much of a rush as you are.”
“I heard you say parar. That means stop.”
Kali burst into shrill laughter. “Your Portuguese isn’t very good, is it? Para means in order to. I told him to call someone in order to get us out.”
The Frenchman looked sourly at Kali. “I don’t believe you. I think we are being forcibly detained.” He shouted above the babel, “Start this car at once!”
The operator shrugged. “Stuck.”
The fat woman cried shrilly, “Somebody do something! Help!”
“Madame,” the operator said, “I ’ave already press ze alarm button.”
From the streets above and below the shouts were louder, as though larger groups were gathering.
Adam felt suffocated. Seconds were passing and the Temis papers still on him. He had to get to Canon Tallis. Above him he could see the floor of the observation platform. If the doors of the elevator were opened he would be able to climb up and out onto the platform.
But when he suggested this to Kali and she spoke again in her fluent, rapid Portuguese, the operator shook his head. “Not safe.”
Kali’s arm tightened around Adam’s waist. “Are you in that much of a hurry? Nobody here eats dinner before nine.”
Adam’s head reeled, but through his dizziness a high English voice cut, “I was stuck in the lift at Harrod’s once, but not for nearly as long as this.”
It was stiflingly hot in the elevator with all the jammed-in bodies, and the laughter was beginning to have a hysterical edge that was ready to slip over into panic, and he, in his own panic, was being no help. He could feel his heart pounding. Kali’s arm was tight about his waist. The fat lady gave a thin, bubbly scream, but before her hysteria got over the edges of control the elevator gave a groan and a jerk, and the operator, as though he were piloting a plane, brought it to a stop at the upper platform.
Adam, forgetting all courtesy, pushed out, dragging Kali after him. He looked at his watch. Almost six. He swung on Kali, shouting, “You do the shopping. Here’s the list. Here’s some money.” He thrust Dr. Ball’s bills into her hand. There. “I’ll meet you at the Folclore as soon as I can.” Without stopping for any kind of response from her, without giving her a chance to hold him back, he rushed off up the street. An empty cab was passing. He hailed it, and got in, panting. “Saô Juan Chrysostom Monastery, por favor.” He saw that Kali had run up the street after him, but he slammed the taxi door, giving her a vague nod and wave. If she had heard where he was going it was too late now.
He looked from the window of the taxi to his watch and back to the window. The streets were full of people going home, streaming out of stores, hotels, subway stops, their shadows long as the sun began to drop.
The driver wove skillfully around pedestrians, buses, cars. Adam looked at him through the dividing glass, a rough-appearing man in a fisherman’s sweater and cap and an unkempt beard. He looked at Adam in the rearview mirror and winked. Adam froze. One of Cutter’s men? Had he walked into a trap?
Still with his foot on the accelerator the driver turned to face Adam, gave a jerk to the beard, which came off, revealing Arcangelo. A swift movement and the beard was back in place.
“Arcangelo!” Adam gasped. “What—”
“I’ve been following you all day,” Arcangelo said in his careful English. “So have others.”
“But it’s not safe for you!”
“You did not recognize me, did you?”
“But it’s still not safe. Dr. O’Keefe said—”
“You think I would let those snakes drive me under cover?” Arcangelo swerved scornfully around a bus and turned down a side street. “If anything happened to you Polyhymnia would be unhappy.”
Ahead of them a large black car swung out of a side street so that Arcangelo had to jam on his brakes. “Duck!” he said suddenly, and in a quick reflex Adam dropped to the floor.
“Molèc,” Arcangelo growled between closed teeth. “We are in for what you would call the showdown. Where is the Cutter girl?” He spoke with as little lip motion as possible, then puckered his lips up in a whistle, so that anyone looking back from the dark car ahead would not know he was talking to the passenger. The whistling resolved itself into a melody. The Tallis Canon.
Adam felt a surge of excitement despite his cold hands and feet. “She’s safe. She’s shopping. I have to get to the Saô Juan Chrysostom Monastery before six. Canon Tallis is waiting for me.”
“Six now,” Arcangelo said. “They are trying to slow us down and I cannot let them know I know who they are or they will know who I am.”
“It closes at six.”
“I know a side door but we will have to get rid of Molèc.” Arcangelo swung around and down a side street, then turned back into the city. Adam raised his head, but Arcangelo said sharply, “Stay down.” The boy could not see where th
ey were going, but he could feel that it was a rapid and devious way. The taxi stopped with an abruptness that threw him against the seat in front, and Arcangelo said, “Get out.”
Cold though Adam’s hands might be, his reflexes were functioning satisfactorily. He grasped the handle of the door and pitched himself into the street. They had stopped at a rank of taxis. Arcangelo was leaning out the window, talking to one of the drivers, and indicated with a gesture of his thumb that Adam was to get into the other cab. As the boy slammed the door Arcangelo said, “He will take you to the Saô Juan Chrysostom. I will continue to drive so that Molèc will be put off the trail. Go now, quickly.”
The taxi shot off. Adam called back, “Arcangelo, take care of yourself.”
The taxi driver, a thin young Negro, looked at Adam in the rearview mirror and smiled. Then he began to whistle, softly. The Tallis Canon. Adam joined him. They smiled at each other. Adam knew that he must not make the mistake of thinking that either he or the papers were safe because Arcangelo was taking charge, because he liked the young man who was driving him, but the terror had left the pit of his stomach, and he sat, coiled like a wire, ready at any moment and whenever necessary, to spring.
“Saô Juan,” the driver said, and ahead of them was the beautiful, austere building. They drove past the entrance, the great doors closed, only darkness showing behind the stained-glass windows which were drained of color as light was slowly draining from the sky. They turned the corner and went past the Chapter House. Beyond this was an iron gate that opened to a long, narrow, hedged-in path to the cloister. The driver looked quickly around, stopped, and jumped out. Adam followed him, and together they ran to the gate. The driver pulled at the bell, once, twice, three times. In the distance they could hear it clanging.
The Arm of the Starfish Page 21