18 - The Unfair Fare Affair

by Peter Leslie

  Annike went through and waited for Solo to follow. Two yards down the passage, they broke a magic-eye beam trained from one wall to the other, and the secret door swung shut behind them.

  The corridor was brightly lit, brick built, and floored with rubber composition tiles. Their footsteps hardly made a sound—and the wheelchair, Solo reflected, would have been virtually noiseless. When they had gone a distance that he estimated would have taken them under the road and beyond the row of houses bordering it, the corridor turned sharply right and stopped by a blank wall. The final section of tiling on the floor was outlined by a narrow crevice as though it were a trapdoor. The girl stepped on this square and motioned Solo to follow her once more.

  As soon as he was standing beside her, she reached out and pressed the end of one of the bricks set in the wall. Again there was the whine of machinery, and the section of floor, complete with the ceiling above it, rose slowly on a hydraulic ram.

  The platform lifted them a distance of about fourteen feet and stopped. On three sides they were enclosed by brick work. In the fourth wall was what looked like an ordinary door. The girl opened it and they walked out into a luxuriously furnished bedroom.

  They must be on the ground floor of a house in the row behind those with the half doors, Solo thought, a house whose official entrance was no doubt on another street altogether. From the room, the elevator now looked just like a rather large built-in cupboard that happened to be empty. Nothing would show either, he was certain, when it was at the lower position: what was now the ceiling of the cupboard would become the floor, and another ceiling would have lowered it self to replace the first one.

  Closing the door, Annike led him through a screen of heavy velvet drapes masking an archway. In the huge room beyond, Solo at once felt at home.

  Gray steel filing cabinets were ranged around three of the walls, and on a bench projecting from the fourth the chassis of radio transmitters and receivers crowded up against the amplifiers and speakers and matched spools of a sophisticated tape deck ensemble. In the center of the room was a board room table big enough to seat twenty people, its polished top almost submerged in a tide of newspapers, magazines, handouts and information sheets stacked in piles twelve to fifteen inches high. And there were great heaps of journals, too, mixed up with floods of newspaper cuttings and dozens of sheets of paper covered with scribbled notes, on the chairs, over the coffee tables, and on every available inch of horizontal space in the room. In one corner was a closed-circuit television screen.

  The place looked, in short, exactly like Tufik's head quarters in Casablanca and Rio de Janeiro, both of which Solo had known. Even the complicated console controlling the tape equipment, with its switches and dials and rheostats and its twelve-channel mixer, was the same.

  Like a pale spider in one corner of its web, the fat man himself was waiting for them on the far side of the room.

  "Mr. Solo! Mr. Solo!" he cried delightedly as they pushed through the curtain. " 'Tis a pleasant surprise indeed to be seeing you! Come on in and sit you down at once, while I see about fixing you some liquid refreshment!"

  With all his old expertise, Tufik whisked the chair in between tables, chairs and stacks of books, to roll up to the agent with outstretched hand.

  "Well, you old rascal," Solo said affectionately, grasping the fat but surprisingly sinewy fingers, "and what have you been up to? What are you doing in Holland, for heaven's sake? I thought you'd settled for good in South America!"

  "For good?" the Moroccan-Irishman echoed. " 'Twas an uneasy marriage at all... and that bein' so, I looked at the for-good-or-for-ill part of the contract and decided there was too much ill and not enough good. So a divorce, you might say, was arranged and I came here. No but seriously, look, there was too many revolutions and coups d'etat and I don't know what-all else over there. A man couldn't keep track of who was who!"

  He broke off and looked at the girl. "Perhaps you'd be kind enough, my dear, to bring Mr. Solo and myself a small jar of the creature," he said.

  She nodded and disappeared through a doorway at one side of the radio transmitter. The only other door to the room was at the far end of the same wall, by the tape decks. There was one window opposite the curtained archway through which Solo had entered. It was masked by a venetian blind through whose slats the roofs of parked cars in a wide residential street shone in the sun.

  The agent was looking for a place to sit. Every available space seemed to be covered with newspapers and clippings, but eventually he removed a copy of Le Monde, a front page torn from Corriere della Sera, and a month's issues of Krokodil from a stool and lowered himself in their place. His host, he was amused to see, still used his own personal system of polychromatic underlining, ringing and marginal annotating on the raw materials of his trade.

  "What made you decide on The Hague, though?" Solo asked conversationally. "It seems somehow so... well, so unlikely!"

  "Don't you believe it, me boy! If you want to keep a finger on the pulse, there's hardly a better place in Europe. It's between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and it's not too far from Antwerp—there's three of the biggest ports on the Continent for a start. And in my experience, if you want to know what goes on, like the nice girls, you ask a sailor! The boyos that work the airlines are good for a lot of stuff too, mind. But sure, they're the same anyway, anywhere you go. And we have Schiphol near enough, with connections to France and Germany and all the Scandinavians. But there's never a corner like this, that gets as much shipping, that's also near an international airfield... except perhaps Marseille. And that's a little too near home, if you take my meaning!"

  "Okay, okay," Solo laughed, holding up a hand to stem the flow. "You convinced me... Hendrik!"

  "Ah, now," the fat man said chidingly. "Listen you! There's no call to make a mockery just because a fellow takes the precaution to adopt, as you might say, a spot of protective colorin', now is there?"

  "I guess not. Tell me about the setup here, anyway. You seem to have it all arranged very nicely."

  "It's not bad, at that. From the street you see through that blind, this place is a kind of cheap hotel. We have a bar there, and although 'tis not a port itself, the town sees plenty of boyos from Amsterdam and Rotterdam. And from the canal, too, for that matter. So the bar is crowded…"

  "And bugged at every table, no doubt?"

  "… and bugged at every table," the fat man agreed equably, with a sidelong glance at the multichannel tape recorder inputs. "We obtain a great deal of useful information from those tapes... when they've been sorted, that is. Which is why bar prices are cheap and why we take care to keep it filled."

  "And the hotel?"

  "Curiously enough," Hendrik van der Lee said dryly, "the hotel seems to be booked solid all the time. There's never a room to spare when a body tries to book!"

  "You yourself never appear on the hotel premises at all, I suppose?"

  "Never. I always come along the canal bank on the Sint Pietersstraat. It's easier for the chair that way, for there are steps in the front here, you see. Also it means I'm never connected with the place at all. And there's a third advantage we have here, Mr. Solo."

  "You restrict yourself to three?"

  Van der Lee chuckled throatily. "Apart from the sailors and other boyos who give me information—er—involuntarily, through the hidden mikes," be said, "there's plenty more who come here to deliver the goods they're paid for."

  "I can guess. Hotel porters and taxi men and—"

  "Quite, quite. We don't have to be too precise, do we? Well, these ladies and gentlemen have to get in to see me. And whereas a crowd like I have might soon draw attention in another neighborhood, it works very well here. There's always a few sailors droppin' by to see the ould girls on Sint Pietersstraat—I have another entry through one of the houses there—and there's always a multitude comin' to the bar of the hotel. So between them, who's goin' to notice a few extra here and there?"

  Annike came back into the room carr
ying a tray. Pushing aside a heap of manuscripts on the big table, she set out glasses, coffee cups, saucers, a long-handed, conical copper pan full of thick, sweet Turkish coffee, and a bottle of Izarra—the fiery yellow Basque liqueur that was the only spirit the Moroccan-Irishman had ever been known to drink.

  "You still have a sweet tooth, I see!" Solo said as the girl handed him a cup of steaming coffee and a glass of the digestif.

  "Ah, yes. It's a thing you never lose, Mr. Solo. Your continued good health, sir. And now—what can I do for you this time?"

  "I thought you might know," Solo said. He had imagined that since Waverly had arranged the meeting, he might have briefed Van der Lee. But the big man merely shook his head slowly.

  "Oh, well in that case I'll tell you," the agent continued. "It's just a piece of information I want... but you'll not find it in your filing system or your newspaper stories this time. You might get a lead from your secret microphones, though—if you have enough members of the bent fraternity in your bar. But I have to warn you there's not a police department in Europe that knows the answer to my question."

  "Yes, Mr. Solo?"

  "Quite simply, it is this: there exists a highly organized escape network in Europe. For a price, it takes people across frontiers, out of reach of the law. All the police forces know it exists; not one knows a thing about it. What I want to know is, one, who runs this organization; two, how it works; and three, how one gets in touch with it if necessary."

  Solo sat back on his stool, drained his cup, and set it down carefully on its saucer.

  Tufik, or Van der Lee, had not moved. He sat bulkily in his chair, staring straight ahead and humming a tuneless little air through his teeth. The girl, who had been curled up on the floor at his paralyzed feet, rose and refilled the cups and glasses.

  Eventually the fat man moved. He spun his chair around and wheeled swiftly to the other end of the table, where he began ferreting about beneath an untidy pile of gossip columns torn roughly from the previous week's Sunday news papers. "There's a telephone in here somewhere," he muttered. "I know there's an instrument on this very table… Ah!" He gave a cry of triumph and flourished an ivory-colored receiver in one hand. His other hand delved back into the pile, and there followed the sound of a dial being spun.

  After a moment he began speaking. There was a conversation in rapid Dutch, which Solo was unable to follow, and then he said in English,"... Oh, and by the way—here's a tip you can pass on to the advocate! Tell him, from me, that the articles he wants can be obtained in Brussels… Yes, quite cheaply. In boxes of ten... But tell him they're much stronger than the English ones: I think there's a whole cc. in each." He chuckled and then added, "And tell him the information won't cost him a penny. It's on the house."

  He turned the chair back to face Solo. "It's not an easy thing you're askin'," he said slowly. "But if you care to come back around midnight, I think I might have somethin' for you. In the meantime..."

  "I know. The little question of emolument? I suppose it's too much to hope that you're still working for Waverly?"

  "Indeed it is, Mr. Solo. Indeed it is. Pleasant though that little arrangement was, it was purely temporary, you understand. I wished to take my revenge upon a certain organization, and helping you seemed the best way to do it. But it couldn't last long, mark you: it got in the way of my usual business."

  "I can imagine," Solo said. "How much?"

  "Well now... seein' you don't take the subscription service––you'd be well advised to consider it, an organization like yours, you know. You should tell Waverly—but seein' you do not, then it's the regular straight fee for a single piece of information."

  "Which is?"

  "In Dutch currency, two thousand five hundred guilders. And since you are an old friend, we'll consider the three separate pieces of information you want simply as if they were one... "

  "Well, thank you!"

  "… and add only the customary fifty percent surcharge that we impose in cases where the information sought is especially difficult to obtain."

  "Be my guest!" Solo said caustically, holding out his wallet. He paused with his fingers on the thick wad of notes it contained. "Plus, I have no doubt, a healthy percentage for 'service'?"

  "Twenty," Van der Leo said calmly. "The staff have to be looked after, as you know, in this kind of business."

  "And, if I remember, still more for state tax or something…"

  "Mr. Solo!" the fat man interrupted. "You forget what a neat and tidy country it is here. In Holland all prices are net!"

  "So thank goodness for small mercies! How much?"

  "Wait'll we see now... two five and fifty percent is twelve-fifty makes seven-fifty plus two plus one equals three seven-fifty... plus twenty percent of that equals seven- fifty again... making four five. A straight four thousand five hundred floris, thank you, Mr. Solo."

  "About thirteen hundred dollars," Solo said as he counted notes into the fat palm. "It'd better be good!"

  "Always trust an old friend," Van der Lee said piously, stuffing the money into his hip pocket. "If you'd like to leave via the hotel, it would probably attract less attention in the long run. Annike will show you the way; she's going out anyway."

  "Okay then," the agent said. "See you midnight. What way do I come in?"

  "The way you came today. There'll likely be plenty of boyos about on Sint Pietersstraat, and you'll be able to get down to the towpath all right. Just make sure nobody actually sees you go in the archway, that's all."

  "Okay," Solo said again. "See you."

  He followed the girl into a short passageway and then through two steel doors. In the space between the doors, a tall man with long sideburns and a dark moustache sat at a table cleaning a Walther PPK with a brown butt. Solo recognized the bodyguard Manuel O'Rourke (as he was then) had had in Rio. "Hello, Raoul," he said as he passed. "Nice to see you again."

  The tall man looked up and bowed gravely from the waist. He said nothing.

  Beyond the second steel door was a tiny office. And outside the office was the foyer of a typical commercial hotel—full of brown paint, out of date brochures and posters, dispirited artificial flowers and faded notices covered in food stains. Through a door at one side they could hear the brawling hubbub of a crowded bar.

  Once they were in the street, the girl took Solo's arm. "I like dark men for a change," she said. "It's not many people he sees personally, you know. What do you do, Mr. Solo?"

  The agent grinned. "Let's say," he mused, "that if Mynheer van der Lee sells information, then I acquire the same commodity—preferably without paying for it!"

  "You are a detective?"

  "No—just an information gatherer. There's one item you could supply, Annike."

  "Certainly," the girl said, pressing the taut curves of her young body against him as they walked. "If I can. What do you want to know?"

  "I want to know what time you have to be back."

  "Back with Hendrik? Why, not until midnight. I'm off- duly now."

  Solo looked down into her flushed face. There was a mischievous twinkle in the blue eyes, a mocking tilt to her mouth. "That's far too much of a coincidence to be passed up," he said. "Are clients permitted to date the staff?"

  "I see no objection if the staff is not on duty," Annike said demurely.

  "Fine! Will you come with me then? We'll paint the town red until midnight—when, like all princesses, you'll have to leave the ball. But until then, we'll have a ball! What do you say?"

  "I should like that very much," the girl said.

  "Swell. Where shall we go then? And I warn you, I may make a pass!"

  "I seldom wear glasses," Annike laughed. "Would you like to go to Scheveningen? It's only two miles. We can walk by the sea—and I'd like to try the food at the Bali. I'm crazy about Indonesian food. We could have an early dinner and go to one of the shows, yes?"

  "That would be fine. Let's grab a cab right away."

  "My car is here," the girl
said, stopping beside a Fiat 850 coupe in an unusual shade of mustard yellow, which was parked by the sidewalk. "But where are you staying? Do you have a topcoat? There will be a wind—and it gets cold after dark, you know."

  "You're so right!" Solo said. "My hotel is only a couple of blocks away. If you don't mind making a detour, I'll run upstairs and get one while you wait."

  He left the girl, looking remarkably voluptuous despite her slender build, in the chic little fastback while he took the elevator to his room.

  He washed his hands and face, splashed Lanvin's Monsieur Figaro on his forehead and his wrists, combed his hair, dabbed himself dry with a towel and, after a final look in the glass, went into the bedroom to fetch his coat from the closet.

  At first he thought it was gone. Then he realized it had slipped off the hanger and was lying in a crumpled heap on top of his shoes on the floor. With an exclamation of annoyance, he leaned in to pick it up.

  The nylon stocking filled with wet sand made no noise as it swung down to meet the nape of his neck.

  The floor cracked open into an abyss of darkness, and Solo fell through and went on down.

  Chapter 7

  Visitors From The East

  THE SMALL MAN with the gray crewcut paid off his cab in front of a row of seedy brownstones a block from the East River. He looked sharply once in each direction and crossed the sidewalk to a tailor's shop in the middle of the row. An erect man with a firm, springy step, he walked in his belted gabardine raincoat and his pepper-and-salt suit as though he would be more at home in a uniform. He opened the door of the shop and went in.

  Behind the crumbling neighborhood façade, the steel and glass and concrete fortress of U.N.C.L.E.'s headquarters lay hidden––buttressed additionally, like a row of volumes between bookends, by a public garage at one extremity of the block and a restaurant and key club at the other. There were four entrances to the place (and rumor postulated a fifth, known only to Alexander Waverly, though nobody had ever heard him refer to it). The one used the most was for the Command's clerical and technical staff. It was gained through the washrooms of the garage. The entrance used by official visitors was at the far end of the block, through a suite of offices above the key club. There was a water gate—a subterranean channel cut through to the basement level from the East River. And the last entrance was that reserved for U.N.C.L.E.'s Enforcement Officers, the cream of the Command's operatives. It was through the tailor shop of Del Florio in the middle of the block.