The Ugly Man Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  “No more miserable than the mood I’m in,” Solo replied.

  A look of concern crossed Illya’s face. “Did you manage to catch any sleep last night?”

  “No. All I could think about was Elisabeth. Illya, I just can’t swallow the notion that she’s no longer loyal.”

  With a significant glance at the cabbie, Illya murmured, “Of course it is possible that it may be happening entirely against her will.”

  Painfully Solo recalled Elisabeth’s lovely face, remembered with special poignancy their last date.

  First they went to a musical at the Winter Garden. They finished the evening with a sumptuous Italian meal at a little place in the East Sixties. The chef, a burly, pink-cheeked Neapolitan, was a special friend of Elisabeth’s. The chef had grown up in the hills not far from the small mountain village in Italy where Elisabeth’s father had been born. Her mother had been a British mannequin whom her father had met while studying civil engineering in London.

  Elisabeth was always welcome in the chef’s kitchen, so she sailed to the spice cabinets and doctored the chicken cacciatore in her own special way. Even the chef applauded when he tasted it, and brought a complimentary bottle of good red wine to demonstrate his approval.

  The evening ended with one of those wonderfully hokey carriage trips through the Park. Although she was a top professional, Elisabeth allowed that she loved being a helpless romantic in her off hours. Solo held her and kissed her and they promised, quite seriously, to see one another as often as possible.

  Their separate careers, and separate assignments, prevented it. But Napoleon Solo still classified Elisabeth as one of a very, very few girls who might, just might have succeeded in making him consider matrimony one of these days.

  The taxi squealed to a slippery stop in front of the terminal. Rationalizing Elisabeth’s potential guilt away didn’t alter the fact that they were assigned to spy on a girl to whom he’d been quite close.

  “I say, what a couple of deadpans,” a familiar voice called as they left the cab. A young man in a tweed topcoat straight from Saville Row approached. “Considering your gloomy expressions, I’d say the worst has happened. Waverly sack you, did he?”

  “Not funny, Mark,” said Illya. “What are you doing here?”

  Mark Slate hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Just got in from Madrid. Cleared up that bit of mess with the bullfighter who was stealing secrets from the general’s daughter at the American air base. April should be here somewhere---“

  Slate turned, just as an intensely pretty, dark-haired girl in a dark green traveling suit emerged through glass doors. Both Solo and Illya said hello to their fellow agent, April Dancer. The girl noted their luggage.

  “Holiday or business?” she asked.

  “We’re going to the Eternal City,” Napoleon Solo answered. “Eight o’clock on the Air Roma flight.”

  April’s expression grew serious. “The peace conference? Oh, of course I shouldn’t ask. Well, I hope you have good luck. That’s a dangerous situation shaping up there.”

  “Um, yes, sticky,” murmured Mark. He waved. “Till we meet, and all that.”

  Illya Kuryakin walked to the glass doors. Solo followed, lighting a cigarette. Inside the busy building voices with a variety of accents announced flights over loudspeakers. The lights of the terminal glared in Solo’s eyes. He threw his cigarette into an urn, deciding that this whole assignment was jinxed.

  He had been flattered, as always, when Alexander Waverly assigned him to a top priority matter. Mr. Waverly did not give that sort of recognition lightly. But this was one time, Solo thought, when he should have spoke up and refused.

  To have to play games with Elisabeth was an idea he disliked intensely. The only reason he’d accepted the assignment at all was because he understood full well the implications of THRUSH’s latest apparent scientific breakthrough.

  Sensing his friend’s emotional turmoil, Illya kept his voice low. “The Air Roma check-in station is just down the concourse, Napoleon. I do believe I see Elisabeth waiting at one of the desks. Yes, right down there. Smile, now. Be charming.”

  “I feel about as charming as a misanthrope with a liver condition.”

  The agents walked along the busy concourse. They had only gone half the distance to the large Air Roma check-in lounge when Elisabeth d’Angelo completed her turn and was waved through the chrome-railed aisle into the lounge proper by the smiling man at the desk.

  Elisabeth acted as though she was in a hurry. She clutched the tiny pillbox hat to her head with one hand, carried a small overnight case in the other. She wore a smartly tailored suit which did justice to her figure. As Solo watched her cross the lounge, he noticed that a white dress scarf wrapped around her throat and thrust down into the V neck of her jacket.

  Two things struck him---a memory of the peculiar double marks on Ffolkes-Pryce throat, and an awareness that although Elisabeth seemed to be hurrying at first glance, she was not in fact moving very rapidly across the terrazzo floor. Her step was uncertain, faltering. Several other passengers in the lounge looked up and lifted their eyebrows.

  “She walks like she’s drugged,” Solo whispered.

  Illya said, “And she’s going aboard with someone. I swear I’ve seen that ugly face before.”

  Solo jerked himself back to reality. He saw Elisabeth---rather, the back of her---over by the entrance to the covered walkway which extended out to the boarding hatch of the big Air Roma jet parked on the concrete in the rain. Just beyond Elisabeth, smiling and bowing to her in greeting, was a man of large, rangy build. He smiled a great flashing white smile from positively the ugliest face Napoleon Solo had ever seen.

  The man’s hair was dark, neatly combed and worn long, down about his ears and neck. He carried a black topcoat over his arm. He wore a fawn gray blazer, dark slacks, white silk shirt with a colorful ascot. The deeply-tanned man exuded an air of wealth.

  But the most startling feature was his face---a square, long-jawed face. In the center a huge Cyrano nose thrust out, looking as though it had been broken several times and had not quite knit straight. His eyes were dark, intense. His brows hung out over them like cliffs of thick hair. And his eyes were strangely powerful.

  The man took Elisabeth’s travel case from her with a courtly little bow. While he did this, his eyes swept the lounge, searching. They lit on Solo and Illya a moment. Solo thought the man stiffened. Otherwise there was no sign of recognition.

  The man bent down from his impressive height to whisper something in Elisabeth’s ear. They vanished down inside the covered boarding walk.

  Like the after-image of a snuffed out candle, the man’s misshapen features danced in Solo’s mind. That image tantalized him.

  As Illya had suggested, the face was more than a familiar. But Solo couldn’t place it. The face, the man’s presence, his possessive attitude toward Elisabeth filled Solo with a sense of foreboding, though. He pounded his brains, trying to remember---

  An ugly face. An ugly face and a brilliant smile. A face which, for all its vague echoes of brutality, nevertheless exuded a certain power or charm---where had he seen it?

  “Gentlemen?” inquired a vice in accented English. “Your tickets?”

  Solo hardly heard the comments of the gateman as he and Illya checked through. He kept staring at the plate glass, out to the big silver machine crouched on the concrete. The plane had a stylized decoration on its nose---twin boys in togas, with a wolf hovering in the background.

  Romulus and Remus, the mythological twins who had founded the city of Rome. Somehow the painted wolf symbol reminded Solo of the man who had taken Elisabeth’s elbow. Savage, primitive, dangerous---

  “I’m still trying to remember who he is,” Illya said as they proceeded across the lounge. “I’m sure I have seen his picture in the news-magazines recently.”

  “A European,” Solo said. “Very wealthy. The playboy bit. But there’s more. Nobility?”

  The snap of Ill
ya’s fingers turned heads. The racing driver. A millionaire many times over. His father came from the part of Europe that used to be Transylvania. Made a fortune in hides and fats and, some said, munitions. Count Beladrac.”

  Now it fell in place. “Lugo Beladrac. Count-em-up Lugo, the gossip columns call him.” His state of mind took another turn for the worse.

  The Count was a Grand Prix car owner and driver who took terrible chances to win. He had a reputation for getting drunk in public and totaling up, in a loud voice, the number of drivers he’d forced off the tracks of the Continent.

  Count-em-up was also a reference to Beladrac’s legendary luck with women. Supposedly they rained from the skies into his lap.

  His driving abilities, his money, and oddly enough, his sinister ugliness attracted women by the dozen. Beladrac had a reputation for throwing girl friends away as another man would discard a banana peel. How had Elisabeth gotten involved with him?

  As they walked toward the boarding ramp Illya remarked, “You know, Napoleon, I recall something else now. Once, oh, three or four years ago, there was an affair in Hungary---an informer died before he could tell very much, but he intimated that Beladrac was one of THRUSH’s top agents in Europe. Because Thrush wished to protect Beladrac’s cover---playboy and so forth---he was only called in for very important assignments.

  An unpleasant little knot formed in Solo’s stomach. “I remember that too. Nothing else ever surfaced concerning Beladrac. Our uncle didn’t pay much further attention because of the lack of follow-up proof. Maybe they really were saving the count for something important. Something like---Elisabeth.”

  Illya shrugged. “A man is innocent until proven guilty. But let’s be on guard, all the same. Frankly I wouldn’t mind a chance to smash him. That ugly mug repels me.”

  “I wish it did the same for Elisabeth.” Solo said as they moved along the covered ramp. Overhead the rain drummed dismally. “Unfortunately it doesn’t look that way.”

  THREE

  A buxom stewardess with Air Roma wings on her blouse greeted them at the entrance to the aircraft. Glancing at their tickets, she pointed. “The first class section, immediately inside. Numbers eight and ten on your right.”

  The agents ducked under the low door and turned down the aisle, Solo leading. He saw that Elisabeth had already taken her place next to a window on the starboard side. Count Lugo Beladrac was standing in the aisle, pulling down a blanket from the rack above the seats. The combination of rain outside and air whistling through the interior ventilators made the cabin quite chilly.

  “Excuse me,” Solo said pointedly, blocked by the count in the aisle.

  Beladrac’s massive head swung around. His eyes, deep-set dark-brown, held a commanding intensity. But they looked out on the rest of the world as though it were made of dung: “In a moment, in a moment, my man. Wait your turn.” Beladrac spoke accented English.

  “While you’re doing the porter’s chores,” Solo said with a forced grin, “I’ll carry on with the social amenities. Excuse me?”

  He pushed Beladrac’s left elbow up out of the way, ducked under it and dropped into the seat alongside Elisabeth. Her amber eyes turned toward him, beautiful but curiously dull. At last she recognized him.

  “Napoleon! What on earth---?”

  “Elisabeth!” It was excruciating for Solo to keep the surprised tone in his voce, the playful smile on his face. Up close, she looked fatigued, hollow eyed. She had lost considerable weight. He glanced at the white scarf high around her throat and suppressed a shudder. “I thought I saw you back there in the boarding area. I was right. What a treat!”

  Down near Elisabeth’s crossed ankles, Solo noticed her little travel case. Lined with steel, no doubt. And carefully, secretly compartmentalized to contain the tapes and microfilm spools she was carrying to the Mid-Eastern Peace Conference. Its lock looked flimsy, but Solo recognized the particular patina of the brass plating and the lock’s heart shape. Capable of being opened only by a three-prong key, the incredibly durable cases were frequently carried by female U.N.C.L.E. couriers.

  Solo glanced back to Elisabeth’s face, ignoring Beladrac’s loud breathing at his elbow. “I assume you’re on business, Elisabeth?” She fought back a yawn. “A little errand for that relative---“ She blinked. He’d never seen her less quick. “My uncle---“

  A nod from Solo. “Illya and I are heading east from Rome.”

  Solo fabricated that bit because he felt it would be imprudent to give Elisabeth’s traveling companion any information. He needn’t have worried. The traveling companion was more interested in giving him information, as Solo discovered when a powerful hand clamped down on his shoulder.

  “Your American lack of good manners is only exceeded by your other offensive qualities, signor. Be so good as to vacate my seat.”

  The count’s hand squeezed down hard on Solo’s shoulder, increasing the pressure. Pain sprang up along Solo’s arm as he tapped the hairy back of the count’s hand with his index finger. “Be so good as to get your paw off my suit. The press isn’t that permanent, you know.”

  The count kept the pressure on for another second or so. The pain got really bad. Solo’s temper reddened to the point where he was ready to strike out, smash that immensely ugly face. Then, abruptly, Beladrac let go.

  That huge white smile, incongruous in the ugly face, flopped into place. Beladrac took off his expensive Tyrolean hat and turned the brim in his fingers, staring right past Solo at Elisabeth:

  “Out of courtesy to you, darling, we won’t have a scene. I take it these clods are friends?”

  “Yes, we know each other,” Elisabeth faltered. “Lugo, this is Napoleon Solo. That’s Illya Kuryakin across the aisle. This is Count Lugo Beladrac, my---my fiancé.”

  Solo tried to keep his face a blank, but his stomach was churning. “Well Elisabeth. I didn’t know you believed in short engagements. Or do you?” He indicated her left hand. The spot where normally a ring would be worn was bare.

  Count Beladrac laughed. “We plan to take care of the formalities when Elisabeth concludes her dreary business in Rome. She won’t tell me what it is, apart from some vague references to governmental work. For my part, I am just as happy not to know. Bourgeois pursuits bore me. I intend to take Elisabeth off to my villa. There she will select her own engagement ring stone from the jewel chest which has belonged to the Beladrac family for seven centuries. I suppose you cannot comprehend such a procedure, can you signor? The American five-and-ten-cent-store mentality at work---“

  That tore it. Solo rocketed up out of the seat, his fist balling. Illya leaped into the aisle. The stewardess, approaching with a sheaf of gold-embossed menus, put a hand to her throat and gasped.

  Elisabeth threw off her strange lethargy and caught Solo’s hand, restraining it. Count Beladrac’s face was quite close to Solo’s, the ugly countenance lit by a malicious expression which acknowledged a new, secret understanding between them.

  Elisabeth said in a strained voice: “Please, Napoleon. Please. For my sake, don’t---“

  Fighting for control, Solo shrugged. “Okay. You must have met him in a zoo, but---“

  Beladrac chuckled again. “On the contrary, Elisabeth drives a little sports car, you know. I was spending some time with guests on Long Island. We met at a dreadfully boring little rally. Does that satisfy your craving for gossip, Mr.—ah---Solo? “

  And Beladrac stared him down with a stare that said, I know who you are. Or was Solo misinterpreting?

  Angered, not a little displeased with himself, Solo wondered whether Beladrac was merely a boor whom Elisabeth, in paradoxical feminine fashion, had fallen for, or whether there was some other, more sinister connection. He sighed, forced another smile, lifted himself from Beladrac’s seat.

  Beladrac stepped forward to claim it. Solo turned his back and bent over Elisabeth. He patted her cheek, managing to shield his movements from the count as he hooked his little finger under the edge of her scarf and
lifted it for the shortest part of a second. He murmured something polite and inane to cover the gesture---

  There were no marks on Elisabeth’s neck.

  Elisabeth didn’t even notice his little stratagem because her senses were so dulled. Solo saw that in her eyes, in the way she blinked once and slowly pushed her pink mouth into a smile. “Napoleon, it’s kind of you---I don’t know what to say, except---“ Lost, she faltered, stopped.

  “Have a nice flight, Elisabeth.” Solo drew his hand away.

  Beladrac flashed him another glare. “We shall, if you don’t force further conversation on us.”

  With the smell of danger rising in his nostrils, Solo crawled across Illya’s knees and dropped into the seat beside the window.

  Count Beladrac hitched himself around in his seat. He faced Elisabeth, so that his back shielded her from the agents across the aisle. The stewardess walked through, checking on fastened seatbelts. The hatchways slammed shut. The boarding ramp telescoped away from the side of the huge four-engine jet. Rain beat on the wings. The pilot started the engines one at a time.

  The Air Roma plane began to taxi. The noise level had increased to the point where Solo felt safe whispering to Illya: “Something’s wrong with her, right enough. Very wrong.”

  Across the aisle, the count burst out with a laugh. Illya said, “And the cause might be a little bird, eh?”

  “Yes, a thrush. We may have walked into some nasty trouble. I had the distinct impression that the count knows who we are and what we represent.”

  “Rome will tell.” Illya closed his eyes. “Meantime, if you will permit me---“

  And in almost seconds he dropped off to sleep.

  Solo chewed his thumb. He watched the runway slide by slowly under the wings. Within a few seconds the great plane lifted into the rain and headed out over the Atlantic.

  FOUR

  On the speaker system, the stewardess announced in Italian that the Air Roma jet would be landing in the Eternal City in just a few minutes. Captain Rizzolo had already commenced his descent, and would the ladies and gentlemen kindly refrain from smoking as soon as the multi-lingual warning signs flashed on?