The Game of X: A Novel of Upmanship Espionage

by Robert Sheckley

  “That’s really terribly interesting,” I said. “But couldn’t you attempt a tentative and conditional prediction as to how—relatively, of course—we are going to get out of here?”

  Guesci sighed. “Eternally the man of action! My dear Agent X, you have yet to learn the folly of vanity. But I suppose you are anxious to use your much-advertised talents.”

  I shook my head. “I just want to get Karinovsky out of here in the simplest, safest way.”

  “Your terms are mutually contradictory,” Guesci said. “In Venice, that which is simple is rarely safe; and that which is safe is much too complicated even to consider. However, I have certain hopes. An opportunity presents itself for tomorrow night It is both simple and safe. Relatively.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “A few days ago, a cousin of mine died. He will be buried tomorrow at the Cimitero Communale on San Michele.”

  I nodded. San Michele is a small rectangular island off the north side of Venice.

  “There will be a fine procession for him,” Guesci said. “I have hired the very best. My cousin was a Rossi, and his family’s name is inscribed in the Golden Book. He died while studying in Rome, but he will be buried as a Venetian.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. “But what do you plan to do with Karinovsky and me?”

  “I am going to transport you by funeral barge to the Cimitero; then I will load you onto a fishing boat bound for Seno di Tessera. Once on the mainland, the arrangements become easier.”

  “I suppose you’ll transport us there in the casket?”

  “So I planned,” Guesci said.

  “Won’t that be rather crowded for your cousin?”

  “Not at all,” Guesci said. “My cousin is in Rome, still very much alive and studying hard for his examinations. I took the family liberty of borrowing his death.”

  “Admirable,” I said.

  Guesci waved away the compliment. “It is an obvious little scheme,” he said, “but I think it just might suffice. Assuming, of course, that we get a chance to use it.”

  “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Because it is much too simple and clear-cut,” Guesci said. “Plans like that would be a certainty in Torino; but they dissolve into nothingness in Venice.”

  “I think we should give it a try.”

  “We most certainly will,” Guesci said. He sat up and took on a businesslike air. “It is settled. Tomorrow you will meet Karinovsky and proceed with him to the Quartiere Grimani. There, in front of the Casino degli Spiriti, a gondola will await you, and will transport you to the funeral barge in the Sacca della Misericordia. Later I will explain how you find the Casino. Are you armed?”

  Colonel Baker had not brought up the question of guns, perhaps fearing that I would do more harm to myself than to an enemy. But I couldn’t say this to Guesci. Instead I shook my head, smiled faintly and glanced down at my hands—the merciless hands of Agent X.

  “I didn’t think you would be,” Guesci said. “It would have been foolish of you to carry a weapon through Customs. Therefore I took the liberty of providing for you.”

  He reached into his breast pocket and took out a huge, sinister-looking automatic. He patted it tenderly on the snout and handed it to me. Somewhat gingerly, I accepted it. Engraving along the barrel told me that it was a French .22 calibre Mab, known as “Le Chasseur.”

  “Your dossier mentions your preference for a light target pistol,” Guesci said. “This was the best I could do on such short notice. It has the 7½-inch barrel to which you are accustomed, but I was unable to find your favorite hollow-point ammunition.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. Colonel Baker had really taken pains with Agent X. I wondered what my favorite brand of whiskey was, and whether I favored blondes or brunettes.

  “Personally, I would be useless with such a weapon,” Guesci said, with a self-deprecatory chuckle. “I use this.” He slipped another gun out of his waistband. It was a compact, snub-nosed, hammerless revolver.

  “This has the stopping power which an indifferent marksman like myself requires,” Guesci said. “Of course, its accuracy is no greater than one would expect from a two-inch barrel.”

  I nodded and tried to put the massive .22 into my jacket pocket. It wouldn’t fit. Finally I slid it under my belt and hoped it wouldn’t go off and shoot me in the leg. If it came to gunplay, I was going to be in trouble.

  “Where do I meet Karinovsky?” I asked.

  “In the building in the rear of the Palazzo Ducale. Karinovsky will meet you at five in the lower galleries, just past the dungeons and near the old charnel house.”

  I didn’t bother to point out that we could have met just as easily on the Wide Stairs, or in the Ca’ d’Oro. Such a meeting place would have been an insult to Guesci’s mordant genius. Those who intend to play leading roles in a funeral should very properly meet in a boneyard.

  8

  The next day, late in the afternoon, I left the Excelsior and proceeded to the Piazza San Marco. I duly admired that grotesque square, renewed my acquaintance with the pigeons, and went on to the Palazzo Ducale. I was not burdened by the huge automatic. Before leaving the hotel, I had told Guesci that the rear sight was badly misaligned. He took my word for it without hesitation, and now his handy little revolver rested in my jacket pocket.

  Within the Palazzo I joined a small party of tourists from Göteborg. They were all of a piece; heavy, slow men with cameras, their wives in flowering print dresses and sturdy shoes, with washed-out amiable faces devoid of makeup. They looked at the exhibits weightily, as if to make sure they received full esthetic value. No One would cheat these people of the spiritual goods they had paid for. Beside them, I felt weary, cynical and effete, as though these barbarians were crassly invading my ancient and defenseless homeland. I recognized this as one of the illusions that Venice casts over the visitor.

  This cunning city fostered an endless capacity for self-deception. Labyrinthine, it encouraged convoluted thinking. It was the spell of Venice that lured Guesci into expanding the maximum of guile for the minimum of effect. This would have been fatal if Forster had not shared the same weakness. Like Guesci, he mistook complication for profundity. Eternally romantic, he sought dubious modern equivalents for cloak, half-mask and stiletto, and chose a painted-backdrop city upon which to stage the gaiety and terror of his Carnival.

  Our guide led us through narrow arched passageways, across shuttered hallways and down winding stone staircases. We passed through endless high galleries. The walls were crowded with pictures, and the guide explained them all.

  The mellow afternoon light began to fail; we marched on aching feet into the past of Venice. At one point I smelled orange peels and stagnant water, and knew that the Rio di Canonica di Palazzo was flowing beneath us, and that we were crossing into the old prison. We went down rough-hewn flagstones, and the air was filled with the odor of mold and decaying mortar. My fellow tourists sniffed it with grave pleasure; it was an authentic Renaissance stench. The guide talked about Casanova and the Council of Ten.

  We came to the dungeons, and peered into them through tiny barred windows. They were illumined by naked light bulbs and we could see heavy chains stapled into the brick walls. The ossuary was at the end of the corridor, but there was still no sign of Karinovsky. I was getting nervous.

  We passed the boneyard and came to the entrance of the Torture Chamber of the Doges, a big new attraction uncovered only last year. We reached it down a narrow winding staircase and past two iron-studded doors. It was a low-ceilinged, oppressive little room, lighted with a single electric bulb. Inside, I recognized the rack and the garrote. In a corner stood the Iron Maiden, her eyes downcast. Various king-sized finger-crushers and pincers hung along the stone walls, and there was a fine collection of chains.

  Our guide explained some of the finer points of Renaissance torture. He was reaching some sort of a high point in his dissertation when the light went out.

  We were
plunged into a thick and incontinent darkness. The ladies screamed and the gentlemen swore, and the guide asked everyone to remain calm and accompany him back to the corridor. I started to move forward with the others, and felt a thick arm slide around my throat. At the same time, something bit into my side at about the location of the kidneys.

  “Remain silent,” my mugger said. “Do not struggle.”

  At moments like this, the all-purpose secret agent is supposed to flip his assailant over his shoulder, or kick him where it counts, or make some other positive move that catches the aggressor off-balance and disables him before he can drive in his knife. That is the theory. But I didn’t quite see how to bring it off. I was off-balance, gasping for breath, and I had half an inch of knife in my side. Under the circumstances, I decided to bide my time.

  The tourists trooped away. They were laughing now, and accusing the guide of staging the whole thing. I heard the first door slam shut; then, more faintly, the second. No one-was left in the torture chamber but us chickens.

  It grew extremely quiet. Some minutes passed. Then the door creaked open and heavy footsteps crossed the room.

  “You may turn him loose.”

  At that moment, the light came on. Beppo unwound his arm and withdrew his knife from my side. In front of me stood my old buddy Forster.

  “Mr. Nye,” he said, “I had predicted that we would meet again very soon; but of course, I had no idea that it would be so very soon, and in such a convenient place.”

  I had no snappy comeback for that, so I kept quiet. Forster said, “The Palazzo is closed after five; the last group of tourists is leaving now. With the doors shut, no sound can be heard in the corridor. The guide and the night watchman have received their payment. Mr. Nye, we have a long, undisturbed night ahead of us.”

  “Forster, you are fiendishly clever,” I said. “I am willing to admit that now.”

  “That is good of you. Will you spare yourself some unpleasantness and tell me where to find Karinovsky?”

  “I’d like to know where he is myself,” I said. “He was supposed to meet me here.”

  “But he did not come. Where was your secondary meeting place?”

  “We didn’t have one.”

  “Where is Karinovsky living?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Forster shook his large and impressive head. “It won’t do, Mr. Nye, it simply will not do. You have had ample time to find out where Karinovsky is. If he didn’t meet you here, then you must have arranged for another place. Tell me.”

  I shook my head unhappily.

  “I don’t like this, Nye; but you force me to use coercion.”

  I started to tell him again that I knew nothing. He cut me short.

  “You know, and you will tell,” Forster said.

  “Since you refuse to be a good sport about it, you can continue the discussion with my colleague, Dr. Jansen.”

  Forster turned away. I tried to think of something to say. Then I sensed movement behind me, and I remembered Beppo. I started to turn, but something hit me across the back of the head, and I lost consciousness.

  9

  I awoke to find myself playing a fairly important role in a vintage horror film. My wrists were manacled in front of me, and secured around my waist by a length of chain. This in turn was padlocked to a massive iron staple in the wall. Standing up, I found that I could shuffle a few feet from the floor before the chain brought me up short.

  I twisted to one side and felt my right-hand jacket pocket. Guesci’s revolver was no longer there. I hadn’t thought it would be, but I was disappointed anyhow.

  I examined the handcuffs. They were modern and efficient. My chain was heavy enough to moor a tugboat with. The padlock was new, and the staple was firmly set in the wall.

  “Are you satisfied with the preparations?” a voice asked. It was a deep, ominous voice, slightly fruity. Enter the mad perfesser.”

  I looked around, and for a moment I saw no one. At last I looked down.

  “I am Dr. Jansen,” he said.

  He was a dwarf, about two and a half feet high, with a large, finely shaped head and blue pop eyes behind heavy glasses. He wore a dark business suit with a rubber apron over it. He also wore a beard. He looked like a tiny Paul Muni playing a miniature Pasteur.

  Another man was sitting against the wall, his face almost lost in the shadows. At first I thought it was Forster, come to watch the fun. But it was only Beppo.

  “I have monitored your conversations with Mr. Forster,” Jansen told me. “My impression was of an intelligent man. I certainly hope so. You see, the effectiveness of coercion techniques—that is to say, their net efficiency in terms of time and energy expended—increases with the intelligence of the subject.”

  I had never known that. I made no comment on it now. Dr. Jansen, however, seemed used to one-sided conversations.

  “Intelligence is, of course, only one factor. Equally important is the patient’s degree of susceptibility. This, in turn, is a function of the imagination. I wonder if you know why these two qualities are of such prime importance?”

  “No, sir, I don’t know why,” 1 said.

  “Because one is not—simply—tortured. One also tortures oneself.” Dr. Jansen smiled, revealing tiny, even white teeth. I promised myself that some day I would practice painful dentistry on him.

  “Without this phenomenon,” Jansen said, “a true science of coercion would be impossible. Brute pain, mindless resistance, and senseless release—that would be the cycle without intelligence and suggestibility.”

  I told myself that it was a bluff; nobody was going to torture me, nothing was going to happen. But I couldn’t make myself believe it. The grinning dwarf with the chubby white hands was getting through to me.

  “Perhaps,” Jansen continued, “you wonder why I tell you all this?” He smiled subtly and stroked his beard. “It is in order to stimulate the feedback of suggestibility. You must know what to expect, you must brood on it. Your intelligence and your imagination must unleash the supreme torturer within your mind.”

  I nodded, not paying much attention to him. I was trying to figure out a way of getting out of here with a whole skin. I would even settle for a partial skin. Suppose I gave Forster an address for Karinovsky, any address? That would buy me some time, but not very much. And it might make things tougher.

  “My method,” Dr. Jansen was saying, “is based upon openness. I explain my theories, and I try to answer your questions. But of course, I can never answer them to your satisfaction.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because all of your questions can ultimately be reduced to one final and unanswerable problem. What you really want, Mr. Nye, is the solution to the old metaphysical problem: Why is there pain? And since I cannot answer that, the very question—following the laws of feedback—tends to potentiate anxiety and augment agony.”

  He was watching my face carefully while he spoke, probably observing my reactions. (Pupil distention, facial tic, dryness of lips, pronounced digital tremor.)

  “Do you have anything to say concerning Mr. Karinovsky?” he asked.

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “Very well,” Jansen said. “We will begin.” Without haste, he took a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket and drew them on. He turned and looked thoughtfully at the instruments hanging from the wall, finally selecting a pair of pincers about five feet long. They were black, rusted and angular, massively and clumsily jointed. They looked like something you’d use to de-joint an ox. Jansen took the handles in both hands and opened and closed them experimentally. They creaked a little, but the jaws closed with a heavy snap.

  He advanced slowly toward me with his king-size pliers extended in front of him. I cowered down against the wall, still not quite believing in what was happening. The pincer jaws opened like the ugly square mouth of a snapping turtle. The mouth was gaping wide and moving toward my face, three inches away, then two, and I tried to get away from it b
y pressing my head through the wall. When that didn’t work I tried to shout, but my throat had shut down. I was so frightened I couldn’t even faint.

  Then I heard the sound of fists on the door. Someone was shouting, “I have him, I have Karinovsky! Beppo, give me a hand!”

  Beppo sprang to his feet and hurried to the door. He opened it, took two steps up the staircase and grunted. He turned and came back with a very annoyed expression on his face. It took me a moment to realize, that someone had put a knife into his chest, driving it in clear to the black plastic handle.

  Through the heavy doors I could hear the faint crackle of gunfire in the corridor. My rescuer was being kept busy.

  Beppo tried to pull the knife out. He got it halfway before he collapsed, almost knocking Dr. Jansen over.

  Jansen ducked back hurriedly to avoid him. He was still holding the pincers, and he was a little càreless. I managed to grab the free end. I yanked, pulling Jansen off balance before he could let go. As soon as he did, I swung hard with the pincers, hitting him across the ankles and knocking him down. I stretched out and grabbed him by the apron. He screamed and tried to pull away. His apron tore, and he began crawling out of my reach.

  I reversed the pincers, pulled the handles open and stabbed out. I caught Jansen’s left biceps between the big snapping-turtle jaws, and I brought the handles together.

  Jansen’s breath whistled out of him so fast that he didn’t have time to scream. He writhed around the axis of the pincers like a gaffed salmon, his free hand tearing at the immovable iron mouth. I applied a little more pressure. His face started to turn a yellowish gray. His eyes rolled back into their sockets, and his chin was covered with spittle.

  “Give me the key!” I shouted at him. “Give me the handcuff key, or I’ll squeeze your arm into a goddamn paste.”