The Velvet Voice Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  Slate and April both slowly raised their hands.

  "Aha!" the guide said. "Did you think you would not be missed from the tour? Come down from there."

  Slate jumped to the floor and held up both hands to help April down. Then both re-elevated their hands.

  Pedro raised his voice to shout, "Hey! Anybody around?"

  He backed into the hall and gestured with his gun for April and Slate to follow. As they stepped into the hall, Moreno and Consuela emerged from the room next door. The hairy man with the whip peered out, but Moreno gestured him to go back inside and supervise his charges. The skull-faced man looked from his office down the hall, then came over to see what was going on.

  "What is this, Pedro?" Moreno demanded.

  "These two took the visitor's tour," the guide said. "They disappeared en route, so I turned the tour over to Juan and came looking for them. I caught them in the storeroom standing on a box, looking through the grill into the room you just came from."

  Moreno looked at the captives with narrowed eyes. "Who are you people?"

  "Just vacationing tourists," Slate said disarmingly. "My name is Mark Slate and this is Miss April Dancer. We didn't realize this building was off-limits."

  "Why were you spying on me?"

  "Who's spying?" Slate inquired.

  "We don't even know who you are. We were just looking around."

  "You had to stand on a box and peek through a ventilator grill to do it?" the skull-faced man asked.

  "We're the nosy type," Slate told him.

  Moreno said, "Keep them covered," and stepped behind Slate.

  Removing the camera slung from Slate's shoulder, Moreno handed it to the skull-faced man. Then he ran his hands over Slate's body in an expert frisk. His face tightened when he glanced at the gun he found in a belt holster.

  "Only one organization uses guns such as this," he said in his rumbling voice. "They are U.N.C.L.E. agents!"

  Consuelo Cortez emitted a little gasp. The magnified eyes of the skull-faced man glared from behind their thick glasses. Only Pedro failed to change expression. His eyes were already as flat and cold as they could get.

  April said to Slate, "You could have left that at home. I didn't bring anything to identify me."

  "Quiet!" Moreno snapped at her.

  He lifted the straw bag from April's raised hand, opened it and examined the contents. Finding nothing in it which looked like a weapon, he tossed it to Consuelo.

  April had hoped that her comment about having nothing with her to identify her as an U.N.C.L.E. agent would cause Moreno to examine her bag contents only cursorily. Actually it was loaded with weapons and tools, but they were all disguised as items normally found in any woman's purse.

  In addition to her communicator fountain pen, there was a lipstick armed with a hypodermic syringe which could inject either knockout drops or truth serum, a cigarette lighter which doubled as a cutting torch, a rattail comb made of surgical steel with a tail which served as a stiletto, a compact which converted its mirror to a transistorized TV screen when the proper button was pressed, a perfume atomizer which dispensed tear gas, a package of chewing gum which could be activated by saliva into a plastique explosive, and a package of mints which could convert a glass of water into a smoke pot. There was also the transistorized bug-detector earplug, but it was too small for Moreno to notice. He had been looking primarily for weapons.

  "Search her," Moreno ordered Consuelo.

  The woman slipped the strap of the straw bag over one shoulder in order to leave her hands free and stepped behind April. Carefully she ran her hands over the girl agent's body.

  There were still three devices on April's person, but Consuelo failed to detect any of them. This wasn't surprising, since their true purpose was also disguised. April's diamond earrings were really, glass cutters capable of cutting through safety glass. One of her hairpins was of spring steel, one prong being a thin cutting edge, the other a lockpick. From her charm bracelet hung a variety of bugging devices.

  "She is unarmed," Consuela said, stepping back.

  "You two may put your hands down," Moreno said. "Follow me." He turned to Pedro and said sharply, "Keep them covered. U.N.C.L.E. agents are tricky."

  April and Slate lowered their arms. Moreno started up the hall with Consuela at his side. Pedro gestured with his gun for the two captives to follow and fell in behind them.

  The man with the skull-like face trailed along at the end of the column.

  FIVE

  THE TRAP

  Sancho Moreno led the way to a room beyond the one where the mentally retarded writers slaved at turning out singing commercials. Inside Slate and April discovered it was a small, windowless TV viewing room. Several rows of straight chairs were lined up before a television screen.

  April and Slate were forced to sit in the two center chairs of the front row, April to Slate's right, and were bound tightly to the chairs. First their wrists were tied together in front of them, then their ankles were tied. Their ankles were lashed to the lower rungs of the chairs and ropes were run around their bodies and tightly knotted behind the chair backs, so that they couldn't even move.

  Sancho Moreno tied Slate, while the skull-faced man tended to April. Moreno rechecked April's knots, however, apparently trusting no one's efficiency but his own. Satisfied that both were completely immobilized, he grinned down at them savagely.

  "Do you two have any idea of what is in store for you?" he inquired with relish.

  Neither deigned to reply.

  "This is a soundproof room," Moreno said. "I am going to give you a treat. I am going to let you watch television."

  Slate and April merely looked at him expressionlessly and said nothing.

  "Lots and lots of television," Moreno said. "For eight hours, maybe more. Maybe twelve, perhaps even twenty-four. But I suspect eight will be enough. By then you should both be quite mad."

  Mark Slate hiked his eyebrows.

  "TV may be a vast wasteland, but I never heard of it driving anyone mad."

  "You haven't seen and heard this broadcast," Moreno said with a guttural chuckle. "Happy viewing, U.N.C.L.E. agents."

  He shooed the others from the room, went over to the television set and adjusted a couple of dials. April noted that it contained a number of dials not normally found on television sets.

  When he had made the adjustments he wanted, Moreno switched on the set, walked out and closed the door behind him. They heard a key turn in the lock.

  It took a few moments for the television set to warm up. When it did, Consuelo Cortez's seductive figure appeared on the screen.

  "Munch, munch, munch---crunch, crunch, crunch," the woman sang in her husky, hypnotic voice. "Eat 'em singly or by the bunch."

  The sound was turned to nearly earsplitting volume. April had to shout to make herself heard above it.

  "Don't look at it!" she yelled. "Close your eyes!"

  She turned her head sidewise long enough to make sure Slate had heard her. When she saw his eyes squeezed tightly shut, she closed her own.

  The woman only sang it three times, April thought. They ought to be able to bear that, even at the deafening volume. She wondered what was in store for them after the commercial was over.

  She found out when the jingle ended for the third time. In the momentary silence which followed, April sighed with relief and opened her eyes. Consuelo's black-clad figure was just forming on the screen again.

  "Munch, munch, munch," the hypnotic voice rolled from the speaker. "Crunch, crunch, crunch. Eat 'em singly or by the bunch."

  Mark Slate was staring at the screen in horror.

  "Good God!" he shouted above the singing commercial. "We're going to have to listen to that over and over for eight hours!"

  They would both be driven mad, April thought with despair. Stark, raving mad.

  Then she had an idea born of desperation.

  "Sing!" she yelled at Slate. "If we close our eyes and sing at the tops
of our voices, maybe we can drown it out."

  He looked at her. "Sing what?" he yelled back.

  "On the Road to Mandalay!" she shouted. "That's a good loud one."

  Slate closed his eyes and boomed out in his rich baritone:

  "On the road to Mandalay, where the flying fishes play---"

  Squeezing her own eyes shut, April joined in with her contralto:

  "And the sun comes up like thunder out of China 'cross the bay!"

  It was working. The singing commercial made a discordant noise in the background, but April was able to make out neither the words nor the melody. When they reached the end of the ballad, they started over.

  The trouble was that they weren't on tape, like the singing commercial. Halfway through the third rendition, April began to realize her vocal chords were becoming tired. She made it through three more renditions before it gave out completely.

  Her voice came out in a squeak on the sixth: "---Take me back to Mandalay---"

  She gave up, and a moment later Slate's voice failed too.

  "Dip 'em, then lip 'em and gobble 'em down," the speaker blared. "Lito's Fritos are the best in town."

  April opened her eyes to stare hopelessly at Slate, and found him gazing at her with equal desperation.

  "What now?" he shouted in a cracked voice.

  April thought furiously and suddenly had another idea. She experimented by pressing her feet to the floor and giving a little lurch to the right. She was gratified to feel the chair legs move slightly. She did it again and felt them move another inch.

  It took her a full fifteen minutes to maneuver the chair around until it was facing Slate's from about two feet away. All the time the blaring singing commercial kept tearing at her brain.

  Mark Slate had been watching her without understanding. But when she began to rock her chair forward and backward, an expression of enlightenment grew on his face.

  The chair rocked a little farther backward on its hind legs each time April pressed her feet to the floor and shoved downward. It swung a little farther forward on its front legs each time she released the pressure and flung her body forward. Finally she reached the point where, for a heart-stopping moment, she was afraid the chair was going to topple over backward. But after precariously balancing on its hind legs, it tipped forward again and the front legs hit the floor.

  She strained forward, the chair tilted onto its front legs, balanced for what seemed an interminable period, then slowly tipped over forward. April fell to her knees with her head in Slate's lap.

  "It's just above the right ear!" she shouted over the din of Consuelo's jingle.

  One of Mark Slate's bound hands felt for and located the spring steel hairpin. A moment later he had sliced through his wrist bonds and had cut the rope binding the upper part of his body to the chair back. He took April Dancer by the shoulders and gently righted her chair before cutting his leg bonds.

  Then he ran over and turned off the TV set.

  "Whew!" he said, pressing the heels of his palms against his ears.

  "Unscramble your brains on your time," April said. "Cut me loose."

  Slate cut her loose. April stood up and rubbed the circulation back into her arms and legs. Then she looked into his face searchingly.

  "That commercial didn't get to you, did it?" she asked. "You're not going to start going around in a daze again, are you?"

  "I didn't watch her," Slate said.

  "I don't think her hypnotism works unless you watch her."

  He handed her back her hairpin. Before tucking it back into her hair, April went over and tried the door. As she had suspected, it was locked.

  Kneeling, she used the picklock side of the hairpin on the lock. It opened on the first try. Cautiously she cracked the door open about an inch.

  When she saw no one in the hall, she rose to her feet, stuck the hairpin back into her hair and pulled the door the rest of the way open.

  Immediately across the hall was the open door to a small office. No one was in it, but April spotted her straw bag lying on the desk.

  It must be Consuela's office, she thought. Quickly she crossed to re-cover the bag, then rejoined Slate in the hallway.

  "Now if I could only get back my U.N.C.L.E. gun," Slate said.

  "Moreno handed it to the man with the thick glasses. Maybe it's in his office."

  Slate glanced that way, then in the other direction. The building exit at the opposite end of the hall from the way they had entered was only a few yards away, whereas they would have to traverse nearly the full length of the hall to the skull-faced man's office.

  "We'd better not press our luck," Slate said. "Let's get out of here."

  They moved toward the exit from the building. Just before it was a closed door over which a lighted red sign said: RECORDING. DO NOT OPEN DOOR.

  Pausing, April whispered, "Do you believe in signs?"

  With a resigned shrug Mark Slate moved over to the door, turned the knob and cracked it open an inch. Putting an eye to the crack, he saw nothing but a blank sheet of black no more than three feet in front of him. After a moment he realized it was a screen before the door to block light from the hallway in case anyone opened the door despite the warning sign.

  Motioning to April, he opened the door far enough to slip inside. A moment later April joined him and let the door ease closed behind her.

  The screen, which consisted of a piece of plywood painted black, was about six feet wide and went clear to the ceiling. They could hear a murmur of voices in the room beyond it.

  Slate peered around the right edge of the screen, April thrust her head around the left side. She immediately jerked it back when she saw Consuelo Cortez standing at the far side of the room directly facing her.

  Then she realized that with the bright floodlights shining in Consuela's eyes, the woman couldn't possibly see back to the dimness at this end of the room. Cautiously she peeked around the edge of the screen again.

  Consuelo was dressed in the same black, low-cut gown she had worn in the Lito's Fritos commercial.

  She stood on a small, glaringly lighted stage before a white backdrop.

  Between the stage and April, with their backs to April and Slate, there was a full camera and recording crew. A camera man sat on the high seat of his camera, another man was manipulating a microphone boom to place it in the exact position he wanted it above Consuelo's head. Sound and lighting engineers were adjusting their equipment. Off to one side, with a microphone before him, a man sat next to a record player.

  The heavy-shouldered Sancho Moreno sat in a canvas-backed chair on whose back was lettered: Director.

  "That went pretty easy," Moreno said. "You feel up to doing the other one, Consuela?"

  The woman shrugged her shapely shoulders. "We might as well get it over with."

  "Okay," Moreno called. "We're going to shoot the last one. Put in your earplugs."

  The cameraman stuffed plugs into his ears. "All set," he called.

  "Now the rest of you don't look at her," Moreno cautioned. "Lights and sound ready?"

  The sound engineer and the lighting engineer indicated they were set.

  Moreno pointed to the man before the record player. "Music!"

  The man flicked a switch. "Action, camera!"

  Consuelo Cortez's expressionless face formed an intimate, seductive smile. As the record player began to emit a jarring but compelling tune, she began to sing.

  To April the jingle was even more revolting than the one about Lito's Fritos, yet at the same time it was more hypnotic.

  Everybody's chewin' one, chewin' one, chewin' one;

  Everybody's chewin' an Upsa-Daisy.

  From tiny tots to grownups

  They gulp' em down like crazy.

  As with the previous commercial, Consuelo sang it three times, the volume of her voice rising and the insistence of her tone increasing each time. Halfway through the second verse April pulled in her head and covered her ears with her palms.r />
  After a time she tested by taking her palms from her ears. There was blessed silence. Then she heard Sancho Moreno say, "Print it."

  She turned toward Mark Slate.

  He still had his head poked around the corner. She lightly touched his shoulder, when he failed to respond, poked it harder.

  Pulling back his head with a start, he looked around at her. She gestured toward the door. Nodding, he cracked it open and set his eye to the crack for a moment. Then he pushed it wider and stepped into the hall. April Dancer followed.

  The skull-faced man must have been heading for the recording studio, walking case to the wall. Slate hadn't spotted him when he peered out, because the door opened outward and the hinges were on that side.

  The open door blocked April and Slate's view of him until April had pushed it closed behind her.

  Slate and the skull-faced man simultaneously recovered from their surprise. As the man's hand shot beneath his coat, Slate reached out, grabbed the lapel of his coat and jerked him off balance. Mark Slate's right foot connected with his knee, the man's feet shot out from under him and he landed heavily on hands and knees. The edge of Slate's palm slashed down on the back of his neck and he collapsed on his face.

  Slate stooped, felt at the man's waist and straightened with his U.N.C.L.E. gun in his hand and a pleased expression on his face.

  "Want to check his office for the camera?" April whispered.

  Slate whispered back, "As I mentioned before, let's not press our luck."

  Putting away the gun, he headed for the exit they had originally been making for when sidetracked by the recording studio sign. April hurried after him.

  When they let themselves out and eased the door shut behind them, only one person was in sight. Pedro Martinez, their tour guide, was just entering the building housing the broadcasting studio. His back was to them and he didn't glance around.

  "We'll probably have to fight our way past the gate guard," Slate said.

  "Why bother?" April asked, pointing to the ten-foot-high steel mesh fence no more than twenty feet away.