Читать книгу Torch for a Dark Journey - Lionel Shapiro - Страница 11

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The lounge of the Spa Bonnar, located off the main lobby, was designed to blend with its natural setting. Walls of deep-hued oak paneling looked down on armchairs of cream-colored leather and serving tables topped by copper-tinted mirrors. The outside wall consisted of a semicircle of high french windows which provided a view of the rear garden and the floodlighted swimming pool. Beyond the pool a line of birches stood white and svelte against the night sky like a bevy of earthbound ghosts.

Simon Aleksandrow and his mistress sipped champagne at a table near the windows. They were alone in the room when Clayfield and Channing came through an archway which gave entrance from the lobby.

The Hungarian bounced to his feet, his face beaming, and extended his arms. “Ah, Mr. Clayfield, come along,” he sang out. “Do come along, and your friend of course. Indeed yes. I am happy tonight. I cannot tell you why. I am just happy. It is not a sin, eh?”

He was a short, round man, well over fifty. He had a red fleshy face, and when he smiled, which he apparently did each time he spoke, his mouth opened in a large crescent and revealed small, widely spaced teeth. His thinning hair was tinted in order to give the impression it was blond rather than gray. He was fat but not excessively so. He wore his dinner clothes well and, like so many fat men, he moved energetically and with a certain grace.

He bubbled with pleasure at the arrival of the two men. He shook Channing’s hand with enthusiasm and chuckled inexplicably as he introduced him to Madame Notta.

“What do you think?” he said. “Gutzmann has produced for me a bottle of Clicquot ’29. Beautiful wine! The cork smells like roses. I’m sure you know your wines, Mr. Channing.”

Channing said, “No.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Aleksandrow said. He called to a waiter for more glasses. “One must have the palate of a woodchopper not to enjoy this beautiful wine. Tonight I love everybody. I am happy. What can I do?”

Clayfield caught Channing’s eye and winked. He said, “I should warn you, Aleksandrow. Mr. Channing is a newspaper correspondent.”

“Fine, fine,” the other chuckled. “I was once a newspaperman myself. In Budapest. I used to sell stories to the politicians at regular rates. It was a wonderful business.” He nodded vigorously. “Really, Mr. Clayfield. It’s quite true. In the old days all the politicians in Budapest had to pay for a good article in the papers. I could tell you a wonderful story about it, but poor Giselle would be bored.”

The woman raised her delicate face and sighed, “Don’t mind me, Simon. I shall concentrate on the wine.”

“And Mr. Channing,” Aleksandrow insisted. “Don’t forget Mr. Channing. Poor Giselle! She’s bored in this lonely hotel.”

Channing lifted his glass. “It will be a pleasure.”

She smiled. Her great dark eyes peered at him over the rim of her goblet and her lips pouted sensually. As she sat deep in her chair she seemed half naked. It occurred to him that she was fully aware of her nakedness and quite content with it.

They sipped their wine and listened to Aleksandrow. He was incapable of talking without frequent laughter, as if it was mandatory on him to be a source of merriment. With each burst of laughter his tiny gray eyes darted around the company, but they remained principally on Clayfield, for the oilman seemed to enjoy him thoroughly. Giselle fingered her goblet with studied indifference, like one who has witnessed a performance too many times.

Watching them side by side, Channing felt instantly that he knew their relationship. Aleksandrow was one of that small but sharply defined group of Balkan adventurers who had made a great financial success by doing business with the Germans during the occupation and with the Allies after it. He bore the unmistakable caste mark of the group, an air of wealth and worldliness which aped but did not resemble the manner of the gay aristocrats of old Europe. The woman served as a reflection of his vanity, a deft way to display what he owned and could not otherwise advertise. He had picked her up, Channing decided, out of a chorus line, perhaps from an apprenticeship in a luxe call house, and had molded her to his specifications. This must have been years ago, for she had clearly outgrown her role as an adjunct to his personality and was now patently bored with it.

They finished the Clicquot ’29 and the waiter brought another bottle. Aleksandrow continued to talk a great deal but now Clayfield seemed less amused and he glanced several times at his watch. Finally he came to the point.

“What about Karlene, Aleksandrow? This is the second night.”

The Hungarian drew up his shoulders around his fleshy neck. “What is there to do, Mr. Clayfield? We wait.”

“We just can’t sit here and wait.”

“Why not?” Aleksandrow chuckled and glanced at the others.

Clayfield failed to appreciate the man’s humor. He said stiffly, “I don’t understand why we’ve had no report since yesterday. A man can’t disappear into thin air.”

“You have said it exactly. It is even more difficult for two men to disappear. Don’t forget, Berlau, my best man, is with him.”

Clayfield said, “I wouldn’t call your best man very good. Any man of mine would report or I’d damned well know the reason why.”

“There is nothing to worry,” the other said. “To report is sometimes difficult.”

“They’re not traveling through the jungle.”

Aleksandrow’s pale eyes opened wide. “One must have a sense of cospirazione in these matters. Cospirazione,” he chanted. “To travel through a jungle is sometimes simpler than to escape from terrorists.”

“You mean something may have happened to them.” Clayfield’s voice was taut.

“No, no, no. It is only that one must be careful. Berlau knows exactly what to do. He is very clever. I’m sure he cheats me in money all the time.” Aleksandrow chuckled and turned to his mistress. “How do you find Mr. Channing?”

“He is two-faced,” she pouted. “He looks at me but he listens to your weary business.”

“Three-faced,” said Channing. “I’m also getting a little drunk.”

“On two glasses of wine,” she murmured with a certain derision.

He responded, “On two glasses of wine and you, madame.”

“Mr. Channing is a European. Definitely a European! He has the touch,” Aleksandrow cried. He waggled a pudgy finger. “By all means have more wine but not too much of Giselle.” He appeared to draw an uneasy pleasure out of having his mistress admired, like a man turning a light on a prized painting of his collection but wary lest it be handled.

The colloquy escaped Clayfield. He said, “I’ve considered every contingency and I see no reason why they shouldn’t arrive tonight at the very latest.”

Aleksandrow nodded. “It is possible.”

“At the very latest,” Clayfield repeated in a sharp, executive manner.

The remark had a depressing effect on the Hungarian. He sat solidly in his chair, his fount of exuberance momentarily dry. Clayfield gazed into his wineglass as if intrigued by the perpetual rise of the bubbles through its slender neck.

Presently the sound of a string orchestra playing in the dining room filtered through the open windows. Aleksandrow’s hands slowly caught up the beat of the music.

“The ‘Wiener Fiakerlied,’ ” he said, turning to his mistress. “Remember, Giselle?” His little eyes blinked. She was smiling mischievously on Channing, as if she had just whispered something charming and flirtatious.

“Remember what?” she asked, hardly turning her head.

His reply was lost in a scuff of shoes on the polished floor. Moussia Karlene came through the archway and hurried toward the group. She approached so swiftly that the men had no time to get up before she had perched on the arm of an empty chair and thrust her hands in the pockets of her cardigan.

“You have no news?” she said to Clayfield. She seemed to know the answer, for she shook her head in concert with his.

“Not yet, Moussia,” he replied. He saw her lips tremble and he added quickly, “Aleksandrow thinks your father will arrive tonight.”

“It is possible, very possible,” the Hungarian broke in, but there was no conviction in his voice.

The girl’s alert, expressive eyes reviewed the little company with a trace of resentment. Her hands remained deep in her pockets. She was trying hard to retain her composure. She said, “Are you sure my father came across the frontier safely?”

Clayfield said, “You saw the telegram we received from Hof.”

“Yes. I saw it.”

“It means they’re on their way. They’ve been delayed, that’s all.”

She thought it over. Then she said, “There’s something else.”

“What else, Moussia?”

“I’m not sure——” she faltered.

Clayfield glanced knowingly at the others. “Not sure about what, Moussia?”

She said, “Just now I saw a man on the bridge. He stood there watching the hotel. It frightened me. I think—I think I know him. He is from Prague.”

Clayfield smiled. “Come now, you shouldn’t imagine all these things. You’ve spent too much time out there. Why don’t you stay and have a glass of wine with us?”

“I’d like to be sure,” she said.

“You can be sure, my dear. No one in Prague could possibly know about this place.”

“I don’t swear I recognized him. But—but——”

Clayfield said, “Please understand, Moussia. I am as anxious about the professor as you are. This sort of thing doesn’t do anybody any good.”

She nodded uncertainly, and after a moment of hesitation she got up and walked out of the lounge. They watched her go.

“By God,” Clayfield said, “I’m sorry for that girl.”

From deep in her chair Giselle murmured, “Simon, we need another bottle of wine.”

Aleksandrow snapped his fingers at the waiter and pointed to the empty wine cooler. “It’s understandable,” he said cheerfully. “The poor girl loves her father.”

Giselle said, “I once saw a play about a girl who fell in love with her father. Mon dieu, it was sad. I drank for several days.”

“That is the nice thing about you,” Aleksandrow chuckled. “There is no sadness that a good bottle of wine won’t cure.”

“I am lucky that way,” she said. “And you, Mr. Channing. You have a soft heart. I could see how you looked at the girl.”

“I was thinking,” Channing said, “what would happen if the man she saw turned out to be somebody from Prague.”

“Bravo!” Aleksandrow chortled. “Mr. Channing has a sense of cospirazione——” He looked up brightly at the two old people who had just entered the lounge. “Ah, Général Perrault et Madame. Bon soir, mon général!”

The general creaked into the room with the aid of an ebony-smooth cane and the stout arm of his wife. If he had ever commanded in the field, Channing thought, it must have been in the war of 1870. His withered body trembled as he walked, and his bald head, which bore a few wisps of white hair, might have fallen to his sagging shoulders were it not held aloft by the high, starched collar of his old-fashioned evening costume. His wife, although white-maned, defied the years. Taller than the general and extraordinarily robust, she seemed capable of carrying him if necessary.

She conducted him to a chair and lowered him into it. He sank down happily, then called out in a frail voice, “Bon soir, mes amis.”

Aleksandrow said, “How was the dinner, mon général?”

“Excellent—unbelievably good,” the old man replied. “France is France once more. One eats well.”

“Well then,” Aleksandrow said briskly, “shall we go in?”

Clayfield said, “Good idea. I’m hungry. You, Channing?”

The newspaperman got up. “I’ll join you later, if I may. I’ve got work to do.”

Aleksandrow looked up in amazement. “My dear fellow, don’t miss the dinner. The chef is a master.”

“My apologies to the chef.”

As he left the room his last glance was for Giselle. Her eyes pursued him and there was a wry twist on her full mouth.