8

The taxi that had pulled up as soon as Anita emerged from the apartment building now swung right into the Avenue Foch, took the short arc around the Etoile, and started down the Champs-Elysées. Anita would have liked to show her enjoyment of the ride—the day was a sparkling example of autumn at its best in Paris, and the scenery had always been her favorite in the world—but she felt it would not be germane at the moment. She glanced from the window rather than face the man at her side; the trees bordering the broad boulevard were still rich with plumage; the people walking briskly along past the elegant shops seemed happy to be alive, to be in Paris, to be walking down the Champs-Elysées. The sidewalk cafés were busy despite the faint touch of chill in the air, with people sipping their hot chocolate behind the protective barrier of journals or sipping a morning bière while watching the girls. Even the police directing the heavy traffic seemed to be in good moods.

Anita, having established her mood of unease since entering the car, decided the sight-seeing had been sufficient. She turned to Sanchez, her nervousness apparent.

“Now, what did you want to tell me about yesterday?”

“All in good time,” Sanchez said and shrugged lightly. He reached over casually and took her purse before she could clutch it. “May I?” His eyes went to the driver’s back warningly, and Anita subsided. Sanchez opened the purse, riffled through its contents quickly, and closed it, handing it back. “You’ll have to pardon me, but I would not want a”—he looked at the driver’s back again and, instead of speaking, made a revolver of his thumb and forefinger, flexing the thumb—“pointing at me when I least expect it.”

“I never carry—” Anita dropped the subject as being time-consuming and without purpose. “What about yesterday?”

“As I said, all in good time.” Sanchez glanced from the window of the cab in leisurely fashion and then looked back at the girl. She was quite upset, he was pleased to see, even though she managed to hide it rather well. Still, there was no doubt. It was a good sign, he felt. He smiled at her gently. “Where would you like to go?”

“Go?” She stared at him with a combination of stupidity and fear. Sanchez continued to smile. Why did men such as Huuygens always get themselves stupid girls? Just because they were beautiful? It scarcely seemed reason enough.

“Yes, go. You’re not being kidnapped, you know. You came of your own volition.” Sanchez kept his voice low, but his tone contained a note of humor, so that the driver, should he hear, would know it was all in fun. He spread his hands expressively, offering the world. “The Louvre? Or a sidewalk café? Merely someplace where we can speak together for a few minutes undisturbed.”

“The Louvre—”

“An excellent place to talk, actually,” Sanchez said. “The Cour Carrée, or the Pavilion de l’Horloge—marvelous for privacy, although I must admit they have an echo, even for whispers.” He suddenly grinned, showing his stained and crooked teeth. “And quite appropriate, the Louvre, when you think about it. All those nudes.…”

“What do you mean?” The sudden tightening in the girl’s voice, the quick clutching of her fingers, clearly showed her growing panic. Sanchez cautioned himself not to rush things; panic in a taxi could be embarrassing.

“On the other hand,” Sanchez went on, quite as if Anita had not spoken, “possibly a bench in the park would be better. Fresh air.” He looked sideways at her, as if querying her opinion. “Or, better yet—” He smiled at the thought that had just come to him and leaned forward, giving new directions to the driver.

The cab obediently turned down the Avenue Alexandre III and pulled to the curb at the river, facing the bridge. Sanchez descended first and handed Anita down quite gallantly. She looked about with a frown as he paid the cab, almost as if the location were strange to her, and then felt his skeletal fingers on her arm. She walked beside him docilely, like an automaton; he hoped she would not collapse completely when they came to business. They came to a wide set of stone steps and descended. At the foot of the stairway a quai edged along the water’s edge, bifurcated by trees; stone benches provided resting places. The curve in the river hid the Ile de la Cité, but in the opposite direction the steel lacework of the Eiffel Tower shone against the deep blue of the sky. An artist was seated on a camp stool trying to capture its beauty; to Sanchez’s relief he glared at them for their intrusion, folded his stool and easel, and tramped away, muttering. Sanchez led their way a bit along the quay to a bench that promised privacy and made a slight bow, indicating the stone seat.

“Madame.…”

Anita sat down abruptly, clutching her purse tightly. The hard, slightly damp surface of the bench seemed to fit into the nightmare quality of the scene as she envisioned it. She turned to Sanchez, fighting for composure, trying to appear assured, ready for whatever terrible revelation he might produce.

“Señor … you promised, you said … about yesterday.…”

“Ah, yes; yesterday.”

Sanchez prayed the girl would hold out through the entire affair. It was evident he would have to choose his words with care or he was apt to have a hysterical woman on his hands. Could Rosa have used too much of the drug? Well, it was a little late to worry about that. He reached into his inner jacket pocket and brought forth an envelope, but instead of handing it over, he merely tapped it idly against the knuckles of his other hand. His eyes were fathomless.

“What I need, of course, is help,” he said quietly. They might have been discussing the requirements of a cocktail party or an investment on the bourse. For a moment Sanchez wondered if perhaps he was going about it a bit too carefully; the girl looked at him with complete blankness in her lovely eyes. He decided to plow on along that course for a while longer, at least. “Your help,” he added quietly.

The girl drew in her breath. “My help? But I thought you were going to give me your help.…” She looked at him piteously. “Please don’t play with me, señor. About yesterday—”

Sanchez came to the conclusion that he was somehow handling the thing wrongly and with time he would probably end up making a complete hash of the matter. In which case, he thought, he could imagine Duarte’s reaction. He would just have to take his chances on the girl going to pieces. He took a different tack, holding out the envelope in one thrust.

“Perhaps madame would care to see these.”

It was a statement, not a question. Sanchez watched the girl with narrowed eyes as she reached out with unsteady hands and took the packet from him. She opened the envelope and brought forth the photographs; Sanchez heard her catch her breath, saw her shocked expression. She looked sick a moment; he could imagine the thoughts fighting each other in her horrified mind, imagine her disgust and shame at the poses she was viewing. Sanchez answered the unspoken thought in a dry voice, like a professor expounding to a class.

“Much more effective,” he assured her, pleased that she had not screamed or fainted. “And if you are worried about it, madame, nothing happened that is not in the pictures. It was a temptation, I admit, but one which I managed to control.” He looked over her shoulder at the pictures; Anita blushed and tried to place her hand over them protectively. When this failed she turned them over on her lap with unsteady fingers, staring away from him, refusing to face the leer that had appeared. “They came out well, don’t you think?”

“You’re—unspeakable—”

“A simple matter of necessity, madame.”

“Necessity!” Anita swallowed. She was pale but, Sanchez was glad to see, under control. She faced him with contempt. “That is not me in those pictures. Not me. What I do not participate in consciously and willingly has no effect on me.”

Sanchez smiled sardonically. “As a philosophical concept, madame—”

“And I am not madame; I am mademoiselle.”

“As a philosophical concept, mademoiselle,” Sanchez said, in no whit disturbed by the interruption, “it is one I am forced to admire. As a practical approach, though, it has several weaknesses, especially in this particular case. You will note the pictures make you appear to be participating quite consciously. Even enjoying it, I might say. Actually,” he said a bit smugly, “the photography is rather good, if I say so myself. I mean, as far as the facial expressions are concerned; those eyes closed in passion, those fingers clutching, your mouth in one of them.…” He grinned. “You are remarkably plastic, madame, if I—”

“Mademoiselle!”

“Ah, yes. Mademoiselle. In any event, as I say, your philosophy is admirable. Unfortunately,” Sanchez said, a twinkle in his eye, “do you honestly believe that M’sieu Huuygens would be philosophical about these pictures? Or would be so incredibly naïf as to believe you were unaware of what you were doing, when one can see so clearly the, ah, disclaimer of that on your face?”

Anita paled. She bit her lip and came to a decision. “All right. How much do you want?”

“Money? Mademoiselle, you insult me.”

She started in surprise; a wild hope appeared in her eyes. “But if you don’t want money—?”

Sanchez took his time answering. He had reached the proper point; the girl was terrified but not unmanageable, sickened but not demoralized. The right words would be needed here.

“I gather, mademoiselle, that you have a certain amount of influence with M’sieu Huuygens?”

Anita’s surprise and fear were neatly combined. “I—he likes me.…”

“I am sure of it,” Sanchez said gallantly. “He would be an idiot if he did not. When I said I needed help, mademoiselle, I meant I needed help with M’sieu Huuygens.”

Anita blanched. It was evident the full purpose behind the kidnapping and the photographs was now being explained. “You mean you want me to—to influence Kek? To do what you came to ask him to do the other day?”

“Exactly.” Sanchez smiled at the quick intelligence, although he had to admit he had done everything but hire a skywriter to paint it in monstrous letters against the overhead blue. But at least she understood.

“But I couldn’t. Don’t you understand?” Anita appealed to him piteously. “Don’t you see? I never asked Kek for anything in my life; that’s the reason he likes me.…”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him this one favor this one time,” Sanchez said sadly. “Otherwise the pictures go to M’sieu Huuygens.”

Anita moaned in her throat. She stared at him, her eyes wide, her expression one of extreme alarm, almost of terror. “Oh, no! No! You wouldn’t show them to Kek!”

“I honestly would prefer not to,” Sanchez said and meant it.

“But you can’t show them to Kek,” Anita wailed. “You mustn’t show them to Kek. He would—” She bit the words to silence; they had been too terrible to say.

“‘Can’t’ and ‘mustn’t’ are just words, I’m afraid,” Sanchez observed sadly. “One can and must what one must. At times it is unpleasant, I admit, but—”

“Please! You don’t know Kek! He—he would kill me.…” Her eyes came up, brimming with tears. “I’ll pay—”

Sanchez raised a skinny hand abruptly. “Please. I want no money from you. All I want is for you to convince M’sieu Huuygens to help us on this one project. Which I am sure you can do, if you really try. After all,” he went on a bit querulously, sounding sincere for the first time, “what the devil difference does it make to him? Thirty thousand dollars and all expenses for a measly few days’ work! Is he so damn rich he can throw away money like that? And he turns it down for God knows what reason! A suitcase full of paper—or parchment, I mean!”

For the moment he had convinced himself that his precious suitcase actually did only contain paper—parchment, rather. He sighed and looked at her, lowering his voice as if somebody might suddenly hear them, or as if his words merited extra attention on her part. “Thirty thousand dollars, mademoiselle, buys a lot of perfume, or fur coats, or whatever pretty girls like. I’m sure you can manage to persuade him without my having to show him those pictures.”

There were several moments of silence.

“I can try,” Anita said at last, dully, almost hopelessly. “I can try, but I can’t promise anything.”

Sanchez shrugged philosophically. “One does what one can do, mademoiselle. However, in your case, don’t fail. Because, much as I should hate to do so, I would send them to M’sieu Huuygens. Believe me.”

With a sudden gesture Anita flung the envelope from her. It landed in the dark water of the river and floated away, dipping and bobbing on the surface. Beyond it one of the river nightclub boats passed, chugging its way to a new location, with aproned men working like mad on the deck to prepare it for the evening’s cruise.

Sanchez reached into the pocket on the other side of his jacket and brought forth another packet.

“Prints cost money, mademoiselle,” he said reproachfully, with a glint of black humor in his eyes. “I still have the negatives.”

She turned to him in pleading, her voice breaking. “But no matter what, you must not show them to Kek! He’d—he’d—” Her voice was approaching hysteria. To Sanchez’s relief she brought herself under control before her voice claimed attention from the upper reaches above the quay. She came to her feet listlessly, as if realizing further discussion with the blackmailer would be useless, staring at the new envelope in her hand as if wondering what it was. Realization came and she handed it back with repugnance.

“Keep them,” Sanchez said magnanimously. “Look at them frequently on your way home. Because you don’t have forever in which to convince your boyfriend.” He paused for effect. “Two days.”

“Two days!” Anita’s hand went to her mouth.

“Two days,” Sanchez said firmly and came to his feet, looking at his watch. His eyes moved to the girl. “Well, mademoiselle, we’re wasting time. Let me call you a taxi.”

He put his hand on her arm; she shook it off with loathing. Sanchez smiled at the gesture and led the way back to the stone steps. They mounted in silence. Sanchez, peering sideways, saw the look of despair on the girl’s face. He smiled to himself. She would try and try hard, and with the figure he knew her to have, if this girl couldn’t sell Huuygens the Eiffel Tower, let alone a minor smuggling job that also paid a small matter of thirty thousand dollars plus, then M’sieu Kek Huuygens would be well advised to visit a psychiatrist.

They came to the roadway and Sanchez raised a thin arm. A taxi swerved about and drew to the curb. Sanchez opened the door, helped Anita in, and pressed money on the driver.

“Take the lady home,” he said. “Avenue du Maréchal Favolle.…”

He gave a tiny bow toward the passenger in the rear of the cab, straightened up, and watched the cab move away, turning over the bridge. He smiled, satisfied. For the second time in this miserable affair he had had a good idea, but for the first time it had been well executed—mainly because he did it himself instead of leaving it to Duarte. God knows what that imbecile André had said over the phone! In any event, it was about over with. The question now was whether to celebrate alone or with Rosa. He had to admit she deserved a bit of the credit; maybe dinner at the Singe d’Argent, and after that possibly he would change his mind and give the girl from Manuela’s place a break again.

The success of his meeting with Anita had quickened his blood.…