Assignment The Girl in the Gondola

by Edward S. Aarons

  "Do you know who Ursula really is?" Durell asked.

  "We think she is an Albanian."

  "Working with Shkoeder?"

  "No. A Communist, working against him."

  "Then you think she killed General Pollini?"

  "It is possible. Did she fool you, Sam?"

  "Almost," Durell said.

  Zuccamella was quickly sympathetic. "You look so strange. You are young, and when a thing of beauty moves into your shadows and gives you a breath of hope, of life, of perfume, you are reluctant to keep up your suspicions. But you do, and you are disappointed to be proven correct. Your momentary gift of illusion, of beauty and love, is doubly destroyed and triply painful, eh?"

  "Have you more to tell me?" Durell asked.

  "Yes. It is very serious. The girl—we might as well call her Ursula, eh?—knew General Pollini quite well. He was her—ah—art patron; she was his protege. Pollini was a fool about many things, but he knew a pretty woman when he saw one."

  "I understand his wife is young, too."

  "True. But as for Ursula, we must not neglect the possibility, my dear Sam, that she might be the one who put the knife with that expert stroke into poor old Pollini's belly."

  Some minutes later he left Zuccamella's gloomy office. He gave orders that Ursula was to be kept under surveillance, but not disturbed. He took another water taxi to see Signora Pollini, the widow of the murdered defense Minister.

  Zuccamella had paved the way for his visit, and when he pulled on the medieval iron ring in the tall doorway, he was admitted at once by a valet who took his raincoat and murmured obsequiously, then led him down a marble corridor into the palazzo. Everything was hushed by the enormity of old wealth. There were pedestals with Graeco-Roman busts, a tinkling pool briefly glimpsed behind wrought-iron gates, a glimmer of white from an Aeginetan Aphrodite. In the Great Hall were hung faded banners and tapestries with insignia of Venetian days of glory. Huge models of Mediterranean carracks and galleons were encased in glass, each with a plaque indicating its place in the maritime fleet of the Pollini family. Above these were the dark, cracked portraits of doges, princes of Venice, or merchants and judges and cardinals, back to the thirteenth century.

  "This way, signor," the valet murmured. "Madame is expecting you."

  The servant wore a black silk armband of mourning. From somewhere came a murmuring voice, muffled behind ornately carved doors. But the valet chose a small flight of stone steps that curved up between masonry walls; then he led the way down a corridor on a second level and tapped at a white-painted panel. A woman replied, and the valet bowed Durell inside.

  The public rooms of the palazzo might be dedicated to the Middle Ages, but this apartment of the widow's was startlingly modern. Extensive remodeling had lowered the ceiling, and soft paint and paneling had replaced the grim stone and faded tapestries of the rooms below.

  "Signor Durell? Please come in. You will have a drink? You prefer American whiskey?"

  She was perhaps twenty-five, and Durell recalled that Pollini had been seventy. She had auburn hair that glowed like evening firelight, and her head was small and finely-shaped. Her nose was straight, her skin flawless, her eyes a pale green; her only cosmetic was a touch of white lipstick on her assured mouth. Her simple black dress from Paris would have cost Durell three months' pay. Her jewelry was a pair of small pink coral earrings and a triple strand of matched coral that glowed on her throat. Her dark red hair was long, but tightly disciplined, like her voice; her Parisian accent, he thought, was acquired, and not native to her.

  "Signor Zuccamella telephoned to say you wished to see me." Her hand was cool and formal in his. Her green eyes told him nothing. "You are from the American government, yes? But of course, I cannot assist. My husband's affairs as Defense Minister were completely apart from our private lives."

  "It is still good of you to see me at a sad time like this, Signora. It must have been trying for you."

  Her name had been Lisette Giraud before her widely publicized marriage to General Pollini. According to the dossier Durell had studied, her parents came from a small hamlet in the Alps along the Franco-Italian border, and there was probably as much Ligurian blood in this beautiful woman as there was French. She had been a stenographer for a NATO mission when Pollini saw her, and asked her to dinner; he married her a month later. Her security check was a matter of routine. Her peasant parents were simple people. But there was an older brother to whom she had been deeply attached; this brother had emigrated as a farmer to Algeria, and had been suspected of belonging to the OAS fighters there. He had been killed in that unhappy war, buried as a rebel against the French mandate for Algerian freedom. Lisette had lived with the brother until his death, and then returned to France. Since then, her record was blameless. The French had found no evidence that Lisette had actively aided her brother in the OAS. Her life seemed simple enough. Yet as Durell considered her quiet polish and beauty, he wondered what she really was and might be.

  He accepted a bourbon over ice and sat in a chair up-

  holstered in Roman striped silk. A small fire crackled in the marble fireplace against the chill of the rainy night. The woman sat across from him on a chaise, her long legs elegantly crossed; her brows were lifted in polite inquiry.

  "I won't take up much of your time, Signora...."

  She smiled thinly. "You people are always rushing, rushing to the end we all must face."

  "This is a bit different. Your husband's death has precipitated a crisis. His position was important and he dealt with problems of balance and power. All Italy admired what he had accomplished in his office."

  "Not all of Italy," she said quietly. "Not I."

  "I beg your pardon, but—"

  She abandoned Italian and spoke in English. "Did I just shock you, Signor Durell?"

  "People do not surprise me."

  She cocked her head slightly and looked at him with long, amused green eyes. "No, it would be difficult to upset a man like you. You are not like the politicians one must entertain in government ministries. The office admirals are a bore. But there is an air of danger about you, Signor Durell. You make me a little afraid."

  "You have nothing to fear from me," he said.

  "My husband," she said slowly, after a pause, "was a dull, stupid man whose primary trait was discipline. He accomplished by slow, plodding work what other men achieve with a flash of intellect His discipline was like the proverbial Juggernaut. Once on the path to some goal, he never stopped, never wavered. He was like the tides of the sea. It caused his ruin long ago, in the Albanian campaign of Fascist days."

  "Before you were born," he said, probing.

  "Not quite. A year or two, perhaps, later. I was much younger than my husband. But is it a crime?"

  "No." Durell smiled. "Was General Pollini so plodding and determined in all respects?"

  "In our private life, his discipline was a horror, quite impossible. One wanted something more human, you see."

  "But I have heard of a young woman, a Signorina Ursula Montegna, if you will forgive me—"

  "Lies. She was not his mistress. My husband was beyond that. I know. I am an authority on his habits in that respect."

  Durell sipped his bourbon. It was very good. It was peaceful and serene in this rich, mourning atmosphere. The fire crackled pleasantly and reflected highlights in the dark red

  hair that crowned the former Lisette Giraud's regal face. There was a portrait of General Pollini over the fireplace, and Durell could see in the square, dull features all the stubborn traits of a man with limited capacities, who overcame difficulties with the single-minded purpose of a tank. He wished he knew more about the General's disastrous Albanian campaign with the Fascist armies over twenty years ago. Those wild mountains of ancient Ulyria had almost destroyed him then. He wondered if, after all, they had not finally destroyed him last week.

  "On the night your husband died—" Durell began.

  "He did not simply die," th
e widow said calmly. "He was murdered. One might have wished he died from revelry, debauchery, perhaps, with the young woman you mention. The scandal sheets would have loved to suggest that he died of—ah—over-exertion. But he never had any such relations with this nasty child, this Ursula Montegna."

  "Have you met her?"

  "I have seen her."

  "I see."

  "Do you?" Her words were cold. "I did not love my husband, but he was an important man in this insane world, and I must know who murdered him, and why."

  "I thought you might help with those answers."

  "You mean about the visitor he had been entertaining, three or four times, the past week? That nasty little man from the Balkans?"

  "From Albania." Durell watched her. "How long was Gregori Shkoeder with your husband the night Pollini was killed?"

  She shrugged. "Half an hour. I was entertaining mutual friends. Afterward, Shkoeder came to ask if I had any money available immediately—American cash. I was shocked. He was very upset. But he told me nothing more, except that my husband had sent him to me for the money. I rejected him and he went back to my husband's personal suite in this house. The next I knew, a servant found Pollini with a knife in him, and he was dead." She stood up with grace, and looked around the room with the wondering greed of a child. "Now all this grandeur is mine—for a little time. It is too bad I cannot keep it, Sam Durell."

  Her voice had changed abruptly. It was harsh and bitter, and the accent was harsh and unnatural. Mockery glinted in her eyes as she came closer to him in challenge.

  "I know who you are," she said. "And soon enough, now that stupid old Pollini is dead, you will know all about me. My job is done, except for one thing. I wondered what took you so long to get here to see me. But now that you have come, I am suddenly weary of our polite game. If you will come with me, I will do what I am paid to do, and then we may be quits, after all."

  "I don't understand," Durell said.

  "You will, soon. I have the utmost respect for you, you see, and I really do know all about you, Signor Durell. All about you, with many warnings as to how to deal with you when you came to question me. But I am tired of subtleties and lies, exhausted by this masquerade. It is over. It died when old General Pollini died. I am ready to leave it, once and for all."

  Durell regarded her with caution. The emotion in her voice was of tightly leashed anger, but there was also fear, as if her speech expressed great daring, and she were reviewing its consequences even as she spoke.

  "Who killed Pollini?" he asked softly.

  "We do not know."

  " 'We'?"

  "The people I work for, who employed me to get the General to fall in love with me and marry me."

  He stood up smoothly, his face a hard mask. "Do you work for Dinov?" he asked. "Is Helmuth Dinov your boss?"

  "Ah, you are supposed to be so clever, such a dangerous agent. Your name sends terror through the hearts of many men, Signor Durell."

  "Answer me," he said.

  Her breath sighed with sudden weariness. "It is too long a story to tell, and I have no interest in repeating it. It is finished—or it will be if you come with me now, for my last act of penance."

  "Stop speaking in riddles."

  "Life has been very difficult. I do not care what happens now. One can be whipped and driven to tears once too often, you see. It is that way with me. Will you come with me? It will not take very long."

  "And if I don't?"

  "One way or another, the meeting will be arranged. I would like to finish it all tonight, that is all. Everything will be clear enough—soon."

  He paused. "May I use the telephone first?"

  She smiled again. It changed the entire cast of her lovely features, and for a moment she was a brilliant, charming woman, the tensions and fears erased by the quick curve of her lips. She waved a hand.

  "Of course. I will change my clothes."

  Zuccamella answered the first ring, as if he had been waiting. The fat man sounded jubilant.

  "We've got him, Signer Durell!"

  "Shkoeder?"

  "He is heading for the San Nicolo di Lido Airport—he just took the motorboat from the Riva degli Schiavoni. Harris and two of my own people are right behind him."

  "What is the next plane out of Venice?"

  "There is an Alitalia Flight 502 to Athens, due to depart in twenty minutes."

  "So Shkoeder decided not to wait for our money to buy his way back home."

  "Perhaps he got money from the Russians."

  "I think not. Listen, if he takes the flight, let him go-understand?" Durell said.

  "Let him go?" Zuccamella was dismayed.

  "Harris will call you from the airport. Tell him to follow, and phone our people in Athens to pick up Shkoeder when he lands, and see where he goes. But don't touch him. I want him protected against everyone else."

  "And you? You sound as if you've had some luck."

  "I am with Signora Pollini—"

  "Ah. Into every dismal prospect, a glimmer of beautiful rainbows."

  Durell laughed. "More than that, I think. Can you check something for me? Two things, really."

  "If there is time," Zuccamella said drily.

  "I've got to have it. I want every detail, official and otherwise, of General Pollini's campaign in the Debrec region of Albania. Maps, places he camped, where he fought—"

  Zuccamella sighed. "But that was so long ago!"

  "The records will be in the War Office in Rome."

  "Yes. And what else?" Zuccamella was ironical.

  "I want the dossier on Gregori Shkoeder. Do you have it there?"

  "Yes."

  "What is his home village?"

  "Debrec."

  "That fits. Pollini was in Debrec, right? Find out about Shkoeder's early life there. Everything, Zuccamella. And one other thing."

  "This is more than two projects, Sam."

  "I want you to find out," Durell said, "just when Lisette Giraud met Helmuth Dinov some years ago, and why and how she went to work for the Russians by marrying General Pollini."

  "What?" Zuccamella squawked. "Are you insane?"

  "I think that's enough to keep you busy," Durell said, and he hung up.

  Chapter Seven

  The valet who had ushered him into the house explained that Signora Pollini had gone ahead. He followed the servant down the broad formal staircase to the great hall of the palazzo. It had stopped raining. A low film of clouds scudded over the city from the Adriatic, and Durell paused in the big double-leafed doorway. A private gondola waited at the foot of the broad stone steps where the striped pole leaned out over the canal.

  Someone sat under the tasseled, silken canopy. It was the red-haired widow. She called softly to him in English.

  "This way, please. I am waiting, Signor Durell."

  He went down the steps, a caution in him. But only the girl and the boatman were in the gondola. She looked dim under the ornate canopy, but he saw her hand reach toward him in an odd gesture of appeal.

  "Please "

  Then he heard the scrape and slide of a swift step behind him. Too late to turn. Instead, he dove forward into the gondola, leaping from the steps to the broad width of the boat just in front of the passenger canopy.

  Something struck him a glancing blow as the man behind him misjudged the distance because of his unexpected maneuver. But it was enough to throw Durell off balance, and his foot struck athwart and he crashed into the canopy. The gondola rocked wildly and the boatman cursed and swung at him with his pole in a vicious swipe that whistled through the air above his head. The girl screamed as the canopy collapsed. Durell leaped for her, and she pummeled him with small fists as the boat threatened to capsize. The gondola shipped water and skittered violently away from the landing, sliding over the dark surface of the canal. As Durell climbed to his feet, the boat struck the opposite bank under the grim fagade of a palazzo akin to Pollini's. The man who had leaped down the steps upon him had a
lso gained the gondola, and now he towered momentarily over Durell in the tipsy craft.

  Durell slammed a fist into the other's belly and followed it with a karati chop to the throat. The man ducked and stabbed for Durell's diaphragm. Durell parried with his left forearm, then tried for the throat with his knuckles. His assailant was a dim, tigerish blur, a ravaged face that was cruel and desperate. The man wore a dark kerchief around his throat; Durell caught one end of it, straightened in the rocking boat, and tightened it with a swift, implacable gesture. The man choked, his arms flailed, smashing erratically about DurelTs head, and then he fell backward out of the gondola.

  Durell let him go into the canal.

  The boatman froze as he started a leap at him, and made a pushing gesture of surrender with open hands. He was a thin man with a long nose and small, frightened eyes. But the girl was made of different stuff. She had a small automatic in her right hand, pointed to Durell as he swung about. The gondolier made a sound of protest, but Lisette Pollini snapped an order and he picked up his pole.

  From the canal came grotesque splashing sounds as the first man struggled to swim away.

  "Mr. Durell," the girl said in English, "I merely wished to speak to you on my own terms. I apologize. It was considered desirable for you to accompany me under—control, shall we say? We thought you might be unwilling to cooperate voluntarily."

  He drew a deep breath. She held the automatic—it was pearl-handled, a Beretta, he thought, of .32 caliber— in an awkward grip in her right hand. Perhaps she was unaccustomed to it. But he could not believe that. He decided to be careful and not take his eyes off her. Her filmy silk stole was spangled with glittery stuff that caught the reflected lights in the canal water. She had wide brows and a classic nose. Her lips were provocatively everted, touched with pale color.

  "You people always get clumsy when you try a finesse," he said. "I don't like to be pushed around. I'll go with you willingly, or not at all."