Assignment The Girl in the Gondola

by Edward S. Aarons

  She stood in the center of the tiled room, looking down at a broken drinking glass and the small puddle of liquid she had spilled in the sink. Her face was ashen, drained of all color. She made a small sound in her throat, like that of an injured animal, and touched her cheek with the flat of her left hand, staring at him with wide, wondering eyes.

  "You are here, after all," she whispered.

  "Didn't you expect me?" He spoke gently. "You came straight here from the airport, obviously looking for me."

  "Yes, I was looking for you. But how did you know?"

  "I followed you from the airport."

  "But I thought—when I did not find you here at this hour —I was alone, so terribly alone . . • and you were my last hope—my only hope—"

  He suddenly understood. She still held the bottom half of the broken drinking glass, and some of the liquid still shone in it, dark and milky. He took it from her cold, nerveless fingers. She held her body with an odd, desperate rigidity, as if she were moving through a time of brittle terror. A nerve quirked at the corner of her soft, frightened mouth. Her pale green eyes were enormous, looking at him as if he were a ghost. She had coifed her auburn hair in a rather severe French style, with a knot at the nape of her neck. Instead of making her seem like a school mistress, it tended to enhance her desirability.

  Durell let his eyes merge with hers for another moment, then he sniffed quickly at the liquid still in the bottom of the broken glass. His blue eyes darkened and grew somber.

  "It's quite a lot of sleeping powder."

  "Yes."

  "Why, Lisette?"

  "You were not here," she said, as if that explained everything. "All at once, I felt as if—it was useless to try to go on. I came here to find you and ask your help—but you were not here. Somehow I never thought, all through that dreary ride in the airplane, that when I arrived here, you would not be at this hotel at this hour. And finding myself alone, I suddenly grew so weary—so afraid—"

  "At the end of your rope?"

  She nodded mutely.

  "How did you know where to find me? Athens is a big city," he said quietly.

  She shivered. "Dinov telephoned me."

  "When?"

  "Hours and hours ago. In Venice."

  "Was he in Venice, too?"

  "I don't know. I think so. I can't be sure where his call originated."

  "What did he tell you?"

  "He ordered me to come here, to this hotel, to meet you and pretend—"

  "He knew I was checked in here?"

  "He knew it."

  "And you were to—"

  She shrugged and looked away. "Disarm you, I suppose."

  "How?"

  She was silent again.

  "By making love to me?" he asked with a small smile.

  "He said I should."

  "Did he say why?"

  "To keep you—occupied."

  "For how long?"

  "He did not say."

  She hugged herself and shivered as if she were suddenly icy cold. He did not know if he could believe her. Her apparent confession might conceal deep treachery. You tried to peel off deception and find truth—like getting at the core of an onion. But there was layer after layer of tough membrane in your way. If she could have been Dinov's creature and obeyed Dinov all through the years of her marriage to General Pollini, then she could easily carry off this little act to gain his sympathy. But there was nothing you could be sure of, in this world of his.

  "You need a drink," he decided. "Come with me."

  "No, nothing to drink. I must talk with you first."

  He told her to sit on the bed and she obeyed quietly, like a child, never taking her enormous green eyes from him. She did not protest when he went through her overnight case and searched it thoroughly. There was only clothing in it, lacy things that evoked memories of her intimate perfume. He looked up at her; her eyes were like those of someone stunned. He took her handbag and looked in that, too. She still carried her .32 Beretta automatic. He snapped out the cartridge clip and dropped it in his pocket.

  "You don't carry a knife?" he asked sharply.

  "No." She lowered her head. He could scarcely hear her whisper. "I did not kill Pollini. I told you so. I could never use a knife as it was used on him."

  "Why not? Are you squeamish?"

  "No, but—here, look at my hand."

  She held out her right hand, and he saw a pale white scar that ran across the inside of three of her fingers, a scar that had severely damaged the tendons and made the entire hand far less articulate than normal. He suddenly remembered noticing a certain awkwardness with which she had held the gun when she took him to Dinov in her gondola, back in Venice. But she had been very practiced, otherwise, in hiding the stiffness of her fingers.

  "How did this happen to you?" he asked.

  "A bullet, in Algiers, a long time ago. Ever since, I can hold nothing tightly in this hand. A gun, yes. I can pull the trigger. But it is why I dropped the glass when you startled me and called my name. ..."

  "You could use your left hand."

  "Perhaps. But I don't. It is too awkward for me. In any case, the knife thrust that killed Pollini—I have heard enough about it to know it was Dinov's technique—this thrust is made with which hand, Mr. Durell? The autopsy must show this."

  "It's always done with the right hand. It would be awkward to get that precise position of the blade otherwise." He spoke callously, watching her. Then he exhaled softly, a long sigh. "You win your point, Lisette. It's a right-handed stroke, and you haven't the strength in your right hand to hold a knife like that. But I had to be sure."

  "It does not matter. You still suspect so much of me. Even if you now believe me innocent of killing my husband—"

  She paused. He put aside her empty Beretta. "If you had really decided on suicide a few moments ago, Lisette, you could have used this instead of sleeping powders, you know."

  "No, never with a gun," she said abruptly. "Oh, you must understand, I have thought of suicide many times. I once saw, as a very young girl, the face of a man who blew out his brains, the way the flesh and bone—" She shuddered. "He had been working against the FLN in Algeria, before their independence. He had built up a big farm, married a lovely girl, had two wonderful children. One night his plantation was raided by the Algerian rebels and everything was burned, destroyed, blown up. His wife was raped, then shot before his eyes. His children were taken away and never found. So in his despair, he killed himself."

  "Who was this man?" Durell asked.

  "My brother."

  "You were there when this happened?"

  "Yes. I adored him, I was very young, and I went to live on his farm, with his wonderful family, when it all happened. Oh, I was lucky. I was in the fields, out of the floodlight perimeter. I hid in a haystack, and after I found Pierre—after his suicide—I got back to Algiers somehow, I don't remember."

  "And this made you join the OAS against French law, and fight against the French withdrawal from Algeria?"

  "I became a terrorist. Yes, I threw some bombs and set some fires. I was a wanted criminal. My name and photograph were posted in many places. I am still wanted by the Surete, did you not know? But my real identity as a terrorist was never known by the police. I went back to France, to my parents, in their village near the Italian border. So the police never found me out."

  "But Dinov discovered you."

  "Oh, yes. He was helping to stir up the Moslem Algerians, running arms to them, and at the same time encouraging the OAS to resist. His sort always breeds in troubled ground, like maggots in rotten flesh. At first I thought he was a friend, since we seemed to be on the same side. But then he asked me to do things which had nothing to do with the OAS cause, and when I refused, he told me of the evidence he had about my identity that could send me to prison—if not to the guillotine—for many, many years. So I became his creature from then on."

  "I see," Durell said.

  "Do you? How c
an you, an American, who have always been safe and smug and rich and strong—how can you understand what it was like?"

  "I can understand, Lisette. If it's true."

  "You still do not believe me?"

  "I'm not sure. Tell me more about why you came here. Dinov merely wanted to keep me—occupied—you say. Why? In Venice he wanted to join forces with me; he wanted to use me as a cat's-paw, to do his dirty work. I admit I'd like to turn the tables on him. But since he wants my help, in theory he should not want to detain me or interfere with me, right?"

  She frowned. "I do not know what he thinks of."

  Durell said abruptly: "Have you ever seen Dinov when he was in the company of the Chinese?"

  "Oh, yes. Several times."

  "He was friendly with Chinese?"

  "I don't know how 'friendly.' Once, when he ordered me to meet him in Rome, he was with two Chinese men. And another time, in Venice, I met him at a restaurant. I came a little early, and a Chinese man got up quickly from the table and left Dinov, and Dinov was very angry that I saw him together with that man."

  "Did Dinov ever comment on Moscow political policies?"

  "No, he never discussed such things with me."

  Durell was not satisfied. "What about these last few days, since your husband was assassinated?"

  "These have been the worst nightmare of all. I could not go on," the girl whispered. She did not look at him. "Dinov promised long ago he would release me when such a thing happened. And in Venice, as you know, he refused and insisted that I continue working with him. It seemed to me that there was no place in the world I could go to be safe. No one I could turn to. And then I was ordered to come here—to you. You seem hard and cruel, too, but there is a difference between you and Dinov—"

  "Thanks," he said drily.

  "You are both in the same business," she said defensively. "How can I judge between you? One hears so many ugly stories—"

  "So you came here, registered as my wife, and when you didn't find me, you tried to kill yourself with sleeping pills. But this failed. And now?" he asked harshly.

  She did not reply. The dawn wind blew in through the tall windows of the hotel room. The city of Athens was quiet. The light was strengthening outside, over the broad flower beds and walks of Constitution Square. Durell snapped off the overhead light switch. The darkness that came was gray and soft and protective. The woman sighed.

  "That is better. But I wish you would not look at me like that. Once, perhaps, I was beautiful, but—"

  "You're still beautiful, Lisette."

  "No, don't say that. I hate the uses I've had to make of it. I will not use it on you."

  "If you could," he said, and smiled wryly.

  She considered her hands in her lap. "But will you let me stay here with you?"

  "Yes, if you wish."

  "Would you trust me now?"

  "No," he said. "Even though it seems* you couldn't have murdered your husband with a knife." When she shivered and stood up to walk to the window, he said bluntly: "Get away from there."

  She turned her head, startled by the imperative change in his tone. "Do you think I am planning to signal to someone?"

  "It's possible."

  She returned to the bed. She sat as if the weight of the world rested on her slender, well-tailored shoulders. "I do not know where to go; I have no one who might help, anywhere in the world. But I thought you might be kind. . . ."

  "We can make a bargain," he said bluntly.

  "You sound so cruel when you speak to me—"

  "Tell me all about Dinov," he said. "And you will have to give certain people here in Athens detailed depositions about everything you have done for him and with him."

  "But I am not a murderer!" she whispered fiercely. "I never killed for him!"

  "The better for you then, Lisette. Help us, and 111 do what I can for you."

  "It is only a business matter with you, isn't it?" she said bitterly.

  He stood over her, waiting. She shivered in the cool dawn wind that came through the hotel window. It was a corner room, and the wind freshened, stirring the tall curtains. In her loneliness, which covered her like a bleak mantle of mourning, she looked forlorn—and very lovely. She could not be pretending her fear, he decided; it was too genuine to be anything but real. But she could be afraid, not of Dinov, but of failure here. He tried to resist the urge toward sympathy that he felt. Her troubles were not his business, except insofar as he could make use of them, he thought. But the idea lacked conviction. He knew he wanted to shelter her and help her. It was a flaw in him that would hardly be acceptable back at K Section headquarters in Washington. He smiled thinly.

  "What is it?" she asked timidly, searching his face.

  "Tell me about Dinov, and we've struck a bargain."

  "Well, I have broken with him. That night—last evening, rather—was more than I could understand. I've thought about this time for many, many months. I know he will send me to prison; he will manage it, somehow."

  "Not if you cooperate with me."

  "Even then, he will retaliate in some way. You do not know him; he is a thing without heart or soul. Once he spoke to me, in a philosophical mood, of life and death, of the differences between what he called the illusion of living and the reality of death, of the inchoate black emptiness from which we all came and the need to hastily return there, for all eternity. He was obsessed by death; he came alive, paradoxically, when he spoke of it." She shivered quickly. "I came here to you to help you against him, anyway.

  To warn you that whatever he offers in the way of joint aid in this matter, you must beware of him. He will betray you:, somehow. He is your enemy."

  "I've known this," Dwell said

  "And when you were not here, I felt that the world had ended for me and my last hope had gone. So I started to take the pills "

  "Tell me about Pollini," he suggested.

  "What is there to know? You wish to hear how Dinov ordered me to seduce and marry the poor old man?"

  "Tell me all you know."

  He lit two cigarettes and gave her one. She accepted it gratefully, and dragged at it with a desperate, nervous hunger; then she lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, her great eyes wide, looking deep into the past, far into an unknown future.

  She murmured: "But I am sure that General Pollini was killed because of his old association with Gregori Shkoeder."

  "What association was that?"

  "Perhaps it is the wrong word. When Pollini commanded an Italian division in the Albanian campaign, he met Shkoeder, who was then a small-town politico, a gangster-type in a mountain village, you know? It was in Debrec, near the coast, not far from Corfu. Pollini rarely talked about that campaign—he was ashamed of his failure, of the men he lost. But even then, Gregori Shkoeder played both sides of the fence. He was an opportunist—a man greedy, gluttonous for power and pleasure; yes, a small Nero, who could watch the world burn today, if he alone were safe and rich elsewhere. He would do anything for money. And for money, he agreed to betray the Albanian guerilla fighters to Pollini. Something went wrong with his plan, though— Debrec was a disaster for the Italians. Perhaps it was because of the gold."

  "Tell me about the gold," Durell said.

  "There was some bullion left by the royal family when they fled—King Zog's uncle or nephew or someone, I do not know who. The guerillas seized it and hid it near Debrec, in the caves. Pollini was sent to recover it for Mussolini's regime. Shkoeder suspected where the villagers, whom he tyrannized, had hidden it; he hadn't dared try to get it himself. In those days, he wasn't powerful enough, just a small-town boss, you see. He was afraid of the mountain fighters. So he offered to guide Pollini's troops to the place where he thought the bullion was cached. But the guerillas trapped the Italians and turned the fight into a rout."

  "And was the gold bullion recovered?"

  "No one could find it. The guerillas who hid it originally were killed in the battle. For twenty years
, Shkoeder has hunted for that gold. It became a madness with him. The village was almost wiped out, you know, in the fighting. But he was known to haunt the mountains, and all the caves there—oh, it is like a honeycomb, and he was there, insane with lust, with greed. Then the political upheavals kept him away for a time. I think he never was a Communist, truly— merely an opportunist, a little man with dreams of big money and power. When he rose in the Security Branch to colonel, he kept trying to find the gold. Now and then he appeared in Debrec, in the ruins. Everyone would vanish into the hills when they heard he was coming. He could find no one to talk to about the gold. He searched and searched. He never found it."

  "And then the Chinese came into the Debrec area."

  The girl laughed bitterly. "Yes, that truly frustrated the little murderer. He was not placed in charge of security at the missile site—which was built on top of those honeycombed mountains. He no longer could wander about Debrec on his private hunt, or he would arouse suspicion, cause questions to be asked. So he tried his last hope. He knew Albania would go up in flames, too, if those rockets were fired. So he defected, and took his greedy little dream of gold, and perhaps a life of riches in South America, with him. He went to Pollini and begged Pollini for his old campaign maps, for any information Pollini might have about Debrec and his original march to retrieve that gold. When Pollini showed no interest and only contempt for Shkoeder's maniacal obsession with the bullion, Shkoeder broke down and told him about the rockets, as a bait for his hook. To Shkoeder's shock, General Pollini tried to alert NATO— and was killed."

  "By whom?"

  "I don't know. I only know that Shkoeder now hopes to use you, with his story of nuclear missiles and Chinese troops in Debrec, to get back there and find enough of the gold to make his dream of riches in some far corner of the world come true. You may wonder why he should be willing to work with you. But what else can he do now? He knew Harris was alerted; he knew you were in it now. He is not truly interested in the cash he demanded for his information.

  The gold he could carry out on his back would be worth ten, twenty times that. How could he get back to Albania without your help? He would need transportation, arms, men and money and a swift raid into Debrec that only you could manage—in addition to the protection you would have to give him from the mountaineers, who would otherwise kill him on sight. Only you could give him all this."