Assignment Carlotta Cortez

by Edward S. Aarons

  “You are a savage. And a fool.”

  “To be in love with you, querida?" Yes, that is foolish.”

  “To be what you are,” she corrected.

  She heard him laugh. Looking at his reflection, Carlotta thought he lent a darkness to the mirror, shadowing the glass with his somber presence. She was reminded of a medieval portrait of some long-forgotten Venetian merchant, long-nosed, black hair curled in tight ringlets, conspiratorial eye flashing upward in sardonic wisdom of the ways and the weaknesses of men. She was a little afraid of Justino. She knew his past, when he had been head of the General’s secret police, the SN, when the General had been in power back home. She knew some of the things he had done; and she knew the sort of deviations that gave him climactic pleasure. Yet she was confident. She could handle Justino, not as easily as she handled Johnny, perhaps, but it could be done. He would obey. She would make him grovel when the time came, and he would relish his groveling, the crawling on his belly like a dog to be near her.

  None of her thoughts were evident on her serene face. She leaned forward to inspect her features critically. She had a fine Castilian delicacy of eye and cheek and mouth. Her hair was a dark, smoky red, like a woods fire seen distantly at night. Her skin was creamy and translucent, and her eyes were a fine, dark gray, intelligent and remote and careful.

  She finished with her lipstick and a touch of powder on her cheeks. She was naked from the waist up, but she sat before the baroque mirror as if oblivious to Justino’s dark gaze. She drew on stockings and golden shoes, put a heavy native bracelet of rough-cut stones on her left wrist, chose long gold earrings of Mayan design for her ear lobes. Only when everything else was ready did she rise and walk across the room, with a grace that she knew dried Justino’s throat with desire, and choose a gown for the formal dinner.

  Justino’s short, caustic laugh was not expected.

  “Querida, you will drive me too far one of these nights.”

  She turned and adjusted the golden sheath over the flare of her hips. She smiled slowly. “Have you not gone as far with me, in your inventions, as a man can go with a woman?”

  “No.”

  She arched a brow. “You have thought of something more?”

  “I have.”

  “It will not be tonight.”

  “We shall see.”

  “We have other matters to occupy us tonight. Johnny, for one.”

  Justino shrugged. His dark eyes flashed for a moment in the tall mirrors that covered one wall of Car-lotta’s bedroom. “He escaped me. In every campaign, one must expect the unexpected, anticipate the accident.”

  “Is it necessary to have the accident, the unexpected?” “It simply happens. A law of nature.”

  “So he escaped you.”

  “He will not do anything rash.”

  “But you must find him!” Carlotta said tightly. “At once!”

  “And then?”

  “You know what must be done.”

  “Say it,” Justino suggested.

  “Please—”

  “Say it.”

  “Kill him,” she said. “He must be killed.”

  Justino sighed as if in vast relaxation, enjoying his triumph. “There is no cause for alarm. It is not as if the idealistic fool realized that we had always planned to kill him in the mountains, that once we verified the plane’s cargo, we no longer needed him. His thoughts did not reach the point of logic where he would acknowledge to himself that from that moment on, he would be a danger to us, a negative blot upon our ledger.”

  “Then why did he run from you?” Carlotta demanded sharply.

  “It was the mountain girl, the one who helped him find the landing place.”

  “Did she see you?”

  “She is unimportant. An ignorant child of the wilderness.”

  “But you failed to kill her, too.”

  “Not I. Carlos. He was overexcited.”

  “So they are both wandering loose somewhere in the mountains.”

  “Johnny will not talk to the authorities about us. How could he?” Justino laughed again, a short barking sound. “Johnny loves you. Would he see you imprisoned, perhaps executed? Never. Not until he could discuss matters with you would he consider going to the authorities.”

  “Discuss?”

  “You do not truly understand men like Johnny Duncan. He is that sort. He must talk to you about it. Apologize for what he might do to you, if he suddenly finds he cannot stomach what he has done so far. He will try to rationalize and excuse himself. When he returns here, it will be time enough to remove him.”

  “You are very sure of yourself, Justino.”

  “Querida, this is my business.”

  “But you must be the one to do it,” she said quickly. “If you are right, that is, and he really does come here.”

  “It will be my privilege.”

  Carlotta had finished adjusting the tight golden dress. Some of the darkness had left Justino’s eyes as he watched her now. She said, “You reassure me, but not enough. I am still afraid. I do not like these mistakes, these failures. John must be removed. And the mountain girl, too. As for you—you are sure the others have escaped with the material in their cars?”

  “All has gone well. I took a plane from Akron. I rushed back to you, Carlotta, so you would know this.” From somewhere in the house came the sudden sound of breaking glass.

  “I must talk to the General,” Carlotta said quietly. The house was furnished with massive, stiff baroque furniture of Spanish mahogany. There were four floors, including the skylighted attic studio, and below them was the basement, and a sub-basement below that. There was a small garden in the back, with a high green wooden fence. Although the house, built in the Georgian style of faded rose brick, was one of a row not far from Washington Square, the walls were thick and the neighbors might as well be nonexistent. The street outside was quiet and dark, wet with the falling, melting snow.

  More glass crashed as Carlotta mounted the stairs swiftly to the third floor. The General’s bedroom and bath were up front. She turned to the rear, to the map room, and pushed open the heavy double doors.

  “Father?”

  A small fire of cannel coal burned in the Victorian grate of Vermont marble. There was no furniture in the room except for a huge plain table and a single, high-backed chair upholstered in red leather. On the walls were maps and aerial photographs of cities, provinces and industrial complexes of the country far from here, where the Cortezes had once been revered and were now despised. On the table were more charts. The General stood, not quite steady on his feet, and stared with wide, unseeing eyes at the two wine glasses he had hurled into the fireplace.

  “Father,” Carlotta said again. She closed the door carefully behind her. “You are not well?”

  “I am well, Carlotta. Go away.”

  “Tonight is not a night for drinking. Tonight we expect visitors, strangers, and questions.”

  “I am ready for them.”

  “You are not,” she said. “You are drunk.”

  He peered at her. She did not try to hide her contempt for this man, her father.

  The General was still tall, still possessed with an illusion of power and strength. But that giant musculature had turned soft and flabby of late, and there was a definite tremor along the loose skin of his jowls. When he drew himself up, as he did now in a pathetic attempt to defy her scorn, there still remained a ghostly, flickering image of the old power, the former greatness. His hair was gray now; his great powerful nose and chin were still strong; his aura of command still existed. But all these qualities appeared as though seen through dark glass, ghostly and faded, the strength subtly sapped away, the clear definition of the men now blurred forever.

  But he was still the General, still Cortez. The name and the image were enough. Carlotta had never been able to forgive him for cheating her by toppling in defeat just when she grew old enough to reach for the reins of power herself.

  “My dear
,” he said, “did it go well?”

  “Well enough.”

  “And your husband—should I offer condolences? I—"

  “Not yet.”

  “But Justino said—”

  “The plan was changed. Johnny will be here, we are sure of it.”

  “I see.” He did not see, but it did not matter, either. This cardboard image needed desperately to be propped up, to stand without visible strings or support, for a short time yet. The entire colony of exiles in this cold city looked to this house and the General for warmth and hope and for the eventual return. You look lovely, Carlotta” he said vaguely.

  “Promise me that you will drink no more, Father.”

  “Of course. I promise.”

  “The police may come here. Or someone in authority, to ask about Johnny. Perhaps the military will notify us of the plane crash. We must behave normally, you understand?”

  “Normally, yes.”

  “Suspicion will fall on us. It is inevitable.”

  “I trust Justino,” the General said.

  “Not Justino. Trust me.”

  “Of course, Carlotta.”

  She studied him carefully for another moment. He still had that amazing ability to pull himself together for the duration of a crisis. She saw the knowing look in his eyes and they exchanged a silent smile. He understood her ambitions; he knew what she had made of him, and why, and what she wanted to do through him. He did not object. He was agreeable about it. All he looked forward to was another palace, another house of those innocent little girls he enjoyed so much. And if this was his ambition, to spend his declining days rutting away his manhood, she would not object. He was lonely. For this hope that she dangled before him, like a bright bauble of a promise, he would listen to her and obey her.

  But every now and then, as at this moment, when he looked at her so knowingly, he stripped her down to the urgent drive for power and made of her ambition only a naked lust. She felt uneasy. If it were not for the coming crisis tonight, she would have seen to it that he had another bottle. And a girl-child to make him forget.

  But not tonight.

  She was satisfied with him now. She said, “And the professor?”

  “I have not seen Perez this evening,” the General said.

  “Then I will say a few words to him.”

  Perez opened the door to his attic studio rooms hastily when she knocked, as if he had been standing there waiting for her, anxious to jump to admit her with his gawky, grasshopper movements.

  “Has anything happened?” he blurted.

  “Not yet.”

  “But Justino is back! And he said—”

  “We must be calm, Juan,” she said softly.

  “Calm, yes. Calm. One must control the nerves, the stomach, the heart and liver. The mind rebels. I do not feel well. I am not a man of action, like your Justino.”

  “He is not my Justino.”

  “I know, I know. But how he frightens me! I remember the things he did when we were all back home. How long ago it seems! In a way, do you know, I was happy when we had to leave. The only sorrow I felt was that the mobs did not string up Justino by his heels to the lamp post. They killed enough of his SN men, didn’t they?”

  “They will regret it, one day.”

  “Yes, one day.”

  “Soon,” she said.

  ‘You are confident, Carlotta.” He smiled down at her from his gawky, spindly height. “You are a good child. Devoted and strong and willing to sacrifice for your father. The General has greatness, he is a wonderful man, he did so much for me.” Perez peered at her. “I would lay down my life for him, you know.”

  “You were always faithful,” she said gently.

  The rooms held an acrid smell of fear, Carlotta thought. Overhead, the slanting skylights were black and running with the melting snow. No matter what physical luxuries were given to Professor Perez, he managed to five in the shabby squalor of the peons from whom the General had raised him. He was one of the true, rare geniuses who sometimes grow out of the mushroom nonentities of the people. Looking around her, Carlotta wished briefly that material things could be equally unimportant to her, and then she smiled within herself, knowing full well that luxury was the breath of life to her.

  Professor Perez moved with his insectlike, grasshopper hoppings, his sallow face and small chin working.

  “Sit down, sit down, Carlotta. Talk to me.”

  “There is little time. Dinner will soon be served. You will come down for it?”

  “I would rather not.”

  “It would be better if we were all present at the table when they come. Someone will come, I am sure.”

  “The police?”

  “Perhaps not the police, exactly. But we must present a normal, natural appearance, you understand. We must be shocked and worried when we are told about the plane crash. And, of course, we knew nothing about the cargo. Although I doubt that they will be so blunt as to suggest we know about it.”

  “I am only good at my work,” Perez said. “Not at acting. It frightens me, frankly.”

  “You must do this. It is for the General.”

  “I understand that. Yes, of course.”

  She paused at the door. “Everything else is prepared?”

  He smiled, worked his mouth, moved awkwardly, as if his long, old, bony limbs twitched independently of his mind. “When the material arrives, my dear, I know what must be done with it.”

  “Good.”

  Far down below on the street level of the house, she heard the doorbell ring.

  They were here.

  Chapter Eight

  Durell rang again, looked at his watch. In the dim glow of the nearby street lamp, he saw it was four minutes after ten. He made a note of the intensity of the street light, of the pools of shadow it made, of the recessed cellarways up and down the street, of the narrow slot at the end where he could glimpse the gathering snow on the trees and a comer of the distant arch of Washington Square.

  The house looked no different from the others in the area. Tall and narrow, it stood like its neighbors in aloofness even though it was built shoulder-to-shoulder with the adjacent houses. A man was walking a gray French poodle down to the comer, where the mailbox stood. The sounds of traffic came dimly from the square, and from Sheridan Place to the west. In the next block, the lights of an Italian grocery made a bluish-white glow on the sidewalk.

  He noted that the house diagonally across the street, Number 11, seemed to be closed up as if its owners were away.

  The Cortez doorway was painted a dark, rich red, against which the knocker gleamed in brassy ornateness. He considered using it, and then rang the bell a third time. There were lights in the rooms above, and somewhere in the rooms at die back of the house on the street level.

  He had left Pleasure Kendall in K Section’s suite in the hotel in the East Sixties. She had promised earnestly not to stir until he came back, and since she had been totally engrossed in trying on all the new clothing he had given her, he decided she was safe enough for now.

  There had been a message waiting for him from Wittington. The roadblocks had pulled in nothing as yet. The net was being extended to cover the Ohio and Pennsylvania Turnpikes. Fritsch would come to New York in the morning. The two members of the CP-2 crew could add nothing beyond what they had already given. There was no trace of Major John Duncan, although an unexplained set of footprints had been discovered, which might be Duncan’s—they were checking shoe sizes and patterns back at the Texas air base where the bomber had taken off. The footprints had been lost in a rocky area of Piney Knob where the wind had blown the snow free. They weren’t Isaac Kendall’s.

  The names of half a dozen men were neatly sealed in an envelope waiting for him at the hotel clerk’s desk; the men were available whenever he chose to call a specified number. Durell hadn’t called on anyone yet.

  The door to the Cortez house opened at last, but only a few inches, checked by a sturdy chain. A tiny maid w
ith chocolate-colored skin and big eyes peered at him.

  "Señor? "

  “Madame Carlotta Duncan, please.” He spoke in relaxed Spanish. He smiled, to put her at ease while he wondered about her anxious eyes. “Please tell Madame Duncan that Mr. Sam Durell would like to speak to her, urgently, if you will do me the service.”

  “The family is at dinner, señor.”

  “It is very urgent,” he said again.

  “Un momento, por favor.”

  The maid ushered him into a small drawing room to the left of the central corridor. Durell sat down in one of the uncomfortable baroque chairs, then stood up again. He listened to the sounds in the house. The dining room was evidently on the second floor. The servants lived in the back on the ground floor and below, in the basement apartment. There was a huge poster-photograph of General Cortez on the yellow-painted wall between two large upright chests. The national flags of his country were crossed in draped folds below the photograph. It showed the great man on the balcony of his palace in a time of splendor, both arms extended as if in benediction to a huge mass of people, unseen, far below. There was a smile of arrogance, an aura of power in the big figure; there was authority in the resplendent, bemedaled uniform.

  “Sam Durell?”

  He turned and saw Carlotta, and remembrance of this red-haired woman with Johnny Duncan, a year ago, came back all at once and in one piece. She was smiling. There was nothing in her manner to indicate the anxiety exhibited by the maid.

  “How good of you to drop by and see us again, Sam!” Her hand was warm and soft in his. A large hand, for a woman. The tight golden dress and the magnificent jewelry she wore, with her immaculate coiffure and manners, made her seem both more and less than a living, breathing, functioning human woman.

  “I have been asked to call on you, Carlotta,” he said quietly. “I happened to be in New York when they heard about it. I’m very sorry.”

  “Sorry? You heard about what?” She still smiled and dismissed his words. “We were about to have dinner, Sam. May I call you Sam? I do, you see. You’re such a very good friend of Johnny’s. He’s always talking about you, of course. Have you heard from him lately?”