“How much risk did he actually take? People saw him and Wahl chatting together. Did anyone know what they really were, or what they could have been talking about?”
Fenner shook his head.
“Risk develops when people have some idea of what you are, and why you are there. If they don’t know, they may be puzzled. They may even be suspicious. But they can’t start adding two and two. And that is what counts; knowing the exact factors that make the correct total.” Rosie looked at him with a touch of humour. “That works for our side, too.”
“You’re saying that you think I could risk going to Venice?” Fenner asked with a grin.
“Yes. But it’s up to you—”
“Like hell it is. The choice is between me and some little blonde, charming but stupid. Good God, you can’t send her, Rosie, even if that stupidity was only a bit of play-acting for Lenoir’s appreciation.”
“You want to go?”
“That question should be, do we really trust Sandra?”
“We have to. We want the letter. And we want Sandra Fane. She’s the only person who could, and would, point to Robert Wahl and say, ‘That’s Kalganov!’ So, you see—” Rosie threw up his hands.
“Well, we can’t have any moon-struck blonde sitting alone at Florian’s, like a pretty little pet lamb staked out for the wolves.” Here goes sweet Sir William with that damned cloak of his again, Fenner thought morosely. “Who is she? Sandra’s counterpart, but playing on our side of the fence?”
“No more than you are Lenoir’s counterpart,” Rosie said with sudden and real anger. “Have you ever betrayed a friend, or even an enemy, to the Gestapo? Nor would you.”
I suppose I deserved that, Fenner thought. “I apologise to the lady,” he said stiffly.
“She’s someone who got caught up in this whole business by a quirk of fate. She’s like you, in many ways. Her life would be much more comfortable if she hadn’t listened to me.” Rosie sighed. “Come on, Bill—what’s your answer? Yes. Or no. Definitely.”
“I thought I said yes.”
“Just wanted to be sure. And you didn’t have to worry about our little pet lamb of a blonde being staked out alone at one of Florian’s café tables. No, as I see it, you and she are going to be sitting there together.”
“What?”
“Eliminates some of that risk we have been talking about. The two of you are having a week together in Venice. Reasonable?”
“If I’m having a week in Venice with a girl, I don’t want it reasonable.”
“Now, now,” Rosie said, good-humour returning, “and after we’ve planned such a pleasant little jaunt for you!”
“You sound like Carlson.”
“I don’t think so. She’s his girl.”
Fenner raised his eyebrows. His smile was forced. “My luck, as usual.”
“About money,” Rosie said, ending the topic of Carlson’s girl. “You’ll have an expense account. Seemingly from the Chronicle. So first thing you do is call at the Paris office and find a cable from Walt Penneyman with your Venice assignment. Drop a small remark that it’s the right place to combine business and pleasure, and start phoning for reservations for two, on the train this evening—there’s the Simplon Express, which leaves at seven-twenty-eight. Also telephone the Hotel Vittoria in Venice for two rooms.”
“And will I get them? Venice is still pretty crowded.”
“You’ll get them,” Rosie said most definitely, but didn’t explain. “You do all that from the office, and call this number, too.” He handed over a slip of paper. “It’s hers. Tell her, again within earshot of Spitzer, that you’ve got a surprise for her—a week in Venice, and she can start packing. You’ll pick her up in time to catch the train.”
“Why by train?”
“What is cosier than a private room on a train? Or would you prefer a quick flight surrounded by strangers?”
“You can stop leering, Rosie. You know this will be no damn picnic for any of us.”
“No. But—as far as you two are concerned—we’ve kept it fairly easy. All you have to do—”
“—is wander around Venice together, have a drink at Florian’s on Monday evening, meet Sandra, get the letter, wait for Carlson to contact us. Nothing to it.” Fenner’s voice was bitter. “I wish to God this girl wasn’t being drawn into all this. I can handle this alone. Why involve her?”
“It’s safer this way. Believe me, I’ve given that some thought.” Rosie’s voice came out of its momentary gloom, and turned humorous. “She’ll act as a restraint on you. No daring improvisations if you are responsible for her.”
“I’ll stick to instructions,” Fenner promised grimly.
“Good. Play it safe. Take no chances. If you are baffled, do nothing. Let us solve any problems.”
Fenner nodded. “What’s the girl’s name?”
“Langley. Mrs. James Langley. Her husband was killed eight years ago—”
“Yes, so I gathered.”
“You’ve a sharp ear,” Rosie said approvingly. “I hope you can remember everything I told you, until Monday evening. Afterward, I want you to forget everything just as completely. Can you?”
“I’ve had some training in the art of forgetting,” Fenner reminded him. “How much does Mrs. Langley know about this mission?”
“She knows a good deal about Sandra Fane and Lenoir. She has heard of Wahl. She knows that a man called Kalganov was responsible for the terrorism in Saigon when her husband was killed. She knows nothing about the money, or Goldsmith. About Vaugiroud? Possibly his name, but little else. She knows about the letter, but not about its contents. In fact, she knows just enough to understand that something of major importance is at stake.”
Rosie had kept a lot from her. “You trust her?”
“Completely. I wish we could have told you as little, but you forced our hand. You’re a hard man to persuade, Bill.”
I wonder how much he kept from me, too, thought Fenner. “Why is she doing this for you?”
“Why are you?” Rosie hoisted himself slowly out of the comfortable armchair. “She is doing it, not for me, not for Carlson, not for anyone. She has a concern, as the Quakers say. A concern about the shape of the future. She has seen a heart-breaking sample of Kalganov’s work. She doesn’t believe that there is any peace for the rest of us as long as the Kalganovs are loose.” Rosie paused. “You know, in spite of Sandra’s sneer, there is still a lot of quiet patriotism around. The Kalganovs may be in for a surprise... They won’t bury us so easily.”
“Where do I meet Mrs. Langley?” Fenner asked, a little quietened.
“Here. About six o’clock.”
“Here?”
“She lives here, when she doesn’t move out for a night to help a stranger in trouble.”
Fenner recovered. “Full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“Let’s say, when things break naturally, it is a pity not to use them.”
Meaning? Fenner wondered. That he had spent the night in Mrs. Langley’s apartment, that it would be logical to take her to Venice? “It’s hard on her,” he said, disliking the role he was helping her to play.
“Appearance is not reality. That’s how she feels. Just you remember that, too!”
“All right, all right. What do I do with the letter when Sandra hands it over?”
“You won’t have it long. Someone will contact you at once. Someone you know. Saves time, saves tension.”
“And mistakes.”
“There will be no slip-ups. Don’t even let yourself think of that. Remember Sandra’s guess: we are going to have plenty of professionals in the background. Carlson insists on being among them.”
“Sort of expected he wouldn’t be too far away from his girl. Well, that’s about everything.” Except for my doubts about Sandra’s good faith, but they have possibly become a conditioned reflex. “I’ll get shaved, and start thinking of lunch.”
Rosie held out his hand. Its grip was encouraging. “Just stick t
o the script and Act Three will end happily ever after.”
“What happened to Act Two?”
“It began in the Tuileries and ended on the Ile Saint-Louis.”
“You should write a play some day. I’ll review it.”
“Thanks for the warning. By the way, have that lunch before you call at the Chronicle’s office. Penneyman’s cable will certainly be there by this time, but we’ll give Mr. Spitzer a little time to digest it.”
Fenner paused at the bedroom door. “As a matter of fact, I do have an invitation to lunch at noon. At the Café Racine, mine host’s table no less, with Roussin and Vaugiroud.”
“You aren’t serious?” Rosie was shocked. He looked as if he had been struck by the hideous doubt whether Fenner was really the man to send to Venice. Then he saw Fenner’s smile widening. “Don’t do that!” he said testily.
“Oh, it will be a pretty grim luncheon, anyway. I suppose Vaugiroud has already warned Roussin about Angélique.”
“We left that to him.”
“A difficult job. This is one day they won’t enjoy their daily bread. In France, that’s a crime.”
Something caught Rosie’s attention. He swung around. “How often do they lunch together?”
“Every day.”
“At the same table? It’s a fixed date?”
“Yes. Twelve o’clock prompt.”
“Go and shave,” Rosie said. He headed toward the telephone on the desk. “Can you remember Vaugiroud’s damned number?” he called, his voice sharp with worry.
Fenner shaved, showered, and dressed quickly. But Rosenfeld had left by the time he came back into the room. There was a note propped against the clock. His telephone doesn’t answer. Will call him at the restaurant. Have a nice vacation. Bring me back a pigeon.
Fenner burned the message, reminding himself wryly that he was behaving in the very best tradition. While he was being security-minded, he might as well memorise Mrs. Langley’s telephone number and get rid of that slip of paper, too. Also, he would call the Chronicle on some pretence, and let Spitzer tell him that there was a cable from New York waiting to be picked up. That was better than walking in, asking, “Has a cable by some chance arrived?” This was a game not too difficult to learn, he thought. A game? A game in deadly earnest. A vacation in Venice that was grim business. A girl constantly beside him who wasn’t his. How the hell had he walked into this upside-down world? His first mistake had been to play the good Samaritan at Orly, to leave his raincoat unattended. If he hadn’t gone rushing off for a glass of water, there would have been no Carlson, no Rosie, and only that wish-I-could-help-you goodbye to Vaugiroud.
And no problems, no cause and effect, not one thing leading to another...
Where, he wondered suddenly, would Venice lead?
13
So he had picked up Penneyman’s cable at the Chronicle’s small office—one large room, one private cubicle, and a switchboard—where two diffident women and one plump-faced boy were keeping Spitzer dutiful but not enthusiastic company on a bright but bomb-shocked Saturday afternoon.
The cable was good. (Fenner even wondered if Rosie’s fine hand had not carefully sprinkled the chosen pieces of information over the text; if Carlson had not signed it in Walt Penneyman’s name.) It was clear and exact. First, congratulations on persuading Vaugiroud to write a piece on the Common Market for the Chronicle’s Sunday, October 15, edition. Proposed length (three thousand words) and rate (seven hundred dollars) agreeable. Next, could Fenner fit a trip to Italy into his existing schedule for two interviews (five hundred dollars each, plus simple expenses) written in his old UN style? Subjects: two rival neutralists returning from the Belgrade Conference, recharging their batteries in Venice on Monday. Topic: the Bomb. Spitzer, a thin-faced, intelligent-eyed man, with a large forehead and a small chin, must have read the cable, but he pretended appropriate interest and surprise. Play it loose, Fenner reminded himself. Sure, he agreed with Spitzer, this shot his immediate plans to hell, but you know Walt Penneyman, always thinking up some job for little hands to do, besides—once the idea was suggested, it began to have possibilities. After all, Venice. With expenses.
So he had made the call to the number Rosie had given him.
The conversation, even if somewhat one-sided, wasn’t too bad an effort. A woman’s voice answered, but he hoped it didn’t belong to Mrs. James Langley—too flat, too routine, not even bothering to return his enthusiasm. “Look, darling,” he began softly, “remember that talk we had last night?... I know you said Avignon was too hot at this time of year... No, no, I’m not trying to make you change your mind about Avignon. What about Venice?... Yes, I thought you’d like Venice. Sure, I’m brilliant... I’ll set it up at once. I’ll collect you around six—okay? Yes, honey, I remember you don’t like to fly. We’ll go by train. There’s no rush, is there?... Oh, about a week, I’d say. Can you manage that?... Yes, I love you, too, darling.” And the woman’s noncommittal voice said, “How nice.” Spitzer, head bent over some copy, looked up casually. “A week in Venice?” he asked with thin amusement. Fenner grinned like a happy idiot who had just settled a very smart deal. “On an expense account, too,” said Fenner. That was the phrase that would really twist the hook into Spitzer’s gullet: wasn’t the weakness of capitalists their constant thought of money money money?
So he had made the train and hotel reservations, too, growing cheerier by the minute.
Spitzer was making some work for himself with a blue pencil when he received the biggest shock of the day. Even Fenner, in the middle of his call to Venice, faltered for an amazed moment when Mike Ballard walked in. Ballard was haphazardly dressed, a green cotton-mesh shirt with white stripes, no tie, a natural-coloured linen jacket (crumpled at the back), faded red trousers, loafers on his feet. His temper was foul. He scowled at Fenner by way of greeting as he marched to Spitzer’s desk. “Why the hell didn’t you call me? The Russians start exploding bombs and you don’t even pick up a telephone,” he began, and went on with increasing vividness.
Fenner completed his call and drifted over to the two men. “Nice beach?” he asked with a grin, looking at Ballard’s clothes.
Ballard was studying a copy of Spitzer’s report to New York on the Soviet bomb tests. He snapped, “That’s where I’ve come from. Heard the news at eleven. Caught the plane with ten seconds to spare. Now I feel like a refugee from a circus. What are you doing here?” He was eyeing the cable, with Penneyman’s name clearly visible, that still lay casually on Spitzer’s desk.
“Picking up a cable.” Fenner reached over and lifted it.
“Venice!”
“That’s right.”
“Why there?”
“I don’t think it’s any of your damned business,” Fenner said gently.
“Isn’t it?” Ballard asked, after a startled pause. He went back to reading Spitzer’s report. “No good, no good. Scrap it!” he told Spitzer angrily.
“It went out, this morning. I did my best. I thought—”
“You sent this garbage under my name?” Ballard demanded.
“Goodbye, chaps,” Fenner said, and made for the door.
“Hold on, Bill.” Ballard followed him quickly. “What is all this about Venice?”
“Do you want to read it again?” Fenner handed him the cable.
Ballard waved it away. “It is my business, you know,” he said, no longer aggressive but openly worried. “And why send you to see this Vaugiroud when I’m here?”
“But you weren’t, Mike. Don’t worry. I covered up for you.”
“And took the Vaugiroud assignment,” Ballard said bitterly. “When did Penneyman telephone about it? Yesterday morning?”
Fenner dodged a lie. “You had already gone. So I told him you had grippe, wouldn’t be on your feet until Monday.” He glanced definitely at Spitzer. “It’s a good out for you. Every way. Use it.”
The idea had begun to glimmer in Ballard’s eyes. He said, mollified, “Who is this Vau
giroud?”
“A retired professor of Moral Philosophy.”
“How did Penneyman hear about him?”
“He’s an old World War II buddy.”
“Oh, one of those.” Ballard relaxed visibly.
“Have a nice week-end with your typewriter,” Fenner said, leaving. Ballard grunted, stripped off his jacket as he headed for his private cubicle, and threw the two women into a frenzy of work as he yelled for the boy to get coffee. Spitzer, bent over the copy he was checking, looked like a man who had miscalculated and didn’t know how.
* * *
So all that was over, the first steps taken, no retreat possible. Fenner studied the last hour’s performance from every angle as he walked briskly down the broad and spruce Avenue de l’Opéra. On the whole, good. His credentials had been established. Strange how a little evasion here, a little play-acting there, had changed the accounting of his thirty-odd hours in Paris. He hadn’t actually liked that skirting of the truth, so why should he be enjoying this feeling of petty triumph? He could almost hear Rosie’s probable comment: “Petty? What’s petty about Robert Wahl’s plans? What’s petty about the smallest success against them? And another thing—drop that word ‘triumph’, even if you use it ironically. Especially when you use it ironically. Cut out the comic heroics and concentrate on survival. And it’s not only your survival I’m talking about, either. You know what’s at stake.”
Yes, I know what’s at stake, Fenner thought grimly. Even Vaugiroud, ethics and all, must have put philosophical questions of right and wrong aside in his resistance to the Nazis. How had he equated argument and action? Strength in one could mean weakness in the other. Carlson had guessed something of this conflict in Fenner: that explained, perhaps, why he had wanted Fenner out of this whole business. Yet Rosie, who was in several ways a less sympathetic character, had disagreed with Carlson: did he see Fenner less clearly? Or more deeply? Let’s hope it’s the latter, Fenner thought: I like feeling flattered as much as any man. And if I laugh at cloaks and daggers, I don’t laugh very much at treason, stratagems, and spoils.
The Venetian Affair Page 17
