Crimson Jade

by George B Mair

  Cyp flushed to the root of his neck and silently split open the end of his cigar. A slim, cylindrical transmitter motivated by a miniscule transistorised power unit dropped on to his hand and Grant almost laughed as he wrapped it in a handkerchief, thrust it into a trouser pocket and threw away flakes of tobacco leaf. Cyp, he felt, was a weak man who would do as he was told. ‘Was that thing working?’

  The Minister nodded. ‘A pick-up in my bedroom.’

  Grant tingled with anticipation. ‘Then let’s go there, shall we? Because if someone’s hooked on your wavelength and got a tape with half-decent sound I would estimate that you won’t be posted to either Washington or London. Not ever.’

  Bas, Petra, Mikel and most of the people he had met were still in the salon and Cyp veered through a vast entrance hall towards the stair-case.

  Grant watched him point to a door on the first floor and then motioned him against the wall. He eased out a snub-nosed .38 S. and W. Bodyguard Airweight from a forward muzzle cant modification of the old FBI-style butt-forward holster which he wore concealed by his For Men specially cut tuxedo, and noted, as he cocked his wrist, that his time-piece was just on five minutes after midnight.

  The room was empty but an open attaché case had been converted into a tape deck. He signalled to the Minister, ordered him to rub out the track, snibbed the safety check on his .38 and returned it to its holster. ‘At least no one can use that again,’ said Grant thoughtfully. ‘But it’s still an open bet as to whether anyone else has been monitoring us. Is it even remotely possible that any other person could have known you were going to use that this evening?’

  The Minister shook his head. ‘I got it from a friend in West Germany and I would doubt if he even knows what country I’m in right now.’

  ‘Well, does anyone else know about it?’

  ‘I’m sure not.’

  ‘Mikel?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Petra?’

  Cyp hesitated. ‘She can come and go as she pleases. But would it matter if she did know? Surely she, of all people, wouldn’t let me down!’

  Grant stared at the Minister straight between the eyes. ‘Who indeed, of all people, is Petra?’ he said quietly. ‘Now, shall we join the others? I’m staying here overnight and my stuff should have arrived. So come to the Teak Suite for breakfast at around nine, and if you still feel like telling me your story we can take it from there. But think it all over first.’

  Cyp forced a smile. ‘You’re very kind.’

  ‘Or curious,’ said Grant. ‘But remember that this sort of set-up is my business. We authors must collect material! Though I don’t want to hear the story of your life unless you’ve had plenty of time for second thoughts. Listening to secrets is a good way to make enemies!’

  He followed the Minister downstairs and joined Mikel who was playing host to Mauriac and the President’s wife. Petra was drinking her usual late-night whisky-soda, which he interpreted as a signal that the party was shortly due to break up, and already two or three guests had disappeared—though it was still early for Argentines.

  ‘Where have you been?’ said Mikel. ‘We’ve hardly seen you since dinner.’

  ‘Admiring your peyote cacti. Plus unwinding in your glass house.’

  Mikel looked at him curiously. ‘You know the peyote cactus?’

  ‘Sure. Grows in the Wirikúta wildlands of Mexico: yields a hallucinogenic drug which hasn’t yet reached Golden Gate Park or Piccadilly: and is harvested by a few people hooked on dreaming beautiful dreams about souls and gods and sunshine and eternity. It seems incongruous in a home like this.’

  Mauriac laughed. ‘The stage lost a good actor as well as an impressive Scarpia in you, David Grant. Tell me more about this drug.’

  Mikel lifted a glass of Remy Martin Champagne Cognac from a passing house-boy. ‘Way-out stuff, Helena. But I’ve got a couple of plants in the tropical house and Grant spotted them. Not important. In fact we haven’t enough to harvest a day’s supply for a Huichol Indian, who are about the only people who use it anyhow.’

  Grant guessed that the man was irritated: and since he was a professional business tycoon it was a safe bet that he didn’t show emotion easily, so the peyote cactus began to seem important. ‘The one newish drug which might one day really matter,’ he said, ‘is carbachol. Not terribly new, but people tell me that if you inject it into the right place any ordinary person can be turned into an obsessive killer within a few hours. One or two people have even got the idea that it should be possible to give it routine to combat troops. Seems they could then be expected to attack anything and even get kicks out of killing.’

  Mikel shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ll believe it when it happens.’

  ‘Man,’ said Grant softly, ‘when you find it happening it could be too late. The fellow who’s “happening” would be a killer.’

  Brandt slipped a small gun from a neat shoulder holster. ‘This can stop anything short of an elephant.’ He slipped it back into the holster and lifted his champagne. ‘Life’s gotten too complicated, but I still try to keep it simple, and few things are more simple than a well-placed bullet. Cheers and the hell with mischief-makers!’

  Grant detested coincidences. The word had already been used at least twice that evening and he began to wonder if Mikel had monitored Cyp’s conversation and subconsciously picked it up. ‘Madame Mauriac wants me to hear Tosca.’

  ‘She’s already told me, and we’ve room in our box. Details later.’ Mikel turned towards the television interrogator who was preparing to leave and escorted him to the remise car which was waiting. Mauriac and the President’s wife became involved with the World Bank and Petra appeared as though from nowhere.

  ‘Your suite is ready, David Grant. I’ll be up to see you in around thirty minutes.’

  ‘And is that the only place where we can meet?’

  Petra lifted her glass. ‘To my black mamba who asks too many questions! Have a shower, make yourself comfortable, and since you’re so very English I’ll have a pot of tea sent up. Or would you rather have some chicken breast, toast and the Brandt answer to a Bernkastler Doktor Auslese?’

  It was unlikely that any South American wine could approach one of the best Moselles, and Grant was curious. ‘I’ll try it. But with toast and grated Corrientes Goya cheese.’ He paused. ‘I take it you’re joining me?’

  ‘As from midnight I’m a whisky chap. And I’ve eaten enough.’

  ‘Weight problems?’

  ‘Both. Weight and problems.’

  ‘Your weight must only be around fifty-nine kilos and your measurements about 37:22:35.’

  ‘37:22:36 actually. But it’s the “36” which has to be eased down. I don’t like it when briefs make a ridge round one’s thighs.’

  ‘I should worry!’ said Grant. ‘You look very well. And your face doesn’t register problems. No tension lines.’

  She emptied her glass. ‘In thirty minutes. No need to worry about excusing yourself. This is open house and people come or go as they please.’ She signalled a house-boy and spoke rapidly in Spanish. ‘Gomez will show you where to go, and chow will arrive in twenty minutes or so. See you.’

  Gomez bowed apologetically and led the way. The Teak Room was really a small suite. Dressing room, bedroom, bath with trimmings and sun lounge or salon were connected to the main mass of the house by a tiled corridor and overhung the conservatory. A balcony was enclosed by wrought-iron supporting baskets of pot plants. Three vases of roses and fern dressed the salon, while in the bathroom creeping plants wandered round two walls from containers standing on specially designed niches by the windows. The tub was three-fourths sunk and had been worked from polished pink marble. But the name Teak was completely out of place, since there didn’t seem to be even one panel in the unit.

  Grant lit a cigarette while Gomez drew the bath. He had arranged for the valet not to appear until called in the morning, but his things had already been unpacked and pyjamas draped across the she
ets. Two buttons controlled a source of music and both radio and television were fitted flush with the bedside wall. He could hear cicadas and the buzz of insects whirring from gardens beyond the little sitting room and even the play of water from fountains downstairs. A large aquarium, holding minute gaudily striped and incredibly beautiful tropical fish, had also been inserted flush with the wall almost opposite his bed: the faint whirr of an air-pump could just be detected when every other noise source had been switched off, and the swirling deep green water, flecked with blobs of colour sometimes darting from coral shapes to the shelter of sea-plants, was the most relaxing sight he had seen in months. The aquarium gave the room a presence and he even began to look forward to Petra’s visit.

  He was stretched out in the bath, relaxed against foam-rubber matting when she stepped inside. She was smoking a Por Larranaga Petit Corona and holding a crystal glass with what looked like a double whisky.

  ‘I got away early,’ she said, ‘and I hope you’re not annoyed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You wanted dry toast with Corrientes Goya cheese but Bas tells me we haven’t got any, so he’s sent up one of our Brazilian cheeses instead: Queijo de Minas from Minas Gerais. A chalky type which goes with hot buttered toast. Do you want to eat it in your bath or what? And incidentally you strip very well.’

  ‘Or what,’ said Grant curtly. ‘Hand me a towel.’

  Petra lifted a bath-robe. ‘Hot toast doesn’t improve with waiting. Can you manage, or shall I dry your back?’

  ‘Do,’ said Grant softly. ‘Dry my back and then let’s have a chat.’

  She watched him slick his hair, tie the cords of his house coat and step into Japanese-type sandals. It occurred to her that he was one of the few men she had seen who didn’t look silly wearing flip-flaps and a knee-length robe with no pants. In fact, she thought, David Grant wasn’t likely to look silly in anything. The man’s personality intrigued her and she tensed with deep, deep down expectation as she dropped the towel and brushed against his thighs.

  3

  ‘Who was David Grant?’

  Grant watched her pour a second glass of white wine. It reminded him more of a Graacher Abtsberg, but at least it could pass for a Moselle and he gave Brandt credit for having achieved what he would have thought to be the impossible. ‘You had something to say.’

  Petra looked at him curiously. Grant had interested her from the beginning, yet one part of her resented his habit of jumping in at the deep end or taking some sort of bull by the horns without any preliminaries and she decided to test his cool. In fact she had planned to test many things before the night ended. ‘I thought you’d be tanned all over: that a man like you would be irritated by a white belt round his middle.’

  Grant nibbled the cheese. ‘Sadly, I’ve got no built-in colour. I’ve got to work for my tan but you collected it at conception.’

  Her face darkened and Grant remembered again how even dark-skinned people can still appear to blush. ‘I thought you liked niggers,’ she said.

  ‘Niggers!’ Grant smiled. ‘You’re being childish, Petra. That word doesn’t bother me. And if you’re thinking of Krystelle she wouldn’t mind either. We can face facts. Some people say “nigger” and others that “black is beautiful”. It’s the latest slogan.’

  ‘Krystelle! What do you mean? Is it a she?’ Petra knew all about Krystelle but was curious to hear what Grant would say. Most Caucasians would wriggle and try to avoid a straight answer.

  ‘My girl friend. Mistress if you like. The girl who calls herself a fifty-seven-variety multi-caste. Christine de Touvel, sometimes called Courcelle and known to her friends as Krystelle. From Sinnamary, French Guiana. Father a French convict and mother a Creole. Skin the colour of light beer and eyes like autumn tints on maple leaves. Hair shoulder length and almost blue-black. Measurements 38:22:36. So she’s got the edge on you! A little more on one area which matters and a little less round another. Speaks French with a Pigalle accent, English according to London 1A 1AA and American with southern undertones. Anything else?’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘On holiday.’

  ‘But you don’t know her address?’

  ‘We can keep in touch.’

  Petra sipped her whisky. It was her third double since midnight. ‘Why did you send these flowers?’

  ‘Because you interest me.’

  ‘As material for a book?’

  ‘As material for bed.’ It was Grant’s first real opening to annoy her and he had taken her measure. She had begun by trying to irritate him so it was going to be interesting to see who cracked first.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so when we were in London or Mykonos and you had chances. You were pretty distant. Or were you frightened? Men like you often fantasise plenty about women, but lose their nerve when faced with reality.’

  ‘I saw you for only a short time in London.’

  ‘You didn’t even try for a short time in London,’ said Petra. ‘You walked through that party as if your middle name was Messiah.’

  ‘And in Mykonos your husband was around.’

  ‘He’s around tonight,’ said Petra curtly, ‘and if a private eye came in right now he could get a divorce for the asking. Especially if I do this,’ she added, and swiftly unzipped her blouse, slithering out of a hundred dollars’ worth of black silk to prove that Grant’s guess had been right.

  ‘So you don’t use booby-traps under silk,’ said Grant. ‘Now that night in Mykonos when the meltemi blew up? What did you wear under the chinchilla?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing. I like the feel of hair and silk. Why? Are you a voyeur?’

  ‘I just wondered if you had really done a Butterfield 8.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Meaning same as Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8. Or don’t you know up-to-date slang?’

  Petra spoke for five minutes flat in either Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, French, German or Swedish. ‘You should talk!’ she finished. ‘How much of that did you understand?’

  Grant was forced to laugh. ‘Very little. A couple of words in Italian which would cause vendetta if you used them in Sicily. But now that you’ve proven your one-upmanship what makes you so anxious to talk to me?’

  The girl put down her glass. ‘You saw Cyp tonight. What did he tell you?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘You’re a liar, David Grant. But I won’t press you. Did he tell you I’m not his sister but his daughter? And that if his wife knew there would be hell to pay? In fact he might very well be ruined even now, and I want to talk about it. His parents died in an air crash when he was a teenager and left him a load of sorrow. Our family estates were almost derelict. The rubber boom had slumped and even the land was worthless at that time. The set-up must have been frightful. People starving. Men ready to kill for a little food. Women prepared to do anything that would bring in a little money. Mixed-blood Amazonian Indians who had been corrupted during the rubber boom trying to fit in to a European sort of world and being conned by the whites at every turn. Then bursts of killing Indians either for kicks or for their land, because Indian villages meant ground which had been cultivated and where there was some control of the jungle. Places, in fact, where white settlements could be set up. Not even General Rondin of the Indian Protection Agency could be everywhere. Geological surveys and all sorts were being carried out until land eventually became valuable. But Indian soil was easier to get than estates which belonged to absent landlords who thought European.

  ‘Few young men could have faced all that and not been affected, so Cyp was no worse than many others. He slept with women on the estates, and once, when he was drunk, took part in killing two half-breed Indian troublemakers. It was a sport at that time to fix them to a board and use them for target practice until they died. The man who fired the shot which killed lost the jackpot, and that sort of stuff has been documented in a score of books. But Cyp took part in it and he is now really an Amazonian p
eriod piece trying to fit into the late twentieth century.

  ‘But he always had a gift for business and conned a neighbour into fusing the two estates because there was an idea that this could prove more economical. Well, the man never read the small print and found himself liable for a fortune in debts, so he cut his hand and jumped into the river. It was a terrible way of committing suicide and a lot of his people attacked Cyp’s house in Manaos screaming for blood. There were riots, but the police were dirty and most of them were being given “happy money” by Cyp anyhow. So they let the mob have it in the teeth. Ten or twelve died and next day Cyp took a plane six hundred miles back to his landing strip and dug in. The widow of the suicide was a beautiful woman, a quadroon: one part West African and three parts Italian, and Cyp is Portuguese, whatever that means racially. Anyhow, although she was eight or nine years older they had an affair. And it lasted for several years. But I was the only result and by the time I was born they were living in Manaos. Cyp had settled down and his land was being properly developed. He was making good money, but when the second war began he was dead lucky in that some essential minerals were discovered on his ground. In fact Sir Winston Churchill went on record as saying that without Brazil the Allies might never have won the war.

  ‘Mineral developments, of course, gave him political pull so he entered the diplomatic service and I was born in the middle of the second war when he was still fairly junior but pretty comfortable. In fact the second war gave him more overseas reserves in gilt-edged than even the rubber boom could have done at its peak. Which is saying something!

  ‘But my mother died when I was born and Cyp had to register both the birth and the death. Now his career might have been ruined if some government brass had known that he had been screwing the widow of a man who had committed suicide because of a fast deal. So he parted with some quite big money, got a false death certificate covering the date of death of his parents and made it appear that I had been born just before it.’