by James Munro
The waiter stood beside him and looked at the ship.
'The Naxos boat," he said. "Beautiful, eh?"
"Beautiful," said Craig.
"A palace," said the waiter. "A king could live there and not feel ashamed. And for Naxos it's only a setting for one jewel."
"Yes?" said Craig.
"His wife. A solitaire diamond for Naxos, the only one in the world. So he builds a boat for her—white on white. And I'll tell you something—it works."
"You've seen her?" said Craig.
"She passed by here once," said the waiter. "That's when I started talking like a poet."
A flotilla of small boats put out for the yacht.
"Beautiful," said the waiter. "When Naxos comes to town, everyone goes to him. Look! Health Authority, Customs, newspapers, government, they all want to visit the palace, to see the queen."
"And the money," said Craig.
"Without money, how can there be queens?" said the waiter severely.
At dusk a motorboat put off from the yacht and raced for the harbor, its cox'n using the twin screws with great skill to bring her to rest by the cafe. A white-clad sailor leaped ashore, and Craig stood up.
"Mr. Craig?" said the sailor.
Craig nodded, and the sailor exploded into a salute, then raced to pick up Craig's luggage.
"You know her?" asked the waiter. "No. Him. Naxos," said Craig.
"Hephaistos and Aphrodite," said the waiter. "Remember Hephaistos had a net. We should all be netted like that—just once in our lives.
Craig went aboard the boat and it roared into life. Behind him Piraeus faded into purple shadow, and one by one the lights came on, looping the bay in soft blobs of gold. The Philippa was dressed overall, and her whiteness gleamed like silver now under her deck lights. The powerboat slowed, stopped by the companion way, twin screws chopping the water into flashes like gems. The Aegean was dark now, and tranquil as sleep. Craig went up on deck, to where the band was playing a cha-cha, and mess stewards served long drinks, ice cubes clinking a counterrhythm to the bongos and maracas. Suddenly a voice split the music like an ax.
"John," it roared. "Where the hell ya been this last ten years? Welcome aboard."
Craig turned to face his host, his problem.
Aristides Naxos was a squat barrel of a man with an immense breadth of shoulder that even so seemed only just wide enough to sustain the weight of his head. The head was vast, yet not unsightly, with a great weight of white hair, a nose like a ship's prow, a rich, sensitive mouth and wide gray eyes that had never told anybody anything. The whole effect was of a crude but tremendous power that was beginning to tire. Naxos had had the force, the will, and the strength to achieve almost anything he wanted, and he'd done so. Now he looked ready for rest.
Before the war he'd been a sailor. His grandmother had died and left him a caique. Inside a year he owned three. In five years he had a couple of tramp steamers. When the war came he sailed them into convoy, picked up another convoy in Britain, and reached America. He mortgaged them there and bought more ships. He went to South America and got into oil. He bought real estate in Florida. And more ships. Always more ships. If the Germans sunk them he got compensation; if they survived the cargo rates were enormous. By the end of the war he'd been a millionaire many times over, and he'd come back to Europe to ransack the Middle East. Arbrit Oil had swallowed almost the whole of his fortune at first, but in the end it had paid off, leaving him with 5 percent of whatever Zaarb, the ramshackle, sun-dried little sheikhdom off the Red Sea coast produced. And what came out was oil, a thick, black river that swept Naxos's personal fortune to that of a small nation. And trouble. When it went Red Naxos was the most hated man in Zaarb, but as long as he had his 5 percent he could vote for British troops to stay there. Naxos hired a private army of bodyguards, and voted for the status quo.
It didn't seem to worry him too much. Despite his weariness he looked fit enough to go five rounds with a heavyweight champion, his skin was bronzed and firm, and his handshake hard, yet Craig knew he was fifty at least. In a white sharkskin dinner jacket, black trousers, cherry-colored cummerbund, he looked grotesque, but he looked grotesque in any clothes. After a while the sheer strength of his personality made you forget how he looked. The only thing that would do him justice would be a suit of armor, thought Craig. Then he'd look like a king.
"Where the hell ya been?" Naxos said again.
"Back in England," said Craig. "Making money."
"Selling cigars?"
"That was a personal service—just for you," said Craig. "I got fed up with smuggling and went into nuts and bolts for a while, then I retired."
"You made enough, huh?"
"I had a good offer," said Craig. "And I like traveling. It was nice of you to ask me here."
"As soon as I knew you were in Greece," Naxos bawled. "Philippa's crazy to meet you. She'll be along soon. Come and meet the others."
He took Craig's arm and dragged him over to the people on deck, men and women who were there simply because they belonged to a group that was always available, always around, in Cannes and Corfu and Sun Valley and Ig-gls. People who could ski a bit and swim a bit and drink a great deal. Naxos bought them as he bought pictures, to plug the holes in his background. Craig said hello to a French count and an Italian starlet and an English Honorable, and nodded to a dozen more. Naxos went away and came back with a glass of Scotch on the rocks, put it in Craig's hand. The other guests reacted to the personal service as a spider reacts to a tremor in the web. Craig was in. It would be necessary to be nice to him.
"You remembered my drink," he said.
"I don't forget essentials," said Naxos, and looked anxiously at the companionway. "Women take a hell of a time to dress."
"The suspense is part of the treat," said Craig.
"I talk like a married man," Naxos said. T can't help it. I am married."
The starlet sighed very softly.
"Where are we going?" asked Craig.
The starlet tried a laugh this time, a low-pitched, husky trill.
"Don't you know?" she asked.
Somehow the three words conveyed to Craig that she thought him an eccentric, and therefore sexy.
"Craig just likes traveling," said Naxos.
"Destinations don't interest you?" said the Honorable.
"I've retired," said Craig.
"I never started," said the count.
The starlet gave a very Italianate shrug. It kept her torso in motion for three seconds.
"We're going to Venice," she said.
"That will be nice," said Craig.
"You know Venice?" asked the count.
"A bit."
"Very lush," said the Honorable, "but terribly overdone. All those vistas. Like a film set."
"It is a film set," said the starlet. "I've worked there myself."
And I, Craig remembered. I was nineteen. We went to stop some Germans blowing up that bridge by the Piazzale Roma. We succeeded—that time. Their lieutenant looked younger than me. He had an iron cross. Rutter took it for his scrapbook.
"I'd like to see that clock," said Craig. "The one where the two Moors come out and belt it with hammers."
'The best thing is the Carpaccios. And there are one or two Mantegnas of course," said the Honorable.
He began to talk about the Carpaccios and Mantegnas as the moon came up. Naxos watched out for his wife. The Honorable had got on to comparative color values when Naxos roared, "Honey. There you are." There was a woman at the top of the companionway, and Naxos seemed to reach her in one great push, but that one moment alone was the one Craig remembered.
She wore silver; a straight, clinging sheath of embroidered silk that glowed cold in the moonlight. Her hair was so blonde as to be almost white, and it too was silver when the moonlight touched it. Her body was sleek, graceful, her legs and ankles perfect. She walked like the sort of queen who is rescued from robber barons in a Hollywood TV series. She looked beautiful and
innocent. Craig heard the Honorable whisper to the count, "How clever of her to wait until the moon came out." Then she and Naxos moved beneath the deck lights and the innocence had gone, and in its place was a wary alertness that reminded Craig of Tessa. Loomis had been right about that: this woman had been hurt.
Naxos came with her into the group: Craig thought of Bottom and Titania as he watched the man's face. The fact that he worshipped her was obvious: what Craig hadn't allowed for was that she felt the same way about him, and that this was equally apparent.
"Honey," said Naxos, "I want you to meet John Craig."
She held her hand out to him at once. The palm was cool, slightly moist, the bones delicate, but not fragile. There was a toughness about her for all her beauty. Anyone who can conquer heroin has to be tough, with a toughness of mind that will see the body destroyed before it will let go.
"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Craig," she said.
Another shock. Her voice was soft, low-pitched, the accent almost English.
"My pleasure, Mrs. Naxos," said Craig.
Naxos bellowed with laughter, a bull with a sense of
humor.
"Mr. Craig, Mrs. Naxos," he said. "You're John and Philippa."
His massive arms came round them both, forcing them into friendship.
"I'd like that," said Philippa. "So would I," said Craig.
A waiter came up with drinks then, and again Naxos picked hers from the tray. They moved round their guests together, a duo who functioned only as a duo. Once they were separated they would be lost.
"Gorgeous, isn't she?" said the Honorable.
"I didn't believe it till I saw it," said the count.
The starlet tried another sigh, but the competition was too great.
"We were talking about Venice," said the count.
"Ah, yes, the Carpaccios. Do let me go on about the Carpaccios," said the Honorable.
"Anyone can see that Craig is an art lover," said the
count
"Well of course. It's written all over him. I noticed it at once; there's a man who wants to know about Carpaccios, I said to myself."
"Did you now?" said Craig. The Honorable looked up quickly. There was nothing wrong with the words, but the way he used them made him wary.
"My dear fellow, just our boyish fun," said the Honorable.
Craig said: "I'd sooner hear about Hephaistos and Aphrodite. Try your boyish fun on them."
"Aphrodite is the Greek name for Venus, the goddess of love," said the Honorable. "She was the wife of Hephaistos—he's Vulcan in Latin—a lame god, the smith who made weapons for heroes, and so on. Aphrodite was loved by Ares, god of war—called Mars by the Romans."
"Is there something about a net?"
"A net? Oh yes. Hephaistos found Aphrodite and Ares together in a rather too basic sort of way. He trapped them in a net. . . . May I ask why you're interested?"
"It was something a feller said to me once," said Craig. "I think he was trying to show off. Talking about things he knew I know nothing about."
He left the group, walked to the rail, and looked at the moon-washed whiteness of the harbor. Silk rustled beside him, and the starlet said: "I think you will like Venice now. It is not only pictures, Mr. Craig."
"John, Miss Busoni," said Craig.
"Pia Busoni," said the starlet, "call me Pia, please."
In England, Craig reminded himself, girls had been christened Faith, Hope, Charity, even Chastity. Why shouldn't an Italian call his daughter Pious? How was a father to know his daughter would grow into a body like hers?
"I know Venice very well," Pia said. "I'd be happy to show you around."
"No Carpaccios?"
"Only a very few. He painted an awful lot of pictures," said Pia.
Craig said: "It's a deal," and they went in to dinner.
The dining room was blue and silver, and the perfect setting for Philippa. It was only when they sat down that Craig noticed something that should have been obvious from the start: every other woman there was a brunette. Naxos worked hard to keep his wife unique.
The meal drifted by, a poem in five verses, accompanied by wine from the finest private cellar in Europe. Naxos drank German beer, and his wife had one glass of wine right through the meal. Craig drank a Latour '47, and wished to God Naxos had forgotten he liked whiskey. There were seventeen guests besides himself, and they looked, every one of them, what Naxos believed they were, and Naxos would know. Yet he suspected some of them, and there might be others he knew nothing about. It wasn't going to be easy to keep him alive if someone was really determined that he should die. And yet killing him wasn't the ideal solution; Zaarb would want him alive, and voting their way. That would mean attacking what he valued most, and that could only mean his wife.
The meal ended at last, and the brandy appeared, and Craig settled down to hear about the splendors and miseries of Cinecitta; and to speculate on how long it would take Pia, other things being equal, to shrug herself right out of her dress. She'd have to be standing up of course, and the zipper unloosed say the first inch and a half. . . . On his right, the count was telling the Honorable how Putzi had come a terrible purler on the beginners' slope at Cortina last year. It had something to do with champagne, and Putzi's conviction that he could ski backwards. Suddenly Naxos appeared, leered at Pia and said: "I'm taking him away for a bit, sweetie. Dreary old business."
"But you said he'd retired," Pia pouted.
"He's got money," said Naxos. "I want some. Come on, John. Bring your glass. I'll send him back to you, sweetie. Another brandy and he's yours." He winked and walked off, leading the way to a room that was part office, part study, wholly Naxos. Massive, durable furniture, charts and maps of his wealth on the bulkheads, the only decorations a tenth-scale model of his first caique and a portrait of Philippa by the man who does all the V.I.P.'s, and gets everything right but their humanity. Naxos poured more brandy for Craig, and a massive jolt of raki for himself.
"It really is nice to see you again," he said. "Philippa likes you too."
Craig thought: He's trying too hard. All this friend-
ship for a man who used to sell him cigars He must be worried. He stared back at Naxos, who looked at Craig, as a jockey might appraise a new racehorse, a promoter a new fighter.
"You look in good shape," he said. "I'm glad of that. I hear this may get rough." Craig nodded. "You know," Naxos continued, "there was a time I thought I could lick you. Not any more. You've got the edge on me, John."
"How?" asked Craig.
"I'm married to Philippa," Naxos said. "That means I worry about her—all the time. Now you, you don't worry about anybody."
"I worry about you," said Craig.
"I'lll I've signed the agreement," Naxos said. "After that I'm on my own. Right?"
"Would you want it any other way?" Craig asked.
"God no," said Naxos. "I've made a fortune out of Zaarb, and it's cost me ten years of my life in worry. Flip and I want to enjoy what's left. And that's where you come in."
"I know it," Craig said. "That's what I'm here for."
"Zaarb wants me dead," said Naxos, "but if I die it all goes to Philippa, and she'll vote against them. So Zaarb can't kill me. It makes them very unhappy."
"I bet," said Craig.
"All they can do is get at me through Flip," said
Naxos.
"Or offer you more money."
The words were out before he could stop them, but in any case they had to be said. Ever since he'd talked with Loomis, Craig had thought of that particular risk. Naxos was a businessman, who wanted the power that money brought. More money—more power.
"I'm satisfied," said Naxos. "I've got enough."
Craig knew that he was lying.
"A hundred million pounds. A one and eight zeros. Isn't that enough?"
"I wouldn't know," said Craig. "I've still got three zeros to go."
And Naxos laughed then, threw back his head and bellowed his
brave bull's laughter.
'Tell me about your guests," Craig said. "Who doesn't
fit?"
T checked the list myself," Naxos said. "So did my security people. There's only one who's wrong—Pia Busoni." "How did you meet her?"
"I didn't. She got chummy with Flip. She's very like Flip, in a way. What I mean is, she wants to act, but she's no good. And she knows it. It makes her desperate—or that's what Flip says—and believe me she would know. That kid's at the stage where she'd dive off the Eiffel Tower into a wet sponge if somebody took pictures on the way down."
'That doesn't make her an agent," Craig said.
"I told you," said Naxos. "Flip's fond of her. They spend a lot of time together. If anyone could get at my wife, it's Pia Busoni. And she's broke, and not getting the parts, and been around too long. In my book she's a risk."
"She'll be watched," Craig said. "What about those two aristocrats in search of a peasant?"
'Tavel and Swyven? They're okay. Like you say, they're aristocrats. Tavel was in Indochina. A prisoner. The Viets gave him a rough time. All they do is fool around, Craig. Believe me they're clean."
"All right. When do we go to London?"
"We got ten days," said Naxos. "Let's have some fun
first."
"Where?"
"Flip wants to go to Venice. I got a place there." "It's a bad place to protect anybody in," said Craig. "I'm sorry," said Naxos. "Believe me I'm sorry. But if Flip wants to go, we'll just have to go."
Craig looked at him in amazement. Naxos meant it. "All right," he said. "I'll send for reinforcements." "Who?"
"He'll be good," Craig said. "If you're going to behave like that, we'll need the best."
Naxos said: "I'll help you all I can. Anything you want, just ask. And I mean anything."
"All right. Give me some stock-market tips," said
Craig.
"Huh?"
'This is a business conference, right? So tell me some business. Somebody will check on it anyway."
