by Paul Kenyon
She reached for him anyway with her left hand. She caught Enzio by the cuff of his sleeve and pulled sharply. Her foot was out to trip him. He pitched to the floor with a thud.
But his big service revolver was in his hand. He pointed it at her and barked: "Rallentare!" He wasn't being very courtly now.
She stopped, her arm throbbing. Farnsworth was pounding down the corridor toward Enzio. Enzio twisted and fired from his position on the floor. Farnsworth went over like a bowling pin.
The Baroness kicked out with one long leg. The point of her black patent leather shoe connected with his hand, and the gun went spinning.
But the old man was tough and quick. He caught her by the foot and pulled her down on top of him. He gave her a smart slap across the face that stunned her. Then his gnarled strong hand was reaching into her neckline, tearing her dress. He was after the gun he knew was there. She felt him groping along her breast, searching for the bra holster under her arm.
Her right arm was paralyzed, and her left hand was in the wrong position for any of the possible killing strikes. She couldn't twist it around far enough to catch him with a karate chop using the stiffened outside edge; if you tried it with the inner edge, you'd break your thumb. And she couldn't get the heel of her hand under his chin for the neck-breaking hammer blow that she otherwise might have used.
Instead she clamped her arm to her side, momentarily imprisoning his hand against her breast. Simultaneously she brought her knee up between his legs. He gave a strangled cry and, as she twisted, his hand came out of her dress, taking most of the neckline with it.
Her right arm still dangling, she got the fingers of her left hand around his neck, pushed his head down to the floor and exerted pressure. His two hands grabbed her wrist before she could cut off his wind. The old man was strong, but she was strong too, and she was on top. She let him wrestle with her arm while she struggled to her knees, straddling his chest.
"Ascoltatemi…" he croaked. "Listen to me, Baronessa…"
She let go of his throat, and instantly he was trying to sit up, trying to throw her off him. But by that time, she had wriggled forward. She had his neck between her thighs in a scissors grip. She squeezed.
She could see Enzio's head there between her legs, the eyes bulging, the complexion growing livid. The black jersey of her skirt was stretched across her thighs and tucked under his chin like a napkin. She could feel his hands scrabbling uselessly at her hips. She squeezed some more.
His tongue popped out. He was pulling weakly at her skirts. His eyes had started to glaze.
It took another couple of minutes. She lifted herself off the dark and swollen head and stood up. Her arm was still numb, but it was beginning to tingle and she could flex her fingers. She touched her collarbone with her left hand. Nothing was broken, but it was tender as hell. She was going to have a glorious bruise.
Farnsworth was trying to crawl toward her, one leg dragging. He was leaving a trail of blood.
"What is it, John?" she said.
"Shin," he said.
"Let's get those pants off and have a look."
The fibula was broken, but it seemed to be a simple fracture. She cleaned out the wound and got a bullet fragment out with a pair of tweezers. She made a splint for him out of the legs of one of his antique chairs, and dragged him to the couch in his office.
"I'll get you to a doctor in the morning," she said. "What kind of a story do we concoct to explain the broken leg?"
"Never mind the leg," he said. "How do we explain a splint that cost four thousand dollars?"
She cleaned up the blood in the corridor, and stuffed Enzio's body into a rolling file.
"I'll have Paul and Eric move the file to my apartment tomorrow," she said. "On the way they can empty it out into the Tiber."
"Have to make it look as if he died far away from here," he said. "We don't want the CIA wondering about us."
She showed him the tiny book she held between thumb and forefinger. It was no larger than a postage stamp, with pages of a flimsy tissuelike paper.
"They'll be having too much fun playing with this to worry about anything else," she said.
"A Russian gamma!" he exclaimed. "One of their onetime code pads!"
"It was in Enzio's pocket," she said. "Our night watchman was a double agent. He worked for the Russians and the CIA."
Farnsworth looked delighted, despite the discomfort of his leg. "Put it back on the body," he said. "The CIA will start wondering why his employers in Moscow had him eliminated. It'll keep them busy."
"Exactly what I had in mind, John darling. And they'll try to hush up his death for a few days while they do whatever mischief they can with the one-time pad. They don't often get an opportunity like this to transmit false information."
He shook his head. "Life would be so much simpler if we didn't have those bloody nuisances underfoot all the time. I'm beginning to regret helping Truman to set up the damned CIA back in 1947. I never thought it'd come back to haunt me like this."
"You're feeling guilty about Enzio, darling. Don't let it bother you. We're giving them a gamma to make up for him. And we're going to pull their chestnuts out of the fire in Ghazal, aren't we?"
She yawned and stretched. She hadn't slept for thirty hours, and she'd flown across an ocean, and she'd killed a man. Her Scott Barrie dress was a ruin, hanging in tatters to her waist. She changed into another outfit from the closet in her own office, and combed her hair. When she returned to Farnsworth, she was glowing with the fresh beauty that had made her one of the decade's top international models.
"Penny," Farnsworth said, raising himself on one elbow on his couch. "You're an absolute vision."
"I try to be, darling," she said. "Let's hope the Emir of Ghazal thinks so."
4
Two soldiers dragged the man into the throne room. He was terrified, his teeth chattering with fear. But he wasn't struggling. He didn't dare.
The chief eunuch, Ebrahim, leaned over and whispered in the Emir's ear. "This is the thief, your Highness," he said.
The man sitting on the throne had a sour face and shifty eyes. He wore a scraggly beard over a sloppy cascade of double chins. He affected the simple robes and turbanlike keffia of an ordinary desert sheik, but the little feet that peeked out from under the hem of his robe were shod in expensive custom-made Italian shoes.
The throne itself was remarkable. It was a dentist's chair, able to swivel and tilt, with a leather headrest. There was even a little porcelain sink attached to one arm, so the Emir could spit or rinse out his mouth. But it was made of solid platinum instead of chrome, and it was studded with precious gems worth millions.
The Emir tilted his throne forward. "Cut off his right hand," he said.
Ebrahim's round hairless face grew embarrassed. "The evidence, your Highness," he said delicately.
"I know, I know!" the Emir said petulantly. "I must hear the evidence before I cut off his hand!"
He motioned the guards forward. They flung the prisoner to his knees before the throne. He was a small, yellowish, wizened man in a dirty white dish-dasha and headcloth. There were several gaps in his teeth where the soldiers had knocked them out.
"What did the thief do?" the Emir said.
A somber man wearing an embroidered skullcap and striped robe got up from his place near the wall, where he had been squatting with the hundreds of other supplicants who came to the daily majlis, or open court, held by the Emir.
"Your Highness," he said. "I am Omar, who owns the cafe by the north gate. This miserable scum stole a coffee spoon from me."
The Emir looked severely at the prisoner. "Is this true?"
"No, no, your Excellency, I swear it! He never served me a spoon! When I asked him for one, he accused me of stealing it! The woman knows!"
"Woman?"
"The woman who worked for him. She told him she had forgotten to give me a spoon, and he fired her."
The Emir swiveled the jeweled dentist's-chai
r around and said, "Is the woman here?"
"She is here, your Highness," the eunuch said.
"Let the woman speak."
There was some murmuring over by the wall. A soldier hammered on it with his rifle butt. Everybody turned to look at the ornamental grille set in the tiled wall. The women were behind it. By the will of Allah, women were not allowed in a court of law. But they could testify from another room.
"It's true, your Highness," a frightened female voice said from behind the grille. "I forgot to serve him a spoon."
The prisoner had stopped trembling. "You see?" he mumbled, darting a poisonous glance at his accuser.
The Emir thumped the floor with his jeweled staff of authority. He spat into the little basin on the arm of his throne.
"According to the Koran, a man's word is worth the word of two women," he said. "Therefore the man is guilty. Let the hand of the thief be cut off."
There was a well-worn butcher's block in front of the throne. Its surface was criss-crossed with hundreds of nicks and notches. The soldiers hauled the prisoner over to it and stretched his arm across the top. Two of them grasped him around the legs and waist, holding him steady. Another soldier clasped his hand and pulled.
Ebrahim waddled down the steps to the prisoner and cocked a professional eye at him. He drew a big curved sword out of its scabbard and hefted it in both hands.
"Mish rahltitee, mish rahltitee!" the little man wailed.
One of Ebrahim's assistants was pumping a bellows, heating the coals in a charcoal brazier. An iron plate was heating among the coals, glowing cherry-red.
"I have done nothing!" he sobbed.
The eunuch grinned at him, showing white teeth in an ebony face. He wore red pantaloons and curved slippers and a gold vest that hung open to show a bare torso. He had a vast belly and breasts like a woman's, which quivered as he raised the curved sword.
The sword flashed down in a metallic blur. The soldier who had been clasping the man's fingers fell backward, a severed hand in his grasp. A spurt of blood shot from the stump of the forearm. Instantly, the assistant eunuch cauterized it with the hot metal plate. There was a hiss and a smell of burnt meat. The little man screamed.
The Emir laughed uproariously. "Give me the hand," he said.
The soldier picked himself off the floor and mounted the steps to the throne. He bowed, and held out the hand. The Emir gave it to one of the half-dozen hooded falcons chained to perches behind the throne, along with the monkeys and the hunting leopard.
"Bil hahnah, my darling," he coaxed. "Eat!"
The bird seized the hand in its cruel-looking claws and began tearing the flesh from the bones. One of the fingers fell to the floor, and the leopard immediately gobbled it down.
The soldiers led the maimed man out of the crowded audience hall. He stumbled, and stared stupidly at the stump of his forearm. Omar the cafe-owner watched him go, a self-satisfied expression on his face.
The Emir cranked his chair around to face Omar.
"You, shopkeeper," he said, "has justice been done?"
Omar prostrated himself, pressing his forehead against the tiles of the floor. "Yes, your Highness," he said. "Your justice is great. Your justice is perfect."
"Now it's your turn, dog. You shall be punished for commiting perjury before this majlis."
An awful comprehension dawned in Omar's eyes. He lifted a stricken face toward the throne. "But, your Highness," he stammered. "The woman's testimony is worth only half that of a man's. You said so yourself."
The Emir smiled triumphantly. "It is the word of the woman and the word of the thief against your word. One and one-half against one."
The soldiers already had Omar by the arms. "No, no!" he begged.
"You have told a lie," the Emir said. "Therefore, your lying tongue shall be cut out."
Ebrahim, grinning with delight, skipped down the steps again, his fat breasts bouncing under the gold vest. In his hand he held the little curved knife that was ordinarily used for castrations.
"Now open your mouth," he said kindly.
Omar had his lips pressed tightly together, like a stubborn child. The fat eunuch clucked in reproof, and shook his head. He grasped Omar by the nose and pinched the nostrils together. Omar's face grew purple. After less than a minute, he opened his mouth to breathe.
Instantly Ebrahim's pudgy hand darted into Omar's mouth and grabbed hold of the tongue. He pulled hard on the tongue. The little curved knife flashed. Omar gagged. A muffled choking sound came from him. Blood ran in great rivers down his chin.
Ebrahim brought the tongue to the Emir, holding it delicately between thumb and forefinger like a fresh-caught fish. The Emir gave a pleased grunt and took it from him. He tossed the tongue to one of the chained falcons, then rinsed his fingers off in the little sink built into the throne.
"Next?" he said.
Ebrahim opened his mouth to reply, when all of a sudden the vast hall was filled with a lunatic outburst of ticking and chiming, as if a thousand clocks were striking all at once.
It was exactly that. The sound was coming through the loudspeakers set high in the corners of the throne room. It was being piped in from one of the game rooms, where a collection of novelty clocks, tended by an imported Swiss watchmaker, had gone off on cue.
A minute or two later, as the riot of chimes and bells and cuckoo calls died away, the muezzin's call to prayer sounded through the loudspeakers.
Allah-hu akbar," the muezzin's recorded voice wailed. "Ash-hadu Allah eelaha il-la Allah…"
Instantly, a dwarf leaped out from the collection of animals and court retainers gathered behind the throne. He was dressed only in diapers and a turban. He grasped the dentist's chair in his gnarled little hands and spun it around until it faced Mecca.
A second dwarf materialized, unfurling a small prayer rug. He spread it in front of the throne. Grandly, the Emir descended, stepping off the footrest and kneeling on the rug.
The rest of the court, and the crowd of petitioners, were on their knees too, kneeling on little rugs or mats, taking their cue from the Emir. The only exceptions were the soldiers. They remained on their feet, incongruously modern in their tan breeches and checkered green headcloths, holding their Russian-made automatic rifles and keeping an alert eye on the crowd.
The soldiers turned hard faces toward the man who appeared a few moments later at the entrance to the throne room, but relaxed when they saw who it was.
He waited in the archway while the prayers were going on, a boyishly handsome man in khakis, wearing two hearing aids. He had curly chestnut hair, with a tuft at either side that gave his classic head a faunlike touch. If you looked closely at one of the tufts, you could see a pair of small beady eyes, like the eyes of a mouse, peeping shyly out.
The prayers ended. The supplicants folded up their mats and got up. The Emir kicked one of the dwarfs for luck and started to get back on his throne, when he saw the newcomer.
"Ah, my dear Le Sourd," the Emir said, hurrying over to the young man with his hands outstretched. "The majlis has been such fun this morning! What a pity you missed it! Can you stay a while?"
"For a few minutes," Le Sourd said. "Then I really must get back to the laboratory. We're running a new test tomorrow."
"Ah, a test. Will you require an experimental subject?" He waved an arm at the waiting crowd. "There's plenty of raw material left."
"Thank you, your Highness, but no. It's very kind of you, but I won't need any living tissue for tomorrow's experiment. I'll just be testing some equipment components. Very dry and technical."
The Emir sighed. "What a pity. Then I'll just have to go on feeding them to my birds. But the flesh is so often dry and stringy, especially with the older ones, and some of them don't wash. I'm afraid I'll make my poor darlings sick."
They walked back to the dais together, the Emir taking Le Sourd's hand, Arab-fashion. One of the dwarfs hurried up with a folding camp stool and placed it at the foot of the throne. Gra
ciously, the Emir motioned Le Sourd to sit in it.
The Emir clapped his hands. "Yallah!" he said. "Let us proceed!"
Le Sourd winced when the Emir clapped his hands. He reached into his shirt pockets and made an adjustment to each of the hearing aids in turn. Then he settled back in the camp stool, a courteous, slightly bored expression on his face.
The guards dragged a servant before the throne. He was a pimply youth with a long face like a camel. He moved painfully, as if he had been beaten for a long time. There was blood on his dish-dasha.
"And what has this miserable dog done?" the Emir demanded.
Ebrahim leaned over. "Your Highness, this is the serving boy who brings food to the harem. He is supposed to leave the tray outside the door and leave immediately, so that one of the eunuchs can take the tray inside. But on this occasion he lingered a little too long. He was able to have a peek inside the door."
The Emir's little piggish eyes glistened with interest. "Did he set foot inside the door?"
"No, your Highness."
The Emir sighed. "A pity. Testicles are good for the birds. They say it makes them fierce and strong. But you say he peeked inside?"
"Yes, your Highness."
"Then we will have his eyes." He raised a hand as the eunuch started down the stairs. "No, no, Ebrahim, bring me Hakim."
The eunuch detached one of the T-shaped perches from the falcon stand. The bird that sat on it was a magnificent white gerfalcon weighing at least twenty pounds. It shifted restlessly from foot to foot, turning its head vainly as it tried to see through the leather hood over its head.
The soldiers grabbed the prisoner by the hair and forced his head back. He stared stupidly at the bird, not comprehending.
"Now, my darling," cooed the Emir. He stroked the bird's feathers. He loosened the chain holding the falcon to the perch and, with a quick motion, snatched the leather hood off its head.
"El-ayn, Hakim!" the Emir cried, throwing the falcon into the air.
The great wings beat against the air. Like an arrow, the white falcon flew straight at the face of the serving boy. The boy shrieked in terror. The falcon struck, too swiftly to see. He flew back to the stand, a bloody gobbet in each claw.
