The Pigeon Project

by Irving Wallace

  The head bartender, Alberto, mixing a drink, saw him and called above the hubbub of voices, “Good evening, Mr. Jordan. The usual?”

  “The usual,” Jordan called back.

  He planted himself behind the others at the bar, to wait for Marisa, and waiting, he scanned the crowd. Largely, a rich and elegant turnout—numerous celebrities, many faces that were familiar to him. The Contessa Elvira De Marchi, descendant of one of Venice’s oldest families, her long nose and chin like a collage pasted on wrinkled parchment paper, was holding court at a table for eight. The Contessa blew a kiss to Jordan, and he blew a kiss back. Nearby, one of his favorite people, Dr. Giovanni Scarpa, like an austere fugitive from a Carpaccio painting, seated with some of his wealthy patients, greeted Jordan with a rare smile. At another table, Jordan recognized the darkly beautiful, but slightly aging, Italian film star Teresa Fantoni, whom he had never met but who was known to him from her early Fellini pictures.

  “Mr. Jordan!” It was Alberto handing him his drink across the bar. Jordan, reaching between the heads in front of him, precariously had his drink. Alberto was pointing toward the rear of the room. “Miss Girardi, she is here—against the wall, holding your table.”

  Jordan looked off, saw Marisa with her hand raised, and then he began to make his way toward her between the tables. His progress was slow, and so he could overhear snatches of conversation at each table. The subject was the same: the closing down of the city and the massive manhunt taking place.

  Marisa had someone else at their table, and Jordan was relieved to see that her companion was her younger brother, Bruno. He was relieved because he had been afraid Bruno might not come by, and a talk with Bruno had been Jordan’s real objective tonight. Besides, he liked Bruno, who was less temperamental than his sister, more ambitious and energetic. Except for the pockmarks on his cheeks, he resembled a perfect curly-haired male angel.

  “Aren’t you a dream tonight,” Jordan said, bending to kiss Marisa. “Hi, Bruno. You don’t look right without a camera.”

  “Here it is,” said Bruno, lifting his brown leather camera case from the floor and then lowering it again.

  Jordan settled down in a chair. “You both ready for another round? What is it—Bellinis?”

  “Maybe not,” said Bruno. “I have to go to work in a few minutes.”

  “Don’t be a spoilsport,” said Jordan. He gulped down half of his drink, caught the eye of their waiter, and made a gesture indicating a round of refills. Now he addressed Bruno once more. “Marisa tells me they haven’t got you shooting bikini beauties on the Lido this week.”

  “The paper has assigned me full time to the hunt for the spy. Double shift. Sixteen hours a day I am at city hall or the carabinieri headquarters.”

  “You must be exhausted,” said Jordan.

  “Not at all. It is very challenging. Biggest story since I’ve been on the paper. The only bad thing—normally, my photographs would be going out on the wires to France, England, America, everywhere—it would make my reputation—but this quarantine has stopped all the wire services.”

  “For what reason?”

  “It does not seem right to me either, Tim. But the decree is no wire stories or pictures are to be sent from Venice. No mail to leave Venice, none, until the spy is caught.”

  Jordan finished his Scotch and water as the waiter placed fresh drinks on the table. “What if the spy is not caught?” Jordan asked Bruno.

  “Oh, they’ll catch him,” said Bruno airily, “especially now that his picture is out everywhere. They are systematically sweeping the city—room by room, almost. If they don’t catch him in a day, they’ll catch him in three or four at the most. There is a lot of pressure on the authorities, from airlines, travel bureaus, newspapers on the outside, from businessmen on the inside—everyone wanting to know why no traffic is permitted. The police must catch their man, and fast.”

  “Are the local police getting any help from—from anyone outside Italy?”

  “Outside Italy? Why should they?”

  “I mean, the plans for the defense weapon that were stolen, that could be of real interest to Italy’s Communist allies. Like the Russians. I’d think they’d want to help out.”

  “No, I have seen no Russians,” said Bruno, sipping his peach-and-champagne drink. “Except, of course, for the few who’ve been around for the cultural convention.”

  “So you don’t think the spy can get away?”

  “How can he? The normal number of police was tripled today. The city is sealed airtight. No one can leave.”

  “No exceptions?”

  Bruno thought about it.

  Marisa spoke to her brother. “You told me there were some exceptions.”

  “Yes, but they hardly count. Mayor Accardi said in certain cases, where someone has something pressing outside the city, and the someone is known to the mayor and applies to him personally, a special exit permit will be issued. That limits it, doesn’t it?”

  Jordan drank his Scotch, wondering how to approach Bruno with what he had in mind. “Bruno,” he said tentatively, “suppose / had to go to Paris tomorrow or the next day. Do you think they’d let me go?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “But why not? I’ve met the mayor socially. Why wouldn’t he let me go?”

  “Because you might have memorized the secret plans the spy has stolen.”

  “I see. Well, let me try something else on you. What if Marisa and I had to take some visitors out to the Centro Sperimentale di Idraulica in Voltabarozzo to show them our miniature mock-up of the Pirelli-Furlanis inflatable dam? It is something we’ve done regularly up to now. Do you think they’d let us go?”

  “Maybe that is different,” said Bruno. “It is near here. It is a place you have been to often on business. They could control you. They might give you a special permit to Padua, but maybe only if you were accompanied by police guards.”

  “But Paris, or anywhere else—?”

  “No, not from what I’ve heard. Forget Paris.”

  “I can’t forget Paris,” said Jordan intently. “That’s really the reason I wanted to see you tonight. I have a friend—an old college friend—who has to be in Paris this week. For him, it’s a matter of life or death.”

  Bruno was shaking his head. “I told you—”

  “Wait, listen to me,” Jordan said. “My friend is a courier for an underground separatist movement. He is carrying a large sum of money, illegally, undeclared, to deliver to a rebel leader who will be in Paris for only a week. If my friend is delayed, it will be thought that he has failed, and the leader will disappear and the entire movement be abandoned. So my friend must get to him. It is a good and just cause. I thought with your police connections, you might know some guard who would look the other way—”

  “Impossible.”

  “—for his share of $10,000,”

  Bruno had stopped shaking his head. His eyes held on Jordan, widened.

  Jordan said quickly, “Yes, $10,000 in American dollars—$5,000 for the guard, $5,000 for you.”

  Marisa put a hand on Jordan’s arm, but spoke to her brother. “I’m afraid of this, Bruno…”

  He ignored her. His eyes were still on Jordan. “That is a lot of money,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” said Jordan.

  “In cash?” said Bruno.

  “In cash.”

  Bruno looked down at the table, speaking in an almost inaudible voice. “I don’t know if it can be done. My police connections—yes, a few are my friends. I am thinking of one particularly. He is a captain in charge of a carabinieri detail guarding the Ponte della Libertà, which leads to Mestre—”

  “And to Paris. It would be simple.”

  Bruno bit his lip. “Not simple, but not impossible. The captain has a big family and bigger debts. His wife is pregnant. He worries.” Bruno paused. “He might be interested.”

  “Will you try?”

  Bruno slid out of the booth, lifted his camera case, and h
ung the strap over his shoulder. “I must go to work.”

  “Will you try?” Jordan repeated.

  “I don’t know,” Bruno said : “We’ll see.”

  And without looking back, he left Harry’s Bar.

  * * *

  Once they were alone, Jordan and Marisa had two more drinks. After that, they ordered dinner. They both had the tagliatelle verdi, and after the green noodles they both had cotoletta alla Milanese.

  Now, in Harry’s Bar, Marisa finished her veal cutlet and turned to Jordan. “I’m sorry, Tim, but I still don’t like your involving Bruno in whatever you are up to.”

  “It’s a good cause, Marisa.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want Bruno in trouble.”

  “Well, he’s a grown man. It’s for him to decide.”

  “I suppose so. I suppose that sum of money will tempt him.”

  Jordan swallowed the last piece of his” own veal. “With his contacts, it may not be so dangerous.”

  “Bribery is always dangerous.” She continued to stare at Jordan. “You know, Tim, I don’t believe your story at all. I mean about your having a separatist friend who has to get to Paris. You’re not a good liar. I know you too well. I have a suspicion—just a suspicion—you are harboring that spy everyone is hunting for.”

  He solemnly held up his right hand.“I swear to you, this has nothing to do with a spy.”

  “Then I don’t understand.”

  “I won’t lie to you again. I’ll only say I have someone very important—who has to avoid the police—and who has to get out of Venice as quickly as possible. When I can, I’ll tell you the whole thing.”

  “Fair enough. Maybe Bruno will help you.”

  “I hope so. Now, then, Marisa, the dessert. Do you want one?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  “Me? But you have—”

  “I want to make love with you. It’s been over two weeks. My body is hungry for you.”

  “I want to love you too,” he said. It had been the furthest thing from his mind, but considering her now, picturing the voluptuous body naked, he began to feel a desire for her. “We can’t go to my suite. My friend is staying there.”

  “The one who isn’t a spy,” she said with a smile. “But we can go to my apartment. No one is there. I told you, Mamma is in the hospital for tests. And Bruno won’t be back for two or three hours. We can have it to ourselves.” She gathered up her shawl. “Do you think you can keep me occupied for two or three hours?”

  He started rising. “The last person in Venice who was able to do that was Casanova. But even if I turn out second best, I’m willing to try. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Minutes after they closed themselves in Marisa’s darkened bedroom, and undressed each other, and lay down on her double bed, he had lifted himself and settled down between her widely spread legs and entered her slowly and deeply.

  Despite the stimulation of her lubricated vulva, her rotating hips, her increasing breathlessness, he had lasted a long, long time, far beyond his normal endurance.

  Now, feeling the wetness of perspiration on his body, momentarily distracted, he had a glimmer of what was accounting for his ability to go on like this. He realized that his body was engaged, but much of his mind was elsewhere, on the problem of how to save Professor MacDonald.

  MacDonald in his head brought someone else into his head.

  Alison.

  He could feel Marisa’s soft thighs against his sides, and immediately in his mind’s eye he saw Alison’s shapely long legs leading up to her magnificent nude torso, and he pictured, felt, himself between her legs, inside her, tightly held, enclosed hotly inside her.

  The thought in his head and the intense friction below came together, and he stiffened, gasped, exhaled in an orgasmic spasm.

  He dropped to his side, on the bed, bringing her close to him.

  “Was it good?” she whispered.

  “Great,” he said, trying to catch his breath and feeling guilty for the image that had brought on his orgasm.

  “Tim, I’m ready too,” she said.

  He disengaged himself from her and reached down to touch and rub her distended clitoris.

  She was ready. In the next ten minutes, she had four prolonged orgasms, and at last she pushed his hand away and lay back limp and exhausted.

  “Can I say I love you?” she said.

  “Don’t,” he said, reaching for one of her cigarettes and lighting it. “Just say you care for me a lot.”

  “I love you,” she said. “I wish you could stay all night. Can you? Bruno goes to his own room.”

  “I can’t,” he said, getting off the bed. “My friend is waiting for me. I’ve got to tell him about my discussion with Bruno.” He peered down at her and saw that her eyes were closed. “Marisa, are you still awake?”

  “Mmm.”

  “One thing I forgot to ask Bruno. Will you ask him if the police are going to visit the hotels? I suppose they are—but if they do, try to find out from him when they are going to do it. Will you remember?”

  She opened her eyes. “I will ask him in the morning.

  “I just want to be sure my friend is safe, until Bruno can help get him out of the city.”

  “Then tell your friend not to make long-distance calls. Bruno told me they are monitoring all calls.”

  “Thanks, darling.” He went to the edge of the bed and bent down to kiss her.

  As she returned his kiss, her hand reached out and stroked his penis. “Good night, lover,” she said. Then she closed her eyes again and turned on her side to sleep.

  Not until five minutes later—after he had dressed, had quietly let himself out, had taken the steep staircase down to the ground floor, and stood in the street before the apartment building—did it strike him. As he had left Alison, earlier, she had said, Professor MacDonald has been trying to think of someone on the outside he might contact to come in and help him. As he had left Marisa, just now, she had said… tell your friend not to make long-distance calls… they are monitoring all calls.

  What struck him was that if MacDonald was seeking help from the outside, he would likely try to locate some friend in London or New York by telephone. His call would be monitored, reported to the police, and he would be traced and grabbed at once.

  Perhaps it had already happened. Perhaps not yet.

  Jordan began to run through the deserted street toward the Hotel Danieli. It was drizzling lightly, and when he reached the Piazza it was slippery, and he slowed to a trot as he hurried to the hotel.

  When he reached his suite, he burst inside. Alison, curled up on the sofa reading a book, was startled.

  Trying to regain his breath, Jordan sputtered, “The professor—did he phone anyone on the outside tonight—any long-distance calls?”

  “He was trying to think of someone to call. He just did. He’s in the bedroom now, trying—”

  “He can’t!”

  Jordan dashed toward the bedroom, pushed open the door. MacDonald was seated on the edge of the bed, the telephone receiver at his ear. He was saying into the mouthpiece, “Operator, I’d like to put through—”

  Jordan was across the room, snatching the receiver from MacDonald’s hand. “Sorry, operator, but forget it for now,” Jordan said into the phone. He firmly set the receiver down on the cradle.

  Taken aback, MacDonald blinked at Jordan uncomprehendingly. “I was just calling—trying to call New York—”

  “No long-distance calls, now or at any time.”

  “But it is my only chance,” MacDonald pleaded. “I’ve just remembered an acquaintance, a man I have a social friendship with—he’s a delegate to the United Nations from Britain—and if he heard my situation, he could alert the U.N., and then the whole world would descend on Venice to free me. The Communists would be helpless.”

  Jordan heard him out tolerantly. “Sorry, Professor, it won’t work. The Communists
aren’t stupid enough to let a call like that go through. They’re having every long-distance call from Venice monitored right now. The minute they realized what you were talking about—knew it was you—they’d cut you off, trace your location, and have the police in this suite in five minutes to apprehend you. You’d be finished. I’m afraid there is no way you can communicate with anyone outside of here.”

  MacDonald found it hard to believe. “They’re monitoring all long-distance calls?”

  “Every one,” said Jordan, “to prevent you from doing exactly what you were attempting to do.”

  MacDonald lowered his head into his hands. “Then I’m afraid my situation is hopeless.”

  “Not quite,” said Jordan. He took MacDonald gently by the arm and helped bring him to his feet. “Come into the next room and let me pour you a drink. I’ll catch you up on what I’ve been doing.”

  They went into the sitting room to join Alison, who had been listening at the doorway.

  “Have you found a way?” inquired Alison anxiously.

  “Possibly,” said Jordan, halting at his makeshift bar atop the refrigerator. “Let’s just relax a moment. What’ll you have?”

  “The same as you’re having,” said MacDonald.

  “Me too,” said Alison.

  Jordan poured three cognacs, handed one to MacDonald, placed the other two on the coffee table. He sat down, waiting for the others to be seated.

  “All right,” said Jordan. “Let me tell you of a conversation I had tonight.” He paused. “Professor, did Alison repeat to you my talk with her about raising money for a bribe?”

  Alison spoke up quickly. “I haven’t told him about that yet.”

  “We’ll need $10,000,” said Jordan. “Alison has $4,000 on hand. I’ll be glad to kick in the other $6,000—please don’t protest—as I told Alison, I consider it an option on living to the age of 150. Now let me tell you what happened at dinner tonight.”