The Pigeon Project

by Irving Wallace

  “Pay before play,” she said.

  “Sure,” said Jordan. He counted out 20,000 lire.

  After she had deposited the bills in her purse, she came around unbuttoning her blouse, stripping it off. Before Jordan could speak, she had unsnapped her skirt and stepped out of it. Her small breasts were bare, and she was wearing only tight nylon panties.

  “All right, gentlemen,” she said, “take off your trousers and come to the bathroom. I want to wash you both off .first.” She started for the bedroom. “What’s it going to be, one at a time or both of you together?”

  Jordan asserted himself. “Hold it, Clara. Let me explain…”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “We just want a place to stay for the night. A place to rest. That’s all. That’s what we paid you for.”

  She could not believe her ears. “No fucking?”

  “No nothing,” said Jordan. “We just want a place to sleep. You can keep your bed. My friend and I will get some rest right here. When it’s morning, we’ll leave you.”

  “I’ve never had this before,” she said, shaking her head. “But everybody’s queer in his own way. Well, do what you like. I’m going to sleep.”

  Once they were alone, Jordan got MacDonald to the sofa and helped him lie down.

  “This is better,” murmured MacDonald. “What about you?”

  “I’ll sleep in the armchair.”

  “That was a close one we had, wasn’t it?”

  “The closest yet,” admitted Jordan, shedding his jacket.

  “Tim—”

  “Yes?”

  “Why don’t we give up? There’s no place left to go.”

  Jordan stared down at the old man. “There’s one place,” he said quietly. “I’ve been saving it. We’re going there in the morning. It’s our last hope.”

  IX

  He had not wanted to bring MacDonald here. Throughout the hectic week, it had always been in the back of his mind as a place of last resort. He had constantly resisted this refuge, because while it might be safe from the outside, there were potential dangers inside. For inside was the two-deck apartment in which Marisa, Bruno, and their widowed mother, Ada Girardi, lived.

  Since the Girardi apartment, a ten-minute walk behind the Piazza, had been five or six minutes away from the prostitute’s quarters, the passage to it presented them with only fleeting exposure. On their way, they had been forced to hide just once, slipping into a tobacco-and-souvenir shop when they saw a pair of policemen strolling toward them. After that, there had been few people to recognize MacDonald and no further obstacles.

  Jordan had pushed open a wrought-iron gate leading into a picturesque courtyard, and near the old rain cistern set in an alcove was the entrance to the residential building. They had climbed three stories up the steep turning staircase to the top floor and on the upper landing had arrived at the Girardi apartment.

  It was now five minutes after eight in the morning. Marisa did not arrive at work until nine-thirty, so the odds were that she was still at home.

  Jordan rang the doorbell.

  He could hear footsteps in the corridor and entry hall. The door partially opened. Marisa, in blouse and skirt, running a comb through her long hair, peered out. She was surprised.

  “Tim, what are you—” Then she saw MacDonald. “Come in,” she said to Jordan.

  They were in the entry hall, both men breathing easier. Marisa considered Jordan briefly. “You look like hell. Where have you been all night?”

  “It’s a long story. Marisa Girardi, let me introduce you to my friend, the one I’ve told you about, Professor Pearson.”

  She eyed him speculatively. “How do you do?” she said. “Well, let’s not stand here.”

  She led them down the corridor, past the kitchen and dining room, into the comfortable living room. There were the familiar Bukhara red rug, the antique Tyrolean table with four chairs, the Tuscan sideboard with its pewter plates, the walnut chest beneath the center window covered by white curtains, the oversized divan, and two armchairs. Behind the divan were wooden stairs going up to a mezzanine with doors to the three bedrooms.

  “Are you here alone?” Jordan wanted to know.

  “Yes. Bruno just left for work. Mamma, as you know, is in the hospital.”

  “How is she?”

  “She has been in pain. But they are giving her heavier sedation. They will finish their tests today. Dr. Scarpa promised a diagnosis no later than tomorrow. I’m worried.”

  “Let’s hope for the best,” said Jordan lamely. “Marisa, I’ll tell you why we’re here. I need a place for the professor to stay tonight—well, today, tonight, maybe tomorrow, until I can get him out of Venice. I thought you might help us.”

  She was silent a moment. “Of course. There is Mamma’s room. He can stay in her room.”

  Jordan kissed her on the cheek. “I knew you’d help.”

  “Did you have breakfast? Would both of you like some coffee?”

  MacDonald spoke up. “To be frank with you, Miss Girardi, I didn’t sleep too well last night. I’d just like to lie down somewhere for a while.”

  She started for the stairs to the mezzanine. “Come with me. I’ll show you my mother’s room.” Over her shoulder, she said, “Tim, if you’re having coffee, I’ll have a cup with you.”

  Jordan waited until they had gone up to the bedroom, then went into the kitchen. He found the coffee, filled two cups, and brought them to the low table before the divan just as Marisa came down the stairs to join him. She settled beside him on the divan and stirred her coffee meditatively.

  She said, “Of course, I want to help you, Tim, but I don’t want to get mixed up in any trouble.”

  “I promise you, Marisa, no trouble.”

  She looked at him. “I recognize your professor, Tim. I recognized him the minute you introduced me. He’s no underground courier working with separatists, as you’ve been saying. He’s the spy, the one whose face is on a hundred posters and in the papers. He’s MacGregor.”

  Jordan wondered how much he dared tell her. The less the better, he decided. “Marisa, please believe me—I swear to you on all that is holy—he is not a spy. You’re right. He’s not an underground courier either. He’s a good, decent man, an important man, a scientist, who’s committed no crime, no crime whatsoever. He’s wanted by the Communists for another reason. He’s wanted by the Soviet Communists, and the local Communists are cooperating in trying to catch him. I’ll tell you more someday. But I can’t right now. Will you accept that?”

  She smiled. “Of course, Tim.”

  “Just one more thing. Can you tell Bruno to sleep somewhere else tonight? It would be awkward if he turned up. Tell him we want to spend the night here together.”

  “Very well. I’ll phone Bruno when I get to the office. He has friends. He’ll find a place to stay.” She finished her coffee and came to her feet. “I’m going to the office early because I need a longer lunch hour. I want to go to the hospital to see Mamma. Are you coming with me?”

  Jordan shook his head. “Not yet. Maybe I’ll be in later. I want to sit here alone and do some thinking.”

  “Then I’ll leave you alone.”

  She went to the sideboard to get her briefcase, picked up a manila envelope beside it, began to put it into her briefcase, then retained it and went back to Jordan.

  She was pulling some eight-by-ten-inch photographs out of the manila envelope. “Perhaps this is something you should see. I’d better have your approval before I pass them out. Schuyler Moore wanted photographs of the Pirelli miniature model in action, and I collected some. Then he called and asked for photographs of the actual Lido channel where the inflatable dam is installed. I got Bruno to dig up the latest in his office and let us have prints. Schuyler Moore is coming by for them today. Do you want to have a look first?”

  Although uninterested, Jordan accepted the half dozen or more photographs. He peeled through them. They were mostly aerial shots of t
he narrow opening of the Porto di Lido which led from the Venice lagoon into the Adriatic Sea. Some of the closer shots tried to show the pumping station for the inflatable dam. He came to the last picture, which showed a cruise ship passing from the Adriatic through the channel into the lagoon.

  He started to hand them back to Marisa. “Fine, fine,” he said. “You can give Moore the lot.”

  As Marisa took hold of the photographs, something far back in Jordan’s brain surfaced and struck him with a thought.

  He held on to the pictures, pulled the last photograph free, the one with the ship passing through the channel.

  “One second, Marisa. This one. When was it taken?”

  “It says on the back. The day before the quarantine was declared on the city. That Greek cruise ship was the last one to enter here before the city was closed down.”

  “Is the ship still here?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Let me see the others again.”

  He took them, went through them, studied the various views of the narrow channel leading out of Venice, the pumping station that had never been used, the vistas of the open sea. He handed them back to Marisa. “Perfect. Schuyler Moore will be pleased to have them.”

  She went for her briefcase, slid the manila envelope into it, found her purse. Going to the corridor, she stopped beside Jordan, unzipped her purse, and handed him a key.

  “Mamma’s key, in case you want to go out.”

  “Thanks, Marisa.” He stood up and kissed her. “I will be going out soon.”

  She hesitated. “I hope you find a way to help your friend,” she said.

  “I will,” he said. “I’m sure I will.”

  He watched her leave and was relieved when she was gone. He wanted to be alone with his new idea. He wanted to examine it, assess its practicability.

  It was amazing, he thought. All the while, all these past days, while on the run, there must have been a half dozen latent escape ideas in his mind. This had been one of them. The murky idea, a mere impression of an idea, had come to full life, stimulated by a photograph. He began to turn it over in his head, a writer plotting. To the idea he added things remembered, something he had seen, something he had overheard recently, something that had been told to him not long ago.

  The idea developed in his head, became a possibility, took on a reality.

  He was excited. He visualized it clearly now, the only, the last means of escape.

  How had he not thought of it before? But here it was. Of all his ideas, the simplest, the best—and the most dangerous. This was it. There would not be time for another. Going to the telephone to call Alison, he glanced at his watch. There was still a full day ahead of him.

  He would need every minute of it.

  * * *

  Alison Edwards, in smoky oversized lavender sunglasses, blue blouse, and jeans, nibbling at a small cucumber sandwich and drinking her coffee, was waiting for him in the second row of Florian’s outdoor café, across the Piazza from Quadri’s, when he arrived.

  As he sat down, and before she could ask, he said quietly, “MacDonald’s safe for the moment.” She sagged in relief.

  He crossed his legs, lighted his pipe, and said, “It took some doing and some luck. We just ran and ran, no place to go, until we bumped into a prostitute I’d seen around coming home late. We paid her just to put us up.”

  “Not really?”

  “It served.”

  “Is David still there?”

  “No. The woman has regular customers she must accommodate. We couldn’t stay. This morning, I dragged the professor to the last place I could think of…”

  Considering how he would explain the next, he stalled briefly by summoning the waiter and ordering tea and a roll.

  He decided to be frank. “Remember when we were at the Lido beach and I had a couple of women’s swimsuits in my cabana?”

  “The one that had too many curves for me.” Then she added, “Your Venetian inamorata.”

  “Friend,” he corrected her. “She’s my assistant in the office. Her name is Marisa Girardi. She lives with her brother, Bruno, the photographer, the one who tried to bribe the captain for us—she lives with him and with her mother in an apartment not too far from here. Well, I turned to her this morning.”

  “Why hadn’t you tried her before?”

  “Mostly Bruno. He’s too close to the police, covering their hunt. Anyway, Marisa took the professor in, and that’s where he is right now. Incidentally, how did you make out last night, after the police swarmed over poor Gino and the professor and I took off? Did you have any trouble?”

  “Not much,” said Alison. “I ignored the police and just started walking across the edge of the Piazza, in front of the Basilica, a tourist going back to her hotel. A couple of police came over to question me.”

  “Like what?”

  “Who was I? Where was I coming from? Where was I going? I told them, rather indignantly, I’d come to Venice for one day and had been stuck here ever since. I’d just been visiting a friend and was getting back to the Danieli. I asked them what the commotion in the Piazza was all about. They wouldn’t tell me. They wanted to know if I’d seen someone running on the Mercerie. I told them I had seen no one running or walking. So they waved me on.”

  “Good.”

  “Tim, just one thing bothers me about last night. Do you think the police asked Gino why he was running toward the helicopter? He might have told them who sent him.”

  Jordan shook his head. “I doubt if he involved me. I had worried about that. But knowing Gino, he probably told them he was drunk, and saw this crazy helicopter land, and ran out to see what was going on. If he had given the police my name, they’d have been after me already. I checked the hotel. No one has been looking for me.”

  Alison appeared satisfied. “And Davis? Is he safe at Marisa’s?”

  “If we don’t hide him there too long. I arranged for Bruno to sleep somewhere else tonight. But I won’t be able to keep him out much longer. And he’d recognize MacDonald in an instant.” The tea had been served. Jordan took a bite of the roll and drank the tea. “We’ve got to move fast.”

  Alison’s anxiety had returned. “What’s next, Tim? What’s left?”

  He smiled, to relieve her concern. “We get the professor out of here—in fact, you and the professor. It’s the best idea I’ve had. I think I’d had it somewhere in my head for days. In the last hour it came together. But it depends on several factors. I’m going to spend the rest of the day looking into them.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “Not yet, Alison. I only want to tell you that if it does work out—be ready to leave Venice in the morning with the professor.”

  “And if it doesn’t work out?”

  “We’re finished.” He laid some money on the table. “Now I’d better start moving. I’ll walk you to the hotel.”

  They went back to the hotel in silence, wending their way through groups of tourists being photographed amid clusters of pigeons pecking at food, and in a few minutes, he had her back at the Danieli entrance. The two uniformed police guards were outside the glass doors, studying every person entering or leaving.

  “Okay, I leave you here,” said Jordan.

  She was reluctant to go inside. “When will I hear from you, Tim?”

  “Tonight, I promise. One way or the other.”

  He waited for her to go inside, and when she was gone, he resumed walking. He went over the bridge near the entrance and strolled to the edge of the lagoon.

  With one hand he shaded his eyes from the fierce sun, and scanned the curve of the lagoon to his left. Then he saw what he wanted to see and had expected to see. About the distant point where he remembered the Istituto di Studi Adriatici was located, sitting high in the water at dockside, was a huge, gleaming white cruise ship. He could not make out the design of its flag, but he was certain that this was the vessel that Dante, his lifeguard friend on the Lido, had s
poken about, the ship that could be seen entering the lagoon the day before the emergency. The same vessel he had just seen in a photograph.

  All that mattered was that it was still here.

  Satisfied, Jordan retraced his steps to the Danieli entrance and went into the cool lobby. No guests were at the concierge’s counter. Fabris, the chief concierge, was on the telephone at the end of the counter. He acknowledged Jordan’s appearance with a raised hand, then hung up.

  “We have not seen much of you lately, Mr. Jordan. Is everything all right?”

  “Just busier than ever,” said Jordan. “By the way, Fabris, I was taking a walk on the Riva degli Schiavoni, and I spotted a cruise ship out there. I thought no ships were allowed into the lagoon during the emergency.”

  “Ah, the Greek ship—The Delphic Oracle. It arrived the day before the emergency, while the port was still open. This was not on its itinerary. It was sailing back to Piraeus when it needed repairs. So it docked just as the port was shut down.”

  “Can anyone visit the cruise ship? I’ve always wondered what one looks like.”

  “Sorry, no, Mr. Jordan. From the moment of the emergency, the ship has been quarantined. No passengers permitted to leave. No one permitted to visit. They take no chances with the spy. Even the crew is confined, except for the captain and purser.”

  “Will it be allowed to leave Venice?”

  “Absolutely. It was supposed to sail yesterday. But it was held up for one more repair. I believe it now leaves tomorrow.”

  “You mentioned that the captain and purser can come ashore.”

  “Oh, yes. In fact, they come by our bar every day for a Bellini or two. The captain left a few minutes ago, but the purser—a very nice fellow, a Mr. Papadopoulos—he still may be in the bar having his refreshment.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Fabris.”

  Jordan crossed the main lobby and entered the darkened bar. At this hour of the morning, the bar was unoccupied except for a youthful assistant bartender reading a newspaper and a lone middle-aged man in uniform sunk deep into an armchair, enjoying a Bellini.

  Jordan approached him. “Mr. Papadopoulos?”