The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She said, ‘It depends on how nice and attractive he is.’”

  “Meaning?”

  “Denise wants to look you over. She’s in the opening number, and I promised her I’d be sitting right here with you. If she approves, she’s agreed to meet you after the show for a drink.”

  Worriedly, Brennan thought of Lisa Collins and her friends waiting for him, expecting him, at Le Grand Véfour. “After the show? That’s an awfully late start, Medora.”

  “Oh, you won’t have to give her much time. Denise is usually as washed out as the rest of us at the end of the performance. Merely stand her a drink around the corner, and meanwhile a little flattery will go a long way. Maybe talk about making a real night of it one evening soon. That’ll be enough. You’ll get the name of Peet’s hotel, I promise you.” She glanced toward the stage. “Here they come. I purposely sat us at this table because part of the spotlights will pick us up. Otherwise, it’s difficult to see anyone in the audience from the stage.”

  The girls of The Troupe had formed two lines at the head of the runway. They were supposed to represent ladies of a harem, Brennan thought. They wore saucy turbans, and their faces were half veiled, and from low on their hips hung diaphanous short skirts, revealing their narrow tights and full thighs and long legs. All were naked from waist to neck.

  The music from above was suddenly singsong Oriental, and to its cue, the girls of The Troupe came snaking and shimmying forward along the polished wooden runway.

  As they advanced closer and closer, Brennan found himself drumming his fingers on the table in rhythm with the exotic beat, involuntarily submitting to the seduction of the number. He wondered which of these pseudo-Turkish delights was the bountiful Denise Averil, Keeper of the Peet. Then he wondered what she would see when she lowered her eyes to pass judgment on him. Would she see a world-weary, tired, prematurely aged American expatriate who gave promise of nothing beyond boredom? Or would she see a sophisticated, charming, mature American diplomat whose aspect suggested romance and riches? Or would she see a composite of both, or neither? Or would she see what Lisa Collins saw in him, whatever that was?

  Self-conscious about the impending inspection, he considered how best he might pose himself. Should he sit straight, cool, dignified, the unattainable millionaire? Should he sit slouched, half amused, sated, the errant King waiting to pluck a chorus girl or the Sultan waiting to choose one mate from the harem? Or should he lean forward, elbows on the table, chin cupped in his hands, eyes hooded, lips sensuous, body taut, the irresistible and legendary playboy and sexual acrobat, seeking to receive and to give one more memorable experience? Or should he simply be himself, whoever in the hell he was?

  He had no opportunity to answer these questions, for directly above, the two rows of fleshy show girls had converged, regrouped, and were now in lines of four.

  “There’s Denise,” said Medora, “second from the left, front line.”

  Brennan gaped upward. From afar, all of the tall beauties in The Troupe had seemed as one, but suddenly, they had individuality, their good points, their bad. Anatomically, each differed from the next, and as for Denise Averil, she was the most awesome physical specimen of sheer female sexuality he had seen in years. To Brennan, Lisa Collins, half remembered, was exciting because of a more acceptable conventional beauty, and because of her love, her giving. Medora Hart, beside him, was more compactly and perfectly exquisite, with her dramatic and theatrical countenance and figure. But to create a Denise Averil, the Lord could not have rested on the seventh day.

  Brennan kept his eyes fastened on Denise, writhing above him. He examined her urchin hair below the turban, her teasing almond-shaped eyes, the flagrant swell of her naked breasts trembling to the gyrations of her generously curved hips. This was an animal-lazy, generous-natured Messalina, if such there could be.

  Denise was kneeling now, and so were the other girls of The Troupe, to the belling of great musical gongs. Their heads touched the runway floor. Then, gradually, they lifted their heads, and as Denise’s came up, Brennan found her staring directly at him. He squirmed uncomfortably, holding his fixed grin, when he felt Medora’s forefinger jabbing at him, as she identified him for Denise.

  The show girls leaped to their feet, tossing aside their veils, and Denise was smiling at Medora. As Denise spun to leave the runway with the others, she gave Medora a quick nod of approval. In fleeting seconds, The Troupe was gone, the number ended, and the lights were changing.

  Medora gave a squeal of elation. “Did you see that, Matt? She said yes. She’s pleased. That means she’ll meet you after the show. You’ve practically got the name of Peet’s hotel in your pocket.”

  “Thanks to you,” said Brennan uncertainly.

  Medora was rising. “I’ve got to dash and change. I hope you don’t mind waiting until the finale. It’ll be over with before long, and when it is, and we’ve dressed, I’ll bring Denise out and introduce you to her properly. See you soon. Cheers.”

  A specialty number, by a team of three humorous ventriloquists, was already performing on the stage, and Medora bent low so as not to obstruct anyone’s view, as she departed. Brennan found himself with two hours on his hands. He reached for the champagne, pondering how he could speed the next two hours and how he would fare with the formidable Denise Averil.

  He sat through two more numbers, and when The Troupe came on again, once more elegantly costumed, once more bare-breasted, he realized that they were impersonating the models that Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec had made famous in his expressionist lithographs. There were the delightful Club Lautrec’s girls as Toulouse-Lautrec’s originals, as Yvette Guilbert, La Goulue, Marcelle Lender, Loie Fuller, May Belfort, Ida Heath, May Milton, Mlle. Eglantine’s cancan troupe, and Jane Avril, the last represented, naturally, by her namesake, Denise Averil.

  Brennan watched Denise, in her smart wide-brimmed hat and parasol and ankle-length skirt, vast mounds of exposed breasts bobbing, slink toward him in measured tread. She had reached the end of the runway, haughty, eyes glazed as they looked off through the smoke and darkness toward nothing, when suddenly, her eyes dropped to hold on Brennan. Instinctively, he lifted a hand in a half salute. Denise’s visage remained expressionless except for one eye. She winked. She paraded off.

  As the number ended to a thunder of applause, Brennan found himself clapping with enthusiasm. He felt foolishly pleased that this magnificent female had singled him out for attention. Then, almost simultaneously, he felt childish and guilty. For he had remembered Lisa.

  Quickly, he came to his feet. The lights were still up but now slowly dimming. He wended his way past several tables, but was hemmed in by a jam of waiters.

  Impatiently, biding his time, he heard two young voices in a tense exchange directly before him. He looked at the table’s occupants, and instantly, he recognized the girl, whom he’d met just yesterday in Earnshaw’s suite and whom he’d heard something about from Doyle. She was a slip of a straw blonde, unadorned, with a freckled but otherwise commonplace face. She was holding her brown coat and small suede purse on her lap, and addressing her male companion intently. Earnshaw’s niece Carol, definitely.

  Brennan’s attention shifted to Carol’s companion, expecting to find a typical young American, but instead he found a rather attractive German lad, the lean Nordic and Almanach de Gotha type that used to frequent international tennis tournaments at Forest Hills and Wimbledon before the Second World War. He might have been handsome, were he not so wretched this minute, Brennan decided. Carol was speaking insistently in an undertone, and the German boy was shaking his head, as he took up his tumbler of liquor.

  Carol’s voice rose, and was momentarily audible. “Well, whatever you say, Willi, my Uncle Emmett is absolutely positive you were lying to him. He knows your father is in Paris and not in Frankfurt.”

  Carol had addressed her companion as Willi. The name registered in Brennan’s mind, and he recall
ed some of Doyle’s gossip, so that he was now able to identify the boy. This was the son of Dr. Dietrich von Goerlitz. Willi, yes. The one Carol had been seeing despite Earnshaw’s disapproval.

  Brennan took note of Willi again. He was muttering something incoherent to himself. He was spilling part of his whisky. He was not only wretched, Brennan could see, he was also drunk.

  Embarrassed to be witness to a private disagreement, Brennan sought an escape route. There was none. He was trapped, two waiters ahead of him, the sommelier behind him. Helpless, he submitted to overhearing another snatch of conversation.

  Carol Earnshaw was desperately trying to control the emotion in her voice. “Willi, why did you lie? Uncle Emmett was only trying to help your father. Why wouldn’t you let him?”

  Willi’s eyes rolled. His words were thick and mournful. “Carol, I could not do any other way. Maybe someday you will understand.”

  ‘There won’t be a someday,” she said with a flash of anger. “Uncle Emmett’s not going to try to see your father again. He has his pride, too. You want to help someone, and that someone’s son kicks you in the face. I—I can’t believe you behaved the way you did. I thought you were so different.”

  “Please, Carol, in a few days, in a week, maybe you will understand.”

  ‘There’s not going to be any few days or a week. Uncle Emmett told me he’s getting out of here, leaving Paris the day after tomorrow. And, Willi, I’m going with him. I don’t—”

  Willi fumbled for her wrist. “Please—please—I am not responsible—”

  “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  She tried to free her wrist, but Willi gripped it more tightly. “Carol, do not leave—”

  Brennan had no desire to find out whether Carol Earnshaw was leaving or staying. He wished only to flee the scene, and in the darkness he saw that the waiters had parted and were moving away. With relief, Brennan located a free aisle through the tables, and speedily, he put the earsplitting music, the new number on the stage, and the lovers’ quarrel behind him. He had problems of his own, including another lovers’ quarrel ahead of him.

  The lobby was an oasis of peace and quiet. Brennan purchased several jeton telephone tokens and folded himself into an empty telephone booth. From information he obtained the number of Le Grand Véfour. He dialed, asked to speak to Mlle. Collins, and girded himself for the explosion.

  She was on the phone, and she was cheerful. “Oh, I’m so happy you called, Matt. I was terribly worried about you. I kept thinking this might be another Bois episode. Are you all right?”

  “I’m suffering from nothing more than boredom,” he said. “Look, Lisa, I’m still in the Club Lautrec. I’m stuck. I’ve got to hang around until the whole damn show is over before I can see my—the person I’m supposed to see. I’m afraid I won’t be able to make dinner.”

  He did not know what he would hear, but what he heard was what he least expected. “Darling, don’t fret about it for one second,” Lisa was saying. “I miss you so much, and everyone did want to meet you, but they can another time, and I—well, I’ll see you soon anyway.”

  “Yes, you will,” he said without conviction. “How’s the evening going?”

  “The restaurant’s a marvel. I’ve put on ten pounds. Foie gras with grapes, can you imagine? And the wine, Montrachet 1962, or something like that. Anyway, it beats LSD. The rest is rather tiresome. If you were here, at least I could look at you. But this way I have to listen to endless chatter about underpinnings and bodices and hemlines. I can’t wait until you take me away from all this. Let’s make babies, darling, and let’s take a long, long time to make each one.”

  “Lisa, I love you.”

  “I want you, Matt. Will you come to me tonight?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I can’t wait. But come to me intact. I keep worrying about you. Who do you have to see tonight?”

  He was about to tell her, but he hesitated. He was serious about Lisa. He would have to treat her seriously. “Some decrepit old Frenchman somebody feels I should meet.”

  “Can he help us?”

  “I don’t know, Lisa, but I can’t afford to pass up a bet.”

  “No, you mustn’t. But don’t be too late.”

  “I won’t. Now you’d better get back to your table.”

  “Yes, I’d better, if I can navigate,” said Lisa. She paused, and then she said. “Matt—”

  “I’m here, darling.”

  “—tell that decrepit old Frenchman, when you see him—tell him about how I want to make babies, so maybe hell help out a little more. Until later, darling.”

  She hung up, and he felt like a bastard.

  Crossing the lobby, he slowed before the reservation counter, considering whether or not he should go through with the evening. If Denise were able to lead him to Rostov, that would be another matter. But the best she could give him was the means of reaching a nobody named Peet. Yet, there was one link between Peet and Rostov: an English scholar-adventurer, named Sir Richard Burton. Tenuous link. To learn if it really existed, he must locate Peet. What troubled him was the test that he must pass even to get to Peet. Had anyone ever spent an evening talking only business with Messalina?

  Reluctantly, Brennan went back inside the nightclub. Unsteadily, he groped his way toward the stage until his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness.

  When he found his table and sat down, he realized that the first act was ending. In a chorus of song, and a flurry of feathery fans, and a seeming acre of pink flesh, it ended. The overhead lights glared down.

  Brennan searched for a waiter. His eyes fell on a nearby table. Where there had been two, there was now one. Carol Earnshaw’s chair was empty. Only young Willi von Goerlitz remained. He appeared badly drunk, blond hair tangled, necktie loosened, stains on his lapel. He was trying to refill his tumbler from a depleted bottle of Scotch. A portion of the liquor overshot the glass. After that, he wasn’t drinking Scotch. He was inhaling it.

  Brennan tried to remember what the quarrel had been about. Willi and Carol had not been fighting about themselves but about the grown-ups, his father, her uncle. Apparently, Earnshaw had tried to see Goerlitz and had seen Willi instead, and Willi had lied to The Ex by saying his father was not in Paris. Then Brennan realized his own contribution to the quarrel. He had been responsible for Earnshaw’s having a reason to see Goerlitz. Earnshaw had failed to see Goerlitz. Briefly, Brennan wondered if the failure would invalidate Earnshaw’s debt to him. Unlikely. Yet, it might, if Earnshaw planned to quit Paris the day after tomorrow.

  Again, Brennan felt Rostov slipping from reach, and again he worried.

  He squinted off at Willi once more. The morose young man was imbibing steadily. At this rate, he would have to be carried out feet first before the show was over. Brennan decided that this was none of his business. His business was—and he felt himself smile sheepishly—a decrepit old Frenchman named Denise Averil.

  Once more, he turned to find a waiter, and found instead, to his amazement, a Chinese punchinello at his elbow, a roly-poly little man who stood grinning down at him.

  “You are Mr. Matthew Brennan, sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am Ma Ming, of Hsinhua, Government of China press agency.”

  For a moment, Brennan was confused. Then he remembered the unusual name that he had jokingly told Professor Isenberg he could not possibly forget, and as he quickly came to his feet, both he and Ma Ming said simultaneously, “Professor Isenberg.”

  “Professor Isenberg,” Brennan repeated. “Of course, he spoke to me of you.”

  “Professor Isenberg, yesterday at our lunch, he spoke to me of you,” said Ma Ming, still grinning. “I promised him to see you.”

  “You’re very kind, Mr.—Mr. Ma.” Brennan glanced past his Chinese visitor at the crowded nightclub, and once more he was bewildered. “Forgive my behavior, but I just didn’t expect anyone here. I hadn’t expected to be here myself. How did you
find me?”

  “Concierge,” said Ma Ming.

  “Of course. I must thank Monsieur Dupont. It is kind of you to take this trouble. Please do sit down. Will you join me in a drink?”

  “I have now only a few minutes,” said Ma Ming. “I must go to do my work. But since Professor Isenberg spoke to me, I have meant to call upon you, yesterday, today, yet always there is work. But tonight, driving to the Embassy, I was ashamed to be so remiss, so I thought I would make the courtesy call, and perhaps, if it is possible, answer any question.” He started for a chair across the table from Brennan. “A few minutes.”

  Brennan watched him. Curious punchinello. His head looked like a small yellow beach ball balanced atop the slightly larger medicine ball that was his body. His gray suit was floppy, and the sleeves were down over his thumbs. As he sat, the grin remained unchanged, and since his eyes were deep-set pinholes and his flat nose was flush with his cheeks, the grin seemed his only prominent feature. Brennan wondered if it was a deformity.

  “I am not disturbing you?” said Ma Ming.

  “No, no. Quite the contrary. I’ve wanted to meet you. As for the show, I’ve seen it before. I’m only here waiting to meet one of the performers afterward.”

  Ma Ming appeared unconscious of his surroundings, and very serious, although the grin remained. “Professor Isenberg spoke most affectionately of you. As a parent might.”

  “He’s too kind. I’m sure I don’t deserve it.”

  “You were treated badly in your country.”

  Instantly, Brennan was on guard. Ma Ming’s jester appearance, supported by credentials from Isenberg, had been disarming. Now Brennan was reminded that his guest was a product of the People’s Republic of China, a correspondent from a Communist nation so long in conflict with the United States. What was it he had just said? You were treated badly in your country. What would he say next? You were treated badly because your country has a capitalistic, imperialistic, aggressive, avaricious, heartless Government?