The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  “It was more than that, from what I hear,” said Brennan. “The Russian girl was the first female he’d ever met who made him feel virile and normal sexually.”

  “So that was it? I didn’t know.” Neely shook his head, “No wonder he tried to move heaven and earth to get back to her.”

  “Did he let you know he was coming to Paris again?” Brennan asked.

  “No. I—”

  “Has he been by?”

  “Not so far as I know. I was going to say I can’t blame him for not getting in touch with us. I guess he got the message before. We don’t intend to help him become a Russian citizen, true love or no true love. Only the Russians themselves can help him. I reckon that’s why he’s here now. To pester them some more, the way he’s been pestering us.”

  “I suppose so,” said Brennan without conviction. “Herb, in that form he filled out, does Peet mention anywhere anything about his interests and hobbies?”

  Neely consulted the file. “He took a correspondence course in the Russian language. Does that qualify?”

  “Did he finish the course?”

  “He doesn’t say.”

  “If he did, he’d have said so… Herb, does he make any mention of collecting rare books or any books of any kind?”

  “Oh, you’re on that kick again.” Neely laughed. “Of course not. No books.”

  “Or hobbies? Photography?”

  “Not a word.”

  “France. Is there anything to indicate some interest in France or the French?”

  “Nothing.” Neely wrinkled his brow. “What are you up to, Matt?”

  “I’ll tell you what I have been up to the last hour.”

  Lowering his voice, Brennan related how he had obtained a key to Joe Peet’s room in the Hotel Continental, how he had used it, and what he had found there.

  “Does any of that make sense to you?” Brennan finally asked. “The nude girls, okay. That’s in character. But the avid interest in châteaux, palaces, Fontainebleau, Malmaison, Versailles. What do you make of it?”

  Neely shrugged. “All tourists are interested in those places.”

  “But not obsessively so. Photographs, books, all the pamphlets. From what you’ve told me, I’m not even sure he can read.”

  “Well, from what this file reveals, he certainly can’t write. You should see his letters. Hardly literate. My seven-year-old does better.”

  Brennan remembered something that had slipped his mind when he was recounting his investigation of Peet’s hotel room, the contents of the wastebasket. “Another thing, Herb. When I was in his room, I found evidence he’s rented a formal suit—tails. Now, what would he want with tails?”

  “Maybe he’s our new ambassador from Chicago? But seriously, half the men in Paris are wearing tails.”

  “Who are the ones who really require tails?”

  “Well, the delegates, of course. For various state or diplomatic receptions.”

  “Name some.”

  “Receptions?” Neely reached behind him for an ornate booklet. “Let’s have a look at our host’s Ordre du jour officiel de la Conférence du Sommet des cinq puissances. Last night, the British had a dinner in their Ambassador’s residence. Tonight, the French Foreign Minister is tossing a big soiree in the Hotel de Lauzun. Tomorrow night, the French Premier is sponsoring a dinner dance for delegates at Fontainebleau. Sunday night it is the President of France’s turn, the traditional banquet in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Next week, more. A dinner dance at Malmaison, a dinner at the Soviet Embassy. Then we’re doing a reception of our own in the Embassy annex. Well, that gives you an idea.”

  “All white tie?”

  “All.”

  “Well, I can’t see Peet being invited to any of those functions, can you?”

  “Hardly.” Neely dropped the program booklet on the table behind him. “Look, I suppose there are some private parties where tails are required. And anyone who collects rare books might be invited to one of these.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Brennan. “Dammit, it’s still a dead end.”

  “And you still think this Peet might somehow lead you to Rostov?”

  “I’m not as convinced anymore… Herb, if Peet did come to Paris to wheedle the Russians into letting him enter their country, become one of their citizens, do you think they’d give him any consideration? They refused to two years ago in Moscow.”

  “That was two years ago, but they might be cooperative now. Two years ago, Peet seemed to be acting on a romantic impulse. His desire to defect looked like a frivolous flip-flop to the Russians. But now, after so much time, if he’s still persisting, they might take him seriously.”

  “Why would they even bother?”

  “Why not? True, he’s small potatoes, not much of a catch. But they like to have tried and tested American citizens go over the Iron Curtain to be on their side. A Chicagoan. A laborer. An army veteran. They can make propaganda hay out of that. It’s not much, but every little bit helps.”

  Brennan nodded. “That must be it. I guess that’s why they have a KGB agent keeping an eye on him.”

  “Well, you can bet I’d have a CIA man on a possible Russian defector, if he was a good enough story. It all comes down to propaganda value, Matt. When they’re sure of our boy, they’ll take him in. It’s got a natural press angle, you know.”

  That moment, Brennan conjured up Novik’s name on Peet’s scratch pad, and that moment, it seemed logical. If Peet had propaganda value for the Russians, they would want one of their writers to see him. Then Brennan wondered whether Peet had propaganda value for the Red Chinese as well. He was tempted to ask Neely about Ma Ming. But this was too much of a diversion. Instead, Brennan said, “You say there’s a natural press angle in Peet?”

  “Definitely. Clean young American lad, embittered by lack of opportunity in American capitalistic society, surrenders his passport, passes through the Curtain, accepts the ennobling Soviet citizenship, and—happy proletarian ending—finds true opportunity, true equality, true love.”

  Brennan could not help but smile. “Yes, I see. For an ex-newspaperman like you, that could be the angle.” He paused. “But for an ex-diplomat like me, there might be other possibilities.”

  “Name one other.”

  Brennan threw up his hands. “I can’t, you so-and-so, and you know it. Ask me a couple of years from now, and maybe I’ll have the answer. Right now I can tell you only two things—first, if you have it, I’d like to see the day before yesterday’s Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune, and second, I’d like to use your telephone.”

  Neely swiveled around to the table behind him, and then made the full circuit back, handing Brennan the newspaper. ‘There you are. Looking for a new job?”

  “Looking to see if Peet cuts out paper dolls.” He opened the paper to page three, and whistled. “By God, he does.”

  At the top of page three, where the page in Peet’s wastebasket had had a portion torn out, was a three-column photograph of a Legrande mannequin modeling the latest in bikinis, a sequined one for formal beach parties. “Another gem for Peet’s girlie collection,” murmured Brennan.

  Automatically, he turned the page over to see what was on the opposite side. Behind the photograph of the leggy mannequin in the bikini, almost back to back with it, was a candid news picture showing a half-dozen Russian delegates to the Summit climbing the steps to the Palais Rose. In the foreground of the photograph, Brennan recognized Premier Talansky and Marshal Zabbin. The next three delegates were unfamiliar to him. Then he clearly recognized the one bringing up the rear. This one was none other than Minister Nikolai Rostov.

  Staring at the photograph, Brennan could feel himself sinking deeper and deeper into a morass of confusion. Here was a newspaper published three mornings ago. Joe Peet had torn a picture from it. But which? The one on page three or the one on page four? Had he wanted to preserve another semi-nude for his growing collection, or a memento of a new-found friend named Nikolai
Rostov?

  Baffled, Brennan folded the newspaper.

  “What is it, Matt?” Neely was asking.

  “Another mystery,” Brennan answered, and then he added firmly, “to be continued… Okay, Herb, now give me your telephone. I want to check the hotel and find out if anything good has been happening behind my back.”

  AFTER LEAVING the Embassy, Brennan decided that there was time enough to stroll the length of the Rue de Rivoli and that at least one good thing had happened behind his back. Lisa Collins, it seemed, was ready to see him one more time.

  The single message waiting for him at the Hotel California had, indeed, been from Lisa. The concierge, M. Dupont, had obligingly read it to him twice, enunciating each word carefully. A half hour ago, Lisa had called in the message for Brennan. She had to see him briefly on an urgent matter. She would be outside the entrance to the Jeu de Paume, on the Place de la Concorde side of the Tuileries, at exactly one o’clock. While she could not be reached directly, she would phone the California once more before leaving for the Impressionist museum, in case Brennan called in and said he could not make it at that time.

  Since he had almost an hour to spare before his meeting with Lisa, he sauntered between the shops and concrete pillars of the Rue de Rivoli, appreciating the shade of the continuous arcade roof and the awnings lowered toward the Tuileries, which offered relief from the blazing noon sun. Passing Smith’s bookstore, Sulka and Company’s glittering display window, the Angelina pâtisserie, he tried to analyze Lisa’s message.

  The only thing that the message told him was that, despite last night’s episode with Denise, Lisa was prepared to see him again. The message implied that Medora Hart had finally got hold of Lisa, explained away the whole misunderstanding about Denise, and now Lisa was ready to forgive and forget. One fact prevented his having hopes of a permanent reconciliation. Lisa’s message had baldly stated that she wanted to see him about “an urgent matter” and then only “briefly.” The implication here was that their meeting would be anything but a timeless lovers’ reunion, and that she had something other than their misunderstanding to discuss. Actually, if she had not seen Medora, or even if she had seen her but had refused to accept her story, Lisa might have impulsively made the appointment to tell him off brusquely and bid him good-bye.

  By the time that he arrived at the Place des Pyramides, Brennan found he had worked himself into a mild state of agitation. He did not know why the loss of Lisa, under these circumstances, should differ in some way from the growing likelihood of losing her shortly, inevitably, because of his inability to clear his name and his determination not to spend his life with her under a cloud. But somehow, with Peet drawn nearer, with Earnshaw on his side, there was a flicker of hope for their future. On the other hand, if Lisa were female-foolish enough to distrust him because of last night, regarding him as a restless middle-aged roue who was poor mate material, there would be no reasoning with her, and therefore no hope. And therefore he was agitated.

  He teetered on the curb, with no more heart for walking. Exposed to the sun, he was now hot, as well as hungry and thirsty. His hunger he would control, and he would try to persuade Lisa to lunch with him. But he had to slake his thirst. He turned into the corner café-restaurant, Le Carrousel, and sat and ordered a citron pressé. Soon, with the fresh lemonade in his hand, the cool tile at his feet, he felt better. He contemplated the Place des Pyramides, the gilded statue of Joan of Arc, upraised flag in her hand, astride her golden steed, and he watched the incongruous sport cars and trucks wheeling around her, and gradually, his anxiety was allayed. Feeling restored, he decided to go to the Jeu de Paume and wait for Lisa.

  Walking more briskly, he retraced his steps along the Rue de Rivoli, at the Rue de Mondovi chanced the traffic to dodge across the street toward the path and trees fringing the Tuileries Gardens. He strode around the edge of the park facing the Place de la Concorde and climbed the steps to the modest nineteenth-century museum named after a tennis court whose site it occupied and which was now the popular stepchild of the gigantic Louvre, situated some distance into the gardens behind it.

  Lisa was not yet present. Brennan’s watch read twelve minutes to one o’clock. He was twelve minutes early and once more too restless and hot to stand in the sun waiting for her. It would be cooler inside, and the brilliant Impressionists would keep him occupied. Moreover, he had not been inside the museum in a half-dozen years, and he wondered if it would offer him as much delight and stimulation as it had done when he was younger.

  Going to the counter, he bought his one franc and fifty centime ticket, handed it to the uniformed doorman, and went into the Jeu de Paume, where the thick walls and protection from the sun offset the dazzling and varied brightness of the Impressionist oil paintings surrounding him.

  He wandered from room to room, at first detached but soon caught up by and lost in the personalized and daring world those late-nineteenth-century innovators and masters had hewed out of an older world, a world where conservatism and conformity of style were making of beauty an art on a candy box top. From painting to painting he went—Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Woman Clown, Manet’s Picnic on the Grass, Sisley’s Flood Landscape, Van Gogh’s Room at Aries, Seurat’s The Circus—constantly awed by both their courageous rebellion and their consistent genius. For one who wanted courage, Brennan thought, it was moving and inspiring.

  Leaving the crude wooden door upon which Gauguin had painted a picture in Tahiti, Brennan returned to the Degas exhibit for another examination of his horseracing series.

  “Marvelous, aren’t they, Matt?”

  He did an about-face, and there was Lisa, tall, unsmiling, wearing a wide-brimmed floppy hat that matched her white purse, and a light silk print dress that curved softly down her young, shapely body.

  He bent to kiss her, but absently, she offered him her cheek. Her full lips remained compressed and her face was troubled. He wondered whether her concern was over their relationship or over something else.

  “I was outside, but I was early,” he apologized, “so I came in to look around and I guess I lost track of time.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “When you weren’t there, I knew you’d be in here.” She glanced about. “It’s wonderful. I wish I had more time. I came through here with some girls the other day between collections. It was the only place in the neighborhood I could think of when I left the message for you to meet me. I’m glad I caught you. Are you all right?”

  “Are you?” he countered, still worried by her unrelieved seriousness. “Did you see Medora Hart?”

  “Yes—”

  “Then she told you what happened. You’re not sore at me anymore, Lisa, are you?”

  She seemed bewildered. “Sore at you? What do you—?” She remembered, and her reaction was one of exasperation. “Oh, that, you and that French chorus-girl bitch. Don’t be a fool. Last night, sure, I was angry as hell, the effrontery—but you know me well enough, I wouldn’t let you get away from me that easily—no, I heard all about it just now, from Medora, and I thought it was funny, about the only funny thing that’s happened this morning.”

  Brennan’s relief was crossed by a flash of annoyance. He did not ever want to be ridiculous in Lisa’s eyes. But the annoyance passed instantly. He loved her, and he had not lost her. “Well, I’m glad, Lisa,” he said. He paused. “What’s been happening to you this morning? Your message—you wanted to discuss something urgent.”

  “Yes.” She looked at the other sightseers in the museum. “Not here, Matt.”

  “Why don’t we go to lunch? I know a—”

  “I can’t. I promised to meet some fashion editors at Taillevent in twenty minutes. After that, I have to attend another damn collection. Anyway, we’ll be dining together tonight. You haven’t forgotten, have you? Legrande’s big dinner bash at his villa outside Paris, town called Vaucresson. Everyone tells me it’s going to be wild, the event of the season.” She looked at him. “You’re taking me, aren’
t you?”

  He had forgotten, and he would have preferred to be with her alone, but he said, “I’ve been looking forward to taking you for days. I even turned down another invitation from Denise.”

  “You bastard.” She took his arm and said, “Don’t tease me, Matt. I’m not in the mood. There is something urgent. Let’s go outside.”

  They left the Jeu de Paume, circled the outer terrace to the side stairs leading down into the one-mile expanse of the Tuileries Gardens. Descending the stairway between the massive stone statues of The Tiber and The Rhoné, they walked in step, arms linked, toward the octagonal fountain.

  Beside the splashing water Lisa halted. She appeared to be looking off at the tree-lined lawns and at the statue that Maillol had sculptured to honor Cezanne and that was known as Reclining Woman. But then Brennan realized that Lisa’s pained eyes were looking at nothing, seeing nothing, except perhaps some fresh and hurting memory.

  “It’s Medora,” Lisa said suddenly. “It’s awful.” She turned her frightened dark eyes to Brennan. “Medora tried to kill herself this morning.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, she did, Matt. She tried to commit suicide. It’s a God-blessed miracle I—I was able to save her.”

  All pleasure had gone out of him. He brought Lisa toward him, squarely in front of him. “What happened?” he demanded. “What happened to her?”

  Lisa went on rapidly. “When I was leaving the hotel this morning, early, I found a telephone message in my box from Medora. She asked if I could come by this morning to see her. She had something to tell me about you. Well, I was tied up the first part of the morning. But when I was coming out of Dior, I realized I was only a few blocks from the Hotel San Régis. I ran over there, buzzed upstairs to Medora’s room. No reply. I started to ask the concierge to tell Medora I’d been around, when he said that he was positive she was in her room. No one had seen her leave, and she’d just taken a phone call from Monsieur Nardeau a half hour before. So I thought maybe she was in the bathroom when I rang, so I went upstairs. I rapped. No reply. I was about to go again when, I don’t know why, I tried her doorknob, and the door gave. It was unlocked. And there she was, Matt. What a sight.”