by Burl Barer
Holding her invitation as a calling card, she tapped the Saint's rakish trade-mark with the well-manicured nail of her right index finger and cast an amused glance at the Saintly glacier.
"I remember the night you drew one of these for me on a torn scrap of paper," she said coyly, offering Simon her hand.
"It must have been a night to remember," said the Saint as if he remembered the night, the woman, and the significant particulars. His mind raced to place her face with an event.
"I am not surprised that you don't recognize me, Mr Templar. It was long ago. Perhaps this will refresh your memory: You said `Give this to your Daddy and tell him The Saint brought you home'.”
The Saint's memory was immediately refreshed. He remembered the night, the woman, and the highly publicized body count. He even recalled the first time he heard her name uttered by the impersonal metallic voice from a police car radio in New York's Central Park:
"Calling all cars. Viola Inselheim, age six, kidnapped from home in Sutton Place..."
The Saint's ability to relive each moment of that long ago night on New York's Long Island had not dimmed through the veil of years. He could still hear her shrill cry of terror, see spitting flames of gunfire, feel his own shouts of `run!' tearing through his throat as he spurred the child's flight from captivity.
Released from vivid reverie, Simon realized he was still gripping the adult hand of little Viola Inselheim.
"Your fist was tiny then," remarked the Saint softly, looking at her hand as if surprised it was not miniature and dimpled. "And the last time I saw you, you were wearing a white frock." Simon paused. "And your father?"
"My father never wore a white frock, Mr Templar."
They both laughed, releasing tension born of time, trauma, and little or no true familiarity.
Relaxed, she resumed.
"I still have the note, and the newspaper clippings. My father..." the intonation indicated that Zeke Inselheim was no longer living. "...saved it all. I pulled it out and looked at it when I knew I was going to see you again."
Simon gestured towards a fresh gaggle of noshing and nibbling professional communicators devouring the remnants of Seattle's finest seafood in his honor.
"I still hold a certain attraction for the press" commented the Saint in self-deprecation. He was attempting, by diversion and without success, to move the conversation to the next plateau.
"Saint Rescues Viola! Saint Battles Kidnappers!" quoted Viola, "The headlines were at least two and a half inches high in big bold black letters."
Simon Templar felt oddly uncomfortable. Not with Viola, but with himself. He had rescued the child in a spectacular display of reckless bravado, but her rescue was secondary to his primary motive: killing her criminal captor, Morrie Ualino. The Saint accomplished both, admired the coverage of his escapades in the subsequent newspaper publications, and allowed little Viola Inselheim to become the one tender footnote to an otherwise violent and treacherous evening.
"I am now Vi Berkman, my husband is assistant Rabbi at the Reform Temple. We have lived here for a few years." Viola took a deep breath, stretching her next word as if it were physically malleable. "And..."
The Saint recognized the intonation of "and" as the intonation preceding detonation. The Rabbi's wife was no femme fatale, but despite her unquestioned integrity Simon knew there was something explosive coming, and he could feel it all the way up his spine.
Viola Inselheim Berkman turned her attention to the latest brigade of broadcasters and bigwigs abandoning the scampi to sample the Simon Templar, and smiled the smile of radiant acquiescence. The Saint sensed from her very bearing that she had become a woman of strength, dedication, purpose, and consummate courtesy.
“Time for you to play celebrity. We'll talk later. Then maybe make some Big Bangs."
The Saint sensed a sizzling fuse.
"Big Bangs, Mr Templar. Big Bangs."
With finger food appetizers and spoon fed quotes, the trained professional broadcasters and local luminaries were not left hungry. Some of them - most notably Connie Cain - did not leave alone. She and Emilio Hernandez retreated to the dashing star's personal suite where, during a more animated moment of interaction, she misplaced half a set of false eyelashes.
When the ice sculpture watered down and the contemporary soundtrack music no longer strained the sensitive components of the Westin's sound system, Simon Templar and Viola Inselheim Berkman shared coffee at a quiet corner table.
After surface discussions of the Saint's earlier completed Seattle itinerary - lunch at Leif Erikson Lodge in historic Ballard with Olav Lunde followed by preparation for his live television appearance - Simon and Viola exchanged observations on the differences between New York and Seattle life styles. When the small talk was depleted, Viola commented lightly on the pleasure of renewing their acquaintance, then asked an unexpected question.
"Do you still rescue children in danger, Mr. Templar?"
She intentionally released him from any attempt at formulating a response by immediately beginning her next sentence.
"No man does what you did for me unless he loves children, treasures them, and is willing to risk his life for them. And don't be modest, Saint. I know. And even if my memory didn't tell me, I can read it in those old clippings."
Simon could sense a sales pitch a mile away, but he could also discern the purity of her motive.
"If this is leading up to me buying Girl Scout cookies, I'll gladly take a case," offered the Saint.
"I want you to take a case, but it is not cookies." She looked at him with an intimate directness to which she was unquestionably entitled, as if searching his ice-blue eyes for signs of the same man who cradled her under his arm that night long ago when the Saint's game was neither media nor movies, but death and justice.
Simon Templar leaned forward, taking both her hands in his. "You are not six years old anymore, and I am certainly not thirty-one. You are a grown woman and I'm..."
"...The Saint," asserted Viola, reciting a memorized newspaper account, “an astonishing combination of heroism and terrorism, the most mysterious figure...”
"Spare me," Simon laughed, "I was always easy copy for adjective addicted reporters"
"Those descriptions weren’t farfetched,” she said with a slight hint of humour, “All the superlatives were well earned. I know. I was there. And what I want to know is..."
"Will I pull out a hidden knife or noisy automatic and rub out a bad guy just like in the movies?"
"No, Mr Templar. Not like in the movies, like in New York. But this time there is only one man to kill, and many children to rescue."
She wasn't kidding.
Simon saw Barney Malone ambling towards them from across the room.
"Cut to the chase, Ms Berkman," said the Saint.
"I work with Seattle's street kids. Do you know what a predatory pedophile is, Mr. Templar?"
Simon's involuntary shudder affirmed his knowledge.
"This man is so well protected, his prey so vulnerable, that he swims upstream in the so-called `regular channels'."
Malone was getting closer, and Simon didn't feel Barney's inclusion in this particular conversation was appropriate.
"Cops? Do they know?" Simon tossed the quick question her way as he rose to introduce her to the arriving Mr Malone.
"Yes. They know him well. He's on the force."
With introductions and conventional niceties evenly distributed, Simon escorted Vi Berkman to the elevator while Malone oversaw the careful packing of the valuable promotional material.
"As I assume I have perked your interest," continued Vi as they walked, "you are invited to my Youth Service Outreach office in the Sanitary Building by the Pike Place Market tomorrow morning at ten."
"It sounds like a clean location," remarked Simon, wondering exactly what Vi honestly expected of him. "Why exactly are we meeting at your office?" The Saint figured he might as well simply ask.
"Because," said Vi
as she stepped into the elevator, "You will see with your own eyes why you must do what I ask you to do, and who it is that you are going to do it to."
The Saint slid into the elevator quickly as the doors shut behind him. "I'm not about to let you make a tv-movie exit, and there is no commercial break following your last line. I may have saved your life, but I am not about to commit murder simply because you think it is a good idea."
Vi leaned against the wall and smiled a weak, knowing smile.
"OK. Don't kill him. But I absolutely assure you that once you understand who he is and what he does, the Saint will not let him go unpunished by any means necessary, convenient or expedient."
The small bell announcing their arrival at the Westin's lobby served as ringing punctuation to her final comment. She put out her hand.
"Tomorrow, ten in the morning. Sanitary Market Building. Will you be there, Mr Templar?"
Simon relinquished the affirmation as he shook her hand. Watching her walk away, his mind still sifting through the conversation, the implications, and her request, he paid scant attention to the small, dark, man stepping into the elevator.
3
"Excuse me, Sir," remarked the gentleman. "If you are Simon Templar, you are exactly the man I am looking for."
"Really?" Simon pressed the appropriate button commanding the elevator to return him to the reception suite. "You don't want me to kill anyone do you?"
"Good heavens, no," the little man's laugh sounded like a wheezing pig. "I want to make you rich."
"Sir," remarked the Saint with a polite bow, "I am already rich."
"Well, even richer, if you prefer. My card." The tiny fellow proffered forth a white card. "Our board of directors instructed me to introduce myself and make you a most lucrative offer."
Simon examined the card carefully. It was, even by his standards, of significant interest. The card read "SeaQue Salvage International. London - New York - Seattle." It featured a Madison Street address for the Seattle office and identified the little fellow as Mr Salvadore Alisdare, General Agent.
"I would offer you my card, Mr Alisdare," said the Saint pulling the invitation from his inside pocket, "but I am saving it as a souvenir."
The tiny man chuckled and pulled an identical embossed invitation from his side suit pocket and held it up to the Saint.
"I have one, thank you. I know the party is over, but I was working late and hoped against hope that I would still find you here."
As the door opened, both men stepped into the hall. Simon jokingly took Alisdare's invitation and held it up to the light as if verifying it's authenticity.
"Looks real to me," pronounced Simon, officially depositing it in his right jacket pocket in the finest Ticketmaster tradition. "Follow me and I will show you the most incredible ice sculpture you have ever seen in your life, then you can buy me a drink in Nikko's lounge downstairs and tell me about the fortune in my future."
As Simon Templar led the belated guest towards the nearby empty reception room, his steps were light and his heart dilated. Suddenly, Simon stopped cold.
"Wait a minute.." The Saint's voice had the harshness of steel on chilled steel. The little man's dark face turned beige. "I can't stand the thought of seeing that block of ice one more time, let's hit Nikko's now and get some sukiaki and tempura while we’re at it."
Simon Templar locked his grip on Mr Alisdare's arm as an irrefutable argument convincing the confused General Agent to accompany the Saint back towards the elevator.
"Watching all those media types devour the buffet gave me an appetite," insisted Simon, "and your invitation entitled you to free food anyway. You, sir, will be my guest."
The little man's tiny feet peddled rapidly to keep up with his new friend's impressive stride. In one quick moment, the two men were in the descending elevator.
The Saint, while silent on the ride down, was exulting to himself on his good fortune and fate's ironic sense of humor. Several floors above him a superficial resemblance of his career's signature was becoming a chilly puddle, but the real live Saint was just getting warmed up. His mood advanced from quizzical in the face of Vi's direct offer of murderous mayhem to ecstatic after meeting Mr Alisdare, for the Saint was always intrigued by ineffectual liars.
There were several aspects of the SeaQue agent's presentation which Simon Templar discerned as decidedly fishy or, at best, crustaceanesque -- most notable being the aroma of fresh lobster fra diavolo saturating both Salvadore Alisdare and his supposedly pristine invitation.
"So tell me how you are going to make me an even richer
man than I already am," prompted Simon as he dipped the tips of his Nikko chopsticks into the steaming sukiaki.
The little man's cheeks flushed as he toyed with his tempura broccoli.
"Mr Templar, have you ever heard of the Costello Treasure?"
The Saint had never heard of the Costello Treasure and to the best of his knowledge, neither had anybody else.
"As in Abbot and Costello?" Asked Simon casually.
"Er, no. Mr Templar," The little man seemed dissapointed with the Saint's response. "The Costello Treasure is named after Dolores Costello, the famous actress. She was the wife of John Barrymore - the brother of Lionel and Ethel Barrymore."
Simon Templar forced himself to suppress an outburst of laughter.
The Saint, having listened to all manner of nonsense in his life, would be willing to wager that the entire Costello Treasure myth, whatever it may be, was fabricated by the fun loving imagination of Barney Malone. The Saint had been an easy target of Malone's harmless and amusing humor before, and this little diversion was perhaps Barney's best yet.
Simon leaned across the table and spoke sotto voce. "Have you ever heard of a man named Barney Malone?"
"Who?" The lobster-scented General Agent, appearing confused, shook his head in slow negation. The highly suspect man from SeaQue was honestly ignorant concerning Mr Malone.
"Please, Mr Alisdare," the Saint waved his chopsticks as if chasing away his previous question. "Tell me absolutely everything about the famous Costello Treasure and your irresistible, lucrative offer."
The diminutive dinner guest recited the dramatic history of the Costello Treasure while Simon Templar, finding the inventive exposition fitfully enthralling, deftly trapped and devoured rectangles of tofu.
The narrative's essentials concerned the sea-going saga of Dagfinn Varnes, a Norwegian cryptologist who's antipathy towards the Axis manifested itself in covert activities on behalf of the Allies.
"In the latter days of World War II, Varnes was aboard the U.S.S. Amber guarding the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Neah Bay to Port San Juan on Vancouver Island", said Alisdare as if making a major revelatory pronouncement. He tilted his head to one side, stared expectantly at Simon Templar, and awaited an appropriate indication of unabashed fascination from his elegant companion.
"Where the lovely Miss Costello," remarked Simon, "fleeced the crew at five card stud and stashed her winnings in the engine room."
The Saint regretted the jest the moment it left his lips. Alisdare dropped his fluttering hands to the table and appeared to demonstrably deflate.
Simon apologized for interrupting, attributing the imperative nature of doing so to the call of nature itself. Alisdare winced when Simon affectionately squeezed his shoulder while leaving the table.
The only nature summoning Simon Templar was his inherent Saintly nature responding to intuitive trumpets, and his appetite for honest information outweighed any proclivity towards culinary indulgence. The Saint also preferred a main course of facts before swallowing fancy. Hence the wince-inducing squeeze delivered to the diminutive prevaricator masked the deft lifting of Alisdare's wallet from the opposing pocket of his dinner jacket.
In the tiled isolation of Nikko's spotless washroom, Simon Templar carefully scrutinized the billfold's diverse contents. Having learned illuminating details about his dishonest dinner guest, Simon took a circu
itous route to his table via the hotel's courtesy telephone. En route, the Saint debated whether or not to return the errant wallet. As much for the sake of fun as for expedience, he wanted to keep it. But risk outweighed amusement, and Templar performed another successful slight of hand.
Seated and smiling, Simon convivially encouraged Alisdare to proceed with his story.
"Where was I?" asked Alisdare.
"Lying off the coast of Vancouver Island", said the Saint with a slight hint of questionable inflection.
Salvadore's ears turned red, he cleared his throat, and continued his recitation.
"After the Navy's massive shipbuilding program had gotten into full swing, ships such as the Amber were no longer necessary. After the war, it was decommissioned and became property of Alaska salmon packers. Her name became the Polaris and her history became temporarily obscure -- temporarily because recently SeaQue became privy to some rather astonishing passages from the papers of Dagfinn Varnes."
Alisdare poured emphasis on "astonishing", bathing it in unmistakable importance.
"And how astonishing is it?" asked a wide-eyed Simon Templar.
"Quite. Quite indeed. Portions of his personal papers were cryptologicaly encoded, and even after being decoded were somewhat, er..."
"Vague?"
"Um, perhaps metaphorical would be more appropriate."
The Saint gently pursed his lips, suppressing the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I never metaphor I didn't like," deadpanned Simon.
With a weak sigh, the General Agent dug into his pocket, pulled out a folded sheet of typing paper, and asked Templar to listen carefully to Varnes's decoded references to the Costello Treasure.
"Amber equals Polaris. Multi colored fish. Dazzling gems of inestimable value. Infanta. Murals of beauty, rich beyond measure. Lost beneath the waves of Neah Bay, awash in gray, the treasure of Dolores Costello."
