Assignment Zoraya

by Edward S. Aarons

  The Villa d'Igli was secluded at the end of a guarded mountain road overlooking the Gulf of Procchio. The view was a wild tumble of mountains, and indented coast with the town of Portoferraio in the distance; nearer at hand were careful terraces and vineyards and winding rows of orchards. Far off over the water, the iron smelters of Piombino on the mainland cast a ruddy hell-fire into the night sky.

  A high stone wall circled the mountain, a relic of an ancient Roman camp and a subsequent Medici fortress once built there. The wall was topped with broken glass and barbed wire during the war, when the Nazis occupied the island. The remains of a concrete pillbox imbedded into the mountainside had been remodeled into a gatekeeper's cottage.

  The gatekeeper was a burly man carrying a sidearm. He looked at Zoraya and Durell and muttered, "Wait, please. You are not on the list."

  The gatekeeper telephoned to the main house, out of sight behind tall pines. Eventually he came out and, with a sullen look, opened the gate without a further word, and Durell drove through.

  There were at least a hundred guests, possibly more, Durell estimated, with a preponderance of women. There were not many young men. There were several famous faces that he recognized, loose and unguarded here, whose presence would have caused shocked comment in some European capitals. Music washed the cool night air with a persistent beat. There were flood-lights that shifted now and then at random, swinging over terraces, formal gardens of boxwood and tall poplars forming allies that ended in dark coverts where Roman antique statuary stood in marble nudity while other movements went on beneath, below, and around the shrubbery.

  Around a huge swimming pool people ate and drank and a swift, noiseless corps of servants worked diligently, dark faces blind to what was happening around them.

  There was enough to see; the shifting floodlights made certain of that.

  The bathers in the marble pool were all nude. It was like a scene from an old Bacchanalia, Durell thought, a Roman festival. There were fat men with dead-white skin and slim, lithe girls obviously there for their pleasure, and several stout women, with ugly waddling bodies, catered to by dark youths whose adoring eyes and words created jelly-like laughter in the mountains of flesh cavorting with them.

  Durell glanced at Zoraya as they mounted the marble stairs to the terrace entrance. She walked proudly, as if nothing existed to the right or left of her, as if unaware of the sudden, stunned hush that followed their passage.

  Two youths, both nude, chased each other toward the pool, shrieking like women. In a corner of the marble stairs, in temporary shadow, two women and a man were in a tangled, impossible embrace. Durell took Zoraya's arm and helped her forward. Her lips were pale. Her large eyes stared ahead, unseeing.

  "Princess?"

  Durell turned. A tall Arab in a snowy gown with a face that looked as if it had been hacked with an axe out of mahogany stood beside them. "Princess Zoraya . . ."

  She looked up. "Hassan," she said.

  "The prince acknowledges your arrival," the man said in French. "He bids you welcome. He asks you to forgive him, but you must wait."

  She looked at Durell. He shook his head.

  "We cannot wait," she said.

  "Forgive me, sir," said the Arab, "an error was made at the gate. You are not permitted here. You must go back, sir."

  "No," Zoraya said. "Mr. Durell stays at my side."

  "He cannot be permitted—the gatekeeper was careless—"

  Durell said, "I am an old friend of the prince. It is important that I see him at once."

  "At the moment he ... he is not available."

  "We understand," Zoraya said. "Nevertheless, you will take us to him now."

  "Mr. Durell must be searched. If he is armed—"

  "I am armed," Durell said.

  "Then I must have your weapon."

  Durell hesitated. A waiter hurried out of the French doors of the villa, carrying two buckets of iced champagne. Two maids trotted after him with trays of food. The villa reached in two long terraced wings, with tall windows facing the Gulf of Procchio far below. Music filled the air—a waltz now, but with an odd, suggestive rhythm. Durell looked at the Arab servant, Hassan. Hassan was built like a bull, with his ax-face and small black eyes. Durell hesitated, then handed the man his .38 snub-barreled revolver.

  "Take care of it," Durell said. "I shall want it back."

  "Hadr, efTendi. You are from the police?"

  "No."

  "May I ask, then, why you come here armed?"

  "I am always armed. As you are, Hassan."

  The Arab smiled, this time with a trace of understanding. He bowed and said, "I cannot go to the prince with you, effendi. But he is upstairs, in the Pink Room."

  "I know where it is," Zoraya said thinly.

  She led the way. It was evident that she had visited the Villa d'Igli before, but not, Durell was sure, during one of these parties. Some of the rooms they passed were dark, others brilliantly lighted. The music followed them. There was a burst of laughter and applause, a woman's shriek of ecstasy from behind a closed door. There was the smell of perfume and food and marijuana. A very stout woman, naked from the waist up, stood at the foot of the stairs
  She spoke in Rumanian. "Oh, pretty. Pretty young girl. All in gold. And is your skin gold, prettiness? Let me see."

  "Please, your Highness," Zoraya murmured.

  "I shock you? These pendulousities disgust you, darling?"

  "I must go up. Please."

  "I want you. Get rid of this man," she said, not looking at Durell. Her intense concentration on the girl was amazing. "Get rid of him at once."

  Zoraya slapped her. The woman's jowly face shook with the force of the blow. The slap was hard, cold, deliberate. The fat woman sat down on the stairs and wept. Zoraya stepped around her as if she no longer existed and went up, with Durell at her side.

  Motion pictures were being shown in a salon above. Tense and heated faces of men and women watched the improbable sex play on the screen. In another room the smell of opium was thick and cloying. Other music, thin and reedy, came from the end of the wide corridor. There was Louis XIV furniture and elegant tapestries and a high window at the end of the hall.

  'This is the Pink Room," Zoraya said, halting before closed double doors. "It is reserved for the elite guests. Amr will be in here, but he will not be in the mood for interruption."

  "We can't wait," Durell said. "But I'm sorry you had to come with me to this place."

  She said, "I have seen and heard nothing. It does not exist."

  Durell opened the double door and stepped in with her. Her golden net sari rustled faintly. She halted, stepped back, and he felt a quick tremor in her body. The touch of her body against his was like a sudden burst of searing heat.

  No one troubled to notice their entrance. The avid faces were all turned toward the entertainer who moved into a spotlight at the far end of the salon.

  There were perhaps two dozen spectators in the dim room, seated on cushions on the floor. Incense curled through the shadows. The music of a flute came from behind a series of screens blocking the windows.

  There was a smell in the room that Durell could not at first identify. Strong, overpowering, musky, it made a primitive reflex prickle the hair on the nape of his neck. It was a smell of animal, of maleness, of deep and remote jungle.

  Zoraya drew in a quick breath. Then the curtains at the far end of the room were pulled aside and the cat stalked onto the small, raised platform.

  It was a black male leopard. It was his smell that pervaded the room, the essence of male cat that rippled through the mixed audience of men and women. A shuddering sigh came from someone in the shadows. The black leopard had a dia-

  mond collar that flashed and glittered against his ebony coat. The leash that held him was also jeweled, and at the end of the leash was the girl.

  Her
body looked milky against the jet, demoniacal blackness of the animal. She wore a thin robe and gold sandals, nothing more. Her breathing was slow and languorous, her eyes looked drugged. Her smile was distant, as if part of herself existed somewhere far away from this room.

  The music quickened, and the girl began to dance around the taut animal, kissing its head and brow, running her hands down the strong back to the twitching tail that moved slowly, like a club, almost in time to the music.

  An atmosphere of heat and breathlessnQss pervaded the room.

  Durell searched for Prince Amr al-Maari. Zoraya touched his arm and whispered, "There."

  He looked at her first. "Are you all right?"

  "I ... I think so."

  "Perhaps you had better wait outside."

  "No."

  He saw Amr seated where Zoraya had indicated—in the center of the arc of rapt spectators on the cushioned floor. In the dim light, Durell was not sure that he hadn't been misled, after all. The man who watched the blonde dancer and the black leopard in their insinuating movements was far removed from the slim, fox-faced Arab boy of long ago. It was as if another image were superimposed, with the latest blotting out the original. Amr al-Maari had grown fat and soft, with a slack face and dull eyes, with a look of pampered pettiness around his full mouth. His body, under a dark crimson robe, looked pudgy. His black hair had thinned until his scalp shone through. He sat cross-legged and eager, captured by what unfolded on the stage.

  Durell looked at the dancer and the black leopard again. The music of the flute was joined by the hypnotic beat of the native drums and tambours, a beat that slowly quickened and became more urgent as the girl teased the black beast. Once the leopard suddenly lifted its flat head and stared straight at Durell, green eyes blazing with a jungle fire more animate and brilliant than the sparkling jewels in its collar. Its fangs were bared. A low rumble came from its demon chest, as if it sensed Durell, the only man in the room standing, as an enemy. The heavy tail twitched.

  The dancer, oblivious to danger, laughed and slid her body along the sleek muscular flanks of the animal. Her blonde hair fell to one side. Her transparent robe slid away and she was nude, writhing to the beat of drums that increased in tempo while the flute made its reedy, impassioned demands. The audience sucked in a collective breath as the animal swung to the soft white body and nuzzled the girl, lifting a massive paw.

  For an instant the claws showed—gilded, sharp, unpadded.

  The male scent of the giant cat filled the room.

  The girl cried out in taunting challenge, made a mewing sound, and stroked the cat, stroked it faster, stimulating the beast to a quick, twitching frenzy. She postured before it, writhing in an excess of impassioned frustration. Someone in the audience moaned. A woman laughed in quick, high nervous tension.

  Durell looked at Zoraya. Her eyes were closed. Her face was calm, serene.

  He looked at Prince Amr al-Maari. The man's eyes bulged with narcotic rapture. He called out something in Arabic that Durell did not catch and tossed a clinking purse to the stage. The blonde girl moved in overt invitation to the cat.

  The drums beat. The tambour rang. The flute cried.

  The leopard sprang upon the girl.

  There was a long sigh from the audience ... a stirring, an uneasy congestion of blood and passion. Everything jn the room was dark except the unnatural spectacle of beast and woman. The leopard's claw raked a ribbon of red along the girl's white thigh. The blood shone bright. She seemed empty of pain; her head down, her form arched, her eyes blindly staring.

  The curtains at the side of the room stirred. A man suddenly appeared, dressed in dark clothes, and another, beside him.

  They both held machine pistols in their hands.

  They looked at the girl and the leopard instinctively before turning to search out Prince Amr among the spectators.

  Their momentary distraction gave Durell his only chance to counter the attack.

  His shout of warning was like a sudden whipcrack that broke the hypnotic spell of music, drugs, and spectacle.

  The nearest of the two intruders was a dozen paces away; the other, just a few steps beyond.

  The first pistol chattered as Durell jumped. His outthurst arm knocked up the barrel and the stream of slugs smashed into the ceiling, cracking the crystal chandelier, stitching a row of black holes across the ornate murals, and then making the draperies across the room jump and quiver with a life of their own.

  A woman screamed.

  The leopard roared.

  Confusion came, with a great surge, among the spectators, who scrambled in abrupt, stunned panic for safety.

  The first assassin was unprepared for Durell. They had counted on the paralyzing effect of surprise. Durell followed his thrust at the gun with a quick grip on the man's wrist, a twist that brought a shriek from the man as small bones broke and the machine pistol clattered to the polished floor. Durell hit him once, saw the dark, Arab, fanatic face fall away. He glimpsed a balustrade and small terrace behind the draperies that had hidden the assassins, and then he turned to the second man.

  The second man held his fire, seeking out Prince Amr for a certain target. He was short and squat, with a dark face, down-curved mouth, flaring nostrils, and glittering eyes that acknowledged his own peril.

  The prince was rising, trying to get out of the crowd grouped around the platform where the girl and the leopard had been.

  Then the lights went out.

  For an instant there was a stunned hush. Then the cries and whimpers of panic came back, redoubled. There was a swift rush of stampeding feet. Glass shattered. A woman screamed in a high, thin ululation.

  Durell, fighting hard to get to the second armed man, smelled the leopard.

  Its hpt breath touched his face. Its sleek flank brushed by him, a sinewy machine of murderous power. Enraged and inflamed by the interruption of its act with the dancer, it had sought out the source of the trouble with uncanny skill. It reached the second assassin before Durell. There was a thud, a shriek of pure, incredulous terror, and then a long, sighing scream of pain as claws and fangs struck deep. Durell halted. He spun around in the darkness. Zoraya spoke from behind him. "I am here." "And the prince?"

  "Against the wall. Across the room. That is where I saw him last. A coward. His face ... his terror . . "

  "With reason," Durell said. "They ask for his life."

  He carried the assassin's gun with him, holding the girl with his free arm. The leopard moved on, having committed its single kill, and bounded out toward the terrace, into the night. Then the lights went on and Durell saw the animal clearly.

  It had paused over the second killer and stood facing the panicked crowd. Its tail twitched. Bloody fangs were bared. The Arab lay bleeding under its heavy forepaw, his throat ripped. The black beast looked ready to spring on the throng that pushed away from it.

  Durell raised the machine pistol and squeezed the trigger. The burst of slugs ripped into the sleek body and knocked the animal off its feet. It got up, coughing, swinging toward Durell. He fired again. The echoing shots seemed to demolish the room. The animal screamed and clawed the air and fell over heavily on the body of the second Arab.

  The smell of gunsmoke and the racketing, explosive bursts seemed to vibrate in the air. There was stunned silence again. Durell glanced at the stage. The dancer lay there, naked, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. He could not tell if she were alive or dead. He searched for Prince Amr.

  "Over there," Zoraya said. Her voice was calm. Her pale amber eyes indicated the prince's figure. Amr was about to vanish through a curtained exit across the room.

  "Come on," Durell snapped.

  He ran with her around the perimeter of the salon. Now there was confusion everywhere; hysterics from the women, as well as from some of the men. Other guests from the swimming pool and terraces came pouring up the road stairway. Durell shouted, "Amr!" and then, "Bogo!" hoping that the old nickname would halt the running man.
But Amr ran faster. Durell left Zoraya behind. Fear moved in him because he did not know how many others were in the gang assigned to kill the prince. He couldn't let it happen now. If he were quick enough he could turn the whole nightmare evening to his advantage.

  He caught up with Prince Amr at the end of the corridor, yanked open a door, and thrust him violently through, out of the crowd.

  "Who—I demand—"

  "Shut up and listen," Durell said. They were in a bedroom with a high, canopied bed with the crest of the d'Iglis on the ornately carved cherrywood headboard. French doors stood open to another balcony above the swimming pool. The room was empty except for the bed. The door opened behind him and Zoraya stepped in. Amr's eyes swung in panic to her, and then widened.

  "You! Why are you here?"

  "Listen to your friend, Amr," she said. "Please, Amr."

  "My friend? I don't know this man— "

  "I'm Sam Durell," Durell said. "You remember me."

  "Durell? The Cajun? But you . . . where do you come from, at a time like this?" Sudden terror dilated the Arab's flushed features. "You are one of the assassins? You led them here?"

  "Don't be a fool," Zoraya said sharply. "I told you, he is a friend. Perhaps the only friend you have in the world now."

  "No, no, it is too much, not a coincidence. You will kill me—" Amr's voice broke off in a thin scream. Turning, he tried to plunge through the open doors across the dimly lit bedroom. Durell caught him with two strides. His patience yielded to sudden irritation. He did not deny himself the pleasure of doing what had occurred to him from the moment he first arrived here.

  He swung once, and his fist caught the fox face unprepared. The wild, dark eyes stared in stupefaction, and then glazed over.

  Durell caught Prince Amr al-Maari before he fell.

  Chapter Nine

  Durell hauled the unconscious man to his feet and slung him over his shoulder. He handed the machine pistol to Zoraya, who took it gingerly. Amr was heavy and limp. Durell stepped onto the terrace with his burden, looked down at the milling guests, listened to the confused hubbub. The guests were being collected by men in dark suits who must have been the private guards. Other men in dark suits came running from around the back of the villa. At the far end of the balcony Durell stepped into a dark, empty room, and paused. The girl was close behind him. Her breathing made a tight whisper beside him.