The Venetian Affair Read online

  He did not sleep, even with his raincoat safe under his hand. He felt cold—the air conditioning was as great a curse as the heat had been—yet beads of sweat kept gathering on his brow. A tight band seemed laid across his chest. Indigestion, he thought, it was just indigestion. He sat still, his hand gripping his coat, while his mind held firmly to one comforting thought: at Orly, it should not be too difficult. There was a long walk, yet, but no delays, few formalities. And in the entrance hall his contact would be waiting.

  At Orly, the two brisk men in their neat blue suits were the first to leave the plane. They were joking, laughing, bright as two polished buttons. Bill Fenner left more slowly, admiring their resilience. He watched the narrow stream of passengers trail after the stewardess, the pretty one who swung her hips a little, toward the right entrance in the huge building of shining glass. Stiff legs in crumpled clothing began to pick up pace as the fresh morning air washed night-tired faces. Fresh, but tinged with the kerosene smell of jet planes. There was a long line of them, drawn up neatly, beautifully angled, exactly spaced. A nicely welcoming honour guard, thought Fenner. Good morning to you, too, gentlemen!

  He let the others pass him. Each was determined to be the first out of the giant airport and on the road to Paris. But he could enjoy stretching his legs, this feeling of release from a tightly sealed bullet. There was no hurry; no one meeting him, no urgent conferences, no brief stay into which Chartres and Versailles and Montparnasse had to be jammed, no plane connections to make, no wife to add to the worries of transport and wrong accommodations. This was one time, at least, when the solitary bachelor had an advantage. He was the casual observer, the disengaged, free to wander, free to do as he liked when he liked. Except, of course, for that little errand Walt Penneyman had assigned him. He might as well clean that off his plate this afternoon, oblige Penneyman by sending the facts he wanted, and retire into a long lazy week-end before he even started his own work. An odd kind of errand that Penneyman had assigned him. Yes, “assigned” was the word; Walter Penneyman was part owner, part editor, and total energist of the Chronicle; he had given Fenner his first chance at journalism, nursed him through that bad patch of his life just after Korea, when—

  His thoughts were knocked aside as someone, passing him quickly, lurched against his arm. It was the man who had sat across the aisle from him. Extraordinary thing, Fenner thought, that some people can have the whole width of an enormous airfield to walk over and still manage to collide. The man’s white face looked at him without a smile. Did he think Fenner had blocked his path purposely? “Excuse me,” Fenner said. The man walked on rapidly, almost too much in a straight line to be natural. Was he drunk? Had he spent the night nipping from a flask? He had been slow at coming out of the plane, but he was putting on speed. He stopped to put down the small case he was carrying, shifted his coat to his left arm, picked up the case with his right hand, and was off again. And don’t look around at me, Fenner told the departing back, I’m not following you: I’m just going where we’re all going. Well, where was I—oh yes, Walt Penneyman...

  An odd assignment—an interview with a professor named Vaugiroud, whose interests were entirely political and had nothing to do with the theatre. It would be simple enough, something that Fenner would have treated as routine six years ago, when he was a foreign correspondent, but now—unusual. As odd, in fact, as Penneyman’s urgency yesterday morning when he had asked Fenner to look in at his office. “You’re leaving for Paris tonight, Bill? You’re just the man I need.” It was always flattering to be needed. Besides, this Vaugiroud character sounded like an interesting type.

  He stepped into the glass palace and smiled for the little hostess, who waited worriedly for the last one of her flock. “That way,” she showed him, pointing to the cluster of people ahead. He had his passport and landing card all ready, so she forgave him. “The luggage will be examined when it reaches the arrival hall,” she told him. Now he saw that her worry was not about him.

  “Baggage will be opened?” he asked her in surprise. That wasn’t usual at all.

  “It won’t take long,” she said soothingly. “A formality.”

  The well-trained nurse, he thought. If she knows, she is not telling. Nor was the welcoming committee, waiting patiently in the vast stretch of light-coloured wood and glass with the slightly jaundiced eye that French officials keep for those who have time and money to waste on travel.

  Fenner’s luck was in. He saw his suitcase and week-end bag travelling smoothly along a moving belt, and signalled to a blue-smocked porter. They were quickly placed on the counter. “Vous n’avez rien à déclarer, monsieur?”

  Fenner shook his head, produced his keys. “Excuse me,” he said to the passenger standing beside him, and moved a couple of feet for elbow room. It was the man in the brown suit, who had been in such a hurry and now was waiting for his luggage. He didn’t look well, Fenner noted: he was no longer energetic and business-like; he was almost listless, withdrawn into some overwhelming worry—he hadn’t even noticed he was standing in Fenner’s way.

  The French officials were serious-faced, silent. The innocent tourist was probably the least of their problems this bright and pleasant morning. Algiers and generals in open revolt had put the peaceable traveller into proper perspective: someone not necessarily likeable, but not inimical either. Yet, Fenner noted, the quick fingers examining his luggage were extremely thorough; the eyes glancing over him were equally searching. What interested them?

  Nothing, so far. The Customs official saw just another American in a dark-grey suit, blue shirt, dark-blue tie; neatly cut brown hair, grey eyes, well-marked eyebrows, bone structure of his face noticeable and pleasant, an easy smile. He was fairly tall, thin, relaxed. He had a raincoat over one arm, a bundle of newspapers and magazines under the other, a hat which he preferred not to wear, and nothing to declare. Nothing? the sardonic French eyes seemed to ask; no failures, fears, frustrations? “And what is that? In the pocket of your raincoat, monsieur? Thank you. Ah—”An eyebrow was raised in pleased surprise. “You are an admirer of our Comédie-Française?”

  Fenner nodded. As it once was, he thought, and as it may be again. But he didn’t risk saying it. This, he felt, was not the year for plays upon words or double meanings. Beside him, he heard a hiss of breath—or was it a slow sigh of impatience?—from the man in brown. His suitcase had arrived. He leaned on it heavily. His face was set. “Are you all right?” Fenner asked him. He got no answer. Just a look that told him to mind his own business and get on with it.

  “In French,” the Customs official observed. He smiled. “You are preparing yourself?”

  “That’s my homework,” Fenner agreed, and jammed the small, thin edition of Le Misanthrope back into its hiding place. He dropped his coat on the low counter and began locking his cases. He glanced at the impatient stranger beside him as if to say, “There now, I’m hurrying, can’t you see?” He looked more closely. This man is ill, he thought worriedly; he won’t admit it, but he is ill. Fenner caught the eye of the Customs official, and nodded toward Mr. Goldsmith’s white face. “Where can I find a glass of water?” he asked.

  The Frenchman pointed to a gendarme who was patrolling the background in quiet boredom. “He will show you.” And then, to Mr. Goldsmith, “Would you like to rest? Please sit down over there.” He turned to a woman whose bracelets jangled as she searched for her keys half-heartedly, hoping her sweet smile would save her trouble. “Open everything, madame.”

  “No,” Mr. Goldsmith said angrily. “No, I am first.” And indeed, he had his suitcase unlocked.

  At that moment, three short and violent explosions burst savagely into the quiet room. Everyone jumped. Two of the officials ducked automatically. The woman with the bracelets screamed. Fenner spilled the water he was carrying. Mr. Goldsmith, after a violent start, stood rigid. The gendarme, the least perturbed—either he had been the first to realise the explosions were outside on the street or he had become accustome
d to such disturbances—noticed Fenner’s accident. Quietly, he himself brought another cup of water for the man who stood at the counter. “Le voici!” he said crisply, tapping the man’s shoulder to draw his attention.

  Mr. Goldsmith’s head made a slow half-turn. Suddenly, the ridges of agony on his face were no longer controlled. He moaned and slipped to the ground, his eyes staring with incredulity at the ceiling.

  “We shall take care of him. Please continue!” the gendarme told Fenner and the woman, and signalled to the nearest porter to help him lift Mr. Goldsmith away from the counter. Fenner obeyed: the order made good sense; those who had been cleared were to move out; those still to be examined were to stay where they were, under the official eye. A little commotion like this one would be made to order for any smuggling. So he looked around for another porter.

  The Customs official was repeating “Everything to be opened, madame!” The woman recovered herself sufficiently, bracelets jangling with haste, but first, as her gesture of sympathy to the poor man who had collapsed almost at her feet, she lifted his raincoat from the floor and placed it neatly on the counter beside some luggage.

  Mr. Goldsmith’s eyes watched her. He tried to speak. He shivered. He managed the word “coat”.

  “His coat!” the gendarme said to one of his helpers. “He wants his coat over him.” The porter moved quickly to the counter—the woman was anxiously explaining the contents of several plastic jars; the Customs official was opening them carefully—and seized a coat lying near the sick man’s suitcase, bringing it quickly back to throw over the inert legs. Mr. Goldsmith was quite helpless now, his eyes closed, one hand feebly clutching the edge of his raincoat as if it comforted him.

  Fenner had found a young and agile porter. “Over there,” he said, pointing. “A brown suitcase, a brown bag, and a raincoat. That’s all.” The porter darted ahead of him, toward the counter. There, the Customs official was looking dubiously at the contents of a jar, trying to reason out why one woman could need so much face cream for a two weeks’ stay in a city that had practically invented cosmetics. The woman was saying anxiously, “It’s only night cream, the kind I like. I didn’t know if I could get the same brand—” She paused helplessly, watching a penknife gingerly testing the opaque, heavy mess. She paid no attention to the porter, who collected two pieces of luggage and a raincoat with great efficiency and speed.

  Mr. Goldsmith was being placed on a stretcher. A doctor, a nurse, an attendant surrounded him. The gendarme, back on normal duty, saw Fenner hesitate and look in the direction of the little group. “Please proceed,” he told Fenner, pointing toward the exit. The porter was already there, glancing around impatiently, hurrying on as Fenner started after him into the giant entrance hall, glass and more glass, people and people, arriving, leaving, waiting, searching, talking, looking.

  “Want a lift?” a voice asked at his elbow, and laughed.

  Fenner swung around. Mike Ballard? Yes, Mike Ballard. Fenner recovered slowly from his several surprises. First, he hadn’t expected anyone to meet him, and most certainly not Ballard, whom he had known only slightly in New York before Ballard had come over to work under Keir in the Chronicle’s Paris Bureau. That was four, if not five, years ago. Secondly, Ballard had changed. He had added a bulge to his waistline, a jowl to his square-shaped face, and removed a couple of inches from his thatch of dense-black hair. His dark eyes were satisfied, his mouth was soft-lipped and relaxed, he smiled readily. An easy-going type was Mike Ballard, who—judging from his clothes, and they were the third surprise—had come to appreciate the finer arts of dressing as well as the food and wines of France. The fourth surprise was simply that Ballard was not the type to drive all the way out to an airport to meet an early-morning arrival unless something pretty special was involved. For Ballard, since Keir’s heart attack last spring, was now acting head of the Chronicle’s Paris Bureau. Also, Ballard liked his comforts. “Expecting someone important?” Fenner asked with a grin.

  “You,” Ballard said, administering the fifth surprise. “What kept you so long in there? Come on, this way. Where’s your porter?”

  “He guessed the wrong direction, I think. He’s over there, just beyond that character in the yellow tie.”

  Ballard waved his arms, but the porter didn’t notice. Fenner started briskly after the man, gave a whistle that stopped the porter in his tracks. It also made several other people look around sharply. Only the man with the yellow tie paid no attention; he didn’t even halt his steady pacing. The porter, quick to cover his miscalculation, headed back towards Ballard, whose arm was still signalling. “There’s a hired cab waiting in the parking lot across the road,” Ballard told him. To Fenner, as he returned, he added, “Seemed easier than bringing my car. I don’t drive so well at this time of the morning—not after last night’s party.”

  “You’re taking too much trouble,” Fenner said. It was the usual polite formula, but he meant it. For the last hour he had been looking forward to arriving in Paris. By himself. He didn’t need a conducted tour. All he wanted was to drive, alone to his favourite hotel on the Left Bank, with a guaranteed view of the Seine from the balcony of his old room. And there he had planned to bathe leisurely (unless a shower had been added since his last visit), shave, and enjoy a second breakfast with the morning sunlight on the trees outside for company. Now he would have to invite Ballard for breakfast, and listen, and talk. He would be lucky if he didn’t find his whole day arranged for him.

  “No trouble,” Ballard lied gallantly. “Besides, someone had to steer you to the right hotel.”

  “I’ve got a hotel.”

  “Not any more. It was bombed yesterday.”

  “What?”

  “Secret Army stuff. Oh, it was bound to spread to Paris. We have had bombs and machine-gunning in the provinces all summer. It was bound to spread. I got you a room at the Crillon.”

  “Thanks. But isn’t that a bit rich for a drama critic’s blood?” Certainly too steep for his pocketbook.

  “Not after I got a ’phone call from the old man yesterday, telling me you were coming over.”

  “From Penneyman?” Fenner gave up counting surprises, this morning.

  “Well—he was on the ’phone about something else. But he mentioned you. Told us to let you have free run of our files if you needed them.” There was a look of speculation in Ballard’s side glance. “So I figured your expense account was good. Also, I hadn’t the time to go shopping around for hotels last night.”

  Fenner felt churlish. “Sorry I gave you so much trouble.” He still couldn’t find a reason for it though. “Thanks a lot.”

  “My pleasure.” They had crossed the broad, handsome road. “There’s my driver, willing and waiting.” And the porter was already stacking Fenner’s possessions in the front seat, eager for his tip, impatient for another job. (Ballard had the money out, brushing aside Fenner’s arm reaching into his pocket.) “Besides,” Ballard said as they settled themselves in the small taxi and were off, “someone had to come out here and identify the pieces.”

  “What pieces?” Fenner asked absent-mindedly. He was marvelling at the speed with which they were negotiating the clover-leaf that led them on to the expressway.

  “Yours. There was a bomb threat against Orly this morning. Didn’t they tell you? No, I don’t suppose they would. I bet they searched the baggage pretty thoroughly though. They always do that when they’re jumpy.”

  “There was a moment when we all jumped,” Fenner said with a smile.

  “The three explosions? Just a truck expressing its opinion. A plastic bomb has a real bang to it.” He shook his head, and his grin faded. “It was bound to spread,” he said. “The damn fools.”

  3

  Once they entered the new expressway to Paris, the journey promised to be quick and direct until the immediate approaches to the city were reached. But Ballard’s conversation, even if it was headed in one direction as determinedly as this autoroute, had as many cross
ways and detours as any old-fashioned road. It was loaded with questions, asked and unasked. Fenner resigned himself to the inevitable and roused himself from his pleasant after-arrival lethargy. Ballard, after several hours of sleep in a comfortable bed, was expansive. He always had been a compulsive talker: silence worried him.

  “How long are you staying?” he asked suddenly.

  “In Paris? Probably only a few days, at first. I’ll return by mid-September for a couple of weeks.”

  “That’s wise. Not much theatre to see in Paris right now. What are your plans?”

  Fenner answered as briefly as possible. He had had to explain all this so often in the last few weeks—vacation plus research, plus articles, plus future visits to other countries, plus other articles—that it had become a standard routine. It now embarrassed him to listen to himself.

  Ballard was smiling, but not so easily as he usually did. “Come off it, Bill. You don’t have to tell old Mike all that theatre stuff.”

  “Theatre stuff,” Fenner said, “is my business.”

  “You were a newspaperman long before you were a critic.”