“What’s going on?”
“Entertainment,” said the blonde at the foot of his bed. She smiled deliciously.
“At this hour?”
“Oh, le petit pauvre.” The other girl leaned over and kissed him softly on the cheek.
“Yes,” said the girl at his feet. “Lord Grover thinks highly of it. He says it improves your appetite for breakfast”
“I am pleased,” Lord Grover said, as they sat at breakfast on the terrace overlooking the sea, “that you are eating well. There is nothing so distressing to me as a man who does not consume a hearty breakfast.”
Pierce nodded, eating his fourth poached egg. He sipped the coffee and looked out at the beach. It was a beautiful day. The sea was clear and deep blue.
“Have you reached a decision?”
“No,” Grover said. “Not yet. I find the whole idea intriguing, you understand—but I should not like to end my days in a miserable Cairo jail. Even this—” he gestured to the villa “—is preferable to a jail.” He laughed.
“Take your time,” Pierce said. “There’s no rush. I don’t have to leave until tomorrow morning.”
“That will be fine. Meanwhile, if I were you, I’d spend the day on the beach. This is one of the last nice days we shall see this fall on Capri.”
“Egypt will be pleasant for the winter.”
“It has occurred to me.”
They were silent.
“Tell me,” Pierce said. “I’ve never known you to hesitate before. Why are you stalling now?”
Grover laughed and lit a cigar. As he shook out the match, his eyes gleamed delightedly. “I should think you’d have guessed. I’m having you investigated.”
He swam hard for fifty yards, straight out to sea, then turned and swam back. When he threw himself down on the brilliantly white sand, he felt winded and good. The sun was hot and high in the sky; he relaxed and closed his eyes. Egypt seemed very far away now, and the whole scheme rather improbable, like a dream. He slept.
When he awoke, he looked up at the villa. Someone was on the terrace, watching him. He could not see who it was from this distance. Pierce turned away.
The water was calm, peacefully lapping at the beach. The sun was dropping in the sky. He pulled on a sweater, lit a cigarette, and sat there thinking.
“You know,” Pierce said later that day, “I really should be annoyed with you. We’re old friends, after all.”
Grover blew a cloud of cigar smoke. “Nonsense. I would lose respect in your eyes if I hadn’t checked up on you. You know it. Old friends make the best con men.”
“Did you get your answer?”
“Yes. When do you want the fifty thousand?”
“A week from today. We will meet in Athens.”
“I have a friend who owns a villa in Khifissa. Will that do? He’s not using it this time of year.”
“Fine.” Khifissa was the diplomatic suburb of the city, a hilly, elegant village north of Athens. It was secluded and discreet. “Give me the address. We will all meet at eight o’clock, September 29.”
Grover got up to jot down the address. As he wrote, he said casually, “How many girls am I allowed?”
“One,” Pierce said.
“You’re joking, surely,” Grover said. His voice sounded genuinely horrified. “We might be out there for months. One girl?”
“One,” Pierce said firmly.
“Three, at least.”
“Sorry,” Pierce said. He already knew they would settle on two. Perhaps it was not so unreasonable. After all, Lord Grover did have his image to maintain. One girl would hardly be proof of debauchery in the eyes of the Egyptians.
“Two,” Grover said.
“All right.”
“Now, a final point, which I forgot to mention last night. I am afraid I cannot—simply cannot—travel for any length of time without my personal secretary, who is now in Naples. I do have my finances to maintain, you know.”
Pierce frowned at this. He did not like bringing an extra man along, but Grover might seriously need him. “What kind of fellow is he?”
“Fellow? Don’t be silly. She’s a girl.”
So that was it. Lord Grover was having three girls after all.
“No,” Pierce said.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Grover said, hastily raising his hand. “Demeaning thoughts, unworthy of you. Do you honestly believe I mix business with pleasure?”
Pierce laughed. It was impossible not to; Grover’s face was so childishly innocent.
“Well then, it’s all settled,” Grover said. “Where shall we eat dinner?”
“Sorry, but I can’t stay. I’ve just time to catch the last hydrofoil back to Naples.”
“But you can’t leave! I’ve planned some entertainment.”
“Frankly, I find your entertainment exhausting.”
“Just as I suspected,” Grover said. “Out of shape. Sickly. Too much fast living. You’re a wreck.” He looked at Pierce slyly. “Where do you go from Naples?”
“Somewhere else.”
“I knew it,” Grover said, chomping down on his cigar and puffing like a steam engine. “You don’t trust me.”
“That’s right,” Pierce said.
They shook hands.
6. Conway
“WOULD YOU PASS THE cucumbers in peanut sauce?” Mornay asked.
“Of course,” Pierce passed it.
“I am very partial to this particular dish. Watch that curry—it is murderously hot.”
Pierce was dining with Roger Mornay at the Bali on the Liederstraat. Mornay assured him it was the finest Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam, and Mornay should know. As an expert in diamonds, he had lived in Amsterdam most of his life.
They were eating rijsttafel, the national dish of Indonesia, which consisted of dozens of separate dishes, each to be mixed with rice in a large plate and then eaten. The waiters, in white jackets and brightly colored headbands, first served a series of hot, curried foods, then a number of sweet and sour dishes. Then vegetables, spiced and bland. Pierce found himself feeling exhilarated, and slightly ill.
“More beer is what you need,” Mornay advised. He ordered it, then said, “what is on your mind?”
“I want to hire you.”
Mornay laughed. “Impossible,” he said.
In the morning, they walked through the Rijksmuseum. There were a half-dozen excellent Vermeers on display, and Rembrandt’s “Night Watch.” The painting never failed to annoy Pierce. He disliked the large room where it was hung, with the benches all around and the deathly, funereal air. The picture itself did not seem to justify the overblown solemnity of the setting.
They sat down. “I don’t like it,” Pierce said.
Mornay shrugged. “Of course. You like nothing today. I cannot help your disappointment.”
“I think you’re being foolish. You could be wealthy.”
“At my age? I do not care. I have money enough now—and so do you.”
“Shhhh,” said a guard in the corner.
They walked down the narrow, crooked streets of the port, listening to the sea gulls caw. It was a disreputable section; girls posed in picture windows. The first leaves of autumn were falling into the canals.
“I don’t know how to make you understand,” Pierce said. “This is a chance in a lifetime. But you see my position—I can’t explain it fully if you are not interested.”
Mornay shook his head sadly. “You are stubborn, Robert. I will say that for you. Perhaps it is a virtue, particularly in this undertaking of yours. I want to hear no more about it. But I do have a suggestion.”
Pierce raised his eyebrows.
“Let us go to my office.”
A cramped room on the third floor. The windows were dusty, yellowing the afternoon light that filtered through. Papers, invoices, and receipts were stacked high on Mornay’s desk. He sat back and pushed his rimless spectacles up on his forehead and looked at Pierce.
“Robert,
let me be honest with you. Twenty years ago—even ten years ago, perhaps—I would have found your offer exciting and attractive. Now, I feel nothing but fear. I am too old for intrigue, too tired, too slow. My nerves are not good. I know all this, though I do not like to admit it.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I am afraid because I might accept, despite my better judgment. So I have an alternative for you, which may satisfy us both.”
Pierce waited.
“There is a young man who came to me from South Africa some time ago. He is young and strong and may be the man you want.”
“I would like to meet him.”
“Of course. He is living in Paris.”
“You have his address?”
“No, just his name. Alan Conway.”
As they pulled onto the Pont Neuf, a taxi cut them off. Alan Conway honked his horn and screamed, “Merde!”
Sitting alongside him in the two-seater Alfa roadster, Pierce smiled. The taxi driver looked back, and Conway shook his fist and shouted, “Espèce de con!”
Then he turned to Pierce and grinned. “You gotta do that. Otherwise you spoil the natives.”
The car turned onto the Quai des Tuileries and sped past the gardens toward the Place de la Concorde. Conway drove very fast, weaving among the other cars, but in perfect control.
Pierce had liked him from the start. He was a muscular Negro with an engaging smile and an offhand manner that belied a perceptive mind.
“Who put you on to me?”
“Roger Mornay, in Amsterdam.”
“Oh yeah. He’s a good fella. He helped me out once, when I was in a jam.”
“So I understand.”
Conway smiled, a slow, bemused grin. “And then you came all the way to Paris to meet me, right?”
“Right.”
“You must think I’m pretty important.” Abruptly, he stomped on his brakes and honked the horn. They missed a Mercedes sedan by inches. “French have no idea how to drive,” he said. “The other day, I watched a nice little girl—sweet little girl—take off her heel and pound it into a fella’s head, just because he stole her parking place.”
“What happened?”
“The fella asked her for a date,” Conway laughed.
“Just like that?”
“You shoulda seen the girl.” He whistled and cut right into the traffic streaming around the obelisk in the Place. “That’s Egyptian,” he said, nodding toward it.
“I know.”
“I know you know, man. Where’s it from?”
Pierce frowned.
“Temple of Luxor,” Conway said. “Now you see, you learn a little something every day.”
“How do you know it’s from Luxor?”
“I ought to. I’m an archaeologist.”
“You’re what?”
“An archaeologist. Didn’t Mornay tell you?”
“No. He just said you were South African.”
“Uh, well. I’m afraid that’s what I told him. A little white lie to expedite things in a moment of stress. Covering up my tracks. As my grandpappy said, ‘Hide-um trail from pale-faces.’”
“You’re kidding.”
“Honest to God. My grandpappy was a red-blooded Sioux. His name was Walk-on-Water, and I always appreciated that. It comforts me. In times of stress.”
“That’s interesting.”
Down the Rue Royale to the Madeleine.
“Right now,” Conway said, “I am probably asking myself, what are you doing here, talking to a simple fella like me?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Conway said, swerving left up the Boulevard Malesherbes.
“You look like you are.”
“That’s just the impression I give. Strictly for the foreigners.”
Pierce smiled. “I could have sworn you are as American as I am.”
“That depends on how American you are. Were you born in Cincinnati?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t be very American.”
“Were you born in Cincinnati?”
“From the moment I laid eyes on you, I thought to myself, now there’s a bright fella.” He sighed. “But I’m wasting your time. Here you came all this way to talk to me, and I’m not letting you get a word in sideways.” He glanced at Pierce.
“I have a business proposal.”
“Will I make money or lose money?”
“Make money, I hope.”
“You’re getting warmer.”
Past the Eglise St. Augustin, through the Place Malesherbes, toward the Boulevard de Courgelles. The leaves were falling, giving a red-brown color to the city. Girls sat sipping and talking in the open air cafes. It was midafternoon.
“Why did you tell Mornay you were South African?”
“Pressure of circumstance. I had some things to sell.”
“Diamonds?”
“More or less.”
“South African?”
“Well, you see, I spent one summer—of course, it was winter, down there—working with Raymond Dart in the Transvaal. He’s a big man with australopithecus, the fossil ape-man. They have an unusual archaeological situation; they excavate with dynamite. Only place in the world where they do things that way.”
“And?”
“Well, uh, on one of my little excursions to Johannesburg, I happened to come across some diamonds. They were lying in the street, you see. I thought, if I take these to the police, the officer will say they’re his, and he lost them, and he’ll pat me on the back and send me away. Or maybe he’ll throw me in jail. So I just sort of slipped them in my pocket. You know how it is. I remember I used to tell my mother I found things in the street. She never believed me. You know. Mothers and cops—they’re all in cahoots.”
It took Pierce a few moments to realize what Conway was saying. “You mean you smuggled them out of South Africa?”
Conway shrugged modestly. “We do our part, you see. The place is not the nicest for a young fella like myself. I often had the distinct feeling—and I don’t want to sound prejudiced, but it’s true—I often had the distinct feeling that they didn’t like me down there.”
Pierce could imagine. “Why’d you go in the first place?”
“You mean, being Negro?” He laughed. “I went to study under Dart and to steal as many diamonds as I could find. It was a hard period in my life. I had been living in France for three years and had built up a powerful list of creditors. They were thirsting for my blood. So I hotfooted it out and came back a new man. Little tense, you know, but not too bad considering.”
“Considering what?”
“Hundred thousand dollars.”
“Very nice.”
Conway was headed toward the Bois de Boulogne. “I was proud of myself. I just wished my daddy coulda seen me. He would have been tickled pink. He always said to us kids, ‘Kids, take care of yourself.’ We’d get beat up, and come home all bloody, and he’d say, take care of yourself.”
“Do you have a police record?” Pierce asked.
“Just parking tickets.”
“Think Interpol has a file on you?”
“What’re you trying to do, build up my ego? ’Course not.”
“Then perhaps we can do business.”
They were parked in the Bois de Boulogne. Pierce had explained the plan, and Conway had listened silently.
“Left a few things out,” he said, at last. “How do you get it out of the country? And how do you sell it?”
“That’s all arranged,” Pierce said. “I’ll explain it later.”
“You’re all twitchy,” Conway said. “You oughta relax more. Now why don’t I fix you up with a nice little girl who’ll get your circulation back to normal, and then we can meet tonight, and you can tell me the whole thing. Right?”
Pierce shook his head. “You’ll just have to wait.”
“Well, uh, I’m a bad swimmer.”
“So what?”
“So I never jump into t
he water unless I know how deep it is.”
“Sorry.”
Conway sat behind the wheel and thought. Then he scratched his head and looked up at the sky; eventually, he began cleaning his fingernails with a toothpick.
After a long silence, he said, “You know, you missed your true calling. You shouldn’t be a writer—you should be a pusher.”
“Hooked?”
“Afraid so.”
They shook hands. Conway reached into the glove compartment and brought out a bottle of cognac. As he pulled off the cork, he said, “You know, I must be out of my mind to do this.” He sighed. “My mother always said I’d come to no good, and she was right.” He passed Pierce the bottle.
7. Nikos
PIERCE SAT IN HIS room in the Istanbul Hilton, thoroughly exhausted. The constant traveling had worn him down, especially the two fruitless days he had spent in Beirut. He munched a sandwich and waited for the call.
He was almost finished now. It had taken six days, but he had most of the group. Only one man remained, the man he had sought in Beirut. The man who was possibly the most important of all.
The phone rang. He picked it up.
“Hello?”
“This is Pedro.”
“I’m glad I found you,” Pierce said.
“So?”
“I want to meet with you.”
“So?”
“It involves big money.”
“Big money, big risks. I am a simple man. Do not tax my brain.”
“There is several million dollars in it for you.”
“You are crazy,” the voice said. “I am not surprised you went to Beirut looking for me. I have not been in Beirut for six years.”
“So?”
“I think we will meet,” the voice said. “The Suleiman Mosque, in an hour. No games?”
“No games.”
Click.
The Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, the warrior who made pyramids of human skulls, was located on the opposite shore of the Bosporus, overlooking the Golden Horn. Pierce arrived ten minutes early. He thought it prudent—if his man were really worried, he could observe Pierce at a distance first. He entered the mosque, slipping off his shoes and stepping onto the carpet. He was disappointed; the inside was ugly, cavernous, and uninspired. He wandered around for several minutes, hands in his pockets.