Assignment The Girl in the Gondola Read online

  A shadow ducked around a turn in the dim, tiled tenement corridor. Durell swung that way. At the corner, he swung wide, expecting an ambush. But there was nothing except the clatter of heels racing downstairs to the courtyard. He flung himself after the sound, holding his gun a little wide of his body. A man in shirt sleeves opened a door on the second floor and stared at him, then looked to the left and slammed the door. Durell passed him, ran down half a flight, then halted and listened.

  He did not hear the assassin now. He waited. The murmuring life of the tenements filled the air. The tiled walls reflected glimmering streaks of dull light from the naked electric bulbs in the once ornate ceiling. Then he heard a foot scrape, and again footsteps burst in a clattering rush down the stairs. He ran after them, down to the level of the courtyard.

  The hallway ceiling dripped here. Puddles of water lay on the floor. He saw no one. Again there was silence. This time he did not wait, but went down the length of the corridor. There were closed doors on either side, and he was careful lest one suddenly opened. A breath of cold air struck his face. The hall turned again and there was darkness beyond, relieved only by a glimmer of water and the reflected glow of the city lights. He heard the sound of wavelets lapping against stone.

  He walked silently to a paved landing on the level of a canal that formed the back avenue for the tenement complex. The wind blew wet against his face. The landing was empty. His eyes swept over the old gondola mooring pole, the lapping dirty water, the row of low, stone buildings across the canal. A gondola was turning the farthest corner to his left. Two men were in it. He caught only the briefest glimpse of them. Then they were gone. He was not sure they were his quarry. He might have lost his man as far back as the maze of tenement corridors. He felt annoyed, weighed the gun impatiently in his hand, then turned and walked up the twisting stairways back to Shkoeder's room.

  There had been no alarm. The usual noises and smells still pervaded the place. But Shkoeder's door stood open, and he knew Harris would have kept it shut. He felt a lurch of dismay as he stepped in, knowing at once that something else had gone wrong here.

  The boy must have died two minutes after he had fallen through the doorway. He lay with his eyes open, a wild fright in his dark Balkan eyes. He looked fragile and immature in the raincoat that was too big for him. Durell stepped over his legs and went all the way inside.

  Harris was here, too. For a moment Durell thought the NATO agent had also been knifed. But then Harris groaned and stirred—Durell saw he had been struck in the back of the head with one of the heavy bronze lamps in the room. Harris' gun lay on the floor nearby.

  But Gregori Shkoeder was gone.

  Chapter Five

  Durell closed the door and checked the room with care, then went into the cavernous bathroom and ran tepid water to soak a towel for Harris. He washed the blood from the red-headed man's scalp and flicked his fingers in a practiced, painful gesture against his cheek, stinging him as effectively as ammonia. Harris rolled his head and cursed thickly as he sat up.

  "I'm all right."

  "What happened?" Durell asked.

  "I was stupid." Harris held his head in his hands and grunted. "I got myself boxed."

  "Who slugged you?"

  "Shkoeder, I guess. He went berserk over the boy."

  "No one else came in?"

  "Nobody I saw."

  Durell was silent.

  Harris said, "I'm sorry, Cajun. We need Shkoeder. Did you believe his story?"

  "Some of it. He held some back, obviously. He wants to get back to Albania for something, and he needs our help. That's the sticky part. As for the rest—I think we have to believe it."

  Harris looked at him with haunted eyes.

  They left the dead Albanian youth staring into infinity from his sprawled position on the floor, and they walked out of the tenement the way they had come. Harris was still apologetic over losing Shkoeder. Durell waved it away, not wasting regrets.

  It was still raining, and cathedral bells rang all over the city. Nine o'clock. It was cooler, with the deepening of night over the Adriatic. They walked to the nearest water taxi station and Durell told the boatman to take them to San Marco's. They were there in ten minutes; at a cafe, Harris ordered a bottle of American bourbon and took a stiff drink, then took the bottle to a table under the awning. There were very few people in the big square now, and the pigeons were at roost.

  "You can take care of the boy's body, Harry," Durell said. "We want no publicity. Zuccamella will help you with it. And I want a dragnet out for Shkoeder again. I'm not waiting for him to contact us. I want him found—and fast."

  Harris winced. "So do I, Cajun."

  "If he's serious about going into Albania with us, then he wants something that he can't get without our help. He tried Pollini first, in the hope that Pollini would privately assist him. But Pollini called you, and got himself killed for it. That's my guess, at any rate. Shkoeder is willing to betray the rocket emplacements he knows about, in order to get help from us. So he must think it important, whatever his private angle might be." Durell frowned at the rainswept piazza. "Maybe all he needs is money. He's the kind who would let Europe go up in a nuclear blast while he flies to Patagonia, or somewhere he thinks he'd be safe— and rich. But when you find him, Harry, we'll need ten thousand in American currency for him. Arrange it through Rome, even though the budget boys are nervous about such things. Have the money sent by courier. I don't like buying anything from a man like Gregori Shkoeder any more than you do—it may well be the traditional pig in a poke— but you've got to find him and bargain with him."

  "The man is a liar, a traitor, a cheat," Harris said glumly. "How can you trust him?"

  "I don't trust anybody," Durell said. "Not even you, Harry. Have the money ready in a couple of hours. I'll check for you at Zuccamella's office by then."

  He returned to the penzione. He wanted to change out of his rain-soaked clothes; there was time enough. The small foyer of the Murelli with its faded gilt mirrors was empty. There was a rickety elevator cage and a spiral stairway going up around it, and he preferred the freedom of the steps to the potential dangers of the elevator. He met no one on the way to his little apartment.

  Habit and training made his key in the lock soundless. But the moment he pushed open the door with stiffened fingertips, he sensed a difference in the dark room since he had left it.

  Someone was here, waiting for him.

  He was keyed up, angry, in no mood to be polite. The faint rustle came from the left, and he went inside fast, with a hard movement, sliding first in the opposite direction to clear the light in the doorway, then swinging with two long strides around a small chair. There was a gasp, a stifled scream. He slammed into a soft body that tumbled back against a mirror. The glass did not break. There was another muffled scream, and something scratched his cheek with a slashing movement—then he caught a slender wrist and twisted hard. His visitor lost balance and fell, pulling him down, too. The body he landed on was utterly and incomparably female.

  "Ursula?" he rasped.

  "Oh, you American idiot! Let me up! What is it with you, that you must jump at me in the darkness?"

  "What are you doing here?" He did not relax his grip on her arm. He held her pinned by the weight of his body on hers, and she squirmed for a moment, then sighed and was still. He said harshly: "Answer me."

  She spoke with exaggerated patience. "Just let me up."

  He released her with care. He still was not sure. She slid away from him, shadowy in the gloom, and he reached for a lamp and snapped it on. She blinked her tawny eyes in the brightness and shaded them; her mouth was square, full, and angry.

  "Turn it off. It glares."

  He looked around the room, walked to the bath, looked in there, closed the slatted balcony doors, and returned. She watched him, then snapped off the light herself, with an angry gesture. The room was mellowed by long bars of illumination that shone through the balcony doors from the
terrace below.

  "Oh, you are an idiot," she sighed.

  "I didn't expect you, Ursula," he said.

  "Of course not. Are you a man? No! You are something of stone, without heart or feeling. You think only of your stupid business, whatever it is, even though it is a time of spring and we are in Venice—"

  She broke off impatiently. He could see her better now in the dimness. When she went on with a burst of Italian insults marked by the Lake District accent, he let her rage on. She wore her short, curly hair in a loose and tumbled fashion, and in place of the stretch pants and shirt she now wore a blue peignoir of transparent nylon. The fine, firm outlines of her breasts and long, strong thighs and hips were only too evident against the light that came through the balcony doors.

  "Have a drink. Have a cigarette," he said quietly. "Stop swearing at me. I understand Italian very well. You don't insult me, but you'll wake up everyone in the house. I want to know what you're doing in here."

  "What does it look like?" she blazed. Then she lowered her tone and her shoulders slumped. "Oh, I am a fool. I always was, always will be. I came to Venice to find a change from life in my tiny village. I am not a good artist. I came here to find—life, perhaps. And at once you move in next to me. And now I am in love with you."

  "Ursula "

  "I was so angry when you kissed me and then let me go, simply because the telephone rang. You left me as if 1 were a—a lump of clay! You hurt my pride. But then I thought it over; I know nothing of your business—and I do not wish to know!—and I realized it must have been important, or you truly would not have left. So I softened again. And I decided to come here and wait for you, until you returned."

  Her anger was gone. She sounded like a plaintive little girl. But she looked anything but a little girl, Durell thought. He was aware of a stirring of his senses. She came to him with her head lowered, put her arms around his neck and stood close to him.

  "Please kiss me and reassure me," she whispered.

  "Ursula, I must explain—"

  "I am not so ugly, am I?"

  "You're very beautiful."

  "And I am not stupid?"

  "You seem very talented."

  "So you love me a little, too?"

  "It seems so."

  She began to laugh. "Well, you are honest, anyway. Do you—want me?"

  "Not now," he said.

  She kissed him. Her mouth was soft, perfumed. "Are you quite sure?" she whispered.

  "Quite," he said.

  She stepped back and regarded him, at first unsure if he were teasing her, and then, without warning, she slapped him, her palm stinging across his cheek.

  "You insult me, do you?" she screamed.

  "Ursula, you just don't understand—"

  "It is you who understand nothing! What kind of men are Americans, anyway? I thought you were different from the vulgar tourists one sees here in Venice. I thought—I hoped—here, in this season, in this city—for a little time, a few days or a week or two—"

  He held her gently. She was crying, and he felt the wetness of her tears against his cheek. "Ursula, go back to your room now. Please do as I ask."

  "You really do not want me?"

  "It's not that at all. I must go out again. And I don't know when I'll be back."

  "I'll wait," she said promptly.

  "It would be better if you didn't."

  "What kind of business do you have that is more important than this?"

  "Go on, Ursula. Back to your room."

  "If I go now," she said, her volatile anger rising again, "I'll never come back here! Never! Not if you beg me on your knees!"

  He said nothing. She turned and walked across the dark room to the balcony. Someone sang softly in one of the tall houses across the canal—a well-trained baritone accompanied by an old mandolin. She did not look back. Her shoulders were stiff with injury, and he closed the tall window-door after her without watching to see what she might do next.

  When she was gone, he paused and saw his tall, saturnine reflection in one of the faded mirrors of his room. He was not carved of stone, as Ursula implied. But he wondered for a moment exactly what the business had done to him. If she were what she claimed to be, then she had offered a precious gift that no man in his right senses should have refused.

  But perhaps he had lost the ordinary instincts of ordinary men. Perhaps his long service in the silent war made it too late for him to enjoy what beauty there was in the world. He felt that if he touched her, he might contaminate her with the suspicion and terror that dwelled in his way of life.

  He heard her crying through the walls of his room.

  Then he went to his tall wardrobe and checked the latch, where he had placed a thread as simple evidence to tell if things had been disturbed while he was out

  The thread was not there.

  The room had been searched thoroughly and with professional skill, before his return.

  It could only have been the girl.

  He stood still, thinking of her, and then changed his clothes, putting on a pale blue button-down shirt, a dark knitted tie, fresh linen, and dry black shoes. He was a meticulous man. He checked his gun before he slipped it into the built-in holster of his coat, and then he heard the girl crying again.

  He decided to ask Zuccamella to put a priority check on her and thought, To hell with it, angry with himself and the job and the world. He walked out with hard, quick steps.

  Chapter Six

  Zuccamella had a temporary office in an old palazzo on the Calle dei Mobaseri, near the Rialto Bridge. The place was used as a precinct office for the local carabinieri, and in the office were gaudy posters of the beaches at Lido and Chioggia; of Burano, the fishing village that was the heart of the Venetian lace industry; and an impossible calendar depicting the crack Rome-Venice electric express, the Freccio della Laguna—Arrow of the Lagoon—that made the trip in under six hours.

  The glories of ancient Venice, when the Republic was queen of the seas, were carved in the worn coats-of-arms and heraldic emblems over the ornate building entrance. Harris had not yet checked in when Durell arrived. He felt the pressure of passing time like a palpable weight, and he resisted the impulse to act with too much haste.

  Zuccamella looked like a bloated old hawk in the faded splendor of his borrowed office. After being greeted by sleepy, hooded eyes, Durell coded a priority message for Washington's K Section HQ, summarizing Gregori Shkoe-der's story. Zuccamella reluctantly counted out a sheaf of American twenty- and fifty-dollar bills; Durell signed the receipt that Zuccamella punctiliously prepared for him.

  "It is a great deal of money, signor, for that Albanian thief and cheat and liar."

  "And executioner," Durell added.

  "You refer to his bloody deeds among his own people. Yes, he was even too much for them. But what has he for us that is worth all this money?"

  "I don't know," Durell said, "but it must be risked."

  "One cannot buy truth with money. You Americans are like children in your sense of values."

  "Don't underestimate us. Maybe Shkoeder has nothing to sell. He wants help—our money, anyway—to slip back into his own country, secretly, for some reason of his own. This much seems clear. In return, he offers information that may be invaluable, and the ten grand might be the world's biggest bargain."

  "Shkoeder may already be dead, like his son," Zuccamella said. "His enemies are a wild, vindictive mountain people. They give traitors short shrift."

  "Let's hope he stays alive long enough to complete his bargain with me."

  "And what of the rumor that Helmuth Dinov, your Soviet assassin, is in Venice, too?"

  Durell shrugged. "If Shkoeder's story is true, then Dinov will want to be our ally rather than enemy. A strange state of affairs, for a change."

  "Will you deal with him? I'd rather you did not. You must be careful, Sam. You irritate me, but I am fond of you." Zuccamella clasped his hands over his big belly and looked up with his eyes pouche
d in his aged hawk's face. His nose looked pinched. "Washington may insist that you cooperate with Dinov. Have you thought of that?"

  "I've thought of it. And don't like it. It wouldn't be so bad, if it were anyone but that one," Durell said.

  "Dinov may well try to use you to pull his chestnuts out of the Albanian fire, so to speak," Zuccamella rumbled. He looked very sleepy. "And once successful, you may find

  yourself dead on some Albanian mountainside with a Chinese bayonet through your belly."

  "I'm aware of that."

  "But Washington will not be. Washington will tell you to cooperate in this new era of rosy friendship." The fat Italian sighed and suddenly his hooded eyes opened wide, bright and alert and brilliant, like an owl's. "I have some further news that may be troublesome—about the young lady artist in the apartment next to yours in the Penzione Murelli. I refer to Signorina Ursula Montegna. She is dead."

  Durell looked blank momentarily. "Dead?"

  "Oh, not the young lady who uses that name and who would like to decorate your bed—who loves you so dearly, according to our tapes of your conversations with her."

  He mixed anger with relief. "You've bugged my room? How? I searched it, I know every trick—"

  Zuccamella held up a fat hand. "Not your room, but that of the young lady who poses as Ursula Montegna and who dabbles in art. Against her wall, I placed microphones. Ours is an unhappy profession, Sam Durell. I obey your orders; I record what I am asked to record. Please do not be angry."

  "I'm not." He was resigned to officious surveillance. "Now explain what you said about Signorina Montegna."

  "There was a girl by that name in a small lake village not far from Milano. And she indeed was a student of art. And indeed was lovely. But she died of polio last summer and her tomb has been photographed and examined. The girl in the rooms next to yours, who took her papers and identity, is a phony, as you would put it, assuming a dead girl's passport, name and personality for reasons of her own—which you can probably guess."