The Game of X: A Novel of Upmanship Espionage (8 page)

The vaporetto passed the Campo di Mars and swung wide into the Grand Canal. The crowd swayed. The blonde girl’s breasts pressed for a moment against my jacket. The lipsticked man nearly lost his balance, and the workman stood like a weathered rock. The youth with the Adam’s apple tried to edge around the old lady; he was blocked by her umbrella. The blonde girl edged away from me, and the red-faced tourist shuffled for footing.

I felt a sharp pain in my left side.

Someone whispered, “Where is he?”

It was the tourist; his beefy red face was inches from my shoulder. His briefcase pressed into my side. He said, “Mr. Forster sent me to ask you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. Something stabbed me again in the side. The vaporetto made a turn and the crowd swayed. I was able to glance down and see that my jacket was ripped. Blood was trickling down my trousers.

“Just tell me where he is,” the man said. And again something stabbed at me, in the side just below the ribs.

The boat turned sharply again, and this time I noticed the tourist’s briefcase. A drop of blood oozed out of a fold along its bottom right-hand corner. I stared at it stupidly. The fold of leather winked at me; a steely little glint of light flashed for a moment from a concealed knife-blade in the spine of the briefcase, then darted out of sight.

“The blade is spring-loaded,” the tourist told me. “Its length is adjustable. I am now using approximately one half inch.”

“You’re out of your mind,” I said.

“Tell me where he is,” the man said. “Tell me, or I’ll carve your side into tournedos.”

I looked around. Nobody in that crowd had noticed a thing. The blonde girl was trying to keep her left breast out of my jacket pocket. The old lady was still blocking the youth. The lipsticked man was reading an airform. The workman was stolidly holding his ground. The red-faced man was carving my side into tournedos.

“I’ll call for help,” I told him.

“Just as you please.”

I saw him press the handle of the briefcase, and I pushed myself away from the flickering little blade, colliding with the blonde girl. She staggered back and looked at me with disgust. The move had done no good. The red-faced man had simply moved with me, filling up the space I had vacated.

He moved his briefcase into position again, but a lurch of the boat threw him off-balance. He missed my side and carved a gash across the top of my belt.

“Tell me,” he said.

I tried to move away again, but the crowd wouldn’t yield. Was I going to stand here and be slashed to death by a red-faced man in a ridiculous jacket? In Venice, in a vaporetta, in the middle of a dense crowd? My side was soggy with blood. The man was pressing against me, sweating with concentration. I could feel his body stiffen as he got ready to strike again with his spring-blade briefcase. The crowd was oblivious to our little drama. They were staring over each other’s shoulders, or watching the progress of the Adam’s-appled youth, who had finally succeeded in sliding around the old lady’s umbrella.

The briefcase moved and I jerked back. He grazed me lightly across the ribs. People glanced at me, then turned their attention back to the youth.

Suddenly I was filled with a murderous and righteous rage. I reached down between the folds of tightly pressed clothing, located the man’s belt, positioned my hand and squeezed hard in the vicinity of his testicles.

He screamed. People turned and stared at him. I turned also, frowning in bewilderment. The man was clutching his groin with both hands. “Anything wrong?” I asked him.

During the excitement, the youth finally reached the side of the blonde girl. Now that he had attained his objective, he didn’t seem to know what to do.

The red-faced man groaned. He couldn’t seem to get his breath. I said, “It seems to be an attack of some sort.”

“Loosen his collar,” the old woman said.

I reached out toward his throat. He gasped and swung wildly with his briefcase, stabbing the workman. The workman whirled and struck him at once with a large, shapeless brown fist. During the confusion, I stamped down hard on the red-faced man’s right instep.

The youth, seeing his opportunity and regaining his wits, said to the blonde girl: “Some business!” She pretended not to hear him. The workman was trying to apologize to the red-faced man. He, looking sick and shaky, seemed to be out of action for the immediate future.

The vaporetto swung in to a pier. I pushed my way off. I began walking, and I didn’t look back.

13

My left leg was beginning to stiffen, and blood was squirting through the eyelets of my shoe. The sun was just down, but an antique golden glow filled the street, casting an air of spurious transformation upon the crowd. Venice was up to its old tricks again, and I was faint-headed enough to enjoy it.

Then I slipped on the slimy cobblestones. My left leg buckled, and I started to fall. A hand gripped me and pulled me to my feet.

The man who had helped me was tall and strongly constructed. His face was at once amiable and cruel. He wore a light-weight gray worsted of exemplary fit. A light blue-gray ascot, the smoky color of his eyes, was knotted carelessly and tucked into a shirt of raw Italian silk. A bulky Rolex Oyster Navigator clung to his wrist; with its black face and luminous hands and dots it resembled a tropical spider.

“Anything the matter?” he asked, in a pleasant British voice.

“Dizzy spell,” I said. “Thanks for catching me.” I made a tentative movement to free my arm.

“No trouble,” the man said. He released my arm; the movement gave me a glimpse of a .32-calibre Beretta with a skeleton grip and depressed sights, and tucked into a plain chamois shoulder holster.

“You seem to have hurt your leg,” he said.

“I slipped when I left the vaporetto.”

The man nodded, studying the slashes in my pants leg and across my shoe. “One must be careful of Venetian piers,” he said. “They cut rather like razors, don’t they?”

I shrugged. The stranger smiled. “Here on holiday?” he asked.

“More or less. Right now I’m looking for the house of a friend of mine. But these streets are somewhat confusing.”

“Well,” he said, “I know this place tolerably well. Perhaps I could direct you.”

Alarm bells rang in my head. I ignored them, having heard no other sound for quite some time. I had to assume that I was being followed, and that another assault was being prepared against me. If this self-possessed stranger were one of the enemy, he had already had ample opportunity to make his move. If he were not, his presence might give Forster something to think about, and perhaps even force him to modify his plans. I didn’t see where I could lose by keeping him with me.

“I am looking for the Via di San Lazzaro,” I told him.

“1 believe I know the street,” he replied. “Let me think a moment.” Three vertical lines of concentration creased his forehead. “Yes, of course. Directly behind the Piazetta dei Leoncini, and terminating in the Molo. One would usually walk through the Piazza San Marco; but there is a shorter route past the Basilica, to the entrance of the Merceria, and then through that alley rather grandiloquently called ‘Salizzada d’Arlecchino.’ Shall I guide you?”

“I wouldn’t want to take up your time.”

“Time to burn,” the man said, with a short, not unpleasant laugh. “My company sent me down here on a job, but it seems that it’s off.”

“Your company?”

“Bristol Business Systems.” He led me toward the Merceria. “My name is Edmonds, by the way. I travel in business machines. At the last minute, some American firm outbid us for this particular contract.”

“That’s interesting,” I said. “I’m in business machines, too.”

Edmonds nodded. “Somehow, I thought that you were.”

I stared at him. Business machines, a special contract, and a skeleton-grip Beretta. Could this be my British opposite number? The coincidence would be too great anywhere except in Venice, where the machinery of illusion delights in casting up the improbable, the unusual, and the unexpected. There is a price, of course; by tampering with probabilities, Venice induces a deterioration in the commonplace—to her disadvantage.

Edmond’s hard, mocking face betrayed nothing. I said, “I’m sorry to hear that you lost the contract.”

“It really doesn’t matter,” Edmonds said. “There’s plenty of work for us all. As it happens, I’ve been reassigned to Jamaica.”

’Is there much demand for business machines there?”

“Enough, for the models I deal in.”

“They must be unusual.”

“Versatile, I’d call them.”

“Then you’ll be leaving Venice soon?”

“I fly out in three hours. That gives me just enough time for a flutter at the tables.”

I must have looked puzzled. Edmonds explained, “I mean the gambling tables over at the Lido. Baccàrat and chemin-de-fer are the main attractions, of course, but I’m anxious to try the roulette. Not everyone knows it, but the house advantage has been lowered this season in an attempt to overtake Monte Carlo. It presents certain opportunities.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said.

“Care to join me? I’m going out there now.”

“I really would like to,” I told him, “but I can’t.”

“I quite understand,” Edmonds said. “Well, here we are. The Via di San Lazzaro, in all its fusty magniloquence.”

I thanked hini, but Edmonds waved a deprecating hand. “Sorry I can’t stay around and show you the sights. Perhaps I could help you not to trip on any more piers. But time and tide …”

With an airy wave of his hand, Edmonds was gone, taking with him a spirit of easy competence and reliability. I looked at my watch. It was nearly eight o’clock. I began walking slowly down the street, looking for house numbers.

14

A faint red glow flickered between two black buildings; then it was gone, missing and presumed drowned in the Laguna Morta. The night wind whispered threats to the chimneys. The waters of the canal chewed with a soft toothless mouth on decaying stone piles. The high-shouldered old houses huddled together for comfort. Renaissance figures walked on the sunken street, dressed in twilight blue and pretending they were alive. They didn’t fool me; I knew a
danse macabre
when I saw one.

I came to the end of the Via di San Lazzaro where it turned into the Rio Terra Maddalena. I was looking for number 32, but the street ended with number 25. I looked, I searched, I stared. There was no 32. The back of my neck began to tingle.

I retraced my route and tried to think. Unfortunately, my mind wasn’t interested in house numbers. It insisted upon showing me an illuminated slide show of a sniper high above the street leaning through a shuttered window, with my head trapped in his telescopic sights.

I forced myself to think of pleasanter things. Of strangling Forster, for example, or disemboweling Colonel Baker. Of miraculously escaping from Venice and living out the rest of my life as a simple sheep herder in South Australia.

Where was that damned address? Had I gotten it right? 32, Via di San Lazzaro. Or could Guesci have said
Calle
di San Lazzaro. Or
Viale …

That had to be it. I asked and got directions. The Viale di San Lazzaro was some distance away, in the Cannareggio ward. I hurried through dusk and charcoal fumes, crossed the Station Bridge, made various left and right turns, and reached the general vicinity. But then I was caught in a snarl of alleys off the Calle della Massena.

There were fewer tourists in this section. Workmen and souvenir-sellers passed me, and an off-duty gondolier. I received cryptic directions from a fat woman with a basket of laundry, and passed a group of noisy children shepherded by a nun. Then a little boy in a white sailor’s suit came by, and after him a hip-booted fisherman.

The fisherman moved on. The little boy stopped, danced from one leg to the other, and raised a peashooter to his mouth. I heard a dry rattle as the pea hit the wall behind me. The boy grinned, turned, and shot at a stately lady dressed in black with a shopping basket under her arm. The lady reached involuntarily for her backside, stopped herself, and cursed the boy in an unfathomable dialect. The boy jumped up and down, and the old lady continued down the street.

The boy looked around for a new target, took aim at me again and fired. I raised my arm, heard the puff of his breath, and felt something tug at the sleeve. I examined the sleeve and found a tiny dart imbedded in the cloth, its back a piece of cotton wadding, its front an indigo-stained needle.

Then the streetlights came on. In their yellow glare I saw the boy’s face, still grinning, his forehead wrinkled under the sailor’s cap, his eyes dark and pouched, his nose sharp with deep lines running from the nostrils to the sides of his mouth, his chin and cheeks covered with a powdered stubble. It was none other than my old friend, the malignant dwarf.

I stared. It was Jansen, bereft of his beard, his teeth bared in an evil grin. Jansen masquerading as a child, raising a blowpipe masquerading as a peashooter. He fired, and I dodged. The dart missed my neck by inches; I wondered if he had tipped it with curare or strychnine, or with some noxious fluid of his own distillation.