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for the traffic officers, and in the jam just below her were
two lettuce-baskets bulging with agents on their way to
their stations. By the time she hit the front door the
street was blue with fuzz. She eased out to the perimeter
of all the confusion and located a taxi. She had the driver
take her clear to Montmartre, then over to the Left Bank,
The Wrong Venus  97
and finally through the Bois de Bologne, checking to see
if she were being followed. She wasn t.
 They located you, though, Colby said. He told her
about the man who d forced his way into the house.
 How did they do it? she asked.  I m positive there
was nobody behind me. I d have seen him in the Bois.
 They took the number of the taxi, he said,  and
traced down the driver afterward. But where d the police
get that picture, and why did it take  em so long?
 I think it s one we had taken in a nightclub. We
decided we didn t like it and tore it up, but the
photographer probably still had the negative and the
police ran it down. And any maître d hôtel or waiter could
have told them he called me Bougie. She dabbled her
feet in the water.  Any ideas, Colby?
 Sure. He wished he had an aspirin.  Disguise you as
a four-foot dwarf with rickets. Stay covered. I m going to
try to call Martine from that farmhouse.
 Good. See if you can throw yourself on the
commissary.
He eased back to the road, feeling naked and
vulnerable in the open. They were bound to have a good
description of him on the police networks, and foreigners
were rare in rural areas like this. Twice when cars came
up behind him he had to fight a jittery impulse to look
over his shoulder, but they drove on past.
He walked up the driveway to the house. A small dog
ran out from the rear yard and began barking. A middle-
aged woman opened the door and regarded him
suspiciously, but told the dog to hush.
He smiled and apologized for disturbing her. He was
English, be said, working for his company in Paris, and
was on his way back from a trip to the Loire valley with
his family. They d had some car trouble down the road
 A wreck?
Oh, no, nothing serious; just an engine failure one of
the foskets had lifted in the crenelator. Colby knew little
about cars, and cared less, but she wouldn t be any
expert either. He could replace it himself, he explained,
but he needed the part. If she d be kind enough to let him
use the telephone to call his office he d pay, of course.
The Wrong Venus  98
While he was talking, he took out a fifty-franc note. It
wouldn t be over five at the most.
Respect for the franc overcame a centuries-old
pessimism toward the motives of all foreigners. She
asked him to come in. The telephone was in the hall, near
the front door, an old wall-mounted type. She stood
nearby while he spoke to the operator, possibly to make
sure it was Paris he was calling and not Melbourne or
Tokyo.
The phone rang only once on the other end, and was
grabbed up immediately. They d been sweating out the
mission, all right. It was Martine.
The woman was still listening. And Flanagan had called
him Colby back in the cafe.  Monsieur Lawrence  he
said.
 Oh, brother! We didn t know whether you d been
killed, or arrested. They didn t get her?
 No, everybody s fine, he went on in French.  We just
had a little car trouble. For the woman s benefit, he
explained about the fosket, and asked if somebody would
pick one up at the Jaguar agency and have Monsieur
Randall bring it out. Could he speak to Monsieur
Randall? He needed an excuse to switch to English.
 You re calling from a farm? she asked.
 Oh, Randall? . . . Yes, I had to. We re both on the lam
now. He glanced idly toward the woman. There wasn t a
chance she understood English.  I ve got her stashed for
the moment, but all the fuzz in this end of France is
looking for us. She can t move in that Jag, she d be
picked up in a mile. And she can t go back there to the
house. Those thugs have got it covered.
 Relax. I ve been working on it since the papers came
out. Just tell me where you are and leave the rest to me.
He quickly told her how to find the place, and asked,
 What about Madame Ruffet and the cook? Will they
leak?
 No. I bought  em off. They liked her, anyway.
 How s Dudley?
 Better now. The doctor just left.
 He hasn t heard anything yet. Wait ll this morning hits
the papers.
The Wrong Venus  99
 God, that Flanagan. Hang tough, I m on my way.
The Wrong Venus  100
10
Colby thanked the woman, took a couple of ten-franc
notes from his wallet, and asked if she could sell him
something to eat. His family had been stranded there in
the disabled car since late last night, he explained, and
everybody was hungry. He accompanied her to the
kitchen, and she gave him a loaf of bread, a sausage, and
a liter of wine. They didn't have a corkscrew, he said, so
she pulled the cork for him, and he insisted they share a
glass for her unforgettable kindness and in the interest of
continued peace and goodwill between their two great
countries. He went back to the road. The door had
closed, but he was sure she would be watching from a
window. It didn't matter. As soon as he was around the
turn the house was out of sight.
An old 2CV came up behind him just as he reached the
bridge. He slowed. It went on past and around the next
bend a quarter mile ahead, and the road was clear. He
plunged off it into the willows. Kendall heard him
approach, and turned, her face lighting up with joy at
sight of the food. He handed her the bottle. She drank
and passed it back to him. They broke the bread and
sausage in two and sat down on the bank with the bottle
between them.
She took a bite of sausage and waved the chunk of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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