Роберт Фиш - The Wager

Despite his composure, Girard was startled. “A what ?”

“A Benedictine sour,” Kek said evenly. “It’s like a whiskey sour, but with Benedictine, instead.”

“I never heard of it.”

“Neither have I. However, when I come in later and order the same thing, it will serve as some sort of identification. Beyond the package, of course.” He paused. “All clear so far?”

“Go on,” Girard said with no expression in either voice or face. He was finding it harder and harder to take this Huuygens character. Still, he had gambled with other people he had disliked in the past; it was one of the penalties of gambling. “You said, ‘Beyond the package.’ That would identify him, but not you.”

“In time,” Kek said, and went on. “Now, your man will have his package near his elbow, on the bar, and about that time I come in. By utter coincidence I shall also have been shopping at Harrison’s and I will have a package very much the size of his. Incidentally, tell him not to embellish the thing. Don’t have him put it into a shoe box, or something on that order. Tell him to merely cover it with tissue paper and rewrap it in the Harrison’s paper. I have the dimensions of the Chang carving from the catalog, so that’s no problem. In any event, I shall sit next to the gentleman, also order a Benedictine sour, and having drunk it — or as much of it as I can stomach — I shall leave, being careless enough to take his package and to leave mine. We will not fall into conversation; actually, we need not even look at each other...”

Kek thought about this a moment and then nodded.

“In fact, that would be even better, if we do not even see each other’s face. For all concerned.” Kek suddenly smiled. “Tell your man to try and appear as British as he can; the bartender will think our mutual reticence only natural. All clear?”

Girard’s tiny eyes narrowed even further as he considered the matter. “It sounds a lot of cloak-and-dagger...”

Kek nodded. “More cloak-and-dagger than walking out of the museum and handing the carving to me on the street in Ile Rocheux? More cloak-and-dagger than coming from Ile Rocheux to Barbados and coming aboard the Andropolis to hand it over, probably under the eye of the captain? Possibly, but it’s precisely that cloak-and-dagger that has kept me out of trouble in the past. Anything else?”

An objection instantly appeared to the smaller man.

“What if somebody notices you making the switch?”

“To begin with,” Kek said with a patience he was beginning to lose, “as I said, at that hour the bar is almost sure to be deserted. But even if they are having a wedding party with sixty-five guests, if anyone notices me making the switch, I shall change professions and take up ditch-digging.” His tone clearly indicated he felt he had been insulted.

Girard was not greatly saddened at having insulted the great Kek Huuygens. “And what will be in the package you leave?”

Kek stared across the table in honest surprise.

“What on earth difference does it make? I’m not asking him what he’s going to do with the ashtray, or whatever, that he buys at Harrison’s.” He shrugged. “If I happen to be in a generous mood, I may buy him a nice Wedgwood platter — small of course, and not gaudy — to take home to his wife and loved ones. On the other hand, if I’m feeling particularly stingy, due to circumstances I cannot foresee at the moment, I may leave him a cheap soup plate made in Ohio. Why?”

“Nothing,” Girard said, his face reddening. It had been a foolish question, and Girard hated foolish questions, especially from himself. He moved from the subject. “All right. But just in case there happens to be more than one person sitting at the bar with a package from Harrison’s—”

“Hold it!” Huuygens said firmly. “We went through that one before. If there are twelve men and true sitting at the bar, all with identically sized packages from Harrison’s and all drinking Benedictine sours, then I suppose I’ll have to draw lots. But I’m really not too concerned about it at the moment.”

He thought a moment and added: “And you might also suggest to your man that he remain in the bar for at least fifteen minutes after I leave. I’m allergic to being followed, especially by professional thieves. Is that clear?”

Girard held down his temper with a maximum effort. Few people in his lifetime had spoken to him in this fashion and gotten away with it. One more month, thank God, and he’d be through with this — this — Words failed him.

“It is clear,” he said stiffly, and came to his feet. His bodyguards instantly lost whatever interest they had displayed in Forbes Magazine . Girard looked down at the still seated Huuygens with cold hate in his eyes.

“I’ll see you on the first of next month,” he said. A hard threat crept into the harsh voice. “Don’t be late!”

“I won’t,” Kek said cheerfully, and watched the ex-dictator and his two bodyguards march from the room. He sighed. Manners certainly weren’t what they had been in the old days, that was sure. Here he was about to go off on a cruise and M’sieu Victor Eugène Armand Jean-Claude Girard hadn’t even wished him bon voyage !

The MV Andropolis , 22,000 tons of luxury liner only two years out of the Yokahama shipyards, with Athenian ownership, Panamanian registry, and an Italian crew that spoke a far superior brand of English than most Athenian-owned vessels carrying Panamanian registry, was having a hard time of it. Cape Hatteras was in one of its moods. While the young lady at the All-Ways Travel Agency had been reasonably correct in stating that July days were superbly suited to sailings from New York, today the Cape had decided to make a mockery of her words. The stabilizing gyroscopes were working like mad to cope, lashing themselves silly, but Hatteras, even though almost behind them, was easily the superior to a few oversized power-driven tops.

As a result the pool was closed and netted over, the shuffleboard equipment locked away, and the sun had given up any attempt to penetrate the lowering steel-gray clouds. Those passengers who sought relief in the interior bars had to divide their time between trying to prevent their glasses from skidding down the bar, and dabbing at their neckties with napkins; those passengers on deck were slouched morosely in deck chairs, rolling with the ship, while blue-jacketed stewards tried to interest them in bouillon or apples, or brought stronger fare to the more discriminating or to those with fitter digestions.

The advantage of being on deck, of course — to any male passenger, that is — was the sight of Anita striding briskly along the tilted deck, keeping her balance with ease, the wind whipping her short hair and bringing a bright flush of health to the pert face. The wind also molded her loose blouse to her full figure to best advantage, and every man watching — or at least every man unattached, even if only for the trip — was wondering wondrous thoughts. The passenger list for the cruise had not left the print shop as yet, but each man knew, mainly from plying the assistant purser with drinks the afternoon before, that the lovely lady prefixed her name with “Miss” and that she was traveling alone.

True, she had been equally pleasant with one and all in the lounge after the ship had sailed, but each man knew it would take an exceptionally brilliant approach to garner this flower for his personal bouquet. So, when the lovely lady suddenly and inexplicably lost her balance and caromed into the legs of the only man on deck who had not been paying her attention — since he seemed to prefer leaning on the rail and watching the huge waves fight each other — every other man within eyesight of the incident mentally kicked himself for not having been at that particular spot at that exact moment.