Роберт Фиш - The Wager

Huuygens laughed.

“You forgot to say ‘midnight sun’. You should write some of the ads I’ve been wading through; you’re far more convincing than they are.” His smile retreated; he shook his head. “You make it sound most attractive, but I’m afraid it will still have to be the Caribbean.”

Anita looked at him a moment; then she settled herself more comfortably on the sofa, lit another cigarette, put the match aside, and smiled at Kek encouragingly.

“Tell me all about him, darling.”

“All about who?”

“You know — the man Max said you talked to for so long after your card game last night.”

Kek sighed and shook his head half-amusedly. “Max is a blabbermouth, isn’t he? Can’t I have any secrets?”

“Well,” Anita said, “Max drove me home, which is more than you did. And of course we weren’t going to just sit there mute, so we talked.”

“Couldn’t you have made love?”

“We talked about that, too, darling.”

“Or about how Rose and I will raise his three grandchildren?”

“You know better than that, darling; it would have depressed Max. You’ll make a terrible grandfather and teach them a great many naughty things. I feel very sorry for them.” Anita brushed ash from her cigarette. “Now, tell me all about the man.”

“Yes, dear.”

Kek grinned and leaned back in his deep chair, letting the newspaper slide to the floor, allowing his memory to recall the facts he had gleaned from his extensive reference library after he had returned from the club the night before. He had remembered quite a bit of the career of Victor Girard, but the library had augmented it in places. He frowned slightly as he marshaled his facts.

“Well, starting at the beginning,” he said slowly, “his name is Victor Eugène Armand Jean-Claude Girard, according to Who’s Who ” — Anita’s eyebrows raised; Kek nodded and went on — “but you want to remember that he wrote the blurb himself, or one of his secretaries did. One of the nice thing about Who’s Who is that they let you invent all sorts of nice things about yourself, and then don’t work overtime to expose all your fibs. However — until about a year ago, Victor Eugène Etcetera was president of the Caribbean island republic of Ile Rocheux, one of the three or four remaining French-speaking islands of the Antilles. He thought he was president for life; and if he’d been less fleet of foot, I dare say it would have been.” He paused, frowning at Anita. “Certainly you must have heard of the man, sweet. He was in the news enough at the time.”

“Vaguely,” Anita said. “You know me and politics. Go on.”

“All right.” Kek reviewed his facts. “Girard is forty-eight years old, unmarried, about five-foot-seven, and is built like an oversized tree trunk. I doubt if M’sieu Girard carries as much muscular fat as your true love, Max, but it really doesn’t make much difference, since he carries along two very tough-looking bodyguards. He should also change his tailor, which has little to do with anything.”

Anita smiled. “It merely offends your sensibilities.”

“To a certain extent. He favors clashing colors in bad hues. In any event, he is undoubtedly a man of some connections, because to my knowledge it’s the first time anyone with two personal gunmen tagging along got unaccompanied guest privileges in the Quinleven.”

“Which offends your sensibilities even further,” Anita said shrewdly. “It bothers your sense of exclusiveness in your club. You’re becoming a snob, darling.”

“Where vicious ex-dictators are concerned? Who — incidentally — use perfume? Possibly,” Kek said, and grinned.

“Who do you think got him those privileges?” Anita asked curiously.

“I have no idea, and I wouldn’t know any more if I asked. The secretary would merely look at me with those fisheyes of his and wrinkle his nose, as if I should be ashamed for even having asked. The one thing I’m sure of, though,” Kek said, “is that it wasn’t Max.”

“Why?”

“Because he would have told you all about it on your ride home,” Kek said, and went back to his story. “Getting back to Victor Girard, though, he’s a lawyer by profession who was in the right place at the right time. The previous dictator was assassinated by an army officer who had ideas of taking over the government. Our Victor pointed out to the crowds how illegal it was for a colonel to kill a general, and when it was all over the colonel had joined the general, and Girard was president. The president-for-life bit came a few years later.”

“Was he one of the nasty dictators?”

Huuygens shrugged.

“He wasn’t one of the sweet ones, if there are any. His enemies had a habit of disappearing, and word is they didn’t go peacefully. But,” Kek went on thoughtfully, “when we see the wholesale carnage ordered without authority by some of the world’s freely elected officials, one has to wonder.”

“You don’t sound as if you liked him.”

“What’s to like?” Huuygens’ face hardened a bit. “When you’re around him, you can’t help but dislike him. Oh, he was polite enough; but you always know you’re speaking to a man who would as soon cut your throat as shake your hand if it suited his purpose. It has a tendency to reduce your liking for him. Still,” Kek said, “I don’t imagine my liking him or not liking him is going to interfere with his sleep.”

Anita looked at him through a haze of smoke.

“So what did he want from you? To smuggle him back to Ile Rocheux?” She crushed out her cigarette. “Incidentally, where is Ile Rocheux? I know I’ve heard of it, but you know me and my geography!”

“On a clear day you can see it from Barbados. It’s due west, between Barbados and St. Vincent.” Kek shook his head. “As for wanting me to smuggle him back, that’s the last thing he wants. I have a feeling they’re still waiting for him there with a strong rope and a high tree, or a thick wall and a lot of guns. No” — he smiled faintly at Anita — “it seems our Victor Eugène is a gambler. He made me a little wager. He bet me a lot of his money against an insignificant amount of mine, that I would not bring a certain small carving from Ile Rocheux through U.S. Customs and deliver it to him here in New York.”

Anita stared. “He bet you would not bring it in?”

“I shouldn’t be greatly surprised he expects to lose,” Kek said dryly. “In any event, that’s what I was doing while you and Max were exchanging confidences. My confidences, by the way.” He bent over, picked up the page with the ad, and came to his feet. “Well, I have to shower and get dressed. I want to check on tickets for our cruises.”

“Cruises? Plural?”

Kek smiled at her gently. “The way I feel about cruises,” he said softly, “is that if you’re going to do them, do them properly. Never stint. Take them in bunches, like bananas. Who knows? We may never get the chance — or the urge — to cruise again.”

Anita studied him shrewdly. “You have something in mind.”

“I do, indeed, sweet,” Kek said, and started for the hallway.

“Which you obviously want to keep to yourself. Well,” Anita said airily, “whatever it is, I don’t care. With ten thousand dollars you ought to be able to get the bridal suite. It’ll be like a second honeymoon. Except,” she added pensively, “we never had a first.”

Kek paused in the doorway to the hall. He looked a trifle embarrassed.

“Well, that poses a bit of a problem, sweet,” he said slowly. “You see, we’ll be having separate cabins.”

“Separate cabins?”

“That’s right.”

“But at least with a connecting door? Romantic!”