James Chase - You Have Yourself a Deal

“It’s early. Come here... you don’t have to rush away as if you’re catching a train.”

“No. It was a lovely night, Mark, but it is finished now. It won’t happen again.”

“It was a lovely night,” Girland agreed, thinking how pretty she looked. Then with his charming smile, he said, “I would like it to happen again, Ginny, darling.”

“No. You have a job to do, and so have I. This isn’t the way to do it. Please don’t make it difficult for me. I’m going to see Miss Olsen now,” and she started for the door.

“Ginny...”

She paused to look at him.

“You’re quite right, of course, but this job won’t last very long. Could we make a date for the future?”

“I thought you were twice my age, and I was much too young,” Ginny said, regarding him seriously.

“I can put up with it if you can,” Girland said, smiling.

“We’ll see.”

He cocked his eyebrow at her.

“Please don’t make it difficult for me.”

She tried to suppress a giggle, but failed.

“Well, the hospital won’t run away, and that’s where I work,” she said and was gone.

Girland reached for a cigarette, lit it and relaxed back in the bed. He sighed contentedly. This, he decided, was the best job he had ever had from the C.I.A. So good it was suspicious. He blew a stream of smoke up to the ceiling and wondered how long it would be before Erica recovered her memory. He wondered too if she would give him the information Dorey wanted. He frowned, remembering those few strange words she had uttered: It is beautiful and black like a grape. Just what did it mean? Anything or nothing? Was this reference to a grape something to do with Kung’s new weapon? He shook his head. It was unlikely: weapons weren’t beautiful. Impatiently, he stubbed out his cigarette. He looked at the bedside clock. It was only 6.15 a.m. Too early yet to get up. He closed his eyes and let his mind recall the exciting moments of the night. You never knew with women, he thought. Who would have imagined there was so much passion locked up in that immature little body?

An hour later, still dozing, Girland heard a tap on the door and he called to come in.

Diallo entered with coffee and orange juice on a tray.

“What time would you like breakfast, sir?” he asked as he set down the tray.

Girland looked guiltily around the room to make sure Ginny had left no trace of her visit. He could see none.

“Another hour, I think,” he said, stretching. “What have we got?”

“Eggs, sir, anyway you like them. The ham looks very good. If you fancy a blue trout, I can recommend it.”

Girland sighed with ecstasy.

“I’ll take the trout. Does Mr. Dorey always live in this style?”

“What style, sir?” Diallo looked genuinely puzzled.

“That means he does,” Girland said and shook his head in wonderment. “All right, Diallo. I’ll be down in an hour.”

An hour and thirty minutes later, breakfast finished, Girland was about to settle on the terrace with the New York Herald Tribune when Sergeant O’Leary came briskly up the steps. He had under his arm a fair sized parcel which was heavily sealed.

“This came for you,” he said, putting the parcel on the table. “Will you sign for it?” As Girland signed the receipt, O’Leary went on, “Six more men have arrived. There’s a man and a dog on the upper Corniche.”

“Fine,” Girland said. “Have some coffee?”

“I’m on duty,” O’Leary said curtly and left the terrace.

Girland grimaced. He realised he had annoyed O’Leary by insisting on having a man on the Corniche. He shrugged. Well, that was too bad. He couldn’t afford to take chances, and besides, it had been an order from Dorey.

He got to his feet and opened the parcel which contained a bulky file on Feng Hoh Kung. He carried it into the living room and locked it away in a drawer of the big desk standing in the alcove. Then he went up the stairs and knocked on Erica’s bedroom door.

Ginny came to the door. She was wearing her nurse’s uniform and she looked impersonally at him. She didn’t even smile when he gave her a broad wink.

“How’s the patient?” he asked, seeing she was determined to be impersonal.

“She’s up and well,” Ginny said. “She is asking to go out on the terrace. Please come in.”

Girland moved past her into the big, pleasant room. Erica was sitting in a lounging chair by the open window that had a direct view of the sea. She was wearing a blue wrap which Girland guessed Ginny had bought for her, and as he came over to her, she turned her head and looked at him. She smiled and held out her hand.

“Hello, Mark,” she said.

He kissed her fingers, aware that Ginny had left the room. Then he sat down in a chair nearby.

“How are you feeling this morning, Erica?”

“Wonderful. I want a swim. Will you take me?”

“Hey! Hey!” he said in mock alarm. “Not yet! Although I can’t wait for you to get back to normal, you mustn’t rush things. You must keep out of the sun.”

She gazed at him and Girland thought how beautiful she looked.

“But I love the sun. It will do me good.”

“You want to get your memory back, don’t you? The doctor says on no account should you be in too strong a light. I know it is going to be a bore for you, but you must not even go out of doors for a few days. If you do, your memory will suffer.” He wondered if she would accept this lie.

“I see.” She grimaced. “Oh, well, I suppose...” She again looked at him. “This is the strangest thing. I can’t believe you are my husband. You really are my husband?”

“I can show you our marriage certificate if you want to be convinced,” Girland said lightly and laughed. “Yes, darling, I really am your husband.”

“And yet I remember nothing about you.” She put her fingers lightly on the back of his hand. “You seem very nice... just the kind of husband I would choose. How long have we been married?”

“Three years,” Girland said glibly.

“Have we any children?”

“No.”

“Why is that, Mark?”

He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly uneasy.

“We’ve been moving around... we haven’t had much chance to settle down.”

“What is your business?”

“I work for I.B.M.... the computer people. Right now I am doing a deal here and I hired this villa while I’m fixing things.”

“Where is here?” She seemed to be listening in an abstract kind of way, but Girland had a feeling she was growing tense.

“Eze... near Nice in France,” he told her.

“Are you a very important person, Mark?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I’m pretty successful. No more than that.”

“Then why are there soldiers patrolling the garden with guns?”

Girland’s brain worked quickly.

“I have a deal set up with the French Government,” he said smoothly. “The Minister of Finance is coming here in a day or so. Someone threw a bomb at him last month. He is a little nervous. We called out the Army to give him confidence. It’s all rather silly, but the deal is important. You don’t have to worry about them.”

He was watching her carefully. She seemed to relax a little.

“I see.” She turned to look at him. The dark, violet-blue eyes searched his face. “I am glad you are my husband, Mark. You don’t know what it means to lose the past the way I have lost it and then to find myself in this lovely room with someone like you.”

Girland shifted.

“I understand. You’ll recover your memory soon. You see...”

“Did we ever quarrel?”

“Why, no. What should we quarrel about?”

“Married people do, don’t they?”

He decided to shift the conversation, which was becoming embarrassing to him, to safe ground.