Odds On: A Novel Read online

  It was not far, on the Rambla de Cataluna. He bought a copy of The Times and sat in the lobby, waiting. Twenty minutes later, the skinny man walked briskly in and headed for the elevator. Jencks watched the numbers. The elevator stopped at the fifth floor. He got up and went over to the reception desk.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “I am looking for a friend who is staying here. He just arrived today—Mr. Alan Brady.”

  “American?”

  “Yes.”

  The man consulted his file. “We have no American who arrived today. Are you sure?”

  “I met him on the plane from Madrid,” Jencks said. “He is a very big man—” he gestured with his hands, enlarging his own waistline “—who is hot all the time.” He mopped his brow.

  The clerk frowned for a moment, then smiled. “Oh yes. You mean Monsieur Bernet.”

  “Bernet? He is French?”

  “Yes. He arrived three hours ago. Is that the man, senor?”

  Jencks appeared puzzled. “Perhaps. What is his room number?”

  “521. You can call on the phones over there.” The clerk pointed to the house telephones.

  “Thank you,” Jencks said.

  He walked to the phone, dialed nothing, and spoke for several moments for the benefit of the clerk. Then he left, feeling very strange indeed.

  MONDAY, JUNE SIXTEENTH

  COSTA BRAVA, SPAIN: IT was hot. The damned car was like an oven, Bryan Stack thought as he climbed out. He slammed the door, then remembered that he had forgotten the binoculars. Reaching through the open window, he plucked them off the passenger seat and walked away from the road, up a hill covered with scrubby underbrush. You could tell the sea was near—the air had a salty sharpness, the ground was sandy and soft, and the wind was fresh and cool. The low, thorny bushes scratched his legs, and he swore loudly, yet he was determined to see for himself.

  This whole idea was Jencks’, and it had taken more than three days of drinks and discussion in a stuffy room of the Great Russell Hotel on Russell Square to convince Stack. Jencks had come equipped with blueprints and photographs, and it looked good—almost easy—on paper. But things had a way of becoming more difficult when plans turned into reality. Stack wanted to see with his own eyes before he became involved any further. If it wasn’t right, he would pull out; Jencks would be annoyed and Miguel bewildered, but that would just have to be. Because for a thing like this, the police wouldn’t merely slap your hand and send you on your way. You’d die in a rotten, stinking Spanish jail.

  He came to the crest of the hill and looked down. White and shining, the Hotel Reina lay spread out before him. It was a high structure, L-shaped, built on the tip of a rocky promontory. It was in fact, built on a small island connected to the mainland by a short suspension bridge. This was a particularly wild and deserted section of the Costa Brava, miles from any town—Gerona and Bagur were the nearest, both of them inland, neither very large. The Reina, proud and shining, stood alone—cut off from civilization and completely self-sufficient. Bryan remembered Jencks’ words.

  “It’s like a luxury liner, fully outfitted. Three hundred rooms, barber shops, a casino, hairdresser, nightclub, four restaurants, stores, and shops all lumped together in one luxury hotel, miles from anywhere. It’s the new thing on the Costa Brava, and several hotels are about to be built copying it; it has been open one year and has been incredibly successful. The jaded rich flock there to live for a week or two just as they would aboard the Queen Elizabeth. There’s black tie for dinner; dancing; two swimming pools; lots of drinking, skin diving, and water-skiing. You get the picture.”

  Bryan had understood immediately. It was almost too good to be true. No, it was too good to be true. It had to be. Somebody must have thought of this before.

  He had said this to Jencks, and Jencks had replied, “Bullshit.”

  Now, with the hot Catalonian sun beating down on him, Bryan surveyed the Hotel Reina through the binoculars. He followed the road to the suspension bridge, noting that it was sturdily constructed; then to the traffic circle, with a fountain and palm trees in the center (there must be an underground garage, he decided); then to the hotel itself, modern and tall, with glass window-walls and individual balconies for each room; then over to the swimming pool. He could see only one of the pools. The other must be salt water, hidden from his view behind the hotel itself.

  The center of activity seemed to be the pool. Deck chairs surrounding it were all occupied, several of them by women in bikinis. He could not see any more than the mere fact of the bikinis—it was impossible to judge figures at this distance. He thought of Jane with sudden longing, and realized that he was growing more attached to her with each return to London. With a slight twinge, he realized that this was the first time he had ever missed her while he was abroad. It was, he knew, a sign that he was slowing down.

  Bryan Stack had been slowing down for some time. He had begun in a burst of glory, attending Eton and Oxford, and had a good war record operating the Resistance station “Epinephrine” in southern France. He had gone bad—if that was the word for it—after the war, when his modest but comforting family fortune was lost, and he discovered that his education and service record didn’t mean much in postwar England. For a while, he had looked for a job, but after six months gave up the search to do free-lance work “borrowing” paintings from private collections in Spain and Switzerland. He went on to try his hand at hoofwork in divorce cases for eminent clients, and eventually was asked privately to handle a particularly rough embassy job in Lisbon which called for an accidental drowning on a pleasure yacht. Success there led him to other things—stealing papers from a Polish diplomat’s office in Vienna, planting false evidence to facilitate the removal of a Russian attaché in London, and similar tasks. His work paid well, was never official, and never openly acknowledged—except that once, when he was caught pinching stuff in Brighton, he was released without questions—but spoken to rather roughly afterward. It was his own fault; the Brighton maneuver had been ill-conceived and insufficiently planned. Stack believed in planning, practice, and more practice. The older he grew, the more faith he put in preparation rather than muscle.

  Well, he thought, this would be a job that would take planning. If it were to be successful, the timing would have to be nearly perfect, the coordination superb. It would require finesse and coolness, but the stakes were high and the rewards immense.

  He returned to his car and drove down to the Hotel Reina. He would have a nice swim before lunch and then spend the afternoon practicing with his flash cards.

  TANGIER, MOROCCO: Like a giant white whale, the Lincoln Continental crept through the winding streets on the outskirts of the Casbah. Jean-Paul, at the wheel, kept his palm on the horn as veiled women in black and men in striped galabahs scurried for the sidewalk. Even so, progress was slow; the streets were clogged with people talking, buying, and selling. On the sidewalk, vendors squatted beside their wares, arguing with the customers standing around them.

  The car passed two horse-drawn carts laden with dried red peppers and grain in burlap bags. The air was momentarily pungent with the smell of spice. He honked again at an old man balancing a crate of chickens on his head.

  “Must you continue to do that?” Miss Shaw asked irritably from the back seat.

  Jean-Paul rolled the toothpick he had been chewing to the corner of his mouth before answering. “It is all they understand—the horn.”

  “But it makes such a frightful racket. Do try to be more sparing. Moderation in all things, my boy.”

  Jean-Paul sighed, and glanced at the dried-prune face of Miss Shaw in the back seat. At least five times a day, she repeated this dictum to him. This time, however, he could see that she was genuinely upset; her jowls, liberally covered with powder, were quivering unhappily.

  “I will try,” he promised. It didn’t matter much now. They were already at the Grand Socco, the main square where most of the Arab bartering took place. There was a fountain in th
e center of the square, and a colorful mosque to one side; around the perimeter were shops and open-air stalls where everything from fruit to fan belts and aged tires were displayed. It was a hectic, busy scene, but soon they would reach the broad, well-policed avenues of the modern town—the European quarter of Tangier.

  “That’s a good boy. Now where did I put that newspaper? Oh—here it is, right next to me. Fancy.”

  They drove in silence for several minutes. Jean-Paul glanced briefly at the neat shops along the Boulevard Pasteur as they went by. Tangier was not the same, he thought. Before 1956, when it had been a free port, the city had been a pleasure. In those days, you could do anything, get anything, trade anything on the streets of the town. He remembered with fondness the little stalls of the money changers, and that fine “nightclub,” which the proprietor, an Egyptian political refugee, had stocked with such superlatively sexual hostesses. Now it was all reputable banks and clean, antiseptic floor shows. The fire and excitement of the town had vanished.

  He turned right off the main street and stopped before an appliance store. The window displayed refrigerators, irons, and washing machines.

  “We’re here, are we?” Miss Shaw asked. “Good. I shan’t be a minute.”

  She waited while Jean-Paul fumbled in his shirt pocket for a cigarette.

  “The door, stupid,” Miss Shaw snapped. “Don’t forget yourself.”

  He jumped out and opened her door. As Miss Shaw stepped out, she said, “And be sure you wear your hat from now on. I didn’t buy you that uniform for nothing.”

  Jean-Paul nodded and slipped back behind the wheel. Inwardly, he was angry. The little woman could treat him like dirt when it suited her; she had the icy, sharp imperial tongue that the British of her generation had perfected before the Empire fell apart in their hands. He thought about Miss Shaw, asking himself for the hundredth time what made her tick. He was never able to understand. Nearly seventy, but sprightly for her age, with a quick mind behind that absurd, dumpy little body, she was a complete enigma to him. She had been ever since she had hired him two weeks before.

  He lit his cigarette and smoked slowly, calming himself. He preferred to be calm, to take things slowly, to be relaxed.

  Jean-Paul was French-Algerian, twenty-eight-years old, somewhat handsome in a slim, rangy way, and a gigolo. He did not think of himself in those terms, of course. He preferred to regard himself as a soldier of fortune, a romantic drifter, a man of good taste but flexible. He was tall and well-built, for a Frenchman, and had worked, in his time, at many jobs: construction worker, circus acrobat, nightclub bouncer, and escort. He had two great loves in his life, scotch whiskey and young women, but he had found from experience that to afford the scotch, he often had to forgo the young women. Fortunately, he was a flexible man.

  Before he had met Miss Shaw, he had worked for a black-market money operation in the Casbah. His job required him to carry large sums in a money belt through the cramped, dark alleys of the Arab section. It was a dangerous job, one he would not normally have undertaken, but it paid very well. And he had been lucky—only twice in three months of courier work had he confronted a grim face and a glinting knife at the end of a narrow street that stank of urine. The second time, he had nearly lost a hand, but he had caught the bastard and squeezed the information out of him. It was an inside job, of course; Jean-Paul had returned to his employer’s office and confronted the culprit.

  The poor fellow was still in the hospital.

  But essentially, Jean-Paul disliked violence and hard work. Whenever possible, he preferred to make his money easily, with the soft touch, the gentle hand. He had been more than pleased to accept Miss Shaw’s offer. It was precisely the kind of job he most enjoyed.

  Miss Elizabeth Shaw left the appliance store, and Jean-Paul opened the door for her. It was tiresome, this routine of opening doors, but Miss Shaw was less demanding than some he had known. At least she had no perversions. He flicked on the ignition and the big engine rumbled to life. This car was a wonder to him—it was like a boat, so big and soft riding.

  “The port,” Miss Shaw said. “Don’t hurry, we have plenty of time.”

  Through the rear-view mirror, he watched her unbutton the top buttons of her blouse and slip a flat package wrapped in gray paper into her enormous, heavy bosom.

  “You’re taking it to Spain?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “Don’t be silly, dear boy. Of course it’s wise. Do you imagine for one minute that any impertinent Spanish customs officer would dare suggest that I be searched, that I … disrobe?” She said it with great indignation, almost horror. It was an act, he knew, but a good one. Jean-Paul knew that Miss Shaw could puff herself up like an angry bird if the occasion demanded it, and that the effect was invariably scathing. No Spaniard would brave her proper British wrath.

  “How much did you get?” he asked.

  “Almost a kilo of very good stuff. My God, it’s heavy,” she said, feeling her breasts. “I would rather put it in my purse, but occasionally the Spanish become nasty about purses. A friend of mine had an unpleasant experience some months ago.” She wrinkled her leathery face at the distasteful recollection. “It was a tip-off, of course, but still … I don’t care for it myself,” she continued, patting her bosom mildly, “you know that. But others like it, and I feel that we should make ourselves useful. Don’t you agree?”

  “Certainly,” Jean-Paul said, wondering who “others” were. His attention returned to the traffic, which was heavier as he approached the port. Carefully, he maneuvered the giant car with its aging British gentlewoman passenger, her five large suitcases, and her two pounds of marijuana, down to the boat. In three hours, they would reach Algeciras and Spain.

  ORGON-SUR-PLAN, FRANCE: Peter Ganson pulled off National 7 just east of Avignon, and parked in front of the inn. He cut the motor of his Jaguar XKE and listened for a satisfied moment as the deep-throated growl died away. Then he turned to Jenny.

  “Not much to look at, is it?” he said, nodding at the building. The inn was small and painted a rather sickening pink.

  “Who cares? I’m tired, and the food is supposed to be good.”

  “It’s right on the road. The trucks will keep us awake all night.”

  “Maybe they’ll keep you awake. I’ll shut the windows in my room and won’t hear a thing.”

  “It’s too hot to keep your windows shut.”

  “I’ll sleep nude.”

  Peter groaned inwardly at the thought of Jenny nude between crisp sheets. “Look,” he said, “why don’t we share a room?”

  “No,” Jenny said, then added, “not tonight.”

  HOTEL REINA, COSTA BRAVA, SPAIN: They met according to plan at precisely 8:15, in the bar of the hotel. It was a large room with subdued lighting and a heavy-duty appearance, which indicated its importance to the social life of the guests. The decor and furniture were modern, and in one corner a guitarist played softly. Miguel had already been there for half an hour, eyeing a woman who sat alone at a table demurely sipping her drink. She was slim, darkly tanned, and tough looking in a sophisticated way. After an appropriate interval, they had begun to exchange glances of increasing frankness, and Miguel would have asked her to join him in a drink if Bryan hadn’t been coming. He relaxed on his stool—the girl could wait. His first concern was the project. Although he had given it considerable thought in the last few days, he still could not guess what was going on. One idea had occurred to him, and he didn’t like it—kidnapping or assassination. Various high government officials vacationed here, as well as important people from Barcelona who drove up for the weekend. Miguel knew Bryan had been mixed up in political things before, and it disturbed him. Any kind of politics disturbed him, because he felt no interest or concern, no dedication. Miguel was not a fanatic about anything but money.

  Bryan came into the bar wearing a light blue sport coat and an ascot showing little ducks on a navy-blue
background. He looked very cool and very British. His short-cropped gray hair and sharp, aquiline features gave him a distinguished appearance. Miguel thought with approval that his friend might be a lawyer on a holiday or an executive taking a few days off from a business trip.

  Bryan sat down on a stool next to Miguel without looking at him, called the bartender, and ordered a vodka gibson. He let his eyes run casually around the room as he drew out a cigarette. Then he began to pat his pockets, a look of consternation crossing his face.

  Miguel whipped out his lighter, beating the bartender. “Allow me.”

  “Thanks.” Bryan accepted the light with just the right mixture of formal gratitude and dismay. He seemed to be thinking that it would have been more proper for the bartender to light the cigarette; now he would have to engage this fellow in polite conversation. “You speak English?” Bryan asked, with reserve.

  “Yes, I’m American.”

  “Really? How interesting.” He did not seem interested at all as he raised his glass. “Well, cheers.”

  “Cheers,” Miguel said, raising his own.

  The two men looked at each other, a silence falling between them. Bryan appeared embarrassed. “Not many Americans on the Costa Brava these days,” Bryan said finally.

  “Not many Britishers, either.”

  “True,” Bryan said. “I’ve noticed that.”

  Another silence. The bartender was still nearby, drying glasses with swift, practiced movements.

  “Have you been here long?” Bryan asked.

  “I arrived yesterday.”

  “It’s a long way from the United States, isn’t it? Did you fly to Madrid?”

  “No, I came through France from Paris, by car.”

  “Ah, that’s a lovely way to do it. Good trip?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  The bartender moved away to take care of new customers.

  “No hitches?” Bryan asked, the forced friendliness gone from his voice. He was all business now.

  “Not one.”