The Cross of Gold Affair - Davies Fredric. Страница 37

Overhead the platform of knives offered Porpoise a solution. He would hang the Russian on one or more of the blades; it didn’t really matter how he died. Porpoise kicked strongly to raise them back to the surface.

Illya, blacking out from lack of air, felt his struggles grow weaker. He spat out the mouthful of Porpoise and tried to twist around. Passing his face he saw a pair of U.N.C.L.E. swim fins. As if in a dream he reached out and took hold of one of the fins. It hung up on the blade it was hanging from, and the two men swung around the blade in a large circle.

Porpoise felt the first blade enter him in total disbelief. He dropped the limp Russian and tried to back off the blade in his shoulder. The second knife entered in his lower back, I and he rocked back and forth trying to free himself-but he .was slowly driving one and then the other into his vitals.

The absurd humor of losing his life to such a fluke set him laughing, and he finished in hysterics, confident that despite not living to enjoy the fruits of his work, he had still beaten U.N.C.L.E.

Chapter 16

“We’re the Urban Renewal/’

“HEY, LOOK AT THAT. The Soldier in White!”

Napoleon came up out of a sedative sleep for the third time that day, and decided maybe he was hallucinating. The voice was Andy’s but the face leaning over him was carefully barbered and rode above a gold and red vest and pin-striped black shirt.

“Don’t go back to sleep, man. We’ve been waiting half an hour for you to come to. They said we could come in a minute ago, and here you’re trying to sack out again.”

“Napoleon, please wake up.” He forced his eyes open and turned towards his window. Framed against the late morning sunlight was Malista, her hair sculptured in a mass of Helen of Troy ringlets, twined with miniature orchids. She was wearing bell-bottoms and a clinging top, all in radiant white, with her clay medallion riding proudly on her bodice.

“You are a picture in three-dee,” said Charlie from the foot of the bed. “A better ad for Johnson & Johnson I never saw.” Charlie himself was a picture, with one American Beauty rose hanging where a watch fob should be. He lounged against the wall in Seville Row gray flannel, a snappy bowler pushed back on his gold locks. Napoleon came wide awake, but found himself speechless at the change in the flower children. He just lay there, looking from one to another of them and smiling broadly. Finally the three of them broke into laughter with him, but they all stopped when he laughed once and collapsed under the pain.

“I guess this is the first time I’ve tried to laugh since last night.” he whispered, trying not to disturb his broken ribs.

At that they all laughed again. Mai wiped his forehead, almost the only part of him that wasn’t bandaged, and handed him water with a flexible straw. “It wasn’t last night, Napoleon. They got you into Emergency about 5:00 A.M., and started snipping and sewing. You were kept unconscious

for two nights, Wednesday and Thursday. Today is Friday, and it’s almost noon.”

“Clay lies still,” said Andy.

Napoleon looked at him, and looked down at his cast, the plaster around his ribs, and the multitude of places where bandages covered cuts, bums and abrasions. “Nobody likes a smart kid,” he said. “Not even a smart literate kid. Where did you pick up Housman, anyway?”

“Mr. Waverly reads Housman, and he let me look at A Shropshire Lad while Mai and Charlie were arguing about our contract with the whole staff of top brass from the Masked Club yesterday.”

“All Andy had to do was sign; it’s pretty finky, letting us do all the haggling about money.”

“Money? Contract? Do you three own the Masked Club now, too?”

“Nope. We’re just their star routine,” said Mai smugly. “Some bunch of stars,” interjected Andy. “We come on between acts and stomp up a little adrenalin in the crowd.” Napoleon closed his eyes and tried to envision it. A sultry torch-singer goes off left, to bored applause, the lights go up, and-

“The three of you come on doing rough-and-tumble, challenging anyone in the house to two falls out of three. Does the Masked Club have a police permit to put on a show featuring three deadly weapons?”

“Naw, you got it by the wrong end. We sing a little, Charlie improvises on the guitar, Mai does some dancing to my drums, that’s all. We’re folk-rock artists. You know the Jefferson Airplane, the Strawberry Alarm Clock, the Blues Project?”

“Not personally,” Napoleon said.

“Well, we’re the Urban Renewal. We sing songs from the IRA and the Civil War, like Goober Peas. Maybe we a cappella something.”

“Gregorian chants,” suggested Napoleon.

Charlie brightened up. “I bet with some sock-dollager rehearsing we could sneak one in. Only backwards, with sitar accompaniment.” He grinned, leaned forward and tapped on the foot of the bed to lead his troupe.

“No, no!” cried Napoleon, remembering just in time not to breathe too deeply. “This is a hospital room. They insist on quiet here, and I’m not ready to hold a lease-breaking party just yet.”

“Well,” said Mai, “maybe we can have it ready for tonight. We’re going on at 9:30 for ten minutes, and Mr. Waverly said we might even get it on closed-channel to your tv set here.”

“I’ll keep the volume ‘way down. Do you go on in those costumes?”

“Costumes?” asked Andy, looking down at his dark purple slacks. “These are street-wear, man. When we come up outa that wilderness to find somebody paying for our steak and beer, we went out and bought some in-type clothes. For the show, Charlie and I slip into matching union suits with measles on ‘em, and Mai wears this psychedelic muu-muu, with flair.”

“Mai seems to be wearing the outfit she has on now with considerable flair. Your hair is very lovely up, Mai.”

“Thank you,” she said, beaming at him. He reached out his good arm to take her hand. “I can have it down, for the show, just by taking out this headband of orchids. It takes a while to do up again, though, or I’d-” She was interrupted by the entrance of Illya Kuryakin and Beth Gottsendt.

“We didn’t know you had company,” said Beth.

“Oh, we were just leaving,” replied Mai.

“There’s no need for that,” said Napoleon. Illya started to say something, but decided against it. The girls looked each other over, while their audience looked from one to the other. Mai didn’t let go of Napoleon’s hand, but let her eyes travel right up from the floor over Beth’s smart tweed suit and modest jewelry. Beth swept her eyes from Mai’s orchid-filled hair down to flowered sandals, and slowly back up the well-filled pantssuit to the Greek girl’s face. Neither girl said a word, neither girl quite believing that the other could offer much in competition, but both fully aware that competition was there.

Illya, noting with amusement his partner’s growing social discomfort, finally broke the silence: “Beth called for you

yesterday, and since you were ‘out/ I took the call. The doctor said you would be ‘in’ about now. Since all you can do is look anyway, and you’ve always told me that where looking is concerned ‘the more the merrier,’ I figured you wouldn’t mind having two pretty girls come see you at the same time.”

The girls exchanged grins as Napoleon closed his eyes and tried to sink through the bed. “Besides,” Illya continued, “I thought you would want to know how our little tea party came out.” Napoleon opened his eyes again and groaned as he tried to pull himself up. Both girls were instantly at his side, easing him back down to a more comfortable position.

Illya grinned, and went on. “I lost Porpoise to some knives, and it turned out he carried all his records in his head. We were just about where we started in saving Breelen’s until Charlie here suggested we carry on the good work.” The flower child in question pulled the paisly handerchief from his pocket and waved it to the adoring crowds.