Prelude to Terror (6 page)

“He can afford to be. Anything else?”

“Yes,” Grant said. “I’d like to examine the Ruysdael before the auction.”

“It is being kept out of sight—you can understand the need for that.”

“I do. But I’d like to make sure it isn’t a fake. If I have any doubts, I’ll call in an expert. I know him well. He can be trusted. Discretion is part of his job.” He had startled them both, no doubt about it. “We could use that private office you mentioned—keep the whole thing under wraps.”

Marck said coldly, “We have already had expert advice on the painting. It is no fake.” His quick smile appeared, warm and engaging. “Your suggestion was good, but we really do think of all the possibilities.”

You certainly do, thought Grant. They shook hands. “So,” Marck was saying now, “you have friends in Vienna? That’s nice.”

“One or two—if they are still there. It has been a few years since my last visit.”

Marck nodded, and made his way to the door. “Good night, Lois,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

“I have to leave, too,” said Grant, rising to his feet. “Good night, Miss Westerbrook. And why don’t you come to Vienna?” She was indeed looking as though she had been left out in the cold.

“Stay for another drink.” She sounded almost urgent.

“Sorry. Some other time, I hope.” He shook hands and was out of the opened door. Marck was drawing ahead of him, walking fast. I get it, thought Grant: all these security-minded boys with their fixations. Who’s to see us in this empty corridor?

He marked time by lighting a cigarette, and let Marck take the first elevator down. The second one came almost immediately and descended without another stop, so that when he reached the ground floor he could see Marck heading for the double glass doors on to Park Avenue. He made his way slowly past a collection of baggage and cardboard boxes cluttering an otherwise elegant lobby, and pushed both doors open for himself—the doorman was too engrossed in conversation with the chauffeurs of three black Cadillacs strung along the kerb. The rank was empty of taxis. Grant had to step out into the street to hail a cab. And up there, crossing Park Avenue at 64th Street, was Gene Marck. He looked like a man who knew where he was going. But with his direction, first north, then east, he was certainly not bound for the Pierre on Fifth Avenue. Marck’s stride was brisk. His exhaustion from his hard day of travel must have vanished, along with his urgent need of sleep.

Grant opened the cab door, ignoring the doorman’s galvanic rush into last-minute assistance, and climbed in. “I think,” he told the man, “I have enough strength to close the door myself.” He banged it shut, gave the driver his address. Then he was thinking of Marck again and that well-organised flow of instructions. An intelligent, capable man; slightly devious, too. But it was no concern of his how Marck spent his time off the chain. He had plenty of his own business to complete: a pad of paper on his desk, thorough notes to be made and read with concentration. He’d be lucky if he got to bed before three o’clock. That wasn’t a complaint. Now that he was by himself, he could admit to a rising excitement. He laughed out loud.

The cab driver glanced at him in the rear-view mirror, and shook his head. Some guys had all the luck. Good looks and clothes to match, and not one goddamned care in his world. If he had a wife in the hospital and one kid into dope, the other pregnant (my God, what kind of high school was that?), and was hacking at night to make ends meet, shut away like a bloody prisoner in this cab with a protective screen to guard his head and a wrench at his feet ready to use—yeah, just let him feel like a laugh then. The tip was generous, something he hadn’t expected after the Albany doorman’s brush-off. He grunted his thanks, gave a nod, drove off with a screech of gears and the rattle of tin.

New York, New York... Grant went indoors, and to work.

Grant left Kennedy at seven o’clock, scarcely believing that he had actually caught the flight for Vienna. All kinds of small details—the must-dos and the have-tos and the don’t-forgets—had piled up in the last few days. Who said bachelor life was an easy one? Not when O’Malley’s apartment, with a good collection of books and records and elaborate stereo systems, had to be made secure, quite apart from discontinuing the small services that simplified daily life. But the newspapers and magazines had been cancelled (don’t leave them gathering outside the door, the superintendent had warned him: invitation to forced entry) and the laundry collections and the milk and twice-weekly food deliveries; and O’Malley’s mail (a couple of letters addressed to the apartment instead of his office) forwarded to him in Geneva with a scrawled note that Grant was leaving for a week or two in Vienna. Add to all that, a trip to lower Manhattan to have his camera registered: he had left it too late for the mails to handle, had forgotten, in fact, that his passport was on the point of expiring—he still broke into a mild sweat at the memory of that discovery.

However, he had finished his article for
Perspective,
and shaken himself free from Ronnie Brearely’s sweet sympathy. No more offers of a room with a view on Long Island. Three ’phone calls had come after her Medusa performance outside his front door. The first two he had cut off, didn’t reply to her gentle “Colin?” The third had caught him unawares and he had answered it at once. The usual invitation to a week-end on a cool beach.

“I’ll be out of town in August,” he said when Ronnie paused for breath.

“Where?”

“Vienna.” She’d find out anyway. She went to talkative parties.

“All alone, Colin?” She sounded horrified at the dreariness of his situation.

He could see where that was leading, and quickly scotched the snake. “No. I’ll be with the prettiest redhead this side of the Mississippi.”

A long pause. “Do I know her?”

“I wouldn’t think so. She’s much younger than you.” Cruel, but necessary. “Goodbye, Veronica.” Most definite.

She hadn’t returned the goodbye. The receiver was banged into place. A quick and final end.

Final? Yes. In his last game of tennis with Jerry Phillips, his old adviser about the Brearely predicament, there was a bit of really good news. Veronica had latched on to Phillips.

“You know what you’re getting into?” he had asked Phillips, becoming adviser in turn. Phillips wasn’t listening. Any week-end out of New York in August was a good week-end, and Ronnie wouldn’t be the only girl on the beach. He had then double-faulted his service, and lost game and set.

Perhaps, thought Grant, I should have reminded him that it didn’t take a week-end to have Veronica on your back. All I ever did was to accept an invitation to one of her dinner parties, never held her hand, never even dropped a kiss on her cheek. Ah well, anyone who forgets his own advice as quickly as Jerry Phillips can’t be warned. That solves my Brearely problem. What the devil did she see in me, anyway?

He unbuckled his seat-belt and relaxed with a generous double Scotch. The air-hostess had almost as strong a hand as Lois Westerbrook when it came to pouring a drink. A very efficient girl was the beautiful Lois. The reservations for the Hotel Majestic in Vienna had arrived last week by special messenger with his cheque and the plane ticket. Not a return ticket, just one for the eastbound flight. Easily explained: his return home wouldn’t take place until Basset could meet him in New York and take possession of the Ruysdael, and Basset couldn’t meet him until this Budapest friend was safe in Austria with a new name and new identity. It all hinged on the man’s escape.

The painting itself, according to Gene Marck, was already out of Hungary. How else could Marck say that it had been examined by an expert and judged authentic? It must be in Vienna, well hidden. No doubt (Grant was guessing again, but it seemed the logical succession of facts to him) the auction would take place as soon as the man from Hungary had made his successful escape. This would allow Grant to take the next day’s flight back to New York. Too bad if it cut a day or so from his two-week stay, but he didn’t like the idea of hanging around Vienna along with a Ruysdael...

What if the man’s escape was delayed? Ended in disaster? Well, Victor Basset would have his painting. And the Hungarian—Grant shook his head. He finished his Scotch, drinking to the man he didn’t know and would never see, wishing him a safe journey through forests or swamps, hidden in decrepit barns or deep in the bowels of a Danube river boat. However he travelled, it would be rough.

Not a journey like this one, thought Grant with a sharp touch of guilt as he accepted another Scotch and the smiling intimation that orders for dinner were being taken. Did he wish lamb or chicken or fillet of beef?

Our Hungarian will get out, he told himself at the end of his second drink. Gene Marck had been confident enough. He was a natural planner. The only thing he had been wrong about, in his detailed instructions to Grant, was his talk about the necessity of having a cover story to stave off any suspicions among Grant’s friends. Not one of them had asked why he was going to Vienna. Each and every one had thought it a good idea, a natural. Why not take off for a couple of weeks, enjoy yourself? They’d have done the same thing if they weren’t tied down by the kids, too expensive a deal nowadays to take them all along—or by the office, a new contract coming up, had to stay within easy reach of New York.

The women had said, “How wonderful! That’s what I’ve always wanted to do—wake up some morning and decide I’m going to Europe for two weeks. Why not four?”

Why not? If he hadn’t to bring back a valuable painting to New York, if he could have handed it to Marck in Vienna, saying, “It’s all yours,” he’d have made it four or six weeks, or even three months. It was seven years since he had been in Austria. Before he met Jennifer...

* * *

He slept on the plane, waking up as they touched down at Zürich for a short stop and a stretch of the legs in the cold morning air. Then a flight over mountain peaks between heavy towers of cumulus. From below, they’d seem like white eiderdown puffs. Up here, they were giant citadels, solid walls of powerful menace lining the careful path of the plane. “Bad weather ahead,” said the hostess, removing his breakfast tray, “but not for us. We’ll arrive on schedule, nine forty-five Vienna time. We’ll miss the storm.” A comforting thought from a comforting girl. She had red hair, too, beautifully in place in spite of an overnight journey. For the last time he thought of Ronnie Brearely and his blatant lie. Anyway, she couldn’t check up on its truth or untruth, not at this distance. Yes, he knew what his trouble was: he never enjoyed cutting down anyone to knee-level, particularly a woman. One thing he had learned, though, in those recent months: be on guard, don’t trust completely. There are deep bogs in them thar meadows.

* * *

After the small buses, standing-room only, had brought the new arrivals over the vast stretch of runways to the spread of airport buildings, everything was simple—some long walks down spotless corridors, with a thorough but quick search for concealed weapons at one checkpoint: memories of the terrorist raid on the Vienna offices of OPEC kept the security boys watchful. The luggage roundabout worked efficiently and, within minutes, customs examination was over and Grant was ready to leave for the outer hall in remarkably good humour, considering he’d like a shower and a change of clothes. Fortunately, he had managed a quick shave and washed the sleep out of his eyes somewhere over Salzburg.

The main hall had its quota of people come to welcome the new arrivals. He made his way among them, stopped for a moment to set down his suitcase and adjust his overnight bag, check his watch with the new time on the big clock, and look for the sign directing him to the taxi exit. At that moment, a man stepped in front of him.

“Mr. Grant?” The man was young, early thirties perhaps, neat in a light grey suit, fair hair well brushed; a pleasant face and quiet manner. “I am here to meet you. I have the car parked just to the side of the building—a short walk. Let me.” His English was good. He lifted the suitcase, glancing at its label, and was already two paces away towards the main exit.

“Just a moment.” Grant caught up with him, ready to grab back the suitcase. “Who sent you to meet me?”

“The Danube Travel Service. Sorry to hurry you, but the police have strict regulations about parking near the airport.”

This could be another example of Gene Marck’s (or Lois Westerbrook’s?) efficiency. I’ll give this man until we reach the street, then I’ll hail a cab, Grant decided. “I can carry my own case,” he said, and felt more reassured as the man released it. “How did you know who I was?”

“You were the only man who fitted the description that Danube Travel gave me.”

“Who supplied them with that?”

“A telex arrived last night, with description and instructions. You’re going to the Majestic? Nice place. You’ll be comfortable there.”

“Where did the telex come from?”

The man shrugged. “I just got an order this morning to meet the nine forty-five flight from Kennedy. My name’s Frank. I’m your driver for your stay here.” He turned as they reached the street “Just around this corner, Mr. Grant. Not too far. If you don’t mind, I’ll hurry ahead and make sure we aren’t getting into trouble with the police.” He had his car keys out, and now he was scanning the road he was about to cross.

A driver for his stay here? Grant shook his head. Lois Westerbrook had promised him first-class travel all the way, but this was really pampering him. Besides, what the devil would he do with a driver? He could manage very well with walking around Vienna, helped out by the odd taxi when he needed one. He followed Frank across the road. He ought to be grateful for the neat black Mercedes, whose doors were now being unlocked: the few cabs around were already taken.

“In here, sir,” Frank was saying, holding open the rear door. “You’ll be more comfortable.” He made that certain by taking the suitcase and dropping it by the driver’s seat.

They took the long highway north-west from the airport near Schwechat. Frank was an excellent chauffeur, holding the steady pace of sixty miles an hour with no compulsion to pass every vehicle in sight or to tailgate the car ahead. When they came to the little town itself, he took a left turn, saying easily, “We’ll make a small detour to the south-west and avoid the traffic block on the main road. It was bad earlier this morning—thought I’d never get to the airport.”