The Venetian Affair (39 page)

Fenner looked at Miss Bikini and back at Mike Ballard. Let’s get down to business, he thought. “What’s the trouble, Mike?”

Ballard’s eyes flickered away. “Trouble?” he asked vaguely. “Who hasn’t got troubles?” His voice became louder. “Where’s a waiter—what are you drinking?” He snapped his fingers furiously.

“We’re all right,” Fenner said. “You order some coffee, and we’ll listen.”

“Coffee? You sound like Eva.”

“How is she?”

“And the children?” Claire asked, pressing Fenner’s point still farther.

“Fine,” Ballard said, avoiding her eyes, “just fine.” The bluster left him. He stared down at the table. “They are good kids,” he said dejectedly. He let Fenner order coffee without any further resistance. “Well,” he said, trying to get back his first burst of enthusiasm, “and how is Venice treating you? Having fun?”

“Everyone has lots of fun in Venice,” Fenner said. “Except you, seemingly. What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” Ballard tried a smile. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Just over an hour ago, I had a telephone call. Remember? The man who made it sounded pretty worried, worried enough to make me invite him to join us here. But when he arrives, he hasn’t a care in the world. He’s here on false pretences.” Ballard looked at Fenner quickly. “Scram,” Fenner told him with a smile.
“Blow, disappear, vanish. Two’s company, didn’t you know?”

Ballard stared at him, completely off balance. For the last twenty minutes, since the stranger had left, Ballard had sat swallowing three double Scotches, working up his courage, his story and his bile. He had been tempted to walk right past this table and keep Claire and Fenner out of this mess, or—if he did sit down—to forget that warning that had been sent to him through that cold-eyed stranger, and tell Fenner his troubles. As he had meant to do when he first walked into this Piazza. But that impulse must be choked back. He could sense the stranger’s eyes still watching him from some safe distance. Who was he, who were the people who had sent him here? Friends of that beggar Spitzer, certainly. How else could a stranger threaten him so completely? Blackmail. It was blackmail, a quicksand with slobbering lips already sucking at his ankles. He had a return of the impulse to rise and walk away, saying the hell with all their threats. And then he thought of the kids, his job, Eva—and he sat still, trapped and helpless.

“Hold it, Bill,” he said, feeling the sickliness of his forced grin after his long silence, “you don’t chop off an old friend like that. Do you?” He turned to Claire. “By the way, you seem to have done well with those fashion drawings.”

“Thank you,” Claire said.

“Not at all. Glad to get you the job. Any time.” His coffee arrived, and he gulped it down, scalding as it must have been. He drew out his cigarette case. His lighter matched it. Cuff links for his white silk shirt were of gold, too. Shot-silk tie from Florence. Silk tweed suit from Rome. Shoes, carefully displayed with a crossed leg, from London. Lenoir had supplied Ballard with more than a pretty mistress. Fenner and Claire exchanged
a brief glance. He misinterpreted it. “So you are wondering why I’m in Venice? That’s easy. There’s a story to be dug out. I’m here to dig.”

“And who is minding the store meanwhile?” Fenner asked. “Surely not that fellow Spitzer?”

“Oh, I’ll be back in Paris tomorrow.”

“You left Spitzer in charge?”

“Why not?”

Fenner just shook his head. Perhaps Ballard really did want to commit suicide.

“He’s a bit too eager, that’s all.”

“Yes, eager for your job.”

Ballard finished a second cup of coffee.

“Hadn’t you thought of that?”

“No,” Ballard said shortly. Spitzer and his friends weren’t going to take away his job as long as he listened to them. That had been made quite clear. He added, “If so, he isn’t the only one.” He looked at Fenner.

Claire said, “Nonsense, Mike. You’re an awful fool.”

There was a pause. “I hope that was a joke,” he said. So that’s all the thanks I get, he thought bitterly.

“At present, you don’t amuse me one bit,” she said coldly. “You aren’t the Mike Ballard I used to know.”

He almost rose, hesitated, tried to laugh it off. “She’s spoiling for a fight,” he said to Fenner. “Have you been telling her tales about me?” Women always closed ranks against men. Claire was taking Eva’s side. As if he hadn’t been a good husband, a good provider, when he was in the money. Was all that to be forgotten because of one mistake?

“No need,” Fenner said, glancing at the gold cigarette case.
We’re wasting our time and sympathy on this soft slob who’ll persuade himself into believing anything just to hang on to his comforts. “Let’s take a walk,” he told Claire quietly. She didn’t move. Her eyes seemed to say, “Wait, Bill, wait a little...”

“Say, what’s come over you two?” Ballard was really worried. Three questions, he remembered in immediate panic, and he hadn’t even asked the first one.

“What has come over
you
?” Fenner asked bluntly.

“But—nothing.”

“Why did you call me?”

Ballard saw an opening, and plunged. “I’m worried. And I think I’ve good reason to worry. Bill, tell me—why did you come to Venice?” And I’m not just asking this for the stranger, he thought. I want to know the answer to this, too.

“You know why.” Fenner was looking at him curiously.

“Those interviews? Bull—Sorry, Claire.” He patted her arm and turned to Fenner again. “Does it matter a plugged nickel what a couple of neutralists think? You could write those interviews sitting here, or in Paris.”

“I’d rather let them speak their little piece. Much more telling.”

“You could have refused this assignment. You’re not under any contract to write—”

Fenner cut in. “Who would refuse a week in Venice?”

“You’re staying a week?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Ballard looked at Claire. “She’d fight with me,” he said with a sudden grin.

Fenner picked up the tab that had been left tactfully under a saucer.

“Hey! What’s the rush?”

Fenner said, “Your problems are over, aren’t they? I’ve solved your worry. I’m not in Venice to take any story away from you. It’s all yours, Mike. We’re off to dinner.”

Ballard’s grin had faded. “So my problems are over.” He looked at the lighted Piazza, at the men and women who walked and talked together, at the laughing children, at the crowds now gathering at one of the cafés opposite where a jazz band was stomping out a new version of
Tiger Rag.
“You two don’t need to look so god-damned happy,” he said bitterly. “It might do you more good to start looking for that story, Bill. Because you’re in it. Somewhere, you’re in it.”

“In what?”

“You haven’t an idea?” Ballard was incredulous.

“Not one.”

“Why did Spitzer telephone a report on your plans? Yes... just after you left the office yesterday, he picked up the telephone and called Venice.”

“He did that, in front of you?”

“Of course not.”

“You caught him at it?”

“I’m not such a fool as some people think.” Ballard glanced at Claire.

“And you let him get away with it?”

Ballard said testily, “Let me handle Spitzer my way.”

“What way is that?” asked Fenner sharply. Ballard fell silent, his false confidence slipping. He looked the unhappiest man in the whole Piazza di San Marco. Which might be true, Fenner thought, and relented. Sympathetically, he added, “Who’s behind Spitzer, Mike? Who got him into the office?”

“I hired him. He was highly recommended. Good qualifications, languages, all that. He’s thoroughly capable, no doubt about it.”

“Recommended by whom?”

“A friend of mine. You can take that look off your face, Bill. My friend had no personal interest in Spitzer, just heard about him. He will be as shocked as I am—”

“Who is this friend?”

“An important guy. Carries a lot of weight, has contacts. Will you listen to me? He’s reliable. He has too big a career ahead of him to get mixed up with men like Spitzer. He has got brains, he has got standing.”

“Hasn’t he got a name? All right, all right. Your friend is an honourable man. He isn’t trying to crucify you, in order to keep Spitzer planted in the
Chronicle
office.”

Ballard’s eyes widened. His lips closed tight. He said angrily, “My God, Bill, if we can’t trust our friends, where are we? Look—this man has done a lot for me. He has done a lot for other people, too. You don’t believe me? How do you think your wife stayed alive for those last three years? She was a refugee, no money, no friends—”

“Sandra Fane is not my wife.”

“That’s right.” Ballard’s eloquence went into high gear. “You and all other Americans were too good for her. When she needed help, did any of us give it? No, it was Lenoir who had the guts to help her start a new life. Would a Communist have done that?”

Claire asked, “Where do Communists come into this, Mike?”

He knitted his brows, tried to pour another cup and found the pot empty. “Perhaps Spitzer—” he began slowly, hesitated. “I don’t know. But I’ll find out.” He looked at Fenner bitterly.
“You don’t have to go running to old Penneyman with reports that I’m doing nothing. I’ll handle this—” He stopped, seeing the anger in Fenner’s eyes. His voice eased. “I’ll handle this, my way. The
Chronicle
won’t suffer.”

“Mike!” Claire said. “Of all the spiteful, unfair things to say!” Her eyes still told Fenner: “Wait, Bill, wait a little...”

For Ballard was sorry, and didn’t know how to express it. Fenner had his faults, but talebearing wasn’t one of them. “I guess I spoke too quickly there,” Ballard said at last, flicking his lighter off and on, off and on. He tried to laugh. “I really get her riled when I criticise you, don’t I?” He saw the opening for that second question. “Say, how long have you known each other?”

“I know Bill better than you know him,” Claire said. “That’s obvious.”

“But you never mentioned him to me. Funny, isn’t it—you knew Bill, I knew him, and—”

“What’s funny about that?” Claire asked. “Why should I tell you about my—” She paused delicately, looked embarrassed and amused. “Really, Mike!”

Fenner had dropped enough money on the table to take care of drinks and tip. He pulled the coat around Claire’s shoulders. He hadn’t looked at Ballard for the last minute. He didn’t look at him even as Claire slowly gathered her bag and gloves.

“What have I got, leprosy or something?” Ballard asked angrily. “Why the hell did I bother to telephone you?”

“I keep wondering about that,” Fenner said.

“Well—I warned you, didn’t I?”

“About what?”

“You know damned well.”

“I don’t. I don’t even believe there is any story—”

“Isn’t there? If not, why was Neill Carlson coming to Venice?”

“He likes Venice, I guess,” Fenner said. “And who is Neill Carlson?”

“He’s some kind of
pro tem
press attaché at the Embassy in Paris. You never met him?”

Fenner looked puzzled. He searched his memory obligingly. Claire said, slipping in quickly to the rescue, “Oh, I remember. I met him at one of your parties, Mike. So Neill Carlson is in Venice?” Her voice was even.

Ballard shook his head, his eyes watching them. “He was killed last night. Fell from a train.” So there, Ballard thought, is the answer to that third blasted bloody question. He felt a great relief; they knew nothing about Carlson’s movements. And with the relief came a hot flush of embarrassment, a touch of shame as their quiet faces looked at him. He had a compulsion to talk, to explain, to make amends. “A lousy deal,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. But if it was murder, we’ll get the son of a bitch who did it. That’s one story I’m going to spread all over the headlines.”

“Murder?” Claire asked faintly. That was what she would be expected to ask. But this attack of cold nausea and hot anger was real. Blindly, she stared at Ballard’s smooth, well-shaven face and wanted to scream.

Fenner said quickly, “Perhaps you are on to something, Mike, after all.”

“You bet I am.” It was pleasant to be accepted again. Fenner was no longer disbelieving. “Lenoir himself gave me the first steer. Telephoned me this morning. I caught the next plane to Venice.” Fenner looked impressed. “You don’t know Lenoir,
but he is a man with plenty of contacts. When he passes on a tip, it’s worth considering.”

“Did you go over and talk with him before you left Paris? Or could he give you enough information over the ’phone?”

“He isn’t in Paris. He’s here. I’ll see him tonight and get more details. This isn’t the kind of stuff you can talk about on a telephone. Of course,” Ballard added quickly, “I’ll have to do the work on this story.”

“Of course.”

“And there will be plenty.”

“Want any help?”

Ballard retreated in alarm. “It’s my story, Bill.”

“Sure. But you can’t expect to keep it all to yourself.”

Ballard grinned. This was the kind of fencing he understood. “You just stick to your neutralists, and write some of that immortal prose of yours.”

“By the way, who was that character who was talking to you before we arrived?”

Ballard’s amusement sloughed off. “Just some two-bit journalist.”

“Did Lenoir tip him off, too?”

“No connection. He has nothing to do with Lenoir.” And Ballard believed that, quite obviously. “Never saw him in my life—until he sat down at my table.”

Fenner said nothing. The pattern around Mike Ballard was emerging. And there was nothing Fenner could tell him that wouldn’t break security, endanger everyone. Someone else would have to find out why Ballard came in such a rush to Venice: the story Lenoir had promised him wasn’t supposed to break for at least four or five days. Yes, thought Fenner, someone else
will have to talk with Ballard. And soon. He looked casually around the other tables—neither Rosie nor Chris was there. Out on the Piazza, there was still a dense crowd of people. He saw Pietro and his friend, walking with two smiling Italian girls. He thought he saw Chris Holland, too, feeding some pigeons. And then, strolling slowly back toward the half-emptied tables at Florian’s, he saw Jan Aarvan, completely nonchalant, just drifting along on a fine Sunday evening. Aarvan was confident. Aarvan felt secure. He’s had too many triumphs recently, Fenner thought: he is swollen with success. But unexpectedly, Aarvan disappeared into a crowd of tourists. Aarvan might be confident but he was still watchful, a clever and cagey operator. “Time to go,” Fenner said, rising definitely, glancing over at the big clock across the Piazza. “Quadri’s won’t keep that window table much past eight o’clock.” He pulled back Claire’s chair for her.