Thieves Fall Out (22 page)

“Even better, maybe.” There was a loud crash of artillery. A windowpane shattered. The guns were coming closer. Above the garden, Pete saw planes in the evening sky.

“I hate all that,” said Hélène, looking out the window at the planes. “It was like this when Rommel was outside the city.”

“And you and Erich Raedermann were inside.”

“That is no concern of yours,” she said sharply, turning back to him.

“I guess not. But we were talking about me, about how good I was for this job.”

She smiled. “You are very vain. Yes, you’ve been good, better than even I had hoped, and remember, it was I who chose you.”

“I won’t forget.”

The grimness was unmistakable now; she could no longer pretend not to understand. “What are you trying to say?”

“Only that there isn’t too much time and we ought to get things straight.”

“But everything
is
straight. You must wait here until we can get a plane for you. Said will be able to fix something. I’m sure of that.”

“So I’ll hang around here until Mohammed Ali shows up and does a real job on me, which will then be your cue to float off into the wild blue yonder.”

She looked puzzled “I…I don’t understand you.”

“I threw it away. Maybe you understand that.”

“Threw it away? Threw
what
away?”

“The bit of Woolworth junk you wanted me and Mohammed Ali to believe was the real thing, the real necklace that you planned to skip town with today.”

She was very white now. “You’re insane! You couldn’t have destroyed it. That was the real necklace.”

For a moment he was shaken. But he remembered that she was a good actress and he did not waver. They were both on their feet now. He walked toward her. She backed away until the wall stopped her. Her eyes were wide and glowing with strange emotions.

“No, it wasn’t real. I know. I had it looked at by someone who did know, and then, after I was sure it was fake, I knew what the game was, what you all had planned for me.” He was standing over her now, and he looked down at her and said quietly, “I want the real one.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered. She tried to move away. He stopped her, aware of that faint jasmine odor he had noticed the first time they met, and the second. He would pay her back for the second.

“I’ve been on to you a long time now,” he said. “I was suspicious from the first. It was too phony, sending me up there without knowing me at all, except for your little investigation on the side. It was especially phony when I saw that everybody in the damned country seemed to know what I was up to, particularly the one joker who shouldn’t have known anything, the Inspector. From the first day he came around to my room and told me he was interested in our caper, I figured that I was being used in some way that wasn’t clear.”

“But you knew that he was part of this, that he always got payment whenever we sent anything abroad.” She spoke quickly, nervously.

“No, I was supposed to be the fall guy. Well, it almost worked. Mohammed Ali almost took care of me today. He may still, though I doubt it. I don’t intend to hang around here until he comes, as you’d like me to. The second the roads are free, I’m gone. I’ve had it.”

“Said will kill you.” Her voice was cold and hard.

“Let him try. He’ll have to find me first.”

“He will. He has friends in every country. You’ll never escape.”

“I’ll take my chances. I expect he’s going to be too busy with local problems to worry about me, though I guess he’s going to be pretty mad, especially now.”

“After your destroying the necklace?” Her performance was wearing thin.

“Worse than that.” Peter grinned at her. “I’m taking it. I want the original.”

She gasped and tried to break away. He held her against the wall. “You’re out of your mind! There is no other.”

“I want it. Give it to me.”

She started to scream but he was too quick for her. He clapped his hand over her mouth. “You’ve got it. I know you have. Get it for me or I’ll—”

Her answer was to bite his hand. With a curse he jumped back and she made a break for the door. Before she could unbolt it, though, he caught her again. He held her by her long black hair. She did not scream as he led her back into the room. Her eyes flashed with rage.

“I haven’t got much time,” he said, looking down into her face. “I expect our friend Hastings will be along any minute to find out what’s happened to us. So give me that necklace.”

“There isn’t any other. I swear—” She gasped as he suddenly twisted her hair. Then: “I—I don’t have it. Said’s got it, in Luxor.” He was triumphant; at last the story was confirmed.

“I’m going to count to ten,” he said quietly. “If you don’t give it to me then, I’ll break your neck, like this.” And he pulled her head back sharply.

“Peter, I don’t have it. I swear I don’t!”

“One.”

“I’d give it to you,
chéri
, believe me I would, but—”

“Two.”

“Said is bringing it tomorrow from Luxor. He was supposed to come today but—”

“Three.”

“Wait until then. I’ll give it to you,
chéri.
Come to the hotel tomorrow and I promise—”

“Four.”

“We can leave together. You were interested in me, weren’t you? A little? I was in you, you know that. You could tell. I hate Said. I always have, but I was poor and he promised me—”

“Five.”

“He forced me to love him, to work for him. To send you to Luxor. I know I was weak. I didn’t want anything to happen to you, believe me, but those were his orders, his and Hastings’. I couldn’t—”

“Six.”

“I’d planned to tell you, to let you know before it was too late. I hoped all along that Mohammed Ali wouldn’t attack. I thought it was enough that he suspected you had it. That was all. And that he’d only try to—”

“Seven.”

She was speaking rapidly now, her breath coming in quick gasps and her face as pale as ice. “Peter, it still isn’t too late. We can leave Egypt together. I’ll work for you. I have friends in Europe, in Paris. They’ll take care of us. You’ll be rich. We can live together.”

“Eight.”

“We’ll take the necklace from Said. We’ll sell it in Paris. We can live almost a lifetime there on the money from it.”

“Nine.”

“Peter
chéri
, please
listen
to me!” The scarlet mouth drew closer to his own. The warm body pressed against his. Waves of desire threatened to engulf him. He faltered. And she, conscious that he was aroused, spoke more slowly, more lovingly, caressing him with her hands, her voice, as the scarlet mouth moved closer to his own.

With a tremendous effort of will, like the snapping of chains, he shook his head and almost shouted: “Ten!”

The next moment was one of confusion. She brought her knee up sharply between his legs. He let go of her, doubling up with pain. She broke away, got to her dressing table, and drew out a revolver. By the time he had recovered, she was in charge of the situation. She stood in the center of the room, the pistol aimed at his chest, the old mocking smile on her lips. Her hair, loosened by his grip, flowed like a dark waterfall about her shoulders.

“What a fool you are, Peter! But not foolish enough, perhaps, for now you must be killed.”

“Go ahead.” Pete had got his wind back; he was able to straighten up, the sharp pain succeeded by an ache.

“But at least it would have been better to die ignorant at Mohammed Ali’s hands.” She laughed. “Now it will be worse. Especially since you think you’re in love with that German tramp. Oh, I’ve heard. Not that it prevented you from feeling just a little
excité
with me.” She laughed contemptuously.

He saw her through a darkening rage that made even the lights of the room grow dim. All he could see was that mocking vivid mouth. But he controlled himself and spoke quietly. “I guess nothing worked out right,” he said. “Even us.”

“No, not even us.” She smiled. “I had always looked forward to it,
chéri.
One of those things that I thought might be enjoyable.”

“Maybe it’s not too late for that.”

She looked at him curiously. “You could still…after all this? And after her?”

He nodded. “You saw a minute ago; you could tell.”

She shook her head. “I’m not so easily tricked.”

“You’ve got the gun. What are you afraid of?”

“No one can make love with a gun,” she said, but she moved closer to him. “It is a pity such a handsome animal must die,” she murmured.

It happened easily. One swift blow of his left fist aimed at the mouth and she fell to the floor without a sound. He kicked the gun from her nerveless fingers. Then the lights went out and the hotel rocked, as a thunderous noise sounded outside in the street. A bomb had gone off and all the windows were shattered. The sudden darkness was pierced by screams and shouts.

He lit his cigarette lighter and made a feverish search of the room. There was no necklace. He wondered if she had been telling the truth, if Said still had it. He kept an eye on her but she was unconscious, her face covered by her heavy silken hair. In the dressing table he found the jewel box from which she had taken the money to pay him. This would do, he thought grimly, and he stuck it in his pocket. Then he left the room and walked quickly down the hall.

The lobby was a nightmare of screaming women and shouting men. In the street outside a sharp crack of rifles told him that the mob had got through at last. Shepheard’s was being attacked.

He had to find Anna. Seizing a torch from a frightened servant, he pushed his way through the milling crowd.

The refugees had moved from the front lobby to the center one and to the bar at the back of the hotel, away from the street and the guns.

Hands clutched at him, as though for support. Men shoved him as they tried to get from the main lobby to the comparative safety of the bar. Bullets raked the front of the hotel. A woman crumpled to the floor beside him, whether dead or only fainted he had no time to find out. He found Anna standing in an alcove near the bar. The light of his torch illuminated her face suddenly, briefly. He fought his way through a tangle of people to the alcove where she stood.

“Peter!” She fell into his arms and for a brief moment they stood there in the center of a panic, aware only of one another, but the crash of a grenade outside in the street brought him back to reality, to a frightening reality. “Where were you? I looked all over.” They stepped into the alcove as a group of sweating, wild-eyed soldiers fell back into the central lobby and took up a tentative position, their rifles pointed at the main door.

“Telephoning. The German boy, the flier who brought us from Luxor. He’s waiting for us, Peter. Right now, at Giza.”

“He’s going to—”

“Fly us to Naples, yes. But we have only two hours to get there, to get outside Cairo.”

“Come on, then.” Hugging the wall, they moved toward the bar, where Pete remembered a door led into the garden. There was just a chance that the garden was not surrounded. If so, they could climb the iron fence and slip into a side street.

Before they had got to the door, however, an explosion that shook the building to its foundations threw them sprawling onto the floor. There was a sudden ghastly silence, then moans and cries of pain as a sheet of flame swirled up the walls of the front lobby, casting a lurid glow over everything, like a scene in hell. The hotel was on fire.

“Are you all right?”

Anna nodded, getting to her feet dizzily, holding her head. “Yes, I think so.”

“Come on. Before this place blows up.”

Others now had the same idea he had had. They were swarming into the garden, climbing the tall iron fence, their figures curiously distorted by the flaring light of the now flaming hotel.

Halfway across the garden, they encountered Hastings. He looked as cool, as hard as ever, in spite of the revolver he held in his hand. “Hand it over, Wells.” For a second they faced one another in the ruddy light.

“Hand what over?”

There was a perceptible click, a small sound but ominous, audible beneath the shouts and noise of firing in the street. Hastings aimed carefully at Pete’s heart. Anna, who had been standing nearest Hastings, threw herself upon him like a lioness, pushing his arm up. The pistol went off into the air. Hastings reeled under the attack. Before he could take aim again, Pete was upon him.

With the hilt of his own revolver, he clubbed the Englishman into unconsciousness. Then he seized Anna by the arm and together they ran toward the garden’s gate and into the street.

They ran several blocks without stopping; then, suddenly, both exhausted, they stopped and leaned against the shuttered window of a shop until they had got their breath.

Pete looked about them at the darkened street. No street lamps were on and the starlight was dim. A murky red haze in the sky to the west marked the flaming ruins of Shepheard’s Hotel.

“Where do you think we are?”

Anna shook her head. “I’m not sure. I don’t know this quarter. But we must find some way to get across the Nile.”

“How far is Giza?”

“Several miles from Mena House, on the other side.” She pushed her tangled hair back from her face; a smear of soot darkened her pale forehead. Pete was aware that his own clothes were torn and smelled of smoke and gunpowder. The jewel box was still in his pocket.

“Our only stunt is to get a car. Would you know the way if I drove?”

“I think so, yes. But we don’t have—”

“We’ll find one. I used to be kind of good at that sort of thing.” They moved cautiously back toward the firing, circling the hotel, keeping to arcades and dark side streets.

They did not see one human being until they had got onto the main boulevard, which crossed the street on which Shepheard’s had been. Here they found themselves in the center of the government forces. Jeeps with searchlights patrolled the streets. Convoy trucks rushed soldiers to a barricade, which they could just make out at the end of the wide boulevard, but the firing that had been so noticeable earlier was growing more sporadic, fainter.

In front of a shattered store front, they stopped; a column shielded them from the searchlights raking the streets. Two dead men were sprawled before the store, as though caught in the act of looting. Across the street a single jeep was parked, and beside it a group of uniformed men were talking excitedly. Farther down the street more jeeps had gathered and there was occasional firing; it sounded to Pete as if snipers were being picked off.