Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax Read online

  But in this game these things happened and Carstairs could accept the failure. One started all over again every day—Tirpak, DeGamez and Johnny had been aware of this. They had all—he was already using the past tense, he realized—been seasoned agents. They were trained and knowledgeable; once in trouble they would weigh the odds against themselves and the odds in their favor; they knew the tricks of the enemy, they had their own tricks and if all else failed they knew how to kill themselves quickly and efficiently. It was Mrs. Pollifax who must be on his conscience. He had misjudged the job he had given her. She had been exactly right for it and he had taken ruthless advantage of that rightness. He had not been able to resist the unexpected twinkle, the preposterous hat, the little absurdities that gave her so much character. Who would suspect her as anything but a tourist? She had been given the simplest, most routine job that any agent could be given. Nothing had been asked of her but accuracy, yet the fact remained that even as a courier he had sent her off totally unprepared and untrained for emergencies. She had not even been given a cyanide pill. She was not a woman of the world, nor was she even aware of General Perdido’s kind of world, and although he did not want to be ungallant she was an old woman, with neither the stamina nor the nerves to withstand these ruthless people. He had unwittingly sent a lamb into a wolves’ den—a fluffy, innocent, trusting white lamb, and the wolves would make short work of devouring his lamb.

  God help her, Carstairs thought devoutly.

  CHAPTER 7

  “I’m wondering if they’ll try to brainwash us,” Mrs. Pollifax was saying cheerfully. “Do you know anything about brainwashing, Mr. Farrell?”

  “Uh—no,” Farrell said politely.

  “It might prove rather interesting.” She was remembering the lie detector test she had been given in Washington, and she wondered if there were similarities. Life was really very scientific these days. She looked at Farrell because there was nothing else to look at. She had been alert for an hour now, and it was still night, and they were still flying through the air, and once she had examined the seats and the floor of the plane she had exhausted the possibilities. There was at least one blessing in being airborne, however—her wrists were no longer bound. Instead there was a very medieval-looking shackle around each of her ankles with a chain that led to a ring set into the seat. It was not uncomfortable but it did give her a perverse longing to cross her legs now that she couldn’t.

  “Feeling better now?” she asked Farrell sympathetically. She had opened her eyes at least half an hour before he did.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said suddenly. “About that bookstore you walked into.”

  “I don’t believe I heard you,” lied Mrs. Pollifax smoothly.

  “I asked if it was El Papagayo.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t notice its name. I seldom do, you know. Of course I know when I’m in Bam’s or Macy’s or Gimbels but this was a very little store. Very little.”

  There was a glimmer of amusement in Farrell’s eyes. “I get the point—a very little store. And what happened there?”

  “I went in,” said Mrs. Pollifax, “and I asked for a book and this man seemed very friendly. He invited me into his back room for tea, he said it was his breakfast and he often offered it to early customers. And I drank it and began to feel rather peculiar. That’s when I saw the—I mean, I suddenly realized the tea had left a very strange taste in my mouth. The next thing I knew I was tied up with you back in that dirty little shack.” Mrs. Pollifax suddenly remembered that the best defense was an offense and she said, “How did you come to be here?”

  He shrugged. “I, too, entered a bookshop.”

  “Are you a tourist then?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve lived in Mexico since ’45.” He reached into his pocket, searched and swore. “I did have a card,” he explained. “I run the Galeria de Artes in downtown Mexico City. John Sebastian Farrell’s the name, Galeria de Artes.”

  Mrs. Pollifax, relieved, said, “Oh, I thought at first you might be a dope peddler, or—or …”

  He grinned. “I’ve done some rum things in my life, and some of them outside the law, but I’ll be damned if anybody’s ever taken me for a dope peddler before.”

  Mrs. Pollifax at once apologized. “I’ve lived a very sheltered life,” she explained, “and you do have a rather—well, I don’t think I’ve known anyone—I mean, you look as it you’d done some rum things, you see.”

  “It’s beginning to show? Well, at forty-one I daresay it’s bound to—a pity.” He said it with mock despair.

  Mrs. Pollifax paid his mockery no attention. “What are some of the rum things you’ve done?”

  “Good heavens, should you be interested? I hope you’re not planning to write a book on your travels.” He was still grinning at her.

  She considered this seriously and shook her head. “No, it had never occurred to me, although I’ll be very interested in seeing Cuba. You still believe it’s where they’re taking us?”

  Farrell said irritably, “By all rights its where we ought to land, but it’s taking us a hell of a long time to get there. Sorry—what were you asking?”

  “You were going to tell me what a rum life consists of.”

  He grinned. “You don’t think I’d dare give you an unlaundered version, do you? After all, I’ve bummed around Mexico since ’45, ever since I was discharged from the Marines, and that’s a long time. I used to run a charter boat out of Acapulco—at least until I lost the boat in a poker game. I’ve given painting lessons to debutantes—you may not believe it but I do occasionally move in the best circles.”

  “As well as the worst?” asked Mrs. Pollifax, hoping he wasn’t going to disappoint her.

  “As well as the worst. For a year I smuggled guns in to Castro before he won his revolution. Rather a good friend of mine although I’ve not seen him lately,” he added with a roguish glint. “And I might add modestly that women constantly fall at my feet. I have that effect on them.”

  Mrs. Pollifax could not allow this weakness in her sex to go undefended. She said very blandly, “Like the Chinese woman you were going to take to the theater tonight?”

  Farrell gazed at her for a moment and then said frankly, “Duchess—and I hope you don’t mind my calling you that—you interest and surprise me. I’ve decided you’re not a member of the D.A.R. after all.”

  “No, I’ve never joined that one,” mused Mrs. Pollifax. “Do you think I should? But I am a member of the Garden Club, the Art Association, the Woman’s Hospital Auxiliary, the—”

  “Good God, spare me,” he said, throwing up his hands. “If General Perdido knew these things he’d turn pale.”

  “General who?”

  He turned his glance to the window. “Just someone I know.” He leaned forward. “We’re still flying very high but I thought I saw some lights down there.” He added savagely, “You do understand what you’ve gotten yourself into, don’t you? You do know what the odds are?”

  Mrs. Pollifax blinked. She thought of expressing ignorance of what he meant, but to feign innocence indefinitely was tiresome. She said very quietly, “Yes.”

  “Yes what?” he demanded.

  She did hope he wasn’t going to shout at her. She added with dignity, “I am quite aware that I have been abducted by dangerous people, and that it’s possible I may never see Mexico City again.”

  “Or your Garden Club or your Hospital Auxiliary or your Art Association,” he told her flatly. “It doesn’t bother you?”

  Mrs. Pollifax wanted to tell him that of course it bothered her. She had enjoyed herself very much in Mexico City and she had enjoyed being a secret agent and now she would like very much to be flying home to New Brunswick, New Jersey, to bandage her torn wrists and soak her bruises in a hot tub. There was, after all, a distinct difference between nearly deciding to step from the roof of an apartment house and in having such a decision wrested from her by men who appeared to be quite brutal. She did not w
ant to die in a strange country and she did not labor under any illusions about Mr. Carstairs or her country coming to her rescue. If life was like a body of water, she had asked that she be allowed to walk again in its shallows; instead she had been abruptly seized by strong currents and pushed into deep water. It was a lonely situation, but Mrs. Pollifax was well acquainted with loneliness and it did not frighten her. What did frighten her was the thought of losing her dignity. The limits of her endurance had never been tested, and she had never met with cruelty before. If her life had to end soon she only hoped that it could end with dignity.

  But she saw no point in saying these things to the man who shared her predicament and who must also be thinking of these matters. He had more to lose than she; his life was only half completed and he would be thinking of the women he would never make love to again, and the children he would never have. A pity about the children, she mused … but in any case she must be very careful not to display any unsteadiness; it was the very least that the old could do for the young. “There’s no point in your being angry at me,” she said calmly. Her gaze fell to the seat beside Farrell and she gasped. “Look—my purse! They haven’t taken it away, it’s squashed down between your seat and the next.”

  “Thoroughly searched, of course,” he said, handing it to her. “What’s in it?” He leaned forward to watch as she opened the clasp.

  She, too, felt as if she were opening a Christmas grab bag. “It’s a good deal emptier,” she agreed, peering inside. “Yes, they’ve taken things. Oh dear, my aspirin’s gone,” she said mournfully.

  “Extremely suspect.”

  “And they’ve taken Bobby’s pocket knife—he’s my eleven-year-old grandson,” she exclaimed.

  “No, they wouldn’t approve of that at all.”

  “But the Band-Aids are here, and my wallet and coin purse and lipsticks—oh, and look,” she cried happily, “they’ve left me my playing cards!” She greeted them as old friends, slipping them tenderly out of their box.

  “Small comfort,” growled Farrell.

  “Oh, but you don’t know how comforting they can be,” she told him with the enthusiasm of a convert. “I already know twenty-two games. It’s true there are fifty-five more to learn—I have a book on it, you see—but it’s so relaxing and it will give me something to do.” She was already laying out cards in a circle on the seat beside her for a game of Clock Solitaire. “They left the chocolate bars too,” she said absently. “You can eat one if you’d like.”

  “You’re not particularly hungry, either?” he asked.

  She shook her head, her eyes on the cards.

  He said in a funny voice, “We ought to be hungry, you know. We ought to be terribly hungry.”

  Mrs. Pollifax put down a card and looked at him. “Why, yes, that’s true, we should be,” she said wonderingly. She frowned. “I had breakfast, and then that man’s tea, and nothing until night, and then I had only a slice of bread and a stale tortilla—I ought to be ravenous.”

  He hesitated and then said quietly, rolling up his sleeve, “I’m wondering if you have needle marks on your arm, too.”

  “Marks?” faltered Mrs. Pollifax, and stared in dismay at the arm he showed her. There were several angry red dots there, and a faint outline of gum where adhesive tape had been affixed and then removed. It was all the more unnerving to Mrs. Pollifax because she had been idly scratching at her arm since she awoke. She slipped out of her jacket and stared at her arm. “What are they?” she asked at last.

  “I think we’ve been fed intravenously.”

  “Intravenously!” she gasped. “But why?”

  “To keep us alive.” He leaned forward and said in a low voice, “That’s not all, there’s something else. The plane I heard landing back there in Mexico was a propeller job. The plane we’re traveling in now is a jet.”

  In astonishment Mrs. Pollifax took note of the sound of the engines. “Why so it is!” She stared at him with incredulous eyes. “Wh-what does it mean, do you think?”

  He said quietly, “I think we’ve been unconscious for a longer time than we realized. I think we’ve been unconscious for a whole day instead of a few hours. I think this must be another night, and we met yesterday in that shack, not today. I think they must have landed us somewhere during the day where they switched planes and took the precaution of feeding us intravenously so that we wouldn’t die on their hands.”

  Mrs. Pollifax put down her cards with finality. It was not difficult to follow his reasoning to its obvious conclusion. “But jets travel very fast,” she said, her eyes fastened on his face. “And if we have been traveling for such a long time—”

  He nodded. “Exactly. I don’t think that you are going to see Cuba after all.”

  “Not see Cuba,” she echoed, and then, “but where…?” On second thought Mrs. Pollifax stifled this question; it was much better left unsaid. Instead she said in a voice that trembled only a little, “I do hope Miss Hartshorne is remembering to water my geraniums.”

  CHAPTER 8

  It was still night when they began their descent through the clouds—through the very stars, seemingly—and Mrs. Pollifax felt a flutter of excited dread such as she had often felt as a child when the dentist beckoned her into his office, saying it was her turn now. She pressed her face to the glass, staring in amazement at the unearthly convolutions and formations below.

  “Mountains,” said Farrell, frowning. “High ones, some of them snow-covered.” His gaze went from them to the stars, assessing, appraising, judging, his eyes narrowed.

  Mrs. Pollifax watched him hopefully, but he did not say what he was thinking or on what continent such mountains might be. The flight continued, with Farrell’s glance constantly moving from earth to sky. “We’re going to land,” he said suddenly.

  Mrs. Pollifax leaned forward. A scattering of lights increased in density, the plane wheeled and began its approach to the runway. Mrs. Pollifax braced herself—there were no seat belts on this plane—and suddenly the earth was rushing past her with dizzying speed, they touched land and taxied to a very bumpy stop. Mrs. Pollifax gathered up her playing cards and put them in her purse. The door to the cockpit opened and two men they had not seen before walked in, one of them carrying a revolver. The other drew out keys and unshackled their ankles. Both were Chinese. The door was pulled away and by gestures it was indicated that Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell were to get out. This was accomplished only with difficulty because there was nothing more than a wooden ladder propped against the side of the plane, and for illumination a flashlight was shone on its rungs. Mrs. Pollifax descended into an oppressively warm night that gave the feeling of new heat lying in wait for sunrise. The two men waiting for them at the bottom of the ladder were not Orientals and she saw Farrell stare intently into their faces. To Mrs. Pollifax they looked—perhaps Greek, she decided, recalling an evening spent in Miss Hartshorne’s apartment viewing slides on Greece; at least to Mrs. Pollifax their skin had that same similarity to the skin of an olive, moist and supple and smooth. She saw Farrell glance from them to the mountains behind the plane and then again at the stars in the sky. She said anxiously, “It’s not Cuba, is it.”

  He shook his head.

  “Do you know—have you any idea where we may be?”

  His eyes narrowed. He said grimly, “If my guess is right, Duchess—I hope to God it’s not—I should now turn to you and say, ‘Welcome to Albania.’ ”

  “Albania!” gasped Mrs. Pollifax, and peering incredulously into his face she repeated blankly, “Albania?”

  “Albania.”

  “But I don’t want to be in Albania,” Mrs. Pollifax told him despairingly. “I don’t know anything about Albania, I’ve scarcely even heard of the place, the idea’s preposterous!”

  “Nevertheless,” said Farrell, “I think it’s where we are.”

  A long car, once black but nearly white with dust now, drew into the periphery of the flashlights and they were ushered to its door and prodded
into the rear. “A Rolls,” Farrell said out of the corner of his mouth, and Mrs. Pollifax nodded politely. The two men with Grecian profiles climbed in and sat down on a drop seat facing them, guns in hand, and the car began to move at reckless speed over incredibly bumpy ground. Mrs. Pollifax clung to its sides and longed for an aspirin. The headlights of the car illuminated the road onto which they turned but the road held as many ruts as the airfield. They appeared to be entering a town, and presently they were threading narrow streets where garbage flowed sluggishly in gutters. They passed cobbled alleys and shuttered cafes and what appeared to be a bazaar. They met no other cars and saw no people. Even the homes that showed briefly in the glare of the headlights looked inhospitable, their rooftops barely seen over the tops of high walls that surrounded them. The walls were guarded by huge gateways with iron-studded doors—clearly not a trusting neighborhood, thought Mrs. Pollifax—and then they had left the town behind. Looking out of the window at her side Mrs. Pollifax saw the mountains again silhouetted against the night-blue sky; not comfortable-looking mountains at all, but harsh craggy ones with jutting peaks and cliffs and towering, rocky summits. The mountains, decided Mrs. Pollifax, looked even less hospitable than the homes. It was toward these mountains that they appeared to be heading.

  Their guards stared at them impassively and without curiosity. Mrs. Pollifax turned to Farrell and said, “But why Albania? Surely you’re wrong!”

  “Well, this isn’t Cuba.”

  “No,” responded Mrs. Pollifax sadly, “it isn’t Cuba.”