Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax Read online

  Mrs. Pollifax was deeply touched by his concern. “Yes, I really am,” she told him. “I was asked questions by that man I met in a bookstore in Mexico City, except now he’s here in Albania. Imagine.” She sat down on her cot and picked up her playing cards and shuffled them. In a low voice she said, “Farrell, I must apologize to you for something quite dreadful.”

  “Good heavens, what can that be?”

  Mrs. Pollifax tried to think of the word the professionals used. “Are we being bugged?” she asked.

  Farrell walked over and sat down beside her on the cot. “If you mean are there microphones hidden in here I don’t know, but there must be some kind of listening device. I’m sure it’s why they put us together—but where on earth did you pick up that word bugging, Duchess?”

  “At the hairdresser’s. One learns a great deal there about life.”

  “And the apology?” Farrell whispered the question.

  She turned and faced him. “It’s really quite terrible,” she whispered back. “It seems the reason they brought us here is that they believe I’m a dangerous American spy.”

  “You?” The corners of his mouth twitched a little at this revelation. “You’re not, are you?”

  Mrs. Pollifax hesitated. “In one sense, no,” she admitted. “In another, yes. But certainly not dangerous.”

  Farrell said flatly, “I don’t like the way you say that, Duchess, you’d better be much more specific. Do you trust me?”

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded.

  “Good. Then for heaven’s sake, are you or aren’t you?”

  Still whispering, Mrs. Pollifax plunged into her confession, beginning with her visit to CIA headquarters, describing the simple courier work that she was to do and how this man with the gold tooth had totally ruined her assignment. “And he’s the same man who questioned me here, but now he calls himself General Raoul Perdido.”

  “Oh God,” said Farrell.

  “You mentioned his name once—quite lightly—on the plane. Do you know him too?”

  He said grimly, “Nobody mentions Perdido lightly, and if I did I ought to have my head examined. Yes, I’ve heard of him, and he’s a cruel, vicious bas—sorry,” he added, and glancing at her face a smile lit up his eyes, “You of all people, Duchess!” The smile abruptly left his eyes and he became thoughtful. “You’ve certainly outflanked the general for the moment at least.” He frowned. “You’ve bought yourself more time, which is the most important concession, but I only wish—I’m very much afraid—”

  “It’s all right,” she told him gently. “I know what you’re thinking. Even if they believe everything I’ve told them they can’t afford to let me go home again.”

  He smiled wryly. “You continue to surprise me, Duchess, but let’s not be gloomy, they may save you for an international incident and trade you for one of their own.” Glancing up he said, “Oh-oh, we have company again.”

  The door swung wide and a man walked in carrying a tray of food, followed by a guard who insisted upon dramatically covering them with his rifle. Mrs. Pollifax thought it extremely ill-bred of him and turned her back on him, ignoring him just as she would have ignored a rude waiter. “Can you explain this odd-looking food?” she asked Farrell conversationally, hoping he knew what lay on her dish like a piece of melted rubber. “And is it drugged, do you think?”

  Farrell said evenly, “Not likely. They’ll be questioning me soon and I’d be no good to them drugged. It’s some sort of cheese dish,” he added, pushing a spoon into it. “Go ahead and try it. Not bad.”

  “It just looks such a mess,” said Mrs. Pollifax with a sigh.

  “Rather like Welsh rarebit,” he told her, nodding approvingly. “Cheese and milk cooked together.”

  They ate quietly. There was coffee, very strong, and cakes drenched in honey. When they had finished Farrell brought out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, extracted one and lighted it, saying dryly, “The condemned man ate a hearty meal. And now, Duchess, there is something I believe I should tell you.”

  Mrs. Pollifax was feeling much more cheerful now, and her headache was virtually gone. “Fire ahead,” she said gaily.

  “You’ve been frank with me. I think it only politic to tell you what General Perdido already knows about me—namely that I, too, work for Carstairs.”

  Mrs. Pollifax drew in her breath sharply.

  “I’ve been an agent since ’47 when the CIA was formed,” he went on. “You might say that I’m their man in Mexico City. Or one of them,” he added absently. “A long time ago I did a job with DeGamez, so I knew what his real work was, and therein lies the rub, as old Billy Shakespeare would say. I hadn’t seen DeGamez for years, not that we had to avoid each other, we just didn’t move in the same circles. But on the nineteenth, just after I’d finished lunch, I received a crazy, garbled message from him and I went off at once to his bookstore. You see, the message had a code word inserted into it, a word meaning SOS. All the words in the message should have been in code—I knew that when I set out—but when a friend sounds in trouble how can a guy hang back? I should have been more cautious; I was impulsive instead. I went to see what the hell DeGamez meant and walked right into their trap. I realize now that Perdido must have pried just that one word out of DeGamez or some poor soul who knew it, but there’s no use crying over spilt milk. By going to the bookstore—by reacting to that code word—I proved I was just who they thought I was, an agent they’d been looking for since ’47.” He was silent, smiling a twisted smile as he looked into his thoughts. “It takes only one goof and the others follow like one-two-three. The first thing they took from me was the cyanide pill I’m never without. The second thing they took from me was my identity, and then my freedom. So here I am, as full of information for them as Santa’s knapsack. A real Christmas present in August for General Perdido.”

  Mrs. Pollifax stared at him in astonishment, understanding for the first time the hardness in him. “I thought him a reckless adventurer,” she remembered. “I thought him a philanderer and a professional charmer and a man of no scruples, and he is perhaps all of these things, but I completely missed the truth in him: namely that he is all of these things and yet none of them.”

  To Farrell she said simply, “You are very brave.”

  He lifted an eyebrow mockingly. “Not at the moment, Duchess, not at the moment. You see, I can’t allow General Perdido to question me. You understand what I’ve got to do, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?” faltered Mrs. Pollifax.

  “I mean that no one can hold out indefinitely against their methods of torture, and the general is considered an expert in the field. I mustn’t be taken alive into that building.”

  As the meaning of his words penetrated Mrs. Pollifax became very still.

  Farrell got to his feet and began pacing the floor. “For me it’s part of the job,” he said, “but I hate leaving you in the lurch. It’s not very gallant of me, but under the circumstances—”

  Mrs. Pollifax said breathlessly, “You mustn’t concern yourself with me at all. Please. But what do you intend to do?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever presents itself. Try to break away between here and the other building and hope they’ll shoot me. Throw a rock at somebody.” He shrugged again. “Che sera, sera, as they say—except I must not enter that building and meet General Perdido.”

  “You can’t think of any other way?” she asked anxiously. “You don’t think the general…?”

  He smiled cryptically. “Not on your life, Duchess, not on your life.”

  She averted her eyes so that she need not embarrass him with her compassion. She thought of her son Roger and daughter Jane, of Miss Hartshorne in apartment 4-C, and of the simple life she herself had lived, and then she thought of men like Farrell who for years must have been dying in queer parts of the world without her ever knowing of their existence. Life was certainly very strange, she reflected, but in spite of its uncertainty she was extremely grateful to have known Farrell
.

  “I don’t know how to advise you,” he continued, pacing and frowning. “There’s no possibility of your getting away or being rescued. I hate deserting you. If I just didn’t know so much—but Carstairs would never approve of my staying alive, there’s too much at stake.” Hearing the guard at the door he stamped his cigarette out on the floor. “Take what’s left of them,” he said, handing her the flattened pack. “You never know who’s bribable in this world.”

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Pollifax, standing up, and as the door opened she and Farrell gravely shook hands.

  This time the two guards were heavily armed. Major Vassovic had come as well to superintend Farrell’s removal. “It’s been so nice meeting you, Major,” said Farrell as he went out.

  “God go with you,” whispered Mrs. Pollifax, staring after him.

  Major Vassovic pointedly coughed. “The—uh—order has been received now. One aspirin for you, to be taken in my presence. Come.”

  Mrs. Pollifax realized that her headache had returned doublefold. She humbly followed the man into the guardroom and stood patiently while he brought her a cup of water and the pill. As she placed the tablet on her tongue her gaze came to rest on the collection of weapons on the wall, a number of guns and knives beautifully decorated with carved-silver ornamentation. They were works of art belonging in a museum and she told the major so.

  “The long guns are called pushkas,” he said gruffly. “The sabres we call yataghans in this country.”

  There were also an assortment of undecorated and very lethal-looking pistols and revolvers but she ignored these, her glance falling to the three drawers set into the base of the gun rack. One of them held a key in its lock; a small brass key, really quite distinctive. She kept her glance riveted to this, every nerve in her body waiting. “I am admiring a brass key,” she told herself. “I am in Albania and presently Farrell will be killed and I mustn’t think about it.” She did not have long to wait. Her concentration was interrupted by harsh shouts from outside the building, and then by the sound of guns being fired. Mrs. Pollifax very carefully placed the cup of water on the major’s desk and was pleased to see that her hand was not trembling. “I mustn’t look,” she told herself. “I don’t want to look. There was nothing else for him to do.”

  At the sound of firing Major Vassovic uttered an explosive oath. After one glance from the window he said, “Back—back,” and roughly pushed Mrs. Pollifax down the hall to her cell and slammed the door upon her. The firing had not continued beyond that one frenzied burst. There was only silence now in the building. Mrs. Pollifax sat down on Farrell’s cot and said in a quiet voice, “I didn’t look.” For some reason this was very important to her. “I didn’t look,” she repeated in a louder voice, and fumbling in her purse she brought out a handkerchief and angrily blew her nose. Then she resolutely shuffled her deck of cards and laid them out for a game of Spider.

  Mrs. Pollifax had played for several minutes, the silence like a shroud in the stone cell—like Farrell’s shroud, she thought bitterly—when slowly her thoughts became diverted by a small sound emanating from the wall behind her. She turned her head to hear it better. It was not a metallic noise, it was more like a clenched fist rhythmically striking the stone wall. Recalling the second iron door set into the hall outside, Mrs. Pollifax frowned. Kneeling on Farrell’s cot she tapped with both hands. Immediately the sound stopped, as if in astonishment, and just when Mrs. Pollifax decided it must be someone repairing a drain, the fist beat an excited staccato reply. This fist had a personality all its own, thought Mrs. Pollifax in surprise; at first it had seemed to be hitting the wall in a monotonous rhythm of despair, then finding itself answered the Fist had panicked and stopped, afraid. But perhaps the Fist had remembered that another cell stood between it and Major Vassovic, for after its hesitation it had replied with joy.

  “Yes with joy,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax firmly, and reflected that if this were anything but real life they would now exchange urgent messages in Morse code. Unfortunately Mrs. Pollifax knew no Morse. She tapped again once more and received a reply, but it was a little like communicating with a newly born infant or someone who spoke Swahili; once the initial greeting had been made there was really not much more to manage. Besides, her mind was on Farrell and she returned sadly to her game of solitaire.

  It seemed a long time later when the building filled with noise again. A number of booted feet tramped down the hall and Mrs. Pollifax heard Major Vassovic issuing orders in an irritable voice. He sounded like a frustrated and angry man. Mrs. Pollifax placed a black ace on a red two and waited for the inevitable grating of the key in the lock—it was a sound she was beginning to dread. The door swung open. Mrs. Pollifax looked up and the cards slipped from her hand to the floor.

  “Farrell!” she gasped.

  He was propped between two guards, one leg dangling uselessly, his clothes smeared with blood. At her cry he lifted his head and opened one eye. “Goofed again, Duchess,” he said, and as the men lowered him none too gently to the cot he added peevishly, “Damn cliff. If you jumped from a hundred-foot cliff wouldn’t you bloody well expect to be killed?” Having delivered himself of this diatribe he fell back unconscious on the bed.

  CHAPTER 10

  The two slits in the wall of the cell gradually darkened as night fell. Mrs. Pollifax sat beside Farrell and listened to his ravings as he slipped in and out of feverish dreams. She knew his leg was broken in two places and she had neither water nor bandages for him. There was a great deal of blood all over him, but as far as she could see only one bullet had entered his body and this was embedded in his right arm above the elbow. She had staunched the bleeding by removing the coarse blanket from her cot and using it as a tourniquet. When General Perdido arrived she had worked herself into a cold fury over the cruelty of the situation and her own helplessness. “Good evening,” she said icily.

  The guard accompanying Perdido carried a candle which he inserted in a metal ring set into the wall for this purpose. The general walked over to Farrell and looked down at him contemptuously. Clearly he, too, was furious.

  Mrs. Pollifax said coldly, “I have asked for water and bandages and no one brings them. If I may be so presumptuous as to make a suggestion, General, why don’t you shoot Mr. Farrell? It would be much more efficient because he is making a great deal of bothersome noise and what’s worse he is bleeding all over your furniture.”

  General Perdido turned on her angrily. “I find you insolent, Mrs. Pollifax.”

  “I feel insolent,” retorted Mrs. Pollifax. “Perhaps you would like to shoot me as well.”

  For a moment she thought that General Perdido was going to strike her. She almost hoped that he would for her rage was nearly uncontainable and she would have welcomed violence, even if directed at herself. But his hand fell. He glared again at the moaning Farrell and turned on his heel. At the door he said to Major Vassovic, “Give the woman the water and bandages she asks for. Perhaps she can revive the prisoner for questioning.” He turned and gave Mrs. Pollifax a tight, sadistic smile. “For questioning and other things.” With this he marched out.

  Major Vassovic looked doubtfully at Mrs. Pollifax. “Water? Bandages? You are a nurse?”

  “No, a human being,” she snapped, and sat down again beside Farrell’s cot.

  The major returned with strips of cloth and a pitcher of water. He stood and watched while Mrs. Pollifax moistened Farrell’s lips and untied the tourniquet. “You have been loosening it?” he asked.

  She nodded. The bleeding had stopped; Mrs. Pollifax placed the blanket to one side and walked over to her cot and rolled back the mattress. The cot was made of wood, with rough slats to support the thin hard mattress. She removed two of the slats and carried them back to Farrell’s bed.

  “What do you do now?” asked Major Vassovic curiously.

  “I intend to set his leg.”

  Major Vassovic looked astonished. “Zott! You know how?”

  “No,�
� replied Mrs. Pollifax, “but someone has to. I’m hoping you will help me.”

  He said stiffly, “I have no orders.”

  “But you are here, and you are a man and he is a man, and do you think any leg should look like that?”

  “I have no orders,” he repeated, and went out.

  Mrs. Pollifax felt suddenly very tired. She looked at Farrell and she looked at his leg and she knew that she would bungle the job alone. Gritting her teeth she leaned over him and began ripping away his trouser leg. “I will not faint,” she told herself, “I will not, I will not. Surely I can push one of those bones back myself. It certainly ought to be done now, while he’s unconscious.” She stood back and looked at the leg, already swollen and red and turning black and blue, and she thought forlornly, “I wish I had another aspirin.”

  The door behind her opened so quietly that Mrs. Pollifax started when a low voice said, “Lulash.”

  She turned. One of the guards stood there, his finger to his lips, nodding and smiling nervously. “My name is Lulash.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Pollifax blankly. “Lulash. Well, how do you do, Mr. Lulash.”

  He tiptoed back to the door, listened a moment and gently closed it. “The major has gone for the night. He sleeps.” He walked to the cot and stared down at Farrell. “I have worked in hospital,” he said suddenly. “I can set this man’s leg. Zott, but it looks bad.”

  Mrs. Pollifax’s eyes weakly filled with tears at this offer of help. “He jumped from the cliff,” she explained in a strangled voice. “He was trying to kill himself.”

  Lulash only nodded. “I wish him better good fortune the next time.” He leaned over to examine Farrell’s leg more closely. “Zott, but this is not good.”

  “But you can do something?”

  “Something, yes. Better a doctor, but they will not bring a doctor. I do my best.” His eyes fell to the slats that Mrs. Pollifax still held in her arms. He took them from her and leaned them against the wall. “Later,” he said. “Now you must sit on the man’s chest and hold him down. I bid you do it.” Numbly Mrs. Pollifax obeyed.