The Vulcan Disaster

“I’ve got to bone up on it in a hurry,” I said. “What have you got hidden away under that bald spot that will help me convince somebody that I know all about the mysterious stars and the secret personal message they have for each and every one of us?”

“How fast do you need it, and how smart do you have to sound?”

“I have to become one of the immortal masters of the art by, uh, let’s say yesterday afternoon, around four p.m. or so.”

Franks’s sandy eyebrows went up and down like Groucho Marx’s. He chewed his lip. “Better come get a cup of coffee with me after all. The mystical wisdom of the centuries cannot be imparted to the uninitiate who knows not the secret password.”

“Copping out?”

“No, but that’s shortish notice. I was, after all, going to fob off this book I have which’ll buy you just about enough double-talk to impress some dimbulb you picked up in a bar somewhere after about four hours’ study. Just read the book and memorize a few stock phrases...” He chewed his lip some more. “But a master? An exalted panjandrum of the mystic shrine? Hmmm. And by tomorrow? This will take the full Robert M. Franks Special Treatment...”

“I said yesterday, you know.”

“I can tell when you’re in a hurry and when you’re just talking. Okay. Tomorrow it is. Tomorrow you will pass for a master astrologer in any crowd that doesn’t include Sydney Omarr. Make that virtually any crowd. Stay away from anybody at the party who wears a red bandanna around her head and gold bangles in her ears. She’ll tip off your scam in a minute.”

“Sold,” I said. “I’m in your hands. You said something about coffee?”

Chapter Seventeen

“My name is Harry Archer,” I said, “and I am Miss Komarova’s new astrologer.”

“So?” the blonde said, unimpressed. She flipped her convertible shades up and had another look at me. “And who sent you out here to bother me? What is that to me?”

I gave her another look up and down. What I could see was something like ninety-nine percent lovely bronzed skin and the rest rubberized cloth. There were maybe forty other people on the beach.

A week had passed. Hawk had pulled strings to expedite the mating dance of getting me my new job, and now here I was in the south of France in my new denim windbreaker, boating shorts and espadrilles, getting the eye from another one of Alexandra Komarova’s hired help. I was getting fidgety. “I... I was sent here by the little man at the desk,” I said.

“Ah, Philippe,” she said. Her smile was wry. “He’s a bit Spoleto for your taste? A wonder you did not get assaulted. Ah, he always sticks me with the orientations. But now that I see you...” The red lips pursed thoughtfully. We were on a sort of semi-private beach at Nice, where Alexandra Komarova maintained a residence, an office, and a personal staff to manage them when she wasn’t cruising the seven seas on her father’s yacht, the Vulcan. I’d checked in at the big building less than an hour before, been assigned a suite and shown around the service floor, and, on the little male receptionist’s advice, had changed and gone in search of further enlightenment. And here she was, my assigned tour guide, a gorgeous peroxide blonde with skin tanned — all over — the color of good Utah honey. The way that little swim suit kept hitching this way and that I figured that if there were six square inches of flesh she hadn’t shown me yet it must be on the bottoms of her feet.

“Well,” she said at last. “You’ll do, I guess.” Her smile mocked me, but not in contempt. “I am Vicki Weiner. Welcome to our... operation. Whatever you may choose to call it.” I was trying to peg the accent. No dice so far. She stooped now and picked up her little beach bag, sitting on the sharp pebbles next to her tall wooden clogs. When she made any kind of extreme move like that the little swim suit just gave up in disgust. “So,” she said, standing. “I see it’s my job to... how you say...”

“Show me the sights?” I volunteered. “Miss Weiner, I am at your disposal.”

“Splendid,” she said. And she wheeled and walked away, inviting me to follow. The view from the back was every bit as nice as the front view had been. I kept the pace behind her.

The beach all but vanished around a rock abutment, though, and she had to go ankle-deep in the cold Mediterranean to get around it. I took my shoes off and followed. The thinning crowd that had spotted the earlier strand disappeared altogether here. The beach was totally empty for a couple of hundred yards before a sheer cliff cut it off, plunging into the sea in an almost vertical line. White water-birds slicing across the black rock gave the place a sort of solarized-photo look broken only by the blue sea and sky.

As soon as our feet touched dry land again she turned and matter-of-factly handed me the beach bag. “Here,” she said, unzipping its top as I held it and pulling out a rolled blanket. “I’ll spread this. You reach down in the bottom of the bag and get our lunch out.”