The Vulcan Disaster

“No, no, I have obligations. I’ve gotten in over my head in something.” She bit that full red lip of hers again. “I have to work my way back out again. My own way.”

“I don’t know,” I said. I smiled and kissed her lightly on the tip of that perfect little nose. “I’ll have to take your word for that. In the meantime, the boat comes in tomorrow. We have tonight. I am new to Nice. I know nothing of the area. You can show me around. We can have a good dinner: candles, seafood, wine. I...”

“Oh, Harry, my dear,” she said. “It would be such fun. But I... I have an appointment later this evening. It is important, and...”

“You couldn’t call this person? And reschedule?”

There was a new light in her eyes as she pondered that one. “Perhaps I could. We could leave early, and take a nice drive — I know such a lovely place here in the Old Town, small and quiet. The oysters just went out of season, but... oh, you’d love it, I know you would...” Now it was her turn to step up on tiptoe and kiss me lightly. “Yes, yes, Harry. Look, you go dress. I’ll have my little car brought up from the garage...” I was still working on placing that accent. “I’ll meet you up front in... say ten minutes? Fifteen? Fifteen it is.” As I went out I looked back; she had the house phone under her chin, and the smile she gave me was warm, almost shy.

Her “little car” was a gorgeous classic Morgan, one of the kind with the wooden chassis we won’t allow for sale in the U.S., and I did some discreet coveting, right up to the moment common sense stepped in and reminded me I wasn’t “home” — if that’s what Washington was to me after all these years — often enough to justify owning even a classic car. When I figured that out, I stopped thinking about cars and started thinking about what I was doing.

Not that beautiful women aren’t their own excuse for doing things. But I was here for a reason and it wouldn’t do to forget that the job came first. I pondered the ifs, ands and buts, and decided I could justify getting involved with Vicki on the grounds of her being close to Alexandra. Maybe I could get her to keep an ear cocked for idle conversation, and report back to me? I know it sounds crass, but that sort of thinking comes with the job.

Vicki seemed happy and vivacious. Only every so often I’d see a sort of shadow cross her face — and it’d put ten years on her age each time — only to be wiped out by that warm smile I was getting, more and more often now.

Dinner was, as she’d said, in the Old Town — the winding-streets, narrow-alleys part of town between the Paillon, the underground river that cuts the town in two, and the chateau on the hill above the port. And it was every bit as nice as she’d said it would be: perfect blue trout, a glorious salad and I still wish I’d written down the name of the wine. Soft light that just let us see each other’s eyes and hands, and small talk about what do you like, and what do you dislike, and I was almost beginning to forget the ache in my side and the messy job I was here to do.

And then she had to bring me back to earth. “Harry.” Both of those soft hands on the back of mine. “I have to do an errand in the neighborhood — that appointment I told you about. You will forgive me, won’t you? Please? I’ll be a half hour at most. Harry...”

And what could I do but help her into her jacket and show her out into the narrow little street promising to meet her at the car in forty minutes?

There’d been one thing I hadn’t lied to her about and that was the fact that I have an insatiable curiosity. The next thing I knew, I was scurrying silently through the dark streets after her, under the white arches of clean sheets hanging across the little alleyways from third-floor windows, down a stone staircase and, finally, up an outside wall to a stone balcony overlooking the window in which she sat silhouetted, talking to someone I couldn’t see.

“...No, there’s no one by that name. Look, how many times do I have to tell you? I... please, let my arm go, you’re hurting me...”

I couldn’t make out the other person’s voice. It was a man; that was all I could tell.

“...Look, you’re going to have to let me go sometime. I’m no good to you this way. I... I’ve got to live my own life...”

There was a sound below me.

I froze.

The building I’d climbed up the side of had looked empty: dark and dusty and abandoned, for all I could see. It was situated across a narrow alley from the room Vicki was in; all the lights were out below me.

There was somebody down there, though.

Had I been followed? I didn’t know. But if I’d picked up a tail back at the restaurant, and hadn’t noticed it until now, I was losing my touch.

Across from me the girl was saying, “...I don’t care. I just can’t go through with it any more. I’m a nervous wreck as it is. I...”