Assignment — Stella Marni (2 page)

The image of Deirdre Padgett, cool and beautiful and desirable beyond any woman Durell had ever known, drifted before him and obscured the image he was trying to get of Stella Marni. Long ago Durell had traveled a lonely path, confirmed in his belief that in his business of being a spy, the difference between the quick and the dead often depended on objectivity, a detachment from emotion. He had discarded love until Deirdre came along and broke down the wall he had built around himself. When he thought of Deirdre now, a warmth grew deep inside him. Deirdre had come to him with Art Greenwald last night, to tell him about Stella Marni.

"I know this girl, darling," Deirdre had said. "I met her when I worked on the
Journal
two months ago. She was perfectly happy and contented, praying for just one thing — to be allowed to continue her work as a photographer's model and to be allowed to stay in this country. She even told me about Frank, Art's brother — how he wanted to marry her. And everything she's done this past week that's making headlines is wrong and out of character for her. Something has happened, and you can find out what it is."

"I understand Frank Greenwald is a steady-going businessman," Durell said. "How did he meet a glamorous model like this Stella Marni?"

"She worked as a model in a studio in Frank's building, I believe. He saw her there, coming and going, and got to know her, that's all. You will do something, won't you, Sam?"

"The FBI is on it," Durell objected. "It doesn't come under our jurisdiction."

"But you can help Art. And do it for me. She's a wonderful girl, darling. Just don't fall in love with her yourself." Deirdre had kissed him lightly. "Help her, Sam, talk to her. You'll see what I mean."

Durell had grinned. "On your head be it, sweetheart. I'll take the train up tomorrow."

Now he stood in Stella Marni's bedroom and gradually the image of Deirdre faded from his mind. He filled his senses with Stella's personality, the intimacy of this woman who apparently, with casual disdain, wounded her friends and presented an enigma to all who knew her.

Long legs, fine firm hips, breasts high and full. He went through her lingerie expertly, searched her secretary-desk, searched the night table, the closet shelves, the racks of shoes, the dresses, the silver-chased combs, the perfumes and cosmetics in cut glass on the dresser. Nothing to show there was a man in her life. Nothing of Frank Greenwald's — no picture, no souvenirs, no whispers of love.

He listened to the rain, the whine of the elevator, the muted murmuring of a television set somewhere in the brownstone house. Stella Marni. Who and what was she?

There was only one picture in the room, a photograph of a smiling gray-haired man with a gentle face and a small beard, whose eyes looked at you with tragedy and compassion. This would be her father, in that European suit and shirt. Albert Marni. Nobody important. A small businessman, uprooted, desolate, lonely. Missing since his turn had come as witness for the subcommittee last Saturday. Missing since he said he was willing to be repatriated back to his native land. A man who had testified with fear in his eyes and a seal on his lips.

Where was Albert Marni now?

Nobody knew.

Very few people cared.

He searched the kitchen again, looked in the sugar and flour canisters, flipped through the telephone book, looked at a month-old copy of
Nepszava,
a Budapest daily, in the wastebasket, looked into the water closet, the medicine chest The medicine chest in the green-tiled bath was abnormally tall, with a high hidden shelf above the door. Durell groped in it, felt cool metal, pulled it down.

A gun. A chrome-plated Colt .28. He snicked back the barrel, dropped the cartridge, picked it up. heeled out the magazine, saw the little vicious row of lead-nosed bullets in their shiny copper jackets. He sniffed at the gun, reloaded the chamber, wiped his prints from it, and put it back.

He heard the front door open as he stood in the bathroom. A key snicked, the door groaned slightly, and footsteps sounded in the small octagonal foyer.

"Stellar someone called.

Durell stood against the wall and waited.

The man in the foyer breathed gustily, as if he had been running. For a second or two he did not move, while Durell waited just inside the bathroom door. He had left lamps on in the living room and one in the bedroom. Whoever had come in knew that the apartment was occupied. A shoe creaked and the man finally entered the living room. Water dripped from his coat.

"Stella? Are you in?"

The man's voice was high and tight and tense.

"Stella, baby?"

Rubber heels squeaked as the man walked down the short hall to the bedroom. He passed the doorway where Durell waited, and Durell glimpsed him briefly: a man of medium size, curly damp brown hair, heavy brows, a thin bald spot, a rain-soaked topcoat. Durell stepped out into the hall.

"Frank," he said. "Frank Greenwald."

The man turned, mouth open, eyes suddenly opaque with surprise and shock. He made a small swallowing sound in his throat. Then he lowered his head and charged, arms flailing.

His head struck Durell in the stomach and knocked the wind out of him and threw him back into the living room. A small rug skidded out from under his feet and he went down. The man made a small screaming sound and tried to kick Durell's head and Durell jerked aside and caught at the ankle and yanked hard. The man tumbled down on top of him. Durell caught his wrist, slammed a fist into the man's throat, heard a strangled wheeze of struggling breath, rolled out from under the other's weight. His reaction was quick and savage. He hauled the man upright, slapped his face hard, slapped him again, flung him back to the trim gray couch. The man bounced, started to come up in a crouch, big fists balled, knuckles shining white.

"Don't," Durell said.

The man paused. His eyes were wary and frightened.

"You son of a bitch," the man said.

"Who do you think I am, Frank?"

"Where is she? What have you people done with Stella?"

"She isn't here, Frank."

"Where did you take her? To her father? You done the same to her as you did to him? Tell me! Tell me or I'll kill you."

Durell said, "Sit down, Frank." He told him his name. "Your kid brother. Art, pulled me up here from Washington to try to help out"

Muddy brown eyes stared up from under twisted brows. The man's mouth opened and shut He breathed hard. "Durell?"

"Right."

"The guy Art works for. calls the Cajun? Art won't talk about his work. You're his boss?"

"Right."

"Give me a cigarette."

Durell tossed him a pack. He stood watching the heavy man breathe hard. Perspiration ran down Frank Greenwald's face. There was a faint resemblance; Frank was older, fatter, less alert than Art. He could not reconcile Frank Greenwald with the image of the cool goddess who lived here. They didn't go together. It was all wrong. Frank looked like the disheveled, small-time businessman that he was. There was no glamour, not much money, not much of anything in Frank Greenwald. He was just an ordinary guy, too excitable, too scared, too confused by being pulled out of his safe rut of business and bachelorhood and dropped into a whirlpool of intrigue and hatred and danger. His mouth was shaking. The hand that held the cigarette trembled and Durell touched his fingers and lit a match for him.

"Thanks. Guess I blew up good, huh?"

"No bones broken," Durell said.

"None of mine, you mean. You could've killed me."

"Perhaps if it had been someone else, he might have," Durell said. "Who did you think I was?"

"One of
them."

"Who?"

"Look, don't think I don't appreciate Art's getting you up here. But I didn't ask Art for help. The kid brother thinks he's big now, working for you, getting on the inside of all that Washington political stuff. He forgets how it used to be with us, when we were kids. He's still just a kid. He doesn't know what he's doing. Never any real sense. I'm all right I don't need any help. I'll work this out all right"

"You're talking to the wind," Durell said. "Stop shaking."

"Huh?"

"You're as close to hysteria as a man can be without climbing the walls. Calm down. Sit still a minute. You don't have to talk."

Durell turned his back on him and went to the window overlooking the crosstown street. It was dark now. The rain made the night blacker, and the street lamp cast slick rays of iridescence on the wet asphalt. Two cabs went by. A woman in a plaid slicker walked a black French poodle that also wore a plaid slicker. There was a shadow leaning in the doorway of the house diagonally across the street. It didn't seem to have moved a bit since Durell first entered the apartment.

There was a sudden move behind him, a quick wrenching at the front door. Durell caught Frank Greenwald before he got out. He hauled the man around and flung him back again, not saying anything; he kicked the door shut and pushed Frank into the living room, shoved him into his chair again.

"I'm not going to waste words with you," Durell said. "A lot of people are worried about what happens to you, God knows why. You aren't grateful and you want to kick in the ears of those who want to help. Like Art. He's sick with worry over you. You haven't helped the Senate subcommittee, you haven't helped the FBI, and you're not helping yourself. But you're going to tell me what this is all about and we'll begin with Stella Marni and what you know about her and what she told you about her plans."

Frank Greenwald looked up with angry eyes that didn't match the anger in Durell's. He wiped the flat of his hand over his mouth and shrugged his coat straight. For a moment Durell thought he was going to come up in another bullheaded charge. Then Frank began to shake, quietly, clasping his hands together and leaning forward as if he had a cramp in his belly.

"What are you afraid of?" Durell asked quietly.

"I'm afraid for Stella *

"Is she in any danger?"

"Of course!"

"From whom?"

"I don't know! If I did, I'd know what to do about it. I want to help her. I want her to stay here. I know what she told the Senate subcommittee, but it isn't true! She doesn't want to go back to Budapest. She hated it there. Her father hated it, and she wants to stay here."

"That isn't what she told Senator Hubert"

"Yes, but what else could she do?"

"Has she herself been threatened or coerced?"

Greenwald said flatly, "She can't find her father. They've taken him somewhere and they're holding him as a hostage to ensure the way she'll testify."

"Is that what Stella Marni told you?"

Greenwald said bitterly, "She hasn't told me anything. Stella will hardly talk to me now. She's changed. We were in love. I'm still in love. I'd die for her. I know I sound like a schoolboy, but that's the way I feel. I've been lonely a long time, Mr. Durell, and then Stella came along. She worked for Mr. Krame — he's a photographer, you know, in the studio above my place of business. I used to see her now and then, when she'd step out of the elevator, or when she'd be waiting for it. It took me a long time to get up the courage to speak to her. But finally I did, and we liked each other — anyway, I thought she liked me — and I fell in love. At this late date." The man smiled wryly, and for a moment he looked more like Art. "I know what they say about the dangerous forties, Mr. Durell, how a man can lose his sense of perspective and act like a damned fool over a woman. But from the first time I saw Stella with her little model's hatbox, waiting there for the elevator just outside my office door, I knew this was the real thing for me."

"You're a bit older than Stella, aren't you?"

"She's twenty-six."

"And wise for her years," Durell said dryly.

His irony was missed. "Yes, she's a wonderful woman."

"And all you know is that she's willing to sacrifice herself and go back to Europe because her father is missing and she's being threatened with his welfare unless she agrees to do as she's told?"

"Yes."

"Who are the men threatening her?"

"I don't think even Stella knows." The man looked up at Durell's tall figure. Rain hissed and rattled against the casement windows. "You have no idea how well organized they are. That Mr. Blossom, from the FBI — when I told him about it, he just laughed. He said their organization wasn't possible, or he'd have known about it. He was damned sure of himself. He made some pretty nasty remarks about Stella. I guess he sort of antagonized me, because I didn't tell him anything more. He wasn't worried about Stella's safety, or Alberts. He called me an old fool. He said Stella was a tramp, a tart."

Durell looked around the calm, cool, immaculate apartment. "Hardly that," he murmured.

'"Stella and her father aren't the only ones." Greenwald spoke in short, blurting sentences. "Nobody knows how bad things are. With the people who came here for political asylum, like. They thought they'd be safe — and they were, until this 'come home' campaign got started. They use every trick in the bag, Mr. Durell. They coax and wheedle and hold up their system like a shining light. They try to get 'em back like a moth to a flame. And when they go, they disappear — like a moth with burned wings. I met a lot of them, through Albert. There's a club, a sort of association, they formed. The New American Society. I've been there. They're all scared, sick people now. But it used to be fun. They'd make fine citizens over here. You can't imagine. But one by one they go back, they disappear as if a curtain had been dropped behind them. As if something swallowed them, Mr. Durell. Stella will be swallowed up." And nothing can be done about it."

"Who contacts them? How do they get word to go back?"

Greenwald kneaded his knuckles. "There's a ring here in New York, and so far I've figured there's about six in it, working with the UN delegations — but not officially, you understand. And you'll never tie 'em together. They're too smart for that."