The Miracle (46 page)

She was beginning to worry.

She did not like her chances being reduced to one source, to Liz Finch, who might have trouble worming the necessary sum out of her American syndicate.

Gradually, the sunny prospects Gisele had envisioned, even like the sunny day outside, were darkening.

And then she whirled around. Had there been a rapping at the door? She thought so.

She called out, "Who is it?"

There was no reply. But then came three more sharp, distinct knocks on the door.

Instantly, she was revived. Casting aside any pretense of coolness and calm, Gisele ran to the door. She yanked it open. And there he was, the unsmiling granite visage, the flowing mustache, all dulled down in a heavy dark-gray suit and somber black tie.

Sergei Tikhanov.

Out of some innate kindness, and with victory in reach, Gisele greeted him warmly, "Mr. Samuel Talley, how good to see you."

"Yes, hello," he said, with a curt nod, and stepped past her into the living room of the apartment.

Shutting the door, she turned to face him. "Well?" she said.

"You win," he said simply. "I am Sergei Tikhanov."

"I was sure," she said, "from the moment I saw your picture without the mustache."

"Very shrewd of you. Miss Dupree. You are more clever than I guessed. You are to be commended. Of course, I had no choice but to see you this morning. It was foolhardy of me to come to Lourdes in the first place. But understandable. An act of desperation by a dying man. Yet, it was a mistake, and once made, I could not let word of it get out I knew I must prevent your making my identity public."

She stared at him. "So you are here to prevent exposure. I hope not

by attempting anything violent. I must warn you, I've armed myself with a gun."

Tikhanov appeared offended. "Miss Dupree, as my record makes clear, I am anything but a violent man. You have suggested a deal, and I am prepared to accept it. I am here to meet your terms. You suggested it would cost me $15,000."

Gisele felt heady, filled with a rush of greed. She had him at her mercy, and this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. "That was yesterday," she blurted. "This is today, and the terms have changed."

"Changed?"

"I now have another buyer," she said brazenly. "The other buyer might be prepared to bid higher."

For the first time Tikhanov showed anxiety. "You haven't told the other buyer what you are offering, have you?"

"Of course not. I haven't given anything away. But you'll now have to pay me $20,000. Of course, as I suggested, you could send the money next week—"

Tikhanov offered a lopsided smile. "No, I want to conclude the matter right now. Fortunately, I always travel with considerable sums in three currencies. For—for little emergencies—and payoffs." He smiled another mirthless smile. "I expected you to raise your price. Negotiating and bargaining have been my life. Adversaries with all the cards always raise the price. I have brought $20,000—actually a bit more—in American dollars."

"$20,000 will be enough," said Gisele, trying to contain the tremor in her voice.

"Here it is," he said, digging into his right-hand jacket [>ocket and extracting a thick wad of green bills held together by a rubber band. "All yours," he said, placing the wad of bills on the coffee table.

Gisele's eyes widened at the denominations. "You know, I never wanted to do you any harm," she said. "I have nothing against you. I just needed the money." As she started to bend over to take the money, his right arm darted out, barring her from the bills.

"Not so fast," he said. "My payment is here for you. Where is your payment for me?"

"Of course," she said breathlessly. "I'll get you the evidence, the picture -- all the pictures—"

"And the negatives," he added softly.

"Yes, the negatives, too. Just wait." She spun around and hurried into the next room. "I'll get them for you."

Tikhanov watched the open door to the next room for a few seconds, and then he began to move, actually ghde across the carpeted

floor, moving lightly, noiselessly, with practiced quietness to the doorway.

It was a bedroom, he saw, and she was at a chest of drawers, pulling open the top drawer, concentrating on its contents, her back to him. He lifted himself to his tiptoes, poised, as a rattlesnake arches its head high before striking. His Slavic eyes were slits now, fixed on her. She was busy removing a snapshot and negative from the upper drawer.

The instant she had it out, his hand slipped into his left jacket pocket and drew out a thin hard strand of rope.

He moved quickly, so quickly, crossing the room in several long strides, uncaring about the noise he made. She had heard him, and started to turn, when he was full upon her.

The last she clearly saw of Sergei Tikhanov was the wild eyes gleaming out of the murderous face. With the rapid skill of a Red Army commando, he had the rope around her neck and was twisting it. She emitted a hoarse outcry that became a moan, and her fists beat at him to free herself and get air. Her strength surprised him, and as the nails of one hand clawed at his cheek, he weakened his grip to protect himself. In that moment, she tore away from him, and with the rope still dangling from her neck she stumbled out of the bedroom into the living room, fumbling for something in the pocket of her skirt. But he bounded savagely after her, as she backed into a table, knocking the telephone and a vase of flowers to the carpet.

He had the rope in his big hands again, and was twisting it tighter and tighter around her throat, steadily garroting her. Her hand stopped fumbling in her pocket, the other hand dropped limply to her side. Her eyes had bulged almost out of their sockets, her mouth had fallen open, dribbling spittle. Brutally, he continued to strangle her harder and harder.

Suddenly, her eyes closed, her head fell to one side, and her body was that of a rag doll. She began to collapse, then folded silently and slumped to the carpet. He followed her down, hands still vises on the knotted hang rope, going down with her and holding the rope taut until she was still.

At last, he released the rope ends. Kneeling, he stared down at her. He reached for one wrist to check her pulse. There was no pulse.

Satisfied, he slowly unwound the rope, lifting her loose, lifeless head off the floor and unwinding his rope. When he had all of the rope, he unceremoniously let her head fall back on the carpet. Stuffing the coil of rope into his left pocket, he took the wad of American dollars off the cofiiee table and shpped it into his right pocket. He saw that a small

pistol—she'd actually had a pistol—had half fallen from her skirt pocket. He let it remain untouched.

Rising to his feet, Tikhanov swiftly returned to the bedroom. On the floor, at the foot of the bureau, he found the snapshot of himself without his mustache taken near the grotto, and the negative. He pocketed both. Yanking a pair of gloves out of his trouser pocket, he searched the open drawer above, confiscating the entire packet of snapshots and negatives, two large Tikhanov portrait photographs, and a newspaper clipping of himself. These he tore and tore again, jamming the scraps into a jacket pocket. Now, wiping all surfaces he might have contacted, he searched for any notepad or slip of paper that might give evidence of Talley or Tikhanov. There was nothing in the bedroom, nor in the kitchen, nor in the dining room, and finally he was in the living room once more.

He saw the telephone on the floor, and for the first time, beside it, a small red address book. Inside, under T, he saw noted in her hand the name, 'Talley, Samuel," and the name and address of his hotel. He confiscated the address book also.

A farewell glance at the corpse.

The deadest corpse he had ever seen.

He was without remorse. No matter how pretty, how young, she had been no more than a dirty little blackmailer. She had tried to murder him. He had liquidated her in self-defense.

He strode to the entrance door, opened it. The corridor, back and front was clear. He was alone, unseen. He stepped into the corridor, shut the door quietly behind him, and left the building.

At exactly the noon hour, as she had been instructed yesterday, Liz Finch dialed the telephone number that Gisele had given her. The phone on the other end was busy.

Mildly disconcerted, Liz dialed Gisele's number a minute later, and when she still got a busy signal, she dialed again and again at intervals of two minutes, and each time the line she was trying to reach was busy. Waiting for the line to clear, Liz kept wondering if she was going to get the big story from Gisele, wondering what it was about and if Gisele really knew what constituted a big story.

Liz's marathon phone calls continued for over twenty minutes. At last, concluding that something was wrong with Gisele's phone, Liz dialed the operator. After an interminable exchange in French, and cooling her heels in the hotel room while the operator investigated, Liz was able to learn only that either Gisele's phone was disconnected or

out of order and that the problem would be attended to as soon as possible.

Realizing that a solution to the problem might take forever, and that Gisele, unaware of what was wrong, might still be awaiting her call, Liz decided to circumvent this modern system of communication by seeing Gisele in person.

Studying her map of Lourdes as she descended to the hotel lobby, Liz realized that Gisele was located on the other side of the domain and that it would take too long to cover the distance on foot.

In the street, she hailed a taxi and gave Gisele's address. Sitting on the edge of the back seat of the cab, Liz again speculated about what kind of story Gisele might be holding for her and was prepared to sell to her. It must be something special, Liz finally decided. After all, as these local youngsters went, Gisele was surprisingly worldly and sophisticated and she obviously read the Paris newspapers. She would know what was worthy of front page coverage. She would know a real news story, and she had been definite yesterday about having got her hands on a big one. True, the story probably had a high price on it, and Bill Trask would have to buy it for API, but Liz knew that frequently the syndicate laid out sizable sums for exclusive news beats.

The possibility of obtaining a sensational story was growing in importance in Liz's mind, because she needed a story so badly. The only feature story she had in the works was one on Bernadette's weaknesses. In it, she implied that the entire vahdity of Lourdes was built on a shaky foundation, but there was something flaky about this feature because it lacked hard evidence. Liz planned to phone the story in tomorrow, but she had the sinking feeling that it would not impress API sufficiently to keep her at the Paris bureau instead of the luckier Marguerite Lamarche with her potentially explosive Viron scandal.

Liz needed a smasher from Gisele.

Arriving at Gisele's address, Liz paid off the taxi driver and hurried into the building. Gisele's apartment number proved to be on the groimd floor, midway up the corridor. Liz hastened toward the apartment, found it, could not locate a doorbell, and so she rapped on the door.

No answer.

Perhaps Gisele was in the bathroom. Liz knocked harder, persistently, until her knuckles hurt.

She expected Gisele's response, but there was none.

From long conditioning as a reporter, Liz automatically tried the doorknob to see if the door was locked. The door eased open. It had not been locked. How thoughtless of Gisele.

Liz decided that she had the right, under the circumstances, to enter the apartment. She pushed the door aside and stepped into the living room. The room was empty.

"Gisele!" Liz shouted. "I'm here! It's Liz Finch!"

In response, there was no voice. There was silence.

At the moment, the apartment appeared to be unoccupied. Obviously, when Liz's phone call had not come through, Gisele had left either for work or to seek Liz out.

The damn phone was out of order, that's what had caused the mix-up, thought Liz. She sought the phone on some surface, and her roving eye suddenly came upon it on the floor, almost at her feet, the receiver separated from the cradle, which explained the busy signal.

Kneeling to pick up the phone, Liz's eye lighted on something so unexpected that she gasped.

There was an outstretched hand and an arm visible at the edge of a bookcase divider that hid the sofa. Gaping, Liz came unsteadily to her feet and took another step inside the room for a fuller view.

Then she saw the supine body on the floor next to the coffee table and sofa.

It was Gisele, all right, and Liz approached her and kneeled to see if she had fainted and was merely unconscious. But even as she brought up Gisele's wrist, felt for the throb of her pulse, she could see that something more drastic had happened. Gisele's congested face had a puffy unnatural awful look.

Not unconscious, Liz realized, letting go of her wrist. Dead, plain dead. The red marks were evident on the neck. She'd been strangled, murdered.

Experienced as she was at all sorts of mayhem, Liz instinctively recoiled at the sight. She came weakly to her feet, trying to understand. At first thought, the mundane passed through Liz's mind. An intruder, a robbery, and Gisele had tried to prevent it and failed. But then another thought surfaced. Yesterday Gisele had made it clear that she was onto a story ... a big, big one . . . the biggest . . . with international overtones . . . "It'll have to wait overnight I'll know tomorrow if you can have it. "

Gisele had been "on the verge" of getting her story, just waiting for verification today.

Verification had to come from someone. Yes, someone had been here in this apartment. Yes, Gisele probably had come upon a tremendous story. But someone had learned of it and someone wouldn't let Gisele have it. Someone had done her in, viciously, monstrously.

Poor kid.

Good-bye Gisele. Good-bye big story. And, selfish realization, good-bye Liz Finch and her chance to retain her job.

Liz's immediate intent had been to flee from the corpse and the scene, but her squeamishness was subsiding and her reporter's curiosity was taking grip. If someone had been here, then someone might have left a clue. Probably not. But maybe. Nevertheless, worth a brief try. Liz felt inside her purse for her handkerchief, withdrew it and unfolded it. She wrapped it around her right hand. If she was going to make a search, she'd better not leave her own fingerprints and be implicated in the murder.