Touch of Magic (19 page)

"You don't swim, Ellery? You have the build of a
swimmer."

She was all briskness, toweling her hair.

Was it simply a question, or was she wondering if
he was armed? Ellery nudged his open collar back
just enough for her to see the bulky bandage it
concealed.

"Souvenir of
Ballieu
," he said. "The night he
killed Sam and
Yussuf
."

He'd hoped it would make her cautious. He
wasn't prepared for the change that came over her
face. He saw fear in it—not fear for herself but fear for him.

Ellery swore silently. Just her overdue confrontation with their shared mortality, he told himself. He
looked away.
Serafin
had climbed out of the pool
and was coming toward them.

"Think I'll go have some more pancakes," he an
nounced to Channing. "Over there so you can see
I'm not snatched, huh? Let you two talk. How you
doin
', Ellery?"

Channing gritted her teeth. She started to speak
but spotted a waiter bearing a large salad and a pot
of coffee.

"Is that the Caesar salad?" she called. "I'll have it
over there."

"That's breakfast?" Ellery grimaced, shifting the foil-wrapped candy box and folded-up newspaper
he held under one arm.

"Why not?"

She shrugged into an oversize shirt that hid most
of her curves. Ellery wondered how she got freckles
on her arms without having them anywhere else.

"There's an egg in it, and fresh greens, which I
miss when I'm traveling," she said. "The garlic's hard on the breath, but I wasn't figuring on kissing you, Ellery."

She had a habit of talking while she moved. She
was already halfway to the table where the salad had been delivered.

"Enough to curdle my stomach," muttered El
lery.

She eyed him as he followed her.

"Are we supposed to be seen together?"

"Can't be avoided completely. People get to
gether at places like this.
Ballieu
can think I'm an
admirer."

He sat down at right angles to her, the folded-up newspaper on the table in front of him and pointed
carefully out. She had noticed the lavish candy box
with its red satin bow. He started to hand it to her
but was interrupted by a white-haired couple stop
ping beside them.

"You did the magic act, didn't you?" said the man.
"You were wonderful!"

Ellery let himself fade out a little, taking another look at the surroundings, alert for anything amiss. When he
tuned
back in, the couple was departing. They looked comfortable together, as though they
had been that way for a long time. Ellery had a brief
sense of a gap in his life that he didn't want to
identify.

Channing was looking slightly embarrassed, yet
pleased, at the recognition.

"What's the attraction?" asked Ellery. He had
poured himself a cup of coffee and held it between
his palms.

"That magic has for people?" Her eyes were
thoughtful as she looked out over the pool. "We
need our illusions, I guess. Gramps said we all need
to believe there are things we can't explain. It gives
us hope. It makes us feel less hemmed in by our ideas of what's possible and what isn't."

For a moment Ellery felt himself drawn into what
she was saying. He shook himself free.

"As long as the illusions stay onstage," he said.

It broke her mood and she looked at him in chal
lenge.

"We all do sleight of hand, Ellery. Inside our heads. We hide things that matter to us from the
people around us—even from ourselves sometimes.
I do it. You do it. Maybe even
Ballieu
does it, God
knows!"

He'd never thought about it that way, and he
didn't want to. He slid the candy box toward her.

"Oliver wants you to have this. Careful opening
it."

Her fingertips poised on the edges of it, as though
they could see through. As though she suddenly
recognized whatever was inside wouldn't match
the pretty wrapping.

This time her face didn't betray her as she
cracked the lid and saw the five-shot .38, somewhat smaller than his, that was wedged inside. She closed
the box and shoved it back at him.

"I've got a knife."

"It's easier to pull a trigger. More removed."

Even though they were whispering, he made his voice harsh. He could feel the anger mounting inside her as they sat there in the warm morning sun amid innocent surroundings facing the very oppo
site of innocence that the gun represented. He'd had the same reaction sometimes.

Something else pushed out of him. A rage to get
through to her. He leaned forward.

"It's a war," he said. "Don't you understand? Unless we want it to burn up the whole world some
day, our only hope is to stop the generals."

Her mouth barely moved.

"I don't want to kill anybody!"

"You think I do? If I wanted to run around rubbing out people and setting up coups, I'd work for the CIA. I like what this department stands for --
 
sanity, reason, cooling problems down instead of whipping them up -- but it doesn't work against people like
Ballieu
."

He pulled back, frustrated at how much he'd let spill out. His philosophy wasn't any of her damned
business. She was supposed to follow orders. The silence between them crackled. She made no move
to retrieve the box, and he knew he couldn't force
her to take the gun. She wasn't a regular agent.

A part of him admired the force of her conviction
even as it angered him. After a good sixty seconds or
more, she dipped into one of her shirt pockets and produced the wristwatch she'd borrowed from him the previous night.

"
Here.
I forgot to return this."

He recognized it was a gesture of peace.

"No problem." His words sounded stiff. Reluc
tantly he reached into a pocket of his trousers and
displayed an old gold railroad watch to prove it really was no problem.

Amusement started up around her mouth. She
was as mercurial as hell. The last kind of personality
that ought to be in work like this. And she didn't
care what he thought of her.

"Compulsive, aren't you, Ellery?"

The words were gently teasing, and he found himself responding to them. He felt sheepish.

"Belonged to my grandfather."

He let the watch turn on its chain, watching it instead of the woman beside him.

"Great old guy. A bricklayer. Only one in the
family who didn't think I was a total
screwup
."

He was sorry at once that he'd said it. Her tone
was light.

"Is that why you never let down, Ellery? Are you
still trying to prove yourself?"

But Ellery didn't answer. He'd gone alert. A girl
with long black hair was arranging herself in a chair
beside the pool. He didn't like the fierceness with
which her eyes had fixed on Channing. It triggered
something in his mind -- Max's comment about
Ballieu flirting with women. This one looked familiar ... the dance floor last night during Channing's
meeting with
Ballieu
. There was probably nothing
to it, but neither was there any point in taking
chances.

Removing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, he
positioned it carefully. The faint clicking of the
camera inside was camouflaged by the snap of his lighter. When he brought his attention back to the table, Channing Stuart was watching him closely.
He wondered what she'd seen -- or guessed.

She didn't ask anything, and he didn't answer.
Walker had just come through the door to the main
lodge and was scratching his head, a signal to come
to the listening post.

*
  
*
  
*

Ellery hadn't wanted to include her in this meeting. Channing had sensed it when he'd first tensed
at the table out there beside the pool. What had
changed his mind? Concern for her safety? Fair
ness?

He'd told her to go ahead so they didn't look like
Siamese twins -- and to take her salad. She'd
dropped
Serafin
off in their room and come directly
to the listening post. She set her empty bowl aside
just as Ellery entered.

"What's up?" he asked.

Walker was at the equipment, a sodden cigar
hanging from his mouth. He'd answered
Channing's
conversational overtures with grunts.

"We've hit pay dirt," he said. "
Ballieu's
back in his
room, but he made two calls from a lobby phone
right before I came hunting you."

"Smart," said Ellery, leaning a hand on the table
that held the equipment.

"Uh-huh." Walker's sour expression took on
tinges of satisfaction. "But
wait'll
you hear what we've got!"

He reached toward a tape recorder. Before he could flip it on, there was a flushing sound in the bathroom. Max came out. His response to Bill's
questioning look was a wan but rakish grin.

"Montezuma sneaked over the border last night.
It's keeping me close to the porcelain. I'm holding the fort up here, and Walker's doing the legwork."

Ellery looked more harried than amused.

"For
chrissake
. That happened to you in Rome."

"Happens to him anywhere," drawled Walker.
"Didn't you know? Get Max six states away from
where he was born and his plumbing goes out."

Channing decided there might be a likable side
to Walker. Max looked a little rumpled and not
quite his teasing self.

"Hey, I'll be all right. I've got some medicine for it."

He motioned irritably to the tape recorder.
Walker started it, and the voice of Henri
Ballieu
filled the room.

"What you need will be in my room tonight. Pick
it up while I'm away -- "

There was a clicking sound, a receiver being put
down. Max was holding up a hand for silence. The
next sounds, distorted eerily by their passage
through the bug in his watch, were those of coins
dropping into a slot and the musical notes of tele
phone buttons.

"We have to talk," said
Ballieu
.

The voice on the other end was indistinguishable.
Ballieu
spoke again.

"In the canyon. Eleven-forty tonight. There's a rock shaped like a cat about three hundred meters off the road."

Walker turned off the tape. The four who had
been listening were plummeted into silence.
Channing
felt a pleased quickening of her blood. She had
planted the bug. She had gotten them this informa
tion.

"Looks like he bought Channing's story," said
Walker.

To Channing's surprise he even gave her a wink.

Ellery was nodding.

"We're going to need more people."

"Can't get '
em
, Billy." Max aimed a breezy pat at Ellery's shoulder in passing. "All the spares are tied
up on something in Florida."

Walker rewound the tape.

"Also under budget items, the patch to Oliver
keeps fading in and out."

"Goddamn," said Ellery, swerving to look in the
back of a receiver-transmitter. "Got a match?"