Touch of Magic (23 page)

Oliver grunted.

"She practicing?"

"From what I've seen of her, I'd guess that's all she's doing. She could be doing it under my nose, for all I know."

He thought about how she'd pulled that button off his shirt and then reattached it.

"Then we take our chances," the older man said. "One slip in a thousand's pretty good odds." He looked at his watch, a hint that they ought to wrap
this meeting up. "If you get a fix on the film tonight,
I'll get a warrant," he conceded. "Be careful tailing
Ballieu
."

Ellery nodded stiffly. He'd gone into situations without a backup before. It was part of the game.
Things weren't always perfect.

He reached for the door and felt Oliver's hand on his shoulder.

"I've had some second thoughts about this plan myself," said Oliver. "Every time I send people on
an assignment I know could turn nasty, I have a few. Watch out for yourself, Bill. And watch out for her."

*
  
*
  
*

Khadija
fingered the cut on her face and then the sack of plastic explosive hidden beneath stacks of underwear. She was glad she hadn't disposed of the
plastique
when
Ballieu
told her to. She was glad she
hadn't obeyed him. Her head hurt from its pound
ing against the wall.
Ballieu
thought he had broken
her. He hadn't.

The arrogant old man had been entirely un
moved by her revelation. The news of their rela
tionship hadn't shaken him. It hadn't pushed him to anger; or to the denial she'd been eager to refute; or
to the surprised, then patronizing, acknowledg
ment of her which she could have scorned. It simply
hadn't mattered to him. He hadn't even asked
about her mother.

Pig.

Lighting a long, dark cigarette, she sucked its
strength in. Another breath and she irritably
ground out the burning end against a table. She let
the idea that had started to come dance through her
mind. She dressed it in details, then came back to
present resentments.

They could be on their way already. She could have opened the vault and they could have stolen a
car and gone across the Mexican border. But
Ballieu
waited.

He didn't believe in her competence, she thought
angrily. Or he couldn't acknowledge it. That was
how it happened when a man got old. He held jeal
ously to his power. It was why she didn't dare act
entirely on her own.
Ballieu
would discredit her.

But surely she would be applauded if she accom
plished more than smuggling out the piece of film. With jerky motions
Khadija
again lit the end of the
cigarette. She had been trained not to waste. It
seemed such a waste not to use the sack of explosive
in the drawer by her elbow.

In her own group she was a leader. There were
many, in other groups as well as her own, who said she was as good as
Ballieu
himself had been at her age. She was ready to move into the sort of job that
Ballieu
performed. But
Ballieu
wasn't giving her a
chance to prove herself.

Like needles of blowing sand, a sense of
powerlessness
stung at her. She must do as instructed tonight. Still, she would see her name was not dis
graced. While
Ballieu
played his waiting game she
would show some initiative.

After washing her face she combed her hair care
fully over the small cut that was coming to be a
reminder of her personal mission. She glossed her
lips and sprayed herself with cologne. Now she was
ready to go downstairs.

It should not take long to determine where, in
this place clogged with unobservant vacationers,
the most Americans could be found at any one time,
she thought. It should not take long to discover
where her sack of explosive could do the most damage.

Fifteen

Here're the ID reports on those photo
graphs you sent in," said Walker, tossing them at Ellery. "Came in while Max was in the can. Good
thing I was here."

"Jesus. Do I have to listen to this for the rest of my
life?" objected Max. He was hooked to the headset.

Ballieu
had just returned to his room, presumably
to dress for dinner, so Walker was unexpectedly free
to touch base with the rest of them. They'd have a full house when Channing arrived.

Ellery scanned the sheets in front of him. A student, a dance instructor, and a wealthy widow. Not
a scrap on any of them. A dead end. He looked up to
see Walker pouring a shot of cold coffee and Max
watching the back of the ID sheets with the face of
one who'd already seen their contents.

"Can't always count on hunches, Billy," he said
with a shrug. "We knew it was a long shot.
Ballieu's
always worked alone."

Dropping the papers back on the desk, Ellery nodded. His mind wouldn't let it go.

There had to be some purpose behind
Ballieu's
socializing. A man who pulled off the sort of things
Ballieu
had simply didn't enjoy himself. Not on the job, anyway.

It occurred to Ellery that maybe he was grasping
at straws, so determined to tip the odds in their
favor that he was deceiving himself. What did he
know about a man like
Ballieu
? Sure, he could name
the man's habits and ways of operating, but maybe
he'd fallen into the trap of otherwise thinking of people like
Ballieu
stereotypically -- no feelings
apart from fanaticism,
no vices
.

He heard the door opening. That would be Chan
ning. She came in twiddling a coin through half closed fingers. Max leaned closer, dropping his
voice.

"What do you think about our lady? She looked
pretty shaken up over what
Ballieu
pulled in the
restaurant."

"Yeah, well, you didn't look so good yourself,"
Ellery shot back.

Max grinned.

"Lunch in the service of my country set my re
covery back by a good couple hours. I was being
serious, Billy."

Ellery watched the woman they were talking
about. This was the second time today someone had
asked him to evaluate her. It struck him that maybe
that was how life was for women: always being eval
uated, either on looks if they were being judged as
bed or marriage fodder, or because of some un
voiced belief that they weren't quite equal to men if
they were being eyed for the workplace.

"She'll do," he answered.

He felt a little guilty understating it but figured
anything else would be wasted on Max. Max stirred
his elegant form.

"Hey, Channing. Special stock, just for you."

Reaching over, he opened a can of V-8. He
poured the contents over ice and held it toward her.
She looked surprised.

"Thanks," she said, joining them.

"She brought me a present," said Walker. Sourly
he displayed the expensive-looking cigar in his
hand. "The question is, will it blow up when I smoke
it?"

"Try it," urged Max.

"So what do we do now? Synchronize watches or
what?"

Channing sounded nettled -- or maybe hurt -- by Walker's suspicion, Ellery noted.

"Just checking for loose ends before we head into
the evening," said Max.

Ellery saw her flinch. She'd theorized that her slip with the film had been the fault of a loose thread, and this was reminding her of it.

"Any more trouble with that new trick you're
trying?" he asked.

Her eyes shot to his. She'd understood. She knew
he was asking about her practice, but she'd misin
terpreted his meaning.

"Not a bit."

Her shoulders were rigid.

Annoyed with her as well as with himself, Ellery
took her elbow. He turned her away from the oth
ers.

"Look, I wasn't riding you," he said.

She tried to withdraw. He didn't let her.

"You have a right to. You're the one who'll be on
the spot if I screw up," she said.

"We'll both be on the spot," he said, correcting her grimly.

He let her go. It bothered him that he liked
touching her.

She glanced back at the others, then plunged her
hands into her pockets.

"You're still going out by yourself tonight?"

Ellery nodded.

She looked at him a long moment, and he knew
she wanted to argue. Instead she shrugged.

"Then there's not much point in my sticking
around here, is there? Thanks for the juice, Max,"
she called, heading toward the door.

It slammed behind her, shaking the whole wall.
Walker looked up questioningly from his still
unlighted cigar. Ellery felt an urge to drag her back
and chew her out about making a scene, but he felt
a contradictory urge to kick himself.

"Lovers' quarrel?" asked Max with a grin.

*
  
*
  
*

"You're worried about Ellery, huh?" asked
Sera
fin
, making swishing moves with a wand Channing
had given him.

He didn't have any technique as yet, but he
showed a great flair for showmanship, Channing
thought. She applied a stroke of eyeliner and methodically blurred its edges. Their dressing room was cramped and felt stuffy tonight.

"Why should I worry about Ellery?"

She stole a look at
Serafin
, a little annoyed, as she was from time to time, that he somehow knew more
about what was going on than he should. About the
plans laid to keep track of
Ballieu's
movements to
night, for instance. His eyes blinked back at her as if they were an owl's. Or camera lenses. He shrugged,
apparently dismissing the subject.

Channing busied herself with the rest of her makeup. The fact was, she had been thinking of Ellery. It made her uneasy that he was going out alone tonight. It incensed her she still was deemed
unsuitable to help somewhere along the line. She
wondered if
Ballieu
had possibly seen through her act about
Yussuf
, and if he'd put something in her
glass at noon. She wondered if she'd ever drink iced
tea again.

"He likes you," said
Serafin
, still on the subject of Ellery.

"That's nice." She whisked away the towel at her
neck to reveal the long unused costume she'd
dragged out of mothballs for this engagement. The jacket was shimmering gold, banded with black on
the cuffs and lapels to match the high-necked
blouse she wore beneath. The flowing black pants looked vaguely Oriental.

"Aw, come on. You don't want to wind up an old
maid, do you?"
Serafin
pressed.

"That," said Channing, wiping her palms with a
towel and putting it carefully aside, "is an archaic
term."

"But -- "

"
Dammit
,
Serafin
! Let me alone, will you?"

The abruptness of her temper made her feel
guilty. Maybe there were things she didn't want to
face. Maybe she'd gotten careless and let herself do
what she'd never meant to do again -- start to care.
About a man who took unnecessary risks out of pure
stubbornness, who was going out with an injured
shoulder.

"Ellery's going to go his way when this is finished,
and I'll go mine," she said. She checked her pockets
as she'd watched
Yussuf
checking his the night she'd
slipped in on him. "I don't know why I keep talking
to you as if you're an adult."