"Code Duello" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

Chapter Five

Dr. Dorn Horsten looked at the newcomers. “Matter of honor?” he repeated.

The committee bowed with fine formality.

He who had spoken first said, “The inspector is desolated, Signore. He realized, only after the departure of Signore Juarez that he had practically given the He to the Signore’s claim to gentle blood upon the planet of his origin, the status of, uh, Gentleman Gaucho.”

Helen caught on first “You mean,” she said, “that silly inspector wants to doodle my Zorro?”

The two stood stiffly, looking straight ahead.

Horsten muttered, “Zen!”

The second customs man said, “Perhaps the Code Duello differs somewhat on Vacamundo. Suffice to say that our custom has it that choice of weapons, place and time of meeting is to be set by the Signore challenged and to be arranged by the respective seconds of the Signori involved.”

The algae specialist said hurriedly. “Now, see here. Perhaps this can all be settled without further difficulty.”

The two eyed him coldly.

Helen said, “Why don’t you go home?”

The first said, “Perhaps the Signore Juarez should, at this point, name the seconds he wishes to represent him.”

Horsten thought about it quickly. “Look,” he said. “Wait here a minute.” He turned and strode back to the living room.

“What’s up?” Jerry said from where he slouched in a comfort chair.

Horsten looked at Zorro. “The inspector has been thinking it over. He’s decided he insulted you, by impugning your status as a Gentleman Gaucho, or whatever you are when you carry one of those hide-away whips.”

Zorro looked at him. “My tranca? They’re nothing. Everybody carries one. I made it up as I went along.”

“Great. Well, now you’re stuck with the story.”

Zorro grunted irritation. “Then just tell him I accept his apology.”

“He isn’t apologizing, exactly. He’s sent two of his men as seconds. Evidently, he figures that not to offer you a chance to clobber him is a reflection on the Firenze code of honor.”

Zorro was flabbergasted. “What do we do now?”

Jerry said, “Refuse him, and you lose face, or image, or whatever it is you lose when you back down before a challenge.”

Horsten said, “You’re supposed to be a rough and tough cattleman, here to do business. Your cover will be under suspicion if you try to wiggle out, particularly after that haughty Gentleman Gaucho show you put on.”

Zorro said disgustedly, “What do they want right now?”

“For you to name two seconds, to get together with them and arrange for the duel.”

“All right, so you’re my seconds. Go make a date to confer with them and we’ll figure out what to do later.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“What else can we do, damn it?”

Jerry got to his feet. “There ought to be some pun I could make on the fact that I’ve never been a second before, always first.”

“Very funny,” Zorro growled.

Horsten and Jerry Rhodes went back to the entry.

Helen was standing there, hands on hips, eyeing the two customs men dangerously. “I’m not going to let that silly inspector hurt my Uncle Zorro,” she was telling them.

Their faces were pained, but they did their best to maintain dignity.

Horsten said, “Helen, do be quiet This is adult business.”

“Hal” Helen snorted.

He said to the two, “Citizen Rhodes and I have been named seconds for Citizen Juarez. I suggest we meet tonight in the hotel bar. I assume there is a hotel bar?”

There was a hotel bar.

“At say, ten o’clock?”

Ten o’clock that night in the hotel bar was acceptable.

They bowed.

Dr. Horsten bowed.

Jerry Rhodes bowed.

Helen stuck out her tongue.

When the seconds of Chief Customs Inspector Grossi had gone, Horsten said, after a long thoughtful moment, “I hope this is what it looks to be on the surface,” he said.

“How’s that?” Jerry asked him.

“Is it simply the sort of nonsense that would prevail under any society that allowed an anachronism such as dueling? Or, is Zorro being deliberately eliminated by someone—perhaps the Engelists? Remember Bulchand?”

“Bulchand?” Helen said.

“The Section G agent formerly stationed here. He was challenged and killed.”

Jerry said, in unwonted seriousness, “You’re right. A customs inspector would be in a good position to eliminate an undesirable. He’s one of the first to see a newcomer to Firenze. And with an off-beat planet like this, how many newcomers are there that wouldn’t pull what amounted to some sort of local boner right off the bat? Enough of a boner so that he could be challenged.”

Horsten said, “You think it’s a put-up job?”

“It was your idea, and it could be.”

Helen said, “Let’s get back to Zorro. Mentioning Bulchand brings up the matter of our getting underway.”

They went back to the living room where Zorro was discovered mixing himself another drink.

“Everything settled?” he asked.

“We meet them in the bar at ten,” Jerry said. Then to Helen, “What do you mean, getting underway?”

Helen resumed her seat, crossed her plump legs and went businesslike. “Our only contact here, since Bulchand is dead, is the office of Section G in the U.P. Embassy, whoever’s holding it down. So, let’s get around to a visit.”

Horsten said, “You think it’s a put-up job?” report there and register as U.P. citizens from over-space, due to upset conditions prevailing on Firenze.”

“What upset conditions?” Helen said.

“The unsettled political situation occasioned by the underground,” Horsten said reasonably.

“That makes sense,” Zorro said. “If anybody’s got any tails following us, we’ve got a perfect alibi for going to the U.P. offices. I’ll phone down to the desk and find out where the embassy is.” He put his glass on the bar and went out to the entry hall where there was a phone screen.

Helen tossed back the rest of her drink, with a practiced stiff-wristed motion that made Dorn Horsten grimace. “I wish there was some way you could wear adult clothing when we were alone,” he complained. “Perhaps you’d look like a midget, but at least…”

“Knock it, you overgrown lummox. It’d look fine, wouldn’t it, if I had a lot of adult clothing tucked away in my luggage for the first snoop to find?”

“Well, at least look as though you’re sipping lemonade or something. You give me an ulcer tossing down that hard stuff as though you were practicing for your Interplanetary Alcoholics Anonymous lack-of-merit badge.”

Helen snorted contempt of his opinion.

Zorro came back, his face even darker than nature had tinted it.

“What’s the matter?” Jerry said, yawning. ” I say, let’s call off everything and go out on the town. Stretch our legs after that Half Moon kettle.”

“We might as well,” Zorro said. “If the U.P. Embassy was our one contact, then we’re contactless.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Helen said.

“The representatives of U.P. on the member planet Firenze have just been sent a-packing,” Zorro told her.

“Why?” Jerry and Horsten blurted in unison. “For being, and I quote, a hotbed of subversive activity.”

The other three stared at him.

Zorro said, “Whoever it was I was talking to, at the desk, was on the suspicious side that I should even ask about the U.P. Embassy.”

Horsten said, “How long’s this applied?”

“Evidently, it just happened today. If I got the right impression, the local police caught some of the personnel messing around in internal politics and the whole kit and kaboodle were kicked off the planet.”

Helen said, “I told you. These subversives have infiltrated everywhere. They’ve got to the point where they’re about to make their grand play. This planet is going to explode any time. It’ll be a madhouse.”

“And if it does,” Horsten muttered, “our assignment has failed. And Firenze will be one planet that can be written off for a few years at least, so far as a plus sign is concerned on the balance sheet of the human race’s potential.”

“It’s not necessarily that bad,” Jerry said. “Maybe a new government would be better than this present one. The First Signore and his administration seem to spend all their time worrying about the bad guys.”

Helen said, contemptuous of that opinion, “That’s not the way the Octagon sees it. This planet believes in a liberal progressive policy. It’s its tradition, its desire. These damned Engelists are trying to upset the applecart and take over.”

Horsten looked at her. “How do you know?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she demanded. “They’re trying to undermine a politico-economic system that’s trying to be progressive. The only thing that’s fouling up Firenze is this underground.”

Zorro Juarez had wandered off to a window and was. staring out glumly. “You’d think we were in one of those penitentiaries they have in the historical Tri-Di shows,” he growled.

Horsten looked over at him. “How do you mean?”

Zorro motioned. “Look at these iron bars at the windows. Strong enough for an elephant’s cage. They sure don’t want anybody getting in at this First Signore of theirs.”

The scientist came over. “Hmm,” he hmmed. He looked down. The Albergo Palazzo was some ten stories high. “Huh,” he grunted.

“Oh, oh,” Helen said.

Zorro looked at Helen, and then at Dorn Horsten. “What’s the matter?”

Horsten said, “See here, how long is that bullwhip of yours?”

“A little over twenty feet. Why?”

The algae specialist peered down some more. “Because somebody’s got to go over to the U.P. Embassy and get into the Section G files on Firenze and the Engelists. I never met Bulchand, but I’ve heard about him. He was a good man. He must have made some progress.”

Jerry Rhodes said, “I seem to be missing something. What goes on?”

Helen was far ahead of him. “Possibly the Engelists are keeping an eye on us. For all we know, they’re aware of the fact that we’re from Section G. If they’ve infiltrated the local United Planets Embassy, they might even have agents back on Earth, right in the Octagon.” She looked at Dorn Horsten. “Which brings up a matter we can dwell on later. How do we know this subversive underground applies only here on Firenze?”

Jerry said plaintively, “You’re getting more complicated by the minute. What are you two talking about?”

Helen said, “One of us, at least, has got to get over to that U.P. Embassy and get Bulchand’s files. But we’ve got to do it in such a way that we’re not suspected, by either the Engelists, on the off chance they’re watching us, or by Maggiore Verona and his Anti-Subversion department.”

Zorro said, “Why do we have to worry about the maggiore?”

Horsten said, “Isn’t it obvious? These people see an Engelist behind every tree. If-friend Verona suspects us of hanky-panky the least he’d do would be to expel us from Firenze.”

Helen said, “So what it sums up to is that somebody’s got to leave this hotel without being spotted, get to the U.P. Embassy without being spotted, search the Section G office, and get back here—without being spotted.”

“Makes sense,” Jerry wailed. “We don’t even know where the U.P. Embassy is. And so far as getting out of this hotel without being spotted is concerned, the only way out is the elevator and through the front lobby. This damn hotel was obviously designed so that the guests were as conspicuous as a walrus in a goldfish bowl.”

Horsten had turned back to the iron barred windows. Thoughtfully, he reached out, grasped two of the bars and flexed his arms. The bars bent, bow-shaped, until there was sufficient room between them for…

“Oh no,” Jerry complained. “I’m lucky, maybe, but not that lucky.”

Zorro said suspiciously, “Why’d you want to know how far my bullwhip’d reach?”

Helen chuckled and went over to her hatbox of toys. She began to stir around in it. “Where’s my brass knucks?” she muttered.

Dorn Horsten said to Jerry Rhodes, “You go down to the lobby-and get a map of this town from the concierge. They must have some facilities for tourists. You might prattle with him for awhile on a sightseeing tour of the city. At any rate, locate some sort of map of Firenze. The only requirement is that it shows where the U.P. building is located.”

Zorro said, “Hold on a minute. You and Helen seem to have some sort of telepathic rapport, but I’d like to know what’s developing.”

Helen had come to her feet and was deftly twisting one of her toys about. Part of it fell away, and she tossed that portion back into the hatbox, humming, “Two little girls in blue, tra la .” She fitted the remaining part to the knuckles of her right hand and tested the device by banging it into the palm of her left hand with an air of fine competence. She looked at the Vacamundo cattleman.

“Smarten up, lover. Dorn and Jerry are due to go down to the bar at ten o’clock to arrange for you being skewered by the inspector. They’ll distract any attention that might be focused on our party. Any tails, either Engelist or government, will stick to them. We’ll be left up here. Me to go to bed with my dolly, you to be sitting around in a tizzy, wondering about your duel.”

“I don’t think I tike this,” Zorro began.

“What in the name of the Holy Ultimate is that?” Zorro growled at his pint-sized companion.

“A slingshot,” Helen said. She stuck her pink tongue out the right side of her mouth, closed one eye and drew a bead. She let loose and something went ping and the light immediately below them went out.

“Suppose somebody comes to repair that?”

“By then, we’ll be gone. Come on, lover.”

Muttering, Zorro Juarez twisted the tip of his whip about the leg of a stone gargoyle, which overlooked the ledge upon which they stood, and gave it a double tug. Helen grabbed him by the belt, gave herself a swing, and landed up on his shoulder.

“Hey,” he said.

She ignored him.

He gave the leather thong another tug and then swung himself over the side and began the way down, hand over hand, his feet braced against the wall.

“How the devil did Horsten know I’d done any mountain climbing?” he growled, as though not expecting an answer.

Helen was hanging onto his neck. She said sweetly, “Oh, the doctor is less absentminded than he projects, and not nearly so nice. Neither am I, for that matter.”

He grunted at that.

“We both went over your dossier very thoroughly before we started on this assignment.” She giggled. ” We know why you had to leave Vacamundo. Aren’t you ashamed?”

Even as they descended, his body stiffened. “What!”

They had reached the next terrace level. The last couple of feet, Zorro Juarez had to drop.

“Sh,” Helen said. She looked at him from the side of her eyes. “That was a shot in the dark,” she murmured. “Kind of a gag. Why did you have to leave Vacamundo?”

Zorro snorted, even as he flicked his whip in such wise that the. tip, up above, disengaged itself from the gargoyle’s leg. “None of your business,” he growled. “Besides, I didn’t have to leave.”

“Ha,” Helen sneered.

He peered over the balustrade of the terrace. “From now on down, it’s straight wall,” he said.

“Only three floors. A cinch.”

“A cinch! And how in hell do we get back up, even if we ever get down without breaking our fool necks?”

She was looking down as well. “No problem. We lower ourselves to the next window. We hang on there until you can attach that fancy whip of yours to the bars. Then down to the next window. Only three floors.” She looked at him mockingly. “Not afraid, are you, big boy?”

He shot a dark look at her, and began to arrange the whip they were using as a rope, once again. “How I ever got myself talked into taking this job…” he muttered.

This time, she swung up onto his back and held her chubby arms and legs around neck and waist. “Let’s get going,” she said. “Dom and Jerry will stretch it out, but we should be back by the time they’ve finished arranging for your demise at the hands of the inspector. Everything will look very authentic if we’re there to welcome them at the door when they return, or at least if you are. Properly, eight-year-old Helen would be in bed.”

He stared down the next twenty feet of wall. “If somebody sees us at one of these windows,” he growled, “they’ll figure we’re vampires trying to get in.”

At the ground floor, they were in an alley behind the Albergo Palazzo. They stood for a moment, after Zorro had disengaged his whip, gathering themselves.

He looked up from whence they had come and shuddered.

Helen said cheerfully, “What an alibi. There’s not a judge in the Confederation who could be talked into believing that anybody’d gotten out of the hotel that way.”

A voice rumbled, “Who’s there! Stand quietly! I’ve been watching. You’re covered with a scrambler. Don’t move!”

Zorro muttered a curse of despair.

Helen squealed, “Save me! Save me! I’m being kidnapped!” and with her arms spread wide, scooted in the direction of the voice, in the shadows of the narrow way.

She was within a few feet of the unknown before she made out his figure.

“Look out!” the other yelped, even as she flung herself into his arms. He was uniformed, brawny, and right now, completely dismayed. He tried to extricate his gun hand from the crying, obviously terrified child.

“Let go!” he demanded desperately.

“I want my daddy!” she shrilled. “I’m being kidnapped!”

The officer tried to get his gun hand again.

A thong reached out and plucked the weapon, all but gently, from his hand. There was a sigh of leather again hissing through the air.

“Save me, save me!” Helen was squealing.

But now there was no answer, the other’s breath being cut off very effectively indeed by the thong around his neck. He could feel the black ebbing in, and his last thoughts were of absolute disbelief.

Helen and Zorro stood above him, moments later, staring down in consideration.

Zorro muttered, “I’d better finish him.”

Helen looked up, startled. “What!”

He glared at her. “Well, what else? You want to leave him here? He’ll walk in a few minutes. He’s only passed out from lack of oxygen.”

“You can’t kill him!”

He looked at her, half belligerently, half in surprise. “Why not? He’s expendable, isn’t he? If there was anything Sid Jakes and Lee Chang Chu drilled into us, it was how big the issues are. How many Section G operatives cash in each year?”

“You’ve got your values a little twisted, lover,” Helen told him. “This Section G operative, at least, doesn’t slit the throat of the first half-baked cop that gets in her way, just to keep the trail neat. Among other things, he’s on our side, he’s no Engelist. Besides, we’ve got other resources.”

She unsnapped a pin from her bib-like apron, twisted the end neatly and, with the point, scratched the back of the hand of the fallen man. He was already beginning to groan, his air coming back to him.

“Lucky I brought along this memory-wash hypo,” she muttered. “We’re really using it.”

Zorro stared down at the fallen guard. “And what happens when his relief, or his superior, or whoever, finds him with three hours of memory gone?”

Helen shrugged, replacing the disguised hypodermic needle. “Who knows?” she said. “Possibly we’ll come to that bridge.”

“Probably, you mean,” he said sourly. “Let’s get out of here.”

They had memorized the map which Jerry Rhodes had gotten at the hotel desk. It had been one of those as near foolproof as possible, charts of a city which are handed out to travelers of any age, in any nation, on any planet where the genus tourist may be anticipated. And the U.P. building had, happily, been located but a few blocks from the city’s most deluxe hotel, the Albergo Palazzo. All of which wasn’t too surprising, both edifices being located in the most swank area of the city.

There were at least fifteen men stationed outside the former headquarters of the United Planets. Some ten of them were in uniform, at least six carrying muffle rifles; the other four, evidently officers, were armed with hand-weapons in quick-draw holsters. The rest of the Florentines were plainclothesmen.

Zorro and Helen passed on the opposite side of the street, she holding his hand and skipping along. Zorro hissed, “How in the name of Holy Jumping Zen are we supposed to get past that army?”

“Three little girls in blue, tra la.”

“Shut up,” he growled.

When they were well past the building in question, they stopped in a shadow and looked back. “Out of the question,” he said.

“You know,” Helen said slowly. “The way they look, I get the feeling the building hasn’t been searched yet. They must have gone through all the gobbledygook of ordering the U.P. personnel off the planet, and such, late enough in the day that they’ve postponed until tomorrow getting into the archives.”

“Maybe, but so what? A mouse couldn’t get through that guard.”

“We’re not mice,” Helen muttered. “Haven’t you noticed? Both sides and the back are surrounded by park. Very formal, very natty, very swank. The United Planets have an impressive building as an Embassy.”

He was contemptuous. “You think there wouldn’t be an equivalent guard at the back door?”

“I don’t believe in doors,” Helen told him. “Come on, let’s check out that park. There’ll probably be lovers in there, and an occasional drunk sprawled on a bench. A man taking his daughter for a walk won’t look offbeat.”

Zorro said nothing. He grabbed up her hand and started for the parkgrounds, grumbling under his breath.

“Easy lover, easy,” Helen said in her childish treble. “Us eight-year-olds aren’t up to your pace.”

They circled the building without being intercepted. They spotted at least two or three plainclothesmen wandering the park paths, but none looked at the pair twice. There were also half a dozen armed men at the rear entry.

“Well,” Zorro said, complete with sarcasm. “Satisfied?”

“Sure,” she said. “Did you notice that open window on the second floor, back in that nice shady corner?”

“No.”

“Well, come on.”

They found the corner in question and stationed themselves beneath the shelter of a tree.

Zorro looked up and shook his head in negation. “I couldn’t get through there, even if we could get up.”

“Nobody asked you to,” Helen said tartly. “Can yon latch onto something up there, with that whip of yours?”

He looked down at her. “I can try. What do you have in mind?” He looked around, unbuttoned his jerkin and unwound his whip from about his waist.

“Going in, of course.”

He flicked the whip and the end reached up, sought, fell back again. She stood there, hands on hips, impatiently—for all the world, a precocious eight-year-old.

“Alone?” he said, unbelievingly. The thong reached up again, fell back.

She snorted; not bothering to answer.

He tried for a full five minutes. “No go,” he said finally, an element of relief in his voice. “There’s nothing to hook onto.”

“All right,” she said. “Can you toss me up?”

He stared at her. “What?”

She said impatiently, “You’ve seen me work out with Dorn in the gym. I said, can you toss me up?”

He turned his stare to the small window in question. “I could try, but suppose I missed and you fell?”

Then catch me, you zany!”

He reached down doubtfully, to take her by the waist.

“Not that way, stupid. Here.” She showed him how to grasp her.

A moment later, she was hanging onto the window ledge. Without looking back, she gracefully pulled herself up and disappeared within. Zorro stared for a moment, muttered something, then sank back further into ;the shadow of the tree.

He agonized there for a full fifteen minutes. By that time, he was nervously shooting glances up and down the park walk. It was becoming obvious to him that something had happened to her. What? What could he do? He swore impotently under his breath. And if a guard came along, what could he do? It was one thing, strolling along through the park with a child by the hand. It was another, sulking beneath this tree.

He heard a hiss and looked up.

“Catch me!” she called, and, without further ado, launched herself into space.

He got his arms up, just in time. She landed in them lightly; more lightly than even the cubic content of her tiny body seemed to call for.

“What happened?” he growled. “Where in the hell were you so long? I thought you were simply getting the layout, trying to figure out some way of getting in.”

“I was in,” she said, disengaging herself from him and straightening her short skirt, in a prissy, childlike gesture. “I had to locate the Section G offices.”

“How did you possibly do that, in a building that size?”

“Oh, I found a nightguard.”

He stared down at her, even as he grabbed one of her hands and began hustling her toward the nearest walk. Just as he was about to blurt another query, two figures loomed before them. One of the newcomers had his hand on his holstered handweapon.

“What were you doing back in those shadows!” one demanded.

Helen looked up demurely. “I had to do wee wee,” she said. She continued on, not looking back, hauling Zorro by the hand. He thanked whatever gods might be around that he had rewrapped the whip about his waist.

They could hear the Florentines continuing on their way. Zorro breathed deeply.

He said, finally, “What’d you mean, you found a guard? What’d he do to you? How’d you get away?”

“Oh, I didn’t get away. But he tried to,” she said with an air of deprecation. She cleared her throat slightly. “I had to, uh, coax him a little, but he told me where the Section G office was.”

Zorro Juarez rolled his eyes upward in agony. They’ll be on us like a ton of beef! Verona’s security cops will…”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You think that bully-boy, when he regains consciousness…”

“Consciousness,” he repeated weakly.

“… is going to repeat a story like that to his superior officer? That a child came up and tortured him into giving some answers?”

“I give up,” he said. “Don’t tell me any more. No wait. What did you find in Bulchand’s files, in the Section G office?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing!”

“Nothing at all. The files had been ransacked.”