day, Jenny said she was having problems with the lease on her apartment, so I let her use the spare room here. We shared this place until two years ago, when she was offered a very highly paid job in San Francisco. So she left. I had a couple of telephone calls and several letters, then she wrote to me saying she was worried. She said she thought it was necessary to go to the police . . .’
‘She tell you why?’ asked Bond.
‘You still have the letter?’ asked Chi-Chi.
‘Yes, I still have it. You want to see?’
‘Later, maybe. Just tell us what else happened.’
‘Nothing happened. Just this strange letter, then nothing, except the Chinese boy, the one I told you about, the one who still visits from time to time. He made a remark one night when he was here. I thought it odd.’ She stopped as though that was all there was to it.
‘How odd?’
‘Well, he was always nice. Kind and good. But he was pretty casual. I mean he usually wore jeans and a shirt, or a windcheater. Then, on this particular night, he arrived wearing an Armani suit. He had a gold Rolex and a heavy gold ID bracelet, two gold rings on his fingers. I was only joking. I said, “Business must be good,” and he just laughed. So I told him maybe I would have to go to the police and inform on him if business was that good. I was teasing him. He slapped me, beat me up, but before he left we made it up. He apologised, but he did say that I should be careful talking like that otherwise I’d end up like my old friend Jenny Mo.’
‘You follow up on that?’
‘I asked him what he meant, and he said he wasn’t being serious, only, as I hadn’t heard from Jenny in a long time, she must have disappeared. It worried me. Then I had the instructions about you. They simply said that a man called Peter Argentbright, who would identify himself as Peter Abelard, would call and then come with his wife, who would be called Heloise, but was really Jenny Mo. I thought . . . I thought, well, I thought it
‘So.’ Bond walked over to the telephone, then decided against it.
‘Am I in trouble?’ Myra asked.
‘You mean police? No, but I think some other friends of ours will probably want to see you, maybe keep you in a reasonable place – a house somewhere – and ask you a lot of questions. If you go along with them, you’ll be safe, but I believe if you stay here you’ll probably be dead inside a week.
‘You manage if I go out for a while?’ he asked Chi-Chi.
‘Telephone?’
‘Yes, I don’t fancy this one after the last call. I might have screwed things up as it is. Shouldn’t be long. Only open up to me – or Indexer of course.’
There was still plenty of traffic on the street even at this time in the morning, and Bond cursed for not having put on a warmer jacket for there was a rising cold wind.
He turned left out of the apartment building and walked a block down to the Parker Meridien. Across the street, Ed Rushia, in a chauffeur’s cap, nodded at the wheel of a stretch limo. Bond smiled to himself. Ed was certainly an operator. They had told him to hire a car and back up. He had obviously done just that and hired a stretch limo.
The night porter was on duty outside the 56th Street entrance to the imposing hotel, and as Bond approached him, he stepped forward.
‘I help you, buddy?’
‘I need to use one of the public telephones.’ He slipped a ten into the man’s hand.
‘Oh, okay, sir. Thank you. You want I should get you a cab?’
‘I’ll be just fine,’ and Bond disappeared into the brightly lit interior. A minute later he had swiped a credit card through one of the telephone booths and dialled the same local number as before.
‘Curve’s Deli, Joe speaking. How can I help you?’
‘Custodian! Patch me through to whoever’s the senior officer.’
There were a couple of clicks, then a voice he recognised as Grant’s answered. ‘Custodian? Where the hell’re you calling from?’
‘Public booth. Listen, we could have a serious problem. Our hostess seems to have been expecting the real Mo girl, but we’re not certain if it’s Eeny, Meeny, Miney or Mo, if you follow.’
‘I don’t, but go on.’
‘Our hostess seems to have been working for the people at the old French Legation, but swears she didn’t know what she was really up to. I would suggest you make arrangements to have her dried out once we’ve left. We’re off to sunny California tonight.’
‘Jetsetter!’ Grant was actually trying his hand at a joke. Pity it was so limp.
‘You’re in touch with Indexer?’ Bond did not even have a smirk in his voice.
‘Of course.’
‘Then use whatever means you can to put a photograph of the Mo woman on the wire and get it to him.’
‘Then what?’
‘He knows where I am, and you know, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Are we alone, or does Indexer have company?’
‘He says not, and he’s usually accurate.’
‘I’ll call back from the apartment and order pizza or something. You can send a lad down with them. Just get Indexer to intercept and bring the items up.’
‘Will do.’ Grant hung up and Bond left the hotel.
‘Okay, sir?’ The doorman would remember him, but that couldn’t be helped.
‘Sure. Fine. My phone’s out and my girl just stood me up.’
‘Women!’ said the doorman, as though this was the cause of all the world’s problems.
‘Everything normal?’ he asked when he got back into the apartment. Chi-Chi or Myra or both had made more coffee, and there was a plateful of sandwiches.
‘Fine.’ Chi-Chi smiled at him, as if to say together they could conquer the world. ‘Myra’s worried about getting arrested.’
‘Don’t lose a wink over it, Myra. I’ve been arrested a hundred times. Nothing to it.’ He picked up the apartment phone and called the contact number, spending several minutes ordering three jumbo pizzas with all the trimmings while the women sat open-mouthed.
‘Myra has enough here to feed an army.’ Chi-Chi held out the plate which looked as though someone had tried to make a model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa from bread, smoked salmon and cheese.
‘An army doesn’t live on smoked salmon alone. Armies like us need other things – camp followers, nurses, air support.’
Chi-Chi raised an eyebrow at this piece of whimsy and Bond thought to himself that she had incredible control over it.
‘Will they put me in jail?’ Myra asked, anxious and getting quite close to hysteria.
‘Not if you’re a good girl and eat your sandwiches. Try to relax, Myra. I want you with all your wits about you. Another friend’s coming up shortly.’ He took his fourth sandwich and munched on it happily. ‘We could always play Trivial Pursuit while we wait. Do you have Trivial Pursuit, Myra?’
She shook her head, but did not speak.
‘How about Mahjong?’
‘Yes, if we have to.’
‘We don’t have to do anything, Myra. Just stay calm and wait.’
The downstairs buzzer went about half-an-hour later.
‘Pizzas from Curve’s Deli.’ Rushia’s growl came out covered in static.
‘Come right up,’ Bond answered.
He had the chauffeur’s peaked cap pushed on to the back of his head. ‘There’s your eats.’ He gave the big smile to the women. ‘Do yourself proud here. Very nice.’
‘You got the other thing?’
