Maria pouted and left. Ashford sighed.
'She knows,' he said. 'Sophie told her. It's all very awkward. I know perfecdy well that it's all my fault, but those two girls shouldn't know. They could tell anybody.'
'We can hardly leave,' said Craig.
'We'd be killed, I suppose,' Ashford said. Craig looked at Ashford's hand. There was a glass in it, a tall one. 'But what happens when this Dan person shows up? We can't very well just stay here.'
'What about Grierson?'
'Oh yes. I was going to tell you, wasn't I? He'll go to Bordighera. I can telephone hirn there-but not till six at the earliest.'
'You'd better give me the number.'
'I'm sorry,' said Ashford. 'I can't do that.'
'Why not?'
'He told me not to,' Ashford said. 'I suppose you could beat it out of me.'
'Don't be a bloody fool,' said Craig.
'I was only punched in the mouth a few times,' said Ashford. 'They did rather more to you, I suppose?'
'Yes,' said Craig.
'You're brave of course. You don't get vertigo.'
'You're brave, and you do.'
'Don't make fun of me, please,' Ashford said.
'I'm not. You told us to leave you.'
'Because I've had enough. I want to go back to corsets. Isn't that kinky?'
'Why won't he let you give me the number?'
'Because-if worst comes to the worst-and it always does, doesn't it-you are going to be it, sweetie. The guilty party. That's what you get for being brave.'
'Grierson told you this?' Craig asked.
'He told me something else too. You aren't in charge of this party. He is. He's a professional. It would make him awfully sad, to shop you, I mean-but he'd do it.'
Craig shrugged. 'They didn't hire me for my brains,' he said. 'But they haven't caught us yet, either.'
'I'm rather afraid they will,' Ashford said. 'If I hadn't got vertigo, you'd be all done by now. You're better off without me. We'd better split up.'
Craig shook his head. 'No,' he said.
Ashford wanted to argue and Craig cut in again.
'I can't get far with my hand like this,' he said.
Ashford sighed. 'You could go to the moon with two broken legs,' he said. 'You're an awfully considerate person, John.'
Craig remembered the things that had been done to him. The broken finger, the burning, the beating, the drowning. He remembered the fight on the wall, the smell of St. Briac when he hit the wire, his body pulsing as the charge went through him. He felt no emotion at what he had done; St. Briac had been a dangerous madman who threatened many more fives than Craig's. Now he was a threat to no one. He had got into all this to protect himself, and to avenge those St. Briac had killed: all along he had believed that this was true. Yet in fact he had been no more than a weapon, a gun pointed, the trigger squeezed once, and then thrown away when its usefulness was over. It would be no good trying to betray Loomis either. By the time diplomatic notes had stopped flowing, it would be hard to prove that Loomis had even existed.
The doorbell chimed on as far as 'Von y danse,' and Maria hurried to open it to an engulfing roar of party noises.
'The gun-happy Mr. Turner,' said Ashford. 'I do hope he isn't in the mood tonight.' Then: 'Bordighera 06053,' he added. 'We can't all be professionals, can we?'
'Thanks,' said Craig. 'I won't forget this.'
Turner came roaring in, and Ashford was swept to the wall. In one vast hand Turner carried two bottles of cognac by their necks; in the other sat a tiny Indochinese girl, her hands clutching his arm. She wore white silk trousers and a long, flowing robe of fine green silk, and seemed to bother him about as much as the two brandy bottles. Maria and Sophie stood one at each side of him, yelling explanations, as the rest of the party spilled into the room, routing out records and bottles and glasses. From time to time Turner nodded. Craig doubted if he'd heard a word the two girls shrieked into his ear. He had the monumental calm of a man who has been drunk for days.
'Great,' he said. 'Glad to see you. Here. Hold this.' The Indochinese girl was swung neatly through the air on to Craig's good arm, where she perched like a monkey.
'Pleased to meet you,' said Craig.
'Enchante,' she said.
'Hey,' said Turner. 'Hey. I remember. I like you. Have a drink.'
He opened one of the brandy bottles and poured five drinks, for himself, Craig, Sophie, Maria, and the tiny Indochinese. When he had finished, the bottle was empty. He let it swing moodily in his hands and said, 'Watch this,' and slung the bottle with enormous force over his shoulder. It was heading straight for a french window when the tall, lean Negro reached out an arm and it smacked into his hand.
'You still there, Larry?' Turner yelled.
'I'm here,' the Negro said. He sounded angry about something.
'That Larry,' Turner said. 'Best third baseman you ever saw, and he wants to be a poet. He's from Tennessee.'
Craig sipped his brandy. The Indochinese girl tugged delicately at his ear.
'She getting heavy for you?' Turner asked. She was very heavy, but Craig shook his head. Turner looked pleased. 'Tennessee,' he said. 'That's where Larry's from. Makes him bitter. He wants to be friends with me, but he can't lick me. If he could, we'd be real buddy-buddy-him being black and all. But he can't. And I'm not doing him any favors. He doesn't want favors.'
'Naturally not,' said Craig, and Turner roared.
'I tell that story in Alabama and everybody turns green,' he said. 'It doesn't seem to me you come from Alabama. Put her down some place. You can't drink with a busted finger.' Craig let the Indochinese girl slip through his fingers and she landed, smooth as a cat, on a divan, curling up with a feline self-sufficiency, her glass of brandy unspilled.
'I like you,' said Turner again. 'What do you do?'
'Machine tools, die-stamp machines, nuts and bolts.'
'Great,' said Turner. 'I was in trucking. Now I fool around here. Better'n Florida,' said Turner. 'The people you meet.'
He shook his head in simple wonderment, and looked around at the people he'd brought back with him: a couple of starlets, a pop singer, another millionaire, some count or other, and their attendant lords and ladies, bird-bright, gaudy as butterflies.
'Nobody cares who you are or what you do,' he said. 'All you need is enough dough and a place to drink and they come running. Come here.'
He led Craig out into the garden, and Sophie and Maria went with them. It was cool now, and the scent of the night air was thin and sweet. They walked up a path of marble chips to a fountain of astonishing ugliness. Its bowl looked like a tin bath covered in stone, and above it a mermaid perched on a dolphin that looked like no sea mammal that ever was, a hammer-headed monster with a three-point tail. The mermaid, despite her tail, despite even her nakedness, looked like Mildred the Madcap of the Remove. Behind her was a great screen of stone, carved in the shape of an enormous oyster shell, its edges pocked and scarred.
'Target practice,' said Turner. 'I've been trying to hit that goddam mermaid for the last three weeks. Or that goddam dolphin even.'
His hand groped in an enormous pocket and came up with a revolver. Behind him gravel crunched, and a squat, anxious Filipino appeared.
'Hey, Luis,' said Turner. 'Where you been hiding yourself?'
'I knew you'd be out here sooner or later,' said Luis.
'This is Luis,' Turner said. 'He thinks he can cook.'
