'Well, w he said, realizing for the first time how thirsty he was and lifting his glass, 'to a pleasant flight.'
'And a safe one,' she said, her small smile automatic and something in her eyes he could not understand, a shadowy something that seemed in that instant almost more like fear than nervousness.
Then her glance focused on her glass and she took a sip while Jeff swallowed three times, fast, and was glad she had thought to suggest a double.
'That tastes good,' he said when she lowered her glass and took a cigarette from the pack he had put on the table. He gave her a light and looked idly about, refusing to speculate further on the sudden change in her mood.
He heard her ask where he would be staying and he said: 'The Tucan. Will your brother be meeting you?'
'No. He can't get in until the following day. I—I'll be at the Tucan too.'
He finished his drink and put the glass down, again
aware of the uncomfortable heaviness of his suit. The static-like sounds in the room—the buzz of conversation, the clatter of glasses and dishes—were less distinct now and his face felt hot. He took a deep breath and when he looked across the table the girl's face seemed to waver like a television image not quite in focus. Only her eyes seemed intent and watchful and from out of the distance he heard her speak.
'Is it stuffy in here, or is it just me?'
'Stuffy,' he said, wondering why since the room was air conditioned. 'Very stuffy.'
'Then let's get out in the fresh air;'
She pushed back her chair. He reached for the flight bags and nearly fell over, and then he lurched to his feet, staggering a little before he caught his balance and thinking:
This is ridiculous. Why should a double Scotch hit me like this? 'I'm sorry,' he said, his voice sounding curiously remote in his ears. 'Ill be O. K. in a minute.'
Somehow he got through the glass doors and now the floor was tilting and he felt her hand on his arm as she tried to steady him.
She said: 'Let's go outside/' and he felt himself walking. When he stopped he knew somehow that they were standing on the loading platform in the gathering dusk.
He could hear cars pull into the curbing and doors slam and baggage slide gratingly across the concrete, In the background the voices he heard no longer had any meaning. The urge to sit down and rest a minute was overwhelming now and he was vaguely conscious of firm hands supporting his arms. Men's voices throbbed close by and then he was stumbling along into space. Finally, as his eyes closed, he heard someone telling him to take it easy, to sit back and relax. The last thing he remembered was the distant slam of a car door.
IT WAS early when Jeff Lane woke the next morning. He could tell this from the amount of light that came in through the two windows, but it was a subconscious knowledge and it took a while for his mind to function properly. He understood first that he was in bed, apparently in a hotel room. A light blanket covered him and as he became aware of his body he knew that he was clad in shorts and undershirt.
The throbbing of his head and the thick disgusting taste in his mouth suggested a monumental hangover, but he could not remember how he got it. He knew he should be in Caracas, but he could recaE nothing of the flight or his arrival at the hotel. Still groping mentally he raised his head and found his suit draped on a chair in front of the desk, the blue flight bag resting on the floor near by. His trench coat had been tossed on a second chair, but there was no sign of the two bags he had checked in Boston, and suddenly some silent alarm rang in his brain and lie jumped out of bed and staggered over to the window.
The brightening of the sky told him the sun was coming up. Serried silhouettes of luxury hotels on the horizon stretched as far as he could see, and palm trees fringed the opposite shore of a bay crisscrossed with causeways and dotted with artificial islands. Only then did he know that the street below the window was Bayshore Drive and that he was looking at Biscayne Bay and Miami Beach; only then did his mind open up and let the memories come flooding back to compound the sickness that had hereto-
fore been only physical The answer that came to him left him staggered and incredulous, and now, a glance at his wristwatch telling him it was six twenty, he strode back to the bed and snatched up the telephone.
'Desk clerk,' he said when the operator answered; then, seconds later; 'Hello. This is Mr. Lane in'-he glanced at the circular disk on the pedestal—'1604. Were you on duty when I checked in last night?'*
'Just a moment, please.'
Another pause. Another voice,
'Hello, Mr. Lane. I was on the desk last night.'
'What time did I come in?'
'About eight thirty. I can tell you exactly if you—'
]*No, nor Jeff said. 'That's all right. Did 1 register?'
'I beg your pardon.'
'Did I do the registering? Did I come in alone?'
'Oh, no. Two friends brought you, Mr, Lane. You—ah— what 1 mean is, you weren't able to register without help. You could hardly stand. Your friends said you'd been celebrating and-well, I took their word for it'
'One of them registered for me?'
'And paid for the room in advance.'
'They came up to the room with me?'
'Yes. Someone had to. When they came back they said not to disturb you, that you'd be all right in the morning. They seemed very solicitous.'
'Yeah,' Jeff said, bitterness tingeing his words. 'Ill bet.'
He hung up and sat on the edge of the bed, his dark gaze brooding and morose, the object of his resentment a girl named Karen Holmes. He recalled her smartness, her nice complexion, the dark-blue eyes that had seemed so friendly and ingenuous. Every step of the clever routine came back to haunt him: the postponement of the drink on the plane, the suggestion of a double drink to make it less likely that he would notice the drug she had slipped
into his glass after she had sent him to lie cigarette machine. Here in Miami she had needed help—he remembered the two men he had thought he had seen talking to a woman in a dark-red hat—but until then she had done a letter-perfect job quite alone.
Because he now understood the reason for the pick-up, he stood up and went over to his coat. The wallet was in its customary pocket. The money in the bill compartment seemed intact The birth certificate, the three copies of his tourist card, each with its passport-size photograph, were there. So was the cable that had started him on this trip.
It had been sent from Caracas by a man named Harry Baker, a private detective employed by the Lane Manufacturing Company for the past two months in an effort to find Jeff's stepbrother, who had dropped out of sight four years earlier. Now, unfolding the cable, which was a long one sent at the deferred rate, he read it again:
Jour stepbrother Arnold living here under his fathers name of Grayson listed in phone book. Have explained situation and requested return to Boston but Grayson holding up definite answer. Suggest you come earliest convenience to outline proposition in person. Feel my job done with this cable and am now off payroll. Have accepted temporary assignment here but will see you at Tucan where room engaged for you adjoining mine. Advise date of arrival. Baker.
The message had been sent on the previous Friday, but at the deferred rate it had not been delivered until Saturday morning. A quick conference of company officials voted to accept Baker's suggestion and elected Jeff to represent them, but it had taken all day Monday to arrange for his tourist cards. By that time the through flight from New York to Caracas was booked to capacity, and rather
than wait for the through light on Wednesday he had settled for the next best schedule.
Replacing the cable as his mind went on, he knew that Karen Holmes's mission was to delay him so that she could talk to his stepbrother first. He knew, too, that she must be working for the Tyler-Texas Corporation just as he knew that if Arnold Grayson decided to vote the shares he would presently claim as part of his stepfather's estate with the Tyler-Texas crowd, the Lane officials would presently lose control of the company.
But how could Karen Holmes know about the cable? How did she know what plane he was taking? Who were the men who helped her at the Miami airport? How could—
He broke off the thoughts abruptly, aware that such speculation was not only a waste of time but served also to aggravate his frustration and resentment. There were better things to do and now he went back to the bedside
