fumbling with the straps and buckles. The
negligee slipped from her body and she
stood before him completely nude, glossy,
deep-chested, clean-limbed, her
conformation impossible to fault. His
heart leaped. . . .
He ought to get a bet down on her before the
windows closed, Colby thought. There wasn’t much
doubt it needed the Flanagan touch to whip it into
final shape. After four o’clock he began to check the
time every few minutes. It was four-twenty . . . fourthirty-
five. ... At four-forty Dudley came in carrying
the two maps and a briefcase bulging with francs.
Colby checked the money. It was all right. As he was
closing the briefcase they heard the tapping of heels
in the hallway. Martine came in. She had changed
into a severe dark suit that looked like Balenciaga,
and in place of the mink was wearing a cloth coat
that was probably easier to drive in. It was obvious
from her expression that she had news.
“I just saw Roberto,” she said.
Dudley whirled. “What?’
“I’m sorry. But it was Roberto. I was going up the
Champs Élysées in a taxi, and he was on the curb
waiting to cross. He saw me, too, and we waved, but
I couldn’t stop.”
The Wrong Venus — 64
“She wasn’t—?” Dudley swallowed and tried again.
“You didn’t see—?”
“No. There was a woman with him, but it wasn’t
Miss Manning. Much younger. But if she’s not with
him, where is she?”
Colby frowned. Maybe she was dead. Could
somebody be forging the checks? “Are you sure it’s
her signature?” he asked Dudley, and then realized
it was a superfluous question. If Dudley was forging
it himself he must know it when he saw it.
“Oh, it’s hers. Nobody could fool a bank with that
many.”
“And they’re all cashed in the Aegean area?”
“Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. And always
in seaports. That’s why we thought she was still on
that yacht with Roberto.” His eyes had taken on a
haunted look. “God, she might walk in here any
minute.”
“We haven’t got time to dream up new disasters,”
Colby broke in. “We’re going to get plenty of
argument over the identification, so I’ll need Kendall
Flanagan’s passport and something with Manning’s
picture on it. How about book jackets?”
“There’s a couple that have it.”
“And she and Flanagan don’t look anything alike?”
“That doesn’t scratch the surface,” Martine said.
“Kendall’s fifteen years younger and a blonde.”
“Okay. Let’s clear this desk.”
They cleaned it off and unfolded the maps. Colby
set a scratchpad and pencil within reach, and sat
down. “No English,” he said to Dudley. “If he hears
things going on in a language he doesn’t
understand, he may spook.”
“Is your French as good as Martine’s?” Dudley
asked. “Maybe she ought to do the talking.”
“Hers is too good; she has no accent at all. He’ll
know I’m an American, which is just what I want.
We need leverage.”
The Wrong Venus — 65
Dudley looked questioning, but said nothing
further. Martine pulled over the armchair and sat
down at Colby’s right. All three were looking at their
watches. It was five to five . . . two minutes to
five. . . . Colby could feel the old tightness in his
chest the way it was over Korea just before the
jump, and didn’t like it. Everything depended on his
getting the upper hand, and he had to keep any
trace of nervousness out of his voice.
The telephone rang. They all started. He took out
a cigarette, and let it ring twice more before he
picked it up. “Allo.”
“Allo! Allo! Do you speak French?” It was a young
man’s voice, and sounded excited and angry.
“Yes.” Colby leaned back casually in the swivel
chair. It squeaked. He clicked the cigarette lighter
near the mouthpiece and fired up the cigarette. “I
speak French.”
“Well, at last. Who are you?”
“My name is Colby. I work for a friend of Sabine
Manning, in Chicago.”
“Aha! But if you’re from Cheek-ago, how do you
speak French so well?”
“I speak French with an accent. You know that.”
“Yes, truly, an accent. But not so bad. Not like
Cheek-ago.”
“I lived in France for many years,” Colby said. “I
was the agent for my—ah—company, in Marseille.”
“What company?”
“You ask too many questions,” he said, suddenly
brusque. “We’re wasting time, and you’ve already
made enough mistakes.” He saw Martine, at the end
of the desk, smile and hold up crossed fingers.
“What do you mean, mistakes?” This sounded like
bluster. Good.
“You snatched an American, and not one of your
mob speaks English. You didn’t half case the job, so
you got the wrong woman—”
“She’s not the wrong woman. Don’t try—”
The Wrong Venus — 66
“Suppose you let me finish,” he broke in curtly.
“And then on top of everything else, you sent the
note in your own handwriting. You might as well
have signed your name. But don’t worry about it,”
he added in the weary tone of one long accustomed
to coping with subordinates’ blunders. “I’ll get it
back to you.”
“We have Madame Manning—”
“Mademoiselle Manning is forty-three years old, a
brunette, and is in the Aegean islands. The woman
you have is a twenty-eight-year-old blonde named
Kendall Flanagan. Surely she’s told you this.”
“So she says. But everybody knows writers use
other names on their books.”
“You don’t think I’d be stupid enough to tell you
this unless I intended to furnish proof, do you?
We’re wasting time arguing about it. However, I’ll
explain the whole thing to you, just once, and then
I’ll tell you what I’ve been authorized to do.
“This young lady is a friend of Mademoiselle
Manning, and also a friend of the man I work for in
Chicago. For—uh—health reasons, she had to leave
Chicago for awhile, so Mademoiselle Manning, who
as I said was away in the Greek islands, offered her
the use of her house here in Paris. When she
disappeared four days ago, Monsieur Dudley, the
man you tried to talk to, was very worried, knowing
about her delicate health, so he cabled my boss in
Chicago.
“Normally, the man who’s in charge of our
operation in Marseille would have come up to look
into it, but he’d just had an accident in Istanbul, and
was in the hospital. So my boss sent for me to come
over. I’d have been here yesterday, but I was cooling
another beef in Las Vegas. But never mind that. . . .
While I was waiting for the plane in New York, I
called Monsieur Dudley, who read me your note. So
I called my boss. He was—uh—upset over the news,
but I managed to convince him it might be better to
let me handle it this way. Alone, you know what I
mean?
The Wrong Venus — 67
“The syndi—I mean, company—doesn’t want to get
mixed up in anything that might cause a lot of stink
and start rocking the boat—you know, unfavorable
publicity—so seeing it was just a mistake on your
part, we’ll buy a piece of your action, but not at
anything like the price you’re talking about. As soon
as I’m satisfied Mademoiselle Flanagan hasn’t been
mistreated in any way, I’ll turn over to you thirty
thousand francs—”
“Thirty thousand francs? You think we are
children?”
“My advice, friend, would be to take it.”
“This is—how do you call it—chicken food.”
“And it will be paid only after I see Mademoiselle
Flanagan myself.”
“See her? Are you crazy?”
“Wait a minute!” Colby said ominously. “She is all
right, isn’t she? If anything has happened to her—”
“Nothing has happened. She is quite well, and has
already cost us a fortune in food and wine. But see
her? You think you can come out here?”
“What’s the problem?” Colby asked. “We just set
up a Healy.”
“A what?”
“A Healy Pickup. . . . Listen, who’s in charge of
your operation? Maybe I’d better talk to him.”
“I am in charge.”
“Oh? And you’ve never used a Healy? But never
mind, I’ll explain it to you. You choose the time and
place—it’ll be night, of course, and the best place is
a country road.
“I’ll be alone and unarmed, walking along the left
side of the road, going in the direction you tell me.
When you come up behind me, you already know
there are no cars parked back in that direction, so
you go on past for another mile or so to be sure
there’s no muscle or any fuzz staked out ahead.
Then you come back. I can’t see you, naturally,
because your headlights are in my eyes. You stop. I
The Wrong Venus — 68
turn around, facing away from the car, with my
hands on top of my head. You cover, make the frisk,
and put the blindfold over my eyes. None of this jerk
routine of hitting me over the head, that’s for
television. I get in the car. Leave the blindfold on
after we get to your hideout. Mademoiselle Flanagan
can tell me if she’s all right.
“I give you the code word I’ve already arranged
with Monsieur Dudley. You telephone here, give him
the word, and he delivers the money. As soon as you
pick it up, you fade with a Cicero Drop.”
“A what?”
Colby sighed. “A Cicero Drop is simply a Healy
Pickup in reverse. You drive Mademoiselle Flanagan
and me, still blindfolded, to some place in the
country where it’ll take us an hour to walk to a
telephone, and release us. I’ve never seen any of
you, and I don’t know where I’ve been. No strain, no
flics. I’ll bring the proof you’ve got the wrong
woman, and I’ll also bring your letter so you can
burn it yourself. And one more thing. You’ll have to
tell me how you want the money delivered, before I
go out there, so I can tell Monsieur Dudley. You got
all that?”
“Yes. But we want more than thirty thousand
francs.”
“You won’t get any more. Talk it over with your
mob and call me back. And don’t take all night, I
haven’t got much time.”
“I will call you.” The line went dead.
Colby replaced the instrument. Dudley was
bursting with curiosity. “What’d he say, what’d you
say?”
“We may be selling him,” Colby replied. “But it’s a
long way down from a hundred thousand to six.”
For Dudley’s benefit, Martine repeated the gist of
Colby’s end of the conversation. “Everybody knows
that Cheek-ago is all gangsters,” she explained.
“And les gangsters américains are the world’s best.”
The Wrong Venus — 69
She smiled at Colby. “I loved the Healy Pickup.
You’ve probably added a new word to franglais.”
“Well, I always wanted to leave some monument.”
“Do you think they’ll go for it?”
“It’s hard to guess—” he began, when the
telephone rang. It hadn’t taken them long to make
up their minds. He picked it up, said, “Allo!” and
was greeted by a burst of machine-gun French from
a Parisian operator. New York was calling Madame
Manning. He groaned, motioned to Dudley, and put
his hand over the transmitter as he held it out.
“Cut it short,” he whispered. If the kidnapers got a
busy signal when they called back, the whole thing
might collapse.
“Hello! Hello!” Dudley snapped. “Who? . . . Oh,
Thornhill? . . . Just fine. . . .” The haunted look was
back in his eyes again. Martine leaned over. She
cupped her hands and whispered in Colby’s ear.
“Her literary agent—driving Merriman crazy about
the manuscript—calls here every other day—wants
to talk to Manning. . . .”
Dudley was in front of the desk. “No, no, I
wouldn’t dream of interrupting her. . . . Another
week at the most. . . . What? What’s that?” They saw
the haunted look begin to give way to one of sheer
horror. “Rome? When? . . . Just a minute, somebody
on the other line, I’ll get rid of him—” He cupped a
hand over the transmitter. “Thornhill! He’s flying to
Rome tonight, and he’s going to stop off here to see
Miss Manning!”
Well, it was interesting while it lasted, Colby
thought. But this was the end. And they could kiss
the six thousand dollars goodbye.
Dudley was shouting into the phone again. “Look,
Thornhill, I’d think it’d be as much in your interest
as it is in hers to let her finish! . . . What? . . . Of
course I realize. . . .”
Martine grabbed the scratchpad and scrawled the
word F L U across it. She held it up, gesturing.
The Wrong Venus — 70
“. . . she doesn’t work at night, but she does have
to rest sometime!” Dudley caught sight of the
scrawl. “And besides, she’s got the flu.”
Colby watched, fascinated. Martine had got up
and was creaking her way around the desk, a
middle-aged woman ravaged by grippe. Dudley
broke off and stared too as she approached. She
held a finger under her nose like someone trying to
arrest a sneeze. She sneezed, and said, “Oh,
Berribad, is thad Bister Thordhiud?” She gestured
for the phone.
“Wait—here she is now,” Dudley said in a faint
voice. He collapsed against one of the filing cases,
his face in his hands.
“. . . doh, doh, id’s dod the grippe. Berribad
exaggerades so; id’s just a head code, I thig. ... A
little fever, bud dod buch, aroud a hundred and four.
... I’b stid workig. The doctor fusses, bud. . . ,”
Watching her, Colby wanted to move back to keep
from catching it himself. It wasn’t only the nasal
voice and stuffed-up enunciation; she was I’ll in
every line. She sneezed again.
“Oh, Berribad, would you hadd be a kleedeggs?”
Colby flipped open her handbag and passed her a
handkerchief. She honked into it, and said,
“Thagyou. . . . Dear Berribad’s bed so dice, keepig
peopud frob botherig be. . . . The book is goig very
dicely, dod bore that addother week ... To Robe? . . .
Oh, I wish you could stob here.”
Colby was suddenly aware of an altercation
somewhere below in heated and rapid-fire French,
full of volleying alors and vous alors! It seemed to be
drawing nearer, and he thought one of the voices
was Madame Buffet’s.
“... it is a shabe,” Martine went on. “It would have
bed so dice to see you, but perhabs id’s best. . . .
Yes, I probise, right back id bed. . . . Goodbye.”
She hung up, winked at Colby, and said, “He’s a
regular old maid about his health.” Then she heard
the commotion in the hall, and turned.
The Wrong Venus — 71
The rolling barrage of French was coming this
way. Sandwiched between vehement protestations
by Madame Buffet, a man’s voice was raised in some
maudlin lament that sounded like, “Bougie! I want
my Bougie!” Colby stepped to the door, wondering
what new crisis was about to enliven the literary
scene.
The man was in the lead, plowing ahead with
Madame Buffet hauling back on his coat sleeve like
some terrier attached to a bear, a swarthy, toughlooking
spiv with the aura of North African alleys
about him in spite of the tight silk suit and pointed
shoes. He was almost certainly carrying a gun in a
holster under his left arm, and was weeping into a
large blue handkerchief.
There was no doubt he looked and sounded drunk,
but Colby felt the hair lift on his neck at the thought
of that briefcase with fifty thousand francs lying on
the table. He could have followed Dudley from the
bank. He came through the doorway, still towing
Madame Buffet, and searched the room with as
piteous a glance as was possible from a man who
looked as if he would cut your throat for two dollars,
or less if your shoes would fit.
The Wrong Venus — 72
7
The room was swept by language, most of it from
Madame Buffet.
This drunken species of camel—”
“Where’s Bougie? What have you done with her?”
the man sobbed, dabbing at his eyes again.
“—pushed his way in. I keep telling him there’s
nobody here named Bougie—” This much she had
addressed to the still benumbed Dudley before
remembering the futility of trying to tell him
anything in French, even under optimum conditions.
She swung around then and loosed the rest of the
burst at Colby.
“—and if he doesn’t get out we will summon the
flics—”
Dudley was still leaning against the filing cabinets.
Martine was in front of the desk. It was the man
himself Colby was watching. He still looked drunk,
and maybe he was, but crying into that big
handkerchief was one way to keep his face hidden,
and there’d been no doubt about the holster. With
Madame Buffet hauling back on his coat, it had
opened just enough to reveal part of the strap over
his shoulder. He was inside the doorway now, with
Madame Buffet to one side and slightly behind him.
The Wrong Venus — 73
“—and they can take him off in the lettuce-basket,
him and—”
The man reached back with his left hand then, and
lobbed her into the room ahead of him. “—his merde
of a Bougie!” she finished more or less in mid-air as
she slammed into Martine.
The right hand was stabbing into his left armpit
just as Colby hit him under the ear and fell on him.
They crashed to the floor on the other side of the
doorway. The gun came free and slid across the rug,
but the man had heaved up under him like a cat, and
rolled, and they were on top of it again—or rather,
Colby was on the gun and the man was on top of
Colby. He was an alley-fighter’s alley-fighter, fast,
powerful, and dirty.
The thumbs were groping for his eyes when Colby
managed to get both feet up into his stomach and
kick out. The man shot upward and back, and was
on his feet directly in front of the door to the inner
office when Martine emerged from it with the
remains of a chair. She swung from the ankles, like
a circus roustabout driving a stake. It was good,
heavy, Siamese teak, and made one of the most
gratifying sounds Colby had ever heard. The man
straightened slightly, and looked around with an
expression of gentle wonder on his face. He stepped
over Colby, as though headed for the door, took two
more steps, and walked into the wall. With a
peaceful little sigh, he slid down it, and lay still.
The whole thing had taken only seconds. Dudley
was still beside the filing cabinets, a stunned look on
his face. Madame Buffet had taken refuge at the end
of the desk. Colby scrambled over beside the man.
He was out cold, and needed no further attention at
the moment. Martine threw the remains of the chair
back into the other room and picked up the gun. It
was some kind of foreign automatic Colby wasn’t
familiar with.
“Watch it, watch it!” he called. “The safety may be
off.”
The Wrong Venus — 74
Martine examined it. “I’m not sure which way it
goes.” She pointed the muzzle at the ceiling and
pulled the trigger. The report crashed back and
forth, reverberating between the walls, and chunks
of plaster began to rain down on Madame Buffet.
Dudley buried his face in his hands again. Martine
pushed the safety catch. “That way,” she said, and
handed the gun to Colby.
One final piece of plaster fell into Madame Buffet’s
hair, and the room was at rest. “Excrément,” she
said.
“Call the cook,” Colby ordered, dropping the gun
in his pocket. For the moment they were,
miraculously, down to only one crisis again, but he
had to get the room cleared before that phone rang.
“Help him drag this guy out in the alley.”
“Not in there?” she asked, indicating the back
room.
“No. We just get rid of him.”
She started for the door, muttering. Who would
ever understand Americans? A perfectly good twohundred-
franc pigeon walked in off the street and
they threw him away.
“You can take storage and handling charges out of
his pocket,” Colby called after her. “Split with the
cook.”
She brightened and quickened her pace. He
caught the man’s shoulders, dragged him into the
hall, and checked his pulse. He was all right; it
would take more than a girl with a teak chair to kill
him. He hurried back. Martine was dumping plaster
off the two maps and putting the scratchpad back in
place.
Dudley collapsed in the chair at the end of the
desk. “And I could have been a pimp,” he said, “or a
geek in a carnival sideshow—”
“Was this type in the bank when you got the
money?” Colby asked. The time lag puzzled him;
why had he waited so long?
The Wrong Venus — 75
“Who?” The other was still glassy-eyed, and
seemed to be having trouble picking up the threads
again. “Oh—no, I didn’t see him.” He looked at
Martine.
She shook her head. “I’m sure he wasn’t there.”
There were grunts and mutterings in the hall as
Madame Buffet and the cook began dragging the
man toward the stairs.
“But what was this thing he kept saying—this
Bougie business?” Dudley asked. “I thought he was
looking for somebody.”
“Just part of his drunk act,” Colby said. “Bougie’s
not even a name. It’s French for sparkplug.”
“Or candle,” Martine said.
They looked at each other. At that moment the
telephone rang.
Colby picked it up. “Allo.”
“So you have been talking to the police! Maybe
you want to get back a dead woman—!”
It was what he’d been afraid of. “Hold it,” he
interrupted. “And don’t say cop to me. That was
long-distance from Chicago. They want some action.
And I’ve got another job—”
“What?”
“I’ve got to get some of our office staff up from
Marseille and catch a plane to Istanbul. That man
that was in the accident needs a transfusion.”
“I regret your troubles, but they have nothing to
do with us.”
“Who said they did? I’m just trying to tell you, they
want me to turn this over to Decaux. I can’t stooge
around here forever.”
“Decaux? Pascal Decaux? You know him?”
“I’ve met him,” Colby said indifferently. Martine
was watching with fascination. Decaux was a killer,
probably the deadliest hoodlum in France. “He does
the odd job for us, and he can handle this pay-off. He
may charge you a commission—”
The Wrong Venus — 76
“We have decided,” the other broke in, almost
eagerly. “Have you got a map there?”
“Of course. City, and a Michelin Grandes Routes.”
“The Michelin. Take National Route Ten to
Rambouillet—”
“Right,” Colby said. He was tracing it with the
pencil. Marline and Dudley watched.
“—at Rambouillet, change to Route Three-oh-six to
Maintenon. Turn north there, on the route to Dreux.
After four kilometers there is a road on the left, not
shown—”
Colby made a mark on the map, and began writing
the rest of it on the scratchpad.
“Take this road. Three kilometers ahead you will
cross a small wooden bridge. Get out there and start
walking in the same direction at exactly nine p.m.
Your driver can return the way you came, or go
ahead to one of the intersecting roads and turn left
to get back onto D Twenty-six west of Maintenon.”
“Check. Now, about delivering the money, so I can
tell Monsieur Dudley.”
“Use the same road. Tell him to keep driving
straight ahead until at one of the intersecting roads
he will see a wine bottle lying at the edge of the
gravel. If the bottle is on the right, turn right. On the
left, turn left. After the turn, he is to drive at thirty
kilometers an hour straight ahead, watching the left
side of the road. When he sees two wine bottles
lying at the edge of it, he will throw the money out,
and keep going on at the same speed. If he is
followed, or stops, or if there are any police in the
area, you and the girl will be killed.” The line went
dead.
Colby repeated the instructions to Dudley and
Martine. She smiled admiringly. “I think it was
Decaux that swung it,” she said. “That was a nice
touch.”
“I thought it might throw a little scare into ‘em,
even if it did mean stooping to the truth. I have met
him, I interviewed him once.” He went on. “There
The Wrong Venus — 77
was nothing said about more money, but they may
be saving that till I get out there. They’ll have two of
us then, and a bluff can work both ways. Except that
if only thirty thousand francs was drawn out of the
bank, it means sweating it out for another twentyfour
hours, till tomorrow night. So it gets easier and
easier to settle for the thirty thousand and run.”
“The old pressure routine,” Martine said. Then she
went on soberly, “But there’s still no guarantee they
won’t kill you both after they get it.”
“There never is. It just depends on how well we’ve
sold them we’re not going to the police. Is there a
safe here?”
“Yes,” Dudley replied. “In that back room.”
“Put the money in there. And make sure all the
outside doors are locked, so that joker can’t get
back in. Martine will take the gun in the car, both
trips. She’ll drop me, and then come back here.
When they call, you answer. The code word is
“bingo.’ Put thirty thousand francs in the briefcase,
all the small bills and the rest in hundreds. You and
Martine deliver it, and then come back here and
wait for us to call. If we do, your troubles are over. If
we don’t, ours are.”
* * *
The car was a Jaguar, an XKE roadster, and Martine
drove it in the French manner, with the hell-forleather
elan of the cavalry charge at Agincourt, and
the same fine contempt for consequences. Traffic
was heavy until they were out of the city, calling
mostly for great agility and a certain fluency in
verbal exchange with other drivers, but presently
the spaces between cars began to lengthen and
there was more scope for California roulette. At
least, Colby thought, it took his mind off tonight;
there didn't seem to be any great chance he'd live to
see it.
“It’s just the other side of Rambouillet,” he
reminded her. “Not in the Pyrenees.”
The Wrong Venus — 78
“I thought if we had time we’d have dinner
somewhere,” she said, knifing back into line in front
of an oncoming truck with inches to spare.
They stopped at an auberge in Rambouillet. While
they were sipping their apéritifs, she asked, “Why
bougie?”
“I don’t get it either. But he was after the money—
he must have been.”
“I suppose.” She frowned. “But—candle—Kendall.”
“Just a coincidence. You don’t translate names.
And how would she know a thug like that?”
Martine smiled. “I don’t know. But with Flanagan,
don’t bet on anything.”
In one of his pockets Colby had a folded dust
jacket from These Tormented by Sabine Manning,
and Kendall Flanagan’s passport. He took out the
latter and opened it. A knockout, he thought, even in
a passport photo. “What kind of girl is she?”
“Out of a Norse myth, by Rabelais,” Martine said.
“A silver blonde, six feet tall and around one
hundred and sixty pounds, and as unbuttoned as the
second day of a wake.”
“Six feet?”
“It’s right there. Look.”
Colby glanced at the data on the front page. She
was right. Height: 6-0. He whistled. Birthplace:
Wyoming. Aug. 18, 1937.
“But it’s all girl,” Martine went on, “and in the
right places. She has what novelists used to call an
appetite for living. Her theory is we’re all doubleparked,
and tomorrow may be called off on account
of rain. She’s the last person you’d ever expect to be
writing that syrupy drivel for TV commercials, but as
she says, she discovered she had a knack for it, it
pays better than trying to teach English to highschool
kids, and she had to give up modeling
because bearskin rugs made her break out with
hives.
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