The man in the seat glanced up. “I say, you don’t
happen to have the time?” He gave an apologetic
little smile. “My watch appears to have stopped.”
Colby stared down at him wordlessly, held out his
watch so the man could see it, and lunged forward
to his seat. His topcoat was lying in it. He grabbed it
up, sat down, and fastened his belt. The plane was
already dropping toward the end of the runway.
He leaned toward Martine, and whispered, “I’d
better leave ‘em. Ditch ‘em under a seat—”
“Don’t be silly. I said I’d get you through Customs,
didn’t I?” She was smiling, her eyes bright with
excitement. “We’ll muffle them, to start with. Roll
the vest in your topcoat, and then in this.” He
noticed then that she had a fur coat across her lap.
Apparently the stewardess had just returned it to
her.
The plane touched down, bounced once, and
began to decelerate. There was nobody in the aisle
The Wrong Venus — 18
yet, and across from them the Sikh was looking out
the window. Colby pulled the vest out, rolled it in
the gabardine topcoat, and then in the fur, which he
noted was natural mink. He wondered why she was
doing it.
“Good,” she said. “Now, here’s the drill. Do you
have a bag aboard the plane?”
“Yes.”
“No contraband in it?” Mirth welled up in the eyes
again like bubbles in champagne. “No atom-bomb
assemblies, dirty pictures, hashish . . . ?”
“No,” he replied.
“All right. Give me the check. I’ll claim it, along
with mine, and you won’t have to get close to the
Customs counter at all. You just carry the coats for
us. Is there any chance they know you and may be
watching for you?”
“No,” he said. “This is the first time.”
“Good. . . . The only two places that’ll be a little
tricky will be going through passport control and
past the guard at the exit from Customs.” She
grinned, and held out a hand. “Good luck.”
“Thanks a million. . . . But why are you doing it?”
The excitement showed in her eyes again. “I
wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”
The plane came to rest. The engines died, and
with them the rushing sound of the ventilating
system. In the sudden silence, Colby held the
bundled coats up across his chest, inclined his head,
and listened. The ticking was well muffled, and
sounded faint and far away. Their eyes met, and he
was on the point of winking when one of the alarms
went off with a buzz that would have been audible
for ten feet. Sweat broke out on his face. Passengers
were already pouring out into the aisle and going
past them. There was no possibility of unwrapping
the bundle now and disposing of the watches
without being seen.
“Relax,” Martine said out of the corner of her
mouth. “We can always create a diversion.”
The Wrong Venus — 19
He stepped out into the aisle, feeling the sides of
the funnel close in around him again. Just in front of
them was the Frenchwoman, laden with a fur coat
and an armful of packages. As they passed the
washroom, she tapped on the door, and said,
“Dépêche-toi, mon chéri.”
The boy emerged, the one who’d been reading the
Tintin book. He was plucking at shreds of paper
towel that appeared to be stuck to his fingers.
“England is a crazy country,” he said in French.
“The water’s sticky, and smells like peppermint.”
“Quoi encore?” The Frenchwoman snatched at his
hand and sniffed. “Alors . . . les anglais!”
Colby sighed. He’d forgotten to drain the crème de
menthe from the basin, but it didn’t matter anyway.
He’d either make it through the gauntlet ahead or
he wouldn’t. They came down the ramp and started
toward the entrance to the terminal building. There
was still silence from inside the coats. The woman
handed the boy one of the things she’d been
carrying; Martine and Colby saw and recognized it
at the same instant. It was a transistor radio. They
looked at each other.
Colby turned to the boy with a beaming smile.
“Connais-tu les Beatles?” He did a couple of bodily
contortions he hoped approximated the writhings of
Beatle fans, and snapped out a lively, “Yeah . . .
yeah!”
“Attention! C’est le fou!” the Frenchwoman
warned, apparently on the point of clutching her son
to her and running for police protection, but the
seed had been planted. The boy had already
switched on the radio and was turning the dial. The
first station was a BBC program.
“... of course, this is merely one of the many
ecological factors to be considered in any study of
the distribution patterns of the bearded
titmouse. . . .”
Sensing that this might not take him by the throat,
Colby was on the point of springing forward to help
him find something else when the boy turned the
The Wrong Venus — 20
dial again and the radio erupted with guitar and
voice.
“Ah!” Colby sighed with ecstasy and turned to
Martine. “The Beatles!”
The boy looked at him with contempt. “Johnny
Hallyday.”
“J’aime Johnny Hallyday,” Colby said.
They were inside the terminal now, in the long line
stretching up to the passport counter, Martine first,
then Colby, the boy with his blaring radio, and his
mother. More passengers entered the line behind
them. They moved slowly ahead.
One of the watches chimed inside the coats—
ding . . . ding . . . ding—but the sound was lost and
all but inaudible under that from the radio. Colby
turned and smiled at the boy, and beat time to the
music with his hand.
Come on, Johnny, he prayed, keep laying it in
there, kid.
Only ten now between them and the desk. Eight.
The song cut off, and there was a short
announcement in French. Colby held his breath.
Music blared again. He sighed. Five more to go . . .
four . . . two. . . .
Martine was tendering her passport to the man in
the window. Colby had his out and ready. The music
stopped, and a voice was speaking French. Colby,
his nerves pulled tight, and only half listening to it,
was vaguely aware it was a report on food prices at
Les Halles.
Whack! Martine’s passport was stamped and
handed back to her. Colby passed his in. He was
squarely in front of the officer now.
“. . . entrecôte vingt-deux francs le kilo. . . .”
One of the watches began to chime—ding . . .
ding. . . .
“Zut!” the boy said, and clicked off the radio.
Ding! In the sudden and horrifying silence, it
sounded like Big Ben.
The Wrong Venus — 21
“No—wait!” Colby whirled, plucked the radio from
him, and snapped on the switch. The officer looked
up curiously from his routine glance at the passport
photograph. The radio came on, blaring. “This could
be it!” Colby snapped.
“. . . haricots verts un franc dix le kilo, aubergine
deux francs vingt le kilo . . .”
He listened, eyes narrowed, tense, modern man
living in the shadow of the Bomb. “Everything could
depend on this—!”
“On the price of eggplant?” the officer asked.
So they had to get one that spoke French. “I’m in
the produce business,” he said.
“Odd. . . . Your passport says you’re a writer.”
“That’s right. I cover the European produce
markets for the Wall Street Journal.”
“Oh.” The officer shrugged and reached for his
stamp. Always joking, these chaps. The watch
stopped chiming. Colby sighed.
“Rendez la moi!” The boy grabbed the radio,
turned it off, and kicked him in the shin. “Salaud!”
Whack! The officer stamped Colby’s passport and
was handing it back.
One of the alarms cut loose. Bzzzzzzzz!
“Darling!” Martine shrieked. “The Westrays! Over
there!” She clutched his arm and waved toward the
crowds beyond the barrier.
“Where?” Colby whirled, waved a frantic greeting,
and roared, “Bill! You old sidewinder, you old
polecat—!”
“Marge! . , . Yoo-hoo, Marge, darling—!”
He had the passport now, and they were hurrying
on, still shouting.
“Alors . . . les anglais!”
“Américains, madame,” the officer said.
* * *
The Wrong Venus — 22
In Customs, Colby stood well back on rubbery legs
while she claimed the bags, told the officer there
was nothing in them to declare, and that she'd
brought in no gifts. She called a porter and turned
them over to him.
“There remained only the guard at the door. She
grinned at Colby. “Let’s go.”
They started out. When they were ten feet short of
the doorway, too late to turn back without looking
suspicious, one of the watches began to chime and
another went off with a strident buzz, but she was
between him and the guard, shouting:
“I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU BOUGHT THE
STUPID HEARING AID IN THE FIRST PLACE IF
YOU’RE NOT GOING TO WEAR IT. DON’T BE SUCH
AN IDIOT! LOTS OF YOUNG MEN ARE DEAF! YOU
MIGHT AS WELL HAVE THROWN THE THREE
HUNDRED DOLLARS DOWN A WELL FOR ALL THE
GOOD IT DOES YOU!”
They were past.
His right eardrum might be permanently
paralyzed, but they’d made it. He went on out of
earshot of the guard and collapsed against a wall.
With trembling fingers he lighted a cigarette, and
when he looked around she was laughing. He began
to laugh too.
“I’ll never be able to thank you,” he said.
“Forget it. It was fun.”
“I’m taking a taxi into town. Could I give you a
lift?”
Thanks awfully, but somebody’s meeting me.”
“Well, how about dinner tonight?”
“I wish I could,” she replied. “But I have some
business to attend to—”
“Martine! Martine!”
They looked around. A man was hurrying toward
them through the crowd, a tall, rail-thin man
apparently in a state of great agitation. He was
The Wrong Venus — 23
bareheaded, but wore a light topcoat which flapped
out behind him.
“Oh-oh. Your problem was nothing.” Martine took
her coat from Colby. “Good luck.” She started
toward the man, but paused. “Where are you staying
in London?”
“The Green Park Hotel,” he replied.
She nodded, waved goodbye, and turned to greet
the other. Colby stood watching them, sorry to see
her go.
“Thank God you got here,” the man said. He took
her hand, shook it once, and dropped it as though it
were something he’d grabbed up by mistake on his
way out of a burning building. “I’ve got to get back
to Paris. She still hasn’t shown up—”
“All right, all right, Merriman, calm down,”
Martine soothed. He would be named Merriman,
Colby thought; he looked as if he had a backlog of
ulcers waiting for locations. They disappeared into
the crowd, the man still gesturing violently. “. . . fifty
pages to go. Writers! I’d rather be in hell with a
broken back. . . .”
Colby reclaimed his bag from the porter and found
a taxi. He delivered the watches to an oily-looking
importer in the back room of an office in Soho, and
explained the gummy condition of sixty of them.
“Whose stupid idea was that?” the importer
complained. “Now I’ll have to have them cleaned.”
Colby hit him. He extracted his pay from the man’s
wallet, thoughtfully regarded the empty vest,
dropped it in his face, and went out. He saw the
evening performance of A Funny Thing Happened
on the Way to the Forum, and had dinner afterward
at Cunningham’s, still thinking dazedly of Martine
Randall.
She was without doubt the most disturbing,
provocative, and beautiful girl he’d ever run into,
and anybody who could come up that naturally and
easily with an idea like pouring crème de menthe in
watch movements while being thrown around in a
The Wrong Venus — 24
storm twenty thousand feet over France was
endowed with no plodding, pedestrian mind. But
who was she? She had an American passport, but
her speech was English—at least part of the time—
while the name Martine was French. Well, he’d
never know; like an idiot he hadn’t even asked her
address. When he got back to the hotel at eleven
P.M. There were two telephone messages from her.
Would he call her at the Savoy Hotel? His heart
leaped. Would he!
Her extension was busy. He tried seven times in
the next forty-five minutes, and finally got through
to her just before midnight. She sounded glad to
hear him, but rushed.
“Are you by any chance looking for a job?” she
asked.
Nothing had been further from his thoughts.
“Sure,” he said eagerly. “What is it?”
“It’s a little unusual, and I can’t explain now,” she
replied. “I’m waiting for a call from Paris. But would
you come to my room here at nine in the morning?”
“I could come right now,” he offered. “You know
how it is when you’re out of work, the anxiety, the
insecurity—”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll survive the night, Mr. Colby.”
She hung up.
It was ten minutes till nine when he knocked on
her door at the Savoy next morning. She opened it
and smiled a greeting. She seemed to be wearing
practically nothing, and was eating a herring.
The Wrong Venus — 25
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