The great wide square of the Rossio was busy with traffic down there, far below the walls, with the Elevador da Santa Justa beyond it, a tall, slender elevator of grey-painted ironwork, built by France’s Eiffel, that was taking pedestrians up from the Baixa to the busy streets of the higher levels. Far to the west, the slender ribbon of the Salvador bridge seemed suspended in midair on nothing at all. I waited for ten minutes, and then the ration truck passed by and picked me up, and soon I was with Fenrek again, down in the cheerful little cafe opposite the police station.
He said, accusingly: “You look impossibly smug, Cain, You look like a cat that knows where there’s a big fat mouse.”
I told him gently: “Just thinking about likelihoods; it’s a habit of mine. I know the mouse is there, but I’m wondering where he might go. Do you know the Cafe Peseda?”
“Next to the house on Rua Vicente? Yes, I know it. Why?”
“Nice place?”
He shrugged. “Better than most of them. But you’re thinking of going there, I shouldn’t. You’re too conspicuous to be seen so near Loveless’ hideout.”
I said: “I wouldn’t dream of going there. What do they charge for a glass of wine?”
Again, those elegant shoulders raised themselves a trifle. “The same as anywhere else, I imagine. Not very much. Does it matter?”
I said politely: “Could you find out for me?”
“If you wish.” He looked at me thoughtfully, “I wish you’d tell me what’s on your mind. There’s always something up your sleeve, isn’t there?”
“At the moment, the price of a glass of wine in the Peseda.”
He sighed. He went to the telephone at the back of the cafe, and in a moment came back and said with yet another shrug: “Vint fstoes, about three cents American, does that make you happy?”
I said: “Uh-huh. I thought I might take Astrid out to a Fado later tonight.”
He glared: “Cain, you’re impossible! And suppose we have to mount a raid on the Rua Vicente at midnight?”
I said calmly: “You’ll know where to find me. We’ll be at the Alentejano. You know where that is?”
“I know.” He sounded fed up. “Twelve miles from where the action is going to be.”
“Ten minutes in the Jensen. I’m going there now to do a small job. If you need me, just call me, right?”
He was very suspicious; that’s another trouble with Interpol, they just can’t believe a man does something for nothing once in a while. Cause and effect, or effect and cause, it’s all they seem to think about.
But this was the waiting time, if only for a few hours. And when there’s nothing to do but wait, then a little relaxation is good for the soul. As I paid the waiter and got up to leave, Fenrek looked at me with an air of the utmost distrust. He said:
“The action is going to be in the Rua Vicente, isn’t it? Because, if you know something I don’t...”
I said: “Bear with me, friend, we all have our little foibles. Meanwhile, go back to your Goethe.”
“Goethe, for God’s sake?”
I gave him the quotation: ‘Cause and effect together make up one indivisible phenomenon.’ I said: “Don’t try and separate them, Fenrek, ‘X’ follows ‘Y’ as surely as night follows day.”
He was shaking his head sadly when I left.
The police had thoughtfully towed my car away from the beach and left it where I could get at it again; Fenrek’s idea. And he had someone following me as I drove out through Estoril and on up the road towards Sintra. I thought it was very nice of him to keep such a careful eye on me, a sign that our friendship was as good as it had ever been. He always said it was good to have a man around when you were heading for trouble. But he didn’t know the kind of trouble I was heading for.
Come to that, neither did I, really.
I first became conscious of it just after I passed through Estoril, a Volkswagen bug that attracted my attention because it braked hard coming out of a side street and let me pass, then did the same thing again a few moments later when I was on the inland road to avoid the traffic. It occurred to me that the driver had been going up and down the cross streets waiting for me to pass: in other words, looking for me on that particular stretch of road. Through Lisbon itself, where I’d been driving circumspectly, there’d been no sign of it. But here it was on the open highway burning up the tarmac far faster than a normal Volkswagen can.
I let him get closer and listened to the sound of his motor; that’s one of the advantages of driving an open car. It sounded like the Porsche 911S mill, the fat six-cylinder 1991 c.c. that can push a bug to a good hundred and thirty—if you can hold it on the road.
I wondered for a moment if perhaps it was not Fenrek’s doing; but I discounted the possibility. The driver knew where to start looking for me, and only Fenrek knew where I was headed. Fenrek’s man, all right. I wondered if it were Pereira.
I didn’t want him to break his neck, so I made it easy for him and kept the Jensen down to a mere ninety on the straight, slowing to seventy-five on the curves and hearing the squeal of his tires as he tried to keep up. Then I thought that I was being unfair, so I slowed down when we reached the sandy coastal road again, then pulled in to the side of the road, and signaled him on. He sat there for a moment, a hundred feet behind me, then crawled forward and drew level.
Him? To my astonishment, it was a woman, a strikingly attractive woman, young to middle-aged, with close-cut black hair and a plump and lively sort of face. She wore what looked like a dark cocktail dress with bare white shoulders and a single diamond pin at the breast. Her eyes were large and black and intelligent, and at the moment they were looking at me challengingly, ready to smile, but not quite doing it.
I leaned across as she rolled down the window and said: “My apologies, Senhora. If I’d known how beautiful you are I’d never have allowed you to risk your neck quite so blatantly. But if you lose me, the Colonel will only be sad. Not angry; he expects it.”
She said calmly, a low, melodious voice: “Don’t count on it, Senhor Cain. You have got the power in that beautiful machine of yours, but you haven’t got the maneuverability. On a road like this, I can beat you.”
I was astonished, and told her so. “In that thing? You’ll snap your half-shafts in two if you pull that round a tight bend at more than eighty.”
She laughed. “You too, your tires are too wide. Believe me, I can take you any time.”
There was nothing arrogant in the statement, just a plain matter of indisputable fact.
I said: “I’m tempted to show you.”
She was highly amused now. She said: “You don’t know me, Senhor Cain, do you?”
“To my sorrow, Senhora, no.”
She said: “Estrilla da Gloria, does that mean anything to you?”
