[The Girl From UNCLE 01] - The Global Globules Affair - Latter Simon - Страница 5

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She beamed right back at him, the picture of a little girl delighted.

"Oh! That would be marvelous! I don't have much to pack. What time do you leave London?"

He glanced at his watch. "In about an hour. I will pick you up at your hotel."

"That's fine. Your chauffeur knows it."

"I use the chauffeur-driven car only in London. The parking and traffic problems irritate me. I have my own car. We will leave here when you are ready, and meet later."

She watched him settle the bill from a well-filled wallet—an unusual wallet which looked like silver leather. He noticed her interest.

"A present from Morocco," he said casually. "A trifle flashy, but I like it." He stowed the wallet away, rose briskly and stood aside for her to leave ahead of him. But by using a blockage of waiters to her advantage, April made her way by a different course among the tables and so was free to give Mark Slate a swift signal message.

Mark read the message as: "I'm walking into a trap. Contact H.Q. for link" as April Dancer came towards his table. He stuck out his foot as she passed, causing her to stumble. He leapt up. "So frightfully sorry! My fault. I really should watch my big feet."

April laughed. "That makes two of us." She passed on out of the restaurant.

Mark sat down, grinning at Suzanne with a humor he didn't feel. Despite her obvious femininity, he found her extremely boring as a woman. He always did when they threw it at him in large handfuls. He'd known for some time that April Dancer made other women seem pretty drab. He'd got along fairly well in his social life without this perfection spoiling the general crop, but Suzanne—who should be, and no doubt was considered to be—a moderately lush dish, was hard work. A great strain on his natural reactions because he hardly reacted to her at all.

From the moment of meeting she'd lushed it up—not ham-like, but so forcefully that it was hard to believe she didn't really find him irresistible. Perhaps she did? You never knew with dishes. They came hot or cold, or with transparent covers or asbestos lids. Suzanne was the "open dish" type, guaranteed to give you heartburn from an overdose of uncooked protein served in rich malarkey sauce.

Ginger Coke had introduced them in the bar, where Mark and Jeff Hale, now a Ministry wallah, were sinking a quiet noggin. He'd flown with Jeff in the old days. There'd been four of them—four hell-raisers. Stan and Jack Dill, the hell up twins, crashed in a big way and went out—zppt! Ginger had been a replacement pilot. A good enough lad, but not from the same stable as the twins.

When Ginger and Suzanne joined them, Ginger made it very clear that he didn't know the girl very well. "Only met once at some party, old boy—glided into each other at the entrance." This was strange talk from Ginger. In the old days, Ginger latched on to any passable female, whether he'd met her once or many times. Yet now he worked hard to explain that Suzanne was virtually unescorted, while Suzanne behaved as if she had come to the Tower especially to meet Mark Slate. Jeff watched them with an amused and tolerant gaze, occasionally flicking a questioning eyebrow at Mark. Ginger insisted on loading them up, saying he had a lunch appointment elsewhere, but why waste good drinking time with old chums?

They had reached the stage of, "I say, d'you remember that buzz-around in Malaysia... and whatever happened to old Blanco White?" Suzanne played footsie, eyesie and why-not-take-all-of-me with Mark, who didn't react helpfully until he received April's call. After that he had returned footsie, handsie, where-have-you-been-all-my-life with such gusto that Jeff had said coldly: "You know where to contact me when you're free. So long, Mark!" Ginger jumped in with a "Aw, hell! Is that the time? I'll ride down with you, Jeff. Cheerio, you two—see you around!"

Mark hinted that he'd been stood-up on his lunch date; Suzanne hinted that this had happened to her, too, but neither gave details. Mark had in fact been stood-up by April, whose company he would have preferred. It wasn't this that irritated him so much as the knowledge that all of a sudden she had zoomed him into work again when he'd laid on the perfect evening, following what he'd hoped would be a softening-up lunch.

To be off duty with April was a rare event. Too rare to pass-up. He cursed her womanly intuition, her keen observance, her all-consuming career ambitions—or whatever had launched her suddenly onto this new case. He'd wanted to show her off to Jeff, who would certainly appreciate a woman like April Dancer. Now, all he now had was this monstrously coy little sex-pot, and was forced to switch his mind from personal to impersonal reactions. On U.N.C.L.E. business the job came first and last—and in the middle.

The message from April at the table helped him to understand Suzanne's behavior, so what had been a personal bore now became an impersonal chore—all part of the job. But he couldn't resist giving April a blast on his micro-sender just to let her know how he felt. He hadn't been quick enough to switch out the circuit before she herself had slammed an oscillation right back at him, causing him to shoot his wine over Suzanne's frontal armory.

Even this seemed to please her.

"You will have to take me home to change my dress, you naughty man!" She giggled. "You will like that, no?"

Instead of replying: "Oh Gawd! No thanks, mate!" as he felt, he said: "Sure am glad I'm clumsy. Gosh, I thought you'd be furious."

"How could I be—wis you?"

He almost groaned aloud at the corn she was handing him, but at last he knew this had been her objective. Where was home?—and what else besides a new dress would be waiting for them? The exchange of signals with April put him back in the duty groove. The anticipation of action was compensation enough.

April Dancer had taken Mark's swodge of paper money, leaving him with some small change. She'd conveniently forgotten to lend him the two five-pound notes he had requested and as Jeff and Ginger had bought drinks, he'd forgotten his lack of cash. He searched his pockets, while Suzanne watched him.

"I think perhaps you have left all your money at your hotel," she said. She opened her purse, extracted notes from a shiny silvery wallet and passed them under the table.

"How very understanding of you! I'll stop off at my hotel and pick up some traveler's checks."

"No," she spoke sharply, then added quickly: "Oh no—you must not think of it." She angled her cleavage his way. "I cannot bear these damp clothes any longer. I must go straight home and change." She gave a little girl pout. "You promised."

"So did you," he said meaningfully.

"Ah!" She wagged a finger. "We shall see, eh?'

Mark settled the bill, grinning to himself as he thought of April's reluctance to be accommodating with money. The day she willingly and cheerfully picked up the tab had yet to dawn. He felt it would be a long, long night to that particular dawn. His loyalty to April Dancer was unbounded, but if pressed he would have to admit that whilst he'd never met another woman so talented, courageous and beautiful, he also had never met one so mean with money.

They taxied to the Regent's Park area of London. The house was the end one in a row of graceful porticoed Nash houses. The exterior was as gracious as the day it had been built, but the interior obviously had been modernized with no regard to expense.

She led the way to a door at the rear of the hail.

"You will be comfortable here," she said. "I will not be long." She opened the door and stood aside.

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