The Infant of Prague
- Автор: Granger Bill
- Серия: November Man #8
- Год: 1987
- Язык: французский
- Год: Warner
- ISBN: 0446347809
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «The Infant of Prague». Краткое содержание книги:
For in a humble Chicago parish church, the sacred statue of the Infant of Prague is found weeping real tears. A visiting Czech child star actress, transfigured by the wondrous event, declares, on live television, her intent to remain in American in the name of Christ and freedom.
Only an operative as cynical and seasoned as the November Man can sense the sinister link between two dramatic, yet apparently unrelated defections. A miracle has plunged him into a vast global adventure. And it will take a miracle to get him through it alive.
The defection of a highly visible Czech sparks an international crisis, and the November Man is caught in the middle.
“Yes. Is it secret?”
“No, Mr. Devereaux. But Al Buck was really generous, really a prince about it. I mean that. In this business, you never get a second chance. He had been calling me, he said. He said it was wrong, his way of handling it was wrong. He took the blame, he said he wanted me back at the station and that I could go after the story any way I saw fit. He was really terrific. He took the blame for everything and he gave me a three-year contract and he said he must have been crazy to want to jump off a good story like this one and would I come back. So I came back. The story was kind of petering out anyway because the statue stopped crying and this court thing could have gone on and on.… My God, I think about Stephanie. I talked to her that night, the night I was attacked. I mean, it’s so coincidental the way things work.”
“Yes. Almost like a miracle in itself. I mean, a miracle for you. Not for Stephanie.”
“You’re all the way here from Zurich because of the miracle.”
“Yes. There’s interest. Particularly in Switzerland.”
“Why?”
“It’s a country without faith, divided by a number of religions. It has to believe in something.”
Kay Davis smiled at him. He was a good-looking man, she thought. Not television, of course. Devereaux had showed her his Swiss passport and the all-purpose little plastic card that identified him as a correspondent for Central News Associates, Zurich. In fact, if you looked in the Zurich telephone directory, you would find a number for the news service, as well as an address. If you went to the building off the Paradeplatz in Zurich and went to the right floor, you would find a news agency office, filled with clippings for scores of papers, dust and dirt, and an old man trying to make a living by providing news items for parsimonious newspapers in a half-dozen countries. Yes, Monsieur Devereaux was a correspondent, he would answer.
“Are you going to be in Chicago long?” she said.
“Perhaps.”
She gave him a smile from her eyes to her mouth. She turned toward him in a certain way. Her knee bumped his knee and he saw what it was. He smiled at her. “You’re a good-looking girl,” he said.
“Woman.”
“Of course.”
“Would you like to go out to dinner some night? After the ten o’clock show?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Aren’t you offended that I asked you?”
“Flattered,” he said.
“You should be,” she said.
He smiled again. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me about your part in this. Weren’t the police interested in the coincidence? Your getting fired and that man attacking you?”
“The police were interested in my getting fired and that man… that man… knowing I was fired. But it was in the early edition of the papers, someone in PR had dropped it into one of the gossip columns.”
“Really?”
“I was hot news myself for a few days. The police think it was just one of those crazy things. They still don’t have a name for the guy.”
“That’s odd, isn’t it?”
Kay Davis shivered. It was the cold of the cocktail lounge and it was something else, something in his voice. That was it. He was cold, his eyes were cold; he feigned interest in her but it was all cold.
“Odd,” she said.
“And the little girl was kidnapped. What did the police say about that?”
“They said it might have been connected. The detective said there was a connection, he was sure of it, but he couldn’t figure out what the connection was. And there was the FBI then, after the kidnapping and Stephanie’s… death. It’s so horrible, all of it, and I feel…”
“Responsible,” he said.
“Yes.”
He said nothing. Did she expect him to say something? She waited for some note of comfort in his voice but there was none.
“Did it happen? Actually?”
“What?” she said.
“Did the statue of the Infant cry?”
Kay Davis stared at him with wide eyes. She almost had forgotten. She saw the statue, not as it was but through the television eye. Through the lens. On the monitor. The tape for her voiceover. The reason for everything that happened, that had seemed to happen.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I saw it. I mean, I was there in St. Margaret’s. But I don’t know. I can show you the tape.” She was making her voice smile. “I’ve got a VCR at home. We could watch it. Other things.”
“Yes.” His voice was absent. “Sometime I would like to see the tape. But the child believed it.”
“Anna saw the tears.”
“What about her mother?”
“Her mother? She didn’t believe it. I showed her the tape and she said it was a trick. She didn’t believe it.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s living in the Czech embassy in Washington. She’s waiting for word. The FBI said it would be best to wait to see if she were contacted by the kidnappers.”
“I wonder what the FBI thinks.”
“It’s a kidnapping for ransom. Except. There’s been no word for all this time. And they think — well, I know they don’t say it outright, but they think the little girl was killed. That something went wrong and the kidnappers have just dumped her body somewhere. It’s a matter of time.”
“Yes.” He stared suddenly into Kay. She felt startled and even afraid and she shivered again. “What do you think, Miss Davis?”
“Is this all connected to the story of the weeping statue?”
“Perhaps.” He picked up his drink and tasted it. The lounge was dark, there was background music, and the peanuts on the bar were roasted in honey. “Perhaps the statue wept for all that would follow. Both the cause and the effect.”
Kay Davis finished her glass of white wine.
“Another?”
“No. I’ve still got a ten o’clock show. Where are you staying?”
“The Drake,” he said.
“That’s such an old-fashioned place.”
“I know but I don’t know Chicago. You ask at American Express in Zurich and they give you a name and that’s it. We only know the clichés of other cities.” He smiled. It was a sad little smile, she thought, and she felt touched by it. The coldness of his face, she thought, was earned and had turned inward. It was not directed at her. She felt an instinct about him.
“You don’t think she’s dead,” Kay Davis said.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because there must be miracles.”
“Do you believe in statues that weep?”
“Yes. I believe what I see. If I stop believing what I see, then there’s no point to having sight.”
“Who took her?” She asked as though he might know. He might know everything.
He shook his head. “Why is more important. The FBI says it was for ransom and no one asks for ransom. Was it for perversion? That seems unlikely. The pervert doesn’t go to so much trouble when it is easier to take children off the streets. Perhaps a religious dispute? It couldn’t be a jealous sect. Religion doesn’t have much zeal left in it, does it? So what is the reason?”
She stared at him and felt a strange warmth grow in her that suppressed the shivers.
“Why?”
“To use in a bargain. To make a deal,” he said. His voice was so quiet that the background music almost overwhelmed it.
“By whom? For what?”
Devereaux shook his head. His eyes were staring at something beyond her. She turned and looked and there was nothing in the darkness. She looked back at him.
“What do you see?”
“Something,” he said. “Are you all right now, then? Do you have protection? The police?”
“For a while. But I’m all right. No one understands how he got into my apartment. The security staff was given lie-detector tests and a couple of them were fired and everyone in the building is really upset. But I’m all right. I really am.”