Elusive Mrs. Pollifax (5 page)

“Wonderful,” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax, quite carried away by the thought of paying only six or nine dollars for a sheepskin vest until she remembered it was an imaginary vest they discussed.

“We let you know. Maybe tomorrow, okay?” For the first time he gave her a glance that she could read as meaningful, and she nodded.

“Thank you,” she said, and left.

Mrs. Pollifax walked slowly back to her hotel, pausing to look into a number of stores to prove that her interest was not limited to tailoring shops, should anyone be following her. When she reached the hotel and her room on the sixth floor, she discovered that she felt a great deal lighter: a grave responsibility had been lifted from her, she had found the shop and notified the Underground of her arrival. The rest would be up to the man
named Tsanko now, and in the meantime she could relax and begin to enjoy Sofia.

After unpacking the top inch of her suitcase, she took a quick shower and then dressed. She felt quite stimulated by the brief exchange of words at number nine Vasil Levski. The man had reminded her of Mr. Omelianuk, the owner of the little delicatessen around the corner from her apartment in New Brunswick, and she reflected how alike people were, no matter where they lived. The problems changed, but people were the same. She wondered how she would be contacted, and when. Apparently not this evening; the man had implied tomorrow. That was disappointing, especially when she glanced at her watch and saw that it was only six o’clock. It seemed much too early for dinner, and in any case she wasn’t hungry.

I’m feeling too efficient to be hungry, she thought, and it suddenly occurred to her that she might complete all of tomorrow’s work today by calling upon Mr. Carleton Bemish. Perhaps she could persuade him to join her for dinner. Failing that, she could at least engage him for a sightseeing tour of Sofia tomorrow in her rented car.

Splendid idea, she decided, and putting on her hat she descended in the elevator to the small side lobby and walked outside to begin her search for Mr. Bemish’s street and apartment house. One left turn, she remembered, and then four blocks to the Rila, which meant—turning it backward—that she walked four blocks away from the plaza and turned to the right. And there it was, giving her cause to congratulate herself on accomplishing so much during her first hours in Bulgaria.

But what a bleak-looking place the building was on closer scrutiny. It looked new, and very clean, but it had been constructed in the stark, concrete-modern style of the twenties that aimed at simplicity but succeeded only in looking utilitarian. Mrs. Pollifax entered a lobby that resembled a laundry room, with a drain placed squarely
in the center of the floor; there were two couches, of tubular steel and hard plastic, at right angles along the wall. A directory of occupants gave Bemish’s name, apartment 301, in both Bulgarian and English. A windowless staircase, also cement, led up to an unseen landing from which drifted the smell of cabbage. There was no elevator.

Mrs. Pollifax began to climb, and as she climbed the smell of cabbage grew stronger and the ill-placed ceiling lights grew more garish. At the door of apartment 301 she knocked and waited. The building was quiet, but from inside 301 came the sound of someone singing. It was a man’s voice, overcharged, belligerent and rendered in a spirit that Mrs. Pollifax guessed did not come from any internal source of well-being. Mr. Bemish’s cocktail hour had begun some hours ago.

The door opened and a cheerful, rotund man beamed at her.

“Mr. Bemish?” she said. “Mr. Carleton Bemish?”

He winked. “In the flesh.”

And indeed her first impression was of flesh, rather a lot of it, and all of it arranged in circles: a plump round stomach, round face, round chins, small round eyes embedded in circles of flesh, and a small round mouth. He gave the impression of vast jovialness until Mrs. Pollifax looked directly into his eyes and found them curiously empty, like stones.

“I’m Mrs. Pollifax,” she said. “May I come in? I was told that …” She paused doubtfully. He stood blocking her entrance; she stopped and waited.

“Something nice, I hope?” he asked with a second wink.

“Told that I might talk with you,” she said, and firmly walked past him into his living room. It was very bold of her, but she had already gained the impression that Mr. Bemish was not in full command of his faculties. “About a job,” she said. “As my guide for several days.”

Off to the right a door closed, but not before she had caught a glimpse of a drab, mouse-like little woman fleeing the room; a cleaning woman, perhaps, although the apartment did not look as if it had been cleaned in years.

“I couldn’t be less interested,” said Carleton Bemish, following her into the room. “I’m otherwise occupied. Busy. Very busy.”

And very prosperous, too, noticed Mrs. Pollifax as her glance fell on a heavily draped round table in the center of the room. On it stood a silver bucket with a bottle of champagne protruding from it. It was a startling sight in such a shabby room. She said mechanically, “I’m sorry, you’re expecting someone?”

“My dear woman, of course I’m expecting someone,” he said pompously, rocking a little on his heels. “A man like myself has many important friends. Many.”

Her glance fell to the couch near the table and she saw long white cardboard boxes piled there. From one of them spilled the shimmering folds of a brocade dressing gown. His glance followed hers and he beamed. “Not bad, hmm?” he said, walking over to the couch. He pulled the robe from the box and held it up. “They’re not underestimating Carleton Bemish any more! Look at it–pure silk!”

“Ah, you’ve inherited money,” suggested Mrs. Pollifax.

He draped the robe across his shoulders and winked at her. “What I’ve inherited is a news story–the biggest–and I’ve made the news story myself. I feel surprisingly like God!” He came near to Mrs. Pollifax, the robe streaming behind him like a train, his breath suffocatingly alcoholic. With intense scorn, and breathing heavily at her, he said, “They’re no longer saying ‘Good old Bemish, nice old Bemish’…. They treat me with respect now, I can tell you.” He tapped his right temple meaningfully. “Brains. Wit. That’s what it takes to survive, Mrs.–what’s your name?”

“Pollifax.”

“The thing is,” he said defiantly, “I’m not up for hire. Carleton Bemish is no longer a has-been. You understand?”

Mrs. Pollifax sighed. “I understand. You’re no longer a has-been.”

He peered suspiciously into her face. “That sounds damn impertinent.”

“You’re standing on my right foot,” said Mrs. Pollifax frankly.

He jumped back. “Oh–sorry.”

She nodded. “I quite understand now that you’re not available, and so I’ll just run along. In the meantime I’ll be looking forward to reading your news story.”

He beamed appreciatively. “
With
by-line. Already posted–to London, Paris, New York. But not,” he added owlishly, “in Sofia. Not in this country. Pity about that.”

Thoroughly tired of this, Mrs. Pollifax moved to the door; he was suddenly there before her, his mood changed again. “Wait a minute,” he said suspiciously. “Who did you say you are?”

“Mrs. Pollifax,” she sighed. “I came to see you about guiding–”

He relaxed. “Oh yes, I remember.”

Someone else had arrived at Mr. Bemish’s door and was knocking. “My guest!” said Carleton Bemish happily, and threw open the door, exclaiming in Bulgarian to the man who stood there illuminated by the overhead hall light. His face was clearly outlined and Mrs. Pollifax stared at him in surprise. She knew him. He in turn glanced at her with barely concealed impatience and addressed himself to Bemish, the two of them speaking in rapid Bulgarian.

She knew him, but from where? He was young, very dark, square and broad-shouldered. “The Belgrade air terminal!” she said aloud.

The young man turned and looked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re Nikki,” she said in surprise. “You were in Philip’s group. What was his name, Philip Trenda?”

Carleton Bemish’s mouth dropped open. He turned to look incredulously at Nikki.

“Oh?” said Nikki, heavy brows lifting. “You were there, perhaps?” he added smoothly.

“Yes indeed,” she told him warmly. “And later I saw your group led away from the Customs line by the police, and I wanted to come over and …” She stopped. The atmosphere almost crackled with shocks. Carleton Bemish’s eyes were growing larger and rounder while Nikki’s eyes were growing narrower. She added limply, “But you’re–all right? They didn’t bother you?”

Nikki bowed stiffly. “A small misunderstanding, no more.” He looked at her curiously. “You say that you knew Philip?”

“I didn’t say so,” she pointed out. “We had a brief but very interesting chat in the air terminal, that’s all. Now I really must leave,” she said. “Please remember me to Philip when you see him,” she told Nikki, and over her shoulder to them both, “Good night.”

Neither man responded. She had the feeling that she left them dazed, but she couldn’t honestly attribute it to the force of her personality. She wondered what she’d said that so took them by surprise.

The smell of cabbage was stronger in the hall, reminding Mrs. Pollifax of her own hunger and of the increasing lateness of the hour. She hurried back to her hotel.

Mrs. Pollifax dined alone with a small sense of letdown that aborted her appetite. First of all the food in the hotel restaurant was imitation American, the peas straight from a can, and yet–perversely–no one, not even the headwaiter, knew the English language; a contact with Tsanko appeared impossible for another twelve or fifteen hours, and Carleton Bemish was not available at all. She told herself that she was experiencing the effects of her
first hours in a strange country far from home, although this was of small consolation to her frame of mind, which was gloomy.

It was not until she was in the middle of dessert that it suddenly struck her how very odd it was that Bemish’s guest had turned out to be Nikki. How did it happen that a hitchhiking Yugoslavian student was on such friendly terms with a man who lived in Sofia?

I know many, many important people
, Bemish had said defiantly.

The thought so startled her that she looked up in astonishment to meet the eye of a small gray-haired man in a gray suit who was watching her closely from a table near the entrance. He glanced away so swiftly that she gave him a second look, at once curious and alerted. He was short and stolid, his suit badly cut and his whole appearance so remarkably anonymous that she would never have noticed him except for his stare. She had the impression that he had only recently arrived, and this was confirmed by a glance at his table, still empty of food.

Perhaps it was Tsanko, she thought hopefully, and perhaps contact would be made soon, after all.

She paid her bill and went upstairs, but no one knocked on her door and no messages were slipped under the rug. Rather sadly, she retired at half-past ten.

Sometime during the night Mrs. Pollifax experienced a nightmare in which she was lying helplessly in bed at home and being observed by a burglar who had entered her room. She was not accustomed to nightmares and as she fought her way back to consciousness she discovered that she was indeed in bed, it was night and a man was standing at the foot of the bed looking down at her. He was clearly silhouetted against the window.

Mrs. Pollifax waited, breath suspended, for the man to identify himself as Tsanko. He did not. He moved stealthily away from the foot of the bed and went toward the closet, where he turned on a small flashlight. He leaned over the lock, his back to her.

If he wasn’t Tsanko, she thought indignantly, then he must be a plain, old-fashioned burglar, and without stopping to consider the risks Mrs. Pollifax slid out of her bed and stood up. Carefully tiptoeing along the wall she came up behind the man, flattened her right hand and delivered a medium karate chop to the side of his neck–at
least she hoped it was only a medium blow–and watched him sink to the floor.

Switching on the lights she saw there was no doubt at all that the man was a thief because he held her brown quilted coat in his arms. He lay on his side, half of the coat trapped under him, a relatively young man wearing a black suit and black tie. Stepping over him she went to the telephone and picked up the receiver. “I have a burglar in my room,” she told the desk clerk coldly.

The reply was depressing and sounded like,
“Murdekoochinko lesso razenum.”

“Burglar. Thief!” she said. “Does anyone speak English?”

“Anglichanin? Ameryerikanski?”

Mrs. Pollifax grimly put down the phone, stepped again over the man and opened the door. She peered outside; the halls were deserted. Leaving her door open she walked down to the elevator, but there was no one there either. With a sigh she stepped into it and descended to the lobby.

There were two men at the desk, and it was a full two minutes before they were able to control their surprise at seeing Mrs. Pollifax emerge from the elevator in flowered pajamas. It was at least another several minutes before they understood that she wanted them to return to her room with her, and this appeared to induce in them an even deeper state of shock. Neither of them spoke English and it was necessary for them to identify her by their desk records. When this had been done they telephoned Balkantourist.

A peevish Nevena was reached at last. “It is 3
A.M.
,” she announced furiously.

“I have a burglar lying on the floor of my hotel room,” Mrs. Pollifax told her.

This was translated by Nevena to the room clerk, who stared at Mrs. Pollifax incredulously.

The phone was handed back to Mrs. Pollifax. “We do
not have thieves in Bulgaria,” Nevena said coldly, and then with outrageous illogic, “You should not encourage such matters by not locking your closet and your door.”

“I locked both the doors to the closet and the door to my room,” said Mrs. Pollifax crisply. “I placed the key to the closet under my pillow and slept on it. But the man had already broken into the closet because he had my brown quilted coat in his arms. I saw it.”