Narabedla Ltd by Frederik Pohl Read Free Book Online Page B

and responsible citizen, Mr. Henry Davidson-Jones. The total made my eyes pop. His Narabedla donations had totaled more than eleven million dollars in the latest known year. There was certainly, I told myself, no reason to think that anybody like that would do anything as pathologically felonious as kidnap people.
    With that in mind, after dinner I had them call a taxi to take me to Nice-Ville; and all the way to the station my thoughts were fully occupied with the task of changing my mind.
    It wasn’t hard to do. I got it done by the time we arrived at Nice-Ville; philanthropist or not, there were just too many questions about the man. So I checked my bags at the station and took a taxi back to the Promenade des Anglais along the beach, and the Hotel Negresco.
    In the days when I was a budding opera star I got a number of chances to live high on the hog. I took as many of them as I could afford. I sang in Nice, once, and stayed at the Negresco. Once. I valued the experience greatly, especially when I saw the bill. Which, fortunately, was picked up by the people at the opera festival, because if I had had to pay for it myself I would have been working that week for nothing.
    It was not likely they would remember me at the Negresco, although beyond doubt there was a card file somewhere in the hotel’s guest files with my name on it and the fact that I liked my bacon very crisp. But I remembered them very well. I played no games. I headed for a house phone, got the never-sleeping Mr. Passerine, and said, “This is Knollwood Stennis. I want to see Mr. Davidson-Jones, please.”
    “Mr. Stennis,” he said placidly, “it’s nearly midnight. I certainly can’t disturb Mr. Davidson-Jones at this time.”
    “Yes, you can,” I said. Then I took a deep breath. “I want him to tell me what happened to Irene Madigan. Not to mention her cousin, Tricia, and Woody Calderon.”
    Smooth Mr. Passerine didn’t turn a hair. “Whatever your reason is, Mr. Stennis,” he said politely—reasonably politely—“there is no way I’m going to bother Mr. Davidson-Jones now. If it is important, you can telephone in the morning. After ten.”
    And he hung up on me.
    And I had run out of programming.
    The troublesome part of all that was that well-mannered Mr. Passerine had all reason on his side. No titan of finance wants to be bothered at midnight by somebody who wants to accuse him of implausible felonies, does he?
    I looked at my watch.
    I still had time to grab a cab from the stand outside and get back to the station in time for my train to Madrid—even if one stretched imagination as far as it could go and supposed it would be on time.
    I might even have a few minutes to spare. Time enough, perhaps, for a few discreet private-eye-type questions here and there. It was at least worth trying, so I summoned up all my discretion.
    It wasn’t enough. I was not nearly discreet enough for the Negresco, which houses Arab oil zillionaires and German newspaper publishers, not to mention royalty. When I asked the reception clerk if she had happened to notice a good-looking, redheaded young woman with Cote d’Azur eyes who might have been asking for Mr. Davidson-Jones, I didn’t see her move a muscle to call anyone. She simply said, actually with a quite friendly smile, “I am sorry, sir, but we are not permitted to discuss our guests.” And then, when I looked behind me, there was the doorman in his monkey suit with a large, polite porter standing attentively beside him.
    I left with as good grace as I could manage.
    There was a taxi with a Senegalese-looking driver at the stand across the street. I waved him over.
    Then I hesitated.
    Even the best hotel may have somebody, somewhere, who will take a tip. If I could just find out from some such person which suite Davidson-Jones was in, I could pound on the door until he let me in. Or until someone threw me out, whichever came first, but how bad could that be?
    So why not try it? What was the