The Laughter of Carthage by Michael Moorcock Read Free Book Online Page A

temperature. As soon as we arrived in Venice, I promised myself, I would get her a good doctor, even if it took our last penny.
     
    By the time we reached the Little Quay and made the car stop as close to the barrier as was sensible, my girl had turned decidedly pale. I patted her hand while the driver at my request fetched her some sherbert from a nearby café. Behind the barrier the Customs people were still at their posts, but were beginning to pack up for the evening. They stood in relaxed groups, chatting and smoking, sharing jokes. Bored British and French military police wandered here and there, the reason for their presence mysterious even to them. The dark water was smeared with oil reflecting the light of naphtha lamps and gas-flares, and from a nearby bar came the flat slap of Turkish drums. A number of sailors approached, showing a passing interest in the limousine. I replaced the blinds. Esmé continued to shiver beside me, sipping her sherbert, her eyes on the neck of the impassive chauffeur in front. One of the sailors casually tested a door, but I had locked it. When I next looked out the bulk of several large ships blocked most of my view beyond the harbour. Esmé and I would have to pass between two large iron gates to get to the wharf. There was one guard on duty, an Italian, and he had been primed by Captain Kazakian not to look too closely at our papers. A while later I saw the lights of a launch flicker on a few yards out from the wharf. The Italian army guard put his rifle against the gate post and turned a key in a padlock. Within a few minutes a large horse-drawn charabanc appeared at the other end of the street. It moved like a hearse over the cobbled pavement, drawing up directly in front of the gates. These were Kazakian’s other passengers. Ostensibly in order to compete with larger shipping concerns, he was running a night service to Venice. It was time for us to leave the car. I told the driver to wait where he was until the luggage could be brought aboard and crossed the street with Esmé clinging to my arm. She virtually fainted as the Italian made a charade of inspecting our documents, stamping them and finally letting us through. When he spoke a few words of English to Esmé she did not understand him and looked utterly panic stricken. I hurried her towards the launch. By now my own stomach was churning. I had never known quite that sort of fear. I still half expected a motor car to roar out of the darkness at any moment and a tommy-gun to spray us with bullets. Such assassinations were then commonplace in Constantinople. Al Capone was by no means an innovator. I relaxed a little once we joined the line of passengers walking towards the launch. Her engines turning slowly, she had pulled in beside the wharf and lowered her gangplank. She was a nineteenth-century sidewheel paddlesteamer equipped with wooden benches under a rather tattered awning on her upper deck. Her lower deck had a few slightly more elaborate sleeping berths. She was capable of little more than three or four knots and scarcely seemed seaworthy. But she was a better boat than she looked. This, at least, I knew from my own work on her. Captain Kazakian was nowhere in evidence. As soon as we had boarded and taken our places on the upper deck I sought him out. Sitting against the wheel post on his bridge, he was eating sausage and drinking wine. He winked at me as I handed over the hundred sovereigns and became almost languorous at the feel of gold in his hands. Yawning, he looked up at the sky. ‘It should be a good trip, Mr Papandakis. This is the best time of year.’ I asked him to make sure our baggage was brought on board and cleared through Customs, ‘It is being done,’ he said. ‘I saw you arrive. Your trunks have been portioned out between fifteen of the other passengers!’ He laughed heartily. ‘Are you a gun-runner, using my poor boat as transport? Or do you own a dress-shop? Don’t worry, they won’t be