Read Online The Game of X: A Novel of Upmanship Espionage by Robert Sheckley - Free Book Online Page B

the blonde girl. Now that he had attained his objective, he didn’t seem to know what to do.
    The red-faced man groaned. He couldn’t seem to get his breath. I said, “It seems to be an attack of some sort.”
    “Loosen his collar,” the old woman said.
    I reached out toward his throat. He gasped and swung wildly with his briefcase, stabbing the workman. The workman whirled and struck him at once with a large, shapeless brown fist. During the confusion, I stamped down hard on the red-faced man’s right instep.
    The youth, seeing his opportunity and regaining his wits, said to the blonde girl: “Some business!” She pretended not to hear him. The workman was trying to apologize to the red-faced man. He, looking sick and shaky, seemed to be out of action for the immediate future.
    The vaporetto swung in to a pier. I pushed my way off. I began walking, and I didn’t look back.
     
     

 
    13
     
     
    My left leg was beginning to stiffen, and blood was squirting through the eyelets of my shoe. The sun was just down, but an antique golden glow filled the street, casting an air of spurious transformation upon the crowd. Venice was up to its old tricks again, and I was faint-headed enough to enjoy it.
    Then I slipped on the slimy cobblestones. My left leg buckled, and I started to fall. A hand gripped me and pulled me to my feet.
    The man who had helped me was tall and strongly constructed. His face was at once amiable and cruel. He wore a light-weight gray worsted of exemplary fit. A light blue-gray ascot, the smoky color of his eyes, was knotted carelessly and tucked into a shirt of raw Italian silk. A bulky Rolex Oyster Navigator clung to his wrist; with its black face and luminous hands and dots it resembled a tropical spider.
    “Anything the matter?” he asked, in a pleasant British voice.
    “Dizzy spell,” I said. “Thanks for catching me.” I made a tentative movement to free my arm.
    “No trouble,” the man said. He released my arm; the movement gave me a glimpse of a .32-calibre Beretta with a skeleton grip and depressed sights, and tucked into a plain chamois shoulder holster.
    “You seem to have hurt your leg,” he said.
    “I slipped when I left the vaporetto.”
    The man nodded, studying the slashes in my pants leg and across my shoe. “One must be careful of Venetian piers,” he said. “They cut rather like razors, don’t they?”
    I shrugged. The stranger smiled. “Here on holiday?” he asked.
    “More or less. Right now I’m looking for the house of a friend of mine. But these streets are somewhat confusing.”
    “Well,” he said, “I know this place tolerably well. Perhaps I could direct you.”
    Alarm bells rang in my head. I ignored them, having heard no other sound for quite some time. I had to assume that I was being followed, and that another assault was being prepared against me. If this self-possessed stranger were one of the enemy, he had already had ample opportunity to make his move. If he were not, his presence might give Forster something to think about, and perhaps even force him to modify his plans. I didn’t see where I could lose by keeping him with me.
    “I am looking for the Via di San Lazzaro,” I told him.
    “1 believe I know the street,” he replied. “Let me think a moment.” Three vertical lines of concentration creased his forehead. “Yes, of course. Directly behind the Piazetta dei Leoncini, and terminating in the Molo. One would usually walk through the Piazza San Marco; but there is a shorter route past the Basilica, to the entrance of the Merceria, and then through that alley rather grandiloquently called ‘Salizzada d’Arlecchino.’ Shall I guide you?”
    “I wouldn’t want to take up your time.”
    “Time to burn,” the man said, with a short, not unpleasant laugh. “My company sent me down here on a job, but it seems that it’s off.”
    “Your company?”
    “Bristol Business Systems.” He led me toward the Merceria. “My name is