19 - The Power Cube Affair Read Online Free PDF Page A

a despairing shrug. Solo smiled;
    "We'll take your advice," he said. "What do you recommend?"
    With that pleasant chore attended to Kuryakin leaned back. "This place could hold any number of surprises. The pseudo-psychedelic lighting is as good as camouflage."
    "Can't tell friend from foe. Not that we have any friends here. I still don't see why it had to be Miss Thompson, Illya. Why would anybody want to get rough with us?"
    "Never mind why. Somebody did. Thing is, which side?"
    "Come to that, which side are we on? Certainly not the Green and Co. crowd, but from what I've seen of the others I'd hate to run with them either, if Barnett is a fair sample."
    "That's exactly what we're here to find out, Napoleon. Meanwhile, this is excellent chicken soup. We might as well enjoy it before the little man with the dark glasses and the beard comes to spoil it."
    Solo chuckled. "Somehow," he said, "I don't think it's going to be a bit like that. My guess would be one of those pinstripe-pants city types with a rolled umbrella and a Bertie Wooster accent."
    Although both men appeared casual, and relaxed enough to pay admiring attention to the colorful scene around them, they were razor alert for the least sign of odd activity. So it was that they both tensed as a minor drama began to unfold before them. The eye twisting light effects had been momentarily abandoned in favor of daylight tinted fluorescence from the high ceiling, and in this clear glow there came a tall and haughty blonde, creamy locks piled high on her head to give her added inches, a silver cape draping her to elbows and the rest only half obscured in openwork silver mesh to midthigh. The rest was long and shapely legs sculptured in glitter sheerness. She strode boldly across the tiny dance floor with the headwaiter trotting after her in passionate attempt to reason and argue.
    "Don't be silly, Mario!" she chided, in a thickly husky affected tone. "It's my table. It always is. You can't put me off!"
    "Miss Perrell, please!" Mario scuttled around, lifting his clasped hands in pleading. "I ask you a favor. Your table is reserved. Take another one. Look, I go on my knees to you!"
    "Silly man! Don't you dare do that. What will people think?"
    Miss Perrell stepped around him, apparently unaware that every eye in the place was fixed on her, pointed herself again toward the reserved-table, smiled, put slim fingers to the cord of her cape, swirled out of it and draped it over her left arm. There was an instant hush thick enough to feel, then a burst of noise like that which comes as the lights go up after a dramatic first act curtain. Solo cleared his throat.
    "Like it or not," he said, "this table is reserved."
    "Let her come, Napoleon. Nobody puts on a show like that by accident."
    "You mean—?"
    "Can't do any harm to find out."
    Solo sat again, then rose politely as the blonde stranger reached the table and stood smiling down. Before either could speak the headwaiter came running, clutching his brow.
    "What can I say, gentlemen? You saw? I tried!" He clapped palms to cheeks and cast his gaze aloft to some personal deity. Solo stood, seized the nearest chair, waited until the lady had draped her cape over its back, then settled her in.
    "All the same," he said, as he regained his own seat, "this table is reserved. For us!"
    "Pooh! Who cares about things like that? Bring soup, Mario. The chicken, please." She shared her bright blue gaze equally between the two men. "This is my favorite table. I always sit here." She conjured up a brilliant smile, waited a moment, then, "Nothing to say? Oh dear, you're embarrassed!"
    It could have been true. The openwork silver mesh came up only as far as her ribcage, where it gathered itself into a pair of jutting platforms to support the generous hemisphere above. But there it ceased, leaving the rest of her to manage unhampered. There was quite a lot of her to see, but at this moment Solo's mind was otherwise occupied.
    "Hardly embarrassed,"