Elusive Mrs. Pollifax Read Online Free PDF Page A

skin, his head thrown back in a posture of amusement, but she did not believed he was amused. She had the impression that he had taught himself to laugh because otherwise he would be all arrogance, cruelty, tension and energy.
    A moment later he boarded the plane and she glimpsed him again as he paused in the space between tourist and first-class. He was issuing sharp orders now to the stewardess; the charm had vanished and he looked only brutal.
    Mrs. Pollifax shivered. There was nothing comic-opera about this general. She suddenly understood that she was entering an iron curtain country, and that she was goingto contact there a group that was defying all the power this man represented. She realized that General Ignatov could squash that group under the heel of one boot. He would squash her, too, if she crossed his line of vision. And under the bird in her hat she carried eight very illicit passports.

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    No one was allowed to leave the plane in Sofia until General Ignatov and his two officers had disembarked. Mrs. Pollifax spent these minutes in anchoring her hat more securely and in trying to forget that she carried contraband. She remembered saying to Carstairs in her apartment, “I suppose in a country like Bulgaria these passports are the equivalent of gold.”
    “Not gold,” he’d said. “Tell me first what the equivalent of a human life is, and perhaps then we can measure their value. Perhaps.”
    Once passengers were allowed to leave, Mrs. Pollifax descended from the plane and followed the others into the terminal. As she approached Customs she reminded herself that she was only a tourist, and fairly experienced at dissembling. She was also–thanks to retired police chief Lorvale Brown–moderately adept at karate, but still she could not remember when she had felt so nervous. She watched her suitcase opened and a pair of hands methodically sift its contents. The Customs man then looked at her, his eyes narrowing as they came to reston the bird atop her hat. Mrs. Pollifax braced herself. A look of astonishment crossed his face, he smiled, nudged his companion and pointed to the bird. Two pairs of eyes regarded her hat in surprise, and then the first officer gave her an admiring grin and signaled her to move on. Happily she obeyed. She had passed Customs. There was only Balkantourist left to confront, and presumably in time her knees would stop trembling.
    Carstairs had described Bulgarians as the realists among the Balkan people. “Also the most trustworthy,” he had said crisply. “They’ll never knife you in the back.”
    “That’s reassuring,” Mrs. Pollifax had said.
    He had added gravely, “They’ll wait instead for you to turn around first.”
    She was reminded of this by the Balkantourist representative who awaited her beyond Customs. The square, compact young woman greeted her with a hearty manner, but her eyes were surprisingly indifferent, almost contemptuous. Her face was high cheekboned and boyish and devoid of makeup; she wore a wrinkled khaki dress with insignia at each lapel. “I am Nevena,” she said in a husky voice, heavily accented, and turning her back on Mrs. Pollifax she continued joking vivaciously with several of the Customs men. This left Mrs. Pollifax to cope with her luggage. She locked her suitcase, put away her passport and, luggage in hand, waited. Apparently Nevena was well known. Obviously she was in no hurry.
    It was tiresome standing first on one foot and then the other. Mrs. Pollifax’s glance strayed from Nevena and toward the dwindling line at Customs. Her eyes fell upon the group of young travelers from the Belgrade air terminal and she saw that again they appeared to be having problems, this time with Customs. Philip was propped against the counter smothering a yawn. Debby looked discouraged. Nikki however, was still gesturing, his face livid as he argued with the man behind the counter. All of this Mrs. Pollifax noted in the flash of a second, justas a new