The Game of X: A Novel of Upmanship Espionage Read Online Free PDF

barrel-bellied.
    “Have you a match?” he asked me.
    “No,” I said. “Will a lighter do?”
    “Is it a Flaminaire?”
    “Sorry, it’s a Silver-Jet.”
    He nodded approvingly. “I am happy to meet you, Mr. Nye.”
    “Same here, Mr. Guesci.” All that business about matches and lighters was our primary recognition code. As you can see, it was designed so that anyone overhearing us would believe we were carrying on a normal conversation. The secret service is full of clever tricks like that.
    “We can’t talk here,” Guesci said. “We will meet in Venice, in an hour.”
    I considered telling him that I was going straight back to Marco Polo Airport, and thence to Paris. But frankly, I was ashamed. (Man is the only animal whose fear of embarrassment can overcome his instinct for self-preservation.) And after all, nothing had actually happened to me. I decided to wait and see what plans Guesci had. I could cut and run any time I wanted to.
    “Where in Venice?” I asked.
    “I will tell you,” Guesci said. “You will cross this street and take the number six bus, not a taxi, and go with it over the causeway to the Piazzale Roma in Venice. Leaving the bus, you will proceed on foot to the Fondamenta della Croce, where you will take a number 1, 2, 4 or 6 vaporetto, but- not a gondola, to the stop San Silvestro, which is the first stop on your right after passing the Rialto Bridge. Do you know Venice at all?”
    “Yes.”
    Guesci looked doubtful, but continued. “You will find yourself on the Fondamenta dei Vino. Walk back toward the Rialto Bridge, and at the intersection of the Fondamenta with the Calle dei Paradiso you will find the Cafe Paradiso. You will take a table in the sidewalk portion of this cafe and wait for me. Is that clear, or shall I repeat it?”
    “Never mind, I’ll find the cafe.”
    Guesci nodded, muttered, “Good luck,” and roared away on his motorcycle. I proceeded less spectacularly to the bus stop. Soon I was on the causeway, and Venice was rising from the waves ahead of me.
    I didn’t know what to think about Guesci, and this bothered me. It was very important for me to know what kind of a man he was. My life might very well depend on him.
    My first impression was not unfavorable. Guesci seemed to be a precise, cautious, humorless fellow, and a careful, even fussy planner. All in all a competent man, though dull.
    As it turned out, I could hardly have been more wrong.
     
     

 
    7
     
     
    I left the gray industrial city of Mestre a troubled man; a gray and industrial man, haunted by taxis, stalked by houses, trapped in trolley tracks. My color was soot, my emblem was the traffic light, my theme song was “Arrivederci, Roma,” hummed obsessively. But that was before I entered Venice.
    My hair became glossier as soon as the bus turned onto the Ponte della Libertà. A chronic acne was entirely cleared up by the time I had crossed the Canale Santa Chiara. When I stood at last in the Piazzale Roma, my metamorphosis was almost complete; but I was still within view of the Autorimessa, with its gasoline stench and its rows of carnivorous Volkswagen beetles. I walked away hastily, covering my trail with cobblestone alleys. I came to the Campazzo Tre Ponti, where five irrational bridges zigzagged across three obsolete canals. There my scales sloughed off and my skin began to breathe.
    That is what love can do.
    No one-would question me if I announced a great and mystic passion for Tahiti or Tibet. But Venice? Did you say Venice? Disneyland on the Adriatic? My dear fellow, how can you stand the frantic salesmanship, the indifferent food and insulting prices, the press of the tourist mob; and above all, how can you stand the insufferable quaintness of the place?
    Friends, I can stand it all easily. In fact, I insist upon it. One does not fall in love by exercise of reason and good taste; one simply falls, and invents ingenious reasons afterwards. One falls in love with one’s fatality,