The Game of X: A Novel of Upmanship Espionage by Robert Sheckley

buildings. Behind me I heard a sound like a heavy cough and then a sharp crack as brick dust rained on me. Someone had fired with a silenced gun and had scored the wall near my head.
    I ran, crossed canals and went through more alleys, and came into a wide square dominated by a church. I thought I recognized the bulge-eyed stone monster that adorned its battlements: Santa Maria Formosa. I had gone in the wrong direction, to a section I didn’t know. Behind me was a whisper of footsteps.
    I went past the church and into another knot of alleys. The stitch in my side was gone, dissolved by terror. I ran like a grass-fed stallion, and the sound of pursuing footsteps slowly diminished behind me. Agent X had done it again.
    But I had congratulated myself a little too early. I cantered to the end of the alley, and had to rein short at an unjumpable stone wall. There was another wall to my left. I whinnied in dismay. Venice had sprung one of her little surprises on me.
    On the right, ten or twelve feet up, I saw an ornamental iron balcony. I backed away, took a running jump like a Steeplechase winner, caught the bottom edge and pulled myself up to the rail. The balcony creaked heavily. I managed to swing one leg over the rail. In that awkward position I discovered that someone was trying to jab me in the face with a knife.
    “Don’t do that,” I said.
    “Get off that balcony!” she said. I caught a glimpse of black hair and a billowing bathrobe; then I was trying to ward off the knife and nearly going over the balcony backwards.
    “Get off!” she screamed.
    “All right,” I said bitterly. “If you’re so anxious to see me killed, I’ll get off your damned balcony.”
    She stopped jabbing. “What are you talking about?”
    “I’m in trouble,” I said. The girl was American, about twenty-five years old, and nice-looking. No knife-fighter, though.
    “I don’t believe you,” she said.
    “Of course not,” I said. “Maybe you think I do this for my evening exercise?” She ignored my somewhat hysterical attempt at humor and asked, “What kind of trouble are you in?”
    “Serious trouble. Some men are chasing me.”
    “Why?”
    “At the moment,” I told her, “I’m in no position to explain.”
    She looked at me thoughtfully. She was not at all bad-looking. In fact, she could be sensational without the knife. At last she seemed to conclude that I was neither a murderer or a rapist, and perhaps not even a cat-burglar. That left many things I could be, but none of them too much for a Forest Hills girl to handle.
    ’1 don’t know,” she said. “It’s really very strange—”
    “Make up your goddamned mind,” I said. “I can’t hang around here all night.”
    She frowned and stuck out her lower lip. Cute. I turned my head and got ready to jump back to the street. She said, “Oh, hell, come on in.”
    I climbed over the rail and walked into her apartment through the tall French windows. She followed me, tying her bathrobe more firmly and keeping the knife handy. I walked to the nearest armchair and sat down. After a while she sat down on the couch and curled her legs under her.
    From the chair I could watch most of the street. No one was in sight. Perhaps I had shaken my pursuers, or perhaps they were waiting farther up the block. I lighted a cigarette and tried to think. About my future, mostly. Once again I found that I was filled with doubts concerning my aptitude for secret-service work. Somehow, I just wasn’t getting the knack of it. It seemed to me that the best thing might be to fold in my hand, check out of the game, get back to Paris. …
    “Well?” she asked.
    “Well what?”
    “Aren’t you going to explain?”
    “I can’t,” I told her. “I’m not allowed.” After I had said this, it struck me that it might well be true. But even if it wasn’t, it seemed to impress her, and it spared me a tedious and somewhat embarrassing explanation.
    We exchanged vital statistics. Mavis Somers