The Tailor of Panama

by John le Carré

  Osnard writing at no great speed. “ ‘The General in charge o’ Southern Command exchanged a pregnant look with his wife.’ That should put London on red alert,” he remarked sourly. “General take a swipe at the State Department at all?”

  “No, Andy.”

  “Call ’em a bunch o’ limp-wristed, overeducated faggots, bitch about the CIA college boys in their button-down collars straight out o’ Yale?”

  Pendel collects his memories. Judiciously.

  “He did a bit, Andy. It was in the air, I’ll put it that way.”

  Osnard writing with slightly more enthusiasm.

  “Lament America’s loss o’ power, speculate about the future ownership o’ the Canal?”

  “There was tension, Andy. The students were spoken of, and not with what I call respect.”

  “Just his words—mind, ol’ boy? I’ll do the purple, you do the words.”

  Pendel did his words as requested. “ ‘Harry,’ he says to me— very quiet, this is—I’m worrying about his collar from the front— ‘My advice to you is, Harry, sell your shop and your house and get your wife and family out of this hellhole of a country while there’s time. Milton Jenning was a great engineer. His daughter deserves better.’ I was numb. I didn’t speak. I was too moved. He asked me how old our children were, and he was highly relieved to discover they were not of university age, because he didn’t like to think of Milton Jenning’s grandchildren running in the streets with a lot of long-haired Commie bums.”

  “Wait.”

  Pendel waited.

  “Okay. More.”

  “Then he said I should take care of Louisa, and how she was a daughter worthy of her father on account of putting up with that duplicitous bastard Dr. Ernesto Delgado of the Canal Commission, God rot him. And the General’s not a man for language, Andy. I was shaken. So would you be.”

  “Delgado a bastard?”

  “Correct, Andy,” said Pendel, recalling that gentleman’s unhelpful posture at dinner in his house, as well as several years of having him shoved down his throat as a latter-day Braithwaite.

  “Hell’s he being duplicitous about?”

  “The General didn’t say, Andy, and it’s not my place to ask.”

  “Say anything about the U.S. military bases staying or going?”

  “Not as such, Andy.”

  “Hell does that mean?”

  “There were jokes. Gallows humour. Remarks to the effect that it won’t be long before the toilets start to back up.”

  “Safety o’ shipping? Arab terrorists threatening to paralyse the Canal? Essential for the Yanks to stay and continue the war on drugs, control the arms boys, keep the peace?”

  Pendel modestly shook his head to each of these suggestions. “Andy, Andy, I’m a tailor, remember?”—and he bestowed a virtuous smile on a plume of ospreys swirling in a blue heaven.

  Osnard ordered two glasses of aircraft fuel. Under its influence, his performance sharpened and specks of light reentered his small black eyes.

  “All right. Come-to-Jesus time. What did Mickie say? Does he want to play or not?”

  But Pendel wouldn’t be hurried. Not on the matter of Mickie. He was telling the story in his own time about his own friend. He was cursing his own fluence and wishing very hard that Mickie had never put in an appearance at the Club Unión that night.

  “He may want to play, Andy. If he does, it’ll be on terms. He’s got to put his thinking cap on.”

  Osnard writing again. Osnard’s sweat pattering on the plastic tablecloth.

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “At the Caesar’s Park, Andy. In the long wide corridor outside the casino there. It’s where Mickie holds court when he doesn’t mind who he’s with.”

  Truth had briefly raised her dangerous head. Only the day before, Mickie and Pendel had sat in the very spot he described while Mickie heaped love and invective on his wife and mourned the grief of his children. And Pendel his faithful cellmate sympathised, careful to say nothing that would push Mickie either way.

  “Pitch him the eccentric millionaire philanthropist bit?”

  “I did, Andy, and he took note.”

  “Tell him a nationality?”

  “I fudged, Andy. Like you said to. ‘My friend is Western, highly democratic but not American,’ I said. ‘And that’s as far as I am prepared to go.’ ‘Harry boy,’ he said—which is what he calls me: Harry boy—‘if he’s English I’m halfway there. Kindly remember I’m an Oxford man and a former high officer of the Anglo-Panamanian Society.’ ‘Mickie,’ I said, ‘trust me, I can go no further. My eccentric friend has a certain quantity of money, and he’s prepared to put that quantity at your disposal, provided he’s persuaded of the rightness of your cause, and I’m not talking loose change. If someone’s selling Panama down the Canal,’ I said, ‘if it’s jackboots and salute the Führer in the streets again, and upsetting the chances of a small gallant young nation as she sets out on her maiden voyage towards democracy, then my eccentric friend is there to help any way he can with his millions.’ ”

  “How’d he take it?”

  “ ‘Harry boy,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to level with you. It’s the money that talks to me at this moment, because I’m running on empty. It’s not the casinos have ruined me or what I give to my beloved students and the people who live the other side of the bridge. It’s my trusted sources, it’s the bribes I pay them, it’s my out-of-pocket. Not just in Panama but Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Tokyo, and I don’t know where else. I’m skint, and that’s the bare-cheeked truth.’ ”

  “Who does he have to bribe? Hell’s he buying? Don’t get it.”

  “He didn’t tell me, Andy, and I didn’t ask. He went off at a tangent, which is his way. Gave me a lot of stuff about the carpetbaggers at the back door and the politicians filling their pockets with the Panamanian people’s birthright.”

  “How about Rafi Domingo?” Osnard asked with the belated petulance that comes over people when they offer money, then find their offer is accepted. “Thought Domingo was staking him.”

  “No longer, Andy.”

  “Hell not?”

  Truth once more came cautiously to Pendel’s aid.

  “As of a few days ago, Señor Domingo has ceased to be what you might call a welcome guest at Mickie’s table. What was evident to all has finally become evident to Mickie too.”

  “You mean he’s rumbled his old lady and Rafi?”

  “Correct, Andy.”

  Osnard digested this. “Buggers wear me out,” he complained. “Plots here, plots there, talk o’ the big sellout, putsches round the corner, silent oppositions, students on the march. Hell are they opposing, Christ’s sake? What for? Why can’t they come clean?”

  “That’s exactly what I said to him, Andy. ‘Mickie,’ I said. ‘My friend will not invest in an enigma. For as long as there’s a very big secret out there which you know and my friend doesn’t,’ I said, ‘his money’s going to stay in his wallet.’ I was firm, Andy. With Mickie you have to be. He’s iron. ‘You deliver your plot, Mickie,’ I said, ‘and we’ll deliver our philanthropy.’ My words,” he added while Osnard puffed and wrote and the sweat went tap-tap on the table.

  “How’d he take it?”

  “He druckened himself, Andy.”

  “He what?”

  “Went all dark and nobody. I had to force the words out of him the same as an interrogator. ‘Harry boy,’ he says to me, ‘we’re men of honour, you and me, so I won’t mince my words either.’ He was fired up. ‘If you ask me when, I shall answer you never. Never never!’ ” The heat in Pendel’s voice was very lifelike. You knew at once that he had been there, felt the Abraxas passion. “ ‘Because never will I divulge the single slightest detail passed to me by my highly secret sources until I have cleared it with each and every one of them down the line.’ ” His voice fell and became a solemn promise. “ ‘I shall then furnish your friend with an order of battle of my movement, plus a statement of its aims a
nd dreams, plus a manifesto of intent should we ever win first prize in the great lottery of life, plus all requisite facts and figures regarding the secret machinations of this government—which are in my view diabolical—subject to certain copper-bottomed assurances.’ ”

  “Like what?”

  “ ‘Like treating my organisation with a high degree of circumspection and respect, such as clearing in advance via Harry Pendel all details however slight that bear upon my security or the security of those I am responsible for without exception.’ Period.”

  There was silence. There was Osnard’s fixed, dark stare. And there was muddled Harry Pendel’s scowl, while he struggled to shield Mickie from the consequences of his miscalculated gift of love.

  Osnard spoke first.

  “Harry, ol’ boy.”

  “What is it, Andy?”

  “You holding out on me by any chance?”

  “I’m telling you what transpired, Mickie’s words and mine.”

  “This is the big one, Harry.”

  “Thank you, I’m aware of that, Andy.”

  “This is mega. This is what we were put on earth for, you and me. This is what London dreams of: a rampant middle-class radical freedom movement in place, up and running, ready to blaze away for democracy as soon as the balloon goes up.”

  “I don’t know where this is leading us, actually, Andy.”

  “This is no time for you to be paddling your own Canal. Get my meaning?”

  “I don’t think I do, Andy.”

  “Together we stand. Divided we’re screwed. You deliver Mickie, I deliver London, simple as that.”

  An idea came to Pendel. A lovely one.

  “There was one more stipulation he made, Andy, which I should just mention.”

  “What’s that, then?”

  “It was so ridiculous, frankly, I didn’t see the point of passing it on to you. ‘Mickie,’ I told him, ‘it’s a total nonstarter. You’ve overplayed your hand. I don’t think you’ll be hearing from my friend again for rather a long while.’ ”

  “Go on.”

  Pendel was laughing, but only inside himself. He had seen his way out, a doorway to freedom six feet wide. The fluence was rushing all over his body, tickling his shoulders, throbbing in his temples, and singing in his ears. He took a breath and made another long paragraph:

  “ ‘It’s regarding the method of payment of the cash that your mad millionaire proposes to pour into my Silent Opposition in order to bring it up to par and make it a worthy instrument of democracy for a small nation on the brink of self-determination and all that that entails.’ ”

  “So what is it?”

  “The money to be paid up front, Andy. Cash or gold in toto,” Pendel replied with heavy apology. “No credit, cheques, or banks to be involved at any stage, owing to the security. For the exclusive use of his movement, which includes both students and fishermen, down the middle and kosher, receipts and all the trimmings,” he concluded, with triumphant acknowledgements to his Uncle Benny.

  But Osnard was not responding as Pendel had anticipated. To the contrary, his podgy features seemed to brighten as he heard Pendel out.

  “I can see a case for that,” he said perfectly reasonably, after giving this interesting proposal the prolonged consideration it deserved. “So should London. I’ll run it by ’em, try it on for size, see what they come up with. Reasonable chaps, most of ’em. Keen. Flexible when necessary. Can’t give cheques to fishermen. Makes no sense at all. Anything else I can help you with?”

  “I’d have thought that was enough, thank you, Andy,” Pendel replied prissily, stifling his astonishment.

  Marta stood at her stove making Greek coffee because she knew he liked it. Pendel lay on her bed studying a complex chart of lines and bubbles and capital letters followed by numerals.

  “It’s an order of battle,” she explained. “The way we used to do it when we were students. Code names, calls, lines of communication, and a special liaison group to talk to the labour unions.”

  “Where does Mickie fit in?”

  “Nowhere. Mickie’s our friend. It would not be appropriate.”

  The coffee rose and settled again. She filled two cups.

  “And the Bear rang.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He says he’s thinking of doing an article about you.”

  “That’s nice then.”

  “He wants to know how much the new clubroom cost you.”

  “Why ever should that concern him?”

  “Because he’s evil too.”

  She took the order of battle from him, handed him his coffee, sat close to him on the bed.

  “And Mickie wants another suit. Houndstooth alpaca, the same as you made for Rafi. I said not till he’d paid for the last one. Was that right?”

  Pendel sipped his coffee. He felt afraid without knowing why.

  “Give him what makes him happy,” he said, avoiding her eye. “He’s earned it.”

  11

  Everyone was delighted with the way young Andy was working out. Even Ambassador Maltby, though not deemed capable of delight as others understood it, was heard to remark that a young man who played off eight and kept his mouth shut between strokes couldn’t be all bad. Nigel Stormont had put aside his misgivings within days. Osnard staked no challenge to his position as head of chancery, showed due deference to the sensitivities of his colleagues, and shone, but not too brightly, on the cocktail and dinner round.

  “Have you any suggestions about how I’m to explain you in this town?” Stormont asked him, none too kindly, at their first encounter. “Not to mention here in the embassy,” he added.

  “How about Canal Watcher?” Osnard suggested. “Britain’s trade routes in the post-Colonial era. True, manner o’ speaking. Just a question o’ how you do your watching.”

  Stormont could find no fault with this proposal. Every major embassy in Panama had its Canal expert except the Brits. But did Osnard know his stuff?

  “So what’s the bottom line as regards the U.S. bases?” Stormont demanded, by way of testing Osnard’s aptitude for his new post.

  “Don’t get you.”

  “Will the U.S. military stay or go?”

  “Toss-up. Lot o’ Pans want the bases to stay as security for foreign investors. Short-termists. See it as a transition.”

  “And the others?”

  “Not one more day. Had ’em here as a colonial power since 1904, disgrace to the region, get the buggers out. U.S. Marines hit Mexico and Nicaragua from here in the twenties, put down Panamanian strikes in ’25. U.S. military’s been here since the start o’ the Canal. No one’s comfortable with that except the bankers. Present time, U.S. are using Panama as a base to hit the drug barons in the Andes and Central America and train Latin American soldiery in civic action against enemies yet to be defined. U.S. bases employ four thousand Pans, give work to another eleven thousand. U.S. troop strength officially seven thousand, but there’s a lot hidden, lot o’ hollow mountains full o’ toys and funk holes. U.S. military presence supposedly accounts for 4.5 percent of the gross national product but that’s horseshit when you reckon Panama’s invisible earnings.”

  “And the treaties?” said Stormont, secretly impressed.

  “1904 treaty gave the Canal Zone to the Yanks in perpetuity, the ’77 Torrijos-Carter treaty said the Canal and all its works had to be handed back to the Pans at the turn o’ the century, free o’ charge. Right-wing America still thinks it was a sellout. Protocol allows for continued U.S. military presence if both sides want it. Question o’ who pays who how much for what when hasn’t been addressed. Do I pass?”

  He did. Osnard the official Canal Watcher duly settled into his flat, did his welcome parties, pressed the flesh and within weeks had become a pleasing minor feature of the diplomatic landscape. Within a few more he was an asset. If he played golf with the ambassador, he also played tennis with Simon Pitt, attended jolly beach parties with the junior staff and flung hi
mself upon the diplomatic community’s periodic frenzied efforts to raise conscience money for the underprivileged of Panama, of whom there was mercifully held to be an inexhaustible supply. An embassy pantomime was in rehearsal. Osnard was unanimously voted Dame.

  “Do you mind telling me something?” Stormont asked him when they knew each other better. “What’s the Planning & Application Committee when it’s at home?”

  Osnard was vague. Stormont thought deliberately so.

  “Not sure, actually. It’s Treasury led. Mixed bag o’ people from across the board. Co-opted members from all walks o’ life. Breath o’ fresh air to blow out the cobwebs. Quangos plus God’s anointed.”

  “Any walks in particular?”

  “Parliament. Press. Here and there. My boss sees it big but doesn’t talk about it much. Chaired by a chap called Cavendish.”

  “Cavendish?”

  “First name Geoff.”

  “Geoffrey Cavendish?”

  “Freelancer o’ some sort. Wheels and deals behind the scenes. Office in Saudi Arabia, houses in Paris and the West End, place in Scotland. Member o’ Boodles.”

  Stormont stared at Osnard in frank disbelief. Cavendish the influence pedlar, he was thinking. Cavendish the defence lobbyist. Cavendish the self-styled statesman’s friend. Ten Percent Cavendish, from the days when Stormont was doing a stint in the Foreign Office in London. Boom-boom Cavendish, arms broker. Geoff the Oil. Anybody finding himself in contact with the above-named will immediately report to Personnel Department before proceeding.

  “Who else?” Stormont asked.

  “Chap called Tug. T’other name unknown.”

  “Not Kirby?”

  “Just Tug,” said Osnard with an indifference that Stormont rather liked. “Overheard it on the blower. My boss having lunch with Tug before the meeting. My boss paid. Seemed to be the form.”

  Stormont bit his lip and asked no more. He already knew more than he wished and probably more than he ought. He turned instead to the delicate question of Osnard’s future product, which they discussed in private conclave over lunch in a new Swiss restaurant that served kirsch with the coffee. Osnard found the place, Osnard insisted on paying the bill out of what he called his reptile fund, Osnard proposed they eat cordon bleu and gnocchi and wash it down with Chilean red before the kirsch.