Mexico Set

by Len Deighton

  ‘I’d better come,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I can rearrange things. Otherwise…’ She smiled. ‘I might spend the rest of my life in Registry.’

  ‘He’d like us there at seventy forty-five, for drinks. They sit down to eat at eight thirty. If you live too far away, I’m sure Mrs Cruyer will be happy to let you have a room to change. Come to that,’ I said, ‘you could have a drink at my house and change there. Then I could drive you over. His house is rather difficult to find.’

  I saw a look of doubt come into her face. I feared for a moment that I’d overplayed my hand but I busied myself with my work and said no more.

  Dicky’s dinner party was very successful. Daphne had worked for three days preparing the meal, and I realized that she’d not invited me for lunch the previous Sunday because she had been trying out on Dicky the same cucumber soup recipe, and the same wild rice, and the same gooseberry fool that she served for the dinner party. Only the boiled salmon was an experiment; its head fell on the kitchen floor as it was coming out of the fish kettle.

  There were eight of us. If Gloria Kent had expected it to be a gathering of departmental staff she gave no sign of disappointment at meeting the Cruyers’ new neighbours and a couple named Stephens, the wife being Liz Stephens who was Daphne’s partner in the stripping business. Dicky couldn’t resist his joke about Daphne making money from stripping, although it was clear that only Gloria had not been told it before. Gloria laughed.

  The conversation at table was confined to the usual London dinner-party small talk; listing foreign ski resorts, local restaurants, schools and cars in descending order of desirability. Then there was talk about the furniture stripping. The first attempt had gone badly. No one had told them not to try it with bentwood furniture and the first lot of chairs had disintegrated in the soda bath. The two women were able to laugh about it but their husbands exchanged looks of mutual resignation.

  The neighbours from across the road – whose schoolgirl babysitter had to be home very early – left after the gooseberry fool. The Stephenses departed soon afterwards after just one hurried cup of coffee. This left the four of us sitting in the front room. Dicky had the hi-fi playing Chopin very quietly. Gloria asked Daphne if she could help with the washing up and, being told no, admired the primitive painting of Adam and Eve that was hanging over the fireplace. Daphne had ‘discovered’ it in a fleamarket in Amsterdam. She was always pleased when someone admired it.

  ‘A damn fine meal, darling,’ said Dicky as his wife brought the second pot of coffee and chocolate-covered after-dinner mints. His voice was a fruity imitation of Silas Gaunt, one of the old-timers of the department. He pushed his cup forward for a refill.

  Daphne glanced at him, smiled nervously and poured the hot coffee on to the polished table. I had the feeling that these dinners were nightmares for Daphne. She had been a pushy, self-confident career girl when Dicky married her, but she knew her limitations as a cook and she knew how critical Dicky (onetime President of Oxford University Wine and Food Society) Cruyer could be when he was playing host to people he worked with. Sometimes she seemed physically frightened of Dicky and I knew enough about his sudden fits of bad temper to sympathize.

  After a competition to see who could use the most Kleenex tissues to clean up the spilled coffee – which Daphne won by using a large handful of them to conceal and smuggle out of the room a box of very wet cigars – Gloria said, ‘You have such a beautiful house, Mrs Cruyer.’

  ‘Daphne. Daphne, for God’s sake. It’s a pigsty,’ said Daphne with modest self-confidence. ‘Sometimes it gets me down.’

  I looked round to see any sign of the furniture that Daphne had stored in there but it had all been removed. Poor Daphne. Their cars were parked in the street. I suppose all the furniture was now stacked in the garage.

  ‘And lovely to see you both,’ said Dicky, passing coffee to Gloria. Dicky put a lot of meaning into the word ‘both’; it was almost carnal. She smiled nervously at Dicky and then looked at me. ‘Yes,’ said Dicky, passing a cup of coffee to me, ‘Bernard has talked about you so much.’

  ‘When?’ said Gloria. She was no fool. She guessed immediately what was behind Dicky’s remarks.

  ‘When we were in Mexico,’ said Dicky.

  ‘Mexico City,’ I said.

  ‘They call it Mexico,’ said Dicky.

  ‘I know,’ said Gloria, as if her mind was on other things. ‘My mother and father went there two years ago, on a package holiday. They brought back a lot of home movies. That’s my father’s hobby. It looked awful.’ She turned to me and smiled; sweet smile but cold eyes. ‘I didn’t know you were talking about me when you were in Mexico, Bernard,’ she said.

  I drank some of my coffee.

  Gloria turned her attention to Daphne. ‘As long as I don’t have to go back to working in Registry, Mrs Cruyer,’ she said. ‘It’s absolute hell.’ Daphne nodded. It was brilliant of her to say it to Daphne. Had she said it to Dicky or to me, I think Daphne would have made sure Gloria went back into Registry the following morning. ‘Couldn’t you ask your husband to let me work somewhere else?’

  Daphne looked uncertain. She said, ‘I’m sure he’ll do what he can, Gloria. Won’t you, Dicky?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ said Dicky. ‘She can work upstairs. There’s always extra work to do and I’ve had to ask Bret Rensselaer to share his secretary with one of the Deputy Desk people. Gloria could help my secretary and Bernard’s secretary and do the occasional job for Bret.’

  So Dicky was fighting back. Good old Dicky. Share his secretary; that should make Bret retire to a neutral corner and shake the tears from his eyes.

  ‘That would be wonderful, Mr Cruyer,’ said Gloria, but she smiled at Daphne. It was becoming clear to me that Gloria had a great career ahead of her. What was that joke about Hungarians going into a revolving door behind you, and coming out ahead of you.

  ‘We’re all one happy family in Dicky’s department,’ I said.

  Dicky smiled at me scornfully.

  ‘But we’d better be moving along,’ I said. And to meet Dicky’s gaze I added, ‘Gloria has left her clothes at my place.’

  ‘Oh, doesn’t that sound awful,’ said Gloria. ‘Bernard let me change at his house. My parents live too far away for me to go home to change.’

  When we’d said our goodnights and were in my old Ford, Gloria said, ‘What nice people they are.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Mr Cruyer is a very interesting man,’ she said.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ she said, as if worried that she’d said the wrong thing.

  ‘Very interesting,’ I said. ‘But I was surprised you got on to that so quickly.’

  ‘He was at Balliol,’ she said wistfully. ‘All the very brightest people go to Balliol.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I said.

  ‘Where did you go to, Bernard?’

  ‘You can call me Mr Samson if you like,’ I said. ‘I didn’t go anywhere. I left school when I was sixteen and started work.’

  ‘Not for the department?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t take the Civil Service exam at sixteen.’

  ‘It all happened in a foreign country,’ I said. ‘My father was the Berlin Resident. I grew up in Berlin. I speak Berlin German like a native. I know the town. It was natural that I should start working for the department. The paperwork was all done afterwards. I never took the selection board.’ It sounded more defensive than I had intended it should.

  ‘I got five A levels,’ said Gloria proudly. Gone was the femme fatale; all of a sudden she was the sixth-form schoolgirl running home with her school report.

  ‘Here we are,’ I said. ‘Do you want to come inside and have a drink?’

  To my surprise she tilted her head back until it was on my shoulder. I could smell her perfume and the warmth of her body. She said, ‘I don’t want this evening to end.’

  ‘We’ll keep it goi
ng as long as possible,’ I said. ‘Come and have a drink.’

  She smiled lazily. She hadn’t had much wine or I might have suspected that she was drunk. She put her hand on my arm and turned her face to me. I kissed her on the forehead and opened the door. ‘Come along, then.’ She giggled and got out of the car. As she slid from the seat her skirt rode up to expose a lot of leg. She tugged at it and smiled modestly.

  Once inside the house she sat down on the sofa and again said what a wonderful evening it had been. ‘Brandy?’ I said. ‘Liqueur? Scotch and soda?’

  ‘A very tiny brandy,’ she said. ‘But I’ll miss my last train if we don’t go very soon.’ I poured two huge Martell brandies and sat down next to her.

  ‘Will your parents worry?’ I gave her a decorous kiss on the cheek. ‘If you miss your train, would they really worry?’

  ‘I’m a big girl now,’ she said.

  ‘You are indeed, Gloria,’ I said admiringly. ‘You’re a wonderful girl.’ I put my arm round her and pulled her close. She was soft and warm and big. She was just what I wanted.

  ‘What were you saying about me when you were in Mexico City?’ Her voice was dreamy and softened by the way she was nibbling my ear.

  ‘Mexico. You heard what Dicky said. They always call it Mexico.’

  She murmured, ‘Did you bet Dicky Cruyer that you’d get me into bed?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said.

  ‘You said you’d already had me in bed? Ummm?’

  ‘Good Lord, no,’ I said. ‘We were talking about staffing. We weren’t talking about any one member of the staff in particular. We were talking about the office…the workload.’

  She nuzzled her face against my ear. ‘You’re a terrible liar, Bernard. Did anyone ever tell you that? You are a completely hopeless liar. How did you ever survive as a secret agent?’ She was kissing my cheek now. As I hugged her she murmured, ‘Admit it, you told Dicky we were lovers.’ As she said it she turned her head to offer me her lips and we kissed. When she broke away she purred, ‘You did, didn’t you?’

  ‘I might have said something that gave him the wrong impression,’ I admitted. ‘You can see what Dicky’s like.’

  She kissed me again. ‘I must go home,’ she said.

  ‘Must you?’

  ‘I must. My parents might worry.’

  ‘You’re a big girl now,’ I reminded her. But she pushed me away and got to her feet. ‘Perhaps some other time,’ she said. She was alert now, and I could see she had decided to leave. ‘I’ll go upstairs and get my bag. But you…’ She took me by the hand and pulled me to the front door. ‘You will go out and start the car and take me to the station.’

  When I showed little inclination to do this, she marched upstairs to get the clothes she’d left there and, over her shoulder, said, ‘If I miss my train at Waterloo you’ll have to drive me all the way to Epsom, Mr Samson. And that’s a miserable drive at this time of night. And my parents always wait up to see who I’ve been with. I hate to make them angry.’

  ‘Okay, Gloria,’ I said. ‘You talked me round.’ I didn’t relish facing the wrath of a Hungarian dentist in the small hours of the morning.

  I took her to Waterloo Station in time to catch her train and I returned to my lonely bed.

  It was only next morning that I discovered that she’d used the scissors from the bathroom cupboard to cut all my underpants in two. And it was only when daylight came that I could see that she’d written ‘You are a bastard Mr Samson’ in lipstick on the bedroom window. I spent ages removing the lipstick marks, and hiding my pieces of underwear, before Mrs Dias the cleaning lady arrived. I was not in a hurry to repeat that experience with Gloria. It seemed as if there might be something of deep psychological significance about the retribution she’d wreaked upon my linen for what seemed to me a harmless little joke.

  12

  ‘That bloody Werner has been seeing Stinnes,’ said Dicky. He was pacing up and down chewing at the nail of his little finger. It was a sign that he was agitated. He was often agitated lately. Sometimes I wondered that Dicky had any nails left.

  ‘So I hear,’ I said calmly.

  ‘Ah,’ said Dicky. ‘I thought so. Have you been going behind my back again?’

  I salaamed; a low bow in a gesture of placation, ‘Oh, master. I hear this only from Harrington sahib.’

  ‘Cut out the clowning,’ said Dicky. He sat down behind his huge rosewood table. He didn’t have a real desk in his office; just a few fine pieces of antique furniture including this rosewood table that he used as a desk, a Charles Eames chair for him to sprawl in, and a couple of easy chairs for visitors. It was a big room with two windows facing across the park. At one time he’d shared this room with his secretary, but once he’d annexed the office next door for her he spread himself.

  ‘No one tells me anything,’ said Dicky. He was sitting on his hard little chair, legs and knees pressed together and arms folded tight across his chest. It was an illustration from a textbook that tells you how to deal with sulking children. ‘Bret’s determined to take over my job. Now I suppose he’s going to cut off all my communications with my stations.’

  ‘Werner Volkmann doesn’t officially work for the department. You wouldn’t give him any money in Mexico City. You remember I asked you, and you said over your dead body.’

  ‘He’s got no right to have meetings with Stinnes without keeping me informed.’

  ‘He can’t have had many meetings in Berlin,’ I said. ‘He’s only been back there five minutes.’

  ‘He should have asked permission,’ said Dicky.

  ‘Werner doesn’t owe us anything; we owe him.’

  ‘Who owes him?’ said Dicky contentiously.

  ‘The department owes him. Werner located Stinnes for us and then you wouldn’t okay a payment. What can you expect?’

  ‘So your pal Werner is out to teach us a lesson. Is that his game?’

  I sank down deep in Dicky’s Charles Eames armchair; it was very relaxing. Little wonder Dicky never got any work done. ‘Werner is one of those strange people who like to work in intelligence. He makes a good living from his banking activities but he wants to work for us. You put Werner back on the payroll and he’d be the most enthusiastic agent on your books. Give him a little money and even his wife would start getting interested.’

  ‘She’s mercenary. That Zena is very mercenary.’

  So even Dicky had noticed. ‘Yes, she is,’ I said. ‘But if they both are seeing Stinnes, my advice is to keep her sweet.’

  Dicky grunted and continued biting his nail.

  ‘Zena keeps her ears and eyes open. And Stinnes seems to like her. She might be able to guess what’s in his mind before anyone else does.’

  Dicky pouted. He was always like this about approving extra payments to any field agents. Normally I would have arranged any discussion about money for some day when Dicky was in one of the upward phases of his manic lifestyle. ‘If Werner Volkmann makes a complete cock-up of everything, and he’s not on the payroll, I can disown him,’ explained Dicky, who tackled every task by deciding how he’d extricate himself from it if disaster ensued.

  ‘I’ll take personal responsibility for him,’ I said.

  Dicky brightened at the idea. ‘That might be a way of doing it,’ he said. The wall behind Dicky was almost completely covered with framed photos of Dicky smiling and shaking hands with important people. This form of self-advertisement, more usually found in the offices of extrovert American film producers, was considered bad form when Dicky first began his collection. But Dicky had made it into a prank, a droll collegiate form of fun, so that now he was able to have his joke and eat it too. One of the photos showed Dicky in Calcutta, while on a tour with Sir Henry Clevemore, the Director-General. It was a large colour photo in a gold frame. The two men were standing in front of a stall displaying crude lithographic posters. By looking closely you could recognize portraits of John Lennon, Napoleon, Marilyn Monroe, Lenin and John F. Kennedy.
Somehow I always thought of Dicky as that young man in the photo, smiling at his boss amid a galaxy of successful people. ‘I’ve told Berlin that I want Werner over here immediately. He’ll be on the morning plane. I’ve sent a car to the airport so he will be here about three. We’ll sit him down and find out what the hell it’s all about. Okay, Bernard?’

  ‘I hope you’ll start off by offering him a proper contract,’ I said. ‘He’s not your employee. He can just tell you to get stuffed and phone his lawyer.’

  Dicky bit his lip. ‘We’ve just been through all that. You said you’d take responsibility for him.’

  ‘Then let me offer him a proper contract,’ I said. Dicky looked doubtful. I said, ‘Distancing yourself from Werner in case everything goes wrong might be sound reasoning. But don’t distance yourself from him so far that he’s out of sight. Don’t distance yourself so far from Werner that you’ll get no credit if everything goes well.’

  Dicky took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘I’m getting a cold,’ he said woefully. ‘It’s coming back here after the hot weather in Mexico.’

  I nodded. I recognized the signs. When Dicky displayed the symptoms of the common cold it was usually because he was expecting some work he couldn’t handle, or questions he didn’t want to answer. ‘Let me see Werner,’ I said. ‘Let me draft a contract. Don’t bring him up here to the office. Tell me what you want him to do and I’ll keep you in touch with him. Run him through me. Then you’ll have the best of both worlds.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Dicky. He blew his nose again, trying to conceal his relief behind his big white handkerchief.

  ‘But I’ll need money,’ I said. ‘Not a handful of small change; ten grand at least, Dicky.’

  ‘Ten grand?’

  ‘It’s only money, Dicky.’

  ‘You’re irresponsible, Bernard. Two thousand maybe, not ten.’

  ‘It’s not your money, Dicky.’

  ‘That’s just the sort of thing I’d expect you to say,’ said Dicky. ‘You think the department has money to burn.’