Harlequin

by Morris West

  Milo Frohm was delighted to hear from me. I told him I was grateful for his cable, but that it was difficult to talk business on an open line. After what he had been reading in the press, he thought I exaggerated the difficulty. We couldn’t have been more open if we’d put it on television. Well-founded rumour said we were about to be sued for our hide and hair. I told him we expected it – more, we wanted it. Then I told him of Julie’s death.

  For a long moment there was silence on the line, then he said, ‘How is Mr Harlequin taking it?’

  ‘Biblically.’

  ‘Old Testament or New?’

  ‘Old…’

  ‘And what are your sentiments, Mr Desmond?’

  ‘I’d like to play by the rules. I’m afraid, if we do, the crows will eat us.’

  ‘Suppose we could bend the rules a little.’

  ‘It has to be more than suppose…’

  ‘So we do bend them.’

  ‘Are we on tape now?’

  ‘Since the beginning…’

  ‘Here goes then. Valerie Hallstrom was killed by a hit-man called Tony Tesoriero, now dead. He was paid by a man called Pedro Galvez, a big name in Mexico City, who is linked with our company and with Basil Yanko. For evidence, we have a paper signed by Tony Tesoriero. No good in court, but good for you. We are assuming, without proof, that Galvez was also responsible for the murder of Madame Harlequin. Next, the frauds in our bank at Mexico City were committed by a woman, Maria Guzman, paid by one Alexander Duggan, who works for Creative Systems in Los Angeles, California. On that we have notarised depositions and identifying photographs, also notarised. Galvez was told we knew Duggan. Saul Wells is watching Duggan now. The address is as follows…’

  When I had finished, Milo Frohm asked, ‘Have you told any of this to the Mexican authorities?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We offered immunity to Maria Guzman. Duggan is beyond jurisdiction and the rest is hearsay from a dead man.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Desmond. When do you expect to come back to the United States?’

  ‘That depends on Harlequin. Probably soon after the funeral…’

  ‘I’d like to know the travel arrangements as soon as they’re made. You’re dangerous people to be with; we’ll need to protect your fellow-travellers.’

  I thought he was joking. I made a flippant rejoinder. I found he was deadly serious:

  ‘Politics and money make an explosive mixture, Mr Desmond. Mix ’em with oil and you get a very big bonfire. Please do as I ask.’

  At least he was honest about it. He could bend the rules, he could not change the fundamental facts of life in this year of doubtful grace: that no fortress was proof against money, that a pound of plastic explosive could blast an aircraft out of the sky, that a few desperate men could hold a nation to ransom. Which took us by swift strides back to the dark ages, to summary justice and the law of the talion and the kingly privilege of the private executioner…

  As if she read my thoughts, Suzanne came and put her arms around my neck and laid her cheek against mine. ‘Enough, Paul… You need some time for grieving, too.’

  ‘Funny! I don’t know how to grieve. There’s just a blank space, as though someone had taken a picture down from the wall… Is George back yet?’

  ‘Yes. He’s just come in. I called his room. He’s resting. He doesn’t want anyone near him yet. I’ve put a stop on his phone and told them to redirect calls here.’

  ‘He’s got to crack soon, Suzy.’

  ‘No, Paul.’ She shook her head emphatically. ‘I remember something my father used to quote to me: “Der grosste Hass ist still… The greatest hatred is silent.” George is a hating man now. He’s lost to us, gone far away.’

  ‘Relax, lover. People get tired of hating.’

  ‘It lasts longer than loving, Paul.’

  ‘Would a whisky help?’

  ‘It might. Oh, chéri! Hang on to me. I’m very frightened.’

  While I was pouring the drinks, it hit me like a hammer-blow. Once, in a distant yesterday, we were afraid of the potent wizard, Basil Yanko; now we were more afraid of George Harlequin, who had succumbed to his spells and who lay in a darkened room with a splinter of ice in his heart. Because I couldn’t face the truth, I took refuge in platitudes. We were half-way launched on one of those foolish consoling dialogues about love and mercy, and how, if you understand everything, you can forgive almost anything, when the telephone shrilled and reception announced that Señor Pedro Galvez desired to see Mr George Harlequin. Suzanne – God bless her sober Swiss manners! – desired him to wait a few moments while I spoke to Harlequin on the bedroom phone. I expected rage or dull despair. Instead I was directed to receive our guest with courtesy, offer him a drink, and beg a few moments’ grace while Harlequin made himself decent to welcome him. I passed the message. Suzanne went down to the lobby. I tidied the desk and laid out clean glasses and wondered what the hell you said to a murderer when his victim was hardly cold. I need not have worried.

  George Harlequin was ready and waiting when Suzanne ushered Pedro Galvez into the room. His welcome was florid and emotional. ‘My dear Pedro! How kind of you to come! It was not necessary; but I am deeply touched.’

  ‘George, my friend, what can I say? What can I do?’

  ‘Nothing, Pedro! Your presence does enough! Liquor, coffee? Isn’t it strange how we go back to the old ways… We lay out meat and drink for the mourners. Please, please, sit down… Suzanne! Coffee for Señor Galvez!’

  Pedro Galvez settled himself in a chair, a rock of comfort in an ocean of grief. ‘My dear George! I believed so firmly it could not happen.’

  ‘We all believed, Pedro.’

  ‘The arrangements? Perhaps I can…’

  ‘It’s done, thank you. She will be buried here in your beautiful city. She always loved it.’

  ‘George, this is murder. Something must be done.’

  ‘What, Pedro? I cannot go through the streets crying blood and vengeance. I would rather let her sleep in peace.’

  ‘I understand; but it is not enough.’

  ‘Let me bury her first.’

  ‘Of course! Of course! But there should be ceremony, George. It is only proper. You have friends here, and clients. They will want to pay respect. May I bring them?’

  ‘If they wish to come, yes.’

  ‘Will you stay afterwards?’

  ‘Not long, I think. I am claimed in other places. There are people who depend on me. I am still under attack. I must go on fighting. Now, even the fight is something.’

  ‘Do you have any idea, George – half a thought even – who might have done this terrible thing? If you have, tell me. I promise you on my immortal soul, I will find him.’

  ‘Pedro, I prize what you say; but I know already who did it.’

  ‘Have you told the police?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you must! It is essential that they know.’

  ‘I wanted to tell you first, Pedro.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘You have friends in authority. You would not let a thing like this be buried in the files.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Pedro, you must know what it’s like. You love your wife, your son, your daughters…’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘One day, I shall have to tell my son that his mother died, shot by an assassin, in Mexico City. He’s a baby now; but one day he will have to know. Then he will ask me what I did to the man who killed her. What shall I say, Pedro?’

  ‘As yet, you have done nothing.’

  ‘As yet.’ Harlequin put a hand into his breast pocket, brought out the envelope containing Tony Tesoriero’s letter and handed it to Pedro Galvez. ‘Read it, my friend, and tell me what I should do about it.’

  ‘It is sealed, George.’

  ‘A mistake. Open it, please.’

  Pedro Galvez thrust a thick finger under the flap of the envelope and tore it open. He unfolded the note
and read it. There was no twitch of emotion on his weathered face. Carefully he folded the paper, put it back in the envelope and handed it back to George Harlequin. He stood up, tugged down his waistcoat and buttoned his coat. Then, without a tremor, he made his farewells. ‘Señor Desmond, Señorita, you will excuse me. George, I understand sorrow. I have experienced it myself. I forgive you this very bad joke.’

  ‘Before you go!’ George Harlequin stood by the door, one hand on the latch, the other raised to stay him. ‘The joke isn’t finished yet. Wherever you go, there will be a man to watch you. Wherever your wife goes, or your son or your daughters, there will be eyes upon them, too. One day, one will be killed. Another day, one more. But never you, Pedro Galvez – never you. You are untouchable. You know I can do it, because you did it yourself and because, I today, assisted at the death of Tony Tesoriero. You know I will do it because you taught me yourself: unless one kills the beast, there is no meat for dinner… When next you call Basil Yanko, tell him what I have told you. Adios, amigo!’

  Pedro Galvez stood, straight and sturdy as an old oak in a storm-wind. He said, sombrely:

  ‘I can offer you a better bargain, George.’

  ‘I know you can,’ said Harlequin. ‘Sit down and write. Suzanne, telephone the concierge and ask him to find us a notary.’

  It is a matter of public record that Pedro Galvez died in his bed sometime between midnight and dawn of the following day. It was known, and so stated by his physician, that he had been suffering a long time from acute cardiac symptoms, aggravated by the strains of an active and fruitful life. He was buried, with much greater pomp, in the same cemetery and on the same day as Juliette Harlequin.

  Ours was a sad little ceremony, conducted in an alien tongue, by a nervous young pastor from the Lutheran Church – the closest communion we could find in the city of the Virgin of Guadeloupe. There were few mourners, and all of them, except ourselves, were there by duty, uneasy at the service, faintly guilty at committing a woman to a protestant God. The eulogy was mercifully brief: a stale crumb of consolation for those who had loved her, a pallid panegyric for those who had never known her.

  Harlequin stood on one side of the grave, with José Luis; Suzanne and I on the other. Harlequin was pale but composed, his eyes hidden behind dark sun-glasses. Suzanne wept quietly. As the casket was lowered into the earth, I closed my eyes, trying to hold back the tears. I heard the thud of the first sods on the coffin lid, the shuffle of the mourners as they moved away, the scrape of metal as the gravediggers filled in the hole.

  Then, hand in hand with Suzanne, I turned away. Harlequin was already gone. He was standing by the limousine, shaking hands with the mourners, saying his thanks to the pastor. We drove straight from the cemetery to the airport, where a chartered jet was waiting to fly us to Los Angeles. Milo Frohm had made his point. Harlequin had accepted it without question. We were not common folk any more; the death-mark was printed on the palms of our hands.

  Throughout the whole journey, Harlequin worked alone, assiduously, covering page after page with handwritten notes. He was totally withdrawn from us now, secretive and laconic. He no longer discussed; he directed. He received information and declined either to comment on it or indicate how he intended to use it. On the day before the funeral, I had charged him with a lack of simple courtesy to me as a colleague and to Suzanne as a devoted servant. He had answered, coolly, that he regretted the discourtesy, but that he could no longer involve us in actions for which he, and he alone, stood responsible. Already I was open to a charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice, of being an accessory to the murder of Tony Tesoriero. He would not expose me further. For the future – so far as I cared to foresee that future – I should confine myself to the normal business transactions of the company.

  I argued that I was already a go-between with Aaron Bogdanovich and Saul Wells and Milo Frohm. He ordered that, in future, he would deal personally with Bogdanovich. Saul Wells was overtly employed; Milo Frohm was a Government agent: I would treat with both under his direction… Very well! If he wanted it that way… He did. Praise the Lord! Amen! I began to dream, longingly, of blue water and white sails bellying as we sailed on a broad reach to hell-and-gone.

  Suzanne found him easier to deal with than I. She had nothing to argue. She retreated into the formalities of Europe and refused even the long-time privilege of using his Christian name. Harlequin made no comment on the change, although I noticed that he became a shade less peremptory and more considerate in her regard. Thrown back on each other’s company, we became closer and more private, more fearful, too, of the cold despair which consumed our one-time friend.

  It was dark when we landed at Los Angeles. On the tarmac we were met by two officials from Immigration and Customs who checked us into the country with the minimum of ceremony and delivered us into the hands of Milo Frohm. He drove us in his own car to the Bel Air hotel and installed us in adjoining bungalows, which he claimed were secure and free from electronic devices.

  He was grateful that we had decided to co-operate with him. He would be as frank with us as the peculiar circumstances permitted. If we had no objections, he would join us for supper. He suggested that it might be politic to delay our meeting with Saul Wells. Perhaps, while we were freshening up, he could study the documents we had brought from Mexico. He frowned first and then grinned when George Harlequin handed him a set of photostats and said that he would prefer to keep the originals in his own possession. He thought it might be wiser if Suzanne were excused from our discussions. Later, over coffee and sandwiches, he read us a little homily:

  ‘…At our first meeting, gentlemen, we talked of a conflict of interests: ours as a domestic agency, yours as a foreign corporation. I think we have both come to see that our interests converge, even if they are not and cannot be identical. Fair statement?’

  We agreed that it was. Harlequin added a rider that he was less convinced than I. Milo Frohm noted the point and went on:

  ‘…Our State Department is at odds with the Europeans because they’re making separate oil deals with the Arabs. The Israelis are sore with the Europeans because the French and the Norwegians have blown their spy network and their early warning system against terrorists. They’re sore with us, too, because they figure we gave away too much in the cease-fire negotiations. It is against this background that you have to see your situation with Basil Yanko. Politically, he’s been useful to us. He’s given us footholds in Europe. He has succeeded in attracting Arab money and goodwill to this country instead of to Europe. That’s high politics and rough trade. It means a certain amount of dirt has to be swept under the rug. We know that. Regrettably, we accept it if it works and we scream blue murder if it doesn’t. As a matter of policy, we’d be happy if Yanko could take you over. As a matter of fact, we’re hurting like hell because he played too rough, and you played too clever and every day there’s another piece of dirty washing on the clothes-line. In short, Mr Harlequin, you have created a first-class scandal at a time when we need it like a hole in the head…’

  ‘Are you telling me, Mr Frohm, that you want to bury it?’

  ‘We’d like to; we know we can’t. Basil Yanko has two choices: fight you to a finish or cut his own throat. As of today, his stock is down twenty-eight per cent. It will go lower yet. He’s serving suit on you for upwards of twenty million damages, and punitive payments on top of that. You’ll go to court and to your shareholders with these Mexican documents and whatever else you’ve dug up and haven’t told me… Then the Administration’s got egg all over its face before it’s wiped off the Watergate mess. That’s something we’d all like to avoid.’

  ‘You can,’ said George Harlequin.

  ‘How?’ Milo was eager.

  ‘Give me back my wife.’

  ‘I wish I could, Mr Harlequin. I wish to God I could.’

  ‘Alternately, Mr Frohm, because you cannot do the impossible, arrest Basil Yanko for conspiracy to murder and put him behind bars.’
>
  ‘On Pedro Galvez’s confession? No way in the world.’

  ‘It’s an authentic document.’

  ‘The man who wrote it is dead. He was your friend, a shareholder in your company. It could be argued that he conspired with you to offer that confession as a last act of friendship. It could be argued equally well that he made it under threat of duress – which is what I think happened, Mr Harlequin, though I have neither the means nor the desire to prove it. But you do have a holograph note from Tony Tesoriero, who is dead, too. We’re happy to be rid of him; so we’re not really asking who killed him. However, we’ve known for some time that Valerie Hallstrom was an Israeli agent working for a network which we tolerate for our own purposes… Which reminds me, Mr Desmond. You sent your manservant on a holiday to San Francisco. We sent a man to talk to him. He says you’re fond of flowers and that you normally have them delivered from a shop on Third Avenue…’ He sighed and threw out his hands in momentary despair. ‘As my English colleagues say, it’s a right, royal mess. But some way – and quickly – we’ve got to clean it up.’

  ‘There’s one sure way, Mr Frohm, and you can use it. There’s no doubt at all about the documents that link Alex Duggan to the frauds in Mexico. You need only one more – a confession that he acted under prompting or instruction from Basil Yanko.’

  ‘There’s a problem there, too, I’m afraid. Alex Duggan left home on Tuesday morning to visit a client in San Diego. He didn’t arrive. He hasn’t been seen since. His company and his wife have him listed with Missing Persons.’

  ‘Paul! You told me Saul Wells had him under surveillance…’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Then how the devil did this happen?’

  ‘Very simply,’ said Milo Frohm wearily. ‘There was a pile-up on the freeway. Saul Wells got stuck in it. Luck of the game, I’m afraid. Poor Saul! His pride is dented worse than his fenders!’