by Morris West
‘Two months to run, George.’
‘Good. Satisfactory, gentlemen?’
Grey-hair and junior agreed that it was.
George Harlequin asked, hesitantly: ‘Indemnities for costs? I presume you’re putting up, Mr Yanko?’
‘We aren’t; but, if necessary, we will, Mr Harlequin. Now, what is the purpose of this meeting?’
‘I presume you’d like a record of it?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Suzanne will set it down in shorthand and type it before you leave. We can then agree and sign it. Is that acceptable?’
It was acceptable to Basil Yanko; his henchmen agreed perforce.
George Harlequin leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs, built a pyramid with his hands and smiled over the peak of it. ‘Mr Yanko, I state before witnesses and I subscribe in writing as follows: you conspired to defraud my company of fifteen million dollars and, in so doing, to discredit me and secure control of my company. You conspired also to murder Frank Lemnitz in London, Valerie Hallstrom in New York and my wife in Mexico City. I propose within the next few days to make these charges public and to urge them against you in court. I understand that if I cannot prove the charges, I shall have committed the grossest of libels and I stand ready to accept all the penalties and damages I may incur. That is the end of my statement. I am happy to hear your comments on or off the record.’
‘For the record,’ said Basil Yanko coldly, ‘I think you’re a criminal lunatic.’
‘Also, for the record.’ The senior attorney weighed his words carefully. ‘Would you tell us why you have chosen to make this extraordinary statement at this time and in this manner?’
‘I was informed today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Mr Desmond and I may be the targets of terrorist attack as Zionist sympathisers. We are so listed in a document which emanated from Mr Yanko’s data services. My infant son has been placed under police protection in Geneva. I wish Mr Yanko to know that, should anything happen to us, he will not be immune from the law because I have already filed evidence in support of the charges.’
Junior counsel bestirred himself then and said, blandly, ‘Obviously, the evidence is insufficient, otherwise Mr Yanko would now be under arrest – as you may soon be, Mr Harlequin. With deference to my senior colleague, I suggest that, in the light of recent leaks to the Press, what we are seeing here is a rather crude attempt at blackmail and coercion.’
‘I would agree coercion,’ said George Harlequin evenly. ‘I am trying to prevent the murder of Alex Duggan. I met his wife this morning. She was very helpful… It would avail nothing to kill him now, Mr Yanko.’
Yanko made a gesture of dismissal. ‘I say it again. You’re out of your sweet mind. Let’s go, gentlemen.’
‘With respect, Mr Yanko –’ the senior attorney hesitated – ‘why not wait for the statement to be typed and signed? It’s not often a man offers us a rope to hang him.’
‘You wait for it,’ said Basil Yanko. ‘I have work to do.’
He strode out, leaving two very embarrassed attorneys to face a ten-minute hiatus while Suzanne typed up her shorthand.
Harlequin smiled. ‘Please, gentlemen, let me offer you a drink. It’s a pity your client was in such a hurry. I have a document to show you… only to demonstrate that I am not quite the fool I look.’
He opened his brief-case and handed each man a photostat of Pedro Galvez’s confession.
They read it poker-faced. The senior attorney asked, finally, ‘May we keep this?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Reluctantly they handed back the paper. They were suddenly more eager for the drinks, and singularly anxious for what they called ‘a quiet exchange of views’. They were in deep dilemma and they knew it. They had to insist on the total innocence of their client. They were troubled by the now sinister aspect of Alex Duggan’s disappearance, on which they had received a warning before witnesses. They skated in figures of eight round ‘mediation and amicable settlement of disputes outstanding’.
Harlequin let them talk and then asked the unanswerable, ‘How do you mediate with murder, gentlemen? How do you buy back the dead?’
They left at seven, two very puzzled men, each with a signed typescript and a very confused idea of what to do with it. As soon as they had left, Harlequin asked Suzanne to pack for him. Milo Frohm was calling for him at eight-thirty. They were flying to London together. This was startling news. He explained it with elaborate simplicity:
‘…Frohm was right, Paul. Basil Yanko has built so many fences around himself that every investigation stops short at an intermediary – Galvez, Tony Tesoriero, Alex Duggan and whoever killed Frank Lemnitz in London. That’s the way Yanko has always worked. He delegates power and abrogates responsibility when it suits his plans… However, Alex Duggan was not concerned with murder, only with his career. He was directed to set up the fraud in Mexico City; but he was wise enough to take out insurance. He left a signed account of the affair in his safe-deposit box, demonstrating that he was working under direction from Creative Systems. It wouldn’t help him in law; but it did protect his career with the company. Also in the safe-deposit, he kept a large reserve of cash – probably the money he was paid for the job and that which he got from Maria Guzman. The bank record shows that shortly before his disappearance, he opened the safe-deposit box – obviously to supply himself with untraceable funds. Our guess is that, after Galvez called Yanko, Duggan was advised to go into hiding. He went, knowing that the letter would guarantee his safety. His wife couldn’t surrender it because she didn’t know it existed. She can’t now because we’ve got it. There’s a guard on Mrs Duggan and her child, and Yanko’s had a warning which you’ve just heard. Saul Wells is still looking for Duggan. Milo Frohm and I are going to London to pick up the man who stands between Duggan and Yanko. If he’ll talk, our case is made.’
‘The case for fraud, not murder. Which means you’ve just put your name to the libel of the century. I agree with Yanko. You’re out of your sweet mind. Who is this fellow in London, anyway?’
‘The one who’s married to Beverley Manners, our former computer girl. She’s expecting a baby – remember? – and he plays golf in Surrey with our London manager.’
‘Let’s hope he hasn’t decided to take a holiday before you get there.’
‘He can’t. Frohm has been in touch with Scotland Yard; they’ve brought him in for questioning on the murder of Frank Lemnitz. That’ll keep him occupied until we get there.’
‘What do you want us to do?’
‘Go to New York. Take two or three days on the way, if you want. Stay there until I return.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘Nothing else, Paul. Enjoy yourself. Give Suzanne a holiday. Nothing will change until I get back. Better you’re not embroiled in gossip.’
It sounded simple. I knew it wasn’t. It was too glib a solution for all that he had at risk. He had not revoked his vow to kill Basil Yanko. He was simply setting the stage for the execution.
8
It was easy to dispense us from friendship and duty. It was not possible to purge out the memory of recent events and the nagging fear of imminent disaster. It was an insult to wave a slapstick and say, ‘Lo I The world is transformed. Go disport yourselves among the gilly-flowers!’ What were we to do? Eat, drink, do the galleries, take in the shows, ride a tourist bus to see the homes of the stars?
We had seen the underside of the carpet, with all the muck of the world clinging to the knotted threads. Now we were bidden to admire the beauty of the pattern, kneel on it to pray, lie on it to make love. I was so furious with George Harlequin I could hardly bear to wave him out of the driveway. Suzanne was pensive about him and sad; which made me angrier still and spoilt a perfectly good dinner for both of us. At the end of it, she was resolved that she didn’t want to set foot in New York. She would be happier to fly back to Geneva, tidy her desk, resign and spend the summer barefoot in Sardinia.
/> Then, as we sat, morose and unhappy over the coffee, I thought of Francis Xavier Mendoza, and, before the small grace was taken away, I called him. He had read the press reports. The whole affair was a putrid mess. As always, his heart and his house were open. In the morning, he was flying up to the vineyards. Why shouldn’t we come and spend a day and a night on the estate and drink good wine and talk simplicities? I called blessings on his head and said we would be delighted. Suzanne was as happy as if she had been invited to the morgue. My friends were mine. Her life was her own affair. The rest of the evening she would prefer to spend alone. She wasn’t raucous about it; she was polite and determined. She gave me a perfunctory kiss on the forehead and left me to join the other male rejects in the bar.
Somewhere around midnight, Saul Wells came looking for me. He said he was worn down to the knees, and he looked it. He hoisted himself on to a bar-stool, ordered a large vodka on ice, and downed half of it in a single swallow. Then he told me the news. He had found Alex Duggan.
‘Where, for God’s sake?’
‘Would you believe, in hospital; a ritzy private clinic in San Diego.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He admitted himself; said he wanted a complete medical checkup and a couple of weeks’ rest and sedation after a long and exhausting sales trip. He’s sitting up in a private room, surrounded by paperbacks and admiring nurses.’
‘How the hell did you find out?’
‘Routine and a little luck. Normally we call only hospitals that treat casualties. Then I remembered a case last year where a guy went underground for six months by moving from clinic to clinic. They’ve got the beds if you’ve got the money. They’ll give you primary, secondary and tertiary screenings, high colonics, special diets, tests for sterility – anything you can pay for. I know one lady novelist who puts herself into hospital to write her books. She says it’s great; no housekeeping, no servant problem, she can wear all her pretties, and when her boy-friend comes to see her, they hang out the “no visitors” sign. Anyway, to cut it short, I started calling – and found him on the fourth try.’
‘Did you talk to him?’
‘No. I want instructions on that. Your Mr Harlequin put a flea in my ear this morning. From now I go by the book. I’ve got three operators watching the place round the clock… I hope you realise what all this is costing you?’
When I told him what had happened during his absence, he gave a low whistle of pure joy. ‘Hell! That boy’s hot as chilli sauce and he doesn’t know it. Now, let’s read the book. We can’t pick him up. That’s kidnapping. If he leaves, we can follow him; and we may lose him again. Only one thing to do: call the FBI, find out who’s pinch-hitting for Milo Frohm and hand the case over to him. Order me another vodka and I’ll make the call now. Oh, brother I If Duggan slips away this time, I’ll put myself into a psycho ward!’
He came back rubbing his hands and grinning all over his sharp little face. ‘Great – great – great! Number one priority. They’ve taken full responsibility. They’re sending word to Frohm in flight. Their agents will take over from our operators as soon as San Diego can whistle in the troops… So now, Mr Desmond, you and I can do a little steady drinking.’
‘What about Duggan’s wife?’
‘What about her?’
‘Shouldn’t someone tell her?’
‘Someone should. I guess in the end someone will – but not us. No, sir! What she doesn’t know, can’t hurt her and it can’t hurt us… Tell you what, though: in California, I’m out of a job; in Mexico, I’m closed out…’
‘But you’ve still got answers to find on Ella Deane in New York.’
‘That’s a cold trail, Mr Desmond. With Lemnitz dead, I doubt we’ll ever pick it up again.’
‘Have you thought about Bernie Koonig?’
‘What gives you that idea?’
‘My ribs still hurt. They say Lemnitz-Koonig, Koonig-Lemnitz. What have you got to lose, except our money?’
‘Like you say, what have I got to lose? Maybe we’re on a winning streak now, eh? Drink up, Mr Desmond, you’re one behind.’
It was late when I got to bed, and early in the morning when Suzanne crawled in beside me to tell me the sun was just up and the birds were singing and there was nothing she would like better than a day among the wine-makers – well, almost nothing…
Francis Xavier Mendoza took one look at me and declared me unfit for human company. He wondered how any woman in her right mind could bear to be seen with such a genetic mistake, on whose visage were etched all the evils of the world. I needed sun, clean air and a very broad and general absolution before he would let me within a mile of his precious vintages. Suzanne, he would welcome with red-carpets and hibiscus flowers. Me… Ay! if he didn’t cherish a faint hope for my salvation, he would consign me, unregenerate, to outer darkness.
It was good to be with him. He coaxed the goodness out of you, as he coaxed the flavour of the soil and the bouquet out of the wine, with love and a long patience. The vines were in full leaf and the first tiny grapes were fattening slowly as he walked us along the terraces and through the caves, and the gleaming, aseptic laboratories, talking all the while of the ritual that led finally to the sacramental moment when the raw must became a fine wine.
He recited their names like a litany: Cabernet and Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon and Semillon and Zinfandel, which Colonel Agoston Haraszthy brought from Hungary in 1857 and which is still unique to California. He talked of Robert Louis Stevenson, who drank Souverain and Schamsberg and made a eulogy about them to shame the snobs of Europe. For a reproof to me, he quoted Tom Jefferson: ‘No nation is drunken where wine is cheap: and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits for the common beverage.’ He raised a laugh from Suzanne when he recited the toast of old Matthias Claudius: ‘Wer liebt nicht Weiben, Wein und Gesang… Who loves not women, wine and song, remains a fool his whole life long.’
Before the day was half-spent, he had her charmed out of her mind, and me out of the depression that had enveloped me too long, like a foul fog. After lunch, leaving Suzanne to drowse on the patio, he walked me up and down a cloister of trees, at the end of which was a joyful little sculpture of the Poverello talking to a pair of doves perched on his outstretched hand. I told Mendoza all that had happened in New York and in Mexico. None of it shocked him; all of it saddened him.
‘ …Paul, my friend, we are like peasants living in a battle zone. There is death all around us. We are hardened to it. We do not even ignore it; we make it now our staple entertainment… We think the Romans were brutes because they staged death games in the arena. Now we simulate them for our children on television and in the films… Millions of people line up to see a child masturbate herself with a crucifix… A large company has people murdered? Of course it does… I believe everything you tell me. I am only surprised there has not been more violence…’
‘There well may be. George Harlequin has sworn to kill Basil Yanko.’
‘And that, after all the rest, surprises you, Paul. It should not… Murder, like the plague, is epidemic. The legal restraint is weaker than it ever was. How can it be otherwise? After each revolution of the left or the right, the assassins make the laws, and the torturers enforce them. Only the moral restraint still holds – the sacredness of life, the sacredness of a man. Abrogate that, abandon it in despair, as Harlequin has done, murder is the natural recourse But you must not let it happen, Paul.’
‘I can’t stop it. He’s isolated himself from me. I won’t be party to it, so I’m leaving him. So is Suzanne.’
Francis Xavier Mendoza stopped dead in his tracks. He put his hands on my shoulders and swung me round to face him. He was grim as old Moses shattering the tablets. ‘Paul, I hardly know this man. He is your friend, not mine. But I swear to you that if you leave him now, if you do not stand with him to the last moment, and try to
prevent this terrible thing, you will never set foot in my house again… Never! You have a duty! You have a love! If he were dying of hunger, would you refuse him a crust? Now he is in despair. Will you turn away and let him go raving into this final madness? You can’t! You will not!’
‘What do I do, Francis? What do I say?’
‘Anything, everything, nothing! But be there! Don’t let him thrust you away. Swallow every insult. Stay with him. If it ever happened to me – and I know that it could, because I am a passionate man, and my grandfather killed men in these hills – I would hope for some friend to hold me back from that terrible final act.’ He took my arm and began pacing with me again.’…Tell me about Suzanne. I like her very much.’
‘There’s not much to tell. We were lovers once. We’ve always been friends. Now, because of all this mess, we’re lovers again. How long it will last, I don’t know.’
‘Why shouldn’t it last?’
‘It’s late in the day, Francis, old friend.’
‘All the more reason to be careful of the good things. Falling in love – that’s for children. But loving, that’s like the best wine… to decant slowly and hold gently, and savour and sip. You don’t grow a great vintage. You create it… I see the way she looks at you. I see how you lean to her. You could make a good marriage.’
‘I made a botch of the first one. I couldn’t face another failure.’
‘Why should it be a failure? You’ve both had time to learn. Whatever the old theologians taught, you don’t make a sacrament by saying the words. You make it by commitment and by loving. You’re my friend. I hate to see you lonely in the rich years. Think about it… Don’t think about Harlequin. That’s settled, eh?’
‘If you say so, amigo.’
‘Good! Now, let’s say good-day to the Poverello and I’ll pour you a wine that would charm him down from his pedestal, if only I could persuade him to try it.’
In the evening, when the desert chill crept along the land, we dined by candlelight, looking out at the dark face of the valley and the black peaks and the full moon climbing above them. We listened to Segovia and Casals and afterwards Mendoza read us some of his translations. It was a night of quiet enchantment and Suzanne spoke the thought that was in both our minds.
