Harlequin

by Morris West

  ‘…Poor George. I was so shocked. Tell him he was remembered. You must have had a bad time yourself.’

  ‘Bad enough, Herbert.’

  ‘Now it’s worse, not better. Dumping that stock has hurt a lot of people. Money’s like gardenias – you mustn’t bruise the petals. So far, we’ve held our group together. The funds will be there when George needs them. Tell me…’ He drew me away to the fringe of the crowd. ‘This newspaper talk about murder. How true is it?’

  ‘All true, Herbert. We’ve got documents…’

  ‘Then what is Yanko doing on this guest list?’

  ‘Not enough documents yet, Herbert.’

  ‘So it gets dirtier.’

  ‘It could. Kruger is here to mediate – at Yanko’s request. That’s very private.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me. It would be a good thing – not the best – but necessary.’

  ‘Is Yanko here yet?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him. Oh, Paul, when he comes, take it easy, eh?’

  ‘Sure… I’ll talk to you later.’

  Not all the greetings were as warm as that one; and some were as frigid as the martinis that prompted them.

  ‘ …For Chrissake, Paul! You could have given us a tip, even a whisper… Look, buddy, a private war’s fine; but this one!… Do you know how much we dropped on Wednesday?… The financial pages, okay… that’s our forum, right? But the crime columns, that’s Mafia stuff… Frankly, old man, we’re very fond of George, and we don’t much like Yanko, but…’

  Somehow I managed to sidle through it, ride over it, waddle round it, until Suzanne came to rescue me with soft words and a compliment for everyone. Then, just when the talk was at its loudest, and the liquor was flowing most freely, Basil Yanko arrived. He came without ceremony, alone. He shook hands with Karl Kruger, talked a few moments and then slid into the crowd, inconspicuous as a cat. Slowly, Suzanne and I worked our way through the crowd towards him and came upon him, finally, talking in low tones to Herbert Bachmann.

  Herbert saw us first and beckoned us over. ‘Mr Yanko, I think you know these nice people.’

  ‘I do indeed… Mademoiselle, Mr Desmond.’ He bowed but did not offer his hand. ‘Mr Harlequin is not here?’

  It was Suzanne who answered, prim as dimity. ‘No. He’s in London, Mr Yanko.’ She laid a hand on Herbert’s arm. ‘Do you think you could find me a fresh drink, Mr Bachmann?’

  ‘With pleasure. Excuse us, gentlemen.’

  We excused him.

  Basil Yanko raised his glass. ‘A handsome woman, Mr Desmond. My compliments.’

  ‘De nada, Mr Yanko – as they say in Mexico.’

  ‘A lively party.’

  ‘Karl’s a very good host.’

  ‘A shrewd banker, too.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr Desmond, a word in season. In business you win something and you hope to lose a little less. At this moment, we are all losing too much. It is time we turned losses into profit.’

  ‘Profit’s always a good word.’

  ‘I’d be grateful if you’d pass it to George Harlequin.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  ‘Another good word is compromise.’

  ‘I’ll tell him that, too.’

  ‘Life is infinitely various. One can replace everything except oneself.’

  ‘Everything except oneself… I like that.’

  ‘Sometimes personalities clash, ambitions, too. A mediator is useful. I respect Karl Kruger.’

  ‘We respect him, also.’

  ‘Then let’s leave it at that, eh?… Excuse me, Mr Desmond.’ Graceless as ever, he walked away.

  Suzanne came back with Herbert Bachmann. Herbert gave me a long, searching look and said, I hope you were polite to him, Paul?’

  ‘Above and beyond the call of duty. Someone should give me a medal.’

  ‘I’ll give you a kiss instead,’ said Suzanne. ‘Now, can I tell you something? I think we’ve had enough of this party.’

  ‘But Karl said…’

  ‘I’ve changed the arrangements. You’re meeting him here at eleven in the morning. Let’s go, chéri.’

  ‘She’s the wisest of us all,’ said Herbert Bachmann. ‘Do as she says.’

  Karl Kruger, at eleven in the morning, was red-eyed, sore-headed and autocratic. He belched and grunted and marched up and down the room barking at me like the Iron Chancellor.

  ‘…Realities, Paul! That’s what we talk about – realities! In the war, I lost a wife in the bombing and a son on the Russian front. Now, I do business with the people who killed them. Reality! If we don’t compromise and co-operate the world ends in one big fire-work display. Put every murderer on the scaffold, there is not rope enough in the world to hang them. Reality again! Harlequin has to see this. You must help him to see it…’

  ‘Karl! His wife’s not cold in her gravel’

  ‘So he can’t reason and he won’t. But you can!’

  ‘I can reason till I’m blue in the face. It doesn’t change things.’

  ‘Then you act.’

  ‘You’ve lost me, Karl.’

  ‘Listen, dummkopf! For God’s sake, listen!… If you, Paul Desmond, could take control of this situation now, what would you do? Take your time; think about it! You heard the voices at that party last night. They don’t give a damn about morals – only money. There was a lot of power there… You talked to Yanko. He’s bruised and you can bruise him more; but you can’t break him – and he’s ready for a settlement. Now, what would you settle for, if you could?’

  ‘If I could… Point one. He withdraws his take-over bid. Point two. He makes good the fifteen million and all the expenses arising out of it. Point three. He pays the cost of installing a new computer system and training operators – and he doesn’t get the contract. Point four. We drop charges against his staff and bury the documents we have – on and not before completion date. That’s minimum. Give me time and I could dream up a few more embellishments.’

  ‘Now, you begin to make sense, my friend.’

  ‘It makes nonsense without Harlequin’s consent.’

  ‘Not so! You have power of attorney still current. Yanko knows that. I know it. You tell me Harlequin wants to keep options open. This is the best way to do it. Close them and we have a bloody shambles – which will get bloodier for everyone.’

  ‘Karl, I know it! Give me an argument that will convince a man whose wife has been murdered.’

  ‘You told me you loved her, too.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Now what? A Mexican sculptor’s carving the gravestone and you’re in bed with Suzanne – who’s the best choice you’ve made in your life. I’m not mocking. I’m glad. Harlequin will come to it. Better soon than late. Well, what do you say?’

  ‘You’re an old schelm, Karl… but I’ll try it.’

  ‘Good! At last we hear some sanity. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve sounded Yanko on the terms… Loving God! I’ve got a head like a pumpkin!’

  At three in the afternoon, he telephoned me. Yanko was ready to talk. He had invited me to dinner at his house. I was prepared to talk, too, but I saw no reason to eat bread and salt with the bastard.

  Karl Kruger growled, angrily, ‘If you mine coal, you get dust in your lunch-box! What the hell does it matter? By the way, it’s black tie.’

  At which moment, Suzanne took the phone from my hand and said, calmly, ‘He’ll be there, Karl. I’ll see to it.’ When she set down the receiver, she turned to me. ‘Paul, chéri, if you don’t go, and things turn out badly, you’ll never forgive yourself… Please?’

  So, at eight of the clock, with my pride in my pocket and my temper damped down to a few smouldering coals, I went to dinner with Basil Yanko.

  I don’t know quite what I expected to find: profusion, certainly, an air of the grandiose that characterised his office, gadgetry perhaps, certainly too much of everything. I confess I had the surprise of my life. The apartment was beautiful, but sparsely beautiful,
with a kind of mathematical perfection that was at once austere and restful. Basil Yanko was not a collector. He chose things and placed them to speak for themselves; but a catalogue would say nothing except that there was money on the walls and no sign of blood. I could not understand how a man so restless and so sinister had managed to achieve an atmosphere of such serenity.

  A Negro maid admitted me. A Filipino butler served me a drink and left me. Then a few moments later, Basil Yanko came in. The dinner jacket made him look more angular and more cadaverous than ever; but his handshake was less limp, and he smiled without apparent effort. I paid him a compliment on his house and he acknowledged it with a hint of irony. ‘Surprised, Mr Desmond?’

  ‘Fascinated, Mr Yanko.’

  ‘Collecting can be a mania. The true art of enjoyment is in selection… which, of course, involves trial and error, and rejection, until one arrives at a stable relationship. Are you interested in pictures, Mr Desmond?’

  I was interested in anything that would get me through the overture and into the opera, so I told him of my fondness for handcraft and gold-work and the mystique of coloured stones He was a good listener, and more courteous than I would ever have believed possible, though, when his attention was caught, his questions still had a crisp, peremptory tone. At dinner, he ate sparingly and drank only one glass of wine; but he was proud of his cook, and meticulous about the service. He talked then about politics:

  ‘…There is a dream abroad, Mr Desmond, that we can go back to the cracker-barrel and the parish-pump: small, self-sufficient nuclear communities. A beautiful illusion; but there is now no way to make it a reality. We are, perforce, one world, mutually dependent upon complex trade patterns and the distribution of diminishing resources. So we have to rationalise and control a multitude of variables. The computer can do it. Man, unaided, cannot…’

  Which led us, by shifts and subtleties, to the coffee and the question at issue, which he stated very simply:

  ‘…I made a mistake, Mr Desmond. I chose the wrong target. I used the wrong means. The input was erroneous, the errors compounded themselves. So we erase the series and start again – which is the intention of this discussion… More coffee?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘A brandy?’

  ‘No…’

  ‘Well, then… Karl Kruger has suggested a framework within which we could negotiate. Let me say, frankly, that I would not quarrel over minor financial details. A computation of losses and costs is a simple affair. The nub of the question for me is what you can deliver by way of immunities for the future. Would you say that was a fair statement of our position?’

  ‘I think it needs to be amplified, Mr Yanko. You are asking for immunity against what?’

  ‘Prosecution.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Fraud and conspiracy to murder. That’s the case you’re trying to build now – although I understand you’re having certain difficulties.’

  The cool effrontery of the man left me, for a moment, speechless.

  He shook his head, sadly. ‘Mr Desmond, we are alone – no witnesses, no surveillance. Here I can admit to everything, and I do. You’re shocked, of course. How can I, a respectable businessman, conspire and consent to murder? Mr Desmond, the taxpayers of this country financed a vast, unnecessary holocaust in Vietnam. Some protested. Many approved, still do and still would. Calley went to gaol. The Generals are still free. I have no respect for people, Mr Desmond. They live, they die. Sometimes, to make the social equation work, they have to be removed. You and I could debate that until crack of doom. You wouldn’t convince me. I wouldn’t convince you. So we agree to differ and get back to the question: what can you deliver?’

  ‘We can agree not to prosecute you or your employees for fraud and conspiracy to defraud. On the question of murder, we cannot negotiate. The matter is out of our hands. The FBI already have the documents.’

  ‘Which are damaging but not conclusive.’

  ‘But which remain in open file; since there is no statute of limitation on murder.’

  ‘Quite. But let’s take the situations in order. Valerie Hallstrom – well, that’s a political hot potato and no one will want to handle it.’

  ‘Ella Deane?’

  ‘Closed. No problem.’

  ‘And Frank Lemnitz?’

  ‘British jurisdiction and unlikely to get very far… Which, you see, leaves only the question of Madame Harlequin, who died in Mexico. Now, let us examine that one and see where we might agree. My attorneys have seen, though I have not, a confession by Pedro Galvez which incriminates me. On that document you could try me; but you would not get a conviction. I’d bleed, but I’d recover. Mr Harlequin would be in no better case than he is now – with a huge financial burden and a market gone shy on him. Alternatively, if you refrain from action, publication and further investigation, you get all the things in your package with no quarrel about details… Can you deliver, Mr Desmond?’

  ‘Harlequin could. I couldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He can withdraw my power of attorney at the stroke of a pen.’

  ‘So…?’

  ‘I can and will try to persuade him. However, even Harlequin’s consent doesn’t give you immunity from the police and the FBI…’

  ‘Mr Desmond!’ He was patient and kind to my ignorance. ‘If there is one thing I do understand, it is what the Press is pleased to call “the conscience of America”. I can commit myself to it quite safely.’

  ‘Which brings me to another item in the package, Mr Yanko.’

  That took some of the veneer off him. His smile vanished. He jerked his head up like a startled lizard. ‘I believe we have covered all the items mentioned by Karl Kruger.’

  ‘We have. This one, I thought you’d prefer to hear privately. On a document emanating from your data bank, George Harlequin and I are listed as prospective targets for terrorist attack.’

  ‘The document in question, Mr Desmond, is a private intelligence summary prepared by experts and circulated to restricted subscribers.’

  ‘But like every such summary, it contains speculation which is designed to provoke action, which, when it happens, you claim to have prophesied. In simple terms, Mr Yanko, you say that the newest terrorist targets are Paul Desmond and George Harlequin. The P.F.L.P. and the Rengo Sekigun have never heard of us. They then say, “who dat?” – and there we are, all wrapped up ready for delivery… So you see, Mr Yanko, we, too, need an immunity clause in the contract. Can you deliver one?’

  ‘I could convey a request to the executive of the P.F.L.P. – through friends, of course.’

  ‘And you’d get a reply?’

  ‘Normally, yes.’

  ‘How long would it take?’

  ‘About three days.’

  ‘Then let’s exchange answers in three days’ time.’

  ‘Excellent! And if, meantime, there are points to clarify, please call me at my office or at this number. If I am at home, I will answer personally.’

  He crossed to the desk, scribbled a number on a card and handed it to me.

  I stood up to take my leave. ‘Mr Yanko, thank you for an excellent dinner and an instructive evening.’

  ‘A pleasure, Mr Desmond. My chauffeur will take you home. Don’t be offended if he doesn’t talk to you. The poor fellow is a mute. We’re co-operating in employment programmes for the handicapped. Goodnight, Mr Desmond.’

  …And there it was: a beautiful, fresh olive branch, wrapped in cellophane, tied with pink ribbon, delivered by cooing doves. If we didn’t accept it, he’d drive it like a stake through our gizzards and plant us six feet deep under the asphalt of Wall Street. God rest you merry gentlemen – and keep you safe through the dark hours!

  I didn’t go home. I had the chauffeur drop me off at the Regency, where Suzanne was having supper with Karl Kruger. His English rose had proved so thorny that he had packed her back to London with a diamond bracelet and was now sighing after Hilde. He was
happy that a deal was possible: he was very unhappy when I told him, for the first time, how we had been set up as targets for terror. He had consented to a personal diplomacy; he had not bargained for embroilment in a political situation, which touched his own country so deeply. He, too, saw merit in Harlequin’s resolve to eliminate Yanko. He suggested, quite soberly that, perhaps, Aaron Bogdanovich would be willing to assassinate him. I was sure Bogdanovich wouldn’t risk: his organisation by an attack on a prominent American industrialist.

  Suzanne listened for a while in shocked silence. Then, she attacked us both, savagely. ‘Enough! I won’t listen to another word! You talk like assassins yourselves! If the bargain can be made, make it! Otherwise, there will be no end to the insanity.’

  Karl Kruger mumbled an apology. ‘I know!… I know! It won’t happen, liebchen. But it’s a bone in the throat that a man like Yanko can sit there and dictate to decent people. Now we have to ask what happens if Harlequin refuses the deal?’

  ‘What time is it now, Karl?’

  ‘One o’clock. Time we were thinking of bed…’

  ‘In London it’s six in the morning. Paul, call George and let’s get this over!’

  ‘Suzy, lover, he’ll need time to think about it.’

  ‘Then the more time he has the better. Go on, call him.’

  A few moments later I was through to London and George Harlequin was on the line. He sounded as though he had just wakened. I apologised for disturbing him so early. Then, he said:

  ‘Have they been in touch with you, too, Paul?’

  ‘George, I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s one in the morning here. I’ve just been to dinner with Basil Yanko. I’m having supper with Suzanne and Karl Kruger…’

  ‘Oh, then you haven’t heard…’

  ‘Nothing… George, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Baby Paul and the nurse… They’ve been kidnapped.’