The curiously delicious dreams of which I speak were snapped off short by a flood of blinding light and a gentle shake or two at my shoulder. I opened reluctant eyes, sat up, turned my gaze first upon the shoulder-shaker, who proved to be the smallest and fattest of the ugly persecutors. He looked unhappy. I eyed him dangerously, then stared to my front across about an acre of black-glass desk towards a set of apologetic features flickering in the mid-distance. When my eyes could focus I recognized the apologetic features as those of Col. Blucher.
‘Hey, Mr Mortdecai, are you OK?’ he asked with what seemed to be anxiety.
‘Grrr,’ I growled, for neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’ seemed to fill the bill.
‘Look, Mr Mortdecai, I’m really very very sorry you were kind of uh roughed up a little …’
‘Grrr,’ I reiterated, putting a little more venom into the word this time.
‘ … but you see I had to get you off the street fast and I had to make it look like it wasn’t friends picking you up and I didn’t have any skilled help this side of town and I guess these fellers uh kind of got their orders at second-hand and they’re well kind of hostility-situation-orientated …’
‘Again?’
‘ … hostility-situation-orientated and, well, when guys like these snatch a guy they snatch him real good, hunh?’
‘Are you trying to say, Colonel, that these men exceeded their orders?’
‘Well, I’d say so.’
‘And you will, of course, be rebuking them?’
‘Why yes, I guess I shall. Hey, Elmer’ – this was to the ugly chap beside my chair – ‘Elmer, why don’t you go get yourself some chow?’ As Elmer turned towards the door I rose to my feet and, in the nasty, rasping voice I developed years ago when I was an adjutant in the Guards, I rasped the word ‘Elmer?’
He span around in a clockwise direction, thus meeting my left hook to the liver and, indeed, aiding it. How it sank in, to be sure. We have all heard of those miraculous punches which ‘travelled no more than four inches’, have we not? Well, this one must have travelled quite twenty inches and had some 180 pounds of Mortdecai muscle, fat and spite behind it. The ugly chap went ‘Urrrgghhh’, or something which sounded uncommonly like it, and folded up like an ill-made Venetian blind. (Jock, you see, had long ago told me that ‘when you give a geezer a bunch of fives in the gut, don’t think about the gut, nor the abominal wall; just make out that you’re hitting his bleeding back-bone – from the front; see?’ Jock knows about these things, you understand.)
Blucher pressed a buzzer, I suppose, for the other two ugly men entered and, at a gesture from Blucher’s pinkie, hauled out their stricken comrade before he could damage the carpet beyond repair.
I sank back into my chair, feeling a trifle more in tune with the infinite. Blucher registered neither approval nor mild reproof although I fancy a corner of his mouth twitched in what might have been amusement in another man.
‘Well, now, where were we?’ I asked comfortably.
18 Mortdecai does not get the right vibrations
That a lie which all a lie may be met and fought with outright.
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.
The Grandmother
Blucher made a courteous gesture, indicating that he was all ears and was prepared to lend me them unreservedly. I glanced around the office; it was clearly not his own but on loan from some Midas-like business-man, for the walls were bespattered with exceedingly costly graphics by Münch, Braque, Picasso, Léger and all those chaps – beyond the dreams of avarice if that’s the kind of thing one likes; certainly beyond the reach of Blucher’s salary and outside his Agency’s Scale of Office Furnishings. Nevertheless, in Washington most places are bugged, everyone knows that, don’t they? I skated the other heavy package of powder across the frozen black lake of the desk; it landed on his lap with a satisfying thump followed by a manly grunt of discomfort from Col. Blucher.
‘I am prepared to tell all,’ I murmured to him, ‘but not between these walls. I am a survivor, you see, and I have a certificate from my old headmaster to prove it. Let us go for a stroll: a little fresh air will be jolly good for us both.’
He looked at me incuriously, which meant, of course, that he was thinking furiously; I could almost hear his synapses crackling and popping like breakfast cereal. ‘Would the lies he could have his lads beat out of me be more valuable than the half-truths I was prepared to volunteer?’ was evidently the question which he had fed into his crew-cut nut. He came to the right decision: after all, coming to decisions is what such chaps are paid for – like ‘one who gathers samphire, dreadful trade’.
‘Hey, that’s a great idea, Charlie!’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
In the outer office the two larger ugly chaps were still playing pinochle, but two-handed now because from the open door of the lavatory or bathroom came a rhythmical ‘Urrgh, urrgh’ from Elmer. I paused by their table and cleared my throat. Neither of them looked up. ‘Tell Elmer,’ I said in the voice of an overpaid physician, ‘that he should take more exercise and drink less. The only hard thing about him is his liver.’ One ugly chap kept his eyes on his cards (and who shall blame him, because a quick kibitz had shown me that he only needed the last queen to perfect what pinochle-players call a ‘round-house’) but the other slowly raised his eyes to mine and gave me his best and coldest Edward G. Robinson stare – the one that is supposed to make you think of gats, concrete overcoats and paving-slabs dropped into the Potomac River with your ankles wired to them. I have seen such looks done better.
‘Well, so long, youse guys,’ I said, courteously using their dialect. Neither of the pinochle-players responded but Elmer said ‘Urrrghh’ from the lavatory or bathroom.
The way to take a stroll for fresh air in Washington, DC, is to hail an air-conditioned taxi-cab. This I did. I entered the first which offered itself, drawing a vexed look from Blucher. Well, obviously, he must have thought me too half-smart to take the first cab; it would have been the second which would have been in his pay, which is why I took the first, you see. Goodness, how clever I was in those days – barely a year ago!
The driver squinted at us from his little air-conditioned womb of armoured glass and steel-mesh (being zonked is an occupational hazard which even cab-drivers dislike) and asked us courteously how he could earn the pleasure of being of service to us. Well, what he actually said was ‘Yeah?’ but one could tell that it was a civil ‘yeah’.
‘Just drive around the sights, OK?’ said Blucher. ‘You know, Grant’s tomb, places like that?’
‘And the National Gallery, please,’ I chirped up, ‘in fact, the National Gallery first. Oh, and could you stop at a shop where I could buy a torch?’
‘He means, like a flashlight, from a drug-store,’ explained Blucher. The driver did not even shrug his shoulders; he had been driving idiots around all day, we would not even figure in the bleary reminiscences with which he would regale his wife that night as she bathed his bunions.
‘Do you care to start telling now?’ Blucher asked me. I shot him a glance fraught with caution and cowardice, flicking an eye at the driver. ‘Well, hell, why the National Gallery, hunh?’ I began to feel a little in command of the situation: I can cower with the best but, given a fraction of an edge, I am happier in the dominant rôle.
‘First,’ I said, ‘I wish to go there. Second, I earnestly wish to rinse my eyes out with some good art after seeing those frightful graphics in your office. Third, the NG, that stately pleasure-dome, is probably the only unbugged place in this fair city. Fourth, I have a long-standing appointment with a chap called Giorgio del Castelfranco, who has a picture in the Gallery which I both covet and suspect. OK?’
‘Sure,’ he said with policeman-like innocence, ‘you mean the guy who was Bellini’s pupil in Venice – around about when Columbus was discovering America? Hunh? The guy we jerks call Giorgione?’
‘That would be he,’ I said bitterly. ‘And you can cu
t out the dialect.’
‘Gosh, I really enjoyed your piece about him in the Giornale delle Belle Arte last year; you really made that Berenson guy look a right Charlie – gosh, sorry, Charlie …’
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I have been called worse.’ But I sulked all the way to the National Gallery and insisted on paying off the cabbie myself. He examined my tip carefully, interestedly, then handed it back with a charitable sort of look.
Inside the Gallery, I stalked unswervingly past all the lovely art that Lord Duveen had sold to Kress and Widener and fellows like that in the palmy, piping days when Lord Mortdecai (yes, my papa) was peddling piddling pastiches to minor European royalty whose cheques were as good as their word. I halted in an important way in front of the Giorgione and played my torch or flashlight upon it. In a trice a wardress had pounced on me and wrested it out of my hand, making noises like a she-vulture laying its first egg. I handed her my wallet, open at the place which displays my art-historian credentials, and bade her show it to a curator. She was back in another trice or two, spraying apologies and calling me ‘Dr Mortdecai’ and telling me that I might shine my flashlight at anything. Anything I liked.
‘Thank you,’ I said, ignoring the explicitness. I shone the torch on this part and that of the painting, making art-historical noises such as ‘ah’ and ‘hum’ and ‘oh dear’, while Blucher fretted, shifting from foot to foot.
‘Look, Mr Mortdecai,’ he said at last, ‘would you care to tell me what it is you’re looking for? I mean, we do have to …’ I shot him a patronizing glance over my shoulder.
‘I am looking,’ I said pompously, ‘for the brushwork of the young Titian in or about the year 1510. I do not see it. It occurs to me that I just may have been wrong about this picture.’
‘But gosh,’ he said, ‘it says right here on the tablet that this art-work is by Giorgione …’
‘And it may now continue to say so for the time being,’ I said with more than usual pomposity, tossing the torch or flashlight petulantly into the nearest litter-bin. (In the US of A they call waste-paper baskets ‘newspaper-baskets’, which shows a fine sense of values. I like American realists. American idealists, of course, are like all idealists: they are people who kill people.)
‘But here,’ I said, ‘is what we have been waiting for.’ Blucher stared. A titter of thirteen-year-old schoolgirls was swarming into the shrine of art, frantically shepherded by one of those women who are born to be schoolmarms – you know the species well, I’m sure; some of them have quite nice legs but the thick ankles, the slack bust and the calm panic peering from behind the contact-lenses give them away every time. I know a chap who nearly married one of them: he gave me all the field-identification tips. I cannot remember just what it was that Blucher said but, had he been an Englishman he would have said ‘Eh?’
I took his arm and steered him into the formicating mass. The girls tittered, and even groped us while their teacher prated, but I, at last, felt safe: there is no directional microphone which can sort out the words of devious Mortdecais from the prattle of pubescence. Blucher twigged, although it was clear that he thought my precaution a bit far-fetched. (He is – I must be careful not to say ‘was’ – one of those who would be glad to die for the Pentagon’s idea of democracy whereas I am a simple man who believes in the survival of the fittest. Since I have no sons it is clear that the fittest Mordecai to survive is me: I’m sure you see that.)
‘Well,’ he growled into my ear, just loudly enough to overcome the roosting-starlings noise of next year’s gang-bang material, ‘Well, give me the dirt, Mr Mortdecai.’
‘You’re going to think I’m an idiot,’ I began.
He looked at me strangely. ‘I wouldn’t touch a straight line like that to save my soul,’ he said.
I pretended not to have heard. ‘You see, that package of powder, the one I collected from the aircraft; well, I sort of took out a little life insurance. I made up a duplicate package full of baby-powder – how they stared in the drug-store! – and put them both into envelopes and posted them by special delivery to a safe place. When I was satisfied that the chap who contacted me was the right chap I got them out of the safe place and gave one to the chap in question as arranged.’ I wasn’t watching Blucher’s face but I swear I could hear his eyes narrowing. ‘Which package?’ he asked in a narrow-eyed sort of voice.
‘That’s the trouble,’ I wailed convincingly, ‘I don’t know. You see, I marked them “A” and “B” – respectively – but when it came to the crunch I simply couldn’t remember which was “A”. Nor, if it comes to that, which was “B”.’ We fell silent. The schoolmarm was droning on usefully about Palma Vecchio although the picture she was discussing was clearly labelled Palma Giovane. It didn’t matter: no one was listening. The nymphets were ganging up on us quite terrifyingly, I began to realize what hell it must be to be a pop-singer. Blucher had one hand pressed to his jacket, where the shoulder-holster lives, another on the zip of his trousers or pants.
‘The awful thing is,’ I went on, ‘that the original package, as I think you pointed out, may well only have been tooth-powder in the first place, so there is a fair chance that my er contact …’
‘Mr Lee,’ he interjected helpfully.
‘Or Ree,’ I agreed, ‘is going to be very very cross with me and that you too are going to suspect that I have not played a straight bat.’
‘Yes,’ he said. That was all he said.
The teacher moved on to another work of some choice and master spirit, shooting hateful glances at us and a few despairing ones at her pupils. We followed. I murmured into Blucher’s ear almost all of what Mr Ree had told me. He turned and stared.
‘And you believe that?’ he asked in an incredulous voice.
‘Well, it fits all the facts so far,’ I said, swatting behind me at a gently-nurtured teenager who was being impertinent to me with an electrical vibrator, ‘but if you have a more plausible scenario I shall be delighted to hear it.’ He thought, then started – nay leapt into the air as though a great insight had come to him.
‘An insight?’ I asked in my polite voice.
‘No, a schoolgirl. Let’s please get to hell out of this place, please, please? I never knew that schoolgirls could be like this, did you?’
‘Well, yes, I did; but then I read dirty books, you see, Colonel.’
There’s nothing in a remark like that for chaps like Blucher. He boggled a moment then reiterated his request that we should get out. I fell in with his wishes. We got. We also took a taxi-cab – I let him choose it this time – to an eating-place where they solds us things to eat which tasted like dead policemen on toast. Blucher, clearly, was musing as he ingested his share of the garbage (the coffee in such places is often good; drink lots of it with your food; it’s hell on the ulcers but it takes away the taste). I, too, was musing as frantically as a man can muse, for it was evident to my trained mind that the Blind Fury with the Abhorrèd Shears was sharpening them up for a snip at the Mortdecai life-span. I say again that I am not especially afraid of death, for the best authorities tell us that it is no more painful and undignified than birth, but I do feel that I’d like to have a say in the when and where and how. Particularly the ‘how’.
‘Blucher,’ I said, pushing away my tepid and scarcely-touched platter, ‘Blucher, it seems to me that there are few, if any, chaps with an interest in keeping me alive. I wish to stay alive, for reasons which I shall not trouble you with at present. Your suggestions would be welcome.’ He turned his face to me, gave one last chew at whatever was in his mouth and looked at me gravely. There was a trickle of greasy gravy on his chin.
‘There is a trickle of greasy gravy on your chin,’ I murmured. He wiped it off. ‘What was that again?’ he asked.
‘I said,’ I said, ‘that it would be nice to stay alive and could you perhaps give me a few ideas.’ This time he looked blank, then almost friendly. He turned to the short-order cook or assistant-poisoner and called
for more coffee and a toothpick. Then he turned back to me. His face was now benign – I’d never have dreamed that he could command so many expressions in so short a time. ‘You know, Mr Mortdecai, I like you, I really do. We could use a few hundred guys like you in this country.’ With that, he reached out and kneaded my shoulder in a brotherly sort of a way. His hand was large and hard but I did not wince nor cry aloud.
‘About the staying-alive thing … ?’ I asked. His face went grave again and he shook his head slowly and compassionately.
‘No way,’ he said.
19 Mortdecai finds himself in possession of some art-work which he could well do without and learns about policemen’s widows and fishcakes
Gigantic daughter of the West,
We drink to thee across the flood …
Hands All Round
I am not one to whimper, for I have found that it does one no good. I did not even wet myself, although the provocation was intense. I lit a nonchalant cigarette, using only four matches and only slightly burning my valuable Sulka necktie. Blucher, clearly impressed by my British sang-froid, offered a sturdy word or two of comfort.
‘Until I contact the Controller of my Agency,’ he said, ‘I have no orders to, uh, effect termination on you. Like I said, I kind of like you. I’d say you had maybe eighty or ninety minutes before any such orders reach me. Until then, you can reckon that anyone shooting at you is on the side of the bamboo-shoot and water-chestnut princes.’
‘Goodbye,’ I said, rising.
‘Good luck,’ he said.
Outside on the pavement I felt curiously naked; I had never before felt so keen a desire for a pair of blue spectacles, a false nose and a large ginger beard, but it was now too late to regret such elementary precautions. A courteous cab sped me to the airport in something less than a hundred years. By the time I had retrieved my suitcase and booked into a London flight my hair had, I was sure, whitened noticeably around the roots.
The Mortdecai Trilogy Page 34
