by Ross Thomas
“That’s not quite it, Clint,” Duffy said. “That’s a good chunk of it, but not all. Candidates stand for election down there much as they do in England, by districts. Now if none of the three parties gains a simple majority at the center, then a coalition can form the government. This is a likely possibility. And if it happens, then both Chief Akomolo and Fulawa will go courting Dr. Kologo because they despise each other. And the CIA might have the final say on who the successful suitor shall be.”
I half-listened as they went on mapping out the destiny of a large piece of African real estate for the next half-century or so. Maybe this was what I had been missing those years that I had stood around in hotel corridors and the drafty halls of government buildings waiting for someone to open a closed door and lie about what they had been saying inside. You never knew really what they actually said or whether they yawned or picked their noses or just talked about women while the administrative aide pounded out the communiqué.
I wondered how Duffy had found out that the CIA was lumbering its way into the campaign and I wondered if two men, very much like Duffy and Shartelle, hadn’t been sitting around in a hotel room or some office in Paris or London or Lagos or Virginia when one, turning to the other, had said something like, “What do you think about taking a flyer on the Albertia do? We can send Johnson—he’s been moping around the office.” And the other one said, “Not bad, Stanley (or Bill or Jack or Rex or Bryan). Why don’t you get it down on paper and I’ll walk it through?”
The edge that had crept into the voices of Duffy and Shartelle brought me back. I felt I should have been taking notes.
“It was only an offer of help, Clint,” Duffy said. “Downer’s there now and he could stay on for a couple of months to give you and Pete a hand.”
“I don’t think I want Downer because I know Downer and I’ve worked with Downer. I remember the time you and me and Downer were in Liège and trying to get to Aachen and that stupid son of a bitch—”
“Never mind. I remember. All right, Downer’s out. Do you have anybody in mind that you’d like to have aboard?”
A secretary brought in a stack of letters and placed them on the coffee table and handed Duffy a pen. “Sign these,” she said. “Now.” Duffy signed and kept on talking. “We could fly somebody in from the States if you want, or I got a couple of Canadians we could pass off on the Chief as Americans—U. S. variety.”
Shartelle was pacing the room again. He waited until the secretary scooped up the letters from Duffy, removed her pen from his coat pocket, and left. “I knew a man once who kept on talking real private business when his private secretary was in the room and one day he came down to his office and they were moving out the furniture and scraping his name off the door.”
“I didn’t say anything she’d understand.”
Shartelle sighed. “You just keep talking. You’ll say one here and two there and some pretty little old gal is going to add up to three and you won’t know what hit you. But to get back to my need for help, I reckon old Pete here and I can handle it. He is coming with me?”
“Yes,” Duffy said firmly, “for the duration. You’ll be in charge, of course, Clint.”
“Oh, I’ll just do the thinking and the talking and the nosing around and Pete can do the writing and the administrating.”
“You can employ some secretarial help down there,” Duffy said.
“When do you expect us to fly down?” Shartelle asked.
Duffy looked at me. “How about tomorrow? If you give me your passports, I’ll arrange for the visas this afternoon. Okay, Pete?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll have been back an entire day by then. I can leave tomorrow.”
“Now Pete, this is an experience that you could never acquire anywhere else. You’re the best we have, and with a little more seasoning like this, there’s no telling how fast you’ll move up. Downer agrees, and so does Theims.”
“He sure talks a pretty piece, don’t he, Pete?” Shartelle said with a wide grin.
Duffy got up and moved over to my chair and clapped a well-tended hand on my shoulder. “He’s good, Clint. He’s one of the best naturals I’ve ever seen. He’s got that ability to synthesize. He’s better than I was at his age—and I was one of the best.”
Shartelle nodded, without the grin. “I’ll say that for you, Pig. You were one of the best.”
“I still keep my hand in, you know.”
“Doing what?”
“When they need a few words, I can usually come up with them. Now then,” Duffy continued. “Your passports.” He collected them from Shartelle and me, called the secretary, and handed them to her with instructions to have them back in the afternoon. “I’m having my own physician drop by at four to give you the necessary shots.”
“What kind of shots?” Shartelle asked.
“Smallpox, yellow fever, typhoid, and tetanus. Unless you have had them recently?”
“No, I haven’t.”
The secretary came in again, walked over to Duffy, and whispered something to him. He nodded.
“He’s here,” Duffy said.
“Who?” Shartelle asked.
“Chief Akomolo. We’re having lunch with him in the executive dining room. Special dishes and all. You’ll like groundnuts, Clint. We found an Albertian cook who’s able to whip up a remarkable potage with them.”
“What’re groundnuts, Pete?”
“Peanuts,” I said.
“Can’t say I plan to get all worked up over goober stew, Pig.”
“Try it, Clint. Just try it with an open mind.”
“Want me to predict the rest of the menu?” I asked.
“What?”
“Chicken curry.”
“And hot,” Duffy said. “The way the Leader likes it.”
“The what?” Shartelle asked.
“The Leader. That’s what we call him. It’s—well, more precise than Premier and not quite as intimate as Chief.”
“I’m going to call him Chief,” Shartelle said firmly. “It’s the first time I’ve ever worked for anybody who was a real chief and I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to address him by his rightful title.”
Duffy looked pained. “Be polite, Clint. These people are very sensitive. The English don’t know how to treat them. In fact, they’ve treated them shabbily.”
“Now, Pig, you ain’t telling me how to treat niggers, are you, old buddy, me who was raised with them?” His voice, normally warm and even mellow, developed a cutting edge that had a chill in it. It was the same voice he had used with me when we first discussed the campaign in Denver.
“God knows, Clint, I’m not telling you anything. I’m just saying that the Albertians are sensitive about their treatment from the whites. Especially the British. You can’t make any more out of it than that.”
Shartelle walked over and admired a painting that Duffy had hung on the leather-covered wall. It was an abstract done in frozen blues that blazed out coldly from the brown and tobacco colors of the room. “You know, I don’t feel that I’m going to justify my attitude towards the colored race to anybody else, Pig. Now if you think that my polite Southern up bringing and my country manners are going to offend this client of yours, perhaps we had just better call the whole thing off. I’ll spend a couple of weeks nosing around London, and then just fly on back and there’ll be no hard feelings.”
“Goddamn it, Shartelle, don’t be so childish. All I said was that these people are sensitive.”
“This sure is a nice picture,” Shartelle said. He turned and looked at Duffy for a long moment. “You’ll never learn, will you, Pig?”
“All right, forget it,” Duffy said. His face was pinker than usual and little beads of sweat popped out on his wide forehead just below the thinning black hair that he combed straight back. It wasn’t thick enough to cover some balding patches. I noticed all this with a sense of satisfaction. “Let’s get down to the dining room,” he said. “I don’t want to keep him wai
ting.”
We walked out the doorless door, past the junk metal monster, and down the corridor to a firedoor. We went through that and down a flight of stairs. With the number of food accounts that DDT had, Duffy had turned the entire first floor of the agency into a hotel-sized kitchen and individual dining rooms where the senior staff could lunch with clients. Duffy led the way and Shartelle and I followed.
The Chief was waiting for us in the dining room. He was seated in a low-backed chair and rose when we came in. I had seen him before at a distance, but we had never met.
“Padraic,” he said warmly, “it is good to see you.” His English was precise, but muddied with a noticeable accent.
Standing by him was a tall young African. He neither smiled nor frowned. His brown face was fixed in a placid, almost content expression, but his eyes flicked over Shartelle and me, paused long enough to register and classify us, and then moved back to the Chief. The young man was not only tall, he was broad. He wore a chalk-striped blue suit and black shoes that must have been size thirteen, triple E width. He stayed close to Chief Akomolo’s elbow, but slightly to the rear. His black eyes roamed the room, rested on Duffy briefly, then back to Shartelle and me, then back on Chief Akomolo. He was a very observant young man.
The Chief himself wore robes of his country. There was the flowing ordona, or outer garment, that slipped over the head and fell in graceful folds to the ankle. Loose trousers of matching fabric peeked out from under the robe whose V-cut neck revealed a round-necked shirt that was embroidered with gold thread. A red pill box velvet hat perched on his head at a somewhat rakish angle.
Akomolo’s face creased into a smile as he greeted Duffy. They shook hands and the African’s eyes glittered behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. Six deeply cut scars formed parallel trenches down each of his plump brown cheeks. They were the markings of his tribe, cut into his face at the age of six and made to fester so that the scars would run deep for the rest of his life.
Duffy introduced me as the former famous foreign correspondent from the great state of North Dakota. I shook hands with the Chief, but his eyes were on Shartelle. I introduced myself to the big African who hovered at Akomolo’s side. He said his name was Dekko. “I am the Leader’s personal aide,” he said in a deep baritone. I told him I was glad to know him.
“And you must be Mr. Shartelle,” Chief Akomolo said. His eyes twinkled or glittered some more behind the gold- rimmed glasses. “Padraic has told me so many things about you.” He held out his hand and Shartelle shook it firmly and stared back into the Chief’s eyes.
“I consider it a genuine privilege to make your acquaintance, sir,” Shartelle said. I could hear Duffy letting his breath out.
The ordona of Albertia is made on the principle of a tent. It has a hole to poke the head through and the arms find their way out of the poncho-like garment by gathering its folds and throwing them over the left or right shoulder in a grace ful, unconscious movement. I decided, as the Chief shifted his folds to his left shoulder, that it was much the same gesture that Roman senators must have used as they arranged their togas.
“You have a considerable reputation in your country, Mr. Shartelle,” Chief Akomolo told him. “My personal aide, Chief Dekko, has done a good measure of research on you. Some of your experiences are to be envied.”
Shartelle gave a courtly half-bow. “I am glad that you went to the effort to examine my credentials, sir.”
The Chief smiled. “It was not because I do not believe my good friend, Padraic, I assure you. He spoke most highly of you and your capabilities. It is only that in an undertaking of such import, I must know my allies and their capabilities. For you see, Mr. Shartelle, I consider myself not a statesman, but more of a politician. As a statesman, I could afford to make mistakes. As a politician, I cannot.”
“A fine distinction, and one which has the ring of experience,” Shartelle said. He walked over to Dekko and offered his hand. “I’m Clint Shartelle, Chief,” he said and gave the huge young man the Shartelle smile.
Dekko’s impassive face did not change. He shook hands with Shartelle and made a small bow. “I am honored.”
“Now, then, everybody’s met everybody,” Duffy said. “Shall we have a drink before lunch?”
Chief Akomolo smiled. “You know my preference, Padraic.”
“Lemon squash. Right?” The Chief nodded.
“You, Chief Dekko?”
“Bristol Cream sherry, if you have it.”
Padraic gave him a speculative glance. “Bristol Cream, of course.” There was no tone in Duffy’s voice. It was just that the young man had made a mistake. He suddenly knew it and almost lost his placid expression.
“How about you, Clint? Martini?”
“Bristol Cream sherry,” Shartelle said blandly.
Before my better nature took over, I said: “Martini on the rocks. Make it a double.”
Duffy pushed a button and the agency waiter came in and took the drink orders. We stood in a group talking about the English weather and about the weather in Albertia. Duffy told us of his success in raising Poland China pigs and Chief Akomolo expressed interest in the possibility of raising heat-resisting Brahma cattle in Albertia.
“We drive our cattle four hundred miles down from the north to the abattoirs of the south. Many of them die along the way. All of them lose weight.”
“How many head in a drive usually?” Shartelle asked.
“Five hundred to a thousand.”
“And you walk them?”
“Yes, along the roads. It causes a traffic hazard, the cattle get sick, the drovers desert. It is a very haphazard business. We should come up with a new program.”
They talked on and I listened. It was much like the talk at the pre-luncheon session of the Lion’s Club on Wednesday. The Chief talked about his country’s economic problems, particularly the cocoa crop. Duffy talked about the eccentricities of a rival’s client. Shartelle commented here and there, but spent most of his time in an unobtrusive study of Chief Akomolo.
After the lemon squash, and the Bristol Creams, and the martini we sat down to lunch at the round table. Duffy sat on the Chief’s right; Shartelle on his left. The Chief sighed appreciatively as the bowl of groundnut broth was placed before him.
“Your thoughtfulness is sometimes overwhelming, Padraic.”
Duffy smiled. “I thought you might be growing weary of English cooking.”
“Not only of their cooking, but of the English themselves,” the Chief said. “In my heart, I try not to hate them. I try to live by the teachings of the Savior and my Baptist upbringing. Yet they are a cold people, Padraic, cold and unfeeling and vengeful. For three days now I have tried to get this matter of cocoa exports resolved, and for three days I have been going around and around in bureaucratic circles.”
“If I can be of any help—” Duffy began the offer, but was cut off by a wave of the Chief’s hand.
“You have done too much already. No, they must learn that I am no small boy. When we deal with the top, we have no difficulty. It is only with the minor functionaries that I run into this wall of veiled contempt and bureaucratic inefficiency. ‘Of course, Chief Akomolo,’” he mimicked, “‘what you seek does require a certain amount of time.’ That’s what they fail to understand. That I have no time. That right now time is my most precious commodity.”
The waiter came in and removed the soup bowls. He brought in a large covered serving dish of silver, placed it in the center of the table, and removed its lid with a flourish. The chief’s eyes sparkled behind the gold rims. “Padraic! Curried chicken.” He reached for the serving spoon and dumped a large portion on his plate, and began to eat hungrily, making small animal grunts and smacking his lips in appreciation. Dollops of brown grease and gravy spattered his blue ordona. Each of us served ourselves. I spooned a small portion onto my plate. As far as I was concerned it was paella with Tabasco Sauce. I shoved it around on my plate some and kept on drinking my martini, congrat
ulating myself on the foresight that had caused me to order a double. Shartelle took a bite, chewed and swallowed. His mouth opened slightly and he reached for a glass of water. They had put all the peppers in. Duffy ate as hungrily as the Albertians. I decided he had no taste buds. Shartelle, I noticed, joined me in shoving his food back and forth across his plate.
The Chief mopped up the last morsel with a piece of bread, popped it into his mouth, and wiped his fingers on the table cloth. His napkin lay unused by his plate. He stretched and yawned hugely. “That was excellent, Padraic. Who cooked it?”
“A student at London University. From Albertia, of course.”
The Chief nodded his head. “Of course. The seasoning was just right. Did you enjoy it, Mr. Shartelle?”
“It has a distinct flavor, sir,” Shartelle said and smiled.
Duffy passed around cigars but nobody took one. The waiter brought coffee.
“Tell me, Mr. Shartelle, did you know the late President Kennedy?”
Shartelle nodded. “I knew him.”
“How well?”
The white-haired man smiled. “Well enough to call him Jack when he was a junior Congressman, Senator when he was Senator, and Mr. President when he was President.”
“Did you work for him in any of his campaigns?”
“Just in the Presidential, but I was more concerned with a Senator and a couple of Congressmen. I worked against him in 1956 at the convention when he went after the Vice- Presidential nomination. I was working with Kefauver.”
“He is dead now, too, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Did President Kennedy hold any animosity towards you for working for Mr. Kefauver?”
“A little, but he got over it. After Kefauver won the nomination, Kennedy came to see me. He said, ‘I could have had it with your Western states, Clint. I’ll remember to look you up next time around.’”
“And did he?”
“He looked me up six months later, right after the election. We came to an understanding.”
“I am a great admirer of his. He represented the best of our times and of what your country has to offer. He was one of the few men from whom one could honestly say that one drew inspiration. His death was a personal sorrow to me.”
