The Seersucker Whipsaw

by Ross Thomas

  “How big is the staff?”

  “Five—plus the watch night. Six.”

  “What the hell do two men need with six servants?”

  Downer sighed. “Look, Pete. You need a cook. You need a steward. You need a small boy to help the cook and steward. You need a driver—that’s William. You know him already. You need a gardener—you’ve got an acre-and-a-half of grounds. And you need the watch night.”

  “The what?”

  “The watch night. He scares away the thieves. It’s a kind of insurance—or protection racket—I’m not sure. But whenever anybody fires a watch night, there’s a burglary within a week.”

  “O.K. When is Akomolo expected back from London?”

  “He’s back. He came in late yesterday. But he’s busy so you’ll have a chance to look Barkandu over, make any contacts you want, and then go on up to Ubondo. You’11 be working out of Ubondo since that’s where Akomolo will make his headquarters.”

  “Anything else?”

  Downer thought. “You can introduce yourself around. DDT has already made a reputation for itself down here with the British. They know who we are.”

  “Cocoa,” I said.

  “I drink it for breakfast every morning,” he said.

  “So do I, Paul. Also have a cup at night before bed.”

  There was a knock on the door. I opened it and it was Shartelle and I think I finally fully realized what the word resplendent meant. Shartelle was resplendent. He wore a seersucker suit that fitted so well it could only have been tailored. It was a black and white cord, and it looked crisp and clean and cool. It wasn’t the suit so much as the matching vest. I had never seen a seersucker suit with a vest. He wore a white shirt with a black knit tie. On his head perched a hat. It was at a rakish angle. It was black. It was a black slouch hat. I didn’t think they existed. Shartelle leaned against the door jamb and puffed a cigarette.

  “You’re gorgeous,” I said.

  He strolled in and turned, giving us the chance to get the full effect. “I’ve got six more just like ’em. One for every day in the week but Sunday. Then I wear my go-to-meeting suit.”

  “Does it have a vest?”

  “Never seen a seersucker suit with a vest, boy? Why it’s the coming rage. How do you like the hat? It’s forty years old, I swear. Now do I look like a well-to-do New Orleans cotton buyer or don’t I?”

  “Sharp,” I said. “Razor-keen.”

  “It just so happens that this was what I planned to wear in Denver,” Shartelle said. “The vest was for the cool of the evening. But I think this outfit just might make me a little distinctive here in Albertia. What do you think, Paul?”

  Downer was already moving for the door. “Distinctive, yes, really distinctive. I’ve filled Pete in on the arrangements, Clint. I’ve got a few things to do before I catch the plane. It was nice seeing you.” He grabbed Shartelle’s hand and shook it.

  “Nice seeing you, Paul.”

  “Pete, could you walk me to the elevator, I’ve got a couple of things I forgot to tell you.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He grabbed my arm in the hall. “That’s what I mean,” he whispered. “You have to watch out for Shartelle.”

  “The suit?”

  “Damn right, the suit.”

  “Well, it’s distinctive.”

  “That’s what I mean. That’s what I was telling you about. There’s bound to be cultural shock.” He jabbed the elevator button again. Surprisingly, the car appeared.

  “Cultural shock,” he repeated, as he got in. “Remember that, Pete.”

  “Just whose culture will get the shock?” I asked, but the elevator door had already closed and he didn’t hear me.

  Chapter

  6

  I went back to my room, turned off the shower, and rescued my suit. I hung it in front of an air-conditioning vent to cool. Shartelle was at the window, gazing out at the harbor. Ours were the rooms with the view.

  “Some harbor,” Shartelle said. “Lots of traffic.”

  “They import a lot of stuff—unfortunately it adds up to more than they export and the balance of trade picture is on the gloomy side.”

  He turned from the window and lowered himself into one of the Scandinavian-type chairs that the decorator had decided would do nicely in Africa. “You get rid of Downer all right?”

  “He’s gone,” I said. “He’s worried about us—thinks we may be coming down with either malaria, cultural shock, or both.”

  “He was always a worrier.”

  “You knew him in the war?”

  “I knew him.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  Shartelle yawned. “It’s not that I don’t like him, Pete, it’s just that I don’t have any use for him. He means well, but I’d rather have somebody call me a son of a bitch than to say I mean well. Let’s forget him. When are we supposed to see Kramer, the old China hand?”

  “We’re to call him. You want me to?”

  “I’ll do it,” Shartelle said. He picked up the phone and asked for the American Consulate. “That’s right,” he said. “The American Consulate.” He listened for a while and then held the phone away from his head and stared at it. Then he put it back to his ear and said: “Try the United States Consulate then…. I know I asked for the American Consulate…. Now I’d like to talk to somebody at the United States Consulate…. No, I don’t want to talk to somebody in the United States, I want to talk to the United States Consulate.” He was pacing now, as far as the short cord would allow. He covered the mouth of the phone with his hand and turned to me: “He wants me to talk to his supervisor.”

  “I’ve heard that it usually takes fifteen minutes,” I said. “I’ll let you make all the calls.”

  There were three or four more minutes of palaver with the operator’s supervisor before the call went through. Shartelle identified himself, asked for Kramer, was told he was out dedicating a USIS library in Eastern Albertia, and was switched to somebody else. Shartelle’s eyebrows shot up at a question he was asked over the phone. “Why, yes, we’d be happy to see him…. Yes, that would be convenient. In half an hour. Fine.” He hung up and walked back over to the window to look at the harbor some more.

  “Kramer’s gone for the day.”

  “I heard.”

  “But we’ve got another appointment.”

  “In half an hour,” I said as I changed into my coal and air suit.

  “With the political affairs officer.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Clarence Coit.”

  “Who’s Clarence Coit?”

  “He was very big in South America at one time. Made quite a reputation for himself.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Setting up coups for the CIA.”

  We went downstairs to the cocktail lounge and found an Australian bartender who claimed that he could mix a fair martini. He could. We finished two of them and wandered out through the lobby that looked like the lobby in almost any new hotel you find between Miami and Beirut. Lots of marble and murals and rugs and sand-filled butt receptacles. The Lebanese clerks still held down the front desk and the robed Albertians still toted the bags.

  William had parked the Humber in the circular drive under the shade of a tree. He saw us, started the car, and pulled up in front of the door. Shartelle started to get in the front seat.

  “Mastah ride in back,” William said firmly.

  “Why?”

  “Proper, Sah. Proper Mastah ride in back.”

  Shartelle got in the back with me. “You know where the United States Consulate is?” he asked.

  “American Consulate, yes, Sah. Na far.”

  “Let’s go there.”

  It wasn’t far, only a half a mile or so. It looked as if it had been built just after World War II by some architect who was overly influenced by the southern California mission school of design. It rambled over an acre or so of shrubbery, flowers and lawn, protected from the Albertians by
a high, wrought-iron fence, and shielded from the elements by a red tiled roof that looked as if it were made out of old London chimney pots split in half. We drove through the open gates to the front entrance. There were no guards; the Marines would come after independence when the Consulate achieved embassy status.

  The receptionist was a brunette with too much lipstick, too little to do, and a St. Paul accent. She summoned an Albertian and told him to escort us to Mr. Coit’s office. Then she went back to her nails. We followed the Albertian down a hall that sported some reproductions of Frederic Remington’s Indians and cowboys and turned left. “In here, gentlemen,” the Albertian said, indicating a door. We went through the door into a medium-sized reception office that was staffed by a small blonde with popped green eyes and a none-too-ready smile.

  “Mr. Shartelle and Mr. Upshaw?” she asked.

  We said yes and she talked over the phone briefly. “Mr. Coit will be with you in a moment,” she said. “Do sit down.”

  We sat down and Shartelle lighted one of his Sweet Ariels. The secretary kept on typing. The air-conditioner droned away in its effort to keep the room at seventy-two degrees. There was nothing to talk about. We waited with the resigned air of a salesman and his trainee in the outer office of the purchasing agent who hasn’t placed an order in seven months and isn’t likely to do so today.

  After ten minutes the door opened and a man came out. He gave us a quick look, the kind that is given to cripples by people who like to examine the affliction but don’t want to get caught at it. He hurried through the door into the hall.

  The telephone on the secretary’s desk rang. She picked it up and said yes. She hung up and looked at us. “Mr. Coit will see you now,” she said. “Just through that door.”

  We went through that door and into a large office that contained a desk, some filing cabinets with combination locks on them, some chairs, a coffee table, a divan, a man, and a calendar on the wall. The calendar was of the screwed- up British variety with the days of the weeks in the wrong place. Each day that had passed that month was carefully marked out. The even days were marked out in red, the odd days in green. The furniture was all battleship gray and streamlined to cut down the wind resistance.

  The man was behind the desk and he came at us like a rush captain at Phi Delta Theta. There was the firm quick handshake, the bustling around to make sure that the chairs were comfortable, the shifting of the ashtrays to more convenient positions. Clarence Coit wanted us to like him; maybe he wanted everybody to like him, and the best way to achieve that, he may have decided, was to like everybody.

  We got settled in the chairs and looked at each other pleasantly. Coit was as tall as Shartelle, around six-foot-two, and he had smooth black hair that he combed straight back over a wide forehead. His features were regular, his teeth were white, and he displayed them in a slightly crooked, deprecatory smile every chance he got. His nose was only a nose, but his chin was nice and firm and jutted just a bit. He had dark blue eyes that were set under thick eyebrows that had no curve. The pupils flicked here and there. They were restless eyes that gave Shartelle’s suit a frankly appreciative appraisal.

  “I’m sorry that Kramer is out, but I’m damned glad you could drop by this afternoon and I hope I haven’t interfered with your schedule.” He had a smooth baritone.

  I let the spokesman of our team do the talking. If Coit was with the CIA, he could match wits with the professional country boy and may the best liar win. I decided to root for Shartelle.

  Giving his elegant vest a tug, Shartelle replied that Mr. Coit surely hadn’t interfered with our schedule, that it was still in the making, and because of the nature of our business in Albertia, it was right kind of him to spare us a few moments. As Political Affairs Officer, he might give us some tips that could save us needless drudgery and fruitless quests. It was, the way Shartelle laid it on, as nice a glob of sandy mortar as I’d yet seen him pat into place.

  Coit sat through it all, his hands folded on the empty desk in front of him, his eyes fixed on Shartelle, his fine head nodding every now and then to signal the speaker that he was coming through nicely. Coit was a professional listener. If he had turned the act on for me, I would have talked all day, beginning with the time when I was three and they had stolen my tricycle. It was blue with a bell on the handle bars and studded metal plates on the rear axle that a small passenger could stand on.

  But Shartelle didn’t even tell Coit about his daddy or the LaSalle with the busted block. He just stopped talking and began smiling. It was one of those silences when you feel you should clear your throat or shift your chair or mention the weather. But I had no cue so I looked around the office which had an autographed picture of the President beaming grimly down from one wall. I had the feeling that it was General Services Administration issue and was on of thousands dispatched to embassies and consulates all over the world the day after Kennedy was shot. You could tell from the size of the office and the furniture how much Coit made in a year, but you could tell nothing about him. The personal touches—a painting, a piece of statuary, or a jug full of flowers—were all missing.

  Finally Coit got up and walked a few feet to a window and peered out through the Venetian blind. I couldn’t tell what the view was. “I appreciate your confidence, Mr. Shartelle,” he said to the venetian blind. “And I must confess that I don’t envy you the task that lies ahead.”

  “Mr. Coit, if I couldn’t place confidence in a representative of a United States Embassy or Consulate, I think I would be living in a rather shabby world,” Shartelle said.

  Coit nodded a grave nod and resumed his seat at his desk. “I’ve only been here a few weeks, but my job has required me to make an intensive study of the Albertian political scene. The more I study it, the more convinced I become that of all the developing nations south of the Sahara, this country is almost alone in its readiness and ability to accept the full challenge that self-rule imposes.”

  He paused and extracted a silver cigarette case from his inside coat pocket. He was wearing a pale blue worsted mohair tropical suit, a white shirt with a tab collar that had a gold pin stuck through it underneath the small knot of his blue and red striped tie.

  Coit opened the cigarette case and extended it to Shartelle who shook his head and then to me. I took one on the theory that it was probably an American cigarette and that he would be happy that someone liked him enough to trust his taste in smokes. It was filtered, but I tore the top off and placed it in the ashtray. Coit didn’t seem to notice or mind.

  After he and I had our cigarettes going, he began to tell us again why we should sign the fraternity’s pledge cards. “As a political scientist—” He broke off to smile his deprecatory smile. “At least that’s what that Master’s from Johns Hopkins says I am, I have more than a passing interest in those who engage in realpolitik. So your name, Mr. Shartelle, is a familiar one to me. And I also remember, quite well, in fact, Mr. Upshaw’s brilliant series from Europe in the troubled times of ’fifty-six. I think we can talk among ourselves as professionals in the political realm, although I consider myself an observer, a student, if you would, rather than an actionist.”

  It was a long speech and during it Shartelle had hooked his thumbs into his vest, cocked his head slightly to one side, and studied a corner where the ceiling met the walls. He nodded emphatically whenever Coit came to a period. I found it a disconcerting response.

  “You see, gentlemen,” Coit went on, “you have the opportunity to bring to the Albertian voters the chance to decide the future of their country. You can present them with a clear-cut, well-delineated picture of the issues involved. If you succeed, you will have performed a tremendous public service.”

  Shartelle kept his thumbs in his vest. His chair was tilted back now, and his eyes were still on the far high corner of the room. “Your remarks are most kind, Mr. Coit, and I’m glad you’ve elevated our job of rounding up the necessary votes to such an exalted mission. It makes me proud, bu
t I hope not too proud, because pride’s a sin as you well know. So just in case we don’t make the issues as clear-cut as you’d like them, I’d like to share the credit—or the blame—with the boys who are going to be handling Chief Akomolo’s opposition … Dr. Kologo and Sir Alakada.”

  Shartelle kept on staring at the corner so perhaps he didn’t see the hair cracks in Coit’s composure. Or perhaps he did, because he gave it another exploratory tap.

  “There are other outside forces involved in this, you know. One of them is the biggest agency in the world—in the political sense anyhow. It’s worked the Far East, Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East….” He paused. “South America.”

  I watched Coit. The composure was flaking a bit. His mouth was slightly open. His hands were worrying a ballpoint pen.

  “It’s quite an agency to go up against,” Shartelle said, still tilted back in his chair, still studying the top of the room. “You’re familiar with—” He paused again, this time to light a cigarette. Coit almost squirmed. “You’re familiar with … Renesslaer?” When Shartelle spoke the name he brought the chair down on its front legs and the metal caps banged nicely on the gray linoleum floor. Coit jumped. Not much, but it was a jump. It was hard to tell whether it was because of the noise of the Renesslaer name. He stared at Shartelle.

  “Renesslaer?”

  “Right. That’s the agency I was talking about. They’re big all over the world, you know, and they’re going to handle old Alhaji Sir Alakada etcetera up north.”

  “I’ve heard of them,” Coit said. His tone was stiff. He didn’t seem to care anymore whether we liked him or not. “Are you sure of this?”

  “Oh, quite sure,” Shartelle said. “I’ve been told the deal’s all signed and sealed. The boys from Renesslaer ought to be drifting through here any day now and then you’ll have to give them that nice little talk of yours about their chance to delineate the issues. They like stuff like that.”