Charlie Muffin U.S.A.

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘I had a call from Lyford Cay this morning,’ announced Clarissa. ‘They want to know when I’m going down.’

  She had been looking away from him but now she stared directly into his face.

  ‘How much longer would you like me to stay?’ she said.

  There was none of the imperious demand that had been in her voice in New York. And she didn’t speak in italics any more, Charlie realised. She’d performed the function for which he had asked her to come to Palm Beach. But was proving additionally useful for this charade.

  Charlie suddenly became aware of the intensity of her expression and his mind was thrown, with frightening clarity, to his earlier thoughts in the hotel suite and then through the years to an argument he had had with Edith, soon after they had gone on the run and he had explained fully to her what he had done and the people he had deceived to make it possible.

  ‘There’s a cruelty about you, Charlie,’ she had said accusingly, ‘a cruelty that sees nothing wrong in using any-one, even me ‘

  He had denied it, of course. And four years later he had stared down at the pulped body of the only woman he had ever loved and whom he had constantly cheated, and he had known that he would never lose the guilt of using her.

  ‘I’d stay if you want me to,’ said Clarissa. She hesitated, a smile trying hopefully at the edges of her mouth. Then she added, ‘I’d like to, really …’

  ‘No,’ he interrupted, ‘it’s better you go.’

  ‘Please …’ she tried, but Charlie shook his head at her again.

  ‘I told you it would be dangerous,’ he said. ‘And it might be.’

  ‘You’re just saying that … an excuse,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Charlie sincerely. ‘I promised Rupert there wouldn’t be any danger.’

  ‘Hardly kept your promise, did you?’ she demanded, turning the words back upon him and reminding him of the other guilt.

  Charlie frowned, nervous of the direction of the conversation.

  ‘Let’s not be stupid, Clarissa.’

  ‘Never that,’ she said. ‘The society butterfly, that’s me.’

  It was her first attempt at brittleness for a long time and it failed, and they both knew it.

  He moved to speak, but she burst out ahead of him. ‘Don’t tell me how much older you are than me.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘That’s a cop-out,’ she said. ‘Like married men always try to end an affair by saying their responsibility to their children is too great.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to talk about age,’ said Charlie.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘You’d become bored … honestly you would.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘It’s like –’ he stopped, searching for the expression ‘– like a holiday romance,’ he resumed, badly. ‘There wouldn’t be any novelty left, back in England.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of it as novelty.’

  ‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘That’s all it is, really.’

  To cover the sigh, he brought the glass to his lips. The conversation had disconcerted him. Mixed with surprise was irritation; this was creating a situation he didn’t want, taking his mind from Pendlebury and Terrilli and the Russian stamps.

  Behind him and therefore unseen, Saxby and Boella finished their drinks and left the Alcazar, wandering out into the car park alongside the exhibition room, apparently needing to check something in their golf equipment in the boot of their car.

  ‘I don’t find it easy to beg,’ she said.

  ‘Then don’t.’

  ‘I don’t want to go away from here.’

  ‘I want you to.’

  ‘It’s normally I who dictate the end to these sort of things,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not discarding you,’ attempted Charlie. ‘I’m asking you to go down to Lyford Cay because it might be safer for you there than here.’

  ‘You’ll see me when we get back to London?’

  ‘As a friend,’ he qualified.

  She laughed, trying to make it a sneering sound. ‘What’s the difference between screwing a man’s wife three thousand miles from home rather than two miles away?’

  ‘None, I suppose,’ admitted Charlie honestly. ‘It just seems different, somehow.’

  ‘I think you’re a bastard,’ she said.

  To remind her that it had been she who initiated the seduction would qualify him for the description, Charlie decided.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am.’

  She made as if to rise abruptly, but then relaxed against the table.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve been a nuisance,’ she said.

  ‘You haven’t.’

  ‘An embarrassment, then.’

  ‘Nor that, either.’

  ‘Could there really be danger?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Quite easily.’

  ‘And you could get hurt?’

  Charlie thought about the question. ‘I’ve usually managed to avoid it,’ he said.

  ‘But you could?’

  ‘I suppose so. That’s why I don’t want you to say anything of this to Sally. It mustn’t get back to Cosgrove.’

  ‘Please be careful,’ she said.

  ‘I’m always that,’ promised Charlie.

  ‘I’ve a car coming for me at eight,’ said Clarissa. Seeing Charlie’s expression, she said, ‘I didn’t think you’d want me to stay. And I could have always cancelled it.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  ‘It’s only twelve thirty.’

  ‘Do you want lunch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Another drink?’

  ‘No. I want to say goodbye properly.’

  He rose, to help her from her chair. She didn’t stand immediately, instead remaining where she was and gazing up at him.

  ‘It’s strange,’ she said. ‘If anyone had told me a month ago that this was going to happen, I’d have said they were mad.’

  ‘Novelty,’ repeated Charlie.

  ‘I wonder how long it will take to wear off,’ she said, rising at last.

  Pendlebury regarded the arrival of Saxby and Boella as marginally more important than the Englishman’s apparent awareness of Terrilli. He immediately allocated more men to the two known criminals, ignoring Warburger’s fears about detection because he felt the situation justified the risk. When he learned about their checks on the lighting cables he nodded happily, confident that the operation was going exactly as he intended and that he was in complete control.

  The initial surprise at the Englishman’s visit to Terrilli’s home did not last long. It meant he had identified the video picture, that’s all. It still needn’t alter the timing of the man’s death.

  Pendlebury left his room and shambled to the elevator, head sunk against his chest in concentration. He’d delayed too long to confront the man about his suspicions of robbery,

  Pendlebury decided. He would have to behave as if he attached no importance to what the woman had said.

  He was still deep in thought when he emerged at ground level, so that the presence of one of his people near the desk momentarily startled him.

  ‘Any news of the insurance guy?’ he asked.

  ‘Spent three hours with the woman,’ said the agent. ‘She’s just left and he’s gone back to his rooms; probably needs the rest. Must be quite a performer.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pendlebury, ‘I think he is.’

  John Williamson planned his attempted entry into the exhibition chamber very carefully, knowing there were only five minutes before it closed. The security men were in a bunch, even those in plain clothes, so the Russian managed to take a photograph including almost all of them with the Minnox camera concealed in the hollowed out book he carried beneath his arm. He allowed himself to be stopped and smiled apologetically at his stupidity in expecting to view the stamps so late, glancing around and identifying the security cameras while he was talking to an attendant. There would be time enough later
, he assured the man. He was staying for several days.

  He was turning when the lift opened to his right and he saw the unkempt figure of another of the security men whom he’d identified from his observation of the exhibition earlier in the evening. From the deference paid, someone in authority, Williamson had judged.

  As Charlie Muffin strolled casually across the lobby, Williamson managed three exposures on his camera, two full face and one profile. With luck, he thought, he might get the other man who had gone upstairs about thirty minutes earlier: another person in authority, the man had realised. And similarly scruffy. If he didn’t manage it that night, there was always the following day.

  For the moment, Williamson considered the Cubans more important. He was impressed with them, and intended telling Moscow. Despite being provided with a complete description, it had taken him several hours to identify them all. He seated himself casually in one of the lobby chairs, less than fifteen feet from Manuel Ramirez, whom he knew to be the leader from the information he had been provided with in San Diego. The Cuban was a middle-aged, thickly built man, his hair already whitening at the temples. He appeared quite at ease in the luxury of an American hotel; had Williamson not been a trained observer, it would have been impossible to detect the attention that Ramirez was paying to the exhibition, even though it was now closed for the night. Williamson continued his gaze around the lobby. Ramirez had perfectly placed his people, ensuring that every possible entry was under observation. Because he had come only minutes earlier from the parking area, Williamson knew there were two more men outside covering the garden windows.

  He looked back to Ramirez, feeling a brief moment of pity for the man who imagined the operation to be his passport back to America. Quickly he stifled the feeling, surprised at its appearance. It made unarguable sense to expose them, if the need arose, so that the C.I.A. would be embarrassed.

  He rose, moving towards the restaurant. All he had done so far, he admitted to himself, was establish the procedures which were basic to the start of any operation. It was time he concentrated upon the purpose of his mission, isolating the man who knew General Kalenin.

  The maître d’hôtel greeted him at the entrance to the dining room, searched for a single seat and then led him to within three tables of where Charlie Muffin was sitting, also alone.

  16

  Robert Chambine, who had two children at a $2,ooo-a-year school in Scarsdale, stood unobtrusively at the edge of the warehouse, intently watching the group go through their rehearsal and thinking of the end-of-term plays through which he and his wife always sat, proud of their daughters’ participation.

  Chambine was surprised by his own analogy, because really there wasn’t very much similarity. These six weren’t play-acting and it showed. They had improved upon the equipment provided and, using the plans and measurements, had created a workable reconstruction of the exhibition room at the Breakers. Polystyrene blocks represented the walls, with gaps for windows and doors. Each camera and spotlight had been fixed to a photographic extension pole, set at precisely the height and position at which Bulz and Beldini would have to work.

  The innovation which particularly impressed Chambine was the Polaroid cameras, of which he had not thought. They had bought four, and while Bulz and Beldini came in through the side door and went through their practice, covering first lights and then lenses, the other men positioned themselves by four of the cameras and took photographs as rapidly as they could. This fell far short of what the videotape would record, but it had enabled the two men who would be going first into the room to recognise and therefore guard against the points of maximum exposure.

  Throughout the polystyrene was threaded red and yellow flex, indicating the wired alarms, and these had actually been connected to battery-operated bells which rang if, during any part of the rehearsal, anyone disturbed either a window or door alarm or stepped on one of the pressure pads that Chambine had guessed would be there, and therefore marked around the display cases.

  As much thought had gone into the cases as everything else. The entry through the side door was planned to enable a lengthy bypass lead, with alligator clips at either end, to be simply clamped into place, and this would maintain the circuit so that the intervening alarm wire could be cut, allowing the door to be opened about two feet.

  At first Chambine frowned both at the other leads and the expandable steel rods carried into the practice area after Bulz and Beldini had immobilised the cameras, unable to think of a purpose for them. And then he smiled at the expertise. The rods were extended and slipped beneath the display cases by Bertrano and Petrilli. At Bertrano’s nod they lifted the cases, but only slightly. Chambine saw that they had anticipated that the case legs would be wired, to trigger an alarm the moment there was any extended movement. With the case about three inches from the ground, Bulz and Beldini went on their knees and clipped more bypass leads into place, linking them with the alarms on the adjoining case so that at all times the circuit would remain intact.

  ‘Good,’ said Chambine approvingly, moving further into the warehouse when the rehearsal was over. ‘Very good indeed.’

  The performance had gone far more smoothly than he had ever hoped it would.

  ‘Our first attempt timed out at forty-five minutes,’ said Bertrano. ‘The last three runs have all come out around twenty.’

  ‘The camera-covering averages out at about four minutes,’ added Bulz. ‘We can lose about another minute, but it increases the risk of exposure before a camera. Even though we’ll be masked, we figure it isn’t worth it.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Chambine. ‘Four minutes is fine.’

  ‘Can you imagine any other alarms we haven’t thought of?’ asked Bertrano.

  Chambine shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. He turned to Saxby and Boella.

  ‘What about the outside lights?’

  ‘Better than we expected,’ said Saxby. ‘Every fourth lighting pedestal has a small junction box. The idea must be to reduce the possibility of a full-scale blackout. All we’ll have to do is to make our selection and take out the entry cables with wire cutters.’

  ‘Have you worked out a pattern?’ demanded Chambine.

  Boella produced a drawing. It was quite detailed, showing the area off South County Road and Breakers Row, with the hotel golf course sketched in. The lights were designated in green and those they intended extinguishing were crossed through in black.

  ‘Swimming pool and beach area first,’ said Saxby, indicating the initial targets. ‘That’ll create a diversion. Then some in the gardens, but still away from the exhibition area. Those around that and the car park will be the last.’

  Chambine moved his head, as satisfied with this as he had been with the other preparations.

  ‘We thought about midnight,’ said Bertrano. ‘By that time those still around will be sufficiently drunk and the hotel staff will be tired.’

  Chambine stood nodding.

  ‘At midnight,’ continued Saxby, ‘we hit the lights by the pool …’

  ‘… and we go in through the side door immediately after the security checks by the guards,’ said Bertrano.

  ‘We paced out the distance,’ said Saxby. ‘Four times, in fact. Allowing three minutes for any eventuality we haven’t considered, we’ll be outside the exhibition hall, with all the lights out, in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘And by that time,’ said Bertrano, ‘we will have all the cases except the last two freed from whatever wiring there might be and positioned near the car-park window.’

  ‘Which is fifteen minutes ahead of the next security patrol,’ remembered Chambine.

  ‘We want to talk about that,’ said Bertrano. ‘One thing which could stretch our timing is how long it will take us to load the cases into the cars. Even if there is no interruption, I can’t see us clearing the car park before twelve-twenty-five. That’s only five minutes before the inspection. It’s hardly long enough.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better i
f we waited and took the guards out?’ asked Boella, obviously the spokesman for the proposal. ‘It would take maybe half an hour – perhaps longer – to discover what had happened to them. That would give us much more time. We’d get clear of the island.’

  Chambine made a reluctant movement with his head. ‘I said I didn’t want violence if it could be avoided,’ he reminded them.

  ‘We’re not sure if it’s safe to avoid it,’ pressed Bertrano.

  ‘If we are out of the car park by twelve-twenty-five, then we will have disposed of the cases by twelve-forty,’ said Chambine. ‘By twelve-fifty you’ll be paid off and on your way. If the alarm is raised promptly at twelve-thirty, I can’t imagine the police getting themselves organised in twenty minutes, can you?’

  ‘And what happens if we don’t get away from the car park by twelve-twenty-five?’ asked Boella stubbornly.

  For several moments, Chambine did not reply. Then he said, ‘I agree it’s a problem.’

  ‘So how do we resolve it?’ asked Bertrano.

  Chambine sighed, reaching the decision. ‘I shall be outside in the car park, with Saxby and Boella,’ he said, addressing them as a group. ‘I’ll be responsible for time checking that part of the operation. If it becomes clear that we’re not going to be able to get away – completely away – a few moments before twelve-twenty-five, then we’ll stay and hit the security people as soon as they enter the room …’ There were relieved smiles from the men in front of him. ‘I’m agreeing to it because it is obviously the sensible thing to do,’ he went on. ‘But if I can, I’ll avoid it …’ He looked specifically at Saxby, Boella and Petrilli. ‘Don’t forget what I said about those guns,’ he warned them. ‘If we get away without trouble, I want them dumped. I’m not having something as sweet as this screwed up by an unlicensed weapon arrest.’

  Saxby and Boella nodded and Petrilli said, ‘Sure, I won’t forget.’