Agents of Darkness

by Campbell Armstrong

  “I was just curious about something, Eric.”

  “My ass,” Vanderwolf said. “I know you got it for somebody else, mister. You got it for that cop you’re so thick with, didn’t you? What do you feel you owe that asshole? He blackmailing you or something, Clarence?”

  Of course. All this led back – where else? – to Charlie. Charlie had the unsettling knack, sometimes found in drunks, of getting you to do things you wouldn’t usually do. Friendship with Charlie was sometimes as demanding as a tax audit. “He asked for some information,” Wylie said quietly.

  “And out of the kindness of your heart, you got it for him.”

  “Right. I got it for him.”

  Vanderwolf shook his head in disbelief. “Soon as you left the building you were followed to Galloway’s house, Clarence. I think you must have a deficiency in the brain department these days. Did you think you could just walk in and play with the computers and drift away without somebody asking questions? Retired Federal agent plunders computer to get information for a suspended LAPD cop! What next, Clarence? You planning to give out private data on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, huh?”

  “I was trying to help Galloway, that’s all.” Wylie cursed himself for underestimating the Cyclopean Eye that was Vanderwolf, the horrible orb that observed everything occurring within its dominion. You scanned a computer and the Wolf found out because internal control devices recorded computer activities. You were logged and charted, mapped and checked, tracked and pinned and, like a forlorn shrimp, butterflied.

  “Galloway’s an asshole. Did he tell you he called me night before last?”

  “Called you? What for?”

  “Who knows? He was incoherent, it was past midnight, I wasn’t listening. He rambled on. Something about a job. I never understood his accent at the best of times. Drunk, he’s incoherent. I hung up on the idiot.”

  Clarence knew the black level of inebriation that led Charlie to make unreasonable phone-calls. He’d been the recipient of more than a few himself. “He was helpful to the Bureau once, Eric.”

  “Back then maybe. Back then, oh he was a local hero. Hot stuff. That was before the sauce. He went downhill faster than shit through a greased goose. Personally I was never fooled by the guy. He always smelled of anarchy to me. Always had that deep whiff of trouble about him. He doesn’t belong in law enforcement. Frankly I think the LAPD ought to revise its policy. Only native-born citizens should be eligible. None of this imported, naturalised scuzz. They don’t have that gut feeling about America a good cop needs. They don’t know what it means. They think it’s all barbecues and swimming-pools and such. They don’t feel that tug of the old heartstrings on the Fourth. Hell, we can’t expect it of them. It isn’t built into them.”

  And Vanderwolf, Clarence Wylie supposed, was a good American name, probably Navajo. Clarence loved America and American values as much as any reasonable patriot, but he disliked Vanderwolf’s form of chauvinism, a grunt, redneck, myopic love of country that suggested some misshapen child incestuously bred and hidden in a shack. If you happened to criticise this disagreeable infant in front of the Dutchman, he would snarl at you and you would sense the hair-trigger drawn in his dangerous heart.

  “I understand the information you dug out concerned the activities of a Filipino national,” Vanderwolf remarked in a rather dry way. “One Armando Teng.”

  “Yes.” Clarence saw no point in denying anything, if Vanderwolf already knew.

  “Why the hell would Galloway want to know about some Filipino?” Vanderwolf asked. “I was stationed at Subic in 1960 and I never met a Filipino good for anything except knowing how to launder shirts and clean shoes and cook. As a race, Sucksville. Not too bright,” and Vanderwolf tapped the side of his large head.

  Clarence Wylie, allowing a vague irritation at this ethnic slur to pass out of his system, stared at the western paintings for a moment. He knew that Charlie Galloway was urgently trawling his character for some depth of purpose to put his life back together. He wanted his job, wanted his wife, reasons to go on. He wanted love. What could Vanderwolf, master of insensitivity, know about any of this?

  The child continued to whimper in her distant room. Vanderwolf had clearly tuned her out. Background noise, the muzak of a kid’s nightmare.

  “So what else did you give Mister Galloway, Clarence?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “Okay. Let me put the question another way. If I were to remind you that the theft of data from our computers is a federal offence carrying one hell of a heavy sentence, how would you feel about that?” Vanderwolf sat on a sofa, crossing his legs, tapping his fingers on his thighs. “With that pleasant prospect firmly in mind, Clarence, I’ll ask again: what else did you give your dear old pal Galloway?”

  Clarence pondered the question, remembering that one of Vanderwolf’s ploys was to ask questions to which he already knew the answers. Sometimes, of course, he fished – but you could never tell by looking whether he was rummaging or whether he was trying to catch you out in a lie. After all the years Clarence had spent in Vanderwolf’s employ, he still couldn’t read the man’s face, the shrouded eyes, the secretive mouth, the mysterious scar on his cheek.

  Vanderwolf leaned toward him. “Don’t fuck with me. You might be retired, but I don’t give a shit. I have a long reach, mister. Speak to me. What else did you tell Charlie Galloway?”

  Clarence remained silent. Vanderwolf’s physical presence always stifled and overwhelmed him. He knew that if he spoke now he would say nothing convincing. Was there any point in further lying on Charlie’s behalf?

  Vanderwolf’s black pinky ring glinted. “Okay, I understand loyalty, Clarence. Loyalty to a friend is admirable even if it’s misguided. So I’ll say a name, I’ll make it easy for you. Laforge. William Laforge. Familiar?”

  Clarence raised his face and looked at Vanderwolf, whose white eyebrows, fused as they were, suggested the result of somebody’s deranged knitting.

  “If you told him Laforge, Clarence, the consequences for your man Charlie could be …” Vanderwolf appeared to choose his next word with great care, skimming through his private thesaurus of menace. “Terrible.”

  “Okay,” Clarence said. “I told him Laforge was Teng’s target. Godammit. I knew as soon as I said it, I knew it was all wrong for him –”

  “And did you hand out some personal data? Address and phone number and such goodies?”

  Clarence whispered yes. His head had begun to ache.

  “So now Charlie Galloway is out there chasing the Filipino, who is in all likelihood headed for the Laforge residence in Pennsylvania.”

  “Yes.”

  “What does Galloway intend to do, Clarence? Catch the guy? Make himself a hero? That the game plan?”

  “Something like that.” You wouldn’t really understand, Eric, he thought.

  “I want Charlie Galloway out of the way, Clarence.”

  “Out of the way? In what sense? I mean, I don’t, wait –”

  “Christ, not like that, Clarence. Not permanently. I want him out of action for his own sake, that’s all. I’m talking about protection, not termination. I just don’t want him around fouling up this whole operation.” Vanderwolf smiled. It was the somewhat placid expression of a man who considers his realm inviolate, his position secure beyond sabotage, political upheaval, palace coups, earthquakes or other assorted acts of God.

  “Then you better bring him in,” Wylie said.

  “That’s precisely what I have in mind, Clarence,” Vanderwolf said. “Bring him in, save him from a bad situation. So you believe he’ll go to Pennsylvania?”

  “I’d guess he left already.” Even as he spoke this sentence Clarence wondered if it could be construed as a betrayal of Charlie. If so, it was for his own good.

  “An early bird,” Vanderwolf remarked, looking thoughtful and sly. He closed his eyes, clasped his hands, rocked his head slightly. The impression he gave was of unfathomable cunning.

 
; “You’ll intercept him,” Clarence said.

  “Somewhere along the way, certainly.”

  “Before he gets himself into an even worse situation …”

  “Trust me, Clarence. He won’t be allowed to interfere.”

  Trust me. The pain drummed more devilishly in Clarence’s head. Why had he ever let himself get talked into giving Galloway the information in the first place? Why had he fallen for that lost look, that hopelessness in Charlie’s eyes? An excess of mercy and compassion, the urge to rescue the stray that was Charlie Galloway – these were flaws, not virtues. He’d made a grave mistake with Charlie, setting him loose instead of dragging him back to the clinic. Killing him with kindness. Charlie needed one thing: to be saved from himself. To be pulled from the half-demolished building of his life before every worm-eaten timber collapsed about his head.

  “What would happen if Charlie gets to Teng first anyway?” he asked.

  “I don’t think that would be very good,” Vanderwolf answered.

  “If Charlie finds the guy, what’s he going to do with him, Eric? He’ll just hand him over to you or the cops. So what difference does it make who catches Teng? You, Galloway, the cops, whoever. So long as he’s caught. Isn’t that what matters?”

  Again Vanderwolf appeared to choose his words with care. “Let’s just say we don’t want Galloway to apprehend the Filipino.”

  Clarence massaged the sides of his head. He heard the tiny rolling coin of revelation. “I get it. You want the credit. You don’t want Galloway to get there before the mighty FBI. Is that it?”

  “Ah, Clarence. Always perceptive. Always on the ball.”

  “Then it’s a PR matter. It’s image, Eric. The FBI can’t be upstaged by some poor alcoholic schmuck of a cop.”

  “In a nutshell.” Vanderwolf smiled patiently. “I think that about wraps everything up, Clarence. You’ve told me where Galloway’s headed. I needed to be sure, and you’ve confirmed it. He’ll be quite safe. We’ll find him. Thank you, Clarence. You can go now.”

  Wylie was dismissed with a slight gesture of Vanderwolf’s silver-haired hand. But he didn’t move immediately. A small sense of dissatisfaction bothered him, although he couldn’t say why exactly. Was it the unexpected compliment from Vanderwolf? Always perceptive, Clarence. In all the years of their relationship Eric Vanderwolf had never said a kind word to him – why begin now? Clarence, suspicious, took a step toward the door then turned to look back. Vanderwolf, a lofty creation of the Federal government, a supernatural being who surveyed his terrain as if it were his personal property and not something merely entrusted to him by the citizens of the land, those minnows in whom he had absolutely no interest, had always perceived himself as both permanent and immortal, and the games he played were usually complex. Gods or devils, after all, couldn’t be content with simplicity.

  And this was all just too simple for Clarence to buy now. He was certain more was involved here than the Bureau’s PR image. Vanderwolf’s bland compliment concealed something else – but what? It eluded Clarence, who had spent too much time lost and bewildered in the Dutchman’s world, a place where Vanderwolf was both magician and master of physics. He gave the impression that he sat in his office and said Let there be rain and, wow, rain there was. Or he commanded gravity to be suspended and suddenly objects floated through the air like weighty items moved by unseen hands during seances. There was a diabolical quality in his expression. The eyebrows helped. They were those of a man who purchased souls from lost people in flophouses and blood donation centres.

  “Incidentally, I hope you’re enjoying your retirement,” Vanderwolf said. “You earned your pension. But in future don’t go where you don’t belong. Oh – if Charlie Galloway calls you, tell him this. Drop everything and come home, Charlie. Be a good boy and come home.”

  Clarence opened the door. “You’re not telling me the whole story, Eric. You’re holding back. I sense it.”

  Vanderwolf stuck his hands in the pockets of his robe. “Go home, Clarence. Go home. You don’t work for me any more. You’re not paid to sense things.”

  Obstructed by his own suspicious thoughts, perplexed, Clarence heard the sad sound of the child sobbing and imagined sea-horses fluttering dreadfully in an aquarium; and he thought of Charlie adrift in America – beyond reach, out of touch, endangered.

  19

  Tanned men and women in sombreros and bright shirts drank from little bottles of premixed margaritas on the plane. A fine-boned bleached blonde of about forty shook maracas in the aisle, swaying her hips as she worked the gourds back and forth. La cucaracha, la cucaracha, people sang over and over, as if this were the only word they’d learned during their vacation in Mexico. There had to be at least thirty sombreroed persons in various stages of early morning post-holiday inebriation and they controlled the plane, ignoring the pleas of the cabin staff to sit down and buckle up. La cucaracha, la cucaracha, they kept singing, while the dyed blonde with great hooped earrings went sashaying back and forth, shaking the maracas now in Charlie Galloway’s face, tempting him to join in, join the party, be a sport, hon!

  How easy it would be, Galloway thought. How simple, how escapist, to put on a funny hat and swill the margaritas and samba down the aisle with the blonde, singing about cockroaches, and perhaps even find himself drunkenly locked in carefree intimacy with the woman inside a john at thirty-five thousand feet above Kansas or somewhere.

  He blinked at the sun that struck the wing. Glinting, it blinded him like a camera flash. He had no notion of time; zones confused him. He’d taken the first available flight out of Los Angeles, changing at Dallas, where the cockroach crew from Acapulco had come rowdily on board, bound for Philadelphia. His watch was broken. The woman with the maracas wore no watch and wouldn’t have known the time if you took her up in a helium balloon to the face of Big Ben. And the cabin crew, confronted by their inability to control the party, had taken refuge, along with their wristwatches, in a curtained galley. Charlie, in this timeless condition, knew only that it was morning, too bright, too blue.

  He hadn’t slept. After Clarence Wylie had gone, he’d quickly studied a Rand McNally road atlas, looking at Pennsylvania with the kind of curiosity Dr Livingstone might have brought to an early map of Africa. Then he’d driven by a circuitous route through the pre-dawn streets of LA and boarded this flight. Going through these motions had imposed a sense of reality on him, as if he were victoriously stepping out into the world after long solitary confinement in a dark room. The dreamlike quality of everything slipped away for a while; the world became hard-edged, and Charlie Galloway a man with a definite mission, definite goals. Businesslike in dark blue suit, a tad of brilliantine applied to his wayward hair, a scrap of loose toilet tissue over a razor cut on his freshly-shaved chin, he’d strolled confidently through the airport, paused to purchase a newspaper, scanned the headlines, did things other people did every day of their lives without a second thought.

  The sheer magic of the ordinary. He was touched by it, and moved. Welcome to the species, Charlie. Welcome back.

  But that was three hours ago – before the Mexican gang came on board, before the margaritas started flying, before the blonde went up and down the aisle and the threat of a conga line became increasingly feasible. Three hours ago: eternity.

  Now he had the thought that what he was doing could only be some form of madness, a delusion of grandeur brought on by booze. He’d finally succumbed to the inability to differentiate the perceptions of sobriety from those of alcohol. They were flawlessly seamed. You couldn’t say where one began and the other ended. It had been years in the coming, and had involved much abuse of the brain, but now it had happened – he couldn’t tell the difference. In sobriety he’d come up with the idea of capturing Teng, a notion that surely belonged in a drunkard’s dream of self-aggrandisement, the lush as winner.

  Catch Teng?

  O dear Christ what was I thinking?

  Closing his eyes, tilting his head back
, listening to the whooom of the great aircraft, he realized now that his bravery and ambition had been a device to offset the shitty feel of dread and contrition, those evil wizards in the pageantry of his hangovers. He was now at that junction where the hangover had diminished from nausea to discomfort to disconsolation.

  Where was the joy in sobriety? Where that glad glow people reported? That sense of pink well-being? He felt none of it.

  Catch Teng? Bring him in, shackled and chained, to rounds of applause? Had that been the childish momentum of his imagination? Dream on, Charlie Galloway. He was bereft, adrift in the heavens, flying towards a destination in which he wouldn’t find Teng but would come only face to face with his own disintegrated self, a burnt-out character, captain of a sad misadventure.

  Even the name of your destination is a bloody joke, Charlie.

  New Hope, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. New Bloody Hope!

  Aye. It had all seemed so right a few hours ago, so apt! A man might refresh his life there, or rearrange his old one into more pleasing patterns. He might discover himself in a place called New Hope. He might achieve something. He wasn’t likely to redeem himself in places with names like Sulphur, Oklahoma, or Broken Bow, Nebraska. New Hope was replete with possibilities. So it had seemed to Charlie before depression had set upon him.

  Fighting the dismay that mobbed him, he turned his thoughts to Teng, wondering where in this vast continent the Filipino might be. If he was headed directly for the heart of the matter, he would be travelling east just as Charlie Galloway was. Though not by commercial airline, Charlie thought. He’d be afraid of exposure by now, especially after hitting Railsback in Dallas. He’d fly in a private aircraft or go by car. But which? Who could tell? Teng was still an enigma to him, a closed book, and all that blether about trying to imagine himself into Teng’s mind, those brave words he’d spoken to Clarence Wylie – that was just so much hot air. He couldn’t read his own damn mind – by what miracle of telepathic engineering could he transport himself into Teng’s?