Madame de Gaulle's Penis

by Herbie Brennan

  “I’m glad you think that, John. When we’re alone in my flat, I’ll show you just how incredible I can be.”

  “You will?”

  “I will.”

  “Coffee for two.” That damned waiter seemed to be on roller skates.

  We drank our coffees staring at one another. I had almost passed beyond the ability to fantasise. Beth asked throatily, “What sort of thing do you like, John?”

  “What sort of thing do I like?” Little Sir Echo was at it again. Van Rindt, I suddenly recalled, used to do the same during analytical sessions:

  I’m feeling depressed today, Doctor.

  You’re feeling depressed today?

  Yes. Do you suppose it might be because of my sexual problems?

  You think it might be because of your sexual problems?

  Yes.

  And so on.

  “You look like a man of the world, John. I could tell from the way you walked onto the plane. I willed you to take the seat beside me. I go big for the sophisticated type. I looked at you and I liked what I saw. Are you married?”

  Without thinking, I said, “Yes.”

  “I thought so. You’re very relaxed with women. That seems to be something only marriage can teach a man. I noticed the casual way you were looking at the stewardesses.”

  “You did?” Christ, would I never think of anything to say?

  “They were all hot for you, of course, but you were looking at them as if they didn’t exist.”

  “Was I?” Was I hell!

  “That’s a big turn-on for a gal like me. A little bitty challenge. Here’s a man who has been everywhere, seen everything. What could Beth Philippe from Ohio do that would interest a man like that?” The smile again. “Since you’re married, I figured you would have to go for something different.”

  “Different?”

  “Not just another woman, John. You’ve had your pick of women for years. I could tell that right away. I mean... different.”

  “Different?” I said again. It was the most one-sided conversation I’d ever had in my life.

  “Well, there are different positions, of course. But I expect you’ve tried most of them.”

  “I have.” At least this time I made it a statement and not a question.

  “I thought so. Still, there are so many other things we can do. So very many other things...”

  “Such as?” It took me a long time to get the question out, mainly because my heart was pounding and my throat was dry.

  “Americans are very good at packaging...” Beth said. “I have some interesting costumes in my flat.”

  I couldn’t believe this was happening. Costumes! Maybe if you fantasised often enough and hard enough, the pictures solidified. “Costumes?”

  “I must be one of the very few women who still wear stockings nowadays.” Then, lest I could possibly misunderstand, she added, “Stockings, John - not tights.”

  “Stockings!” I breathed.

  She was looking me directly in the eye. “With garter belts to hold them up.”

  “We call them suspender belts in Britain,” I told her, making my first real attribution to the conversation in several minutes.

  She ignored it. “Do you like the feel of rubber, John?”

  “Is there anything else I can get you?”

  For a second I thought her voice had broken, then realised it was the waiter again. I turned to ask him for the bill - I wanted nothing in the world but to get to her flat as fast as possible - and as I did so, the man at the table across the room stood up to leave. He reached the door and glanced back once, briefly. The wings of greying hair were unmistakable. It was Van Rindt!

  “You bastard!” I screamed. I leaped to my feet and pushed the waiter to one side. The door closed behind Van Rindt. I was half way across the restaurant before I remembered my weapons were still locked in the lost suitcases. I ran back to grab a knife from the table. That bloody waiter had cleared them all away, efficient bugger. Only a small dessert fork was left. I grabbed it. Even a small dessert fork can be lethal in the hands of an expert.

  “Just a minute, Bud!” the waiter said from underneath his turban.

  “Shut up or I’ll kill you!” I hissed at him; and though I suspect American waiters are often threatened with violence, he sensed the steel in my tone and dropped back a pace. I shot past him, brandishing the fork, and crashed through the door. There was no-one in the foyer except an expensively dressed black couple coming in to eat. I bore through them like a train and reached the street outside Van Rindt was on the other side of the road, in the process of climbing into a taxi cab.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I raced for it, but I was still yards away as it pulled out into the traffic. I sprinted, to the accompaniment of motor horns. The taxi reached a junction and stopped. The gap between me and it narrowed to about ten yards before it turned left into the mainstream. I flung the fork, hoping to puncture a rear wheel, but it went wide and struck an elderly female pedestrian who marched across to berate me roundly for an unwarranted assault. By the time I extricated myself from the old bitch, Van Rindt was well and truly gone.

  So, when I returned to the restaurant, was Beth.

  Chapter Nine

  The suitcases, cleared through Customs but unopened, reappeared the following morning to the accompaniment of profuse and grovelling apologies from an airline representative. He asked me when I would be flying on to Washington. I told him I would let him know.

  I was torn three ways now. A part of me wanted to find Beth again - you can fairly easily imagine which part I’m referring to. The conversation in the restaurant still seemed almost unbelievable in retrospect. Stockings? Suspenders? Rubber? The woman was as keen and kinky as I was, a partner so ideal she might have been manufactured in heaven. (I fantasised her playing a harp in the nude, those shapely legs spread on either side of the instrument; and knew she would do it for me in reality, would suggest doing it for me in reality.) I was dying in the desert and had found water. I was starving on the mountain and had found bread. But I’d discovered, had I not, that this man could not live by bread alone. For years I’d tried that system and all it gave me was a chronic case of indigestion. I had been like a person living on a diet deficient in certain vitamins. I had not dropped dead, but as the years went on, I became more and more listless, less and less alive because a vital ingredient was missing. Now I’d found that ingredient and it was called Purpose. I even thought of it with a capital ‘P’. My Purpose was revenge. My Purpose was to hack down ex-President de Gaulle as a woodsman hacks down a troublesome tree. My Purpose was to batter Van Rindt to a messy pulp with the collected works of Freud.

  Which led directly to the other legs of my conflict. Should I stay on in New York and hunt down Van Rindt, who was inexplicably at large in this city? Or should I carry on to Washington as originally planned and liquidate de Gaulle?

  The decision was not easy. On the one hand, there were two things urging me to remain on in New York - Van Rindt and Beth, not necessarily in that order. On the other, I didn’t know where to find either of them, while locating de Gaulle in Washington should be fairly easy. In theory, all I needed to do was ask the way to the White House, where he was a guest of the President, and I had him.

  I struggled with the problem for about half an hour in my hotel room and might have struggled longer had not the maid knocked to ask if she could come in and make the bed. The mental sight of her, naked but for a tiny frilled apron, was more than I could stand. I went downstairs to the lobby and checked through phone books. There was no Beth Philippe listed that I could find. I had no idea where to start looking for Van Rindt.

  Then, as I was about to abandon the phone books, a thought struck me. Surely the thing to do was seek professional help? God knows, I had more than enough cash to pay
for it. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I was a stranger in a strange city. By the time I learned my way around, Van Rindt might well be gone; and Beth, God help me, might well have gone off sex. New York was crawling with private eyes. How much more sensible to have one find them then report back quietly to me in Washington where I would be taking the opportunity to murder Charles and Madame de Gaulle. With the de Gaulles disposed of, I could then return to New York to waste Van Rindt and screw Beth, again not necessarily in that order.

  I picked the first investigator listed in the book - his name, remarkably, was Martin Bormann - and phoned for an appointment. By noon, I was standing in his office.

  Bormann was Jewish, the irony of which did not strike me for a long time afterwards. I was too bemused by his appearance, which was quite unlike that of any private eye I’d ever seen on television. He reminded me irresistibly of my bank manager, Mr Sullivan - small, fat, bald and middle aged. His office was extremely tidy and his secretary was an elderly woman whom I suspected was his mother. In a way I was glad. If she’d been anything like the sexpot secretaries TV detectives have, I would have been too busy fantasising to brief him properly.

  “Listen,” he said as I sat down, “can I get you something to eat?”

  “No, thank you,”’ I said.

  “Lox? Bagels? It’s almost lunch time.

  “No, I’d really prefer not.”

  “You’re English, aren’t you?” He fixed me with a gimlet eye. He may have looked like my bank manager, but his personality was considerably more dynamic.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “I could tell by the accent. Maybe you’d like a cup of tea then, some cakes? My moth - my secretary could fix you up real easy.”

  “I’d rather get down to business, if you don’t mind - I have a flight to catch to Washington.”

  “Oh, sure,” Bormann said. He sounded disappointed.

  “I want you to find two people for me. They’re both in New York, but I don’t know where.”

  “Yes,” Bormann nodded encouragingly.

  “One’s a psychiatrist. The other’s a girl I met on the plane. Do you think you could handle that for me?”

  “Handle it?” The elderly secretary had come in unannounced, carrying a tray. “Can he handle it? Can Martin Bormann handle it? Mr Sinclair -” I’d given her my name at reception. “- this boy can handle anything. And very reasonable as well.”

  “Listen, Mom,” Bormann said, dropping the pretence she was his secretary “Mr Sinclair doesn’t want to hear about that right now.”

  “Doesn’t want to hear about it? Of course he wants to hear about it. You think he has money to burn? Listen, Mr Sinclair, some investigators price themselves right out of the market, but not this boy. Works only for half what he’s really worth. You’ll have your friends back before you’ve noticed they’re missing.” She set the tray down in front of me. “I thought you might be hungry, so I brought you a snack. Couple of sandwiches -”

  “Mom -”

  “A little lox -”

  “Mom -”

  “Few pickles -”

  “Mom -”

  “Some potato chips -”

  “Mom, Mr Sinclair says he isn’t hungry. I already asked him.”

  “Nice tub of cream cheese, help you keep your weight down.” She turned to her boy. “So you already asked him already? You think maybe he isn’t going to get hungry?” Her tone softened as she turned back to me. “You eat what you want, Mr Sinclair. I’ll bring you coffee in a minute. And don’t you worry about anything - my boy will take care of you.”

  After she’d closed the door behind her, Bormann said, “I’m sorry about that. God knows I’ve tried to tell her this is a business office and you don’t run it like you run a home. But she won’t listen.” He sighed and mopped his brow. “These people you’re looking for - you’d better give me their names.” He took a pencil from one desk drawer and a notepad from another. “The guy first.”

  “Dr Nicholaas Van Rindt.”

  “How do you spell that?”

  I spelt it for him.

  “He a shrink in New York?”

  “London,” I said. Then added as an afterthought, “England.”

  “Sounds foreign.”

  “I think he’s Dutch, although it doesn’t show.”

  “What’s he doing in New York?”

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I saw him in a restaurant last night.”

  “What’s the name of the restaurant?”

  “The Taj Tandoori.”

  “I know it - good kebabs. Does he do a lot of business as a shrink?”

  Surprised, I asked, “What’s that got to do with finding him?”

  Bormann shrugged. “If he’s rich, he stays at one kind of hotel. If he’s poor, another. You track down a man, these little details are always helpful.”

  “Yes. Yes, I see. He’s fairly wealthy.” And his coffers had recently been swelled by three thousand of my money. Or my bank’s money, if you want to quibble, but I was responsible for it.

  Bormann made a note. “Anything else you can think of that might be helpful?”

  “He may have my wife with him.”

  To his credit, he showed no reaction. “What’s her name?”

  “Mrs Sinclair.

  He glanced up at me with a pained expression. “Her first name.”

  “Seline.”

  “Classy name. What’s she look like?”

  I gave him a general description first of Seline, then of Van Rindt himself.

  “That should be the easy one,” Bormann said. “Now the broad you’re looking for: what’s her name?”

  “Beth Philippe.”

  He glanced up again, less patiently this time. “You putting me on?”

  ‘Puzzled I said, “No. Why?”

  “Beth Philippe is only one of the richest broads in the Big Apple. Owns half of Detroit by proxy. An old dame about sixty? Grey-haired, dresses in trousers?”

  “No,” I said. “It can’t be the same one.” I gave him a description of my Beth. Even toned down, it made her sound like Jane Fonda.

  “You’re right,” he told me. “It can’t be the same one. You met her on the plane from London?”

  “From Paris.”

  “Which plane was this?”

  I gave him details of the flight.

  “Anything else that might be helpful?” Bormann asked as he’d asked about Van Rindt.

  I cast around for information. “Her uncle used to own a rabbit farm,” I said eventually.

  He looked up at me without comment.

  “That’s about all I can tell you,” I said.

  “It’s not a lot.” He stared at his notepad. “Not a little, but not a lot.”

  “Is it enough?” This seemed to be the only question worth answering.

  “Who knows?” Bormann shrugged. “Let me put it to you this way. I think I can find them on what you’ve given me. If not, I’ll get in touch and ask you some more questions. Either way, it’s going to cost you.”

  “How much?”

  “You can have me day to day for a hundred bucks a day, which includes expenses. Or I come by the week for $500, which saves you $100 since I work a six-day week, only resting on the Sabbath, like God.”

  “How long do you estimate it will take to find them?”

  “Two, three days. Which isn’t to say I guarantee to find them in two, three days. It’s just to say if I don’t find them in two, three days, I’m not going to find them at all.”

  “That’s very honest of you,” I remarked.

  Bormann shrugged. “I’m a detective, not a scam artist. Where do I get in touch with you?”

  I
t was the most difficult question he’d asked me. Once I reached Washington, I planned to start covering my trail. Even if de Gaulle’s security was lax now he’d retired, I had no intention of getting myself caught after I killed him. Consequently, once I reached Washington, John Sinclair would mysteriously vanish, to be replaced by a variety of secondary identities. What’s more, I had no idea where I would be staying, under whatever guise. I’d thought I would look around and pick a spot on impulse, making my movements utterly impossible to predict - even by me.

  “I think,” I said, “we’d better leave it that I get in touch with you by phone in a couple of days time. I’m not sure yet where I shall be staying.”

  “Suits me. You’ll be taking me by the day?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Let’s say two days provisional, which is $200. Half in advance okay by you?”

  “Yes, perfectly.” I counted out the money on his desk. “Is that it then?”

  “That’s it for now.” He stood up as if to show me to the door, then said, “Mind if I ask you something, Mr Sinclair?”

  “Not at all.” I was prepared to lie on any subject.

  “Is this set up to get evidence for a divorce?”

  I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he approved of divorce or not. Or whether he gave a damn one way or the other. So I said carefully, “What makes you ask that, Mr Bormann?”

  “You’re looking for a guy who’s shacked up with your wife and also tracking some dame you met up with on a plane. How would that look to you?”

  “It would look as though I might be seeking evidence for a divorce,” I agreed.

  “Which is what I figured, already. Which is why I brought it up. Just finding them isn’t going to be enough in some States. Others it’s going to be too much. Some States you have to find them staying together overnight in the same hotel room. Some States you practically have to have a picture of them engaged in sodomy. Some States you just have to wave enough money and it all happens.”

  “I’m not planning to get divorced in the States,” I said.

  “Believe me, you’re wise. They allow alimony here like you wouldn’t believe.” A pensive look crossed his features. “Now me, I went one better. I never got married in the first place. If I wasn’t Jewish, at my age that would make me a queer. But nobody believes in Jewish queers. They find you’re Jewish and they figure you have some angle for making money out of it. So they figure I’m somehow making more money because I’m not married. Which is true, but has nothing to do with it.” He shook his head sadly. “It shows you the way people think. Once they have you in a slot, they can’t see outside it. No matter what you do, they still believe you’re doing what they think you should be doing.” He closed his eyes briefly, as if preparing himself to face news of a Californian earthquake, then opened the door and called, “Mom - Mr Sinclair is leaving now.”