Green Ice

by Gerald A. Browne

  Would Wiley and Lillian need weapons? Miguel asked. He could easily supply them with sidearms and automatic rifles.

  They already had weapons, Lillian told him. He should see to his own.

  Miguel needed money.

  How much?

  Two thousand dollars.

  Lillian looked to Wiley.

  Wiley gave Miguel two thousand in hundreds. He had noticed Miguel’s lips purse to say one, change to say two.

  Miguel told them how good he felt about this operation. He complimented Wiley, said it proved how valuable an education in electronics could be.

  And a family farm in Ohio, Wiley put in.

  Miguel said that if this operation was successful he would be able to go ahead with the major incident he had spoken to them about. As though he hadn’t always been cryptic about it.

  Again, Lillian asked what it was he had in mind.

  For now they had enough to concern themselves with, Miguel said. Not to worry, they’d be in on it when the time came. Wiley would be especially useful. Anyway, he expected enough money from this operation to finance the incident and launch the national uprising that was certain to follow. Argenti and all his kind would fall and never get up again.

  Great, Wiley thought, but come the revolution, he’d be long gone to some peaceful place—Lillian or no Lillian.

  Before leaving the barrio, they took a look at their objective. Seeing the building now, in daylight, using the windows for a measure, Wiley realized he’d been off quite a bit on his estimate. The building was no more than 120 feet long, judging by its proportions, 100 feet wide.

  From the barrio they dropped in at the Kennedy City house. The mattresses had arrived. The Cubans had unpacked theirs but left the others in the cardboard containers. The Cubans weren’t around. Lillian remarked that they were probably off to the races. Wiley noticed the wide ring they’d left on the only bathtub, along with several curly hairs that were probably pubic. He reminded Lillian to get some Ajax.

  At least, she said, they were taking baths.

  On the way back to the villa, Wiley and Lillian went to the photo laboratory to look over the contact prints.

  “These are right on the button,” Lillian said, indicating a series of exposures.

  They were of Astrid and Maret sunning nude at the pool, unaware they were being photographed. Thus the angles and details were of Wiley’s choosing, even more revealing of him than of his subjects. With the two-hundred-millimeter lens he’d gotten a number of shots so close they were anatomical puzzles. Others of that sort were quite recognizable.

  “I got bored shooting gargoyles and trees,” he explained.

  “What’s so entertaining about an armpit?” She pointed out a certain photo.

  “That’s not an armpit.”

  “It looks like a European armpit.”

  “Armpits are concave.”

  Out of the two rolls of film, seventy-two exposures altogether, Wiley had managed to get about half in focus. All the vital ones, however, were sharp, would enlarge well.

  That evening, Lillian gave Argenti another dose of encouragement. Told him she needed time, but only a little, to think about his proposal. Also, his presence was certainly not fair to her. She didn’t want to be swayed, had to be objective, thought she could reach a decision sooner if she went home to Mexico City. Which way was she leaning? Well, he shouldn’t yet order the engraving but he might doodle an invitation list.

  Later that evening, aside, Argenti told Wiley he understood Wiley had almost run out on him three days ago. That would have been unwise, he said. Kellerman had been upset about it, wanted to take some sort of action. Wiley should stay put, considering the five million still outstanding on his ledger with The Concession.

  Wiley nodded compliantly.

  He told Lillian about it when they got to bed. How could he go to Mexico City with her when he was Argenti’s prisoner of debt?

  She’d finagle Argenti into letting him go along.

  Wouldn’t Argenti be jealous?

  Some people just weren’t, ever, Lillian said. Didn’t Wiley think Argenti knew what had been going on in his own house?

  That was true, Wiley thought, and odd.

  Next day, as scheduled, Lillian’s secretary and driver arrived in Bogotá.

  Wiley and Lillian met with them in a suite at the Hilton.

  This was the first time Wiley had seen Marianna. An intelligent blonde of about thirty. Attractively understated. She knew which side her toast was caviared on. Not for an instant did she compete with Lillian, while giving her the limit of her competence.

  As for Bryan, he was merely along for the ride, would do whatever he was told. He made double the pay of most drivers for working half as much, and Marianna was a fringe benefit more attractive than Blue Cross.

  Wiley noticed right off that the jeans Bryan had on were a pair from his own original Las Hadas wardrobe. If there is one thing a man knows, it is his jeans, and these were definitely the straight-legged, slightly vibrant blue pair he’d bought last spring on East Sixtieth at the French Jean Store.

  Now was not the time to make an issue of it, Wiley decided. No doubt his entire original wardrobe was over the garage in Bryan’s closet. His most recent one was sitting in baggage claim in Miami.

  Lillian had Marianna order up some breakfast. No ham, bacon, or sausage for Wiley, she stipulated. He had developed an aversion to pork in any form since Barbosa.

  They got down to business.

  Marianna had brought the equipment Lillian had requested. It hadn’t been available in Mexico City. She’d flown to New York for it.

  Wiley squatted for a closer look at the three identical black packs that were side by side along the wall.

  While in New York, Marianna had also arranged for the four passports. She had already fixed up two of them.

  Lillian brought out her and Wiley’s passport photos. Marianna glued them in proper position on the third pages of the other two passports. Wiley and Lillian signed them. Then Marianna used a pressure stamp on the faces of the photos to emboss an official State Department seal.

  Cash. Marianna handed a manilla envelope to Lillian, who, without a look inside, passed it on to Wiley. He found it contained five bound bundles, a hundred hundreds to each bundle. He riffled through a bundle twice just for the feel of it.

  Breakfast came.

  Wiley ate too fast and finished first. He went out on the balcony to have a smoke. Twenty-five stories below was the Circo de Santamaría, Bogotá’s bull ring. At the moment it was concentric circles of empty seats. There were two figures against the pale ground of its center. Flashes of bright pink and blood red, billows of those colors. Wiley watched the two matadors practice with their capes, whirling in place time and time again. Smart of them, he thought, to get acquainted with where they would face death. Cutting down assumptions.

  One of the matadors spun, lost balance, and went down covered by the red of this cape.

  At that moment Marianna came out to give Wiley another envelope, something else from New York.

  What was in it told him Lillian had made a point of remembering the name of his divorce lawyer. She’d paid the Jennifer tab. That part of his life was right there in his hand, signed and settled.

  It was more than a favor.

  Wiley did the final errands.

  He took along the three black packs. Picked up the photo enlargements and the guns and ammunition. Dropped everything off at the Kennedy City house.

  The two Cubans were in the backyard playing catch with a baseball. Wiley observed, unnoticed, from a rear window. The Cubans were catching barehanded. They wound up and burned the ball as hard as they could to each other. Stinging smacks when it hit their palms but only one drop in ten throws.

  It was enough to make Johnny Bench wince.

  Lillian was dressed for travel. Tan slacks, blue sweater, blue-and-beige figured scarf and silver-framed aviator-style dark glasses. Wiley wore what he’d had on
for the last four days: navy blazer, gray slacks.

  The limousine was loaded.

  Argenti offered to take the ride, see them to the airport.

  Lillian told him not to bother.

  Argenti insisted, mildly.

  Lillian told him she would prefer not to remember him in such an unsuitable plebian atmosphere as the air terminal.

  He was dissuaded.

  Lillian gave him three farewell cheek kisses that were actually more lip sound than contact.

  Argenti touched the outside corner of one of his eyes with the tip of a little finger, supposedly to prevent a tear.

  Wiley nodded once for good-bye.

  Even before the limousine pulled away from the steps, Argenti had gone into the villa.

  In a half hour Wiley and Lillian were at the airport. Her Gulfstream was checked out, warmed up and waiting. Her luggage was put directly aboard, carted through customs as though it were invisible. She and Wiley went to a terminal newsstand to buy several magazines. On the way to the international departures area Lillian went into the ladies’ room. Wiley went into the adjacent men’s room.

  A few moments later, Marianna came out of the ladies’ room wearing tan slacks, blue sweater, blue and beige scarf and silver-rimmed aviator-style dark glasses. Bryan came out of the men’s room in a dark-blue blazer and gray slacks. They walked at a leisurely pace to the international departures area and on to customs, where they produced their passports.

  Marianna’s photo, Lillian’s name.

  Bryan’s photo, Wiley’s name.

  Everything in order. The customs clerk inked his stamp well and used it like punctuation to his “Buen viaje.”

  25

  That same night Maret and Astrid were booked on the ten o’clock flight to London, with a connection from there to Copenhagen.

  They didn’t have much packing to do. Because they’d been doing it throughout their two-month stay. They had each arrived with one cheap cardboard-type suitcase. As they shopped and accumulated things they stashed them away in Charles Jourdan luggage pieces which they kept out of sight in the deepest part of their closets. So as not to appear obviously greedy and, as well, to lessen the chance of having anything taken back should Argenti suddenly become displeased.

  Now, servants came for their luggage. Brown belonged to Astrid, black to Maret. Twenty-eight pieces, requiring a second limousine.

  Clementina came to tell them Argenti wanted to say good-bye. They remembered to kick off their shoes before going to his most private study on the second floor.

  Clementina stood inside by the closed door.

  Maret sat on Argenti’s lap. He kissed her an open kiss while his hand went inside her blouse, so carelessly it ripped off a button. She made little animal sounds and squirmed appropriately. Then he had her stand before him while he felt for proof that she was genuinely aroused.

  Astrid was put through a similar test.

  Argenti said they were good little girls because they were such bad little girls.

  They giggled for him.

  He held up identical Piaget wristwatches.

  They ran with the proper excitement to get their going-away presents.

  They tried to kiss him their thanks.

  Instead he had them kiss one another.

  They positioned their heads so that he could see their tongues. And without being told, they did a few other things as though they could not help themselves. Just a little to remember them by.

  They left the room. Clementina stayed. She told him Maret had recommended her younger sister. Just thirteen, only touched by herself and that only recently.

  Argenti’s interest was stirred.

  Clementina would accompany the girls to Denmark. From there she would go home to Stuttgart for a week with her mother. Her mother was saving nearly every penny Clementina made. Clementina was a twenty-year-old who looked sixteen. Posing as Argenti’s niece, she had been arranging these matters for him for the past three years. She had a backlog of candidates agreeable to a South American holiday. Most were from large poor families. Throughout Europe, especially in the north, many of the poor seemed to have a practical attitude toward their daughters. Whatever happened was bound to happen to them soon enough anyway, a father usually reasoned, and took the money.

  This time Argenti gave Clementina two thousand above her salary for having done so well with Maret and Astrid. And ten thousand more she was to use as needed in her recruiting. He expected her to return within ten days with at least two new friends.

  He remained in his study.

  Opened a bottle of Le Montrachet Grivelet ’66. He appreciated its color and bouquet before taking a sip.

  If things went the way they were headed, he’d have what he wanted.

  Lillian was instrumental, the key.

  He had invested a great deal of time and patience in her. No doubt, she would marry him. With their interests fused to that extent, it would be in line to have Corey approach Brandon to approach Sir William on his behalf.

  Sir William was head of The Consolidated Selling System, the London-based diamond cartel Argenti had once been associated with as a privileged dealer. The System that he had side-dealed on, and been found out by. The System that had spared his life at the last second and imposed exile instead. Their terms had been explicit: restriction to South and Central America and Mexico. If he ever set foot on any other territory he would be killed. The same penalty would be imposed if he ever touched another diamond.

  The System.

  Brandon was on The System’s board of directors. Recently elected because of the extensive diamond discoveries made and controlled by one of his companies in Western Australia. With the South African and West African situations tenuous and slipping, those Australian finds became all the more important to The System, and Brandon was a man to be heard.

  Corey was Brandon’s friend on both a business and a personal level. Corey was chairman of the conglomerate that was the financial web spun out of the Mayo holdings—Lillian’s source of wealth. Several of Brandon’s important companies were dependent upon agreements with Mayo firms. A normal one-hand-washing-the-other relationship; however, Corey had the soap.

  Thus, Argenti believed marriage to Lillian was the solution. His influence on her would start the chain reaction. Lillian to Corey to Brandon to Sir William. His exoneration would come, probably in person, politely, from Sir William himself.

  Then Argenti would be free to go when and wherever he pleased. For example: the Biffi alla Scala next door to the opera house in Milan. There, most certainly, he would order risotto milanese con tartufi—rice seasoned and yellow with saffron, rich sauce ladled over it, and that topped with white truffles from the Valle D’Aosta. The truffles sliced into delicious slivers, before his eyes, with a special silver instrument with razorlike blades.

  Many times over the years of exile he’d ached himself sick for such places: La Nosetta, that intimate taverna on Lake Como.

  Where Karen had gone with him.

  The best ever for him, then and still, sweet Karen.

  With his usual constant antennae for such things he had noticed Karen at the railway station in Lecco. Just arrived and on her way to Erba to visit her mother’s sister. She took his ride instead of the bus, and he drove slowly to prolong it. She was from Feldkirch in Austria, only five miles from the Rhine. Her eyes sung as she talked, he thought. Such fine features, a slight, very becoming overbite. She noticed when he passed the turnoff to Erba, but she wasn’t alarmed, chose that moment to say she was not expected at her aunt’s until the next day. There had been a mix-up on dates and her aunt did not have a telephone, so she had just come ahead. She was much too choice, he’d decided, for anything usual, such as merely hands, along some back road in the car. He took her to La Nosetta for a late lunch outside, right over the lake. She was awed by the dessert cart. He could tell from her shoes that they were her best only other pair. He excused himself, went into the taverna and register
ed for a room, just in case. No one doubted she was his daughter. He knew that if she was still there when he returned to the table, she would stay. It was an adventure for her that, minute by minute, she allowed to happen. Special Karen. Her hands so clean, the nails pared so the tops of her fingers showed. There had been an apricot tree outside their room, its blossoms pressed against the window screen—he would always remember. She had removed her clothes carefully, folded and hung them with respect. White cotton underpants, as he had hoped. She did not try to conceal anything but her shyness. Her heavy, healthy hair, straw blond, seemed longer down over her bare shoulders. The longest of it tried to hide her breasts. She said she was fourteen. She was thirteen, just turned. She had never felt anything, only wondered. Perhaps that day was her first possible day, that hour or even that minute might have been the first time she was capable. Almost as soon as he touched her she was frightened by sensation. Within moments she thought she was dying. She came into the pleasure he gave her that fresh, that easy. Lipping wet around one of her nipples for a minute was enough to cause her to achieve. She had given him the virginity of her body and her mind, he had always thought.

  Sweet exception, Karen.

  He never saw her again. She went lightly down the road to her aunt’s house and into his life forever as a fixed impression.

  He had never been able to recapture her with anyone else. Either they couldn’t yet or had already, one way or another.

  He thought, when his exile was over, soon now, he would go back over some of those roads. It had been more satisfying for him when he’d done his own hunting, and he would again. Perhaps in the railway station at Lecco or Como, Lugano or Varese, he would find another Karen.

  One thing was certain: He would never be sexually up to Lillian, no matter what she resorted to. As a matter of fact, the more complex she made it, the more adult, so to speak, the worse it would be. He planned to go through the motions, be perplexed by his failure, act distressed. The question would be, why should such a thing happen to him at that time? She would realize she was the difference in his life, and, therefore, blame herself. He would have her sympathy, and against that emotional background, it would be a small thing for her to speak to Corey on his behalf. Everything would work in his favor.