by John Gardner
“Where do you think they are now?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. It doesn’t matter though.”
“It matters to me.”
Mostyn’s smile greased across his face. “But I shall be with you, old Oakes. Like a guardian angel.”
Boysie remained silent, the thought of Mostyn as a guardian angel would still the tongues of even the heavenly choir.
“I’ll lead you to them,” said Mostyn as if he was performing a great service. “Then I call off the markers and unleash you.”
“I would prefer to know exactly ...”
“Why?”
“I just like to be prepared. The kind of clothes I should take and all that sort of thing.”
“It’s not a brewers’ outing, lad; not a merry mystery tour.”
“No, it’s one of your business trips, and I know your business trips. I’ve got an image to keep ...”
“In case you hadn’t heard, the cult of the individual is not encouraged these days. Just pack a couple of lightweight suits and some woollies for the cold nights.” With his fingertips, Mostyn slid the photographs of the targets across the desk. He followed up with a little cardboard wallet. “Airline tickets. Money. I go this afternoon. You leave Heathrow tonight. Economy class.”
Boysie scratched his head, looking down on the pictures of the two doomed men.
“Can I be told why they have to be ...?”
“Just take it from me that they’re very hot gentlemen. They have to be wasted.” The nasty smile had disappeared.
“One of ours, and a Frog,” Boysie mused. “Will the opposition be active?”
“As beavers. The Americans and French are running interference, and you can be certain the others’ll be making it difficult.”
“I have to be told more than that. I have to know ...”
Mostyn rose, irritation crossing his face like a thunder-cloud. Then he hesitated and lowered his rump into the chair again.
“All right. It won’t mean anything, but Pinkney and Defoe were working on something called Project Clambake.”
“Joint Op?”
“NATO,” Mostyn nodded. “Paris based.”
“And they’ve skipped with the microfilm and the plans?”
“You’ve been seeing too many spy movies. There is no microfilm.” He tapped his forehead. “It’s all in there: in their crafty little noddles. French Intelligence rumbled them a couple of weeks ago. Our people went over and they’ve all been hanging around, gorging themselves on government expenses, waiting for the two lads to run Eastwards, and tripping over each other’s feet.” He gave a dry laugh. “They even know the contact, a greaseball freelance called Caesar Chiliman. When they ran ...”
“They didn’t go East.”
“Of course not. We could’ve told ‘em that. While everyone was out-thinking everyone else, they got on a plane to South America. Luckily I anticipated them. That’s how we got a fix on them in Mexico City.”
“Where they aren’t anymore.”
“Precisely. There are several objectives, depending on where you happen to be standing. The French and Americans want to whip ‘em in.”
“And we want to close them.”
Mostyn looked at him, hard, the eyes brilliant. “Then there’s friend Chiliman.”
“Who wants them to make their drop.”
“If you can call it a drop. We haven’t heard from him, but Chiliman is almost certainly selling them to the highest bidder; and whoever buys needs the bodies intact, alive and well, ready to sing cadenzas. You can bet your pension that, wherever Pinkney and Defoe are, Chiliman will not be far behind.”
“With heavies?”
“Grossly overburdened with heavies, I should imagine. Once we’ve marked ‘em, Boysie boy, and drawn off the Frogs and Yanks, you’ll have to get in there quick. No messing, and none of your subtle accidents. All I want is a couple of bodies, very much filtered from life.” The small colonel sighed. “That’s it then. You don’t need to know any more.”
“Not even Clambake?”
“Especially not even Clambake.”
Boysie’s head swarmed with panicky bees, while the anxiety butterflies used his stomach wall as a skating rink.
“Mexico then,” he said with resignation. “I’ll go and pack.”
“You’ll be met in Mexico City. See you there.”
Boysie was almost at the door when he heard the heavy metallic thud on Mostyn’s desk, followed by two lighter thumps.
“Don’t forget this, Boysie. You just might need it.”
The thud came from the big wicked Colt automatic, the two smaller noises from the spare pair of magazines.
Boysie looked at the weapon with disgust. The room seemed suddenly to be oppressively hot, and the weapon huge on the desk. He could use a Colt forty-five : no problem; in fact he could use it very well, but that did not mean he had to like the thing, or, for that matter, use it in cold blood.
“How to make friends and influence people,” Boysie said flatly.
“How to keep friends and people of influence.” Mostyn turned away, as though he did not want to see his underling pluck the gun from the desk.
Back in Chesham Place, Boysie slurped a generous amount of brandy into a balloon glass and started to pack. All the time his mind grappled with the problem of Griffin. The terror inside concerned the possibility of actually having to dispatch Pinkney and Defoe. Griffin was the only person who could take the weight of that responsibility from his shoulders. But there were difficulties-how would Griffin feel about Mexico? If he agreed, how could Boysie finger the targets and maintain contact?
In the end, he decided there was nothing for it but a direct confrontation.
They met in what was then the Lyons’ Corner House in Coventry Street, Boysie’s pockets bulging with the photographs of Pinkney and Defoe, together with five hundred pounds mad money which he always kept for emergencies.
Griffin had arrived first and procured a table for two in the crowded downstairs tearoom, his thin lugubrious face wreathed in a toothy smile, eyes restless behind the horn-rimmed glasses.
“Hope you like ham and tomato, Mr. Oakes. I took the liberty of ordering.”
“Just a cup of tea, please.” Boysie sank into the chair opposite this nondescript, deadly man.
“Sticky cake? Meringue?”
“Just the tea.”
“They’re very good.”
“Mr. Griffin, please, just the tea, it’s been a long day.”
“Should keep up your strength, Mr. Oakes. You look as if you’ve got a problem.” Griffin was an extraordinary blend ruthlessness and concern mingling in unequal proportions. “One or two?”
“One or two what?”
“Lumps, Mr. Oakes.”
“Oh. Two.”
“ ‘Scuse fingers. I’ve been laying out a poor old dear in Chelsea, took sudden by a number forty-six bus. But I scrubbed me hands well before coming here.”
Boysie blanched visibly and swallowed hard.
Griffin passed over the tea, grinned and leaned back, his hand hovering over the plate of sandwiches.
“Now, Mr. Oakes. Who’s it to be this time?”
“There’re two.” Boysie dropped his voice.
“Double event,” said Griffin loudly. “The more the merrier. Don’t look so perturbed, Mr. Oakes, you and I’ve been doing business long enough now. How do you fancy them going? We haven’t had a good lift shaft job lately, that might be nice. As I recall it, the lady we did last month went by way of her domestic electricity supply. Neat and tasteful, I thought. You were pleased with that?”
“Yes, very pleased.”
Boysie was jumpy. It had been a lady filing clerk at the Ministry of Defence in a highly sensitive situation with an unpleasant operative from one of the Eastern embassies.
“What for these two then? Lift shaft? Accidental explosion? Hit and run? The old six-storey drop? Carbon monoxide? The arsenical chocs? You name it, Mr. Oakes.�
��
“Mr. Griffin,” Boysie plunged. “We have a problem.”
“Your credit’s good with me, Mr. Oakes.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Well, problems are meant to be overcome, as my old Mum used to say.”
“Our two friends - they’re men, by the way - are ... well, they’re touring.”
Griffin flashed his nicotine-stained teeth again. “That shouldn’t be much of a bother. Where’re they touring then, Lake District? Oh, I hope it’s the Lake District. Remember once I attended a most interesting gypsy funeral in the Lake District. Burning the caravan, the lot. Most rewarding.”
Boysie shook his head. “It’s not the Lake District. Would you believe, Mexico?”
“Mexico, yes, well ...” The full significance did not penetrate for a second. “Mexico?” he eventually shouted.
“Please, Mr. Griffin, keep your voice down.”
“Mr. Oakes, I hope you’re not being funny. Mexico’s a long way off.”
“Out of sight,” said Boysie aloud. He felt furtive, the way he was watching Griffin’s face, eyes and hands for a sign.
“I mean I do have my business to think of,” continued Griffin hardly pausing. “I’ve got a cremation on Saturday and it’s that bloody curate from St. Mark’s: I can’t leave him on his own. Last time he did one, he pressed the button and confined the deceased to the flames before the mourners even got into the chapel. Most distressing. They all expected to make their farewells to Aunt Rosie, and, pouf, she was gone before they knew it. A case of ashes to ashes prematurely. His mind was elsewhere, he said; and I know where it was, Mr. Oakes, on that blonde Sunday School teacher they got there. I don’t know what’s happening to the gentlemen of the cloth these days.”
“It’ll pay well,” tried Boysie.
“I don’t know as how that’s the point, Mr. Oakes.”
“They do say that Mexico’s an interesting country.”
“Yes, I’m sure: all that mañana and Chili con Carne.
Plays havoc with the digestion, but I couldn’t get there and back before Saturday, could I? What sort of money?”
The trump. “Twice the usual and all expenses.”
Griffin contemplated his bitten sandwich.
“Whereabouts in Mexico?”
“Well, Mexico City first. I’ve got the name of a good hotel. If you book in there, I could get a message to you. All you’d have to do is get there and I’d pass on the instructions.”
“Complicated.” Griffin popped the remainder of the sandwich into his mouth, chewed and selected another. “I have to admit that Mexico’s a bit of a challenge. I mean there would probably be a lot of interesting variations. You could improvise in Mexico: Chili con Carne a shade too hot, or the tequila more toxic.”
“I don’t think this would be one for refinements, Mr. Griffin. It calls for speed.”
“Ah,” Griffin nodded sagely. “An in and out job. I warm to Mexico, Mr. Oakes. When would I be required to leave.”
“Tonight. We’d travel separately, of course, but on the same flight.” There was a deep gut reaction as the horrible truth drilled its way into his mind. Flying tonight. Off we go into the wide sky yonder. Jesus, he almost upchucked at the thought.
Griffin appeared to be preoccupied with his choice of cake. The meringue made it by a short head from the strawberry tartlet.
“Right, Mr. Oakes, you’re on. Just point me in the general direction and I’ll try to give satisfaction for money.”
VI - ZARZUELA
Musical entertainment with spoken dialogue, often satirical
The Air France Flight 707 - ex-Paris, ex-New York - let down its gear, turned onto the final heading and slid down through the clear air towards Mexico City’s Central Airport. It was now Friday evening; nearly nine o’clock local time.
Boysie was tired, crumpled, sweaty and undeniably scruffy, having not fully appreciated that his flight out of Heathrow, on the Thursday evening, called for a fifteen-hour wait in Paris before boarding the direct flight to South America - if an hour and half turn-round at New York could be classed as direct.
He closed his eyes, speculating on impending disaster, as the four Pratt & Whitney turbo-fans settled into their throttled-back whine on final approach.
They touched down with hardly a judder. Boysie opened his eyes, then quickly closed them again as the reverse-thrust filled the cabin. Queasy, he thought to himself, that is what flying makes you, queasy and scared shitless into the bargain.
He was the third person off the aircraft, stepping gingerly and savouring each time the soles of his shoes made contact with friendly mother earth. In the back of his head the soundtracks of a hundred B movies, all set in Mexico, amalgamated into a throbbing of guitars and wail of clarinets. Zorro, Cisco and Zapata had passed this way. Now El Oakes stepped into the arena.
He was pulled from the warm fantasy by an official, with several tons of gold in his mouth, asking for his passport. The customs and immigration business was relatively painless, the wheels having undoubtedly been already oiled well with pesos.
Passport stamped and the Revelation suitcase marked, Boysie ambled into the main concourse, blinking, looking around for his contact, and fending off cab drivers who propositioned him with a kind of frustrated indifference. He controlled his urge to look back among the other passengers emerging from the control points. Griffin would be with them, bound, as soon as possible, for the Bamer Hotel.
The Bamer was a luxury caravanserai and Boysie would be picking up the tab. He resented this, but in the tricky game they played it was essential that Griffin was kept happy; and Griffin was always happy when someone embalmed him in a cocoon of fleshly cosseting.
“Thou shalt not kill.” The words came from a smiling, tanned and blond young man: tall, slim, and looking as though violence would never enter his head.
Boysie struggled to recall the code exchange, given to him on the telephone by the duty officer just before leaving London.
“Thou shalt not kill,” repeated the contact.
“But need’st not strive: officiously to keep alive,” Boysie parroted. It was one of Mostyn’s little jokes.
The young man stuck out a big hand. “Lavenham,” he grinned. “Bob Lavenham.”
“Oakes,” said Boysie, somewhat formally. “Boysie Oakes.”
“Yes. Number Two told me to see you into your hotel - our hotel: everyone’s there.”
Boysie wondered who “everyone” was. “Lead me to it.”
He hoped it was not the Bamer. Griffin could always be too close for comfort.
Outside, among the departing cabs and private cars, all of which seemed to be rehearsing for Le Mans, stood a shining ridiculously clean Lincoln Convertible. At the wheel was a small, ginger-haired man with bright eyes and an ominous bulge in his jacket.
Lavenham opened the rear door and motioned Boysie inside, following quickly. The ginger-haired one gunned the car fast from the kerb and joined the race.
“Glad to have you on the team. I’m Herbie Goldfinch.” Boysie flinched as the driver turned round to squint at him.
“Hi,” said Boysie with little enthusiasm. These two were the first, and they were here in Mexico City; there were more at the hotel and, doubtless, others still tailing Pinkney and Defoe. Half the population appeared to be members of the Department. “Which hotel?” he asked.
“Plush,” smiled Lavenham. “Tiene today las i comodi-dades modernas.”
“All mod cons,” translated Goldfinch. “Including a very fanciable chambermaid called Juanita.”
“Keep your lecherous hands on the wheel, Herbie.” Lavenham seemed to smile eternally. “We’re at The Alameda.”
Boysie tried to remember where The Alameda was. He had done a little homework on the aircraft: studying the street plan. From memory The Alameda was not far from the Bamer, a fact which might make life a little easier.
From the smooth interior of the car, Mexico City looked superbly interest
ing, a tangled shuffling of an old culture with the new-neon, glass and concrete at odds with baroque and the older Aztec influences.
They negotiated the heavy traffic through the Zocalo, passing the Cathedral gleaming under its floodlights, then on along the Avenue Juarez with the Alameda Park on their right.
As he thought, the Alameda was almost next door to the Bamer, which could make matters easier - or harder depending on the circumstances - when it came to running Griffin.
But nothing was going to be that easy. Boysie knew it soon after he checked in. Goldfinch went off to park the car and Lavenham saw him through the reception formalities. He had the feeling that Lavenham had orders to leech him, even accompanying him to the room, together with an uncommunicative porter who all but threw the luggage onto the bed.
Ten minutes later, after Boysie had put out his pyjamas and washed some of the dust from his hands and face, Herbie Goldfinch reappeared. Mostyn wanted to see them, and, as a trio, they trooped through to the next room along the corridor.
The first thing Boysie noticed was that the adjoining door had been unlocked. There was to be direct access between Mostyn’s room and his own.
“Well done, Oakesie. You got here. Now you stay until we have it set up for you, okay?”
He wore navy blue pants and a dark blue shirt, infuriatingly casual, sprawled in an easy chair, a drink not far from his hand, his feet shod in suede moccasins. Why was it that Boysie always regarded Mostyn’s feet with envy?
It was plain that the colonel was running the show and Boysie was not going to be let off the leash. Oh well, he sighed, as Mostyn prattled on about communications and keeping it tight, Mexico City’s just another town, probably with the same bars and whores and the same dull boring people. He was sad that he would miss a peek at the old Aztec culture.
Mostyn still talked and the tiny nag of concern did not immediately bite. When it did, Boysie began to ask himself questions.
