Outlaws (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

by George V. Higgins

  “By the time I met Neville,” she said, “I’d been tied to this calm, thoughtful, kind, reflective man for more than six years. I’d stayed, an American in London when every Londoner who could was packing for America, and been spared not only death and dismemberment but even the loneliness that other wives suffered — Cecil’s service was civilian, surveying damaged buildings for repairs or demolition. And consequently I was nearly mad with boredom. So we went out to Ipswich — after all those years of what amounted to nothing more than engineering work, nowhere near stimulating enough for Cecil — to see about this massive campus design project in the offing, and I met Neville. Who was no different then. Subject to enthusiasms, bouts of choler, great bursts of extravagant energy, always rushing about from one thing to the next, and I thought it might be interesting to bed this man. Just for a change, you know.” She laughed. “It was that, all right; it certainly was that. And that is why, Fiona, I’ve stayed married to him ever since. Neville’s interesting.”

  “So,” Neville Naisbitt said, “Claire and I were married in early Forty-seven, and she came out to Ipswich to live, and we were both very conscious of the probability that she might find it a bit confining, perhaps dull, after her years of living in London, sharing Cecil’s animated social life and all that sort of thing. So we talked about that, and she said to me: ‘Well, you know, we can’t spend all our lives just seeing the same round of people for drinks tonight, and dinner tomorrow and luncheon the day after that. Which will be what will happen if we confine ourselves to this town and this faculty for friends, and we shall both go utterly mad. What we must do is involve ourselves in something we both find interesting, that will not only amuse us but get us out from time to time, and bring new people in.’ And music was the obvious direction.”

  “Right,” Oates said. “Now, as I recall, both you and Claire had been musical before you met. So there was that resource, that many wouldn’t have.”

  “Yes,” Naisbitt said, “although I would have to say that Claire’s virtuosity — and her ability, as far as that goes — far exceeded my own. In today’s world, I think, Claire would probably have begun a professional career, but in those days that option was rarely available to a woman.”

  “I was under the impression,” Oates said, “I was under the impression that you also played trombone.”

  “I did, by the time you came along,” Naisbitt said. “That was another wartime acquisition. I had put aside my music while I was in the combat branch, ‘lost me embrochure,’ as one of my American colleagues phrased it, but when I took on the more sedentary duties of cryptographer, I felt the need of some form of relaxation. Three or four of the Americans had in fact played professionally before the war, and were extremely good. So several of us began to meet informally in the evenings, on the weekends, whenever we had a bit of time, and we were able to get one of those big, black, so-called ‘fake books,’ that violate every copyright in musical existence, and we began really to have quite a good time for ourselves. We played in the mess and we even got to the point where we’d go around and try to give the troops a little entertainment of a Saturday evening, relieve some of the tedium that service in the rear echelons substitutes for the unremitting terror of service in the lines. And we played in hospitals. It was all really quite satisfying, and an immense contribution to morale — our own, at least.”

  “Now,” Oates said, “this wasn’t, this was not the classical repertoire that you were playing then, for these soldiers and so forth?”

  “No,” Naisbitt said, “although given the sheer hunger that our audiences had for any sort of entertainment that would get their minds off the war and the killing, I think it could have been. We cultivated our common strengths, and that was what we played.”

  “But when you and Claire started the Ensemble,” Oates said, “then you went in what I suppose many would call the opposite direction.”

  “Well,” Naisbitt said, “yes, and for approximately the same basic reason. Which was that Claire’s talent was the commanding one in our household, and her experience and knowledge were concentrated in classical repertoire. To me it mattered very little what music we were playing, so long as we played it. And among the faculty, and the student body as well, that same preference dominated. So it was simply a matter of looking to the sources of our talent and combining them in such a fashion as to bring out the best performances. So that accounted for the orientation.”

  “So,” Oates said, “you were after excellence, and you intended to perform. For the public, I mean.”

  “Correct,” Naisbitt said. “The overriding purpose of going about this was to broaden our horizons, to keep us from getting provincial, and to allow us not only to acquire new friendships, but to keep up those we had made during the war.

  “You see, Tom,” he said, “before the war, international communication among private citizens in America and those in Britain was relatively non-existent. When the war came it was all very well for the British common soldier who’d known nothing of you Yanks and didn’t like what he was learning, for him to express his jealousy of your troops’ prosperity by denouncing them as ‘overfed, overpaid, oversexed and over here,’ because it didn’t matter if the exchanges over some barmaid ended up in blows. But when it came to matters of greater complexity and urgency, especially in the field of intelligence-gathering and interpretation, animosity preventing communication, envy balking complete cooperation — well, we had to overcome those barriers, and do it damned fast, under fire.

  “So a good part of our hope,” Naisbitt said, “Claire’s and mine, was that initiatives like the Ensemble, and many, many of them, would not only preserve but extend the network of friendships that had been formed in the war. The interests of the North Atlantic community are not limited to those comprehended by the NATO documents harmonizing our military preparedness efforts. There are many, many more of them, as critical to our survival as those of armaments.”

  “And you believe, then, after nearly forty tours in this country with the Ensemble, that you’ve accomplished this,” Oates said.

  “I’m certain of it,” Naisbitt said. “Since Forty-seven, no fewer than nine hundred and fifty-six people from Britain have journeyed to America under the auspices of the Ensemble. Their experiences have in many, many instances led them to matriculate at American graduate schools for study, to teach at American universities on exchange bases, and to see to it that American students are encouraged to enroll at Ipswich. And let me emphasize again that only a minority of our players have turned out to be professional musicians. The majority have been historians, mathematicians such as I, literature professors, biologists, chemistry teachers, economists, barristers, professionals in government — an endless variety. The ripple effects of that sort of thing are enormous.”

  “I had no idea,” Oates said, “that your turnover was so large.”

  “Well,” Naisbitt said, “our choral group of twenty-four voices has of course shown the largest amount — like it or not, the instrumental longevity of the human voice is considerably less than that of a grand piano, and there have been times when we have had to take an old and valued friend aside and tell him or her that the day has arrived to step aside for someone else. We’ve made it a policy to include as many talented members of the student body as we possibly could, which guaranteed the turnover in the orchestra. And there’s been some attrition as well in the quartet and the chamber unit. People changing jobs, you know. Age catching up with nimble fingers, dental problems developing for those who play the brass. Claire’s rheumatism three years ago relegated her to the sidelines, but she was very brave — she was the one who insisted that she should be replaced.”

  “But you’ve been in place from the beginning,” Oates said.

  Naisbitt smiled. “Well, you see,” he said, “from the outset I was crafty enough to perceive that the reservoir of musical talent at the University was fed by many springs much more bountiful than mine. I was a journeyman, at th
e very best, able to fill in if illness or some schedule conflict caused a temporary vacancy, but unable to take a permanent chair without not only depriving a more skillful person of his or her rightful place, but also lowering the overall quality of the performance. I know good musicianship, and I know how it is done. But I also know that God in His wisdom did not see fit to distribute to me the measure of natural ability that it requires. So I made a big public show of manfully assuming all the administrative drudgery of running the operation, doing the odd arrangement here and there, serving as conductor when the talent pool for some reason or another failed to turn one up some years, acting as music director, travel planner, and all that other detailed choring without which the thing couldn’t run. So, by taking on an indispensable job that no one else in his right mind would have assumed, I made myself indispensable. And it’s worked out very well.”

  Oates hunched forward. “Yes,” he said, “let’s get to that. You’ve orchestrated all these trips. You’ve secured guest performances, professionals, to appear as soloists, in — how many countries is it?”

  Naisbitt laughed. “I’ve lost track,” he said. “When we started the Ensemble, we had no notion of the potential it would also have for contacts with other nations. We’ve toured Israel with Israeli soloists, Egypt with Egyptians, China with an extraordinarily talented young woman from Ipswich whose harp work was perfectly superb. Here in America we’ve enjoyed for many years a traveling fellowship program with the New England Conservatory up in Boston — each spring semester a Conservatory student receives all expenses and a stipend to accompany us on our annual tour. One recipient, as a matter of fact, was Christina Walker, an extremely talented young pianist who happens to be the daughter as well of the doctor who saved my leg, Clayton Walker. She went with us all across the country and down into Mexico back in Nineteen-sixty-eight, or -nine. A beautiful young woman, only about seventeen or eighteen then, and truly a splendid musician. The campuses were troubled then, but we were enthusiastically received. I believe she’s teaching now.”

  “Yes,” Oates said, “and that brings up an interesting point. As you’ve said, the logistics of transporting a chorale, a full orchestra of what, sixty, seventy members?”

  “It varies,” Naisbitt said. His lips compressed somewhat. “We’ve had as many as a hundred and six, when the talent was available. This year’s group is eighty-three. Plus the twenty-four in the chorus.”

  “And all their instruments, their baggage and all that,” Oates said.

  “ ‘Impedimenta,’ Caesar called it,” Naisbitt said. “I know exactly what he meant. Latin’s a useful language, when you think about it. ‘Professor emeritus,’ they call me — ‘e’ meaning: ‘out’ and ‘meritus’ meaning: ‘deservedly so.’ ”

  Oates laughed. “I doubt that’s the connotation that they mean at Ipswich,” he said. “But tell me something: Doesn’t this all cost a lot?”

  Naisbitt stared at him. “I think I’d like to take one of those breaks I was promised here, Tom,” he said.

  Oates stuck his tongue in his left cheek. He nodded. “Okay, Neville,” he said. He turned to face the cameras. “Reggie, shut it down,” he said. “We’ll take another five here, and another drink as well.” The monitors went dark.

  “Mrs. Naisbitt,” Ward said, as Clayton offered port, “you are an entertaining lady. Has it ever occurred to you how lucky you have been, to have had enough money to have been so selfish, and so irresponsible, with impunity?”

  “Gerald,” Florence said.

  “I’m serious,” Ward said. “I’m quite serious here, Florence. The charming autobiography we’ve all heard with such amusement — if you remove the factor of Mrs. Naisbitt’s comfortable circumstances, it’s physically the same story that the most abjectly frustrating welfare cases have to relate. The inability, or the refusal, to control their appetites. The only difference between them and us is our possession of resources sufficient to meet the bills for our conduct.”

  “I think,” Fiona Cangelosi said, “I think that’s quite a difference, Mister Ward. And not the only one, either. It seems to me that the distinction’s one of responsibility, more than anything else. The willingness, coupled with the ability, to assume responsibility for one’s acts. If I choose to marry, have children, and then to divorce the father of those children — of he chooses to leave us — and I do not ask society to subsidize my decision, then it seems to me that I’ve been socially responsible. Whatever my private morality may be. But if I go to society, after making such decisions, and say: ‘Since I have done this, you must now support me. House me, feed me, care for my children, and so forth,’ well, then I think I’ve not been.”

  Ward nodded. “Yes,” he said, “a popular view. You represent very well the position that your government currently takes, I’ll say that.” He paused. “Just about any position it takes, am I right?”

  “I beg your pardon,” Fiona said. “What else would you expect me to do? Undermine it? Would you want people on the staff of the Ambassador to the UN torpedoing American initiatives? Is that what the Congress has in mind, when it advises and consents to his appointment? Someone who will recruit people to sabotage our foreign policy? Act against our interests?”

  “Not at all,” Ward said, accepting port. “What we have in mind is that persons supposedly assigned out of Foggy Bottom Plans and Policy to ambassadorial missions — missions anywhere, I might add, not just to the UN — actually be State Department career employees, trained and experienced in foreign policy matters. Able and willing to evaluate proposals, whether ours or other nations’, according to their impact on our broad national goals. Not, in other words, operatives of other agencies in no way designed or intended to determine such policy goals. Do you follow me?”

  “I’m trying to,” Fiona said.

  “I’ll be plain,” Ward said. “Covert enforcement measures are not within the proper scope of diplomatic responsibilities as this nation construes them. Whatever the Russians may do, rostering KGB agents as diplomats, we should not respond in kind. Our diplomatic delegations should have no places for misnomered agents working undercover, hand-in-hand with covert operations managed out of Langley.”

  “I see,” Fiona said. “You’re under the impression that I’m with the CIA.”

  “No,” he said, “the FBI. You were with the FBI last summer, and you’re with it today. Breveted you may be formally to State, all the proper papers signed, in the expected places, but what you are’s Agent in Place. And in that capacity you are not fulfilling the nominal function of your position, which is to analyze policy proposals — you are surreptitiously carrying out plans formulated outside the State Department, even its back channels. And that’s not what we had in mind, had in mind on the Hill at all.”

  “It’s often rather difficult,” Fiona said, “for the outsider, at least, to ascertain what the Hill has in mind. In the meantime, the earth revolves. And as for your allegation, that I’m still FBI, I’d like to see you back it up. In fact, I will insist.”

  44

  Oates stood up and walked out to the front of the platform, stretching elaborately, watching as the camera operators left the studio. He relaxed, allowing his shoulders to slump, put his hands in his pockets, turned to face Naisbitt and grinned. “Going well,” he said. “You’re a good guest, Neville. An excellent guest, in fact. I suppose it’s all those years of teaching, right? And the tours as well? You’re used to performing. Doesn’t frighten you.”

  Naisbitt stared at him. “I suppose so,” he said, without any expression.

  Oates shook his head and blew out breath. He arched his neck and massaged it with his right hand, moving his head back and forth. “So,” he said, “is Claire with you this time? I assume she is.”

  “She is,” Naisbitt said. “She’s dining with the Walkers tonight. They’re keeping a plate warm for me.”

  “Nice of them,” Oates said. “Very nice people, the Walkers. But I hope it isn’t breakfast by the ti
me you get to eat it. We’ve still got a long way to go here, ’fore we’re finished up.”

  Naisbitt brought himself forward in his chair. He moved his right shoulder. “Perhaps not,” he said.

  “Oh,” Oates said, “sure we have. I mean, we’ve covered a lot of ground here already, but there’s still an awful lot of stuff that I haven’t asked you yet.”

  “So I gather,” Naisbitt said. He sat hunched forward, his hands dangling between his knees. “And that is what I meant.”

  “Where the hell’s Reggie gone to get that scotch?” Oates said, turning to scan the dark studio. “Edinburgh, for Christ sake?”

  “What I meant, Tom,” Naisbitt said, pausing until Oates had to face him, “what I meant is that your questioning at the end there seemed to me tendentious.”

  “I don’t follow you,” Oates said, frowning.

  “Let me explain,” Naisbitt said. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, you were laying the foundation there for a line of inquiry that I don’t propose to allow.”

  Oates shook his head slightly. “Line of inquiry?” he said.

  “Yes,” Naisbitt said.

  “That you don’t propose to allow?” Oates said, his voice quizzical.

  Fisher returned with the tray. Crouching, Oates accepted it with both hands, said: “Thanks,” and brought it to Naisbitt’s chair. Naisbitt took the nearest glass and said: “That I don’t propose to allow.”

  Oates backed up to his chair and sat down, putting the tray on the table and taking the remaining glass. He sipped. “Neville,” he said, putting the glass down and crossing his legs, grasping his left knee with both hands, “forgive me if I’m presuming too much here, or if I’m getting the wrong idea, but are you under the impression that guests on American televised discussion programs have some sort of veto power over what’s to be discussed? Because they don’t, I can assure you.”