Understrike

by John Gardner

  “If you want anything, just call,” was his final injunction. “If I ain’t at this one, then try this—it’s a direct line to our Department. They’ll always find me.”

  Lofrese set straight to business. Half an hour later Boysie’s initial mission was completed—the code corrections noted carefully in a small, black leather-bound book, gold-embossed with the American eagle. “It’s a wonder it hasn’t got Codes. Secret stamped all over it,” reflected Boysie.

  “OK. That seems to be it, Mr Oakes.” Lofrese’s voice was reminiscent of an airport controller doing a GCA. Boysie wondered if he was really a computer in disguise, being operated by some remote automaton at Cape Kennedy. Boysie lit a cigarette and relaxed that tiny part of his mind which had been retaining the code corrections for over a week. But, with Lofrese’s next words, his mind—together with all his senses, and accompanied by a quick downward pressure of the bowels —flicked into life again.

  “I’ve got some instructions for you,” said Lofrese. “Guess you’ve already been notified that you’re staying on in the States for a while.”

  Boysie nodded, his heart pounding. Here it comes, he thought; the Sunday punch; Mostyn’s little knife-thrust; the black one that he had dreaded. The least he expected was a directive to eliminate the whole of the Unites States High Command—single handed and armed only with a Boy Scout knife. He dragged his thoughts back to Lofrese who was speaking again:

  “You’re going out to San Diego, California, tomorrow. Like it out there, real nice.”

  “And what,” said Boysie wrestling with the nervous tremor in his voice, “have I got to do in San Diego?”

  “Sit in the sun...”

  “For how long?”

  “... and watch a missile being fired from a submarine. Be out there about a week.”

  Oh no! It can’t be as easy as that, thought Boysie.

  But, when Lofrese had outlined the role of Britain’s Special Security observer for the Playboy-Trepholite firing trials, the anxieties started to filter away. This, Boysie considered, was beginning to look like a piece of cake—sponge, with chocolate and vanilla icing thrown in. San Diego was a magic name around which he could spin pictures of soft white sand and cream foam from the Pacific; of balmy evenings with Mexican music prodding him towards some curvaceous starlet on vacation from Hollywood only a hundred miles up the road. Today was Tuesday. The firing trials—Lofrese told him—were fixed for next Monday afternoon. Presumably they would have to spend one day being briefed for the event, but that would still leave him roughly four days of suntan, sand, swaying palms and a taste of the fabulous playground coast of California.

  “How do I get there?”

  “Fly presumably.” (Boysie’s stomach did a smart about-turn. Flying was his least favourite pastime.) Lofrese was still talking: “I am only instructed to pass on the nature of your duty. Your Department has just sent us another cable to say that they’ll take care of you until your arrival in San Diego. I expect you’ll get a call from one of your own people. Probably send someone down there with you. But when you do get there you are to report to your Royal Naval liaison officer at our base on North Island. Name of Braddock-Fairchild. Commander Braddock-Fairchild.”

  Boysie’s eyes sparkled, and he distinctly felt a mink-clad hand move deliciously over his abdomen. Of course—his whole being was enveloped in a happy blush of pleasure—the passionate Priscilla’s Old Man. She had said that “Daddy was stationed in California.” Oh boy, breathed Boysie, are we going to commingle.

  Now (forty-five minutes after Lofrese had left) completing the operation of drying himself following the shower. Boysie was alone and happy. Stripped, he padded over to the television and spent some time mastering the switches. One channel was showing a Maverick episode he had already seen in London; another, the original Wallace Beery version of Treasure Island; a third was entertaining the admass with a young-looking Olivier smoothing himself through Rebecca. Boysie began to hum “On the Road to Mandalay.” The best picture came from a station intent on wiping out the entire US 5th Cavalry. Anyway, the Indians were really whooping it up before riding off over the skyline, getting into their big Thunderbirds and driving away to Beverly Hills. Boysie watched the carnage with one eye as he prepared to put on the white BD nylon shirt, dark Italian silk tie with the diamond dot motif, and the Swedish Terylene slim-line navyat suit he had laid out on the bed before taking his shower. He paused for a moment in front of the wall mirror to take a conceited peep at his figure. The television erupted in a splurge of hard-sell advertising. “Ladies,” said Boysie in his dark-brown voice, “are your husbands lust-less?” The telephone tringed as though in answer.

  “Hallo,” said Boysie into the receiver, thinking that this was not a very imaginative opening to his first telephone conversation in the New World.

  “‘L’?” asked an English voice.

  “Yes. ‘L’ here.”

  “Good. This is USS One.”

  “Oh!” said Boysie who could never remember the individual code classifications. There were times when he even had trouble with his own single letter. “Oh! That’s nice.”

  “You’ve had your CIA instructions?”

  “Yes. I’m waiting here now. They said my own people would be in touch.”

  “I am your own people, that’s why I’m ringing.” The voice lingered on the edge of impatience. “Number Two has been on to me. Asked me to find you a travelling companion to help you get to San Diego tomorrow. Less conspicious than going alone. She’ll be right over. Safe enough, but as far as she’s concerned you’re just a business man who wants to be shown the ropes and have his hand held. Got it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Better to have someone quite unconnected with the Department, don’t you think? Not that you’re likely to have any trouble.”

  “No! Er ... Yes, I agree,” said Boysie, wondering what the hell the bloke was on about.

  “OK. She knows you by your real name and has my number if you do happen to need me. I’m off to the Coconut Grove. Have a ball—as the cannibal chief said at the banquet.” The line went dead. Boysie stood looking at the telephone.

  “Coconut Grove: Schmoconut Grove.” he muttered, Finally he shrugged, placed the receiver back in its cradle, and began to dress.

  He had got as far as the trousers, shirt and tie, and was reflecting on the age, colour of hair and eyes, and vital statistics of his travelling companion, when a double rap at the door announced company. Boysie did a quick neck bend in front of the mirror, rolling up his eyes to see that his hair was in place; then, touching his fingertips with his tongue and smoothing out his eyebrows, he switched on his charm-smile and opened the door. Two ape-type men were leaning against the corridor wall; both identically dressed in blue lightweight suits and snappy straw hats which would have looked better on Sinatra.

  “Joe sent us,” said the first ape, whose distinguishing marks included a large crescent scar below the right eye.

  “Joe asked us to come over,” said the second, following his companion past Boysie into and the room. “Sure gotta nice place up here. Classy.”

  “Joe who?” asked Boysie, leaving the door open and experiencing a mild palpitation of fear.

  “Siedler. Who else?” said the man with the scar.

  “Joe Siedler,” echoed the other who, to Boysie’s alarm, had never moved his hand from the inside of his jacket since entering the room.

  “He didn’t call,” said Boysie with his back still to the open door. “What’s he want, anyway?”

  “Said we should take ya over to his place. Ya know, kinda celebration party. Shoot some craps, play a little pinochle, make with the booze, knock off a couple of broads.”

  Boysie was worried. He was not the quickest of men when it came to being on the uptake, but this did not sound like Siedler.

  Come to think of it, it was more like an old Cagney movie—he could swear that he had seen both these characters before, in a myriad gangster
films back in the 30s. Boysie took a deep breath:

  “’Fraid you’ll have to tell Joe I can’t make it tonight. Got a date,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Look, buddy.” The hard rasp of intimidation had crept into the first ape’s voice. “We don’t want no trouble. Joe said to bring ya, so ya come over nice and quiet like. Hunh?”

  Boysie’s mind was doing a hundred yards sprint. He had been in New York for only a few hours and already the natives were looking ugly. He could feel his palms begin to film over with sweat, and that nasty trembling of the thigh muscles had set in. He took a pace forward.

  “OK.” A thin smile. “Don’t you worry about it. I’ll call Joe now, and tell him myself.”

  “Oh no you ... !” The first man’s hand shot out. Boysie instinctively sidestepped and made a lucky lunge towards the outstretched arm, catching it just above the wrist. Reacting automatically to the long training he had endured when Mostyn first pressed him into the service with the Department, Boysie pulled down hard on the arm, then jerked outwards and upwards, ducking under the armpit, and twisting the limb up behind the ape’s back. At the same time he lifted his right knee, placing it above his opponent’s buttocks. There was a painful wrenching noise. Putting all his weight behind the push, Boysie sent the stocky figure bumping through the open doorway.

  “Ouroughoaw!” said the man loudly as he hit the corridor wall. At the same moment, Boysie felt a numbing flash of pain in his left shoulder. The other assailant had come from behind. There was a shout from outside, and the last thing Boysie remembered was a vision of blue and white with a tumble of yellow-brown hair framed in the doorway. Then a scream and the sound of hurrying footsteps. After that, a starless night closed around Boysie Oakes as he fell heavily to the floor.

  He was still on the floor a few moments later when consciousness began to return. A lot of people seemed to be talking at once, and he could distinguish two faces peering down at him. One was male, and obviously official. The other female and as palatable as they come—dark almond eyes set beautifully against a smooth complexion. A wide trembling mouth, and a soft fall of tawny hair. Even in this twilit state, Boysie could appreciate the glitter of concern in her eyes.

  The mist began to clear. The official gentleman, who was actually an assistant manager, clucked over him like a hen about to discharge an ostrich-size, quadruple-yolked egg:

  “Mr Oakes? You OK, Mr Oakes? That this should have happened here. A terrible thing. Truly terrible thing. Now are you OK, Mr Oakes?”

  “Receiving you strength two. No, I am not OK,” said Boysie, his eyes taking great bites out of the female who was now regarding him not only with concern but also with blatant sensual fascination. Together, the floor manager and the girl helped Boysie to his feet. The room did a stall turn, then began to fall into a spin. Boysie sat down on the bed, and with the fingertips of his right hand, gently felt the tender spot below his left ear. To the touch it was as though something large, round, and bristling with poisoned darts, had got under his skin.

  “Think we ought to call a doctor, Mr Oakes? We’ve got a physician right here in the hotel. You’re goin’ to have a nasty bruise there.”

  “Be all right.” Boysie tried to do a tough, gritted-teeth smile; but even that hurt, so he did a brave wince instead.

  “Er, I haven’t notified the police or anything yet, Mr Oakes, I mean. Well, I was wondering. The publicity. The hotel. It’s my job to see the guests are comfortable and that the hotel is protected. You. You wouldn’t sue the hotel, would you, Mr Oakes? You a Government guest and all. It’s terrible. New York, we get robberies and beatings, muggings all the time. Central Park you dare not go into alone at night, especially if you happen to be a lady.” The assistant manager looked at the tawny-haired wonder, pleading for confirmation. Boysie, beginning to feel a little better, could see the man was desperately embarrassed. An assault actually in the hotel could, he imagined, dent its reputation and buckle trade into an economic concertina. Very early in his professional life Boysie had learned that it was better to keep the police and other public bodies right out of the picture.

  “Don’t worry about it. Accident. Think no more about it—Ow!” He groaned as the swelling began to pulse out a fresh series of pain jerks.

  “It’s really lucky your friend turned up.”

  Boysie looked round for his friend, then realised that the hotel type meant the beauty who had, by this time, joined him on the edge of the bed. So far she had not said a word. Now she spoke, and, to Boysie, the whole string section of the New York Philharmonic seemed to come drifting into the room.

  “Poor baby,” she put a protective arm on Boysie’s shoulder. “Lucky I turned up, wasn’t it, honey?”

  “Well, if you’re sure it’s OK. I’ll send up an ice pack for that bruise.” The official was hovering.

  “I’ll look after him now.” Coming from those succulent lips, the phrase was one of distinct promise.

  “I’ll drop by later. Just to see if you need anything. OK, Mr Oakes?”

  Boysie, now almost himself, except for the pounding of a miniature pneumatic drill down the left side of his face, was about to tell the man not to bother, when the soft hunk of womanhood by his side cut in with:

  “How kind of you, but please don’t worry. Mr Oakes’ll call down if he wants anything.”

  The floor manager backed out of the room muttering soothing noises: “Anything the hotel can do. Last thing we would have had happen. Given us all quite a shock. And the Vassar Alumanae dinner coming up and all . .” The door shut out the man’s burblings and Boysie was left alone with his head, and the slim assembly of curves.

  “Hallo,” said the girl.

  “Hallo,” said Boysie. They looked at each other in candid appreciation.

  “You’re Boysie Oakes,” she said, moving a little closer.

  “Yes, I know. Who are you?”

  “Max sent me. Didn’t he tell you? We’re going to sunny California.”

  Boysie grinned with pleasure.

  “Someone did call to say my travelling companion would be over. But I didn’t really expect ...Well . . I ...” He paused. Somewhere in the rear of his mind there was a picture of himself doing obeisance to Mostyn: offering a garland of thanks for the goodies that were coming his way. For this, it was worth being physically assaulted.

  “Do you have a name, or a number, or do people just say ‘Wow’, or ‘Cor’ or something?” he asked, trying to forget the headache—a reasonably easy operation when the other parts of the body began taking one’s mind off the pain.

  “I’m Chicory.” She sounded like someone announcing the result of a charade.

  “Chicory,” repeated Boysie.

  “Chicory Triplehouse.”

  “Triplehouse.”

  “Yep. And don’t ask me where I got it. We didn’t come over with the Pilgrim Fathers. We weren’t pioneers of the old West. We aren’t an established Southern family, and none of my relatives are members of the Ivy League—yet with a name like Triplehouse they ought to be. I guess the Triplehouses just happened.”

  “Where did you happen?”

  “Joplin, Missouri—which is about as hick as you can get. No, our family tree seems to have withered just before my grandmammy and grandpappy were granted the faculty of memory. Someone turned over a stone and there they were—Triplehouses—equipped with a certain resilience and a warped sense of humour.”

  Boysie offered her a Chesterfield and lit the cigarettes. She smoked like a man, he noticed, holding the white tube confidently and close to her lips, taking draughts of smoke right down into the lungs and expelling them in a thin stream with her mouth in a whistling attitude.

  “Just to show you,” she continued. “My grandpappy had my daddy baptised Stephen Howard Ian. Stephen Howard Ian Triplehouse. Can you imagine? Never dared sign his initials, let alone have them engraved in gold on his briefcase or whatever.”

  Boysie gurgled, and a knock at the
door announced the presence of a white-coated serf bearing an ice pack.

  “How about those two characters?” said Chicory when the servant had disappeared leaving Boysie clasping the ice to his lump. “They ran like blue hell when I screamed. What were they after?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest.”

  “New York can be a bit like that, but it doesn’t usually happen in hotels—except to film stars and all, with lots of loot. Or for publicity. Couldn’t be anything to do with your work, could it?”

  Boysie felt the whirlpool of anxiety begin to spin in his stomach. The lushness of Chicory Triplehouse had acted as a soporific, now he began to think more clearly about the brace of horror comics, their insistence that he should come with them to Siedler, his refusal, and the ultimate violence. Undoubtedly it was something to do with his work. The trip to San Diego, the lying in the sun, the starlets done to a turn on the beaches, the one solitary day to be spent watching a missile being fired: it had all sounded too easy. There had to be a catch somewhere. The palpitating, red prominence behind his ear was tangible proof of the catch.

  “Well, could it?” Chicory was looking at him, a tiny knot of worry marring the smooth area between her long pencilled eyebrows.

  “I suppose it might be.” Boysie felt his guts flap violently. “Think I’d better try and make it to the bathroom.” He hobbled over to the door. The floor swayed slightly for the first few steps, then became stable and firm.

  When he returned, Chicory was talking, sotto voce, into the telephone: “Yes, Max, sure baby, but do you think it’s really necessary? What gives anyway? Sure he’s a dreamboat but what is he, like some crazy diplomat, royalty or something? OK if you say so. Sure, he’s just come back. He’s here now. You want to talk to him? OK, honey, and you.” To Boysie: “Boysie honey, Max wants to talk to you.”

  Boysie took the telephone from the cool hand. She moved away, allowing her fingers to brush lightly along the back of his arm. He could just feel the nails vaguely scratching through his shirt; giving him a shudder of pleasure.