John Le Carré: Three Complete Novels

by John le Carré

  “Here,” said Jerry. “Poison yourself,” and offered him a cigarette.

  “Christ,” said Frost again, and with a key from his chain opened an old-fashioned walnut cupboard, full of mirror and rows of cocktail sticks with artificial cherries, and trick tankards with pin-ups and pink elephants.

  “Bloody Mary do you?”

  “Bloody Mary would slip down grateful, sport,” Jerry assured him.

  On the key chain, one brass Chubb key. The safe was also Chubb, a fine one, with a battered gold medallion fading into the old green paint.

  “I’ll say one thing for you blue-blooded rakes,” Frost called while he poured and shook the ingredients like a chemist. “You do know the haunts. Drop you blindfold in the middle of Salisbury Plain, I reckon you’d find a cathouse in thirty seconds flat. My virgin sensitive nature took yet another grave jolt last night. Rocked to its frail little bearings, it was—say when!—I’ll take a few addresses off you sometime, when I’m healed. If I ever am, which I doubt.”

  Sauntering over to Frost’s desk, Jerry riffled idly through his correspondence, then began playing with the switches of the speaking-box, patting them up and down one by one with his enormous index finger, but getting no answers. A separate button was marked “ENGAGED.” Pressing it, Jerry saw a rose gleam in the eyehole as the caution-light went on in the corridor.

  “As to those girls,” Frost was saying, his back still turned to Jerry while he rattled the sauce bottle. “Wicked they were. Shocking.” Laughing delightedly, Frost advanced across the room, holding the glasses wide. “What were their names? Oh, dear, oh, dear!”

  “Seven and twenty-four,” said Jerry distractedly.

  He was stooping as he spoke, looking for the alarm button he knew would be somewhere on the desk.

  “Seven and twenty-four!” Frost repeated rapturously. “What poetry! What a memory!”

  At knee level Jerry had found a grey box screwed to the drawer pillar. The key was vertical, at the off position. He pulled it out and dropped it into his pocket.

  “I said what a wonderful memory,” Frost repeated, rather puzzled.

  “You know newshounds, sport,” said Jerry, straightening. “Worse than wives, us newshounds are, when it comes to memories.”

  “Here. Come off there. That’s holy ground.”

  Picking up Frost’s large desk diary, Jerry was studying it for the day’s engagements.

  “Jesus,” he said. “It’s all go, isn’t it? Who’s N, sport? N, eight to twelve? Not your mother-in-law, is she?”

  Ducking his mouth to the glass, Frost drank greedily, swallowed, then made a farce of choking, writhing, and recovering. “Keep her out of this, do you mind? You nearly gave me a heart attack. Bung-ho.”

  “N for nuts? N for Napoleon? Who’s N?”

  “Natalie. My secretary. Very nice. Legs go right up to its bottom, so they tell me. Never been there myself, so I don’t know. My one rule. Remind me to break it sometime. Bung-ho,” he said again.

  “She in?”

  “I think I heard her dulcet tread, yes. Want me to give her a buzz? I’m told she puts on a very nice turn for the upper classes.”

  “No, thanks,” said Jerry and, setting down the diary, looked at Frost four square, man to man, though the fight was uneven, for Jerry was a whole head taller than Frost, and a lot broader.

  “Incredible,” Frost declared reverently, still beaming at Jerry. “Incredible, that’s what it was.” His manner was devoted, even possessive. “Incredible girls, incredible company. I mean why should a bloke like me bother with a bloke like you? A mere Honourable, at that? Dukes are my level. Dukes and tarts. Let’s do it again tonight. Come on.”

  Jerry laughed.

  “I mean it. Scout’s honour. Let’s die of it before we’re too old. On me this time, the whole treat.” In the corridor heavy footsteps sounded, coming nearer. “Know what I’m going to do? Try me. I’m going to go back to the Meteor with you, and I’m going to call Madame Whoosit, and I’m going to insist on a—What’s eating you?” he said, catching Jerry’s expression.

  The footsteps slowed, then stopped. A black shadow filled the eyehole and stayed.

  “Who is he?” said Jerry quietly.

  “Milky.”

  “Who’s Milky?”

  “Milky Way, my boss,” said Frost as the footsteps moved away. Closing his eyes, he crossed himself devoutly. “Going home to his very lovely lady wife, the distinguished Mrs. Way, alias Moby Dick. Six foot eight and a cavalry moustache. Not him. Her.” Frost giggled.

  “Why didn’t he come in?”

  “Thought I had a client, I suppose,” said Frost carelessly, again puzzled by Jerry’s watchfulness, and by his quiet. “Apart from the fact that Moby Dick would kick him to death if she caught him with the smell of alcohol on his evil lips at this hour of the day. Cheer up, you’ve got me to look after you. Have the other half. You look a bit pious today. Gives me the creeps.”

  When you get in there, go, the bearleaders had said. Don’t feel his bones too long; don’t let him get comfy with you.

  “Hey, Frostie,” Jerry said when the footsteps had quite faded. “How’s the missis?” Frost had his hand out for Jerry’s glass. “Your missis. How’s she doing?”

  “Still ailing nicely, thank you,” said Frost uncomfortably.

  “Ring the hospital, did you?”

  “This morning? You’re crazy. I wasn’t coherent till eleven o’clock. If then. She’d have smelt my breath.”

  “When are you next visiting?”

  “Look. Shut up. Shut up about her. Do you mind?”

  With Frost watching him, Jerry drifted to the safe. He tried the big handle but it was locked. On the top, covered in dust, lay a heavy riot stick. Taking it in both hands, he played a couple of distracted cricket shots and put it back, while Frost’s puzzled stare followed him alertly.

  “I want to open an account, Frostie,” said Jerry, still at the safe.

  “You?”

  “Me.”

  “From all you told me last night, you haven’t the resources to open a bloody piggy bank. Not unless your distinguished dad kept a bit in the mattress, which I somehow doubt.” Frost’s world was slipping fast but he tried desperately to hold on to it. “Look, get yourself a bloody drink and stop playing Boris Karloff on a wet Wednesday, will you? Let’s go to the gee-gees. Happy Valley, here we come. I’ll buy you lunch.”

  “I didn’t mean we’d open my account exactly, sport. I meant someone else’s,” Jerry explained.

  In a slow, sad comedy, the fun drained out of Frost’s little face, and he muttered, “Oh, no. Oh, Jerry,” under his breath, as if he were witnessing an accident in which Jerry, not Frost, were the victim. For the second time, footsteps approached down the corridor. A girl’s, short and quick. Then a sharp knock. Then silence.

  “Natalie?” said Jerry quietly. Frost nodded. “If I was a client, would you introduce me?” Frost shook his head. “Let her in.”

  Frost’s tongue, like a scared pink snake, peeked out from between his lips, looked quickly round, then vanished.

  “Come!” he called in a hoarse voice, and a tall Chinese girl with thick glasses collected some letters from his out-tray.

  “Enjoy your weekend, Mr. Frost,” she said.

  “See you Monday,” said Frost.

  The door closed again.

  Coming across the room, Jerry put an arm round Frost’s shoulders and guided him, unresisting, quickly to the window.

  “A trust account, Frostie. Lodged in your incorruptible hands. Sharpish.”

  In the square, the carnival continued. On the cricket field, somebody was out. The lank batsman in the outmoded cap had dropped into a crouch and was patiently repairing the pitch. The fieldsmen lay about and chatted.

  “You set me up,” said Frost simply, trying to get used to the notion. “I thought I had a friend at last, and now you want to screw me. And you a lord.”

  “Shouldn’t mingle with newsho
unds, Frostie. Rough bunch. No sporting instinct. Shouldn’t have shot your mouth off. Where do you keep the records?”

  “Friends do shoot their mouths off,” Frost protested. “That’s what friends are for! To tell each other!”

  “Then tell me.”

  Frost shook his head. “I’m a Christian,” he said stupidly. “I go every Sunday, I never miss. I’m afraid it’s quite out of the question. I’d rather lose my place in society than commit a breach of confidence. It’s known of me, right? No go. Sorry about that.”

  Jerry edged closer along the sill, till their arms were all but touching. The big window-pane was trembling from the traffic. The Venetian blinds were red with building smuts. Frost’s face worked pitifully as he wrestled with the news of his bereavement.

  “Here’s the deal, sport,” said Jerry, very quietly. “Listen carefully. Right? It’s a stick-and-carrot job. If you don’t play, the comic will blow the whistle on you. Front-page mug shot, banner headlines, continued back page, col six, the works. ‘Would you buy a second-hand trust account from this man?’ Hong Kong the cesspit of corruption and Frostie the slavering monster: that line. We’d tell them how you play round-eye musical beds at the young bankers’ club, just the way you told it to me, and how till recently you maintained a wicked love-nest over on Kowloon-side, only it went sour on you because she wanted more bread. Before they did all that, of course, they’d check the story out with your Chairman and maybe with your missis, too, if she’s well enough.”

  A rainstorm of sweat had broken on Frost’s face without warning. One moment his sallow features had shown an oily moistness and that was all. The next they were drenched and the sweat was running unchecked off his plump chin and falling on his Robin Hood suit.

  “It’s the booze,” he said stupidly, trying to staunch it with his handkerchief. “I always get this when I drink. Bloody climate—I shouldn’t be exposed to it. No one should. Rotting out here. I hate it.”

  “That’s the bad news,” Jerry continued. They were still at the window, side by side, like two men loving the view. “The good news is five hundred U.S. into your hot little hand, compliments of Grub Street, no one any the wiser, and Frostie for Chairman. So why not sit back and enjoy it? See what I mean?”

  “And may I enquire,” Frost said at last, with a disastrous shot at sarcasm, “to what end or purpose you wish to peruse this file in the first place?”

  “Crime and corruption, sport. The Hong Kong connection. Grub Street names the guilty men. Account number four four two. Do you keep it here?” Jerry asked, indicating the safe.

  Frost made a “No” with his lips, but no sound came out.

  “Both the fours, then the two. Where is it?”

  “Look,” Frost muttered. His face was a hopeless mess of fear and disappointment. “Do me a favour, will you? Keep me out of it. Bribe one of my Chinese clerks, okay? That’s the proper way. I mean I’ve got a position here.”

  “You know the saying, Frostie. In Hong Kong even the daisies talk. I want you. You’re here, and you’re better qualified. Is it in the strong-room?”

  You have to keep it moving, they said. You have to raise the threshold all the time. Lose the initiative once and you lose it forever.

  As Frost dithered, Jerry affected to lose patience. With one very large hand, he seized hold of Frost’s shoulder and spun him round, and backed him till his little shoulders were flat against the safe.

  “Is it in the strong-room?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I’ll tell you how,” Jerry promised, and nodded hard at Frost so that his forelock flopped up and down. “I’ll tell you, sport,” he repeated, tapping Frost’s shoulder lightly with his free hand. “Because otherwise you’re forty and on the road, with a sick wife, and bambinos to feed, and school fees, and the whole catastrophe. It’s one thing or t’other, and the moment’s now. Not five minutes on, but now. I don’t care how you do it, but make it sound normal and keep Natalie out of it.”

  Jerry guided him back into the middle of the room, where his desk stood, and the telephone. There are parts in life which are impossible to play with dignity. Frost’s that day was one. Lifting the receiver, he dialled a single digit.

  “Natalie? Oh, you haven’t gone. Listen, I’ll be staying on for an hour yet; I’ve just had a client on the phone. Tell Syd to leave the strong-room on the key. I’ll close up when I go, right?”

  He slumped into his chair.

  “Straighten your hair,” said Jerry, and returned to the window while they waited.

  “Crime and corruption, my arse,” Frost muttered. “All right, suppose he cuts a few corners. Name me a Chinese who doesn’t. Name me a Brit who doesn’t. Do you think that brings the Island to its feet?”

  “Chinese, is he?” said Jerry very sharply.

  Coming back to the desk, Jerry himself dialled Natalie’s number. No answer. Lifting Frost gently to his feet, Jerry led him to the door.

  “Now, don’t go locking up,” he warned. “We’ll need to put it back before you leave.”

  Frost had returned. He sat glumly at the desk, three folders before him on the blotter. Jerry poured him a vodka.

  Standing at his shoulder while Frost drank it, Jerry explained how a collaboration of this sort worked. Frostie wouldn’t feel a thing, he said. All he had to do was leave everything where it lay, then step into the corridor, closing the door carefully after him. Beside the door was a staff notice-board; Frostie had no doubt observed it often. Frostie should place himself before this notice-board and read the notices diligently, all of them, until he heard Jerry give two knocks from within, when he could return. While reading, he should take care to keep his body at such an angle as to obscure the peep-hole, so that Jerry would know he was still there, and passersby would not be able to see in. Frost could also console himself with the thought that he had betrayed no confidences, Jerry explained. The worst that Higher Authority could ever say—or the client, for that matter—was that by abandoning his room when Jerry was inside it, he had committed a technical breach of the bank’s security regulations.

  “How many papers are there in the folders?”

  “How should I know?” asked Frost, slightly emboldened by his unexpected innocence.

  “Count ’em, will you, sport? Attaboy.”

  There were fifty exactly, which was a great deal more than Jerry had bargained for. There remained the fall-back against the eventuality that Jerry, despite these precautions, might be disturbed.

  “I’ll need application forms,” he said.

  “What bloody application forms? I don’t keep forms,” Frost retorted. “I’ve got girls who bring me forms. No, I haven’t. They’ve gone home.”

  “To open my trust account with your distinguished house, Frostie. Spread here on the table, with your hospitality goldplated fountain-pen—will you? You’re taking a break while I fill them in. And that’s the first installment,” he said. Drawing a little wad of American money from his hip pocket, he tossed it on the table with a pleasing slap. Frost eyed the money but did not pick it up.

  Alone, Jerry worked fast. He disentangled the papers from the clasp and laid them out in pairs, photographing them two pages to a shot, keeping his big arms close to his body for stillness and his big feet slightly apart for balance, like a slip-catch at cricket, and the measuring chain just brushing the papers for distance. When he was not satisfied he repeated a shot. Sometimes he bracketed the exposure. Often he turned his head and glanced at the circle of Robin Hood green in the eyehole to make sure Frost was at his post and not, even now, calling in the guards armoured.

  Once, Frost grew impatient and tapped on the glass, and Jerry growled at him to shut up. Occasionally he heard footsteps approach, and when that happened he left everything on the table with the money and the application forms, put the camera in his pocket, and ambled to the window to gaze at the harbour and yank at his hair, like a man contemplating the great decisions of his life. And once, whic
h is a fiddly game when you have big fingers and you’re under stress, he changed the cassette, wishing the old camera’s action a shade more quiet.

  By the time he called Frost back, the folders were once more on his desk, the money was beside the folders, and Jerry was feeling cold and just a little murderous.

  “You’re a bloody fool,” Frost announced, feeding the five hundred dollars into the button-down pocket of his tunic.

  “Sure,” he said. He was looking round, brushing over his traces.

  “You’re out of your dirty little mind,” Frost told him. His expression was oddly resolute. “You think you can bust a man like him? You might as well try and take Fort Knox with a jemmy and a box of firecrackers as take the lid off that crowd.”

  “Mr. Big himself. I like that.”

  “No, you won’t, you’ll hate it.”

  “Know him, do you?”

  “We’re like ham and eggs,” said Frost sourly. “I’m in and out of his place every day. You know my passion for the high and mighty.”

  “Who opened his account for him?”

  “My predecessor.”

  “Been here, has he?”

  “Not in my day.”

  “Ever seen him?”

  “Canidrome in Macao.”

  “The where?”

  “Macao dog races. Losing his shirt. Mixing with the common crowd. I was with my little Chinese bird—the one before last. She pointed him out to me. ‘Him?’ I said. ‘Him? Oh, yes—well, he’s a client of mine.’ Very impressed she was.” A flicker of his former self appeared in Frost’s subdued features. “I’ll tell you one thing; he wasn’t doing badly for himself. Very nice blond party he had with him. Round-eye. Film star, by the look of her. Swedish. Lot of conscientious work on the casting couch. Here—” Frost managed a ghostly smile.

  “Hurry, sport. What is it?”

  “Let’s make it up. Come on. We’ll go on the town. Blow my five hundred bucks. You’re not really like that, are you? It’s just something you do for your living.”