The January Zone

by Peter Corris

  ‘What d’you mean?’ she flared. ‘You’ve got business? I’m still working. I have to go to the hospital and orchestrate the performance.’

  ‘Okay, okay. We’ll take you.’

  ‘I’ll get a cab.’ She slammed the glass down and walked off.

  ‘What hospital?’ I yelled.

  ‘Be Georgetown University from here,’ Spinoza said.

  I stumbled on a champagne bottle and picked it up. Half-full. I resisted the impulse to take a swig. ‘Are you married, Billy?’

  Spinoza tugged at his tuft. ‘I don’t know. My wife went off to Mexico a year back. Maybe I’m still married, maybe I’m divorced, maybe I’m a father, maybe I’m a widower. I don’t know. Let’s go.’

  We cleared another inquisitive cop and brushed past two reporters who were having a hard time finding anyone to talk to.

  ‘What about you? You married?’

  ‘Not for 10 years.’

  We walked towards the Merc. The fire engine had gone and the blue lights on the remaining police cars had stopped flashing.

  ‘And would they be the best years of your young life?’

  I waited while he unlocked the car and thought about it. I remembered the good times with Cyn; the holidays and the tennis and the few quiet nights, very few. Then the wandering years with the excited meetings and things turning sour within days, sometimes hours. Then Helen and the promises and the problems.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t say they were.’

  19

  MY stay in Washington was becoming more and more unreal. I had a hankering to go into a house or flat where someone really lived and to see somebody do something that could be called normal work. This time I plunged back into the institutional world January had been visiting. The world of desk attendants, silent elevators and plush carpets. It was a vast steel and glass building with tinted windows and concealed interior lighting. I had the feeling that all the mirrors were two way and all the glass was bullet-proof, but that was probably just because I was getting the Washington blues.

  After being cleared and checked and re-cleared, we were admitted to a room full of screens and consoles and whirling discs. It was like a computer warehouse with little bunches of salesmen and customers clustered around in certain spots. The air conditioning seemed a trifle high and I sweated. My suspect eye didn’t like the fluorescent light. A white-coated man introduced himself, in a thick Southern drawl, as Heseltine and took the cassette from Spinoza.

  ‘Be careful,’ Billy said.

  ‘I’m always careful…, sir.’ He was pale and soft-looking with pinkish eyes behind tinted glasses.

  ‘We’d also like to do a description ID, Heseltine,’ Spinoza said. I thought I caught a flash of antagonism in the White Rabbit face. Maybe I did, because Spinoza added with a touch of acid: ‘If that’s all right with you?’

  Heseltine checked on the clipboard he was carrying, nodded and became super-efficient. ‘We’ll do the lift from the tape first. Over here, please.’

  He walked to a long, low-slung machine, put the cassette into a slot, pressed a button and an image appeared on a screen. The picture was just like on a large TV set, thinned out with a grainy quality. Heseltine fiddled with knobs and switches and the picture cleared suddenly.

  ‘We can freeze, magnify, alter the colour balance. Do jus’ about anything you want…’ He checked the clipboard. ‘Mist’ Hardy.’

  ‘Run it,’ Spinoza said. ‘Let’s see if you can run it.’

  Klip was a pretty good hand with a video camera; the high elevation of the camera made the film hard to adjust to at first, but he had used the zoom to good purpose and he’d moved about on the balcony, getting different angles on the throng below.

  ‘That’s him. Hold it!’ I pointed to a man behind the table; he was tall and blonde, wearing a cream-coloured suit. His hair fell forward over his forehead and he tended to keep his head down. Heseltine advanced the picture frame by frame and he eventually got a fairly clear shot, almost front on with the head almost up.

  ‘Will that do?’ Heseltine said.

  ‘Sure,’ Spinoza said. ‘That’s fine.’

  Heseltine flicked switches and pressed buttons. Nothing happened on screen but there were deep stirrings in the heart of the machine. When he was happy, Heseltine released the film and it moved on.

  ‘I take it these two weren’t the same guys as in the car?’ Spinoza took off his jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. Heseltine moved the chair away with his foot.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Quite different.’ I kept my eyes on the screen as the courtyard buzzed. I saw Trudi whisper in January’s ear. The Minister nodded and smiled. ‘There, but it’s not good.’ I saw the sound technician half-concealed behind a tall woman in a flowing silk dress. The film crept forward and some of the billowing material fell away.

  ‘You got lucky,’ Heseltine said. ‘Well, almos’ lucky.’

  Just as the man came into view behind the dress he moved which threw a shadow across the lower part of his face.

  ‘Mark it,’ Spinoza said. ‘Let’s see if there’s anything better.’

  There wasn’t. I saw myself move towards the technician and confusion break out among the VIPs, then the film jerked and shook and there was a shot of trees and sky as the cameraman reacted to the flash. Heseltine went back; he enlarged the image until it disappeared into a blur and then went back searching for the clearest definition. Eventually he got a clear view of the upper part of the face and an impression of the rest. ‘Doubtful, but it’s the best we’ll do. I’ll cut and print. You can use the computer over there for the description ID.’

  He got busy with his toy and Billy sat me down behind a keyboard and monitor. He punched some keys over my shoulder and a series of questions came up. The computer asked me to describe the men I’d seen in the car according to various categories. I tapped in the answers as best I could. Spinoza tapped ‘Send’ and the computer hummed softly.

  ‘What now?’ I pushed my chair back and stretched.

  ‘We wait. The brain sucks in the pictures from the film, does a sort of identikit on your pathetic descriptions and tries to get a match with the zillions of pictures it has on file.’

  ‘Of Americans?’

  ‘Of everybody.’

  ‘How long will it take?’

  He yawned. ‘Shit, it could be minutes. You got anything at home like this?’

  ‘If there is they haven’t told me about it. What is this place exactly?’

  ‘It’s a clearing house, a memory bank, a filing system, whatever you like to call it. They’ve got army records here, prison and police records, immigration…’

  ‘Tax?’

  He grinned. ‘Ain’t nobody saying.’

  ‘What about intelligence files?’

  ‘That’s what you think, huh? That this is some kinda spook plot against your boy? Ours or yours?’

  ‘Who can say. They probably don’t know which side they’re on themselves half the time. I’m sorry if I’m offending your professional pride.’

  ‘That’s all right. Speaking of professional pride, couldn’t you have found something less dangerous than a bottle to throw?’

  ‘I didn’t have time to take off my shoe.’

  Heseltine approached us with a fistful of photographs and computer print-outs held out in front of him like the infant Jesus. ‘Would you draw me up a chair, Mr Hardy?’

  Spinoza hooked a chair with his foot and flicked it into place. Heseltine sat down. ‘Thank you.’ He glanced at Billy and they exchanged grins. ‘You think we fooled him?’

  ‘He was all ready to write a report on unstated racial invective within the US Security Services.’

  Heseltine laughed and took off his glasses. The eyes were very pink but had lost their furtive look. ‘Have to have some fun in this fuckin’ place,’ he said. ‘You should see Billy with the South Africans.’

  ‘And you should see him with thah Brit-ish,’ Spinoza said.

>   ‘Very droll,’ I said. ‘You Yanks have such a great cultural mixture to play around with. You know why we call you Yanks, don’t you?’

  Spinoza spread his hands. ‘Man’s getting anxious. What’ve we got, honky?’

  Heseltine stifled his laugh by putting his glasses back. ‘Some, not a hell of a lot. Positive on one of them—the blonde guy at the party.’

  ‘Political meeting,’ I said.

  ‘You could’ve fooled me. Well, he’s Arthur Udino, Italian.’

  Billy peered at the glossy print Heseltine held. ‘Looks about as Italian as me.’

  ‘That’s his ace in the hole, or one of them. He’s aka James Swanson, George White, the list goes on.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ Spinoza said. ‘So what’s his field of activity?’

  ‘Hard to say. He’s not a real heavy; it’s more like he’s happened to be around when heavy things are going down. Like today.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Spinoza said, ‘but around in what capacity. Sight-seeing? What?’

  ‘Contracts for the supply of military equipment,’ Heseltine said. ‘In his time Arthur’s been known to help people who want to supply guns to other people to get their ideas across.’

  ‘What people?’ I said.

  Heseltine rustled his papers. ‘Various. It wouldn’t help you to know. And it’s just that that’s the kinda area he hangs around in.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘What about the electrician?’

  Heseltine shook his head. ‘Nothing on him and nothing on your descriptions. But we went around you a little there and might have got something.’

  ‘Don’t keep it all to yourself,’ Spinoza said.

  ‘A description of the guy who mugged the Australian near the hotel fits Mr Hardy’s ah, rough impression of one of the men in the car.’

  ‘I was wondering whether to shoot out a tyre or jump onto their bonnet,’ I said. ‘Which one fits?’

  ‘The stocky one. It’s not positive but he was seen in town and he’s a car and street specialist. He doesn’t kill people.’

  ‘Oh, good. I’d love to meet him. Who is he and is there any chance?’

  ‘Hot shot, eh?’ Heseltine said. ‘Sorry, you’re not likely to run into “Sunny” South.’

  ‘ “Sonny” as in Liston?’

  ‘No, man. As in bright an’ clear. When he was seen he was seen leaving. Now, I don’t know if the two are connected or what. Like I say, “Sunny” isn’t a killer but…’

  Spinoza spread his hands as if he was going to receive a pass. ‘He made a death threat on the phone.’

  ‘That’s a long way from trying to put a few thousand volts through a man.’

  I got a feeling now that the faked antagonism between the two was shifting towards something real. Spinoza looked almost embarrassed and Heseltine fiddled with his papers defensively.

  ‘You may as well tell him, Mr Heseltine, sir,’ Spinoza said.

  ‘Tell me what? What’s “Sunny’s” field of activity, to coin a phrase.’

  Heseltine was happy to answer that. ‘Communications.’

  ‘You mean he talks to people?’

  ‘No.’ Spinoza looked around the room. It was full of white coats and white shirts and blue suits. If he felt anything like me he wanted to see some T-shirts and sneakers and smell sweat.

  ‘Where’s my goddamn coat?’ He stood up in one easy movement, retrieved the coat from the chair and slung it over his shoulder. ‘What you should know, Cliff, is that South works for some of the corporations here. He’s a sort of advance man who, ah, clears obstacles.’

  ‘Obstacles to what?’

  Heseltine coughed as if he was about to start a lecture. ‘To installing the right kinds of communications facilities. The kind that can’t listen in when they’re not invited and the kind that we can listen in on if…’

  ‘We?’ I said.

  ‘The USA,’ Spinoza said. ‘The land of the free.’

  ‘I don’t quite get it. You mean this guy has got some protection? I don’t care. I’m not Dirty Cliffy. I don’t want revenge.’

  ‘You’re missing the point, Cliff.’

  Heseltine carefully removed a strip of paper along the edge of one of his sheets; he slid a broad, pink thumbnail along the serrations. ‘Hell,’ he said. ‘We use “Sunny” ourselves. Sometimes.’

  20

  THEY had January and Martin in General Hospital and Spinoza drove me there in the white Mercedes. His driving was as skilled and purposeful as ever but he seemed to be off in the clouds ‘mentally’, as the sports commentators say.

  ‘Are you confused?’ I said. ‘Have you got a loyalty problem or something?’

  ‘Shit, no. I can do the job.’

  ‘What is the job?’

  He shot me a sidelong look, maybe to see if I was checking my gun. ‘Don’t get paranoid, Cliff. The job is to get January in and out in one piece. So far, we’re doing all right. I give you a lot of the credit.’

  ‘Thanks. But it’s going to be harder if some of the people on our side are really on their side, if you follow me.’

  ‘I don’t think so. “Sunny” is a freelance, really.’

  ‘Why’d you get so upset back at the lab then?’

  He laughed. ‘Heseltine’d love you for calling it the lab. Well, this development does make it a little harder to choose the right people to see your party from the hospital to the hearing and onto the plane.’

  ‘Let me know when you’ve worked it out.’

  ‘I will. And there’s one other thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you realise that you’re the only member of the target party running around loose at the moment?’

  I laughed. ‘Target party! You sure do talk funny.’

  ‘You think this is a joke?’

  ‘No, I don’t. The trouble is, I feel out of my depth. I don’t know this place like I know Sydney. I just don’t have the feel for it. I don’t even know what this road’s called, and these bloody alphabet streets…H Street, I Street. It makes me feel…vulnerable.’

  ‘This is Carolina Avenue. The streets’re logical. Well, to cut it down a little, “Sunny” South wouldn’t try anything while I’m with you and the communications people are only semi-serious.’

  ‘What about the guns people?’

  ‘They’re serious. Do you like the sights?’

  I’d been staring out of the window but only getting impressions—boulevards, white buildings, cenotaphs. ‘No,’ I said, ‘there’s too many bloody memorials.’

  January had a private room on the eighth floor, that is, if you can call a room with a guard at the door and a secretary and three journalists inside, private. He was in bed wearing hospital pyjamas; the top of his head and his right hand were bandaged and he appeared to have suffered bruising around the lower part of his face. He looked like a man who’d been in the fight of his life, and won. Several bunches of flowers stood in vases around the room.

  ‘Cliff,’ he said. He stuck out his unbandaged hand and I shook it awkwardly. ‘I want to thank you. You saved my life comrade.’ He passed his hand wearily across his face. ‘Gentlemen, would you mind? I’m rather tired.’

  ‘Hardy,’ Trudi whispered to the nearest reporter. ‘Clifford Hardy.’ The writers scribbled it down along with the quote which January had made sure they got; they chorused their thanks and wishes for his speedy recovery and trooped out.

  ‘Clifford,’ I said. ‘Just how phony is all this?’

  January had revived instantly. ‘Not phony at all. I’ve got shock and burns. Hullo, Mr…’

  ‘Spinoza,’ I said. ‘William H. Spinoza.’

  ‘Hi, Mr January.’ Spinoza perched on the end of the bed. ‘Glad to see you’re okay.’

  January grinned. ‘I want everybody to stop saying I’m okay. I’m an injured man. Show ’em, Trude.’

  Trudi cast her eyes to the roof and hit the Play button on the video recorder attached to the portable TV set.

  ‘Our news team wa
s the first on the scene in Georgetown today where Judge Calvin Clyde was killed in an assassination evidently intended for visiting Australian peace activist, Paul January.’

  ‘Hi, Paul,’ I said.

  ‘Shut up!’ January hissed. ‘Watch!’

  ‘Judge Clyde was killed when a microphone through which messages of peace and cooperation were to be delivered to the concerned guests of socialite, Mrs Amos Clephane, was turned into an instrument of death. Our cameras captured this dramatic footage of the scene in the aftermath of the fatality.’

  ‘Murder,’ I said.

  ‘Watch!’ January snarled.

  The news team must have arrived within minutes. Most of the concerned guests were still milling around; some looked as if they’d run for their lives and sneaked back. The paramedics were dealing with the shocked and trampled and January himself was in the thick of it. He had a rough bandage around his head and his jacket was off. His shirt was out of his trousers, torn where he’d ripped it for a bandage, and bloody; his hair was wild. With his strong features reddened by the film or by emotion and his compact body bending and straightening as he helped to lift and comfort, he looked like Lawrence of Arabia.

  ‘Mr January only consented to go to hospital himself when the last distressed witness of the horrific incident had been treated. Tomorrow, Paul January will get up from his hospital bed to tell the Senate sub-committee on Pacific security of his ideas on…’

  Trudi killed the sound and picture.

  ‘How’s Martin?’ I said.

  ‘What?’ January seemed to be having his own difficulty with names. ‘Oh, he’s okay. Concussion or something. Bolton can fill me in on…’ He broke off as I turned away to look out the window at Washington DC. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing. I suppose you’ll be out there reading the lesson when they bury the judge.’

  ‘What are you talking about? We’re leaving as soon as I finish tomorrow.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘Trudi, are you sure Martin’s got all the hospital insurance cover he needs?’

  She sat on a chair not far from January. She was strained tight, trying to cope with a light touch and probably still in shock herself. ‘I’ll check. Peter’s all right…’