Nom de Guerre

by Gulvin, Jeff

  Ismael Boese lay in bed in an old farmhouse in the Dordogne, listening to the rain rattle the corrugated metal of the roof. The boy, Ieuan, who lived in Scotland, was asleep in the next room. Beside Boese, Catherine slept soundly, lying on her back, her face framed in the light from the window and her white breasts rising and falling with each breath. Red hair was spread on the pillow. He tried to remember the last time he had slept with a woman but could not. He had not intended to sleep with her, but there she was and the desire was in him, so he did. Carefully, he eased the blankets down her belly to her thighs, revealing the mound of thick red pubic hair which was not shaved at the bikini line, as with other women he had known. This intrigued him. Magda, a Romanian he had been with for a while in the early days with the Jackal, did not shave her armpits, and her pubic hair, though black, was thick and curling and across her inner thighs, like this one. Lightly, he brushed his index finger through the coarseness and tasted it. She stirred but did not wake, and he straightened the blankets again before slipping out of the bed.

  In the kitchen, he sat at the big wooden table and took the Gyurza apart. Next to the pieces, he laid his leather wallet and from it took the selection of diplomatic passports that Tal-Salem had given him. There was a Chilean one, one from Mexico, one from Venezuela, and the prize—one from the United States. All bore different names, but the same photograph, his own. He could move about the world as often as he liked. Along with the Gyurza he had been given a PSS silenced pistol, which he considered using now. There would be no sound and the distance was not an issue. He took it from his jacket pocket and considered its merits. The Poles were good and they had Abu Nidal to thank for the guns. He would buy him alcohol the next time he saw him. Abu Nidal liked alcohol. The PSS was nicknamed the Vul, and he had used the type before, favouring the special SP-4 round for the six-shot box clip. It could penetrate two millimetres of steel at a distance of twenty-five metres and still inflict a fatal wound. He slipped the clip out now, checked each round, holding the shells in his palm, before re-inserting them and snapping the clip into place.

  He stood at the door to the boy’s room, with the gun held loosely in his right hand, arm dangling at his side. The boy stirred, snuffled and rolled on to his side. Boese walked silently across the wooden floor in his bare feet and looked down at him—red hair like his mother and the same gathering of freckles across his nose. Boese glanced at the gun in his hand. Even his mother would not hear the shot. But then he paused and looked again and for a moment saw himself and heard his parents talking in the sitting room. He could not make out the words, but he listened, and that was the only memory he had of them. They were imprisoned for ever when he was thirteen. He should have more memories, but he didn’t. Idealistic fools, the pair of them. Again he looked at the boy, and lightly brushed the muzzle of the gun through his hair, letting it rest against his exposed temple. For a long moment he stood like that, then he paused, cocked his head to one side and considered. She would go home. They would check Griffiths’s assessment book. They may have done that much already. He considered for a moment longer and then smiled.

  Turning silently on his heel, he left the boy’s bedroom and went back to the kitchen. He dressed quietly and stepped out into the rain, with both the pistols stuck in his belt. It was a two-mile hike along the narrow country lane to the telephone kiosk and the rain fell in steel rods on his shoulders. He barely noticed it, watching the grey-black of the sky and the way it shadowed itself against the horizon.

  At the phonebox, he fumbled in damp pockets for change, then dialled the code and number he had memorized on the ferry. ‘Room 313, please.’

  There was a pause, then a voice said. ‘This is the night porter. It’s three o’clock in the morning.’

  Boese gripped the receiver more tightly. ‘I shall ask you again. Room 313, please.’ He heard a sigh, then a series of clicks, then the repetition of a soft ringing tone in his ear.

  The phone was answered. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s raining.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes. Did you cast the net?’

  ‘One dollar. John.’

  ‘The watcher in the hills?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Then I’ll ask in the hills.’

  Boese replaced the receiver and stood for a few moments in the kiosk, watching the tufted grass at the kerbside being kicked into waves by the wind.

  13

  THE OILED AND MUDDY water of the Mississippi River slapped against the broken stones that sloped down the bank from the wooden walkway. On a bench, two aging bikers sat drinking Lite beer from plastic cups. One of them, bandanna wrapped about his head, strummed a six-string guitar, half of the third finger missing from his fret hand. His voice was gravelled and he sang the blues for anyone passing who would drop a dollar or two in the box at his feet. Boese gazed across the three currents of the river, which kicked the surface into waves, then clashed in a flurry of surf. One week previously, all he could see were the bars on the windows of his cell and the wire roof of the exercise yard. Now he watched the tanker labour round the bend, sending out a wake which rattled the wooden boards at his feet. He watched for a long time, observing the length and breadth of the vessel, low in the water, still weighed down with its cargo of crude oil. He had considered some of the more noxious chemicals that he knew were carried up and down the delta, but this would suit his purpose.

  Behind him, the blues singer’s voice lifted in a final crackle and the music subsided. Boese turned and the singer grinned at him, bright blue eyes and white teeth. ‘Need a cigarette for my voice,’ he said, and took a pack of Basic 100s from his shirt pocket, then snapped open his lighter. Boese dropped two dollars into the box and walked down the stone steps and across the railroad tracks and then up past the iron cannons of Washington Artillery Park.

  Sunday, and below him, three black acrobats were entertaining the crowds massed along the steps. One of them was telling people not to stand on the sidewalk, but to sit down or the cops would stop the show. Boese ignored them, ignored the crowds, and gazed across Decatur Street, beyond the artists and fortune-tellers and people posing as statues in Jackson Square Park. A black-haired man lit a cigarette. He was standing in the doorway of the cathedral, a white stone building with twin slate spires lifting against the cloud-strewn New Orleans skyline.

  Boese hesitated for a moment, looking east and west along Decatur, then he moved through the crowds seated and standing on the steps, and crossed in front of a mule-driven wagon, in which a group of Japanese tourists were being shown the sights. A skin-headed girl flapped a set of tarot cards at him as he crossed the park, but he ignored her, eyes intent on the black-haired man, still smoking his cigarette in the cathedral doorway. It had been hot and sunny earlier in the day, but now the clouds massed like smoke-seared stone and the wind lifted the branches of the trees. A storm was blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico.

  The black-haired man caught his eye as he crossed the square. Boese had been careful, told him on the phone to expect a fellow Mexican, wearing a short black jacket and white shirt. He wore the jacket, but his shirt was blue. The man looked him over once, flipped away his cigarette and let smoke drift from his nostrils. Boese moved past him, close enough to smell his aftershave, and stepped into the cathedral. Candles were lit in glass bowls to his right, and a woman dipped her fingers in holy water. A sign told visitors they were not allowed in the main church area without a guide, and Boese paused. The man still stood behind him, watching the square. Boese nodded and smiled to the lady crossing herself with the holy water, then turned, and as he walked out, he spoke to the man without looking at him. ‘The ticket,’ he said, holding out his hand.

  For a moment, the man hesitated but still Boese did not look at him. Then he fumbled in his pocket and dropped a parking-lot ticket in Boese’s palm.

  The car was a blue Buick and was parked on the raised platform in the Park and Lock on Camp Street. Boese handed the ticket to the at
tendant, who selected a set of keys from the hooks hanging in his kiosk and went to lower the ramp. He came back with the car; Boese paid him and got behind the wheel.

  It was dark when he left New Orleans, taking Interstate 10 west towards Baton Rouge, but only as far as 310. Here, he left the freeway and headed south-west along the raised concrete carriageways which ran over the swamplands. He drove leisurely, one hand on the wheel, in no particular hurry, heading towards the river and St Charles Parish. He pulled off 310 before the bridge that spanned the river, and watched the red tail-lights of the sheriff’s deputy as he rattled past. He slowed at the bottom of the slip road and glanced at the signs for the Destrehan Plantation to his left, before pulling right on to the river road. Now he was trundling past huge, well-lit, southern mansions that had long since been turned into hotels; darkened, perfectly manicured lawns stretching to the lip of the road. They were followed by smaller wooden dwellings and then gas stations, the odd diner and the first tentacular pipework of the refineries. He drove for five miles or so, passing the chemical companies and oil companies, with their fat metal pipelines stretching over the road to the levee, where they fed oil or waste or whatever into the tankers moored in the river.

  Finally, the road petered out, then swung right from the levee and arced round to the Bonnet Carre Spillway, a mile and a half of wooden-slatted dam. Twin cranes were perched at this end, ready to lift each individual piece of planking out and let the river water run off to Lake Pontchartrain, if spring floods threatened the height of the levee. He knew the Army Corps of Engineers looked after the spillway, but there were none there now, though their building stood squat and flat on the raised section of open ground that lifted to the right of the levee. Boese drove on to the dirt road that led all the way to the waterline and pulled over. The spillway was on his right now. He sat for a while with the engine off, his lights dulled to nothing, and looked beyond the levee to where three tankers were moored in the middle of the river. Six hundred yards from the shore, fully visible from here, with no raised riverbank to block the view. Far in the distance, he could make out the lights of Waterford 3 nuclear power facility.

  Lights behind him suddenly lit up the river road and he swung the Buick round, turning left and driving beyond the spillway itself, where the road ran right across the belly of the valley. Sometimes water seeped, as it had done now, with the ice-melt from further up the delta raising the height of the river. It was silver and black in the moonlight, like dull patches of mercury. Boese stopped the car on the blindside of the spillway and went round to the trunk. Inside, he found the weapons and the night-vision glasses he had requested. Quickly he climbed back, up past the army engineer’s building, and on to the wooden spillway, hidden in the lee of the first crane. The lights he had seen were from a taxi van and he could hear it now, lumbering along the river road. He watched its steady approach, then his attention was diverted to the lights that showed on the side of the tanker.

  The cab pulled up on to the stretch of unmade road and stopped. Boese crouched with the night-vision glasses to his eyes and watched. For a while nothing happened and he wondered if his information was correct. Then he heard the faint chug-chug of an outboard engine and he shifted his line of vision to the water. A launch, lit at the front, was cutting a path towards the shore. At the same time, the side door of the taxi van was slid back and Boese heard women’s voices. He looked to the van once again and saw the black cab driver helping the whores down one by one. They teetered in their high-heeled shoes on the loose stones, and slipped purses over their shoulders, tugging at the hemlines of skirts that barely reached their stocking tops. The engine from the launch grew louder and the cab driver was looking nervously back along the river road for any sign of a sheriff’s deputy.

  Boese stayed where he was until the boat hit shore and he witnessed two crewmen help the whores on board. He saw money change hands between one of the crewmen and the cab driver, and then the boat headed back towards the tanker. Boese lowered his glasses. The first weighted drops of rain began to spatter against his skull.

  Harrison and Penny drove away from their meeting with Rene Martinez, who was much chagrined by his current predicament. They had put it to him straight, for the second time now—the good-guy/bad-guy routine. Harrison with his lean arms folded across his faded denim shirt and his hair hanging loose, with his Tunnel Rat stare set deep in his eyes. Penny playing the clean-cut FBI agent, but with the same steel in his voice.

  ‘You got two choices, Rene.’ Penny made an open-handed gesture. ‘Either you set up a meeting with Manx, or you go to the farm for the rest of your life. It’s really very simple.’

  Harrison thought about it now, riding in Penny’s car, with one arm resting on the open window ledge, back through the projects north of Rampart Street. Black women and children were still selling ice cream and candy through their open windows, though darkness had fallen, and, with it, the threat of a storm.

  ‘Do a lotta that down here, don’t they,’ Harrison said.

  Penny looked where Harrison looked and grunted. ‘Had a probationer I was training one time,’ he said. ‘He figured they were doing crack deals right there in the open.’ He laughed to himself. ‘You never make a rapid entry through a back door in the projects, Harrison. You’ll find a fucking great freezer stacked up against it.’

  Harrison scratched the hairs on his leg, where they itched above the ankle holster. His snub-nosed .38 fitted snugly inside his boot. ‘Put me down on North Rampart and I’ll walk,’ he said. ‘We’ll pick up on Martinez again tomorrow.’

  Penny let him out on the sidewalk, gunned the oversized engine and roared back towards Highway 10 and his home out in Kenner. His wife had been away for a few days and he had to get the house cleaned up. The trouble was he always needed an incentive to clean the house and he had a six-pack of cold Guinness on the back seat. Harrison knew he’d be loaded by the time his wife got home. Clean one room—have a beer, clean another—have a beer.

  Harrison watched his car swing right and then he stuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans and started walking. The rain grew stiffer, falling straight down, though the wind howled through the narrow streets of the French Quarter. Two black guys eyed him from a doorway on the far side of the street. Harrison met their eyes and they looked away. He thought about going straight home, but he knew that once there, the loneliness that he never admitted to would creep up on him; so what was the point. Bourbon Street was beginning to think about Mardi Gras and the tourists would be out in force. But on the other hand, Maria might be playing in the Jazz Café tonight. Not that it did him any good—except maybe to look at her. He needed to avoid women in the quarter, especially after getting his butt chewed off over Lisa Guffy. Getting a woman in Idaho had not been part of the UCA deal, and he knew he could’ve been fired if the suits at the zoo had not had Tom Kovalski to deal with. Once again, he had realized how useful it was having such an influential ally at headquarters.

  He walked the length of Conti and paused on the corner of Bourbon. He thought about it for a minute or two, then headed on down to Decatur and made a left on to Frenchman. The sign in the window of the Apple Barrel glinted appealingly. It was early yet and Joey wouldn’t have any women lying on the bar doing belly-button shots. Joey must’ve seen him, because a cold bottle of Miller was waiting for him on the chipped wood of the counter.

  ‘Hey, Harrison, what’s happening, bro?’

  ‘Hey, Joe.’ Harrison slid on to a stool and picked up the bottle of beer, cool under the sweat of his palm. ‘Storm’s gonna blow like a trumpet player tonight.’

  ‘Sure looks that way.’

  The only other drinker was Tom, the English jazz promoter, who was waiting, as usual, for his hamburger from across the street. It was a local bar, used by local people and well away from the tourists. Harrison had not taken long to find it. Nobody knew what he did. Nobody ever knew what he did. He was looking forward to getting off the drugs squad and on to the
SOG, so maybe he could one day tell them. He had avoided the bust that 10 Squad had made on Café Brazil down the street.

  He sucked on the beer, and thought about a Jack Daniel’s, but decided against it. Instead, he plucked a Merit from his top pocket and Joey lit it for him. ‘How come you smoke two brands of cigarette, Harrison?’

  Harrison looked sideways at him. ‘Got hooked on the menthol in Vietnam. Cooled my hashish throat.’

  ‘Right on.’ Joey smiled. ‘You couldn’t quite quit on the Marlboro, though, huh?’

  ‘Guess I’ll always be a cowboy at heart.’

  Harrison shook the rain from his shoulders and ordered a bowl of soup, silently chastising himself for the quality of his meal habits. Sometimes he went till dinnertime without eating. The door opened behind him, rain washing in for a moment, before it was closed again. He looked over his shoulder and saw a small-boned Mexican standing there. A Buick was parked outside that had not been there when he came in. The Mexican looked at him, then at Tom, and sat down on a stool. The waiter clattered down the wooden staircase and placed the bowl of soup in front of Harrison. Joey served the Mexican with a beer which he sat and nursed quietly, looking at the array of different countries’ banknotes pasted on the walls behind the bar. Harrison looked sideways at him, then concentrated on his soup.

  Boese considered Harrison, seated now only two stools along from him. He had only remained in France for three days, then he had flown to Idaho. There were many Mexicans in Idaho. He had not been there very long; just long enough to sit in the diner in a town called Westlake and ask about the FBI man who’d been undercover there for two years. The talk was cheap and easy. It didn’t take long before one of the girls told him about another girl who’d been involved with the FBI man. Together they had gone north, then south to New Orleans, which was where he’d been posted. There, the girl had left him, perhaps there were too many lies between them.