Better go gently with him. Nothing worse than a queen with a chip on his shoulder.”
“But I do go gently with him. All the time.”
“Yeah. Well. No-win situation probably. Hell’s it matter, anyway?”
Roper returned to the subject a couple of days later. Not of Corkoran, but of Jonathan’s presumed squeamishness regarding certain sorts of deals. Jonathan had been up to Daniel’s bedroom to suggest a swim, but Daniel wasn’t there. Roper, emerging from the royal suite, fell in beside him, and they walked downstairs together.
“Guns go where the power is,” he announced without preamble. “Armed power’s what keeps the peace. Unarmed power doesn’t last five minutes. First rule of stability. Don’t know why I’m preaching to you. Army chap, army family. Still, no point in getting you into something you don’t like.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting me into.”
They crossed the great hall on their way to the patio.
“Never sold toys? Weapons? Explosives? Tech?”
“No.”
“Ever bump into it? Ireland or somewhere? The trade?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Roper’s voice dropped. “Talk about it another time.”
He had spotted Jed and Daniel sitting at a table on the patio, playing L’Attaque. So he doesn’t talk to her about it, thought Jonathan, encouraged. She’s another child to him: not in front of the children.
Jonathan is jogging.
He says good morning to the Self Expression Wash & Beauty Salon no bigger than a garden shed. He says good morning to Spokesman’s Dock, where some weak rebellion had once been quelled and Amos the blind Rasta now lives in his tethered catamaran with its miniature windmill to recharge his batteries. His collie, Bones, sleeps peacefully on deck. Good morning, Bones.
Next comes the corrugated compound called Jam City Recorded & Vocal Music, full of chickens and yucca trees and broken perambulators. Good morning, chickens.
He glances back at Crystal’s cupola above the treetops. Good morning, Jed.
Still climbing, he reaches the old slave houses, where no one goes. Even when he comes to the last slave house he does not slow down but jogs straight through its smashed doorway to a rusted oil can that lies on its side in one corner.
Then stops. And listens, and waits for his breathing to settle, and flaps his hands to make his shoulders loose. From among the muck and old rags in the can he extracts a small steel spade and starts to dig. The handset is in a metal box, cached here by Flynn and his night raiders to Rooke’s specification. As Jonathan presses the white button, then the black button, and listens to the bird song of space-age electronics, a fat brown rat lollops across the floor and, like a little old lady on her way to church, lollops into the next-door house.
“How are you?” Burr says.
Good question, thinks Jonathan. How am I? I’m in fear, I’m obsessed by an equestrienne with an IQ of 55 when the sun’s shining. I’m clinging on to life by my fingernails twenty-four hours a day, which is what I seem to remember you promised me.
He recites his news. On Saturday a big Italian called Rinaldo flew in by Lear and left three hours later. Age forty-five, height six foot one, two bodyguards and one blond woman.
“Did you get the markings on his plane?”
The close observer has written them nowhere but knows them by heart.
Rinaldo owns a palace in the Bay of Naples, he says. The blonde is called Jutta and lives in Milan. Jutta, Rinaldo and Roper ate salad and talked in the summerhouse, while the bodyguards drank beer and sunbathed out of earshot lower down the hill.
Burr has follow-up questions concerning last Friday’s visitation of City bankers identified only by their Christian names. Was Tom fat and bald and pompous? Did Angus smoke a pipe? Did Wally have a Scottish accent?
Yes to all three.
And did Jonathan have the impression they had done business in Nassau and come to Crystal afterwards? Or did they simply fly London to Nassau, then Nassau–Crystal in the Roper jet?
“They did business in Nassau first. Nassau’s where they do the respectable deals. Crystal’s where they go off the record,” Jonathan replies.
Only when Jonathan has completed his report on Crystal’s visitors does Burr move to welfare matters.
“Corkoran gumshoes after me all the time,” says Jonathan. “Can’t seem to leave me alone.”
“He’s a has-been and he’s jealous. Just don’t press your luck. Not in any direction. Hear me?” He is referring to the office behind Roper’s bedroom. By some feat of intuition, he knows it is still Jonathan’s goal.
Jonathan returns the handset to its box and the box to its grave. He treads down the earth, scrapes dust over it, kicks bits of leaf, pine kernels, dried berries over the dust. He jogs down the hill to Carnation Beach.
“Hidah! Mist’ Thomas the magnificent, how you do today, sir, in your soul?”
It is Amos the Rasta, with his Samsonite briefcase. Nobody buys from Amos, but that never bothers him. Nobody much comes to the beach. All day long he will sit upright on the sand, smoking ganja and staring at the horizon. Sometimes he unpacks his Samsonite and sets out his offerings: shell necklaces and fluorescent scarves and twists of ganja rolled up in orange tissue paper. Sometimes he dances, rolling his head and grinning at the sky, while Bones, his dog, howls at him. Amos has been blind since birth.
“You been out runnin’ up there already, high on Miss Mabel Mountain, Mist’ Thomas? You been communin’ with voodoo spirits today, Mist’ Thomas, while you was up there doin’ your runnin’? You been sendin’ messages to those voodoo spirits, Mist’ Thomas, high up on Miss Mabel Mountain?” Miss Mabel Mountain being seventy feet at best.
Jonathan keeps smiling—but what is the point of smiling to a blind man?
“Oh sure. High as a kite.”
“Oh sure! Oh boy!” Amos executes an elaborate jig. “I don’t tell nothin’ to nobody, Mist’ Thomas. A blind beggar, he don’t see no evil and he don’t hear no evil, Mist’ Thomas. And he don’t sing no evil, no sir. He sell scarves to gentlemen for twenty-five sweet dollar bills and go his way. You like to buy a fine handmade silk foulard, Mist’ Thomas, for yo’ ladylove, sir, in exquisite taste?”
“Amos,” says Jonathan, laying a hand on his arm for good fellowship, “if I smoked as much ganja as you do, I’d be sending messages to Father Christmas.”
But when he reaches the cricket ground he doubles back up the hill and recaches the magic box in the colony of discarded beehives before taking the tunnel to Crystal.
Concentrate on the guests, Burr had said.
We must have the guests, Rooke had said. Everyone who sets foot on the island, we must have his name and number.
Roper knows the worst people in the world, Sophie had said.
They came in all sizes and durations: weekend guests, lunch guests, guests who dined and stayed and left next morning, guests who did not take so much as a glass of water but strolled with Roper on the beach while their protection trailed them at a distance, then quickly flew away again, like guests with work to do.
Guests with planes, guests with yachts; guests with neither, who had to be fetched by Roper jet or, if they lived on a neighboring island, Roper chopper, with the Crystal insignia and the Ironbrand colors of blue and gray. Roper invited them, Jed welcomed them and did her duty by them, though it appeared to be a matter of real pride to her that she knew not the first thing about their business.
“I mean, why should I, Thomas?” she protested, in a gulpy stage voice, after the departure of a particularly awful pair of Germans. “One of us worrying is quite enough in any household. I’d far rather be like Roper’s investors and say, ‘Here you are, here’s my money and my life, and mind you bloody well look after them.’ I mean don’t you think it’s the only way, Corks? I’d never sleep otherwise—well, would I?”
“Dead right, old heart. Go with the flow, my advice,” said Corkoran.
You
stupid little equestrienne! Jonathan raged at her, while he piously agreed with her sentiments. You’ve put yourself in size-twelve blinkers, and now you’re asking for my approval!
For his memorizing, he filed the guests by category and dubbed each category with a piece of Roperspeak.
First came the keen young Danbys and MacArthurs, alias the Mac-Danbies, who manned the Ironbrand offices in Nassau and went to the same tailor and trailed the same classless accents and came when Roper beckoned and mixed when Roper told them mix, and left in a flurry or they’d never make it to their desks in time next day. Roper had no patience with them; neither had Jonathan. The MacDanbies were not Roper’s allies, not his friends. They were his cover, forever twittering about land deals in Florida and price shifts on the Tokyo exchange and providing Roper with the boring outer shell of his respectability.
After the MacDanbies came Roper’s Frequent Fliers, and no Crystal party was complete without a smattering of the Frequent Fliers: such as the perennial Lord Langbourne, whose luckless wife minded the children while he danced groin-to-groin with the nanny; such as the sweet young titled polo player—Angus to his friends—and his darling wife, Julia, whose shared purpose in life, apart from croquet at Sally’s and tennis at John-and-Brian’s and reading housemaids’ novels by the pool, was to sit out their time in Nassau until it was safe for them to claim the house in Pelham Crescent and the castle in Tuscany and the five-thousand-acre estate in Wiltshire with its fabled art collection and the island off the coast of Queensland, all of which were presently the property of some fiscal offshore no-man’s-land, together with a couple of hundred million to oil the wheels.
And Frequent Fliers are in honor bound to bring their house-guests.
“Jeds! Over here! You remember Arno and Georgina, chums of Julia’s, dinner with us in Rome, February? Fish place behind the Byron? Come on, Jeds!”
Jed frowns the dearest frown. Jed opens first her eyes in incredulous recognition, then her mouth, but holds a beat before she is able to overcome her joyful astonishment. “Gosh, Arno! But, darling, you’ve lost pounds! Georgina, darling, how are you? Super! Gosh. Hullo!”
And the obligatory embrace for each of them, followed by a reflective Mmmh, as if she were enjoying it a little more than she ought. And Jonathan in his fury actually goes Mmmh in imitation of her under his breath, swearing that next time he catches her pretending like this he will leap up and shout: “Cut! One more time, please. Jed, darling. This time for real!”
And after the Frequent Fliers came the Royal & Ancients: the sub-county English debutantes escorted by brain-dead offshoots of the royal brat pack and policemen in attendance; Arab smilers in pale suits and snow-white shirts and polished toecaps; minor British politicians and ex-diplomats terminally deformed by self-importance; Malaysian tycoons with their own cooks; Iraqi Jews with Greek palaces and companies in Taiwan; Germans with Eurobellies moaning about Ossies; hayseed lawyers from Wyoming wanting to do the best by mah clients and mahself; retired vastly rich investors gleaned from their dude plantations and twenty-million-dollar bungalows—wrecked old Texans on blue-veined legs of straw, in parrot shirts and joky sun hats, sniffing oxygen from small inhalers; their women with chiseled faces they never had when they were young, and tucked stomachs and tucked bottoms, and artificial brightness in their unpouched eyes. But no surgery on earth could spare them the manacled slowness of old age as they lowered themselves into the kids’ end of the Crystal pool, clutching the ladder lest they split again and become what they feared to be before they took the plunge at Dr. Marti’s clinic.
“My goodness, Thomas,” Jed whispers, in a strangled aside to Jonathan, as a blue-haired Austrian countess dog-paddles herself breathlessly to safety. “How ever old do you suppose she is?”
“Depends which bit you’re thinking of,” says Jonathan. “Averaged out, probably around seventeen.” And Jed’s lovely laugh—the real one—her bucking, born-free laugh, while she once again touches him with her eyes.
After the Royal & Ancients came Burr’s pet hates, and probably Roper’s too, for he called them the Necessary Evils, and these were the shiny-cheeked merchant bankers from London with eighties striped blue shirts and white collars and double-barreled names and double chins and double-breasted suits, who said “ears” when they meant “yes” and “hice” when they meant “house” and “school” when they meant “Eton”; and in their train, the bully-boy accountants—the bean counters, Roper called them—looking as if they’d come to extract a voluntary confessions, with take-away-curry breath and wet armpits and voices like formal cautions that from here on everything you say will be taken down and faked in evidence against you.
And after them again, their non-British counterparts: Mulder, the tubby notary from Curaçao, with his twinkling smile and knowing waddle; Schreiber of Stuttgart, constantly apologizing for his ostentatiously good English; Thierry from Marseilles, with his pinched lips and toyboy secretary; the bond sellers from Wall Street, who never came in less than fours, as if there really were security in numbers; and Apostoll the striving little Greek-American, with his toupee like a black bear’s paw, his gold chains and gold crosses and unhappy Venezuelan mistress toppling uncomfortably behind him on her thousand-dollar shoes as they head hungrily for the buffet. Catching Apostoll’s glance, Jonathan turns away but is too late.
“Sir? We have met, sir. I never forget a face,” Apostoll declares, whipping off his dark glasses and holding up everybody behind him. “My name is Apostoll. I am a legionary of God, sir.”
“Course you’ve met him, Apo!” Roper cuts in deftly. “We’ve all met him. Thomas. You remember Thomas, Apo! Used to be the night chap at Meister’s. Came west to seek his fortune. Chum of ours from way back. Isaac, give the Doc some more shampoo.”
“I am honored, sir. Forgive me. You are English? I have many British connections, sir. My grandmother was related to the Duke of Westminster, and my uncle on my mother’s side designed the Albert Hall.”
“My goodness. That’s wonderful,” says Jonathan politely.
They shake hands. Apostoll’s is cool as snakeskin. Their eyes meet. Apostoll’s are haunted and a little mad—but who is not a little mad at Crystal on a perfect starlit night with the Dom flowing like the music?
“You are in Mr. Roper’s employ, sir?” Apostoll persists.
“You have joined one of his great enterprises? Mr. Roper is a man of rare power.”
“I’m enjoying the hospitality of the house,” Jonathan replies.
“You could do no better, sir. You are a friend of Major Corkoran’s perhaps? I think I saw you two exchanging pleasantries some minutes back.”
“Corky and I are old pals.”
But as the group moves on, Roper takes Apostoll quietly aside, and Jonathan hears the words “Mama Low’s” spoken with discretion.
“Basically, you see, Jed,” says an evil by the name of Wilfred as they lounge at white tables under a hot moon, “what we at Harvill Maverich are offering Dicky here is the same service as the crooks are offering, but without the crooks.”
“Oh, Wilfred, but how terribly boring. Wherever will poor Roper get his kicks from?”
And she catches Jonathan’s eye again, causing serious mayhem. How does this happen? Who looks first? For this is not affectation. This is not just playing games with somebody her own age. This is looking. And looking away. And looking again. Roper, where are you now we need you?
Nights with evils are endless. Sometimes the talk is got up as bridge or backgammon in the study. Drinks are self-serve, the ushers are told to hop it, the study door is guarded by the protection, the servants know to stay away from that side of the house. Only Corkoran is admitted—these days not always Corkoran.
“Corky’s fallen from grace a bit,” Jed confides to Jonathan, then bites her lip and says no more.
For Jed too has her loyalty. She is no easy frontier-crosser, and Jonathan has warned himself accordingly.
“Chaps come to me,
you see,” Roper explains.
The two men are enjoying another of their strolls. This time it is evening. They have played fierce tennis, but neither has won. Roper doesn’t bother with scoring unless he is playing for money, and Jonathan has no money. Perhaps for this reason, their conversations flow without constraint. Roper walks close, letting his shoulder ride unconsciously against Jonathan’s, as it did at Meister’s. He possesses an athlete’s carelessness of touch. Tabby and Gus are following at a distance. Gus is the new crusher, recently added to the strength. Roper has a special voice for chaps who come to him:
“‘Meestaire Ropaire, geeve us state-of-art toys.’” He graciously pauses to allow Jonathan to laugh at his mimicry. “So I ask ’em: State of what art, old boy? Compared to what?’ No answer. Some parts of the world, if you gave ’em a Boer War cannon, they’d move straight to the top of the heap.” An impatient gesture of the hand moves them there, and Jonathan feels Roper’s elbow in his ribs. “Other countries, pots of money, mad for high tech, nothing else will do, got to be like the fellow next door. Not like him. Better than. Miles better. They want the smart bomb that gets into the lift, goes to the third floor, turns left, clears its throat, blows up the master of the house but doesn’t hurt the television set.” The same elbow nudges against Jonathan’s upper arm. “Thing they never realize is you want to play smart, you’ve got to have the smart backup. And the chaps to work it. No good buying the latest fridge and shoving it in your mud hut if you haven’t got electricity to plug it into, is it? Well, is it? What?”
“Of course not,” says Jonathan.
Roper plunges his hands into the pockets of his tennis shorts and gives a lazy smile.
“Used to enjoy supplying guerrillas when I was your age. Ideals before money . . . cause of human liberty. Didn’t last long, thank God. Today’s guerrillas are tomorrow’s fat cats. Good luck to ’em. Real enemies were the big power governments. Everywhere you looked, big governments were there ahead of you, flogging anything to anybody, breaking their own rules, cutting each other’s throats, backing the wrong side, making it up to the right side. Mayhem. Us independent chaps got squeezed into the corner every time. Only thing to do, get in ahead of ’em, beat ’em to the draw. Balls and foresight, all we had left to rely on. Pushing the envelope, all the time. No wonder some chaps went off the reservation. Only place to do business. Young Daniel sail today?”
The Night Manager Page 30
