The Ears of a Cat

by Roderick Hart

  Pearson explained and Ventris listened without interrupting.

  ‘Sounds far-fetched to me, but supposing you’re right, why would this woman want to contact me?’

  ‘She probably wants to sell. Once you had samples, you could develop a vaccine with the potential for future profit.’

  ‘And she’d think of me why: because my stock is so high in bleeding-heart liberal circles?’

  ‘Probably.’ Pearson smiled, though he didn’t feel like it. ‘Your reputation precedes you.’

  ‘You realise you’re asking me to leave my happy home on the dark side and venture blinking into the light.’

  Pearson acknowledged this. ‘But not for long, Mr Ventris.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have to be. Right, so what do you want me to do?’

  Pearson waited while a paralegal delivering folders placed one at each workstation and left. The sight of this woman rekindled Ventris’ zest for life.

  ‘Cast a dark shadow or what? Get a load of those!’

  He was referring to her breasts, which made an impression despite being constrained in the top of a dark business suit. Or possibly because of that. After all, what is constrained has the potential to be released, preferably into the custody of a rampant male like Ventris.

  ‘If I were you,’ Pearson said, responding to his question, ‘I’d play along. Appear to cooperate. Find out as much as you can, both about what she has in mind and anything you can about the woman herself.’

  ‘And get back to you in the public interest.’

  Pearson registered the bowls full of green apples provided for the delegates: they looked rather hard.

  ‘Why not? Break the habit of a lifetime. Feel good about yourself.’

  Ventris laughed. ‘What makes you think I don’t?’

  31

  Ventris was sitting in the lounge with his attorney, David Rubin, whose presence he found reassuring, a first line of defence when it came to legal action, usually commercial but more recently sexual harassment suits brought by younger women with a genuine grievance, an eye on the main chance or both. As he put it himself, pursued by hashslags.

  Four decades of living at the high table had resulted in Rubin sporting a sizeable double chin, one of the areas where Ventris himself had yet to put any on. In this department at least, he shone by comparison, a feeling he enjoyed. Rubin was aware of this but didn’t care. What he cared about was that of late his gut felt bloated, a condition he attributed, without benefit of professional opinion, to irritable bowel syndrome. Whatever the cause, he now found that cinching a belt round his midriff increased the discomfort, so he’d taken to wearing suspenders instead, transferring the strain of supporting his pants from the soft flesh of his waist to the hard bone of his shoulders. And in the event that he was overcome by an attack of wind, he carried in his briefcase an over-the-counter antispasmodic. Whether it reacted badly with his blood pressure medication, he had not tried to find out: he relied on the tablets too much to give them up.

  ‘I’m not sure I like this place so much.’

  Ventris looked round the bar: dark brown decor, concealed lighting, wall mounted TV no one was watching, bucket chairs with hardwood arms. There was also a grand piano with its lid up which, he was relieved to see, no one was trying to play.

  ‘Take your point, David, but it’s good enough for meeting this Saito girl.’

  ‘If she shows.’

  ‘She’ll show. On time. She’s Japanese.’

  Rubin wondered where Ventris had acquired this cultural insight, but he didn’t wonder long. As Saito entered, Ventris rose to greet her.

  ‘Miss Saito, good to see you,’ he said, noting she was so slight that there wasn’t a great deal to see. ‘This is my colleague, David Rubin.’ He was taken with the jet-black hair accentuating the paleness of her face, a reaction he had in common with Rafael Munoz. And he was almost as impressed by the long kanzashi skewered through her hair. Decorated with rubies set in silver, it was slender enough to cause serious damage. How she got it through airport security was anyone’s guess.

  Saito assumed that Rubin was present to corroborate Ventris’ version of their conversation in the event of a dispute. She was unaware that following the most recent accusation to hit the airwaves, he was also there to testify to the fact that Ventris kept his hands to himself throughout.

  ‘What can we offer you by way of refreshment, Miss Saito?’

  Settled with a bottle of water and ice in a glass, Saito explained why she was there.

  ‘I know you don’t have long, Mr Ventris, but as I told your PA, I represent Future World, a charitable foundation dedicated to the identification and reduction of man-made catastrophes.’

  ‘Earthquakes caused by fracking?’

  ‘Nothing on that scale.’

  ‘And I come into this how?’

  ‘We hope to establish laboratories in third world countries for the production of vaccines. As you know, there is a lack of such facilities where they are most needed. Somalia and Malawi, for example. We understand that by western standards this could be done very cheaply given sufficient expertise.’

  ‘Which I have and you don’t.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And why do you think I would help with this enterprise of yours?’

  Saito looked to Rubin who, she hoped, would back her up.

  ‘Two reasons, Mr Ventris. Any contribution you might make would be quantifiable and therefore have the potential to be offset against tax.’

  Rubin nodded. ‘True, Miss Saito. And the other reason?’

  ‘Without wishing to be rude…’

  But Ventris could handle rude, he’d been doing it for years.

  ‘Go ahead. By all means. Be my guest.’

  ‘Your public profile has taken a knock in recent times.’

  Rubin smiled grimly. ‘More than one.’

  ‘Thanks for that, David.’ Ventris turned back to his guest. ‘And you anticipate that a charitable venture like this might redress the balance. At the very sound of the name Ventris, the great American public will come over with a warm glow.’

  Saito was astonished. ‘That would not be achievable.’

  Ventris took a long look at this young woman. The outline of her figure showed clearly in a black pleated mini skirt and matching denim top. She seemed androgynous to him, and the older he got, the more attractive he found this quality. He had no idea why this was; it hadn’t always been the case, but he’d no intention of engaging a shrink to find out.

  ‘I like that,’ he said, ‘a woman not given to bullshit. Okay, so you have a proposal, something on paper?’

  She removed a folder from her shoulder bag and handed him her proposal. Rubin raised an enquiring eyebrow. A single sheet of paper? She couldn’t be serious. The girl was an amateur. But Ventris looked it over and liked what he saw.

  ‘There’s a lot to be said for brevity, Miss Saito. I’ll take this away, think about it and get back to you within two weeks.’

  Rubin looked at his watch. ‘We’re due upstairs in five.’

  ‘Indeed we are.’

  Ventris noticed Saito’s eyes stray to the piano.

  ‘Tinkle the ivories yourself?’ Seeing her puzzled look, he explained. ‘Do you play?’

  ‘Oh no, Mr Ventris.’

  ‘Only the great game of life,’ he suggested, wondering what her game really was.

  Not sure what to make of this suggestion and worried he was onto her, she didn’t reply.

  ‘My PA has your contact details?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Thank you for seeing me at such short notice,’ she said, rising to leave.

  They watched as she threaded her way out.

  Ventris was impressed. ‘How trim is that?’

  But Rubin
had given up any interest in trimness he ever had.

  ‘So tell me, Charles, what do you make of her, what’s her angle?’

  Ventris looked over her proposal again before replying.

  ‘Know what I think?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking.’

  ‘That young lady doesn’t want to produce a vaccine for anything. What she really wants is to mass produce a virus and release it into the environment.’

  If Rubin could have replayed the tape, he would have done so; had he heard Ventris correctly? He wouldn’t have been so taken aback if he’d known what Pearson had told him the day before.

  ‘Come on, Charles, why would anyone want to do a lunatic thing like that?’ Rubin was so shocked that Ventris ordered him another Calvados. ‘It makes no sense.’

  ‘Oh, but it does, my friend, if you consider the human race to be a pestilence on the face of the earth.’

  ‘Just supposing you’re right, and I don’t, what are you going to do?’

  ‘Help her.’

  Rubin was appalled. ‘Right, so you intend to collude in the extinction of the species! I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  According to Ventris, total wipeout by a virus wasn’t possible. However virulent it might be, there would always be some with more resistance than most. And viruses thrived where people congregated. When a killer virus appeared, it might well wipe out thousands, millions, but the more it thinned out the population, the tougher it made it for itself to spread. And there would come a time when it had run its course and that would be the end of it.

  ‘Take the Bubonic Plague,’ Ventris said, ‘virulent as hell but it petered out all by itself.’

  ‘Eventually.’

  ‘Yes. But it did. Or how about the Spanish flu outbreak after World War I? Killed millions but we’re still here, you and I. We always win in the end.’

  ‘Okay, Charles, but you can’t seriously consider helping this woman set up her labs anywhere, let alone Africa. If you’re right, people will die, and most of them will be African.’

  Ventris smiled grimly. ‘A second Black Death, so to speak.’

  ‘Black lives matter.’

  Ventris liked Rubin but considered him sentimental, and sentiment made a man weak.

  ‘No one’s life matters, and that includes yours, right? We can safely say that anyone who dies of anything was going to die anyway. And further to that, if the person dying is Christian or Muslim then death may surely be regarded as an early pass into the joys of the afterlife promised them in their respective scriptures.’

  Rubin took a quick gulp of apple brandy, knowing full well he would now have to leave his car in the park at California Plaza and take a taxi.

  ‘You failed to mention Judaism in your little list.’

  ‘That’s true, David, but the fact is I’m not entirely clear what Judaism has to say on this one.’

  ‘Well, I’m not a rabbi myself, but as the Mishnah so aptly puts it, Prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall.’

  Ventris looked doubtful. ‘The Mishnah, you say.’

  ‘I do, but not very often. So those who die were going to die anyway. Great. A logical position, no doubt, but what does that avail you when psychologic fails to support it?’

  ‘You mean by that the irrational?’

  ‘What you refer to as the irrational exists whether you like it or not. You have to take it into account. Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.’

  ‘Who said that? It sure as hell wasn’t you.’

  ‘Novalis.’

  Ventris smiled. ‘Oh yes, the incurable romantic who ran salt mines. Well, you may not be a rabbi now, but I’m beginning to think you were in a former existence.’

  Rubin ignored this, though he had to admit that his discourse had been overtaken by a preacherly note.

  ‘In any case, if you back this woman, you’d be bankrolling production facilities where the workers would be paid rock-bottom wages. Somalia. For God’s sake, Charles!’

  ‘Of course.’ Ventris smiled. ‘A major part of the attraction. And note well, I wouldn’t be fronting it, she would. Ideal. When it goes pear-shaped, which it might, no adverse publicity for Charles Armstrong Ventris. Absolutely none.’

  32

  Depending how much action she’d had the previous night, Cindy Horváth sometimes rose early, sometimes late, but she was seldom wakened by someone pounding on her door as early as this. And when she opened it, there he was; her most recent one-night stand. Had he forgotten something; his mobile phone, perhaps, his flavoured prophylactics?

  ‘Good morning, Miss Horváth. József Báthory, I like to think you remember.’

  She did, but that was no consolation. ‘You realise it’s six in the morning.’

  He held up his ID for inspection. ‘I’m sorry, but something has come up.’

  Horváth wrapped her housecoat about her and ushered him in.

  ‘So,’ she said, waving him to a chair, ‘you didn’t happen to mention you were a police officer when we were shagging the other night. That’s what you call undercover, is it?’

  ‘I must apologise for that.’

  This reply did not impress her; she’d heard it too often before.

  ‘In my book, József, if you know you shouldn’t do something, the trick is not to do it in the first place. If you go ahead anyway then apologise afterwards, you’re just going ahead and getting what you want, and in your case, we both know what that was. Oh, and by the way…’

  She asked Báthory to show her his ID again and, sure enough, her suspicion was confirmed.

  ‘The National Bureau of Investigation? What do you think I’m running here, a spy ring, a crystal meth operation?’

  Báthory laughed as if the whole thing was a joke, but he was invading her air with his aftershave again, though he clearly hadn’t shaved. Dark stubble was a giveaway. If he was going to make contact, the least he could have done was take more care.

  ‘Coffee? You’ll have to wait a while, though; I haven’t got it on yet.’

  In fact, she hadn’t washed out her percolator from the day before.

  Báthory declined her offer, a first in her limited experience of this young man.

  ‘So, József, what’s going on here?’

  ‘You’ve heard of Hugo Channing.’

  This was less a question than a statement of fact.

  ‘He contacted me some time ago.’

  ‘We have reason to believe he’ll visit Budapest two weeks from now.’

  ‘I know. He offered to meet me.’

  ‘No doubt, but he planned to be here anyway.’

  ‘And you have darkened my door to tell me why.’

  ‘Don’t take this personally, Ms Horváth, but you’re the icing on the cake, so to speak. Or perhaps I should say the cherry on the icing.’

  ‘Cut the crap, Báthory, you’re in my living room and I’m not properly dressed.’

  ‘Channing is scheduled to give a public lecture at the Central European University.’

  Feeling her housecoat slipping, Horváth gathered it round her knees and wondered why he was telling her this.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought nanotechnology a subversive topic.’

  Báthory was relieved. ‘Ah, so you don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t know what?’

  ‘On this occasion, that will not be his subject.’

  Where some police officers used notebooks, Báthory preferred his mobile phone, sending a steady stream of messages to himself for reference. He brought up one of them now.

  ‘His subject, and I quote, is the increasingly authoritarian posture of the present Hungarian administration and its continued assault on academic freedom.’

  ‘And the Great Leader takes a dim view
of this.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, but the Minister of Human Resources certainly does. You realise,’ he said, coming to the point at last, ‘that the Central European University is nothing more than a front for the liberal elite currently running the European Union to their own advantage and the ruination of the ordinary citizen.’

  It sounded to Horváth that while Báthory had the words off pat, there was little conviction behind them. Where he detected a political stream, he was happy to swim with it. Here was an officer who would go far.

  ‘And I might just add that Channing’s in the pocket of George Soros and his bosom buddy, the self-styled intellectual and failed politician, Michael Ignatieff.’

  ‘József, I may call you that, I hope…’

  Báthory nodded. ‘Of course, until I arrest you.’

  ‘Right, well, I know nothing about any of this.’

  He believed her, but if there was a bottom he hadn’t got to it yet.

  ‘You said earlier that Channing offered to meet you.’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Why would he want to do that? Did he give a reason?’

  ‘Maybe he’d seen some of my stunning videos on YouTube.’

  Báthory liked the sound of that. He’d seen them himself and salivated over them enough to subscribe to her channel.

  ‘You think he came across you by accident?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And somehow discovered your email address.’

  ‘I really don’t know.’

  Báthory scrolled down a page on his mobile phone.

  ‘In fact, he was provided with your address by a third party.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘A man you recently met in Trondheim.’

  Horváth was alarmed by the connections he was making; they were beginning to feel like an artfully fashioned net. Looking at his screen again, Báthory read out the name: Arne Christian Stenvik.

  ‘According to our contacts in Norway, you were the last person he met before he died. Your name is in his diary, not conclusive in itself, but staff at Persilleriet saw you together and he left shortly after you did.’