Mexico Set

by Len Deighton

  ‘Thanks, Gloria. Samson will be fine.’

  ‘Will you let me put these things away for you?’ she said. She got to her feet, gulped the rest of her brandy and made for the stairs. I was going to say no but she was already on her way.

  I shrugged.

  She’d been upstairs about five minutes when I heard a heavy thump that made me think she’d knocked over the bedside TV set. I hurried upstairs and went into the bedroom. It was dark, but by the light of the bedside lamp I could see Gloria’s clothes and silk underwear trailed across the room. Gloria was on the far side of the bed. She was stark naked. She’d just finished righting the heavy chair she’d knocked on its side. Now she stood arms akimbo as if about to do her morning gymnastics. ‘What the hell…?’ I said.

  ‘It was the only way I could think of getting you up here,’ she said. ‘It would have been corny to call to you.’

  ‘Cut it out, Gloria. You said you’ve just come from your boyfriend.’ She had a magnificent figure, and I found it impossible not to stare at her.

  ‘There’s no boyfriend. I said that in case you had some woman here already.’

  ‘What’s the joke?’

  ‘No joke. I want a second chance on what I declined the other day. I was thinking about it. I was silly.’ She climbed into bed and pulled the duvet over her up to her neck. She shivered. ‘Hey, this bed is freezing cold. Haven’t you ever heard of electric blankets? Come and warm me up.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘No security risk, Bernard. I’ve been vetted and cleared for all categories of documents.’ She smiled dreamily and shook her head so that her hair shone in the lamplight. ‘Come along, action man. Office talk says you are impulsive and instinctive.’ She must have seen something in my face, for she quickly added. ‘No, no one at the office knows. Your secretary thinks I gave the tickets to the duty messenger. It’s not a joke, I swear it.’

  She was irresistible. She was so young and so earnest. I undressed. She said nothing but she watched me, smiling to share the absurdity of our folly. As I got into bed she stretched right over me to switch off the light. I wanted her; I grabbed her.

  Afterwards, long afterwards, I found myself staring at the bedside table that stood at what had once been my wife’s side of the bed. There was a glimmer of light coming from the hall. I could see a history book that Fiona had never read beyond page 30, a comb and a packet of aspirins. She always combed her hair as she got out of bed in the morning. It was almost a reflex action, done before she was fully awake.

  ‘Don’t go to sleep,’ said Gloria.

  ‘I’ve never been more awake.’

  ‘Are you thinking about your wife…your children.’

  ‘The children are away.’

  ‘I know that, you fool. I know everything about you, now that I work with your secretary.’

  ‘Have you been prying?’ I said with pretended severity.

  ‘Of course I have. It’s what we do, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not to each other.’

  ‘Sometimes to each other,’ she corrected me.

  ‘Yes, sometimes to each other,’ I said.

  ‘I wish you trusted me…really trusted me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I love you,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t love me. I’m old enough to be your father.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with love?’

  ‘It could never come to anything; you and me…it could never come to anything serious, Gloria.’

  ‘Do you hate that name – Gloria?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Because you say it as if you hated it. My family call me Zu, its short for Zsuzsa.’

  ‘Well, Zu, I don’t hate the name Gloria…’

  She laughed and hugged me, and bent her head to bite my shoulder in mock anger. Then suddenly she was serious and, stroking the blue-striped cotton duvet, she said, ‘Have you been in this bed with other women? Since your wife left you, have you?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘I didn’t realize that. It was insensitive of me.’

  ‘No, it’s good. I can’t stay celibate for the rest of my life.’

  ‘You still love her?’

  ‘I miss her. You live with someone, you have children and watch them grow up. You worry together, you share bad times…she’s a part of my life.’

  ‘Will she come back, do you think?’

  ‘It’s not something we should be discussing,’ I said. ‘There was an official reminder circulated in the office about her. My wife’s disappearance is now covered by the Official Secrets Act.’

  ‘I don’t care about the office, Bernard. I care about you…’ A long pause. ‘And about me.’

  ‘She won’t come back. They never come back.’

  ‘You’re angry,’ she said. ‘You’re not sad, you’re angry. It’s not the political betrayal, it’s the personal betrayal that is making you so bitter.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ I said.

  I could see clearly now as my eyes adjusted to the dim light from the hall. She propped herself up on her elbow to see my face better. The bed covering slid from her shoulders and the light traced the lines of her nakedness. ‘It’s not nonsense. Your wife didn’t defect because she read Das Kapital. She must have worked on a one-to-one basis with a Soviet case officer. For years she did that. It was an assignation; a romance, a seduction. No matter how chaste the physical relationship between them, your wife was seduced.’

  ‘It’s a romantic idea, Zu, but that’s not exactly the way these things work.’

  ‘Women have personal relationships. They don’t give loyalty to abstractions the way that men do.’

  ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you because this particular Soviet agent is a woman. Most spies are men.’

  ‘Most spies are homosexuals,’ she said. And that stopped me short. So many of the ones placed in Western society were homosexuals – latent or active – and it is true that the KGB depended upon regular and frequent personal contact. Our people in the East could not move so easily, and personal contact was confined to emergencies.

  ‘Homosexuals are the most socially mobile element in Western society,’ I said glibly.

  ‘Promiscuous, you mean. Cabinet Minister one night, laboratory technician the next. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘That’s what I mean.’

  ‘I hope you don’t think I’m promiscuous,’ she said, moving from the general to the personal in that way that women so often do.

  ‘Aren’t you?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be beastly, darling.’ She put her hand out and touched my face. ‘What are you thinking about?’

  I remembered what Stinnes had told the clumsy Pavel Moskvin in the empty Biedermann beach-house in Mexico. You rush in like a rapist when we are in the middle of a seduction, he said. On more than one occasion I’d spoken in the same terms. I’d warned Dicky that Stinnes was not being recruited, he was being enrolled. Recruiting is a seduction, I’d told him, but enrolment is a divorce. You recruit an agent by glamorizing that innocent’s future. But an enemy agent like Stinnes is not susceptible to romance. You bring him over by promises of house, motor car and payments of alimony. ‘Nothing,’ I answered.

  ‘You can be so distant,’ she said suddenly. ‘You make me feel as if I was no longer here. No longer necessary.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I reached out and pulled her close to me. Her body was cold as she snuggled against me, and I pulled the bedclothes up almost over our faces. She kissed me. ‘You’re here; you’re necessary,’ I said.

  ‘I do love you, Bernard. I know you think I’m immature but I love you desperately.’

  ‘I think you’re very mature,’ I said, caressing her.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said dreamily. And then, as the thought came to her, ‘You won’t hide me from your children, will you?’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Of course.’

>   ‘I’m good with children.’

  ‘You’re good with grown-ups too,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. She snuggled down in the bed and cuddled me. I stayed awake as long as I could. I was frightened of going to sleep in case I had another nightmare about MacKenzie and woke up screaming and bathed in sweat the way I had two or three times before. But eventually I dozed off. I didn’t dream at all. Gloria was good for me.

  24

  It was like stepping into a sauna bath to get off the plane into the heat of Mexico City. I arrived on a particularly bad day, when the humidity and temperature had reached a record-breaking high. Like a city under bombardment, the steamy streets echoed with constant rolls of distant thunder that never got louder. And black-headed cumulo-nimbus clouds, poised over the mountains, did not bring the threatened rainstorms. Such weather plays upon the nerves of even the most acclimatized inhabitants, and the police statistics show a pattern of otherwise unaccountable violence that peaks at this time of year.

  ‘I’ll have to talk with Stinnes,’ I told Werner. ‘I’ve got to see him face to face.’ We were in the apartment that belonged to Zena’s uncle. The list of breakages hanging by the phone had grown much longer. Perhaps that was another sign of the way the oppressive weather made everyone so jumpy. I was reluctant to move away from the air-conditioner, but the air coming through it was warm, and the noise of the motor was so loud that it was difficult to hear what Werner was saying in reply. I cupped my ear.

  ‘He’ll be ready to go on Friday,’ said Werner, raising his voice as he said it a second time. ‘Just as London requested. Friday; no sooner and no later.’ Even Werner, who seemed to enjoy the hot weather, had finally succumbed to the high humidity. He was shirtless and continually gulping deep draughts of iced lemonade. I’d told him that it would not help but he persisted. Werner could be very stubborn at times.

  I said, ‘London will not authorize the payment of such a large sum of money until someone on the spot checks with the recipient and okays it, and I am the someone on the spot.’

  Zena came into the room bringing more iced lemonade. She said, ‘His embassy has restricted everyone’s movements. It’s not so easy for them to go strolling in and out as they used to do.’

  ‘I find that difficult to believe,’ I said. ‘Stinnes is a KGB man. He doesn’t have to take any notice of anything the embassy says; he can tell the ambassador to drop dead.’

  Zena interpreted my response as a sign of nervousness. ‘It will be all right,’ she said, and smiled at me in the patronizing way she did so often with Werner.

  ‘It won’t be all right,’ I said. ‘London won’t authorize the money…not this kind of money.’

  ‘Then tell London that they must authorize it,’ said Zena.

  ‘My standing with London Central is not so good that they will take my orders so readily,’ I explained. ‘They’ll want some questions answered.’

  ‘What questions?’ said Werner.

  ‘They’ll ask why Stinnes is so insistent upon having the money up front.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Zena, who would be surprised at anyone wanting money any other way.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ I said. ‘Why won’t Stinnes wait until he’s in the UK? What’s Stinnes going to do in the middle of Mexico City with a suitcase full of pound notes?’

  ‘American dollar bills,’ said Zena. ‘That’s what he asked for, used hundred-dollar bills.’

  Zena’s manner annoyed me and I snapped at her. ‘Golden sovereigns, zlotys, shark teeth or cowrie shells…what’s the difference?’ I said. ‘Why carry a case filled with cash through a rough town like this? What’s wrong with a bank transfer or a letter of credit or even a bearer bond?’

  ‘I wonder if Erich thought of sovereigns,’ said Zena. ‘Do you know, I think he might have preferred sovereigns or krugerrands, even, to US paper. How heavy would it be in gold?’

  I ignored her question. ‘Whatever he chooses to have as a payment, he’ll still have it with him when he gets into the car, won’t he? So if we were acting in bad faith we could easily take it away from him. I can’t see what’s in his mind.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll have it with him,’ said Zena very casually, as if wondering whether the storm would come and the rain cool the streets. ‘Erich is clever. He’ll put it away somewhere where no one else can get their hands on it.’

  ‘Will he?’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I’d do,’ said Zena.

  ‘Nip into the bank, and give it to the cashier?’ I said mockingly.

  She rose to my bait. ‘Or give it to someone he trusts,’ said Zena.

  I laughed. ‘He gives his money to someone he trusts, but delivers his body to people he doesn’t trust? I’d say anyone who followed that line of reasoning is an imbecile.’ I looked at her to see what made her so sure about what Stinnes had in mind. There was no doubt that she had great influence over him. Now I began to wonder if Zena was thinking of delivering him to us, and then stealing his money from him. Poor Erich Stinnes.

  ‘No doubt you do,’ she said haughtily. ‘That’s because, now your wife has left you, you have no faith or trust in anything or anyone. But there are trustworthy people in this world.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘There are trustworthy people in this world, but you have to take such unacceptable risks to find out who they are.’

  She smiled as if pitying me and with unmuted sarcasm said, ‘Life is difficult, isn’t it? You have to risk what you need to get what you want.’ She picked up the coffee-cups from the table and put them on a tray, making more noise than was necessary. ‘I have to go out, Werner,’ she said, as if by adding his name I would not be privy to this item of information.

  ‘Yes, darling,’ said Werner.

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs Volkmann,’ I said. ‘It was nice to talk with you.’ She glared at me. She knew I’d come back to the apartment with Werner only because I knew she had an appointment.

  ‘I wish you and Zena got along better,’ said Werner after she had gone.

  ‘You mean you wish I’d be more polite to her.’

  ‘She’s not the easiest of people to get along with,’ said Werner. ‘But you always seem to say the wrong things.’

  ‘Did you get the gun for me, Werner?’

  ‘I did my best.’ I followed him over to the big bookcase in which chinaware was displayed. He opened a locked drawer. Reaching into it, and groping about behind the cloth-wrapped silver cutlery, he got a Colt .38 Detective Special. He handed it to me. I took it from the fancy tooled-leather holster and examined it. Its nickel finish had almost all worn off; it must have been a quarter of a century old. At some recent time it had been fitted with a hammer shroud to reduce the chance of its discharging accidentally and shooting a hole in someone’s foot. ‘I know you wanted a small automatic with a silencer but this is all I could get at such short notice,’ said Werner apologetically.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. I tried to say something nice about it other than it might be a valuable antique. ‘These steel-frame guns are easier to hold against the recoil the short barrel gives. I just want it to wave about, in case Stinnes suddenly has a change of mind.’

  ‘Only one box of bullets, but they are not too ancient.’

  ‘It’s Stinnes. I just don’t like the feel of it, Werner,’ I said. I stuck the gun in the waist of my trousers and almost fell to the floor with the weight of it. I needed the box of bullets in my pocket to balance me. ‘It’s almost as if Zena doesn’t want me to see Stinnes.’

  ‘She’s become protective about him. She thinks London Central are out to swindle everyone. And frankly, Bernard, you don’t do very much to lessen her suspicions.’

  ‘And what about you?’ I asked. ‘Do you share the suspicions?’

  ‘If you were promising Stinnes the money, I’d be sure he was going to get it. But they’re keeping you out of all that, aren’t they?’

  ‘They’ll have to send me the money soon. They’ll have to ha
ve it here by Friday or they can’t expect me to get him on to the plane.’

  Werner pinched his nose with his finger and thumb. ‘Well, I’m not sure London will send you the money,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean, Werner?’

  ‘Your friend Henry Tiptree arrived here in the city. What would you bet me that he’s not arranging the cash payment. They’ll keep you out of it, Bernard.’

  ‘Tiptree? How do you know?’

  ‘I know,’ said Werner. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well. Let him play his secret games if that’s what London wants him to do. It’s right what you said, Bernie. It’s dangerous to carry a bagful of cash across this town. There are plenty of people here who’ll knife you for fifty centavos. Plenty of them.’

  ‘But I still don’t understand why Zena is so keen to prevent me meeting Stinnes,’ I said. ‘We can’t go on with this absurd business of me talking to you and Zena, and then you bringing messages back from Stinnes. It was all right at the beginning but now time is tight.’

  ‘What difference does it make?’ said Werner. ‘You talking to him; me talking to him; Zena talking to him. What’s the difference?’

  ‘If Stinnes pulls out at the last moment. Or if there is some other kind of cock-up…and it’s quite possible that something will go wrong…then I’d like to think it was my fault rather than yours.’

  ‘It will be all right,’ said Werner. ‘But Erich is very nervous. He has enemies there in the office with him; it’s dangerous for him.’