The November Man

by Bill Granger

  The voice at the other end of the line finished the obligatory salutation: “Everything must go ahead.”

  So. The code was complete.

  Gorki realized he felt immense dread in that moment. He gripped the receiver tightly.

  He knew the voice on the line. There was no mistake.

  It was Alexa.

  13

  CAPTAIN BOLL

  Devereaux walked into the apartment building on the Rue de la Concorde Suisse. It was a bright morning, three days of hiding after the incident on the road to Chillon. He had taken the time of retreat to try to think his way through all that had happened. Twice he had visited Philippe in the school the boy attended. Philippe had understood about everything Devereaux told him. To see the understanding in Philippe’s clear blue eyes—which were set hot and shining in that brown face—was to see a clear reflection of his own thoughts.

  He did not try to telephone Rita Macklin in the troubled Philippines. There was no way to explain to her what he would do next.

  They had had a conversation once upon a time and it had never reached a resolution.

  In the conversation, Rita said, “Would you try to go back? Into the old trade?”

  In the conversation—which they both believed they had never actually taken part in—Devereaux replied, “I would never go back. That’s what we went through all that for. That’s why we can be together.”

  Rita said, “But if you had to go back. To survive?”

  “I wouldn’t do it. But if I had to go back, to survive, what would it do to us? I mean, what would you do then?” Because they both knew the linchpin that held them together was that he was quit of the old trade.

  It was a conversation that always stopped at that point—if it ever took place in reality or only in their separate thoughts. It had to stop there. Neither of them wanted to know the end of the conversation.

  Devereaux turned in at the gate and crossed the walk lined with tulips to the door. He expected what he found there.

  He opened the door to the lobby and the large policeman in bulky blue seemed to have been studying him through the glass. The Swiss are not subtle about their weapons. The policeman had already produced an automatic weapon—it looked to Devereaux like a variation on the Uzi—and had it pointed at Devereaux when he entered the lobby. The policeman had some words and Devereaux gave him some others.

  The journey to the police station was framed in silence. Devereaux had made all the necessary calls abroad from the hotel in Lugano, during the three days of his hiding.

  The police station of Lausanne smelled exactly like all the other police stations in the world. There was sweat, a certain musty sense of hopelessness, and the smell of despair that is mated with the sounds of iron doors closing shut very hard.

  Captain Boll was on the second floor and his room was spare. The window faced south, toward the lake, and you could even see the lake through the trees. The trees were gaining foliage quickly in the warm sun and thickening above the red rooftops on the terraces below.

  Captain Boll was even bulkier than the policeman who had been waiting in the apartment building. He did not wear a uniform and he seemed put out. His eyes were small, not particularly shrewd, and his brows beetled together above a long, wide nose that betrayed some liking for Swiss wines.

  Boll indicated a hard chair in the middle of the room—directly in front of the large, bare desk. Devereaux sat down and waited. His face was wreathed in wrinkles and calm. His eyes were steady and cool. He felt ready—which was not the same as feeling in charge. To do something was to exist. He had begun the process.

  Boll said his name and Devereaux waited.

  “This is about murder. Three people killed in your building. Two of them outside your apartment.”

  Devereaux said nothing. Words were not really expected, he thought. Captain Boll had something to say.

  But Boll surprised him by waiting as well, his hands flat and placid as rowboats on the desktop.

  “I was in Lugano,” Devereaux began. “Three days. Visiting my son.”

  “I know that,” Captain Boll said, surprising him for a second time. “It was convenient to be in Lugano, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The policeman said you didn’t seem surprised to be arrested.”

  “I am rarely surprised. Or perhaps my innocence reassures me,” Devereaux said.

  “You aren’t accused of anything.”

  “Of course I am,” he said.

  Silence again. There was a wonderful warm breeze from the south that brought smells of the lake and the trees through the window. The bare room warmed with the sun. The two men waited. The silence was complete.

  Captain Boll sighed. He got up and went to the window and looked down at the housetops. “I should be sailing today. It’s early but it is running good and no one is in the lake,” Captain Boll said. His voice was surprisingly soft, Devereaux thought. Devereaux was on guard now because the soft voice did not seem to fit the big man or the situation they were talking about.

  “You are an American agent.” Boll turned as he said it.

  “Was,” Devereaux began.

  “Peterson,” said Captain Boll.

  “That’s one of the names,” Devereaux said, giving ground a little the way a fisherman feeds the line after the hook goes in.

  “How did this killing concern you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But it did concern you?”

  “It must have,” Devereaux said. “There would be too much coincidence to suppose it didn’t.”

  “You are retired. From your… profession?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are much too young.”

  “I am much too tired to continue.”

  Boll smiled. The smile might have meant anything.

  “The same with me. But I have not grown rich enough yet to sail every day.”

  “I was in Lugano,” Devereaux said.

  “Yes. And the woman at the brasserie, Claudette Longtemps, she said two men came for you the day before. They questioned her and threatened her. Very nasty people. They were killed. But you were in Lugano. So. Did you have someone kill them?”

  “No,” Devereaux said.

  “A woman, perhaps?”

  For the moment, puzzlement crossed Devereaux’s face. That made Boll frown. Was he such a good actor?

  “A woman, M. Devereaux?” said Captain Boll.

  “I don’t understand.” The words came out simply, like the truth.

  “A half hour before this horrible thing, a woman—a woman who was noticed with great interest by so many men in the area that their descriptions make me believe she is quite beautiful—hired one of our young thugs in Lausanne to break the window of the lobby of the building in the Rue de la Concorde Suisse. The woman wanted to draw the concierge from the lobby briefly enough to pass into the building. To go to your rooms, M. Devereaux.”

  “What description?”

  “It is not your wife, M. Devereaux. We have had a good long time to check on everything. Your wife is a journalist?”

  “Yes. She is not my wife,” he added, automatically trying to separate Rita from this though he knew that was not possible.

  “She is in Manila. She booked Swissair. She left a wide trail.”

  Devereaux twisted in the chair. He realized it was designed in such a way that it would never be comfortable, like one of those modern stools attempted from time to time by famous architects which never work out.

  “Rita is a journalist, nothing more. I came to Switzerland to live, to be on the edge of things and not in them anymore.”

  “Do you think I’m a policeman, monsieur? I am something more than that. The Swiss are prepared for nearly everything, monsieur. That is our nature. That is why nearly nothing ever happens. And then something like this. Do you have an idea of what has happened?”

  Devereaux waited for a long moment to pass betwee
n them. He spoke in a monotone. He knew the tone of voice that would satisfy both of them.

  “The woman, whoever the woman was, went to the apartment to kill me. The two men, whoever the men were, went to the apartment for the same purpose. Apparently, neither of them was aware of the other.”

  “And the woman killed all three—”

  “No. Not the concierge. She wouldn’t have hired whoever she hired to lure the concierge out of the building just to end up killing her.”

  “Yes,” said Captain Boll. “What I thought as well.” And he started at Devereaux for a long time. “They want to kill you.”

  “It would seem so,” Devereaux said.

  “Are you so cool to face death?”

  “I did not invite it,” Devereaux said.

  “What will you do?”

  “Not impose on the hospitality of the Swiss in this matter. I am going back.”

  “Is this so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why come back here to face me?”

  “Because it had to be done this way.”

  Boll was perplexed. He crossed again to the window and looked down enviously at the long finger of the lake that stretched to the mountains.

  “When it’s done, I’ll tell you,” Devereaux said.

  “And if I kept you here?”

  “For what reason?” Devereaux said.

  “We found a pistol taped in the toilet in the apartment. Is it your pistol?”

  “No,” Devereaux said. “It was planted there.”

  Boll turned. “You lie to me.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “This is not some joke. You should not have involved an innocent person. Like Claudette Longtemps. She was very shaken, I can tell you, to identify those two men in the morgue. She thought they had killed you. I had to assure her that you were alive. You live with one woman and you have a black child—God knows where you got him—and you have this young girl from the countryside who is so much in love with you. I tell you, you disgust me.”

  Devereaux waited.

  “Damn you, man,” Boll said and came around the desk and struck Devereaux very hard on the face. When he drew back his hand, there was blood at the corner of Devereaux’s lips. The blood trickled down, dropped on the dark fabric of the corduroy jacket. Devereaux did not move. He looked at Boll. His eyes were mild and waiting, as though Boll had to finish some private game he was involved in.

  “I could lock you up a good long time.”

  “That’s one way to do it,” Devereaux said. Now the voice was flat, without any tone at all. The gray eyes were steady.

  “That would suit you?”

  “I can take it, if that’s what you mean. If I were in your prison, it would be up to you to keep me safe. You believe the woman came to kill me. You didn’t get her, so she will try again. Or others will try again. If you want to make this a Swiss matter, then I’ll oblige you by going to prison.”

  Boll thought about that.

  There were birds in the trees and both men could hear them clearly.

  “And if I expel you—”

  “On what grounds?”

  “I can find grounds.”

  “I have an attorney retained in Geneva. There are laws in Switzerland.”

  “You are a guest of the country and you abuse the country’s hospitality.”

  “It was not me, Herr Boll,” said Devereaux. “I will leave the country. I’ll resolve this—this is an American matter. In a little while, when it’s resolved, then you’ll know what happened.”

  “Are you so sure you won’t be killed?” Boll smiled.

  “Not at all.” Devereaux waited. “If that happens, then it’s resolved. If I’m not killed, it’s resolved. But it has to be finished. You choose where it will be finished—in Switzerland or not here.”

  “And your son? Or whatever he is, the black child?”

  “He’s in school. The lawyer has his trust. If things happen… then he’s taken care of. He’s fourteen. He understands.”

  “And Rita Macklin? Will you arrange for her as well?”

  But Devereaux had run out of words. The conversation with Rita—the one in mind—always ended at this point. He had broken free twice; twice he had been dragged back.

  He didn’t know. Any more than Boll.

  14

  AMONG THE INSANE

  Hanley was falling into himself. He had been in Ward Seven for three weeks and each day grew more indistinct in mind and memory. Was today Wednesday or was it the day before? Was it spring? Was it this year or last?

  In lucid moments, he knew that it was the medicine. There were pills in the morning and at night and there were pills as part of therapy and there were pills to ease the pain and to encourage sleep and to end anxiety and to modify behavior. He felt drugged all the time and yet the dependency was restful to him. He needed it.

  Hanley began to speak to himself for company. He knew they didn’t care. They were very tolerant of the gentle patients and he was a gentle patient. He was learning all the lessons they wanted him to learn.

  He sat at the window in his room and looked through the bars and watched the inmates walk to and fro in the exercise area. They were insane, he knew; at least, most of them. He was not so certain about Mr. Carpenter, who had been in the place for six months and who said he had been an assistant security chief at NASA and that he had been placed in St. Catherine’s after he had made certain allegations about the safety of the shuttle program. Like Hanley, he had been a bachelor. The place was full of bachelors, divorced men, and homosexual men. That was an oddity, Hanley thought in lucid moments. Hanley knew that he had few lucid moments now. It was why he sat at the window and spoke to himself; he thought the sound of his own voice might keep some sanity in the broken bowl of his mind.

  He felt an almost physical sense of losing control. He felt spastic at times, as though his limbs might begin to work or shiver without his instructions. He finally mentioned this phenomenon to Sister Duncan, who relayed the information to Dr. Goddard, who talked to Hanley in a chummy way and changed Hanley’s daily dosage of drugs. The condition worsened.

  Hanley said aloud, “It feels as if my body has become very small and the world has become very large. Not as though I am a child but that I am much much smaller. As though I am shrinking. Is that why they call psychologists shrinks?”

  He smiled at that. A smile was not such a rare thing anymore. Much in the world amused him; at least, the part of the world that did not frighten him.

  He thought of Washington, D.C., and it seemed to him a long time ago. Not so much a place but a memory of something that had once been an important experience to him.

  It was absurd now, in his present state, to believe he had been a director of espionage. Espionage was such a ludicrous idea. Look around: What would a spy have to do with a place like this? That world must be as insane as this one, he thought with great satisfaction.

  He had bananas and corn flakes for breakfast. The taste of the food lingered in memory. When he had been a child, he had eaten cold cereal and fruit for breakfast.

  Tears came to his eyes. He thought of the child he had been. He thought of that often now in the dim days of faltering images. The child he had been was gangly, alone on a farm with elderly parents, a watcher who was slow to speak. When he was a child, he would awaken each morning to go to the window in hopes there was some change in the endless, flat Nebraska landscape. The only change was weather. There was snow and blistering summer heat and, in the fall, a brief and beautiful time of color that was melancholy even to an eleven-year-old boy. He wept and watched out the window. The day was warm and bright, almost sultry. The spring came like a woman waiting for sex. There was a perfume that haunted the world. The day was lascivious, almost wanton. Hanley thought of a woman—once, a woman in memory—and open legs on a narrow bed, a woman with the smell of sex on her lips.

  Hanley realized he was aroused again. Sometimes, now, he was aroused five or six time
s a day. The experience was not pleasant finally because the arousal—and his masturbation—had eventually chafed his penis. He had not masturbated since he was a child. Arousal was pain. He thought he should tell someone but there was only Sister Duncan, who would blush, and Dr. Goddard, who would give him more medicine.

  Am I sick? he thought. He watched Carpenter walk around and around the yard with large, angry strides. How did Carpenter resist?

  Resist, he thought, turning the word over and over in mind until it almost tumbled out of mind.

  He blinked.

  He was still aroused and he could smell the perfume of spring all around him. He touched himself and felt pain. Pain and pleasure; arousal and sleepiness; memory and failing images all around. He blinked his eyes. They were wet.

  “Mr. Hanley.”

  He removed his hand, turned, saw Sister Mary Domitilla, a large nun shaped like a cookie. She was smiling and sweet-faced and it frightened Hanley because he did not think she was a sweet woman. He blinked and the wetness was almost gone. He said nothing.

  “How are you today, Mr. Hanley?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. His voice was low and flat and not accustomed to being used. “I’m fine today. I’m better today, feeling better.”

  If you did not feel better, they gave you medicine to help you to feel better.

  They were going to give Carpenter electroshock treatments in a week. Of course, they didn’t say that but everyone knew that was what Mr. Carpenter’s condition indicated. He was on the schedule to report to Room 9 for “therapy” sessions next week. No one spoke of Room 9 because the people who came out of Room 9 were altered. They did not seem to be the same person.

  “Mr. Hanley? Mr. Hanley? Are you with us today, Mr. Hanley?”

  “Oh. Yes. Yes I am.” He got up from the straight chair by the window. He smiled at Sister Mary Domitilla. They all wanted you to smile; it was the first rule of Ward Seven. Smile and the world smiles with you.

  “You have a visitor, Mr. Hanley,” said Sister Domitilla in the manner of one giving a child an unearned treat. “I want to be certain that you’re up to seeing him.”