“You touch him,” the old guy said, “I’ll turn your brains into Cream of Wheat.” Somehow a blackjack had appeared in his hand. Luis backed off. Bonnie came to save him. “Forget it,” she told them. “He’s three bricks shy of a load. Some days he things he’s Napoleon.”
“Well, I ain’t too fond of the French neither,” the old guy said fiercely. “They’re all Commy bums.”
“Sure they are.” Bonnie hustled him away.
Julie was sitting on the stoop, waiting for them. Bonnie told her about the two old guys, the blackjack, the threat to call a cop. “Now you know,” Julie told him. “Lucky you didn’t get a poke in the chops. Last week I saw a kid get thrown off a bus just for carrying a copy of Das Kapital.”
“Doesn’t anyone protect freedom of speech?” he asked. “Surely the authorities …”
“Hey! Stay away from the authorities. Keep your mouth shut. Otherwise you might end up in the cell next to Enrico.”
“Or worse,” Bonnie said.
Luis had a gold ring. They hocked it and ate supper at a German beer-cellar on 86th Street: franks and sauerkraut plus beer, and apple pie for three. Now he had two dollars. He left one as a tip. “You’re insane,” Julie said. She picked it up and gave it to him. “I have been a waiter,” he said. “This is no time to cheat the workers of their due.” He put the dollar back. “Leave it there, or I shall stand on a chair and sing the Internationale.”
“How does that go, again?” Bonnie asked.
“The workers’ flag is deepest red, the something something blood they shed,” Luis said. “After that it gets rather left-wing.”
Bonnie went home to the garment district. Julie went to Mooneys, to work the graveyard shift. Luis went to bed. The fold-out couch was not comfortable. Something would have to be done about that.
BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE THE MONEY IS
1
Luis was often surprised and pleased by the skill of his subconscious. He took a problem to bed and woke up, effortlessly, with a solution.
Julie was asleep. He kept the curtains closed, shaved and showered as quietly as possible, made a cup of black coffee, put on a clean shirt and a quiet tie in the colors of an ancient British regiment, and chose his light gray summerweight suit. According to the New York phone book, the offices of the FBI were on East 58th Street.
It was a pleasant morning, promising a day suitable for drinking white wine in the park; he looked forward to that. Presumably Julie had a nice frock she could wear. If not, there were frock shops. He passed a couple of them as he walked to the subway. It was a busy neighborhood: stores, restaurants, cinemas. Luis approved. He liked tradesmen to be on hand when needed.
The subway train smelt of rancid hair-oil and its passengers hadn’t smiled since Prohibition ended, but it rushed Luis downtown at raucous speed. He got off at 58th Street. By the time he reached street level he had turned so many corners that he was confused: which way was east? Where was north? It took five minutes of going the wrong way before he found the FBI Building.
The exterior was blank and easily washable; it might have been designed by a blind architect. The interior took no chances, either. A man in a suit sat at a desk with a plaque reading Information. Behind him were an American flag and two portrait photographs, one of President Eisenhower, the other of Bureau Director J. Edgar Hoover. They were facing each other. The Director looked like an aging pug, and the President looked as if he was wondering whether to take him for a walk or let him suffer a little longer.
“Sir?” the suit said.
Luis touched the plaque. “I have information.”
“Yes?”
“Albert T. Falcondale, charged in Los Angeles with embezzlement, jumped bail. I know where he is.”
The suit took a thick ring-bound manual from a drawer, consulted the index, put it back. “Not a federal offense,” he said. “Try California. They might be interested.”
Luis was taken aback and tried not to show it. The fellow was treating him with steely politeness. Yet Al Falcondale had got away with a million dollars, Luis knew it, he had partnered Al in the Caracas Golf Club foursomes. His stomach growled, a comment on the FBI’s indifference. “There are other criminals,” he said.
The suit produced a yellow legal pad and a pencil and slid them across the desk.
Luis wrote a large dollar sign and slid the pad back.
“The Bureau does not pay informants.”
“You expect something for nothing?”
The suit tore the page from the pad and screwed it up. He did this without malice. The cost wasn’t coming out of his pay check.
“There is another way,” Luis said. He had banked on getting a thousand dollars from the FBI. His information was genuine: Caracas had a small but rich population of Yankee crooks, many of them regular golfers. “I enroll in the FBI as a special agent. I have experience. During the recent unpleasantness in Europe I was an Allied agent at the highest level.”
“Every FBI agent must be an American citizen, and have a law degree or be qualified in accountancy.”
“I’m wasting my time here.” Luis’s stomach agreed, and so did the suit: he made the smallest of nods. Luis left.
He walked to Fifth Avenue and immediately suffered an attack of envy. Everything and everybody was so rich, and it was all being done so easily, so confidently, as if Fifth Avenue had a right to be rich. The Plaza hotel, the Pierrre, great cathedrals of success. Saks, Peck & Peck, Tiffanys, Cartiers, Bergdorf Goodman, Harry Winstone, places where if you had to ask the price, you shouldn’t bother people by coming in at all. The casual swagger of the customers told him that money was not one of their worries.
He got as far as St. Patrick’s cathedral and sat on the steps. Déjà vu was nibbling at his concentration. He had been in this situation in 1941, penniless in the wealthy heart of Madrid, desperate to get a job as a spy. But on that day in 1941 he had eaten breakfast. That was the difference. Now, when he counted his change, his fingers were trembling. A bus went by. It carried an advertisement for a steak house. Saliva surged around his tongue.
A man with a pushcart was selling pretzels. Luis bought one. It felt like Bakelite and tasted like cardboard, but it fooled his stomach into thinking real food was on the way.
Money, he thought. Made by selling things. You sell your time, your talent, your property. Or, in the case of that bum at Hoboken, your self-respect. You simply blackmail someone into paying up. A faint idea stirred in a distant corner of his mind. He pursued it, caught it, and shook it to life. “Bloody hell,” he said aloud. “Has it come to this? Surely you can think of something better?” No reply.
In a drugstore he found a phone and a phone book and the listing for the British Consulate.
It was several blocks away, which gave him time to work on his opening lines. Déjà vu helped. He remembered how he got into the German embassy in 1941. “Keep it simple,” he murmured. “Very short, very simple.”
The woman running the reception desk was English. “Have you an appointment?” she asked, pleasantly.
“Intelligence,” Luis said. “Military intelligence.” He went and sat in a chair and picked up The Times. He turned the pages slowly and quietly while he tried to hear what she had to say, but she was expert at shielding her voice on the phone.
Visitors arrived, respectable people with honest appointments. Others left, their business done. Luis read a report about Korea. Not a happy place. There had been a war; he recalled looking at battle scenes on a newsreel while he waited to see High Noon in a Caracas cinema. War had ended now, it seemed. Neither side won or lost. Nothing new there. Damn good movie, though. Grace Kelly’s smile would melt the elastic in an archbishop’s underpants. Luis turned the page and found the county cricket scores. A stocky young man appeared beside him. He had curly sandy hair and a fighter-pilot’s mustache.
“Frobisher,” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve met, have we?”
“Oxfordshire are doing jolly well, a
ren’t they?” Luis said. Frobisher cocked his head as if he were slightly deaf. “County cricket,” Luis explained.
“To the best of my knowledge, Oxfordshire don’t play in the county championship.”
“Of course they don’t. Just checking.” Luis folded the newspaper. “Thomas Ford the Third. Responsible for security at all Ford plants. That includes England.”
They went to Frobisher’s office. Luis was invited to sit. Frobisher perched on a corner of his desk and took note of Luis’s suede shoes, which were beginning to look a bit weary. “We have to be awfully careful,” he said. “Now, if I ring your Detroit office, they’ll vouch for you, won’t they? What’s the number?” His hand rested on the phone. Luis chewed gently on his upper lip. “I expect it’s on your business card,” Frobisher said. Luis stopped chewing, and looked at a mounted photograph of Spitfires on patrol. “So you’re not Thomas Ford the Third,” Frobisher said.
“No. Still, it was a start. Would I be sitting here if I’d told that charming lady the truth? She would have given me several forms to complete in triplicate and then made an appointment for next Tuesday with the Second Secretary for Commercial Intelligence. That’s no good to anyone. I want to see your top man in military or political intelligence.”
“I shall need a name.”
“Tell him I’m Eldorado. If that means nothing, tell him to ask Kim Philby.” Luis glanced at his watch. “It’s tea-time in London. Kim will be tinkling his teacups.”
Ten minutes later, Frobisher ushered him into a large corner office and withdrew. A man in a tweed suit was frowning hard at a piece of paper. “I’m Harding,” he said. “Philby’s given me three questions to ask. If you get any of them wrong I’m to assume you’re bogus, which is a painful condition in my department, often leading to death or disablement.”
“Dear Kim,” Luis said. “Ever the charmer.”
“One: who was Nutmeg?”
“Ex-Indian Army officer. Worked for the Ministry of Food in Cambridge.” Easy. Nutmeg had been the codename of an Eldorado sub-agent.
Harding grunted. “And Wallpaper?”
“Faggot lecturer, University of Birmingham.” Another subagent. “Next.”
“Who killed Haystack?”
“I did. Too damn lazy.” All mythical sub-agents. Piece of cake, Luis thought.
“All the loonies pass through here,” Harding said. “Last week it was Mahatma Gandhi in a tartan loincloth, yards and yards of it, she must have weighed sixteen stone. I told her the orange lipstick was a mistake, and she became violent. That was when I began to suspect she was not who she claimed to be.”
“What did she want?”
“Money. What do you want?”
Luis walked to the window and pretended to enjoy the view. He hadn’t expected Harding to be so blunt. Instinct warned him away from a blunt reply. “I wish to give London an opportunity to become a partner in a business venture,” he said. “My wartime memoirs are almost ready for publication. They should sell very well. But the manuscript is a mess, all in longhand. I need to get it professionally typed.”
“Bring it here. We’ll do it for you.”
“I wouldn’t dream of imposing. A thousand dollars should be adequate to cover the cost.”
“Blackmail,” Harding said. “Well, it’s not up to me.”
Luis waited in the next room. Harding’s secretary brought him coffee. He loaded it with sugar; his system had long since lost faith in the pretzel. There was nothing to read. He thought about Julie and all the things they could do with a thousand dollars. He should have asked for two thousand. Or five thousand. Great Britain owed it to him. In the war, Eldorado had been worth two armored divisions, a battleship and six squadrons of Lancaster bombers. Someone in MI6 had told him so when he got his MBE.
The door opened. Harding beckoned. “London says I can give you a hundred dollars,” he said. “And that’s all.”
Luis went in. He didn’t know whether to feel dismay or delight. An hour ago he would have run through mud to catch a hundred-dollar bill. Now he had talked himself into being worth five grand. “I feel like Mahatma Gandhi,” he said. “I feel like a fight.”
“Not with me. There are six ways to break a man’s arm without using weapons and I invented three of them. I taught unarmed combat to Commandos all through the war. Scots were the worst. Pain threshold so high it went off the clock. God help the Glasgow police if any of my pupils survived.”
“How many arms did you break?”
Harding looked away. His mouth curled; he almost smiled. “Official secret. More than a few, let’s say. Blood all over the floor, sometimes. If you bleed on my carpet I’m stuck with the stain. Consulate’s on a very tight budget.” He unlocked a desk drawer and took out money. “First, I need to know where we can contact you.”
Luis briefly thought of giving a false address: the Athletic Club, or the Pierre Hotel. But what if London tried to buy his memoirs? Philby might find the other 900 dollars. Perhaps even more. He wrote Julie’s address on the blotter.
Harding gave him four twenties, a ten and two fives. “Britain has a desperate foreign-exchange crisis,” he said. “Nobody’s allowed to take more than twenty-five pounds a year out of the country. What you’ve got is the funds for an average family’s foreign holiday.”
“Can’t stand around chatting,” Luis said. “Lunch calls. A dozen escargots, some coquilles St. Jacques, a nice blanquette de veau, and a little tarte aux citron to finish.”
“May it rot your guts like battery acid,” Harding said pleasantly. “My secretary will show you out.”
When Luis had gone, Frobisher came in. “All on tape, sir,” he said. “Rather a smooth customer, I thought.”
“Slippery. According to Philby, the man is a naturally gifted liar. Can’t tell the truth to save his life.”
“So he’s lying about his memoirs?”
“Probably. But London thinks it’s worth a hundred dollars to find out. Officially, Philby’s retired, so he’s got time to worry about posterity’s opinion. He wants to know what Eldorado’s written. So do we. Here’s the address.”
Frobisher copied it from the blotter. “I never realized you were expert in unarmed combat, sir,” he said. “Is it hard to learn?”
“No idea. All codswallop. Can’t break wind, let alone break arms. And Gandhi in a kilt and lipstick—all tosh. Fooled him, though. Nobody more gullible than a liar.”
“How very true.” As Frobisher smiled at Harding, he thought: Which makes you gullible too. But he said nothing more.
2
A plate of veal and peppers cost 75 cents. Peach pie and ice cream was 30 cents. Coffee, a dime.
Luis had followed some men who looked like truck drivers into a diner off Seventh Avenue. Truck drivers knew the best places to eat; well-known fact, and it turned out to be true. When he was full of good American grub, New York ceased to be a battlefield and became a parade ground where talent and opportunity marched side by side. Success was simply a matter of picking your partner.
He had invested a nickel in the Herald Tribune and now he checked out the employment pages. Clearly, the economy was buoyant. Thousands of jobs. Accountancy, law firms, banks, hospitals, real estate, airlines, construction, all were clamoring for help, expert help, qualified help, experienced help. That wasn’t Luis. He read Art Buchwald’s column, didn’t understand the jokes, left a fat tip and went out into the streets again. He felt less buoyant than the economy and he didn’t know where he was going.
Somewhere in the low Fifties, between Madison and Park, he saw a sign that said JOBS and headed for it, mainly because his feet were hot and he wanted to sit down. By the door a brass plate, tanned olive by carbon monoxide, identified the Aace Employment Bureau. He climbed three flights of stairs, the last uncarpeted. The door was open. A man in his twenties sat in an oldfashioned barber’s chair with his feet on a desk. He wore khaki pants, tennis shoes and a faded blue windbreaker with the sleeves rolled to the elb
ow. He was reading a book called Pro Secrets of the Hollywood Songwriters. He put it face-down on the desk. “One good number on the Hit Parade,” he said. “That’s all it takes, and then you retire on the royalties … I’m Mike Morgan. You’re looking for a job.”
“Correct. Luis Cabrillo.”
“What sort of job?”
“You seem pretty comfortable. I’ll take yours.”
“Cost you ten grand. That includes seven years remaining on the lease. And the name, Aace Employment. My old man’s idea. First listing in the Yellow Pages. Please …” He waved Luis to a chair.
“Despite which,” Luis said, “business would seem to be less than hectic.”
“Who needs hectic? I get the first week’s pay as commission. Two clients a day keeps me afloat.” Morgan took a small steel gyro, a toy, and made it spin on the desk. The thing hummed as it wandered. “Dad left the business to me. He died while I was in Korea, defending freedom, justice and democracy. We looked all over, but we never found any freedom, justice or democracy to defend. Ain’t that funny?”
“Strange indeed.”
Morgan shifted a coffee mug before the gyro could bump into it. “If you had ten grand you wouldn’t be here. So … got any marketable skills?”
Luis thought of saying: I can lie convincingly. But he shook his head.
“Go wash windows, then. Schlepp garbage cans. Be a messenger. Sell newspapers. There’s a hundred ways to make a buck out there.”
“Messenger? Like a courier?”
“No. Like a guy who delivers documents, stuff can’t wait for the mail. Everyone uses messengers. Ad agencies, lawyers, banks, brokers, even me sometimes. I can fix you up with a job. You want to be a messenger?”
They watched the gyro. It was running down, developing a wobble. It flirted with the edge of the desk, came back for a second look, toppled and tumbled to the floor.
“Wise choice,” Morgan said. “Messengers get paid peanuts.”
“Thank you for your time,” Luis said. Morgan picked up his book.
Red Rag Blues Page 4