The Honorable Schoolboy
Page 54
“What size of junk are we talking about here?” Martello asked.
“Twenty-eight-man long-liners, sir, baited for shark, golden thread, and conger.”
“Did Drake use that type also?”
“Yes,” said Smiley, still watching the map. “Yes, he did.”
“And she can come that close in, can she? Provided the weather allows?”
Again it was Smiley who answered. Till today, Guillam had not heard him so much as speak of a boat in his life.
“The draw of a long-liner is very modest,” he remarked. “She can come in pretty well as close as she wishes, provided always that the sea is not too rough.”
From the back bench Fawn gave an immoderate laugh. Wheeling round in his chair, Guillam shot him a foul look. Fawn leered and shook his head, marvelling at his master’s omniscience.
“How many junks make up a fleet?” Martello asked.
“Twenty to thirty,” said Smiley.
“Check,” said Murphy meekly.
“So what does Nelson do, George? Kind of get out to the edge of the pack there and stray a little?”
“He’ll hang back,” said Smiley. “The fleets like to move in column astern. Nelson will tell his skipper to take the rear position.”
“Will he, by God,” Martello muttered under his breath. “Murphy, what identifications are traditional?”
“Very little known in that area, sir. Boat people are notoriously evasive. They have no respect for marine regulations. Out to sea, they show no lights at all, mostly for fear of pirates.”
Smiley was lost to them again. He had sunk into a wooden immobility, and though his eyes stayed fixed on the big sea chart, his mind, Guillam knew, was anywhere but with Murphy’s dreary recitation of statistics. Not so Martello.
“How much coastal trade do we have over all, Murphy?”
“Sir, there are no controls and no data.”
“Any quarantine checks as the junks enter Hong Kong waters, Murphy?” Martello asked.
“Theoretically all vessels should stop and have themselves checked, sir.”
“And in practice, Murphy?”
“Junks are a law to themselves, sir. Technically, Chinese junks are forbidden to sail between Victoria Island and Kowloon point, sir, but the last thing the Brits want is a hassle with the mainland over rights of way. Sorry, sir.”
“Not at all,” said Smiley politely, still gazing at the chart. “Brits we are and Brits we shall remain.”
It’s his Karla expression, Guillam decided; the one that comes over him when he looks at the photograph. He catches sight of it, it surprises him, and for a while he seems to study its contours, its blurred and sightless gaze. Then the light slowly goes out of his eyes, and somehow the hope as well, and you feel he’s looking inward, in alarm.
“Murphy, did I hear you mention navigation lights?” Smiley enquired, turning his head slightly but still staring toward the chart.
“Yes, sir.”
“I expect Nelson’s junk to carry three,” said Smiley. “Two green lights vertically on the stern mast and one red light to starboard.”
“Yes, sir.”
Martello tried to catch Guillam’s eye but Guillam wouldn’t play.
“But it may not,” Smiley warned as an afterthought. “It may carry none at all, and simply signal from close in.”
Murphy resumed. A new heading: Communications.
“Sir, in the communications area, sir, few junks have their own transmitters but most all have receivers. Once in a while you get a skipper who buys a cheap walkie-talkie with range about one mile to facilitate the trawl, but they’ve been doing it so long they don’t have much call to speak to each other, I guess. Then as to finding their way—well, navy int. says that’s near enough a mystery. We have reliable information that many long-liners operate on a primitive compass, a hand lead and line, or even just a rusty alarm clock for finding true north.”
“Murphy, how the hell do they work that, for God’s sakes?” Martello cried.
“Line with a lead plumb and wax stuck to it, sir. They sound the bed and know where they are from what sticks to the wax.”
“Well, they really do it the hard way,” Martello declared.
A phone rang. Martello’s other quiet man took the call, listened, then put his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Quarry Worth’s just gotten back, sir,” he said to Smiley. “Party drove around for an hour, now she’s checked in her car back at the block. Mac says sounds like she’s running a bath, so maybe she plans going out again later.”
“And she’s alone,” Smiley said impassively. It was a question.
“She alone there, Mac?” He gave a hard laugh. “I’ll bet you would, you dirty bastard. Yes, sir, lady’s all alone taking a bath, and Mac there says when will we ever get to use video as well. Is the lady singing in the bath, Mac?” He rang off. “She’s not singing.”
“Murphy, get on with the war,” Martello snapped.
Smiley would like the interception plans rehearsed once more, he said.
“Why, George! Please! It’s your show, remember?”
“Perhaps we could look again at the big map of Po Toi island, could we? And then Murphy could break it down for us, would you mind?”
“Mind, George, mind?” Martello cried, so Murphy began again, this time using a pointer. “Navy int. observation posts here, sir . . . constant two-way communication with base, sir . . . no presence at all within two sea miles of the landing zone. . . . Navy int. to advise base the moment the Ko launch starts back for Hong Kong, sir. . . . Interception will take place by regular British police vessel as the Ko launch enters harbour. . . . U.S. to supply op. int. and stand off only, for unforeseen supportive situation. . . .”
Smiley monitored every detail with a prim nod of his head.
“After all, Marty,” he put in at one point, “once Ko has Nelson aboard, there’s nowhere else he can go, is there? Po Toi is right at the edge of China waters. It’s us or nothing.”
One day, thought Guillam, as he continued listening, one of two things will happen to George. He’ll cease to care or the paradox will kill him. If he ceases to care, he’ll be half the operator he is. If he doesn’t, that little chest will blow up from the struggle of trying to find the explanation for what we do. Smiley himself, in a disastrous off-the-record chat to senior officers, had put the names to his dilemma, and Guillam with some embarrassment recalled them to this day. To be inhuman in defence of our humanity, he had said, harsh in defence of compassion. To be single-minded in defence of our disparity. They had filed out in a veritable ferment of protest; why didn’t George just do the job and shut up instead of taking his faith out and polishing it in public till the flaws showed? Connie had even murmured a Russian aphorism in Guillam’s ear, which she insisted on attributing to Karla. “There’ll be no war, will there, Peter darling?” she had said reassuringly, squeezing his hand as he led her along the corridor. “But in the struggle for peace not a single stone will be left standing, bless the old fox. I’ll bet they didn’t thank him for that one in the Collegium, either.”
A thud made Guillam swing round. Fawn was changing cinema seats again. Seeing Guillam, he flared his nostrils in an insolent sneer.
He’s off his head, thought Guillam with a shiver.
Fawn too, for different reasons, was now causing Guillam serious anxiety. Two days ago, in Guillam’s company, he had been the author of a disgusting incident. Smiley as usual had gone out alone. To kill time Guillam had hired a car and driven Fawn up to the China border. Returning, they were waiting at some country traffic-lights when a Chinese boy drew alongside on a Honda. Guillam was driving. Fawn had the passenger seat. Fawn’s window was lowered; he had taken his jacket off and was resting his left arm on the door where he could admire a new gilt watch he had bought himself in the Hilton shopping concourse.
As they pulled away, the Chinese boy ill-advisedly made a dive for the watch, but Fawn was much too quick for hi
m. Catching hold of the boy’s wrist instead, he held on to it, towing him beside the car while the boy struggled vainly to break free. Guillam had driven fifty yards or so before he realised what had happened, and he at once stopped the car, which was what Fawn was waiting for. He hopped out before Guillam could stop him, lifted the boy straight off his Honda, led him to the side of the road, and broke both his arms for him, then returned smiling to the car. Terrified of a scandal, Guillam drove rapidly from the scene, leaving the boy screaming and staring at his dangling arms. He reached Hong Kong determined to report Fawn to George immediately, but luckily for Fawn it was eight hours before Smiley surfaced, and by then Guillam reckoned George had enough on his plate already.
Another phone was ringing, the red. Martello took the call himself. He listened a moment, then burst into a loud laugh.
“They found him,” he told Smiley, holding the phone to him.
“Found whom?”
The phone hovered between them.
“Your man, George. Your Weatherby—”
“Westerby,” Murphy corrected him, and Martello shot him a venomous look.
“They got him,” said Martello.
“Where is he?”
“Where was he, you mean! George, he just had himself the time of his life in two cathouses up along the Mekong. If our people are not exaggerating, he’s the hottest thing since Barnum’s baby elephant left town in ’forty-nine!”
“And where is he now, please?”
Martello handed him the phone. “Why don’t you just have ’em read you the signal, okay? They have some story that he crossed the river.” He turned to Guillam and winked. “They tell me there’s a couple of places in Vientiane where he might find himself a little action too,” he said, and went on laughing richly while Smiley sat patiently with the telephone to his ear.
Jerry chose a cab with two wing mirrors and sat in the front. In Kowloon he hired a car from the biggest outfit he could find, using the escape passport and driving licence because marginally he thought the false name was safer if only by an hour. As he headed up the Midlevels, it was dusk and still raining and huge haloes hung from the neon lights that lit the hillside. He passed the American Consulate and drove past Star Heights twice, half expecting to see Sam Collins, and on the second occasion he knew for sure he had found her flat and that her light was burning: an arty Italian affair by the look of it, that hung across the picture window in a gracious droop, three hundred dollars’ worth of pretension. Also the frosted glass of a bathroom window was lit. The third time he passed, he saw her pulling a wrap over her shoulders, and instinct or something about the formality of her gesture told him she was once more preparing to go out for the evening but that this time she was dressed to kill.
Every time he allowed himself to remember Luke, a darkness covered his eyes and he imagined himself doing the noble useless things like telephoning Luke’s family in California, or the dwarf at the bureau, or even for whatever purpose the Rocker. Later, he thought. Later, he promised himself, he would mourn Luke in fitting style.
He coasted slowly into the driveway that led to the entrance till he came to the slip-road to the car-park. The park was three tiers deep and he idled round it till he found her red Jaguar stowed in a safe corner behind a chain to discourage careless neighbours from approaching its peerless paint-work. She had put a mock leopard-skin cover on the steering-wheel. She just couldn’t do enough for the damn car. Get pregnant, he thought, in a burst of fury; buy a dog. Keep mice. For two pins he’d have smashed the front in, but those two pins had held Jerry back more times than he liked to count. If she’s not using it, then he’s sending a limousine for her, he thought. Maybe with Tiu riding shot-gun, even. Or maybe he’ll come himself. Or maybe she’s just getting herself dolled up for the evening sacrifice and not going out at all. He wished it was Sunday. He remembered Craw saying that Drake Ko spent Sundays with his family, and that on Sundays Lizzie had to make her own running. But it wasn’t Sunday, and neither did he have dear old Craw at his elbow telling him—on what evidence Jerry could only guess—that Ko was away in Bangkok or Timbuctoo conducting his business.
Grateful that the rain was turning to fog, he headed back up the slipway to the drive and at the junction found a narrow piece of shoulder where, if he parked hard against the barrier, the other traffic could complain but squeeze past. He grazed the barrier and didn’t care. From where he now sat, he could watch the pedestrians coming in and out under the striped awning of the block, and the cars joining or leaving the main road. He felt no sense of caution at all. He lit a cigarette and the limousines crackled past him both ways, but none belonged to Ko. Occasionally as a car edged by him, the driver paused to hoot or shout a complaint and Jerry ignored him. Every few seconds his eyes took in the mirrors, and once when a plump figure not unlike Tiu padded guiltily up behind him, he actually dropped the safety catch of the pistol in his jacket pocket before admitting to himself that the man lacked Tiu’s brawn. Probably been collecting gambling debts from the pak-pai drivers, he thought, as the figure went by him.
He remembered being with Luke at Happy Valley. He remembered being with Luke.
He was still looking in the mirror when the red Jaguar hissed up the slipway behind him, just the driver, and the roof closed, no passenger. The one thing he hadn’t thought of was that she might take the lift right down to the car-park and collect the car herself rather than have the porter bring it to the door for her as he did before. Pulling out after her, he glanced up and saw the lights still burning in her window. Had she left somebody behind? Or did she propose to come back shortly? Then he thought, Don’t be so damn clever. She’s just careless about lights.
The last time I spoke to Luke, it was to tell him to get out of my hair, he thought, and the last time he spoke to me was to tell me he’d covered my back with Stubbsie.
She had turned down the hill toward the town. He headed down after her, and for a space nothing followed him, which seemed unnatural, but these were unnatural hours and Sarratt man was dying in him faster than he could handle. She was heading for the brightest part of town. He supposed he still loved her, though just now he was prepared to suspect anybody of anything. He kept close behind her, remembering that she used her mirror seldom. In this dusky fog she would only see his headlights anyway. The fog hung in patches and the harbour looked as if it were on fire, with the shafts of crane-light playing like water hoses on the crawling smoke. In Central she ducked into another basement garage, and he drove straight in after her and parked six bays away, but she didn’t notice him. Remaining in the car, she paused to repair her make-up and he actually saw her working on her chin, powdering the scars. Then she got out and went through the ritual of locking, though a kid with a razorblade could have cut through the soft top in one easy movement. She was dressed in a silk cape of some kind and a long silk dress, and as she walked toward the stone spiral stair she raised both her hands and carefully lifted her hair, which was gathered at the neck, and laid the pony-tail down the outside of the cape. Getting out after her, he followed her as far as the hotel lobby and turned aside in time to avoid being photographed by a bisexual drove of chattering fashion journalists in satins and bows.
Hanging back in the comparative safety of the corridor, Jerry pieced the scene together. It was a large private party, and Lizzie had joined it from the blind side. The other guests were arriving at the front entrance, where the Rolls-Royces were so thick on the ground that nobody was special. A woman with blue-grey hair presided, doing absolutely nothing but swaying about and speaking gin-sodden French. A prim Chinese public-relations girl with a couple of assistants made up the receiving line, and as the guests filed in, the girl and her cohorts came forward frightfully cordially and asked for names and sometimes invitation cards before consulting a list and saying “Oh, yes, of course.” The blue-grey woman smiled and growled. The cohorts handed out lapel pins for the men and orchids for the women, then lighted on the next arrivals.
“Tonight we are making everybody beautiful, Mr. Westerby,” she said.
“Have a job with me, sport.”
“You like my parfum, Mr. Westerby?”
“Sensational,” said Jerry.
“It is called Juice of the Vine, Mr. Westerby, one hundred Hong Kong for a little bottle, but tonight Maison Flaubert gives free samples to all our guests. Madame Montifiori . . . oh . . . of course, welcome to House of Flaubert. You like my parfum, Madame Montifiori?”
A Eurasian girl in a cheongsam held out a tray and whispered, “Flaubert wishes you an exotic night.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Jerry said.
Inside the double doors a second receiving line was manned by three pretty boys flown in from Paris for their charm, and a posse of security men that would have done credit to a President. For a moment he thought they might frisk him, and he knew that if they tried he was going to pull down the temple with him. They eyed Jerry without friendliness, counting him part of the help, but he was light-haired and they let him go.
“The press is in the third row back from the catwalk,” said a hermaphrodite blond in a cowboy leather suit, handing him a press kit. “You have no camera, Monsieur?”