by Howard Fast
I could have said that I had never met anyone like her either, but I did not.
“No more questions, not from me anyway,” she went on. “I mean personal questions. If I ask you did you like a film or play we both saw, it’s not a question, is it?”
“Not in the other sense, no.”
“Will you be in London long? You see, one can’t really hold a conversation without questions, so what of my vow?”
“I respect it.”
“And will you be there long?”
“Until my work is over.”
“And what is your—no. Absolutely not. I will not pry. We have never met before; I’m sure of that, and yet I feel that I know you so well. How long will you be in London?”
“Two weeks—perhaps three.”
“Do you like London? I love it. It’s my civilized city, all my roots and racial memories and that sort of nonsense that no one with any sense believes in any more. But I do love it. Mentally, I call it my home. I am there and I am home. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“I suppose you know who my husband is?”
“I think everyone knows that.”
“Yes. I intend some day to write a book on the art of being the wife of a famous man. I’m to meet him in London. He may be in in a day or two or not for a week. It depends on the discussions in Delhi. I follow him through The New York Times, you know.”
I was watching her face, and suddenly the excitement fled from it and it was the face of a little girl trapped with lies and stolen candy.
“Here, I’ve done it again,” she cried woefully.
“What have you done?”
“Poured out like some wretched bucket to a perfect stranger, and I get angry with Norton when he tells me I haven’t the character to be a diplomat’s wife. I haven’t, you know. He’s right. And please, please don’t talk to me any more. I shall not say one more word.”
“Do you mean that?”
She nodded, her lips pressed, the corners twitching with a smile she couldn’t repress.
Chapter 6
IN London our Embassy was housed in one of those handsome white buildings in Belgravia. But if you were on something very delicate you didn’t go there, but to Gorivich, who kept a stamp shop on Great Russell Street. That’s where they sent me. I was not to be seen at the Embassy.
The stamp shop was not entirely a blind. Gorivich was a passionate and brilliant stamp collector who had a sort of world-wide reputation in philatelic circles. It was he who had come up with the Black Spanish 1892, bought by Schreiber for eighty thousand dollars and then sold to a wealthy American who tendered it as a gift to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That was in 1940, so you can see that Gorivich’s reputation was well established. When I entered his shop, he was examining a stamp under a jeweler’s glass. He glanced at me, nodded, and then went back to the stamp, which was fixed between two sheets of glass.
“Hello, Breckner,” he said. “Come look at this wistful beauty.”
The stamp was a faded pink twopence, with a lady’s head in profile.
“Victoria?”
“Good! Capital, Breckner! You have a head on your shoulders. The old lady herself. Only she was not so old when this was done—maybe forty. She was a swinger, as the Americans say, vain too. Under that deadly respectability was a real dirty old girl. When she saw this picture, she exploded. It did not do her justice. She hated it. The plates were destroyed and every stamp was destroyed. Every one but this one.”
“What is it worth?”
“What are the crown jewels worth, Breckner? Who knows? The Department put up the money for it, so it is not mine, no? So much for stamps.”
A customer came in and bought a catalogue. The moment he entered, Gorivich covered the Queen Victoria.
“I don’t want curiosity,” Gorivich explained. “When the time is ripe, the world will learn about it. Meanwhile, you. You sat next to her?”
“Yes.”
“Talked? Made an acquaintance?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Good. Good. We have a brandy on that.” He took a bottle from under the counter and brought out two small glasses, which he polished with a paper napkin. Then he poured the brandy and we drank.
“She is a good-looking woman, no?”
I nodded.
“Less painful, Breckner. Stupid?”
“No, she’s not stupid. But she’s not cynical. She’s open.”
“Open?”
“She doesn’t defend herself. She is pleased with herself, but not in terms of vanity. Sort of I-own-the-earth attitude, but without any snobbery.”
Gorivich nodded. “You approached her—what the Americans call a pickup?”
“No.” I must have hesitated a long moment, and I am sure that Gorivich did not miss that. He misses very little. “She recognized me.”
“Oh? Then you knew her?”
“No. Of course not. You know I didn’t know her.”
“Exactly. But she recognized you?”
“She had seen my film.”
“Berger’s film?”
“Yes.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“She remembered. Evidently the film made a great impression on her.”
Gorivich smiled, pleased at this. “Then she related to you in a class sense. That is, not as an outsider. So it will not be difficult for you to see her again.”
“I can see her again—yes.”
“Good. Excellent. She is not a happily married woman, but I suppose you have sensed that already?”
“No, I can’t say that I have.”
A woman with a young boy came into the store. He was about twelve, and the woman, his mother, decided that it was the proper moment for him to begin a stamp collection. Gorivich fussed with them as if she were spending a thousand pounds. He sold her a British Empire album and a set of pre-1940 stamps. He explained that the nice thing about collecting British Empire was that you knew just when it stopped. Thus you could work backward.
When she had left, he said to me, “I love stamps, Breckner. It gives me a sense of fulfillment that nothing else does. Then why am I not simply a stamp collector?”
“We have no retirement clause.”
“Ah, Breckner—somewhere under that shell of yours is a sense of humor. But to come back to Mrs. Quigley. Her husband has a reputation for idealism. I don’t believe in reputations for idealism, but naturally I have a different point of view than Norton Glee Quigley. Interesting name, that, but rather typical of your professional American diplomat.”
I observed that Gorivich’s English accent was almost perfect. They said he had been born in Bulgaria and had been a pimp in Sofia, but who knew? Things like that are always said about certain people.
“Anyway,” said Gorivich, “people tend to believe in his idealism, and they imagine he is on the verge of ripping out a great, magnificent storm of rhetoric against the war in Vietnam. That would be a pity. Like a stone dropped into still water, such rhetoric begins something, and the war is much too important to us. It is pleasant to see the United States with both hands in a bear trap—it makes one speculate on how much more pleasant the situation would be if Russia entangled herself with China at the same time.”
I waited. I don’t engage in either political speculation or political philosophy. Both bore me.
“The only real silence is death, I suppose,” Gorivich said thoughtfully. “And he must be silent, you know. But it can’t be forthright. There has been too much agitation about that. Make it an accident, Breckner.”
“What kind of an accident?”
“Ah, Breckner—you surprise me. That was the last question I expected.” His face clouded. “Forgive me if I am cross. I am a hard critic. But see now, the very word accident means a random occurrence. The place, the time, the circumstance—these are for you to choose. Quigley is in India. I think you have three days before he comes to London. Naturally, he will stay at the American Embassy. Hele
n Adams, the ambassador’s wife, is an old friend of Patience Quigley. They were together in Wellesley College in America. For a man like yourself, I could not imagine better circumstances. I’m sure you agree.”
Gorivich’s round Slavic face and head were hairless and pale yellow, as if he lived his life in amiable companionship with some liver ailment. His pale-blue eyes were unadorned with lashes. He stared at me unblinkingly, with a look so cold and competent that I felt an icy chill. Then he smiled. His smile was quite attractive.
“Foolish boy,” he said gently, “I am sure you agree.”
“Yes, I agree.”
“Good. Because I like you, Breckner. We must be friends.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Grupperman speaks highly of you. Grupperman is not a poor judge of men.”
“He has been very kind to me,” I said.
“Of course. We cherish our own, Breckner. You are at the Albert, are you not?”
He knew damn well where I was and what I had eaten for breakfast and when I had last urinated and how much my shoes had cost.
“Yes,” I replied. “I am at the Albert.”
“In the new wing, I hope?”
“Yes, in the new wing.”
“Good. Good. The British are the loveliest of people, but their older hotels are quite unbearable. Ample space? You should be comfortable.”
“I have a living-room suite,” I said.
“Excellent.” He pursed his lips, placed the fingertips of both hands together, and leaned toward me over the counter, dropping his voice. “You are armed, Breckner?”
“Yes, sir.”
“With what?”
“A Schmidt. The seven-shot automatic.”
“You carry it under your arm?”
“Yes, sir—under my left arm.” I opened my jacket, so that he could see the shoulder holster.
“Ah!”
“It’s a flat gun. It hardly bulks at all.”
“And the silencer?”
“I have an inside pocket of my jacket for that.”
“Oh? You know, Breckner, the British are rather ugly about guns.”
“There’s no reason why I should be searched.”
“Possibly not, but the woman—you know she will find out.”
“Mrs. Quigley?”
“Exactly. I think you had better give me both the gun and the silencer.” When I made no response, he continued, “You know, we don’t want guns on this job in any case. What could you possibly do with it?”
“When I am on a job, I like to be armed.”
“You are armed, Breckner, with brains and with dedication, and with the power of The Department behind you.”
“Do I look like the kind of ass who needs homilies, Mr. Gorivich? I’d appreciate plain talk better.”
“I have been talking plainly, Breckner. Don’t press me.”
Then I gave him the gun and the silencer.
“Three days, Breckner—and then he comes to London. As far as we know, his plane will arrive in the morning, and there is a press conference scheduled for the following morning. We would rather he did not appear at the press conference.”
“That’s damn little time for an accident.”
“That’s all the time there is, Breckner.”
Chapter 7
IT was still early in the day, and a most beautiful day in London, which is not as rare as some people think. I decided to stretch my legs. I walked through Hanway Street and along the crowded bustle of Oxford. At the hotel, just outside and far enough up the street so that the doorman could not chase her, this wretched woman was waiting, and she clawed onto me and said, “Now there, Breckner, you wouldn’t pass me by, would you?”
She was about fifty, skinny, dirty, with a heavy East End accent that I could hardly understand; but still something struck a cord, and I stared past the peroxide bleach and the smeared mascara.
“Ah, come on, come on,” she said.
It was Berger’s wife. She had been a good-looking horror when I last saw her and she was more of a horror and far less good-looking now. No one ever understood why Berger had married her, but Berger was the kind of German who does everything for a reason—secret if possible—and he had probably had a reason for this. He was fortunately dead.
“How the devil did you know I was here?” I demanded.
“I read the gossip column, Breckner. You’re a famous man.”
“Devil take you, I was in no gossip column.”
She tittered with delight and confessed that she was working as a night scrubwoman at the American Embassy. “So I heard tell, and I knew, and I got to put the hand on you, Breckner lovey.”
I went into my pocket and found a bill. “Here’s a tenner,” I told her. “Go in peace. I don’t wish you any harm. We wished Berger dead and he’s dead.”
“Because you killed him, lovey.” She grinned.
“Come off that. Look, Lilly, I have a lot to do. So do us both a favor. Take the money and blow.”
“I mean you no harm,” she whined. “Why do you want to be such a bloody son of a bitch, Breckner? All I want is a word or two over a pint of bitter and fifty quid.”
“Fifty?”
“Oh, God, I need it, Breck. I need it. Look at me. Tell you what, I been reading cards. I’ll read you a fortune. Come on—we spend half an hour in a bar. What’s lost, Breck?”
“Why in hell should I give you fifty pounds?”
“Because I bloody damn well need it.”
“I couldn’t care less what you need, Lilly.”
“You are a cold fish, Breckner. But you never want no trouble, do you? Quiet ways you got—there’s big, handsome Breckner, but he’s always slipping along from here to there. You don’t want me to stir up no fuss, and it’s worth fifty quid to you, ain’t it, lovey—ain’t it now?”
“Suppose I give it to you?”
“Oh, no—we sit down over a pint, Breck. You was once quick enough to tell me how beautiful I was. I got my pride too. Oh, come on now, lovey, let’s sit down civilized.”
I nodded, and we walked in silence to a pub on Baker Street, where she led me upstairs, plunked down at a table, and ordered two pints of bitter. I told her I was not thirsty. She drained her glass and then took mine, watching me all the while, her lower lip thrust out.
“What are you up to, Breck?”
She waited, and when I did not answer, she went at the second pint, drinking and watching me.
“You know what they used to say?” she demanded.
“No, Lilly—what did they say?”
“They said Breckner was the devil. Ah—they ain’t no devil, ducky.”
She opened a filthy, ancient purse and took out a deck of worn cards, laying them out on the table, smearing away the wet ale mark with her elbow.
“What’s that?” I asked her.
“Tarot cards, ducky. I got to keep my bleeding heart beating, although why I don’t properly know. So I learn to read the cards. I’ll read you something, Breckner.”
I took out my money, found five ten-pound notes, and pushed them across the table to her.
“Let it sit there, Breck. I’ll read your fortune and earn an honest quid.”
“There’s fifty of them and none of them are honest. I don’t want my fortune read.”
“Afraid, Breck?” she asked archly, grinning and showing two large gaps in her front teeth.
“Maybe.”
“Ah, then you know the tarot?”
“I have seen it.”
She dealt the twenty-one picture cards quickly and expertly in an equilateral triangle on the table between us, seven and seven and seven—seven to a side. It was before lunchtime, and we were alone in the dining room of the pub, except for a waitress who sat in the far corner and read a film magazine.
“There’s number twelve, the hanged man, sitting right at your heart, ducky.”
The card was on the side facing me, three and three with the hanged man in the center. His
hands were tied behind his back, and he was hanging by one leg from a gallows tree, his face contorted in agony. Incredibly, there was a golden halo around his head.
“There ain’t no gallows, sweetie,” she said. “He’s hanged inside of himself, if you know what I mean. His halo shines like some bloody saint. It means he found the truth, don’t it?”
She pointed to number fifteen, the devil. He was on the left apex and the tower balanced him on the right.
“He’s a bloody lie, he is,” she said. “He is an invention, he is. Takes away the blame. They call him the King of Lies.”
She pushed the cards together and I got up and left. Her laughter followed me out of the place.
Chapter 8
WHEN I returned to the hotel, there was a message for me that Mrs. Quigley had called and that I was to return her call. She had left the number of the American Embassy, and I called her there. I had not expected her to phone, and I was thinking that I would call her, but this was simpler, and she was far more direct than I would have been.
“How good of you to call back so quickly! Of course I am forcing my attentions on you, but only to invite you to a party, and that’s perfectly proper, isn’t it?” Her voice was full of excitement.
“I think so.”
“Good. And you are free this evening?”
“I am. But if it’s a diplomatic affair—”
“Oh, not at all. Just an old-fashioned American cocktail party which Helen Adams is giving to alleviate her own boredom and using me as a convenient excuse, and we’ll have some old mutual friends and some of the very in crowd to give it color and enlighten me—myself being a sort of bumpkin—and when I told her I had met you on the plane, she would not have anything but that I must ask you—”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me?”
“How nice! I didn’t think you even remembered me, and here you are pretending to be hurt.”
“No, I don’t hurt that easily.”