Mambo

by Campbell Armstrong

  Fuentes popped a third beer and tossed the aluminium tab into the blades of the fan which sucked it in, rattled it, then ejected it. “You got a lot of bread there, Roger,” he said.

  Bosanquet shut the case. “Today’s the day we spend it.”

  Fuentes wondered how much longer a man might live in such a shitpile as this. After his retirement from the Marines he’d purchased a six-hundred-acre spread in Texas, between Amarillo and McLean, where he raised Aberdeen-Angus cattle and studied military history in his spare time. Sometimes he thought he should just have stayed home. But lonely old soldiers, like trout, were suckers for old lures. It wasn’t even the money. What it really came down to was a break in the predictable tedium of life in the Texas Panhandle. Back home he had nothing but cows. Down here he had an army to drill – mainly Cuban boys recruited with great secrecy from the exile communities in New Jersey and California. A few had come from Florida, but Fuentes had not concentrated on recruiting there for the simple reason that he believed there were just too many big flapping mouths in Miami. He also had some Mexican mercenaries and a handful of Bolivians who all claimed to have been with Che at the end and who believed Fidel had conspired in Guevara’s killing. In addition, he had about twenty Americans who had been in Vietnam, at least half a dozen of whom were CIA operatives in undercover roles. There was a considerable amount of hardware too: automatic weapons; grenades; rocket-launchers; a seemingly endless supply of ammunition; and the twenty fighter-planes the amazing Hurt had somehow managed to acquire in the military bazaars of the world. The F-16s had been built in Pakistan, the Skyhawks originated in South America, the Harriers, though American-made, had been bought through South African sources.

  Fuentes hated Castro for the way he’d kicked ass at the Bay of Pigs. One of those bruised asses had been Fuentes’ own. Cuba without Castro was Tomas Fuentes’ dream. He had no idea who would take over the country after Fidel because this was information he’d never been given, nor did he particularly need it. He assumed that the next president and his government would have the support of both the Americans, which in Tomas’ mind meant the CIA and some powerfully rich individuals, friends of Harry Hurt and certain important factions inside the Cuban armed forces. What did it matter? Nobody could be worse than Castro. Fuentes would do his own job, and do it to the best of his ability, and the politicians would take over when all the dust had settled.

  “Listen,” said Roger Bosanquet.

  Tommy Fuentes tilted his head. There was the sound of a small plane overhead. Fuentes stepped out of the tent. The plane, a Lear jet, approached from Nicaragua. It flew toward the airstrip that Fuentes and his army had hacked out of this godless landscape. The plane came in low and silvery-gold, touched down, bounced, then ran smoothly the length of the runway. Fuentes, with Bosanquet trotting at his back, walked down the hillside to the tarmac.

  The Lear rolled to the place where Fuentes and Bosanquet stood. When it stopped completely the side-door opened, the gangway slithered down into place, and two men – so similar in height and appearance they might have been twins – stepped out into the insufferable weather. Both wore floral shirts and sunglasses and brand hew white linen pants and they looked like novice fishermen of the kind you find drifting in the coastal waters of Florida under the questionable tutelage of some self-appointed, dope-smoking guide. They were called Levy and Possony, and they spoke English with Eastern European accents, developed in the 1960s in Prague where they’d been dazzling physics students together at the University, brighter than all the other students and most of the professors too. They had lived for years in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and then at a secret research institute in the Negev, where they’d been regarded as scientific treasures of a kind – even if they’d been rewarded on the same salary scale as basic civil servants. It was commonly assumed, and quite wrongly, that they were too obsessed by their little world of scientific exploration to have any interest in material possessions. What was overlooked was the simple fact that Levy and Possony, after lives of poverty and wearisome antisemitism in Eastern Europe, followed by emigration to a strange land inhabited by people who spoke a language the two Czechs never mastered, longed desperately for something bright in their lives. Tired of penury in pursuit of science, weary of scratching around for grants, fed up with the bulk of their salary cheques being gobbled by patriotic taxes, they both desired less spartan lifestyles – even, to be honest, with a touch of sin thrown in.

  Levy and Possony had come to the attention of the Society in the person of Harry Hurt, who saw in them middle-aged geniuses endangered by sexual dehydration and monotony. Neither was married; both were very horny in a manner befitting secular monks who had toiled for many arduous years in the rarified, lonely atmosphere of higher physics. Levy and Possony, like two figs, were wonderfully ripe for picking, and Harry Hurt, who had all the charm of an open cheque-book, plucked them carefully by moonlight, giving them money, briefcases of the stuff, vacations at glamorous resorts in exotic places where access to women was made easy for them. Possony had taken to Brazilian ladies and Levy to fellatio in a hot tub. Then a little indoctrination about how Castro loathed the existence of Israel and was practically an honorary Palestinian – wouldn’t it be wonderful and, yes, patriotic, to help bring down a regime such as Fidel’s? Levy and Possony, anxious only that nobody be hurt on account of their participation – an assurance gladly given by Harry Hurt, who would have assured Khaddafi a Nobel Peace Prize to get what he wanted – had their consciences swiftly appeased and agreed to a form of defection. In return for what Hurt needed, Levy and Possony would spend very pleasurable lives in some tropical paradise. They would be provided with new passports under new names, and they would be rich. And, if some future urge seized them to return to research, Hurt would cheerfully provide the means.

  Now, Levy and Possony shook hands with Fuentes and ignored Bosanquet completely, as if they had intuited his lower standing. They had about them the contempt of tenants of ivory towers for those who toil in the cellars and workhouses of the world. Possony wore thick-lensed glasses through which his eyes, enlarged, unblinking, appeared to miss nothing. Levy, on the other hand, had a certain myopic uncertainty about him which suggested brilliance held in some delicate neurotic balance.

  “Only mad dogs and Englishmen,” said Bosanquet, gesturing at the raging sun. It was his little turn at wit, but it went unappreciated. Noel Coward had never played in Cabo Gracias a Dios.

  “We have the merchandise,” Levy said. “You have the money?”

  Bosanquet opened the case. Possony counted the bonds and cheques which he did with irritating slowness, like an old-fashioned accountant who has forgotten to pack his abacus.

  “Everything is in order,” Possony said.

  “Now the merchandise,” Fuentes said.

  “On board the plane,” said Levy.

  All four men went up the gangway. The Lear jet was air-conditioned, a blessed oasis. Fuentes glanced into the cockpit where pilot and co-pilot sat. They wore holstered pistols. Levy led the way to a compartment at the rear. He unlocked a door, switched on a light. An unmarked wooden crate, measuring some six feet by four, stood in the lit compartment. There were no markings on the box.

  “This is it,” said Possony. “The material is completely configured to the specifications supplied by Mr Hurt.”

  “Therefore accurate?” Fuentes asked.

  Levy clapped the palm of his hand across his forehead, rolled his eyes and said, “What am I hearing?”

  It was clear to Fuentes that he’d somehow insulted Levy, though he wasn’t sure how.

  Possony, less histrionic than Levy, said, “Accurate? Laser technology, Mr Fuentes. The finest electron microscopes. We’re not making imitation Swiss watches to sell on 47th Street.”

  Fuentes shrugged. He glanced at Bosanquet, who was obviously amused by Fuentes’ moment of discomfort. Possony took the attaché case from Bosanquet’s hand and said, “Now have the merchandise removed from t
he plane so we can leave. Nothing personal, you understand. But obviously we’re in a hurry to get the hell out of here.”

  Paris

  The hotel with the unlisted telephone number was small and expensive, hidden behind chestnut trees on a side street in the Latin Quarter. The private dining-room, panelled and hung with heavy curtains and eighteenth-century oils, was located on the second floor, a gloomy room, discreet in a manner peculiarly French.

  Five men sat round the table, the surface of which had been carved with the initials of various luminaries who had eaten in this room. Victor Hugo had been here, and so had Emile Zola, and Albert Camus had dropped in now and again for an aperitif after a soccer game. The literary credentials didn’t impress the five diners, none of whom had much of an appetite. A particularly delicious terrine de foie de canard had barely been touched. A good bottle of Saint Emilion had gone practically unnoticed and the consommé, decorated with a delicate lacework of leeks and – a jaunty nouvelle cuisine touch – yellow squash cut in florets, was ignored.

  When the last waiter had departed, Enrico Caporelli sat very still for a while. Beyond the heavy curtains could be heard the traffic of the fifth arrondissement, but it was a world away. Caporelli tasted his wine, pushed the glass aside, sipped a little coffee, which was roasted Kenyan and excellent. Sheridan Perry lit a cigarette and Harry Hurt, a fervent anti-smoker, fanned the polluted air with his napkin. Across the table from Caporelli was Sir Freddie Kinnaird; on Kinnaird’s right sat the German, Kluger, his face sombre.

  “First Magiwara, then Chapotin,” Caporelli said quietly as he finished his coffee. He glanced across the room at Freddie Kinnaird, then at Kluger, then Perry. Why was he drawn back, time and again, to the face of Sheridan Perry? Did he think, at some level beyond precise language, that Perry was behind the murders? Admittedly, Sheridan lusted after the Directorship. But lust was a long bloodstained step removed from two brutal murders, or three, if you counted Chapotin’s young fluffball, who, it appeared, had connections with the English aristocracy.

  “Why?” Caporelli asked. “Why those two? Did they have something in common we don’t know about? Were they involved in something that went very wrong for them? What made them candidates for death?”

  Nobody answered. Some silences are polite, others awkward, but this particular expanse of quiet had running through it, at deep levels, many different tides and currents. Mistrust, anxiety, fear. Caporelli looked inside his coffee cup. He shivered very slightly and thought Somebody is walking on your grave, Enrico.

  Superstitious nonsense, you peasant! Some things you just don’t lose. Your background, the way you were raised in the hills with simple people who crossed themselves whenever there was an eclipse of the moon or a calf was born with three legs. All the money and the smart tailors hadn’t erased the old ways. You still tossed spilled salt over your shoulder and avoided the space under ladders and you gave black cats a very wide berth.

  “Has anybody noticed anything unusual?” Caporelli asked. “Any cars following them around? Strange people prowling? Perhaps phone calls with no voices at the end of the line?”

  Nobody had witnessed anything out of the ordinary. No strange cars, no stalkers, no late night callers.

  “How did these killers know the whereabouts of Chapotin and Magiwara? How did they know not only places but times?” Caporelli asked. “Neither victim led a public life, after all. They were not common names in the society columns. They were private people.”

  Harry Hurt sipped some mineral water. “Here’s one possibility. Our Society came into existence because of the Mafia. We all know this. Had our Sicilian brethren shown more restraint and less taste for lurid publicity, we’d still be their bankers. However we went separate ways. Our predecessors, men of some vision, appropriated certain funds many many years ago and followed their own star. The Mafia, which was making more money then than all the Governments of the free world combined, didn’t notice that we had ‘misjudged’ the stock market to the tune of some, ahem, 22.5 million dollars. To them this was mere pocket money. To the Society it was a fresh start.”

  “We know the history,” Caporelli said.

  Hurt raised an index finger in the air. “Let me finish, Enrico. Suppose some young mafioso, a kid, a soldier, wants to make his name. Suppose he delves. Suppose he sees in some dusty old ledgers figures that don’t add up – what then? Would he want revenge? Would he want to wipe out the Society?”

  Caporelli was sceptical. “First he’d want the money back. Then and only then he’d blow a few heads away. He wouldn’t shoot first. He’d want to know where the cash was kept before he stuck us in front of a firing-squad.”

  Hurt shrugged. “I’m only looking at possibilities, Enrico, not writing in concrete. Here’s another one. Say an agent of Castro’s intelligence service is behind the murders. A goon from G-2 or whatever the hell it’s called. Somebody who has heard of our scheme. Perhaps somebody who has been spying on Rosabal.”

  Caporelli frowned. “For argument’s sake, let’s say Rosabal has indeed been followed by an agent of Castro – which, I may add, I discount. The stakes are too high for him to behave like such an amateur. But so what? Where could Rosabal lead such a spy? This agent might see Rosabal and me drinking tea in Glasgow or beer in a hotel in Saint Etienne – but what good would that do for the spy? Rosabal knows only me. He has no idea of the Society’s existence. How could he lead some fidelista directly to our membership? No, Rosabal’s not the poisoned apple.”

  Sheridan Perry sipped Saint Emilion with the air of a man who has been told he should appreciate fine wines but doesn’t quite enjoy the taste. “We’ve always taken great precautions about secrecy. We’ve always protected our own identities. Security has been high on our agenda at all times.”

  Freddie Kinnaird said, “Not high enough, it seems. For example, none of us has felt the apparent need for a bodyguard.”

  “It suddenly seems like a terrific idea,” Hurt said.

  Caporelli stood up. He walked to the window, parted the curtains a little way, looked out. Lamps were lit along the pavements; it was a particularly romantic scene, he thought, the pale orbs of light obscured by chestnut branches, a soft breeze shuffling leaves along the gutters. A pair of lovers walked so closely together they appeared to have shed their separate identities and fused here in the Parisian twilight.

  All this talk of a mafioso, bodyguards – it left him cold. It didn’t come to the point. He lowered the curtains, fastidiously made sure the two hems met and no exterior light penetrated, then turned to look at the faces around the table.

  “We’ve been ruptured,” he said quietly. “And we must at least consider the unpleasant possibility that somebody in our own membership …” Caporelli poured himself more coffee. He couldn’t finish the sentence. The faces in the dining-room were each in some way defiant or incredulous. “From within or without, the fact is, our security is broken. Somebody knows who we are, and is set on our destruction. I don’t think we’re going to reach a conclusion no matter how long we sit round this table tonight, my friends. We’ll argue, and throw possibilities back and forth, but nothing will be accomplished in this manner.”

  “So what are you saying?” Perry asked. His thick eyebrows came together to create one unbroken line of fur above his tiny eyes.

  Caporelli gazed at the American for a time. Again he wondered if Sheridan were capable of making a destructive play for control of the Society; and, if so, was he doing it without the complicity of his friend Hurt? Was there a rift between the two? Had Perry’s greed and ambition created an abyss across which Hurt was neither allowed nor prepared to walk?

  “I am saying this, Sheridan,” Caporelli remarked. “I am saying that we attend to personal security by hiring bodyguards. I am saying we adhere to no regular schedule. I am saying that we change cars and travel plans as often as we can. Secrecy is a prerequisite of survival. In short, we take precautions, as many as we possibly can. And we are very car
eful of how we communicate with one another.”

  This last statement fell into the room like a stone dropped from a great height. It was unpleasant. The Society had always existed on the basis of mutual trust. Now it was being undermined. Caporelli imagined he could hear old beams creak and rocks crumble in the deep shafts.

  “And does all this affect our Cuban undertaking?” Perry asked. “Do we cancel that project for starters?”

  Suddenly agitated, Freddie Kinnaird made a ball of his linen napkin, which he brushed against his lips. “Have you lost your mind? The cruise missile was successfully stolen this morning and is presently in transit, and since the British police are practically without clues, I don’t see any reason to cancel. The investigation, headed by a policeman called Frank Pagan, falls into my domain. When Pagan knows anything, I know it too. A rather lovely arrangement altogether. If Pagan goes too far, I can find a way to tug gently on his rein. Besides, if we take the precautions Enrico has suggested, I think we will see a general improvement in our mood. Prudence, my dear fellow, wins in the end. And whoever has taken to attacking our little Society will be flushed out finally.”

  Kinnaird’s expression was that of a voracious estate agent who has just placed an island paradise in escrow and whose plans include casinos, resorts, colossal hotels, and as much sheer, silken sin as anybody could stand.