The Money That Money Can't Buy c-3

by James Munro

  "This'll cost a fortune," he said.

  "Send us the bill," said Craig.

  Allen prowled past him, examining the damage, working his way back to the bows. Craig sighed. He was pathetic. Allen picked up the Lee-Enfield.

  "I think you should pay me now," he said. "You've got the money." Craig said nothing. "Or, better still, take me over to Tangier." Craig held his course, and above the engines' whine came the crisp smack of the bolt being worked. "I mean it," said Allen. The boat held course.

  "Look," Allen said, "I'm desperate. Those Spanish bastards saw me. I can't go back to Marbella. I need money. You've got it. Damn it, man—all you really want is Calvet."

  Craig held his course.

  "I'll kill you," said Allen.

  Craig said, "The gun isn't loaded." Allen laughed. "Try it." Allen squeezed the trigger.

  "You see?" said Craig.

  He risked a look at Allen then. He was sidling toward him, holding the Lee-Enfield by stock and barrel, a foolish, inefficient way to turn it into a club.

  "You're stupid," said Craig, "but you're not that stupid. You start something now and I'll put you overboard." Allen halted. "That means you'll either drown or the Spanish navy will get you. Put that thing down."

  Allen let it fall, and it banged on to the deck.

  "Now take the wheel," said Craig, and again Allen obeyed.

  Craig went down into the cabin. Calvet lay there, wriggling in a furious burst of energy to reach the ropes that tied his feet.

  "It's too late," said Craig.

  Calvet froze, and rolled over to look at him. His eyes were brown, melancholy, Slavic, and they were bright with hate.

  "You lost," said Craig. "You were bound to lose eventually. Now lie still. I don't want to hurt you again." Calvet stayed rigid. "You want a cigarette?" Calvet gave no sign that he had heard. Craig left him and went back up top, then risked a look round. Once more Calvet was trying to bend his legs and arch his back, to reach the knots that tied his feet. The Russian, Craig thought, had qualities that made him infinitely preferable to Allen, but he didn't like his taste in girls.

  Allen was very close to tears when Craig took the wheel from him again. He could see the great streak of concrete now that flowed out to sea, the runway that opened up Gibraltar to the Viscounts and Vikings and the tourists on their way to Tangier and the Costa del Sol. And behind was the boredom of Gibraltar, the correct little bars and gloomy hotels, which the magic words "duty-free" alone rendered habitable. And behind it all was the Rock, symbol of empire and insurance companies, and the wild yet formal gallantry of eighteenth-century sieges. Now all it held was the apes.

  Craig eased back the throttle, and the revs diminished. A white naval patrol boat shot toward them, and a voice on the Tannoy yelled: "Mr. Jameson?" Craig nodded vigorously, and the patrol boat shot ahead of them, piloted them past the liner in the bay, the long line of tramp steamers, into the inner harbor of launches, tugs, and motor-boats, to a quay between two moles patrolled by marine sentries. The patrol boat swung in, and Craig responded to a leading seaman's signal, stopped the starboard engine, revved up the port, and eased broadside up to the quay, while the leading hand hooked on and another sailor flung ropes to Allen, and they were tied up at last. Craig stopped the engines, and waited. A commander, R.N., and a surgeon commander left the patrol boat and dropped into the cruiser. The commander's eyes flicked from the rifle to the bullet-torn deck.

  "You're a bit conspicuous, Mr. Jameson," he said. "Your people promised the admiral that you wouldn't be."

  "Sorry about the rifle," said Craig. "We thought we might have a pop at a dolphin. Unfortunately," his eyes flicked to the damage on deck, "it started to fire back." He kicked the Lee-Enfield down the companionway out of sight.

  "Where's my patient?" said the doctor.

  Craig jerked his thumb toward the cabin.

  "He's violent," said Craig, and the commander, R.N., sighed and followed the doctor. Craig took out cigarettes and offered one to Allen. They smoked in silence, then Allen said: "I'm sorry."

  Craig drew on his cigarette. If the doctor got a move on they could catch the morning plane, be in London by teatime. He might even have time for a bath, do something about his shoulder where Calvet had hit him. He knew how to hit. That was inevitable. The KGB Executive trained its members with absolute thoroughness.

  Allen said: "I was told I'd be paid when we finished the job."

  "Oh yeah," said Craig. "You want money."

  He took a check out of his pocket. It was already signed. He dated it.

  "Five hundred for the job, five hundred for the boat. All right?"

  "That's fine," said Allen.

  Craig wrote in words and figures. "One thousand pounds," and gave him the check.

  Allen took it, folded it in three, and put it carefully in his wallet.

  "I suppose I can cash it in Gib?" he said.

  "Of course," said Craig.

  "That's fine then," said Allen as he stood up and climbed onto the quay. "I think I'll trot along now. Have some breakfast."

  "Do that," said Craig.

  "Then I thought I'd pop into the bank."

  "Good idea."

  "You don't mind if I leave you for a bit?" "You're leaving us forever," said Craig. "We don't need you any more."

  4

  The navy ambulance nosed its way toward Gibraltar airport with the ponderous yet swift-moving dignity that only Daimler knows how to build. Inside it were Craig, the doctor, and the commander, who had changed into mufti, and Calvet. Calvet was on a stretcher, asleep, and comprehensively bandaged from thorax to head. Both his legs were in splints. The money Craig had taken was inside the bandages.

  "I've given him a sedative," said the doctor. "He shouldn't give you any trouble."

  "Thanks," said Craig.

  "He's quite considerably bruised," said the doctor. "Particularly in the stomach and just below the nose. Forgive me, but what did you hit him with?"

  "I just hit him," said Craig.

  The commander stared gloomily at the notices scrawled on painted walls: "260 Afios de Liber-tad," and "Gibraltar es Espanol," one canceling out the other, over and over again. They stopped at a policeman's signal at the corner of Winston Churchill Avenue, and the commander looked at his watch.

  "You mustn't miss your plane," he said.

  "I won't," said Craig.

  The policeman signaled them on.

  "I suppose it has to wait for you?"

  "No," Craig said. "But there's lots of time and lots of planes."

  "The admiral wants you off the Rock," said the commander. "It's my business to see that you go."

  "You mean he doesn't like me?"

  "Of course he doesn't like you. I don't like you."

  "I find that incredible," said Craig.

  The doctor snorted.

  "You're in a dirty business," said the commander. "I realize it has to be done, but you can't expect me to approve of it. Of course it's different for you—you seem to enjoy it."

  Craig thought of the way he had terrorized, used, and finally abandoned Allen; the blow that had struck the girl; the impact of his shoe into Calvet's belly. He said nothing.

  "But the navy shouldn't be asked to help you. The whole enterprise is sheer piracy."

  "You talk a lot," said Craig. "The trouble is you never say anything much."

  The ambulance arrived then, nosed in past a flurry of taxi drivers and porters, and Craig got out to collect tickets for himself and David Lloyd, the battered victim of a motor accident now being flown back to his parents in Merioneth. He bought cigarettes, Scotch, and perfume at the duty-free shop, and went back to the ambulance. The doctor had gotten out and was escorting a mobile stretcher with Calvet in it up to the ticket barrier.

  The commander said: "You'd better leave now."

  "Can't I say good-bye to the admiral?" asked Craig.

  "He doesn't know you exist. None of us do," the commander said. "It mak
es me very happy."

  Craig said: "I'm a bit sad myself. Four hours in Gibraltar—and I only saw one monkey."

  "Go away," said the commander. "Just go away."

  "Okay," said Craig, and dropped the perfume in the commander's lap. "Think of me when you wear it, won't you?"

  The perfume was called "Our Secret."

  Craig walked after the doctor, and showed his tickets at the barrier. Passports and Customs had waved him through. He and Calvet were the first to arrive at the turboprop Viking, and Craig waited while the stretcher was eased into the first-class compartment and the doctor went in, checked, and came down again.

  "I've had a look at him," the doctor said. "He won't move till you get to London."

  "Thanks," said Craig.

  "No really, I've enjoyed it," said the doctor. "It makes a change from picking broken glass out of drunken sailors."

  Craig gave him the bottle of Scotch and climbed aboard. A trickle of tourists followed, then the Viking revved up at last, taxied out, and roared over the airstrip and out to sea: Africa was on one side, Europe on the other. It was raining on two continents. The plane climbed, the warning lights went out, and Craig unfastened his seat belt. In three and a half hours he'd be in London, and Calvet would be someone else's problem. He smoked, yawned, drank Scotch and ginger ale, then fell asleep.

  There was another Daimler waiting in London,

  with another doctor, and a man whom Craig didn't

  know. He handed Calvet and the evidence over,

  and took a taxi to his flat in Regent's Park. He still

  hadn't had time to have a bath, and his shoulder

  hurt like hell. He went home to rest.

  * * *

  Four days later Loomis sent for him. Craig drove to see him in the latest one of the series of black Mark X Jaguars with the 4.2-liter engine he had used ever since he'd been established in Department K. It was a ridiculously large automobile for one man, expensive to drive and impossible to park, but it suited his cover—that of a retired manufacturer of machine tools—and it enabled him whenever necessary to convey four or five other large men to where they were needed, and to do it quickly—at a hundred and thirty miles an hour, if the need arose. He parked in a mews, and walked back to Queen Anne's Gate, the wary caretaker, and Loomis's vile-tempered coffee.

  "You did all right," Loomis said grudgingly. "He's coming along nicely."

  "You've got him up at the nursing home?"

  Loomis nodded.

  "It's lovely up there just now," he said. "The daffodils are at their best. He didn't take to it at first, but he's doing fine now."

  "What did you use?"

  "Oh, different things," said Loomis. "Bit of this, bit of that. There's nothing like variety, cock. Now he's mostly on pentathol. Seems to like it. His name's Oleg Dovzhenko. Born in the Ukraine, 1938—you were giving a few years away. The KGB spotted him at Moscow University—brilliant linguist, good gymnast—and they gave him the usual tests. All that Pavlovian stuff. He worked in France for a while, then he did a bit in South America, then he went to Marbella. We've got it all down."

  "Did he find much stuff about Gibraltar?"

  "There's not a hell of a lot to find," said Loomis. "But he did his best. He was busier paying people to do things about Franco."

  "Any good?"

  "Oh yes," said Loomis. "He'd found out quite a bit about how far they'll support America, and he'd done some research on the Fifth Fleet, too. He had a man on the spot when the Yanks lost their H-bomb, and he'd done quite a bit of work on airfields. He was looking to the future, as well. Very forward-looking feller. Spotting blokes he could work on when Franco goes."

  "What about the girl?" asked Craig.

  "The young person you tied to the bed? She's a designer of expressionist jewelry. That means sequins in your belly button, sort of thing. She's clean. From what I hear she didn't even see you. You did all right." Loomis looked surprised.

  "And Allen?"

  "Bloody fool," said Loomis. "He went back to Spain. Had some money hidden in Marbella, so he put on a false beard and pretended he was invisible. The Spanish police picked him up in an hour. I expect he told them all about you. Not that it matters. You don't exist. They'll do him for smuggling and shooting at their navy. Now then"—he dismissed Allen with a wave of a meaty paw, and glowered at Craig—"that stuff you brought us. The R/T's nice, but we got a better one already. The money's better. We're always short of money here. Twenty-five thousand quid in dollars. Pity!"

  "What's wrong?" Craig asked.

  "They're all forged." He reached into his inside pocket with a fat man's economy of movement, then threw four twenty-dollar bills on to the desk in front of Craig. "See for yourself."

  Craig picked them up and looked at them. They were crisp and clean, with the hard feel of good paper, the portrait of President Jackson sharp and well defined. The color was good, the printing excellent.

  "Pretty," said Craig.

  "Would you take one if it was offered?" Craig nodded, and Loomis nodded back, a one-inch inclination of the head that was regal in its dignity.

  "Me too. Trouble is, there's three thousand bills and only four serial numbers between them. I've had them looked at. Chap at Scotland Yard specializes in this sort of thing. He liked them. Got very excited. Nearly wet himself." Loomis paused, then added: "Thin feller," as if in explanation. "Seems they've had one of these passed in London. He's got some of his young men working on it now. I think you'd better go and help them. It'll be a bit of an education for you."

  Craig's tutor was Detective Sergeant Millington, a young, eager copper with an unquenchable thirst for promotion. Craig met him in a pub in Chelsea, a dim, chilly little place where even the feeling of decay was, if not elegant, at least expensive. Mill-ington was drinking beer and eating a sausage. He looked weary yet brimming with excitement, the energy fighting the weariness: as it must do when you work a sixty-hour week every week, and the assistants and equipment you need are eternally promised but never arrive. He was hatless and his shoes were not unduly large for his big man's weight, and yet Craig had spotted him at once for a copper. He had the look of a born hunter. Craig went over to him; he sensed the quick appraisal of the other's eyes. It had been the same when he'd gone to see him at Scotland Yard. Millington was afraid of Craig and disliked him because of it.

  "I don't like this idea," Millington said. "It's asking for trouble. Anybody can see you're not a copper." He looked at Craig's hand-stitched gray suit, the white Sea Island cotton shirt, and Dior tie. "You're too well dressed for one thing."

  "I thought I might look more like a crook," said Craig.

  Millington scowled.

  "I can't take you with me to interview people when you look like that."

  "I don't want to be with you," Craig said. "Just show me who they are and let me work it out for myself."

  "I don't think I can do that," Millington said. "After all, I'm responsible for you."

  "Oh no," said Craig. "I don't think so."

  Millington looked at him again, not trying to hide his dislike.

  "Okay," he said, "I'll show them to you. But what good'll that do? They'll see you with me."

  "No," said Craig. "They won't. We've got just the thing for that."

  What he had was a Bedford van, with one-way black glass panels in the sides and back. A chain of roses was painted round the van, and on each side was the name "BLOSSOMS UNLiMiTED "jMillington wasn't amused. The interior of the van was furnished like a caravan with a camp bed and chairs; there were three Leica Ikon cameras with telefoto lenses, a 16-millimeter Eclair movie camera, two Ferrograph tape recorders, and a radio as well. Millington lusted after that van. It would have saved him hours of questioning, miles of walking. The driver got in, and the van drove away. They were going to Soho.

  The twenty-dollar bill had been passed in a strip club, a small place just off Greek Street with seats for fifty, a tiny stage, and an enormous bar. Currentl
y its name was "Nuderama." The man who had passed the bill had looked and talked like an American. He had used it to buy champagne for the three stars of the show, and it had cost him five pounds for a magnum. He'd given the barman ten shillings, kept thirty shillings in change, and had never gone back, though the stars looked for him daily. So did the barman. Millington thought he might be a man called Tony Driver, an unusually versatile crook who had done time in Great Britain and Canada for such varied offenses as blackmail, larceny, and the con game. Driver dressed well, lived anywhere, and played poker at least four hours a day. Usually he won. On the day before the bill had been passed, Driver had played for six hours and had lost five hundred pounds, Millington had learned. Then, apart from his one visit to Nuderama, he had disappeared for two days, come back with stake money, played poker again, and won. He handed Craig his photograph.

  "You haven't tried to have him identified yet?" Craig asked.

  "We were going to—until you came along. Now we've been asked to hold back."

  "It's good of you to wait."

  "It's orders," said Millington.

  The van turned off Shaftesbury Avenue, along Old Compton Street and into Greek Street, then parked at a meter. It was three o'clock and Nuderama was preparing to face a new day. Craig took a pair of Zeiss glasses from a rack, gave another pair to Millington, looked at a yellow door framed in electric light bulbs, and around the light bulbs a wooden frame. At the top of the frame was the name "NUDERAMA" in rainbow lettering; the two sides sported pictures of girls. Mostly they were simply naked, except for that look of outraged hauteur—like a duchess whose bottom's being pinched by a servant—that strippers always wear when they pose. One or two wore muffs, or a pair of doves, or what Craig took to be a piece of salmon net. The most enterprising appeared about to administer the Irish whip to a gorilla.

  As Craig watched, a man with the very white skin of one who rarely sees daylight went up to the doorway, opened it and went in. Craig took his photograph.

  "That's the barman," said Millington.

  He was followed by a chunky, bad-tempered woman—the cashier—and another man.

  "That's the barker," said Millington. "He stands outside and cons in the customers."