Snark

by William L. DeAndrea

  Not so dependable, however, as to let Leo take him for granted. That was the reason Grunter Martin had been asked along.

  “You give Stan more money than you give me,” Grunter said. There was no anger in his voice, or hurt or surprise, just the statement of fact. Grunter Martin was broad and brawny. His name came from the noise he made when he hit people, which he did with a detached professionalism whenever the money was right. He never showed, or, as far as Leo could tell, had any emotion whatever.

  “Yours is just a retainer,” Leo told him. “I’m going to give Stan a particular job to do. For that he gets paid once. I want you to work for me on a regular basis; you’ll get this much every week.”

  “Until when?” Grunter asked. He had tiny bright blue eyes that could gleam with shrewdness just when you were about to dismiss him as an idiot. Grunter dressed like an American truck driver, a look he’d picked up from the cinema. Right now he wore blue jeans, a gray sweatshirt, and a black zip-up cloth jacket. His brown hair was crew-cut length all over his head, except for his forelock, which he combed down over his brow. Combined with the eyes, it gave him the look of some malevolent Kewpie doll.

  “Two weeks at least,” Leo told him, hoping he’d be out of the country by then. Turning himself in to Bellman would be unpleasant, to say nothing of dangerous, but it would at least protect him from the consequences of having told a lie to Grunter Martin.

  “All right, then,” Grunter said.

  “What’s the job?” Stan Hope asked. He did the cigarette routine again. Leo noticed that he lit the new cigarette with the butt of the old one, which meant the gold lighter was probably in hock as well.

  Leo took a manila envelope from under his coat and handed it to Stan. “The job is simple. Take this. Keep it for me. I will ring you every day. I—”

  “Sorry,” Stan said. “Phone’s out. You could ring me here at the Duke’s Head.”

  “All right. What’s the number?”

  Stan offered to write it out for him, but Leo said he would remember it.

  “All right,” Leo said again. “Eleven-thirty A.M. every day. Be there. Wait until afternoon closing if for some reason I don’t call. If you still haven’t heard from me by the time they chuck you out, bring that envelope to The Sun.”

  Stan raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to speak, but Leo cut him off.

  “Don’t wonder what’s inside it. Don’t look.”

  “No fear,” Stan assured him. “I only get curious when I’m poor. You’ll make your first call tomorrow?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this seems quite a bit a money for a job a trained dog could do.”

  “A trained dog could forget. Or see a bigger bone. You’re too smart for that, Stan. Aren’t you?”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  “Good. I may have another job for you, but we can talk about that later. I’d want you, too, Grunter.”

  “This fall under the money you give me every week?” Grunter asked.

  “No, there’ll be a separate payment for it if the job comes up.”

  Leo might have told him the time. Grunter nodded once, raised his pint, drained it, put the mug down with a clatter on the scarred wooden table, and licked ale foam from his lips. “Good,” he said. “The only thing you haven’t told me is what I do for my weekly paycheck.”

  “Ah,” Leo said. “I was coming to that. The first thing you do is to stay available in case I need some extra muscular backup. I don’t expect that to happen.”

  “Easy money so far.”

  “For the rest, all I want is for you to stay with Stan. Keep people from bothering him. Don’t let him lose the envelope. Listen in on my daily phone calls to him.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And if he opens the envelope, or I don’t call one day, and he fails to bring the envelope to the newspaper—”

  Stan held up a hand. “This is quite unnecessary, you know. Leo, you know—”

  “If he doesn’t do it,” Leo said.

  “Yeah?” Grunter asked.

  “Kill him.”

  Grunter shrugged. “I thought that might be it. Got time for another pint, Stan?”

  5

  I DON’T LIKE THIS, DAVE Hamilton thought. I shouldn’t be here like this. Couple years ago I was just a kid in her class, now here I am in the lady’s apartment. Posh place, but not flashy. Class.

  Not the sort of place I belong.

  It was also embarrassing to have Mr. Bellman there. Dave knew by now that the American was living here with Miss Grace, and he was more embarrassed by it than either of them seemed to be.

  Not that Dave was wet enough to think a woman like Miss Grace wouldn’t have a geezer or two around. He wasn’t a virgin himself, if the truth be known, though since he’d stopped running with the old crowd he’d been relegated to the amateur ranks as far as that went.

  And if there was going to be a face around, there was no reason it shouldn’t be this American. He was a nice enough sort but he just didn’t understand. He kept trying to treat Dave like some kind of pal, and couldn’t seem to see that it wasn’t on.

  They weren’t lovey-dovey or anything, at least not in front of Dave. It was plain, though, that they were comfortable with each other. It was the way they looked at each other that told the tale, the way the American took care of her. Dave’s knowledge of the real business of the Tournament Press was strictly limited (and Dave got happier about that every day), but he’d seen enough of what the real professionals went through to know that people in that line of work seemed to go through life with their briefs too tight. They never got as comfortable with each other as these two seemed to be.

  Dave was there to fix the telly. When they’d rung the flat and told him what they wanted, he felt queer, like he knew the way he’d feel when he got here. Too wide a gap between him and a posh bird from Gloucestershire or whatever. The American might as well come from Mars. He couldn’t know about them, they couldn’t know about him. He’d been about to say he couldn’t make it.

  But then he thought it over. Mike was having his pains again, and trying not to cry about it. It didn’t seem fair—if he couldn’t move his legs, couldn’t feel anything else about them, why should he feel pain? It made Dave want to cry himself, something Mum had given up trying not to do.

  Dave did all he could for his brother, but he couldn’t do a thing about this. Medicine didn’t help. The doctor said it was all in Mike’s mind, but he was a bloody Paki from the National Health; what did he care? He got his packet whether he made anybody well or not. Someday, Dave would put enough money by to have Mike looked after by a real doctor.

  Not that Dave wanted money from Miss Grace. He definitely did not want money from her, not now. Wouldn’t be right somehow. But he did want to get out of the flat. And while he couldn’t do anything for Mike or for Mum, he could help Miss Grace. He’d swallowed a couple of times to force the queer feeling back down to his belly where it could be contained. Then he told his mum he’d be back soon, put on his jacket, and rode his bike to Putney.

  It had taken him more time to get upstairs to the flat and get the back off the box than it had to fix what was wrong. Dave gave the solder a few seconds to cool, then wiggled the cylinder (about as big around as a cigarette and half as long) to make sure it was secure. He placed the solder and flux back in his toolbox, and leaned the iron against it, point up.

  “I’ll let that cool for a moment, then I’ll be off.”

  “Done already?” Miss Grace asked.

  Dave shrugged. “It wasn’t much. Mr. Bellman—Jeff had already put his finger on the problem by the time he rang me. It was a resistor, same as I fixed for you last time. I think there’s something in the circuit that’s burning them out, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth to pull the set apart to find it. Resistors are cheap enough.” He handed her the old one. She held it up to her unbandaged eye (Dave had an uncomfortable flash of what mus
t be behind the bandage) and looked at the colored circles painted against the overall beige of the cylinder.

  “It’s a color code,” Bellman said. “Resistors are all pretty much alike, but they can’t print numbers on them to tell them apart, because you might have to put it into a circuit numbers down.”

  Miss Grace nodded. “And you’d have to take the whole thing apart to read it.”

  The soldering iron was cool now. Dave packed it neatly in his toolbox and closed the lid. “I’ll be off, now,” he said.

  Bellman was reaching for his pocket, and there was a question on his face, but Dave cut him off. “No charge,” he said.

  “Dave,” Miss Grace said, “you must.”

  “I won’t hear of it,” Dave insisted. “It’s a get-well present. I couldn’t get you flowers...”

  He stopped because Miss Grace had come up to him and kissed him on the cheek and told him he was sweet, and Dave couldn’t think of an appropriate response other than flight.

  “Well,” he said at last, sure he was blushing and angry at himself for it, “I’ve really got to go now. Me mum will have her hands full with Mike.”

  “Thanks, Dave,” Bellman said. “I owe you one.”

  “It’s nothing.” Dave could feel himself bouncing on his knees in his anxiety to be out of there, like a kid waiting for permission to use the WC. “Enjoy the telly. Ta ra.”

  And mercifully, he was out the door. He stood there a moment, knowing he’d made a proper charlie of himself, but unable to feel anything but relief.

  He heard voices from inside. Bellman’s asking if she really wanted to know about this stuff; Miss Grace assuring him she did.

  “All right,” the American said. “All you have to do is remember this: ‘Bad boys rape other young girls, but Violet gives willingly.’”

  “Charming,” Miss Grace said.

  “Mnemonic device. To remember the color code. Black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, gray, white. Black is zero, brown is one, red is two...”

  Dave left. He already knew about this stuff, maybe even better than he wanted to.

  6

  BULANIN WAS PLEASED. PERHAPS his luck was changing. He certainly deserved a change in his luck. Had been deserving one for a long time now.

  But at least his informant’s tips had been correct. Both the tips had been correct—the one that said that Leo Calvin had contacted the American, and the one this morning, telling him where and when they were to meet. Two in a row. A winning streak, as the Americans said.

  And, as the Americans would also say, Bulanin was crowding his luck. He was handling this himself instead of trusting it to subordinates. It was a risk, but Bulanin, as always, had reasons.

  One was that his subordinates, or those hired by his subordinates, had been failing rather miserably against this Bellman and his lady friend. The other was a matter of pride. Bulanin had somehow allowed Leo Calvin to lead him around by the nose, to use him to an extent it caused him shame just to think of—as though the KGB were a murder-for-hire organization, like some bunch of American gangsters, to be used to settle private disputes. The fact that the murders had failed didn’t serve to change the basic fact—Leo Calvin had played on Bulanin’s ambition and led him to pervert the mission of the organization he served. And the nation the organization served, if it came to that.

  This, strictly interpreted, was a Crime Against the State, and no one but Bulanin had committed it. Therefore, no one but Bulanin should provide restitution, and that he planned to do.

  Bulanin was not a fanatic, and he was not insane. He had no intention of turning himself over to Borzov for punishment—that would serve no one, the Motherland least of all.

  But Leo Calvin had seduced Bulanin with promises of the head of Sir Lewis Alfot, alive and crammed with priceless secrets. He had made Bulanin perform like a trained bear, but he had not delivered the reward. Instead, he was treating with the Americans. With Bellman, the mad American, who had broken all the rules of recognized behavior, and who might, for all Bulanin knew, spray the Embassy with nerve gas the next time he took it into his head to visit.

  So be it. Calvin had made his choice. Let him live with it. Or die with it. If Bulanin couldn’t deliver Sir Lewis Alfot, he would deliver Leo Calvin. Not alive. Not alive. Bulanin knew how persuasive Calvin could be; he would not have him carrying tales to Borzov about how Bulanin had made a mess of his opportunity to capture alive the Motherland’s greatest British enemy.

  Calvin would die tonight. If possible, he would die slowly in the basement of the Embassy, but he would die.

  Bulanin still wasn’t sure what to do with Bellman. How big an incident would the death of this man cause, if any? Whom would the Americans kill in retaliation? Bulanin sighed. If he could answer those questions, he would already know what to do.

  Bulanin hunched himself farther into his coat, cursing the January cold. Moscow was far colder than this, but there was something in the London damp that lingered uncomfortably in his bones long after he had gone inside again and locked it out behind him.

  Tonight, the chill would have a chance to sink deep. Bulanin had placed himself on this bench, near the winter-deadened garden of the flower walk in Kensington Gardens, some ninety minutes ago. His blood felt like treacle someone had left too long in the refrigerator. He couldn’t have moved fast if his life depended on it. At least he wouldn’t be able to get off to a fast start.

  This is how you show your age, he thought. Not in your face, in your legs. Bulanin hoped there would be no running tonight.

  He was seated so that by looking around the twigs of a leafless bush he had a view of the Albert Memorial, where, in—Bulanin consulted his watch—five minutes Bellman would meet with Leo Calvin. It was not possible to appreciate the Albert Memorial in the dark, but Bulanin had come to look at it many times in daylight, and it never failed to fascinate him. It looked like the skeleton of a church spire, a Gothic one, lacking only the flying buttresses. Otherwise, every inch was carved or ornamented. Inside, was a seated statue of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Consort to Queen Victoria. It amused Bulanin to think that Karl Marx might have watched the workers (“The Grateful People,” who erected the statue, according to the legend in gold that adorned it) erecting the structure, and felt all the surer of the eventual collapse of capitalism.

  The Memorial was, to be sure, a memorial to bad taste. But it was also a memorial to obsolescence. Albert himself had been defunct before they started. But neither did Saxe-Coburg nor Gotha exist anymore. Not as separate principalities. And the Empire, the one the sun never set on, commemorated in four elaborate groups of statuary at the corners of the monument, was a memory, too. Europe, Africa, America, Oceania, each represented by a woman riding a wild beast, surrounded by worshipful aborigines, had forgotten Albert. Had probably forgotten the Empire.

  They had been so strong. No power could have brought them to their current state except themselves. It was a mistake Bulanin would not let his own nation repeat.

  It was quiet in the park, but not deserted. It was still early enough—not quite half past seven. The sun set early in the winter. People were still making their way home from work, and many walked across the park. Some, coming apparently for the quiet, and willing to pay the price of the cold to get it, sat quietly on their benches as Bulanin sat on his. A young black man on roller skates cut intricate capers around the statuary, fence, stairs, and benches that surrounded the Memorial. When he came close, Bulanin could hear him making rhythmic, breathy explosions with his lips, the rhythm of the music being pumped into his head by the small black box clipped to his belt.

  Suddenly, the young man stopped and spoke to a newcomer, a tall man with the hood of his anorak covering his head.

  “Pardon me, mon?” he said. Jamaican, Bulanin thought. Somewhere in the Caribbean, anyway. Far from home and making the best of it. Like I am, Bulanin thought.

  “Yes?” the stranger said.

&nbs
p; “Is your name Bellman?” It came out Bell-Mon.

  “That’s me.”

  Bulanin knew the voice. It was Bellman, all right.

  “Fellow give me a fiver to give you a message,” the Jamaican said. “He told me you’d give me another to hear it.”

  Bellman skinned his hood back, and Bulanin could see his grin. Bellman hiked up his coat and reached into his wallet. “Sorry,” he said, “no fiver. Here’s five ones.” The black man took them; Bellman made a joke about spending them while they were still good.

  “Who’s the message from?” Bellman asked.

  “All he told me was Leo. You know him?”

  “Not as well as I’m going to. What’s the message?”

  “He told me to say he’d meet you down dere.” The Jamaican pointed to the Alexandra Gate, his finger indicating a short diagonal to the southeast corner of the Gardens.

  “Anything else?” Bellman asked.

  The young man gave an eloquent shrug. “That’s all, mon.”

  Bellman shrugged back and took off at a brisk pace. Bulanin didn’t wait long before starting after him. By the time Bulanin’s legs got limber, Bellman’s head start would be big enough.

  7

  CHALK ONE UP FOR Leo, Bellman thought. He’d arranged things so that their first face-to-face meeting would come with bars of good vintage British Iron between them. Leo had stationed himself outside Kensington Gardens completely, out on the pavement on the corner of Kensington Road and Exhibition Road. Serves me right, Bellman thought. Two feet away, but with the locked and chained Alexandra Gate between them, he might as well be in Canarsie.

  Leo looked different from the way he had when Bellman had gotten his only previous glimpse of the man, across a burning warehouse in a town called Draper, Pennsylvania. Leo had a moustache now, and his hair was darker, but Bellman knew the grin. He’d know the grin anywhere.