Snark

by William L. DeAndrea

  Bellman walked close to the bars and said hello.

  The grin widened. “And which one is the monkey?” Leo asked. “I’ve looked forward to this. Should I call you Driscoll or Bellman?”

  “Call me whatever you like. Just tell me what you want.”

  “What I want?” Leo shook his head and sighed. “My friend, the gap between what I want and what I can have is enough to make me cry. For instance, I want to kill you.”

  “You’ve tried. Or had it tried.”

  “You’re very lucky. Or very good.”

  “A combination.”

  “Of course, I don’t dare kill you now. You’re my only hope. The only consolation I have is that you want me dead as much as I want you dead, and you can’t kill me, either.”

  “Plenty of room between the bars for a bullet to get through,” Bellman said. He put his hand into the pocket of his coat. He had nothing in there but a couple of pound coins, but Leo didn’t have to know that. Bellman had a perverted urge to push the terrorist, see what he’d do.

  The answer was, he behaved like a professional. “You’re too smart for that, my friend,” he said. “The reason we can see each other so nicely is the lights from all these cars. The reason we’re talking so quietly is that we don’t want to disturb all these passersby. Do we?”

  Bellman made a face.

  “I didn’t choose this place by accident, my friend. There’s a busy Underground stop nearby; three bus lines run through here—no, four. I know you’re not alone, but if you or any of your helpers do anything to me, it will draw a crowd. And even if it doesn’t, the secret of the Sussex Cyclops will be all over London—all over the world—by tomorrow.”

  So much for pushing. Bellman couldn’t shoot, or give the signal for the men he’d requisitioned from Tipton to shoot, either. The sidewalk was crowded—something doing at the Royal Albert Hall just down the block, no doubt. Calvin could take one step backward, and have a shield, a veritable fortress, of innocent human flesh around him.

  Bellman faced a fact he’d been facing at two-hour intervals since he first got the news that Leo wanted to see him: There was nothing he could do but play along.

  He faced it, he didn’t have to like it. “All right,” he said irritably. “Why don’t we cut out the macho bullshit spy talk and get down to business?”

  Leo grinned again. “I thought you’d never ask. The first thing you should know is that I’m going to want money. Lots of it.”

  “Define lots,” Bellman suggested.

  “Seven figures. American dollars. Swiss bank.”

  “Dreamer.”

  “A lot of it will go for bribes. I’m too big a patriot to ask Uncle Sam to protect me for the rest of my life. Plastic surgery. Things like that.”

  Bellman was getting impatient. “Maybe you just better spell it out.”

  Leo spelled. He was offering Bellman’s Agency himself as a hostage for six months. Hostage and information source. The money had to be paid in advance, but they didn’t have to let Leo out to collect it.

  “I talk. Twelve, fourteen hours a day, if you want. I know a lot, and I can figure more. Russians, Cubans. Terrorists. You check out the information. If I’ve done enough, you let me go and enjoy my money. You’ll always know where I am, and I’ll always be available for more questions.”

  “I can’t negotiate something like this.”

  “No negotiations. This is it. Anything else, I’d just as soon let the Russians catch up with me.”

  “What if we take you up on it, pump you, then lose your body when we’ve done?”

  “Then the information on Sir Lewis goes in. I have to check in at intervals, but there’s no limit on this. There’s no time limit on fingerprints.”

  A lifetime of training kept Bellman from reacting, at least externally. How the hell had Leo found out about fingerprints? It wasn’t something he had time to puzzle over now.

  “I’ve got to get back for authorization on this.”

  “Naturally. I didn’t expect you’d have five million bucks and a pardon in your pocket.”

  “How do I get in touch with you?”

  “I’ll reach you. There’ll be a personal in The Times addressed to The Captain and signed Snark. It’ll carry a time and a telephone number. Got it?”

  Bellman nodded.

  “Good. I never dreamed it would be such a pleasure doing business with you. Do I need to point out the consequences if I’m bothered in the meantime?”

  “No.”

  “Then goodbye. I’ll be careful crossing streets.”

  Bellman watched him turn and walk away. He also picked up one of Tipton’s men, the one who would follow Leo back to wherever he was staying. Not that it would matter. Leo would expect to be kept under surveillance. Bellman doubted he’d even make an effort to shake the tail. The newspapers were all the insurance Leo needed.

  Bellman sighed. His father had warned him about letting the other guy call the shots. He turned and headed down the path toward Queen’s Gate, so he could get the hell out of there and get on a Number Fourteen bus back to Putney.

  The voice came from behind a tree. “Wait a moment, Mr. Bellman.”

  Bellman jumped. That was involuntary, even though he’d been expecting something like this. Bulanin had seen him jump, too. That was bad. The idea now was to be supercool and get back even.

  “Hello, Bulanin,” he said. “Is that a gun in your pocket? Or are you glad to see me?”

  Bulanin didn’t jump, exactly. He did flinch. The file on the Agricultural Attaché was thick and explicit, and the Congressman’s comments in the margins had suggested that Bulanin was not proud of his sexual exploits. Particularly the homosexual ones.

  “You will come with me,” the Russian said stiffly. “Immediately.”

  “Grigori Illyich,” Bellman said. “You’re far too handsome to resort to hard pickups in the woods.”

  “You are not funny,” Bulanin said.

  “You are. Agriculture or no agriculture, you are not an outdoor agent. You want me to come along to ask me questions, get me to tell you things. I’ll tell you right here. First, that was Leo Calvin I spoke to. Obviously, he tipped you off we were going to meet, or saw you found out. Probably another effort to get you to kill me—he’d be damn near unbeatable if he didn’t hold these grudges. Second, I’m not going to tell you what we talked about, because it was a lot of bullshit—you familiar with that term?—a lot of bullshit, and I don’t trust him any more than you do.”

  Bellman took his hand out of his pocket, slowly. Bulanin wasn’t flinching now—the handsome face was impassive. But he was thinking. Bellman could almost hear the buzz of neurons firing in the Russian’s brain.

  “Third,” Bellman went on, “you can shoot me, if you like. If that is a gun in your pocket. But I’m not alone. Maybe neither one of us has a whole lot of respect for British Intelligence, but as marksmen, they’re perfectly adequate. There are a least three of them with a bead on you right now. They don’t know who you are, so they’ll have no compunction about shooting you down if you do anything to me, even if it does start World War III.

  “Four. I’m leaving now. It’s a cold night, and I’m hungry. I suggest you do the same. Five. If you want to speak to me about Leo Calvin or anybody else, leave a message at the American Embassy. I’ll be delighted to talk to you, Grigori Illyich. Any time.”

  “You are laughing at me,” Bulanin said.

  “Who?” Bellman demanded. “Me?”

  “I have been laughed at before. The laugher has always regretted it.”

  “Good thing I’m not laughing, then.”

  “You are laughing. And you will regret it. I, too, hold grudges, Mr. Bellman.”

  Bulanin melted back into the woods. Bellman asked himself what he’d accomplished so far tonight. He’d been outmaneuvered by Calvin, and he had in turn outmaneuvered Bulanin. It was now confirmed that Bulanin had some knowledge of what Leo Calvin had been doing, and it was the next be
st thing to confirmed that it concerned Sir Lewis Alfot.

  Did Bulanin think he was being double-crossed by Calvin, or was the Russian’s appearance here tonight a charade for Bellman’s benefit? Bellman was inclined to believe the former, if only on the basis of the Russian’s facial expressions and body language.

  One thing for sure—he’d have to run Leo’s demands by the Congressman. Leo knew a lot of secrets, as he’d said, and Bellman suspected his father would forgive a lot to get his hands on them. It was the nature of the business.

  It was also depressing as hell. Bellman sighed, then followed his smoky breath out of the park. He sat on a bus and let it take him home to Felicity.

  SIXTH

  “My poor client’s fate now depends on your votes.”

  Here the speaker sat down in his place,

  And directed the Judge to refer to his notes

  And briefly to sum up the case.

  But the Judge said he never had summed up before;

  So the Snark undertook it instead,

  And summed it up so well that it came to far more

  Than the Witnesses ever had said!

  —The Hunting of the Snark

  Fit the Sixth

  1

  NO BOOK OR FILM about private investigators ever mentioned the blessed paperwork. Hugh Celeber sometimes thought he would have been better off going in for accountancy. Then, at least, there would be some professional interest to the forms that piled up on his desk. Invoices. Payment records for his operatives. Copies of the payment records to satisfy Inland Revenue.

  Reports.

  The reports that sat on his desk now were what was keeping him late in the office tonight, as much as he would have preferred it to be the routine paperwork. Specifically, the reports for his client, Mr. Smith, on the activities of a certain Mr. Jeffrey Bellman of the United States, and the people he spoke to in Kensington Gardens last night.

  Mr. Smith, when he had made his nightly telephone call this evening (the events in question had occurred too late to make last night’s report, more was the pity), had been told that there was something Mr. Celeber wanted to discuss with him. Something personal and urgent. The one bright spot in this whole business was that Mr. Smith had taken it like a lamb, and had promised to be there at nine sharp.

  Celeber looked at the grandmother clock near the door. Nine-fifteen. He tightened his lips and forced his attention back to the Inland Revenue forms.

  Hugh Celeber was a cautious man. He made a tidy living for himself and his Aunt Dorothy, with whom he had lived since age ten, but he did it cautiously. He followed husbands for wives and wives for husbands. He followed American boyfriends for Dirty Old Men, which was how Smith had presented his case. He found witnesses for solicitors, and arranged to keep an eye on witnesses solicitors had already found. He did it all cautiously. He kept his nose clean. He stayed in business. Aunt Dorothy could have unlimited scones and lemon curd with her tea.

  Celeber made a noise that might have been a growl, then shook his head as if to chase the noise away. Cautiously (the thing was sharp, and he had once hurt his hand), he reached to the bodkin and removed the next paper his secretary had spindled for his attention.

  Three papers later, the bell rang. “Finally,” Celeber said, and he rose to admit Mr. Smith.

  “I had trouble finding a taxi,” Smith said by way of greeting. Celeber decided it was probably a lie. A man who would wear that cartoon-anarchist disguise more than once would lie about the day of the week.

  There was one change in his appearance tonight, though a minor one. He wore new spectacles. These were even heavier, with massive, thick frames. The left temple had been mended with bandage tape just where the tortoiseshell disappeared into the false hair around his ears.

  Celeber showed his client into his office. “You’re here,” he said, pointing to a chair. “That’s the important thing.”

  “The important thing,” his client corrected him, “is whatever it is you have to tell me. Urgent and personal, I believe you said.”

  “As personal as it is possible to be, I’m afraid, Mr. Smith.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist on knowing your real name.”

  Did the eyes widen behind the flat glass of the spectacles? It was hard to tell.

  “Out of the question,” Smith said.

  “I am forced to insist,” Celeber said. “You told me you wanted this man followed because you believed he was getting too close to your lady friend—”

  “And that he had designs on my money, don’t forget that.”

  “I never forget anything said to me by a client, Mr. Smith. Or whatever your name is. The point is, what you said to me was, to put it kindly, not the complete truth.”

  “I’m paying you enough to take my word for it.”

  “Ordinarily, yes.” Celeber gave him what he hoped was an amiable nod. “A private investigator’s life consists largely of listening to people tell him lies. Most of them are inconsequential, designed to protect the ego or to salve the conscience.”

  “Let’s just say that’s what I’m doing and leave it at that, Celeber. Is this all you had to tell me?”

  “No, Mr. Smith, I’m afraid it is not all I had to tell you. And I am not prepared to let it go at that, as you put it.”

  Now the eyes did narrow. “Why not?” Smith asked. His tone was calm, even amiable, but Celeber didn’t like it at all.

  He didn’t like any of this at all. He reached for the reports, held them up, and shook them. “This is why we can’t let it go, Mr. Smith. You say this Bellman is trying to move in on your business?”

  “I am,” Smith said, “getting weary of saying it.”

  “Then what the devil is your business?” The exasperation in the detective’s voice was sincere. It was a business where surprises were endemic, but not this kind. Not the kind that had you out of your depth the instant you found them out.

  He shook the reports again. “Your Mr. Bellman has indeed been spending time with your Miss Grace. He has, as we’ve told you in our nightly reports, been living with her. You seemed to take that news with equanimity, Mr. Smith.”

  He was still taking it with equanimity. “Go on,” he said.

  “Last night, Bellman went to Kensington Gardens. He was followed.”

  “That’s what I’m paying you for, blast it.”

  “He was followed,” Celeber repeated, “by men other than mine. At least four of them, possibly more. Do you have another detective agency on this case, Mr. Smith?”

  Smith said, “No.”

  Celeber blinked. The last thing he’d expected had been a straight answer. “Well, someone was following him. My men followed instructions in spite of this. Bellman spoke to two people, one through the Alexandra Gate. Fortunately, they spoke long enough for one of my men to get in position to follow the man he spoke to when the conversation finished. He tailed him to an address in Fulham. He gives the name Frank Smith—a relative of yours, perhaps—and he seems to be another American.”

  “I want that address! Tell me immediately!”

  “It’s in the report. I’m afraid you must hear me out, and satisfy me, before I let you see it.”

  The eyes glared. Celeber was glad the glass was there to filter some of it before it reached him.

  Celeber swallowed. The man was disconcerting, comedy get-up and all.

  “The other man Bellman spoke to,” Celeber went on, “was followed by another of my operatives.”

  “I want that address,” Smith said ominously.

  “The address the second man went to—”

  “Bugger the second man, damn you! I want the Fulham address!”

  “—was number Eighteen Kensington Palace Gardens. This is the Soviet Embassy, Mr. Smith! The man your instructions had us tailing was Grigori Bulanin!”

  “I am not interested in Grigori Bulanin. I want—”

  “I want,” Celeber said,
“to know why you have given me instructions that have led to my putting a tail on the man who is reputed to be the top KGB operative in Britain. I demand to know who you are and what you’re up to. I—”

  Smith rose, and with one quick motion snatched the reports from Celeber’s hand. He was saying something about the last payment being delivered tomorrow, but Celeber wasn’t listening. In reflex, he grabbed his client’s wrist. Smith, in turn, clawed at the hand that held him.

  The two men struggled across the desk. Even as he realized the absurdity of the situation—real-life private investigators did not scuffle with clients!—he was planning ways to win the fight. He decided to see if the man in the comical disguise would guard his identity as fiercely as he guarded the papers he held.

  Celeber grabbed the false beard and pulled. He blinked at what it revealed. “Sir Lewis!” he gasped. Celeber, for the first time since he’d entered the business, felt himself completely at a loss. There was no conceivable explanation for Sir Lewis Alfot, of all people, involving him in these melodramatics.

  “Sir Lewis,” he said again. “I’m afraid I don’t—”

  He didn’t get to finish. Sir Lewis had let go one hand, and with dexterity better than a pickpocket’s, had reached into his greatcoat, pulled out a sand-filled sock, and used it against the side of the detective’s head.

  Celeber went down, dazed. His chair skittered away as he hit it on the way down. Celeber blinked a few times, and was just about to gather his legs under him in an attempt to rise when Sir Lewis struck again.

  This time, the man Celeber had known as a newspaper celebrity-philanthropist gave a yell like a savage and overturned Celeber’s desk on top of him.

  The edge bit into the detective’s thighs. The pain dazed him as effectively as the cosh had. Celeber was sure that one of his legs was broken. Perhaps both.

  Celeber tried to move, to wriggle out so he could crawl away from this madman, but the desk was too heavy. It was a paperweight, and he was tissue. If he struggled too hard, he’d tear himself in half.