“Is that a current assessment?”
“Yes, it is what the SAVAK tells me. But now I have questions and doubts. Distressing as it was, the helicopter tour was an excellent idea, a good foundation for your next investigations.” He proceeded to lay out a plan of attack for me to follow. Tomorrow I would revert to Jake Fonko, while Gianni Franco decamped to distant pleasures. The procedure for this was hopefully clever enough. Gianni would be picked up in the morning by one of the Shah’s Rolls Royces and driven to a lux office/restaurant complex with a private parking garage. There I would change into my carpet buyer clothes, walk out and get a cab back to Hotel Semiramis. I knew that we couldn’t get away with it forever, but at least perhaps we could meet the unspoken fourth proposition in Lincoln’s famous dictum: you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time…BUT maybe we could fool enough of the people, enough of the time.
Around 9:30 that evening I heard a light little rap rap rap on my door. I opened it to find my seatmate on the flight from Paris, the cute little French blonde cupcake, all gussied up and looking lively. “Bon soir, Signore Gianni Franco.” And then some more in French or something.
“Parle vous Anglais?”
“Oh.” She restarted. “Let me een, please. Queeckly, I musz not be seen here.”
Always disposed to help a damsel in distress, I pulled her in and shut the door. “What’s up?”
“I saw you in zee lobby, and I zought it would be nice to meet you.”
“It is nice to meet you, Mademoiselle…?”
“Mimi Bimbeau. You may call me Mimi, Mr. Gianni Franco. Do you like champagne?”
“I’ll bet you do. Shall I order a bottle?”
“Zat would be most enjoyable. Oui, sil vous plais.”
I dialed up room service—a magnum of champagne and an assortment of late evening nibbles, toot sweet. “It will be here shortly,” I assured her. “What brings you out on a fine evening like this?”
“My Iranian friend came ovair to spend zee night, but heez work so hard, heez so tired, I zought it best if he rest quietly. To help heem I put somezing in heez whiskey. Boom! Off like zee light. Zo, eet is zee girl’s night out! And here I am. You are good friends wiz zee Princess Ashraf, yes?”
“You might say that.”
“She is a leetle old, I theenk.”
“One of our famous men noted that older women can be very grateful. What brings you to Tehran? Do you have business here?”
“Een a way…I am zee act-tress, you see. Zee same way you are zee actor.”
“How is that?”
“Imagine zee most fat, dried up, bad-mannered, ugly, foul-smelling old hag. She will geeve you a fortune of money, and all you have to do is make love wiz her and convince her eet was zee most glorious experience of your life. Takes formidable acting skill, ne c’est pas?”
A pretty good description of the man I saw her with. Madame Claude de Paris was indeed a casting agency. The knock on the door announced the arrival of our champagne, with the alacrity that a Princess’s consort demanded. I ushered in the man with the silver cart. Champagne and two flutes, caviar, toast points, sour cream, assorted antipasto, petite fours. Looked yummy. I nodded. He opened the bottle and poured a round. I slipped him some rials and he departed. “To the acting profession,” I toasted. She hoisted her glass with a sly smile. She’d not get this quality of bubbly working a bar.
“Zat poor man. He ees dying of zee cancer, you know.”
“Which poor man?”
“Zee Shah.”
No, I didn’t know, but it connected some dots. “Where did you hear about that?”
“An officiale in zee ministry of health is one of my, um, friends in Paris. Like all zose officiales, he like to tell me secrets across zee pillow, to impress zee pretty woman wiz hiz importance, you know. Zee Shah was examined by Parisian doctors, found zee cancer. A French doctaire comes to Iran to treat him, beeg secret! No one supposed to know. But in bed I listen, all sympathetique, les belle de nuit wiz zee heart of gold. Men tell me many valuable theengs in bed.”
“Then you’re not really an actress?”
“Oh veery definitely zee actress, expert at zee most demanding role in all of acting. Like you, Gianni, wiz zat smelly old Princess. You are not really Italiano, no? I know zome Italian gentlemens. You do not speak ze language.”
“American-Italian, not Italian-Italian.”
“Oh, is zat like zee Mafia? You are zee godfozzaire?”
“No, just a good-time Carlo.”
“Carlo? Who is zees Carlo? Nevair mind. You are een a family in zee US, ne c’est pas?
“Well, yes, I have a family in the US.” Mom, Dad, Evanston…that counts.
“Zut alors! I knew, I knew! You are zee Mafioso! Ow romanteek! A liaison dangereuse, truly! Do you put zee ‘orsez in people’s beds?”
“Haven’t done that lately, no.”
She took me by the hand and started toward the bedroom door. “Hey, my Italian stallion, ‘ow about you put zee ‘orse in my bed?”
That was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Time to go to the mattresses.
I’ll admit it wasn’t the height of wisdom to let my dick lead me off the strait and narrow in a security situation, but hey, what’s an Italian jet-setter gigolo supposed to do? At least I wasn’t stupid enough to let her out of my sight. I definitely hadn’t passed any classified pillow talk. The stories I let her make up were more lurid than any truth I might divulge. We repaired to the sitting room and attacked the bubbly and the snacks again. Around eleven I made sure she wasn’t being observed and bade her bon nuit, confident that no harm had been done. Oh sure. Recall my opening comments about the merits of telling the truth? MARK ONE.
I departed the Hilton the next morning, carrying just a Gucci shoulder bag containing my street clothes. The rest of Gianni’s kit I left in the room, which would be maintained in my absence. “Off somewhere for a few days, Mr. Franco?” the desk clerk enquired as I dropped off the key.
“Monaco. Grace Kelly’s-a throwin’ a birthday party for-a Jacques Cousteau…” I mumbled distractedly. My Rolls awaited me. The transition went smoothly enough, I thought. I was welcomed at the Semiramis desk and given a cable from Ben Millstein. He’d received the Hamadan carpet, liked it, authorized me to buy a few more at my discretion. Good. The Bazaar was where I wanted to resume my intel.
After lunch I strolled to the Bazaar and found Q’ereshi’s shop with little difficulty. I was getting my bearings. He was closing a sale with an American couple so I loitered around, taking in the spectacle of the Bazaar. The deal sealed, I approached him. “Mr. Q’ereshi,” I said.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Fonko, so good to see you again in my humble premises.”
“That couple was American. Do you sell many carpets to Americans?”
“They’re my best customers. I love Americans. They are grateful for me. They get the same rude treatment from the other carpet stalls that you did, pushy pushy pushy. Then they come here. You see, I understand Americans. My son, Saeed, studied in America. They love bargains, but they hate to bargain. They think it’s impolite, or rude, or miserly. But they do not want to pay retail; they are used to coupons, discounts, clearance sales and so forth. So I bargain for them—I start high and then reluctantly reduce the price in heart-rending steps. The resulting price is the same but they feel better about it, like winning a lottery. The real key is the American sense of humor. Get them laughing, and you’ve got them. That’s where my son comes in. He likes to talk to Americans, and he’s a real Groucho Hope.”
“Your Hamadan certainly sold Ben Millstein. He told me to buy some more. What might you have suitable for expensive California homes?”
He led me to a stack of 9’ x 12’ carpets. and we folded back corners and explored the virtues of an assortment of mid-range Isfahans, Kashans
, Nains and Tabrizes.
“You display a photograph of the Shah in your shop,” I remarked. “All the shops in the Bazaar have pictures of the Shah. Does he have a lot of support here?”
“I am told that in the Carpathian Mountains peasants wear cloves of garlic on string necklaces. Does it mean that garlic has a lot of support? No. They wear the garlic to ward off vampires.”
“So the photos of the Shah are to ward off…?”
Razi made a quick look-around before he answered softly: “The SAVAK. They are not so quick to interfere with our affairs when they see the Shah watching over us. But make no mistake. The Shah is hated here. When Khomeini returns to power those photos of the Shah will be joyfully replaced with ones of the Ayatollah.”
I noted that he said “when,” not “if.”
5 | Little America
Q’ereshi and I settled on a batch of carpets of reasonable quality, which he sold me at reasonable prices. “I cannot let you have more, as I cannot deplete my inventory any further. You will notice that all the dealers display many more carpets than one would think they could sell. That is because we Bazaaris engage in more activities than our shop fronts suggest. The carpets serve as collateral against loans of various kinds.”
“These will do for now. Would it be a breach of friendship for me to try some of your competitors here?”
“Business is business, though I think you’d be disappointed. If you wish to acquire more, and higher quality, carpets, I advise you to go to the cities where they make them. Isfahan, Tabriz, you know the places. I can direct you to the best factories, when you wish to do so.”
“I’d appreciate that. Could I meet your son? He sounds like he’d be an interesting young man.”
“Of course, of course. He is in the back of the shop, tending the books. He just finished studying economics at the University of Chicago. He’s a whiz with numbers, though he has yet much to learn about business.” He went into the office and returned with a bright-looking young man of medium height, early twenties. He had a narrow face topped by curly dark hair, and the dark liquid eyes typical of this region. He was getting a start on a bushy mustache, but it would be a while before he’d rival Groucho.
His name was Saeed. He’d picked up some American mannerisms. “Your father tells me you’re a student of American humor,” I said.
“Oh yeah—Second City, Saturday Night Live. Great stuff, once you get the feeling for it…well, actually there are two strands. There’s low—the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, the slapstick stuff—the laughs are about other people’s pain essentially. Then there’s hip—exaggeration, irony, incongruity, trendy references. Probably wouldn’t play here so well, but I really got off on it.”
“And now you’re in the carpet business, with a econ degree from Chicago?”
“That won’t help here as much as you think. These guys could teach Milton Friedman a thing or two.”
“Does American humor help you sell carpets?”
“You bet. Americans here are mostly educated and, for Americans, adventurous. Meaning, they’re of the 10% with passports. But they fancy they’re on some kind of tourist jaunt in Iran, spectators. They don’t want to participate in the culture, just want to pass through taking snapshots and buying trinkets. When they come to the shop I joke with them, make them feel at home. Above all, Americans want to be liked. And I do like Americans.”
“I saw an Iranian student demonstration in Los Angeles earlier in the year. They were wearing ski masks and chanting against the Shah.”
“That bunch! I didn’t have time for that. Father would have skinned me alive if I’d wasted time when I was supposed to be studying. But a lot of the Iranians who go to the US as students, they aren’t seriously students. This is not a scholarly culture, it’s a political culture, and they already have their connections sewed up. As long as they don’t flunk out, they come home with an American college degree to flash around.”
“Is that better than a degree from a school here?”
“You gotta be kiddin’,” he said with a Chicago accent. “Universities here are a joke. Three years. Locally educated faculty, most of them Marxists. More Iranians are going to college overseas than going here.”
“I wonder if you’d have the time to give me a little tour of the Bazaar? I’m curious how the place works.”
“I’m sure Father would allow me the time for that. How about Wednesday morning, when it’s not so busy?”
We set a time. I finalized the carpet deal with his father and went back out to explore the streets.
And then I began meeting my fellow Americans. Pardon my puns, but I don’t want to embarrass private citizens or put their careers in jeopardy, so I’ll use pseudonyms that fit the folks I encountered. I was having lunch in a restaurant near the hotel, one where enough of the waiters spoke good enough English that I had a fair chance of getting what I thought I’d ordered. A husky, crewcutted man dressed in American business casual—seersucker slacks, a white dress shirt with sleeves rolled up to mid-forearm, and no tie—approached me. “Mr. Fonko? Could I have a word with you?”
“Possibly. Depends on who you are”
“I’m Richard Hedd, with the CIA here in Tehran.” He opened a leather case and flashed me a CIA I.D. He didn’t need to. He had the Company look. “Call me ‘Dick’,” he added.
“Sure, have a seat. What can I do for you?”
He pulled out the chair opposite me and sat down. “Your name popped out on the list of incomings, alerting us to your arrival. Not that you’re on a shit list or anything, just someone of interest to the intel community. A couple days later you met with a known Mossad agent. Shortly after that you were observed conversing with a man whom we believe to be an agent of the Russian KGB.”
“Do tell,” I remarked. “He seemed like a nice enough guy—a caviar merchant from Russia, he said.”
“So we put your name in the hopper, and some interesting things came out. You were with the CIA at one time, were you not?”
“If I had been, I would have learned the meaning of the words, ‘Need to Know.’ “
“Quite so, quite so. I respect that. Nevertheless, when an ex-CIA man has a tete-a-tete with a KGB agent, I think you’ll understand that we might have a need to know something about that.”
No way of telling what else had come out of the hopper about me, so lying might be hazardous. Truth to power…as a last resort. “I met him in Saigon, in 1975. It seems he has a way of showing up whenever I go overseas.”
“Well shit goddamn. I’ve been in the Company 16 years and had some hairy assignments, but the KGB’s never paid me that honor. That must be worth a couple upticks in your GS level.”
“I don’t have a GS level. I’m not on the government payroll.”
“Whatever. What I want to ask you is…well, our HumInt here in Iran is, um, sketchy. You don’t know what sources you can trust, and most of what the locals tell us turns out to be pure bullshit or worse, par for the course in the Middle East. And officially our hands are tied, because the Shah himself has forbidden the CIA to contact any groups opposing him—he was afraid they might take it as an endorsement. You seem to be finding your way around, and you have quite a reputation, so I was wondering, if you came across anything that could be of national interest, could you maybe share it with us in the CIA station?”
“Look, I’m here to buy carpets. That’s why I hang out in the Bazaar. I’m curious about Tehran, that’s why I wander around the place. Being here on business, I have to deal with their Ministry of Trade. I’m a friendly guy, that’s why I talk to Russian caviar merchants. I don’t know what might be in the national interest, but sure, if I hear anything, I could let you know.”
“You’re staying at Hotel Semiramis. I can get in touch with you there?”
“That’s fine. If I’m not in, they’ll tak
e a message.”
He lifted himself from his chair. “That’s all I ask, as a fellow American. Thank you, Mr. Fonko—can I call you ‘Jake’?—I’ll check in with you from time to time.”
Whoa, this could work to my benefit. He might know some things that the Shah did not. I couldn’t pass American intel along, of course, but getting some CIA perspective might help me do the job I’d been hired for. “Just a minute, Dick. I’m curious about something. I’m getting the feeling that this place may be fixing to blow. Do you see any chance of that?”
“No chance. Nobody can overthrow him. He has the support of 700,000 troops, all of the workers and most of the people. The opposition is just some Communists and Muslims, and they’ll never get together, they’re natural enemies.”
“That’s not classified intel is it?”
“No, that’s the official word from the people at State—it’s pretty obvious, to my way of thinking. Anyone can see it. Just look at the troops and police on the streets. We’d have picked up the signs, and this place doesn’t fit the model. We passed it on to the SAVAK. We work closely with them, ever since we helped engineer the coup in 1953.”
Mr. Hedd slipped me his business card and left me to finish a lunch grown cold.
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 1 - 3 Page 33