Dirty White

by Brian Freemantle

  In the newspaper El Colombiano there is daily published a whole-page feature reporting the drug murders of the previous twenty-four hours. That day there were eight other bodies found in addition to that of José Rivera, but because he was a well-known lawyer in the capital the account of his killing dominated the murder reports.

  14

  Farr had gone detail by detail through it all once but Harriet recognized his need to purge himself in some way, so she said nothing while the broker went over again the encounter at the Eastham clinic. She quietly made him first one and then another drink, both of which he took without apparently noticing.

  “Dr. Halpern wasn’t critical,” she reminded him.

  “I’m not concerned about what Dr. Halpern thinks. I’m interested in what Howard thinks.”

  “At the moment that seems to be confined to a cellophane packet and a hypodermic.”

  “What sort of remark is that!” he said, irritated.

  “The sort of remark that you made about thirty minutes ago: I was quoting you.”

  He smiled at her apologetically, but then almost immediately his mood reverted to despair. “Oh Christ, Harriet! I just don’t know what I’m going to do about the silly little bugger!”

  She came to him on the couch, cradled his head against her and said, “Stop it, darling. Stop trying to hurt for him. Let him hurt for himself.”

  Through his anguish Farr became aware of the word she had used, like a bell ringing on a still day, and at the same moment she realized what she had said. He pulled away, but not too far, so that their faces were still very close. Farr had been near crying. He managed to stop himself but he still had to sniff, and he laughed in embarrassment. He closed the distance between them, kissing her. She did nothing at first, neither responding nor withdrawing. Then Farr risked putting his arms around her, bringing her close, and she snatched out at him with surprising passion, pulling him to her and forcing herself against him. They parted finally, both breathless. She recovered first and said, “Shit! I was trying so hard to make sure nothing happened.”

  “Nothing has.”

  “But it’s going to, isn’t it?”

  “I hope so.”

  She came forward, kissing him again, but more gently this time, without her former urgency. “I hope so too, my darling,” she said. “I hope so very much.”

  Farr was nervous, frightened of disappointing her, the nervousness making it difficult for him and failure more likely. Sex with Ann had been wonderful—joyous—but after her death apart from the few occasions when it had not mattered and had therefore worked, he had put sex aside, as he had put so much else. Now was like the first time. The first time had been with Ann: they had been worried about her becoming pregnant and he had fumbled with the contraceptive and dropped it; they’d had to put on the light to find it, and when they did find it, he’d collapsed. The memory of that night came to him and he willed himself against collapsing again.

  Farr trembled at the sight of Harriet’s nakedness, excitement jostling his fear. Her breasts were large but they hardly sagged at all: she was narrow-waisted and hard-stomached right down to a perfect pubic wedge, sharp-edged, like the briefest of coverings. She smiled up at his wonderment, shifting sensuously under his look. He touched her, scarcely daring to, and she smiled again and said softly, “I won’t break.”

  “You’re so beautiful.”

  “I want to be, for you.”

  “You are.”

  Harriet appeared to realize his difficulty, taking his delicate hand in hers and putting it where she wanted it to be, around her breasts first, where she left it for a long time, her eyes half closed and her breathing becoming heavy, and then down, parting for him. He misunderstood and moved to cover her but she said, “No. No, wait. There’s no hurry,” guiding her hand over his, forcing it against and into her. “Harder. Make it hurt.” Farr did, though he was reluctant to hurt her, and then with both hands she felt for his head and pulled that to her, bucking and groaning under his lips.

  “Please,” he said, muffled. “Please soon.”

  “Not yet.”

  “I don’t think I can wait.”

  She held him tighter against her, so he could not speak. He forgot to be nervous. He drove his head where she wanted it to be, nipping at her with his lips, holding and tugging at her, and she began to jerk rhythmically, jarring into him so that he was afraid that his teeth might really hurt, more than she needed.

  “Now!” she said, bringing him up at last. “Now!”

  She was wetly ready, sighing as he entered her. At the beginning they both stopped for the shortest moment, resting after the first part of the race, and then started again in perfect time, unhurried for the final lap. Harriet was still slightly ahead, moving faster, urging him on at the very last. He strained to catch her and did, so that they exploded together. She screamed out and clutched at him, burying her face into his shoulder and saying “Oh, oh” over and over again.

  They took a long time to come down, literally slipping from each other because both were damply hot.

  “Christ!” said Farr, able to manage only one word.

  Initially, Harriet could not even do that. She reached out, smoothing his face, tracing the dips and highs like a blind person trying to create a mental image. At last she managed to speak, still short-breathed. “Wonderful.”

  “Thank you,” said Farr. “I mean, for understanding. You did understand, didn’t you?”

  She nodded, head against the pillow.

  “I was very frightened,” he confessed. “Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

  “No,” she said. “Why should it?”

  Farr shrugged, enjoying their closeness, conscious of the occasional touch of their bodies. “I don’t know. It just does …” He made another movement. “Embarrassing …” he said awkwardly.

  Harriet moved closer, so that she didn’t have to look directly at him. “Shouldn’t I be embarrassed, too?”

  “You!”

  “I enjoy it so much. And it’s been so long.”

  “You made it possible for me.”

  “You weren’t—” She stopped, seeking the word. “Offended?” she finished.

  Now Farr smoothed her unseen face. “No. I wasn’t offended. I was grateful.”

  “Well, I did it!” she said. “Broke the unwritten law of involvement again.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Not at the moment. At the moment I’m very happy.”

  “What about later?”

  “I don’t want to think about later.”

  They held each other, fitting together comfortably. The air conditioning was on and Harriet suddenly shivered, cooling now. Farr moved the sheet with his feet until he could reach out to drag it over them, unwilling to move further away from her than necessary. She said, “Tell me about Ann,” and then hurried on at once. “But not if you don’t want to. Only if you want to.”

  “We met at Harvard … that’s why I wanted Howard to go there, after us,” Farr began, slowly. “She was a year below me at Radcliffe. I was on an exchange from Cambridge. I got a tripos there, in economics …”

  “What’s a tripos?”

  “An honors examination. Ann was studying classics—” He hesitated again, both in reflection and at the thought that the circumstances were odd for such a confessional. “She told me afterwards that at first she thought I was odd—too serious and I didn’t laugh enough. Admitted that she accepted the first date because of a bet with some other girls in her dormitory, to see who could go out first with the dull Englishman.” He stopped once more, wanting Harriet properly to understand what it had been like … “It wasn’t anything dramatic. It just seemed that we liked being with each other. Felt comfortable. But I don’t think either of us thought of getting married. After I graduated, I went back to England and got a job in the City in investment brokerage. In about a year they linked up with a group in New York and I was sent there as liaison. We’d written to each other a few tim
es and so I called her up and she seemed pleased to hear from me. Started seeing each other again, like it had been at Harvard …” He started again. “Realizing I loved her was dramatic. It happened, just like that. One day I thought of her as a friend, the next I knew I loved her … just like that …” he repeated. “No,” he said, in immediate contradiction. “It wasn’t quite like that. I was recalled to London—or, at least told I was going to be recalled. That’s when I realized I didn’t want to leave her. My father died during the war and my mother during my first year in the City. I had nothing to go back for, except a junior directorship and eventual progression to a place on the board. So I resigned. She never said so, but I think she was frightened, marrying an unemployed broker; when it came down to it, she was the more conservative of the two of us. I wanted to go to Florida for a honeymoon but she worried about how much it would cost, so instead we had a weekend in the Cat-skills. Turned out to be a wise economy because, although I had residential qualifications from marrying an American girl, there weren’t very many firms in Wall Street interested in employing a British financier, irrespective of qualifications and diplomas. The firm I’d just left didn’t provide much of a recommendation either. They’d been cheating and were had up before the Security Exchange Commission within a month of my leaving. Kind of looked as if I’d left because I was aware of what was going on and wanted to get out before the problems started …” He looked toward her. “I didn’t know, of course,” he said quickly.

  There was a silence while Farr assembled his thoughts. “Tramped around with the resumés and tried to lean on all the acquaintances and people I’d thought of as friends, and practically decided that we’d done things the wrong way around: that I should have stayed with the English firm and taken Ann back to London with me. I don’t remember which of us suggested I try to start by myself. I suppose it must have been me. All the money came from Ann’s parents, certainly. Took a mortgage on their house—they lived upstate, at a place called Ridge wood—and made their savings over as well. Nearly seventy-five thousand dollars. First year I showed a trading loss of fifty-five thousand. Ann was pregnant and we lived in an apartment where the bugs thought they had more rights than we did. Things didn’t get better, not for a long time. Couldn’t even afford a cot for Howard—” Farr snorted a laugh. “Had to keep up this ridiculous pretense. Had to have an office that was far too expensive and I had to wear suits that then cost two hundred dollars, so that what clients there were wouldn’t lose confidence. And at night sneak home to a dump where all the neighbors knew each other because they couldn’t avoid listening through the walls …”

  Harriet drew herself closer to him, lightly kissing his cheek.

  “… Things got better after the third year, I put together a few portfolios that came good and people spoke to people and suddenly it was difficult to understand why it had been so hard before. Two years were the good times; maybe two and a half. Then Ann started to get sick …” He stopped, feeling the accustomed anger. “Just when it was good! Just when I could afford the things I’d always promised her—promised myself to get for her—she had to go and get sick. Did everything, of course. Even considered a transplant, although they weren’t as medically proven as they are now. There was a remission once: for six whole months. Happens, with cancer, apparently. We were nervous at first but when the X-rays and the tests confirmed the remission we actually thought we’d beaten it. That everything was going to be all right. But it wasn’t.” Farr swallowed against the memories. “At least there wasn’t any pain. I just wish so much that she’d woken up, at the end …”

  “It was wrong of me. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you.”

  “I’m glad you know.”

  “At least you had someone, for a while at least.”

  “People tried to talk about it like that. I found it difficult. Still do.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  Harriet remained quiet for a long time and then she said, “I think there is something you should know.”

  “You don’t have to …”

  “I want to tell you. It’s only fair; right that you should. There was a baby. Jack didn’t know, not until the night at Balboa Park. I told him when he said he had decided to go back to Julia, and he shouted at me and said I was a bitch for trapping him—which I had, I suppose. Things were drifting and I wanted him to choose between us, and I thought he would choose me if there was a baby. That’s why he stormed out of the bar like he did. Angry …”

  Farr felt her shudder against his shoulder as she began to cry. “I killed him,” she said. “I killed Jack because of what I did. If I hadn’t told him I was pregnant, he wouldn’t have left like he did and driven like he did, and he would be alive now.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Farr. “It’s ridiculous to think like that.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “What happened?” asked Farr gently. “To the baby?”

  Harriet did not respond at once. “Abortion,” she said. “I had an abortion. It seemed sensible then. I wish I hadn’t now. Of all the things I wish, I wish I hadn’t done that.”

  “You didn’t have to tell me.”

  “I wanted you to know; I told you. I wanted you to know.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure, not really … Yes, I am. I didn’t want there to be anything hidden between us. Not from my side anyway. It’s probably difficult for you to understand after what I’ve told you about Jack and me, and how I went to the funeral with Julia, but I don’t like deceits …” Harriet shook herself, an angry gesture. “It is difficult to understand, because it’s stupid to believe. But that’s the way I feel. Now, at least. I’m sorry. This isn’t making sense, is it?”

  “Sense enough,” said Farr.

  “Disgusted with me?”

  “No.”

  “How can you not be?”

  “By not sitting in judgment,” he said.

  “That’s not possible.”

  “What happened before happened before,” he said.

  “I’d like to believe you. Want to believe you.”

  “I don’t want any deceits, either,” said Farr. He pushed her away from him, so that she had to look up. He kissed her, gently first, then harder, and Harriet clutched at him in her anxiety.

  “I wish things were different,” she said. “Us being here—the reason, I mean. Like the reason for us meeting.”

  “We’ll have to make them so.”

  “Do you think we can? There’s a lot of it that’s—Oh, I don’t know. Artificial, I suppose.”

  “Was what happened tonight artificial?”

  “No, darling. No, that wasn’t artificial.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I think I love you, too. I wish I didn’t, because it frightens me. But I think I do.”

  “Don’t get involved with people you’re working with!” he mocked, gently.

  “It’s a good rule,” she said. “One that shouldn’t be broken.”

  “We’ve broken it.”

  “That’s what frightens me most of all.”

  “Are they all arriving tomorrow?”

  “I’m not sure. Batty and Jones, certainly. To decide upon the office.”

  “I don’t want this to be just an affair,” said Farr. “Something that happens while we’re here, and then ends when the reason for our being here ends.”

  “Neither do I, my darling,” said Harriet. “Love me again. Please.”

  Farr did, easily. And was pleased.

  Harry Green, as diligent as always, obtained photographs of José Rivera from the Colombian police and enclosed them with the full account of the murder which he sent from Bogotá in the diplomatic pouch: it was important to supply everything because he knew there had been a foul-up and that, if there was an inquiry, he’d get the shit. They were at the end of the dossier; when Brennan reached them, he swallowed and said, “Jesus Christ!” and passed them to Seymour.


  The other FBI man frowned down, shaking his head. “What sort of people are these!”

  “You tell me,” said Brennan. They would be completely exposed in the Caymans, he thought: maybe they would have a little protection, but not the sort he had glibly assured them of at the first Boston meeting.

  Professionally Seymour said, “It’s a bastard. Rivera was our best hope.”

  Brennan looked quizzically at his partner, who knew everything. “Practically our only hope.”

  “You think it was Gomez?”

  “He’s the most obvious, from what Rivera told Green before he went to Medellin,” said Brennan. “But Rivera acted for the others, too. Escabar, certainly. And Ledher. That’s why Rivera was so important.”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  “About Colombia, I don’t know. I guess the DEA must have some contacts and they might just consider letting us use them, but I’m reluctant to make the approach. I want to keep this a tight, enclosed operation,” said Brennan.

  “What about the others?”

  “Others?”

  “Batty and Jones and Mann? The woman, too.”

  “What the hell for!” said Brennan, irritated by the question. “We already know how nervous they are. There’s no point in making it any worse.”

  “What about Farr?”

  “Him least of all,” said Brennan. “I want them all to go on thinking that things are going exactly as planned.”

  15

  The two technicians arrived first. They examined the three offices and chose the one near the post office, in Elgin Avenue, and Farr was glad at the choice. The selection having been made, Farr allowed the already ordered furniture to be delivered—until it had, neither Batty nor Jones could start work. The installation took only a morning, so the two Americans occupied themselves settling into the rented house near Southwest Point. Harriet acted as guide, showing them over not only their own accommodation but the bungalow as well. Neither man commented about Farr and the woman living under the same roof. They lunched well at the Lobster Pot, and Batty, the more enthusiastic of the two, said he thought he was going to like the assignment. Farr saw that Jones still had one arm of his spectacles secured by the bent paperclip.