Understrike

by John Gardner

  “‘L?’” He remembered the voice at the other end of the line.

  “Yes.”

  “USS One.”

  “Yes?” Boysie made a mental note to find out who the blazes USS One was. Might be the President for all he knew.

  “Chicky tells me there’s been trouble.”

  “A little.” Boysie’s natural pride flared for a second. “We handled it,” he said casually.

  “The way I heard it you would have been clobbered good and proper if Chicky hadn’t turned up and done her celebrated impression of a screech-owl. This is a little disturbing, you know. Was it the opposition?”

  “Well, it could have been.”

  A silence. Then: “All right, we’ll just make a slight change in plan. In case they’re on to something. But I can’t honestly see what it has to do with the present operation. More likely it’s an organisation out to get you for your past affiliations. The old liquidation bit. You never had to bump a member of the Mafia, did you?”

  The whirlpool’s vortex increased its power, now situated somewhere just below the bile duct. Boysie could have screamed. Did that smooth bastard Mostyn tell everyone? Was he ever going to get away from the time when officially he was the Liquidator, the private executioner, for the Department of Special Security?

  “I suppose it could be the past,” he said weakly.

  “All right. We were going to fly you out. But I’ve told Chicky that we’ll fix alternative transport—for part of the way at least. If they are after you they’ll have a pretty good watch on the airfields and railroad depots. I think you’d better call your contact with the locals. See what he says about the situation. Chicky will give you the rest of the dope. You’re OK, aren’t you, ‘L’? No bones broken or anything?”

  Boysie was beginning to take the first steps into gloom. “I’m all right,” he said, sounding as disinterested as he felt. He replaced the receiver.

  “Hey, now what are you looking so miserable about, Boysie baby?” Chicory was back on the corner of the bed, her head cocked on one side, a seductive mouth lifted in an inviting smile. Boysie looked at her with relish. Ungentlemanly relish. She was wearing a navy crepe suit with bold chalk stripes slashing down the material, and had thrown off her jacket, revealing—to very full effect—the white blouse with a centrally embroidered sunburst design. Her legs were crossed, and the slim skirt affectionately hugged her thigh, then slid smoothly down the leg, ending in two sunny inches of nylon above the knee. She was the most delightful thing on which Boysie had set his lustful eyes. Since Priscilla Braddock-Fairchild, anyway.

  “Well ...” For a moment Boysie looked like a recalcitrant schoolboy. “Your mate, Max, says there are some changes in our schedule.”

  “Schedule, skedule, schmedule.” The sunburst design wiggled as she inhaled. “And it’s me that should be miserable. We’re doin’ the journey by bus. Some of it anyhow. By bus?” She made a disgusted, clucking noise, rolling her eyes upwards. “Max thinks it’ll be safer to mingle with the herd. We leave on the noon hour, he’s sending the tickets over, and they’re goin’ to let us know where we can change to a nice cool jet. But it’s about three days West—some horrible hot dump like Oklahoma City or Albuquerque.” She gave a heavy mock sigh. “It’s goin’ to be a long ride, boy, so pack yo deodorant, yo sure need it on them thar buses.” Chicory threw back her head and laughed. “Now come on, take me out to dinner and I’ll show you the sights.”

  “I’ve got to call someone first,” said Boysie, remembering Siedler and rooting in the bedside drawer for the envelope with the two telephone numbers. “And I don’t know whether I really should go out.”

  “Why the heck not?”

  “Those two characters . .”

  “If they’re still waiting for you, you’ll be a darned sight safer out in a crowd than sitting up here alone.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about being alone,” said Boysie, finding the envelope. “I was considering a nice quiet dinner for two. Up here. You know, the soft lights and sweet music thing.”

  Chicory smiled—warm and comfortable: “Nothing I’d like better, honey, but I have a rule. Stupid, but it’s the only one I’ve ever made and the only one I’ve ever managed to keep in the whole of my long low adult life.”

  “Oh? Rules are made to be broken. What is it anyway?”

  “Simple. I don’t—on first dates. And really, Boysie, this is a first date. You’re cute, I like you a lot, and you and I both know darned well what’s going to happen if we have dinner up here. Sure, it’ll happen anyway—maybe in Oklahoma City, maybe out in San Diego. It’ll happen, we both knew that soon as we saw one another. Chemistry. But I’m not going to break my little old rule; and you don’t want to spoil my record, do you, hon?” She got up and moved over to him.

  Before he had time to answer, Chicory had coiled her arms round his neck and their lips were tethered together—open wide, fluttering, sucking the breath from each other’s lungs while their tongues spliced in intricate patterns between their teeth. At last she pushed him gently away.

  “You make your call, Boysie honey.” She was speaking softly, scant-breathed. “The sooner we’re out of here, the more sure I am of not breaking my rule.” At the bathroom door, she murmured: “Sometime soon, Boysie. That’s for sure. Sometime very soon.”

  It took five minutes to locate Joe Siedler who was full of apologies after Boysie told his story.

  “Boysie pal, we wouldn’t have had this happen for anything. But I guess your man was right—something hanging over from the past. I’m goin’ to make sure though. I’m going to make certain that you stay in one piece. You wanna go out? Sure. I’ll have one a the boys look after you, at a distance of course. Now don’t you worry ‘bout a thing Boysie buddy, we’ll take good care of you, and I’ll be over personally, but personally, first thing in the morning just to make sure you get outa town with no bother. OK? Now you have yourself a real swell time. And don’t worry, we’ll be watching out for you. Real good.”

  Boysie and Chicory dined in the Rainbow Room of the RCA Building: in a restaurant which looked as unreal as a movie set. Even the air seemed to have been impregnated with luxury—sprayed from hygenic cans. They sat at a table window, from which they could see out over Manhattan to the Hudson—a great fairyland of tiny lights and flickering neon; a huge, rising castellation pricked through with bright oblongs, twinkling in lines up to the sky; bulwarks of midnight-blue against the deep pearl of the night.

  With Lobster Remoulade, Roast Long Island Duckling, and a splendid Strawberry Shortcake inside them, they took the chrome-lined elevator back to earth (Boysie had been frightened enough going up. Going down—with the drop of about fifty storeys before the brakes came on—was purgatory. But Chicory revelled in the whole business). For two hours they wandered through the streets of New York—Times Square, with its brash glare, noise, music and hukster atmosphere—the huge Camel ad puffing smoke from the painted cardboard man’s gaping mouth; then along the Great White Way, where the Broadway babies don’t say goodnight until it’s early morning.

  The streets began to empty—sad wisps of steam, rising from the covers of the city’s piped heating system, wavering as a yellow cab growled past or a prowl car hovered along the kerb. On Fifth Avenue, with their reflections dancing in the high mirrors of plate glass, they touched hands and held on tight, walking inches from the spangled jewels and chic dresses safe in the display windows: silent, lonely, unwanted until the regiments took to the streets and offices and department stores and the city came alive again.

  They said goodnight and kissed outside the plushiest store, Saks, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 50th Street. Boysie felt like a seventeen-year-old. But, to be fair, that was how he always felt when a new and sensual female clawed her way into his easy heart. At a few yards distance—across the road, on the steps of St Patrick’s Cathedral—a United States Internal Security officer called Bremoy, who had the worried look of a man on the verge of his first u
lcer, watched the kiss and, under his breath, snarled something about “Bastard top agents and their whores.”

  Bremoy was unaware that he too was being observed. In the shadow of the fifteen-foot bronze Atlas which decorates the forecourt of the International Building, across the intersection from St Patrick’s, a young man stood biting his nails—his eyes darting between Bremoy and the osculating couple. The skin on the young man’s face was taut to the bone. It was a face like a skull.

  *

  Having first looked, with routine care, under the bed, in the bathroom, behind the shower curtain and in the wardrobe, Boysie locked the door. Stripping off his jacket and shirt, he ambled back to the bathroom; popped the plug into place and began to run warm water into the tub. “Love is a Many Splendoured Thing,” sang Boysie in a quavering and fraction off-key tenor. Returning to the bedroom he undressed to his jockey briefs, and was about to make the journey back to the bathroom, when a thought slid slyly into his mind. Picking up his discarded trousers he fumbled for the small set of keys left carelessly in a pocket. Finding them, he pulled the tan Revelation from the wardrobe, unlocked it and unzipped the special compartment built into the lid. Slipping his hand into the cavity, Boysie pulled out the small pearl-handled automatic pistol and checked its mechanism. It was a pistol which could in no circumstances be regarded as heavy artillery—a Saur & Sohn Type IA adapted for .22 ammunition—but it always gave him that smug feeling of satisfaction; an added sense of superiority and power. He carried it quite illegally; and, while Mostyn would have had a dozen fits—in variegated colours—had he known that Boysie even possessed such a weapon, its psychological value paid off dividends of colossal proportions. The pistol was loaded. The safety catch on. Boysie smiled and carried the gun into the bathroom. He would keep it handy, he resolved, for the rest of this American jaunt.

  *

  Cirio was tall with full undulating grey hair which seemed to set a standard colour to his personality. By birth he was Italian, though it was many years since he had seen the terraced vineyards around his family’s home near Castel San Pietro. By trade he was a restaurateur: owner and manager of the Club Fondante—a medium-class nightspot in the East 70s. By profession, Cirio was a Communist.

  Cirio sat at his desk in the back room office at the Club Fondante, the long square-tipped nails of his right-hand fingers drumming an agitated tattoo on the stained woodwork. To his left, the strong-arm boys who had called on Boysie earlier that evening were seated side by side. The one with the scar below his eye was quietly picking his teeth with his free hand—the right arm hung interestingly in a sling; the other merely looked into space, as though locked in some private, and ghoulish, nightmare.

  Across the desk from Cirio, a man in his late thirties was engrossed in lighting a cigar. He was a person who radiated authority—expensive authority, and, as he drew on his cigar, he looked up at Cirio with steel-grey eyes which cut into the Italian like an oxyacetylene lamp burning into soft metal.

  “You are a lot of goddam prissy bastards,” announced the steel-eyed man with feeling.

  “Look, Ritzy, the boys did their best. We’re sorry, but it just couldn’t be helped.”

  “Damn broad turned up and started screaming her lousy little head off,” muttered the hood with the scar.

  “Their best ain’t enough. They gotta do better than their best.” Ritzy spoke with the chill of a deep freeze—outside, at the North Pole. “Now, I suppose, you bums expect me to get ya out of the mess.”

  Cirio did not answer. Ritzy spoke again: “Look, howdya think I feel? This organisation is expected ta carry out assault operations. That’s its function—its purpose. We’re all paid good money—good American dollars—because we’re supposed to be professional men. We’re supposed to be proficient. Get me? Ya do know what proficient means?” Once more nobody spoke. “I got six assault groups working under me in this city alone. And I choose you boys ‘cause I reckon you’re the best in the business. What are the contractors goin’ ta say ta me when they find that we loused up the deal? Waddam I goin’ to say to them? Goddam it, Cirio…”

  The telephone burred out its alarm. Cirio spoke into the mouthpiece:

  “Yea? ... He is? ... OK, just stay there and watch ... Good boy, you’re doin’ a swell job.”

  Ritzy looked questioningly.

  “Young Skull Face,” said Cirio. “The subject’s returned to his hotel. Said goodnight to the broad outside Saks. Necking like crazy the kid says.”

  “Sexy bastards, the English!” spat Ritzy. “OK. We can’t get him outa there. So he’s gotta be eliminated. So there’ll have ta be an accident. I wanted t’avoid it but ... Gimme that phone.” He thought for a moment, then began to stab at the dial. They could hear the signal burping at the other end, then a voice answered. Ritzy leaned back in his chair: “That you, Dim? ... Ritzy ... How ya bin? ... Look, Dim, ya remember ya fixed me up with a little pet way back, when was it? Oh, couple of years back ... Yea, that’s it, boy, you remember good ... You got another of them things? ... Huhn hu ... Huhn hu ... Yea, that’s it. OK, I’ll collect it personally myself ... And Dim, I’ll need your help tucking it away. Same like last time.” He laughed and, after an exchange of what passed among Ritzy’s friends for courtesies, put the phone down and turned back to Cirio. “Now, you’re goin’ ta learn something. I’m goin’ ta show youse guys a real professional job. A real live circus act. And our friend in the New Weston Hotel just ain’t goin’ ta know what hit him. You got the list of the guy’s closest friends comin’ out on the boat?” Cirio nodded.

  “Yea, there was one in particular.” continued Ritzy. “Babe with a fancy English name…”

  Once more they were interrupted by the telephone. “OK, bring him right up,” said Cirio, after listening to the brief message. Then, looking at Ritzy: “He’s arrived.”

  When the visitor was shown into the room, the two hoodlums stopped picking and staring. Their mouths dropped open.

  “But, that’s the guy ...” said one.

  “That’s him. The guy we was supposed to . .”

  “Come in, friend. Welcome to the United States.” Ritzy and Cirio had risen to their feet. “No, gentlemen,” said Ritzy. “This is not the guy. This one is ... Well, like a duplicate: a twin soul.”

  Vladimir Solev, tired and a mite nervous, smiled at his new companions. The left side of his mouth turned up more sharply than ever. The likeness to Boysie Oakes was staggering.

  3 — ... AND LEAVE THE DRIVING TO US

  The door of the bus slid open. The driver was smiling down at a young couple waiting to greet their aunt, or mother, or whoever she was. The elderly lady appeared in the doorway, looking fresh and neat. A porter—flashing a twenty-five-cent beam—stepped forward to help her down. The young couple embraced the lady, who seemed to be the incarnation of all nice American aunts and mothers, commenting on how well and refreshed she looked.

  “Oh, but it’s great travelling Greyhound!” enthused the elderly lady.

  A quartet of songsters started up the jingle: “Go Greyhound ... And leave the driving to us.” The television screen cut to the next commercial.

  “And that’s how we go, Boysie honey,” purred Chicory, sitting curled in an armchair, clasping her glass of Old Hickory to her glorious left breast. “They say the first hundred miles are the worst. No, it’ll be great. With you it’ll be great.”

  Boysie folded a pair of denim beach slacks, and placed them tenderly on top of the clothes already stacked into the Revelation. That completed his packing. He turned and gave the girl a long, sizzling look. Chicory was all set for the journey, claret skin-tight stretch pants and a plain white light sweater appeared to be the only clothes she was wearing. At any rate, one could detect no ridge or bump of undergarments. Pondering on the possibility of there being none at all, Boysie strolled into the bathroom and went through his routine check of the automatic pistol—his third since the affair with the two heavies on the previous evening—slipping it b
ack into the patent holster stitched inside the hip pocket of his charcoal casual slacks.

  It was exactly ten-thirty when he returned to the bedroom to snap the Revelation shut. They had an hour and a half to go before the bus was due to leave the Port Authority Bus Terminal to carry them West over the slaving miles of hot road. Boysie swallowed the last of his drink and decided that now was the time to put in a little more work on softening up the ornamental Miss Triplehouse. Since her arrival—on the pre-arranged dot of ten—he had noticed, with pleasure, the warmth of her look—her eyes following him around the room as he packed his suitcase; that longing gaze of adoration which so flatters men, and is one of woman’s most cunning ruses in the game of seduction. Now, he moved towards her, settling on the corner of the armchair, one hand sliding across her back to knead her left shoulder. Chicory lifted her face, closed her eyes, and allowed her mouth to open slightly, ready to receive his. Boysie bent closer: “It’s our second date, isn’t it, lovey?” His voice trembling on the edge of excitement.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “And we’ve got all of an hour before we need leave.”

  “Huhn-hu?”

  Their lips touched, and Joe Siedler started a friendly tattoo on the door. “Blast,” emoted Boysie, who had forgotten Siedler’s promise to come over and see them safely off the premises.

  Sielder was as boisterous as ever, and genuinely appreciative when he set eyes on Chicory. “Geez, you British sure know how to pick ‘em,” he gushed. “Wish I were riding down to San Diego with a honey like you, honey. Hey, Boysie pal, while you’re down there, do me a favour, look up the head bartender at the Bali Hai. Name o’ Bruno. A real nut. But real. Old Buddy o’ mine.”

  Joe in his fulsome way was determined to see that Boysie’s last hours in New York were pleasant, and that the couple were moved on and out of his territory without any difficulties.