O'Farrell's Law

by Brian Freemantle

  He’d go to the conference, of course, but certainly not allow the promotional recall to progress any further. Now was an excellent moment to announce his diplomatic resignation, in fact, with Estelle’s death providing a fortunate coincidence. He could plead that he was distraught by her loss, unable from the shock of being the intended victim to function as he properly should, how they would expect him to function. Quit with sympathy and understanding. And then Paris! Vibrant, sophisticated Paris. It was all simple and straightforward but for one thing. Henrietta. He didn’t want to be without her, wouldn’t be without her. It was time to talk it all through with her. There were things she would have to sort out and settle. The divorce, for instance.

  Rivera’s performance at Covent Garden was equal to any upon the stage. The assassination had made him a recognizable figure and there was a burst of flashbulbs as he left his vehicle, the picture made dramatic by the escorts grouped around him. He remained grave-faced, head bowed, bypassing the champagne gathering to go directly to his reserved box. There he chose a rear seat, in shadow from the rest of the theater. He withdrew even further with the arrival of the others in the party, shaking hands with the men who offered pleasantries and holding back when Henrietta positioned her face to be kissed.

  The production of The Barber of Seville was not as good as Rivera had hoped, and the tavern scene was particularly disappointing, people shouting at each other rather than singing. There was champagne arranged for the break, of course, but again Rivera declined. Henrietta held back briefly, accusing him of taking things too far, and flouncing off when he still refused to accompany her.

  The dinner party afterward was at the Dorchester. Briefly Rivera thought of avoiding it, and when he got to the hotel he came close to wishing he had. Henrietta clung to him, holding his arm and sharing every conversation, and Rivera recognized the retribution for his earlier distancing himself from her. The seating plan put him next to her—because Henrietta had arranged it that way—and she sat with her hands obviously beneath the table, blatantly straying across to his thigh and crotch.

  He complained, when they were finally alone in the car with the glass screen raised between themselves and the driver. Henrietta said, “For Christ’s sake, darling, don’t be such a boring bloody hypocrite! There’s not one person at that table tonight who doesn’t know we’ve been screwing each other for ages.”

  Henrietta was right, and it upset him to concede it. He said, “It wouldn’t hurt to be a little less obvious for a couple more weeks.”

  She put her hand in his lap and he moved to make it easier and she said, “You’re not worried about propriety now!”

  “We’re not in front of a hundred people in a hotel dining room now.”

  Henrietta twisted to look out of the rear window at one of the escort cars. “Do they carry guns?”

  “Some,” Rivera admitted. “They’re not supposed to, under diplomatic convention, but they do.”

  “How long will it last? Will you always have to be guarded as closely as this?”

  “For a long time, I suppose,” Rivera said, believing he was stimulating her excitement.

  “Even when you’re transferred somewhere else?”

  It was an opening to start talking about Paris, but Rivera held back, deciding the rear of a car was not the right place. He said, “I would imagine so: I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “I would think it’s all right for a while but not all the time: too claustrophobic,” Henrietta said, discarding a novelty.

  “I don’t want it to go on forever.” The chauffeur was a member of the GDI, like all his other Cuban protectors. Rivera hoped the vehicle was not equipped with the listening devices that spies were supposed to utilize. He was sure that everything he’d said so far was innocuous enough.

  At Pimlico, Rivera followed her familiarly into the house and on to the drawing room, which was on the first floor with veranda windows overlooking the illuminated patio at the rear.

  “I’ll have brandy,” she ordered, flopping onto a love seat.

  There were times, like now, when Henrietta could be profoundly irritating, treating him like a servant whose name she didn’t even know. Rivera was sure he’d correct the attitude quickly enough, although Henrietta was strong-willed to the point of willfulness, far stronger than Estelle had been. There was still so much each had to learn about the other. Rivera was very sure about one thing. With Henrietta as his wife, he wouldn’t consider a mistress; he’d never need to consider a mistress.

  Rivera was uncertain, oddly shy, about breaking the news of Paris “I’ve got some news,” he set out. “I’m going away soon.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. She seemed suddenly occupied with a pulled thread on the seam of her dress.

  Was that the best reaction she could manage? He said, “Spain. I am to be an observer at an international conference.” Rivera thought, discomfited, that he sounded like a child hopefully boasting a better holiday destination than anybody else in the class.

  Henrietta seemed to treat it as such. She said, “I don’t like Spain. I always feel nauseous there; something to do with the oil they cook with, I suppose. I much prefer France.”

  The opening hung before him, beckoning. He said, “So do I. In fact I’ve been thinking about France quite a lot, lately.”

  Henrietta frowned across the room at him. “Thinking about France?”

  It had been an awkward way to express himself, Rivera realized. “I want Jorge at the Sorbonne eventually. It would be convenient to live in Paris, better perhaps for the remainder of his preliminary education to be there.”

  “How could that work, with your embassy being here?” asked Henrietta, still confused.

  “I’m going to resign,” Rivera announced.

  “You’re going to do what!” She came forward on her seat, wide-eyed.

  “Quit,” he said, enjoying the sound of the declaration.

  “Give it all up, just like that!”

  “There’s not actually a lot to give up, compared to a return to Havana,” Rivera said. ‘That appears the alternative.”

  “But what are you going to do in Paris!”

  “Nothing,” Rivera said. “Just sit back and enjoy myself.”

  “When?” she demanded.

  So far her reaction had not been quite what he’d expected. He said, “I haven’t worked out definite dates. But soon; quite soon.”

  “Oh,” Henrietta said.

  The tone was empty, and small though it was, it amounted to the first sound of sadness. Rivera said, “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “You don’t sound very upset.”

  Henrietta offered her glass to be refilled. “Give me a chance, darling! It’s something I never expected. I thought we’d go on … oh, I don’t know … I mean. I didn’t imagine it ending.”

  “Has it got to end?”

  Henrietta looked steadily at him over the top of the glass he returned to her, then smiled coquettishly. “No reason at all!” she agreed brightly. “Paris is only an hour away by plane, after all!”

  “I wasn’t thinking of your commuting.”

  The smile went but the direct look remained. “I’m not going to guess what that means,” she said. “I’m going to sit here and listen to you tell me.”

  “I want you to come to Paris with me.” Rivera blurted finally. He’d not meant it to be as clumsy as this; he was stumbling about like an awkward schoolboy.

  For a long time Henrietta remained staring at him, as if she expected him to say mote. When he didn’t, she looked away, around the room, as if she were inspecting what he was suggesting she give up. “Divorce William? Marry you, d’you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  She sniggered, at once clamping her mouth shut, her free hand to her face. “Oh darling!” she said. “Oh my darling!”

  The word was right but the tone was wrong; it was more sympathetic than loving. “What?” he said.

  “We don’t mar
ry, people like you and me. Not each other. We marry other, nice people. And cheat on our wedding night, because it’s fun. I couldn’t marry you! I’d never be able to trust you and you’d never be able to trust me. It would be a disaster. What goes on here—or doesn’t go on—between William and me is unimportant, to both of us. I’ve got respect as his wife. I get invited to Downing Street to dine with the prime minister … to Buckingham Palace. You’re asking me to abandon all that…!”

  Rivera regarded her with astonishment for a few unguarded moments and then hopefully concealed it. He’d never imagined, ever, that Henrietta would reject him! It was inconceivable; it still was, despite her arrogant, spoiled words. Every consideration had always been when, not if. Rivera felt foolish, abjectly foolish; he recalled her giggled outburst—Oh darling, oh my darling—and realized she had been laughing at him. Actually laughing! At him, José Gaviria Rivera! As she must have laughed before, when he didn’t know she was doing so. Those at the dinner table tonight had doubtless laughed at him, knowing his function. A gigolo. He would have been perfect for the jokes, ideally qualified according to the tradition. A Latin, tango-dancing gigolo. Had she seen his brief, honest reaction to her dismissal? He hoped not—worried now about later jokes, among her friends—but it was too late. Only one thing mattered now. Getting out with as much dignity as possible. He tried an uncaring laugh, not sure if he fully succeeded, and said, “Of course I’m not asking you to abandon all that, not if it’s important. I just thought I’d give you the chance.…” Striving for lightness, he added, “It might have been a different sort of fun, for a while.”

  “That’s just it, my darling: for a while. But where would we go from there?”

  You could go to a whorehouse, where you’re naturally suited, thought Rivera. He didn’t try to laugh again but he smiled and said, “But you’re right; Paris is only an hour away.” It wouldn’t be much of a victory, but he was trying to grab what he could and he’d enjoy turning her down when she suggested coming. And she would call, he knew. Flying to Paris for an assignation would be exciting to Henrietta—fun, like traveling with armed bodyguards.

  In immediate confirmation Henrietta said, “I’d like that! And we’ll have all the time in the world, won’t we?”

  Where was his dignified exit line? “Nothing to do except have fun!” he said. The bitch, he thought, in a fresh flush of rage, treating him like a gigolo!

  “On the subject of fun,” said Henrietta, coquettish again. “Is this a late-night-drinks party or do we fuck?”

  This was the moment, Rivera thought, the moment to dismiss her and haughtily walk out. And then he paused. That would be turned into another joke, if he did. The poor darling was so crushed that he scuttled away with his tail—or maybe it was his prick—between his legs. He hoped she’d realize later he’d treated her like the whore she was, for that one last time. “We fuck,” he said.

  The City of Athens, upon which the tanks and the Stinger missiles had supposedly been loaded in San Diego, together with acceptable End-User Certificates naming France as their destination, was a rusting, engine-strained hulk of a freighter chartered by Belac because it was cheap and because he had gained $40,000 on the budgeted transportation costs. A day after sailing, one of the turbines failed, and the freighter put into Manzillo for makeshift repairs. It was there that the master received the expected instructions from Havana, rerouting the tanks direct to Angola. By return, the captain advised Havana of his engine troubles and warned of a delay.

  It took a further four days for the City of Athens to cover the comparatively short distance to Balboa, almost at the mouth of the Panama Canal, and there the engines failed again. This time Havana cabled that the City of Athens should not attempt the Atlantic voyage.

  It should make for Cuba.

  A message advising Rivera of the unexpected detour was sent that night from Havana.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  O’FARRHLL HAD no idea how long everything would take, so he called Petty on the man’s outside, insecure line and said he was being held in Chicago on family business for a few days; all the bookkeeping was up to date and there was nothing outstanding. Petty said he appreciated being told and solicitously asked if there were anything he could do. O’Farrell said he didn’t think so.

  O’Farrell went to see McMasters on the second day. Billy’s description had rung some bells with people in the narcotics division. There was a blank on anyone named Rick, but there was a rap sheet for narcotics dealing on a Felipe Lopez Portillo, who was known to drive a Toyota. He was gay, so Rick was probably the current lover; Felipe got them through their drug dependence and could always take his pick. Boxer had been identified. There were two possession and three supplying convictions against a Rene Ibañez. He’d fought flyweight and briefly been considered a Golden Gloves contender in his class. He’d started living the good life before the good live arrived and had screwed up: he’d fought so badly in his last official fight that there’d been a drug test that had proven positive and he had lost his license. He still fought sometimes on the fifty-dollar-a-night circuit, so he kept himself in shape; particularly by bicycling on a racing machine. And he had a red rose tattooed on the middle finger of his left hand.

  “Portillo?” O’Farrell asked. “Ibañez? What nationalities?”

  “Portillo’s Colombian. Ibañez is Cuban-American.”

  O’Farrell waited to feel something, but nothing came. The anger—the forbidden emotion—of that first night had gone now, and he knew although he had an identification he wouldn’t go seeking them, tonight or any other night. It was still difficult to believe that he’d done that, someone with his supposed control. He said, “You going to pick them up?”

  McMasters shook his head. “They’re not on the streets, won’t be, I guess, until they think the heat’s off. And we won’t, even then. Not for what happened with Billy.”

  “What!”

  McMasters frowned. “You think we’re going to arraign streetwise drug dealers on the word of an eight-year-old kid? Their lawyers would suck us up and blow us out in bubbles.”

  “Then what the fuck was it all about?” O’Farrell exploded. “Why’d you have me drive Billy so far into the ground that he’ll need a psychiatrist, if it was all one great big waste of time!”

  “It wasn’t a great big waste of time, Mr. O’Farrell,” the other man said calmly. “We didn’t know Portillo and Ibañez were operating. Now we do. And we know how they’re operating, which is something else we didn’t know. There’s a marker sheet on both of them and we wait and we watch. We watch until they try it again and this time we catch them, only we have more than the word of a kid who believes spacemen exist. We have the evidence of an equally streetwise, hairy-assed narcotics officer who won’t be sliced up like chopped liver in the witness box.”

  “Bullshit!” O’Farrell said. “They won’t try a kid from Billy’s school again, if they’re as streetwise as you say. So what have they got? The choice of a hundred schools, all over the city. You got enough officers to stake out every likely school, for as long as it takes? Your way they could go on operating for months! Years!”

  “What’s your way, Mr. O’Farrell?” McMasters asked. “Pick them up off the streets, when we do see them, or bust into wherever we find they’re living? Take them to some back lot and tell them they don’t deserve to live, which they don’t, and blow them away? Summary justice, quick and neat and tidy, no need to bother a judge or jury? That’s not the way justice works in this country, sir, irritating though it is sometimes.”

  O’Farrell swallowed, gazing at the other man, any response jumbled and clouded in his mind like those children’s toys that instantly become an obliterating snowstorm by being turned upside down. Finding them and killing them had been exactly what he’d been thinking, what he still thought. Justice—the justice of courts and attorneys and measured argument—didn’t come into it, had no place. At last he said, “And so it goes on?”

  “And so i
t goes on, although we try to stop as much as possible,” McMasters said. “And I agree; it’s not enough.”

  There was no purpose in discussing the philosophy of drug prevention on the streets of Chicago and its suburbs, O’Farrell thought. He said, “Ellen’s clean, according to the drug tests. We got a copy today.”

  “So did I,” McMasters confirmed. “I’m glad.”

  O’Farrell came close to asking the man’s recommendation, for a child psychiatrist, but at the last moment recalled that he knew someone else far better qualified. When he telephoned, Lambert listened without interruption, promised to get back to him, and did so within the day. He would, he said, recommend a female over a male and the best in the area was Patricia Dwyer. She turned out to be a motherly, big-chested woman whose office was like the toy-cluttered interview room at the police station. From her fees O’Farrell decided she had to be the best, but she and Billy developed an immediate rapport, so O’Farrell judged whatever it cost to be worthwhile. Before Billy’s first session he and Ellen spent an hour with the woman, answering every question. On impulse, because she told them of frequent involvement in matrimonial cases, O’Farrell asked her to recommend a lawyer through whom he could pursue Patrick.

  Steven Giles was a nervously thin, stripe-suited man with rimless spectacles and a marine haircut—although he hardly looked robust enough to have served. Giles was peremptory and impatiently aggressive, which O’Farrell decided might be a good attitude for them.

  Halfway through their first interview Giles said to Ellen, “So your reason for working late sometimes was that Patrick repeatedly reneged on alimony and child support?”

  “Yes,” Ellen said, subdued.

  “What took you so long to try to get the payments made through the court? The system exists.”

  “He kept promising,” Ellen said emptily.

  Giles sighed. “That doesn’t say much about your judgment.”