by Dan Taylor
I take a sip of mine, shrug.
Gerry’s gone bright red.
Andre says, “Where are your manners, Jake? What about a drink for Miss Smoulderwell, here?”
I say, “I think I left them in my shoes.”
Andre giggles again. I like the guy. He looks in his late fifties, has warm eyes framed by wire-framed glasses, and a lovely head of wavy gray hair.
I go back over to the bar and ask, “And what would you like, Miss Smoulderwell?”
“A Pino Grigio—that’s a white, Jake. Wine, that is.”
Andre giggles. “I can see you two get on swimmingly.”
I say, “Yeah, right up until the point we pull each other under and drown.”
Gerry says, “Don’t listen to him, Andre. We have our differences, but ultimately we’re professionals and act accordingly.”
Drily, Andre says, “That’s girl talk for she hates your guts and puts up with you, Jake.”
As I pour her wine, I say, “She’s a doll for putting up with me. Really.”
Now that we’ve all got drinks, Andre says, “So you might be wondering why after all this time I’ve finally requested to speak to you face to face.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“Let me begin with a little story. This organization—the one you know by the name the Agency—was started by my father during the war.”
I ask, “The first one?”
Andre laughs. “You old dog. No, the second one, but of course you knew that. For the first two years my father was wasted on the battlefields. Hiding in trenches for days, getting the Foot, bullets whizzing over his head. Until one day, the sergeant of his platoon noticed that my daddy had a rather unusual skill. He was able to learn languages fluently in a matter of weeks. Without an interpreter, educator, or academic to guide him. Such a skill was wasted on the battlefield, so he was put to work in the field in a different capacity, as a spy.
“He was trained in espionage by the King’s finest. Learned five languages fluently in three months: German, mastering both east and west accents; French; Italian; Polish; and American.”
Andre pauses expectantly, waiting for us to laugh or whatever, which Gerry and I do after a moment’s confusion.
He continues, “Sorry, couldn’t resist myself. The fifth language was actually Norwegian. He masqueraded as various soldiers and officers, retrieved many valuable tactical secrets from the Germans, and even a few drinking games. Because of my father, we had the upper hand in many key battles.
“When the war was over, he moved over to the States. To Hollywood. Met an actress by the name of Mamie Van Pickles. They had a son—yours truly—who was educated in boarding schools in England. While I was there, Daddy lived here, building up an organization called Dandy Spies. It took us a long time until we trusted the Germans again, and Truman didn’t trust them, that’s for sure. So there was a lot of intelligence work in those days, a lot of which couldn’t be handled by the CIA because of the sniffles and windy pops and the like. So our guys did it. Kept an eye on post-Nazi Germany. Then later Cold War Russia, with other jobs in between.
“After my father died, I took over the reins. Moved over from England. As subterfuge, we started a little mom-and-pop outfit called the Agency, employed private dicks to carry out jobs for starlets and the like in Hollywood—kids’ stuff—while the real employees did the real work. Guys like you, Mr. Hancock, were the firemen who rescued cats out of trees for little old ladies while other firefighters busted down doors and rescued small children from burning buildings. On the outside, we were just a P.I. firm with lots of cash, but on the inside, the Dandy Spies lived on—”
I interrupt him. “Nice story. So I was just the shop front, so that the real work could be done without sabotage from hostile entities?”
I glance at Gerry, and she mouths, “Hostile entities?” as she raises a sassy eyebrow. I shrug.
Andre continues, “Precisely. And what a fine job you did.” He smiles.
I say, “You’re welcome, I think. Forgive me for sounding disrespectful, but what the hell does that story have to do with me being here?”
“I was just getting on to that. It’s about one of our agents, someone who was rescuing a small child from a burning building—”
“Don’t say his name.” I put my palms over my ears.
But I still hear him say, “Cole Baxter.”
10.
“NO, NO, NO, NO…”
“What on earth is the matter, Mr. Hancock?”
I grab a stool and sit down, my shoulders hunched over. “All this time I thought I had been the big shot, but I was nothing more than Cole Baxter’s subterfuge—who was my closest rival, no less.”
He looks at Gerry confusedly, then back at me. “As far as I know, you two barely knew each other. In fact, before he got abducted—”
“Kidnapped—”
“Miss Smoulderwell informed me—and well, as always—that you didn’t know who he was.”
“I didn’t. But my intuition was right all along. He was my professional rival.”
“That’s not how we look at things. Both of you carried out equally important tasks.”
I look up. “That’s not what you said a couple minutes ago.”
“Don’t act like a child, Mr. Hancock. It’s unbecoming.”
“What does unbecoming mean?”
“It means—”
“I know what it means!”
Gerry comes over to me, takes the glass from my hand, says, “I apologize for his outburst. We really shouldn’t have given him a drink.”
Andre says, “It’s quite all right. Mr. Hancock has just gotten quite a shock and his behavior is expected. But it won’t be tolerated for too long.”
Like paper, I burn quickly then die down. “I apologize for me, too. I’m just going through a…rough patch at the moment.”
Andre’s forthrightness surprises me: “Well stand up straight, boy! Pull your shoulders back!’”
I do as he said, wipe away a dribble of snot.
“It’s time we got to specifics, before the rest of that brandy goes straight to your head.”
I stand up, say, “So I guess Cole Baxter’s in trouble again, and I’m the guy to find and rescue him.” I glance at Gerry. “Gerry said something about a vacation.”
Andre pauses before saying, “Quite the opposite, Mr. Hancock. Cole Baxter is dead.”
11.
MY HAVING TO FIND and rescue Cole Baxter and his being dead aren’t exactly strict opposites, but that’s the last thing on my mind. I take a step back, eyes wide with shock. The thought had crossed my mind—Cole Baxter’s dying—and I thought I’d be at least a little bit happy about it. But I can safely say I’m not.
I look to Gerry, who looks like this isn’t the first time she’s heard the news.
I say, “What happened…I mean, is he all right?”
Andre says, “No, he’s about as far from all right as one can be, Mr. Hancock. His bones were found in an observation station’s septic tank, somewhere in Antarctica.”
I’m still in shock. “Is that the one with the polar bears or penguins?”
“Get a hold of yourself, Mr. Hancock. Please.”
I sit down on the stool again. I don’t handle death well. I’m still grieving for my pet hamster that died when I was in fifth grade. That little guy…
“Gerry, get him a drink. And make it a whisky this time. We need to counteract the effects of the brandy.”
As she rushes over to the bar she’s muttering something about it “hardly counteracting the effects.”
“And hold the soda.”
She comes over to me, and I take a sip of the vile stuff. The acrid taste snaps my brain back into gear, allowing me to get a hold of myself. “Sir, I’ve now gotten a hold of myself. Please continue.”
“Andre, please. We sent him on a mission two weeks ago. We received some intelligence that the Russians had set up an observation station in Antarc
tica and were looking for something that might be of interest to us.”
“Like what?”
“We have no idea. But it’s the Russians. It’s usually something anti-America.”
“How do you know they weren’t just scientists monitoring the polar icecaps and global warming and whatnot?”
“Cole Baxter’s bones turning up in the septic tank are a pretty good sign that these people aren’t just interested in how fast some poxy ice is melting.”
I think about that a second. “But you didn’t know that before you sent him.”
“But our instincts were proven right, were they not, Mr. Hancock?”
“I suppose they were.”
“So I’ll continue. Cole Baxter went through a recruitment process, led by a Norwegian recruitment agent called Bertha Handvinkle. He posed as a Canadian graduate who was competent and intelligent but down on his luck. He applied for a position working alongside one of the Russians; it was a low-skilled role, sitting on a stool all day, working the nightshift while the more experienced Russian slept. Bertha Handvinkle gave Cole Baxter the nod. He went out there but never returned.”
“What happened to him?”
“I just said that. His bones turned up in the septic tank.”
“Not that. I mean, what happened to him when he went out there?”
“That’s what we want you to find out, Mr. Hancock.”
12.
I TURN TO GERRY. “So this is where you meant when you asked if I wanted to go on vacation? To fricking Antarctica? I was thinking Barbados, Brazil, or Bermuda.”
Gerry goes to speak, but Andre interrupts her. “Please, Mr. Hancock, there are other letters in the alphabet.”
I look confusedly at him.
“Never mind. Anyway, to answer your question, no, we’re not sending you to Antarctica. You don’t have the training for such an expedition, nor would you be any good as a spy. Nor are you as a P.I. for that matter—”
I stand up and raise a la révolution finger. “Now you just hold on a minute—”
“No, you hold on a minute, Mr. Hancock. I was just getting on to the skills you possess that are right for this job.”
I sit down. “Carry on.”
“I sent one of my guys out there in a rented helicopter, only to find the Russians had shut down the observation station. That’s why we’re not sending you out there. We received no intelligence from Cole Baxter before his bones became cat litter. We’re doing the only thing we can do in this situation: turning our attention to a smaller, less powerful country. Norway.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You’re not supposed to, Mr. Hancock. I haven’t finished explaining yet. Where was I? Oh yes, we protect our spies well. Real identities are kept hidden on computers that my boffins assure me are ‘hack-proof.’ They’re highly trained, so it’s unlikely Cole gave himself away. The way we figure it, the only way he could’ve been found out was if we had been betrayed, by this ‘recruitment agent’ Bertha Handvinkle.” He pauses dramatically. “We suspect she was a triple agent.”
I try and make sense of that. “What, working for the Russians, us, and the Norwegians?”
“Exactly.”
“Aren’t there at least a few conflicts of interests there, Andre?”
“That’s what you’re going to find out.”
I wish he’d stop saying that. “Anyway, you were going to talk about the skills I possess that are right for this gig. What was it, my sharp diplomacy and knowledge of politics?”
“Oh God no—”
“My think-outside-the-box investigation technique?”
“Don’t make me laugh—”
“My ability to act cool in the face of danger?”
He giggles. “Enough with the jokes, Mr. Hancock—”
“My—”
“Will you just shut up and let me finish.”
I sulk a little. “Fine.”
Andre composes himself. “It’s your ability to bed women, Mr. Hancock. That’s why we need you.”
I hear a glass fall to the floor and smash. Andre and I turn to Gerry, see her standing open-mouthed. When she recovers after the initial shock, she stamps a stiletto heel into Andre’s hardwood floor, and says, “Oh fuck off!”
13.
ANDRE AND I LOOK at Gerry. He says, “What in the heavens was that outburst about?”
It’s a hell of a question. I think back to what Gerry said on the squash court. One of the prerequisites for my coming back to the Agency was that I was to promise not to bed the women I came in contact with. It could be something to do with that.
Gerry has calmed a little. But she burns more akin to a block of wood. She’s smoldering still. “Everyone else who climbs the ladder is loyal, hardworking, good at their jobs! And Jake just has to drop his pants to get a leg up to the next rung.”
I go to the bar to make a drink and watch from there—a silly little grin on my face.
Andre says, “You yourself said he had extraordinary talents in this department—”
“I was complaining about him—” She turns to me, utters, “No offense.”
I raise the empty glass I was about to fill up, wink, and say, “None taken.”
Gerry continues, “This was supposed to be a reason to not employ him again.”
I interject, theatrically putting a hand on my heart. “Gerry, I’m hurt.”
They both ignore me.
Andre says, “I’m with you on this one, Gerry. His work history is littered with indiscretions I don’t care for. But when you mentioned it to me the other day, I thought, why not put him on the Baxter case?”
I say, “In my defense, those women dropped their panties. You make it sound like I go around exposing myself, seeing what sticks.”
Andre looks at me, says, “Let me deal with this, Mr. Hancock.”
I salute him, lean on the bar, that silly grin still plastered on my face.
Gerry says, “So if I hadn’t have mentioned it, Jake would just be completing some arbitrary task for some ditsy starlet?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but if he had come back to work for us under normal circumstances, then yes.”
She stamps her foot again. “That’s just great!”
She comes over to the bar, petulantly grabs the bottle out of my hand, which is some old Scotch, as though she’s going to pour herself a drink, which she nearly does. Until she looks at the bottle, sees the brown liquid sloshing around inside it. Then she puts it down. Snatches the white wine, fills up her glass.
I go back over to Andre and whisper, “She’ll be okay in a couple minutes.”
She calls over, “I heard that!”
Andre says, “Anyway, back to this Baxter business. You are to masquerade as an avant-garde jazz flutist—”
“Why that?”
“This Bertha Hanvinkle woman has got rather a soft spot for the genre. Every man she’s ever dated—according to our intelligence—has been a jazz musician.”
I connect the dots. “Wait, so you want me to bed a woman named Bertha Handvinkle?”
Andre frowns. “I thought that was obvious.”
“Oh fuck off!”
14.
“WHAT THE HELL IS wrong with you two?”
“I apologize. But Bertha? Handvinkle?” I glance over at Gerry, who’s grinning. She raises her glass in a mock toast.
“It’s just a name, Mr. Hancock. She’s actually quite attractive.”
I’m warming to the idea. “Tell me more.”
To Gerry, Andre says, “Be a doll and grab those blown-ups off the billiard table.”
She does, hands them to me, then storms back to the bar. I’m looking at a woman who, in the face, looks quite cute, but she looks as though she might go back for seconds and still have space for dessert. As I do, Andre says, “You’ll be flying over to Oslo tomorrow, for a four-day stay. The evening after, you’ll be playing a gig at Freidkin’s Jazz Rendezvous, where Miss Handvinkle will be
attending. You are to woo her with your talents, then bonk her secrets out of her.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“In the usual manner, Mr. Hancock: in and then out, ad infinitum.”
“Not that. I don’t know the first thing about playing the flute.”
“Have you ever listened to avant-garde jazz music, Mr. Hancock?”
I listen to jazz regularly, but I don’t know what the hell avant-garde means. “Jake, please. And I think I might have.”
He giggles. “You would know for definite if you had. It sounds like any other jazz music, but the note choice is seemingly random. You just need to know the basics of how to play the flute, which you’ll learn later this afternoon from jazz flute virtuoso Herb ‘Fleet Fingers’ James.”
I look at the photos again, turn my head to the side, and say, “How much can I learn in one afternoon? Won’t she find me out straightaway?”
“Not if you listen to Herb and have a basic sense of rhythm.”
I think back to the last time I danced. With a worried look on her face, my date, who insisted on ballroom dancing as our first date, said, “Are you okay, Jake? Are you having a seizure?”
“I think I can manage it.”
“Good. You are to report to Gerry on your…progress, if and when there is any.”
“Will Gerry be flying to Oslo with me?”
“There are these things called cell phones, Jake. I think you’ll find them quite handy.”
I ignore his sarcasm. “Is there anything else I need to know about this Bertha woman?”
“Gerry will arrange a dossier for tomorrow. You can read it on the plane over there. And don’t leave it in the magazine pouch for someone to find.”
“I’ll burn it the first chance I get.”
“Quite unnecessary. Just arrange to have it shredded at your hotel.”
“Which will be?”
“A quaint one called Three Bells.”
“Quaint? I’m supposed to be masquerading as a jazz musician. Shouldn’t I be traveling in style?”