The House of Special Purpose

by Paul Christopher

  Someone at COI had booked adjoining rooms for them and after signing in they crossed the modern lobby and had a late dinner in the Salon de Don Quijote, an enormous, nearly empty dining room decorated with massive wall panels in encaustic tile depicting the salient episodes in the life of Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha, as well as more scenes of daily life in medieval Spain. The effect was almost overwhelming.

  ‘I’m not sure I can eat with all these visions of Don Quixote staring down at me.’ Jane was trying to work her way through a pair of enormous log-like burritos smothered in some kind of stringy cheese. Eventually she gave up and concentrated on an equally large bowl of pozole, which turned out to be a mixture of grits, broth and unidentifiable meats and vegetables. The only thing she was sure of was that it had a lot of chilli peppers.

  ‘I’m not even sure what I’m eating,’ said Black, poking at something the waiter had called a tamal. ‘It would appear to be some sort of curry wrapped in a banana leaf.’

  They both gave up on the meal after a few minutes and settled for a Mexican version of crème caramel and coffee. The coffee, when it arrived, turned out to be a pot of hot water, two cups and a jar of Nescafé.

  ‘Perhaps we should consult with someone the next time we order a meal,’ Black said dryly. ‘We’re obviously not doing this right.’

  ‘I’m too tired to care very much at this point.’ Yawning, Jane lit a cigarette and leaned back in her chair. ‘I’m just glad to be sitting down without the whole room vibrating.’

  ‘Try a flying boat over Iceland.’ Black winced, thinking of the icy cold. ‘Cure you of aeroplanes for good.’ He pulled out his tin of Senior Service and popped it open. There was only one left. ‘My last link to the old country,’ he said, lighting it. ‘I shall have to start smoking American cigarettes now, I suppose.’

  ‘Could be worse.’ Jane laughed. ‘Have you ever tried Mexican tobacco? Someone offered me something called a Faro once. I think the word means ‘Light’ because the package had a lighthouse on it. I thought I was going to choke to death.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s time we gave it up,’ Black said.

  ‘Not on your life, pal. Besides, four out of five—’

  ‘Doctors recommend Camels.’

  Jane yawned again, covering her mouth with her hand and closing her eyes for a few seconds. She’d slept on the plane, but only lightly, and her sleep had been full of dreams. Dreams of her sister and the dark hell of the hospital on Welfare Island. Dreams of the killer John Bone, her brief lover and the man she’d killed from less than ten feet away. Dreams of the explosion that had almost killed her and dreams of Bone again, at the World’s Fair in Flushing, standing in the flatboat, hidden by the shadows of the bridge above him, his rifle aimed at the king and queen, all of them mixed into a single unravelling nightmare that never seemed to end.

  She opened her eyes and found Morris Black staring at her intently. The first thought that came into her mind was that he was about to make a pass. The second thought was that she didn’t think she’d mind if he did.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ she said lightly. ‘Do I have a chilli pepper caught between my teeth or something?’

  Black smiled. ‘I thought you’d fallen asleep for a moment there.’

  ‘I almost did.’

  ‘I was also wondering what brought you to all of this.’

  ‘I thought we were supposed to keep secrets, not tell them.’

  ‘I don’t like secrets,’ said Black. ‘In fact, I abhor them.’

  ‘And you’re in the spy business? Tell me another one!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It means I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s quite true,’ Black answered, tapping his cigarette on the edge of a cut-glass ashtray. ‘I spent most of my career unraveling secrets, not keeping them, or worse, defending them.’

  ‘You were a cop.’

  ‘Detective.’

  ‘So how did you get to be a spy?’

  ‘Believe it or not, that’s a secret,’ he said, laughing bitterly. ‘I’d be thrown in jail for the rest of my life, or put up against a wall and shot, if I told you.’

  She looked mildly shocked. ‘You’re kidding. That must be some secret.’

  ‘It is.’ Black nodded. ‘And knowing it is what turned me into a spy and stopped me from being a policeman.’

  ‘I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate,’ said Jane.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Vincent van Gogh said that. In a letter to his brother.’

  ‘You like van Gogh?’

  ‘He reminds me of me.’ Jane nodded. ‘I like to look forward, not back. I guess you could call it curiosity.’

  ‘Didn’t do much for poor Vincent. Lost an ear, as I recall.’

  ‘I think he thought it was probably worth it,’ said Jane. And suddenly she found herself thinking about those intimate few moments she’d spent with John Bone and she felt the colour rising in her cheeks.

  ‘A penny for them.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your thoughts. You’re blushing like a bride.’

  ‘It’s nothing. Just thinking about something I probably shouldn’t be thinking about.’

  ‘You never did tell me what brought you into all of this,’ said Black.

  ‘Circumstances. A twist of fate, like your big secret. Even though I don’t really believe in fate.’

  ‘Ca ira,’ said Black.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I’m trading you, quote for quote. It’s French – it means, roughly, “It will go its way.” Fate, that is. Spoken by your man Benjamin Franklin when he was United States ambassador to France. He was speaking about the American Revolution but it applies to most things, I think.’

  Jane ran one hand through her hair and brushed invisible crumbs off the front of her blouse. ‘Like Trotsky getting an ice axe in the back of his head. Never occurred to me that I’d ever have anything to do with that but here I am. And you as well. A long way from England.’

  ‘How true.’ Black smiled.

  The waiter appeared and looked silently down at their barely eaten meals. He shook his head, said something under his breath and began gathering up the dishes. He turned and left them alone again. Jane looked around. They were the only ones still communing with the Man of La Mancha. Somewhere, faintly, she could hear the sound of dance music led by a wailing clarinet. Not as good as Benny Goodman but not bad.

  ‘I haven’t gone dancing in a long, long time,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I hope that’s not a suggestion,’ said Black. ‘Not that I wouldn’t mind dancing with you but I can barely put one foot in front of the other as it is.’

  ‘No suggestion,’ Jane answered, shaking her head wearily. ‘I’ve probably forgotten how anyway.’ She listened for another moment. ‘Just brings back memories.’

  ‘For me as well,’ said Black and Jane saw a quick, deeply sad expression cross his face and then cloud over with something else. ‘Oh, what the hell.’ He reached out a hand across the table. ‘Care to dance, madam?’ Jane accepted the hand and came around the table. Black led her out onto the dance floor and into the small spinning circle of a dozen or so couples. His hand went around her waist, fitting comfortably just at the base of her spine, and they began to sway together. For such an apparently shy man his moves were surprisingly smooth and practised.

  ‘You’ve done this before.’

  ‘My wife, Fay, and I used to go dancing all the time.’

  ‘You don’t talk about her very much.’

  ‘No,’ said Black.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jane whispered softly. She knew Black’s wife had died from cancer a year or two before and it obviously still pained him. It suddenly occurred to her that dancing together was breaking some kind of trust. She stopped in the middle of the floor but Black urged her on.

  ‘Don’t be sorry. I’m enjoying myself. Please.’

  And so they kept on dancing for a while longer. The m
usic ended finally and Jane realised how lost in the dancing she’d become. They stood together, still touching for a moment, then stepped apart, slightly embarrassed, and returned to their table. Jane offered him a Camel. They both lit their cigarettes and Jane saw that Black’s hand was nervously shaking.

  ‘What about tomorrow?’ she said to break the silence.

  ‘The meeting with Mercador. Then I’d like to get a look at Trotsky’s place afterwards.’

  ‘We just waltz in?’

  ‘Fleming’s thought of everything. We pick up the documents we need at state police headquarters in the morning.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Then perhaps we’d better get some sleep.’

  Black took out some of the American money Fleming had given him and dropped it on the table. ‘That should cover it.’

  ‘It certainly should,’ said Jane. ‘The bill is for fifty pesos, not fifty dollars.’ She picked up three of the five ten-dollar bills and handed them back to Black. She pushed back her chair and stood up, suddenly feeling the full force of her tiredness catching up with her. She closed her eyes for a second and suddenly felt as though she was rocketing backwards on a freight train. A moment later she felt a hand on her arm. It was Black.

  ‘Are you all right? You looked as though you were about to faint.’

  ‘I’m okay. I just need to get some sleep.’

  ‘Come along then,’ said Black. ‘I’ll tuck you in.’

  ‘I wish,’ Jane muttered softly.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Black.

  ‘Nothing.’

  * * *

  The big yacht stood out beyond Long Cay, her running lights off and any interior lights blacked out by heavy curtains. She stood easily at anchor; the night air was calm and so was the sea. Once every eight seconds the beam from the Hog Island Light swept across them but too high to detect their presence.

  Two men stood on deck above the companionway ladder that had been let down to accommodate their guest. The man on the left, tall, imposing and perhaps a little too heavy for his expensively cut New Bond Street suit, stared through a pair of binoculars at the small darkened wharf at the entrance to the conch fleets’ harbour at Arawak Cay. At the end of the harbour was the fish market and even from a mile away he could smell the sweet-rot odour of the conch, their meat removed and their beautiful shells tossed aside, later to be collected and polished up for the rich American tourists who sometimes spent weekends here.

  The man’s name was Axel Wenner-Gren, a multimillionaire and the owner of the yacht, the Southern Cross. The tall, thin man with a bullet head and grim expression standing beside him had several names, spelled in several different ways; the present one, complete with title, was Count Anastase Andreivitch Vonsiatsky. He professed to be from the Russian royal family but was actually a captain in the Polish army who had fled in 1919 from the Bolsheviks. He had made his way to America in the early twenties, became a naturalised citizen in 1927 and then married the mutton heiress Marion Ream. He established the All-Russian Fascist Party in Thompson, Connecticut, which was odd since neither the so-called count nor his wife were Russian. The only thing really dangerous about him was the amount of money his wife had and her enthusiastic agreement with her husband’s cause – to bring back the Russian monarchy, with the help of the Nazis if need be.

  ‘She’s late,’ said the count.

  ‘She’s always late.’

  ‘She should have more discipline.’

  ‘You’re not talking about some farm girl here, Anastase Andreivitch. She is the key to our project.’

  ‘The key is her husband,’ snapped the count. ‘He is the one with the position and the power.’

  ‘If he had such position and power why did he wind up in such a godforsaken place as this?’ Wenner-Gren answered. ‘No. We will give him the power and it will come through her. He has the brains of one of his wretched subjects, which is to say none at all.’

  A dark, nondescript car drove slowly down what was officially known as West Bay Street but which the locals called Beach Road, really no more than a rutted track of crushed stone. The car was an old Ford or Dodge, covered in dust like everything else on the island, driving on what the Americans would call the wrong side of the road. Its headlamps were out and so were it sidelights. Two passengers could just be seen inside – a thin, elegant woman behind the wheel and a slight, well-dressed man sitting ramrod straight on the seat beside her, looking directly forward, never turning his face left or right. It was a handsome face and had all the properties you’d expect to see on the profile of a man portrayed on a coin or a banknote or possibly a postage stamp.

  The vehicle slowed in front of a large Victorian house that belonged to one of the few black doctors on the island, then turned and went down a short angled road leading to the docks. It came to a stop and then its headlamps, pointing out to sea, flashed three times in quick succession.

  The man and the woman got out of the car. The woman handed the keys to the man, who unlocked the boot, revealing four identical expensive-looking medium-sized cloth-sided suitcases. The man and the woman each took a pair of the suitcases and walked down to the dock. They went all the way to the end and put the suitcases down carefully. In the middle distance they could hear the sound of a launch approaching over the small sounds of the water. The man was almost gagging on the smell of the place but the woman appeared not to notice. As the launch appeared out of the darkness she put her hands on the man’s shoulders.

  ‘You’ll be all right without me, David?’

  ‘I only wish that I was going with you, doing my bit, don’t you know.’

  ‘I’m afraid it would be noticed rather quickly, sweetie pie.’ She smiled. The launch pulled in to the dock. Two men in striped matelot-styled naval sweaters were on board. One jumped up out of the boat and tied up, then began loading the suitcases.

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ said the man she called David. He let out a little theatrical sigh. ‘I shall very much miss our games though.’

  She put her hand on his cheek, stroking it gently, the way you’d settle a dog. We’ll play again when I return,’ she said. She looked down and saw that the two men were ready, one waiting to hand her down into the boat, the other behind the wheel. She turned back to her companion. She noticed that his puppy eyes were filled with tears.

  ‘I never meant it to be this way, you know.’

  ‘I know, dear, I know,’ she soothed. ‘Let Mommy go now and I’ll make it all better when I get back.’ She smiled. ‘At least no one will be suspicious if I come back with a bit of a tan.’ She pecked him on the cheek, squeezed his hand, then turned away quickly and let the waiting sailor hand her down into the launch. She sat down beside her suitcases as the man cast off the lines and climbed back into the boat. Engine burbling, the launch backed away from the dock. The woman waved and the man on the dock waved back. The boat swung around and headed out to sea. The man kept waving long after he could no longer see the launch or its phosphorescent wake, tears streaming down his face.

  ‘I never meant it to be this way at all,’ he whispered but no one answered on the gentle breeze, bringing him nothing but the scent of gutted fish and rotting conch.

  Chapter Twelve

  Wednesday, November 26, 1941

  Mexico City

  Choosing the slightly less exotic Quick Lunch room for their morning breakfast, Jane Todd and Morris Black filled up on scrambled eggs, bacon and fried potatoes, then set out to find Manuel Durantes, one of the half dozen or so assistant managers at the hotel, who promised to find them a rental car within the hour and to have it waiting in the large parking lot across the street. He also gave them directions down Avenida Cinco de Mayo and to the National Palace.

  Both Jane and Black were exhausted and soaked with sweat after the half-mile walk, breathing hard in the thin air. Jane was beginning to think hard about quitting smoking before they were halfway to the palacio and she was a confirmed
abstainer by the time they reached the busy plaza at the end of the avenue. Even at this early hour it was filled with tramcars rattling around their rails in circles as they either began or ended their passage up or down any of the ten major streets that emptied into the plaza. There were scores of taxicabs and private vehicles and hundreds of tourists taking pictures and other pedestrians dodging the non-stop honking traffic as they tried to reach the broad stairs leading up to the entrance to the block-long sandstone red building.

  The palace was just that, a palace, and housed the presidential offices and the presidential residence as well. The main floor was divided up into scores of rooms and halls, including the national museum, which occupied one entire wing of the building. The upper floors were given over to the bureaucracy of the state, a maze of rooms and halls that would have been impossible to navigate without the help of a uniformed guide who took them to the part of the building occupied by the offices of the state police. Jane gave the man a five-dollar bill and promised him a second one if he stuck around for the return trip to the front door.

  It was a complicated business even though Fleming and Donovan’s people had already cleared the path for them. Prior to Trotsky’s murder, being a communist in Mexico was of no great consequence but after the uncovering of a huge spy and smuggling ring run by the Nazis’ Abwehr in 1939 the police were more suspicious, particularly so following Trotsky’s assassination. The question of why a pair of non-communists, one American and one English, should be interested in Trotsky’s house as well as the man who murdered him was even more suspicious.

  Nevertheless, they were eventually given the documentation necessary to visit both Ramon Mercador and Trotsky’s house. Captain Morales, the official who stamped the documents after more than an hour, also suggested they visit a man named Dr Alfonso Quiroz Cuaron, one of the psychologists who had eventually cracked the protective façade of lies and disinformation Mercador had erected to disguise his real identity. As it turned out, Dr Cuaron lived only a few blocks from the Trotsky house in Coyoacán.