Mission (23 page)

The Tibetan Book of the Dead,
and various schools of philosophy concerned with the search for spiritual awareness all spoke of the death of the ego as the pre-requisite step on the path to enlightenment. The elimination of the ‘I', the preoccupation with which was the undisputed basis of so much of our unhappiness. I was taken by the idea of the quest but had no strong desire to embark upon it. The acquisition of my ego had afforded me a great deal of not-so-innocent pleasure and, despite the advent of The Man, I intended to hang on to it for as long as possible.

It was a ploy that the old hands knew as ‘playing both ends against the middle'. The Man would probably regard it as cheating but I knew ‘Brax would understand. After all, he'd invented it.

I bought a third drink and told the bartender to keep the change. In return for which, he let me use the phone he kept under the bar. It saved me having to go all the way out to the back and meant that I could enjoy the sensation of calling The Man whilst keeping an eye on the trio who were still chatting in the window. One of them was a promising blonde with a sensational pair of breasts in free-fall under a ‘Save The Whales' T-shirt.

There was no reply from his room. The desk told me that my earlier message was still pigeon-holed. I left another with my home number then quietly finished my drink. As I twisted round off the bar stool, I saw two of the girls from the window seat walk out the door; leaving the blonde looking at me over the top of her cigarette. It was a tough decision but I like to think I did the right thing. Listen. Whales are an endangered species. I care about these things.

The nature trail took me to a little restaurant over on Third Avenue. I left the waiter pouring the wine and ducked out to phone Miriam. She was still on duty. I told her where I was, and she told me that she'd called my apartment and the hotel.

‘Are you with The Man?' she asked.

‘No, a client. Mel Donaldson. One of the Delaware law team. A real
klutz.
' I injected a note of pain into my voice. ‘He wants me to take him to the Playboy Club.'

‘Good luck,' she said.

I explained that The Man had apparently left the hotel sometime between two and four p.m. and that I had been unable to contact him.

‘You don't sound very worried,' said Miriam.

‘I'm trying to convince myself it's a waste of time,' I said. ‘Let's face it, if he's telling us the truth and the future already exists, what's going to happen will happen whether we like it or not.' I paused, then added worriedly, ‘I just wish I knew what he's got lined up for us.'

‘Maybe he doesn't know yet,' she said.

‘Don't you believe it,' I replied. ‘He knows. You can bet your bottom dollar on that.' We exchanged brief verbal tokens of friendship then I went back to the table and raised my glass to the T-shirt. ‘Sorry about that. A client. Mel Donaldson. One of the Delaware law team.'

‘Oh,' she said. ‘Is he from this big case you're on?'

‘Yeah …' I injected a note of pain into my voice. ‘A real
klutz.
' I dismissed my business problems with a casual wave then did the old finger-along-the-back-of-the-hand bit. The light touch. It's a great
way of testing the water. The feedback from the Resnick Skinometer was Alpha-plus. Which to Monopoly fans is like ‘Pass GO and collect 200 dollars'. Only better.

‘After we've eaten,' I said, ‘why don't we go on to the Playboy Club?'

Would you believe it if I told you that she had been waiting for someone to ask her that?

Just for the record, her name was Fran Nelson. She was born in Philadelphia, and she worked in the production department of a Madison Avenue ad agency. She was one of five children. Her father was an optician, and active in Republican ward politics. It was the first time I'd dated a Republican but, like they say, there's a first time for everything. The rest we don't need to go into here. If I mention the incident at all, it is to illustrate my inner turmoil. Which sounds good. Or my inherent duplicity. Which sounds a little more honest. Whether I enjoyed it or not is irrelevant. More than anything else, it was not so much the need to score but the need to demonstrate my independence. To prove that I still had control over my life no matter what the eventual cost. Let's face it. We all have the urge to press the self-destruct button at some time in our lives. There are some people whose fingers are never off it. And anyway, as it said in the Book, The Man liked a challenge. I was still prepared to help him but that didn't mean to say I had to buy the whole bill of goods. Right?

Right …

Wednesday morning. I rang the hotel again before I left my apartment. Room 315 didn't answer. When I got to the office I tried again. The desk confirmed that my two earlier messages were still pigeonholed. I rang Miriam and found myself talking to Lewis Carroll's Dormouse.

‘You sound as if you're still in bed,' I said.

‘I am,' was the snug reply. When she works the late shift, Miriam's day starts at noon. ‘How did you make out last night?'

Her choice of words gave me an uneasy feeling. ‘Oh, er, you mean with Donaldson? It wasn't too painful,' I said. ‘They had a group from the West Coast playing some great jazz.' I gave her a cleaned-up version of my evening, substituting M. Donaldson for F. Nelson throughout. Then I told her that I still hadn't got through to The Man.

‘What do you think's happened?' Her voice was now wide awake.

I had decided not to tell her about the woman in black who had followed Linda. There was no point in both of us worrying. Not at this stage, anyway. I tried to hide my own concern but my answer still sounded peevish. ‘How the hell do I know? It could be any one of a hundred things. Let's face it, we may not be the only people he's been speaking to. My guess is he's probably taken the Time Express back to 29 AD. On the other hand, he may have been kidnapped by a snatch-squad from the Pentecostal Church of God.'

There was short silence at the other end of the line. ‘You don't really think that, do you?'

‘No, Miriam,' I said patiently. ‘That was a joke. But if this gets too much for us, we could always give the holy rollers a call. They'd take
The Man off our hands in ten seconds flat.'

She greeted that with another silence. ‘Is that what you want?'

‘No,' I said. ‘That was another joke.'

‘Well, cut it out,' she replied. ‘When you try to be flip, you can be a real pain.'

‘Okay, okay, I'm sorry.'

I should tell you – if you haven't guessed already – that Miriam is one of those people who only laugh when they think something is funny; as opposed to the other kind who laugh because they're anxious to please. It was this serious side to her nature which appealed to me and which, paradoxically, I had enjoyed debauching. Not that it was easy. It took me months to persuade her to give up her flute lessons so that she could spend more time in bed with me.

‘So what are you going to do?' she asked.

Questions. Always questions.

‘I'm not sure,' I replied. ‘If he's gone, there's no point in paying for an empty room. Check-out time is eleven a.m. The sensible thing would be to have the hotel make out his bill before they hit me for another hundred dollars. On the other hand, I don't want to run the risk of him stepping back into Room 315 from first-century Jerusalem while someone else is in the bedroom, or taking a shower. He's liable to end up back in the slammer.'

‘I suppose it's possible,' said Miriam. ‘But if the last two visits are anything to go by, he seems to be zeroing in on you.'

‘Yes, you could have a point there.' I checked my watch. It was just after nine. ‘Miriam …'

‘Is this going to involve getting up?' she said.

‘Too much sleep is bad for you.' I kept it short and sweet. ‘The desk clerk has a note to bill the office. We have a charge account with the hotel. All you have to do is explain that Mr Sheppard has left town. But make sure you check the room – in case he left something.'

‘Before eleven …' She sounded put-upon.

I promised to take her somewhere nice for supper.

As I rang off, I held on to the phone and toyed briefly with the idea of calling my whaling companion. Then I thought better of it. Linda came through the door with the morning mail. She saw my look of surprise and explained that the reason she was early was because she'd been up all night disco-ing with some friends from out of town. They'd watched the dawn come up over Battery Park then she'd
showered and breakfasted at the Health & Racquets Club and come straight to the office.

She tried to cover a yawn but her hand wasn't big enough. ‘Anything special you want me to do today?'

‘Well, now that you're here, you could try keeping awake,' I said. ‘Mr Sheppard has left town, but there's a chance he might call and leave a message.'

‘Okay.' She stopped halfway to the door. ‘Did you tell him about the woman who followed me?'

I shook my head. ‘I didn't get the opportunity.'

‘Has he gone back to California?'

‘No, I don't think so,' I said. ‘He was planning to take off for Jerusalem.'

‘Ahh …' she nodded. ‘Must be to do some more research for that big Bible story he's working on.' It was clear from her wistful voice that she would have jumped at the chance to carry his luggage.

‘Very probably,' I said. ‘Could you close the door?'

The day in court went reasonably well. I picked up Miriam at nine-thirty from the Manhattan General. She'd had the foresight to take a case with her to the hotel and had cleared The Man's room. From the description she gave, it sounded as if he'd left behind all the clothes he'd acquired on his shopping spree with Linda. In a way, it was just as well. If he'd turned up in 29 AD Jerusalem in olive-green cords and jogging shoes, that really would have given the Roman historians something to write about.

I took Miriam to a Brasserie Alsacienne that had been cloned from a famous joint I'd been to in Paris and ordered champagne and two monstrous helpings of Choucroute Imperiale. She'd inherited the taste for sauerkraut from her grandfather who'd been lucky enough to escape from Germany before the future Allied Nations started turning Jews away. In fact, the old man's taste for sauerkraut was about all he managed to bring with him.

I raised my glass to her. ‘Enjoy…' I liked to please her. I got a kick out of making her happy. It also made me feel a whole lot better because, although we hadn't exchanged contracts, I felt I was cheating on her when I went with someone else. I suppose it was because she was the only person with whom I had come the nearest to being the real ‘me'. And each time I concealed something, or told her less than the truth, I diminished our relationship.

It's strange but, in all the time we were together, she never once told me what it was that she found attractive about me. We were so different. While I had a wide range of interests, I was aware that, compared to her art movies, galleries, and classical string quartets, my passion for main stream jazz, the big band sound and the motivational simplicity of Clint Eastwood movies, made me something of a cultural Philistine. On top of which she was part of a close and happy family while I was a voluntary exile from mine. Looking back, I can only think she regarded me as something of a challenge.

We upended the bottle of champagne and turned down all suggestion of dessert and coffee. It wasn't because I was trying to shave a few dollars off the bill. We just wanted to get to bed before the champagne sparkle wore off. However, I regret to say that on this occasion yours truly turned out to be a limp torpedo. Miriam was not too perturbed but I found it very unsettling.

‘It's that goddamn sauerkraut,' I growled. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, that it was Ms Nelson that had turned my belly into a lead cannonball. I lay there thinking of the fortune I had paid my fucking analyst to remove all trace of guilt and considered slapping a writ on him for culpable negligence.

‘Never mind,' said Miriam. ‘Let's talk.'

‘I was planning to,' I replied. ‘But afterwards.'

‘Let me make some coffee and we'll take it from there.' She got up and wrapped her nakedness in the robe I had bought her and pulled the covers back over mine.

I sat up on one elbow. ‘You really do have a nice body. You know that?'

She grimaced and pushed back her hair. ‘I know I should lose a good fourteen pounds.'

‘Oh, no, don't,' I said. ‘That's why I'm going out with you. I've had it with skinny model girls.'

She eyed me and went into the bathroom. When she came out, I saw she had fastened her hair back with a ribbon. It was a sign that she was through fooling around and that I was now talking to my friend the doctor. I padded over to the closet and donned the terry cloth robe she allowed me to leave in there. I kept a similar one for her at my place. It's the nearest we ever got to handing each other the keys to our apartments.

I joined her in the kitchen as she ladled some beans into the grinder and raised my voice as she switched it on. ‘It's hard to realise that it's
only five days since he turned up at Sleepy Hollow. So much has happened.'

‘Yes …' She moved me gently aside so that she could open a cupboard door to get at the cups and saucers. My mother used to do exactly the same thing. She never said ‘Pass me this', or ‘Bring me that'. She'd let me lounge around watching her with my hands in my pockets while she did it all. Devotedly. But with an air of self-sacrifice that she wore like a hair shirt.

Miriam produced two cups of black coffee and slid one along the counter.

‘Thanks,' I said. ‘You know, it was only today I realised that, despite all the talking, we hadn't got around to discussing what
you
think about all this.'