Shibumi (45 page)

“It’s becoming.”

“Meaning?”

“Each year it is simpler.”

“There! You see? That goddamned Japanese penchant for paradoxes that turn out to be syllogisms! Look at yourself. A warrior gardener! You are indeed a medieval Japanese, as I said. And you are also an antihero—not in the sense in which critics and scholars lusting for letters to dangle after their names use (misuse) the term. What they call antiheroes are really unlikely heroes, or attractive villains—the fat cop or Richard III. The true antihero is a version of the hero—not a clown with a principal role, not an audience member permitted to work out his violent fantasies. Like the classic hero, the antihero leads the mass toward salvation. There was a time in the comedy of human development when salvation seemed to lie in the direction of order and organization, and all the great Western heroes organized and directed their followers against the enemy: chaos. Now we are learning that the final enemy is not chaos, but organization; not divergence, but similarity; not primativism, but progress. And the new hero—the antihero—is one who makes a virtue of attacking the organization, of destroying the systems. We realize now that salvation of the race lies in that nihilist direction, but we still don’t know how far.” De Lhandes paused to catch his breath, then seemed to be ready to continue. But his glance suddenly crossed Hel’s, and he laughed. “Oh, well. Let that be enough. I wasn’t really speaking to you anyway.”

“I’ve been aware of that for some time.”

“It is a convention in Western tragedy that a man is permitted one long speech before he dies. Once he has stepped on the inevitable machinery of fate that will carry him to his bathetic denouement, nothing he can say or do will alter his lot. But he is permitted to make his case, to bitch at length against the gods—even in iambic pentameter.”

“Even if doing so interrupts the flow of the narrative?”

“To hell with it! For two hours of narcosis against reality, of safe, vicarious participation in the world of action and death, one should be willing to pay the price of a couple minutes worth of insight. Structurally sound or not. But have it your way. All right. Tell me, do the governments still remember ‘the Gnome’? And do they still scratch the earth trying to find his lair, and gnash their teeth in frustrated fury?”

“They do indeed, Maurice. Just the other day there was an
Amérlo
scab at home asking about you. He would have given his genitals to know how you came by your information.”

“Would he indeed? Being an
Amérlo,
he probably wasn’t risking much. And what did you tell him?”

“I told him everything I knew.”

“Meaning nothing at all. Good. Candor is a virtue. You know, I really don’t have any very subtle or complicated sources of information. In fact, the Mother Company and I are nourished by the same data. I have access to Fat Boy through the purchased services of one of their senior computer slaves, a man named Llewellyn. My skill lies in being able to put two and two together better than they can. Or, to be more precise, I am able to add one and a half plus one and two thirds in such a way as to make ten. I am not better informed than they; I am simply smarter.”

Hel laughed. “They would give almost anything to locate and silence you. You’ve been bamboo under their fingernails for a long time.”

“Ha, that knowledge brightens my last days, Nicholai. Being a nuisance to the government lackeys has made my life worth living. And a precarious living it has been. When you trade in information, you carry stock that has very short shelf life. Unlike brandy, information cheapens with age. Nothing is duller than yesterday’s sins. And sometimes I used to acquire expensive pieces, only to have them ruined by leakage. I remember buying a very hot item from the United States: what in time became known as the Watergate Cover-up. And while I was holding the merchandise on my shelf, waiting for you or some other international to purchase it as leverage against the American government, a pair of ambitious reporters sniffed the story out and saw in it a chance to make their fortunes—and
voilà!
The material was overnight useless to me. In time, each of the criminals wrote a book or did a television program describing his part in the rape of American civil rights, and each was paid lavishly by the stupid American public, which seems to have a peculiar impulse toward having their noses rubbed in their own shit. Doesn’t it seem unjust to you that I should end up losing several hundred thousand worth of spoiled stock on my shelves, while even the master villain himself makes a fortune doing television shows with that British leech who has shown that he would sniff up to anybody for money, even Idi Amin? It’s a peculiar one, this trade I’m in.”

“Have you been an information broker all your life, Maurice?”

“Except for a short stint as a professional basketball player.”

“Old fool!”

“Listen, let us be serious for a moment. You described this thing you’re doing as hard. I wouldn’t presume to advise you, but have you considered the fact that you’ve been in retirement for a time? Is your mental conditioning still taut?”

“Reasonably. I do a lot of caving, so fear doesn’t clog my mind too much. And, fortunately, I’ll be up against the British.”

“That’s an advantage, to be sure. The MI-5 and –6 boys have a tradition of being so subtle that their fakes go unnoticed. And yet… There is something wrong with this affair, Nicholai Alexandrovitch. There’s something in your tone that disturbs me. Not quite doubt, but a certain dangerous fatalism. Have you decided that you are going to fail?”

Hel was silent for a time. “You’re very perceptive, Maurice.”

“C’est mon métier.”

“I know. There is something wrong—something untidy—about all this. I recognize that to come back out of retirement I am challenging karma. I think that, ultimately, this business will put me away. Not the task at hand. I imagine that I can relieve these Septembrists of the burden of their lives easily enough. The complications and the dangers will be ones I have dealt with before. But after that, the business gets tacky. There will be an effort to punish me. I may accept the punishment, or I may not. If I do not, then I shall have to go into the field again. I sense a certain—” He shrugged, “—a certain emotional fatigue. Not exactly fatalistic resignation, but a kind of dangerous indifference. It is possible, if the indignities pile up, that I shall see no particular reason to cling to life.”

De Lhandes nodded. It was this kind of attitude that he had sensed. “I see. Permit me to suggest something, old friend. You say that the governments do me the honor of still being hungry for my death. They would give a lot to know who and where I am. If you get into a tight spot, you have my permission to bargain with that information.”

“Maurice!—”

“No, no! I am not suffering from a bout of quixotic courage. I’m too old to contract such a childhood disease. It would be our final joke on them. You see, you would be giving them an empty bag. By the time they get here, I shall have departed.”

“Thank you, but I couldn’t do it. Not on your account, but on mine.” Hel rose. “Well, I have to get some sleep. The next twenty-four hours will be trying. Mostly mind play, without the refreshment of physical danger. I’ll be leaving before first light.”

“Very well. For myself, I think I shall sit up for a few more hours and review the delights of an evil life.”

“All right.
Au revoir,
old friend.”

“Not
au revoir,
Nicholai.”

“It is that close?”

De Lhandes nodded.

Hel leaned over and kissed his comrade on both cheeks.
“Adieu,
Maurice.”

“Adieu,
Nicholai.”

Hel was caught at the door by, “Oh, Nicholai, would you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“Estelle has been wonderful to me these last years. Did you know her name was Estelle?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, I want to do something special for her—a kind of going-away present. Would you drop by her room? Second at the head of the stairs. And afterward, tell her it was a gift from me.”

Hel nodded. “It will be my pleasure, Maurice.”

De Lhandes was looking into the fading fire. “Hers too, let us hope,” he muttered.

Hel timed his arrival at the Biarritz airport to minimize the period he would have to stand out in the open. He had always disliked Biarritz, which is Basque only in geography; the Germans, the English, and the international smart set having perverted it into a kind of Brighton on Biscay.

He was not five minutes in the terminal before his proximity sense intercepted the direct and intense observation he had expected, knowing they would be looking for him at all points of departure. He lounged against the counter of the bar where he was taking a
jus d’ananas
and lightly scanned the crowd. Immediately, he picked up the young French Special Services officer in civilian clothes and sunglasses. Pushing himself off me bar, he walked directly toward the man, feeling as he approached the lad’s tension and confusion.

“Edxuse me, sir,” Hel said in a French larded with German accent. “I have just arrived, and I cannot discover how to make my connection to Lourdes. Could you assist me?”

The young policeman scanned Hel’s face uncertainly. This man filled the general description, save for the eyes, which were dark-brown. (Hel was wearing noncorrective brown contact lenses.) But there was nothing in the description about his being German. And he was supposed to be leaving the country, not entering it. In a few brusque words, the police agent directed Hel to the information office.

As he walked away, Hel felt the agent’s gaze fixed on him, but the quality of the concentration was muffled by confusion. He would, of course, report the spotting, but without much certainty. And the central offices would at this moment be receiving reports of Hel’s appearance in half a dozen cities at the same time. Le Cagot was seeing to that.

As Hel crossed the waiting room a towheaded boy ran into his legs. He caught up the child to keep him from falling.

“Rodney! Oh, I
am
sorry, sir.” The good-looking woman in her late twenties was on the scene in an instant, apologizing to Hel and admonishing the child all at the same time. She was British and dressed in a light summer frock designed to reveal not only her suntan, but the places she had not suntanned. In a babble of that brutally mispronounced French resulting from the Britisher’s assumption that if foreigners had anything worth saying they would say it in a real language, the young woman managed to mention that the boy was her nephew, that she was returning with him from a short vacation, and that she was taking the next flight for England, that she herself was unmarried, and that her name was Alison Browne, with an
e.

“My name is Nicholai Helm.”

“Delighted to meet you, Mr. Hel.”

That was it. She had not heard the
m
because she was prepared not to. She would be a British agent, covering the action of the French.

Hel said he hoped they would be sitting together on the plane, and she smiled seductively and said that she would be willing to speak to the ticket agent about that. He offered to purchase a fruit juice for her and little Rodney, and she accepted, not failing to mention that she did not usually accept such offers from strange men, but this was an exception. They had, after all, quite literally run into one another. (Giggle.)

While she was busy dabbing her handkerchief at Rodney’s juice-stained collar, leaning forward and squeezing in her shoulders to advertise her lack of a bra, Hel excused himself for a moment.

At the sundries shop he purchased a cheap memento of Biarritz, a box to contain it, a pair of scissors, and some wrapping paper—a sheet of white tissue and one of an expensive metal foil. He carried these items to the men’s room, and worked rapidly wrapping the present, which he brought back to the bar and gave to Rodney, who was by now whining as he dangled and twisted from Miss Browne’s hand.

“Just a little nothing to remind him of Biarritz. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Well, I shouldn’t. But as it’s for the boy. They’ve called twice for our flight. Shouldn’t we be boarding?”

Hel explained that these French, with their anal compulsion for order, always called early for the planes; there was no rush. He turned the talk to the possibility of their getting together in London. Dinner, or something?

At the last moment they went to the boarding counter, Hel taking his place in the queue in front of Miss Browne and little Rodney. His small duffel bag passed the X-ray scanner without trouble. As he walked rapidly toward the plane, which was revving up for departure, he could hear the protests of Miss Browne and the angry demands of the security guards behind him. When the plane took off, Hel did not have the pleasure of the seductive Miss Browne and little Rodney.

Passengers passing through customs were directed to enter queues in relation to their status: “British Subjects,” “Commonwealth Subjects,” “Common Market Citizens,” and “Others.” Having traveled on his Costa Rican passport, Hel was clearly an “Other,” but he never had the opportunity to enter the designated line, for he was immediately approached by two smiling young men, their husky bodies distorting rather extreme Carnaby Street suits, their meaty faces expressionless behind their moustaches and sunglasses. As he always did when he met modern young men, Hel mentally shaved and crewcut them to see whom he was really dealing with.

“You will accompany us, Mr. Hel,” one said, as the other took the duffel from his hand. They pressed close to him on either side and escorted him toward a door without a doorknob at the end of the debarkation area.

Two knocks, and the door was opened from the other side by a uniformed officer, who stood aside as they passed through. They walked without a word to the end of a long windowless corridor of institutional green, where they knocked. The door was opened by a young man struck from the same mold as the guards, and from within came a familiar voice.

“Do come in, Nicholai. We’ve just time for a glass of something and a little chat before you catch your plane back to France. Leave the luggage, there’s a good fellow. And you three may wait outside.”

Hel took a chair beside the low coffee table and waved away the brandy bottle lifted in offer. “I thought you had finally been cashiered out, Fred.”

Sir Wilfred Pyles squirted a splash of soda into his brandy. “I had more or less the same idea about you. But here we are, two of yesterday’s bravos, sitting on opposite sides, just like the old days. You’re sure you won’t have one? No? Well, I imagine the sun’s over the yardarm somewhere around the world, so—cheers.”

“How’s your wife?”

“More pleasant than ever.”

“Give her my love when next you see her.”

“Let’s hope that’s not too soon. She died last year.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be. Is that enough of the small talk?”

“I should think so.”

“Good. Well, they dragged me out of the mothballs to deal with you, when they got word from our petroleum masters that you might be on your way. I assume they thought I might be better able to handle you, seeing that we’ve played this game many times, you and I. I was directed to intercept you here, find out what I could about your business in our misty isle, then see you safely back on a plane to the place from whence you came.”

“They thought it would be as easy as that, did they?”

Sir Wilfred waved his glass. “Well, you know how these new lads are. All by the book and no complexities.”

“And what do you assume, Fred?”

“Oh, I assume it won’t be quite that easy. I assume you came with some sort of nasty leverage gained from your friend, the Gnome. Photocopies of it in your luggage, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Right on top. You’d better take a look.”

“I shall, if you don’t mind,” Sir Wilfred said, unzipping the bag and taking out a manila folder. “Nothing else in here I should know about, I trust? Drugs? Subversive or pornographic literature?”

Hel smiled.

“No? I feared as much.” He opened the folder and began to scan the information, sheet by sheet, his matted white eyebrows working up and down with each uncomfortable bit of information. “By the way,” he asked between pages, “what on earth did you do to Miss Browne?”

“Miss Browne? I don’t believe I know a—”

“Oh, come now. No coyness between old enemies. We got word that she is this moment sitting in a French detention center while those gentlemen of Froggish inclination comb and recomb her luggage. The report we received was quite thorough, including the amusing detail that the little boy who was her cover promptly soiled himself, and the consulate is out the cost of fresh garments.”

Hel couldn’t help laughing.

“Come. Between us. What on earth did you do?”

“Well, she came on with all the subtlety of a fart in a bathosphere, so I neutralized her. You don’t train them as you did in the old days. The stupid twit accepted a gift.”

“What sort of a gift?”

“Oh, just a cheap memento of Biarritz. It was wrapped up in tissue paper. But I had cut out a gun shape from metal foil paper and slipped it between the sheets of tissue.”

Sir Wilfred sputtered with laughter. “So, the X-ray scanner picked up a gun each time the package passed through, and the poor officials could find nothing! How delicious: I think I must drink to that.” He measured out the other half, then returned to the task of familiarizing himself with the leverage information, occasionally allowing himself such interjections as: “Is that so? Wouldn’t have thought it of him.” “Ah, we’ve known this for some time. Still, wouldn’t do to broadcast it around.” “Oh, my. That
is
a nasty bit. How on earth did he find that out?”

When he finished reading the material. Sir Wilfred carefully tapped the pages together to make the ends even, then replaced them in the folder. “No single thing here sufficient to force us very far.”

“I’m aware of that, Fred. But the mass? One piece released to the German press each day?”

“Hm-m. Quite. It would have a disastrous effect on confidence in the government just now, with elections on the horizon. I suppose the information is in ‘button-down’ mode?”

“Of course.”

“Feared as much.”

Holding the information in “button-down” mode involved arrangements to have it released to the press immediately, if a certain message was not received by noon of each day. Hel carried with him a list of thirteen addresses to which he was to send cables each morning. Twelve of these were dummies; one was an associate of Maurice de Lhandes who would, upon receipt of the message, telephone to another intermediary, who would telephone de Lhandes. The code between Hel and de Lhandes was a simple one based upon an obscure poem by Barro, but it would take much longer than twenty-four hours for the intelligence boys to locate the one letter in the one word of the message that was the active signal. The term “button-down” came from a kind of human bomb, rigged so that the device would not go off, so long as the man held a button down. But any attempt to struggle with him or to shoot him would result in his releasing the button.

Sir Wilfred considered his position for a moment. “It is true that this information of yours can be quite damaging. But we are under tight orders from the Mother Company to protect these Black September vermin, and we are no more eager to bring down upon our heads the ire of the Company than is any other industrial country. It appears that we shall have to choose between misfortunes.”

“So it appears.”

Sir Wilfred pushed out his lower lip and squinted at Hel in evaluation. “This is a very wide-open and dangerous thing you’re doing, Nicholai—walking right into our arms like this. It must have taken a great deal of money to draw you out of retirement.”

“Point of fact, I am not being paid for this.”

“Hm-m-m. That, of course, would have been my second guess.” He drew a long sigh. “Sentiment is a killer, Nicholai. But of course you know that. All right, tell you what. I shall carry your message to my masters. We’ll see what they have to say. Meanwhile, I suppose I shall have to hide you away somewhere. How would you like to spend a day or two in the country? I’ll make a telephone call or two to get the government lads thinking, then I’ll run you out in my banger.”