Author: Peter James
Category: Literature
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‘If you want an office this is the best bargain in Manhattan,’ said the agent, a white version of Desoto, who chewed a piece of gum which every now and then he would take out of his mouth, roll between his fingers, and then pop back into his mouth again.
‘How long’s it been vacant?’
‘Only been on the market a few days,’ he sniffed. ‘Be gone quick, this one – a real mover.’
‘What about the rest of the building?’
‘Make hairdryers; gone down the tubes. Receiver will be putting it on the market soon. Going to do it all up. Be smart – new entrance, new lifts. Be a small version of the World Trade Centre.’
It was hard to imagine that this sad-looking pile might ever be transformed into anything remotely resembling the World Trade Centre. The building had what appeared to my untrained eye to be terminal subsidence. There were large cracks in the walls and ceiling on every floor; the window panes looked horribly contorted. The fire escape didn’t look capable of supporting the weight of an undernourished cat. The place had never been built to last: it had probably been knocked up in a great hurry during the post-Depression years, and every conceivable cost had evidently been spared. The only thing that seemed in reasonable condition was the elevator and the agent sailed us up and down in it a few times to assure me of its good working order.
Since the building was empty the janitor had been laid off but there was a janitor at another building a few blocks away who did the cleaning and the such like, I was informed. From the amount of dust I was somewhat sceptical about the cleaning part but since I wasn’t taking the place for the purpose of impressing any clients, I wasn’t bothered.
For the sum of 1,100 dollars, being one quarter’s rent in advance, and 100 dollars deposit, I had acquired myself a Manhattan office – not exactly in Wall Street, but not a million miles from it. Not that playing the stock market was at the forefront of my mind: it was the fact that the building was empty and most of the immediate neighbourhood was derelict that appealed most. There was a major redevelopment plan but nothing had been started.
I left the agent’s office at about 5.00 and went straight back to begin a more detailed inspection of my new premises and their immediate environs. I went through the building room by room, floor by floor. The agent hadn’t lied about the previous occupants manufacturing hairdryers, but he hadn’t exactly given a truthful account of the length of time since their demise; he’d described it as though it had happened only a week or two back: looking at the equipment and the dates on odd bits of paper, I reckoned the best part of a decade had passed since the last dryer had been bolted together and dropped into its cardboard box.
For the best part of ten years the place had been left alone to the roaches and rats and vandals to vie for supremacy. Most of the windows had been broken and boarded up; everything worth stealing had been stolen and everything worth breaking had been broken.
I took a slow and careful walk around the neighbourhood, my gun in my jacket pocket, safety catch off and my hand firmly clasped around it; not that I reckoned there would have been enough meat down here for any intelligent mugger to make it his pitch. There was a hideous atmosphere to the whole area, dirty, desolate, looted, with a few abandoned cars literally smashed to pieces – stripped of their wheels and engines, and every bit of glass smashed, and every inch of their bodywork hammered and bashed almost out of recognisable shape. Most of the shops were boarded up, where the owners had evidently eked out ever-diminishing existences until they’d gone out of business and gone away. The occasional black kid wandered around, and a couple of blocks down was a stark empty supermarket. It was the sort of area where students make films of decaying Manhattan; if there were more people it could have been called a ghetto. There was almost no life at all down here. It was ideal.
I walked back up to Wall Street and hailed a cab to West Greenwich Village. I checked in at a nondescript hotel called the Hotel Kilgour, that could have been the sister to the Madison Park East, and again paid a week’s rent in advance. I left, found a call box and telephoned Mrs Joffe. She still had no news and invited me over; I told her I was in Washington and would call her in a couple of days when I got back to New York. Then I went and found the best-looking restaurant in the area and allowed the British taxpayer to treat me to a not-inexpensive meal.
23
I awoke early in the morning to the interminable wailing of sirens that punctuates the Manhattan air almost every minute of the day and night. In no other city is the cry so mournful and so penetrating; it sounds at times as though the city herself is weeping over the loss of something dear and treasured, and purging herself for being in some way responsible for this loss.
The siren was receding into the distance to the newly discovered body of a murder victim, or a bloody car smash, or a coronary thrombosis, or a leaking nuclear plant. Whatever it was that it was going to would doubtless be some area of human suffering, and that siren made sure all Manhattan shared in a small part of that suffering.
It was hot in the room and I opened the window a little, letting in a blast of bitterly cold air. I looked out over the wide ledge at the street down below; sleet was falling and columns of steam rose from the vents all the way up the road like smoke signals to some far-off planet.
Today was the day I was going to set in motion a chain of reactions which, if I was right, would bring everything out into the daylight. It was a chain of events in which I would get my revenge for the attempts on my life and on Fifeshire’s life, in which I would get to the bottom of Sumpy’s disappearance, the Pink Envelope’s identity and solve the riddle of Orchnev’s suicide. In short, it was a chain of events in which I would find out just what the hell had been going on. I sincerely hoped I was right.
Staring at the cold grey New York morning did nothing to reassure me that I was right; nothing at all. The cold grey New York morning told me to be sensible, go back to England, make out the report to Scatliffe and let him make the decisions on what should be done. Or, more sensible still, go to Fifeshire, tell him the latest news, and let him deal with it. But no, I didn’t believe that would work. Instinct told me either of those could be disastrous. This whole damn thing was too big, too complex to be solved by any normal remedy that was open to me. Scatliffe was in this up to his neck, I was absolutely certain. Fifeshire was innocent, I was equally certain. I didn’t know how big Scatliffe’s web might be and unless I took the course of action I had in mind I was certain I wouldn’t have the chance to live long enough to find out. I had somehow stumbled into this and now I had to see it through. The consequences would be ghastly but in all probability a lot less ghastly than if I didn’t go ahead with my plans, and at least this way gave me a sporting chance of increasing my immediate life expectancy. I started to wash quite enthusiastically.
I checked my face for tell-tale black strands of hair around the edges of the moustache and beard, but couldn’t see any in the badly lit mirror. The glued-on fungus wasn’t comfortable but I was going to have to live with it for a while longer. I hoped to hell Boris Karavenoff could be trusted, that Jules Irving, life insurance salesman and second-rate hit man, hadn’t been lying, and that I wasn’t gravely mistaken about Fifeshire.
I was worried about Sumpy, worried for her safety, and yet . . . somehow there was something distinctly odd rather than worrying about the whole thing. I was certain that she had not come to any harm and yet her disappearance made no sense at all, none whatever. Perhaps she was wound up in this whole business; but if so I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how.
It was 8.15, Friday morning in downtown Manhattan. A traffic-reporter helicopter clattered overhead, and the cab drivers had started their daily cacophony of hooting as the morning traffic was building to a peak. I walked briskly through the tart cold of the morning gloom and entered a glaringly lit cafe, where I ordered a hefty plate of scrambled eggs and some coffee.
I looked at my watch. It would be 1.21 in the afternoon in London:
allowing enough time for things to sink in, a brief discussion and sufficient leeway for basic delays, but not allowing enough time for any complex plot to be hatched. I was happy that my choice of Sunday was right. With the weekend looming up people would be hard to get hold of, harder still to assemble together. The only course of action was likely to be hastily thought out and ill-conceived. Perfect.
I finished my breakfast and read the New York Times; if there was anything much happening in England it hadn’t rated news in this paper. The only article on England stated that there were more strikes brewing. That was news? My watch showed five past nine. I left the cafe and made my way to the nearest call box.
The girl on the switchboard at the British Embassy in Washington put me through to Sir Maurice Unwin’s secretary. I told her I was calling on a confidential matter and it was imperative she put me through. There was a pause then she came back to me: Britain’s top spook in the US of A was busy, could he call me back?
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s an SIA priority.’ The SIA was a code that members of the Secret Intelligence Service were permitted to use in dire emergencies.
Within seconds a voice said, ‘Unwin here. Who’s speaking?’
‘I have information about a British double agent who is known as the Pink Envelope and unless you pay me 100,000 dollars in cash I intend making this information known to a major American newspaper.’
‘Can you elaborate?’
‘I can elaborate plenty when we meet. I want you to come to New York on Sunday morning to a telephone booth at the junction of 10th Street and Greenwich Avenue. I will telephone at exactly twelve o’clock. You are to answer with the words: ‘‘Good morning, Digger,’’ and I will then give you the address of where we are to meet. My lawyer, who is somewhere in America, has a letter in his possession which contains the same facts that I shall tell you: this letter is addressed to the newspaper. If he is not telexed by a certain bank at 9.15 on Monday morning to state that the sum of 100,000 dollars has been deposited into his client account then he will immediately deliver this letter to the editor of the newspaper.’
‘Just wait a moment,’ he said.
‘I will repeat the instructions once and then I have to go.’ I repeated it all clearly, once, then hung up and left the call box. It was one of five booths in a row – a precaution I took against the particular one I had chosen becoming out of order.
I had started.
I took a cab and got out several blocks away and went into another call box. I telephoned the Intercontinental offices and asked for Charlie Harrison.
‘This is Harrison here,’ said Karavenoff.
‘I’m confirming our drink this evening.’
‘Grand,’ he said. ‘Seven o’clock?’
‘Make it five past, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘See you.’
I left the booth. In our brief and innocuous-sounding exchange I had given him the go-ahead to send a message down the 14B wires that was going to ruin a number of people’s whole day for them. However, the rendezvous we had made for later was genuine; Karavenoff was going to hand me a transcript of all the day’s communications. I had a feeling it would make interesting reading.
I had a small amount of shopping to do and then several hours to kill. I went first to a stationer’s and then to an electrician. After that I wondered if there was any further point in trying to trace Sumpy; my nerves could have done with a soft, warm companion for the next couple of days. But I didn’t feel I would get very far. I thought about Martha but I couldn’t do anything about her right now – it would have been far too big a risk to take. I went off and whiled away the day at the Frick Gallery, the Metropolitan and the Museum of Modern Art. I enjoyed myself. After all, even a spy’s entitled to a bit of culture now and then.
Karavenoff was already at the bar when I got there, a bourbon on the rocks cupped in his hands as he sat on a stool, elbows on the table, looking nervous and pensive. Neither of us acknowledged the other as I took up the stool next to him, not that there appeared to be anyone around to take any notice of us.
It was a barn of a place with a long bar at one end and an extraordinarily good jazz band playing at the far end, with everyone’s attentions on them. I ordered a bourbon on the rocks also; the barman gave it to me quickly then went back to watching the band. It seemed safe enough to talk.
‘You’ve earned yourself a colour,’ said Harrison suddenly. ‘Mark of extreme importance. You’ll see when you read it. Been a busy day. Seems to be a lot of interest in your message.’
‘Good man,’ I said.
‘I’m scared.’
‘There’s nothing to connect you with any of it,’ I said.
‘Go tell that to Moscow.’
‘As far as they’re concerned you’re doing your job and doing it well. They’ve no axe to grind in your direction.’
‘But when this finally blows up they’re going to have to close down this whole system and I’ll be called back to Moscow.’
‘It might not all blow up,’ I said, not sounding terribly convincing. ‘And if it does, why should they want you back in Moscow. They’re going to need a new system; it’s bound to involve electronics – unless they plan to go back to the dark ages – and who better to set it up than you?’
‘Well, we’ll see.’ He didn’t sound happy. ‘They don’t like failure.’
‘There’s no failure on your part. This has all sprung from one of their own side defecting. There’s no evidence to suppose it’s a conspiracy.’
‘Maybe not,’ he said solemnly. He called the barman for his cheque. I asked for mine at the same time. We both pulled our wallets out; a large wadge of papers came out of his pocket with his; it went back into my pocket.
‘If I get recalled, you know,’ he said, ‘to Moscow, can I, er, come to England?’
‘Sure. I’ll fix that for you. No problem.’
He seemed relieved. I didn’t feel inclined to tell him that if this lot went wrong on me I wasn’t going to be capable of fixing anything; not even a nail to a piece of wood.
Karavenoff left the bar; I stayed on and had another drink; the bourbon tasted pleasant, the music wasn’t bad, and I didn’t have any other plans for the evening.
I read through the transcript when I got back to the Hotel Kilgour. Karavenoff hadn’t been exaggerating about it being a busy day. I wasn’t surprised that it had been busy; Moscow had been informed by the message that Karavenoff had sent off on my instructions that the facts about the entire airline communication system were about to be blown.
Livid communications had been hurled around the wires and a torrent of abuse was flung in the direction of the Pink Envelope, who was given the job of tracking down and halting the squealer before any damage could be done. It was clear from the messages that Unwin was not a Russian agent, which enabled me to tick one name off my list. What Karavenoff had said about my having earned a colour became apparent to me in a short exchange between G in Washington and the Pink Envelope.
G’s message was, ‘The Blue Bow is dead.’
The reply was, ‘Are you sure?’
I didn’t require a university degree to figure out who they were talking about.
24
The newspaper headline was loud and clear: Embassy suicide mystery. It didn’t mean much to me. A couple of blocks further down the street another headline sold a copy of the Washington Post to me: British Diplomat in Death Plunge.
I read the entire article motionless by the news stand. Sir Maurice Unwin had jumped to his death from his fifteenth-floor office window. He was happily married, with three children, had no financial worries and was a popular figure in Washington. The Post hadn’t yet discovered that he happened to be the US head of MI6; but they would. In time.
The article stated that no one could give any immediate reason for his suicide. I wasn’t surprised. Suicide didn’t come into it.
It was Saturday morning and I was walking down Houston towar
ds my new office. I let myself in and again made a careful search of the whole building. It was eerily dead, unwanted, unwelcoming. Nobody had been there since yesterday and it was unlikely that anyone would come uninvited.
When I reached my own office suite I pressed the button for the elevator. I listened to it whine and bump its way up and then come to a halt at my floor with a definite clunk. Its metal door slid open unsteadily and in short jerking movements. I pressed the stop-watch start button on my watch, and stepped in, pushing the button for the ground floor. I rode the thing up and down a couple of dozen times, carefully recording the timing for each stage. The variations were to within a second on each run, which was fine.
Next I set to work on the brains of the machine, if brains was the right description for the frayed and battered box of wiring that carried the instructions from the various buttons inside the elevator to the various electric circuits and motors and switches that made it go to the fifth floor when button 5 was depressed and to the first floor when button 1 was depressed, and the such like.
Because of having to run up and down to the basement power switch to test every stage of my tricky operation, it took me much longer than I had expected, and it was not until late into the afternoon that I finished.
I went and sent an overnight cable to Fifeshire. I sent it to his home address in the country, reckoning he’d be back there by now. The cable would reach him about 8.00 or 9.00 in the morning, English time – it would put him on alert and he would know the significance immediately the deed was done. I worded the cable simply: ‘Check the elevator operator’s private bank account. You’ll know what I mean. If I have been right, place advertisement in Times personal column, Tuesday or Wednesday, saying: All forgiven, Charlie. If I have been wrong, place ad saying: Goodbye.’ I signed it ‘Sam Spade’.
Saturday night passed slowly. I was worried about the following day, very worried. If I was wrong not even all the power Fifeshire might be able to muster was going to be able to get me out of it, but I had made no real contingency plan: I was gambling everything on being right. Whilst bits of evidence had gathered with each day, I knew that the horrific gamble I was about to make was still mainly on my hunch and the odds were not too attractive.