LITMIR.BIZ

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why.’

      Harvey put a finger across his throat. ‘So help me God, they won’t. We are a very neat, tight-fitting department. Guaranteed no snafus. Cash on the barrel-head. What sort of deal have you got with your London set-up anyway?’

      I said, ‘I work on a freelance basis. They pay me a fee per assignment; it’s a part-time job.’ I paused. ‘I could handle some extra tasks if the money was right and if you’re quite sure London won’t find out from your own people.’ It wasn’t true but it seemed a suitable answer.

      Harvey said, ‘You’ll like working with us and we’d be tickled to have you.’

      ‘Then it’s a deal,’ I said. ‘Explain my duties, as they say in domestic circles.’

      ‘Nothing to it. You’ll be carrying materials between here and London. It’ll seldom be anything you can’t declare …’

      ‘So what’s the catch?’

      ‘Valuables. We must have somebody who won’t walk off with the consignment. You’ll have your first-class airfare paid. Hotel and expenses. A retainer and a fee per trip. As one pro to another I’ll tell you it’s a good deal.’ Signe gave us drinks, and as she turned towards the kitchen Harvey gave her an affectionate pat on the bottom. ‘The fat of the land,’ he said. ‘I’m living on the fat of the land.’

      Signe wrenched Harvey’s hand away from her, snorted and walked out with a beguiling movement of the glutaeus maximus.

      Harvey moved his armchair nearer to me. ‘We don’t normally tell our operatives anything about the organization, but I’ll make an exception for you under the old pals’ act. This is a private intelligence unit financed by an old man named Midwinter. Calls himself General Midwinter. He’s from one of those old Texan families that have a lot of German blood. Originally the family came from one of the Baltic states – Latvia or Lithuania – that the Russians now have and hold. This old guy Midwinter has dreams of liberating the territory. I guess he’d like to install himself as a king or something.’

      ‘Sounds great,’ I said. ‘It’s a long time since I worked for a megalomaniac.’

      ‘Hell, I’m exaggerating, but he has got an oversimplified mind. Brilliant men often have. He likes to hear that those poor bastards across there are all set to start a revolution …’

      ‘And you help his illusions,’ I supplied.

      ‘Look, the guy’s a multi-millionaire, a multi-billionaire maybe. This is his toy. Why should I spoil his fun? He made his money from canned food and insurance; that’s a dull way to make a billion, so he needs a little fun. The CIA siphon a little money to him …’

      ‘The CIA?’

      ‘Oh, they don’t take us seriously, but you know how their minds work; stealing hubcaps in Moscow is the CIA’s idea of a blow for freedom. And some of the stunts we pull are pretty good. He has two radio stations on ships that beam into the Baltic states. You know the sort of thing: “Stand by for freedom and coke.” They have a mass of computer equipment and a training school back in the States. Maybe they will send you for training, but if they do I’ll make sure it’s kept plushy for you. And the money.’ Harvey poured me a huge drink to demonstrate that aspect of my new employer. ‘When do you plan to return to London?’

      ‘Tomorrow.’

      ‘That’s great. This is your first task: stay to lunch.’ Harvey Newbegin laughed. ‘When you get to London go to the phone booth in Trinity Church Square, South-east one, take the L to R book and make a small pencil dot beside the Pan American entry. Go back next day and on the same page margin there will be a phone number written in pencil. Phone that number. Say you are a friend of the people at the antique shop and you have something you would like to show them. If anyone at the other end asks who you want to speak to, you don’t know, you were given this number and told there was someone there interested in buying antiques. When the people at the other end make an appointment, be there twenty hours later than that time. Got that?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said.

      ‘If there is any kind of snarl up, ring off. Standard control meeting procedure: that is to say, return and do the whole thing again twenty-four hours later. OK?’ Harvey held up his glass of vodka and said, ‘This is something those Russkies do damn well. Pip, pip, down the hatch.’ He swallowed the rest of the vodka in one gulp, then clutched at his heart and pulled a pained face. ‘I have heartburn,’ he explained. He took his wallet out, removed a five-mark note and ripped it into two pieces in a very irregular tear. He gave half of it to me. ‘The man you meet will want your half of this before he parts with his package, so look after it.’

      ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you will explain what it is I have to collect.’

      ‘It’s simple,’ said Harvey Newbegin. ‘You go empty-handed. You bring back half a dozen eggs.’

       SECTION 2 London

       A master I have, and I am his man,

       Gallopy dreary dun.

      NURSERY RHYME

       4

      When I got back to London I put spots in telephone directories and went through the rest of Harvey Newbegin’s party games for the under-fives. A stuffy voice on the phone said, ‘Don’t worry about that twenty hours nonsense that they told you at the other end. You get along here now. I’m waiting to go down to my boat for a couple of days.’

      So I went to King’s Cross; Bed and Breakfast cards jammed into grimy windows and novelty shops that sell plastic faeces and musical toilet-roll holders. There was a brass plate outside number fifty-three: ‘Surgery. Dr Pike.’ The plate was garnished with qualifications. Near the front door there were two dented dustbins and about thirty old milk bottles. A cold wet sleet was beginning to fall.

      The door was unlocked, but a small buzzer sounded as I pushed it open. The waiting-room was a large Victorian room with a decorated ceiling. There was a wide selection of slightly broken furniture with disembowelled copies of Woman’s Own strategically placed under notices about ante-natal clinics and repeat prescriptions. The notices were penned in strange angular lettering and held in place by crisp pieces of ancient sticking plaster.

      In one corner of the waiting-room, painted white with the word ‘Surgery’ on it, was a hardboard box. It was large enough to contain a desk and two chairs. One chair was large, leather-covered and swivelled smoothly on ball-bearings; the other was narrow, sickly and lame in one leg. Dr Pike counted his fingertips methodically and revolved towards me. He was a large, impeccably groomed man of about fifty-two. His hair was like a black plastic swimming cap. His suit was made of thin uncreasable blue steel and so was his smile.

      ‘Where’s the pain?’ he said. It was a joke. He smiled again to put me at my ease.

      ‘In my hand.’

      ‘Really? You really have a pain in your hand?’

      ‘Just when I put it in my pocket.’

      Pike looked at me carefully and remembered that there are some people who mistake a friendly word for an invitation to be familiar. ‘I’m sure you were the life and soul of the sergeants’ mess.’

      ‘Let’s not exchange war experiences,’ I said.

      ‘Let’s not,’ he agreed.

      On Pike’s desk there was a pen set, a large dog-eared desk-diary, a stethoscope, three prescription pads and a shiny brown ball about as big as a golf ball. He fingered the shiny sphere.

      I said, ‘We will

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