Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (44 page)

 
          
 
He read the two papers. Before he had finished
the first, he had begun to perspire. It was a CIA memorandum about
America
's newest Asian oil ally, Banda. If the
Mother got her hands on this, she could reap a whirlwind of publicity about the
friends being wooed by the West's self-styled champion of human rights.

 
          
 
The other had to be a joke: a transsexual plot
to blow up a Russian tanker in
Cuba
? But the National Security Council was not
known for its pixie sense of humor.

 
          
 
The rest of the papers were
incomprehensible—Energy Department documents and charts that looked routine but
might be critical. It wasn't his job to judge.

 
          
 
"Lovely," he said to Ivy.
"These are lovely."

 
          
 
Ivy was leaning back in the couch now, her
feet out, her shoes off, "Glad you like 'em."

 
          
 
"Yes. We're developing a nice portrait of
our Mr. Bumham."

 
          
 
Pym was exultant. This was the material he
needed. It would give him credibility. It was unimpeachably authentic and (some
of it, at least) undeniably important. It was also exquisitely secret: The
Energy Department papers were slugged with a classification so high that Pym
had never heard of it. They were to be read only by those with something called
Q Clearance.

 
          
 
He was itching to get to work. Evening was
prime time for initiating contacts.

 
          
 
First, however, he had to get Ivy out of
there. She looked as if she was settling in for a long stay.

 
          
 
He said to Eva, "You should go or you'll
be late. Why don't you drop Ivy off on the way?"

 
          
 
It took Eva a beat to pick up the cue, and for
those few seconds there was a look in her eyes that unsettled Pym.

 
          
 
"All right," she said at last.

 
          
 
"Okay by me." Ivy leaned forward
and, as she searched for her shoes, said to Pym, "Having any luck with the
diploma?''

 
          
 
"Oh!" He had shoved it out of his
mind. "Yes. By the end of the week. For sure."

 
          
 
"Top shelf." She stood up and
yawned. "I feel like I've been on a roller coaster.''

 
          
 
At the door, Pym ushered Ivy into the hallway,
then turned to Eva and said with a sly smile, "Remember, my dear, what the
sage said: 'Freedom is a precious commodity, and no price we pay for it is too
high.' "

 
          
 
Eva looked at him as if he was a stranger who
had propositioned her in an elevator. "I'd rather remember what Janis
Joplin said: 'Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.' "

 
          
 
Pym started to say, "Who?" but Eva
was already following Ivy down the stairs.

 
          
 
Pym locked the door. He went to the phone and
stood with his eyes closed, summoning the nmemonic tricks of recalling phone
numbers. He had been taught a kind of meditative visionism: He told his mind to
see a slot machine, and on top of the machine in bold gold letters was the word
CONTACTS. His mind pulled the handle of the machine and, one by one, numbers
dropped beneath each letter.

 
          
 
It worked the first time. Pleased with
himself, excited, he sat on the sofa and dialed the number, rolling his code
name around on his tongue.

 
          
 
"Hello." The voice was not familiar,
but that didn't mean anything. Replacements came and went. But what if they had
changed the number without telling him?

 
          
 
Pym held a finger over the phone cradle,
prepared to sever the connection immediately, and said, "This is
Mallard."

 
          
 
"Teal," came the reply, without
missing a beat. "What do you want?"

 
          
 
Recognition! Affirmation! He existed I He
wanted to chat, to catch up, but this was hardly the time. He said, "I
want a meeting."

 
          
 
"When?"

 
          
 
"Soon."

 
          
 
"An hour. You know The Devil's
Disciple?"

 
          
 
"The what?"

 
          
 
"A bar. In
Georgetown
. Carry a copy of US. I'll have People.”

           
 
Things were going too fast. He couldn't keep
up. "A copy of what?"

 
          
 
''US, US, US.! One hour."

 
          
 
The line went dead.

 
          
 
A bar! Since when did spies meet in bars? They
were supposed to meet in parks, under bridges, on rooftops, someplace where
they could talk. And what was this
US
business?

 
          
 
He felt suddenly very old.

 
          
 
He had never been to a bar in
Georgetown
. What did people wear to
Georgetown
bars? Silk shirts and gold chains? Suppose
they all looked like Michael Jackson? He didn't want to be conspicuous, like an
undertaker at an orgy.

 
          
 
Don't worry. Be yourself. If somebody stops
you at the door, say you're a seltzer salesman.

 
          
 
He chose an old tweed sports jacket, polyester
slacks, cordovan shoes and a white shirt.

 
          
 
He put the most impressive of the White House
documents into a manila envelope and went downstairs.

 
          
 
He had deduced that US was a magazine, so he
stopped at a newsstand on the comer and bought a copy. Brooke Shields was on
the cover, which made it difficult to distinguish US from most of the other
magazines on the rack, since she was also on the covers of Mademoiselle, Vogue,
Seventeen, Self, Glamour, Life and National Enquirer.

 
          
 
He hailed a taxi.

 
          
 
"
Georgetown
," he told the driver. "You know
The Devil's Disciple?"

 
          
 
"You know the
Washington
Monument
?" the driver sneered.

 
          
 
In the darkness, Pym slid the manila envelope
inside the copy of US.

 
          
 
At first he thought there had been an accident
or a homicide in The Devil's Disciple. Cars were triple-parked on the street.
Men and women swarmed around the stained-glass windows and swinging doors.
Then, as he saw drinks passed from hands to grasping hands through the doors,
as he saw desperate young women trying to bull their way into the bar, as he
heard a torrent of talk and laughter that sounded like a waterfall, he realized
that this was not an atmosphere of fear or anger or violence.

 
          
 
This was a good time.

 
          
 
The men wore pinstripe suits or jogging
clothes, army jackets or polo shirts. The women wore jeans or mumus, lounging
slacks or short shorts, business suits or evening dresses.

 
          
 
Sybaris
. In one of his many stops during his
pilgrimage to
Washington
decades ago, Pym had read about
Sybaris
. Soon they will teach their horses to
dance, he thought, and all will come tumbling down. About time, too.

 
          
 
The thought made him feel righteous, justified
in what he was about to do. And then it occurred to him that he was doing it so
that he could stay here forever, and righteousness gave way to uncertainty.

 
          
 
He had a more immediate problem: How to get
into The Devil's Disciple.

 
          
 
What a stupid place to call a meeting! What
was he supposed to do, set the place on fire? For sure, two "pardons"
and an "excuse me" wouldn't work.

 
          
 
He could pretend to be mad, could slobber and
curse and grope his way through the crowd. Middle-class Americans were
terrified of crazy people. In his neighborhood, weirdos were as common as
broken glass, but in this part of
Georgetown
they were not acceptable.

 
          
 
No. He might get arrested.

 
          
 
He would be forceful. Americans respected
force. It was synonymous with good.

 
          
 
He took out his wallet and held it open, so
that the photograph on his driver's license was visible. The rest of the
license he covered with his fingers.

 
          
 
He took a deep breath and stepped forward.

 
          
 
"Police," he said. "Stand
aside."

 
          
 
Two floozies stared at him. They didn't budge.

 
          
 
"Move, damn it!" he snarled.

 
          
 
They moved. One of them muttered,
"Townie."

 
          
 
He shoved his way through the crowd, saying,
"Police . . . move it!" And, to his delight and astonishment, the
crowd parted. He felt like Moses.

 
          
 
When he was inside, he put his wallet away.

 
          
 
The bar was five-deep with drinkers. Tables
for four were jammed with six or eight. Harassed, sweating barmaids elbowed their
way from table to table, delivering white-wine spritzers and bons mots.

 
          
 
Pym tucked the copy of US under his arm so
that the logo protruded prominently. He made his way to the far wall and edged
along, peering over shoulders in search of a copy of People.

 
          
 
The din was painful because it was cumulative:
People unable to hear one another speak raised their voices, which encouraged
their neighbors who couldn't hear themselves speak to shout, which made their
neighbors, who couldn't hear themselves shout, scream.

 
          
 
In the farthest comer of the room, at a table
squeezed between two enormous rubber plants, beneath a poster for the movie of
And Quiet Flows the Don, sat a single man, drinking something amber, reading
People.

 
          
 
The man didn't see him, so Pym had a moment to
study him. He was young (in his early thirties), blond (if the hair was his)
and dressed like one of the characters in that show Pym's help liked to watch
on kitchen TVs while waiting for the guests to finish their dessert and move
into the drawing room: Miami Vice. He wore a white linen jacket, a cotton shirt
open to the waist, lime-green slacks and soft-leather slip-ons. No socks.