Billion-Dollar Brain (8 page)

The police driver of the Porsche got out of the car and went around Signe to the kiosk. Signe was not looking towards me. By all the normal rules I should have pulled away before that, but if the road was clear I could let things get more serious before doing anything, and if it was blocked it was already too late. A familiar figure got out of the bus and walked straight to the cab rank. I had no doubts that he was going to pick up the package. He walked past Signe and both cops. He climbed into the rear seat of the Ford. The driver of the police car purchased two packets of Kent and threw one pack to his friend who caught it without a pause in his speech to Signe, then saluted, and both policemen got into the Porsche. The man in the rear seat of the taxi showed no sign of finding the package, but now he leaned across the driver’s seat and sounded the horn. The police car revved up and roared away. I turned the VW round and pulled up where Signe was standing. She climbed in.

‘Glad you stayed?’ she smirked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It was sloppy and unprofessional. I should have moved away immediately.’

‘You are a coward,’ she said mockingly as she got in beside me.’

‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘If they ever have a cowards’ trade union, I’ll be the man representing England at the World Congress.’

‘Yes,’ said Signe. She was still at an age when honour, bravery and loyalty outweigh results. I wished I hadn’t said ‘England’ since I was carrying the Irish passport, but Signe gave no sign of noticing the error.

I drove slowly up the road, not wishing to overtake the white police car. In my mirror I saw the Ford taxi moving up on me fast. The snow was banked in humps at the roadside but I pulled in as much as I could to let him pass. The man in the rear of the car wore a roll-brim hat and smoked a cigar. He was leaning comfortably into the corner of his seat reading the unmistakable pages of the London
Financial Times.
It was Ralph Pike. I suppose he was worrying whether coppers were taking a nasty drop.

I wondered why Ralph Pike hadn’t brought his own packet of eggs to Helsinki, and whether by tomorrow night he wouldn’t have another kind of drop to be worried about.

I left Signe and the car at Stockmann’s department store. I wanted to buy some blades and socks, but most of all I wanted to avoid arriving back at the flat at the exact time she did, just in case Harvey should be angry at her disobeying him.

Harvey was at the flat when I got back. He was kneeling in the middle of the lounge fixing small bulbs to the roof rack of Signe’s VW.

‘It’s damn cold,’ I said. ‘What about some coffee?’

‘Given reasonable luck it will drop even lower by midnight. We’ll need all the cold we can get if the ice is to be firm enough for the plane to land.’ He expected me to ask questions but I carefully refrained from showing interest. I wandered into the kitchen and made some coffee. The blue patch of sky had long since disappeared and as the light faded the snow took on a fluorescent glow.

‘It’s not snowing?’ Harvey called.

‘No, not yet.’

‘That’s all we need,’ Harvey said.

‘A delay?’

‘This pilot won’t delay. He’ll fly through a dish of corned-beef hash. It’s a crack-up out there on the ice that I’m most afraid of. Sweating it out trying to repair the plane with the dawn creeping up like thunder-boy, that’s no way to earn a living.’

‘You don’t have to talk me round,’ I said. ‘I believe you.’

‘The passenger arrived owwww.’ Harvey had jabbed his finger with a screwdriver. He put the finger into his mouth, sucked at it and then waved it around in the air. ‘Wanted to rest up somewhere.’

‘What did you say?’

‘What did I say? Listen, you talked me into realizing what’s going to happen to that cat twenty-four hours from now. I told him to keep walking till sundown.’

‘He’s going to be tired by the time the plane comes.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Harvey said making it a one-word question. I pulled a face.

‘Don’t go limp on me, boy,’ said Harvey. ‘You are my flavour of the month. I needed you to point out the facts of life.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But don’t foul it up just to prove I’m right.’

‘Hell. The guy’s got enough dough to buy himself a hotel room to rest up in.’

‘What time does he call here?’

‘Have you got crêpe-de-chine ears? He doesn’t call here. When the Russkies dig him out of the snow tomorrow he’ll say he knows nothing about our operations in Helsinki and I’m going to make sure he’s not lying. He meets us over on the far side of the town at nine thirty
P.M.
’

‘Supposing he’s tired by then? Supposing he ducks out?’

‘Then I won’t be sobbing, buster; that will be just dandy.’ He fixed the last lamp-holder to the roof rack and inspected his wiring.

‘Help me carry this into the hall. Then we sit and watch TV till nine.’

‘Suits me,’ I said. ‘I can use a little vicarious excitement.’

It’s a weird feeling to have only a layer of ice between you and the sea; weirder still to drive out across the Baltic in a Volkswagen. Even Signe had been a little nervous about that, especially with the four of us inside it, for the ice would not last a lot longer. When we had driven off the land, Signe and Harvey had studied the shrinkage and cracking of the ice at the water’s edge and pronounced it safe.

We were four because Ralph Pike was with us now. He had said hardly anything since we had picked him up at a draughty street corner where the Hanko road leaves Helsinki. He was wearing a peaked cap of brown leather and a long black overcoat. He loosened his scarf when he got into the car and I could see the collar of his overalls under the coat.

When we had driven for ten minutes or so across the plain of frozen sea Harvey said, ‘All out.’ It was a dark night. The ice glowed and the
air smelt of putrefaction. Harvey connected the roof rack to two batteries. He tested the circuit. The lights fixed to the roof rack came on, but paper cones prevented them from being visible from the shore line. I fancied that I could see the lights of Porkkala to the south-west—for the coast bends south along here—but Signe said that it would be too far away. Harvey took a measure of the wind with a little spinner and then reparked the VW so that the lights would show the pilot the direction of the wind. He switched off two of the lights to indicate the wind speed.

Ralph Pike asked Harvey if he could smoke. I knew how he felt, for in an operation like this nerves take over and you rest so heavily upon the skill of the dispatcher that you ask his permission even to breathe.

‘One last good cigar,’ Ralph Pike said to no one, and no one answered. Harvey looked at his watch and said, ‘Time to get ready.’ I noticed that Harvey had forgotten his resolve not to let Pike get a good look at him and stayed close to him all the time. Harvey got a piece of canvas out of the front of the car and then Pike took his overcoat off and they wrapped the coat into the canvas and strapped it up very tight on a long strap, the other end of which they fixed to the belt of Ralph Pike’s overalls. The overalls were very complicated with lots of zip fasteners, and under the arm there was a leather piece that held a long-bladed knife. Pike took off the peaked cap and tucked it inside his overall which he
then zipped up tight to the neck. Harvey gave him one of those Sorbo-rubber helmets that paratroops wear on practice drops. Then Harvey walked around Pike, tugging and patting and saying ‘You’ll be all right,’ as though to convince himself. When he was sure everything was exactly as prescribed he got a Pan-Am bag from inside the car. He rummaged around inside it. ‘I’m ordered to give you these things,’ Harvey said, as though he didn’t want to really, but I don’t think he meant that—he was just over-keen to do everything by the book.

First he handed over a bundle of Russian paper money that was little bigger than a wad of visiting cards, and some coins jangled. I heard Harvey say, ‘Gold louis, don’t flash them around.’

‘I won’t be flashing anything around,’ Pike said angrily.

Harvey just nodded and twisted a silk scarf inside out to demonstrate the map that was printed on the silk lining. I would have thought silk a little ostentatious for Russia, but nobody asked my opinion. Then Harvey gave him a prismatic compass that was designed as an old-fashioned turnip watch (complete with a chain that was used as a measure for distance-judging). Then they did a countdown on his papers: ‘Army service card,’ ‘Check,’ ‘Former residence card,’ ‘Check,’ ‘Passport,’ ‘Check,’ ‘Working paper,’ ‘Check.’ Then Harvey produced two items from his own pocket. The first was a plastic ballpoint pen. Harvey held it up for Pike to see.

‘You know what this is?’ Harvey said.

Ralph Pike said, ‘It’s the poison needle.’

Harvey said, ‘Yes,’ very briefly, and handed it over before giving him the little 6·35-mm. Tula-Korovin automatic that the Russians used to call ‘the nurses’ gun’.

‘Correct and complete?’ Harvey asked.

‘Correct and complete,’ said Ralph Pike, fulfilling some strange ritual.

Signe said, ‘I think I hear it coming.’

We all listened, but it was two full minutes before we heard it. Suddenly its noise was distinct and loud like a tractor coming over the western horizon. The low-flying plane stretched its sound full-length across the hard ice. The navigation lights were switched off but I could see the Cessna Skywagon flying steadily in the cold air. As it got nearer, the white face of the pilot shone in the glow from his instruments and he waggled the wings in greeting. It climbed slightly as it neared us…so that he could see the indicator lights on the roof rack of the car, I suppose…then it dipped a wing and dropped abruptly to the ice. Its long skis struck the ice flat-on and the fuselage rocked on the heavy springs. The pilot cut the motor and the plane slid towards us with a curious hissing sound. Harvey said, ‘I’ve got some sort of virus.’ He wrapped his scarf tighter. ‘I’m running a temperature.’ It was almost the first remark he had addressed to me all evening. He looked at me as though defying argument, wiped his nose, then
smacked Ralph Pike gently on the back as a signal to go.

Almost before the aeroplane had stopped moving the pilot was out through the door waving a hand for Pike to hurry. ‘Is he all ready?’ the pilot said to Harvey, as if Pike couldn’t be trusted to speak for himself.

‘Set to go,’ Harvey confirmed. Ralph Pike threw his last unfinished cigar on to the ice. The pilot said, ‘He could practically walk across tonight. It’s ice all the way.’

‘It’s been done,’ said Harvey. ‘All you need is a rubber boat to cross the channels that boats have carved.’

‘I wouldn’t trust no rubber boat,’ the pilot said. He tucked Pike into the front passenger seat and strapped him in.

‘They’re just thirty feet wide, that’s all,’ said Harvey.

‘But about two wet miles deep,’ said the pilot. Then he smacked the motor cowling and said, ‘Wagons roll; next stop Moscow.’

We stood back and the motor started with a ripple of yellow fire. Harvey picked up the cigar butt with a tut tut of annoyance. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said. We got into the car but I was still watching the plane. It hadn’t left the ice: an ugly skinny sort of structure that looked decidedly unsuitable for flying. It was heading away from me and I could see the twin yellow eyes of its exhaust which dilated as the plane changed its inclination and
became airborne. A gust of wind caught it and it slid towards the ground, but only for a moment or so. Then it lifted a little higher, flattened out and set a course at sub-radar altitude.

Harvey was watching the plane too. ‘Next stop Moscow,’ Harvey repeated sarcastically.

‘He could be right, Harvey,’ I said. ‘The Lubyanka Prison is in Moscow.’

Harvey said, ‘Are you mad at me?’

‘No, why?’

‘When you have second thoughts about the kind of business you’re in, you are inclined to bug the nearest person. Tonight I’m the nearest.’

‘I’m not trying to bug you,’ I said.

‘Good,’ said Harvey. ‘Because even if you are leaving we’ll still be working together.’

‘Leaving?’ I said.

‘Don’t snow me. You know that you’re leaving.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Well I’m sorry,’ Harvey said. ‘I thought you knew. The New York office wants you to do a short course.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘Well I’m not sure about that.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Harvey,’ I said. ‘I’m not even quite sure who the hell we are working for.’

‘Well, we’ll talk about it later,’ Harvey said. ‘And tomorrow perhaps you’ll let me have a note of your expenses to date and I’ll let you have some money. Will five hundred and fifty dollars for work to date be OK?’

‘Fine,’ I said. I wondered if Dawlish would let me keep it.

‘That’s plus expenses of course.’

‘Of course.’

As we got to Kämp Hotel on the Esplanade Harvey stopped the car and got out. ‘You two take the car and go on home,’ he said through the window.

‘Where are you going?’ Signe asked from the rear seat.

‘Never mind where I’m going. You just do as you’re told.’

‘Yes, Harvey,’ said Signe. Then I moved into the driver’s seat and we drove on. I heard her fidgeting with her handbag.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m putting cream on my hands,’ she said. ‘That icy wind has made them rough, the hand-cream will soften them. I bet you can’t guess who I saw this afternoon. See how soft they are now.’

‘Don’t put your hands over my eyes while I’m driving, there’s a good girl.’

‘The one in the aeroplane. I let him pick me up at the Marski. I thought I would tell him how to spend his money.’

‘That cream,’ I said, ‘have you been putting it on your head?’

Signe laughed. ‘Do you know he pays five marks each for his cigars and if they go out he throws them away?’

‘Harvey?’ I asked in surprise.

‘No; that man. He says they taste bitter if they are relit.’

‘Does he?’ I said.

‘But the money wasn’t for him. That money we left in the taxi. He had to pay it into a blocked bank account. You have to be a foreigner to do that; I couldn’t do it.’

‘Really?’ I said. I swerved to avoid a solitary drunk who dreamily crossed the road backwards.

Signe said, ‘That man who just flew off in the aeroplane taught me some words of Latin.’

‘He does that to everyone.’

‘Don’t you want to hear them?’

‘Very much.’

‘Amo ut invenio. That means, “I love as I find.” He said that all the important things in life are said in Latin. Is that true? Do all Englishmen say the most important things in Latin?’

‘Only the ones who don’t relight five-mark cigars,’ I said.

‘Amo ut invenio. I’m going to start saying important things in Latin.’

‘If Harvey finds out, you’d better start saying “Please don’t blow your stack, Harvey” in Latin. You shouldn’t have even given a signal that you recognized that man. He hadn’t even come to rest.’
*

‘Harvey is a terrible old bear lately. I hate him.’ A taxi-cab stopped alongside us at the traffic lights. There was a small-screen TV that some Helsinki taxis fit on to the back of the driving seat. A couple were necking and smiling and glowing with blue reflected light from the TV. Signe eyed them enviously. I watched her face in the rear-view mirror. ‘He’s a terrible old bear. He’s teaching me Russian and when I make a mistake with those awful adjectives he goes mad with rage. He’s a bear.’

‘Harvey’s all right,’ I said. ‘He’s not a bear, he’s not a saint; he has moods sometimes, that’s all.’

‘Just tell me one other person who has moods like him. Just tell me.’

‘There’s no one that has moods like him. That’s what makes people more interesting than machines; they’re all different.’

‘You men. You hang together.’

The lights changed and I let in the clutch. There was no arguing with Signe in her present frame of mind. ‘Who does all the cleaning and cooking and looking after?’ said Signe from the rear seat. ‘Who gets him out of trouble when the New York office is after his blood?’

‘You do,’ I said obediently.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do.’ Her voice went up three tones on the last words, she sniffed loudly and I heard the click of her handbag.

‘And all his money goes back to his wife.’ She sniffed.

‘Does it?’ I said with interest. She searched her handbag for the handkerchief, lipstick and eye pencil that are necessary parts of a woman’s grief. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That thirteen thousand dollars…’

‘Thirteen thousand dollars.’ My surprise gave her renewed energy.

‘Yes, that money that I took to the taxi rank this morning. That was taken by that man and sent to Mrs Newbegin’s account in San Antonio, Texas. Harvey doesn’t think I know that—it’s a secret—but I have ways of finding out. The New York office would like to know that little item of information, I’ll bet.’

‘Perhaps they would,’ I said. We had arrived outside the flats. I switched off the motor and turned round to her. She was leaning well forward in the rear seat. Her loose hair swung forward and enclosed her face like a pair of golden doors. She was wearing the coat with all the buttons and buckles that she had worn the first time I saw her outside Kaarna’s flat.

‘They would,’ she said. The sound came from inside the golden orb of hair. ‘And it’s not the first money that Harvey has embezzled.’

‘Wait a moment,’ I said gently. ‘You can’t throw accusations around without very firm proof of what you say.’ I waited, wondering if that would provoke her into further disclosures.

‘I’ll never throw accusations around,’ Signe sobbed. ‘I love Harvey,’ and little noises came out
of the sphere of hair as if a canary was eating a hearty meal of seeds.

‘Come along,’ I said. ‘There’s no man in the world worth crying for.’

She looked up and smiled dutifully through the tears. I gave her a large handkerchief. ‘Blow,’ I said.

‘I love him. He’s a fool but I would die for him.’

‘Yes,’ I said and she blew her nose.

We all had breakfast together the next morning. Signe had gone to a lot of trouble to make Harvey feel he was back home in America. There was a grapefruit, bacon, waffles, maple syrup, cinnamon toast and weak coffee. Harvey was in a good mood, balancing plates and saying, ‘This is something those Russkies do damn well’ and ‘pip pip’.

I said, ‘Just for your information, Harvey, no Englishman that I have met ever said “pip pip”.’

‘Is that right?’ said Harvey. ‘Well, when I played Englishmen on the stage they said “pip pip” nearly all the time.’

‘On the stage?’ I said. ‘I didn’t know you had ever been on the stage.’

‘Well I wasn’t really an actor. I just barnstormed around after I left college. I was serious about acting in those days, but the hungrier I got the more my resolution sagged, until a guy I’d known at college talked me into a job with the Defense Department.’

‘I can’t imagine you as an actor,’ I said.

‘I can,’ Signe said. ‘He’s a cornball from way back.’ It was easy to recognize whole chunks of Harvey’s syntax in Signe’s speech.