In the Evil Day (24 page)
They sat in a small study that smelled of cigarette smoke. He was an overweight man in his fifties, head shaven, black polo-necked shirt. He looked like a Buddhist monk gone bad, in thrall to things of the flesh, the ascetic life a memory. His eyes were red, he smoked Camels in a hand that trembled a little, and he jiggled his right foot without cease.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘Americans are not strangers to the region.’
‘But massacres?’
‘Massacres? A difficult term. Massacre. Imprecise. Like genocide. Used very loosely.’
‘Killing civilians. Lots of them.’
He started to laugh, coughed, kept at it for a while, produced an unclean red handkerchief, crumpled like a tissue, tore it open and covered his mouth.
She looked away. He recovered.
‘Sorry. Terrible tickle in the throat. Dust. Place never gets cleaned. So, yes. Killing of civilians? Common practice in the region. For about three hundred years.’
‘But not by Americans.’
‘Depends. Depends on what you think is the causal chain, I suppose. In Angola, for example.’
‘For example?’
‘You’re not connected with television, are you?’
‘No.’
‘I do quite a lot of television. You may have seen me?’
‘I thought your face was familiar.’
‘Really?’ He ran a hand over his scalp, a pass, quick. ‘Yes. Well, I’ve been too busy recently, books and whatnot, can’t drop everything because some television producer calls. They expect that, you know, incredible arrogance.’
‘About Angola, you said…’
‘Lots of atrocity rumours about Angola in the eighties. One a month. What you’d expect from a superpower war-by-proxy, I suppose.’
He studied her, scratching an eyebrow. ‘Wishart. Are you the person who wrote that Brechan story?’
He had assumed a prim expression. He looked like a Pope now, some Renaissance Pope whose portrait she’d seen somewhere.
‘Not the headline,’ she said. ‘That was in poor taste.’
‘Thoughts of Wilde crossed the mind. None so hypocritical about buggery as the unexposed buggers.’
‘Yes. To get back to Angola…’ She had to wait while he lit another cigarette. He had a big lower lip, red, and when he blew out smoke, it turned down and he showed paler flesh inside, the colour of tinned tuna.
‘Angola,’ he said. ‘A resource war, one of the late-century resource wars. Many more to come. I’m considering a book on the subject… working on it, actually. I’ve done a lot of work on it. I’m well beyond considering it.’
‘Atrocities…’
‘Well, there’s always talk. I remember a story about a village disappearing off the face of the map, in some American rag.’
‘Would you know which one?’
‘This is so long ago.’
‘This is very important,’ Caroline said. ‘When you say American rag…?
He seemed to be galvanised, sat back in his chair, ready to speak to camera, chins up.
‘Well, American rags. There’ve been a few. America’s got this tiny left fringe. The right’s a huge great heaving pit of snakes—but energetic. The left’s always been quite pathetic, sad. No life and no theory at all. Well, a little, just the simpler bits they can half understand. Gramsci, they half understand bits of Gramsci. The hegemony stuff. But deep down the right loonies and the left share the same conspiracy mania, it’s rooted in a small-town America paranoia. There’s a plot out there to take things away from them, democracy, freedom of speech, a man’s guns, a man’s right to fuck his pig, there is no, I mean absolute zero, understanding of structural…’ He tailed off, seemed to have lost course, blinked at her with stubby eyelashes.
She said, ‘A village in Angola disappeared off the map?’
He focused. ‘Of course, you have to be
on
the map to disappear
off
it, don’t you? The logical precondition. God knows how they could tell it had vanished.’
‘And you say there were others? Atrocity stories?’
‘Many. Both sides. Raped nuns are always good value. The atrocity story is a staple of modern conflict. It illustrates what utter monsters the other lot are. As in the ex-Yugoslavia. Take for example…’ ‘So they said this Angolan village had been destroyed?’
‘Something like that. Dimly recall, mark you. Dimly. It was a longish piece. Quite well done.’
He closed his eyes. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Got it.
Behind Enemy Lines
.’
‘Yes?’
‘California, I think. Published in some little place in California.
Behind Enemy Lines
. I liked the name.’
‘No chance of you having the clipping?’
He shook his head. ‘My dear, long gone, I’ve moved on. The thing didn’t live beyond four or five issues, they never did. I subscribed to everything in those days. Remotely promising, I sent off my money. They probably owe me twenty quid. Do you get a penny back when these rags collapse with ten issues owing on your subscription? My arse. Try the library here. Hopeless though it is.’
The library had never held
Behind Enemy Lines
. But a librarian clicked keys at speed, interested frown. He found the complete
Behind
Enemy Lines
for sale, a rarity, seven issues, good condition, twenty pounds, from an address in Portsmouth. Southpaw Books. Email, telephone, fax.
She went outside and rang. A man with a bad cold answered. She said fifty pounds if he would go through
Behind Enemy Lines
and fax all items involving American involvement in Africa.
‘Go through them?’ he said. ‘Darling, basically, we sell the stuff. That’s the business.’
‘Sixty quid,’ she said. ‘How’s that? And you keep the magazines. Inside an hour.’
‘Time’s money,’ he said. ‘I’m a slow reader.’
‘A hundred. The contents pages too. I’m stopping there.’
‘Credit card transaction, is this?
‘What else?’
‘What’s your fax number?’
O’MALLEY RANG.
‘I’m sitting here just down your very pleasant little road. Where the boats are. A word, perhaps?’
Anselm went out, didn’t bother with a coat. It was much colder than when he had come to work. The sky was an army blanket, dirty grey, a shade lighter than O’Malley’s BMW, which, in turn, was a lighter grey than O’Malley’s suit.
‘Flitting to and fro, you should open an office here,’ said Anselm. It was warm in the car and there was the smell of leather and newness. ‘Think of the fares you’d save.’
O’Malley shook his head. ‘What would save some real money, mate, is buying your business. But I’m not flitting, I’m having a little stay, a sojourn. Did I not say that? No? Before the courts tomorrow, trying to get the attention of some naughty Poles. They have products we wish to render immobile. In a warehouse down by the river. Your beer, your ballbearings, your smoked hams, your binoculars, your pickled cucumbers, beetroot, artichokes. Even your Polish condoms, a container-load. In packs of fifty, the weekend packs they’re called.’
‘For football teams, surely?’
‘Aimed at the single male. These people are not called Poles for nothing. The brand is
Ne Plus Ultra
.’
Anselm put his head against the headrest. ‘The old-fashioned Polish condom makers. I didn’t know there were any left. Knew their Latin, history of the Peninsular Wars. Craftspeople in rubber.’
‘Latex. Moving on, another task.’
A police car was coming towards them, slowly, no hurry, a shift to get through. Both occupants, men, gave them the lingering eye.
‘Ceaselessly vigilant in the interests of the rich,’ said O’Malley. ‘Whereas out in the gloomy industrial hinterland, the lower orders have to beg and beseech the
Politzei
to come to their assistance.’
‘I didn’t realise you were familiar with the conditions of the German working class.’
‘A lifelong interest. Like Engels in England.’ He looked at Anselm’s shirt. ‘Winter’s setting in. I could probably find an old coat to send you.’
‘I’d be grateful.
Winterhilfe
usually toss a few warm garments my way. But not exactly Zegna.’
O’Malley was getting a slim notecase off the back seat. ‘Mine wouldn’t be Zegna. It would be hand sewn by my little man. Crouch is his name.’ He opened the leather box, flipped through papers. ‘Doesn’t have the ring of Zegna, Crouch. Ermenegilda Crouch. No. This matter concerns something called Falcontor. Remember?’
Falcontor. Richler on the tape:
I’ll say one word. Falcontor. Don’t say anything.
O’Malley found an A4 envelope. ‘From Serrano’s case, at the station. Your excellent if expensive work. We can’t make much sense of this stuff. The cross-trained bloodhounds you employ may have more luck.’
‘I thought you said Serrano was still in the paper era?’
‘He is. But the places he parks the ill-gotten stuff may not be.’
‘What do you want?’
O’Malley scratched an eyebrow. ‘Well, you know. Anything. The main interest is assets. But anything. Don’t spook anyone, that’s paramount. And speed. And the name Bruynzeel. Keep an eye out for that.’
‘Flemish, I presume?’
‘I would too. Sounds like a nasty symptom the nanny should report.’
A couple appeared on the jetty, began to take off the cover of a boat.
‘I was like that once,’ said O’Malley. ‘Weather was no impediment. Serrano, the hotel, can you keep that running?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good on you. How many ways do I love a crisp affirmative? Concludes the business. Oh, and notice I’ve got a new number. The old one was boring me.’
Anselm put his hand on the door latch. ‘You won’t forget the coat?’
‘No,’ said O’Malley. ‘Consider it in the mail. And this coincidence will amuse you. An email in my box from Angelica. The American bore. It’s over. Taken his Egyptian artefacts, gone. She’s holding on to the apartment in the Marais pending the legal nastiness. Sadly, the chef ’s been terminated.’
‘I’m sure you can arrange food parcels. When you say speed?’
O’Malley looked at him. ‘Yes. We’d be grateful. Things that are solid can melt into air.’
‘I wouldn’t be too hopeful.’
‘In me, the hopeful genes. In all the O’Malleys. Globally. The O’Malley diaspora of optimistic genes.’
‘Probably inherit the earth,’ said Anselm. ‘O’Malleys and cockroaches. Still, the evolutionary day has only just begun. Give us a few hours.’
‘Hours, certainly. Not even units of time in the evolutionary day.’
Anselm felt the pressure fight the car door as he pushed it closed. It was even colder now. It felt like snow, the air still, the feeling of something pendant. Waiting for its time. But it was much too early in the year. Its time was nearer Christmas, when it would fall at night, the magic flakes hushing the discordant city.
In the blue gloom, Carla was at her workstation, text on her right-hand screen, green code on the black screens to her left. She saw Anselm coming and swivelled, her useless leg thrust out. He showed her the case folder.
‘Some time?’ he said. ‘It’s a priority.’
She nodded. He gave it to her. She read the cover sheet, opened it and looked at the pages inside, flipped them. Two columns to the page. Letters, numbers, names handwritten in ink.
‘This has meaning?’
‘Not to the client. Serrano, remember Serrano? These are his notes. The client is interested in something called Falcontor. Also the name Bruynzeel.’
He wrote them on her pad. ‘Something might occur to you. I promised a preliminary report soon.’
She put the file down and laced her fingers, turned the palms outward. He heard her knuckles crack, a sound that always disturbed him, for no reason that he knew.
He went back to his office and the paperwork. Jonas was a happy agent. He had paid the bill, plus the $25,000 bonus. Pizza baron Charlie Campo and his runaway wife Lisa were reunited at last. In romantic Barcelona. All forgiven—a terrible, impulsive mistake. Sherry and tapas in a little bar off the Ramblas. Soft light, the bottles on the shelves glowing blood and oranges and rust. Glances. Touches.
Anselm thought of a woman with tape over her mouth, tied to a bed. Screaming through her eyes.
He went back to work, wrote an authorisation for Herr Brinkman to pay Inskip and Carla the equivalent of $6250 each.
Blood money. They were bounty hunters. The woman could be dead. He could find out, but he didn’t want to.
Through his slice of vision, Anselm looked at the sky, the lake, both still. The day was darkening. Perhaps it would snow. An early snowfall. It wouldn’t be a proper snowfall, though, just tiny flakes that turned into slush when they touched the ground. The earth wasn’t cold enough yet. When he was about twelve, he had been in the garden helping his grandfather fork over the vegetable patch.
‘Weather experts, they know nothing,’ the old man said. His hair was the colour of the sky. ‘The earth tells the clouds when it’s time for snow.’
