Agent in Place (21 page)

He came out into the sunshine, wondering which direction to take. He noticed a parked black car, near by. But it was a Citroën, newest model, with a swoop of bonnet to give it a sporting air. The man who was dumping his packages on to the back seat before he stepped in to take the wheel was obviously alone. He wore a suit and tie, too; but he was not Jean Parracini. He was Rick Nealey.

Slowly, Tony lit a cigarette. The Citroën went slowly into the traffic. And from some distance behind it, a black Mercedes left its parking-place. It increased speed as much as it dared in the busy street, and then—as it came nicely up behind the Citroën—slackened its pace to keep a decent following distance.

We have a maniac on our hands, thought Tony, and crushed his barely-smoked cigarette under his heel. Better warn Nicole at once; explain Rick Nealey just enough to let her know how deeply Parracini was endangering himself. This was no ordinary American he was following. Nealey could outfox even a Palladin, when he was blinded by bitter rage. And Nealey wouldn’t be here alone. He must have some back-up, a contact... “Hell, bloody hell,” Tony said softly, and turned to re-enter the market.

He stopped abruptly, almost bumping into a woman carrying a wicker basket filled with a morning’s shopping.

“Tony!” Dorothea Kelso said.

Typed, retyped, torn up. The discarded pages filled the wastebasket. A typical morning’s work, thought Tom Kelso, and pushed his chair away from his desk. Maurice Michel’s desk, to be exact, in Maurice Michel’s library, no longer looking the neatly-ordered place where a diplomat had worked. Tom’s notes and maps were scattered everywhere; even the small room’s name (a little too grand for ten feet square, walls lined with bookshelves that encased door and window too) had been changed to “study”—his own quiet corner, far removed from living-room and kitchen. Much good its peace had done him. Thea and he had been here since the beginning of January, and the last two chapters of his book refused to shape up. Tomorrow was the first of March, the last month here before their return to Washington. Return to what?

Every aspect of his work now seemed to have become uncertain. Who the hell will want to read this book anyway? he asked himself angrily. Who in the United States worried about long-term policy and what they would have to cope with, ten years from now? Short-term, that’s us—jumping from one crisis to another. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”—and that we will, even if the bridge blows under our feet and we have to swim for it.

Thoroughly despondent, restless, he rose and made his way through the silent house to the pantry where the Michels had installed a little bar. He’d better bootleg a drink or two before Thea got back from the market in Menton.

She wasn’t saying anything about his change in habits, but she must have noticed. She was too smart a girl not to be aware of them, and too sensitive not to feel the perpetual state of worry and dejection that had seized him, away back in December, after his return from the NATO meeting in Brussels.

It hadn’t been a complete failure for him—real friends at Casteau rallied round and talked with him as they had always talked, but few of them could hand out vital information. And the others, important sources for sensitive material in the past, had become tight-lipped, even evasive. He had never thought he was a particularly prideful man, but the snubs struck deep. And the results, in his reports back to the
Times
, were clearly seen—by himself, at least. The journalist was the first to know he was slipping, next his editors; and then the public. End of a career. Any newsman was only as good as his sources. (“Like a policeman?” Thea had asked when he discussed this problem with her. “They need informants too. Don’t they?” He had laughed and agreed, but wondered how journalists’ high-placed sources would react if they were called informants. “Let’s say,” he had answered, “that Watergate would never have been explained if there hadn’t been leaks of information.”)

He poured the second drink, another double, and wandered back through the living-room, a room he usually found cheerful and pleasant. Solange Michel had taken great care with the colours and chintzes. (“
Toile
!” Thea had corrected him. “Chintz my eye.”) And Maurice had made sure that his wife hadn’t sacrificed the old fireplace and the beamed ceiling in her splurge on remodelling an old house. The Michels had spent money, time, and energy on fixing up their place in Roquebrune; but Tom wondered how long it would take them to sell it, once they came back to see the huge condominiums that were being built further up the hillside behind them. Nothing, he thought, nothing ever remains perfect. In deepening gloom, he went out on to the terrace.

The trouble—or rather today’s trouble—was the telephone call that morning. From Chuck. At the airport in Nice.

The first time I’ve heard from him... Tom tried to stop brooding about Chuck, and stared down at the olive-trees in front of the house. Condominium builders hadn’t yet got their hands on that long stretch of descending terraces, but no doubt they would. And they’d be eyeing that nice piece of real estate lying far below the olive-trees, a cape that pointed its long finger into the Mediterranean, a promontory of very private land occupied by expensive villas and perfect gardens. Cap Martin wouldn’t listen to the jingle of big promoters’ coins. It could buy and sell them with cash still left in the till. It probably wasn’t even aware of the glass and concrete spreading over the Roquebrune hills above it: a density of trees, a richness of foliage, covered and protected and hid it completely.

That was where Chuck was spending the next few days. At Shandon Villa. Transportation from Nice? That was taken care of—Nealey had met him at the plane. No, he couldn’t make it for lunch. Catching up on his sleep, he had said: he never could handle overnight flights. After that, he had some business to attend to. He would drop in to see Dorothea and Tom this evening. Sixish. Okay?

The first time since November—and all I got was a drop-in promise. Not, “Tom, I wanted to see you.” Not, “Tom, I have a lot to talk over with you.” Not, “Tom, let’s have a quiet evening together, and get a lot of things straight.” Just—sixish.

Tom finished his drink at a gulp, wondered about another, decided not. His career might be slithering downhill, his book might be choking itself to death, but he still had Thea. And this, he knew, as he looked at his glass, was no way to keep her. He knew it, and yet he kept slipping away from his resolution. How else did you blot out the feeling of failure?

He had made a real effort to stop thinking about Chuck; and Shandon; and the memorandum; and that god-damned Olivetti. (He wasn’t using it any more.) He wouldn’t even discuss these subjects with Thea. But the subconscious was a real devil, eating away at him. No matter how determinedly he dropped the hurts and disappointments out of his conscious mind, they only sank below the surface; and lay there.

So now Chuck was here, and perhaps ready to talk... There had been a slightly too jocular manner in that ’phone-call. Is that what we are going to have—an hour of chit-chat and sweet evasions? God damn it—Tom nearly walked back into the house to pour himself a third drink. At least he had started counting: a step in the right direction. But this meeting with Chuck— He dropped all speculation, tried to let his emotions subside and his mind stop questioning, and concentrated on the far stretch of coastline. It was a continuous sweep of cliffs and bays, with a backscreen of mountains whose rocky spurs ran out into the sea and sheltered the indentations of beaches. To the west, he could see the bold plunge of Monaco’s headland. Then came the bay, where Monte Carlo had tucked itself into one corner, curving eastward to the green-covered promontory of Cap Martin lying below him. In jutted the shoreline again, to form the wide bay where Menton lay with its Old Town built high above the port. And beyond that, the bay curved further inland before it came sweeping out again to the red cliffs, a mountain wall of sheer rock that formed a most definite frontier. Next stop—Italy, and the Riviera dei Fiori, and a distant view of Bordighera. And then nothing but a horizon where blue sky met blue sea. Florida, he thought, had started with several strikes against it when it set out to bat against the Côte d’Azur.

Nerves calmed, mind more at rest, he turned away. That view was better medicine, he admitted frankly, than the empty glass in his hand. Keep remembering that, he told himself. He set the glass down on the table at the side of the terrace, a private corner shielded by lemon-trees, and began walking down the rough driveway that led, from the east side of the house, to the Roquebrune road.

Thea was late. Menton, adjoining Roquebrune (or was it the other way round? One moment you were driving in Menton; next block you were in Roquebrune), was only a couple of miles from here. It was just like her to go dashing off to the market, to buy extra food—and no doubt some special items that their tight budget didn’t usually allow. (Money was another of his hidden worries: it melted, like first snowflakes on a city sidewalk, in this spreading inflation.) “Chuck may stay for dinner,” she had said when the ’phone call from Nice was over. Tactfully, and again true to Thea, she hadn’t said what was really on her mind—and on my mind too, thought Tom: why the hell doesn’t Chuck stay here with us? We’ve got two unused bedrooms, damn them.

Back to Chuck again, are we?

He quickened his pace, putting distance between himself and the silent house and a desk littered with discarded manuscript. I’ve become too critical, too hesitant about my own work, he thought now. I’m not fit company for Thea these days. The only time we are really happy, and not often enough either, is in that big beautiful bedroom upstairs. Solange—so she had told them proudly—had furnished it after the style of the Byblos Hotel over at St Tropez: white carpet everywhere, white plaster walls cleverly finished to look as if they were carpeted too; outsize bed, practically floor-level, covered with a white fur rug. “A love-nest at first sight,” said Thea, setting them both laughing. Well, if we can both laugh together and love together, there is hope for us. Without that, we’d have started drifting apart in these last months. It could yet happen, his common sense warned him. If he didn’t get a better grip on himself—I’ll get over this, he told himself. I must. I don’t need a sense of guilt to add to my problems.

The last stretch of driveway ran through the old Michel flower-nursery, still functioning, now owned and worked by honest Auguste and his stalwart Albertine, who came up the hill to oblige once a week with a thorough housecleaning, or, for a special evening, to cook. There had been too few of those. Not fair to Thea—I’ll have to take some days off, drive her around, visit the hill towns, explore. We’ll do that next week. The hell with my work, it’s getting nowhere as it is. I’ve got to do some rethinking of the last chapter, organise its material better, reshape and—or should I just throw the whole thing out and start over again? Remake it, fresh and alive?

He passed the rows of flower-beds, some bright with bloom, the rest promising flowers next month, and halted at the clump of mimosa by the gate. He could see no sign of their car—a small Fiat they had rented—in the rush of traffic to and from lower Roquebrune. The road was narrow, twisting up the hill, built in the days when people walked or used real horse power. His worries sharpened as he watched the stream of cars and trucks and buses. Where was Thea anyway? he wondered irritably. What had delayed her so long in Menton? She was usually back by noon. And it was certainly noon—the nursery was deserted, all hands now engaged in their mid-day meal.

And there she was at last, safely returning. The accident he had begun to fear hadn’t taken place. But it nearly did, at this very moment, as Dorothea took a wild chance to make a left turn across the path of the descending traffic.

“For God’s sake, Thea!” he yelled as she stopped inside the gate and waited for him.

“I didn’t even chip a tail-light,” she told him cheerfully. “Jump in. I’ll give you a lift to the house if you’ll trust my driving. And there’s nothing wrong with it either,” she reminded him. Hadn’t he noticed? If she had pulled up and waited to make the turn, the car behind her could have rear-ended the Fiat? He is too much on edge these days, she thought unhappily. And all her excitement about her meeting with Tony Lawton drained away. Silently, she made room for him on the seat beside her.

“You’re late.” He picked up the sheaf of papers and magazines she had bought in Menton: the
Herald Tribune
and
Le Monde
from Paris, the
Observer
and
Economist
and
Guardian
from London, the current
Time
and
Newsweek
. “What about the
New York Times
?”

“It’s later than I am.” Besides, it always arrived four days old. Another day wouldn’t hurt. “Headlines are hideous, aren’t they?”

His eyes scanned them. “Yes,” he said briefly. That’s where I should be, he thought: right back where the wires are bringing in all the latest alarums and excursions, the stuff that journalists’ dreams are made of.

“I picked up the mail on my way into Menton. You’ll find it in my handbag.”

“More bills?”

“A letter from Brad Gillon.” She brought the car to a very smooth halt beside the row of orange-trees near the back door.

Tom searched in her purse and found the envelope. It had been opened. He looked at her.

“It’s addressed to me as well as you.” Dorothea’s lips tightened. “Oh, really, Tom—do I
ever
open your mail?”

“What’s he saying? Telling you to keep after me about the book?”

“He isn’t badgering you about anything. He had a meeting with Chuck. Brad took him to lunch at the Century. There was a lot of serious talk.”

Tom said nothing. The serious talk should have been between Chuck and me, he thought bitterly. He was about to slip the letter unread into his pocket—he’d have a drink first and feel more able to deal with it—when the stamp on the envelope caught his eye. “Just look at that postmark, will you? February fourteenth! Two weeks on the way!” he said in disgust. “And by air mail, too.”