Ikon (18 page)

‘Lieutenant, that isn’t the end of it. That’s just the very beginning. Marilyn Monroe was hustled out of Brentwood in 1962 because she knew something she shouldn’t have known - wasn’t she? And maybe Bobby Kennedy was trying to protect her. But he couldn’t protect her after he was dead; and after twenty years someone found her and killed her. And if what she knew was important enough for someone to look for her for twenty years; then believe me it must have been damned important. I don’t know how important, I’ll admit that. But people don’t get sacrificed for nothing, not even by Kennedys.’

Lieutenant Lindblad put down his beer, stood up, and went to the door. His wife Rosa was cheerily cooking in the kitchen. He gave her a little finger-wave and then closed the door. Then he went to the window and looked up and down the street. ‘You don’t have no microphone, do you?’ he asked Kathy. I don’t want no record of this; not in my own voice.’

Kathy raised her hands to show that she was clean. Daniel did the same.

‘How much is this worth?’ asked Lieutenant Lindblad.

‘What’s the bottom line?’ Kathy wanted to know.

‘Two thousand, cash.’

‘Fifteen hundred, that’s all I’ve got.’

‘Okay, then,’ said Lieutenant Lindblad. ‘Money first.’

Kathy opened her purse, took out the large roll of bills which the Flag had given her for buying street information in Los Angeles, and stripped off $1,500. It left her with nothing more than two $20s, and a $5. Lieutenant Lindblad took the money and pushed it into his back pants pocket without a murmur.

He poured out three more beers, and then settled down in his armchair.

I’m going to say this once only, okay, and I’m not

going to repeat myself. You don’t take notes, got it, and you don’t make no recordings; and if you ever ask me again if this is what I’ve said, then I’ll deny it. I’ll deny that I’ve even seen you, and so will Rosa. So don’t try to get funny. I’ve still got plenty of friends on the force, and I still carry my own gun, I’m entitled. So don’t try to get ny.’

I promise you that neither of us will try to get funny,’ said Daniel.

Lieutenant Lindblad gave him a wary look. But Daniel managed to keep his face deadly serious; and at last Lieutenant Lindblad said, ‘Right. This is the way it happened, back in August, 1962 … this is the way it really happened.’

Twenty-Five

Joe Jasper carefully hung up the phone and ran his hand fcough his hair. On the other side of the room, on a Makeshift cot, Crack Nielsen was still swaddled in a pink blanket, his mouth gaping open, snoring his way through sixty cords of good dreamland lumber. Joe looked at him for a while, pursing his lips, then got up from his own bed and went through to the living-room and opened the

drapes.

Colleen was already up, although it was only a minute or two past seven o’clock. She was wearing a pale-green baby-doll nightie in flounces of transparent nylon, through which her nipples showed with unremitting prominence. Joe ignored her. He was not a sexual creature in the conventional sense; he was not aroused by America’s naked big-breasted babies, or by women in general, or in particular.

Joe Jasper was aroused only by humiliation; and by hurt. If he had any credo in life, it was probably that the obedient and the masochistic will eventually inherit the earth.

‘You’re up early,’ he told Colleen.

‘I haven’t been to bed yet.’

‘What time did you get in?’

‘Four.’

‘Crack was with you?’

‘Most of the time.’

‘You realize you’re running a risk, going out so much?’

‘Fuck it, Joe, Nadine said I could. Besides, I’m not The Prisoner of Zenda.’

‘I didn’t say you were. But you’ve known all along that you’d have to do this some day. Stay inside, keep yourself safe. That’s valuable evidence you’ve got there.’

‘Don’t you keep reminding me. It was me who had to swallow Marshall Roberts’ piss. Not you. Or maybe you would have liked to.’

‘What was the difference between Marshall Roberts piss and any other man’s piss? You do it all the time.’

‘I do it when I feel like it. That’s all. With Marshall Roberts, I did it because he said he wouldn’t pay me, else.’

‘Such a hardship.’

‘Asshole.’

Joe Jasper went to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a large DOM liqueur. It was dry and strong and if you were going to drink first thing in the morning in the company of transparently-clad whores, it was probably the best drink going. Colleen watched him, and said, ‘I don’t even know what the hell this is all about.’

‘You’re not supposed to. Nobody is supposed to. Not even I know what it’s all about. Not completely.’ ‘Well, that shows what a cretin you are.’ Joe took a mouthful of liquor, and closed his eyes. In actual fact, he was desperately worried, although he was

trying his utmost not to show it to Colleen. If Titus believed for one moment that Nadine was right, and that the United States really had become the American Capitalist Oblast in the summer of 1962; then there was a strong possibility that Titus would allow Marshall Roberts to go ahead with RING n, and seriously threaten Kama’s chances of taking over from Ikon as chairman of the Oblast committee. Titus was a hawk; and he hated Marshall Roberts for giving so much away to the Russians in the RING talks. But Titus was also a patriot, fierce and dogged; and if he was brought to perceive that RING was the lesser of two threats to what was left of the American nation; if he actually understood that RING would mean only a gradual decline in American influence, while Kama wanted an immediate takeover on all levels, then Titus would withdraw his opposition at once, and leave Joe holding the tar-baby.

On the phone this morning, Titus had said that he was ‘anxious, to say the least’ about the things that Nadine had told him. Joe had denied any knowledge of an American Oblast. In fact, he had laughed out loud. Was Nadine serious? How could the United States possibly be run by a Soviet committee? It was just a gag; a way of making Titus feel uncomfortable about putting such an immediate stop to the RING talks. They both knew how strongly Nadine felt about nuclear disarmament. She was a liberal, wasn’t she? That was the kind of thing you had to expect from liberals.

But all the time, Joe had detected in Titus’ voice a lack of sureness; a suspicion that Nadine would never have told him such a preposterous story if something about it hadn’t been true. I mean, the Russians running the United States for twenty years? Did she really expect a hardnosed soldier like Titus to swallow anything so patently stupid? You only had to look at America, didn’t you? Free, prosperous, and as nutty as ever. Would the Russians allow Times Square sleaze; or whores in hotpants on Hollywood Boulevard? Would the Russians allow drugs, and booze, and profiteering, and the Hunt Brothers? America hadn’t

changed, or had it? Look at all the money we’ve been spending on defence. What was the point of that, if Russia was in charge? Would the Russians finance MX, or B-l bombers, or cruise missiles that were targeted straight towards the heart of Moscow?

Except, of course, if the Russians had theorized that the United States was too large and too hostile to be conquered in the usual way in which nations are conquered; that perhaps the easiest way of taking over a prosperous and opinionated continent of 220 million people would be simply to reach out and grasp the reins of finance and power and leave the body of the nation to continue to grow in its own characteristic way, at least for the time

being.

Except, of course, if the Russians had theorized that a balance of armed conflict was necessary for global stability; and in particular for stability within the Soviet Union itself, and its satellites. For who within the Soviet bloc would knuckle down to the Communist regime if there was no threat from the West? Who would tolerate a life of repression and deprivation, of lines and boredom and no fresh meat, if there was no corrupt capitalist ogre at the gates, waving his nuclear club?

Joe knew Titus well enough to guess that thoughts like these must at least have flickered through Titus’ mind; and that Kama’s succession to the committee could immediately and substantially be threatened. Joe had been tempted to argue with Titus, but he had managed to control himself sufficiently to say nothing more than, ‘Well, sir … it all seems pretty far-fetched to me. I mean, I haven’t seen anybody on Constitution Avenue with snow on their boots.’

Colleen said, ‘I’m hungry, Is anybody going to fix

breakfast?’

‘What do you want?’ Joe asked her, with considerable

self-control.

I don’t know. Eggs, maybe. Bacon.’ ‘Why don’t you fix it yourself?’ Colleen looked up at him. There was nothing in her

eyes at all, no sympathy, no friendship, nothing. She was a whore and she knew her value, that’s what he thought. She knew when she was needed and she knew when she wasn’t needed; and exactly how much. Right now, Joe Jasper needed her badly. She didn’t understand what it was all about, but she could smell fear the same way a child can; or a cat. Joe Jasper was frightened. His glands gave him away, like a polecat.

‘Okay, said Joe. ‘I’ll see what I can rustle up. You want muffins with it? Juice?’

Colleen didn’t answer, and after a moment or two, Joe Jasper turned around and marched himself stiffly into the kitchenette. Fuck it, he thought, as he tied on a ‘vinyl apron. Fuck all women to hell. He opened up the Tup-perware box in the refrigerator and took out a pack of bacon. If he didn’t need that woman so badly he’d slice her from cunt to chin, and feed her to the State Department dogs.

There was a chime at the front door. He wiped his hands and went to answer it, but Colleen had reached the lobby first. To Joe’s horror, it was Nadine, in a severe white linen suit, with a smart white feathered hat, with a net veil.

Joe, Nadine nodded. I like your apron.’

Joe looked down at himself. It was one of those aprons with a woman’s curvaceous body printed on it, complete with heavy-duty bra and black frilly garter-belt. Colleen laughed, and her breasts jounced up and down beneath the garishly-green nylon of her nightie.

How do you do, Mrs Alexander, said Joe, trying to twist his mouth into something like a smile of welcome. The Secretary was on the phone a little earlier asking about you.’

i left the house early, that’s all, before he woke up,said Nadine, and stalked confidently into the centre of the living-room, where she rolled off her white net gloves. Are you making breakfast? I’d adore some coffee.’

How do you like it?’ asked Joe, with humiliated wrath.

N’adine handed him her gloves, in a small white snow-ball, and then her hat. ‘Impenetrably black,’ she said, in an exaggeratedly husky voice.

While Joe began to grill the bacon and perk the coffee, Nadine and Colleen went through to the bedroom. Colleen was erotic and immediate: she tugged her baby-doll nightie over her head, so that she was naked, and then came up and held Nadine close, and kissed her, full on

the mouth.

‘I’ve missed you,’ she whispered. She pressed her bare breasts against Nadine’s immaculately-tailored white suit. She kissed her again, and then touched her mouth with her fingertips, as if she could scarcely believe that her kisses were real.

‘You’ve been out,’ said Nadine. ‘A friend of mine saw you last night at Ulvaro’s.’

‘You can’t keep me in prison,’ said Colleen.

‘I think that from now on I’m going to have to. The situation is getting very dangerous.’

Colleen kissed her again, and again, so fiercely that she smudged her lipstick. Nadine tried to pull away, but Colleen gripped her arms and held her tight. ‘Make love to me/ she insisted.

‘Now? What about Joe?’

‘That’s what you came for, isn’t it, to make love to me?’

‘I came -‘ Nadine hesitated. She turned her head away, and looked down at the white kid purse in her hand; the purse which contained the poison which Ikon had given her. She had almost let it slip out, completely frankly, ‘I came to kill you.’ She had been thinking of nothing else all night and somehow it seemed quite natural; to blurt it out. That was why she hadn’t slept. She said, ‘Yes, I came to make love to you.’

‘My darling,’ smiled Colleen. Her eyes darted from side to side as they took in the pleasure of Nadine’s face. ‘My famous, elegant, sophisticated darling.’

Colleen lay back on the rumpled quilt of the bed, as if she were diving backwards in slow-motion into a private swimming-pool. The quilt was pale green, silk, and could have been shimmering water. She parted both her lips

and her thighs as she fell back, her lips licked and moist, her sex open and slippery as a morning flower. Perhaps she had made love to a man last night; perhaps her slipperiness was simply the result of heated dreams. Whatever it was, Nadine knelt at the end of the bed and pressed her face deeply into it as if it were a fleshly oxygen mask, as if she needed to breathe it as well as taste it.

‘Nadine,’ Colleen gasped. Then, ‘Nadine… .’

She lifted her legs high so that Nadine could explore every crevice of her; and it was then that Nadine reached across with one blind hand until she found her purse, and twisted it open, and took out of it the syringe of cyanide which Ikon had given her.

Colleen was panting, tugging at Nadine’s hair, pulling Nadine’s face as close as she could, writhing, tossing her head from side to side, feeling Nadine’s endlessly lapping tongue against her peaked-up clitoris.

‘Nadine, what you do to me… .’

Nadine held the hypodermic in her right hand like a dagger. It only needed one stab; one single drop would be enough. She drew back her arm and closed her eyes and prepared herself to dig the needle deep into Colleen’s upraised thigh.

It was then that the door racketed wide open and a high-pitched voice screamed, ‘Freeze! Freeze! You touch her with that needle and I’ll blow your goddamned head off!’

Nadine lifted her head with a breathless gasp; her cheeks flushed and her mouth glistening with fluid. At that instant, Colleen rolled away across the bed.

Joe Jasper was standing in the doorway with a huge .357 Magnum held in both hands, pointed straight at Nadine’s neck. His eyes were wide and his mouth was contorted into an Edvard Munch grimace. The revolver was so heavy that he could scarcely keep it still. Colleen reached for her bathwrap and struggled into it, tying the belt tight around her waist, glancing quick and scared from Joe to Nadine and back again.