Red Rag Blues (5 page)

They turned the corner of 81st Street into York Avenue and headed back to the apartment.

“So what do you do for a living now?” he asked.

“No publisher will touch me. Once in a while, a friend pays me to read a manuscript, give an opinion, just as long as my name isn't on it. People are scared.”

He stopped, and looked around. This was a quiet, unexciting part of town, a bit shabby but comfortable in the warm afternoon. Couple of bars, deli on the corner, a dry cleaner and laundry, a fruit and vegetable store spilling onto the sidewalk with a kid using a watering can to keep the stuff cool and fresh. Nearby, two old guys were sitting at a card table, playing checkers.

“What are people afraid of?” Luis asked her. “Nothing is going to happen to America. This is the safest country in the world.”

“Sure. But the Commies'll getcha if you don't watch out.” When Luis laughed in disbelief, she nodded toward the two old guys. “Ask them what they think of Communism … Nah, that's too easy. Make it Socialism.”

Luis strolled over to them. “Excuse me,” he said. “I don't mean to interrupt your game.” They wore woolen undershirts, yellow with age, and they squinted through store-bought spectacles.

“That's all right, sonny,” one said. He made his move.

“It's just that I'm running for office and I wondered if I could count on your vote. I represent the Socialist Party.” “Get a cop,” the old guy told his friend.

“Please, that's not necessary,” Luis said. As the man got up, Luis made a gesture of restraint. It was only a gesture.

“You touch him,” the old guy said, “I'll turn your brains into Cream of Wheat.” Somehow a blackjack had appeared in his hand. Luis backed off. Bonnie came to save him. “Forget it,”
she told them. “He's three bricks shy of a load. Some days he things he's Napoleon.”

“Well, I ain't too fond of the French neither,” the old guy said fiercely. “They're all Commy bums.”

“Sure they are.” Bonnie hustled him away.

Julie was sitting on the stoop, waiting for them. Bonnie told her about the two old guys, the blackjack, the threat to call a cop. “Now you know,” Julie told him. “Lucky you didn't get a poke in the chops. Last week I saw a kid get thrown off a bus just for carrying a copy of
Das Kapital.”

“Doesn't anyone protect freedom of speech?” he asked. “Surely the authorities …”

“Hey! Stay away from the authorities. Keep your mouth shut. Otherwise you might end up in the cell next to Enrico.”

“Or worse,” Bonnie said.

Luis had a gold ring. They hocked it and ate supper at a German beer-cellar on 86th Street: franks and sauerkraut plus beer, and apple pie for three. Now he had two dollars. He left one as a tip. “You're insane,” Julie said. She picked it up and gave it to him. “I have been a waiter,” he said. “This is no time to cheat the workers of their due.” He put the dollar back. “Leave it there, or I shall stand on a chair and sing the
Internationale.”

“How does that go, again?” Bonnie asked.

“The workers' flag is deepest red, the something something blood they shed,” Luis said. “After that it gets rather left-wing.”

Bonnie went home to the garment district. Julie went to Mooneys, to work the graveyard shift. Luis went to bed. The fold-out couch was not comfortable. Something would have to be done about that.

Luis was often surprised and pleased by the skill of his subconscious. He took a problem to bed and woke up, effortlessly, with a solution.

Julie was asleep. He kept the curtains closed, shaved and showered as quietly as possible, made a cup of black coffee, put on a clean shirt and a quiet tie in the colors of an ancient British regiment, and chose his light gray summerweight suit. According to the New York phone book, the offices of the FBI were on East 58th Street.

It was a pleasant morning, promising a day suitable for drinking white wine in the park; he looked forward to that. Presumably Julie had a nice frock she could wear. If not, there were frock shops. He passed a couple of them as he walked to the subway. It was a busy neighborhood: stores, restaurants, cinemas. Luis approved. He liked tradesmen to be on hand when needed.

The subway train smelt of rancid hair-oil and its passengers hadn't smiled since Prohibition ended, but it rushed Luis downtown at raucous speed. He got off at 58th Street. By the time he reached street level he had turned so many corners that he was confused: which way was east? Where was north? It took five minutes of going the wrong way before he found the FBI Building.

The exterior was blank and easily washable; it might have been designed by a blind architect. The interior took no chances, either. A man in a suit sat at a desk with a plaque reading
Information.
Behind him were an American flag and two portrait photographs, one of President Eisenhower, the other of Bureau Director J.
Edgar Hoover. They were facing each other. The Director looked like an aging pug, and the President looked as if he was wondering whether to take him for a walk or let him suffer a little longer.

“Sir?” the suit said.

Luis touched the plaque. “I have information.”

“Yes?”

“Albert T. Falcondale, charged in Los Angeles with embezzlement, jumped bail. I know where he is.”

The suit took a thick ring-bound manual from a drawer, consulted the index, put it back. “Not a federal offense,” he said. “Try California. They might be interested.”

Luis was taken aback and tried not to show it. The fellow was treating him with steely politeness. Yet Al Falcondale had got away with a million dollars, Luis knew it, he had partnered Al in the Caracas Golf Club foursomes. His stomach growled, a comment on the FBI's indifference. “There are other criminals,” he said.

The suit produced a yellow legal pad and a pencil and slid them across the desk.

Luis wrote a large dollar sign and slid the pad back.

“The Bureau does not pay informants.”

“You expect something for nothing?”

The suit tore the page from the pad and screwed it up. He did this without malice. The cost wasn't coming out of his pay check.

“There is another way,” Luis said. He had banked on getting a thousand dollars from the FBI. His information was genuine: Caracas had a small but rich population of Yankee crooks, many of them regular golfers. “I enroll in the FBI as a special agent. I have experience. During the recent unpleasantness in Europe I was an Allied agent at the highest level.”

“Every FBI agent must be an American citizen, and have a law degree or be qualified in accountancy.”

“I'm wasting my time here.” Luis's stomach agreed, and so did the suit: he made the smallest of nods. Luis left.

He walked to Fifth Avenue and immediately suffered an attack of envy. Everything and everybody was so rich, and it was all being done so easily, so confidently, as if Fifth Avenue had a
right
to be rich. The Plaza hotel, the Pierrre, great cathedrals of success. Saks, Peck & Peck, Tiffanys, Cartiers, Bergdorf Goodman, Harry Winstone, places where if you had to ask the
price, you shouldn't bother people by coming in at all. The casual swagger of the customers told him that money was not one of their worries.

He got as far as St. Patrick's cathedral and sat on the steps.
Déjà vu
was nibbling at his concentration. He had been in this situation in 1941, penniless in the wealthy heart of Madrid, desperate to get a job as a spy. But on that day in 1941 he had eaten breakfast. That was the difference. Now, when he counted his change, his fingers were trembling. A bus went by. It carried an advertisement for a steak house. Saliva surged around his tongue.

A man with a pushcart was selling pretzels. Luis bought one. It felt like Bakelite and tasted like cardboard, but it fooled his stomach into thinking real food was on the way.

Money,
he thought.
Made by selling things. You sell your time, your talent, your property. Or, in the case of that bum at Hoboken, your self-respect. You simply blackmail someone into paying up.
A faint idea stirred in a distant corner of his mind. He pursued it, caught it, and shook it to life. “Bloody hell,” he said aloud. “Has it come to this? Surely you can think of something better?” No reply.

In a drugstore he found a phone and a phone book and the listing for the British Consulate.

It was several blocks away, which gave him time to work on his opening lines.
Déjà vu
helped. He remembered how he got into the German embassy in 1941. “Keep it simple,” he murmured. “Very short, very simple.”

The woman running the reception desk was English. “Have you an appointment?” she asked, pleasantly.

“Intelligence,” Luis said. “Military intelligence.” He went and sat in a chair and picked up
The Times.
He turned the pages slowly and quietly while he tried to hear what she had to say, but she was expert at shielding her voice on the phone.

Visitors arrived, respectable people with honest appointments. Others left, their business done. Luis read a report about Korea. Not a happy place. There had been a war; he recalled looking at battle scenes on a newsreel while he waited to see
High Noon
in a Caracas cinema. War had ended now, it seemed. Neither side won or lost. Nothing new there. Damn good movie, though. Grace Kelly's smile would melt the elastic in an archbishop's underpants. Luis turned the page and found the county cricket
scores. A stocky young man appeared beside him. He had curly sandy hair and a fighter-pilot's mustache.

“Frobisher,” he said. “I don't believe we've met, have we?”

“Oxfordshire are doing jolly well, aren't they?” Luis said. Frobisher cocked his head as if he were slightly deaf. “County cricket,” Luis explained.

“To the best of my knowledge, Oxfordshire don't play in the county championship.”

“Of course they don't. Just checking.” Luis folded the newspaper. “Thomas Ford the Third. Responsible for security at all Ford plants. That includes England.”

They went to Frobisher's office. Luis was invited to sit. Frobisher perched on a corner of his desk and took note of Luis's suede shoes, which were beginning to look a bit weary. “We have to be awfully careful,” he said. “Now, if I ring your Detroit office, they'll vouch for you, won't they? What's the number?” His hand rested on the phone. Luis chewed gently on his upper lip. “I expect it's on your business card,” Frobisher said. Luis stopped chewing, and looked at a mounted photograph of Spitfires on patrol. “So you're not Thomas Ford the Third,” Frobisher said.

“No. Still, it was a start. Would I be sitting here if I'd told that charming lady the truth? She would have given me several forms to complete in triplicate and then made an appointment for next Tuesday with the Second Secretary for Commercial Intelligence. That's no good to anyone. I want to see your top man in military or political intelligence.”

“I shall need a name.”

“Tell him I'm Eldorado. If that means nothing, tell him to ask Kim Philby.” Luis glanced at his watch. “It's tea-time in London. Kim will be tinkling his teacups.”

Ten minutes later, Frobisher ushered him into a large corner office and withdrew. A man in a tweed suit was frowning hard at a piece of paper. “I'm Harding,” he said. “Philby's given me three questions to ask. If you get any of them wrong I'm to assume you're bogus, which is a painful condition in my department, often leading to death or disablement.”

“Dear Kim,” Luis said. “Ever the charmer.”

“One: who was Nutmeg?”

“Ex-Indian Army officer. Worked for the Ministry of Food in Cambridge.” Easy. Nutmeg had been the codename of an Eldorado sub-agent.

Harding grunted. “And Wallpaper?”

“Faggot lecturer, University of Birmingham.” Another subagent. “Next.”

“Who killed Haystack?”

“I did. Too damn lazy.” All mythical sub-agents. Piece of cake, Luis thought.

“All the loonies pass through here,” Harding said. “Last week it was Mahatma Gandhi in a tartan loincloth, yards and yards of it, she must have weighed sixteen stone. I told her the orange lipstick was a mistake, and she became violent. That was when I began to suspect she was not who she claimed to be.”

“What did she want?”

“Money. What do you want?”

Luis walked to the window and pretended to enjoy the view. He hadn't expected Harding to be so blunt. Instinct warned him away from a blunt reply. “I wish to give London an opportunity to become a partner in a business venture,” he said. “My wartime memoirs are almost ready for publication. They should sell very well. But the manuscript is a mess, all in longhand. I need to get it professionally typed.”

“Bring it here. We'll do it for you.”

“I wouldn't dream of imposing. A thousand dollars should be adequate to cover the cost.”

“Blackmail,” Harding said. “Well, it's not up to me.”

Luis waited in the next room. Harding's secretary brought him coffee. He loaded it with sugar; his system had long since lost faith in the pretzel. There was nothing to read. He thought about Julie and all the things they could do with a thousand dollars. He should have asked for two thousand. Or five thousand. Great Britain owed it to him. In the war, Eldorado had been worth two armored divisions, a battleship and six squadrons of Lancaster bombers. Someone in MI6 had told him so when he got his MBE.

The door opened. Harding beckoned. “London says I can give you a hundred dollars,” he said. “And that's all.”

Luis went in. He didn't know whether to feel dismay or delight. An hour ago he would have run through mud to catch a hundred-dollar bill. Now he had talked himself into being worth five grand. “I feel like Mahatma Gandhi,” he said. “I feel like a fight.”