The New Collected Short Stories (24 page)

He checked his watch yet again: 6.51. He paused at the doorway of Billy’s. Behind the counter was a man stacking some newspapers. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans, and must have been
around forty, a shade under six foot, with shoulders that could only have been built by spending several hours a week in the gym.

A customer brushed past Jake and asked for a packet of Marlboros. While the man behind the counter was handing him his change, Jake stepped inside and pretended to take an interest in the
magazine rack.

As the customer turned to leave, Jake slipped his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket, took out his wallet and touched the edge of the $100 bill. Once the Marlboro man had left the shop,
Jake put his wallet back into his pocket, leaving the bill in the palm of his hand.

The man behind the counter stood waiting impassively as Jake slowly unfolded the bill.

‘The
Times
,’ Jake heard himself saying, as he placed the $100 bill on the counter.

The man in the black T-shirt glanced at the money and checked his watch. He seemed to hesitate for a moment before reaching under the counter. Jake tensed at the movement, until he saw a long,
thick, white envelope emerge. The man proceeded to slip it into the heavy folds of the newspaper’s business section, then handed the paper over to Jake, his face remaining impassive. He took
the $100 bill, rang up seventy-five cents on the cash register, and gave Jake a quarter change. Jake turned and walked quickly out of the shop, nearly knocking over a small man who looked as
nervous as Jake felt.

Jake began to run down Oak Street, frequently glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone was following him. Checking again, he spotted a Yellow Cab heading towards him, and quickly hailed
it.

‘The East Side,’ he said, jumping in.

As the driver eased back into the traffic, Jake slid the envelope out from the bulky newspaper and transferred it to an inside pocket. He could hear his heart thumping. For the next fifteen
minutes he spent most of the time looking anxiously out of the cab’s rear window.

When he spotted a subway entrance coming up on the right, he told the driver to pull into the kerb. He handed over $10 and, not waiting for his change, jumped out of the taxi and dashed down the
subway steps, emerging a few moments later on the other side of the road. He then hailed another taxi going in the opposite direction. This time he gave the driver his home address. He
congratulated himself on his little subterfuge, which he’d seen carried out by Gene Hackman in the Movie of the Week.

Nervously, Jake touched his inside pocket to be sure the envelope was still in place. Confident that no one was following him, he no longer bothered to look out of the cab’s rear window.
He was tempted to check inside the envelope, but there would be time enough for that once he was back in the safety of his apartment. He checked his watch: 7.21. Ellen and the children
wouldn’t be home for at least another half-hour.

‘You can drop me about fifty yards on the left,’ Jake told the driver, happy to be back on familiar territory. He cast one final glance through the back window as the taxi drew into
the kerb outside his block. There was no other traffic close by. He paid the driver with the dimes and quarters he had shaken out of his daughter’s Snoopy moneybox, then jumped out and walked
as casually as he could into the building.

Once he was inside, he rushed across the hall and thumped the elevator button with the palm of his hand. It still wasn’t working. He cursed, and started to run up the seven flights of
stairs to his apartment, going slower and slower with each floor, until he finally came to a halt. Breathless, he unbolted the three locks, almost fell inside, and slammed the door quickly behind
him. He rested against the wall while he got his breath back.

He was pulling the envelope out of his inside pocket when the phone rang. His first thought was that they had traced him somehow and wanted their money back. He stared at the phone for a moment,
then nervously picked up the receiver.

‘Hello, Jake, is that you?’

Then he remembered. ‘Yes, Mom.’

‘You didn’t call at six,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry, Mom. I did, but . . .’ He decided against telling her why he didn’t try a second time.

‘I’ve been calling you for the past hour. Have you been out or something?’

‘Only to the bar across the road. I sometimes go there for a drink when Ellen takes the kids to the movies.’

He placed the envelope next to the phone, desperate to be rid of her, but aware that he would have to go through the usual Saturday routine.

‘Anything interesting in the
Times
, Mom?’ he heard himself saying, rather too quickly.

‘Not much,’ she replied. ‘Hillary looks certain to win the Democratic nomination for Senate, but I’m still going to vote for Giuliani.’

‘Always have done, always will,’ said Jake, mouthing his mother’s oft-repeated comment on the Mayor. He picked up the envelope and squeezed it, to see what $100,000 felt
like.

‘Anything else, Mom?’ he said, trying to move her on.

‘There’s a piece in the style section about widows at seventy rediscovering their sex drive. As soon as their husbands are safely in their graves it seems they’re popping HRT
and getting back into the old routine. One of them’s quoted as saying, “I’m not so much trying to make up for lost time, as to catch up with him.”’

As he listened, Jake began to ease open a corner of the envelope.

‘I’d try it myself,’ his mother was saying, ‘but I can’t afford the facelift that seems to be an essential part of the deal.’

‘Mom, I think I can hear Ellen and the kids at the door, so I’d better say goodbye. Look forward to seeing you at lunch tomorrow.’

‘But I haven’t told you about a fascinating piece in the business section.’

‘I’m still listening,’ said Jake distractedly, slowly beginning to ease the envelope open.

‘It’s a story about a new scam that’s being carried out in Manhattan. I don’t know what they’ll think of next.’

The envelope was half-open.

‘It seems that a gang has found a way of tapping into your phone while you’re dialling another number . . .’

Another inch and Jake would be able to tip the contents of the envelope out onto the table.

‘So when you dial, you think you’ve got a crossed line.’

Jake took his finger out of the envelope and began to listen more carefully.

‘Then they set you up by making you believe you’re overhearing a real conversation.’

Sweat began to appear on Jake’s forehead, as he stared down at the almost-opened envelope.

‘They make you think that if you travel to the other side of the city and hand over a $100 bill, you’ll get an envelope containing $100,000 in exchange for it.’

Jake felt sick as he thought of how readily he had parted with his $100, and how easily he had fallen for it.

‘They’re using tobacconists and newsagents to carry out the scam,’ continued his mother.

‘So what’s in the envelope?’

‘Now that’s where they’re really clever,’ said his mother. ‘They put in a small booklet that gives advice on how you can make $100,000. And it’s not even
illegal, because the price on the cover is $100. You’ve got to hand it to them.’

I already have, Mom, Jake wanted to say, but he just slammed the phone down and stared at the envelope.

The front doorbell began to ring. Ellen and the kids must be back from the movie, and she’d probably forgotten her key again.

The bell rang a second time.

‘OK, I’m coming, I’m coming!’ shouted Jake. He seized the envelope, determined not to leave any trace of its embarrassing existence. As the bell rang a third time he ran
into the kitchen, opened the incinerator and threw the envelope down the chute.

The bell continued to ring. This time the caller must have left a finger on the button.

Jake ran to the door. He pulled it open to find three massive men standing in the hallway. The one wearing a black T-shirt leapt in and put a knife to his throat, while the other two each
grabbed an arm. The door slammed shut behind them.

‘Where is it?’ T-shirt shouted, holding the knife against Jake’s throat.

‘Where’s what?’ gasped Jake. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t play games with us,’ shouted the second man. ‘We want our $100,000 back.’

‘But there was no money in the envelope, only a book. I threw it down the incinerator chute. Listen, you can hear it for yourself.’

The man in the black T-shirt cocked his head, while the other two fell silent. There was a crunching sound coming from the kitchen.

‘OK, then you’ll have to go the same way,’ said the man holding the knife. He nodded, and his two accomplices picked up Jake like a sack of potatoes and carried him through to
the kitchen.

Just as Jake’s head was about to disappear down the incinerator chute, the phone and the front doorbell began ringing at the same time . . .

I
T ALL BEGAN
innocently enough, when Henry Pascoe, the First Secretary at the British High Commission on Aranga, took a call from Bill Paterson, the
manager of Barclays Bank. It was late on a Friday afternoon, and Henry rather hoped that Bill was calling to suggest a round of golf on Saturday morning, or perhaps with an invitation to join him
and his wife Sue for lunch on Sunday. But the moment he heard the voice on the other end of the line, he knew the call was of an official nature.

‘When you come to check the High Commission’s account on Monday, you’ll find you’ve been credited with a larger sum than usual.’

‘Any particular reason?’ responded Henry, in his most formal tone.

‘Quite simple really, old chap,’ replied the bank manager. ‘The exchange rate moved in your favour overnight. Always does when there’s a rumour of a coup,’ he added
matter-of-factly. ‘Feel free to call me on Monday if you have any queries.’

Henry wondered about asking Bill if he felt like a round of golf tomorrow, but thought better of it.

It was Henry’s first experience of a rumoured coup, and the exchange rate wasn’t the only thing to have a bad weekend. On Friday night the head of state, General Olangi, appeared on
television in full-dress uniform to warn the good citizens of Aranga that, due to some unrest among a small group of dissidents in the army, it had proved necessary to impose a curfew on the island
which he hoped would not last for more than a few days.

On Saturday morning Henry tuned in to the BBC World Service to find out what was really going on on Aranga. The BBC’s correspondent, Roger Parnell, was always better informed than the
local television and radio stations, which were simply bleating out a warning to the island’s citizens every few minutes that they should not stray onto the streets during the day, because if
they did, they would be arrested. And if they were foolish enough to do so at night, they would be shot.

That put a stop to any golf on Saturday, or lunch with Bill and Sue on Sunday. Henry spent a quiet weekend reading, bringing himself up to date with unanswered letters from England, clearing the
fridge of any surplus food, and finally cleaning those parts of his bachelor apartment that his daily always seemed to miss.

On Monday morning, the head of state still appeared to be safely in his palace. The BBC reported that several young officers had been arrested, and that one or two of them were rumoured to have
been executed. General Olangi reappeared on television to announce that the curfew had been lifted.

When Henry arrived at his office later that day, he found that Shirley, his secretary – who had experienced several coups – had already opened his mail and left it on his desk for
him to consider. There was one pile marked ‘Urgent, Action Required’, a second, larger pile marked ‘For Your Consideration’, and a third, by far the largest, marked
‘See and Bin’.

The itinerary for the imminent visit of the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from the UK had been placed on top of the ‘Urgent, Action Required’ pile, although the
Minister was only dropping in on St George’s, the capital of Aranga, because it was a convenient refuelling stop on his way back to London following a trip to Jakarta. Few people bothered to
visit the tiny protectorate of Aranga unless they were on their way to or from somewhere else.

This particular Minister, Mr Will Whiting, known at the Foreign Office as ‘Witless Will’, was,
The Times
assured its readers, to be replaced in the next reshuffle by someone
who could do joined-up writing. However, thought Henry, as Whiting was staying at the High Commissioner’s residence overnight, this would be his one opportunity to get a decision out of the
Minister on the swimming pool project. Henry was keen to start work on the new pool that was so badly needed by the local children. He had pointed out in a lengthy memo to the Foreign Office that
they had been promised the go-ahead when Princess Margaret had visited the island four years earlier and laid the foundation stone, but feared that the project would remain in the Foreign
Office’s ‘pending’ file unless he kept continually badgering them about it.

In the second pile of letters was the promised bank statement from Bill Paterson, which confirmed that the High Commission’s external account was 1,123 kora better off than expected
because of the coup that had never taken place that weekend. Henry took little interest in the financial affairs of the protectorate, but as First Secretary it was his duty to countersign every
cheque on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government.

There was only one other letter of any significance in the ‘For Your Consideration’ pile: an invitation to give a speech replying on behalf of the guests at the annual Rotary Club
dinner in November. Every year a senior member of the High Commission staff was expected to carry out this task. It seemed that it was Henry’s turn. He groaned, but placed a tick on the top
right corner of the letter.

There were the usual letters in the ‘See and Bin’ pile – people sending out unnecessary free offers, circulars and invitations to functions no one ever attended. He
didn’t even bother to flick through them, but turned his attention back to the ‘Urgent’ pile, and began to check the Minister’s programme.