The New Confessions (72 page)

“Is he still here?”

“Sure. Up here a ways.”

I had walked right past him. Smee had been hiding in the bushes on the edge of the lane where he could overlook all approaches to the house. He lay quite still, a large pair of army-issue binoculars beside him. His wig was dislodged, tilted forward almost to his eyebrows. He looked stupid and ugly.

“He’s not dead, is he?”

“I should fuckin’ well hope so. For one thousand dollars Sean O’Hara gives you dead.”

“What?… Jesus Christ! Why the hell did you do that?”

“Because you said you wanted the guy offed.”

“I said I wanted him
off my back.
”

“Uh-uh. No. No, Mr. Todd. You said offed. I ast you to repeat it.”

“I said off my back. I didn’t want you to
kill
him. Bloody hell!”

“You said you didn’t care how I did it. Money no object. Get rid of him.”

O’Hara jabbered on, proudly justifying himself. I knelt shakily beside Smee. He seemed quite unmarked. I felt vainly for a pulse. I held a wet finger beneath his nostrils. No cooling breath.

“What did you do?”

“I crept up behind him. He couldn’t hear me, ’cause of his pissing, like, and I did this.”

I felt O’Hara’s hard blunt index fingers press gently in the cavities behind the lobes of my ears. I shivered.

“You press hard, they’re unconscious in twenty seconds. Then they die in a couple of minutes. Not a scratch.”

So that was that. For another five hundred dollars Sean agreed to help me dispose of the body. We loaded him into his car and I drove it south, O’Hara following, to a point where the highway ran along the edge of a cliff, high above the ocean. I couldn’t see the rocks or the surf; below me all was mist, swirling, dense, shifting. Smee’s car had been hired under a false name. O’Hara removed all other documents from his body and volunteered to dispose of them for twenty-five dollars. I agreed. We positioned Smee in the driving seat, released the hand brake and ran the car over the edge. I saw it cartwheel into the whiteness. Then I heard a splash. Sean ran me back to the cabin. I had six hundred dollars there, which I gave him. I said I would send him the remainder. He left. I went to bed. I slept until midday. Then I got into my car and drove to Los Angeles, to Eddie, and my salvation.

Last night I woke at about 3
A.M
. I heard footsteps outside. At first I paid them no attention. Fishermen often walk past the house at all hours on their way to the beach. But then, as I lay there, I realized that this person was walking
round
the villa. I lay stiff and still in bed, mentally rebolting and reshuttering every door and window. Yes, I was sure. I am compulsive about locking up everything at night.

I got out of bed, trying to catch sight of this night visitor. I crouched in the hall. I could hear him outside on the graveled forecourt. Then his footsteps walking away. A few minutes later the sound of a car starting.

In the morning I go outside. The sun shines down. The sky is pale blue. I can’t make out any footprints. Halfway up the track I find a
cigarette butt. Lucky Strike. Does it mean anything in this day of the ubiquitous international brand?

The fact remains … the fact remains and I have to face up to it. Smee’s body was never found. The car was discovered some two weeks after O’Hara had pushed it over the cliff (all this was related to me by Eddie; I was already in Europe). It was assumed that the driver had been thrown out as the vehicle tumbled through the air before it hit the water. A search was made but no body ever turned up. Because Smee had hired the car under a false name, it was several weeks before he was identified as the missing man. His wife had reported his absence shortly after my departure. She thought he was away on HUAC business in Chicago. As far as Eddie was aware, no link had been established between him and me. He said no one from the FBI had come to question him. That part of the coastline was scattered with holiday cabins and campsites. It would be impossible to establish Who had been there at the time of the accident. And it was still regarded as an accident. The only hint of foul play was Smee’s alibi. He had told everyone he was going to Chicago. The FBI denied he was working on a case for them. As I had thought, Smee was pursuing his own warped vendetta by this stage. HUAC’s influence was on the decline; the blacklists were losing their power. I supposed that Smee thought there was only one way to get me before I was rehabilitated. The offices of Alert Inc. gave no clues, either. Their files were full of “Communists” and “subversives” whose lives they had ruined. Smee had thousands of enemies. At the inquest no verdict was returned. The case was left open.

I had gone straight to Eddie and told him everything. He said I should have come earlier. “I could have handled this, John,” he said sadly. “So much more neatly.” He was annoyed with me for my thoughtlessness. I realized that even after forty years there were aspects of Eddie Simmonette that remained completely opaque to me. And what was worse was that I had inadvertently implicated him too, by asking him to pay O’Hara. O’Hara had been to his house, had seen him and received money from him. He was not too concerned about O’Hara, however. His silence could be relied on. I was the problem.

Eddie sent me home and told me to settle my affairs in an orderly way, with no unseemly urgency. I sold the house. I said good-bye to Nora Lee (a real retrospective regret, this, but at the time I could think of nothing but my safety). Ten days after Smee’s death I was on the plane to London.

I followed Eddie’s instructions faithfully. I traveled to Paris, where I hired a car, and drove across several borders (ostensibly scouting for locations). Ultimately, after further trail covering, I arrived on this island and moved into Eddie’s villa. He gave me a selection of three houses he owned in the Mediterranean basin where I could hide up. I chose this island (the others were in Turkey and Beirut). It was almost unknown then; it had none of the vague notoriety it nowadays possesses. And so my exile began. Only Eddie knew where I was. He kept distantly, discreetly in touch; kept me reassured about the continuing absence of suspicion. Some months after I had arrived, Mrs. Smee went to the police, her memory jogged about my fight with her husband and our mutual threats (something tells me Mrs. Smee was not too unhappy to lose Monroe). A mediocre description of me was issued, but as Mrs. Smee claimed not to remember my name the investigation did not get very far. Eddie told me to give it a couple of years. Let everything blow over. I stayed put, quite happy in a strange sort of way. Eddie visited me sometimes on his yacht. He was my only contact with my old life. He tried to persuade me to come back. But I said no.

So why did I stay on and on? Guilt, fear, peace, seclusion, indolence, old age, apathy, the strange contentment I spoke of. All of these were true. But at the back of my mind I was profoundly frightened of being found out. Also, I have to say this: I was never wholly convinced that Smee had died. O’Hara’s killing technique seemed dubious to me. What if it had only sent him into some kind of deep unconsciousness, a coma? And what if he had been thrown clear of the tumbling car and the shock of hitting the water had revived him? You may laugh at my fears—I did too, most of the time. But these thoughts come back to haunt you. You lie alone in your bed at night and your mind is prey to stranger fantasies than these. I stayed because I felt safe. I was far away. Enough was enough.

I catch the bus into the main town and, once there, I start to visit all the tourist hotels. At the third hotel the register yields the name I am looking for. A receptionist directs me to the swimming pool.

I stand looking over the vast crowded terrace, thick with half-naked people. Beyond the pool is a strip of dirty brown beach, and beyond that a ruined tower on a small rocky island. I pass slowly among the tables, chairs and rows of sunloungers, looking for the face I saw on the bus that day. Eventually, I find him among four hefty middle-aged American
couples. The remains of lunch litter the table. Blue smoke of cigars rises in the sunlight. Laughter. Bellies. Straw hats.

“Hello, Investigator Bonty,” I say.

Bonty looks round. No recognition at all.

“Sorry, fella?…” His funny lip. His half lisp.

“Todd. John James Todd.” I can see his brain turning over.

“Mr. Todd?… Yeah.
Yeah!
Got it. Mr. Todd. Good to see you, my God. This is incredible! After all these years.”

It’s convincing. He stands up.

“Listen. Hey, guys. Hold on. I want you to meet John James Todd. The movie director.… Martha, you remember.… John … ah, he and I met on a HUAC investigation. When did we subpoena you, John? ’Fifty-four?”

“ ’Forty-eight, the first time.”

“Great days. Great days.”

I am introduced to everybody. I shake seven hands. Smile at smiling faces. Bonty really quite proud.

“God, I remember your case. Brayfield—Christ, you got to that asshole like no other subversive. It was fantastic.” He starts telling his friends about Brayfield and me.

“…  and then he says—this is in open court, Washington, D.C., for Christ’s sake!—‘Sure, I’ll name a dangerous lunatic who is trying to destroy the Constitution of the U.S.A.’ ‘Who?’ says the chairman. ‘Representative Brayfield,’ says John here.” Wild laughter and applause. “I tell you, Brayfield practically shit himself, he was so mad.… John, sit down please. What are you drinking? Can you believe this for a coincidence? I’d never have recognized you. Gone native, eh, John?”

“Could I have a word, in private? Just for a moment.”

“Excuse us, folks. Be right back.”

We walk to the low wall that separates us from the thin beach.

I say, “Very good. You can drop the act now. Where’s Smee?”

“Who?”

“Smee. The man who gave you the dossier. HUAC Investigator Smee, you know.”

“Smee … Oh, yeah. He’s dead.”

“He’s here. On this island.”

“John, are you feeling OK? Smee’s dead. He drove off a cliff in Carmel somewhere, years ago.”

“He’s here, and you know it. You’re after me, working with him.”

“John, come and have a drink. You been away too long. That HUAC shit’s over now.”

“Don’t lie to me, Bonty. Was it you or Smee asking questions about me?”

“John, this ain’t so amusing.” He frowns. “In fact you’re getting to be a pain inna ass.”

“But I
know
. There’s no point in pretending.”

“What are you? Crazy? Some kind of paranoid nut?”

I back off. “Forget it. Sorry to bother you. Say good-bye for me.” I leave him standing there looking at me, hands on his hips.

It’s four in the afternoon by the time I arrive back at the village. I feel grubby and exhausted. But what’s worse is the confusion squirming inside me. I feel uneasy, frightened. I feel old. I can’t cope with what’s going on. Bonty’s right. Eddie’s right. Smee must be dead, surely … I can’t even ratiocinate. Who, what, where, when?

I try the café. Ernesto isn’t there, as usual. Lazy bastard! I walk down the track to my villa. Outside the front door three men are waiting. I sigh audibly with relief when I see they are locals, old men. Oddly, they are all dressed in dusty black suits.

“Gentlemen, can I help you?” I say.

They hem me in. Brown, gray-mustachioed, seamed faces. They start shouting. Pointing fingers. They talk in some fast glottal patois that I cannot understand. I feel a spray of spittle from their angry mouths. I can understand nothing except one word: “Emilia … Emilia … Emilia …”

Jesus Christ! Her husband and his brothers. I never expected them to be so ancient. No wonder Emilia was interested in me. Then one of the old codgers spits in my face. Another thwacks me heavily across the shoulders with his walking stick. I swing a punch at the spitter. He has gray greasy hair. I hope it’s her husband. I catch him in the throat. He falls back, hawking and gagging. I’m always game for a fight. Then my legs are kicked out from under me. I fall down.

“
Bastards!
” I yell, suddenly frightened. These old fellows wear prodigious boots.

I hear a woman’s scream. Cries of “
Police! Stop it!
” Emilia, I think. Bless you.

The old men back off. I shake my head and look up. Ulrike. She switches to German. Those harsh relentless consonants work like a
whip. Suddenly cowed, the cuckold and his sidekicks shuffle off. Greasy hair turns and shouts at me. Revenge, no doubt.

Ulrike helps me up. I tell her it’s an absurd misunderstanding. She takes me into the house and looks after me. A cup of coffee. Some sticking plaster on a grazed knuckle.

“You shouldn’t be fighting at your age,” she says. She’s right. I feel terrible, jumpy, as if all my organs are overheating and malfunctioning. Lung popping. Heart shudder. Stomach heave. Like an old jalopy about to break down once and for all.

I stand up and take her hand.

“Here,” I say. “Come and see this.” I take her into my study. There, I pull the cardboard boxes filled with papers and documents aside and reveal the stack of dull-silver canisters.

“You can have it,” I say. “You and Tobias. Take it away, show it, do what you like.”

“What is it?”

“
The Confessions.
”

What takes me down to the beach that evening? I don’t know. I felt like a swim. Naked, I thought, in the sea, just like Big Sur. My back and legs were hurting where those old buggers had hit me. I imagined floating, my weight suspended in salty water. Cool. Relief.

I feel something has ended, or is about to end. Or else something new is about to begin. I go carefully through the pine trees. The path to the beach, although well worn, is narrow and meanders perilously close to the cliff edge on some occasions.

As I go I think about something I read once, about a certain kind of ant—a stink ant that lives on the floor of the West African rain forest. This ant goes about its ant business on the ground in an unremarkable way. It does not know the curious and bizarre fate nature has in store for it. For in this forest there is a particular type of arboreal fungus that flourishes at the top of the great forest trees. At certain times this fungus releases its millions of spores into the air. They blow here and there, driven by the softest breezes, eventually coming to rest somewhere on the ground. Some of these spores fall, by the law of averages, onto animals and reptiles and some on crawling insects. They are quite harmless except for one species: our stink ant. This one minute fungus spore falls on the stink ant and is absorbed into its ant system. It drives the ant mad. Remember the stink ant’s habitat is the ground, but the
lethal poison of the fungus spore engenders in it the sudden desire to climb. So the stink ant, for the first and last time in its life, leaves the ground and begins to ascend. It climbs up and up, higher and higher, until it can climb no more. There, at the very top of the tree, it sinks its mandibles into the ultimate twig—fast, immovable—and abruptly dies. Inside the dead ant the fungus peacefully grows, nourished by ant meat, warmed by the sunlight at the top of the tree. The ant is consumed and a new fungus is born.