Have you made a bet?' Ralston was as well spoken as he was groomed. His accent was hard to place, too, a curious mixture of Boston and West Coast.
A quiniela exacta on the green shirts to win,' said Tom. The two Cubans are in form. And the orchid shirts to come second.' He watched Ralston study the programme for a moment or two and guessed him to be in his mid- fifties.
You sound as if you know this game.'
I follow it in the newspapers.'
I've only recently started coming,' admitted Ralston. Since I've been in Florida. Originally I'm from Chicago, but most of my business has been in Hollywood and Las Vegas. Pedro Mir. The matchmaker? He's a friend of mine. I've been telling him that he ought to open a frontA3n in LA. Or in Vegas, maybe. With all the Mexicans living there, I think this game would go pretty well. What do you think, Mister Jefferson?'
I don't know LA very well.'
What's to know?' smiled Ralston. Raymond Chandler once said LA has all the personality of a paper-cup. But to be fair it was Bay City he really hated. Are you much of a reader, Mister Jefferson?'
I read pretty much anything,' said Tom, noting the title and the author of the paperback lying on Ralston's lap. Island in the Sun, by Alec Waugh, was one book he thought he would probably never read.
I knew Chandler when he was working at Paramount Pictures. That would have been around nineteen forty- three. Chandler and a few others besides. Lately, I've been in the fruit business. In Central America. But in those days I was in movies. Producing some, but mainly on the money side.'
I hear that's the best side to be on,' offered Tom.
The game was starting. Played on a three-walled court approximately 180 feet long, the pelotaris used a curved wicker basket called a cesta, strapped to the hand, to hurl the pelota which, made of solid rubber and twice the size of a golf-ball, was covered in kidskin. Pelotas travelling at speeds of up to 170 miles per hour were caught in the air, on one bounce, or off the back wall before being returned to the front. Jai alai was a game that demanded power, stamina, and an instinctive ability to cover the best positions on a court longer than the width of a football field.
Ralston lowered his voice. Mostly I've been involved in the gaming business,' he said. Not the pari-mutuel kind, you understand. Although I can't ever see how some sports are blessed with the gambling seal of purity while others are not.'
A dog, or a horse, or for that matter a pelotari is harder to fix than a game of keno,' observed Tom.
That's what most people think, it's true. But it's not why the casino business was throttled here in Florida. The real reason is that the casino threatened the Florida state's profits from the mutuel machines. Not that I give much of a fuck any more. This is all ancient history as far as I'm concerned.'
He handed Tom his business card. Tom took it and glanced at the name and the LA address, which was somewhere near Sunset Strip. But it was the job title that intrigued Tom. The card described Ralston as a strategist.
These days I'm working for the government. In a strategic and advisory capacity. Helping them to solve problems, preparing working papers for discussion groups, that kind of thing. I give those cards out, and unlike you, most people ask, What's a fucking strategist? And I say that a strategist is a kind of trouble-shooter.'
Like me,' said Tom.
Hmm?'
His eyes following the ball, Ralston didn't even acknowledge the joke. He was concentrating on the game and on himself. Reflecting that clearly these were subjects Ralston enjoyed, Tom offered up an equally provocative description of those he guessed were probably Ralston's associates.
You're working for the agency of bright ideas and brainwaves. Also known as E Street, right?' Tom was referring to the Washington headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The trouble with a lot of so-called bright ideas is that they simply are not very practical. Not to say hare- brained. Oh, good shot.' Ralston began to applaud.
God save us from people with bright ideas.' Tom noted that Ralston had not contradicted his suggestion that he was working for the CIA. That's what I always say.'
Amen to that,' said Ralston. He handed Tom his copy of the previous day's New York Times which had been folded so that he could read an account of Fidel Castro's trip to New York, to address the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Tom glanced over the story, with which he was already familiar from his own paper. Alleging that they were being overcharged, the Cuban delegation had moved out of the Shelburne Hotel to stay with their oppressed black brothers in the Theresa, a run-down flophouse in Harlem that not even the poorest African diplomat would have considered suitable. The Times reported the mess the Cubans were accused of making in their rooms during their brief sojourn in the Shelburne: cigar burns in the rugs, chicken feathers in the rooms, raw meat left in a refrigerator. It was almost as if the newspaper was suggesting that some voodoo-communist rite had been performed there - a Marxist-Zombie created to wreak havoc on the capitalist world. Meanwhile, at the Theresa, the reporting fixed on the squalor and the number of prostitutes who frequented the place. A library picture of Castro, smoking a large cigar, appeared next to a shot of the neglected Harlem hotel front.
Ralston sighed loudly. But even if I told you, you simply would not believe the kind of hare-brained schemes the people at Quarters Eye have thought up to deal with our friend in the paper.'
Tom knew that Quarters Eye, on Ohio Drive in Washington, was another part of the CIA - the part that dealt with Cuba.
Blind eye would be a better name for that place. You simply would not believe it. They've come up with everything from an exploding cigar to a dirty toilet seat.'
Catch a man when he's got his pants down, huh?' said Tom. I've done a bit of that myself. A target stays steady when he's taking a dump.'
The crowd roared its approval as one of the Cuban players in the green shirts pulled off a spectacular catch.
Shooting's one thing. Dumb ideas are another. There is too much unnecessary complication around these days,' observed Ralston. Too much gorp on the front of the Cadillac, so to speak. You know what I mean?
I think so.'
Those bombs on the front of the fifty-three model.'
Dagmars.'
Devoid of utility and impossible to repair. You've got to keep things simple. That's what I'm talking about. Look at the Volkswagen. Look at the Porsche. Look at you.'
Me?'
What you did down in Argentina? No cigar. No bullshit. It was just match-grade, boat-tailed, high-quality loads at one hundred yards. Am I right?'
It was Ralston's turn to remain uncontradicted.
Simple,' he continued. Of course, I'm not for a minute suggesting that it was an easy takedown. From what I heard it was a shot to take gold at the Pan American Games. No, the point I'm making is that what you do, what you are good at, is as reliable a method of pest control as it's always been, since way back when. Since Tim Murphy brought down General Simon Fraser at three hundred yards during the battle of Saratoga.'
Tom was impressed. The exploits of famous snipers were something that had been drummed into him twenty years earlier, during his training at Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps Scout and Sniper School, in Greens Farm, San Diego. But he would not have said that the man sitting next to him showed any signs of having been in the military. The mob, maybe, but not the army.
That's why I'm talking to you now,' said Ralston. The people I represent. People in government. They would like you to prepare a feasibility study for a job covering the gentleman in the Times.'
A little uncomfortably, Tom glanced around him.
Oh, I wouldn't worry about these people,' said Ralston. I bet there is not a man here who wouldn't like to see the Maximum Leader turn up his toes. Besides, nobody's speaking English except you and me.'
A feasibility study, huh?'
Can it be done, Mister Jefferson? If so, how? And for how much? And if the Maximum Leader, then what chance his bearded brother, Raul, at the same time? You could say that's my own quiniela exacta, so to speak.
