You'd better make yourself—' he sought, found,
triumphantly produced the word—'dishy.' * * *
Simmons fiddled deftly with the toy theater, and the curtains parted. It was a lush and Edwardian theater, all red plush and heavy gilt. It reminded Brodski of the millionaires' whorehouse his uncle had described visiting in Moscow in 1911. Brodski's uncle had been a man who had enjoyed life to the very last. That had been in Cracow in 1946, as far as Brodski had been able to discover. An Uzbek infantryman had got him with a bayonet . . . Simmons began to arrange cutout figures on the stage: tiny nude models of women, with remarkable fidelity to detail.
Brodski asked: 'Is this my new floor show?'
'Good God no,' said Simmons. 'It's far too good for Nuderama. This is for a party at my place.'
He maneuvered the chorus line into place: eight girls in picture hats. They wore nothing except boots.
'Extraordinary how much more naked they look with their hats on,' he said. Brodski sighed.
'I do not like your parties,' he said.
'I do,' said Simmons. 'They're works of art. A chance for me to be creative. Besides, BC needs a party.' Brodski still looked sullen. 'Look,' said Simmons, 'we've done very well so far. You've had the contacts and I've had the money. The security's been just about perfect, because you've stayed here and run the club and the contacts have come to you. They come here and they get paid C.O.D.—every time. We're reliable. We pay big money for big jobs.' He looked round Brodski's office. 'And a strip club's been the perfect cover, so far. But we're moving on to something bigger still.'
Brodski said: 'I'm delighted to hear it.'
'That's why Jane had to contact Soong,' said Simmons. 'We're going to mess up a moon shot, Brodski.'
He arranged another figure in Edwardian costume in front of the chorus line.
'She should sing one of those inane music-hall songs while she strips,' said Simmons.
Brodski said: 'A moon shot? How?'
'Soong had a contact for us. I can get it from elsewhere. That part's all right. But it'll cost money. Big money.' He pulled delicately on strings attached to the figure; her costume came off. 'A million,' he said. 'I haven't got a million. That's why I need the party.'
'You have no money?'
'None. I have newspapers and magazines and a television company. But I don't have money. Not now. BC got the lot.'
'You have been very generous—'
'I've done what I have to do. Russia must be hurt. We know that. So far I've spent a million and a half on that very purpose. And you have risked your life many times. We've both given what we had. But for this job we need more.' He stared at the tiny stage, and let the curtains fall. 'We need Airlie,' he said. 'He has a million to spare, and he wants to marry Jane. He is also an idealist—he wants to fight the Russians. Good. He's also young and hot- blooded. He likes women. Even better. We can appeal to him on two levels, Brodski. Idealism and blackmail.'
'I do not like to blackmail a gentleman,' said Brodski.
'Nor I, but it must be done. There's no other way,' said Simmons.
'There's Medani. He has money.'
'No,' said Simmons. 'Medani's father has money. In Morocco/He can't get it out. Anyway, we need Medani in Morocco, to fight the Russians there. He's a good Mohammedan—and a nobleman. His father's a very powerful man. If the time comes he could start a holy war.'
Brodski said: 'We have money in Morocco, too.'
Simmons stared at him for a moment, then began to laugh.
'So we have,' he said. 'But are we really justified in spending it?'
Brodski began to talk about ethics, and Simmons grew bored. He let his mind drift away back to the old days, in Yugoslavia, up in the mountains. Tito's men had been doctrinaire and tiresome, but he'd met a group that had worked with Mihajlovic'. Guerrillas who fought because fighting was what men were for, fighting and drinking and women. For three months his life had been a wide-screen epic. But in the end he'd been recalled and his men had been betrayed. Not to the Germans, to the Russians. The men, and the woman Simmons adored. When Simmons got back he learned that even heroes could die, and die horribly. The woman had died most horribly of all. Since that time sex had been something to be exploited in others, nothing more. Love was something else again—love was what a man had for his daughter. It was just as well, he thought, that his wife had fallen off that damn horse.
Brodski stopped talking and Simmons said quickly: 'Aren't you forgetting what the Russians did to you? Tell me about your brother.'
Slowly, reluctantly at first, Brodski told him,
then as the story went on the words came faster.
Torture, agony, betrayal, death—for Brodski's
brother, his wife, his father, his uncle. On and on
went the story, and always it was the Russians who
were responsible. The Russians. The Russians. The
Russians. Simmons began to relax. Brodski was
going to be all right. He had learned to hate almost
as well as Simmons himself. And anyway, it was
time to get him out of the country.
* * *
Craig pondered the need for dishiness; unquestionably it existed. Girls like Jane Simmons had everything. To achieve novelty with them was an impossibility. Next morning he asked Mrs. McNab about it, but Mrs. McNab was still angry. She would talk only of Grierson and how irresistible he was because he was a gentleman. Craig could never be a gentleman and knew it. But he could buy a dark suit, a Royal Navy tie, a black briefcase, an umbrella, and—from Scott's—a bowler hat. He had never owned an umbrella or bowler hat before. The thought amused him. He'd owned part of a tramp-shipping line, a V8 Bristol, a vast assortment of firearms, a house in Northumberland, a small Greek island, even a slave. But not a bowler. The one he bought delighted him: it had a low crown and a narrow brim, and made him, he thought, elegant but respectable. Mrs. McNab thought it made him look like a bookmaker. Loomis said it was exactly right.
'They take all kinds of fellas in the Foreign Office nowadays,' he said. 'Here're your papers.' He handed Craig the special passport, the pass, the visitor's card, the necessary files that some genius had spent the night preparing. Craig worked through them slowly, carefully, and Loomis glowed approval and lit a vile cigar.
'You'll have to use your own name,' he said. 'Doesn't matter if Simmons rings up about you. We'll have the call rerouted here.' He leaned back, looked at Craig, six feet four from the soles of his Lobb shoes to the crown of his bowler.
'You went into the Foreign Office from the navy,' he said. 'You weren't at public school. You're classless. A New Man.'
'That's right,' said Craig.
'But you're still in the F.O.,' said Loomis. 'Don't hit anybody.' Craig grinned. 'You figured out how you're going to be dishy?'
'I always am,' said Craig.
Already he'd gone over in his mind his two previous meetings with Jane Simmons, and the answer was obvious. Jane Simmons was attracted to him because she was afraid of him. She'd sensed the power in him, and the danger, and they had frightened her. She'd never been frightened before. That was all the novelty he had, but it might be enough.
He drove his Mark X back to Regent's Park, locked it in the garage, then took his suitcase, briefcase, and umbrella and got on a bus, then took the tube. He got off the tube at Piccadilly, then darted back on again at the last possible moment. He was almost certain that no one was following him, but if they were, that trick nearly always worked, even if the man following had been trained by Department K. For Loomis sometimes had his own people followed; Loomis had at all times to be sure, and Craig, while he could see no harm in this, felt almost shy of Loomis's hearing about his latest possession. It lived in a little mews garage in Knightsbridge, a glistening, scarlet success symbol that had nothing at all to do with rolled umbrellas and bowler hats: a twelve-cylinder, 4.5-liter Lamborghini Miura, with a top speed of 180 miles an hour, ample room for two and no room at all for three. Five
