“And get me a goddamn rum toddy!” the man hollered over his shoulder. “Goddamn nigger calls
The briefcase snapped closed, and the man began setting out items on its scarred surface with ritualistic precision: an aluminum humidor sized for a single cigar; a box of wooden matches; and, instead of a cutter, a small, well-worn, pearl-handled pocketknife.
BC stole another glance at the man’s face. Noted again the tinge of color. The full lips, broad nose, small ears, the tight curl of his hair. Really, it was anyone’s guess.
“Sicilian.” BC didn’t see the man look up but suddenly his glittering black eyes were boring directly into BC’s watery blues. “Mafiosi,
Caught out, BC dropped his gaze. The man was sliding a cigar from the humidor as though it were some rare species of butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. BC noted the marque on the cigar’s band:
“I did a stint as muscle for a couple-a casinos in Havana back in the fifties,” the man said. “Embargo or no embargo, there’s no substitute for a fine Cuban.”
The man opened his pocketknife forty-five degrees, unwrapped the cigar, placed it in the notch between blade and handle, popped the end off with a snap as quick and clean as the jaws of a caiman. It shot straight up like a jumping jack, came to rest on the man’s closed briefcase, looking for all the world like a severed fingertip.
BC stared at it for a long moment, then looked up to find the man watching him, an amused, contemptuous smile playing over his thick, moist lips.
“Go on,” he said tauntingly. “Smell it.”
Biting back his revulsion, BC picked up the nubbin and brought it to his nose. A rich, deep, spicy scent went right past his nostrils to the back of his throat, and his mouth immediately filled with water. He wanted to swallow, but didn’t want the man to see him do it, so he just sat there, the cigar-end resting beneath his nose, his mouth filling with saliva like a plugged sink with a leaky faucet.
The man tongued the end of his cigar until it glistened like a Tootsie Roll. Only then did he reach for his matches, light one (not on the box, but on the back of his thumbnail, which was as rough as an emery board), hold it a fraction of an inch from the cigar’s tip. His lips sputtered like a landed fish as he sucked in a series of rapid inhales. Little rings of smoke erupted between each puff, till at length the cigar’s cherry glowed red as a nickel pulled from a campfire. He took a longer drag, held it in his mouth a moment, then blew a single perfect smoke ring directly at BC. Though it dissipated before it reached him, it still seemed to BC that the ring slipped around his head like a halo, or a noose.
“So, Beau,” the man said in a voice thickened by smoke and satisfaction, “where’s J. Edna sending you today?”
Washington, DC
November 4, 1963
BC’s fingers twitched and the cigar-end shot up in the air. He opened his mouth, remembered it was full of saliva and sucked it down, choked, coughed, managed to get his arm up in time, ended up splattering the sleeve of his suit with a constellation of droplets that coalesced into a black wet patch the size of a beef cutlet. A fair amount of spittle had landed on his companion’s briefcase as well and, after staring at it like a kindergartner regarding an incriminating pool of urine beneath his desk, BC pulled his sleeve into his palm and began wiping at it with slow, mortified strokes. Wool not being the most absorbent of fabrics, all this did was smear the saliva into long smooth arcs. It did, however, bring up a bit of a shine on the worn leather of the man’s briefcase.
When the man finally stopped laughing, he nudged BC’s briefcase with the toe of one of his worn sandals. The tag lay so that the address label was exposed.
If found, please return to:
Beau-Christian Querrey
c/o Federal Bureau of Investigation
Washington 25 D.C.
The man snickered. “I bet it says the same thing inside your underpants.”
BC reached a hand down to turn the address label over, as if this could somehow remove its information from his seatmate’s mind.
“Who do
The man puffed on his cigar before answering. “Let’s just say we’re in related but tangential fields.”
“You’re CIA?”
The man’s eyes widened. “Maybe you’re not as green as you look.”
Just then the conductor reappeared with the man’s drink—the spy’s drink, as unlikely as that seemed. The conductor unfolded a napkin on the table and set the drink on it. He had to nudge the man’s briefcase toward the window to do this, and BC could see that his fingers were shaking, half retracted inside his gold-piped maroon cuff like the limb of a frightened turtle. He put his hands behind his back after he set the drink down, then stood there. The hot rum steamed on the table, giving off an aroma of sugar and stale blood.
The CIA man picked up the drink, drained it in one long swallow, set it back in its ring on the napkin.
“That was so good I think I’ll have another.”
The conductor paused, then picked up the glass. “Pardon me, sir …”
“I can’t drink ‘pardon me, sir,’ and you can’t feed your family ’thout this job, so I suggest you hurry if you want to keep it.” He paused just long enough to make his last word gratuitous; then:
“Yes, sir. It’s just that, sir, there’s a, well, you see, sir, there’s a charge—”
“Hell’s bells, boy, why didn’t you say you was buying? Ask my friend Beau here if he wants one too.”
