had told me. I had nothing to do tonight. I didn’t feel like sitting alone in a restaurant and eating dinner, so I went back to my room, had a plateful of sandwiches sent up with some beer and ate in my room while I read my book.
The next morning the ad was there, as promised. As far as I could tell I was the only one who’d seen it. No one called that day, nor the next. The ad kept running. I hung around the hotel waiting until I got crazy, and then I went out and hoped they’d leave a message.
During the next five days I visited the British Museum and looked at the Elgin Marbles, and visited the Tower of London and looked at the initials scratched in the walls of tower cells. I observed the changing of the guard, and jogged regularly through Hyde Park along the Serpentine. I carne in six days after the ad was placed, my shirt wet with sweat, my blue sweat pants worn stylishly with the ankle zippers open, my Adidas Cross-Countries still newlooking. I asked as always were there any messages, and the clerk said “Yes” and took a white envelope out of the box and gave it to me. It was sealed and said on it only “Spenser.”
“This was delivered?” I said. “Yes, sir. ”
“Not phoned in? This isn’t your envelope?”
“No, sir, that was delivered by a young gentleman, I believe, sir. Perhaps half an hour ago.”
“Is he still here?” I said. “No, sir, I don’t believe I see him about. You might try the coffee shop.”
“Thanks.” Why hadn’t they phoned it in? Because they wanted to see who I was, maybe, and they could do that by dropping off an envelope and posting someone to watch who opened it. Then they’d know who I was and I wouldn’t know who they were. I walked toward one of the armchairs in the lobby where every afternoon tea was served. There was glass paneling on the far wall and I sat in a chair facing it so I could look in the mirror. I had on my sunglasses and I peeked out from behind them at the mirror while I opened the envelope. It was thin and unsuspicious. I doubted a letter bomb. For all I knew it might be a note from Flanders inviting me to join him for high tea at the Connaught. But it wasn’t. It was what I wanted. The note said, “Be at the cafeteria end of the east tunnel near the north gate entrance to the London Zoo in Regent’s Park tomorrow at ten in the morning.”
I pretended to read it again and surveyed the lobby from behind my shades as far as the mirror would let me. I didn’t see anything suspicious, but I didn’t expect to. I was trying to memorize all the faces in the place so if I saw one again I’d remember it. I put the letter back in the envelope and turned thoughtfully in my chair, tapping my teeth with a corner of the envelope. Pensive, deep in thought, looking hard as a bastard around the hotel lobby. No one was carrying a Sten gun. I went out the front door and strolled up toward Green Park. It is not easy to follow someone without being spotted, if the someone is trying to catch you doing it.
I caught her crossing Piccadilly. She’d been in the hotel lobby buying postcards, and now she was crossing Piccadilly toward Green Park half a block down the street. I was still in my sweat pants and I didn’t have a gun. They might want to burn me right now right quick once they had me spotted.
In Green Park I stopped, did a few deep knee bends and stretching exercises for show and then started an easy jog down toward the Mall. If she wanted me she’d have to run to keep up. If she started running to keep up, I’d know she didn’t care about being spotted, which would mean she was probably going to shoot me, or point me out to someone else who would shoot me. In which case I would bang a U-turn and run like hell for Piccadilly and a cop. She didn’t run. She let me go, and by the time I reached the Mall she was gone.
I walked back up to Piccadilly along Queen’s Walk, crossed the street and walked down to the Mayfair. I didn’t see her and she wasn’t in the lobby. I went up to my room and took a shower with my gun lying on the top of the toilet tank. I felt good. After a week of watching the sun set on the British Empire I was working again. And I was one up on somebody who thought they were one up on me. If she was from Liberty then they thought they had me spotted and I didn’t know them. If they weren’t, if they wanted just to see if they could screw me out of the thousand pounds and were taking a look at how hard I looked, I was still even. I knew them and they thought I didn’t, and moreover they thought that’s where they were. There were drawbacks. They knew all of me and I only knew one of them. On the other hand, I was a professional and they were amateurs. Of course, if one of them laid a bomb on me, the bomb might not know the difference between amateurs and professionals. I put on jeans, a white Levi shirt, and white Adidas Roms with blue stripes. I didn’t want the goddamned limeys to think an American sleuth didn’t know color coordination.
I got a black woven-leather shoulder rig out of the suitcase and slipped into it. They aren’t as comfortable as hip holsters, but I wanted to wear a short Levi jacket and the hip holster would show. I put my gun in the holster and put on the Levi jacket, and left it unbuttoned. It was dark blue corduroy. I looked at myself in the mirror over the bureau. I turned up the collar. Elegant. Clean-shaven, fresh-showered, with a recent haircut. I was the image of the international adventurer. I tried a couple of fast draws to make sure the shoulder holster worked right, did one perfect Bogart imitation at myself in the mirror, “All right, Louis, drop the gun,” and I was ready for action. The room had been made up already so there was no need for a maid to come in again. I took a can of talcum powder and, standing in the hall, I sprinkled it carefully and evenly over the rug in front of the door inside my room. Anyone who came in would leave a footprint inside and tracks outside when he left. If they were observant they might notice and wipe out the tracks. But unless they were carrying a can of talc they would have trouble covering the footprints inside. I shut the door carefully over the smooth layer of talcum and took the can with me.
There was a wastebasket by the elevators and I dropped the empty talc can in. I’d get another on my way back tonight. I walked down to Piccadilly Circus and took a subway to Regent’s Park. I had my map of London folded and creased in my hip pocket and I got it out and sneaked a look at it, trying not to look just like a tourist. I figured out the best walk through the park, nodded knowingly in case anyone was watching, as if I was just confirming what I knew already, and headed on up to the north gate. I wanted a look at the territory before I showed up there tomorrow.
I went past the cranes, geese, and owls at north gate entrance and across the bridge over Regent’s Canal. A water bus chugged by underneath. By the insect house a tunnel led under a zoo office building and emerged beside the zoo restaurant. To the left was a cafeteria. To the right a restaurant and bar. Past the cafeteria were some flamingos in a little grass park. Flamingos on the grass, alas. If they wanted to burn me, the tunnel was their best bet. It wasn’t much of a tunnel, but it was straight and without alcoves. No place to hide. If someone came at me from each end they could put me in two without much trouble. Stay out of the tunnel. At the photo shop in the cafeteria I bought a guide to the zoo that had a map inside the back cover. The south gate, down by Wolf Wood, looked like a good spot to come in tomorrow. I walked down to take a look.
Past the parrot house and across from something labeled Budgerigars, there were kids taking camel rides and shrieking with laughter at the camel’s rolling asymmetrical gait. The south gate was just past the birds of prey aviary, which seemed ominous, past the wild dogs and foxes, and next to the Wolf Wood. That wasn’t too encouraging either. I went back up and looked at the cafeteria setup. There was a pavilion and tables. The food was served from an open-faced arcadelike building. If I sat on the pavilion at an open-air table I was a good target from almost any point. There was little cover. I ordered a steak and kidney pudding from the cafeteria and took it to a table. It was cold and tasted like a Nerf ball. While I gagged it down, I looked at my situation. If they were going to shoot me, there was little to prevent them. Maybe they weren’t going to shoot me, but I couldn’t plan much on that. “You can’t plan on the enemy’s intentions,” I said. “You have to plan on what he can do, not what he might.” A boy cleaning the tables looked at me oddly. “Beg pardon, sir?”
