‘Yeah, the dope outfit — I’m the chief dope,’ said H.K.H.K.’s eyes held mine. I decided to try a bluff. ‘The English visitor,’ I coaxed gently, ‘don’t forget the English visitor, Harry.’
‘Pal of Fernie’s,’ H.K. said. ‘Nice little guy, great sense of fun.’
‘His name?’
‘Ivor Butcher,’ said H.K., ‘great sense of fun.’
‘
I looked around at the darkened factory: the oily machinery, the great piles of tins.
‘Harry,’ I said, ‘I want Fernie Tomas here; get him here and you can go.’
H.K. sucked his cheeks in and snorted a laugh down his nose. ‘You can get him as easily as I can,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to rub my face in the dirt.’ He walked across to the sink and washed his hands with the strange flecked Portuguese soap that looks like Roquefort cheese, dried them, put on his wrist-watch and turned to face us. ‘You did the hero bit already, pal. Now I’m walking out of here, hardware or no hardware.’
‘You think so,’ I said, but I did nothing as he walked across to the chair and picked up his cashmere cardigan, and nothing as he walked down between the machines towards the door. He looked back once to see how I was reacting. I put my gun into my jacket pocket and he looked reassured. It was then that a flash roared across the tension and echoed through the piles of empty tins like a
From behind the machinery H.K.’s voice asked, ‘Where did that loony dame get a gun?’
I looked at the old Italian Victoria 7.65 automatic on the floor. ‘Out of a Christmas cracker by the look of it,’ I said. ‘Now beat it, fade, before I change my mind.’
Charly beat her fists against my button-down madras and yelled, ‘Don’t let him go — he killed your friend!’ over and over again. She stopped to draw breath. ‘You just aren’t human,’ she said quietly. I held her tightly while H.K. limped away with a big red hand clamped across his forearm.
I sat Charly down. Finally she blew her nose into my handkerchief and told me that she worked for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Washington, and that I had just messed everything up. It was her damaged esprit de corps she was crying about as she sat in Harry Kondit’s dream house.
‘Then you knew that the smell of vinegar was acetic acid and would be coming from the processing of morphine. Why didn’t you tell me the real story?’
She blew her nose again. ‘Because a good operator lets other law-enforcement agencies spearhead his actions,’ she quoted between sniffs.
At that precise moment we heard H.K. start the engine. ‘He’s taking
It was a little over three kilometres to Albufeira. We skirted the huge plantation of fig trees and smelt the olive crop ready for the press. Charly took her shoes off after one kilometre and stopped sniffing after two. For the fiftieth time she said, ‘You’ve let him get away. I must phone the police.’
‘Look,’ I finally said, ‘I don’t know what they teach you in the Treasury Department,[30] but if you think your prestige there depends on putting the iron bangles across H.K. you are quite nutty. Let him go spread panic among his pals. If he goes to the end of the world you can be there in a day or phone there in an hour. This is a strictly cerebral business and just because I wave an old war-souvenir pistol around to impress you, it doesn’t mean you have to go off your trolley. You might hurt him.’
This last remark stung Charly into a fury and she said I was just as bad as H.K. As for hurting H.K., if it hadn’t been for me getting in the way she would have killed him and a good thing too.
You can’t help envying these narcotics sleuths. The governments of the world are all so keen to prove themselves blameless that, far from asking awkward questions about firearms, they will steady up your gun elbow while you’re firing. I couldn’t afford luxuries like remembering that H.K.’s desire to remove the evidence had certainly killed Joe MacIntosh.
My position wasn’t quite so pretty. I couldn’t have Charly phoning up the police and attracting attention to our enterprise. At least not before I contacted Singleton, folded up the equipment and faded out. I began to be aware of a silence and realized that Charly had asked me a question. ‘Umm,’ I said, as though I was considering it carefully.
‘It’s so confusing, isn’t it?’ Charly said.
‘Confusing,’ I replied, ‘of course it’s confusing. You involve yourself in industrial espionage and then you complain about it being confusing.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Charly. ‘I’m not involved with industrial espionage.’
‘Aren’t you?’ I said. ‘Narcotics is a multi-million-dollar industry. Half of that industry is devoted to making money, the other half to making you confused.’ There was a silence. ‘In one way or another,’ I added.
‘Just exactly what does that last crack mean?’
‘It means authority can be confused in many ways, by bribes, codes, camouflage, false informers or even by pressures so powerful that the law can be changed to suit the lawbreaker. But the most confusing thing of all is old-fashioned lying by old liars: like H.K.’
‘Why, was a lot of what he said untrue?’ She stopped in the centre of the road and pulled her shoes on again.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but like all first-class lies it had a firm foundation of truth, like margarine with twelve and a half per cent butter.’
‘What did he say that was true?’ asked Charly.
‘Well, suppose you get those smart boys at the Treasury Department to work it out for you. I’ll just say he didn’t leave us in any doubt about the way our investigations should continue. Providing that we want it tailored one hundred per cent to the convenience of Harry Kondit.’
‘Yes,’ said Charly obediently, and she hugged my arm. I wish I had listened to my last remark more closely.
45 Man and boy are this
It was damn nice of H.K. to leave the car outside Number 12 Praca Miguel Bombarda. Charly said that it looked as though we had collected a parking fine. Which was Charly’s idea of a joke; the white envelope under the wiper was a note from H.K.:
Sorry to hijack the sled but when you got to go, you got to go. I didn’t think you were levelling with me when you promised; but like I said, when winter comes you find which trees are the evergreens!
Al Content [obviously H.K.’s guarded way of naming Fernie] is moving like a scalded cat. What you said I could take I ain’t taking but you can bet Charly’s pants that Al wants it instead. [This could only mean the power boat.]
What I didn’t tell you is that Al has the sweetest blackmail set-up of all time and do I mean all time. If the name Weiss List means anything to you you’ll know I ain’t kidding.
Watch what I ain’t taking and you will get your file closed — AND HOW!!
Yours in a million years,
HARRY
Singleton was not expected back from Lisbon for another twenty-four hours. Anything to be done had to be done alone. I went into Joe’s old room and prised up a floorboard with one of the kitchen knives.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Charly. I told her to buzz off and fix some strong tea. I was feeling very tired what with one thing and another.
From under the floorboard I got the small radio transmitter with which Joe had contacted London. I set it to
