Magic Terror. Peter Straub
Читать онлайн книгу.
Honestly, I don’t blame you for being pissed. You need her like a hole in the head. Okay, here’s the deal. No reports, no paperwork, not even the firearms statements. You just walk away and get that big, big check. She handles all the rest. Are you smiling? Do I see a twinkle in your eye?’
‘You were at your health club, maybe?’ N asked. ‘Did you have to leave a really tense racquetball match just for me?’
The contact sighed. ‘I’m at home. In the old wigwam. Actually, out in back, setting up a new rabbit hutch for my daughter. For her rabbit, I mean.’
‘You don’t live in Paris.’
‘I happen to live in Fontainebleau.’
‘And you have a beeper.’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’
‘What’s the rabbit’s name?’
‘Oh, dear,’ the contact said. ‘Is this how we’re going to act? All right. The rabbit’s name is Custer. Family joke.’
‘You mean you’re a real Indian?’ N asked, and laughed out loud in surprise. ‘An honest-to-God Red Man?’ His former image of his contact as a geek in thick glasses metamorphosed into a figure with high cheekbones, bronze skin, and straight, shoulder-length black hair.
‘Honest Injun,’ the contact said. ‘Though the term Native American is easier on the ears. You want to know my tribal affiliation? I’m a Lakota Sioux.’
‘I want to know your name.’ When the contact refused to speak, N said, ‘We both know you’re not supposed to tell me, but look at it this way: You’re at home. No one is monitoring this call. When I’m done here, no one is ever going to hear from me again. And I have to say, telling me your name would reinforce that bond of trust I find crucial to good fieldwork. As of now, the old bond is getting mighty frayed.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Tell me your name first. Please, don’t get tricky. I’ll know if you’re lying.’
‘What on earth is going on down there? All right. I’m putting my career in your hands. Are you ready? My name is Charles Many Horses. My birth certificate says Charles Horace Bunce, but my Indian name was Many Horses, and when you compete for government contracts, as we have been known to do, you have to meet certain standards. Many Horses sounds a lot more Native American than Bunce. Now can you please explain what the hell got you all riled up?’
‘Is someone else down here keeping an eye on me? Besides Martine? Someone I’m not supposed to know about?’
‘Oh, please,’ the contact said. ‘Where’s that coming from? Ah, I get it – sounds like you spotted somebody, or thought you did anyhow. Is that what this is all about? I guess paranoia comes with the territory. If you did see someone, he’s not on our payroll. Describe him.’
Today in Mauléon, I noticed a kid I saw hanging around the café last night. Five-ten, hundred and fifty pounds, late twenties. Long blond hair, grubby, rides a Kawasaki bike. He was following me, Charles, there is no doubt at all about that. Where I went, he went, and if I weren’t, you know, sort of reasonably adept at my job, I might never have noticed the guy. As it was, I had to run out of a restaurant by the back door to ditch him. Okay, call me paranoid, but this sort of thing tends to make me uncomfortable.’
‘He’s not ours,’ the contact said quickly. ‘Beyond that, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s your call, champ.’
‘Okay, Charles,’ said N, hearing a murky ambiguity in the man’s voice. ‘This is how it goes. If I see the kid again tonight, I have to deal with him.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said the contact.
‘One more thing, Charles. Have we, to your knowledge, taken on any Japanese field people? You mentioned this possibility yesterday. Was that an idle remark, or … no. There are no idle remarks. We hired some Japanese.’
‘Now that you mention it, a couple, yeah. It’s impossible to find people like you anymore. At least in the States.’
‘Are these the Japanese gentlemen I’m seeing wherever I go, the past couple of days?’
‘Let me ask you a question. Do you know how strong the yen is against Western currencies? It’s a joke. If you fly first-class on Air France, they give you sushi instead of escargots. Busy little Japanese tourists are running around all over Europe, the Pyrenees included.’
‘Sushi instead of snails.’ The knowledge that he had heard an almost identical remark not long before set off a mental alarm which subsided at the recollection of the drunken Basques.
‘It’s about money, what a shock. Walk right in, right? You want it, we got it. Just ask Tonto. What’s our revenge against the palefaces? Casinos. That’ll work.’
‘Like an MBA,’ N said. ‘You’re too embarrassed to admit you went to Harvard, but you did.’
‘Now, just how …’ The contact gave a wheezy chuckle. ‘You’re something else, pardner. Heap proud, go-um Harvard, but people assume you’re an asshole. Anyhow, lay off the Japs. You see the same ones over and over because that’s where they are.’
‘Neat and tidy, peaceful and private. Just Hubert, Martine, and me.’
‘See how easy it gets when you dump your anxiety? Try not to mess up his car. Martine’ll drive it back to town. The mule who’s bringing her car down from Paris is going to drive the Mercedes to Moscow. We have a buyer lined up.’
‘Waste not, want not.’
‘Or, as my people say, never shoot your horse until it stops breathing. I’m glad we had this talk.’
Neat and tidy, peaceful and private. Lying on his bed, N called a private line in New York and asked his broker to liquidate his portfolio. The flustered broker required a lengthy explanation of how the funds could be transferred to a number of coded Swiss accounts without breaking the law, and then he wanted to hear the whole thing all over again. Yes, N said, he understood an audit was inevitable, no problem, that was fine. Then he placed a call to a twenty-four-hours-a-day-every-day number made available to select clients by his bankers in Geneva, and through multiple conferencing and the negotiation of a four-and-a-half-point charge established the deposit of the incoming funds and distribution of his present arrangements into new accounts dramatically inaccessible to outsiders, even by Swiss standards. On Monday, the same accommodating bankers would ship by same-day express to an address in Marseilles the various documents within a lockbox entrusted to their care. His apartment was rented, so that was easy, but it was a shame about the books. He stripped down to his shirt and underwear and fell asleep watching a Hong Kong thriller dubbed into hilarious French in which the hero detective, a muscly dervish, said things like ‘Why does it ever fall to me to be the exterminator of vermin?’ He awakened to a discussion of French farm prices among a professor of linguistic theory, a famous chef, and the winner of last year’s Prix Goncourt. He turned off the television and read ten pages of Kim. Then he put the book in the satchel and meticulously cleaned the pistol before inserting another hollow-point bullet into the clip and reloading. He cocked the pistol, put on the safety, and nestled the gun in beside the novel. He showered and shaved and trimmed his nails. In a dark gray suit and a thin black turtleneck, he sat down beside the window.
The lot was filling up. The German family came outside into the gray afternoon and climbed into the Saab. After they drove off, a muddy Renault putted down the road and turned in to disgorge the innkeeper’s friends. A few minutes later the red L’Espace van pulled into the lot. The three Japanese walked across the road in their colorful new berets to inspect the food and drink in the display case. The blond woman offered slivers of cheese from the wheels, and the Japanese nodded in solemn appreciation. The girl in the blue dress wandered past the kitchen doors. The men across the street bought two wedges of cheese and a bottle of wine. They bowed to the vendor, and she bowed back. An eager-looking black-and-white dog trotted into the lot and sniffed at stains. When the Japanese came back