The Loo Sanction (19 page)

His trip to the bathroom had been profitable. There was a window giving out onto a flat metal roof. He had left it open. If they came for him, he'd be able to give them a chase that would prevent anyone from thinking he was overeager to get into The Cloisters.

“Tell me, Grace. When you talked to Strange on the phone, did he give you any idea when he'd like to meet me?”

“What makes you think I called him?”

“You called me Dr. Hemlock. P'tit Noel didn't know my title.”

Her feline composure faded perceptibly. “I guess I screwed up, right?”

“A little. But I won't mention it to Strange.”

She was relieved, and he realized that Maximilian Strange did not tolerate error—even from partners. “When does he want to meet me?”

“They'll be here any minute now to pick you up.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I don't think I can make it tonight. Let's set something up for tomorrow.”

She smiled at the thought of anyone thinking about changing Max's plans. “No. He said tonight. He'll be pissed if you're not here.”

“He may have to live with that.”

At that moment there was the sound of footfalls outside the door. Several men.

She smiled at him and lifted her arms in an exaggerated shrug. “Too late, honey bun.”

“Maybe not. You just stand there warming your ass, and don't try to stop me. I'm a real terror against girls of your size.” He ran to the bathroom and scrambled out the window onto the metal roof. As he did, he could hear her opening the door and talking rapidly to the men. There were barked orders, and one of the men rushed through the flat toward the bathroom, as the others ran back down the stairs.

Jonathan flattened out against the brick wall beside the bathroom window. A big head came poking out, and he hit it with his fist just behind the ear. The face slapped down against the stone sill with the click of breaking teeth, and the head slid back inside with a moan and a sigh.

His eyes not yet accustomed to the dark, Jonathan crept along the top of the roof on all fours. He came blank up against a brick wall and felt his way along it to a corner. By then his eyes had dilated and he could see dimly. Below him was a narrow gap, a cut of black between two windowless brick buildings. It didn't seem to lead anywhere, so he decided to climb upward, toward the dirty, city-glow smear of fog. The gap was only about four feet wide. He slipped off his shoes and, falling back on his mountain experience, eased out over the void and jammed himself between the two brick walls, his back against one, his feet flat against the other. He executed a scrambling chimney climb, holding himself into the fissure by the pressure of his feet against the opposite wall and inching up at the expense of his suit jacket and a quantity of palm skin. The building before him went up beyond his vision, but the one at his back was only three stories tall. When he got to the lip of the flat roof, he shot himself over with a final thrust with his legs, and he lay panting on the wet seamed metal. He crawled across the roof and looked down. Below was a cobblestone alley strewn with garbage cans, and it appeared to give out onto a street. There was light from a distant streetlamp, and he could see to negotiate a heavy, cast-iron drainpipe that led from the roof to the floor of the alley. From afar, he could hear a call and an answering shout, but he couldn't make out the direction. The descent was fairly easy, but when he landed a piece of broken glass went through his sock into the sole of his foot.

Jesus Christ! The same fucking alley!

He pulled the triangle of glass out and gingerly made his way through the shattered bottles.

It occurred to him how ironic it would be if, in attempting to avoid appearing anxious to get into The Cloisters, he had evaded them altogether.

But no worry on that score. There was a shout. Footfalls. And there they were, two of them in the gap, blocking his exit, their forms punctuating the glowing nimbus of fog. They moved toward him slowly.

“All right, gentlemen. I give up. You win.”

But they didn't answer, and by their slow inexorable advance he took it that they wanted some revenge for their toughed-up mate above.

Just then a door opened behind him and he was caught in a shaft of light. It was P'tit Noel.

“Thank God,” Jonathan said. He heard the explosive sound of P'tit Noel's openhanded slap to the back of his head, but he didn't feel it. He seemed to float away horizontally, and later he remembered hoping he wouldn't land in the broken glass.

Hampstead

B
efore opening his eyes or moving, he waited until full consciousness had gradually replaced the spinning nightmare vertigo. He was aware of the rocking motion of the automobile and the harsh drag of the floor carpeting against his cheek each time they turned a corner. He was cramped and stiff, but there was no pain in his head, as there ought to have been. The sick dream of it all was intensified by the dark, so he opened his eyes, and he found himself looking strabismally at the glossy tips of a pair of patent leather shoes not four inches from his nose. Light came and went in raking flashes as they passed by lights.

It was as he tried to sit up that the pain came—a vast swooning lump of it, as though someone were forcing a sharp fragment of ice through the arteries of his brain. His eyes teared involuntarily with the pain, but when it passed, it passed completely, not even leaving behind the throb of a headache. He struggled to a sitting position. They were in a taxi. The three men with him watched his efforts dully, without speaking or offering help. He got to his knees, pulled down the jump seat, and sat on it heavily. There were two men across from him on the backseat, and a third beside him on the other jump seat. The streaked drops of rain on the windows glittered with each passing streetlamp.

He looked down. There was no registration number for the cab in the usual frame between the jump seats. They had evidently taken a leaf from the Chicago gangs, using a private taxi for basic transportation because its vehicular anonymity allowed it to prowl the streets at any hour of the night without arousing undue attention.

The driver, unmoving on his side of the glass partition, was undoubtedly one of them. There were neither door nor window handles on the inside of the passenger compartment. Very professional. Unaided, the driver could deliver a man without additional guard.

Jonathan took stock of the men with him. He could forget the driver. Drivers are never leaders. The man on the jump seat lifted his hand to his swollen, discolored mouth from time to time, gingerly touching the split upper lip. That must be the one who had the misfortune to stick his head out the bathroom window. He inadvertently inhaled orally, and winced with pain as the cold air touched the exposed nerves of his broken front teeth. Jonathan was glad he wasn't alone with this one. The owner of the patent leather shoes who sat facing him was a furtive little man with nervous eyes and a tentative moustache. A diagonal scar, more like a brand than a cut, ran in a glairy groove from the right cheek to the left point of his chin, intersecting his lips and moustache, and giving him the appearance of having two mouths. He sat well over against his armrest to make room for the third man, whose great bulk was arranged in an expansive sprawl. That would be the leader of this little squad. Jonathan addressed him.

“I assume we're going to The Cloisters?”

Viscously, the big man brought his heavy-lidded eyes to rest on Jonathan's face, where they settled without recognition, not even shifting from eye to eye. The broad face was dominated by an overhanging brow, and his slab cheeks flanked an oval mouth, the thick, kidney-colored lips of which were always moist. So extreme was the droop of his eyelids that he tilted back his head to see, exposing only the bottom half of his pupils. Jonathan recognized the psychological type. He had met them occasionally when working for CII. They were used in low-priority sanctions because they were effective, cheap, and expendable. Often they would do “wet work” without pay. Violence was a pleasurable outlet for them.

Attempts at conversation were not going to be fruitful, so Jonathan set to examining his condition. He explored the base of his skull with his fingers and found it only a little tender. The nose was clear, and he could focus his eyes rapidly, so there hadn't been any concussion. The openhanded slap to the back of the neck with which P'tit Noel had put him away is one of the premiere blows in the repertory of violence. It can kill without a bruise and is undetectable without an autopsy to reveal blood clots and ruptured capillaries in the brain. But to use the blow in its middle ranges requires a fine touch. Jonathan had to admire P'tit Noel's skill. Not bad . . . for a lawyer.

Despite the Haitian's professional art, Jonathan was a mess. His trousers were torn and filthy, his jacket was scuffed from the chimney climb up the brick wall, and he had no shoes. For his meeting with Maximilian Strange, he would lack the social poise and sartorial one-upmanship he usually enjoyed. Even among these goons, he felt awkward.

“Sorry about those teeth of yours, pal,” he said unkindly. “You're really going to make a haul when the Tooth Fairy comes around.”

The man on the jump seat produced a compound of growl and sneer, which he instantly regretted as the in-suck of air made him twist his head in pain.

The taxi was easing down a steep cobble street, past what appeared through the streaked windows to be large villas of the late eighteenth century. But then they passed an anachronous modern shopping plaza that looked like a project by a first-year design student in a polytechnic. It seemed carved in soap, and the dissonance it obtruded into the fashionable district spoke eloquently of the truism that the modern Englishman deserves his architectural heritage as much as the modern Italian merits the Roman heritage of efficiency and military prowess. Then they turned and reentered an area of fine old houses. Jonathan recognized the district as Hampstead: Tory homes amid Labour inconveniences.

The taxi turned up through open iron gates and into a driveway that curved past the front entrance. They continued around and to the back of the sprawling stone house and pulled up at the rear. The driver stepped out and opened the door for them.

Directed by small unnecessary nudges from behind, Jonathan was conducted into a dimly lit waiting room where two of them stood guard over him while the kidney-lipped hulk passed on upstairs, ostensibly to announce their arrival. Jonathan used this time to sort himself out. Alone, unarmed, rumpled, and off pace, he had to ready himself for whatever turns and twists this evening might take. He stood with his back against a wall and his knees locked to support his weight. Closing his eyes, he ignored his guards as he touched his palms together, the thumbs beneath his chin, the forefingers pressed against his lips. He exhaled completely and breathed very shallowly, using only the bottom of his lungs, sharply reducing his intake of oxygen. Holding the image of the still pool in his mind, he brought his face ever closer to its surface, until he was under.

“All right! You! Let's go!” The dapper little man with two mouths touched Jonathan's shoulder. “Let's go!”

Jonathan opened his eyes slowly. Ten or fifteen minutes had passed, but he was refreshed and his mind was quiet and controlled.

They led him up a narrow staircase and through a door.

He winced and held up his hand to screen away the painfully bright light.

“Here,” Two-mouths said, “put these on.” He passed Jonathan a pair of round dark green glasses that cupped into the eye sockets and had an elastic cord to go around the head.

Six sunlamps on stands were the source of the painful ultraviolet light, and on one of the low exercise tables between the banks of lamps was a man, nude save for a scanty posing pouch, doing sit-ups as a flabby masseur held his ankles for leverage.

Everyone in the room wore the dark green eyecups. Looking around, Jonathan was put in mind of photographs he had seen of Biafran victims with their eyes shot out.

“Welcome . . .” The exerciser grunted with his sit-up, and he swung forward to touch his forehead to his knees, then lay back again. “Welcome to the Emerald City, Dr. Hemlock. How many is that, Claudio?”

“Seventy-two, sir.”

Jonathan recognized the voice just an instant before he recalled the face behind the green eyecups. It was the classically beautiful Renaissance man he had met with Vanessa Dyke at Tomlinson's Galleries. The man with the Marini Horse.

“I assume you're Maximilian Strange?” Jonathan said.

“All right, Claudio. That will be enough.” Strange sat on the edge of the padded exercise table and pulled off the eye guards as the ultraviolet lamps were turned off. Taking his glasses off, Jonathan found the normal light in the room oddly cold and feeble in contrast to the glare of the lamps in the hotter end of the spectrum. “I regret your having to wait downstairs while I finished my exercise, Dr. Hemlock. But routine is routine.” Strange lay down on the table, and Claudio started to cover him with a thick, cream-colored grease, beginning with the face and neck and working downward. “There is a popular myth, Dr. Hemlock, that exposure to the sun ages one's skin and causes wrinkles. Actually, it's the loss of skin oils that sins against the complexion. An immediate treatment with pure lanolin will replace them adequately. You said you
assumed
I was Maximilian Strange. Didn't you really
know
?
”

“No. How could I?”

“How indeed? Do you take good care of your body?”

“No particular care. I try to keep it from being stabbed and clubbed and suchlike. But that's all.”

“You make a common mistake there. Men tend to consider indifference to their appearance to be a mark of rugged virility. Personally, I celebrate beauty, and therefore, of course, I celebrate artifice. Growing old is neither attractive nor inevitable. The mind is always young. The challenge resides in keeping the body also young.” There it was again: that slight jamming of sentence structure that hinted of Strange's German origins. The only other clue was his pronunciation, neither exactly British nor exactly American. A kind of mid-Atlantic sound that one found only on the American stage. “Exercise, sun, diet, and taking one's excesses in moderation,” he continued. “That is all that is required to keep the face and body. How old do you think I am?”

“I can only guess. I'd say you were about . . . fifty-one.”

Strange stopped the masseur's hand and turned to look at Jonathan closely for the first time. “Well, now. That is remarkable. For a guess.”

“I'd go on to guess that you were born in Munich in 1922.” It was showing off, but it was the right thing to do. Jonathan was pleased with the way it was going so far. He was giving the appearance of holding nothing back, not even the fact that he had background knowledge about Strange.

Strange looked at him flatly for a moment. “Very good. I see you intend to be frank.” Then he broke into a deep laugh. “Good God, man! What happened to your clothes?”

“I fell down the side of a brick wall.”

“How exhibitionistic. Did you have trouble with Leonard?”

“Is Leonard this droopy-eyed ass here?”

“The very man. But your taunts will go unanswered. Poor Leonard is incapable of banter. He is a mute.”

Leonard watched Jonathan glassily from beneath heavy-lidded eyes. His meaty face seemed incapable of subtle expression, its heavy-hanging muscles responding only to broad, basic emotions.

Strange climbed from the exercise table and picked up a thick towel. “Will you join me in a steam bath, Dr. Hemlock?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No, of course not. And you could use a wash anyway.” He led the way. “Few people know the proper way to use lanolin, Dr. Hemlock. It must be applied thickly just after your sunbath. Then you allow the steam to melt off the excess. The pores of the skin retain what is necessary for moisture.” He stopped and turned to make his next point. “Soap should never be used on the face.”

“You'll forgive me, Mr. Strange, if I find this concern for beauty and youth a little grotesque in a man of your age.”

“Certainly not. Why should I forgive you?”

Leonard accompanied the two of them to the tiled dressing room that separated the steam bath from the exercise area. As Jonathan stripped down and wrapped a towel around his waist, Strange informed him that his stay at The Cloisters might be a prolonged one, so they had taken the precaution of having his rooms broken into and some of his clothes brought back.

“And while you were searching for my clothes, you had a chance to take a more general look around.”

“Just so.”

“And you found?”

“Just clothes. You use a very good tailor, Dr. Hemlock. How do you manage that on a professor's salary?”

“I take bag lunches.”

“I see. Ah, but of course, you are doing well on your books—popular art criticism for the masses. How dreary that must be for you.”

The three men passed into the steam room, Leonard looking grotesquely comic with only a towel to hide his powerful but inelegant primate body. Not once, not even while undressing, had his hooded eyes left Jonathan, and when they sat on the scrubbed pine benches of the steam room, he positioned himself in the corner, protectively between Jonathan and Strange.

The jets had been open for some time, and now the room was filled with swirling steam that eddied and echoed their movements; the temperature was in the mid-nineties. But Jonathan found no relaxation in the heat and steam. During the introductory badinage, he had recovered from his surprise at discovering that Strange and the Renaissance man were one, and now he had begun to model a cover story for himself. It covered the ground thinly, but he had no time to test it for fissures.

Strange closed his eyes and rested back, soaking up the steam, his confidence in Leonard's protection absolute. “You realize, of course, that this Dantesque room may be your last living memory.”

Jonathan did in fact realize this.

Strange continued, his voice a lazy drone. “You sought to impress me just now by dropping information concerning my past. What more do you know?”

“Not much. I've been trying to track you down, and in the course of it I discovered that you were in the whorehouse business—if I may simplify.”

Strange waved an indifferent hand.

“I also discovered you are in the country illegally, and that you have been in one aspect or another of the flesh trade as far back as my sources go.”