The Loo Sanction (23 page)

He undressed quickly and approached the bed. Maggie had been tossed onto it, still dressed in her flapper frock. One shoe was off and the other dangled from a toe, and a rope of beads had fallen across her face. In the dim light she opened her eyes and stared up at him, frowning. She was confused, trying hard to understand what was happening to her. As the needle had entered her, she had reminded herself that she must do nothing to endanger Jonathan's cover, and that thought had gone swirling down with her into the churn and chaos of distorted reality. She had clung to it for a time, then she had forgotten what it was she was clinging to. But it was important. She remembered that much.

“What? . . . What . . .” She looked at him, her eyes pleading for help. Then she laughed again.

“My name is Jonathan Hemlock,” he told her immediately, really speaking for the microphones. It would not do for her to name him out of the blue.

“Jonathan? Jonathan?”

“That's right. But you can call me ‘honey.' Come on, let's get your clothes off.”

“Are my clothes still on?” She spoke with the clumsy diction of someone whose lip is rubbery from dentist's Novocain. “Isn't that funny?”

“A knee-slapper. Come on. Turn over.”

He undressed her as quickly as possible, but with her limp and uncooperative body, it was not easy. Indeed, some bits would have been comic under less dangerous circumstances. She, at least, found it funny.

“Say,” she said with the sudden seriousness of a drunk. “Do you really think we should be doing this?”

“Why not? We live in a permissive society.”

“But . . . here? Isn't it . . . isn't it dangerous?”

“I'll be careful.”

“What? What? I don't understand, Jonathan.”

“You see? You remember my name.”

“Yes, of course. Of course I know your name. You're—”

He kissed her. She hummed and drew him down to her.

         

He was painfully tired, but sleep was evasive. The open microphone was like a living thing in the dark, straining to catch their words, and the presence of it was palpable and uncomfortable. Maggie slept. The drugs had been good for her in one way. They had liberated her even beyond her usual abandoned and inventive lovemaking, and climax had been a total and body-shuddering thing for her, as though the sensation had begun in the small of her back and gushed outward. She had worked hard at it, and then she had slept, curled up on her side, sitting in his lap, his arms around her, completely and safely wrapped up by him.

He did not know she had awakened when she spoke softly. “Jonathan?”

He instantly thought of the bug—probably in the headboard to catch guests' quietest words. “Go to sleep, honey,” he said rather harshly.

“I love you, Jonathan.” It was a declarative sentence. A matter of fact. She might have said it was Tuesday, or raining.

“Well, that's just great, honey. You're a warm, wonderful, loving person. Now please let me get some sleep, will you?” But the microphone could not transmit the message in the way he hugged her in and buried his cheek in her hair.

He wondered if he would ever get to sleep, get the rest his body demanded. He was still wondering this when he awoke to find it was full day and there was a brilliant bar of sunlight across the bed. He opened his eyes and looked up. Maggie was there, sitting on the edge of the bed. She had been awake for some time, looking at his sleeping face, occasionally touching his hair gently, fearful of disturbing him, but desiring the possessive contact.

“Good morning,” he said feebly, and he took her hand, only to find that his grip was too weak to squeeze it. The efforts of the past two days had caught up with him, and he had slept at coma depth.

“Good morning,” she said, the brogue dealing carelessly with the vowels. She put her finger to her lips and pointed to the headboard, where a small core of metal shone dully in the center of a carved decoration.

He nodded and brought her with him as he turned around in the bed, lying with their heads at the footboard. They kissed good morning, and he brought his lips into contact with her ear and whispered to her soundlessly. “Play it out. Good girl wakes up in bed with strange man.”

“Don't!” she said aloud. “Please don't.”

He made a wry face at her histrionics. She shrugged; she had never pretended to be an actress.

“Do you remember last night?” he asked aloud. Then, whispering, he added, “You were fantastic.” The danger of this double-talk was mischievously exciting, and they were in a docilely playful mood.

“Yes, I remember,” she said aloud, as though ashamed. “I remember your name and . . . what we did. But how did I get here?”

“You don't recall that?”

“Something . . . a needle. I can't remember all of it.” She whispered, “The Vicar wants to see you this evening at his place. Something important has come up.”

“Well, don't worry about it, honey,” he told the microphone. “I'm sure they'll pay you for your trouble. And it really wasn't all that bad, was it?”

“Was I . . . was I good?” Her voice carried that tone of nuzzling coyness Jonathan associated with sticky mornings after, once the phase of self-recrimination had been passed. He was sorry she knew it.

“Don't worry about it,” he said aloud. “You're probably a fine cook.”

By way of punishment, she ran the tip of her tongue into his ear.

“Hey!”

“What is it?” she asked aloud, all innocence.

“I just remembered the time. It's late and I have worlds to conquer.” He rose from bed and went into the bathroom to bathe and shave.

“Will I see you again?” she asked, enjoying the game of acting for the microphone.

“What?” he shouted from the next room over the rush of water.

“Will I see you again?”

“Certainly. Certainly. I'll look you up!”

“You don't even know my name!”

“That's all right. I'm not nosy!”

“Bastard,” she muttered quietly, feeling clever about introducing just the right note of the girl whose innocence has been around.

         

He arrived for breakfast in the paneled dining room to find that Strange and Grace had finished and were having a last cup of tea—Earl Grey for her, rose hip for him.

“Good morning,” Jonathan said cheerily. “Sorry I'm late. Slept like a hammered steer.”

“Doubtless the effect of a clear conscience,” Strange observed, as he broke off a bit of dry toast and put it into his mouth, rubbing his fingers together lightly to flick off crumbs that might otherwise have dropped onto his spotless white flannels.

Jonathan lifted the covers of serving dishes on the sideboard and found some eggs with chives. “And how are you this morning—or early afternoon?” He addressed Amazing Grace, who was sitting nude in a broad shaft of sunlight, her body stretched out to receive the warmth, her eyes almost closed with feline pleasure. Her tea saucer was balanced on her écu, and from Jonathan's angle it seemed that her crotch was steaming into the sunlight. He crossed to her and cupped one of her conical breasts in his palm. “I'm going to get you one of these days,” he warned.

She opened her eyes. “God, you're a horny one. Didn't that Irish bit drain you off a little?”

“She's an hors d'oeuvre type; you, on the other hand, are meat and potatoes.”

“You sure got a sweet way with words, honey bun.”

Jonathan sat across from Strange and began to eat his eggs with appetite.

“You are in high spirits today, Dr. Hemlock.”

“There's been a big load lifted from me.”

“You speak of the official in Washington you intend to silence?”

“What else?” He poured himself some coffee. “Say, that girl was an odd one. Do you know what she said to me, right off the bat?”

“That she loved you?” Strange asked, unable to pass up the opportunity to show off.

Jonathan set his cup down and looked up in surprise. “Yes. How did you . . . ?” Then he laughed. “The room was bugged. Of course.”

“They all are. I listened to your tapes this morning as I went over my accounts. A kind of Muzak to lighten my labors.”

“I'll be damned. That should have occurred to me. How do you think the girl will take being jabbed full of junk, then drilled by a stranger?”

“The process differs from romantic love only in degree and efficiency. She's a modern young lady. I judge she'll be satisfied with a handsome bonus. By the way, she called you a bastard while you were in the shower.”

“Is that right? And I thought I had her by the heart. Just goes to show how vulnerable the congenital romantic can be. Would you pass the toast?”

Breakfast progressed with small talk of the kind designed to cover meaning. It was not until Grace left to dress and return to the Cellar d'Or that Strange got down to business.

“I assume you have thought about the task before you, Dr. Hemlock?”

“I have some ideas. If things work out just right, we should be able to get your asking price for the
Horse
without government inquiry. But I'll have to play it largely by ear, and I'll need your permission to use a free hand in making the arrangements.”

Strange glanced at him. “What kind of arrangements?”

“I'm not sure yet. But I'll have to do something bold—some grand gesture that will blind them with its obviousness. By the way, I'll need some of that money for grease and baksheesh.”

“How much?”

“All of it?”

Strange laughed. “Really, Dr. Hemlock!”

“Just thought I'd try. I suppose ten thousand pounds would do it.”

Strange's pale eyes evaluated Jonathan for a long moment. “Very well. The money will be ready for you when you leave.”

“Good.”

“Ah-h, Dr. Hemlock . . . Don't think of doing anything foolhardy. Please remember that unfortunate fellow who was found impaled in the belfry of St. Martin's-In-The-Fields.”

“I get the picture. Is there more coffee?”

“Certainly. Leonard did that business at my request, not that the impulsive devil didn't get pleasure from it on his own. The informer was drugged and brought to the church, where the stake had earlier been set in place. They lifted the fellow to just above it, the point lightly touching his anus. Then Leonard jumped down and swung his weight from his ankles, driving him well on. Gravity did the rest. But with that unhurried pace characteristic of natural forces.” Strange laid his hand on Jonathan's arm and squeezed it paternally. “I hope you understand why I am burdening you with the lurid details.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good. Good.” He patted the arm and withdrew his hand.

Jonathan's eyes were clouded with his gentle combat smile when he said, “Tell me. Would you mind passing the marmalade?”

Covent Garden/Brook Street/The Vicarage

T
he lone painter who worked with tunnel concentration before a vast canvas in MacTaint's converted fruit warehouse was the ragged, furious man with long skinny arms who had come to assume over the years that the space, the stove, and the tea were his by squatter's right. He snapped his head around angrily as Jonathan pushed open the corrugated metal door, allowing a gust of wind to enter with him. The painter continued to fix Jonathan with a wild stare until the door had been slid to, guillotining the offending shaft of blue daylight that had intruded on the yellow pool of tungsten light from the naked bulb hanging from a long frayed cord.

Jonathan's light greeting was parried by a rasping growl as the painter used the interruption as an opportunity to heap another shovelful of coal into the large potbellied stove. As a final gesture of impatience, he kicked the stove door closed violently, almost immediately regretting that he was not wearing shoes.

Receiving no answer to his light knock on the inner door, but hearing a voice from within, Jonathan pushed the door open and looked in. Lilla was sprawled in a deep wing chair before the television, a half-empty glass of gin dangling from her pudgy hand and the crumbs of some earlier feast decorating the front of her feathered dressing gown. In a self-satisfied drone of BBC English, a commentator was summing up the industrial situation which, it appeared, was not so bad as it might be. True, the gas workers were on strike, as were the train drivers, the teachers, the hospital workers, the automotive workers, and the truckers; but the dockers might soon return to work, and there was a chance that the threatened strikes of the civil servants, the electricians, the printers, the construction workers, and the miners might be delayed if the government conceded to their demands.

“Hello?”

She turned her head and peered in his general direction, her eyes watery and uncertain. “Now, don't tell me, young man. I never forget a face.”

“Is MacTaint around?”

“He's gone beyond. To relieve his bladder, as we used to say in the theatre. Come in.
Entrez.
I was just havin' my mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Care to join me?” She gestured toward the bar with her half-f glass of gin, slopping the contents in a discrete arc.

“No, thank you, Lilla. I just wanted to see—”

“You know my name! So we
have
met before. I told you I never forget a face. It was in the theatre, of course. Now, let me see . . .”

Just then MacTaint came shuffling in, wearing his long overcoat and mumbling to himself. “Ah, Jonathan! Good to see you!”

“The gentleman and I was just havin' a chat about the old days in the business, if you don't mind.”

“What business was that?”

“The theatre, as you know perfectly well.”

“Oh yes, I remember now. You used to sell chocolates in the aisle and your ass in the alley out back. The chocolates went better, as I recall.”

“Here! That will be enough of that, you stinking old fart.” She turned her wobbling head to Jonathan. “Do excuse the diction.”

“Right, now get along with you. We have business to talk over.”

“Don't exercise that tone of voice in my presence, you dinky-cocked son of a bitch!”

“Slam a bung in it, you ha'penny flop, and get your dripping hole upstairs!”

“Really!” Lilla drew herself up, fixed MacTaint's general area with a stare of quivering disdain, and swept to her exit.

MacTaint scratched at his scruffy beard, his lower teeth bared in painful pleasure. “Sorry about her, lad. Of late she's been nervy as a cat shitting razor blades. But she's a good old bitch, even if she does take a sip now and then.”

“I could use a drink, if there's any left.”

“Done.” Eddies of ancient sweat were almost overcoming as MacTaint brushed past on his way to the bar, moving with his characteristic shambling half trot. He returned with two glasses of Scotch and handed one to Jonathan, then he sprawled heavily on a fainting couch of rosewood, one ragged boot up on the damask upholstery, his chin buried in the collar of his amorphic overcoat. “Well, here's to sin.” He swilled it off with a great smacking of lips. “Now! I suppose you're needing your two hundred quid.”

“No. You keep it. For your trouble.”

“That's very good of you. But holding it's been no trouble.”

“I'm talking about future trouble.”

“I was afraid you might be.” The old man's eyes glittered beneath his antennal eyebrows. “What future trouble?”

“I'm still not in the clear, Mac.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I need help.”

MacTaint pursued an itch from his cheek to his shoulder, then down his back inside the greatcoat, but it seemed just out of reach to his fingertips. “What kind of help?” he asked after scratching his back against the chair.

Jonathan sipped his whiskey. “The theft of the Chardin. Is it still on?”

Instantly Mac's voice was flat and tentative, and the leprechaun facade fell away. “It is, yes.”

“And it's still scheduled for Tuesday night?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“I want to go with you.” Jonathan placed his glass carefully on the parqueted side table.

MacTaint examined a new tear in his canvas trousers with close interest. “Why?”

“Can't tell you, Mac. But it's tied up with the trouble I'm in.”

“I see. Why didn't you lie and make up some convincing story?”

“I would never do that, Mac.”

“Because we're such great friends?”

“No. Because you'd see through it.”

MacTaint enjoyed a good laugh, then a short choke, then a long racking cough that ended with his spitting on the carpet. “You're a proper villain, Jonathan Hemlock. That's why I like you. You con a man by admitting you're conning a man. That's very fine.” He wiped his eyes with his fist and changed tone. “Tell me this. Will taking you along screw up my work?”

“I don't see why. You only need a couple of minutes, using your technique.”

“Ah, then you know what my technique is?”

“I've had a couple of days to figure it out. Only one possibility. You get a good fake. You mutilate it, break in, and swap it for the original. Everyone assumes there's been an act of vandalism—not a theft. The fake is repaired with care, and if anyone ever notices a blemish, it's put down to the repair job.”

“Precisely, my son! And, though I say it who shouldn't, there's a touch of genius in it. I nicked my share of paintings in the past ten years this way.”

“And that accounts for the rash of vandalism in British museums.”

“Not quite. In one case a real vandal broke in and damaged a painting, the heartless son of a bitch!”

Jonathan waited a moment before asking, “Well? Can I go with you?”

MacTaint clawed meditatively at the scruff on his scalp. “I suppose so. But mind you, if there's trouble, it's devil take the hindmost. I love you like a son, Jon. But I wouldn't do porridge even for a son.”

“Great. What time do I meet you on Tuesday night?”

“About ten, I suppose. That will give us time for a few short ones before we go.”

“You're a good man, MacTaint.”

“True enough. True enough.”

         

Because it was handier, Jonathan went to his Mayfair flat to make a pattern of calls to selected art reviews and critics who create British taste. His approach differed slightly, but only slightly, as he covered the range from
The Guardian
to
Time and Tide
. In each case he introduced himself, and there was the inevitable catch in the conversation as the person on the other end of the line realized to whom he was speaking. Jonathan began by assuming the critic had heard that a Marini
Horse
was in the country and was going up for auction within a week. He smiled as the critic inevitably responded that he had indeed heard something of this. What he was seeking, Jonathan said, was reliable verification of the rumor that the
Horse
would bring between three and five million in the bidding. After a pause, the critic said he wouldn't be surprised—not a bit surprised. Their initial flush of pleasure at being consulted by Jonathan Hemlock inevitably gave way to the public school whine of superior knowledge. Jonathan knew the type and expected their self-esteem to expand to fill any space he left for it.

He made a point of mentioning each time that the mossbacks of the National Gallery had pulled off quite a coup in securing the Marini
Horse
for a one-day exhibition just before it went off to the auction room, but he assumed the critic already knew all about that. The critic knew all about that, and several of them intimated that they had had some modest part in the arrangements. Each conversation ended with pleasantries and regrets for not having got together for lunch—a social hiatus Jonathan intended to fill in at the first opportunity.

As he dialed each new number, Jonathan pictured the last man hastily thumbing through reference volumes, taking rapid notes and frowning importantly.

In his mind Jonathan could see the prototypical article, some version of which would appear in a score of major and minor papers the day after tomorrow. “It has long been the opinion of this writer that the innovative work of Marini has suffered from a lack of study and recognition in England. But it is to be hoped that this gap will be closed by a forthcoming landmark event that I have been following closely: the public auction of one of Marini's characteristic bronze
Horse
s. Unless I miss my guess, the
Horse
will bring something in the neighborhood of five million, and although this figure may surprise the reader (and some of my colleagues, I am sorry to say), it is no surprise at all to the few who have followed the work of this modern sculptor whose genius is only now coming into full recognition.

“It is particularly telling that the National Gallery, not distinguished by its innovative imagination, has arranged to place the Marini
Horse
on display for one day before it is sold and—who knows—possibly lost to England forever. Etc. Etc.”

Jonathan's finger was tender with dialing by the time he had finished his list of two-step opinion leaders. But he made one further call, this one to fforbes-Ffitch at the Royal College of Art.

“Jonathan! How good of you to call! Just a moment. Let me clear the decks here, so I can talk to you.” fforbes-Ffitch held the telephone away from his mouth to tell his secretary that he would continue his dictation later.

“Now, then, Jonathan! Good Lord! I'm up to my ears. No rest for the wicked, eh?”

“Nor for the poorly organized.”

“What? Oh. Oh, yes.” He laughed heavily at the jest, to prove he had gotten it. “One thing is certain: The men higher up certainly cleave to the adage that the only way to get a job done is to give it to a busy man. My desk's awash with things that have to be done yesterday. Oh, say! So sorry I didn't see you after that lecture here the other day. A smashing success. Sorry about the mix-up in topics. But I think you landed on your feet. And I have to admit that it was a bit of a feather in the cap to get you there. Never hurts to know who to know, right?”

“It was about feathers and caps that I wanted to talk.”

“Oh?”

“You've been after me to do that series of lectures in Stockholm.”

“I have indeed! Don't tell me you're weakening?”

“Yes. That is the quid. And there's a quo. You're a trustee of the National Gallery, aren't you?”

“Yes. Youngest ever. Something to do with the government attempting to project a ‘with-it' image. Does what you want have something to do with the Gallery?”

“Let's get together and talk about it this afternoon.”

“Lord, Jonathan. Don't know that I can. Calendar bulging, you know. Here, let's see what I can do.” Holding the phone only a little away from his mouth, fforbes-Ffitch clicked on his intercom. “Miss Plimsol? What do I look like for this afternoon? Over.”

A voice told him he had a conference coming up in ten minutes, then he had arranged to take a business drink with Sir Wilfred Pyles at the club.

“A drink with Sir Wilfred?” fforbes-Ffitch repeated, in case Jonathan had not heard. “What time is that? Over.”

“Four o'clock, sir.”

“Sixteen hundred hours, eh? Right. Over and out. Jonathan? What do you say to a drink at my club at sixteen forty-five hours?”

“Fine.”

“You know the club, don't you?”

“Yes, I know it.”

“Right, then. See you there. Been grand chatting with you. Let's hope everyone benefits. Ta-ta.”

Just as Jonathan set the phone back on its cradle, it rang under his hand, and the effect of the coincidence was a little rattling.

“Jonathan Hemlock.”

“Hey, long time no see, man. Until Miss Coyne checked in with me a couple of hours ago, we didn't know what had happened to you.”

“I'm fine, Yank. Why are you calling?”

“I've been trying to get you for two hours. But your line was always busy. What's up, Doc?”

“You can tell the Vicar that things are moving along.”

“Great. But you can tell him yourself. Tonight. Things are coming to a head. He wants to have a little confab with you. Can do?”

“Miss Coyne mentioned that to me. Where?”

“At the Vicarage.”

“All right. I'll drive out. Probably get there six or seven in the evening.”

“Roger-dodger. Oh, by the way. Sorry I wasn't able to get through to those MI–5 guys in time.”

“That's all right. I took care of them.”

“Yes, I know. The man at MI–5 had me on the carpet. Two of the guys are still in hospital.”

“They probably need the rest.”