“Who do I have to kill?” It became a kind of
in house joke.
Poor ol’ Byron, dead and buried lo these many
years.
Very much alive for the moment, Down smiled
even more broadly, made a little sound that came out about halfway
between a cough and a chuckle, and patted the air between them with
his palms to indicate things were going too fast.
“You rush me; allow me to introduce myself.”
He pulled his wallet from the inside pocket of his heavy slate gray
jacket and produced an official looking card that identified the
bearer as Major Thomas Cruttwell, placing it on the table in front
of Guinness: Cruttwell, as it later turned out, was Down’s brother
in law and the owner of several hop farms in Kent. The picture was
right, though.
What in God’s gracious name had put this dude
on his tail? It was a question that plagued him vaguely until
finally he asked Down over lunch in one of the series of squalid
little government offices in which their business contacts were
usually made.
“Oh that,” he said abstractedly, holding his
claret up to the light. “Well, you came very highly
recommended.”
It seemed that the man at the embassy who had
interviewed Guinness was a member of Down’s London club. He had had
such an amusing story about the young freeloader who had come to
see him that morning; he was quite proud of the firmness he had
shown.
“Maybe it’ll help to shape him up when he
realizes that the world isn’t his oyster.” And then he had laughed
softly. “But when he left my office, he looked like he wanted to
kill someone.”
Down had done a little checking to discover
whom the man had been talking about, and then a little more
checking to satisfy himself as to just how hard up Guinness
actually was, and then he had tracked him down.
“It wasn’t easy.” Down took a tentative sip
on his claret, made a face, and set it down on the desk. “What with
that hike you set out on, you really ran my people ragged.”
So that was how—a chance remark between two
middle aged clubmen and the whole direction of his life was
changed. No, that wasn’t fair. He had had some hand in changing it
himself.
Guinness slid the card in toward himself with
the ball of his thumb and looked it over without picking it up from
the table. After a few seconds he slid it back.
“So big deal,” he said blankly. “You’re in
the army. Are you after me to enlist?”
“Not precisely.” Down’s smile compressed a
little, becoming kinder and perhaps a trifle sad. He was used to
dealing with frightened and desperate people, and the experience
had given him compassion. “I haven’t actually been on active
service since the end of the war. I have a position with the Home
Office these days; it involves some aspects of military
security—you might say that our interests have points of
contact—but we tend to be emphatically civilian. I simply wish to
identify myself to allay any suspicions you might have been
harboring. There’s no question of smuggling or male prostitution,
nothing like that. Would you care for some more tea?” he asked, his
hand going up before Guinness had a chance to respond.
“Waitress! “
The girl was there in a second to take his
order. That was another of Byron’s talents he had always
envied.
“But it is illegal,” Guinness said after she
had come and gone. “Am I right? For that kind of money it just has
to be illegal.”
Down sifted about half a spoonful of sugar
into his tea and set the spoon down on his napkin, where it left a
pale tan stain. He looked genuinely surprised that so obvious a
point should even be raised.
“Naturally it’s illegal, but that isn’t the
aspect of it that presents the difficulty.” He picked up his cup
and set it back down again, untasted. “If it were merely illegal I
could arrange to have it taken care of for a good deal less than a
thousand pounds, I assure you. The world is knee deep in
criminals.” He picked up his tea again, tasting it this time, and
his eyes rested on its surface when he set it down. “I will
concede, however, that it does involve an element of risk.”
Now we come to it. Now we see where all the
fancy patter has been leading. The man was beautiful m his way; he
made it all sound so devastatingly simple.
“How much risk?”
“Considerable. Why? Does it matter?” Down’s
eyes were steady on his own now, as if the question were a
challenge. Which, of course, it was. Guinness simply smiled,
eventually forcing a smile from Down.
“It depends.”
“Look, young man,” Down began, in the manner
of someone making an incontrovertibly obvious statement, “we have
been watching you very carefully since you were brought to our
attention. We have checked into your background, and I mean from
the day you were born; research is one of our strong points. And
you look the type to do the kind of work we have in mind, and
believe me when I tell you that we know the type.”
He picked up his cup again, and his manner
seemed to soften with his voice.
“Besides, I have an idea you’d like to stay
in this country. You came over here to study, didn’t you? Well, we
can see to that.”
“Just exactly what was it you had in
mind?”
Down smiled his magic smile again and reached
over to pat Guinness on the arm.
“That’s the lad.”
The rain had let up for a while by the time
Guinness paid his check and left. Down, who was a good psychologist
and knew that starvation is the handmaiden of fear, had given him
two one pound notes so he could think things over on a full
stomach. Two pounds—just enough to keep him comfortable through
tomorrow, but not enough to fill him with unreasonable hope. Well,
he wasn’t going to waste them on little cream cakes and watery tea.
He felt the need of some protein and had plans with reference to
something like a chophouse.
Down had made it sound like the most obvious
thing in the world, just the sort of thing any well brought up
young American would do in an instant if he suddenly needed a few
bills to tide him over. Facilis descensus Averno.
“There is a man who for various reasons which
need not greatly concern you has made himself objectionable to a
certain department of Her Majesty’s government. We would in fact,
as you so cleverly divined, like you to kill him for us.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Young man, I never kid about such
matters.”
“Who is he?”
“For the moment that needn’t concern you
either. You’ll be told everything you need to know if you decide to
take the job, and until then the less you know the better. You
should, however, in all fairness be warned that he is very
dangerous; it won’t be at all like robbing little girls of their
sweet shop money. It will require planning and intelligence.”
Down sipped his tea as calmly as if he were
discussing Georgian furniture. “You will, of course, be paid in
advance, and you will have five days, no more, in which to do the
job.”
“What would keep me from just taking the
money and cutting out?”
Down’s eyes narrowed. No, he wasn’t kidding.
And, no, he wasn’t discussing Georgian furniture.
“Young man, I have very unpleasant friends
all over the world, any one of whom would do a number on you just
as a professional courtesy. It’s a kind of rule we have: Human life
isn’t worth very much, almost nothing in fact, but money is sacred.
Everyone has to get full value. If you have any notions of doing a
flit, I suggest you just forget them. As I said, research is one of
our strong points—we’re frightfully good at finding people.”
So there it was. He was given a telephone
number to call if he decided to go through with it, and he had
until eight the next morning to decide.
“Don’t be shy, lad. You just call any time
you like. I live alone and I’m a light sleeper.”
The sky was still the color of mud and looked
like it might break loose again any second, so Guinness made his
way back to the shop where he had pawned his coat and redeemed it
for six and six. He also stopped in at a chemist and bought a razor
for half a crown. There was no reason he should go around looking
like a vagrant, even if he was one. In the men’s room of one of the
big department stores on Oxford Street he used wads of paper towels
to give himself a kind of sponge bath from the waist up, and he
used the liquid soap from the dispenser over the washstand to shave
with. It was the most uncomfortable shave of his life, and his face
itched like the devil for an hour afterward, but at least he looked
decent. He could walk into a restaurant without the waiter
automatically trying to pitch him out onto the sidewalk.
Dinner consisted of a fried cutlet and fried
potatoes, with surrealistically green peas. He had heard someone
say once that the English used baking soda in their cooking water
to get their vegetables that color, but who cared. What with the
tip, he was left with about three and a half shillings; he wouldn’t
even try to find a place to sleep for that.
To kill a man, Jesus. Could he do that? Was
it possible to just walk up to some guy you didn’t even know, and
then simply kill him?
Yes, he thought so. He could plan it out and
do it—it might even be sort of fun. Merely the idea of it excited
him. And he could use the money—that much money would take care of
everything. All he had to do was to pull it off—and survive—and he
could have everything he wanted. Presented to him, for once, on a
silver platter.
But to kill a man. He didn’t know, he just
didn’t know.
The food made him realize how long it had
been since he had slept. Walking around afterward, he felt as if
his arms and legs were in iron braces and his head were stuffed
with cottage cheese. He had to find a place to lie down.
A few short blocks took him down to the
Thames. It was a nice part of the city, and the retaining walls
under which the river could be heard rustling by were lined with
benches. He picked one and lay down, throwing the curve of his arm
over his eyes. He was asleep almost instantly.
How long was he out? He couldn’t say
precisely, but it was pitch black when he was awakened by something
tapping on the side of his skull. It was a night stick, the other
end of which was attached to a policeman who in the dim penumbra of
his flashlight beam looked about fifteen feet tall. He had a pencil
line mustache; that was all that made him human.
“Come on, now,” came a murmur in heavy
cockney. “You can’t sleep ‘ere. These benches isn’t for sleepin’
on. The river ain’t no hotel.”
Guinness worked himself up into a sitting
position. The cop had been reduced by then to nearly a human
scale.
“Come on, now. You move off down the way
there, and be about your business. Come on, now.”
Without speaking, too tired to be anything
but obedient, Guinness submitted to the Law’s womanish nagging and
began to shuffle off. He stayed by the river until he was sure the
cop was out of sight, and then sat down again on another bench. He
was awake enough now to be angry.
He didn’t have any business to be about, that
was the thing. He couldn’t just keep on walking forever. He had to
help himself somehow—he had a right to do that much.
Fully awake now, he continued on the bench
for perhaps five minutes more as his anger and his despair ran
together and hardened into a single idea.
Yes he did. He had business to be about. Yes,
by God, it was time he was about his business. With a vengeance
he’d be about his business.
Outside a pub that was closed for the night
he found a telephone booth.
“Major?”
“Yes? Who is this?” The voice at the other
end of the line didn’t sound like that of a light sleeper.
“Major, I’m signing on.”
4
According to the single spaced, typewritten
instructions he had received with his money, the Victim Elect’s
name was Hornbeck. Peter W. Hornbeck. Five feet eleven, one hundred
and sixty-five pounds, dark brown hair, brown eyes. Age,
forty-seven. Never married but no known homosexual tendencies.
Address: 23 Ellerslie Road, Shepherd’s Bush—a respectable middle
class neighborhood given to semidetached houses faced with stone or
dark wood and white plaster. Hornbeck was listed on his tax returns
as an “import consultant” and his business seemed to be almost
exclusively with Eastern European countries.
Under the heading “REMARKS” there were two
compound sentences, set off from each other as separate
paragraphs.
“Hornbeck is an agent for the East German
government, functioning primarily as a courier but sometimes as a
masher or dipperman; he is usually armed when working, preferring
small caliber automatic pistols, and should be considered dangerous
at all times.
“Hornbeck will be leaving for Yorkshire
(precise destination unknown) on the evening of the fifth: he
usually travels by car.”
Guinness could imagine what a masher might
be, but what the hell was a dipperman?
The sixteenth. Today was the morning of the
twelfth, so the sixteenth was the deadline for taking care of
Hornbeck. One could wonder what was going on in Yorkshire that they
were so anxious Hornbeck should never make it there alive. The man
didn’t sound terribly formidable; certainly not formidable enough
that Her Majesty’s government should budget a thousand pounds
toward having his lights turned out.
Well, this wasn’t his line of work. He didn’t
have any idea what its rules and priorities were. Perhaps it was
just policy to deal with smalltime couriers and musclemen as they
became visible and troublesome. Somehow, though, he didn’t really
think so. It didn’t sound very practical.
Yorkshire. The last place God made. What the
hell could be going on in Yorkshire?
There was a photograph stapled to the upper
right hand corner of the instruction sheet, the head and shoulders
of a middle aged man who looked like he had a lot of difficulty
keeping his weight down. It was obviously posed, probably for a
passport.