Chameleon (19 page)

‘Quite,’ said O’Hara. ‘And you, you’ve never looked more prosperous, Joli. Are you keeping busy?’

‘You would not believe it. Thanks to the new hotels I have hardly a moment to myself.
Merci,
m
erci, Messieurs
Hilton, Sheraton and you, too, Master Host.’ He blew them a kiss. ‘We have had to add a third voodoo show each night, just to satisfy the tourist demand.’

‘Voodoo? There isn’t any voodoo on this island.’

‘There is now,
Mann.
So far I have imported eighteen families from Port-au-Prince. They make more in tips in one night than they did in a year in Haiti.’

‘I see you’re still working the rooster scam at the door.’

‘Oui.
And did you see the fire eater? He adds flavor to the
coq
fights.’

‘That’s almost a bad pun, Joli.’

‘Monsieur?’

‘Forget it. You know, you really oughta get that one guy a new chicken. That one-legged rooster doesn’t even look good enough to eat.’

‘Hey, that’s one mean bird, Sailor. Think about it
—
would you not be mean if you were that ugly and had to hop around on one leg to keep from getting your brains pecked out?
Certainement
he is the world’s champion one-legged fighting
coq.’

‘I must tell you, Joli, among the many resourceful people I’ve known in my life, you are the most resourceful of all. You are the king of all con men.’

Joli beamed. His brown eyes twinkled with gratitude. ‘Ah, O’ Hara, you are a true
c
he
valier.’
And he bowed with a flourish.

‘Now, where’s
le Sorcier?’
O’Hara demanded.

‘He is waiting for you.
Venez avec moi.’

Jolicoeur led him back past the bar and down a short hail. He rapped ferociously on the door with the cane.

The muffled voice behind the door bellowed, ‘Jesus Christ, Jolicoeur, come in, don’t tear my goddamn door down.’

Joli stepped in first and, with a flourish, said, ‘I am pleased to announce the arrival of
le Ma
ri
n,
the Sailor, returned from exile.’

‘Hot shit,’ Rothschild said.

And the man they called le Sorcier jumped up and wrapped his arms around O’Hara. ‘Joli,’ he said, ‘go to the bar and bring back the best bottle of Napoleon brandy we have and a couple of glasses.’

‘Do we say “Please”?’ Job said, offended.

‘S’il vous-fucking-plait,’ Rothschild said.

‘Just two glasses?’

‘Okay, Joli, three glasses.’

‘Tout de suite,’ the little man said arid rushed off.

‘Jeez, Sailor, you look better than the last time I saw you. It musta been good for you, bein’ on the dodge.’

Time and the islands had tempered his accent, but it was still definitely Lower East Side Manhattan. He was a slender man, about as tall as O’Hara, deeply tanned, with high cheekbones and a hard, definite jaw. He had the wondrous expression in his eyes and mouth of one constantly about to laugh, which indeed he was. It was the way he looked at life. Life to Rothschild was a joke waiting for the punch-line, and he gazed, through stoned eyes, at the world as a madhouse, filled with frantic, scrambling, driven inmates.

An unruly-looking joint was tucked, unlit and forgotten, in the corner of his mouth, and the sweet smell of marijuana hung lightly in the air.

‘How about a hit? This is home-grown shit from right up there behind us on the mountain.’

‘I’m on a tight timetable, Michael. I don’t have time right now to get whacked out on your smoke.’

‘Suit yourself, Sailor. Grab a seat.’

The Magician rummaged through his tattered white jeans and then the pockets of his faded blue work shirt, trying to find a light. He was wearing white gloves. Rothschild always wore white gloves. He was not embarrassed by the fact that he was missing the two small fingers on each hand — that’s not why he wore gloves. He wore them because people seemed less concerned with his deformity and more concerned with the quality of his piano playing when they could not see where the missing digits had been.

The room was a small office, miserably cluttered, with a roll-top desk, an ancient and decrepit desk chair with a peeling leather seat and two rusty bridge chairs for guests. Junk was jammed in every cubbyhole and opening in the desk. He finally found a book of matches among the debris and lit the roach. He took a deep drag and sighed with relief.

‘What are you doing in Gus’s office?’ O’Hara asked.

‘Well, it’s a long story. But to make it short, Gus Junior is dead.’

O’Hara was genuinely sorrowed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there goes one of the greats.’

‘A true believer,’ said Rothschild. What happened, the old boy went out fishing by himself one day, didn’t come back. We found him the next day, floating just off the South Spike. Heart attack, Musta been fighting a big one The pole was still in the cup and he had strapped himself in the fighting chair. Whatever it was, he killed himself trying to lard it. The fish was gone, hook was bent out straight.’

‘I can’t think of a better way for the old man to go,’ O’Hara said.

‘Anyway, the old bastard left me the place, all his money, everything! I couldn’t believe it, Sailor. I mean, he left it all to me!’

‘A helluva responsibility, pal.’

‘Yeah. I already got some heat about the air-conditioning. I tell everybody, hey, it’s in old Gus’s will. I can’t change a thing. It’s a sacred trust.’

Joli returned with the brandy arid poured three snifters almost to the brim.

‘Merci bien,’ O’Hara said.

‘Ce n ‘est rien,’ said the little man, and raising his glass, offered a toast: ‘A votre santé!

‘To payday!’ O’Hara echoed in English.

‘Goddamn, we gave old Gus a send-off would have made the czar happy,’ Rothschild said. ‘In his will he says he wants a Viking funeral, like in Beau Geste, remember, with Gary Cooper, when they burned the fort with Brian Donlevy at his feet?’

‘Before my time,’ O’Hara said.

‘Mine, too, but I’ve seen it a dozen times on TV. Anyway, that’s the way old Gus wanted to go, so I send Christophe downtown, grab one of these runty little dogs always yapping in the street, and I rent a half-dozen fishing boats and we fill ‘em with stock from the bar and we wrestled the piano on Duprey’s big charter boat and took everybody in the hotel out beyond the South Spike and we laid the dog at his feet and I burned that goddamn fishing boat. I mean Gus, the dog, the boat, every-fuckin’-thing. And I played the damn piano and everybody got drunker than Chinese-fuckin’-New Year. It was beautiful. I’m sure Gus was cryin’, wherever he was. Everybody else was.

‘A thirty-thousand-dollar Chris-Craft, Sailor, and we burned that fucker right to the water line. Well, why the hell not? I’m still running down numbered accounts on every island in the fuckin’ Caribbean. So far I’ve turned up more than three hundred thousand bucks, and I ain’t even been to Switzerland yet.’ The Magician leaned over and winked. ‘God knows what the hell’s in that account, over there.’ He leaned back and took another sip of brandy. ‘So, anyway, you’re lookin’ at the owner of the damn place. If you’re not nice to me, I’ll lose your reservation.’

‘It’s all gonna change, Michael. The chains have discovered St Lucy.’

‘Yes,’ said Joli. ‘Bonjour paradise.’

‘Hell, they never come here. The tourists, I mean. That’s Joli’s job, discouraging visitors. But just before the new hotels opened up, these three guys show up one day. I mean, Sailor, these guys look like they eat nails for breakfast, leaning across the desk there and telling me how we are —
we
are, right! —gonna convert the lobby and bar and restaurant into a casino and they’re gonna run it for me and I’m gonna get all of ten percent. Ten-fuckin’-percent, can you beat that? So I looks this one bent-nose asshole in the eye and says — shit, O’Hara, you’da been proud of me — I says, “No dice.’ Just like that. The guy with the bent beak kinda rears back, looks at the other two jokers, they look back at me and they flash those this-looks- like - a- smile- but-actually it- means - we’re -gonna-cut- your- heart-out grins and Bent Nose says, “No dice?” Incredulously. And I says, “You heard it, chubby, no dice. D-i-c-e”—spelled it out, kinda rubbing their noses in it. It got tense for a minute, okay, I can tell you it did get tense. Then I tore it. I says, “This place is a CIA front. You wanna start a gang war with the Feds, start shootin’. But no gambling. Period. Everybody got it? And bon-fuckin’-soir to all of ya.”

‘And?’

‘They look at each other, they look at me, they tip their hats, and kinda tiptoe out. That’s a year and a half ago. No problems since. Tell you what, Sailor, why don’t ya quit, come down here, be my partner. I need somebody to help me run this place. I’m a lousy businessman. What saves my ass is, so is everybody else on this crazy knoll.’

‘0th, he needs help,’ said Joli.

‘If I went into business with you, we’d be broke in a week. I have to take off my shoes to count to eleven. Let’s talk about Falmouth. Okay?’

‘You been here ten minutes, ten lousy minutes and you want to get to business already.’

‘I don’t have much time left.’

‘Christ, you haven’t even met Isidore yet.’

‘Who’s Isidore?’

‘Ah! Who is Isadore indeed!’ Joli said.

‘Izzy is my new partner. He lives right over there through that door.’

‘Michael...’

‘Un moment, my friend,’ he said and took out his keys and unlocked the door.

Isidore?

Actually, Rothschild had achieved his unique position in the intelligence community by accident. lie just happened to be in the right place at the right time: an unimpressive little piano bar called Señor Collada’s in Montego Bay, Jamaica. A CIA agent named Jerome Oscarfield was the unwitting catalyst of the gambit.

Oscarfield needed a drop. And there was happy old Six Fingers, the Magician of the Keyboard plinking out tunes night after night, month after month. The perfect drop. One night Oscarfield slipped Rothschild a small envelope, well sealed.

‘Are you a patriot?’ Oscarfield asked in a whisper.

‘American or world?’ asked Rothschild.

‘American!’ Oscarfield responded, a bit alarmed.

‘Just joking,’ said Rothschild. ‘I’m red, white and blue, all the way through.’

Oscarfield was obviously relieved.

‘Now listen carefully. A man who’ll call himself Bob will introduce himself. He’ll ask you to play “Moon Over Miami,” that’s how you’ll know it’s really Bob.

‘I don’t do requests,’ Rothschild said.

‘You don’t have to play the song,’ Oscarfield said, his patience wearing a bit thin. ‘It’s like a code, so you’ll know it’s really him, Just pick a discreet moment and give him the envelope.’

‘Somebody else could ask me to play “Moon Over Miami.” It’s very popular. I’ll tell you a song nobody ever asks for—’

‘The song doesn’t make any difference,’ Oscarfield said, cutting Rothschild off, his voice beginning to rise. ‘You don’t have to play the song. It’s the combination. He’ll say, “Good evening, my name is Bob, will you please play ‘Moon Over Miami.’” You can tell him to go fly a kite, for all I care, just give him the goddamn envelope. There’s two hundred bucks in it for you.’

‘Ah!’ said Rothschild. ‘For two bills I’ll be glad to play “Moon Over Miami.”

Oscarfield lowered his voice again.. He smiled with difficulty. ‘You don’t have to play the song. Tell him you don’t know it. Forget the fucking song. Just remember Bob and “Moon Over Miami.” That’s all you have to do.’

‘Done,’ Rothschild said. ‘What’s this Bob look like?’

‘I — uh, I don’t know what he ... u, looks like. I’ve never

uh, met... Look, what he looks like doesn’t matter.’

Oscarfield stared at Rothschild for quite awhile. It was a bad idea, he was beginning to think. But lie decided to try again. ‘Let me try once more,’ he said. ‘This man named Bob will come to you and ask you to play “Moon Over Miami.” When he does, give him this envelope. It’s like a code, you see? Who cares what he looks like? I don’t care if lie looks like King Kong as long as he gives you the code. Okay?’

‘We’re in business,’ Rothschild said, sticking out his hand. ‘Don’t do that,’ Oscarfield said. ‘People will see us. Put your hand down. Here, take this.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s the two hundred dollars,’

‘A deal is a deal,’ Rothschild said, and as Oscarfield started out of Señor Collada’s, he played a few chords of ‘Moon Over Miami.’

Actually Rothschild was simply toying with Oscarfield. Everybody from the pastry chef to the doorman knew Oscarfield’s dodge. At first Rothschild didn’t really take him seriously. Then, one evening, Bob showed up. It had to be him. He was the size of a Mack truck and wore dark glasses in the middle of the night and he changed tables three times during one set.

That’s him. Got to be, thought Rothschild. Playing musical chairs like that. Nervous as a preacher at a nudist camp. But if this was some kind of undercover job, why would they pick somebody the size of Mount Rushmore?

The answer, he eventually learned, was that the obvious frequently eluded them.

The minute he announced the break, Bob was on his feet and beside him. He stuck out a hand as big as the piano top.

‘I’m Bob,’ he said.

‘Good,’ said the Magician.

‘Do you know “Moon Over Miami”?’

‘I don’t play requests.’

Bob was taken completely aback. He was not programmed for jokes. ‘Do you know “Moon Over Miami”?’ he repeated.

‘Does it go like this?’ Rothschild asked, and began whistling a few bars of ‘Stars Fell on Alabama.’

Bob looked around the place without moving his head. ‘I don’t know how it goes,’ he said. ‘Goddammit, where’s the fuckin’ envelope?’

Realizing the big man had no sense of humour, absolutely none, Rothschild slipped him the envelope.

‘You’re off the wall, y’know that,’ Bob growled under his breath and lumbered out of the place.

Rothschild figured that was the end of that. But two weeks later Oscarfield appeared again. ‘That vas nice, the way you handled that,’ he confided. ‘Really put old Bob to the test. I heard about it.’ He slipped Rothschild another two bills.

Four hundred dollars for not playing ‘Moon Over Miami.’ Rothschild was impressed. After that, Oscarfield used him frequently as a drop. He never saw Bob again. Pretty soon another agent decided to use Rothschild as his Caribbean drop, then another. Then there was Haversham, a British operator with M16. Then an Israeli named Silverblatt. And a Frenchman named...

Within five years Rothschild was the postman for the entire Caribbean intelligence community. He became adept at steaming open envelopes. Then he got into cryptology. It became a hobby. Breaking codes. Keeping files. Cross-references. Before long, Rothschild was quite aware that most of the spies in the islands spent most of their time spying on one another. Sometimes members of one agency even spied on other members of the same outfit. Sometimes they didn’t even know they were both members of the same agency. The madness of it all appealed to Rothschild’s love of the perverse. He began to feel a sense of power. Occasionally he would change the messages slightly, just to see what would happen. In one such instance he almost started a revolution in Guatemala. It was marvellous. It gave the Magician an entirely new outlook on life.

So when he moved to St Lucifer to become pianist in residence at the Great Gustavsen, the epicentre of the Caribbean undercover network just naturally shifted to St Lucifer. Rothschild became so important that once, when he went to the States for a three-week vacation, the entire intelligence community was thrown out of whack. At one time there were eighteen operatives, representing every major country in the world, staying at the Great Gustavsen, waiting for le Sorcier to return.

By the time he acquired Isidore he was knocking down almost five thousand a month in retainers, from the CIA, the KGB, the Sureté, M16, and every other outfit in the network.

Isidore opened up whole new vistas. With Isidore his power became even greater.

Voilà! May I present Izzy,’ Rothschild said as he opened the door to Isidore’s room.

Isidore’s room was a walk-in closet.

Isidore was an Apple II mini-computer.

O’Hara stared at it in mute appreciation, It was beautiful and very compact. It had a keyboard with a telephone cradle attached to it, and it had its own monitor screen and its own high-speed Kube printer. The main box, Izzy’s brain, was about a foot square, with three gates in the front and a large square ready light. A cassette recorder was attached to the telephone modem on the keyboard. The telephone was also equipped with a speakerphone.

Into it, Rothschild had fed mountains of information. But he also made the computer available to agents on a confidential basis, always leaving the room so they could tap out their identification and open up the files of their home-base computers. A video camera built into the wall and aimed at the screen enabled him to collect all of the various codes and machine language necessary to tap into the main computers of most of the major intelligence agencies. By using phone taps, he had also recorded the agents making access calls to their computer centres, and by combining these information banks with his own computer, he had both visual and verbal contact with them.

It was a marvellous hobby.

And it made the Magician one of the most dangerous people in the world.

Having explained his wonderful toy, Rothschild sat down and spread his hands. How about that?’ he said proudly.

You mean you can plug into the base computers for the CIA, the KGB, like that?’ O’Hara asked.

Mostly on a level-two basis, but in some cases I can even tap their top-secret files.’

Where did you get this thing?’

‘Miami. Anybody can buy them. It’s learning to use them that’s the secret. Let me show you how it works.’ He slid a picture on the wall to one side, revealing a large wall safe. He spun the dials and opened the safe. It was filled with cassette tapes and floppy disks and video-tapes. He took out a cassette deck and three disks.

He put a disk in each of the gates, and the cassette in the small tape recorder. ‘These disks store information,’ he explained. ‘The first one has the program on it. That’s what makes all this work. The cassette has the phone access information on it. Once I get the computer on the line, all I need is the proper access code and I can get a visual print-out on the screen.’

He picked up the phone and dialled a number.

‘I hope the phones are working today,’ he said. I’m calling the access line at Langley.’

‘The CIA computer?’

‘Yeah.’

Joli nudged O’Hara. ‘He spends so much time in here, that is why he needs help to run the business,’ he whispered.

Rothschild punched the speaker phone buttons. O’Hara could hear the phone ringing. The connection broke and a voice said, ‘This is Langley Base One. Your identification, please.’

Rothschild put the phone in the cradle attached to the keyboard of the computer and pressed the ‘Play’ button on the tape deck. A recorded voice said: ‘This is Oscarfield, C-One clearance, two-level.’

Rothschild pressed the ‘Pause’ button on the tape deck.

The voice said: ‘Voice ID complete. Access, please.’

Rothschild pressed the ‘Play’ button again: ‘Two-level, file access.’

The voice answered: ‘Tracking, two-level, file access.’ There was a pause and then: ‘Proceed.’

He pressed the ‘Play’ button again. Oscarfield’s taped voice said: ‘Modem readout, two-level.’

Pop! The monitor screen was filled with questions and blank spaces. Rothschild filled them in:

Access identification: OFLD

Agent sector: FIELD

Agent access: L-2

Agent clarity: B-532

Subject name: O’HARA, FRANCIS

Subject agency: PRIVATE

Was subject formerly attchd? Yes x No

Previous afltn: CIA

File Level: BASE

Photos: YES

Other info: NO

Accessing file.

The light on the side of the computer began to blink. After two or three seconds it stopped and a message appeared on the screen:

Press code key to continue...

Rothschild pressed two-three-five and the screen cleared for an instant and then O’Hara’s file flashed on-screen.

‘I’ll be damned,’ O’Hara said.

‘It is truly magic,’ said Joli. ‘The whole world speaks to him on this machine.’

Rothschild pressed a key and the small white cursor moved rapidly down the screen. He stopped at a listing for ‘Current assignment’:

Subject is on special assmnt. Deep storage.

No contact anticipated for several months.