The American Page 8

  There were a lot of people drifting my way along the sidewalks, over the grassy parkland. In the open air, in the wide space of the Mall, I stood a better chance of identifying the shadow-dweller.

  I headed for the Washington Monument. Some boys of about ten, released momentarily from the strictures of their school party, were playing on the grass, throwing a softball to each other, catching it in cow-hide mitts. I could hear the thud of leather from some distance.

  Nearing the monument, I suddenly stopped and turned. Others were doing likewise, to see the dramatic view down the centre of the Mall, towards the Capitol.

  I saw no-one flinch, not even in the distance, not even for an instant. Yet I knew now who he was. He was a man with his wife and child, about thirty or thirty-five, six feet tall, 160 pounds, slimly built. He was dark-haired and wore a fawn jacket and brown trousers, a light blue shirt and a tie which he had loosened. His wife was auburn-haired, quite pretty in a flowery print dress with a leather shoulder-bag. Their child was a girl of about eight, incongruously blonde. She was holding the woman’s hand and it was this which gave them away. I could not exactly define what was wrong, what tiny cues told me this was not a family. The little girl’s hand just did not fit in the woman’s. The child did not walk, somehow, with the familiarity of a daughter with her mother.

  I realised as I saw them that they had been in the museum shop. There, in the crush of museum visitors, the unnaturalness of the relationship between the mother and child had not been discernible. Now, in the open, it was obvious. I had to dodge these people.

  The man, I reasoned, would be the one to follow me if I headed off at speed. He looked fit and athletic. I should not stand much of a chance over the open grass. The woman and the child would not follow: the former would contact other operatives in the field to head me off. The child would be a minor inconvenience.

  I pretended not to notice them and carried on towards the monument. Just on the edge of its shadow, I stopped and sat on the grass to eat my cookies, now lukewarm. The pseudo-family continued towards me. They had not realised I had rumbled them.

  Coming quite close to me, the woman reached inside her shoulder-bag for a Kleenex. I was sure I heard the minute click of a shutter snapping, but it did not matter. I was prepared, had my face half-covered by my hands and a large piece of cookie.

  The man pointed to the top of the obelisk.

  ‘This, Charlene honey,’ he said in what I recognised as just marginally too loud a voice, ‘was built by the people of America to honour the great George Washington. He was the first President of our country.’

  The little girl craned her head back and peered up, her blonde curls hanging loose.

  ‘My neck hurts,’ she complained. ‘Why did they have to make it so high?’

  After a while, they moved away informing the child all about Washington and his monument. Most of the tourists walked all around the obelisk: they wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial reflected in the oblong pool made for the effect. Yet my little family did not. It was the final confirmation I required.

  Casually, I set off the way I had come, against the drift of pedestrians. Most were, I guessed, following a city walk plan which dictated a stroll to see Lincoln after pausing by the Washington needle. My family dutifully followed me. I skirted the White House and Lafayette Square and started up Connecticut Avenue. I was booked into a hotel beyond Dupont Circle and assumed they knew this: they would be thinking I was going there.

  I halted at a pedestrian crossing, waiting for the walk sign to light up. They halted some way back and the man pretended to re-tie the little girl’s shoe. This was a farce: I had noticed her white sandals were buckled. The mother busied herself with her shoulder-bag. I guessed she had a walkie-talkie in it and was reporting my position.

  The light changed. A taxi drew along the street. I hailed it and got quickly in.

  ‘Patterson Street,’ I ordered. The taxi swung round in an illegal U and headed off eastward down K Street.

  I looked back. The walkie-talkie was out of the shoulder-bag. The man was looking round frantically for another taxi, his right hand inside his jacket. The little girl stood against a scarlet fire hydrant looking perplexed.

  At Mount Vernon Square, I changed my instruction to the driver, to his chagrin. He drove down 9th Street, over the Washington Channel and the Potomac to the airport. Within twenty minutes, I was on the next flight out of town. It did not matter to where.

  There are always those who live in the shadows. I know them because I am one of them. We are brothers in the freemasonry of secrecy.

  Yesterday, my visitor called. I shall not give you a name. It would be foolish, the height of professional indiscretion. Besides, I do not know it myself. I have only Boyd, for that is how the note was signed.

  This person was of average height, quite thin but well-formed in a lean way with mousy brown hair which may have been dyed. A firm handshake. I like that: a person who grips you can be trusted within the established parameters of a relationship. A quietly spoken person, of few words, conservatively dressed in a well-cut suit.

  We did not meet at the apartment but near the fountain in the Piazza del Duomo. The person was standing, as we arranged, by the cheese stall, wearing dark glasses and reading the day’s edition of Il Messaggero with the front page folded in half upon itself.

  It was the agreed opening signal. I had to make mine. I went to the cheese stall.

  ‘Un po’ di formaggio,’ I ordered.

  ‘Quale?’ the old woman replied. ‘Pecorino, parmigiano?’

  ‘Questo,’ I answered, pointing. ‘Gorgonzola. E un po’ di pecorino.”

  Gorgonzola, then pecorino: this was the formula, another cue in the game of recognition.

  All the while, I was being watched. I paid with a five euro note. The page of the newspaper slipped to the ground. I picked it up.

  ‘Grazie.’

  As the word was spoken, I saw the head tilt to one side. There was a smile. I could see lines form at the corner of the eyes, a young person’s eyes.

  ‘Prego,’ I answered, adding, ‘you are most welcome.’

  The newspaper was folded, I collected my change and followed some paces behind through the market stalls to the gelateria-cum-bar outside of which stood some tables and chairs on the pavement. My contact sat beneath a Martini umbrella. I sat opposite across the metal table which rocked unevenly on the pavement.

  ‘It is hot.’

  The sunglasses were removed and put down. The eyes were deeply hazel, but contact lenses can tint an iris and I guessed these were coloured.

  The waiter came out, flicked a cloth over the table and emptied the tin ashtray down a draining grate in the gutter.

  ‘Buon giorno. Desidera?’

  He spoke with a tired voice. It was nearly midday and the sun was hot.

  I did not order. This was the final fail-safe, the final check. My visitor said, ‘Due spremute di limone. E due gelati alla fragola. Per favore.”

  Again, there was a smile and I saw the skin by the eyes line once more. The waiter nodded. I noticed my visitor’s smile was devious, cunning: there was something sharp about it, acutely discerning. It was like the crafty, falsely subservient expression one sees in the eye of an artful dog which has just robbed the butcher’s shop.

  We did not speak until the drinks and ice creams arrived.

  ‘It is hot. My car has no air conditioning. I asked for one but . . .’

  The words trailed off. Thin, artistic fingers like a musician’s removed the plastic straw from the drink and sipped at it.

  ‘What car have you?’ I asked but received no reply. Instead, the hazel eyes moved quickly across the market crowd, from one passer-by to the other.

  ‘Do you live far off?’

  The voice was subdued, more suited to an intimate tête-à-tête in a private cubicle in a cosy restaurant than conversation across a rickety street café table.

  ‘No. Five minutes walk at the most.
’

  ‘Good! I’ve had enough in the sun for today.’

  We ate our ice creams and drank our drinks. We did not speak again until it was time to leave. The waiter brought the bill.

  ‘Let me,’ I offered, reaching for the slip.

  ‘No. My shout.’

  Such an English expression, I thought: British, at any rate.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite.’

  It was if we were old friends sparring in a comradely fashion over a bill in a London restaurant. Business friends. In part, this is the case, for we are doing business.

  ‘You leave. I’ll get my change and come after you.’

  We made our way to the vialetto. At all times, my visitor kept at least thirty metres back.

  ‘Very nice,’ was the comment as I let us in to the cool canyon of the courtyard, the fountain dripping gently in the quiet. ‘You’ve found a very nice spot. I do like fountains. They add such—such peace to a place.’

  ‘I like it,’ I replied.

  It was at that moment, perhaps, for the first time, I felt a distinct affinity for the little town, the valley and the mountains, sensed their deep pacificity and wondered if, when it was all over, I should stay this time, eke out my leisure years here, not move on to another temporary abode and subterfuge.

  We went up the stairs and into my apartment, my visitor sitting in one of the canvas chairs.

  ‘I wonder if I might beg a glass of water? It is so frightfully hot.’

  Frightfully: another English phrase.

  ‘I have cold beer. Or wine. Capezzana Bianco. It is semi-sweet.’

  ‘A glass of wine. Please.’

  I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The beer bottles clinked in the door rack. I could hear movement in the chair as the wood frame creaked. I knew what was going on: my room was being surveyed, searched for whatever that sort of person looked for in a strange place, something to offer reassurance, security.

  I poured the wine into a tall stemmed glass, a tumbler of beer for myself, then carried the refreshments through on an olive-wood tray. I handed the wine glass over and watched as my guest sipped it.

  ‘Much better.’ The smile half-formed. ‘We should have arranged for wine in the bar, not lemon juice.’

  I sat on another of the chairs, put the tray on the floor and raised my beer.

  ‘Cheers!’ I said.

  ‘I do not have long.’

  ‘Quite.’ I took a pull of my beer and set the tumbler back down on the tray. ‘What exactly are your requirements?’

  The eyes moved across to the windows.

  ‘You have a fine view from here.’

  I nodded.

  ‘You’re not overlooked. That is most important.’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, unnecessarily.

  ‘The range will be about seventy-five metres. Certainly not over ninety. Possibly much closer. I shall have not more than five seconds. Possibly seven, at the most.’

  ‘How many . . .’ I paused. One never knows how to phrase it. I have had this discussion so many times over the last three decades and I still do not have it worked out to perfection ‘. . . targets?’

  ‘Just the one.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘A rapid fire rate. A reasonably large magazine capacity. Preferably 9mm Parabellum.’

  The wine glass twisted in those artistic fingers. I watched as the reflection of the windows spun round against the mellow yellow of the wine.

  ‘And it must be light. Fairly small. Compact. Possible to be broken down into its constituent parts.’

  ‘How small? Pocket-size?’

  ‘Bigger would be permissible. A small case. Say a briefcase. Or a lady’s vanity case.’

  ‘X-rays? Camouflage—transistor radio, tape cassette, camera? In amongst tins, aerosols, that sort of thing?’

  ‘Not necessary.’

  ‘Noise?’

  ‘It needs to be silenced. To be on the safe side.’

  The wine glass chimed as the base touched the stone floor and my visitor stood up to leave.

  ‘Can you do it?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘Most certainly.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A month. To a trial. Then, say, a week for any final touches.’

  ‘Today is the sixth. I shall need a trial on the thirtieth. Then four days to delivery.’

  ‘I do not deliver, not these days,’ I pointed out. I had said as much in my letter.

  ‘To collection, then. How much?’

  ‘One hundred thousand. Thirty now, twenty at the trial, fifty on completion.’

  ‘Dollars?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The smile was less cautious now. There was an edge of relief to it, a hint of satisfaction such as one sees on the face of anyone who has what they want.

  ‘I shall need a ’scope. And a case.’

  ‘Of course.’ I smiled now. ‘I’ll also prepare . . .’

  I left the rest unsaid. A pen is no use without ink, a plate without food, a book without words or a gun without ammunition.

  ‘Excellent, Mr. . . . Mr. Butterfly.’

  The manilla envelope fell heavily on to the chair.

  ‘The first payment.’

  The bills, judging by the thickness, must have been hundreds.

  ‘Until the end of the month, then.’

  I rose to my feet.

  ‘Please don’t get up. I can let myself out.’

  It is not good to be a man of habit. I hold in contempt those men who rule their lives by timetables, who run their existence with the efficiency of the German national railway network. There can be nothing more despicable than for a man to be able to declaim, without demur, that at 13.15 on Tuesday he will be seated at the eighth table on the right from the door in the pizzeria on Via Such-and-Such, a glass of Scansano by his plate and a pizza ai fungi before him.

  Such a man is puerile, has never been able to escape the security of parental order, the insistent but safe sequence of the school timetable. What for many years was mathematics or geography is now the pizzeria or the barber-shop, the office coffee break or the morning sales meeting.

  How one can determine one’s life seems obscure to me. I could not do this. I escaped from such a routine through fencing stolen knick-knacks and entering into my present life.

  When I lived in that English village, hounded by Mrs. Ruffords from across the lane, whom I secretly called the Daily News, for she was an inveterate gossip, an enduring community snooper, the one person who had the longest stick to prise under my stone of solitude, my day was as compartmentalised as that of a schoolmaster. I rose at six, made coffee, emptied the night’s accumulation of slag from the coke burner, made toast and watched the milkman deliver the milk. At seven thirty, I entered the workshop and set about the day’s tasks, written on a sheet of paper the night before and pinned over the end of the bench. I switched on the radio, the volume low. I heard nothing. It was just a noise to break the tedium.

  At noon, exactly, as the time pips bleeped the end of the morning, I downed tools, made a cup of soup and drank it at the table in the pokey sitting room of my cottage, peering out on a tiny, drab garden upon which the seasons seemed to make little impression.

  At one o’clock, I returned to the workbench. I did not immediately recommence work. The morning’s toil had untidied the surface. I spent half an hour organising my tools. The saws hung from hooks over the bench, the chisels and gouges along the windowsill, the hammers in a rack at the end of the bench: that everything was into the original disorder within thirty minutes, and that I knew where everything was in any case, was immaterial. It was the routine I was serving, not the logicality of work.

  At six o’clock, I stopped work, listening to the television news as I prepared my evening meal. Even this was routine. I had steak most nights, or lamb chops for variation. They required only grilling. I forced myself to cook a different vegetable each night, my c
oncession to originality.

  Saturday mornings I went to the supermarket. Wednesday afternoons I went to the antique fair and did a round of the dealers, buying and selling, accepting commissions for repair.

  Now, I deliberately fight routine. Not only to stave off boredom but also, I admit, as an act of preservation. Not just the preservation of which a man in my line of business has to be constantly conscious, the stranger on the corner, the reader of a newspaper under a street lamp, the man who changes trains at the same station, but the preservation of the mind. I should go crazy if I had to follow the hours with the religious observance of a time-server.

  So it is I never go to the bar every Monday, or every lunchtime, and I have several which I patronise. No one can say of me it is Thursday because I am in the Piazza Conca d’Oro, in the Bar Conca d’Oro, at the table by the counter.

  Let me tell you of this bar. It is on the corner of the piazza, which is cobbled with those square stones so loved of Italian street pavers, set in patterns, shell patterns in this piazza, quite obviously. There are two islands in the piazza: one contains a fountain, the other three trees. The fountain does not work and has no water in it. Students from the university use it as a bicycle park. Where there should be the music of water there is a tangle of cycle frames, handlebars and pedals. Under the trees, the proprietor of the bar has set tables, monopolising the public space for the sake of his profit-margin and, he claims, the good of the residents. If he had no tables there the space would be filled with parked Fiats and mopeds, all leaking oil and fouling the air with fumes. In fact, few vehicles drive into the piazza which is a backwater of the town.

  The interior of the bar is indistinguishable from that of any other throughout Italy. British pubs are all, in their own fashion, unique. They may have jukeboxes or one-armed bandits in common but there the similarities end. Bars are not like this: they all have a plastic curtain at the doorway, a shop-window to let in the light, plastic or wooden chairs around shaky tables, a bar and a hissing cappuccino maker, racks of fly-blown bottles of obscure liquors and tumblers with chipped rims and sides scratched from many thousands of washings. There is often a dusty radio hidden on a high shelf muttering pop music and on the bar one of those gambling machines into which one puts a coin and receives a coloured wooden bead in the centre of which is a hole drilled through, containing a paper slip with a national flag printed upon it. Get the correct flag and win a plastic digital wristwatch worth next to nothing.