1974 - So What Happens to Me (7 page)

She nodded.

“So you read Shakespeare’“

“I was on an airfield, ten miles outside Saigon for three years. The guy who had my hut before I arrived and who walked into a face full of shrapnel had Shakespeare’s plays and an album of blue photos. I spent most of my time looking at the photos and reading the plays.”

“Which did you prefer?”

“After a while the photos lost their impact, but the old Bard lingered on.”

The Jap came back with a frosted glass of coke and set it on the table beside me as if he was setting down a bomb. He drew back and waited.

“Is that how you like it?” she asked.

“It’s fine.” I didn’t taste it “It was a gag.”

She flicked her fingers at the Jap who disappeared.

This finger flicking act of hers impressed me. I wondered if a time would come when she would flick her fingers at me.

“A gag?”

“Just trying to hold my end up,” I said. “I’m not used to this opulent scene. . . at least it fazed Jackson.”

She stared at me then laughed.

“I love that. It certainly did.”

I took out my crumbled pack of cigarettes.

“Could you smoke one of these or are yours gold plated?”

“I don’t smoke.” A pause, then she said. “I find you refreshing, Mr. Crane.”

I lit a cigarette.

“I’m glad. While we are paying compliments, may I tell you, to me, you’re the most glamorous woman I’ve ever seen.”

We stared at each other and she lifted an eyebrow.

“Thank you.” Another pause. “And thank you for finding Borgia. Not one of these stupid people at the airport thought of looking for him. I don’t believe you haven’t ridden a horse. The way you handled Borgia: only a horseman could have done that.”

“That was another gag.” I smiled at her. “I’m like that. Mrs. Essex. . . a gag man. Out in Saigon, I spent most of my time on a horse when I wasn’t working on kites.”

“And, of course, when you weren’t reading Shakespeare or looking at blue photos.”

“That’s it.”

“Would you be interested to work for us?” She shot the question at me the way Ali shoots a jab.

I was expecting it and had my answer ready.

“Would you qualify the word ‘us’?”

She frowned.

“The Essex Enterprises of course!”

“That would mean working for Mr. Jackson?” I regarded her, then went on, “Just for a moment I thought you were suggesting I should work for you.”

This threw her as I hoped it would. She tried to hold my stare, but her eyes shifted away.

“I asked Jackson if there was some interesting opening we could offer you.” She still looked away from me. “He seems to think that might be difficult, but then he always makes difficulties.”

“I can imagine.” I saw she was back on an even keel again and I smiled at her. “I appreciate this very much, Mrs. Essex: especially you asking me here. After all I only found your horse, but if you could find me a job here. . .” I let it drift. “I would like to talk to Colonel Olson. Frankly, working for Mr. Jackson isn’t my idea of fun and I like fun.”

I got to my feet. “Thank you for your hospitality.” I was now standing over her. “Now, if you’ll do your finger flicking act, I’ll disappear as they all disappear.”

She stared up at me and there was that sudden thing in her eyes that all women get when they want a man. I’ve known a lot of women in my life and that look is unmistakable. I could scarcely believe it but it was there and then it went away: like a green traffic light changing to red.

“Goodbye, Mr. Crane.”

“So long.” I paused and looked right into those big violet eyes. “I know this doesn’t buy me anything, but I want you to know that, right now, I’m looking at the most beautiful woman in the world.”

I made that my exit line.

There was no sign of Bernie Olson when the Bentley decanted me outside my cabin. I went in, wondering if .there was a note for me but didn’t find one.

The time was after 13.00 and I was now hungry. I rang room service and asked for something to eat.

“The special is excellent, Mr. Crane: baby lamb with all the trimmings. Should I send that over?”

I said it would do fine and hung up.

During the drive back to the airport I had thought about Mrs. Essex. Could I have been mistaken about that look that had come into her eyes? I don’t think so, but it seemed fantastic that a woman in her position could have got turned on by a guy like me. So okay, accepting that fact she had been turned on it didn’t mean a thing. A woman like that wouldn’t take risks when married to Lane Essex. She could have her private thoughts but putting those thoughts into action was something else beside.

All the same, she had me turned on. I would have given a couple of years of my life to spend a night with her: that, I knew would be an experience that I would never forget.

After a while, the meal arrived and I ate it. By this time it was 14.23. While I was lighting a cigarette, the telephone rang.

“Hi! Jack!” It was Olson.

“Hi!”

“Have you a car?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think you can find your way to that cafe-bar?”

“No problem.”

“Suppose we meet there in half an hour?”

“Okay.”

He hung up.

Well, I thought as I crushed out my cigarette and got to my feet, I would now know what this was all about. As I left the cabin and got into the Alfa there came a distant bang of blasting. O’Brien was still at it.

It took me twenty minutes to reach the cafe-bar. The white Jag was parked in the shade. I parked the Alfa by it, then walked up the creaking steps to the veranda.

Olson was sitting, nursing a cup of coffee. He waved to me and I joined him.

The girl came out and smiled at me.

“Coffee.”

“Well, Jack, seems like you have been having yourself quite a ball,” Olson said as the girl went away. “It also seems that you have forgotten the Army faster than I had imagined.”

The girl came back with the coffee and went away.

“What does that mean?”

“You’ve forgotten how to obey orders.” There was a snap in his voice that annoyed me.

“You said yourself we’re no longer in the Army. Look, Bernie, I’m not going to make any excuses. You dumped me here on a phoney job. You didn’t take me into your confidence. So I’ve played it the way the cards fell. If you don’t like the way I’ve played it, say so and I’ll get out of here.”

He tried to stare at me, but failed His eyes shifted. I could see he was sweating.

“Well, maybe there’s no damage done, but I wanted you to keep out of the spotlight. From what I hear, you’re now in good with Mrs. Essex.” He stirred his coffee, not looking at me. “Maybe that’s a good thing. I hear you were up at the house this morning.”

“Your grapevine’s working well.”

He forced a smile.

“Don’t let’s get off on the wrong foot Jack. This operation is too important. I’m relying on you. I need your help.”

“Look, Bernie, up to now you’ve handled this wrong. Why the hell didn’t you tell me what you’re cooking when you first brought me here instead of feeding me this crap about building a runway? If you had done that, there wouldn’t have been this foul up.”

“I couldn’t. Kendrick insisted on seeing you before you joined us. He’s like that. . . he wouldn’t trust his mother. Then I had to fly the boss to New York: that was unexpected.”

“Kendrick? That fat queer? Where does he fit in?”

“He’s financing it.”

I lit a cigarette.

“Okay, Bernie, suppose you tell it.”

He fidgeted with the spoon, put it down, picked it up, tapped it against his cup.

“Yes.” A pause, then he said. “You remember my last mission in Saigon? You remember the airfield was bombed and your hut was destroyed?”

I stared at him

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“A lot. You remember I told you to move in with me?”

Bernie put down the spoon, pushed his half-finished coffee away, then drew it towards him. “You remember I had the bed and you the couch?”

“I remember.”

A long pause, then Bernie said quietly, “You talked in your sleep Jack. Three old money changers I’ll never forget that night, listening to you muttering. Then later when I got this itch to make big money and when I hatched out this plan to get it and when I realised I had to have a top class man to help me, I thought of you.” He put down the spoon and looked directly at me. “I figured that if you could kill three old men for around $5000, you would do a lot more for a quarter of a million.” He ran his hand over his sweating face, then asked. “Am I right?”

I drank some coffee.

“It depends, Bernie. A quarter of a million is nice money, but I was safe enough in Saigon . . . how safe would I be here?”

“It’s safe enough. That’s the least of the problem. Right now, you’re my problem. I can understand what you did out there. The Viets meant nothing to any of us. Shooting an old Viet under battle conditions is something I can I accept, but this thing. . .well, if it comes unstuck, then you could go away for a long time as I could I can’t see how it could come unstuck. I’ve thought a lot about it and I reckon we have a 95 percent chance of getting away with it.”

“I could accept those odds,” I said.

“Yes.” He picked up the spoon and began to fidget with it again. “What I want to know Jack, is how you react to this offer.”

“Suppose you tell me about it? Then I can tell you.”

He shook his head.

“I can’t do that unless you tell me you’re in with us. If I tell you the plan and you duck out. . . where are we left?”

I stared at him.

“That’s telling me you don’t trust me to keep my mouth shut.”

He looked away from me.

“I’m not the only one in this. Either a quarter of a million persuades you to come in with us without being told or it’s no dice.”

“You didn’t talk this way to me in Saigon, I’m not walking into anything blind. You either trust me or you don’t. That’s my final word.”

We stared at each other, then he gave me a sudden smile and it did me good to see it. It was the kind of smile he used to give me before he took off on a bombing mission.

“I apologise Jack. Okay. . . here it is. If you don’t want it, I’ll give you three thousand dollars and you go home and forget it. . . right?”

“Right.”

“I’ve been working for Essex now for a year. I’ve had enough of him and his wife. There’s no future in it. Working for them has aged me. I don’t have to tell you: you can see for yourself. Pilots are a dime a dozen. Essex could replace me like that.” He snapped his fingers. “So I got to thinking.” He stared down the sandy road at the distant beach. “This brings us to Pam. When I took over the airport, she was there, as deputy air hostess. Maybe this will be hard for you to understand. She and I have a thing for each other. She can’t help being over sexed. This is something I can’t do anything about, but we really mean a great deal to each other. When she has to have it, I look away.” He took out his handkerchief and wiped of his sweating hands.

“We were out one night, eating at L’Espandon where she has credit and she introduced me to Claude Kendrick. You’ve met him. Kendrick not only runs a profitable art gallery, but he is also the biggest fence on the coast. He is in the market for any goods to be sold: no matter what. Over coffee, I got to talking about Essex’s new plane. This is quite a job Jack. The final bill will work out around ten million dollars. It’s. . .”

“Hey! Wait a minute!” I stared at him. “Did you say ten million?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t believe it. You can buy a Viscount for two and a half. Ten! Are you sure?”

“This is a unique plane Jack. There’s no other plane like it in the world. Essex’s experts have been working on it for four years. Essex has poured money into It to get it right. This is not a mass-produced job. It’s like a Rolls Royce car: nothing but the best. I won’t go into details now. You’ll probably see it for yourself. Two weeks after my meeting with Kendrick, Pam told me he would like to see me again. We met and he told me he had a client who would buy the plane if I flew it to Yucatan. The cut for me would be a million. I told him he was crazy. He said there was no hurry, but he would like me to think about it. So I started thinking. The plane wouldn’t be ready for test flights for another three months. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that it could be done.” He looked up, regarding me. “I would need the right crew. I have a copilot lined up. I have Pam. I need a flight mechanic—you. How do you like it so far?”

I lit a cigarette while I thought about it.

“It’s an idea. Could I dig at it, shooting off the cuff?”

“That’s what I want.”

“Okay. You have a ten million dollar aircraft. Don’t let’s worry about how you steal it. Let’s first look at the financial end. You get a million. I get a quarter. Pam gets something and also the copilot!”

‘That’s about it.”

“Kendrick sells the kite for five million. That’s half price. He takes no risk and puts three million in his pocket. Do you think that’s a good proposition?”

Bernie shifted uneasily.

“You just said a quarter of a million was nice money.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know how much Kendrick will collect: could be a lot less than five.”

I shook my head.

‘No. I’ve met him: he’s all shark. He’ll probably get seven. He’s gyping you.”

Olson shrugged. There was again that weary, cynical look in his eyes that gave me no confidence in him.

“I’ll settle for a million. With that kind of money Jack, I could set up an air taxi service in Mexico. You could come into it too.”

I finished my lukewarm coffee.

“Suppose we talk to Kendrick. He could be squeezed. Suppose you got two and I got one. That would be better, wouldn’t it?”

“Kendrick holds the cards Jack. He has the client. I don’t know who he is. Without the client we would be whistling in the wind.” He stared at me. “And another thing, I don’t think Kendrick can be squeezed.”

“Suppose I try? After all who is taking the risk?”

“Well, maybe, but I’ll have to discuss this with Pam and Harry.”