Betrayals (16 page)

“You didn't answer my question.”

Still smiling and shaking her head again, Janet said: “No, it is not to buy drugs!”

“What then?”

“Doesn't the name John Sheridan mean anything to you?”

For the first time Zarpas faltered. “No,” he said.

“Think!” said Janet. “John Sheridan. An American.”

The look to the sergeant this time was for assistance. Kashianis kept his head down over his notebook. “No,” Zarpas had to concede again.

With forced patience Janet said: “He is the most recent American to be kidnapped in Beirut. Check with the U.S. embassy here in Beirut if you like.”

“This still does not explain the £30,000. Or your presence here,” refused Zarpas, stubbornly.

“I am John Sheridan's fiancée,” said Janet. “I have come here to find out what's being done to get him out.”

“With £30,000!”

“There may be expenses,” said Janet. She realized, discomfited, that the explanation sounded unconvincing.

“John Sheridan is an American national?”

“Yes.”

“His job?” Zarpas had recovered supremacy now.

“The embassy,” said Janet, awkwardly. “He worked at the American embassy in Beirut.”

“Wouldn't the responsibility … and any expense involved … in freeing this man if indeed he is held hostage by one of the religious groups … be that of the American government?” said Zarpas.

“Yes,” Janet said. The awkwardness worsened.

“So why have you arrived in Cyprus with £30,000?”

To give herself time to think, Janet said: “How
did
you learn about the deposit?”

“It is a requirement, by law, that all large deposits are automatically reported to the authorities,” said Zarpas, officiously. “Cyprus does not intend to become a financial center for drug trafficking. Or a conduit, either.”

“I'm not trafficking in drugs!” erupted Janet. “I've answered every question honestly!”

“Can I tell you something, Mrs. Stone?”

“What?”

“Every criminal I have ever known has sometime or other told me he is being completely honest.”

The “he” isolated Janet. Why did everything have to be divided, superior male, inferior female? What could a prick do that a cunt couldn't? They had to fit together to make something complete! At once she became irritated at herself. Male to female, female to male. What the fuck—wrong word—did it matter! She sighed—and wished she hadn't—and said: “I am
not
a
drug trafficker. I am a …” She stopped short of saying “woman.” Janet picked up: “… a person trying to find out about another person whom she loves!”

This time the sergeant looked up, to meet his superior's gaze. Zarpas responded but came immediately back to Janet. “So you've come to Cyprus with what you believe to be sufficient money to buy information of which no one else is aware?”

“Yes!” Janet shouted in fresh indignation. “Where's the illegality in that?”

Abruptly—and disconcertingly because the sad face was not made for such an expression—Zarpas smiled. “Poor lady!” he said.

Sex again, Janet thought immediately. “Where's the illegality in that!” she repeated.

Zarpas leaned back against the dressing table and said: “On your part, none.”

“What then?”

“Don't you have people—friends or family—telling you that what you're trying to do is stupid?”

“Too many!” shot back Janet.

“Then you're doubly stupid, not to listen.”

“It's my money!”

“It's your life,” shouted back Zarpas.

“My choice,” responded Janet, just as loud.

“Very good,” the policeman said, abruptly soft-voiced. “You really are very good.”

“Does that mean you don't believe me?”

“It means I'm making no decision.” He paused and added heavily: “Not yet.”

“That sounds like a warning.”

“Take it to sound how you like.”

“Can you help me?” Janet demanded suddenly.

“Help you?”

“Cyprus is crowded with Lebanese since the civil war,” said Janet, eagerly. “You must have sources.”

Zarpas made a sad gesture with his head, not immediately replying. “Yours is a marked account, Mrs. Stone.”

“What does that mean?”

“That I'll know, if there's any abrupt withdrawals. Or deposits.”

“I asked you for help.”

“How about advice?”

“We've already talked about that.”

“Go home, Mrs. Stone. Go to wherever home is before you get hurt …” The policeman hesitated. “Hurt by whoever, whatever.”

“If that's meant to scare me, it doesn't!” Janet said with a defiance she secretly did not feel.

“It should do, Mrs. Stone. It's meant to scare you a lot.”

“What about helping me!”

“Get out of Cyprus. We don't want you here. For whatever reason you are here.”

Janet was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling she could not immediately identify. It was an impression of sagging fatigue, but it had a form, as if she were in an enclosed room from which she was trying to escape by beating against walls which would not yield but were instead closing inexorably in upon her, ever tightening. She actually straightened in her chair, physically trying to slough off the attitude. She said: “All I want is someone to help.”

“Go home,” the policeman repeated, stone-faced.

“If I don't!”

“This isn't a bargaining situation.”

“You can't just expel me, without reasonable grounds!”

“An unexplained deposit of £30,000 in a Cyprus bank account is sufficient reason.”

“I
have
explained it!”

“Not to my satisfaction.”

“No,” Janet said, slowly. “Not by yourself: you can't make that decision by yourself.”

Again, this time just momentarily, Zarpas faltered. Recovering, he said: “Do you imagine my recommendation would not be accepted?”

“I shall appeal to my embassy,” Janet said. She added: “I'm already registered there: they know I'm here.”

Zarpas rose, to look down upon her. He said: “You are a very stupid woman.”

Janet looked up in reply, feeling oddly superior despite their positions, but said nothing.

For several moments Zarpas waited, expectantly, but she did not speak. “I—my government—will not have you cause any embarrassment to this island.”

“I do not intend causing any embarrassment to anyone,” Janet said.

“Don't!” Zarpas insisted, making the warning positive. “The slightest embarrassment would be the reason to expel you, wouldn't it?”

Janet intentionally did not stand to show them from the room and was distressed as soon as they closed the door behind themselves to find that she was physically shaking, from the stress of the encounter. There was no reason, she told herself: no reason at all. She'd fought back, as strongly as the policeman had attacked: won, to a degree. Definitely no reason, then, to react like this, like a … She stopped short of the word, refusing to acknowledge it even in her thoughts. Sexist bastard: they were all sexist bastards. … As positively as she had stopped one slide of thought Janet halted another, because it had no purpose, no point. What, actually, had emerged from the meeting? It all revolved around the money: the policeman's absurd suspicion that she was somehow involved in drug trafficking.
Yours is a marked account
, she remembered. She should have carried it from England in cash and put it in the hotel's safe deposit the moment she arrived: wise after the event, Janet told herself. What about drawing it out and doing that anyway? Too late. If Zarpas were monitoring the money the worse thing imaginable would be to close it with a cash withdrawal. Trapped, she accepted: she had no alternative but to leave it where it was, until she needed it for the real purpose for which she had brought it.
If
she needed it, Janet thought, in balancing, difficult realism.

The sound at the door did not startle her this time as much as the first because she imagined it to be Zarpas, returning for some reason. The surprise came when she opened the door. It was not the policeman but a slightly built, compact man with an out-of-date crew cut, rimless glasses, a multicolored check shirt, needle cords, and brown Topsider loafers.

“Well lookee here!” the man declared. The accent, as well as the expression, was clearly American.

Janet positioned her foot as firmly behind the door as she could, wishing the room were fitted with a safety chain. “What do you want?”

“A little talk, Ms. Stone.”

“It's been a busy afternoon for little talks,” said Janet, with genuine weariness.

“And you've been a busy girl. Langley is real worried.”

A Southerner and proud of it, guessed Janet: the sort who sang rebel songs at parties and had a special recipe for mint juleps. With sudden hopefulness, irritated at herself, Janet said: “Have you heard something?”

“Heard a lot of things, Ms. Stone. A lot of things.”

Careless of any identification this time, Janet opened the door wider, smiling in anticipation, and said: “Come in! Please come in!”

The American did so as if he had the right, almost strolling. He swiveled on his heel, examining the room, and said: “Pretty, real pretty.”

Passingly Janet thought the man's affectation to repeat everything was irritating. She said: “What! What is it?”

“What's what, Ms. Stone?”

“The news, about John?”

The man reached the easy chair and sat, heavily. “That's the problem,” he said. “There isn't any.”

A rash of dizziness made Janet reach out to the dressing table for support. Momentarily she closed her eyes against the whirl. “Please!” she said. “Please don't play word games!”

“Don't intend to, ma'am. Don't intend to.”

Ma'am. And Ms., earlier. She said: “Who are you?”

“Who do you think I am?”

“I think you're someone from the American embassy here in Nicosia attached to the CIA,” Janet said, recovering. “I also think you're someone who watches too much American television.
Miami Vice
a favorite of yours?”

The man's face tightened and Janet knew she'd scored and was glad. She didn't feel dizzy any more. It was anger now. Again.

“What the hell do you think you're doing here?” he demanded.

“You didn't tell me your name.”

“With the sort of shit you can stir, lady! You must be joking!”

Lady, to go with ma'am and Ms. She said: “Is that what you're frightened of? The shit I can stir?”

“We're frightened for John, Ms. Stone. We're frightened that you're going to do some dumbassed thing and get him killed. Aren't you frightened of that?”

Janet swallowed. She said: “I'm frightened of his being killed, certainly. Like I'm frightened that you're doing fuck-all to stop it happening.”

“You got a lot of help and guidance in Washington,” said the man. “You got told things you really shouldn't have been told. So you know that isn't true.”

“I know nothing of the sort,” fought back Janet, glad now he was lower than her because she enjoyed being above him: enjoyed, too, letting her anger out because it needed to go. “I got assurances and I got platitudes and it's been over a month since he got snatched, so where is he? If the CIA is all-so-fucking powerful, why hasn't John Sheridan been found and got out of Beirut?”

The American blinked under the assault, clearly off balance. “You've got to understand …” he started, but Janet, furious now, interrupted.

“Cut it!” she said. “Cut the crap about the difficulties and the intricacies and how it should all be left to the experts. I've heard it: I've heard it until it's running out of my ears.” Repetition seemed to be contagious, she thought.

“What do you think you can achieve by coming here?” demanded the man, trying to escape sideways from the attack.

“I don't know,” answered Janet honestly. “I haven't been here a day yet.”

“It's John's life you're playing with.”

“It's John's life
you're
playing with,” Janet said. “Tell me … convince me by telling me of something positive you've done to get him out … that you've made the right contacts and that there's a chance of his being released … that you know where he is!”

“Lady, you're a pain in the ass.”

“That's exactly what I am, “agreed Janet. “And I'm going to remain a pain in your ass and everyone else's ass until I get some fucking action!”

“Am I supposed to be impressed because you know bad words?”

The offended Southerner, Janet thought. Furiously she said: “I don't give a fuck whether you're offended or not! There's only one person I want to impress. His name's John Sheridan.”

The man brought his hands lightly together, in mocking applause. “So you're going to poke around Larnaca marina and the dives of Zenon Square and Kitieus Street and find out something we don't know and show us all how to do it!”

“I'm going to do whatever it takes, however it takes to get him back,” said Janet.

“In a body bag.”

Janet swallowed against the threat. Hopefully she said: “What's the point in our fighting? It's not going to achieve anything.”

“Nor is your being here, getting in the way.”

“Help me!” said Janet, hopeful still.

The American shook his head. He said: “Langley guessed you'd do something like this, when you suddenly left Washington: that's why we set up the arrival check, here at the airport. There was just one simple message, if you did come: for me to tell you to get out and stay out. Which I've done. Regard that as help: it's all you're going to get.”