Chameleon (18 page)

‘Watch yer step, lad. Ther’ s trouble afoot t’night. Get off the street ‘s fast as yer can.’

‘Yes, sir,’ and he limped off into the darkness as Striker and Finch began to move the barbed-wire gate across the road.

By the time Tony was eighteen and had finished high school and had won himself a scholarship to Oxford, he had learned his profession well. To carry the pistol to England would have been foolhardy. Besides, Falmouth wasn’t angry anymore. When he killed Floodwell, all Tony could remember was that getting even felt good, but as time went on, getting even became less and less important. Revenge turned to exhilaration. Now the simple act of killing made him feel good, the same way that a forward feels good when he makes a goal. It was what he did and he did it without remorse or feeling and he did it very well indeed. And he did it alone.

The day before he left, he rode his bike out to Land’s End and threw the Webley as far out into the ocean as he could. It had served its purpose. In four years, Tony had killed nine people. Two had been British, the rest were informers. Only one of them was a woman.

At Oxford, Falmouth had made quite a record for himself, and for reasons known only to himself, after completing his Rhodes studies, Falmouth joined the British Secret Service. There was no record anywhere of Falmouth’s early ‘training,’ and M16 was glad to get him. He never went back to Ireland.

‘...with a first-class man.’

Falmouth snapped back to reality.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘there was some static on the line. Could you repeat that?’

‘Sorry. I see this as a two-man operation. You happen to be very well qualified for the play and F ye teamed you up with a first-rate chap.’

‘Who?’

His name is Hinge. He’s younger but he’s been in the Game for several years. He’s quite good, really. I consider him one of our best. He’s been in on four team operations to date and acquitted himself admirably.’

‘I see.’

‘I’m sorry, in my haste I only did an A-level check on you. Have you ever been involved in the switch play?’

‘Rome. Four months ago. But it was a little different. It was the Red Brigades and we had to lift five people out.’

‘Of course, now I remember. A very good show, I might add.’

‘Thank you. It’s still a very risky play.’

‘But most effective when it works.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Do you know Caracas?’

‘I’ve been there, but I don’t know the city that well. I know a driver there who’s as good as they come.’

‘Excellent.’

‘What are we dealing with, some revolutionary gang?’

‘There’s no politics in this. Just a bunch of local gangsters trained by the Rafsaludi, trying to shake down the company, although we have no fix on just how tough these customers are.’

‘Well, the Rafsaludi can get very nasty.’

‘Quite. It’s a bonus job. Seventy-five thousand.’

Falmouth whistled silently to himself. He was already planning ahead.

‘It will have to be done fast. Perhaps even by tomorrow night. Certainly no later than the next day. The risk increases by the hour.’

‘Yes, I know. Let’s see, today is Monday ... you should have Lavander out no later than Wednesday eve.’

‘All right,’ Falmouth said. ‘I’m in. I assume the operation is mine.’

‘Yes, you’ll be in command. Hinge is already cleared. Is Miami convenient?’

‘Fine.’

‘There’s a flight on Pan Am at ten-ten PM from Miami

International. It arrives at thirty-three minutes after midnight.

Hinge will not be there until eight AM. He’s coming in through

Mexico.’

‘Weapons?’

‘Everything you need will be down there. Your contact is Rafael Domignon. The number is 53-34-631. There will be a packet at the airport for you, as usual.’

‘Good. How do I know Hinge?’

‘Photo ID and the Camel ploy.’

‘Fine. I’ll report when it’s over unless we have a problem.’

‘Excellent, sir, excellent. I’m delighted you’re handling this.’

‘Thanks. Later.’

‘Goodbye.’

Goddamn! What a rotten break. What a rotten, fucking break. But if this Hinge had the stuff, Falmouth could be back in the Bahamas by late Wednesday. If O’Hara shows, he thought, he’ll wait.

The packet was delivered by messenger at the Pan Am ticket counter fifty-five minutes before flight time. Falmouth took it to the men’s room, entered a stall and sat on the toilet, studying its contents. It contained a round-trip ticket to Caracas and a passport, license and two credit cards under the name Eric Sloan, five thousand dollars in cash and unsigned traveller’s checks, a three-by-five colour photograph of Hinge, what appeared to be a slightly fuzzy Polaroid shot of Lavander, a list of all executives at the plant in Caracas, confirmed and prepaid hotel reservations at the Tamanaco Hotel, the best hotel in the city, and a filter-tip Camel cigarette wrapped in aluminium foil. He marked the filter tip with a pen aid put the cigarette in his package of Gitanes. He studied the photo of Hinge for several minutes, started to burn it, then changed his mind and slipped it into a compartment of his passport wallet. He signed the traveller’s checks and put them, with the cash, in his passport wallet, along with the receipt for the hotel. He studied the photograph of Lavander, a gangly, unkempt man with a gray complexion and thin, straggly hair, for several minutes, and when he knew the face, he burned the photograph and flushed the remains.

He left the rest room and went to the airline counter to check

in.

Hinge arrived at ten the next morning. The drive up from the airport to Caracas was hot and uncomfortable, with the air still humid from the rains the day before, and storm clouds threatening to deluge the city again at any moment. To make matters worse, the cab was not air-conditioned. Warm, moist wind blew through the open windows, and Hinge was wind-whipped and sweaty. The traffic, as usual, was wicked and pollution burned his nose and throat.

‘Pit-fuckin’-city,’ Hinge said, only half under his breath. It wasn’t his first trip to the capital of Venezuela. He knew it well. The city fills a narrow nine-mile-long valley between Mount Avila, a sixty-five-hundred-foot forested mountain, to its north, and the foothills of the Cord Del Maria mountains to the south. Beyond the Cord Del Maria, going farther south, there is not much of anything but, jungle and more jungle, and eventually Brazil. The Del Maria foothills had always struck Hinge as un poco loco, a little crazy. Schizoid would probably be closer to it. On the western slopes are some of the worst slums in the world, the ranchitos, thousands of red huts and adobe shacks that huddle together in squalor, while to the east are the haunts of the rich and the powerful, speckled with costly homes, swimming pools and private clubs, the Beverly Hills of Caracas.

Between them is the sprawling downtown section of, as Hinge would have it, ‘pit-fuckin’-city’; made rich by oil, grown up far too fast for its own good, and which, despite its towering glass-and-steel skyscrapers, still suffered the same ills as most boomtowns. It was overbuilt, overpopulated, polluted, had a terrible phone system, water shortages, lousy garbage collections, the worst traffic jams in the world and its ugliest whores.

At night it glitters like Tiffany’s window.

Hinge wiped sweat from his forehead and tried to ignore the discomfort.

What the hell, he could be in Johannesburg.

Pit-fuckin’-city, squared.

Instead, he thought about the job. Out there somewhere, among the three million people, in the nightmare of downtown or among the squalid ranchitos, was poor old Lavander, like a sinner at a prayer meetin’, prayin’ to be saved. Well, Hinge thought, if me and ol’ Spettro can’t spring him, he can’t be sprung.

So they were staying at the fanciest digs in town. Thank Quill for that. Everything first cabin. Hinge registered and took the key, refusing to allow the bellman to carry his black parachute- silk travelling bag. The room was on the fourth floor.

Good. Hinge didn’t like to be up too high. He had once been in a hotel fire in Bangkok, and his fear of hotel fires was paranoid. The elevator whisked him to the fourth floor. The room was large and opulent with a beautiful view of the teleférico, a Swiss-type cable car that carried patrons up one side of Mount Avila and down the other to the Caribbean Sea, twelve miles to the north.

He put his duffel-type bag on the bed and opened it, taking out fresh underwear, a shirt, socks and a pair of khaki pants. Anxiety hummed along his nerves. He was already tuning up for the assignment, but he was even mo re excited knowing that his partner for this job was in the next room. After ten years in the business, he was finally going to meet il Spettro — the Phantom — according to legend the most skilled assassin in the business and a man who could kill you with a dirty look.

At the same time that Hinge was driving toward his hotel in Caracas, O’Hara was pulling up in front of the flamboyant old hotel on St. Lucifer.

Le Grand Gustavsen Hotel sat on the side of a foothill overlooking the main city, Bonne Terre, which had a population of five thousand, to the azure Caribbean beyond. Towering palm trees lined the coral road that led up to its main entrance. Nothing here had changed since O’Hara’s last visit to the island. Driving up to the entrance, O’Hara always felt as if he were lost in time. The sprawling four-story, virginal- white Victorian hotel was perhaps the most elegant old gingerbread castle in the world, its latticework a masterpiece of curlicues and filigrees and spindles and arches. Broad porches surrounded the second and third floors of the ancient old hostelry, and the building was framed by tall ferns and palm trees. The main floor of the hotel was actually on the second floor. The bottom floor, once a basement and wine cellar, had been turned into a kind of mini-international bazaar. Hidden discreetly behind French doors were sift shops from England and Spain and the Orient. A famous French couturier had a small showroom there. And the newsstand boasted periodicals and newspapers from almost every country in the world, including Russia. A fountain bubbled quietly at the front of the hotel, with a winding escalier on either side, leading to the first floor and the main entrance.

The hotel had been built as an investment in 1892 by Olaf Gustavsen, a Norwegian shipbuilder. Three pestering wives and nine children later, old Gus had forsaken it all and retreated to his island castle, where he had married a beautiful local who had borne him a son and died in the doing. Gus welcomed expatriates, soldiers of fortune, itinerate journalists, down- and-out writers, tired-out old spies on the last leg to retirement, and anyone else with a good story to tell. He had, through the years, begrudgingly added plumbing, running water and electricity. His son, Little Gus, who spent most of his time fishing, kept up the tradition of tawdry elegance, never succumbing either to air-conditioning or telephones in the rooms. Messages were accepted by anyone who happened to answer the phone on the desk, and might or might not be delivered. Outwardly, nothing had changed since 1892 except for an occasional coat of white paint. The only modern touch was a small red neon sign near the driveway, which read:

LE GRAND GUSTAVSEN HOTEL

Presents

Six Fingers Rothschild

The Magician of the Keyboard

Appearing nightly

The Magician must have blackmailed the old buzzard to get that put up.

The doorman was a giant of a black man who wore a white short-sleeved shirt and black bellbottoms.

‘Bonjour, monsieur,’ he said, and took O’Hara’s suitcase.

‘Bonjour,’ O’Hara said. ‘Merci.’

The place was as colourful as ever. As he was paying the cab driver, two men approached. They were stubby little black men, each with a straw hat cocked jauntily over one eye and each holding a fighting cock in hand. Behind them, an amateur fire eater popped a flaming torch in and out of his mouth.

‘Excusez-moi, monsieur, s ‘il vous plait,’ said one of the cockfighters, doffing his hat and smiling broadly enough to show a gold tooth at the side of his mouth, ‘Parlez-vous francais? Habla Usted español? Speak English?’

‘Je suis américain,’ O’Hara said.

‘Ah, monsieur! You have the privilege to meet the greatest coq in the islands. This fellow once pecked a tiger to death.’

The rooster had seen much better times. Its cone was chewed and ragged, and it only had one leg.

‘Merde! his companion exclaimed. ‘A blind old grandmère hen bit off his leg.’ He held his cock high in one hand. ‘This guy once killed an eagle in flight.’

‘Ha! Such lies! Monsieur, ten dollair américain and we will settle this thing right now,’ said the man with the one-legged chicken.

‘Some other time,’ O’Hara yelled back, following the doorman up the stairs to the main lobby.

The two locals were undaunted.

‘Je m ‘appelle Toledo. Donnez-moi de vos nouvelles!’ the man with the one-legged bird yelled t him.—I am Toledo. Let me hear from you! And they all laughed.

Double French doors led to the hotel’s enormous main room, which served as its lobby, bar, waiting room, restaurant and registry. Sitting just inside the doors vas a large hulk of a desk, littered with letters, bills, telegrams, messages, and an antiquated French telephone. The hotel’s old-fashioned registration book lay open on one corner. The oak bar, smoothly polished by time, was to the left. Its twenty-foot-long zinc top had once decorated the main room of a famous Parisian brasserie until old Gustavsen had won it from the owner in a game of baccarat and shipped it to the island at great expense. A Montana rancher who had been a regular customer of the hotel for years had presented the old man with a brass plaque when the zinc top arrived. It was mounted at one end of the bar and read: ‘Won fair and square in a game of chance between old man Gustavsen and Gerard Turin, Paris, 4 December 1924.’

To the right of the desk was the restaurant, nothing more than several tables with wicker chairs, but the food was prepared by a young native who had been taught his skill by the previous chef the great Gazerin. The food alone was worth a trip to the island.

The room itself was a collection of oddities, things left behind or donated or bartered across the bar for drinks: an airplane propeller over the bar, hurricane lanterns of every size and shape, an enormous anchor that had lain in the same spot in one corner of the room for thirty-four years, a wine cooler that Hemingway supposedly gave to old Gustavsen, an Australian bush hat, a blow gun and several darts which, according to legend, had been left there by a pygmy in a seersucker suit. There were several autographed photographs of prize fighters and wrestlers and musicians, hanging awry on the walls, and a good-sized tarpon over the upright piano. The room was dark and comfortably cool, stirred by ceiling fans.

‘Tiens, voilà le Mann! Bonjour, bonjour, mon ami,’ someone yelled from the bar, and O’Hara peered through the darkness to see Justice Jolicoeur approaching him.

Justice Jolicoeur stopped a few feet from O’Hara and posed for a moment, as though he were studying a painting.

‘Alors! he said. ‘You have not changed by so much as an eyelash. Obviously you weathered your exile well.’

He was a wiry little man, and every inch, every ounce, was pure dandy. He wore a white-linen three-piece suit, a thin fire-engine-red tie and a blood-red carnation in his lapel. His boots were of black English leather and his cane was polished enamel with a hand-carved golden swan’s head grip. His curly black hair was slicked back tight against his skull, and when he spoke, his polished and cultured patois was superbly refined Creole, although for effect he sometimes lapsed into French, which he spoke like a scholar. Jolicoeur was a Haitian who had left the country with the Tontons, Papa Doe’s vicious secret police, hard on his heels. What he had done to earn the wrath of the dictator was a mystery. Joli, as he liked to be called, never discussed the past. But it was rumoured that he had arrived in St. Lucifer with two hundred one-hundred-dollar gold sovereigns in his hollow cane, and immediately conned Gus Junior into a retainer as the hotel’s official ambassador of good will. It was worth it to Gus to have Joli around. He gave the place a touch of class.