The Loo Sanction Read online

  “And you can sort yourself out just like that? In a few minutes?”

  “I can now. After years of practice.”

  She considered that for a moment. “There must have been some terrible things in your life, for you to have to develop—”

  “There! There they are!”

  She followed his eyes to the hotel entrance. Through gaps in the traffic, she saw two men emerge and stand on the pavement, looking up and down the street. One of them was dressed oddly in flared trendy trousers, cowboy boots, and a longish, tight plaid sports jacket. The collar of his aloha shirt was folded over the jacket collar in the style of twenty-five years ago, and a bulky camera dangled from around his neck. The other man was tall and powerfully built. His bullet-shaped head was shaved, and there were deep folds of skin halfway up the back of his neck. He wore a thick turtleneck sweater under a tweed jacket, and gave the impression of a prizefighter, save for his large, mirror-faced sunglasses.

  Aloha Shirt said something to Bullet Head. From his expression, he was angry. Bullet Head barked back, clearly not willing to take the blame. They looked again up and down the street, then Aloha made a signal with his hand, and a dark Bentley pulled up to the curb. They got in, Bullet in front, Aloha alone in back. The Bentley pulled into the traffic, bullying its way into the flow on the strength of its prestige.

  Maggie looked at Jonathan, who was studying the faces of the other passersby in front of the hotel. “That’s all,” he said to himself. “Just the two.”

  “How do you know—”

  He held up his hand. “Just a moment.” He watched the street narrowly until, in about three minutes, the Bentley passed again, slowing down as it went by the hotel entrance, the men within leaning forward to examine it carefully. Then the car sought the center lane and drove off.

  “OK. They won’t be back. Not for a few hours, anyway. But they’ve undoubtedly left someone inside.”

  “How do you know they were the ones?”

  “Instinct. They have the look of the weird types you find in espionage. And their subsequent behavior nailed it.”

  “Espionage? What on earth is going on, Jonathan?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Have you done something?”

  “No.” He felt anger and bitterness rise inside him. “I think it’s something they want me to do.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  He changed the subject curtly. “Tell me, how would you describe the boss one. The one with the camera and the gaudy shirt?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. An American, I suppose. A tourist?”

  “Not a tourist. Even in his excitement, he checked the traffic from right to left. As though he were used to driving on the left. Americans check it from left to right.”

  “But the cowboy boots?”

  “Yes. But the trousers were of British cut.”

  “He did look odd, come to think of it. Like an American. But like an American in old movies.”

  “Exactly my impression.”

  “What does that tell you?” She leaned forward conspiratorially.

  Jonathan smiled at her, suddenly amused by the tone of their conversation. “Nothing, really. Drink your coffee.”

  She shook her head.

  He withdrew into himself for several minutes, his brow furrowed, his eyes focused through the patterned wall he was staring at. Unit by unit he put together the flow of his necessary actions for the rest of the day. Then he took a deep breath and resettled his attention on Maggie. “OK, listen.” He drew his wallet from his jacket pocket. Folded in it were his checkbook, several sheets of writing paper, stamps, and envelopes, all of which he had collected in his tour of the penthouse flat. “I’ll be damned!” He had also drawn out the envelope containing money the Renaissance man had given him for his ad hoc appraisal of the Marini Horse. He had completely forgotten about it. So he wasn’t working all that lucidly after all. His reactions had rusted in the years since he had quit this kind of business forever. He opened the envelope and counted the money: ten fifty-pound notes. Good. He wouldn’t have to use a check after all. “Here,” he said, passing two hundred pounds over the table, “take this.”

  She moved her hand away from the notes, as though to avoid contaminating contact. “I don’t need it.”

  “Of course you need it. You don’t have a room. You don’t have any money. And you can’t go back to MacTaint’s.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’ll have someone watching it. This thing is pretty carefully put together. They must have been on me most of the night. I don’t too often sleep up there. I usually stay in my Mayfair flat.”

  “If you hadn’t met me . . .”

  “Nonsense. If they really wanted to get to me, they’d have done it sooner or later.”

  “Something occurs to me, Jonathan. How did they get in?”

  “Oh, any number of ways. Picked the lock. Used a key. And there are a lot of keys around. I told you about that drunk actress.”

  “Still, it must have been difficult. Carrying that poor man.”

  “He was alive when they brought him in. They shot him there in the bathroom. No blood in the hall. He was heavily doped up.”

  “But still, how did they get him up to your flat.”

  He shook his head. While they had waited for the elevator to bring them down from his apartment, he had noticed a folding wheelchair against the wall. That, together with the Casper mask stuffed behind his toilet, told him that they’d brought the poor son of a bitch there as a Guy Fawkes dummy. Jonathan saw no reason to share this grisly detail with Maggie.

  “Here, take the money.”

  “No, really . . .”

  “Take it.”

  Her hand shook as she accepted the folded notes.

  “I know, dear. And I’m sorry. It’s really a piece of bad luck that you got mixed up in this. But you’ll be all right. They’re not after you.”

  Tears appeared in her eyes, as much in reaction to the stress and fear as anything else. She didn’t apologize for them, nor did she try to blink them away. “But they are after you. And I’m afraid for you.” She pulled herself together by the technique of assuming a broad Irish accent. “I’ve grown rather fond of you, don’t you know?”

  “I’ve grown fond of you too, madam. Maybe after I’ve sorted this thing out . . .”

  “Yes. Let’s do try.”

  “Will you have some coffee now?”

  She nodded and sniffed back the last of the tears.

  He ordered more coffee and some croissants, and they didn’t speak until after the waiter had brought them and departed. She drank her coffee and broke up a croissant, but she didn’t eat it. She pushed her plate aside and asked, “Will you be able to let me know how you’re getting on?”

  “That wouldn’t be wise. For you, Maggie. Anyway, I won’t know where you’re staying. And I don’t want to.”

  “Oh, but I’d feel dreadful not knowing if you were all right.”

  “All right. Look, tomorrow afternoon I will be giving a lecture at the Royal Institute of Art. You can attend. That way you’ll be able to see me and you’ll know I’m all right. If it looks as though we can meet afterward, I’ll end the discussion by saying that I hope to have an opportunity to pursue some of these matters with interested individuals in private. And about an hour later, I’ll meet you right here. OK?”

  She frowned, confused. “You intend to go ahead with this lecture?”

  “Oh yes. With all my social engagements. In this sort of game, they win if they can completely disrupt my life. That would force me either to come to terms with them, or to go on hiding forever. I’m reasonably safe in the open, in public places. You notice that they didn’t bring the police with them just now. The big trick will be getting to and from the lecture, and keeping out of sight in the meanwhile. But I’ve been trained in this sort of game. So don’t worry.”

  “What kind of advice i
s that?”

  He smiled. “Well, don’t worry too much anyway.”

  “Do you really think you can avoid them forever?”

  “No. Not forever. But I’ll get a chance to think. And I’ll try to pick my own ground for meeting them.”

  “What are you going to do now? After I leave you?”

  “I have to arrange some mechanical things. I don’t have clothes. I don’t have a place to stay. Once I’ve settled that, I suppose I’ll go to the movies.”

  “Go to the movies?”

  “Best place to lose yourself for a few hours. One of those porno houses where you can rent a raincoat.”

  “Rent a raincoat?”

  “Never mind.”

  “What are you going to do about that man . . . we found? You can’t just leave him there.”

  “I can’t do anything else. Anyway, unless I miss my guess, he won’t be there in an hour. They don’t want the police in on this if they can help it. I wouldn’t be much use to them in prison. No, they were supposed to walk in on me and get hard evidence. A photograph or something. Then they’d have the leverage to force me to work for them. But something went wrong—what, I don’t know. Maybe we woke up too early and got out too fast. They’ll have to drop back and think up something else. And I’m hoping that will take them a little while.”

  She shuddered. “I’m sorry. I try not to think of him . . . the man in your loo . . . but every once in a while the image of him—”

  Jonathan looked up at her suddenly. “In my loo?”

  “Yes. In your bathroom. What is it?”

  “The man said a word just before he died. A name, I thought. I thought he said Lew, as in Lewis. Or Lou as in Louise. But he could have meant loo as in bathroom.”

  “What would that mean?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  Just before they parted, after they had gone back over the arrangements for meeting after the Royal Institute lecture, Maggie made an observation that had occurred to Jonathan as well. “It’s an odd feeling. The change of tone between this morning and the bantering in the restaurant last night. I can’t help this curious sensation that we have known one another for years and years. In just a few hours we’ve been through laughter, and love, and all this trouble. It’s an odd feeling.”

  “I admire the way you’ve braced up under this.”

  “Ah, well, you see, I’ve had practice. The troubles in Belfast got very close to me. The soul develops calluses very quickly. That’s the real terror of violence: a body gets used to it.”

  “True.” Indeed, he had surprised himself with the speed with which he had swung into the patterns and routines of a kind of existence he had thought was far behind him. “I’ll see you soon, Maggie.”

  “Yes. Soon.”

  He stood in the red public telephone box and memorized the numbers of two railroad hotels.

  “Great Eastern Hotel?” The operator’s voice had the singsong of rote.

  He pushed the twopence in. “Reservations, please.”

  At the Great Eastern, he reserved a room under the name Greg Eastman. Then he called the Charing Cross Hotel and reserved a room under the name Charles Crosley. Railroad hotels were the kind he needed. Quiet, middle class, very large, and used to transients. He would actually stay at the Great Eastern, where a lift could bring him directly from the Underground station into the lobby, making it unnecessary to go onto the open street. His reservation at the Charing Cross was only for a pickup of clothes.

  Next he called his tailor on Conduit Street.

  “Ah, yes. Dr. Hemlock. May we be of service?”

  “I need two suits, Matthew.”

  “Of course, sir. Shall we make an appointment for a fitting?”

  “I haven’t time for that. You have my paper there.”

  “Quite so, sir.”

  “I need the suits this evening.”

  “This evening? Impossible, Dr. Hemlock.”

  “No, it isn’t. You carry Bruno Piattellis, don’t you? Pull a couple off the racks, and have one of your tailors alter them to my paper. Conservative in color, not too trendy in cut. You could do it in three or four hours, if you put two men on it.”

  “We do have other commitments, sir.”

  “Double the price of the suit. And twenty quid for you.”

  The clerk sighed histrionically. “Very well, sir. I’ll see what can be done.”

  “Good man. Have them delivered to the Charing Cross Hotel, to Mr. (he had to think for a second of the mnemonic device he had used for names) Mr. Charles Crosley.”

  The next call was to his shirtmaker in Jermyn Street. A little more pot-sweetening was necessary there because he despised ready-made shirts, and they would have to be cut from his patterns on file. But eventually he received their commitment to have six shirts delivered by five o’clock, together with stockings and linen.

  Jonathan’s last call was to MacTaint.

  “Ah, is that you, lad? Just a minute.” (The hiss of a phone being cupped over with a hand.) “Lilla? I’m on the phone. Shut your bleeding cob!” (An angry babble from off phone.) “Put a sock in it! . . . Now, what can I do for you, Jonathan?”

  “I’m going to mail off three hundred quid to you this afternoon.”

  “That’s nice. Why?”

  “I’m in a little trouble. I want a source of money that’s not on my person.”

  “Police?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. I see. Real trouble. What do I do with the money?”

  “Keep two-fifty handy to send to me if I contact you. I’ll probably be at the Great Eastern. My name will be Greg Eastman.”

  “And the remaining fifty’s for my trouble?”

  “Right.”

  “Done. Keep well, lad.”

  Jonathan rang off. He appreciated MacTaint’s professionalism. It was right that he accept the fee without whimpering protestations of friendship, and it was right that he ask no questions.

  The telephone box was near an Underground entrance, and Jonathan took the long escalator into the tube. Until this trouble was sorted out, he would travel primarily through the anonymous means of the Underground.

  He reemerged into the sunlight near Soho, and he made his way to a double-feature skin flick: Working Her Way Through the Turkish Army and Au Pair Girls in the Vatican. For four hours he was invisible in the company of the lost, the lonely, the ill, and the warped, who pass their afternoons in torn seats that smell of mildew, candy-wrapper litter under their feet, staring with frozen pupils at Swedish “starlets” moaning in bored mock ecstasy as they make coy orificial use of members and gadgets.

  London

  Jonathan stayed in the cover of the crowds around Charing Cross Monument, keeping the facade of the Charing Cross Hotel under observation. It was nearly five, and the go-home traffic had thickened. Queues for buses coiled and re-coiled: in a few minutes vehicular and human traffic would nearly coagulate. He was relying on that, in case the people who were after him had had the experience or intelligence to think of checking with his tailor.

  He looked up to the belfry clock of St. Martin’s-In-The-Fields for the time, and he recalled the newspaper reports of the unfortunate fellow who had been found impaled there. A delivery van bearing the name of his shirtmaker had already arrived at the front entrance of the hotel, but he had seen nothing of the bullet-headed boxer in sunglasses or of the 1950 vintage American tourist. Still the suits hadn’t arrived from his tailor; that was disconcerting because everything depended on his being able to pick up his clothes during the rush hours.

  At five o’clock straight up, a taxi pulled into the bustle of the rank outside the hotel, and a young man alighted. He breasted his way through the press of people, a large white box carried high. That would be the suits. Jonathan strolled across the street and stood against the facade of the hotel. No sunglasses, no Aloha Shirt, no Bentley. He waited until a taxi stopped to discharge passengers, then approac
hed the driver.

  “Wait for me here, will you? Five minutes.”

  “Can’t do that, mate. Rush hour, you know.”

  Jonathan took a ten-pound note from his pocket and ripped it in half. “Here. The other half when I get back in five minutes.”

  The driver was undecided for a second. “Right.” He glanced through the rearview mirror at the growing queue of taxis behind. “Make it quick.”

  Jonathan entered the lobby through the restaurant and glanced around before picking up a house phone.

  “This is Charles Crosley in 536. There will be some parcels for me. Would you ask the porter to have them sent up?”

  Through the glass of the telephone cabinet he watched the receptionist, hoping she would not check to see if his key had been picked up. In the rush of guests and inquiries at this hour, she did not. A bellboy responded to a summons and went to the parcels room, where he collected a small and a large box. As he carried them toward the lifts, Jonathan stepped out from the telephone booth and fell in behind him. Just as the lift doors closed, Jonathan caught the bustle of two men entering the main lobby hurriedly. Aloha Shirt and Bullet Head.

  So they had thought to check with his tailor after all. But just a little too late, if everything worked out well.

  “You must be bringing those to me.”

  “Sir?”

  “Crosley? Room 536?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  Jonathan pushed the fourth-floor button. “Here, I’ll take them.” He passed the bellboy a pound note.

  “But you’re on five, sir.”

  “That’s true. But my secretary is on four.” He winked, and the lad winked back.

  Waiting for the elevator car to bring him back to the lobby, he watched the indicator for the next car count its way to five, then stop. He had a minute on them. Time enough, provided his taxi driver had been able to resist the anger and impatience of men behind him in the rank.

  The Bentley was parked at the entrance, and the driver, a beefy lad with longish hair, recognized Jonathan as he passed. He clambered out of the car and took a step or two toward Jonathan, changed his mind and turned toward the hotel entrance to alert his comrades, then thought better of it and decided that he must not lose sight of Jonathan. He ran back to the Bentley and, not knowing what to do, leaned in the driver’s window and pressed his horn. Startled taxi drivers in the rank sounded their horns in retribution. Confused by the blare of horns, a car stopped at the intersection, and a lorry behind him slammed on its brakes and barked irritation with its two-toned air horn. Passing cars swerved aside and blasted their horns angrily. Bus drivers slammed their fists onto their horn buttons. Traffic around the Circus joined in.