Hopscotch Page 6

  “That’s another breed. Those are the downstairs troops.”

  “Go on, Mr.… Kending?”

  “Kendig.”

  Ives reached for a notepad. “Spell it.”

  Kendig spelled it out. “The government will deny my existence. If you were thinking of checking with Washington.”

  “It won’t be necessary. I’ve already got Desrosiers’s recommendation. Let’s talk business, Mr. Kendig.”

  Ives was a fast reader. He went through the two chapters and Kendig handed him an unfolded list. “Those are the publishers I’ve sent it to.”

  Ives glanced at it, set it aside and went back to the manuscript. “There are a couple of pages missing.”

  “They’ll be supplied later on. Names of witnesses, documentary sources for confirmation of my facts, that kind of thing.”

  Ives had a shrewd smile. “Not to put too fine a point on it but have we got any way to make sure you’re not bluffing?”

  Kendig had pages 23 and 24 folded into an envelope in his pocket. He showed them to Ives. Ives’s face changed. Then Kendig took the two pages back and put them away. “They’ll be delivered with the final installment of the manuscript.”

  “And you want me to handle the contractual details.”

  “I need a middleman. I’ve got to finish writing it—undisturbed.”

  “I think I understand. Why’d you pick me?”

  “Desrosiers recommended you. You handled the Harry Bristow book.”

  “Are you putting a floor price on it?”

  “I’ll take whatever the market will bear.”

  “Then it’s not primarily a money thing with you.”

  “I won’t be a patsy—I’m not giving it away.”

  “Do you need money right now?”

  “I’ve got plenty of money. But I want them to have to pay for the book—I don’t want it neglected for lack of big promotion.”

  Ives smiled again. “Don’t count on publishers to act logically. I’ve seen them pay a fortune for a book and then drop it right down the gratings. They’re in a mass business but they do no market research, they never test their packaging, they only advertise a book if it’s already selling well—and even then they haven’t the slightest idea how or where to get the most for their advertising dollar. They’ve got an archaic distribution system and haphazard retailing. Actually they have no idea at all what sells books and what doesn’t. But this property looks as sure-fire to me as anything I’ve seen in the past five years. It could be the most explosive book of the year—and you’ve already done the groundwork with the publishers. I’d be an idiot not to handle it for you.”

  “It won’t be the usual agent-client relationship.”

  “There’s no such thing. Every client is a separate lunacy.”

  “I’ll give you a power of attorney,” Kendig said. “You’ll have to conclude the arrangements in my name. You won’t be able to communicate with me. I’ll be sending copies of each chapter to each of those publishers at irregular intervals—and I’ll be withholding evidential pages from each of them. It may be months before I’ve delivered the complete book.”

  “You could send it directly to me. I’ve got copying facilities.”

  “No. That would give the Agency a bottleneck to work with. I’ve got to be sure the material reaches every one of the publishers.”

  “Very well—if you feel the risk is that great. But send me a copy when you send it to the rest of them.”

  “Naturally.”

  “There’ll probably be a matter of libel insurance. With a book of this kind the premiums may prove costly.”

  “The publishers will have to pay for that.”

  “I’ll arrange that if I can.”

  Kendig said, “What’s the usual procedure for paying commissions?”

  “I take ten percent of the client’s gross receipts off the top. When I receive a check from a publisher I deposit the check in my corporate account and draw my own check for ninety percent of that amount, payable to the client. Naturally the client is welcome to examine my accounts at all times. There’s no written contract between me and any of my clients—it’s a handshake arrangement. When a client’s dissatisfied with my work he’s free to go elsewhere.”

  Ives continued, “In your case since you say I won’t be able to reach you the thing would be for me to open an account for you and make deposits as the money comes in.”

  “No good,” Kendig said. “A bank account can be frozen by court order. I’ll want cashier’s checks, made out in my name, sent by airmail to this address in Switzerland.” He wrote it down and tore the page out of his pocket notebook and tossed it onto the desk. Ives picked it up curiously.

  Kendig said, “People from the government will be around to see you before very long.”

  Ives’ grin made him even younger. “They won’t learn anything from me. Not without a warrant.”

  “They won’t use warrants. They don’t work that way. You’d find yourself up to your ears in income tax audits. Your driver’s license would be mysteriously revoked. Your credit rating would evaporate overnight. Maybe you’d find that certain publishers were no longer buying anything from you. You’d start to lose clients—they’d give some vague excuse for shifting to another agency. Your wife would find her charge accounts canceled. Your kids would be caught with narcotics planted in their pockets. I could give you a list of subtle persuasions ten pages long.”

  Ives’s manicured index finger touched the piece of notepaper. “Then you want me to reveal this to them?”

  “It won’t do either of us any harm.”

  “But they’ll trace the address.”

  “They already know it. Those are my brokers in Zurich. One of them has my power of attorney to make deposits in my bank. He doesn’t have the account number. He takes the check and the power of attorney to the bank. The bank deposits the check in my numbered account without giving the number to the broker. It’s a dead end for the Agency. He can’t lead them to me. Neither can you. Just cooperate with them when they approach you.”

  “What if they insist I stop representing you?”

  “Then do what they ask. Inform the publishers you’re no longer representing me. Ask them to send the payments directly to that address.”

  At four o’clock he was ready to leave. Ives said, “I can only think of one thing more. Not to be gruesome but I gather there’s a chance you could suffer a fatal accident. Have you made a will?”

  “Yes. My Swiss brokers have it.” On the way out he added, “I’ve left everything to the Flat Earth Society.”

  – 7 –

  CUTTER MADE A face when he stepped into the FBI building. Myerson beside him took off his hat, wiped the inside hatband and then his forehead where the hat had welted a red dent. Then he looked at the hat. “That’s appropriate.”

  “What is?”

  “I walk in with my hat in my hand.” Myerson winced and blubbered his heavy lips around an exhalation. He patted his stomach. “I’m back on the cottage cheese and salad number. I envy you wiry bastards. Here we are.”

  The secretary kept them waiting a while and then they were granted their audience with the Assistant Director of the FBI, a trim sandy man named Tobin in the regulation seersucker.

  There were the usual interdepartmental preambles—cautious courtesies—and then Myerson gave Cutter the floor. Cutter proffered one of the composites. “His name’s Miles Kendig. Retired Agency official.…”

  “I’ve met him a few times,” Tobin said. “What’d he do, defect?”

  “He may have. He’s ramming around somewhere and we’ve got to get our hands on him. There are things we need to find out from him.”

  “What secrets did he steal?”

  “That’s what we want to find out from him,” Cutter said smoothly. He didn’t like the Bureau; he especially didn’t like it when they had to kowtow to the Bureau. “He was in Virginia yesterday. God knows where he is by now. But if he’s sti
ll in the United States it’s your bailiwick, not ours. Anyhow we haven’t got the domestic manpower for it.”

  “You’re asking me to put up a dragnet for him?”

  “I’m afraid we are,” Myerson said. “It’s that important.”

  “But you won’t even tell us what he’s charged with?”

  Cutter said, “He hasn’t been charged. We want him for questioning.”

  “Sure you do. In connection with what?”

  Cutter contained his temper and deferred to Myerson because he didn’t trust himself to speak calmly. Myerson said, “I’m afraid that’s on a need-to-know basis.”

  “You guys are something else,” Tobin said. Now Cutter was amused: this was the kind of treatment the Bureau habitually gave to local police departments and now the shoe was on the other foot.

  Myerson said, “It’s a matter of national security.”

  “That’s a phrase that’s lost a lot of meaning lately, Mr. Myerson.”

  On the curb Myerson put his hat on and scowled. “I’ll have to take it upstairs. Tobin won’t put any enthusiasm into it. It’s going to have to come down from the top before he gets his ass in gear. But that’ll take a day or two. In the meantime keep your people working around the clock—and keep them working afterwards too. I’d like to get to Kendig ahead of the Bureau if we can. Shove their noses in it. Smug bastards.”

  “I’ll be surprised if anybody gets close to Kendig very fast. He’s quick. All he ever needed was the smell of an opportunity.”

  Myerson shook his head. “He only needs to slip once and the ceiling comes down on top of him. You want to have some lunch?”

  “No thanks. Ross will be reporting back at one.”

  “Cottage cheese and salad.” Myerson left him.

  Cutter caught a taxi to take him back to the Arlington lot where he’d left the motor-pool car. He’ll go to ground for a while, he thought. Now where would he hide?

  Ross was early—waiting for him. Ross looked too long for the chair he was in—absurdly tall with pink smooth baby-skin and the brown hair cropped close to the skull like fuzz on a tennis ball, in-candescently eager and energetic. “We had a signal from Follett.”

  “Where’s Follett?”

  “Marseilles. Kendig bought his papers from Saint-Breheret.”

  Something twanged inside Cutter. This was the real start of the hunt.

  “Three blank passports—two American, one French. Three blank driver’s licenses, same distribution. But he bought a wallet full of credit cards in the name of James Butler.”

  “Okay,” Cutter said. He smiled abruptly. “Okay. It’s a con game but we’ll play it his way. Maybe he’ll tell us something he didn’t mean to.”

  “What do you mean a con game?”

  “We’re supposed to waste a lot of energy tracking James Butler. It’ll turn out to be a dead end when it suits Kendig’s purpose. But he may leave us a trace or two he didn’t count on leaving.” He reached for the phone. “FBI headquarters, please. Mr. Tobin.”

  – 8 –

  HE SPENT TWO days combing the bars and employment offices and late-night eateries of Philadelphia and didn’t find anybody who fit the physical requirements; on the third night he canvassed a dozen places in Camden and on the fourth he hit pay dirt in a jukebox-and-color-TV saloon on the west side of Trenton about six blocks inland from the river. The man had gone to seed but spruced up he’d look the part well enough. Kendig had searched thousands of faces to find this one and he made his sales pitch a strong one.

  His name was Dwight Liddell; he was fifty and the calamities had befallen him like bricks tumbling one after another out of a dump truck. At forty-eight he’d lost his wife to a charming real estate broker he’d thought was his friend; at forty-nine he’d been laid off by the aerospace firm that employed him as an aeronautical engineer. He was candid about it: “I was one of the first ones they let go. I should have stayed a draftsman, I guess—I’m not what you’d call a world-beater, I’m no Theodore von Karmann. But I had fifteen years of incredible money. You know the kind of salaries they used to pay guys like me? It was all government contract work, cost-plus. But then the shit hit the fan.”

  “What happened to the money? Didn’t you save any?”

  “Enough to pay my way to joints like this. But I’ve got to pay alimony and child support and I haven’t got a job. I can see plenty of tunnel all right but I don’t see any light at the end of it.” Liddell wasn’t drunk but he was high enough to be loose and in any case he wasn’t the secretive sort; he’d confide in anybody who looked interested—he’d tell the world his life was an open book.

  Kendig bought a round. Liddell said, “Look at this suit—threadbare. You wouldn’t believe this was a guy who used to travel twenty thousand miles on vacation every year. Hell we hit Japan one year and Tanzania the next. You asked where the money went—that’s where it went. We figured we’d enjoy it while we were still young enough to. It was a good thing we did—otherwise my wife would’ve taken it anyway when she left. I wish she’d marry the son of a bitch.”

  Kendig said, “Any place around here where you can get a decent meal?”

  “There’s an inn up at Washington Crossing that used to be pretty good. You might try it.”

  “I’ll treat us both,” Kendig said. “I’ve got a business proposition for you.”

  The steaks weren’t bad. Kendig did most, of the talking during the meal. Afterward he tasted the coffee. Liddell said, “I’m sure to be arrested.”

  “Yes. Arrested and held for questioning. But after they’ve milked you they’ll let you go. You won’t have committed any crime.”

  “What about the phony credit cards?”

  “You only use them for identification. You don’t charge anything on them. Of course you can try if you want but I wouldn’t recommend it. You know they’re going to arrest you anyway and if you’ve used the credit cards they can have you up for fraud. Other than that you’re clean and they’ve got to let you go.”

  “But what do I tell them when they start bringing out the rubber hoses?”

  “Tell them the truth.”

  “What?”

  “Tell them the absolute truth.”

  Liddell squinted at him. “Christ, they’d never believe it.”

  “They’ll believe it all right. I promise you that.”

  “And then they’ll let me go?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You’re only a decoy, they’ll understand that. They’ll get mad but they’ll be mad at me, not at you.”

  “What if they decide to shoot me first and ask questions afterward?”

  “They won’t. They’re not that mad yet. They’ll want to question you first. As soon as they do that they’ll know they’ve got the wrong man. They won’t have any reason to harm you.”

  “It’s the craziest thing I ever heard,” Liddell said, “but I swear to God I’m tempted to do it. I really am.”

  “What can you lose? It’s a lot of money.”

  Writing the book was harder than he had dreamed it could be. Early on during training and apprenticeship he’d had to learn the patience of the stakeout but he had never developed the habit of it: he knew himself to be a neurotic man and because he couldn’t afford to make careless mistakes he’d forced himself to be diligent but even so, after all the years, he still was thorough only by training, not by instinct. After the first two days’ typing—sixteen pages rough—most of the fun drained out of it and it became sheer drudgery and he found any excuse to avoid the typewriter for five minutes or two hours.

  The third day was Wednesday and on that September afternoon he gave up after the seventh typed page and went outside into the damp dazzling heat. The pine forest was thick with the smell of resin and faintly he could hear the rush of the dark river down below. The broken screen door slapped shut behind him.

  The house was a Victorian ruin, a little remaining white paint peeling from its gre
y clapboards. The yard was high weeds across to the dilapidated barn with its inevitable accouterments: the rusty wreckages of a cultivator and a 1953 DeSoto, the flies buzzing, dragonflies beating from point to point, butterflies jazzing amid the wild azaleas and the aged chinaberry trees.

  He got in the battered Pontiac and drove slowly, rutting down the overgrown track, bottoming a couple of times before he tipped it onto the county road scraping the tail pipe. He didn’t push it past forty miles an hour because for one thing he wasn’t sure the car would take it and for another there was a sheriff’s cruiser that made a practice of lying in wait behind the Dr Pepper billboard a mile west of his turnoff.

  The road two-laned through the pines, here and there a clearing with its lopsided grey shack and its tumbledown barn painted with the attractions of Coca-Cola and Jesus and Prince Albert tobacco. Every yard was an auto graveyard. The blacktop for a while went curling along the steep slope of the riverbank and he had glimpses of white water through the dusky boles. The occasional side road would lead back to a tumbledown cemetery or a sharecropper outfit or a moonshine still. Insects crashed into the windshield, leaving smears. He switched on the radio and got the tag end of Waylon Jennings singing “Not Comin’ Home to You” and then the announcer came on cheerfully, stumbling over basic words. He twisted the dial, driving left-handed, until he picked up the weak fringe signal of an Atlanta station and went on down the road accompanied by Tchaikovsky.

  The edge of town grew uncertainly from weeds: eyeless shacks, cluttered lots, rusty corrugated lean-to roofs. Fat women in cotton and old men in dungarees sat on sagging porches.

  He had to be in town today but he was two hours early and his weakness annoyed him; it had been a stupid lapse. But there was no point going back now; it would take forty minutes each way and that wouldn’t leave time for any work before he’d have to make the trip again. He parked aslant in front of the country store, racking it between a dusty Cadillac and a dented Ford pickup.

  The shade porch supported four hookwormed backwoods folk who stood around with their hands in their back pockets, their heads covered by old straw hats that had turned an uneven brown. They watched him with lizard eyes. When he got out of the car the sun drew the sweat out of him. He climbed the porch and gave them his grave nod—it was returned unblinkingly by all four—and tramped inside.