The Tailor of Panama Part 21

Pendel was speaking in his sleep, slowly and mechanically, to himself rather than to Osnard.

'She'd never do it.'

'Why not?'

'She's got principles.'

'We'll buy 'em.'

'They're not for sale. She's like her mother. The harder she's pushed, the more she stands still.'

'Why push her? Why not have her jump of her own free will?'

'Very funny.'

Osnard became declamatory. He flung up an arm and clasped the other to his breast. ' "I'm a hero, Louisa! You can be another! March at my side! Join the crusade! Save the Ca.n.a.l! Save Delgado! Blow the whistle on corruption!" Want me to have a crack at her for you?'

'No. And you wouldn't be wise to try.'

'Why not?'

'She doesn't like the English, frankly. She puts up with me because I'm a highbred. But where the English upper cla.s.ses are concerned she inclines to her father's opinion that they're a bunch of highly duplicitous b.a.s.t.a.r.ds with no scruples of any sort or kind without exception.'

'Thought she took quite a s.h.i.+ne to me.'

'Plus she wouldn't gra.s.s on her boss. Ever.'

'Not for a nice piece o' change? I wonder?'

But from Pendel, still the mechanical voice: 'Money doesn't speak to her, thank you. She thinks we've got enough as it is, plus there's quite a large part of her thinks it's evil and ought to be abolished.'

'So we'll pay her salary to her beloved hubby. Cash. No need to chalk it against the loan. You do the finances, she does the altruism. She need never know.'

But Pendel did not respond to this happy portrait of the spying couple. His face was stony, staring at the wall, ready for a long stretch.

On the screen, the cowboy lay supine on a horseblanket. The cowgirls, who had retained their hats and boots, stood one at either end of him, as if wondering which way to wrap him up. But Osnard was too busy delving in his briefcase to notice, and Pendel was still frowning at the wall.

'Christ - nearly forgot,' Osnard exclaimed.

And he brought out a wad of dollars, then another, until all seven thousand lay on the bed amid the fly spray and carbons and the cigarette lighter.

'Bonuses. Sorry about the delay. Clowns in Banking Section.'

With difficulty Pendel transferred his gaze to the bed. 'I'm not due bonuses. No one is.'

'Yes, you are. Sabina on preparedness among the older students. Alpha for Delgado's private business dealings with the j.a.ps. Marco on the President's late night meetings. Bingo.'

Pendel shook his head in puzzlement.

'Three stars for Sabina, three stars for Alpha, one for Marco, seven grand in all,' Osnard insisted. 'Count it.'

'There's no need for that.'

Osnard pushed a receipt at him and a ballpoint pen. 'Ten grand. Seven down and three for your widows and orphans fund as usual.'

From somewhere deep inside himself, Pendel signed. But he left the money on the bed, to look at not to touch, while Osnard with the blindness of greed renewed his campaign for the recruitment of Louisa, and Pendel returned to the shadows of his private thoughts.

'Likes seafood, doesn't she?'

'What's that got to do with anything?'

'Isn't there some restaurant you take her to for treats?'

'La Casa del Marisco. Prawns mornay and the halibut. She never varies.'

'Tables good and wide apart, are they? Plenty o' privacy?'

'It's where we go for anniversaries and birthdays.'

'Special table?'

'Corner by the window.'

Osnard acted the fond husband, eyebrows raised, head fetchingly on the tilt. ' "Something I got to tell you, darling. Thought it was time you knew. Public duty. Reporting the truth to people who can do something about it." Play?'

'It might. On Brighton Pier.'

' "So that your dear father can rest in his grave. Your mother too. For your ideals. Mickie's ideals. Mine as well, even if I've had to hide 'em under a bushel for security reasons." '

'What do I tell her about the children?'

'It's for their future.'

'Fine future they've got, with both of us sitting in the nick. Seen the arms stuck out of the windows, have you? I counted them once. You do that if you've been inside. Twenty-four to one window not including the was.h.i.+ng, and it's one window to a cell.'

Osnard sighed as if this was going to hurt him more than Pendel.

'You're forcing me to play hardball, Harry.'

'I'm not forcing you. n.o.body's forcing you.'

'I don't want to do this to you, Harry.'

'Then don't.'

'Tried to break it to you gently, Harry. Didn't work out, so I'm giving you the bottom line.'

'There isn't one, not with you.'

'Both your names are on the deeds. You and Louisa. You're both in the same hole. You want the deeds back - shop and farm - London will want a solid contribution from the pair o' you. If they don't get it, love will turn sour and they'll switch off the money supply and put you under the hammer. Shop, farm, golf clubs, four-track, kids, the whole catastrophe.'

Pendel's head took a while to lift, as if the judge's custodial sentence had taken a bit of time to sink in.

'That's blackmail, isn't it, Andy?'

'Market forces, ol' boy.'

Pendel rose slowly and stood motionless, feet together and head down, staring at the banknotes on the bed before tidying them into their envelope and putting the envelope in his bag, with the carbons and the fly spray.

'I'll need some days.' He was speaking to the floor. 'I've got to talk to her, haven't I?'

'Remedy's in your hands, Harry.'

Pendel shuffled towards the door, head down.

'So long, Harry. Next time, next place, okay? Go well now. Good luck.'

Pendel stopped, paused and turned, his face revealing nothing beyond a pa.s.sive acceptance of his punishment.

'You too, Andy. And thank you for the bonus and the whisky and for sharing your suggestions with me regarding both Mickie and my wife.'

'My pleasure, Harry.'

'And don't forget to come and try your tweed jacket now. It's what I call tough but tasty. Time we made a new man of you.'

Locked an hour later in the cage at the furthest end of the strongroom Osnard spoke into the overlarge mouthpiece of the secret telephone and imagined his words being digitally recomposed in Luxmore's furry ear. In London Luxmore had arrived at his desk early in order to receive Osnard's call.

'Gave him the carrot, then waved the stick at him, sir,' he reported in the Boy Hero voice he kept for his master. 'Rather vigorously, I'm afraid. But he's still dithering. She will, she won't, she may. He's not saying.'

'd.a.m.n him!'

'That's what I felt.'

'So he's holding out for yet more money, eh?'

'Looks like it.'

'Never blame a s.h.i.+t for acting in character, Andrew.'

'Says he needs time to talk her round.'

'The clever monkey. Time to talk us round, more likely. What will buy her, Andrew? Give it me straight. My G.o.d, we'll keep him on a tight rein after this!'

'He hasn't mentioned a figure, sir.'

'I'll bet he hasn't. He's a negotiator. He's got us by the short-and-curlies and knows it. What's your guestimate? You know the fellow. What's your worst case?'

Osnard permitted a silence that denoted careful reflection.

'He's hard,' he said cautiously.

'I know he's hard! They're all hard! You know he's hard! The Top Floor knows he's hard. Geoff knows he's hard. Certain private investor friends of mine know he's hard. He's been hard from day one. He'll get harder as we come up to the post. My G.o.d, if I knew of a better hole, I'd go to it! There was a fellow in the Falklands contest took us for a fortune and never delivered a d.a.m.n thing.'

'It's got to be on results.'

'Go on.'

'A bigger retainer will only encourage him to rest on his oars.'

'I agree. Totally. He'd laugh at us. That's what they do. Shylock us and laugh.'

'Bigger bonuses, on the other hand, wake him up. We've seen it before and we saw it tonight.'

'We did, did we?'

'You want to see him shovelling the stuff into his briefcase.'

'Oh my G.o.d.'

'On the other hand, he has given us Alpha and Beta and the students, he has put the Bear on a semi-conscious footing, he has recruited Abraxas to a point, and he has recruited Marco.'

'And we've paid him every inch of the way. Handsomely. And what have we had for it to date? Promises. Chickenfeed. "Stand by for the Big One." It makes me sick, Andrew. Sick.'

'I put that point to him fairly energetically, if I may say so, sir.'

Luxmore's voice softened immediately. 'I'm sure you did, Andrew. If I implied otherwise, I am truly sorry. Go on. Please.'

'My personal conviction -' Osnard resumed, with enormous diffidence - 'That's the only one that counts, Andrew!'

'- is that we work towards incentives only. If he delivers, we pay. The same goes, according to him, if he delivers his wife.'

'Holy Mother, Andrew! He said that to you? He sold his wife to you?'

'Not yet, but she's on the market.'

'Not in twenty years of this Service, Andrew. Not in all its history, has a man sold his wife to us for gold.'

Osnard had a special gear for talking money, a lower, more fluid engine-tone.

'I'm suggesting we put him on a regular bonus for every subsource he recruits, to include his wife. The bonus to be calculated as a proportion of the subsource's salary. A flat rate. If she earns a bonus, he earns a piece of it.'

'Additional?'

'Absolutely. There's also the unsolved question of what Sabina should pay her students.'

'Don't spoil them, Andrew! What about Abraxas?'

'If and when the Abraxas organisation delivers the conspiracy, the same commission is payable to Pendel, calculated as twenty-five per cent of what we pay Abraxas and his group by way of bonus.'