An Empire of Silence (Extraxt)

[Anthony Chapman]

This is my first attempt at a full lenght novel. I suppose you could call it cosy crime, although I heard that term for the first time about twenty minutes before posting this. There are seven sections in italics spread throughout the book. I welcome all comments.


Peter Hopkins - I

When Peter Hopkins was twelve years of age, he was playing in the attic of his grandparents’ house. His imagination transformed the dead space into a living temple filled with ancient treasures. Boxes carrying the insignia of Brillo, Fyffe’s and Campbell’s held the keys to a past that, his grandfather assured him, was better than anything that life could ever offer the young boy.
Through the eyes of an antique gasmask, he saw himself safely through the trenches of World War 1; slashing wildly with an old epée, (stolen from the local musical society), he cut a dash through the stagnant air, and pinned a dusty hardback to the floor. He opened the book and found a myriad of possibilities, a valuable escape.
The book was a collection of poetry by Lord Byron, and as enthralling as Peter found the poetry, more appealing was the picture of the poet, and the legend ‘Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know’, inside the front cover.
Don Juan was a name Peter had known for years, and of all he possessed, what possessed him most was a black and white photograph of him sitting on his grandfathers’ knee when the old man was the Mythical lover. Finding that story here, now, shocked into Peter the possibility that it might be a true history, and this conjured up a life far removed from anything he had known; it promised a life of adventure, filled with heroic deeds. For a boy on the cusp of manhood, uncertain about who or what he was, this left an impression more powerful than the swashbucklers, (Captain Blood and The thief of Bagdad) that held him in trawl for a few hours every Saturday morning. The book contained fantasies that played out in colour.
He also began to get the idea that poetry would be a good way to win women’s hearts. Poetry would set him on the road to fame. Not fame as a poet; fame as the kind of man who walks into the jungle with nothing but his guts, and who returns, years later, changed but untamed, possessor of secret knowledge and blood brother to unknown tribes who, having escaped the ravages of civilization, still lived in harmony with creation.
He began to write, trying to copy as exactly as possible the style of Byron, but the results, he was certain, were trash. He took to copying short poems into his schoolbooks and over the course of a week, taking one poem at a time, he would change a word here and there, leaving the structure intact, until he felt the work before him was his own. In this way, he amassed some fifty poems over the course of the year. However, anyone can do that. What he needed was publication. Who could then deny that he was something special?
He trawled bookshops searching for poetry magazines, not the impersonal bookshops with immaculate carpets and hundreds of copies of four or five authors, but places that reeked of history; ceilings stained with cigarette smoke, shelves heavy with unpronounceable names, and the dust of generations in the air. Finding one, he poured over the shelves looking for a magazine that cried poverty with the greatest authenticity. He found The UniVerse, a magazine that looked homemade, it was therefore less fake and more lightly to be taken seriously in the ranks of rebellion.
He sent his poems off, and followed their journey through the post, to the hands of a woman with a perfect hourglass figure. His work would penetrate all her hidden places and pierce her heart. She would wet herself and know that she had to have him. He knew this as certainly as he knew she was Parisian. This did not necessarily mean she came from Paris; in his geography of flesh, being Parisian located her in some elevated ‘other’ place, a place of sexual and intellectual sophistication, and it was to this place she would call him, and from this place life would begin.
In due course, his work returned with corrections and the editor wrote a note congratulating the young poet on his choice of reading and recommending other books which would help Peter to develop and to discover his own voice. The signature at the bottom of the letter belonged to a man, and Peter began to doubt the existence of ‘Parisian’ women.
For a long time afterwards, he did not write a word, but the term ‘find your own voice’ stirred something in Peter. The next time he took up his pen in quest of poetry, it was for the thing itself. He set himself the goal of being one of the greats.


Chapter 01


The fragrance of the trees and freshly cut grass, the stink of exhaust fumes and the roar of the highway filled Jack Higgins’ senses, almost, but not quite, dispelling the sharp November air.
He was crouching just inside the perimeter wall, his nerves under orders. Before him, the Whitely museum, (an old English castle that had been transported to the New England countryside). Recent rain caused the slate roofs to shine silver in the night, and here and there, patches of frost sparkled like glitter on the walls. If Jack had adhered fully to the brief he would have been working beneath an empty sky, the stars invisible in the glare of the highway. Instead, he made his final preparations under a sliver of moon hanging low, like a sickle above his head. He would have preferred darkness, but had moved the job forward. It had to be tonight.
Like a fighter about to step into the ring, Jack pushed aside everything but the task at hand. There would be time enough later to reflect, relaxing on the terrace of his penthouse in the sun, sipping a glass of Tullamore Dew, and watching the ships in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jack’s brief was to steal the Whitely diamond and to leave irrefutable proof of the break in. This was for the benefit of the outside world. No one must be able to deny the theft. Under ordinary circumstances, he would never do this. For Jack, burglary was an art form, and those on whom he practiced his art should discover the theft only after exhausting every other possibility.

For a few minutes, Jack sat and watched as two guards, keeping perfect time, completed one circuit of the building. A ribbon of flame leapt into the air as one of the guards sparked up his Zippo and lit a cigarette. Jack could feel the light on his face and for a moment, he wondered if they had spotted him. For that moment, he was aware only of the guards and the glow of their cigarettes. He felt the ghost of a craving, the pull of smoke in his mouth, and then reminded himself that their habit might prove useful if he had to make a run for it.
The guards finished their cigarettes and moved off in opposite directions. Jack waited until the night was his again, and then he petitioned the Saints in the stained glass windows of the Castle to watch over him for the next few hours. He walked quickly to the Castle and pressed himself into the angle where the round tower met the flat wall. He turned to face the battlements and began to climb.
On the roof, he took his backpack off and sat down. Almost at the horizon, but still a part of the Whitely estate, a vast lake sparkled with silver and orange light. On an earlier reconnacience, this vista had left him breathless, but there was no time now for that indulgence. Jack unpacked the backpack and strapped himself into a harness, then fixed a rope to the wall, ready for his escape. He moved along to the section of roof through which he would enter the castle and removed the slates. He put them to one side and cut a hole in the felt, snipped through a layer of chicken wire and lowered himself into the tiny attic.
Before him was a ring of one inch steel bars, the bars were six inches apart, making a circle four feet in diameter; and it is within this prison that the job would be completed.

. . .

Soft white powder fell from the ceiling and lightly dusted the diamond; moments later, a few centimetres of a fibre optic camera peeped un-noticed through a hole that was barely there. In the room below, a marble bust, depicting honour, courage, compassion, integrity sat on a pedestal. The bust had been commissioned by the first of the American Whitely’s and in exchange for bestowing these “manly virtues” upon his patron, the sculptor received a short-lived celebrity among the newly wealthy of nineteenth century Boston. On a lower pedestal in the centre of the room, Jack’s prize sat waiting.
Inside the attic, with one eye on his watch and one eye on the monitor in his palm, Jack watched a guard enter the room and walk around behind the diamond. A red orange glow burned brightly for a moment as the guard took a final drag on his cigarette. He stubbed it out on Whitley’s face and dropped the butt down behind the pedestal, then wiped away the evidence of this torture and left the room.
Jack allowed himself to enjoy this tiny rebellion and hoped all the guards held their boss in such esteem. He withdrew the fibre optic and widened the hole enough to take a thin plastic tube through which he lowered a series of hooks that opened out and gripped the ceiling, holding the tube in place. He had already fixed the other end to the rafters. This tube formed the centre point of a circle that Jack now began to trace with an especially hardened scalpel.
This was the most dangerous part of the job - tedious work threatening to lull him into autopilot while his nerves were eager for action. The heat in the attic was made worse by the close quarters and Jack had to stop several times to wipe the sweat away from his forehead, and once to watch and wait for the guard to circle the diamond and leave. He worked for almost an hour, one slow shallow circle at a time. Before the final cut came the sound of the guard making another round. Jack took a fifteen-minute break to let the guard get as far away as possible before the return journey. Then he fixed his harness to the rafters and lifted the lid on the treasure trove below.

. . .

Jack squeezed into the confines of the outdated security system and pulled a lever at his chest. He dropped eight feet through the hole and found himself trapped within a glass-case that surrounded the diamond from floor to ceiling. This had not showed on the monitor, had not been mentioned in his brief, which promised a room empty of all security measures, except the steel bars that were to slam down around him when Jack picked up the diamond. He bumped against the glass wall and sent a shudder around the room. He reached out and picked the jewel off its white velvet cushion. Immediately Jack picked up the diamond; steel doors slammed shut, sealing him in; the alarm sounded; echoing around the room; calling down the corridor, startling the guards into action; but silence reigned inside the glass box.
Although he had counted on them, the steel bars that slammed down around Jack sent a shudder of prison through his body. A bar brushed his right shoulder and Jack dropped the diamond. For a brief, terrifying eternity, his breath stopped, his eyes froze, his world telescoped into the sight of the diamond falling. Swinging around, Jack caught the diamond in his boots. Cradling it there for a moment, he began to breathe again. Now the security system worked in Jack’s favour. The steel door, which had slammed down when he picked up the diamond, was beginning to open. Years of neglect slowed the mechanism, but still, a guard was in under the door and firing by the time Jack had stuffed the diamond inside his jacket. Armed guards were another thing that the brief had omitted.
In an explosion of glass and noise, a bullet flew past Jack and ricocheted off one of the steel bars that surrounded him. He swung round, struggling to stay focused; he had no time for any of this. He pulled a grenade from inside his jacket and tossed it to the guard, who, on reflex, caught it before realising what it was and throwing it away. He dived for cover as a small explosion filled the room with smoke. Within this cloud, Jack hoisted himself into the attic, leaving behind the confused silence of security guards unused to dealing with an actual security breech.
Through the hole in the roof, Jack could see pools of light floating in the sky. The entire estate was lit up. He climbed out into the night and looked around him. The battlements were empty. A sudden pounding to his left turned Jack’s attention to the roof access door, also suffering from lack of use. A sudden small explosion of dust and broken slate brought Jack to his knees. Just as he registered what was happening, the shot rang out. Bullets travel faster than sound. Keeping low, Jack ran to where he had stashed his rope earlier. Once there, he pulled a small black box from inside his jacket, raised a short aerial and pushed a button. A series of explosions at the far side of the castle brought darkness and cover.
Jack listened as the guards scrambled confused towards that diversion. He secured the rope, attached an nForce Ascender to it and scouted the ground below for any guards still waiting. There were two. Their guns were holstered and they were vigilantly watching everywhere but the roof. There seemed little to choose between the two of them. Jack launched himself off the roof, swinging out and down in a wide arc. His feet touched the wall and he had kicked off again by the time the rope reached the ground. The two guards turned their heads towards the hulking silhouette that was now raining down on them. One of the guards fumbled, trying to draw his gun, as the other guard began to call out. In almost the same instant Jack was on his man and together they tumbled painfully to the ground. The other guard had dawn his gun and, pointing it roughly in Jacks direction, squeezed the trigger. He was shocked when nothing happened. Then he remembered the safety catch. Jack rolled with the guard he had landed on, positioning the guard on top of him. The gun in the other guards hand went off, spraying bullets into the sky and raining panic down on the highway. A knee to the groin caused the guard on top of Jack to jerk upright, and then with both feet Jack pushed him to his screaming companion who had thrown his gun away when it had roared so violently.
Jack should have been out of there by now. He got to his feet, grabbed the discarded gun and ran for the trees; the other guards already after him. A short burst of gunfire in their direction bought him a few seconds, enough to reach the wall, enough, almost, to escape. He had just grabbed the top of the wall when he felt a powerful force close on his boot. With every ounce of strength left to him, Jack fought against the Rottweiler that was trying to pull him to the ground. The guards were almost on top of him now, one of them shouting instructions to the others and warning that there would be hell to pay if anyone shot Satan. Consequently, the guards took pains to fire into the ground well away from the dog.
The dog began to win, forcing Jack to give up part of his grip on the wall. He flailed wildly, attempting to reach the gun swinging at his side, found it and emptied the last of the clip into the dogs’ head, which exploded in blood, bone, and brain. Jack disappeared over the wall with Satan’s jaws still locked around his boot.
The head of security, stopped, lost, empty, as he registered the loss of his pet. He raised his gun, repeatedly squeezing the trigger, firing blindly into the middle distance as he walked to the remains of his dog. He stood for a moment in grief, turning obscenities over in his head, but he had been properly brought up and they never passed his lips. He tried to follow Jack over the wall, but after years of nursing his ass into obesity all he had left were the pains in his chest, one for the effort, and one for his best friend.
The other guards, their prey out of sight, were already returning to the castle, already inventing an historic battle. Each engrossed in his own mythology.
Within minutes, television crews were at the gates, filing reports and taking statements from the heroic guards.
A pencil thin man in a grey suit and wearing television shaped glasses quietly slipped past as a couple of uniformed police officers tried to corral the cameras. He walked along the perimeter, inspecting the grounds, the wall. He stood for a moment looking at the remains of the dog; turning his head and looking with contempt as the head guard came running over to him. He crossed over to the castle, noting the discreet smoke bombs; the homemade charges that had blown the lights. He entered the castle and walked its corridors. He looked about the diamond room and up through the hole in the ceiling. He climbed the rope to the roof and slipped out into the moonlight. He turned to where the lake shimmered in the distance, but his vision fell short and he saw only a confusing haze at the limits of his world, limits that he now noticed had been edging ever closer for the past couple of years.



Chapter 02


A month earlier, Jack returned from his morning run and picked up his mail. He ran up the stairs to his apartment, rather than take the elevator, in order to keep his workout going until he got home. He went into his apartment, dropped the mail onto the breakfast counter, stretched, and shook the lactic acid from his muscles; then he turned the radio on and let the room fill up with power chords; the relentlessness and the bombast of classic rock; no current rock band could even come close to Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath.
A warm shower, a leisurely breakfast and Jack was ready to begin his day. He settled down with a mug of steaming coffee and spread the mail on the table before him. He then went through it one piece at a time, inspecting each circular; each menu for each new restaurant; each opportunity to part with his cash, pruning the swindles from the genuine cries for help. When he was finished with these, he picked up the menus and carefully read each one until he found what he was looking for. Printed unobtrusively, where the price of a steak sandwich should have been, was the time 1PM. If anyone opened Jacks mail it would look like a misprint, but to him it was a request for a meeting.
Jack arrived at the restaurant shortly before one o’clock and despite having a reservation; he had to wait for a table. The place made him uncomfortable. The rough stone walls; winter at the window; the casual but studied bravado masking worry in voices that echoed each other’s conversation; the sound of expensive shoes on the wooden floor; the ambient music designed to enhance the waiting experience. The Maître ‘D at his podium occasionally turned his head to the window, and a view of anybody entering the restaurant. In the few seconds they took to climb the steps, the Maître ‘D could form opinions as to what kind of service they deserved. The restaurant had very large windows.
From where he sat at the bar, Jack had a clear view of the dining room; a deep vault filled with what the owners claimed to be a thousand years of Irish history. The timber joists that ran to the centre of the ceiling had come from Irish trees.
Waiters in black and white livery carried silver trays above their heads, each tray loaded with up market fast food; potato skins; fried cheese; twenty dollar burgers that came with a side order of potato chips. It reeked of conformity to a plastic tradition that nobody believed in, but accepted because it gave into a territory with clearly defined boundaries. This was the province of a particular type of thief. To Jack, everybody was a thief, but he considered himself to be in a different category to the thieves who ran the restaurant, and the thieves who ate there. He robbed the rich to avoid being poor. They robber the poor in order to be rich; stealing from pension funds to pay for their addictions – ten-thousand dollar suits, hookers and sloops. The exception was Tony, the person Jack was here to meet.
Tony was in his mid-sixties and longed to retire, not because he felt too old for the job, but because he was sick to death of what was essentially a middle management position. Working as a young thief throughout the sixties, Tony loved his life. He felt that there was a certain glamour attached to his outlaw status. He was not just a thief, he was sticking it to The Man; because of that image, he was also sticking it to the many daughters of The Man. The future mothers of America would prowl college campuses and downtown dive bars in search of poetry and elicit sex – Indian, Black, or criminal – before the onset of suburban respectability, children and tranquilisers. Those magic little pills which some were already stealing from mothers’ medicine chest in order to feel rebellious and alive, and which they would one day take to feel nothing. One of these women went on to campaign against backwards messages in rock albums.
Now, Tony had four ex-wives, twenty children that he knew about, and thirty-five grandchildren. None of his ex-wives re-married; two of his children and ten of his grandchildren were in rehab, and all but five of this little village looked to Tony to support them.
Jack was shown into the dining room and now he could hear the polite, unobtrusive jazz that had gone unnoticed while he was waiting. The singer seemed to apologise for himself: a mincing little runt singing Misty. The expression Music for Middlebrows came to Jack’s mind.
Jack was sipping a glass of water with a couple of lemon and lime wedges floating in it, when Tony arrived. This was Tonys’ custom; he found the jobs and so let the thieves wait for the table. He sat down without any handshakes or ‘Long time no see’, and picked up the menu. There was nothing to distinguish them from the hundred or so other diners. As Tony looked over the pricelist, the corners of his mouth turned down and with them his whole face seemed to slide a little, as if an avalanche threatened to take hold of his features. He shook his head.
‘I remember when you could get a steak sandwich for a buck and a half. And it was a good lump of steak too.’ He put the menu down and looked directly into Jack’s eyes. ‘How does fifteen sound?’
‘Fifteen is good.’
‘Fifteen’, meant one point five million dollars; Jack’s fee for the job he still knew nothing about.
‘Good. Let’s eat.’ Their business concluded, the two men ordered lunch and spent a half hour discussing trivialities. There was no talk about the job. Arguably, there was no reason for them to meet, but Tony liked to look into the eyes of the person to whom he assigned a particular job. The occupation notwithstanding, this was the only way he could be sure he was dealing with an honest man.
As people, Jack and Tony had no real time for each other, they were simply friends from work, and both of them preferred to keep their life and their job separate.
A week later Jack collected a padded A3 envelope and learned that he had been hired to steal the Whitely diamond. When he emptied the envelope onto his desk and saw a photograph of the jewel - it was as if he had just been promoted. Years earlier, Jack had promised himself that he would steal this diamond, to crown his career with an impossible task. However, he recognized the vanity of his ambition, the stone would be impossible to sell, and there is no profit in vanity. Every job threatened prison, so when the reward does not measure up against the risk, you can flatter yourself or be smart. The envelope also contained a map of the Whitely estate and the surrounding landscape, plans of the castle, and a timetable detailing the movements of the guards and all regular traffic to and from the castle.
In his bedroom, Jack removed a panel from the wall, revealing a board onto which he pinned all these details. Then he sat with a mug of coffee and began his studies. Throughout the next couple of weeks, Jack made his plans, following the advice of General Patton, ‘A good plan, violently executed today, is far better than a perfect plan executed tomorrow.’
Jack finished his preparations by giving himself the night off.

. . .

The Back Door had been advertised as a blues club. It opened in a converted factory that the promoter picked up for a song when the previous owner received a tax incentive to move the jobs overseas. Locals thought the club would bring some much-needed revenue into the area, until they saw the posters and realized that the promoter was too cheap to pay for real bands, and so it became a stomping ground for second-rate tribute acts and young bands happy to take whatever gigs they could get. Nevertheless, the beer was cold and the room was dark and, occasionally, vampire cultists could be found clinging to the shadows, pricking each other with needles and sucking each other’s blood. This made it the coolest club in Boston until it became famous as the coolest club in Boston, and in the way of these things, the price of admission went up, and those who strained for entry found themselves subject to a beauty code. For a short while, people were happy behind the velvet rope, hoping against hope that one of the bouncers would take a fancy to them and let them in. Then one of the fashionable newspapers declared the club to be ‘très pretentious’, and although that’s why people went there, having it pointed out to them like that caused most of the clientele to move on, searching for somewhere else to slum.
Now The Back Door had regained most of its dive status, but from time to time it was still haunted by post-modern irony hounds that came to scoff at the young bands playing original material, and to dance the night away to the likes of Ziggy Starlust, Sham!, and The Sisters of Murphy.
Tonight the club was almost empty; The Electronic Magnetism was playing the music of Solomon Burke. They were playing it straight, and getting it right, or as right as a cover band can; putting the music first. They were the only tribute band Jack could stomach. He sat in a corner with a glass of Tullamore Dew, closed his eyes and let the music wrap around him. ‘All For the Love of Sunshine’ still took him back to the wonderful shock of hearing it from the first time. The music filled up the space around him and within him and after the music the question would come; was Solomon Burke the black Elvis? Was Elvis been the white Solomon Burke? Certainly if Solomon was white, the King of Rock’n’Soul would have been the King of Rock’n'Roll.

. . .

Jack’s eyes opened. A little drool ran from the corner of his mouth. He lay twisted across the bed, troubled and still. Dreams of a woman clawed at him and for the briefest of times, he was afraid. He took a moment to recall where he was. He became aware of his right arm stretched across the empty pillow beside him and he felt the deeper emptiness of knowing that she was gone. For a moment, he thought she was the woman he had dreamed of, then he remembered - she was a whore and she was still on the clock. He did not recall her name, he did not recall her leaving, he was too old for her anyway, even if she was a whore; he was older than her father, she said. However, it was not her absence that had disturbed him. There was something else. Something had disturbed the silence of the room.
Jack lay still on the bed, caught between sleep and wakefulness. He was aware of someone else in the room. The girl? He tried not to give himself away while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. As his pupils widened he found a pair of eyes floating in the shadows and a figure took shape in the corner of the room. He sensed, more than saw, concern cross the face of this phantom, and then a shift in the atmosphere wiped it all away and left a man, sitting, staring at him, and waiting for him to wake up. Jack froze. The dread of something beyond his control took a hold of him. He felt tightness in his chest and then a sickness, as if he had just thrown up; he felt the pain of death staring at him. In the shadows, he thought he saw a bony finger caress the trigger guard of an automatic pistol. Death in repose.
Jack’s hand began to crawl down the side of the bed.
‘Don’t disturb yourself.’ There was tenderness in the voice, but it was the tenderness of a killer before delivering the fatal blow, a tenderness that he wore like armour.
‘What’s going on?’
‘This is just to let you know?’
‘Know what?’
The figure rose silently in a single movement, filling the space with surprising bulk. Moonlight sparkling on the silver gun in his hand looked like a tiny constellation and Jack followed the movements of these stars until each was extinguished as the intruder reached the bedroom door. He stopped and turned to look at Jack and there again came the sense of concern.
‘I’m sorry.’ He said, and slipped quietly out of the room.
As soon as the bedroom door closed, Jack was on his feet. He crossed the room and opened the door. The hallway was empty. He opened the apartment door and walked quickly to the end of the corridor. The elevator was lit up and going down. Jack raced to the stairs, the door was stuck, and he had to put his shoulder to it to get it open. The stairwell was empty. He half ran, half jumped down the concrete steps to the next floor. He came out into the corridor and checked the elevator again. It was two floors below him and still going down. He ran down three flights of stairs and was standing, breathing heavily, trying to think what to do, when the elevator passed by. Four floors to go. He raced down the stairs, hardly feeling the cold concrete on his bare feet, hoping to beat the elevator and at least get a proper look at his burglar. He got to the ground floor and opened the door a crack. The lobby appeared to be empty. From where he was, Jack could not see the elevator, but he heard it arrive, he heard the doors open. He waited. No one came. There was silence until he heard the elevator doors close.
‘Hello?’ The security guards voice echoed in the empty lobby. Jack cast around him looking for any sign of his burglar. There was nothing. He could hear the security guards footsteps approaching. The clip-clop of his shoes on the marble floor reminded Jack of his own feet turning numb from the cold. He suddenly realized he was naked and blushed at the prospect of running into the old woman who lived in the apartment below him. He closed the door and, as quietly as he could, ran up two flights and out of view. He felt weak. He was aware only of his heart beating and the cold sweat that made him shiver. He continued back up to the seventh floor, keeping an eye out for anyone coming down the stairs. The burglar must still be somewhere in the building.
Jack pushed open his apartment door. The entrance hall was empty. He stepped inside, closed and locked the door, more embarrassed than angry that someone had broken into his home.
As a burglar, Jack knew all the vulnerable places in his apartment and when he first moved in, he made sure to secure them. Until now, his precautions had kept him safe.
He threw on a robe and went out onto the balcony, looking down to the street for any sign of someone coming out of the building. After fifteen minutes with no sightings, Jack went back inside and locked the door. Did his burglar live in the building? Jack had not felt this vulnerable since he was a child growing up in a New York tenement. Even then, the knowledge that the burglar was probably someone from the neighbourhood made it easier to deal with; he or she, or someone, would be found guilty; someone would pay.
Jack turned on all the lights and thoroughly inspected the apartment; searching for the signs that only a professional would recognize. After more than an hour of searching, he could find no trace that anyone had been there. He had half a lifetime’s experience to draw on, and in the face of this break-in, they were worthless. An idea suddenly stopped Jack in his tracks. The girl was in on it. She had let him in. Had she? Was she just some random whore? Was he an assignment? What was meant by the statement ‘This is just to let you know.’ Let him know what? Whatever the story, there were no answers to be had tonight. Jack allowed himself to consider the scarier part of the encounter. Whoever it was had been sitting for however long in the dark, watching him sleep. Again the girl came to mind. The thought of her... He went to check the bedroom, if she was somehow taken by force then there may be... something. After finding nothing but a used condom, Jack chose to assume the girl was safe. There was nothing he could do for her now anyway. But still...
He abandoned all hope of sleep and put the coffee on, then went through to the living room. He stood for a few moments before one of the bookshelves that lined the apartment, searching for something light. He settled on James Bond, Live and Let Die, but was unable to concentrate and so decided on a more difficult book. He knew he would not be able to concentrate on that either, but the exercise would be useful. He put James Bond away and opened Marcus du Sautoy’s The Music of The Primes. The book was an adventure in mathematics. It was one of the regrets of Jack’s life that he lacked the imagination to appreciate the finer points of mathematics. He could certainly calculate, and he understood that everything aspires to the condition of mathematics. There are those who argue that everything aspires to the condition of music, but what is music without mathematics? A piano keyboard is divided up into a repeating pattern of natural, sharp, and flat notes. The scale of C major is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, the final C is actually the beginning of the next round and is played to make it sound complete. In any given scale, the divisions between each note is always the same, so you can pick any first note and following this pattern, you will quickly learn the keyboard. The blues is not a feeling; it is mathematical structure, man! Unfortunately, though Jack understood the principal, the actual making of music, indeed, the making of any art, escaped him.
Jack had hardly begun to read when all of these thoughts flooded his mind. He put the book aside, turned the television on, and flicked through the news channels. He found a story about a Marine Corp Colonel who was tracing stolen artefacts. This history of Iraq, worth hundreds of millions of dollars was being trafficked to London, New York, Paris, and Tokyo. Almost all of it went through Geneva, and frequently it was Iraqi’s who were leading the way in selling off their heritage, bringing them more or less into line with the rest of the world. This plunder found its way into the secret vaults of people who told themselves they were preserving the history of this cradle of civilization. Occasionally, customs officers discovered these artefacts in the luggage of...
Jack changed channels. A new director at the Louvre had removed the Mona Lisa, much to the annoyance of the hoards that daily came to worship. The exhibit would remain closed for six months to facilitate cleaning and a new study of the painting. Angry tourists, in France for this painting alone, complained to their tour operator, and complained again when the tour operators refused to give them a refund. In some quarters, the painting’s removal revived speculation that it was a fake.
Jack turned the television off. Given the particular news channel there was no guarantee that the story was accurate, but it would almost certainly become a movie.
The coffee revived Jack a little. After a shower, he got dressed and began to feel like himself again. Still something tugged at the back of his mind, a niggling little something that he could not escape. He pushed it to one side and went out. He walked three blocks to the emergency telephone. It was an ordinary public telephone, but a call from this number would let Tony know there was a problem. Jack dialled Tonys’ number; he let the phone ring out and hung up.
The number of rings was a signal telling Tony where to meet; they had a number of meeting places like this, each one determined by the number of rings. Jack dialled Tonys’ number again, and again he let the phone ring out. This was to let Tony know the extent of the emergency. Jack wanted to know what Tony knew. More importantly, he wanted to know if Tony had sold him out; with fifteen other jobs working, and with everything else Tony had going on, who knew what offers might start to look attractive. Although risks were an accepted part of the job (if Jack was caught it was up to him to keep his mouth shut, or a paid professional would seal it forever; that was why Jack got the big bucks), he did not intend to walk into a killing zone.
Jack finished by dialling a second number that he carried specifically for these emergencies. If anybody redialled, they would get through to a florist on the other side of the city.
Jack kept a car parked further up the street. He walked to the car, got in and drove to the meeting point. He waited for half an hour without any sign of Tony. In a situation like this, Tony was always prompt. His absence, coupled with the break-in told Jack that everything was wrong. At best, something had happened to Tony, but killing him made no sense; he always worked through the clients’ agent; under no circumstances would he meet the client. The thief never met anyone except Tony. The client was always protected.
Jack eased his car into the stream of traffic and crossed the city. He pulled into a parking garage and changed cars, then crossed the city again to what he hoped was still his safe house. He took the elevator to the top floor. In this city, this was as close as Jack would ever come to living in a penthouse; the same people who paid attention to who live in penthouses could not care less about who lived on the other floors.
The sun made mirrors of the city and Jack’s apartment was stifling. He opened all the windows to let in as much air as possible before the rush hour took hold, spewing out noise and smoke and forcing him to shut it out and turn the air conditioning on. He would have moved to the country but the crickets made him nervous.


Chapter 03


After escaping the Whitely museum, Jack walked quickly past the chaos on the highway; cars passing by, intent on their destinations, took brief notice of the strange collisions before returning their attention to radios, televisions and sat-nav instructions on how to get where they were going. There was no time to give to the solitary figure that had stumbled over the wall and was making his way to the rest stop where a dark blue 1995 Toyota was waiting for him.
Jack got into his car and turned the key in the ignition. The car had been serviced a week previously in anticipation of tonight’s job and so it should have started first time. It wheezed and coughed and almost stalled, giving Jack a vision of a police car pulling up; some rookie cop coming over to see what the problem was; connecting the break in with this man who showed no interest in the crashed cars and arresting him on suspicion of not getting into trouble when he got back to the precinct. Finally, the car sputtered into life and Jack’s tension escaped in a short laugh. He let the engine turn over a few times before slipping into the flow of traffic; another anonymous family car headed for the suburbs.
A fantasy played out in his mind; the promise of red brick houses; barbeques and basketball hoops; grazed knees and soda pops; white picket fences. Jack had no idea what that promise really meant, but sitting in that moment, PTA meetings; dental appointments; arguments over wallpaper – or, more precisely, his lack of interest in wallpaper; all of these things held an almost exotic fascination for him. Once upon a time, he told a woman that so long as she did not turn their house into a Barbie dream home, he did not care what it looked like. That was the last time Jack made any domestic arrangements with anyone.
Hunger overtook the moment and Jack felt the car around him. On the passenger seat was a ham and cheese sandwich he picked up at a gas station on the way over. He reached across and ripped open the plastic covering. The car immediately filled with the stink of old cheese and rotten ham. He gagged a little as his head turned away, disgusted. Involuntarily, he pulled the car away to the left and almost tore into another car that was trying to overtake him on the inside. The screeches of his car horn almost drown out the curses he rained down on Jack as he passed. Regaining control, Jack pulled the car back into the middle of the lane and rolled down the window. He took a moment to catch his breath and then, without stopping, and trying to keep an eye on the road, Jack reached across and rolled down the passenger side window. Again, the car began to swerve a little and he almost hit a motorbike that was coming up behind. The driver pressed on his horn and when he had passed by, the pillion passenger raised his hand, giving Jack the finger until he was out of sight. A couple of months earlier something like that would not have happened. But this oversight was not a case of Jack getting too old, he was only in his forties, too young to retire, he did not know what it was.
After a few minutes, he moved into the fast lane and pushed his foot to the floor until the lights of the city slipped from view and he was cruising comfortably along the open road with the stars and the sickle moon lighting his way. He turned the radio on and recognising the sound of Bon Jovi, turned it off again. Poodle haircuts and rock ‘n’ roll should never be allowed in the same room together.
Twenty miles out of town, Jack pulled in at a gas station. He got out of the car, stretched and yawned and filled the tank, then bought a corned beef sandwich and a soda, taking extra care to check the date on both. While he ate, he passed the time talking with a cop about the mess on the freeway. When the cop asked where he was headed, Jack answered with the cover Tony had set up for him years earlier. He was a travelling salesman on his way to a convention in Buffalo, New York.
Jack found himself thankful for the distraction. He could slip into character and escape the slips he had made tonight. They talked for about fifteen minutes; the cop had nothing better to do. His piece of highway did nothing but stretch and he spent most of his shift drinking coffee and wasting time with the kid who worked in the gas station.
Jack finished his sandwich, said goodbye to the cop and went to pick up some supplies. Steaks, French fries, beers, then out of the corner of his eye, Jack noticed a copy of Perfect Strangers, Deep Purples’ comeback album. He bought the LP when it was first released, but had not listened to it in years and seeing the CD here made him wonder why he had never bought a copy for the car. If anyone ever made great driving music, it was Deep Purple. He picked it up, took the lot to the cash register, and got a funny ‘Dad Rock’ look from the young Mod behind the counter. He had heard of Deep Purple, but he had never heard them. They were from the seventies and the seventies were over. There was a scatter of CD cases on the counter behind him ¬¬- English library card pop stars - Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, The Smiths.
Laughing, Jack returned to his car and got in. He put the CD into the player, pushed play and headed back out onto the freeway. One of the three bands who set the standard for early heavy metal; Deep Purple lyrics were invariably nonsense, but as a group, they soared. Ian Gillan possessed one of the greatest voices ever to grace Rock’n’Roll. To the sound of Perfect Strangers, feeling like a star, Jack drove until his was the only car on the highway, by which time he had passed four motels. He pulled in at the fifth. A vast courtyard overlooked by two floors of anonymity that was popular with hookers, gangsters, minor rock stars, husbands and wives; trysts of every kind lost themselves a little, or found themselves, or simply sat and trembled in the tubular steel and Formica.
The motel was back off the road and Jack might have missed it if not for the dilapidated sign. In big neon letters, ‘TV’ blinked on and off, momentarily illuminating the top of the word ‘MOTEL’. Jack parked outside the manager’s office.
At the sound of the car door close the manager turned to see who was coming. When he saw the single man enter the office, he turned his attention back to his cartoons for a moment, as if to mark his place. His right hand felt for the shotgun under the counter.
‘Is there something wrong with your sign?’ Jack asked.
‘Yeah, the owner’s too cheap to get it fixed.’ The manager looked like a college kid. He waited a moment for Jack to speak, and then asked, ‘You need a room?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Rates are up there. Pay in advance.’
The price list was framed in gold, someone’s idea of refinement; a room cost twenty dollars for an hour, fifty dollars for the night. Jack paid for the night. The manager pushed the register over to him and at the sound of a cartoon shotgun, cast an eye to the TV. As soon as Jack had finished signing his name the manager slammed a key down on the counter.
‘Fourteen. Second floor. On the end.’
Jack said ‘Thanks.’, but the manager had already returned to the epic story of humanity’s insignificance in the face of nature. Bugs Bunny was walking along behind a blissfully ignorant Elmer Fudd. Jack left the office; he collected his overnight bag from the car and walked to his room. Climbing the steps to the second floor, Jack caught a few bars of a country song. Waylon Jennings was singing ‘Mama, don’t let your baby’s grow up to be cowboys.’ As Jack approached his room, the song grew louder and he found himself singing along; ‘They’ll never stay home and they’re always alone, even with someone they love.’
He opened the door to his room and recoiled from the motel smell of secret meetings, illicit sex, and envelopes filled with evidence of one kind or another. Although he knew the beds received clean sheets and an unhealthy spray of air freshener every morning, Jack could never escape the sense memory triggered by opening a motel room door. He gave the room a minute to fill with the fresh night air before going inside. While he was waiting, Waylon Jennings finished his set and then came what Jack supposed to be the headline act. It sounded like a drill; after a few revs the sound changed, became deeper, providing a backing track for squeals of pain turning to pleasure, followed moments later by the percussive grunts of a determined savage.
Something had been nagging at Jack since he arrived at the motel, now he noticed that through the sky and through the trees, lights chased crazy circles in the night. Bass heavy music almost drowned out the sound of screeching tires and distant voices loudly cheering. Kids doing donuts, there must be a shopping mall somewhere nearby.
Jack went into his room and locked the door. He dropped his things on the bed then jammed a chair against the door handle and searched for somewhere to hide the diamond. He went into the bathroom, for a moment he considered dropping the diamond into the toilet, after dinner… but all it would take is for someone to flush the toilet and they would catch him. He opened the bathroom window and looked out, pausing a moment to check for anyone who might be watching him. The back of the motel was in darkness, save for the overspill of light from the occupied rooms. A few old carports stood apparently empty, beyond them, neat rows of naked trees filed away into darkness. Out front, cars sat waiting for their occupants; how many were here for the hour? How many for the night? Where to hide the diamond?
The room had a small kitchen area and Jack prepared his dinner of steak and French-fries while he tried to figure out what to do. When his food was ready, he emptied it onto a plate and found the perfect hiding place for the diamond. He dropped it into the grease, watched it sink and turn invisible. He opened a bottle of Guinness Extra Stout, turned the television on, and sat down to dinner.
The news reported that a burglar had somehow breeched the state of the art security system at the Whitely Museum, and stolen the Whitely diamond. Celebrity Experts discussed the logistics of how the burglary might have been committed, the equipment he must have used, and where one could buy these things. From the police briefing, the news crews learned that the burglar had entered through the roof. There were boot prints in the grass. These slender facts inspired discussions about how fit the burglar must have been; a personal trainer came on to demonstrate the exercise regime needed to maintain that level of fitness. News of the boot print led to a history of footwear in crime. A celebrity expert came on to expostulate his theory that ill fitting shoes created ill fitting people; this is what gives rise to crime. Also from the boot print, one enterprising reporter extrapolated an entire wardrobe. Exactly what should one wear to commit a burglary in winter?
Jack finished his dinner and turned the television off. In the days when he had friends, this was the kind of story they loved. Human interest, as told by people whose only interest in humans was how to exploit them. He turned the lights off and sat on the bed, watching the door and waiting.

. . .

Morning came sweetly, fresh and clear; making the curtains glow bright orange on the window; creeping in under the door; bringing with it the sounds of the countryside. Sunlight brought silence, blessed, forgiving silence, to the room next to Jacks. The sound of an equestrian show had been his only companion through the night. At some point he heard the man ask,
‘Guess where this goes?’ His voice had taken on a sickly undercurrent of friendship.
In a little girl voice, the woman replied, ‘That goes up my ass and makes me a horsey.’
‘That’s right.’
For the rest of the night she was Silver and every now and then, her master used the whip.
Jack took a hot shower to wash away the show, then a cold shower to bring him more fully to life. He had a breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast with plenty of hot coffee and got dressed at his leisure; fresh clothes for the new day. Then, when he was feeling like a human being once again, he collected the diamond from the hardened grease, cleaned it, folded it into a sheet of paper and dropped it into the pocket of his sports coat. He gathered his things together and turned in his room key, then drove back to the city and left his car in a parking garage.

. . .

From four blocks away, Jack could feel the pull of Tremont Street church.
Candle light played on the translucent white face of Mary. Shrouded by shadow in the marble folds of Her dress was the life that Jack had lost. He drew a long thin candle from the box, lit it off someone else’s prayer and fixed it to the holder. Kneeling at Her feet Jack tried to pray but knew it could never be answered. The words formed and fell soundlessly to the floor. He felt his heart aching to reach out, but he had chosen isolation. His darkness was illuminated by his benediction, and if anything was reaching for him, he was beyond it. He shifted uncomfortably and caught the attention of a couple passing that turned their heads to him. They saw what appeared to be an old man out of time, they could sense the space around him and they quickly turned back towards their own devotion. They would pray for him, but he was not the sort of man they spoke to.
Jack stood up and looked at the few people scattered among the pews. To his surprise, there were as many young people as there were old. He pictured himself as one of them; enrobed in faith and connected to… whatever it was. Someone coughed and the image melted away to reality, it simply did not fit. Jack could light candles and offer up his words, but he remained unmoved. When you die, you start to decompose, and once you’re in the ground, you’re in the ground. Despite knowing this, he knew he would keep coming back. He walked out into the November morning. There was a chill in the air and he turned up the collar of his sports coat. He put his hands in his pockets and felt something hard wrapped in paper. He had almost forgotten about it. In his pocket, he rolled the diamond between his fingers and thought about the handover. Then, up the road from the church, he noticed a girl was selling flags for a local anti-poverty organization. He stood where he was, watching her, watching people pass by without giving anything, and a devilish smile broke across his face.
Jack had come out of the church intending to fully discharge his contract; but with the sight of the girl; her youth, his own encroaching middle age… he was not normally given to sentiment but he found himself now weighing the girl against the fat man. Jack always thought of the client as ‘The Fat Man’. He pictured some Sidney Greenstreet, swollen with avarice and empire; clammy hands that closed around the world like damp paper. The bargain that had been struck; the one point five million dollars Jack had been paid to steal the diamond. Well, he had stolen the diamond. He had left irrevocable proof of the theft. It was on the news. The girl could have been his daughter. Weighing the girl against all of that, Jack decided he had fulfilled his contract. That he now chose to give the diamond to someone else was his own business. The fat man could take the hit.
As Jack walked towards the girl, his fingers nervously played with the diamond. To quell his doubts he invented a life of grinding poverty from which this diamond, and only this diamond, would release her. He knew the argument was nonsense, but the stone was insured for twenty million dollars and the grateful insurance company would pay out ten percent for recovery.
From the corner of his eye, Jack could see her smile, broad and generous; easy. It was refreshing to find nothing practiced about her. There was not the relentless pursuit of a commission that so many of these people tried to hide behind images of want. She was exactly as he pictured her.
Without breaking his stride as he passed, Jack dropped the diamond into her bucket.


Chapter 04


A few days after the burglary, Jack opened his apartment door, stepped inside and threw his keys into a bowl by the door. To his left was the living room door, to his right the bedroom door. Facing him was the kitchen and next to that, in a simple frame, hung a landscape by an unknown artist, painted in rich earth colours. Jack stood for a moment looking at the painting. Dawn was breaking above a dirt track that cut its way through a tangled forest, with all the unknown dangers of the world hidden among the trees. Just before the horizon, the forest gave way to a vast savannah. Every time he entered his apartment, Jack could feel those yellows and greens calling to him; the soft blue sky, streaked with orange, drew him on like a charm. He loved to escape, if only briefly, into this promise of a better world. He could feel the sunlight spilling out of the painting, reviving him as it woke up the world. It broke the spell of his occupation and allowed him to feel human again. He took off his jacket and opened the living room door.
‘Jack.’
Jack pulled the door closed and turned the key, locking his visitor inside. He was immediately grabbed from behind and slammed up against the wall. He lashed out with an elbow to the man’s stomach; turning, Jack saw a fat man clutching his stomach as he folded to the floor. As Jack reached for the front door he was arrested by a single word.
‘No.’
This was the voice of his mysterious burglar. He motioned Jack towards the living room door. The fat man raised his hand. ‘Wait a minute.’ He got to his feet and was surprisingly fastidious in dusting himself down and straightening his clothes. He spent a minute and a half combing his hair, visibly irritating the gunman. After he had made himself presentable, the fat man went over to Jack and punched him sharply in the kidneys. The pain brought Jack to his knees and he felt the gun barrel press into his temple.
Jack felt himself being pulled up as the fat man opened the living room door and entered. Jack walked through the door and once again received the warm greeting, ‘Jack.’
An old man was sitting relaxed in a comfortable armchair. He looked about the room with disapproval.
‘I would have expected a man like you to have better taste than this, Jack.’ The old man’s disapproval, and even sadness, was genuine. All Jack required of his furniture was that it does its job. Chairs were for sitting on, not supporting some image of himself that he wanted to project, and so, when he came to furnish the apartment, Jack went to a catalogue shop and picked out the cheapest, sturdiest things they had.
Everything about the old man was large. He was a caricature villain from the worst kind of pulp; henna black hair piled high on his head; eyebrows, the same colour as his hair looked like they had been glued in place; he appeared to be wearing make-up; and then Jack realized the unnaturally smooth skin was the effect of Botox. Poison injected into the face to create the illusion of youth by arresting the mechanism by which the face gives expression to that youth. An Armani suit struggled to contain the bulk of this man who now stripped his porcelain teeth in what he supposed was a smile. The teeth were intended to complete this illusion of youth but succeeded only in adding years to the face from which they beamed so unnaturally white. Jack laughed; it occurred to him that American dentistry would one day be visible from space. He took another punch in the side and crumpled a little. He swung his elbow up, this time making contact with his assailants face. As Jack turned, the butt of the gun slammed down on the back of his neck.
The old man motioned to his men and Jack was put sitting in a chair, the two men took up positions by the door.
‘It’s ok Jack, we’re not here to harm you. Despite...’ He gestured towards the two men.
‘Then what do you want?’
‘It’s a question of values, Jack.’ He waited, and there was something practiced in his waiting, as if he had gone over this speech hundreds of times, calculating the correct weight to give each word; practicing each gesture until they appeared spontaneous. He continued, ‘You don’t have any. I don’t mean family values, Jack, I mean real values; the values that come from a solid moral centre.
‘You have no moral centre, Jack. You have spent your life without any real values. Now, you may argue that you only steal from those who can afford to take the hit, and you are right, they can. They can afford to take the hit better than ninety percent of the population. But the question, Jack, the question is this; do they take the hit?’ He paused, apparently waiting for an answer, bringing the fingertips of each hand delicately together and slowly pressing the palms together as if in prayer. When Jack didn’t reply, he continued. ‘The answer, Jack, is no. No. They do not take the hit. They do not take the hit because they are in a position to pass it onto people lower down in the food chain.
‘They pass it on to garbage men, to schoolteachers, to kids trying to buy their first home. The people who suffer, Jack, are the same people who always suffer. The people who ultimately pay for your crimes, Jack, are the people who can least afford it.’
These were ideas that had never occurred to Jack before, listening to them now, he found himself empty of emotion.
‘We haven’t bothered with you before now because, frankly, until recently you’ve been outside of our jurisdiction. Your next job, however, will be within our jurisdiction’ Again the old man paused and waited for Jack to answer, and again Jack sat sullenly staring back at him.
‘I have it within my power to legitimize your assets.’
Now, for the first time, Jack’s face betrayed his interest. The old man picked up a small attaché case at his feet and from it drew the Whitley diamond. He held it out to Jack.
‘Did you honestly believe that in this day and age you could anonymously dispose of such a famous stone?’
The old man threw down a photograph of Jack dropping the diamond into the anti-poverty bucket.
‘There is nowhere that you can go that we will not see you. There is no conversation that you can have that we will not overhear. There is nothing that you can do that we cannot stop if we chose to stop you. You did a good thing here Jack, and because of you, that girl will now get to go to college. I thought that was very human. That’s why we’ve decided to give you a chance.’
The old man put the jewel down on the table in front of him, and from the attaché case he now drew a five-pound hammer and a cloth. He covered the diamond with the cloth and brought the hammer down hard on top of it. A loud crash filled the room and bits of glass flew out from beneath the cloth. The old man sat back in the chair and invited Jack to raise the cloth. A cynical smile appeared on Jack’s face. He knew a scam when he saw one; nevertheless, he reached out a picked up the cloth. Beneath it, Jack found the shattered remains of the fake diamond. Some of the glass had been smashed into the tabletop leaving a ring of ground glass in the veneer.
‘There is no Whitley diamond, Jack. There never was.’
Was he telling the truth? There was no real way of knowing. There had been nothing on the news about the diamond having been returned. Either the girl had kept it for herself, or, what? A number of possibilities presented themselves to Jack, none of which seemed plausible.

. . .

In the early nineteenth century, a family fortune was built on the reality of this diamond. If it was true that the diamond was a fake then that really was a great crime; a wonderful con from which a great empire had been built. The family genius had learned his craft sitting on his grandfathers’ knee. A fool and his money are easily parted. Spin a good yarn and everyone’s a fool. Whitely learned the trade of diamond cutting and then disappeared, apparently into Africa, soon reports were coming back and these reports became the Whitely diamond. Before anyone had even seen it, the Whitely diamond was legendary.
With his ‘return’ from Africa, Whitely borrowed against the diamond and bought shares in munitions companies; the bullets and guns that would civilize the nation. He invested in companies making covered wagons, shovels, picks, and pans, and all the paraphernalia of gold fever. He then infected a few carefully chosen people with this sickness. Within a month he had tripled his money, and still no gold had been found.
By the time gold was actually found, no one remembered where the sickness had come from, or that the first few strikes had proved worthless.
Although questions were initially raised about the authenticity of the diamond, once his backers realised that Whitely had a knack for making money, the questions were ignored and the diamond obscured in stories of savage tribes; and in growing back accounts.
It was this talent that allowed the hustler to marry into the upper echelons of Boston society and realise the dream of generations by becoming a ‘toff’, although he never forgot what ‘those people’ really were.

. . .

Jack looked at the old man who sat quietly waiting, like someone certain of getting what he wanted.
‘CIA?’
‘No Jack. The CIA is a terror organization. The CIA overthrow governments and install dictators; they train terrorists; they kidnap people and send them overseas to be tortured. I do not work for the CIA. As I said, I have it within my power to legitimize your assets; if you do what you’re told’
Jack smiled, ‘There’s always a catch.’ For the moment he was governed by the pain in his side. He had the sense that the old man was lying to him, but felt in no immediate danger. He needed a drink. ‘What’s the job?’
The old man motioned to the others to leave the room. When they had gone he pulled a postcard out of his case and placed it on the table in front of Jack. Jack glanced at it, ‘First things first.’ he said, and began to rise out of his chair. The old man reached for something inside his jacket. Jack paused, ‘I’m just getting a drink.’
‘Go on.’
‘Do you want one?’
‘No. Tell me Jack, what do you know about the Mona Lisa?’
‘It’s a painting’
There was a brief silence as the old man tried to decide whether Jack was laughing at him. He let it go.
‘Yes. It’s a painting. Mona Lisa. La Giaconda. Her name was Lisa Gherardini. She was married to one Francesco del Giaconda, who was a Florentine businessman. DaVinci spent four years working on the painting. He brought it with him everywhere.
‘On the 21 August 1911 a certain Vincenzo Peruggia stole it. He worked at the Louvre and one day hid in a closet until the museum closed. When everybody had gone home, he came out of his hiding place, took the painting down from the wall, and walked out of the building, his Lady hidden under his coat.
‘He was working for a man called Eduardo de Valfierno who had commissioned copies of the painting which he had already shipped to various countries where buyers were waiting, each one believing that he was going to buy the original. However, after two years, Peruggia got greedy. He was caught trying to sell the painting. Officially, it was returned to the Louvre in 1913.
‘Unofficially, it’s been rumoured that the original was never recovered and it is one of the copies that now draw the crowds.’
Jack sat down with his drink. He picked up the postcard and studied it for a moment. ‘The background doesn’t match up.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It looks like there are two different backgrounds here. Look.’ He held out the postcard to the old man who barley glanced at it.
‘Be that as it may, I want you to bring me the Mona Lisa.’
‘Do you know that the one in the Louvre is a fake?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then where is the original?’
‘An underground organization in Paris claim to have it. They’re putting it up for sale. All we want you to do is bid for it.’
As he looked at the old man, Jack realized that he had not given his name.
‘If I’m going to be working for you, then what’s your name?’
‘Masterson.’
‘And who do you work for?’
‘You don’t need to know that.’
Masterson crossed his legs and sat back and, with his right elbow on the arm of the chair, touched his thumb to his chin and his forefinger to his temple. A position that he believed gave him the appearance of an intellectual.
The sleeve of his jacket fell down a little revealing what Jack recognized as a microphone, the sort of thing Secret Service men have down their sleeves. A smile broke across Jacks face; of course there would be some way for the goons to monitor the situation.
Jacks’ laugh was met by fury in the old man’s eyes and the snapping of his fingers.
The door opened and the two men returned. They stood by the door, awaiting their orders. With them came the memory of pain to Jacks body. He waited to see what would happen next. At least he had a whiskey bottle in front of him; if it came to blows, he would have a fighting chance.
‘You have until you finish that drink to decide wheatear or not to take the job.’
‘You’ll pay my expenses?’
Masterson pulled a plane ticket from his attaché case. He moved the whiskey bottle out of Jacks reach and replaced it with the ticket. ‘That’s a First Class ticket to London’.
‘You said Paris.’
‘No. I said an underground organization in Paris has the painting. Nobody knows where the sale will be. London is the meeting point. There’s a suite booked in your name at the Dorchester Hotel.
‘It’s the same suite President Eisenhower stayed in when he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War Two.’ There was real pride in Masterson’s voice as he said this.
Jack, confident that every suite was the same suite President Eisenhower stayed in, was unimpressed. ‘So, I get to London, then what?’
‘Someone will contact you.’
‘This is all a little vague. How did you find out about this sale?’
‘Yes or No, Jack. Will you take the job?’
Jack turned to the men by the door. They stood impassive, staring at him; each mans’ gaze was rock solid and empty. Together they gave the impression of a malicious Laurel and Hardy. At a push Jack felt he could take one of them but he may also have to take a bullet to the head.
‘Do I have a choice?’ Jack asked.
‘Ah.’ The corners of Masterson’s lips curled up into two little fishhooks. ‘Democracy in action.’ The eyes shone, dark and beautiful, and for a moment the face became animated and seemed to offer friendship. ‘You always have a choice.’
‘I have a question.’ Jack asked.
‘Of course.’
‘What happens if I get the painting for you and it turns out to be a forgery?’
‘No money will be handed over until the painting has been independently verified.’
‘I want all my assets legitimized before I leave.’
Masterson took a long white envelope from an inside pocket of his jacket. ‘You leave tomorrow, obviously for all your assets to be legitimized they would need to be listed. I have been authorized to do that. This,’ he shook the envelope, ‘is not that authorization. This is your arrest warrant. Do the job. Come home. You’re a free man.’ He reached over to hand the envelope to Jack.
‘You open it.’
Masterson smiled and Jack was again struck by the absurdly white teeth. Botox be damned. In a few years time, if he lived long enough, Masterson would increasingly come to resemble a waxworks dummy, he might also be a legend. The future legend opened the envelope, with surprisingly long fingers. In earlier days they might have been musician’s fingers, though swollen now, they still displayed their former grace. He carefully removed the warrant and held it up for Jack to read.
‘Ok,’ said Jack, ‘You’ve got a thief.’
‘No.’ Masterson cut in. ‘You bid. That’s all. Money is no object. You are now in a world of truth. You bid. Regardless of the price.
‘It will come down to you and one other man. He will buy the painting, he has unlimited resources, so you bid. Drive the price up. The man we’re after is his boss. We need to smoke him out. You bid. That’s all.’
‘Fair enough.’ Jack said. He didn’t believe anything he had heard all day but the setting sun was now making a silhouette of the skyline and the morning may depend on him taking the job.
‘Excellent. Clarence will pick you up in the morning and take you to the airport.’ Masterson indicated the men standing by the door.
Jack turned to see which one was Clarence. Neither man gave any indication that this name belonged to him. ‘Which one is Clarence? The fat guy?’ The question was designed to provoke a reaction. A flash of anger came to the fat man’s eyes, his jaw set a little like concrete, but he held his place.
‘No,’ said Masterson, ‘he’s not Clarence.’
With the government men gone Jack relaxed into the bouquet of good whiskey. After the drink, he took a long hot shower which he finished by turning the water to cold, shocking the blood to his skin, waking up all his senses. He wrapped himself in a heavy Turkish towel and went through to the living room. Looking across the city towards the airport, he wondered how he was going to get on that plane tomorrow. He disliked flying. The idea that a thousand tonne of metal could be carried along at hundreds of miles per hour, thousands of feet in the air seemed ludicrous. Although he knew the statistics supported a safe journey, another part of him wondered what would support the plane in flight if any one of a thousand things went wrong.