“They grow it here, dunce. You ever eat a coffee bean fresh off the bush before the packagers have got their hands on it? Sweet and delicious — like a chocolate drop. You used to be an actor, didn’t you?”
He was startled and then suspicious. “You’ve been prowling in the files.”
“No. Actually I saw you on stage once. Nineteen thirty-eight, I think. The Cat and the Canary. Summer stock — Woods Hole, wasn’t it? You weren’t too awful.”
“My God. I was seventeen years old. How in hell did you—?”
“Do you still remember anything about theatrics?”
“I was a kid. It was forty years ago.”
“But you may remember make-up techniques.”
“Maybe. A little. I haven’t thought about it. You figure to disguise yourself, Charlie?” His lips curled into a disbelieving grin and he surveyed my girth ostentatiously. “Sure, a little pancake here and there and you could pass for Clint Eastwood.” He broke into rude laughter.
I gave him time to subside and said calmly, “We’ll move him out tomorrow afternoon. Have the plane ready to go any time after two o’clock.”
“How?”
“The guided tour.”
“You’re nuts. They search every one of those tourists as they leave the Embassy.”
“I know. I want you to send people out to the hotels. Find every tourist in town who bears any resemblance, no matter how superficial, to our man. Small thin guys. Ask them to join the bus tour tomorrow afternoon. Give them free tickets, invite them to the Ambassador’s party, appeal to their patriotism — do anything, just get ’em on that bus. I want six or eight small thin white men in the group.”
“It won’t work, Charlie. They know him.”
“It’s a black country.” I smiled at him. “All whites look alike in the sunshine. Tell ’em to wear hats.”
“They’ve been rolling up sleeves looking for that bayonet scab.”
“Trust me.”
“Listen, if he gets killed while he’s supposed to be under our protection...”
“Just get me the tourists,” I said. “And trust me.”
I went back to August Brent’s room to bolster his spirits with a pep talk. At first he was alarmed when I described the scheme. It took a while to reassure him. “It’s the Purloined Letter technique. The one thing to remember is not to be furtive. If you’re bold enough they’ll never spot you. Just don’t act scared, all right?”
Myerson and I took turns coaching him most of the evening. In the morning I booked a ticket on the bus tour and rode the entire route, learning more than I needed to know about that steamy corner of the world, and by one o’clock I was back in the cafeteria eating lunch. The beef in Africa is terrible but the fruits are delicious.
I had made a deal with the man whose place Brent would take on the bus tour. It was costing us a sizable chunk of the division’s budget but Myerson didn’t balk; he had more than money on the line. When the German guide led the afternoon group into the Embassy’s front hall we were ready. I spirited our volunteer away from the group into a private office; Brent exchanged clothes and documents with him; careful application of make-up and false hair and we were set to go. I hardly recognized Brent myself — wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t known who he was. We gave him a few words of cheer and sent him out to join the tour.
Myerson came outside with me to watch. Sweat stood out on his forehead. The tour filed out toward the bus and Myerson tried to suppress a groan. Out of the side of his mouth he said, “It hasn’t got a prayer, you damn fool.”
The tourists filed past the Marines and then the African soldiers moved in, intercepting the queue. Myerson’s handkerchief came out and while he scrubbed his face I said, “Look at something else, damn it. Don’t look so interested.”
The soldiers were examining the first tourist, removing his hat and then tugging at his hair. They tested his mustache and examined his face with belligerent suspicion. He was one of the half-dozen tourists Myerson had recruited — roughly Brent’s size and build — and the soldiers’ eyes were narrowed with cruel determination. They knew what it would mean to them if they should let Brent slip through.
They rolled up both the man’s sleeves — apparently they weren’t sure whether Brent had been wounded in the right arm or the left.
They passed the man through, finally, and two women and a Japanese, and then they went to work on the next slight-built white tourist. Myerson’s breathing rasped against the damp silence. At the bus the tour guide helped the two women up the steps and stood aside by the bus door, bored, cleaning his fingernails, smiling with absent politeness as each tourist climbed aboard. The soldiers grudgingly let the second white through, glanced cursorily at an Oriental woman and two adolescents, and zeroed in on our third volunteer tourist.
Myerson said under his breath, “I never should have let you talk me into this. We’re not going to make it. We’ll never get away with it, Charlie. You and I will spend the rest of our miserable careers in a basement decoding signals from Liechtenstein. They’re bound to catch him — they can’t help but spot him...”
“Trust me, you bastard.”
Nine tourists to go; then eight...
When we were airborne I unbuckled my seat belt and went jauntily past Myerson’s sour face to where August Brent sat peeling the phony hair off his cheeks. He beamed up at me and then winced when the spirit gum tugged at his flesh. I said, “Any plans?”
“I’ve got a job waiting. Writing opinion columns for a chain of newspapers on African affairs.”
“Sounds good.” Better than I’d expected for him. I went forward and loomed over Myerson, knowing it made him uncomfortable to think that one lurch of the plane could capsize my bulk into his lap. I said, “You need to remind yourself of this lesson from time to time. It always pays to trust old Charlie Dark.”
“They had to tumble to it. I still don’t understand it.”
“All those look-alike tourists, all Brent’s size — they had to assume he was one of those. I knew it wouldn’t occur to them to take a close look at a man they’d seen twice a day for years. Magician’s trick, you know — you make a quick move that draws the eye to your right hand while the left hand quietly pulls the switch in plain view but the audience never sees it. Nobody was going to look twice at that grey-bearded German tour guide with the shiny red nose. But put chinwhiskers on Brent and paint his nose...” I showed him my grin and pretended to lurch toward him. Myerson’s flinch elicited my laugh. I tweaked his nose and waddled toward the galley to see what they had to eat.
Charlie’s Vigorish
When I saw the phone’s red message-light flashing I had a premonition — it had to be Myerson; no one else knew I was in New York.
I rang the switchboard. “This is Mr. Dark in Fifteen Eleven. There’s a message light.” I tossed the folded Playbill on the coffee table and jerked my tie loose.
“Yes, sir, here it is. Please call Mr. Myerson. He didn’t leave a number, sir.”
“That’s all right, I know the number. Thanks.” I cradled it before I emitted an oath. Childishly I found ways to postpone making the calclass="underline" stripped, showered, counted my travelers’ cheques, switched the television on and went around the dial and switched it off. Finally I made a face and rang through to Myerson’s home number in Georgetown.
“Charlie?”
I said, “I’m on vacation. I didn’t want to hear from you.”
“How was the play?”
“Dreary. Why don’t they write plays with real people in them any more?”