“I want the money in fifties and hundreds,” Henry McGee said. “In a suitcase.”
“My God, do you know how much money that is?”
“Divide it this way: a million and a half in American green; a million and a half in pounds sterling; the rest in Swiss francs. Nothing else. And don’t cheat me because I won’t count it until later and if you cheat me, I’ll kill you. Just kill you. And you know that I will.”
“It’ll take me time—”
“Sell some of your stock. Take wire transfers from your bank account in New York. Get cash out of the corporation. If it comes down to it, put the tap on your chauffeur, just get the money. I don’t want paper, I don’t want big bills, and I don’t take American Express.”
“But time. I need time.”
“Seventy-two hours. Noon on Friday,” Henry McGee said. “You’re a bright man. You’ll figure out how to do it.”
“Noon on Friday? That’s impossible.”
“There’s a plane out of Heathrow at two P.M. for Chicago nonstop. On your friendly rival airline. Is that right, Trevor?”
It was exactly right. Despite himself, he felt drawn to the other man in that moment. The deal was that much closer.
“Now what if I had a passenger aboard that plane who was carrying a parcel? Unknown to him, of course?”
“Who would it be?”
And Henry drew a photograph from his pocket. It was a photograph he had intended to turn in to the SAS but this way was even better. Even neater. Henry prided himself on thinking fast.
It was a photograph of Matthew O’Day delivering a parcel to the house in Mayfair.
Trevor held his breath a moment.
“D’you remember the parcel? A copy of the novel that the movie Halloween Heaven was based on? That’s Matthew O’Day. He’s your friendly neighborhood IRA terrorist and if the British thought this was all about the IRA, it would steer them in a very different direction, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Trevor managed.
“Matthew can be on that two P.M. flight to Chicago. I can arrange that. I can even arrange a reason why. The point is, when you see Matthew go through the boarding gate, you’re gonna be carrying a bag yourself, one for me with five million beans in it. If there’s a fuckup, any kind of double cross from you, then the photographs — including the one you just put your fingerprints on — go to SAS and you’ll be up shit creek.”
“Matthew O’Day is working for you?”
“Reluctantly, but then, good help is hard to find these days.”
“But what if I do see Matthew O’Day get on that plane? I only have your word that something is going to happen. What if you cross me?”
Henry smiled. “Now we’re getting somewhere, Trevor. A Mexican standoff. I want the bag and you want the bomb to go off on the other guy’s plane. But in this case, you got to trust me because you got nothing else. I don’t even have to agree to this deal except I can see the logic of it from your point of view. If I push you too far, then you just turn into an ole porcupine and roll up into a ball. I ain’t stupid, Trevor, I see that. But if you push me too far, I’ll just have to fuck you so you walk funny for the rest of your life. See the way it is? A certain amount of trust has to go on.”
“The police are always following me—”
“Shit. You must think I got shit for brains. I was outside the EAA office this morning at eleven twenty when you left out the back way, down that mews with your driver. I know the cops ain’t following you. You think I leave everything to chance?”
“You called me. They might have tapped my phone—”
“You know and I know you’re too smart a businessman to have your phones tapped by the cops. You probably swept them the next morning to make sure. You don’t want the cops knowing all your secrets.”
“You really mean this, don’t you?” Trevor stared at the other man as though seeing him for the first time. His instincts as a man of business and finance took over; he saw the depth of Henry McGee, even if he still did not know his name.
“Nothing complicated, Trevor. I don’t want to leave a trail. The only guy I’m leaving behind is you and you’re not gonna tell anyone anything because you got your own secrets. So at the end of the world or the war, you and me are the only guys standing. What do you say?”
“Friday at two P.M.”
“That’s it. We’ll wave our Irish friend good-bye as he heads toward America and you and me will check out your luggage.”
“And the photographs. I want the photographs. And the negatives.”
“That sounds fair,” Henry McGee said.
“This is a very delicate moment,” Trevor said in a cool voice. His voice was soft but it was there, in all the modulated tones, the voice of a hard man. “I don’t want a misstep. I can’t afford it.”
“You can’t and I can’t. I think that’s the way it goes. Reminds me of a story about this guy hit by the cardinal’s limousine. Archbishop of New York. He goes to a hospital, he gets well, but he says he’s paralyzed.”
“I really think we’ve concluded this conversation—”
Henry touched his sleeve, then leaned forward across the table and spoke barely above a whisper. “I wanna finish my story.”
Henry held his sleeve. His hand weighed a thousand pounds.
Trevor felt pinned to the tablecloth at the wrist. He was staring at terror, pure and simple. He knew Henry could do it, could send a man aboard an airplane carrying a bomb he didn’t know about.
“So he sues the archdiocese and it goes to court and the lawyers for the cardinal can’t get anything on the guy, even though they know he’s faking his paralysis. They hire detectives and everything. The jury finally awards the guy fifty million dollars and there he is, strapped to a board in the courtroom. So the lawyer for the cardinal says to him, ‘You won the fifty mill but we’re gonna watch you all the time, day and night, and if you slip, we’ll put you in jail. So what good is the fifty mill to you, strapped to this board? What are you gonna do with it?’ ”
“I have to—”
Henry said, “The guy says, ‘I’m gonna get a flight to Paris and then charter a car to Lourdes. And when I get there,’ he says to the cardinal’s lawyer, ‘I’m gonna pray for a miracle.’ ”
Henry removed his hand from Trevor’s sleeve. The waiter brought the salads and stood with an enormous pepper grinder under one arm, ready for service.
“Please,” Trevor said, and the waiter ground black specks over the creamy sauce.
The waiter looked at Henry McGee.
Henry shook his head. “You got any horseradish?”
The waiter stared at him for a moment before going to fetch the horseradish.
“I like that story,” Henry said. He stared hard at Trevor. “Haven’t told it for years. You see the point, Trevor? Story should have a point. The delicate moment here is on both sides. You don’t want to fail because of what I can do and I don’t want to fail because it would complicate things for me. I don’t want to push you too far. So I’m giving you a way out and you’re giving me what I want and everyone is going to be happy.”
Trevor stared at him.
“Except for the poor schmucks who decided to take that plane to Chicago on Friday,” Henry said, and chuckled.
37
This is what happened four hours before Henry’s meeting with Trevor Armstrong.
The bell to the flat off Maida Vale rang. Shrill and long. Marie padded to the door in stocking feet and pushed aside the gauze curtain. She saw the red-haired Irish girl through the glass panel. She was wearing a light raincoat. She did not see the Peugeot up the street. Gloomy morning made the street beyond the door dingy.