‘What a temper you’ve got, Wormold.’
‘I’m sorry. Drink takes me that way.’
‘I h-hope you are sober enough to drive straight.’
‘It would be better, Carter, if you drove.’
He thought, That will keep his hands from his pockets.
‘First right, first left, Carter.’
They came out into the Atlantic drive: a lean white ship was leaving harbour, some tourist cruiser bound for Kingston or for Port au Prince. They could see the couples leaning over the rail, romantic in the moonlight, and a band was playing a fading favourite ‘I could have danced all night’. ‘It makes me homesick,’ Carter said.
‘For Nottwich?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s no sea at Nottwich.’
‘The pleasure-boats on the river looked as big as that when I was young.’
A murderer had no right to be homesick; a murderer should be a machine,
and I too have to become a machine, Wormold thought, feeling in his pocket the handkerchief he would have to use to clean the fingerprints when the time came. But how to choose the time? What side-street or what doorway? and if the other shot first…?
‘Are your friends Russian, Carter? German? American?’
‘What friends?’ He added simply, ‘I have no friends.’
‘No friends?’
‘No.’
‘To the left again, Carter, then right.’
They moved at a walking pace now in a narrow street, lined with clubs; orchestras spoke from below ground like the ghost of Hamlet’s father or that music under the paving stones in Alexandria when the god Hercules left Antony. Two men in Cuban nightclub uniform bawled competitively to them across the road. Wormold said, ‘Let’s stop. I need a drink badly before we go on.’ ‘Are these whore-houses?’
‘No. We’ll go to a house later.’ He thought, If only Carter when he left the wheel had grabbed his gun, it would have been so easy to fire. Carter said, ‘Do you know this spot?’
‘No. But I know the tune.’ It was strange that they we’re playing that
‘my madness offends’.
There were coloured photographs of naked girls outside and in nightclub Esperanto one neon-lighted word, Strippteese. Steps painted in stripes like cheap pyjamas led them down towards a cellar foggy with Havana’s. It seemed as suitable place as any other for an execution. But he wanted a drink first. ‘You lead the way, Carter.’ Carter was hesitating. He opened his mouth and struggled with an aspirate; Wormold had never before heard him struggle for quite so long. ‘I h-h-h-hope…’
‘What do you hope?’
‘Nothing.’
They sat and watched the stripping and both drank brandy and soda. A girl went from table to table ridding herself of clothes. She began with her gloves. A spectator took them with resignation like the contents of an In tray. Then she presented her back to Carter and told him to unhook her black lace corsets. Carter fumbled in vain at the catches, blushing all the time while the girl laughed and wriggled against his fingers. He said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t find…’ Round the floor the gloomy men sat at their little tables watching Carter. No one smiled.
‘You haven’t had much practice, Carter, in Nottwich. Let me.’
‘Leave me alone, can’t you?’
At last he got the corset undone and the girl rumpled his thin streaky hair and passed on. He smoothed it down again with a pocket comb. ‘I don’t like this place,’ he said.
‘You are shy with women, Carter.’ But how could one shoot a man at whom it was so easy to laugh?
‘I don’t like horseplay,’ Carter said.
They climbed the stairs. Carter’s pocket was heavy on his hip. Of course it might be his pipe he carried. He sat at the wheel again and grumbled. ‘You can see that sort of show anywhere. Just tarts undressing.’ ‘You didn’t help her much.’
‘I was looking for a zip.’
‘I needed a drink badly.’
‘Rotten brandy too. I wouldn’t wonder if it was doped.’ ‘Your whisky was more than doped, Carter.’ He was trying to heat his anger up and not to remember his ineffective victim struggling with the corset and blushing at his failure.
‘What’s that you said?’
‘Stop here.’
‘Why?’
‘You wanted to be taken to a house. Here is a house.’
‘But there’s no one about.’
‘They are all closed and shuttered like this. Get out and ring the bell.’
‘What did you mean about the whisky?’
‘Never mind that now. Get out and ring.’
It was as suitable a place as a cellar (blank walls too had been
frequently used for this purpose): a grey facade and a street where no one came
except for one unlovely purpose. Carter slowly shifted his legs from under the
wheel and Wormold watched his hands closely, the ineffective hands. It’s a fair
duel, he told himself, he’s more accustomed to killing than I am, the chances
are equal enough; I am not even quite sure my gun is loaded. He has more chance than Hasselbacher ever had.
With his hand on the door Carter paused again. He said, ‘Perhaps it would be more sensible some other night. You know, I h-h-h-h…’ ‘You are frightened, Carter.’
‘I’ve never been to a h-h-h-house before. To tell you the truth, Wormold, I don’t h-have much need of women.’
‘It sounds a lonely sort of life.’
‘I can do without them,’ he said defiantly.
‘There are more important things for a man than running after..
‘Why did you want to come to a house then?’
Again he startled Wormold with the plain truth. ‘I try to want them, but when it comes to the point…’ He hovered on the edge of confession and then plunged. ‘It doesn’t work, Wormold. I can’t do what they want.’ ‘Get out of the car.’
I have to do it, Wormold thought, before he confesses any more to me. With every second the man was becoming human, a creature like oneself whom one might pity or console, not kill. Who knew what excuses were buried below any violent act? He drew Segura’s gun.
‘What?’
‘Get out.’
Carter stood against the whore-house door with a look of sullen complaint rather than fear. His fear was of women, not of violence. He said, ‘You are making a mistake. It was Braun who gave me the whisky. I’m not important.’
‘I don’t care about the whisky. But you killed Hasselbacher, didn’t you?’
Again he surprised Wormold with the truth. There was a kind of honesty in the man. ‘I was under orders, Wormold. I h-h-h-h -‘ He had manoeuvred himself so that his elbow reached the bell, and now he leant back and in the depths of the house the bell rang and rang its summons to work. ‘There’s no enmity, Wormold. You got too dangerous, that was all. We are only private soldiers, you and I.’
‘Me dangerous? What fools you people must be. I have no agents, Carter.’ ‘Oh yes, you h-have. Those constructions in the mountains. We have copies of your drawings.’
‘The parts of a vacuum cleaner.’ He wondered who had supplied them:
Lopez? or Hawthorne’s own courier, or a man in the Consulate? Carter’s hand went to his pocket and Wormold fired. Carter gave a sharp yelp. He said, ‘You nearly shot me,’ and pulled out a hand clasped round a shattered pipe. He said, ‘My Dunhill. You’ve smashed my Dunhill.’ ‘Beginner’s luck,’ Wormold said. He had braced himself for a death, but it was impossible to shoot again. The door behind Carter began to open. There was an impression of plastic music. ‘They’ll look after you in there. You may need a woman now, Carter.’
‘You -you clown.’
How right Carter was. He put the gun down beside him and slipped into the driving seat. Suddenly he felt happy. He might have killed a man. He had proved conclusively to himself that he wasn’t one of the judges; he had no vocation for violence. Then Carter fired.
Chapter 6