‘Not at all. It’s very kind of you,’ Wormold said. ‘But there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Oh, the bank’s not worrying, Mr Wormold. You just asked, that’s all.’ Wormold thought, If the overdraft had been fifty thousand dollars he would have called me Jim.
For some reason that morning he had no wish to meet Dr Hasselbacher for his morning daiquiri. There were times when Dr Hasselbacher was a little too carefree, so he looked in at Sloppy Joe’s instead of at the Wonder Bar. No Havana resident ever went to Sloppy Joe’s because it was the rendezvous of tourists; but tourists were sadly reduced nowadays in number, for the President’s regime was creaking dangerously towards its end. There had always been unpleasant doings out of sight, in the inner rooms of the Jefatura, which had not disturbed the tourists in the Nacional and the Seville-Biltmore, but one tourist had recently been killed by a stray bullet while he was taking a photograph of a picturesque beggar under a balcony near the palace, and the death had sounded the knell of the all-in tour ‘including a trip to Varadero beach and the night-life of Havana’. The victim’s Leica had been smashed as well, and that had impressed his companions more than anything with the destructive power of a bullet. Wormold had heard them talking afterwards in the bar of the Nacional. ‘Ripped right through the camera,’ one of them said. ‘Five hundred dollars gone just like that.’
‘Was he killed at once?’
‘Sure. And the lens -you could pick up bits for fifty yards around.
Look. I’m taking a piece home to show Mr Humpelnicker.’ The long bar that morning was empty except for the elegant stranger at one end and a stout member of the tourist police who was smoking a cigar at the other. The Englishman was absorbed in the sight of so many bottles, and it was quite a while before he spotted Wormold. ‘Well I never,’ he said, ‘Mr Wormold, isn’t it?’ Wormold wondered how he knew his name, for he had forgotten to give him a trade-card. ‘Eighteen different kinds of Scotch,’ the stranger said, ‘including Black Label. And I haven’t counted the Bourbons. It’s a wonderful sight. Wonderful,’ he repeated, lowering his voice with respect. ‘Have you ever seen so many whiskies?’
‘As a matter of fact I have. I collect miniatures and I have ninety-nine at home.’
‘Interesting. And what’s your choice today? A dimpled Haig?’
‘Thanks, I’ve just ordered a daiquiri.’
‘Can’t take those things. They relax me.’
‘Have you decided on a cleaner yet?’ Wormold asked for the sake of conversation.
‘Cleaner?’
‘Vacuum cleaner. The things I sell.’
‘Oh, cleaner. Ha ha. Throw away that stuff and have a Scotch.’
‘I never drink Scotch before the evening.’
‘You Southerners!’
‘I don’t see the connection.’
‘Makes the blood thin. Sun, I mean. You were born in Nice, weren’t you?’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Oh well, one picks things up. Here and there. Talking to this chap and that. I’ve been meaning to have a word with you as a matter of fact.’ ‘Well, here I am.’
‘I’d like it more on the quiet, you know. Chaps keep on coming in and out.’
No description could have been less accurate. No one even passed the door in the hard straight sunlight outside. The officer of the tourist police had fallen contentedly asleep after propping his cigar over an ashtray; there were no tourists at this hour to protect or to supervise. Wormold said, ‘If it’s about a cleaner, come down to the shop.’
‘I’d rather not, you know. Don’t want to be seen hanging about there. Bar’s not a bad place after all. You run into a fellow-countryman, have a get together, what more natural?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, you know how it is.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Well, wouldn’t you say it was natural enough?’
Wormold gave up. He left eighty cents on the counter and said, ‘I must be getting back to the shop.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t like to leave Lopez for long.’
‘Ah, Lopez. I want to talk to you about Lopez.’ Again the explanation that seemed most probable to Wormold was that the stranger was an eccentric inspector from headquarters, but surely he had reached the limit of eccentricity when he added in a low voice, ‘You go to the Gents and I’ll follow you.’ ‘The Gents? Why should I?’
‘Because I don’t know the way.’
In a mad world it always seems simpler to obey. Wormold led the stranger through a door at the back, down a short passage, and indicated the toilet. ‘It’s in there.’
‘After you, old man.’
‘But I don’t need it.’
‘Don’t be difficult,’ the stranger said. He put a hand on Wormold’s shoulder and pushed him through the door. Inside there were two washbasins, a chair with a broken back, and the usual cabinets and pissoirs. ‘Take a pew, old man,’ the stranger said, ‘while I turn on a tap.’ But when the water ran he made no attempt to wash. ‘Looks more natural,’ he explained (the word ‘natural’ seemed a favourite adjective of his), ‘if someone barges in. And of course it confuses a mike.’
‘A mike?’
‘You’re quite right to question that. Quite right. There probably wouldn’t be a mike in a place like this, but it’s the drill, you know, that counts. You’ll find it always pays in the end to follow the drill. It’s lucky they don’t run to waste-plugs in Havana. We can just keep the water running.’ ‘Please will you explain…?’
‘Can’t be too careful even in a Gents, when I come to think of it. A chap of ours in Denmark in 1940 saw from his own window the German fleet coming down the Kattegat.’
‘What gut?’
‘Kattegat. Of course he knew then the balloon had gone up. Started burning his papers. Put the ashes down the lay and pulled the chain. Trouble was late frost. Pipes frozen. All the ashes floated up into the bath down below. Flat belonged to an old maiden lady Baronin someone or other. She was just going to have a bath. Most embarrassing for our chap.’
‘It sounds like the Secret Service.’
‘It is the Secret Service, old man, or so the novelists call it. That’s why I wanted to talk to you about your chap Lopez. Is he reliable or ought you to fire him?’
‘Are you in the Secret Service?’
‘If you like to put it that way.’
‘Why on earth should I fire Lopez? He’s been with me ten years.’ ‘We could find you a chap who knew all about vacuum cleaners. But of course naturally we’ll leave that decision to you.’
‘But I’m not in your Service.’
‘We’ll come to that in a moment, old man Anyway we’ve traced Lopez -he seems clear But your friend Hasselbacher, I’d be a bit careful of him.’ ‘How do you know about Hasselbacher?’
‘I’ve been around a day or two, picking things up. One has to on these occasions.’
‘What occasions?’
‘Where was Hasselbacher born?’
‘Berlin, I think.’
‘Sympathies East or West?’
‘We never talk politics.’
‘Not that it matters East or West they pla3 the German game. Remember the Ribbentrop Pact. We won’t be caught that way again.’ ‘Hasselbacher’s not a politician. He’s an old doctor and he’s lived here for thirty years.’
‘All the same, you’d be surprised… But agree with you, it would be conspicuous if yo dropped him. Just play him carefully, that’s all He might even be useful if you handle him right.’
‘I’ve no intention of handling him.’
‘You’ll find it necessary for the job.’
‘I don’t want any job. Why do you pick or me?’
‘Patriotic Englishman. Been here for years Respected member of the European Traders Association. We must have our man in Havana you know. Submarines need fuel. Dictator drift together. Big ones draw in the little ones.