“Last case I was on,” I said, “I slept two nights in rented Pinto. I can make do okay in the Mayfair.”
“Well, good,” he said. “You know why I’m here,” I said. “I do.”
“What can you tell me?”
“Not very much, I’m afraid. Perhaps when we get you settled we can have lunch and talk about it. I imagine you’d like to freshen up a bit, get that suit off to the dry cleaners. ”
“Sure wrinkles on an airplane, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed.”
5
The Mayfair was a big flossy-looking hotel near Berkeley Square. Flanders paid the cabbie, turned the bags over to the hall porter and steered me to the desk. He didn’t seem to have a lot of confidence in me. A hired thug from the provinces, can barely speak the language, no doubt. I checked my heel for a cow flap. My room had a bed, a bureau, a blue wing chair, a small mahogany table and a white tiled bathroom. The window looked out over an airshaft into the building next door. Old-world charm. Flanders tipped the bell man, and checked his watch. “One o’clock,” he said. “Perhaps you’d like to take the afternoon and get settled, then we could have dinner and I could tell you what I know. Do you need money?”
“I have money, but I need pounds,” I said. “Yes,” he said. “Of course. I’ll have it changed for you.” He took a big wallet from inside his jacket pocket. “Here’s one hundred pounds,” he said, “should you need it to hold you over.”
“Thanks.” I took my wallet out of my left hip pocket, and dug out $2500. “If you could change that for me, I’d appreciate it. Take out the hundred.” He looked at my wallet with some distaste. It was fat and slovenly. “No need,” he said. “Mr. Dixon’s money, you know. He’s been quite explicit about treating you well.”
“So far so good,” I said. “I won’t tell him you got me a room on an airshaft. ”
“I am sorry about that,” Flanders said. “It’s peak season for touists, you know, and the notice was short.”
“My lips are sealed,” I said. Flanders smiled tentatively. He wasn’t sure if he was being kidded. “Shall I come by for you, say six?”
“Six is good, but why not meet somewhere. I can find my way. If I get lost I’ll ask a cop.”
“Very well, would you care to try Simpson’s-on-the-Strand? It’s rather a London institution.”
“Good, see you there at six-fifteen.” He gave me the address and departed.
I unpacked and reassembled my gun, loaded it and put it on the night table. Then I shaved, brushed my teeth and took a shower. I picked up the phone and asked the front desk to call me at five-thirty. Then I took a nap on the top of the spread. I missed Susan.
At five-forty-five, vigorous and alert, with a spring in my step and my revolver back in its hip holster, I strode out the main entrance of the Mayfair. I turned down Berkeley Street and headed for Piccadilly. I had a city map that I’d bought in a shop in the hotel, and I’d been in London once before a few years back, before Susan, when I’d come for a week with Brenda Loring.
I walked down Piccadilly, stopped at Fortnum and Mason and looked at the package food stuffs in the window. I was excited. I like cities and London was a city the way New York is a city. The fun it would be to stroll around Fortnum and Mason with Susan and buy some smoked quail’s eggs or a jellied game hen or something imported from the Khyber Pass. I moved on up into Piccadilly Circus, which was implacably ordinary, movie theaters and fast foods, turned right on Haymarket and walked on down to Trafalgar Square, Nelson and the lions, and the National Gallery and the goddamned pigeons. Kids were in competition to see who could accumulate the most pigeons on and around them.
Walking up the Strand I passed a London cop walking peaceably along, hands behind his back, walkie-talkie in his hip pocket, the mike pinned to his lapel. His nightstick was artfully concealed in a deep and inconspicuous pocket. As I walked I could feel an excited tight feeling in my stomach. I kept thinking of Samuel Johnson, and Shakespeare. “The old country,” I thought. Which wasn’t quite so. My family was Irish. But it was the ancestral home, anyway, for people who spoke English and could read it. Simpson’s was on the right, just past the Savoy Hotel. I wondered if they played “Stompin‘ at the Savoy” over the music in the elevators. Probably the wrong Savoy.
I turned into Simpson’s, which was oak paneled and high ceilinged, and spoke to the maitre d’. The maitre d‘ assigned a subordinate to take me to Flanders, who rose as I approached. So did the man with him. Very classy. “Mr. Spenser, Inspector Downes, of the police. I asked him to join us, if that’s all right with you.” I wondered what happened if it weren’t all right. Did Downes back away out of the restaurant, bowing apologetically?
“Fine with me,” I said. We shook hands. The waiter pulled out my chair. We sat down.
“A drink?” Flanders said.
“Draught beer,” I said.
“Whiskey,” Downes said. Flanders ordered Kir.
“Inspector Downes worked on the Dixon case,” Flanders said, “and is a specialist in this kind of urban guerrilla crime that we see so much of these days.”
Downes smiled modestly. “I’m not sure expert is appropriate, but I’ve dealt with a good many, you know.”
The waiter returned with the drinks. The beer was cold, at least, but much flatter than American beer. I drank some. Flanders sipped at his Kir. Downes had his whiskey straight without ice or water, in a small tumbler, and sipped it like a cordial. He was fair-skinned with a big round face and shiny pink cheekbones. His body under the black civil-servicey-looking suit was heavy and sort of slack. Not fat, just quite relaxed. There was a sense of slow power about him.
“Oh, before I forget,” Flanders said. He took an envelope from inside his coat and handed it to me. On the outside in red pen was written, “Spenser, 1400.”
“The exchange rate is very good these days,” Flanders said. “Your gain and our loss, isn’t it.” I nodded and stuck the envelope in my jacket pocket. “Thank you,” I said. “What have you got to tell me?”
“Let’s order first,” Flanders said. He had salmon, Downes had roast beef and I ordered mutton. Always try the native cuisine. The waiter looked like Barry Fitzgerald. He seemed delighted with our choices. “Faith and begorra,” I murmured. Flanders said, “I beg your pardon?” I shook my head. “Just an old American saying. What have you got?” Downes said, “Really not much, I’m afraid. A group called Liberty has claimed responsibility for the Dixon murders and we have no reason to doubt them.”
“What are they like?”
“Young people, apparently very conservative, recruited from all over western Europe. Headquarters might be in Amsterdam.”
“How many?”
“Oh, ten, twelve. The figure changes every day. Some join, others leave. It doesn’t seem a very well organized affair. More like a random group of juveniles larking about. ”