I saw a chance of immediately saving Esmé. ‘What about the money in my banks?’ I asked. ‘Will you release that?’
‘Can’t. On account of the order we used. It’s recorded as suspected criminal profits. When Mrs Mawgan takes a fall, or better still when all the crooks she was slipping the squeeze to are in the slammer, we’ll be able to do something about that. Meanwhile we prefer to know where you are. As our secret witness, we don’t want you leaving the country. You get an automatic “indefinite stay”. All you have to do is finger the floozy who put the spot on you. If you won’t, it’s hello Russia.’
I was convinced. It seemed I could gain my freedom, but disappointingly still had to find money for Esmé’s fare. I decided, in the interests of justice and for the sake of those I loved, to make a statement. I felt like a rat, but I had no choice. I talked into the night, dearly wishing I could get to my cocaine to keep my thoughts in order. I mentioned every name which came back to me. I made it clear that Major Sinclair was an idealist. Prompted by my Confessor I invented orgies, murders, perversion and pay-offs. Some I did not know by name, I said, but I gathered they were big wheels in Washington. I excelled myself as an inventor. George Callahan was almost crooning with joy by the time I took the fountain pen from his hand and signed myself Max Peterson on the last page. ‘That’s peachy,’ he murmured in his strange Irish accent. ‘That’s peachy, Mr Peterson.’ He closed the book. ‘Now, so long as you haven’t pattered me, we’re in business. All we have to do is locate Mrs Mawgan, get her lagged and tagged on the strength of this little brief and we can start going against the politicians we’re really after. I’m much obliged. You might not understand, or care, but you’ve performed an important public service this night.’ He was virtually rubbing his hands.
‘I do realise it, Mr Callahan. I’ve no desire to associate with criminals. Had I been a degree more au fait with your country I should not be in this position.’
‘For my part, Mr Peterson, I’m mighty grateful.’ There was a gleeful smirk on his thin, monkish face which he could not quite erase. As he left, he handed me a fresh card. ‘If you’re in any sort of a scrape, call that number and ask for George Callahan.’
‘Will the Klan be out for blood now, Mr Callahan?’ I knew I had sacrificed a great deal in order to be united with my Esmé. The beating outside Walker would be nothing to the ferocious tortures for which the Klan were famous. A good friend, but an implacable enemy, as Eddy Clarke had said. At least he was in jail, though he did not deserve to be. He would have understood my position. Indeed, if he had not been betrayed, I should not have been troubled by the Justice Department, Brodmann or this urgent need to raise money for Esmé’s ticket. Mrs Mawgan, on the other hand, had earned whatever came to her. No one would ever accuse me of betraying her. She had fled Walker, leaving me to the renegade Klansmen. Even then, given a choice, I would not have brought witness against her. But any rational person would agree that if a woman had to be sacrificed it should rightly be Mrs Mawgan. Esmé was in need of help. My innocent sister, my daughter, my love! Oh, how I would pile roses on her bed. Schönen roten rosen for meyn freydik froy! Moja siostra rózy. Meyn gelihte! She will save me from this groylik gadles! She will restore the truth. With her beside me, my cities shall take to the air again. No enemies shall I fear. Die Freunde sink gekommen und die Feinde entkommen!
Mrs Cornelius sitzt am Steuer. She could see I had not slept. Though she hated driving, feeling she somehow lost face by doing so, she took over when we left town next morning, bound for Hollister. She was an inexpert, if lordly, motorist, with her fringed green satin up to her thighs and her powerful muscles flexing as she manipulated the van towards the highway, cursing continuously. She paused long enough to ask me, almost sympathetically, if I had been frightened by something. Then I told her of my visit from the Federal officer. ‘Blimey,’ she said, ‘we c’d orl be in jug. Me an’ the free girls’re illegal too, ain’t we?’
‘Only until I can make a phone call. This man trusts me. I was able to assist the State on a matter of grave national importance.’
‘Wot ther fuck’ve ya bin up ter, nar. Ive!’ She gave the wheel an exasperated wrench. ‘Ya little bleeding judas!’ She laughed heartily. ‘Nar, don’ tell me! I didn’t arsk!’ I laughed with her. I could now almost always tell when she was joking.
I sent Esmé another telegram from Hollister and phoned my new friend Callahan. He was not in the office. I was given another number to call. It was long-distance to New York. He had not yet arrived. I would remember, in a day or so, to telephone again and ensure Mrs Cornelius’s legality. Der Hund verfolgte der Hase. Already he was on the trail. We played the Berberich Theater that evening and my performance, while less abstracted than the earlier one, was again poor. The audience was noticeably restless. Mrs Cornelius kicked me twice, surreptitiously. As we came off she hissed, ‘If yore gonna keep changing me name from Rosa to Esmé I don’t care. But bleedin’ make it one or the uvver. They were beginnin’ ter fink it wos a bleedin’ comedy tonight.’ I apologised. I said she must understand how I was feeling. ‘Too well, Ivan,’ she said savagely. ‘Too bloody well!’
Soon I was spending all my free time studying specialist magazines, looking for likely investors. Callahan’s guarantees, when I considered them, were not watertight. It would still be foolish of me to reveal myself as Max Peterson. The Klan, I remembered, had powerful financial support from the great farming alliances of the West Coast. Doubtless industry had similar links. I made a considerable effort to play my parts with full attention, but I was growing increasingly abstracted. Every day I failed at raising the money was a betrayal of my little girl’s hopes. In Fresno Mrs Cornelius suddenly refused to continue the play and sang her songs instead. She would not speak to me for a whole day afterwards. Time was running out. I did not have a single reply to my circulars. Esmé would believe I no longer loved her. From Mojave, where we did three shows of White Knight and Red Queen a day, I sent my rose a cable assuring her all problems were being overcome. Under the benevolent sun of Southern California, I drove our little truck along the white highway, beside the sea. I saw only her. Already I imagined how delighted my beautiful child-wife would be. She would sit beside me, holding my arm, marvelling at undreamed-of natural luxury. I would again be doing my work as a scientist. We should be respected all over America, hobnobbing with the great and the famous. But this image only served to bring me closer to panic. I could lose it all. I had to find financial support. Sooner or later, when Callahan caught up with Mrs Mawgan, I would be in danger of my life. I had to act with reasonable speed. The one thing I had not told Callahan was where I guessed Mrs Mawgan to be hiding. That information was too valuable to throw in with the rest. She would have changed her name. She might be running a fresh operation. I knew therefore it could be a few months before Callahan would run my ex-mistress to earth. In those months I planned to make some money, bring Esmé to America, marry her and then escape to Buenos Aires, where engineers were in short supply, but where wealthy people willingly invested in schemes likely to add to the Argentine’s prestige. Moreover, many Russian émigrés were already there, supplying their military experience and skills to the government. Nothing of this could come true, I reminded myself, unless I quickly found what we in the theatrical profession called ‘an angel’.