The Melting Man

At one stage she said, 'I don't think you should have any more to do with O'Dowda. This Bavana man obviously was trying to kill you.'

'For big money risks must be taken. Life is full of hazards. Anyway, that one's been eliminated.'

I finished the dictating. She closed her notebook and got up to go. I stopped her.

'What do you think?' I asked.

'About what?'

'Various things. Zelia first.'

'She obviously had some emotional or disturbing experience and her subconscious mind has decided to force her to forget it. I wonder it doesn't happen to women more often.'

'Then, if you think Zelia's an innocent maid in traumatic shock — why shouldn't I go on with the job?'

'Because men like O'Dowda clearly aren't innocent — not when it comes to things that matter, like business interests and rivalries. Often there's no way of getting what they want legally. That's the moment when men like O'Dowda begin to use people. That's why — almost before you were on his payroll — somebody tried to kill you. Just write and tell him you have thought the matter over and regretfully, etcetera, etcetera. There's plenty of straightforward work waiting for you if you take the trouble to look for it.'

It was about the longest harangue I'd ever had from her. And I should have taken her advice. Two things stopped me. First, there was Julia, and her anxiety over Zelia. I'd more or less promised to handle that for her. And then there was O'Dowda. Something about his character rubbed me the wrong way. He'd got well and truly under my skin. I knew that most of it was pure envy. But, at least, it was pure. I just wanted to show him that here was someone he couldn't play around with and make dance his way at the flap of a cheque book. Whatever was in that red car he wanted it badly. Okay, it was my commission to find that car, and it stopped there. When I knew what was in the car, and perhaps had it in my hands, it would be fun to have him dancing for a while as I dangled it in front of him. Not nice perhaps, but then we all have to have our moments of power. Also, power meant cash, and that was something I could always use.

I said, 'I'd like you to book me on a plane to Geneva tomorrow morning and have a self-drive car waiting for me. And then get me a reservation tomorrow night at the Ombremont Hotel, Le Bourget-du-Lac. If you have any trouble about it, use O'Dowda's name hard. It'll work.'

She just looked at me, nodded, and made for the door. As she reached it I said, and God knows what quirk of self-indulgence made me, 'About the hire car. I want a red Mercedes 250SL.'

Hand on the door knob, she jerked her head back at me. 'Why?'

'Because I've never driven one. And red is my favourite colour. Tell them I've got to have it, no matter what it costs.'

'Well, in that case, we must do our best for you, mustn't we?' She went out. It was a long time since I'd known her so icy.

* * *

By the time I went home that evening Wilkins had fixed my air travel and had an assurance that there would be a car waiting for me at Geneva and that, if it were at all possible, it would be a red Mercedes.

Home was a small flat — bedroom, sitting room, bathroom and kitchen — in a side street near the Tate Gallery. From the sitting-room window, by risking a crick in the neck, I could get a fair glimpse of the river. Mrs Meld, who lived next door and did for me, had cheerfully been fighting a losing battle against my untidiness for years. She'd put some rust-coloured chrysanthemums in a vase on the window table and propped a note against them, saying, Left a little something for you in the oven. We're almost out of whisky.

The little something was a cottage pie. That meant she was in a good mood. I lit the gas oven to warm up the pie and then went back and fixed myself a whisky. She was right. There was only three-quarters of a bottle left. I sat down, put my feet up and stared out of the window at the London dusk. Life ought to be good, I thought; a cottage pie — plenty of onion in it — warming in the oven, a glass of whisky and my feet up, and tomorrow I would be off to foreign parts chasing a stolen motor car. Other chaps my age would be home now, cuffing their kids away from the telly to get on with their homework, hunting for a screwdriver to fix a busted plug lead on the vacuum cleaner, wifey would be in the kitchen opening cans of instant steak-and-kidney pie and rice pudding, and tomorrow would be the same old day for them. Variety is the spice of life. That was for me. Each day different. Never knowing what was coming. Never knowing when you were going to be shot at, or when a beautiful girl would come sliding into your bedroom appealing for help, never knowing when you were being used, bed to, conned or secretly laughed at and despised. A great life. The trouble was that just at that moment I didn't feel up to it. I suddenly felt moody and sour and I wondered what it was a reaction to. Something. I considered digging deep to see if I could find out, then decided against it and had another whisky.

I'd just settled with it when the flat bell rang. I let it ring two or three times hoping whoever it was would go away. It went on ringing so I got up and went to the door.

Outside was a man in a dark blue suit and bowler hat, umbrella crooked over one arm. He had a fat cheerful face with high arched eyebrows, a squat lump of putty for a nose, lips that somehow reminded me of a duck-billed platypus, and he was wearing a big floral-pattern tie against a pink shirt. Just to top the bizarre appearance his face was coal-black with a sort of underlying purple sheen, and to bottom it he was wearing ginger-coloured suede shoes. The distance between his shoes and the top of his bowler was all of fifty-four inches. With a flash of white from teeth and eyes, he held out a slip of card to me and I could feel the cheerfulness radiating from him like a convector heater.

'Mr Carver, yes?' It was a cheerful singing voice.

I nodded and squinted at the card in the bad hall light. It wasn't easy to read because the whole thing had been done in Gothic type. He must have been used to people having trouble with it because, chuckling as a preamble, he recited to me—

'Mr Jimbo Alakwe, Esquire, Cardew Mansions, Flat Three, Tottenham Court Road, London, West One. Representations. Specialities. Accredited Courier. Imports and Exports.' He paused, and then added, 'A willing heart goes all the way, your sad tires in a mile-o.'

'Where does it say that?'

He reached up and politely turned the card over for me, and there it was printed on the back.

'A splendid sentiment, Mr Alakwe, but I don't want any representations, specialities, imports or exports, and certainly not a courier with a willing heart. Okay?'

He nodded affably. 'Okay.'

I made to shut the door and he moved in and shut it for me.

I said, 'Look, I've got a cottage pie in the oven, and I want a quiet evening. There isn't a speciality in the world you could provide that would shake me from a quiet night at home.'

He nodded, took off his bowler politely, pulled a handkerchief from inside it and gently tapped his face with it, looked at it — to see if any of the black had come off, perhaps — put it back in the bowler and put the bowler on.

'Ten minutes of your time. No more, Mr Carver. And a splendid proposition to put. You will, I think, find it to your advantage. Did I say "think"? No, I know. You need me to help you. Splendid prospects and, believe me, absolutely nothing to pay, man. The contrary.'

'You should sell insurance,' I said to his back as he went into the sitting room.

He looked around the room curiously and said, 'Did that for two years once. In Ghana. Accra, you know. It is considered a U-thing there, you know. But I prefer now more variety. Lovely flowers, dahlias, no? Ah, your autumn is a prolific time for dahlias. I have seen some once, purple with a little white zebra stripe. Most splendid.'