"How long," I asked him, "were you in the field?"
"Too long." He drained his glass and got up and looked at me with his eyes naked for an instant. "Too long. You know the signs, don't you?" He reached for the bottle across the counter, and came back with his glass half full again. "Just look at that bloody wind out there. Brings a few more tiles off, every time it blows; you want to watch that, old boy, when you're walking in the street. This can be a dangerous city."
I'd caught enough vibrations now to know there was only one way in.
"But the going was good," I said, "once."
"What?" His pale brown eyes flickered again. "It was good, yes, once. What was that thing? Whatever else may come to me, let fear be never a stranger; let me walk unguarded ways that breed the instant stroke and the flaming deed; let me thrill to the call of a desperate need, and the trumpet tones of danger. But that was for us, my boy, not them. All they could think about was how to screw you out of a pension if you ever got back with your skin. I work for the Yanks now, and I'll say one thing about them, they don't mind paying a man for his honest labours."
So he couldn't have saved the Ambassador. He hadn't known.
"You're giving me ideas," I said easily.
"What? Oh balls, you don't do it for the money." He gave a slight burp. "You ever walk out on a mission, did you?"
I'd been waiting for that. "One day I will."
He lowered his eyes. "Wise man. You'll learn. I learned."
The tension had gone out of him, but I waited, because if I rushed him now he'd close up and there'd be no information and the next time it'd be the British Ambassador or someone else in the US team: whoever the opposition were, their target was the West, and somewhere in Pekin there was a third marked man and this time we'd have to stop them if we could. London was waiting for Ferris and Ferris was waiting for me and for the next few minutes I'd have to go on waiting for Spur; it was the only hope.
"Who's running you," he asked me after a time, "for this one?"
I think if I'd hesitated I'd have blown it, because he needed my trust.
"Croder."
"Croder?" He lifted his glass. "And the best of luck. But of course that's your style, isn't it? You want them to flay you alive. Don't give yourself a chance, do you? Not exactly your own best friend."
Quickly I said: "Is anyone?"
"What?" He watched me for a while, trying to see if I meant it; and I knew how close I was to losing the mission. I was certain now that he could give us enough information to lead us to the opposition and show us how to go in there and destroy them before they could destroy anyone else in Pekin. He wasn't just playing hard to get; he was suddenly in a position where he could make them beg, in London, make them crawl to him, so that he could face himself again and with this much power over them get rid of the guilt that was giving him no peace. You ever walk out on a mission, did you?
They'd never forgiven him; but now they were in his hands.
"You mean," he said in a moment and still watching me, "I'm not my own best friend?"
"Not if you're like me. What is it, Spur? Standards too high? Why do we have to expect more of ourselves than we expect of anyone else?" In the dim light of the shop I went close to him. "You know something? One day I'm going to walk out on a mission just to see what it feels like. You know? Just to make those bastards in London know they're not God Almighty every time."
The reflection of the lamps in the square was on his glasses and I couldn't see his eyes; all I knew was that he was watching me in the silence, going over what I'd said and testing it for flaws. But that was all right; I didn't like London either, and he knew it; we all know it; we're all the same. I went on waiting, looking into his pale and shadowed face while the children out there went on laughing in the game they were playing, and somewhere a horse and cart went rattling through the square. Then Spur turned slowly away from me and drained his glass of wine, putting it onto the stained counter so carefully that it didn't make a sound.
"There is only one man in Asia," he said softly, "who would have ordered the assassination of the British Secretary of State in that particular way. His name is Tung Kuo-feng, and I'd better tell you about him."
At the top of the wide staircase there was a metal grille in the doorway and Spur opened it, ushering me into the room and closing it after him. The place was large and cavernous, the result of knocking down a couple of interior walls to make one room. Three bamboo chaise-longues with Thai silk coverings; two enormous tapestries on the walls showing a lion hunt with Burmese riders and mounts caparisoned in gold brocade; a whole series of carved teakwood tables crowded with jade and ivory; and the thick brown coils in the corner where a stick of incense was burning.
"Don't sit there," Spur said with his silent laugh, "he doesn't like it. Name's Alexander, but he doesn't answer to it; he's deaf, of course."
I went in the other direction: I hate anything without legs, and this bloody thing was fully grown by the look of it, strong enough to strangle an ox.
"This is the only house in the whole square without any rats, you see. Besides, he'd be lonely without me. Tung Kuo feng, yes, a Chinese, scion of a family traceable to the early Ch'ing dynasty. You can sit here, if you like. Kim's bringing us some tea."
Kim was the boy he'd summoned from nowhere, clapping his hands, telling him to look after the shop below. "It's a pity we haven't got Youngquist here with us — I could have briefed you both." He was lighting a couple of arabesque lanterns, and they began throwing mottled patterns across the rugs.
"Who's he?" I asked him and he looked round at me with a sudden jerk of his head.
"Youngquist? Oh, chap in Pekin. Useful as a contact." He turned away again to adjust the lantern flames. "I picked up the scent of Tung Kuo-feng on the frontier, in the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom. There's rather a lot of spook traffic between there and Seoul, as I'm sure you know, and that's why the CIA finds me so useful."
Youngquist? I'd never heard of him, and I didn't like the way Spur had closed up. I would ask Ferris.
"Tung isn't a young man any more," he said reflectively. "I'd put him at sixty or more. But extremely fit. Lots of ki, you know, the real thing. Lots of meditation. He was running one of the very exclusive tongs in Shanghai in the good old days, not totally disconnected with the opium trade. My information on him is rather on the thin side, but up to date. Not many people like talking about him, you see; it's not healthy. Put it down there," he said as Kim brought in a black lacquer tray with tea things on it. That bloody thing in the corner had started moving, its shadow creeping along the wall. "Have you fed Alexander yet?"