Only When I Larf

3

Silas

Bob and Liz departed exactly on schedule. I turned to the two marks. Jones the short, red-faced one polished his shoes with a Kleenex tissue. He saw me looking at him and tucked the tissue out of sight.

‘I’ll run through the project again,’ I said. ‘I want you to be quite sure of what’s happening. You can still back out of this anytime and no bad feeling.’

Johnny Jones, the shorter of the two, adjusted his monogrammed pocket handkerchief and stretched his hand out in a gesture of friendly negation that revealed a heavy gold wristwatch. He said, ‘You needn’t explain the scheme, Sir Stephen …’

‘Not my way of working,’ I said fiercely. I had them now. People talk of confidence tricks only if they know nothing about them. There is no set trick, no set plan. You get the marks into a state of trance, motivated entirely by their own avarice. Paranoia in reverse I call it, a desire to trust or depend upon. These two fellows were already touring their VIP harem in the Bahamas, or somewhere downtown spending their 78 per cent profit. They hardly heard the words I spoke except in the way that a subject hears the soft assurances of a hypnotist.

I flipped the switch of the squawk-box. ‘Get me Graham in Nassau,’ I said into the dead instrument. ‘Book a call for 5.30.’ I turned to the marks. ‘Unless you are completely au fait with the procedures and the safeguards for your investment then I wouldn’t go ahead.’ I chuckled, ‘I really wouldn’t. Do you know, the year before last, in Rome, I pulled out of a twenty-two million dollar deal, because my old friend the late Alfred Krupp said it was too technical for him to understand it. You see, I want you to test and mistrust me, because I have to test and mistrust the people I deal with.’

Johnny Jones, the short mark, giggled. ‘But you are the most honest man I ever met. Why, the way you followed me out of the Club and gave me back a five dollar bill when I didn’t even remember dropping it. And the way you gave me the key of your apartment when you had only known me for an hour. You are the most trusting guy I ever did meet.’

I looked him straight in the eye and nodded gravely. I said, ‘It’s nothing of which to be proud. The President of a company shouldn’t be too trusting, no matter what his personal feelings. Young Glover is right. When you are running a giant corporation, you’ve no business to trust anyone. He’s right, one of these days I’ll trust the wrong man and God knows what might happen.’ I bit my lip and let them think I’d been a little embarrassed by the argument with Bob.

‘Come on Sir Stevie,’ said Karl. He was the quieter of the two. He was tall and conservatively dressed in a shiny synthetic suit. I thought at first he was going to be trouble, but now I could see that I had them both. I really had them. I could get them dancing naked on the desk top, or throwing themselves out of the window. I was drunk with the power of it and terribly tempted to see how far I could take them. I almost suggested that all of us went out to the airport. I began weaving a fantasy story for them around that idea, imagining Bob’s face and Liz’s fright if I arrived on the airport concourse with these two and had them wave us off on the London flight. Wheeeee …

‘That’s it,’ said the fat one. ‘Let yourself go. A little bit of that son of a gun we met at the Playboy Club the other night.’ I realised that I had Wheeed aloud.

I sat down in the swivel chair, switched on the desk light and put my head under it, pretending that it was a cold shower. Ug. ‘You must forgive me gentlemen,’ I said slowly. ‘But you’ll find that I live two lives. One life is my own and personal, but in the other one I take responsibility for a multi billion dollar corporation with over six hundred thousand employees of all nationalities. Just one foolish error could put all those people out of a job.’

‘And put you out of a job too,’ said Karl. We laughed. According to schedule Bob and Liz would be downstairs and presenting the cheque now. NOW. The fat one said, ‘Work and play are like Scotch and water. Keep them well apart, hey?’ I poured more drinks.

I laughed politely. There was a silence. Johnny, the fat one, reached for a comb and ran it quickly through his thinning hair. I said, ‘You’ve probably heard the story of the English explorers who were attacked by African natives. This tall English chap is struck by a spear and then another, until there are so many spears in him that he looks like a pin cushion. Another member of the expedition looks at him and says, “My goodness, Roger, you are terribly, terribly cut about, you poor feller. Does it hurt?” and the fellow with the spears in him says, “No, by jove, Sydney. Only when I laugh”.’

The marks laughed heartily and so did I. By now those bills should be packing tight into that case. I laughed without hurrying. The fat mark brought out a silk handkerchief and dried his merry eyes. I flipped up the squawk box switch and then switched it off.

I said, ‘That’s a secret signal to me that I should go upstairs for a moment. If you gentlemen would give me fifteen minutes to say goodbye to our Stockholm chief and another ten to arrange an extra security guard for this floor over the weekend, I’ll be right back,’ I paused at the door. ‘What’s more gentlemen, I think this will give you a few minutes to have a private discussion about your investment, without having me here. We’re not bugged here, at least if we are, they haven’t told me.’ We laughed. ‘Remember, there’s no need for a final decision until Monday morning when the bids go in. Tell my secretary and Otis Glover that I will be back in time to take that call to Nassau. Meanwhile look after the key of the safe, there’s a Pentagon Contract in there.’ I turned when I was at the door. ‘Goodness, and my pen from Winnie. No matter, I’ll be back in a moment.’ Karl put the key into his pocket and nodded to me.

I left my roll brim hat ($30), umbrella ($46.50), some leather framed pictures and my old two dollar fountain pen (total $78.50), on the desk.

I went next door. Everything was there waiting for me. I retied my necktie in a loose knot, then I pinned the collar with a large gold pin. A jewelled stickpin went into the front of the tie and onto my fingers I slipped four flashy rings.

I took off my braces and loosened my belt one notch. Then I walked across the room to let my trousers settle on my hips. It changes one’s style of walking quite considerably, or at least it did mine.

I removed the watch chain from my waistcoat and fixed it to my trousers like a key chain. I emptied a small flask of heavily scented oil into my palm and put it on my hair. I rubbed it in, and parted my hair nearer to the middle. I dabbed lotion on my chin and followed it with talc. I climbed into my vicuna coat that Bob had worn earlier. I tied the belt, turned up my collar and put on a white fedora and dark glasses. Sal Lombardo. The whole process took less than sixty seconds.

I hit the button for the express lift. Mick was in it. I saw his nose wrinkle as my perfumes wafted over to him.

‘Going to the big fight?’

‘Ya,’ I said hoarsely, ‘I sure am buddy.’

‘That Zapello will get a beating I’m thinking.’

‘Beating smeeting. The champ’s going into da tank. Don’t waste your money on dat bum.’

‘Is that right? Do you know him?’

‘Know him? I own both dose bambinos.’

‘Is that right,’ said Mick respectfully. We travelled on in silence. On the street level I got out. Mick said, ‘Goodbye mister.’

‘Ciao,’ I shouted. ‘Ciao baby, ciao.’ I hurried across the lobby. The Lincoln hire car was waiting outside. ‘I’m Sal Lombardo,’ I told him. ‘The Pan Am Building and make it snappy.’

‘Sure thing,’ said the driver.

The Pan Am building was just a couple of minutes away, from its roof the scheduled helicopter was about to leave. I didn’t hurry, my seat was booked and young Bob and Liz were already seated. In separate seats of course. I looked at my watch. The whole operation had been timed and costed out to perfection, apart from a small matter of 25 cents on the cab bill because of a traffic jam. That was entirely Bob’s responsibility and I decided to make him pay it out of his own pocket. From Kennedy there was the connecting jet for London, everything was exactly on schedule.

My God I was tired. My dark glasses blacked out the world, and I was appreciative of that. I’d had enough of the world for a few hours. From a few rows behind me I could hear Bob’s voice. He was teaching the stewardess a trick with two dice, and they were both giggling. They were annoying all the other passengers, as well as being far too conspicuous for my taste. My God, Bob was carrying all the money in that case of his. You’d think that just for once he would have been content to be quiet. I wish I had let him bring that damn book about archaeology with him, but it would have looked suspicious, a security guard in uniform carrying ‘Our Civilisation Begins – an illustrated encyclopedia for little folk.’

I tipped the white fedora over my eyes. I had tired of being Sal Lombardo. I wished that I had remained Sir Stephen Latimer for the plane journey to London. I’d have got better service as Latimer, especially on a British airline.

Each of us was travelling alone. God I was tired. I’m always tired when it’s over. It’s the responsibility, the planning, the tension and judgment. Sometimes a last minute decision can throw the whole strategy into reverse. It was no use looking to the others for help or guidance. Bob was a child. At best he was a waif with the moral judgment of a five year old, at worst a young felon. Liz was older and more responsible and I loved her, but she was still in her twenties, and still a young, silly impressionable girl, behind the thin veneer of sophistication that I had supplied. I loved Liz and I was fond of Bob but sometimes I wondered what I was doing with them. Tonight I would have given everything I owned for an evening’s conversation. I missed that, more than anything. Sometimes I’d try to remember old conversations I’d had many years ago, arguments in the mess, long long discussions sitting in a tank in the middle of the desert. They were all gone now, the replacements were never the same as the men you had trained with.

That’s true of life too, the friends you make after you are twenty-five are not like your old friends. My old friends are gone. Still in the desert. They all went the same night, at least nearly all of them did. Liz’s father died that night. The Regiment lost twenty officers, and the regiment never truly recovered. Neither did I.

‘Wake up Silas,’ said Captain Leadbetter. I hadn’t fully recovered from the explosion and fire. I opened my eyes, Leadbetter looked quite a mess. His face was covered with grey dust, his chin unshaven, hair messed up, and the front of his shirt was caked with dark brown blotches. He saw me staring at it. ‘Not mine,’ he said. ‘My gunner’s.’ He spoke in that anxious, top-speed way, that children bring home news from school.

‘Colonel Mason, Dusty, Perce, Major Graham, Major Little, Sergeant Hughes and Chichester in the first five minutes. Bloody eighty eight of course. Should see them. Turrets just fly off and land twenty yards away. Bertie led C Squadron in then, but it took him a few minutes to form up, so they had ranged him in. I got out riding on the back of Frogmorton’s tank. Bloody hot, I’ll tell you, with those 88’s chucking it over. Froggie didn’t know I was there for half a mile, what a lark. We’ve lost eighteen tanks destroyed and another three damaged and abandoned. Jerry will have them repaired and in action again tomorrow, you see. They’ll be shooting at us.’

I got to my feet. Leadbetter started to talk again, but I silenced him. ‘We’ve lost the colonel?’

‘That’s what I’m telling you; the Colonel, Dusty, Perce, Graham and Major Little, and Sergeant Pearce, Sergeant Brophy, Staff Foreman.’

‘You mean their tanks, didn’t they get out?’

‘You haven’t seen these 88’s Silas. There’s no getting out, they just blow you apart, bits fly like feathers from a pheasant hit fair and square. They laid down H.E. after they’d clobbered us, and then they put infantry in. We won’t see any of them again Silas.’

‘Get a drink, and that’s an order,’ I’d seen it before; the high-pitched voice, and fluent talk, just an inch away from hysteria. He’d break in an hour or so.

‘O.K. chief,’ he said happily. ‘You are the C.O. now that Mason, Bertie, and Dusty Miller and Little have copped it.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That makes me the senior officer.’

Leadbetter stared out through the tent flap for a long time, then he spoke again. ‘Old Mason must have guessed what we were heading into. I wondered why he left you here at HQ Squadron yesterday. The C.O. was a good old stick wasn’t he?’ I’d been reprimanded by the colonel only a few hours before, I could almost see him standing where Leadbetter now stood.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He was.’

Funny to think of Colonel Mason as the father of Liz. I wondered what he would have thought of both of us today. What would any of our fathers think of any of us? I wished my father had lived longer. I was only a child when he died, and I had never had a real chance to become his friend. He was a wise man, everyone agreed about that, and everyone had gone to him for advice. If only he had given me more. A reserved man, for no one knew how sick he was until it was too late; no one knew, not even my mother. I remembered being angry that he would not carry me home the day before he died. Poor father.

I was fond of Liz and Bob but I couldn’t really talk with them. If only there was someone to whom I could talk. Sometimes, truth to tell, I felt more at home in the homes and offices of the men we swindled, than in the clubs, bars, restaurants and international hotels where we spent our ill-gotten gains. It was merely a trick of fate that I was not, in reality, the President of Amalgamated Minerals or some similar concern in the world of international commerce. Or was it. Perhaps I was just fooling myself, as I was expert at fooling others. Perhaps I was just a criminal as my mother had once told me I was. ‘A hit and run driver,’ she had called me, banging into people’s lives and causing them pain and distress. She had been referring to the divorce and to the swindle in Frankfurt 1946. I came almost unscathed out of both, but as a prediction it was not too wide of the mark. I was a disappointment to her, after my dashing career in the army nothing was beyond my power, and precious little beyond my ambition.

Karl Poster, the tall thin mark. I had a feeling he wasn’t completely convinced at the very end. As I went out through the office door I had looked at him, and he had doubt written right across his face. I’d been worried that he’d follow me out of the building. What could we get. It’s hard to say, but if the city put up a really astute attorney there could be a dozen or more charges. Using that building as a site for a fraud was probably an offence, and then our fancy cheque was a forgery. Can you imagine ten years in prison. I’d never live through it your honour. Very well, says the judge, just do as much as you can of it. Very funny. Ten years, fifteen perhaps. Would an American prison be better than a British prison. I’d often thought of that. Central heating, running water, better food but more violence. Greater chance of being hurt by the other prisoners. Still I’d survived the war. I’d done a bloody sight more than survived it; I’d thrived on it. That’s why I’d never stopped fighting it. This was my war, and Liz and Bob were my army. Not much of an army, but then a commander has to adapt to his resources. That was the secret of command in battle; flexibility and full utilisation of resources. Terrain, men, weapons, skills and surprise. Now I was talking to myself as though I was a mark. This was a war all right, but I wanted to sign a separate peace. I’d taken all the combat I could handle. Ten years in prison; that was the sort of wound from which I would no longer recover. Each time I seemed to make more mistakes. I covered them, but they were mistakes. In the old days I made none. Liz had stalled them in the lobby, very well, but I should have made sure that that damned hire car arrived exactly on time, not five minutes early. Bob’s stutter, why didn’t I think of that, I might have guessed he’d try to use it. It was the most unconvincing stutter I had ever heard. The stupid little fool. Well, I’d make sure he never tried that again.

One more operation. I must have a very small drink. I reached the flask from my inside pocket. I must have a very small drink. The old crone in the next seat is looking at me in a disapproving way. Where does she think she is, the Royal Enclosure? It’s a bloody aeroplane madam and I’m having a drink. Your health. Look at her face. She heard that last bit. Damn her. Damn them all in fact. I’m the victor laureate, and that’s a two hundred and sixty thousand gun salute in that black case. I won. So why don’t I stop worrying, I won and I’ll go on winning. A man doesn’t burn himself out, that’s bosh. Liz loves me, adores me. I’m the leader and she’s the kind of girl who stays with the leader. Bob will never be a leader. She knows that. She’s told me so a million times. He’s pathetic, that’s what Bob is, a cipher, a psychological archetype orphan, brave as only the brainless can be. I’ve seen regiments of Bobs under fire, without enough imagination to be scared. I’ve got too much imagination, that’s my trouble, if I have any trouble, which I don’t for one moment admit. Perhaps I had less imagination when I was young, perhaps that’s why I was so brave. As you get older, you get wiser and less brave, that’s why the higher you go in command the farther from the fighting line they put you, until the man who really controls the battle is not even in artillery range. Ten years. My God; ten years. Would Liz wait. Would any woman. Why should they.

Check the stewardess call-button, adjust the air supply, tighten the lap strap. Chocks away. The aeroplane drones on and all I can see below me is endless white cloud. Richthofen’s Flying Circus would be over the lines this morning. Fancy sending half-trained kids against them in crates like these.

Across the grey German sky, dawn slashed bright red weals. Tackatackatacka. Kick the rudder bar, there goes young Bob; a black feather dipped in red flame. The wind screams in the wires as I turn, tighter than the Red Baron. Tackatacka … tackatacka. Mercilessly the twin Vickers guns stitch the bright fabric. Inches below my fuselage the thin wirelike tracers curve and fall away. Roger Wilco. Left, left, steady. A small shed, the intelligence officer said, in it enough heavy water to put the Nazis months ahead in the race for the atomic bomb. Steady, steady. Another fierce cannonade all around us, followed by the ominous rattle of shrapnel against the engine nacelle. Losing height. The others were stealing sidelong glances at me. My jaw stiffened. Losing height rapidly now. Steady, bombs gone: Down they go. Down, down, down until they are the merest specks against the green of the airfield. Crash, an indescribable explosion. It’s as much as I can hold the control column. Intelligence were right. Enough heavy water to destroy the whole of southern England. Lower now. We are done for. This is it boys, too low to use the brollys I’m afraid. Hold on to your hats fellows, down we go. What a landing skipper, who’d believe that three engines are feathered and the whole fuselage shot to shreds. I just smile back. What’s our best chance? Split up chaps, it’s no O flag for me, it’s cross-country, and living on the land, travel by night, lie up by day, and avoid the villages where the dogs bark. It’s the compass in the button, and silk scarf map of the Rhineland that have been with me for fifty-five missions. Oh well, this is it chaps. See you all in blighty.

‘Please fasten your seat belts we are about to descend for London airport,’ said the stewardess. I’d need warmer clothes than this in Britain. I could use a cup of coffee. Damned uncomfortable things aeroplanes.

4

Bob

I’d walked straight out of the bank carrying a bag full of folding money, and feeling as conspicuous as hell dressed up with blue and white uniform, badges, artillery and all, but not a passer-by gave me so much as a glance. I separated from Liz and walked into the men’s toilet of the Continuum Building. The brown paper bundle of clothes was where I had left it in the towel disposal bin. I locked myself in a cubicle. I pulled out the cloth zipper bag that was sewn into the lid lining of the cash case. I put the uniform and toy pistol into it, closed it, locked it and dumped it. I removed the Security Company metal plate from the case and it became an ordinary leather document case. The chain I unclipped and dropped into the toilet cistern. They only check them every twenty years. I went into the washroom, put a dime into the electric shaver and shaved off my moustache. Vroom vroom. I’d had it for two years and I was sorry to see it go. It was a real Pedro Armandariz. I trimmed it back to a Doug Fairbanks and finally a thin Errol Flynn before demolishing it altogether. Easy come, easy go. I put a little talc across the white upper lip and I was a new man. I’d been frightened that one of the bank clerks would come into the men’s room while I was killing my face-fungus, but I needn’t have worried. They have their own toilet right there in the bank.

Liz was waiting. She’d reversed her coat and put on a hairpiece which hung loose at the back. She looked no more than nineteen with that little-girl hairdo. She looked great, great! I know that she was angry at me for staring at her, but it would have been more suspicious not to have stared. She looked sensationnelle. Oh boy, she did. She’d reversed her coat to become an ocelot.