Snowstorms in a Hot Climate (30 page)

“It was, of course, the same man who stood to gain from the silence of the river. The same man who could finally use the evidence to point the finger at someone else, someone he had framed once before. However, since these are exactly the kinds of things you don’t want to hear, I won’t bother pursuing them. But the truth is there, should you care to look at it.

“So, where did Elly and I fit into all of this? Well, as you know—and I have to hand it to you, Marla, for an English academic you have become very well versed in the intricacies of the narcotics underworld—Tyler got out of jail around the time Elly and I were in Colombia for the second trip, when things were beginning to splinter between us. The trip was bad enough. But when we got home I discovered that we were being watched. With Tyler a free man, it made me nervous. If he was really dumb enough to believe that I had killed his wife, then he might
also be dumb enough to try for poetic revenge. It would have been easier to tell Elly the whole story, only by then she was in no fit state to listen. Five miles high and suffering from vertigo. The only thing to do was get her out of it. If Tyler could be made to believe that she’d left me, then maybe he’d leave her alone. It was obvious we were near some kind of bust-up anyway. I simply did nothing to stop it. As I’m sure she told you. It was a little brutal, I grant you, but I had no choice. With Elly out of the way, I could get on with watching the watchers.

“It was then, about a month later, I heard that Elly was in California. Now, this is where your imagination comes in, Marla. I want you to do the impossible. Try to put yourself in my position. What was I to think? On the one hand, why shouldn’t she go there? She thought J.T. and I were friends. If she needed to talk, then J.T. was a logical choice of confidant. But I have told you I have a suspicious nature. I owe my life to it. She had left New York hating me. There were other reasons she could have chosen California. And there were other stories J.T. could have told her, certain fairy tales—of which you know him to be a connoisseur. She was in exactly the frame of mind where she might have believed them. So they talked, and then, as you know, she came home, walked back into my life and said not a word about where she had been. J.T. had sworn her to secrecy. We both know that now. But not then. Then all I saw were the facts. Elly had spent time with a man who had tried to destroy me, and she had kept the visit a secret. I did not feel reassured. Yet here she was arriving home revitalized, determined that, if only I would give up the profession, we could have a future together. What if she knew something I didn’t? How could I trust her? She was claiming love, but there was a kind of tension about her, as if she didn’t quite believe the script either.

“Well, we agreed to try again. But you can see now it was doomed. California was like a glass wall between us. I couldn’t
forget it, and I couldn’t disregard it either. The irony was that I too had given some thought to winding it up. Against the odds, I had missed her, and she could have been a reason for finding something else to do with my life. Aaah, I feel another rage growing in you, Marla. My admission of vulnerability seems to disgust you. It clouds the picture, and we wouldn’t want any gray areas in a story which is so beautifully black-and-white, would we?

“Back to the facts. I let it be known that I was taking temporary retirement. To quieten her, and to force them—whoever they were—to tempt me back. It didn’t take long. A month or so later I was approached by two English ‘businessmen.’ They needed my help, they said. They were running a small, successful organization, but their connections were Asian rather than South American—trading in hash. They could see the writing on the wall—it wasn’t hard; people were lining up to read it. America’s coke market was reaching saturation point. With thirty-five billion dollars going up people’s noses every year, it was already the biggest business in the U.S. behind the auto industry. And every step outside the law. You could see the problem. It was becoming too big to be tolerated. But while America was closing up, Europe was still wide open. The appetite had been created, all that was needed was increased supplies. I had built up a reputation. They came to me for a feasibility study, a few schemes and the odd trial run. And they were willing to pay for it. A lot of money, too much to refuse. Too much altogether, all things considered, which made it even more interesting. I said yes. And began my research.

“I won’t bore you with my scholarship. It was a simple question of routes and cargos. Rumor had it that Spain was the best port of entry, but I wasn’t sure. Concerned parties were putting a good deal of pressure on Spanish authorities to get their act
together. In the old days Ireland had been the golden trail, sliding it in through Shannon. The amounts of hash spirited through had become folklore. The obvious holes had been plugged, of course, but sometimes it pays to be old-fashioned, to go to the one place no one expects you to. So I decided to look into resurrecting old glories. I took a trip to Britain to check locations, and I ended up in London. It was then that I had another idea—about Elly and me. I will not insult you by pretending it was entirely philanthropic. I still didn’t know for sure which side she was on. And by now I was certain that the whole deal was some kind of a setup. I just didn’t know how. The trip would be the test. If she really knew nothing, she would come with me. If not—well, I would deal with that if and when it happened. But whatever my motives, the trip at least was real. And the very glorious Inverlochy Metropole was part of it. You can check. All arrangements made at the tourist office in London, signed, sealed, and dated. You know the date. It was the day before your flight to New York.

“From now on the story is your history too. I told you the truth about the plane. I wasn’t due to fly British Airways at all. I arrived at Heathrow—a little late, I admit—to find myself a victim of an overzealous booking computer. It didn’t matter to me which airline I flew. Not then, at least. I even walked behind you into the departure lounge. You don’t remember that, do you? I was struck by your hair. The extraordinary color of it. A corn harvest. I remember wondering if you might be an example of the ‘buxom English wench.’ Aaah, I seem fated to upset you. Elly warned me you were sensitive about your appearance. Should I call the waiter for the telephone? How come you’re so clever and so stupid, Marla? Even about yourself? Whoever told you you were ugly? Don’t spit at me. I thought then, and I think now, that you are an immensely striking woman. I did not set out to
be your enemy. Remember that. That was entirely your decision. Like it or not, that is what I think of you. But we will not mention it again.

“So, coincidence brings us together, and we travel across the Atlantic on the same plane. We walk through the same terminal together, and here at last you catch me in my first lie.
Mea culpa
, Marla,
mea maxima culpa
. Yes, I did see Elly on the other side of the barrier, and yes, I did watch the two of you meet. There was no danger of my being spotted. You only had eyes for each other. I knew then that you must be Marla. And I knew also, of course, that I was not expected on that plane. So I decided on a little detour before arriving home. And where did I go? I can hear the question clicking away in that admirable brain of yours. Well, you already know, don’t you? Who was my ally in all of this? Which other poor dumb female did I exploit? Yes. I went to Indigo.

“Poor Indigo … Tangier!—you should have been ashamed of yourself. She had to find a map to check the continent. The spirit is willing, but the brain is weak. And, since she has introduced herself into the story, I might as well answer your questions about her. What do you need to know? That I met her while Elly was away, and that we ‘paddled palms’ together. I was, of course, everything she’d ever dreamt of, everything she thought New York could give her—a patron for her art. But you overestimated her, Marla. She was what she appeared. No more, no less. When Elly came back, I told her what had happened and I told Indigo it was over. But it seemed cruel just to slam the door in her face. So I suggested a little work at the store.

“Ah, I see you don’t believe me. Well, in this case you’re right. Well caught. But it’s only a ten percent lie. Indigo needed the job, and she was good at it. Even Elly agreed. But yes, she was more than just a salesgirl. She was also a way of watching Elly. Just in case. I told her nothing. Or nothing of the truth anyway.
I suggested marital difficulties and the need to know for sure. She was very good. Watched and reported and never demanded payment. So, it was to her apartment that I went that night. And it was on my instructions that she had a gas leak the next morning. Remember? The leak that meant Elly had to go to the store, leaving you and me alone in the apartment, giving us a chance to meet and see if you remembered me. Or at least that was the plan. Unfortunately, something went wrong. I got a phone call from the English connection. They needed to talk, urgently. I left you sleeping, which meant there could be no intimate meeting between us. Instead we would face each other publicly.

“And so to that evening. I wonder if your memories are as vivid as mine. From the moment I saw you, sitting at the cocktail bar, I knew you had come to do me damage. I don’t think you know just how honest a person you are, Marla. How the truth shines out through that marble skin of yours. I almost didn’t even bother asking you for your silence. It seemed so impossible that you’d give it. So you’ll understand why, when you agreed, I—I of the suspicious nature—had to assume a degree of dissembling, to assume that you would not necessarily keep your word. You will, I think, be able to imagine my distress when, on that very night, Elly informed me that you were going to California. I must admit, I almost told her then. All of it, the whole thing. She seemed so obviously innocent. How could she do something so potentially incriminating? But I said nothing. How many times have there been in this whole affair when someone had the chance to stop it? Huh, Marla? How many times did you almost tell the truth? It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?

“So, you and Elly went behind enemy lines. Meanwhile, back home I got on with the job in hand. The trial run was set up. I wonder how much you need to know. The circus was hardly an
original idea. In the past the international music business had been the goose that laid the golden egg: world tours with customs clearance winging half tons of hash stashed in cavernous speaker cabinets around the globe. It seems incredible now that the authorities took so long to bust it. But in principle it was a sound idea: legitimate groups who moved around the world carrying significant amounts of luggage with them. The Klondyke Circus Klan may have begun as ‘alternative’ entertainment, but they had broken into the international circuit and were even respectable enough to warrant sponsors. They also took a lot of equipment with them, and I had a contact backstage. They were the perfect guinea pig: coming from South America, booked in through Shannon for the Dublin Theatre Festival.

“I kept the scale of the thing modest. I was more interested in seeing how the connections held together. The juggling balls were a gift from heaven. As Elly was so eager to describe (you will understand now my consternation at her interest that day in San Francisco), the Klondykes specialized in spectacular finales, juggling symphonies where the whole company joined in. They carried a very large stock of balls. The perfect cargo. Substitute two or three dozen, get them into Shannon and across to the mainland through a Customs more interested in guns than in drugs, and you were home and dry. It was all arranged. All that was needed was for a couple of dozen balls to be made in Dublin and substituted when they arrived. I would be in London to talk expansion and profits. Nothing could go wrong. And if it did, I was nowhere to be found. If they were planning to set me up, then something had to change. It did.

“You and Elly had been in California for four days when I got the call. Klondyke had come through Shannon, no problem. But the man in Dublin paid to substitute the balls hadn’t. His work wasn’t good enough. My contact insisted it would be spotted.
Since I was going to London anyway, would I take another set with me? It stank right from the beginning. Either J.T. had lost his touch or they hadn’t let him in on the details. On the other hand, if I had suspected nothing, then there would be nothing to suspect. Mistakes do sometimes happen, even in the best-run deals. I made it clear how much I deplored the inefficiency but agreed to do it. They were offering to deliver the cargo to New York. I told them I would pick it up in person. That way I got a chance to see the three of you together. And to talk to Elly. Now I knew how and where the setup was to take place. If she was in any way involved, then so would she. She would, at the very least, know what to avoid. And top of the list would be a trip to London with me.

“Looking back, I guess I was prepared for everything but what happened. She threw me, right from the moment we met. You had done one hell of a job, Marla. I always meant to congratulate you on it. Elly was glowing, charged with a confidence and energy I hadn’t seen in her for ages. She was fabulous that night. So much so that I began to mourn what I had lost. And what you had won. It was over. Simple as that. Except was it? You see, if she really knew nothing about my future, then her timing was one hell of a coincidence. And there had, you will agree, been altogether too many coincidences by now. So I decided to try out the English trip anyway. Just to see what kind of look came into her eyes.

“She hadn’t known. I would bet my life on it. Sure, she had a talent for dissembling. But not to that degree. She knew nothing. I swear it. In fact, she was so innocent she almost came with me. Maybe you don’t know that. And you probably don’t want to hear it, but it’s true. In fact, if it hadn’t been for your trip to Paris, I think she would have given in and joined me. Your trip to Paris … now that interested me, Marla. What was your motive? You knew about London. You could have let her come
home that way. Were you so frightened that I would charm her back? Or maybe there was another reason. Maybe you knew something about London that I didn’t. Impossible. You and J.T. as confidantes? It didn’t fit. Surely this time I was just being paranoid.