Money for Nothing (13 page)

"Well," Josh said, angry with himself for feeling defensive but unable to not defend himself, "there is
some
creativity in what I—"

"Of course," Robbie said. "Sell your talents to the man, because that's the only road you can
visualize
. Here you're in this situation, you say, 'If I don't do exactly what they want, they'll find out and kill me. But if I
do
do exactly what they want, they'll massacre a whole lot of innocent people.'"

"Yes," Josh said.

"You look at the possibilities," Robbie said, "and you say, 'Close the book. No more possibilities. I'll just have to feel unhappy until something bad happens.' You see where I live."

"Yes," Josh agreed.

"Because I don't bend to reality, you see what I mean?" His eyes were more intense than ever, as though now he were channeling Svengali. "Reality bends to
me
."

"Sure," Josh said. He wondered when he could get out of here, return to a real world of real-world problems.

Robbie waved an arm, to indicate the theater. "Between productions," he said, "we have classes in here, and
that's
what the classes are all about. Creating our own reality, anywhere in the world. Anywhere in a hundred worlds. You wouldn't
believe
where in space and time this little room has been."

"Uh huh," Josh said, and gathered himself to rise. "Well—"

"So when do I meet this con-artist Nimrin?"

JOSH GOT TO HARRIET LINDE'S OFFICE at five to six. Feeling in some weird way as though he were in the position of host here, he thought he should show up early. He nodded to the doorman on the way by, with the sense he was becoming a regular here, and when he walked into the waiting room Robbie was already present, seated at attention, knees together, on the lefthand sofa, as though he'd been called to the principal's office. He was dressed now in what he must think of as proper apparel for traveling uptown: black lace-up oxfords, black chinos, and a button-down long sleeve white dress shirt, all the buttons buttoned, including collar and cuffs, except the top button at the neck. Not what anyone else in New York was wearing in July, except a few of the non-English speaking cabdrivers.

Robbie nodded at Josh as the warning bell chimed. He pointed at the closed inner door and said, "She says she's with a patient. Not your guy Nimrin, by any chance?"

"No, he's not a patient." Josh came around to take the other sofa. "She didn't say there was a message?"

"She just said she was with a patient. She came out and I said, 'I'm waiting for somebody named Nimrin,' and she said, 'I'm with a patient,' and went back in."

"Mr. Nimrin didn't say for sure he'd be here," Josh explained. "But I figure, if there's no message, that probably means he's coming."

"I pretty well need to talk to the guy," Robbie said, and the outer door opened and Mr. Nimrin walked in.

He stopped in the doorway when he saw Robbie. He looked alert, tense, ready for anything. Still watching Robbie, he said to Josh, "Who's this?"

"Mitchell Robbie," Josh said. "You don't recognize him?"

Mr. Nimrin frowned, but stepped further into the room, letting the door close. "You're Robbie? You've lost weight. Stop drinking beer?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact," Robbie said. He frowned at Mr. Nimrin just as hard as Mr. Nimrin frowned at him. "You were the
bartender
?"

Mr. Nimrin approached, stopped on the other side of the coffee table, leaned forward, looked as though he cared, and said, "Care for another, sir?"

"Oh, my God," Robbie said.

Coming around the coffee table to the right, Mr. Nimrin made a shooing gesture at Josh. "Sit with your friend," he said. "I'll take that sofa; I'm larger."

That was true. Josh moved over and Mr. Nimrin sat down, saying, "I'm glad you found him."

"Levrin found him, too," Josh said.

Mr. Nimrin raised an eyebrow at Robbie. "Then you must have played your part," he said.

"I always do," Robbie said. "I heard what the plan is. Kamastan and all that."

Mr. Nimrin nodded. "Did they give you a task?"

"Rent a car. The getaway car, according to Josh."

"Yes," Mr. Nimrin said. "They'll need a local driver. So all you'll have to do is keep quiet, follow orders, and all will be well."

"I don't think so," Robbie said.

Josh had to twist halfway around on the sofa to look at Robbie, who faced Mr. Nimrin with a serious unflinching look. Meanwhile, Mr. Nimrin was saying, "I thought Josh explained the situation."

"He did," Robbie agreed. "We're caught up in your scam that failed. If we don't pretend you were legitimate all along, everybody will be killed, including you."

"Exactly so," Mr. Nimrin said.

"Well, not
exactly
so," Robbie said. There was a bluntness to him now, the private eye at the end of the movie, explaining who's guilty of what.

Mr. Nimrin raised an intimidating eyebrow. "Meaning?"

Including Josh in the conversation, if only briefly, Robbie said, 'This is part of what I meant by bending reality to your own needs. The fact is, everything in life is a plot, a story, not just this massacre here, or Nimrin's scheme before. If you can look at the events around you as part of a narrative, you can begin to get some ideas about motivation, and where the story's supposed to wind up."

"Sure," Josh said. He had no idea what Robbie was talking about. He could only see that this was a different Robbie, not pacing, not bouncing off the walls, not trying on different roles as though they were sports jackets. This Mitchell Robbie was insightful and to the point.

Now, turning his attention back to Mr. Nimrin, Robbie said, "Josh still doesn't see what the story's ending is, but I got it right away. And of course you know it, too."

Mr. Nimrin seemed wary, all at once. "Do I?"

"Certainly." Robbie showed both hands, palms up. "Here we are in act two, scene one, I told myself. What happens in act three, scene two? At the end of the play?"

"It's over," Mr. Nimrin said. "You have a great deal of money, a brute has been removed from a brutal part of the world, and they will never call on these particular sleepers again."

"No, they couldn't," Robbie said. "Because we'll be dead."

Josh stared. Robbie had said that so calmly, and yet he seemed deadly serious.

Mr. Nimrin, also calm, said, "How so?"

"If this thing goes off," Robbie said, "there'll be a
huge
stink. Everybody will want to know who was responsible, so they can go teach them a lesson. So what will they find? Gee, it's home-grown, like Oklahoma City, a coupla crazy radical guys did it all on their own." Looking again at Josh, he said, "They're rigging the evidence on us right now. They come in, they do the dirty, they go out, and there's nothing left but you and me, face down. The perpetrators."

JOSH LOOKED AT MR. NIMRIN'S FACE, and what he saw there told him that Robbie had been absolutely right. Dead right. "You weren't going to tell me," he said.

Mr. Nimrin gave him an exasperated snort. "Why should I?
They
have to believe that you two are authentic sleepers, or my life is ended. Painfully. As important as your life no doubt is to you, so is my life important to me." Nodding to Robbie, he told him, "Unfortunately, you are very good. Now that you've seen the snare hidden in the underbrush, the situation becomes more complex."

"You need us to keep you alive," Robbie said, "and we need you to keep us alive."

"True." Mr. Nimrin pursed his lips and patted his thighs in a pensive manner. "Unfortunately, I don't see how it can be done."

"And," Josh said, "stop the assassination."

Mr. Nimrin gave him a surprised glare. "Do what?"

"We have to stop the assassination. We can't have—"

"I hope," Mr. Nimrin said, in a cold and precise way, "that this is merely emotion speaking, and that a wiser part of your head will soon hold sway."

Robbie said to Josh, calm but meaningful, "He's on their side, you know."

"But—"

Josh looked helplessly at Mr. Nimrin, seeing how coiled and watchful the man had become, understanding belatedly that he, at this moment, was at the very brink of a Van Bark-level mistake. Because he and Mr. Nimrin had been working in concert for more than a week, he'd settled into the comfortable conclusion that they were partners, on the same team, working together for a common goal. But that wasn't true. He said, "You
want
the assassination."

"Everyone in this room does," Mr. Nimrin said. "I want that clear."

"Well, no," Robbie said, and Mr. Nimrin turned his dangerous attention in Robbie's direction. Appearing unfazed by that laser look, Robbie said, "Josh and I have a slightly different goal from you. You want to save your own skin, and you want the job to succeed."

"It is
my
organization," Mr. Nimrin said. "It is true I am no longer trusted at the highest levels, but it's still my organization. I have belonged with them my entire adult life, through changes of government, social structure and enemy. If the removal of Freddy Mihommed-Sinn is now considered vital to my organization, for whatever reason, then that is my goal, as well. And it must be yours."

"That's where we disagree," Robbie said.

Josh said, "Mitch, I don't know. I don't think disagree is what we want to do here."

"Wait for it," Robbie told him, and said to Mr. Nimrin, "We're not in your organization. You signed us up without our knowledge or consent. So we don't care if your organization wins or loses. All we care is that we're both still alive when all you people have gone back where you came from." He pointed an astonishingly rigid finger at Mr. Nimrin. "You got us into this. You can help to get us out."

"How?" Mr. Nimrin seemed really to be interested in the answer.

Robbie said, "They don't trust you one hundred per cent at this organization of yours anymore, but you're still in it, you're still around those people."

"Very much so."

"So you can find out what their plans are for us," Robbie said.

"You already know," Mr. Nimrin pointed out.

Robbie shook his head. "No, their exact plans. What do they mean to do to us? And also, what evidence are they faking, to make us the bad guys? We'll have to know what it is, and where it is, so when the time comes we can get rid of it."

"I'm not sure," Mr. Nimrin said. "They don't tell me much these days, I'm sorry to say. I didn't even know Freddy Mihommed-Sinn was the target."

"You're a spy," Robbie told him. "Act like one. Spy on them."

Whatever Mr. Nimrin might have said he didn't, because as he opened his mouth the interior door opened as well, and a man came out, short, obese, fat-faced, dressed in the world's largest pair of blue jeans and a yellow polo shirt like sunrise in the desert. In the crook of his left arm, he held a teddybear close to his chest, its nose against his heart. Tiny eyes peered out at them from inside the fat man's round pale face. If he could have showed an expression there, it would probably have been hauteur. He rolled across the room like an approaching low, and departed.

When they were alone again, and the fat man's impact had lessened, Robbie said, "You have to help us, you know." He waggled his pointing finger between himself and Josh. "Because, if we disappear, your goose is cooked, and you know it."

Mr. Nimrin's attempt to scoff lacked a certain conviction. "Disappear? How do you expect to do that?"

"Oh, come on," Robbie said. "Josh probably wouldn't be able to pull it off, so he's dead meat—"

"Hey."

"—but I'm an actor. I could be somebody else in twenty minutes, stand right in front of you, you wouldn't know it was me."

"Oh, fine," Josh said. "Now I've got
two
masters of disguise."

"Not disguise," Robbie corrected him. "Disguise is for amateurs. What I do is character."

Mr. Nimrin clearly hadn't liked the amateur crack. "If you could disappear so readily," he said, sounding miffed, "why haven't you done so?"

Robbie spread his hands. "What — and give up show business?"

THEY LEFT MR. NIMRIN IN THE waiting room, looking at that interior door. The distant bell rang twice as they went out to the lobby, and Robbie said, "Interesting character, Nimrin. Hard to play opposite, though."

Josh frowned at his profile as they crossed the lobby. "Play opposite?"

The doorman held open the outer door, and Robbie paused in front of him to say, "You're doing a fine job. Excellent."

The doorman was surprised, but not displeased. "Thank you, sir," he said, and even bowed a little.

Outside, Robbie said, "Quick, we'll talk around the corner." As he went, with long brisk steps, he unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled them neatly above his elbows.

Following, Josh said, "What do you mean, play opposite?"

"He does that exasperation bit," Robbie said, as they made it around the corner of the building, where he stopped, back against the sandstone wall. "But if you play into that," he said, pulling his shirt-tail out, "you're just reacting, you aren't creating anything." Unbuttoning the bottom shirt button, he loosely tied the shirt-tails in front, almost but not quite creating a bare midriff. "So you saw what I did."

"No," Josh admitted. "I didn't."

"No?" Robbie seemed surprised. "I was afraid it was too obvious. Nimrin got it, though," he said, and pulled a richly blue beret out of his hip pocket.

"I still don't get it," Josh said.

Robbie shrugged. "I played Nimrin," he said, and placed the beret carefully on his head, a little forward, a little to the left. "I mirrored it back at him. But a calmer Nimrin. Every scrim he puts up, I put up the same one. I think it helped. How do I look?"

He stepped back a pace and posed, arms out at the sides, palms forward, like a ballet dancer about to make his move. He seemed taller but just as thin, graceful, in his black pants and casually tied white shirt and jaunty blue beret. Josh nodded at him. "French," he said.