The Loo Sanction (20 page)

“What are these sources?”

“That's my affair.”

“I think I can guess at them. You were in CII. You were an assassin—or, to be polite, a counterassassin. It is my opinion that you found out what you wanted to know about me from old contacts in that service.”

“I'm impressed you know that much about me.”

“I'm an impressive man, Dr. Hemlock. So tell me. Why were you seeking me out?”

“The Marini
Horse.
”

“What is that to you? I know something of your financial condition. Surely you don't expect to be able to buy the
Horse.
”

“I don't even particularly care for Marini, nor for any of the moderns, for that matter.”

“Then what is your interest?”

“I need money. And I thought I might turn a buck out of it.”

“How?”

“You have to admit there were some bizarre aspects to our meeting at Tomlinson's. You intend to sell the
Horse,
and evidently for more money than one would have considered possible. I naturally began to think about that and wonder what I might do to turn it to my fiscal advantage.”

“Go on.” Strange did not open his eyes.

“Well, my public evaluation of the statue could increase its value by a great deal. Just at this barren moment in art criticism, things tend to be worth whatever I say they're worth.”

“Yes, I'm aware of your singular position. A one-eyed man among the blind, if you ask me.”

“I thought you might be willing to share some of the excess profit with me.”

“Not an unreasonable thought.” Strange rose and crossed through the thickening steam to a large earthenware jar of cold water. He poured several dippersful over his head and rubbed his chest vigorously. “Good for toning the skin. Care for some?”

“No, thanks. I don't want to be refreshed. I want to relax and get some sleep.”

“Later perhaps. If all goes well, we shall take supper together, after which you may wish to sample our amenities here, the most modest of which is a comfortable bed. What would you say if I told you that, while you were seeking to contact me about the Marini
Horse,
I was bending every effort to contact you?”

“Frankly, I would doubt you. Coincidences make me uncomfortable.”

“Hm-m. They make me uncomfortable too, Dr. Hemlock. It seems we have that in common. And yet there are coincidences here. And discomfort. Could it be that it is not particularly coincidental for two such men as we to see profit in the same thing?”

“That could be.” This was the narrow bit. The only story Jonathan had been able to put together quickly was Strange's own. He knew he'd be driving up the same street Strange was driving down, and he knew the coincidence of it would loom large, but at least he had been able to mention it first. He rose to get some cold water after all, and with his first movement, Leonard sprang to his feet with surprising alacrity for a man of his bulk and interposed his body between Jonathan and Strange. “Oh, relax, dummy!”

“Sit down, Leonard. I think Dr. Hemlock is aware of the impossibility of his getting out of here without my permission. And I think he realizes how quickly and vigorously an attempt to do me harm would be punished. You must forgive Leonard his passion for duty, Dr. Hemlock. He has been at my side for—oh, fifteen years now, it must be. I'm really very fond of him. His canine devotion and extraordinary strength make him useful. And he has other gifts. For instance, he has an enormous tolerance for pain. Not his own, of course. When it is necessary to discipline one of the young people working for me here, I simply award him or her to Leonard for a night of pleasure. For a few days afterward, the poor thing is of little use in my business, and occasionally he requires medical attention for hemorrhage or some such, but it is amazing how sincerely he regrets his misdeeds and how rigidly he subsequently conforms to our rules of performance.” Strange looked at Jonathan, his pale eyes without expression. “I tell you this, of course, by way of threat. But it is perfectly true, I assure you.”

“I don't doubt it for a moment. Does he also do your killing for you?”

Strange returned to the pine bench, sat down, and closed his eyes. “When that is necessary. And only when he's been especially good and deserving of reward. When did you leave CII? And why?”

“Four years ago,” Jonathan said, as immediately as possible. So that was to be Strange's interrogation style, was it? The rapid question following non sequitur upon less direct chat. Jonathan would have to field the balls quickly and offhandedly. It was a most one-down way to play the game.

“And why?”

“I'd had enough. I had grown up. At least, I'd gotten older.” That would be the best way to stay even. Tell trivial truths.

“Four years ago, you say. Good. Good. That tallies with the information I have concerning you. When first it occurred to me that you might be of use in my little project for selling the Marini
Horse,
I took the trouble to look into your affairs. I have friends . . . debtors, really . . . at Interpol/Vienna, and they did a bit of research on you. I cannot tell you how my confidence increased when I discovered that you had been a thief, or at least a receiver, of stolen paintings. But my friends in Vienna said that you had not purchased a painting for four years. That would seem to coincide with the time you left the lucrative company of CII. Why did you work for them?”

“Money.”

“No slight tug of patriotism?”

“My sin was greed, not stupidity.”

“Good. Good. I approve of that.”

Jonathan noticed that Strange never raised an eyebrow, or smiled, or frowned. He had trained his face to remain an expressionless mask. Doubtless to prevent the development of wrinkles.

“I think that is enough steam, don't you?” Strange said, rising and leading the way back to the exercise room, where the man with two mouths was waiting with a glass of cold goat's milk, which Strange drank down before he and Jonathan lay out on exercise tables to be rubbed down. The masseur scrubbed Jonathan with a rough warm towel before beginning to knead his shoulders and back, while Leonard performed the same service for Strange.

Strange turned his head toward Jonathan, his cheek on the back of his hands, and looked at him casually when he asked, “Who is it you visit in Covent Garden?”

Jonathan laughed while he thought quickly. “How long have I been under surveillance?”

“From the evening we met at Tomlinson's. My man lost track of you for a while there. Traffic jam. He waited for you at your apartment.”

“Which apartment?”

“Ah, precisely. At that time we didn't know about the Baker Street residence. You use it very seldom. My people waited for some time at your Mayfair flat before further inquiry revealed the existence of the Baker Street penthouse. By the time we arrived there, you had left, but the flat was not empty. There was a man in your bathroom. A dead man. But you had disappeared.”

“Hey! Watch it!” Jonathan shouted.

“What's wrong?”

“This steel-clawed son of a bitch is pulling my tendons out.”

“Be gentle with the doctor, Claudio. He's a guest. Yes, we quite lost sight of you until, a couple of hours ago, I received a call from Grace. Dear Grace is a colleague of mine. A close and honored friend.”

“So?”

“So I would like some explanation that puts these odd bits together. And I do hope it's convincing. I would enjoy an evening of civilized chat.”

“Well, I told you I was trying to gain entrée to your place here. I had no idea you were also looking for me, so I tried through Amazing Grace.”

“Yes, but how did you know about Grace?”

“You said it yourself. I still have some CII connections. Hey! Take it easy, you ham-handed bastard!” Jonathan sat up and pushed the masseur away.

“Oh, very well,” Strange said with some irritation. “I'd rather cut my massage short than listen to you complain about yours. But you should really establish a routine for keeping fit. Look at me. I'm ten years older than you, and I look ten years younger.”

“We have different life priorities.”

Strange led the way into a lavish dressing room, the walls of which were covered with mirrors set in bronze. The reflections of the three men echoed in infinite redundancy, and Jonathan found himself a principal in a finely synchronized sartorial ballet performed by scores of Hemlocks and scores of Stranges, while scores of droopy-lidded Leonards looked on, their faces impassive, their heads tilted back on thick necks.

When he saw his clothes laid out, Jonathan felt a pulse of relief. He had wondered why Strange had not mentioned finding at least one of the revolvers when his men had picked up his clothes. But these came from his Mayfair flat, not the Baker Street one. Luck was with him. But still he was walking a razor's edge, reactive and imbalanced from the start, never sure how much truth he had to surrender to neutralize the facts already in Strange's possession. He had done well enough so far, but he had had to turn the flow of inquisition away from time to time, with inconsequential small talk or complaining about the masseur, to give himself time to collect his balance and pick a direction. So far, he had been plausible, if not overwhelmingly convincing. But there were big holes—like the dead man on his toilet—that Strange would surely probe. And one link was still open. To close it might expose Vanessa Dyke.

“. . . but it is a terrible mistake not to give the body the work and diet necessary to keep it young and attractive,” Strange was saying. “I know the routines are strenuous and the restrictions irritating, but nothing worth having is ever cheap.”

“That's funny. I clearly remember being assured by a song of the Depression that the best things in life were free.”

“Opiate hogwash. Self-delusions with which the congenital have-nots seek to excuse their life failures and make less of the accomplishments of others. As I recall, that insipid song suggests that love, in particular, is free. My dear sir, my life's work is founded on the knowledge that love—technically competent and interesting love—is extraordinarily expensive.”

“Perhaps the song was using the word differently.”

“Oh, I know the kind of love it meant. Fictions of the fourteenth-century jongleur. Friendship run riot. Pointless nestlings; sharings of tacky dreams and tawdry aspirations; promises of emotional dependency that pass for constancy; fumbling manipulations in the backs of cars; the sweat of the connubial bed.
That
kind of love may be thought free, and considered dear at the price. But in fact it is not free at all. One pays endlessly for the shabby amateurism of romantic love. One enters into eternal contractual obligations under the terms of which the partners pledge to erode one another forever with their infinite dullness. Still, I suppose they lack the merit to deserve more, and probably the imagination to desire more. Should I open the doors of The Cloisters to one of this ilk for a night, he would blunder about,
asinus ad lyram,
until he found, down in the kitchens, some sweating cook or stringy scullery maid who could be a soul mate and who would understand and care for him for all time. There we are! Dressed and civilized. Shall we take a little refreshment?”

“If you wish.”

“Good. There are one or two points that want clarifying.”

“Personally, I'd like to get around to the topic of the sale of the Marini Horse. Focusing our attention particularly on what profit I can expect from it.”

Strange laughed. “In due course. After all, we're still not absolutely sure that you are going to survive this interrogation, are we? Come along.”

The center mirror hinged open like a door, swilling the scores of reflected images around the room in a blurred rush. They passed into a small sitting room about the size and shape of a projection booth, dimly lit, its walls made of glass. Three sides looked out onto the principal salon of The Cloisters: a large, brilliantly illuminated room in the Art Deco style. Glass beads, mechanical foliage, repetitious angular motifs, rainbow and sunrise patterns pressed into buffed aluminum wall panels.

The patrons were dressed in extravagant costumes provided by the management; and shepherdesses, devils, inquisitors, cavaliers, and Mickey Mouses lounged about, chatting, drinking, laughing. But all this panoply was in pantomime; the glass walls were soundproof.

Moving among the patrons were half a dozen hostesses dressed in flapper style: long loops of beads, cloche-bobbed hair, bound breasts under silk frocks, rolled-down hose exposing rouged and dimpled knees. With their artificial lashes of the stiff “surprise” style, their beauty spots, and their bee-stung lips, they looked like mannequins in back issues of high-fashion magazines as they served drinks and exotic canapés, or bent over patrons in teasing, flirtatious conversation.

One of the patrons, a Catherine de Medici of uncertain years, with face skin tight from cosmetic surgery that had not included her wattle, approached the glass wall and stared in unabashedly. She moistened the tip of her little finger with the tip of her tongue and made a minute adjustment in her eyeliner, then she patted the back of her hair, turned, and took a long appreciative sideways glance into the room before pivoting away to greet an approaching highwayman with the boneless face, whimpering smile, and lank hair of his class.

“One-way mirrors,” Strange said unnecessarily as he settled into a deep leather chair after carefully hitching up the crease of his trousers. “The decor was Grace's idea. There is something fundamentally evil about the New People of the 1920
s that seems to liberate our customers.”

Jonathan stood near the one-way glass wall and looked out, his arms folded on his chest. “Art Deco was a monstrous moment in art. When the flamboyant decay of Art Nouveau percolated down to the masses, through the intermediary of machine reproduction, it was unavoidable that the half-trained, ungifted, self-indulgent artists would proclaim the resultant hodgepodge a new art form. After all, here was something even
they
could do. In my view, the recent revival of interest in Art Deco indicts the modern artist and the modern critic—people who communicate and communicate, yet remain inarticulate.”