'I don't want any charity,' she said. 'I want what is due to me.' It wasn't 'us', I noticed.
'What sort of fee would you think appropriate?' I asked.
'It must be worth sixteen thousand American dollars,' she said. So she'd decided what she wanted. At first I wondered how she'd come to such an exact figure, but I then realized that it had not been quantified by the job she'd done; it was the specific amount of money she wanted for something or other. That was the way Zena's mind worked; every step she took was on the way to somewhere else.
'That's a lot of money, Mrs Volkmann,' I said. I looked at Werner. He was pouring himself more coffee and concentrating on the task as if oblivious of everything around him. It suited him to to have Zena giving me hell. I suppose she was voicing the resentment that had been building up in Werner in all the years he'd suffered from the insensitive double-dealing of the birdbrains at London Central. But I didn't enjoy having Zena bawl me out. I was angry with him and he knew it. 'I will see that your request is passed on to London.'
'And tell them this,' she said. She was still speaking softly and smiling so that a casual observer might have thought we were chatting amicably. 'You tell them unless I get my money I'll make sure that Erich Stinnes never trusts a word you say.'
'How would you achieve that, Mrs Volkmann?' I asked.
'No, Zena…' said Werner, but he'd left it too late.
'I'd tell him exactly what you're up to,' she said. 'I'd tell him that you'll cheat him just as you've cheated me.'
I laughed scornfully. She seemed surprised. 'Have you been sitting in on this conversation, and still not understood what Werner and I are talking about, Mrs Volkmann? Your husband earns his money from avalizing. He borrows money from Western banks to pay in advance for goods shipped to East Germany. The way he does it requires him to spend a lot of time in the German Democratic Republic. It's natural that the British government might use someone such as Werner to talk to Stinnes about defecting. The KGB wouldn't like that, of course, but they'd swallow it, the same way we swallow it when they use trade delegates to contact trouble-makers and float some ideas we don't like.'
I glanced at Werner. He was standing behind Zena now, his hands clasped together and a frown on his face. He'd been about to interrupt but now he was looking at me, waiting to hear what I was going to say. I said, 'Everyone likes a sportsman who can walk out into the middle of a soccer field, exchange a joke with the linesmen and flip a coin for the two team captains. But 'enrolling' doesn't just mean offering a man money to come to the other side; it can mean beating him over the head and shipping him off in a crate. I don't say that's going to happen, but Werner and I both know it's a possibility. And if it does happen I want to make sure that the people in the other team keep thinking that Werner is an innocent bystander who paid the full price of admission. Because if they suspect that Werner is the kind who climbs the fence and throws beer cans at the goalkeeper they might get rough, Mrs Volkmann. And when the KGB get rough, they get very rough. So I advise you most sincerely not to start talking to Erich Stinnes in a way that makes it sound as if Werner is closely connected with the department, or there's a real risk that they'll do something nasty to you both.'
Werner knew I was going to spell it out for her. I suppose he didn't want her to understand the implications in case she worried.
I looked at her. She nodded. 'If Werner wants to talk to Stinnes, I won't screw it up for you,' she promised. 'But don't ask me to help.'
'I won't ask you to help,' I said.
Werner went over to her and put his arm round her shoulder to comfort her. But she didn't look very worried about him. She still looked very angry about not getting the money.
6
'If Zena ever left me, I don't know what I'd do,' said Werner. 'I think I'd die, I really would.' He fanned away a fly using his straw hat.
This was Werner in his lugubrious mood. I nodded, but I felt like reminding him that Zena had left him several times in the past, and he was still alive. He'd even survived the very recent time when she'd set up house with Frank Harrington – a married man more than old enough to be her father – and had looked all set to make it permanent. Only Zena was never going to make anything permanent, except perhaps eventually make Werner permanently unhappy.
'But Zena is very ambitious,' said Werner. 'I think you realize that, don't you, Bernie?'
'She's very young, Werner.'
'Too young for me, you mean?'
I worded my answer carefully. 'Too young to know what the real world is like, Werner.'
'Yes, poor Zena.'
'Yes, poor Zena,' I said. Werner looked at me to see if I was being sarcastic. I smiled.
'This is a beautiful hotel,' said Werner. We were sitting on the balcony having breakfast. It was still early in the morning, and the air was cool. The town was behind us, and we were looking across gently rolling green hills that disappeared into gauzy curtains of morning mist. It could have been England; except for the sound of the insects, the heavy scent of the tropical flowers, and the vultures that endlessly circled high in the clear blue sky.
'Dicky found it,' I said.
Zena had let Werner off his lead for the day, and he'd come to Cuernavaca – a short drive from Mexico City – to tell me about his encounter with Stinnes at the Kronprinz Club. Dicky had decided to 'make our headquarters' in this sprawling resort town where so many Americans came to spend their old age and their cheap pesos. 'Where's Dicky now?' said Werner.
'He's at a meeting,' I said.
Werner nodded. 'You're smart to stay here in Cuernavaca. This side of the mountains it's always cooler and you don't have to breathe that smog all day and all night.'
'On the other hand,' I said, 'I do have Dicky next door.'
'Dicky's all right,' said Werner. 'But you make him nervous.'
'I make him nervous?' I said incredulously.
'It must be difficult for him,' said Werner. 'You know the German Desk better than he'll ever know it.'
'But he got it,' I said.
'So did you expect him to turn a job like that down?' said Werner. 'You should give him a break, Bernie.'
'Dicky does all right,' I said. 'He doesn't need any help. Not from you, not from me. Dicky is having a lovely time.'
Dicky had lined up meetings with a retired American CIA executive named Miller and an Englishman who claimed to have great influence with the Mexican security service. In fact, of course, Dicky was just trying out some of the best local restaurants at the taxpayer's expense, while extending his wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Dicky had once shown me his card-index files of contacts throughout the world. It was quite unofficial, of course; Dicky kept them in his desk at home. He noted the names of their wives and their children and what restaurants they preferred and what sort of house they lived in. On the other side of each card Dicky wrote a short resume of what he estimated to be their wealth, power and influence. He joked about his file cards; 'he'll be a lovely card for me,' he'd say, when someone influential crossed his path. Sometimes I wondered if there was a card there with my name on it and, if so, what he'd written on it.