“How long will what take me?”
“To deliver the boat to America, of course.”
“That depends on what kind of a boat it is and how far it’s going and at what time of year you want it delivered.”
“A sailboat,” he said, “and soon, I think.”
“How big a sailboat?”
“With a big lead keel.” He smiled, as though that detail answered all my queries.
“How big?” I insisted.
He sucked on the cigarette, frowned. “I don’t know how big, so give me, what do you Americans call it? A ballpark guess? Give me a ballpark guess.”
I cast a beseeching look toward the ceiling’s ornamental plasterwork. “Three months? Four? How the hell do I know? The bigger the boat, the quicker. Maybe.”
“Three months? Four?” He sounded neither pleased nor displeased with my ballpark guess. “Is she blonde?”
“Is what blonde?”
“Your secretary.”
“She’s got brown hair.”
“All over?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah.” He was sad for my ignorance. “Why did your lover leave you?”
“Because I want to retire to America one day and she doesn’t, because she says I’m too secretive, because she finds life in Nieuwpoort dull, and because her Frenchman gave her a Mercedes.”
“You want to live in America?” Shafiq asked in a tone of shock.
“Yes. It’s home.”
“No wonder you are unhappy.” Shafiq shook his head, I think because Sophie had walked out on me rather than because I was an American.
“If I’m unhappy about anything,” I assured him, “it’s because of this meeting. For Christ’s sake, Shafiq, you ignore me for four years, then you drag me to Paris to tell me you want me to deliver a boat, and now you can’t give me a single Goddamn detail of the job.”
“But it’s business!” he pleaded.
“After four years?” I sounded hurt.
He shrugged, tapped his cigarette ash into a crystal bowl, then shrugged again. “You know why, Paul, you know why.” He would not look at me.
“You didn’t like my deodorant, Shafiq?” I mocked him.
He raised his eyes to meet mine. He did not want to articulate the old accusation, but I was putting him through the wringer and he knew he would have to endure the ordeal. “They said you were CIA, Paul.”
“Oh, shit.” I leaned back in the chair, disgust in my voice.
“We know it isn’t true, of course.” Shafiq tried to reassure me.
“It’s taken you four years to make up your minds?”
“We can’t be too careful, you know that.” He sucked on the cigarette, making its tip glow bright. “Our business is like modern sex, isn’t it? Practice it safely or not at all, isn’t that right, Paul?” He laughed, inviting me to join in his amusement, but my face did not change and he shook his head sadly. “It wasn’t our side that accused you, Paul, it was the girl! Your girl! What was her name? Roisin?” He even pronounced it properly, Rosh-been, proving that he remembered her well enough. “She was your girl, Paul.”
“My girl? She was the office bicycle, Shafiq. Anyone could ride her.”
“That’s good, Paul, I like it! The office bicycle!” He chuckled, then made a dismissive gesture. “So you understand, eh? You see why we could not trust you? Not me, of course! I never believed you were CIA! I defended you! I told them it was a ridiculous notion! Cretinous! But they wanted to make sure. They said wait, wait and see if he runs home to America. I guess you didn’t run home, eh?” He smiled at me. “It’s good to see you again, Paul. It’s been too long.”
“So this sailboat,” I asked coldly, “what kind of business is it?”
“Just business.”
“Is it to do with Iraq?”
“Iraq?” Shafiq spread hands as big as oarblades in a gesture suggesting he had never heard of Iraq or its invasion of Kuwait.
“Is this to do with Iraq?” I asked again.
He gave me a smile of yellowed teeth. “It’s just business.”
“The business of smuggling?” I asked.
“Maybe?” He offered me a conspiratorial smile.
“Then the answer is no.” It was not, of course it was not, but if I yielded too easily the price would be low, and I wanted the price for this job to be very high, so I laid on the objections. “I don’t smuggle things, Shafiq, unless I know what I’m smuggling, and how it’s hidden, and why it’s being smuggled, and where it’s going, and who it’s going to, and how much, and when, and who benefits, and who might be trying to stop it, and how much they propose paying me to get it past them.”
“I told them you’d say that!” Shafiq sounded triumphant.
“They?” I challenged him.
“The people who want you to go to Miami tomorrow,” he answered coyly, hoping that the mention of Miami would sidetrack my question.
“They?” I said again.
“your old friends,” he said, confirming what I had suspected.
“They’re in Miami?” That did surprise me.
“They want you there tomorrow.” He stuffed a slice of almond cake into his mouth, then mumbled, “They’re expecting you, and I have your ticket. First class even!” He made it sound like a treat, like a red carpet into the lion’s den. Not that I needed such an enticement. I had waited four years for someone to rescue me from hydraulic systems and fiberglass osmosis and rotted keel-bolts.
So I telephoned Hannah at her Nieuwpoort home. It was a Sunday afternoon and she sounded sleepily warm and I wondered if I had interrupted the plump policemen’s revels. “Cancel this week’s appointments,” I told her.
“But, Paul…”
“Everything,” I insisted, “is cancelled.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to Miami,” I said, as though it was something I did every month and thus no occasion for her surprise.
Hannah sighed. “Kathleen Donovan phoned again. She says she’s visiting Europe and she promises she doesn’t need much of your time, and I told her you would be—”
“Hannah! Hannah! Hannah!” I interrupted her.
“Paul?”
“Make sure the cat takes its damn pills, will you?” I asked, then I put the telephone gently down and, next morning, flew to Miami.
Little Marty Doyle was waiting for me at Miami International where, despite the heat, he was jumping up and down like an excited poodle. “It’s just great to see you, Paulie! Just great! It’s been years, hasn’t it? Years! I was saying as much to Michael last night. Years!”
Marty is a nothing, a lickspittle, an errand boy. Officially he works for the Boston School Committee, while unofficially he gophers and chauffeurs for Michael Herlihy. Herlihy never learned to drive because he suffers from motion sickness and his mother always insisted he had to sit in the back of the family car, and ever since he’s ridden about like Lord Muck. These days Marty is his dogsbody and driver. “So what the hell are you doing in Miami?” I asked him.
“Looking after Michael. He’s not happy because of the heat. He’s never liked the heat. Makes him itch. Is that all your luggage?” He gestured at my sea-bag.
“How much do you want me to have?”
“I’ll carry it for you.”
I lifted the sea-bag out of his reach. “Just shut up and lead on.”
“It’s been years since I seen you, Paulie! Years! You don’t look any older, not a day! That beard suits you. I tried to grow a beard once, but it wouldn’t come. Made me look like that Chinaman in the movie. Fu-Manchu, know who I mean? So how are you, Paulie? The car’s this way. Have you heard the news?” He was skipping around me like an excited child.
“The war has started?” I guessed.