“Submachine guns,” said the second voice.
“Do beg your pardon!” the fourth voice shouted up to them. “Helmsman arseholed!”
Happy Days motored gently on into the darkness and hit the dockside with reassuring firmness. All three men who weren’t holding on to the wheel for support fell over and laughed.
“Anyway, he’s got us there,” said the third voice. “Good old Patrick!”
“Yes, but where’s he got us?” said the second.
“Skabulos,” said the third.
“Skrofulos,” said the fourth, taking a line ashore.
“Who cares?” said the third. “As long as it’s dry and it’s not rocking about.”
“And there’s somewhere we can get a few beers,” said the fourth.
“I can see a taverna!” said the second. “Look! Candle-lit tables! The works!”
“Women!” said the third. “I can see women!”
“No women for Patrick,” said the fourth voice. “He’s in a serious relationship.”
“Well, I am,” said Patrick. “So fuck off. Though since she’s in Switzerland at the moment…”
* * *
In Empedocles Christian at last roused himself from his long meditation. He brushed the gray veil of hair away from his face and tucked Oliver Fox’s passport carefully away beneath his prayer shawl. He sighed deeply. Eric Felt, dozing on the other side of the low table, started awake at the unaccustomed sound, and then gazed in astonishment.
Christian was getting to his feet.
Eric hastily scrambled up as well, and stood bulging excitedly. The moment had come.
* * *
In Parmenides Nikki looked in the bathroom mirror. Her hair had gone flat and brooding. She quickly brushed it up with her hand. She removed the sour and vengeful look from her face and restored its usual pleasant openness. She carefully clamped Dr. Norman Wilfred’s passport onto her clipboard. It wasn’t Mrs. Toppler she needed to show this passport to — it was Mr. Papadopoulou. He was the one Mr. Oliver Fox had in his sights.
And he was the one with people who could take care of things like this.
* * *
Giorgios had abandoned the chase after Stavros and his passenger, and returned to guard the barrier, still out of breath. He arrived just in time to find another taxi, Spiros’s this time, delivering two more late arrivals — an oddly matched couple, she expensively dressed and groomed, he apparently some kind of down-and-out. The man began fumbling in his pockets to pay Spiros, but already the woman was propelling him impatiently towards the barrier.
“Invitation,” said Giorgios, whereupon the woman knocked him unceremoniously aside with her handbag. Giorgios, discouraged by the pain in his elbow, and still short of breath from his last attempt to preserve the foundation’s security, watched her push her companion under the barrier. He turned back to discuss the news about Uncle Panagiotis with Spiros. But Spiros was already ducking under the barrier in his turn.
“Thirty-two euros!” he was shouting.
46
On the agora the last moments of pleasure were being savored before the serious business of the evening closed in. Coffee cups and brandy glasses were being drained, the crinkled silver paper off chocolates flattened on tablecloths. Legs were being stretched, bladders emptied, tables hopped, empty chairs smilingly leaned across. On the way to and from the gents’, elbows were being amiably squeezed and distant acquaintanceships renewed. In the queues outside the ladies’, hair tints were being insincerely commended and husbands half-sincerely disparaged.
Mr. Papadopoulou had sat down in the seat next to Mr. Skorbatov, left temporarily vacant by Darling Erlunder, who had got Wellesley Luft mixed up with Ludleigh Wells and was telling him how much she loved his best seller about how prayer could improve one’s orgasms. Mr. Papadopoulou was talking earnestly and sincerely, with much touching of Mr. Skorbatov’s arm and putting of his mouth conspiratorially close to the Russian magnate’s ear as he looked past the back of his head, while Mr. Skorbatov said nothing, but half closed his eyes and sketched the faint iconic suggestion of a smile.
In the shadows nearby Nikki was lurking, waiting for the conversation to end so that she could show Mr. Papadopoulou the abducted Dr. Wilfred’s passport.
From the shadows, too, a pair of glittering eyes looked out from a face as motionless and austere as a skull beneath its veil of gray hair, with an orange-trousered stomach twitching in anticipation beside it.
“Also,” Mrs. Fred Toppler was saying to the current Dr. Wilfred, “if you were the director here, you could exercise that other amazing skill of yours, and give me a little massage whenever I need it.”
Dr. Wilfred leaned a little closer to her and discreetly slipped his left hand under her silken top, then down inside the waistband of her trousers. It was now completely dark. Only the candlelit front sides of people still existed. “Just there?” he said.
“Oh my God,” she said, “that is so blissful! And so calming! If only you could keep your hand on my butt while I make my speech! You’re like Dieter, Dr. Wilfred — you give me confidence! We could do such great things together! We could make all the wonderful dreams he had for this place come true at last. He wanted to see the foundation reach out all over the world! South America — India — Russia! House Parties on every continent! Civilization spreading out over all the hurts of the world like oil on troubled waters!”
Dr. Wilfred looked up at the candle flames swaying in the warm darkness, and knew that everything was possible. He could do it. He could deliver the lecture. Then all the rest would follow. After the lecture Nikki would be waiting for him. Tomorrow Georgie would turn up. He would find a way to get rid of Annuka Vos. No, he would win over even Annuka Vos. Then he would become director of this delightful place. He would spend the long summer days and short summer nights rubbing Mrs. Toppler’s back, and making Mrs. Skorbatova laugh.
With the fingers of his left hand still deep in the bulge of flesh around the base of Mrs. Toppler’s spine, he took another sip from his wineglass, then put his right hand on Mrs. Skorbatova’s wrist.
“This is what every man needs,” he said to her. “To be Norman Wilfred to the lady on one side of him, and Oliver Fox to the lady on the other.”
Mrs. Skorbatova let her wrist remain under his hand, and laughed again. At last she spoke.
“No!” she said. “No, no, no, no, no, no!”
“No?” said Oliver Fox.
She gently detached her wrist, seized the end of his nose, and waggled it from side to side. “No!” she said. She pointed to the heavy gold ring on the third finger of her left hand, then waved the index finger on her right warningly from side to side.
“No focks!” she said.
* * *
Right, thought Reg Bolt, the director of security, watching from the shadows opposite the top table, as everyone finally settled back into their rightful places. They were all assembled. The guests, the hosts. The speaker. Nikki and Eric. The waiters, bodyguards, and personal security advisers. He checked each of their dimly lit faces in turn. The director was shut away in his darkened villa and everyone else was here on the agora, and settled for the lecture. The darkness around him deepened as a pool of bright light lit up the lectern on the top table. He eased himself carefully back, deeper into the shadow, and slipped quietly away into the night.
For the next hour at least he and the lads had the rest of the foundation to themselves. There would be just time to do the job. The big one. The one that was so big that even the least curious bystander might begin to ask questions. The one that could only be done in the darkness, when all eyes and ears were safely here, and bent upon Dr. Norman Wilfred.