There was a wastebasket by the elevators and I dropped the empty talc can in. I’d get another on my way back tonight. I walked down to Piccadilly Circus and took a subway to Regent’s Park. I had my map of London folded and creased in my hip pocket and I got it out and sneaked a look at it, trying not to look just like a tourist. I figured out the best walk through the park, nodded knowingly in case anyone was watching, as if I was just confirming what I knew already, and headed on up to the north gate. I wanted a look at the territory before I showed up there tomorrow.
I went past the cranes, geese, and owls at north gate entrance and across the bridge over Regent’s Canal. A water bus chugged by underneath. By the insect house a tunnel led under a zoo office building and emerged beside the zoo restaurant. To the left was a cafeteria. To the right a restaurant and bar. Past the cafeteria were some flamingos in a little grass park. Flamingos on the grass, alas. If they wanted to burn me, the tunnel was their best bet. It wasn’t much of a tunnel, but it was straight and without alcoves. No place to hide. If someone came at me from each end they could put me in two without much trouble. Stay out of the tunnel. At the photo shop in the cafeteria I bought a guide to the zoo that had a map inside the back cover. The south gate, down by Wolf Wood, looked like a good spot to come in tomorrow. I walked down to take a look.
Past the parrot house and across from something labeled Budgerigars, there were kids taking camel rides and shrieking with laughter at the camel’s rolling asymmetrical gait. The south gate was just past the birds of prey aviary, which seemed ominous, past the wild dogs and foxes, and next to the Wolf Wood. That wasn’t too encouraging either. I went back up and looked at the cafeteria setup. There was a pavilion and tables. The food was served from an open-faced arcadelike building. If I sat on the pavilion at an open-air table I was a good target from almost any point. There was little cover. I ordered a steak and kidney pudding from the cafeteria and took it to a table. It was cold and tasted like a Nerf ball. While I gagged it down, I looked at my situation. If they were going to shoot me, there was little to prevent them. Maybe they weren’t going to shoot me, but I couldn’t plan much on that. “You can’t plan on the enemy’s intentions,” I said. “You have to plan on what he can do, not what he might.” A boy cleaning the tables looked at me oddly. “Beg pardon, sir?”
“Just remarking on military strategy. Ever do that? Sit around and talk to yourself about military strategy?”
“No, sir. ”
“You’re probably wise not to. Here, take this with you. ” I dropped most of my-steak and kidney pie into his trash bucket. He moved on. I wanted two things, maybe three, depending on how you counted. I wanted not to get killed. I wanted to decommission some of the enemy. I wanted at least one of them to get away with me following, Decommission. Nice word. Sounds better than kill. But I am thinking about killing a couple of people here. Calling it decommission isn’t going to make it better. It’s their choice though. I won’t shoot if I’m not taking fire. They try to kill me, I’ll fight. I’m not setting them up. They are setting me up… Except I’m setting them up to set me up so I can set them up. Messy. But you’re going to do it anyway, kid, whether it’s messy or not, so there’s not too much point to analyzing its ethical implications. Yeah, I guess I am. I guess I’ll just see if it feels good afterward.
They were experienced with explosives. And they didn’t worry about who got hurt. We knew that. If I were they I might wait till I got inside the tunnel, then roll in some explosives and turn me into a cave painting. Or they could do me in on the bridge over the canal. I knew who they were. I knew the girl and I had the pictures that Dixon had given me. Only the girl knew who I was. She’d have to be there to spot me. Maybe I could spot them first. How many would they send? If they were going to trap me in the tunnel, at least two plus the spotter. They’d at least want one at each end. But when they blew up the Dixons there were nine of them that Dixon spotted. They didn’t need nine. It must have been their sense of community. The group that blasts together lasts together. My bet was they’d show up in force. And they’d be careful. They’d be looking for a police setup. Anyone would. They wouldn’t be that stupid. So they’d be watching too.
I stood up. There was nothing to do but blunder into it. I’d stay out of the tunnel, and I’d keep away from open areas as best I could, and I’d look very carefully at everything. I knew them and they didn’t know it. Only one of them knew me. That was as much edge as I was going to get. The shoulder holster under my coat felt awkward. I wished I had more fire power. The steak and kidney pie felt like a bowling ball in my stomach as I headed out onto Prince Albert Road and caught a red double-decker bus back to Mayfair.
7
On the way back to my hotel I got off the bus on Piccadilly and went into a men’s specialty store. I bought a blond wig, a blond mustache, and some make-up cement to attach it. Spenser, man of a thousand faces. Outside my door there was a white talcum powder footprint. I kept on going past my room and on down the corridor. When it intersected with a cross corridor I turned right and leaned against the wall. There was no sign of anyone lurking. A standard approach to this kind of business would be one on the inside and one on the outside, but that didn’t seem the case. Of course it could have been a hotel employee on innocent business. But it might be someone who wanted to shoot me dead.
I put the bag with my disguise in it on the floor and slid my gun out of the shoulder holster. I held it in my right hand and folded my arms across my chest so the gun was concealed under my arm. There was no one in the corridor. I peeked around the corner. There was no one in that corridor either. I went down the corridor softly to my room. Took the key out of my pocket with my left hand; my right had the gun in it, chest-high now, and visible. The dim sounds of the hotel’s muffled machinery whirred on around me. The elevators going and stopping. The sound of air-conditioning apparatus, faintly a television playing somewhere.
The hotel door was dark oak, the room numbers in brass. I stood outside my room and listened. There was no sound. Standing to the right of the door and reaching with my left hand, I put the key as gently as I could into the lock and turned it. Nothing happened. I opened the door a fraction to free the catch. Then I wiggled the key out, and slipped it back in my pocket. I took a deep breath. It was hard to swallow. I shoved the door open with my left hand and rolled back out of sight against the wall to the right of the door. I had the hammer back on my gun. Nothing happened. No one made a sound. The lights were off, but the afternoon sun was shining and the room shed some light into the corridor.
I edged a few steps down the corridor so that I could get a better angle on the door, and crossed. If someone came out shooting they’d expect me to be where I had been, to the right of the door, on the same wall. I folded my arms again to hide the gun, and leaned against the wall and looked at the open door and waited. The elevator stopped to my right and a man in a tattersall vest got off with a lady in a pink pantsuit. He was bald, her hair was bluish gray. They looked past me, rigorously not being curious as they walked by. They were equally careful not to look into the open door of the room. I watched them as they went on. They didn’t look like bombers but who can tell a bomber by his appearance. You have to be a little suspicious of anyone who wears a tattersall vest anyway. They went into a room about ten doors down. Nothing else moved.