It took Keeling and Spiceman longer to get through the airport because they had to butter up various officials and inquire about their families. Once outside, they climbed into the rear of a waiting rented stretched Cadillac limousine.
As the limousine pulled away, Keeling pressed the button that lowered the dividing glass and said, “How are you, Henry?”
“Just fine, Mr. Keeling,” the driver said.
“You bring the dry ice?”
“It’s up here in the Styrofoam thing.”
Keeling reached into his breast pocket, brought out two metal tubes, the kind that cigars sometimes come in, and handed them to the driver.
“Jesus, they’re cold!”
“They’re frozen,” Spiceman said. “We want to keep ’em that way.”
“Yes, sir,” Henry said, opened the Styrofoam container, and carefully placed the two metal tubes on the steaming dry ice. After making sure that Henry refastened the lid securely, Keeling pressed the button that raised the dividing window, and leaned back in his seat to enjoy the ride.
The co-pilot arrived ten minutes early at the AA meeting, which was being held that night in the basement auditorium of the nearby Sinai Temple. He poured himself a cup of coffee, picked out two sugar cookies that looked home-baked, and went in search of a pay phone, which he found in the hall.
He ate one of the cookies first, took a sip of the coffee, looked at his watch, put the coffee and the remaining cookie down on a chair, dropped some coins into the telephone, and dialed a number, which was answered with a hello halfway through the first ring.
“Room 542,” the co-pilot said. “The Gotham, ten P.M., Mr. Minder.”
“Minder?” the voice that had said hello asked.
“Minder.”
“Thank you,” the voice said, and the phone went dead.
The co-pilot picked up his coffee and the cookie, which he ate as he wandered back into the auditorium. It was beginning to fill up. The co-pilot’s practiced eye spotted the fresh fish coming through the door. The fish was a shaky forty-two-year-old male who looked pale and sick and terribly frightened. The co-pilot guessed that the fish was less than a week off a six-month drunk.
The co-pilot’s mouth spread itself into a wide, warm smile as he moved over to the fish, stuck out his hand, and said, “Hi. I’m Don. How’s it going, pal — a little rough?”
The man who had taken the telephone call from the co-pilot was Gambia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Dr. Joseph Mapangou, who lived far above his means in a $2,150-a-month one-bedroom-with-den apartment on East 60th, which almost, but not quite, commanded a view of Central Park.
During his nine years in New York, Dr. Mapangou had built the reputation of being one of the UN’s most charming and lavish hosts. There was some small argument over whether he actually spent more than the Kuwait delegation, but there was no argument at all over his ranking as the UN’s most delightfully wicked gossip.
As the principal representative of Africa’s smallest nation, Dr. Mapangou’s official duties and obligations were minimal, almost non-existent, and he had spent his first two years at the UN simply making friends, which he did with remarkable ease. For Dr. Mapangou was a naturally gregarious man, totally without pretense, who found everyone equally fascinating. He also was a true democrat, perhaps the only one accredited to the UN, and certainly the only delegate who still believed that the organization was really the parliament of the world.
It was perhaps because of his innocence that others confided in Dr. Mapangou. They told him their most awful secrets even though they knew he simply could not keep his mouth shut. And because he revealed everything he knew to others, they, in turn, confided in him even darker secrets, which he cheerfully recounted to anyone who would listen.
The Italians, of course, had been the first to recognize Dr. Mapangou’s true value. The Italians were having a minor but irritating problem with a stubborn delegate from Somalia. Over an expensive lunch at Lutèce, the Italians had whispered to Dr. Mapangou about the Somalian delegate’s shocking peculations. By nightfall it was all over the UN. By the next morning it had reached Mogadishu, and by that afternoon the Somalian delegate had been ordered home, much to the Italians’ immense satisfaction.
Indeed, so grateful were they to Dr. Mapangou for his small favor that the Italians sent him an expensive silver coffee service. Dr. Mapangou immediately pawned it for four hundred dollars, which he needed to help pay the rent on the third-floor walk-up in the East Village where he then lived.
During the next few years, Dr. Mapangou became the UN’s unofficial clearinghouse for rumor and innuendo of the base, vicious, and scurrilous kind. He was valued and even respected for two qualities: first, his meticulous accuracy, and second, his refusal ever to reveal his sources. Because of all this, he was not only tolerated but indeed encouraged by the spies and rumor-mongers who made extensive use of his services and rewarded him with expensive and easily pawnable gifts that Dr. Mapangou used to help finance his increasing social responsibilities.
On the anniversary of his seventh year at the UN, Dr. Mapangou found himself immensely popular and nearly ninety thousand dollars in debt — all because of his lavish hospitality. The exact figure of his debts was $89,831.19, and it stared up at him in red from the Litronix pocket calculator that rested on his desk next to the stack of bills and nasty letters from assorted collection agencies.
It was the morning after the party he had given himself in observance of his seventh anniversary with the UN and he was still in his pajamas. Around him in his East Village living room was all the depressing evidence of the previous night’s party. During the party he had gleaned one delicious item that he knew would be worth at least a thousand dollars to the East Germans. But what good would a thousand dollars do? Dr. Mapangou pressed the C button on the calculator, which erased the hateful $89,831.19 figure. Three tears began to roll down his plump cheeks as he picked up his breakfast, which consisted of a piece of stale toast that he dipped into the remains of last night’s caviar. He was still sniffing back his tears and chewing on the toast and caviar when the pounding began at his door.
Dr. Mapangou didn’t bother to put on a robe. Instead, he wiped away the tears with a used cocktail napkin and went to the door in his pajamas. He knew who it was. It was the police. They had come to seize him, to clap him into some kind of debtors’ prison. He opened the door. A big man with a rubbery face stood there. In his hand was an attaché case.
“You Dr. Joseph Mapangou?”
Dr. Mapangou tried to smile but couldn’t. “I will get dressed,” he said and turned away.
“What for?” said the man as he came in and closed the door.
“I cannot go like this.”
“Go where?” the man said and moved over to the switch on the television set. “Where’s your bathroom?”
Dr. Mapangou pointed. The rubbery-faced man went in and turned on all the taps in both the bath and the basin. He then lifted the top off the toilet and did something to the float bulb inside that made the toilet run and gurgle.
After that he came back into the living room, looked around, and moved to the desk, where he shoved the stack of bills and the Litronix calculator to one side. He placed the attaché case on the desk and glared at Dr. Mapangou.
“My name’s Arnold,” lied Franklin Keeling, the ex-CIA agent. “You’re going to work for me.”