Pause while Rooke on the other end of the line affects to do a double take. "Mr. Peter Thomas?"
"No. I'm Derek. Wrong Thomas."
"Sony about that. Must be the one in 22."
Jonathan rang off and muttered "Idiot." He showered, dressed and returned to the drawing room, to find Frisky slouched in an armchair, combing the in-house magazine for erotic stimulus. He dialled room 22 and heard Rooke's voice saying hullo.
"This is Mr. Thomas in 319. I've got some laundry to be collected, please. I'll leave it outside the door."
"Right away," said Rooke.
He went to the bathroom, took a bunch of handwritten notes that he had wedged behind the tank, wrapped them in a dirty shirt, put the shirt in the plastic laundry bag, added his socks, handkerchief and underpants, scribbled a laundry list, put the list in the bag and hung the bag on the outside door handle of his suite. Closing the door, he glimpsed Millie from Rooke's training team in London stomping down the corridor in a stern cotton dress to which was pinned a name badge saying "Mildred."
* * *
The Chief says to kill time till further orders, Frisky said.
So to Jonathan's delight they killed time ― Frisky armed with a cellular phone and Tabby trailing sulkily behind for added killing power. But Jonathan, for all his fears, felt lighter of heart than at any time since he had set out from the Lanyon on his odyssey. The improbable prettiness of the old buildings filled him with a joyful nostalgia. The floating market and the floating bridge enchanted him exactly as they were supposed to. Like a man released from prison, he gazed dotingly on the boisterous throngs of sun-pink tourists and listened in marvel to the native chatter of Papiamento mingling with the startled accents of the Dutch. He was among real people again. People who laughed and stared and shopped and jostled and ate sugar buns in the street. And knew nothing, absolutely nothing, of his business.
Once, he spotted Rooke and Millie drinking coffee at a pavement restaurant and, in his new mood of irresponsibility, nearly gave them a wink. Once, he recognised a man called Jack who had shown him how to use impregnated carbon to make secret writing at the training house in Lisson Grove.
Jack, how are you? He glanced round, and it was not Frisky's head or Tabby's that was bobbing along beside him in his imagination, but Jed's chestnut hair fluttering in the breeze.
I don't get it, Thomas. Do you love somebody for what he does for a living? I'm not into that.
What if he robs banks?
Everybody robs banks. Banks rob everybody.
What if he killed your sister?
Thomas, for Christ's sake.
If you could just call me Jonathan, he said.
Why?
It's my name. Jonathan Pine.
Jonathan, she said. Jonathan. Oh shit! It's like being sent back to the beginning at a gymkhana and made to start all over again. Jonathan... I don't even like it. Jonathan... Jonathan...
Maybe it'll grow on you, he suggested.
Returning to the hotel, they walked into Langbourne in the lobby, surrounded by a group of dark-suited moneymen. He was looking angry, the way he might look when his car was late or someone refused to sleep with him. Jonathan's good humour only added to his irritation.
"Have you seen Apostoll hanging around anywhere?" he demanded without so much as a hullo. "Bloody little man's gone missing."
"Not a dickybird," said Frisky.
The furniture had been cleared from Jonathan's drawing room. Bottles of Dom Perignon lay in a tray of ice on a trestle table. A couple of very slow waiters were unloading plates of canapés from a trolley.
"You press the flesh," Roper had said, "you kiss the babies, look wholesome."
"What if they come at me with business talk?"
"They won't. Clowns'll be too busy counting the money before they get it."
"Could you possibly bring some ashtrays," Jonathan asked one of the waiters. "And open the windows if you don't mind. Who's in charge?"
"Me, sir," said the waiter who wore the name Arthur.
"Frisky, give Arthur twenty dollars, please."
With ill grace, Frisky handed over the money.
* * *
It was Crystal without the amateurs. It was Crystal without Jed's eye to catch across the room. It was Crystal opened to the public and swamped by high-powered Necessary Evils ― except that tonight Derek Thomas was the star. Under Roper's benign eye, the polished former night manager shook hands, flashed smiles, remembered names, made witty small talk, worked the room.
"Hullo, Mr. Gupta, how's the tennis? Why, Sir Hector, how jolly nice to see you again! Mrs. Del Oro, how are you? How's that brilliant son of yours doing at Yale?"
A buttery English banker from Rickmansworth took Jonathan aside to lecture him on the value of commerce to the emerging world. Two pumice-faced bond sellers from New York listened impassively.
"I'll tell you bluntly ― I'm not ashamed of it ― I've said it before to these gentlemen. I'll say it again now. With your Third World today, what matters is how they spend the stuff, not how they make it. Plough it back. Only rule of the game. Improve your infrastructure, raise your social standards. Beyond that, anything goes. I mean it. Brad here agrees with me. So does Sol."
Brad spoke with his lips so close together that Jonathan at first didn't realise he was speaking at all. "You, ah. have expertise at all, Derek? You, ah. an engineer, sir? Surveyor? Something of. ah, that kind?"
"Boats are my best thing, really," said Jonathan cheerfully. "Not Dicky's sort. Sailing boats. Sixty foot's about as far as I like to go."
"Boats, huh? I love 'em. He, ah, likes boats."
"Me too," says Sol.
The party ended with another orgy of handshakes. Derek, it's been an inspiration. You bet. Take care, now, Derek. You bet. Derek, there's a job for you in Philly anytime you say.... Derek, anytime you're in Detroit.... You bet.... Enraptured by his performance, Jonathan stood on the balcony smiling at the stars, scenting the oil on the dark sea wind. What are you doing now? Supper with Corkoran and the Nassau set ― Cynthia who breeds Sealyhams, Stephanie who tells fortunes? Discussing yet more menus for the winter cruise with barely affordable Delia, the Iron Pasha's coveted chef? Or are you lying with your head in the white silk cushion of your arm, whispering, Jonathan, for Christ's sake, what's a girl to do?
"Time for the nosebag, Tommy. Can't keep the gentry waiting."
"I'm not hungry, actually, Frisky."
"I don't expect anybody is, Tommy. It's like church. Come on."
* * *
Dinner is in an ancient fort on a hilltop overlooking the harbour. Seen from here at night, little Willemstad is as big as San Francisco, and even the blue-grey cylinders of the refinery have a stately magic. The MacDanbies have taken a table for twenty, but only fourteen can be raised. Jonathan is being recklessly amusing about the cocktail party; Meg and the English banker and his wife are laughing themselves sick. But Roper's attention is elsewhere. He is staring down into the harbour, where a great cruise ship decked with fairy lights is moving between anchored cargo vessels toward a distant bridge. Does Roper covet it? Sell the Pasha, get something a decent size?
"Substitute lawyer's on his way, damn them," Langbourne announces, returning yet again from the telephone. "Swears he'll be here in time for the meeting."
"Who are they sending?" says Roper.
"Moranti from Caracas."
"That thug. Hell's happened to Apo?"