Yet he was important.
Somehow he fit into a pattern Trewitt could not understand.
He was important enough to kill, which made him important enough to save.
“Hey, Mister Gangster Man. You coming?” the Mexican called in his border English.
Trewitt rolled over and began to squirm up the mountain. At least where he was going there was a view.
42
Chardy awoke with a headful of ideas, but before he could begin to decide how to pursue them, the telephone rang.
“Chardy.”
“Chardy, it’s Miles. Listen, you better get over here. We’ve got a bad situation on our hands. Danzig.”
“What’s wrong?”
“He wants you. And only you. He doesn’t want us. At all.”
“Miles, I—”
“Chardy, you have to get over here. The guy is acting crazy. Get over here, goddammit.”
Chardy dressed and arrived within an hour and found Miles pacing the library, pasty under his acne, surrounded by other somber agents who would look at nothing.
“Take him up,” Miles directed coldly.
Chardy turned to leave with a younger man. But Miles grabbed him.
“Paul. Just calm him down. All right? Just take it easy with him. Don’t stir him up. Okay? Don’t let me down on this, all right?”
“Sure, Miles,” said Chardy.
Chardy rose through the levels of the house with the other agent, coming at last to the top floor.
“It’s down there,” the man said. “Third door. His office.”
“He’s really flipped?”
“He called Miles a Russian dupe. Miles. The little priest. He said we were all KGB. He said he was being held against his wishes. He tried to call Sam Melman. Miles almost died. He said he knew reporters all over town, he was going to have a news conference. He was going to tell them the Agency was trying to kill him — the whole thing was an Agency plot. He ordered Miles out of his house. He told him to go hide at the cathedral. He told him he could have the DCI over here in fifteen minutes. He told him he was looking for a gardener, would Miles like the job? All the time he was in his bathrobe, with his cock hanging out. He smells like a wino. All in all, it was quite a morning. And before nine. Jesus, Chardy, I want off this one. A bad op can stink up your records for years. I want to go back to South America, where it’s safe.”
Chardy thanked him and went to the door. He knocked.
“Chardy?” The whisper was ominous.
“Yes.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
Locks clicked and tumbled; the door cracked open.
“Quick.”
Chardy slipped into the twilight. The shades drawn, all lights off. In this darkness Chardy stood, momentarily paralyzed. Behind him the door clicked shut.
His eyes adjusted. The room, large, was cased in books. Files lay all around, sheets of paper, index cards, clipped articles, photocopies. Two card tables stood inundated in paper. Two desks against a far wall bore heavy loads as well.
“Sit down. Over there.”
Chardy walked, slipping once on a pencil. Cups, glasses with a few stale ounces of liquid in them, were everywhere. He sat gingerly on a folding chair.
“What time is it?”
Chardy smelled something sour as he turned his wrist to see his Rolex. “Nine,” he said. “In the morning.”
Danzig, unshaven, sat across from him in a bathrobe. His hair swirled about his head, unwashed. The odor was from him.
“They say this room isn’t wired,” Danzig said.
“I don’t think we wired anything,” Chardy said.
“Where have you been?”
“I had to go home. I was only gone a night.”
“You look tired.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well.”
But Danzig wasn’t interested in Chardy’s sleep. Now, with an almost comically exaggerated look of conspiracy, he seemed to swoop in on Chardy, his features enormous, rabbinical, his eyes quite mad. His odor was overpowering.
“It’s all a setup, isn’t it? It’s completely phony — it’s a scheme, isn’t it? Or are you part of it? They tried to ruin you, you know. When you came back from prison. Then just weeks ago after the shooting. I saved you. I intervened. Chardy, they want you dead. They hate you too. They hate me. For something I did, something I know. And it’s all part of—”
He stopped suddenly and began to weep.
Chardy was embarrassed for him. He watched silently.
“Chardy. Help me,” Danzig said. “Don’t let them kill me.”
“If you stay here, you’ll be all right. Just stay here — you have nothing to fear from these men downstairs.”
A sudden spurt of energy jerked through Danzig; he lurched up, twisting away, staggering through stacked books and sheets of paper and files, slipping, knocking them aside.
“You and I are natural allies in this thing. We are. We’re the same man, really. Yours the physical component, mine the intellectual. Help me, Chardy. You’ve got to promise; you’ve got to help me. They’re trying to get rid of both of us, don’t you see? You and I, we’re linked. Somehow.”
Chardy watched him stagger through the room.
“Do you swear to me, Chardy? You’ll help me?”
“I—”
“The Kurd is a triggerman. Don’t you see? Perhaps he doesn’t even know the real reason behind all this. The woman was another pawn. Perhaps you are still a third. It’s a plan, a plot, a design only they know. Why? I have to know. Why?”
Chardy said, “They tell me only that it’s as straightforward as it seems. That Ulu Beg is here for vengeance, because he feels we — you — betrayed his people and let the Russians kill them.”
“Do you believe that? Chardy, look at me. Do you believe that? Really, deeply, do you believe that?”
“I don’t know,” said Chardy. “I just don’t know.”
“It’s phony. And I’ll prove it.”
“How?”
“The answer is here. In this room.”
Chardy looked around the dishevelment. Yes, somebody had been looking.
“Do you know what I’ve got here? I’ve got a duplicate set of the Agency operational reports for the years during which I was Secretary of State; I’ve got the records; I’ve got the secrets; I’ve got all the analyses, the—”
“How the fuck did you—”
“I’ve had it for years. I had my friends in the Agency too, you know. For some time there was a considerable Danzig faction. I used a lot of the material for my first book. It’s in here, in these records. I’ll find it. But I need time. And they know I need time.”
“I just—”
“Chardy! Listen!”
Danzig had closed in on him and stood inches away. His eyes gleamed; he seemed on the verge of a seizure. He touched Chardy.
“Chardy. This man is a foreigner. He’s six feet two inches tall and probably doesn’t know the difference between a nickel and a dime. He doesn’t know what a hamburger is. Tell me this: Why hasn’t he been caught? They said it would be days. It’s been weeks. They’ve got him somewhere. They’re manipulating him into place.”
“Just stay here. Stay in this room. Don’t leave this room unless I tell you to. You’ll be all right. You have nothing to fear.”