"Would you like more coffee, or a soft drink, or…?"
"A whisky."
The stewardess blocked his view of One and for a few seconds he panicked. But he smiled and forced himself to relax: how could he escape? Besides, according to the complicated rules of Three's game, One had no idea who Two was. Hey, he didn't know that Two existed any more than human beings are aware of death like a worm inside them.
"Two is the death of One," he said, imprudently, out loud.
"Excuse me?" The stewardess was handing him the glass of whisky.
"No, no, 1 was…" And he made a vague gesture that meant it didn't matter. The stewardess continued on her way, and Two could see that One was still looking ahead of him, as if at another passenger.
Zero, who didn't know that's what he was called, made a vague gesture to refuse the coffee, or soft drink, or… Although the handcuff that attached him to the briefcase bothered him a little, he was absolutely faithful to the procedure he'd followed on the eighty-two previous trips. He was pretending to be a perfumier carrying formulas and samples from one branch to another so that, if he had to, he could justify taking the briefcase with him everywhere. In fact, it contained, aside from four innocent papers designed to distract any customs officials who might be curious about the contents, the notebook he'd just stolen from Three, showing the bank statements for the past five years that he'd done collection for the business, and condemning Three and all of his family to death. Because even just the first five pages of that bankbook were enough to paper him over for life.
Of course Zero was afraid. Very afraid. Because his hours were numbered: make the payment, turn the book over to the police in Barcelona, with the delayed-access system to cover his tracks, call the clinic to tell her to do what she had to do, and meet her after the eight-hour flight to Rio. Meet them. Because the three that's a crowd was what had made them, him and the woman, decide that Zero had to change his life. His wife didn't know that Zero was called Zero, of course. Or that she was called Double Zero and their son Little Zero. We are always ignorant of the plans of the gods. Very afraid, was Zero: but things had to turn out according to their very careful plans. He'd turned down what the stewardess offered because the pressure of the situation had upset his stomach.
111(o)
in the hotel dining room, Two fell in love with a table for one next to the window. He found it very strange that One, who didn't have to stay in that hotel, should be eating supper there. That's his problem, he thought. He just had to follow orders. It was irritating, but he settled down to sharing a dining room with his victim and lit a cigarette so he could hide behind the smoke. Maybe it was to avoid unpleasant thoughts that he imprudently ordered an 1864 from the maitre d' and a very rare steak to go with it. The maitre d' raised his eyebrows because it had been two years since someone had ordered a whole bottle. No doubt because One noticed the bottle ordered by the man sitting by the window, he ordered one too, and the maitre d', happy as a clam, said to the headwaiter that life is full of surprises. Yes, it certainly is. Especially if Three has planned them that way.
While One was tasting the wine-magnificent, well preserved, well aged-he saw something he didn't like at all. Zero was coming into the dining room with an unknown woman. That wasn't in the program. Zero was supposed to have supper in the hotel and then go right to bed, because the money contact was scheduled for early the next morning. But he was such a smart guy that… Oh, and the way they moved and talked, it looked like it wasn't the first time they'd seen one another. So Zero had a lover in Barcelona. Or maybe she was… One had understood that Zero had a wife in Paris. She probably saw her lover every time Zero was away making contacts. He noticed that he was still carrying the briefcase, even now.
"How about that table?" Zero gestured with his free hand.
"Perfect." The woman walked over to it, politely acknowledged a man at the next table who was working away at a big steak, and waited for Zero to pull out her chair. One, who'd observed every detail, concluded that she was a working girl. The couple sat down, the waiter moved into position with the menus, and before they started to look at them, she pointed to the handcuff and the briefcase that was supposed to kill him.
"What's that? An engagement bracelet?"
"No." He looked around, his glance passing over One and Two, and signalled to the maitre d' as he turned to the woman. "Shall we go ahead and order wine, Mary?"
"Katty."
When the maitre d' came over, Zero smiled at him. "Bring us some red wine. The best one you've got."
"An 1864, for example?"
The maitre d', when Zero couldn't see him, winked at the woman and moved away shaking his head: he couldn't believe it. The woman kept at him.
"Why are you carrying it like that, attached?"
"Secret formulas."
"Wow. So you're a spy?"
"No, the opposite: 1 don't want to be spied on." To make her shut up, "Perfume."
"And we're supposed to go to bed with that?"
Zero laughed. He liked the joke. This was the first time he was doing things a different way. Usually he waited to screw until the job was done, but because this time he had to hurry off, he wanted to do things backwards. For supper, they had a good wine and a little something to eat.
IV (2)
At the hour when dogs take their owners out for a walk, One went back to his hotel, after making sure that Zero had gone to his room to perform an uncomfortable menage a trois with the woman and the briefcase, and Two resisted the temptation to follow him and went up to his room. In the hall on the tenth floor, the maid for that floor, her cart full of those little details that make it a pleasure to stay at our hotel, gave him a professional smile highlighted by an anachronistic gold tooth, and went on her way. Two let his mind wander for half an hour, looking out the window at the lights and more lights from the nighttime traffic on the Rambla de Catalunya and thinking that being a hit man wasn't so bad if they paid you this much and you had to perform just a few times a year. And he was always covered, especially if he worked for the enigmatic Three, who had things taken care of before they even happened. He didn't recognize One as the man with the moustache who was slouching along in front of the movie theater. It was too far to be able to make him out. Nor did One, who was now heading back to his hotel, look up to see if Two was looking at him, because he didn't know he existed, any more than Three knew he was called Three, because if he knew that, then he might have guessed at the presence of Two, who was now a shadow in the window that looked at him without seeing. Another thing Two didn't know was that there, in his own hotel, Zero, who hadn't been informed that he was now a widower and the father of a dead child, was hard at it with a woman and a briefcase, and that Zero was nothing more than his victim's victim and so a victim of himself, just as my friends' friends are friends of mine.
V (1)
The payment was made in the chosen place, the lookout on Tibidabo. One watched as Zero, still attached to the briefcase, opened it with the secret combination, put the packet handed to him by an unknown man inside and headed for the phone booth conveniently hidden by bushes, paying no attention to the earlymorning panorama of Barcelona swarming below him. One had to wait for Zero to make the call, also unexpected, before going after him.