A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [122]
The foyer is an enclosed hall with high white walls and a chequered marble floor. There is a mirror to one side with a wooden umbrella stand directly below it. Opposite that, above an empty cream mantelpiece, hangs a large watercolour depicting thin children at the seaside, paddling in the shallows. I stop and wait, hearing heavy footsteps coming down a staircase. There is a deep male cough, what sounds like the rustling of small change in a pocket, and then a man comes into the hall through a door in front of me.
Donald G. Atwater is a large, humourless American, full of expensive lunches. He moves towards me more quickly than his short stumpy legs would otherwise suggest.
‘Alec Milius?’ he enquires in a slurred Virginian drawl. He is holding a small white envelope in his left hand.
‘That’s right.’
‘Privilege to meet you, sir.’
‘Sir’ sounds absurd coming from a man of such size, a man who must be twice my age, but I am well used by now to empty American flatteries. I look at the heavy pods of fat on his face as he extends a hand which I briefly shake. His palm is dry and hard.
‘You got the package?’ he asks.
Down to business right away. No pleasantries.
‘Yes. But first I have to ask who you are.’
He seems surprised by this and gives me a strange sideways glance.
‘I’m Don Atwater.’
‘Do you have some sort of identification?’
He fishes around in his pockets for a business card, die-stamped with his name.
‘Thank you. I just had to be sure.’
Atwater cranes his neck back and looks down his nose into my eyes. There is an unsettling quality about this man, a suggestion of lazy ruthlessness.
‘You wanna come in or are you happy doing this out here?’ he says, glancing carelessly around. Somehow we have got off on the wrong foot.
‘Why don’t we just do it here?’
‘Fine,’ he says, curtly.
I take the envelope out of the folded-up newspaper. Atwater reaches out and takes it with a thin smile, his eyes staying focused on the pale manila. He tucks the file firmly under his left arm and coughs at a higher pitch than before. Neither of us says anything, as if in deference to the moment. Then, as this awkward silence draws out, I ask:
‘Why was it necessary for me to give this to you?’
‘Excuse me?’ he says. He has a way of talking which implies that I am wasting his time.
‘This isn’t the way we normally proceed.’
‘I’m just acting on behalf of my client,’ he says, down-curling his lip. Interesting that he used the word ‘client’ there, singular. He may be working on behalf of an Agency case officer higher up the food chain. But I might be jumping the gun: Atwater may have no knowledge of the contents of the file and consequently no idea of the real importance of JUSTIFY. He may be just what the Americans said he is: a lawyer, acting as a middle-man.
‘Then is there any reason why your client was so adamant that we meet this late on a weekday night?’
‘Mr Milius,’ he says, making no attempt to disguise an impatience with my questions. ‘As I understand it, the fewer people who know about this the better. Am I right?’
‘Right.’
‘Hence the midnight exchange.’
‘I’m sorry I asked.’
‘Not a problem,’ he says. Atwater reaches out sideways with his right arm and leans against the wall, propping up his vast bulk with a splayed-out hand.
‘I have instructions to authorize the release of funds to you in escrow.’
‘Yes.’
He pauses briefly before saying:
‘The money is being held at the Chase Manhattan Bank in Philadelphia. Inside this envelope you will find the account details.’
He passes me the small white envelope, lick-sealed with no writing on it. I place it in the back pocket of my trousers.
‘Thank you.’
Atwater lifts himself away from the wall and makes a move towards his jacket pocket.
‘I also have something that my client wanted me to give to you.’
‘What is it?’
‘A gift. A gesture of thanks.’
I was waiting for this to happen. One day.
‘My client said that you would understand their not giving it to you in person,’ he says, finding