A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [85]
‘I just can’t believe I’m being treated like this. And they have the nerve to pay me twelve thousand a year and still talk to me like that.’
‘It is kind of odd. I mean you’re there every night until eight or nine, right? Later sometimes.’
She’s finding it difficult to know what to say: my voice is shaking and I have taken her by surprise.
‘Wait a minute, Alec.’ There is a muffled noise on the line, like a piece of cloth being dragged across the receiver. ‘Fort’s trying to say something. What, honey? Yeah, that’s a good idea. Why don’t you come over here, for dinner, huh? We can talk about it. We haven’t eaten yet and besides, we haven’t seen you in almost two weeks.’
I wasn’t expecting this. It could all happen quicker than I anticipated.
‘Now? Are you sure it’s not too late? Because that would be great.’
‘Sure it’s not too late. Come on over. I got a chicken here needs roasting. There’s easily gonna be enough for three. Get a cab and you’ll be here in a half-hour.’
They both come to the door. Katharine’s face is a haven of sympathy; her hair is brushed out and she’s wearing a long black dress with red roses imprinted on the cotton. Fortner looks unsettled, nervous even. He is wearing flannel trousers and a white shirt, with an old, canary yellow tie knotted tight against his larynx.
‘Come on in,’ says Katharine, putting her arm across my shoulders. They’ve obviously decided that she’ll play the mother figure. ‘You’ve had a shitty day.’
‘I’m really sorry to bother you like this.’
‘No. God, no. We’re your friends. We’re here for you. Right, Fort?’
Fortner nods and says ‘Of course’ like he has something else on his mind.
‘You wanna fix Alec a drink, honey? What do you feel like?’
‘Do you have any vodka?’
‘I think we have some left over from the last time you went at it,’ Fortner says, going into the kitchen ahead of me. ‘You have it straight, Alec, or with tonic?’
‘Tonic and ice,’ Katharine calls after him, smiling at me broadly.
I am invited to come in and sit down, which I do, on the large window-facing sofa with the coffee table in front of it. All the lamps are on to make the room feel warm and cosy; there’s even jazz drifting out of the CD player. It’s John Coltrane or Miles Davis, one or the other. I light a cigarette and look over at Katharine who has sat down on the sofa facing mine. I allow myself a little courageous smile, a gesture to suggest that things aren’t as bad as I might have made out on the phone. I want to appear gutsy, while at the same time eliciting their sympathies.
Fortner emerges with my drink in a large tumbler. As far as I can make out they aren’t having anything themselves. There’s an ice-melted glass on the mantelpiece above the fire, but it’s a leftover from early evening.
As Fortner hands me my drink, I smell shaving foam or aftershave on him, and indeed his face does look unduly smooth for this time of night. Is it possible that he has preened himself for me, as if I were the vicar coming for tea? He walks around the coffee table and falls heavily into his favourite armchair, the collapse of a man whose evening rhythm has been disturbed. There’s a smile on his face which his eyes aren’t backing up. My visit has thrown him: he’d like to have gone to bed with a Grisham and seen the day off. Now he has to re-engage his mind and give this situation his full attention.
‘So come on. Spit it out,’ he says, not unkindly. ‘What’d they say to you?’
‘Just what I said on the phone,’ I tell him, taking a sip of the vodka. He’s made it strong, at least a double, and I am wary of this. Have to keep my wits about me.
‘Go through it again for Fort, sweetie. He didn’t hear our conversation.’
So, for the old man’s benefit, I retread the shape of the threat from Abnex.
‘You know, at least I’ve always told you, that I don’t really get on with the two senior guys on my team.’
‘What are their names?’ he asks. ‘Cohen, is that it, and Alan Murray?’
‘Harry Cohen, yes. They’re very tight, very good friends.’
‘And you feel that they…?’
Katharine says:
‘Let him finish, honey.’
‘Right