Plunder Squad

Two

Lou Sternberg stepped out of the plane and went carefully down the steps toward the tarmac, turning his raincoat collar up around his neck. He preferred airports where you went directly from the plane to the terminal, through an enclosed walkway. The sun was shining and the air was fairly warm, but there was a breeze; no sense looking for trouble.

He wasn’t going to be met at the airport, which was just as well. Give him a chance to relax a bit from the trip before having any business discussions. He carried his small brown suitcase into the terminal and out the other side to the taxi stand. The driver he drew was young and long-haired and hungry-looking; he had cowboy written all over him. Unfortunate, but there wasn’t much choice. Sternberg hoped the motel wouldn’t be too far away.

A short and stout man, Sternberg had difficulty getting into the back seat of most cars, including this one. He pushed the suitcase ahead of himself along the seat, then puffed and grunted himself into position, while the driver watched him alertly—even, perhaps, impatiently—in the rear-view mirror. “First Standard Motel,” Sternberg told him as he shut the door behind himself, and the driver immediately flipped down the metal arm to start the meter and tromped his foot on the accelerator. The cab jerked away from the curb, snapping Sternberg’s head back. He pursed his lips, and braced himself for the ride.

He did try to keep quiet, keep his opinions to himself, but the driver was just too recklessly incompetent. After running a stop sign at the terminal exit, he began to dart and weave through fairly heavy traffic, bouncing Sternberg and his suitcase back and forth on the rear seat, until at last Sternberg leaned forward, clutched the seatback in front of him, and called, “I’m not in any hurry.”

“I am.” The driver hunched over his wheel, and didn’t slacken speed.

“Perhaps I should take another taxi,” Sternberg said. He could feel his emotional state becoming increasingly unstable, just what he didn’t want before a business meeting.

“Look, fella,” the driver said, “I got a living to make.”

“You’re in the wrong occupation,” Sternberg told him. “You don’t know the first thing about driving an automobile. Now either slow down to the normal traffic flow, or find me another taxi.”

The driver responded with grumbling—the words “coward” and “chicken” were mixed in with it—but he also slowed down, and the rest of the fifteen-minute journey was at least bearable.

As they turned in at the motel, Sternberg thought he recognized Ed Mackey on the diving board over at the swimming pool; then the figure dove into the blue water. Sternberg shivered inside his raincoat.

The fare was two dollars; Sternberg gave him two singles and a quarter, and the driver studied the money in disgust and said, “Thanks, sport.”

“I would usually give fifty cents,” Sternberg said, “but I would like to encourage you to enter some different profession for which you might have more aptitude.”

The driver spun away in a cloud of bad temper, and Sternberg carried his suitcase into the office. He’d made his reservation in advance, so that was all right, but then there was trouble finding a bellboy to carry the bag to his room. “Most people have cars,” the desk clerk said, as though Sternberg were somehow at fault in not having one.

Sternberg pursed his lips. He said nothing, but his mind was full of acid comments on the continuing decline of service in America. Every time he came back, it seemed, the country had slid even further into its morass of sullen ineptitude. His little town house in London—2, Montpelier Gardens, S.W.6—was such a haven from all of this arrogant incompetence, it was a pity ever to have to leave it. But, as some unsung philosopher once said, “Don’t shit where you eat.” London was where Sternberg lived, with his plants and his promenades and his piano; he would never work there, never. The United States was where he earned his living, the necessary returns to the charnel house which made the London town house possible.

At last an ill-dressed and ill-dispositioned bellboy was found, and he led the way, carrying the suitcase and room key, out of the office and around the blacktop roadway toward the rooms.

They passed this time closer to the pool. That was Ed Mackey, now climbing up the ladder at the deep end. Mackey swept the hair back out of his eyes, looked over toward Sternberg going by in his raincoat, and waved, grinning. Sternberg touched the side of a finger to the brim of his cap in response, and moved on, leaving Mackey in his wake, standing there dripping beside the pool, hands on his hips, a big grin on his face.

The room was, of course, a plastic replica of an Italian Line stateroom. Sternberg sighed, placed a folded dollar bill in the bellboy’s flaccid hand, and firmly closed the door behind him.

Ghastly. Drinking glasses in the bathroom were encased in little white paper bags imprinted with a message including the word “sanitized.” A similar message was on the paper band bridging the toilet seat. It was like dating a sexual hysteric who can never stop talking about her virginity.

Motel cleanliness is next to motel paranoia; in the closet the hangers were in two sections, separable, so that the part which could be removed from the closet was useless without the part attached to the crossbar. Thus the motel protected itself from those who would rent a room only as a ruse to enable them to steal hangers.

The air conditioner had been on, but Sternberg switched it off first thing, turned the thermostat up to seventy-three, and opened the window slightly. By the time he’d unpacked and de-sanitized everything, the air in the room had a bit of life in it. Sternberg stripped to his boxer shorts, turned down the bed, settled himself comfortably with the pillows behind his back, and opened the Anthony Powell novel he’d started on the plane. It was Magnus Donners he wanted to identify with, but he kept finding his sympathies going to Widmerpool.

Forty-five minutes later the phone rang. It was, as Sternberg had expected, Ed Mackey: “Hello, Lou?”

“Speaking,” Sternberg said.

“This is Ed.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I guess you want to rest up for a while.”

“If possible.”

“We’re gonna have a meeting tonight. I’ll pick you up at nine.”

“Fine,” Sternberg said. “Have a good trip?”

“As good as could be expected,” Sternberg said. “I’ll see you at nine,” he said, to end the chit-chat. He hung up, and went immediately back to his book.