The Blackbird

Eleven

In a corner of the lobby was sitting Miss Vivian Kamdela, in textures of black. Black leather boots disappearing up under a black suede mini skirt, a black turtleneck sweater showing under an open, fitted black Russian coat decorated at collar and cuffs and hem with fluffs of black fur. The smooth texture of black skin and the woolly texture of black hair completed an arrangement that was somehow simultaneously wildly erotic and heavily menacing. The men walking by the cul-de-sac where she sat alone and apparently oblivious had a tendency to stare at her and fall over suitcases.

Thanking God he wasn’t a masochist, Grofield entered the cul-de-sac and sat down in the other short sofa facing her. “Hello again,” he said.

She looked in his general vicinity, but not directly at him, and said nothing.

Grofield persisted. “I’m ready to talk,” he said. “How about taking me to Marba?”

She looked away again. Her manner said that he did not exist.

“What’s up?” Grofield said. “I’m here to talk.”

This time she did look directly at him, eyes cold and impersonal. “You’ve made a mistake,” she said. “We haven’t met.”

“We’ve met, Vivian,” he said, and was pleased to see her eyes shift for a second at the sound of her name. “Not formally, maybe, but you did see a lot of me.”

A thin smile briefly touched her mouth, but she repeated, “You’ve made a mistake.”

“Not me,” he said, and now he was getting irritated. “There’ve been mistakes, Vivian, but I haven’t made them. Right now there’s a murdered man in my room upstairs, and if you people did it you ought to start giving me some damn good reasons why I shouldn’t blow the whistle on you.”

“Blow the whistle?” The curtains were still drawn behind her eyes. “If you have things you think you should tell someone officially, it is your duty to do so.”

“You aren’t paying attention, honey,” Grofield said. “I know what’s happening here this weekend. I know everybody’s here under assumed names, but I know who’s who. I know General Pozos is here. I know your president, Colonel Rahgos, is here. I know Onum Marba is here. I don’t know what name you’re registered under, but your real name is Vivian Kamdela and you’re with the mission from Undurwa. I tell you there’s a dead man in my room, and I’m not taking the rap for it. Now do you take me to Marba or do I start making loud embarrassing noises?”

The curtains had lifted now, showing worry underneath. Her brow furrowed, she said, “What do you mean, a dead man?”

“By a dead man I mean a man who’s dead. With a knife in him. Stabbed right through his textbook.”

“I know nothing of that,” she said. “We had nothing to do with that. I don’t know what you’re mixed up in, but... ”

“I’m mixed up in the Third World, and all because I’m a friend of your friend Marba. I want to talk to somebody. Marba’s my first choice, but the local authorities are a satisfactory substitution.”

She was looking more and more worried. If she’d been the type to chew her nails she’d have been gnawing away by now, but she wasn’t. All she did was sit there and look worried and also look as though she was thinking very hard.

Grofield sat back and let her think. He’d delivered his message to the messenger, now let the messenger decide to take it from there.

She did, at last, leaning forward and saying, “I’m not sure what to do at this point. Will you wait here for one moment?”

“I’ll wait for two moments. No more.”

“I’ll go and see,” she said, and got to her feet and went away, the black leather boots flashing below the fur-fringed black coat. Two men moving by in opposite directions walked into one another, gave perfunctory apologies without looking at one another, and drifted on.

Grofield sat back and waited. Whenever he stopped like this, his attention no longer required outside himself, he became aware again of the aftereffects of the drug he’d been given. His joints still ached and tingled slightly, a faint echo of the first pain he’d felt on coming out of the paralysis, and his nerves were a little jumpy, not as though he were nervous but as though he’d had too much coffee to drink. There didn’t seem to be any real physical impairment, just the slight reminiscent pain and the coffee nerves.

She wasn’t gone long, but having nothing but his own discomfort to think about made it seem long. When she came back he looked up at her expectantly, not really caring what her message was just so she’d distract him from himself, and she said, “You’re to come with me.”

Good. That was very distracting. “Where?” he said.

“Outside.”

“Why don’t I meet him in the hotel?”

“It was thought you would want privacy.”

“You mean,” Grofield said, “you people want privacy.”

She shrugged. “Do you want to meet Mr. Marba or not?”

“All right. I’ll come along.” He got to his feet. “But no rough stuff, all right?”

She frowned at him. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t want to be beaten up, or drugged, or kidnapped, or anything like that. Okay?”

“Who would do anything like that?”

“You’d be surprised,” he said. “Lead on.”

She led, and the two of them crossed the lobby together, and Grofield had an actor’s awareness of the picture they were making, the handsome actorish white man and the beautiful dramatic black woman crossing the baroque old Chateau Frontenac lobby together. Conversations and footsteps faltered all around them as they walked across the carpet and out the main doors.

The Chateau Frontenac has its own courtyard, where cars and cabs pull in. The main city is out to the right, and that’s the way she went, Grofield going along beside her, down to the right and through the arch and out to the Place d’Armes, the main square of the old city. Because it was off-season, only one hansom cab was waiting there, the horse wearing a blanket and exhaling double plumes of steam, the driver bundled up in an old brown overcoat with a brown fur collar and a green and orange wool cap pulled down over his ears.

The girl said, “We’ll take the cab. Tell him we want to see the Plains of Abraham.”

Grofield hesitated. It was one thing to want to force the issue, it was another to go skipping away blindly into potential deathtraps. “I’m not sure about this,” he said.

She gave him an impatient look. “What’s the matter? No one’s going to hurt you.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“I thought you said you knew Mr. Marba,” she said.

Grofield considered her, and she was right. It was Marba’s character he was relying on, and Marba’s character seemed to him to be cold and calculating and detached, but not violent. He wouldn’t consider approaching General Pozos like this at all, for instance, because of his idea of the general’s character. If his idea of Marba’s character was right, this approach was a sensible one and it didn’t matter where they met. If his idea of Marba’s character was wrong, this approach was doomed and it still didn’t matter where they met.

He shrugged and said, “Okay. We’ll do it your way.”

They crossed the street and woke the hansom driver out of a half snooze. Grofield said they wanted to see the Plains of Abraham, and the driver nodded vigorously and blew his nose vigorously and began clucking vigorously at his horse, which was also more asleep than awake. Neither man nor horse seemed at all struck by their passengers’ bi-racial nature.

Grofield and the girl sat side by side in the open cab. There was a heavy fur blanket on the seat across from them, and Grofield put it over both their laps. She thanked him, her first human touch, and the horse began to walk slowly forward, jerking the cab along behind him.

They traveled slowly around the Place d’Armes, a surprisingly dark square at night to be the middle of such a tourist area, and turned left up Rue Sainte Anne.

At first Grofield had no idea who was talking. A deep-throated muffled mutter seemed to hang in the air all around them, as though the fur blanket on their laps had decided to chat with them. But it wasn’t the fur, it was the cabman, who from within the depths of his overcoat and a thick scarf and the wool cap was reeling off his usual tourist patter as the horse unhappily plodded along like any milkman’s nag on the boringly familiar route. As they started up Rue Sainte Anne he told them they were passing the Anglican cathedral on their left, dedicated in 1804, the first cathedral of the Church of England ever built outside Great Britain. He gave more statistics, then went on to talk about the Price building and the Commercial Academy building and other ingots of fascinating lore.

Grofield looked at the girl, and found her grinning at him. She whispered, “Pay close attention, he gives an exam at the end of the trip.”

He whispered back, “I can’t decide if it’s the man talking or the horse.”

“It seems like the man,” she whispered, “but it isn’t. The horse is a ventriloquist.”

Grofield looked at her in amazement. A complete transformation had taken place. She was suddenly pleasant, cheerful, absolutely friendly.

He supposed it was the open air, the riding together in this touristy conveyance, the shared notion that the statistically mumbling driver was funny. But the change was so radical he was having trouble believing it. He nearly made a comment on it, but held back, afraid that to point at the new personality might shatter it. He was in no hurry to see Miss Hyde again.

They found more things to talk about, whispering together under the murmur of the driver, talking about the horse and driver, the things he was saying, the signs and buildings they passed. Nothing other than that, nothing about the situation they were in, or the world around them, or themselves, or the hotel, or anything at all that wasn’t prompted by specific things from the here and now. It was a slightly nervous feeling, skating along so totally on the surface like that, but she maintained it very well and he was always at his best when he had another good actor to work with, so while the horse clop-thumped pessimistically up Rue Sainte Anne, Grofield found himself ad-libbing a scene that might have been titled The Blind Date That Worked Out.

Meantime, they had turned left on Rue Dauphine. On their left, the driver grumbled at them, stood the Quebec Literary and Historical Society, in a building that was originally the Quebec jail. Public executions were once held in the courtyard behind the building, and in the basement tourists who got their kicks that way could still see the old cells.

A little past that they left the walled city, their driver informing them through his scarf that they were going through Kent Gate, built in 1879 by Queen Victoria in memory of her father. And after that, at last, he was quiet for a while.

This seemed to be a residential section, just beyond the wall, and even darker than the streets inside. Grofield began to get nervous again, and forgot about maintaining his part of the improvisation, which as a result faltered, and they rode in silence a little while, till they passed the Parliament, all lit up by floodlights on the lawn. In the reflected glow, Grofield saw the girl studying him, and when he looked at her she laughed and said, “You really are afraid.”

“Laugh at me later,” Grofield said. “When nothing has happened.”

“I will.”

Ahead was Grande Allée, a major street, well-illuminated and with a traffic light, which was going to be against them. The girl leaned close and whispered to Grofield, “We are going to see a friend and be happy to see him and invite him to ride with us. You tell the driver it’s all right.”

Grofield nodded.

The intersection was getting close, and the light was still red. The driver grumbled at his horse, which immediately stopped.

The girl suddenly cried, “Ronald!” and half stood and waved an arm. “Look, dear,” she said loudly to Grofield. “It’s Ronald.”

Grofield looked, and a man was coming this way across the sidewalk. He was tall and slender, but the light was behind him and Grofield couldn’t see his face.

The girl was saying things about isn’t-this-lucky, making a lot of happy noises. Grofield kept silent and watched, and when the man reached the side of the cab it was Onum Marba, on his face the small secret smile Grofield remembered from their last encounter, a year ago down in Puerto Rico. “How nice to see you both,” he said, the tone straight but his expression ironic.

“You must come with us,” the girl said. “We’re going to see the Plains of Abraham.” She jabbed a bony fist into Grofield’s side.

“Uh,” Grofield said. “Yeah, that’s right. Come on, Ronald, come for a ride with us.”

“If you’re sure it’s all right... ”

“Of course it’s all right,” Grofield said. “Come on, the light’s green.”

“Thank you very much,” Marba said. “I’d be delighted.”

He climbed up into the cab, settling in the seat facing Grofield and the girl, the driver up behind his head. The driver had been half twisted in the seat, watching without much interest, and now Grofield said to him, “Okay, we’re set.”

The driver grunted, and faced front. He mumbled at his horse, and the animal plodded slowly across Grande Allée and entered the park called the Plains of Abraham.

Marba leaned forward, his face now indistinct again in the general darkness. His skin was not as dark as the girl’s, it was more brown, but at the moment the effect was the same. He said, “You turn up in odd places, Mr. Grofield.”

“We both do, Mr. Marba.”

“I’m vacationing here,” Marba said. “Are you vacationing?”

“Not exactly. I was shanghaied by some American espionage organization — not the CIA, some other outfit, they won’t tell me what — and they sent me here to spy on you.”

Marba showed humorous surprise, being surprised because it was expected of him but not working very hard to make Grofield believe it. “Spy on me? Why on earth would anyone from the United States government want you to spy on me?”

“Because we used to know each other. The idea being I should work my way into your confidence, find out what’s going on, and then report.”

“I hope they aren’t wasting too much money on you,” Marba said. “I am only here on vacation.”

“Colonel Rahgos too?”

Marba smiled and said, “My President is not in Quebec.”

“Not under his own name,” Grofield said. “Neither are you. Neither is General Pozos. There are head men here from seven countries, three in Africa, two in South America, one in Central America and one in Asia, and they’re all here under phony names. There may be people here from other countries, too. The kind of country these espionage people call the Third World.”

Marba seemed to consider. Up front, the driver was mumbling away again about the historic battle between Wolfe and Montcalm, and it was beneath his patter that Grofield and Marba were having their conversation. Marba thought things over for half a minute or so, while the driver reported that both Wolfe and Montcalm were killed in the battle, and then he leaned close to Grofield again and said, “Setting aside for just a moment the ridiculousness of your implications — why would my President hold secret negotiations with leaders from South America, for instance? — but setting that aside, and taking it for granted you are telling me the truth insofar as you know it, why are you betraying your own people?”

“I’m not betraying anybody,” Grofield said. “I was forced into this, it was come here or go to jail, and to tell you the truth I might have gone along with it and done what they wanted, if I could. But this afternoon I was kidnapped and drugged, and when I got back to my hotel room there was a murdered man in it, and the time has come for me to look out for Number One. My own people, as you call them, won’t tell me anything, and the only other people I know around here are you and General Pozos. Of the two, you were likelier to be sober. And sensible. So I came to you.”

“For assistance?”

“For information and advice. And assistance too, if I need it.”

Marba smiled in amused admiration. “I remember the last time I saw you in action,” he said, “how impressed I was by your ability to use truth as a weapon. You wouldn’t be doing the same thing again, would you?”

“All I’m trying to do is get myself off the hook,” Grofield said. “Same as last time.”

“You do tend to get yourself in trouble, don’t you? But I don’t understand why you’re being so open and truthful with me. Why not do what you were ordered to do, come to me as though innocent and see what you can learn?”

Grofield shrugged. “I know you,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to try to con you.”

Marba smiled again, and waggled a finger in gentle reproof. “Grofield, Grofield, you’re trying to con me now.”

“How? I’m telling you the truth.”

“It wouldn’t be, would it, that you came to me because you knew I already knew the truth?”

Grofield sat back, studying Marba’s face. “I must have a bad reputation with you,” he said.

“On the contrary, my opinion of your abilities is very high.”

“Would it do any good to say I didn’t know you were onto me?”

“None. You can read signs as well as anyone. When Vivian didn’t return to question you again, when I showed no further interest in you, it had to mean I’d investigated in other ways and learned enough to know what you were up to.”

“You’re right,” Grofield said. “I should have realized that’s what it meant. I guess I was too busy with everything else that was going on.”

Marba smiled and shook his head. “It won’t do, Grofield,” he said. “Drop the denial, it will only cause bad feeling between us.”

Grofield shrugged. “Consider it dropped.”

“Good,” said Marba. “Now tell me what you really want.”

“Sure. I want two things. First of all, did you people kill Carlson?”

The girl made a sharp sound, and when Grofield turned his head to look at her she was staring at him in amazement. “That’s a goddamn thing to say!”

“A little softer, dear,” Marba said gently.

She looked quickly at him, then up at the driver’s back. “I’m sorry,” she said, much more softly, “but the arrogance of this man... ”

“From his point of view,” Marba told her, “it is a sensible question, and one he must ask.” He looked at Grofield. “No, we did not. Murder has no part in our plans here this weekend. Nor has espionage, if we can possibly avoid it.”

“You’re bugging my room, aren’t you?”

Marba smiled again. “A shot in the dark? Yes, you’re perfectly right, we have a microphone in your room.”

“Then you know who did kill him.”

“We have his voice, of course. But not his name, or his face. Would you like to hear the tape?”

“I’d love it,” Grofield said.

“When we get back, I’ll arrange it.”

The girl said something fast and low, in a liquid language Grofield had never heard before, but Marba answered her in English, saying, “Mr. Grofield isn’t a threat to us, dear. And of course he knows we have him under surveillance. There’s really no problem about playing that tape for him.”

Grofield said to her, “And it’s rude not to talk in English when I’m around.”

The successful blind date had been packed away in a trunk again, and the girl who was sitting beside him now was once more cold and aloof and disdainful, coming on just as she had back in the hotel lobby. And in his room earlier today. She said, “It’s rude of you to be in our company without learning our native tongue.”

“Children,” said Marba soothingly, the word and the manner oddly inaccurate from such a thin, controlled man. “We really don’t have time for spats. Mr. Grofield, you said you wanted two things. The murderer of your friend was the first. What is the second?”

Grofield considered correcting the notion that Henry Carlson had been his friend, and then decided to let it go. He said, “I need a story. I personally don’t care what you people are up to, I really don’t believe it can be anything of life and death importance to the United States, but I’m going to have to give these espionage people a believable story before they’ll let me go away and mind my own business again.”

“You want me to give you a story to tell?”

“I’d like the two of us to work on it together,” Grofield said. “You know what sort of thing you people could be here for, you know the sort of high-level political stuff that would sound right.”

“What is my motivation for helping you?” Marba asked him.

“If I fail,” Grofield told him, “the people who aimed me at you won’t let it go at that. They’ll try bugging your rooms, following you around, taking movies through keyholes, bribing waiters, all that sort of thing. They’ll be a constant source of irritation all weekend even if they don’t learn anything. But if you and I cook up a good believable story now, one they’ll swallow and one that will soothe them about your purpose here, they’ll go away and leave you alone and you’ll have the weekend to yourselves.”

Marba laughed, loudly enough to make the driver falter in his oral guidebook. The driver cleared his throat and went on, picking up his sentence again where he’d left off, and Marba said, “Grofield, I admire you, I truly do. You always find the most compelling reasons for everyone else to do the things that will benefit you.”

“What’s good for me is good for you,” Grofield said. “I’m just lucky.”

“Very lucky. All right, let me talk things over with some others, and I’ll contact you again later on. I have no doubt your reasoning will win the day.”

“Good.”

Marba turned to the girl. “Vivian, when you return to the hotel, take Mr. Grofield up to the monitor room. I’ll have called them by the time you get there to let them know you’re coming.”

Frowning, she said, “Is it good to let him see... ?”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Marba assured her. “Mr. Grofield won’t do anything to endanger our alliance.”

The girl shrugged irritably. She didn’t seem entirely convinced, and she sat there with her arms folded and a stubborn look around her mouth.

The cab was just turning into Rue St. Louis, heading down the long one-way street at the far end of which was the hotel. Marba stood up and said, “I’ll get in touch with you later, Grofield.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Marba nodded, and stepped down lightly from the cab while it was moving. Grofield waved to him, and then the cab went on, the horse clop-clopping on the stones, and Marba was out of sight. Three cars passed in the next minute, and he wondered idly which one of them contained Marba.

The girl hadn’t changed her posture or the look on her face. She was staring straight ahead, angry and disapproving. Grofield, trying to pick up the blind date improvisation again, leaned toward her and said, “That motel on the right was built by the Algonquin Indians in 1746, in honor of the Blessed Virgin of Guadaloupe. In the basement there’s the finest collection in North America of the eyeballs of martyred missionaries.”

There was no response. She continued to glower, with folded arms.

Grofield said, “What’s the matter? Don’t you believe me?”

She gave him an ice-cold look. “I don’t like you,” she said, and faced front again.

Grofield said, “How come? On the way up everything was very pleasant.”

She faced him again, still frozen-eyed. “If you must know,” she said, “on the way up I thought you were a patriot. I thought you were working for your country out of conviction. A patriot might be my enemy, if his country was my country’s enemy, but at least I would be able to respect him. But you aren’t a patriot, you were forced to be here and you don’t care at all that you are betraying your country. You don’t care for anything but yourself, you don’t understand the existence of anything larger than yourself. I despise you, Mr. Grofield, and I do not want to talk to you any more. And I don’t want you to talk to me.” She faced front again.

“Some day, Miss Kamdela,” Grofield said, “we’ll have a nice long talk about patriotism versus the draft. In the meantime, I’m going to take care of my own skin whether you approve or not.”

Throughout the remainder of the ride back to the Place d’Armes and the hotel, he had plenty of silent time to consider the inadequacy of that response.