The Mordida Man

21

Dunjee found Harold Hopkins where Hopkins had said he would be — in the bar of the Hassler. Hopkins had a drink before him and in his hand a brochure that advertised bus tours of Rome.

“They’ve got a nice one here that leaves at noon and gets back around four,” Hopkins said. “But I’m thinking that today might not be the day for it.”

“No,” Dunjee said. “It won’t be.” He ordered a whisky and water.

“You know how much my room is?” Hopkins said.

“How much?”

“Seventy quid, that’s how much.”

“Nice room?”

“The price ruins it.” He moved his drink around in small circles on the bar as though it helped him think about what he planned to say next. Finally he said, “So far the money’s been right.”

Dunjee waited. When Hopkins remained silent, Dunjee said, “But?”

Hopkins turned to look at Dunjee. The look was cold and speculative. “But I don’t know what it’s all about, do I?”

“It’s simple,” Dunjee said. “We’re looking for someone.”

“And if we find him?”

“Then you’ll make a lot more money.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then you won’t make as much.”

“I could ask who we’re looking for, but it wouldn’t do any good, would it?”

“No. Not yet.”

Hopkins nodded thoughtfully. “I’m thinking that if I’ve got any more questions, I should’ve asked them before we left London, except for maybe one, that being What’s next?”

“That’s a good one,” Dunjee said, took out his wallet, and removed the small creased piece of ruled paper that he had found in Diringshoffen’s effects and seemed to have been torn from a spiral notebook. He handed it to Hopkins. “Remember this?”

Hopkins nodded and read off the initials and the address that were written on the paper. “G. G. Eighteen via Corrado.” He handed it back to Dunjee. “You think whoever we’re looking for might be there?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think you thought that. That’d be too simple. Who do you think’s going to be there?”

“I don’t know,” Dunjee said. “Let’s go find out.”

The building in the Quarticciolo section of Rome at 18 via Corrado might have been a gray slum for a hundred years or even a hundred and fifty, it was hard to tell. The cab driver had shaken his head dolefully and said something disparaging in Italian when Dunjee had given him the address.

He was still shaking his head when he let Dunjee and Hopkins out in front of the six-story building and sped off down the narrow twisting street that was choked with aged cars.

Hopkins looked up at the building and then over at Dunjee. “You’ve got the address, but no flat number.”

“No flat number.”

“And no name either.”

“No name.”

“Then let’s go home.”

“Not yet,” Dunjee said. Near the building entrance, which seemed to lead into a kind of courtyard, stood a group of young Italians, most of them in their late teens. Dunjee moved over to them and said in slow English, “I am looking for someone.” As he said it, he took out a twenty-dollar bill, folded it lengthwise, folded it again, and then snapped it a couple of times.

One of the youths detached himself from the group, studied the bill for a moment, and then examined Dunjee. After he was through with Dunjee he inspected Hopkins. “American?” he said finally.

“American,” Dunjee agreed.

“You look for the American?”

Dunjee nodded.

The youth turned back to his peer group and said something in Italian that Dunjee didn’t understand. The oldest member of the group said something in reply and shrugged.

The youth turned back to Dunjee and stared pointedly at the twenty-dollar bill. Dunjee handed it to him. The youth wrinkled his forehead as he translated what he was about to say from Italian into English.

“Fifty-three,” the youth said.

“The American,” Dunjee said. “Apartment fifty-three?”

The youth nodded and grinned. He held out his left arm and pantomimed injecting it with a hypodermic needle. His peer group laughed. Dunjee smiled. The youth let his head drop forward suddenly, as if he had just gone to sleep, then slyly peered up at Dunjee and said two words in Italian, which Dunjee took to mean dope fiend. Dunjee nodded knowingly and turned toward the entrance. “Fifty-three,” the youth called after him, as if proud of his English. “Fifty-three.”

Apartment 53 was five flights up and toward the rear of the building. The hallway was dark, narrow, and smelled of urine. They stopped at each door and used Hopkins’s cigarette lighter to read its number. When they finally reached number 53, Hopkins said, “How do we play this one?”

Dunjee shrugged. “By ear,” he said and knocked on the door four times.

Nothing happened. No sounds of dragging footsteps. Nothing scurried about inside. No coughs. No whispers. Only silence. Dunjee raised his hand to knock again when the door opened and the Wreck stood there.

Chronologically, the Wreck may have been forty. The hair that fell to its shoulders was just beginning to turn gray. The hair needed a wash. So did the rest of the Wreck. The rest of it was male, whitish gray, gaunt, a stooped six feet, and not quite unshaved enough to be called bearded.

“Who’re you?” the Wreck said through a gray-lipped mouth that had sores on it. Above the mouth was a runny nose that divided the hundred-year-old blue eyes. The eyes looked tired and defeated — as if they had sued for peace in 1916 and lost. For clothing the Wreck wore a snot-smeared Yale sweat shirt with holes in it and below that some jeans. On the bare feet were sandals. The nails on the big toes were thick and yellow and long enough to curl over and down.

The Wreck’s question had been asked in a kind of Italian. He tried it again in English. “Who’re you?”

“American Express,” Dunjee said. “We brought you the money.”

Something flickered in the Wreck’s eyes. Hope perhaps. It died quickly. “Like hell.”

“Let’s talk about it,” Dunjee said, giving the door a firm, steady push. The Wreck pushed back. Hopkins moved over and leaned his weight against the door.

“How much money?” the Wreck said.

“That’s what we’d like to talk about.”

The Wreck moved back from the door. Dunjee went in, followed by Hopkins. There was only the one room — a big room, high-ceilinged. It had three windows. The windows were dirty. On the floor in one corner was a mattress. On the mattress a thin female cat nursed four kittens. The kittens appeared to be about five weeks old.

The Wreck went over to the mattress and sat down on it. He petted the mother cat on the head. The cat closed its eyes and purred. “All right,” the Wreck said, “talk.”

Dunjee looked around the room first. There were no closets, no other doors. A zinc sink with a single tap decorated one corner. The tap dripped and made a steady sharp clinking sound as the water struck something in the bottom of the sink. Hopkins went over and turned the tap off.

There were also three shelves that held some canned goods — sweet stuff mostly — and a wooden table and two chairs that didn’t match, and a hotplate, and that was the furniture. All of it. Dunjee decided that if there were any pans and plates, they were in the bottom of the sink.

He moved to the table and sat down. Hopkins took the other chair. Dunjee took out a notebook and a ball-point pen. He leafed through the notebook until he seemed to find the page he wanted. He clicked the pen into writing position, looked over at the Wreck, smiled slightly, and said, “Name?”

“What the fuck is this?”

Dunjee turned to Hopkins. “I thought you said we had him down for five hundred dollars.”

“Providing he can come up with a few facts,” Hopkins said, “five hundred it is.”

“Five hundred?” the Wreck said.

“I’m thinking you could use it, mate,” Hopkins said.

“Who the fuck’s he?” the Wreck said.

Dunjee smiled at Hopkins. “My associate, Mr. Ralph.”

“I know you, don’t I?” the Wreck said.

Dunjee shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, I know you from somewhere. From way back.”

“Name?” Dunjee said.

“Five hundred, you said.”

Dunjee sighed, took out his wallet, and handed it to Hopkins. “Prime the pump a little, Mr. Ralph.”

“Right,” Hopkins said, rose, moved over to the mattress, and squatted down by the Wreck. He opened the wallet so that the Wreck could see all the hundred-dollar bills it contained. Hopkins took one out. The Wreck reached for it. Hopkins drew it back. “Name?” Hopkins said.

The Wreck wiped his nose on the sleeve of his Yale sweat shirt. “You know my name,” he said. “Goucher. Giles Goucher.” Hopkins handed him the hundred-dollar bill.

The Wreck brought it up close to his eyes. Hopkins reached over and patted the mother cat on the head. The cat smiled — or seemed to. “Nice cat you’ve got here, Mr. Goucher,” Hopkins said, rose, and went back to the table.

Dunjee was staring at Goucher. Then he smiled slightly, shook his head, and wrote something down in the notebook. “Age?” Dunjee said.

“Forty-one.”

“Looks a hundred, don’t he?” Hopkins said.

“With reason,” Dunjee said. He looked over at Goucher again. “It might be simpler if you just told us about it.”

“About what?”

“Anvil Five — that bunch. You can begin with the German — the blond guy with all the muscles.”

“Who are you guys?”

“Foreign correspondents,” Dunjee said. “I’m with the New York Times. Mr. Ralph’s with the Times of London.”

“Like hell.”

“You want the other four hundred, Giles?” Dunjee said.

Goucher drew the other sleeve of his Yale sweat shirt across his nose, looked around the apartment, and then back at Dunjee. “What do you think?”

“Then tell us about it.”

Goucher sniffed. “Where do you want me to start?”

“When you left the States.”

“That was seven years ago.”

“Is that all? I thought it was longer. Where did you go after you left the States — Beirut?”

Goucher stared at Dunjee suspiciously. “I know you from somewhere. From somewhere way back.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, I know you. I’ll get it in a minute. How’d you know about Beirut?”

“I’m just guessing.”

“Sure, I went to Beirut. I was there awhile.”

“How long?”

“Maybe a year. Maybe longer. Then Damascus for a while. Then Baghdad. I was on the circuit.”

“What circuit?”

“The PLO circuit. I gave talks, you know, about how we did things in the States.”

“How long’ve you been in Rome, Giles?” Dunjee said.

“A couple of years.”

“No more talks?”

“I got sick.”

“Did they come to you — or did you go to them?”

“Who?”

“You want the money?”

“Yeah, I want it. I went to them.”

“Three of them, weren’t there?”

“I just saw the German. Frank.”

“Is that what they call him — Frank?”

“Yeah. Frank.”

“What’s his real name?”

“I don’t know. Something German.”

“Try.”

“Diringshoffen. Bernt Diringshoffen.”

“How’d you know they were in Rome?”

Goucher shrugged. “I heard. I heard they were looking for—” He didn’t finish the sentence.

“Recruits?”

“They don’t call ‘em that.”

“But you volunteered.”

“We just talked. It was all exploratory.”

“But they turned you down.”

Goucher looked around the room again. He shook his head sadly at what he saw, sighed, and said, “Well, what the fuck. Can you blame them?”

“What’d they say about Felix?”

“I only talked to Frank.”

“What’d Frank say about Felix?”

“He just hinted.”

“Hinted at what?”

“Well, he hinted that Felix was having a rough time. That’s why they were looking for — for new people.”

“But not you?”

“No, I guess not.”

“They still in Rome?” Dunjee made the question as casual as he could.

“No. I don’t think so anyway.”

“Where’d they go?”

“How should I know?”

“For four hundred dollars, Giles — where’d they go?”

“Who the fuck are you guys?”

“I’m with the CIA. Mr. Ralph’s with MI 6.”

“Like hell.”

“You asked,” Dunjee said, and then put a hard cutting edge on his voice. “For four hundred bucks, Giles — where’d they go?”

“I met Frank in a hotel, a cheap one down near the Piazza del Popolo. That’s where we talked. Somebody came up to the room. A woman. They talked in German — except she had a French accent. They only said a few words, but they were talking about what time a plane left. I had four years of German at Oberlin. I don’t guess Frank knew that. So they talked about the plane and when it left.”

“A plane to where?”

“Malta.”

Dunjee sighed. “Pay him, Mr. Ralph.”

Hopkins again rose and went over to the mattress, where he slowly counted out four hundred-dollar bills into Goucher’s palm. “Makes you feel just a bit like Judas, don’t it, lad?” Hopkins said.

“Fuck off.”

Dunjee took out a cigarette and lit it. “Miss the Weathermen, Giles?”

Goucher looked up at Dunjee, then down at the money in his hand, then up at Dunjee again. There was recognition in his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, “I know you. You’re Dunjee. I remember you now. You were a fucking Congressman.”

Dunjee rose. “Let’s go, Mr. Ralph.”

“Suits me,” Hopkins said.

They started for the door, but stopped when Goucher called after them, “Hey, Dunjee.”

Dunjee turned.

“I fucked your wife, man!” Goucher yelled. He looked at the money in his hand. “Did you know that, man? I fucked your wife!” He threw the four hundred-dollar bills at Dunjee. They didn’t go far. They fluttered down, one of them settling slowly on the mother cat.

“You want me to go pop him one?” Hopkins said.

Dunjee shook his head and opened the door. “For what?” he said. “Telling the truth?”