The Seersucker Whipsaw

Chapter 5

Albertia is shaped like a funnel and its spout is Barkandu, the capital city. Along the thirty-three-mile strip that forms its claim to the sea are some of the finest white sand beaches in the world and some of the most treacherous undertows. In the middle of the strip of sand is a natural deep sea harbor that divides the city geographically and economically. To the north, towards the interior, are the city’s fifty square miles of squalor where the Albertians live on their ninety-sixdollar-a-year average incomes. To the south are the broad boulevards, the neat green lawns, the Consulates, office buildings, hotels (there were four good ones that year), night clubs, foreign-owned shops, department stores, and the Yacht Club.

The site of the Yacht Club was, in the early nineteenth century, the makeshift dock from which a busy slave trade loaded its cargo. The British put an end to the trade — legal trade, anyway — in 1842. The dock fell into disrepair until 1923 when the Yacht Club was built. There were no yachts then, but the name had a nice ring and the district officers could get a cool beer when they came down out of the bush to Barkandu on their semi-annual visits to civilization. The first Albertian was admitted to membership in 1953. He was a doctor who had studied at the University of Edinburgh.

Paul Downer, the Downer in Duffy, Downer and Theims, Ltd., met us at the airport in a chauffeur-driven Humber Super Snipe. He was sweating, even in the air-conditioned comfort of the airport. He wore a white linen suit, already soaked at the armpits, a white shirt, blue knit tie and black shoes. He smoked incessantly.

We shook hands all around. “You know each other, I take it,” I said to Shartelle.

“Sure, Paul and I know each other. We were in the war together, right, Paul?”

“It’s good to see you, Clint,” Downer said.

“You staying long?” Shartelle inquired.

“I’m going back on the evening flight. I got a call from Padraic. He said there’s too much doing in London. He has to have some help. I couldn’t really afford to take the time to come down here — not really. I just did it to help. Politics is not my dish of tea — you know that, Clint.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I’ve booked you in at the Prince Albert. I thought we’d go there, have lunch, I’d give you a briefing, and then we’d go over to the Consulate and have a chat with Kramer.”

“Who’s Kramer?”

“The Consul General,” I said. “Felix Kramer. He’s been bouncing around Africa since Dulles was Secretary of State. They sidetracked him here in the early 1950’s because he spoke excellent Chinese, Japanese, and a few other Oriental languages.”

“Logical. But I’m not sure I want to meet Mr. Kramer, Paul.”

Downer smiled wisely. “But he wants to see you. Don’t forget, both State and Whitehall are vitally interested in this thing.”

“Now, Paul, old buddy, you and me had better get something straight. I don’t care if the Secretary of State himself wants to cozy up. I’m down here to run a political campaign, and I don’t think Mr. Kramer has too many votes.”

Downer blushed. He had a pink face and it turned a deeper red. He did it all the time. Sometimes he would blush if you asked him for a match. “Goddamn it, Clint, I’ve been smoothing things over for you for the last two weeks. State isn’t too happy about Americans taking a hand in the internal affairs of another country — especially an African one.”

Shartelle drew out his package of Picayunes, took out the last one, looked at the pack regretfully, crumpled it, and tossed it away. “I’m going to miss those,” he said.

“Try the local brands,” I said. “One is called Sweet Ariels. I’ve been told they’re almost as bad.”

Shartelle turned to Downer. “You did say you’re catching the evening plane?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I tell you what. You just drop us off at the hotel and I’ll call Mr. Kramer and Pete and I’ll go on over there and pay our respects. Now I know you probably got a million things to do before you get on that plane so don’t worry about taking us to lunch or anything and I’ll explain things to Mr. Kramer. I imagine he’s a smart old boy and he’ll be able to fully appreciate your situation. And you can tell Pig when you get back that I won’t say anything that will embarrass the firm, or him, or the United States Government, or the D.A.R.”

“Well, maybe I should go with you, Clint. I know Kramer and I know his style.”

“I surely do appreciate your offer, Paul, but like I said, you must have a million things to attend to. I think Pete and I can explain things to Mr. Kramer so that he won’t be too upset about some fellow Americans manipulating the political climate for fun and profit.”

“Maybe I’d better give Padraic a call and—”

“There’s no need to give Padraic a call. Because if you give Padraic a call, then I’m going to be on that evening plane back to London with you.”

Downer mumbled something that passed for assent, turned a shade pinker, and followed us to pick up our bags at customs. A tall, thin young Negro carried them out to the car and put them into the trunk. Or boot, I suppose, since it was a Humber.

“We go for Prince Albert one time,” Downer told the driver. “You’ll have to learn pidgin, Clint,” he said. “They don’t understand anything else.” Shartelle nodded.

He gazed out the window of the car onto the street scene as we wound our way through the north side of Barkandu. “I’m not sure whether it’s the noise or the color,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Look at it, Pete. All those women sitting by those boxes selling things to each other. Look at their clothes — blues and greens and oranges and purples. And listen to it — hell, it sounds like daybreak on a guinea farm. It just goes on and on.”

“The women are the mammy traders,” Downer said. “Petty traders, they also call them. They have considerable political influence.”

“That a fact?” Shartelle said.

The noise came from all sides. It was the screech of two women arguing with each other, the blast of an outside speaker that dinned Radio Albertia into the ears of the passerby — shrill, oriental, almost atonal music played at top volume. The traffic was dense — horns blew constantly. Goats roamed and snuffled among the litter of the street which was lined by brown, mudwalled houses and stores of one, two and three stories. People swarmed among the goats and chickens. Beggars — not too many — held out upturned and largely ignored palms. Children, naked and almost cool looking, kicked a ball in an impromptu soccer game. A man ran out in front of our car and our driver blew the horn, slammed on the brakes and cursed him. The man ran on, laughing. Our driver said: “He want to die,” and turned around and grinned at Shartelle.

He was a good driver, able to bluff and, more important, able to judge when not to.

“The car’s yours, by the way,” Downer said. “So’s the driver.”

“What’s your name, driver?” Shartelle asked.

“William, Sah.”

“You’re a good driver, William.”

“Thank you, Sah.”

“He gets two shillings a day extra when he’s away from home,” Downer said.

“That’s twenty-eight cents, I figure,” Shartelle said.

“Plenty,” Downer said.

Shartelle nudged me. “William, since you’re going to be driving for me and Mr. Upshaw here, we’ll pay you four shillings a day when you’re away from home. If you have an accident, you go back to two shillings. That okay with you?”

“We have no accident, Sah,” William said, grinning.

“You’ll spoil ’em,” Downer grunted.

“If it only costs fifty-six cents a day, I might do just that.”

There was a concrete, four-lane bridge across the tip of the curved V of the harbor and William pulled onto it. The bridge arced up, high enough for even the largest freighters to sail underneath to the wharves that lined the shore. Bicycles and pedestrians used a raised walkway that ran along the left hand side of the bridge. A woman, a baby strapped to her back, trotted along the bridge balancing three beams of lumber, at least ten feet long, on her head. The baby slept contentedly. At least it wasn’t crying.

“She can keep up that trot for hours,” Downer said. “She brings the lumber in from maybe ten, fifteen miles out. Trots all the way. Starts out at dawn. Her husband cuts the wood and shapes it. She trots it into town. She might get a few bob for it.”

Across the bridge we came on to Queensway Boulevard It was a four-lane thoroughfare with a strip of carefully tended grass down the center. On each side of the highway, low, hip-roofed houses sat far back on lawns meticulously landscaped with flowers and shrubs. I could recognize palms and hibiscus and bougainvillea. The rest of them were new to me. On one of the lawns two men, using short cane-like sticks to support themselves as they leaned down almost double, hacked at the grass with machetes.

“Now are those boys out there just snipping out the weeds, or are they cutting the whole goddamned lawn?” Shartelle asked.

“They’re cutting the lawn.”

“With machetes?”

“Lawnmower costs around nine pounds, ten down here. They’ll work all day for four bob.”

“There must be an acre of lawn.”

Downer shrugged. “Helps the unemployment.”

The residential area gave way to the business section. White slabs of glass and concrete poked up ten and twelve and fifteen stories into the African sky. Shartelle spotted a Bank of America sign. “That outfit doesn’t miss any tricks, does it?”

“Money’s money,” Downer said wisely.

With a flourish William pulled into the sweeping curved driveway of the Prince Albert Hotel. It was new and its architectural style would win no awards. It was built of poured concrete slabs painted white. The windows were recessed and tinted blue. It was built on the bay and I supposed that one had something of a view from the farther side.

“You wait here, William,” Downer told the driver as the robed bellhops took our bags. A smiling Lebanese checked us in and snapped his finger for some more robed bellhops to carry our luggage. The elevators were automatic, but they had operators anyhow. Part of the unemployment solution, I decided. Shartelle and I were given adjoining double rooms and Downer followed me into mine.

The air-conditioning was on full blast and Downer seemed to shiver a little in his sweat-soaked suit. “You better keep the lid on Shartelle, Pete,” Downer said.

I tipped the bellhop who gave me a string of “thank you, sahs,” and left without showing me where the bathroom was. Maybe he didn’t know. I looked for it myself and saw that it contained the standard equipment, even soap, and came back into the room, opened my suitcase, and said: “Why? He’s running the show. I’m just supercargo.”

“He doesn’t understand these people like you and I do.”

“Like you do,” I said. “I don’t understand anybody.”

“He can screw us up with the Consulate.”

“Kramer’s an American, isn’t he?”

“Sure he’s an American.”

“Shartelle understands Americans. He might not understand Albertians, but he understands Americans. I don’t think he’ll screw us up.”

“You don’t know him. He goes off half-cocked sometimes and if he goes off half-cocked down here, we can get screwed good.”

“I just met him about four days ago, so — as you say — I don’t know him too well. But he doesn’t give me the impression of going off half-cocked anywhere.”

“I knew him during the war,” Downer said. “I knew him in Europe. I could tell you some times he goofed it up plenty.”

I didn’t say anything. I took my shirts and underwear and socks out of my suitcase and put them in the bureau drawer. I hung four suits in the closet. I laid eight ties in another drawer. I put my toothpaste, brush and razor in the bathroom. I wore my hair short — short enough not to need a brush or comb. I had no pajamas, no styptic pencil, no aftershave lotion, no roll-on deodorant, no mouthwash. If I smelled, to hell with it.

“He goofed plenty,” Downer said.

“During the war,” I said.

“Right. During the war.”

I went back into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I turned it to hot and then took one of the tropical suits — made out of air and coal, I think, and guaranteed not to wrinkle — and put it in the bathroom to steam out its wrinkles. Then I sat down in a chair and looked at Downer who was shivering on the bed.

“Are you cold or do you have malaria?” I asked.

“Goddamned air-conditioning,” he said. “I take my Are.Ian. Did you start taking yours before you got here?”

“No.”

“You’ll catch malaria. Here, take these.” He tossed me a phial of pills.

“Like Atabrine?”

“No, they don’t turn you yellow.”

I went into the bathroom where it must have been 120 degrees and got a glass of water. I popped a pill in and swallowed. “One a day?”

“Better take two. They don’t hurt you any.”

“Doesn’t affect the manhood, huh?”

“That shouldn’t bother you while you’re down here, Pete — not unless you want to change your luck.”

“That’s a thought.”

“Well, you better keep close check on Shartelle.”

“He’s running the show.”

“I was against it. I told Duffy I was against it. Clint might be the best in the States, but he’s not in the States now.” Downer paused and lighted a cigarette. His hands trembled and the cigarette shook in his mouth. Maybe he drinks, I thought. It was a vain hope; he wasn’t the type. His ego didn’t need it.

“You know what Clint’s got to watch out for?” Downer asked.

“What?”

“Cultural shock. That’s what.”

“You think he’ll go native, Paul?”

Downer puffed on his cigarette some more. He didn’t inhale and when he smoked he took short, rapid sucking puffs and blew them out quickly with little swooshes. It was a mannerism that had long irritated me.

“Not native. He’s not Gauguin. I mean that he’s been in the States all his life except for that time in Europe with Duffy and me and then we had to lead him around by the hand.”

“That’s when all three of you were in the O.S.S.?”

“Right. Hell, he could speak a little French, that’s all. But Africa’s different. A guy like Shartelle may not be able to adapt. Now you and I have lived abroad, Pete. We can take it as it comes. Heat, dirt, diseases, strange customs — these don’t faze us the way they might a guy like Shartelle.”

“We’re sort of cosmopolites,” I said helpfully.

“That’s right — you put your finger on it. I’ve lived in London for twenty years now. I spend a lot of time on the Continent. But I feel as much at home in Paris as I do in New York. London’s no different to me than Chicago.”

“There’s a small language barrier,” I said.

“In Paris?”

“No. In Chicago.”

Downer laughed. “That’s not bad, Pete.”

He wasn’t all that stupid. He had a great passion for detail, he worked hard, he could — upon occasion — turn out workmanlike copy fast, a knack he had picked up from Hearst where he had spent his working life until Duffy brought him into DDT in 1952. But he was sententious, pedantic, and god, how he could talk. He believed in the infallibility of Duffy, Downer, and Theims, Ltd. He bought all the products, used them faithfully, and touted them to his friends. His clients — the accounts he handled — had no faults. If they had had any faults, they wouldn’t be DDT clients.

“I’ll break him in easy — not too much shock all at once,” I said.

Downer nodded. “That’s smart. And listen, Pete, if you get in a bind — any kind of bind — and you need help, I’m as close as the phone.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Now then — the house in Ubondo is open and staffed. Here’s a set of keys.” He tossed them to me. “The account at Barclay’s is in your name. It’s got around five hundred quid in it and use it for expenses. Revolving fund sort of thing. When you run low, send in a chit and we’ll top it up. You’ll pay the staff — here’s a list of how much they get. Pay them monthly and let me give you some advice: don’t lend them any money. You’ll play hell getting it back. Food you can get at the supermarket in Ubondo. You’ll have to do the shopping — you can’t trust the staff to do it. Charge everything and settle the bill once a month.”

“How big is the staff?”

“Five — plus the watch night. Six.”

“What the hell do two men need with six servants?”

Downer sighed. “Look, Pete. You need a cook. You need a steward. You need a small boy to help the cook and steward. You need a driver — that’s William. You know him already. You need a gardener — you’ve got an acre-and-a-half of grounds. And you need the watch night.”

“The what?”

“The watch night. He scares away the thieves. It’s a kind of insurance — or protection racket — I’m not sure. But whenever anybody fires a watch night, there’s a burglary within a week.”

“O.K. When is Akomolo expected back from London?”

“He’s back. He came in late yesterday. But he’s busy so you’ll have a chance to look Barkandu over, make any contacts you want, and then go on up to Ubondo. You’ll be working out of Ubondo since that’s where Akomolo will make his headquarters.”

“Anything else?”

Downer thought. “You can introduce yourself around. DDT has already made a reputation for itself down here with the British. They know who we are.”

“Cocoa,” I said.

“I drink it for breakfast every morning,” he said.

“So do I, Paul. Also have a cup at night before bed.”

There was a knock on the door. I opened it and it was Shartelle and I think I finally fully realized what the word resplendent meant. Shartelle was resplendent. He wore a seersucker suit that fitted so well it could only have been tailored. It was a black and white cord, and it looked crisp and clean and cool. It wasn’t the suit so much as the matching vest. I had never seen a seersucker suit with a vest. He wore a white shirt with a black knit tie. On his head perched a hat. It was at a rakish angle. It was black. It was a black slouch hat. I didn’t think they existed. Shartelle leaned against the door jamb and puffed a cigarette.

“You’re gorgeous,” I said.

He strolled in and turned, giving us the chance to get the full effect. “I’ve got six more just like ’em. One for every day in the week but Sunday. Then I wear my go-to-meeting suit.”

“Does it have a vest?”

“Never seen a seersucker suit with a vest, boy? Why it’s the coming rage. How do you like the hat? It’s forty years old, I swear. Now do I look like a well-to-do New Orleans cotton buyer or don’t I?”

“Sharp,” I said. “Razor-keen.”

“It just so happens that this was what I planned to wear in Denver,” Shartelle said. “The vest was for the cool of the evening. But I think this outfit just might make me a little distinctive here in Albertia. What do you think, Paul?”

Downer was already moving for the door. “Distinctive, yes, really distinctive. I’ve filled Pete in on the arrangements, Clint. I’ve got a few things to do before I catch the plane. It was nice seeing you.” He grabbed Shartelle’s hand and shook it.

“Nice seeing you, Paul.”

“Pete, could you walk me to the elevator, I’ve got a couple of things I forgot to tell you.”

“Sure,” I said.

He grabbed my arm in the hall. “That’s what I mean,” he whispered. “You have to watch out for Shartelle.”

“The suit?”

“Damn right, the suit.”

“Well, it’s distinctive.”

“That’s what I mean. That’s what I was telling you about. There’s bound to be cultural shock.” He jabbed the elevator button again. Surprisingly, the car appeared.

“Cultural shock,” he repeated, as he got in. “Remember that, Pete.”

“Just whose culture will get the shock?” I asked, but the elevator door had already closed and he didn’t hear me.