Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

‘Do you know New York well, Laura?’

‘Quite well.’

‘Would you be my guide, perhaps one afternoon?’

‘Oh, there are better guides than me,’ she replied hastily. ‘I’m sorry –’ she pulled a face; ‘that was rude.’

He laughed. ‘I’m sure you’re too busy.’

‘Yes.’

Seconds later the train was upon them. He found Laura a seat and stood beside her, glancing down discreetly at her hair, her hands, the lines of her face, the fall of the dress about her thighs. Perhaps he would see her again at Mrs Newman’s home. Eight minutes only under the East River to Bowling Green. They changed trains and for the short journey to Grand Central they were able to sit together but made no effort at conversation.

‘Take this,’ she said suddenly, bent over her purse. The train began to squeal. ‘Oh, dear. Ah. Here,’ and she brandished a card at him. ‘If you don’t find someone better.’

He smiled. ‘I’m sure I won’t.’

She blushed. ‘Well, goodbye, Mr de Witt.’

The carriage doors opened and he touched the brim of his hat.

‘Goodbye, Miss McDonnell.’

He caught the man at the corner of his eye as he was turning to wave to Laura. It was only a glance. Eyes flicking to Wolff and away as he stepped from the next carriage. Twenty yards, no, thirty, a face among many that kept walking for the stairs, but Wolff’s heart beat a little faster. Five-ten, heavy, dark greasy hair, dark jacket, collarless shirt, swarthy. He didn’t look very Irish. Laura acknowledged his wave with a smile, the carriage jolted forward, then the train began to gather speed and she was gone. Wolff turned towards the stairway. Grand Central was big and busy, with more than one exit from the subway, so his tail would wait close by. I’ve been complacent, Wolff reflected; the roundabout never stops spinning. The man was at the top of the first flight of stairs, pretending to tie his bootlace, passengers flowing round him like an awkward rock. Up the second flight of stairs, through the barrier, out on to 42nd Street, and Wolff walked at a leisurely pace back to the hotel for a hot bath. Irish or German, no reason to hide, he’d given the name of the Algonquin to everybody. He was hoping for a little attention, just as long as it didn’t end with a knife in the back.

Wolff didn’t see the man or anyone else who looked like a runner when he left the hotel for dinner a few hours later. To be sure, he caught a taxicab to the restaurant and insisted on a corner with a view of the other tables. It was an Italian, lively, popular with the young, the food good but not expensive — the sort of place an engineer of modest means might choose to eat alone. He’d brought his copy of The War of the Worlds with him to America and he flicked through it between courses. The rustic red he ordered with his meal reminded him of a run ashore he’d enjoyed in La Spezia, a seedy marker in his passage from university engineer to officer and gentleman. He’d left a lot of nonconformist baggage on the quay at La Spezia: amusing after fifteen years. Whistles and crisp white uniforms, hearts of solid oak eager for action, and my goodness they’d found it. ‘Wolff… Wolff, the things we… we do for king… and cun… cunt-ry,’ Thompson had slurred, a bottle of the very same wine pressed to his bottom lip. ‘God bless ’im… ’is Maj… Majesty.’ Ah, yes, God bless him, thought Wolff, raising his glass to drink a silent toast.

It was half past ten when the cab dropped him back at the hotel. While the driver fumbled reluctantly for change, he glanced along the street for the subway man or one of his kind, but there were too many shadows, too many doorways to be sure. At the desk the clerk handed him his key and a small buff envelope.

J. de Witt Esquire

The clerk informed him it had been delivered by a messenger-service boy but not one of the regulars. Wolff opened it with the desk’s knife: two lines on plain paper, a terse invitation for drinks at a mid-town address the following evening, signed by a Mr Emile V. Gaché.

‘Has anyone asked for me?’ he enquired. ‘I’m expecting a friend.’

It had been a busy day, but no, the clerk couldn’t recall anyone. Wolff slipped him a dollar. A little grease and the machine was turning, for in the time it took to walk to the elevator word reached the porters that Mr de Witt was a proper gentleman who would make it worth their while. ‘Big man, about seven o’clock, sir,’ the bellboy recalled. ‘Face like a boxer, but in a white uniform. He wanted to know your room number.’

‘So you told him.’

‘No, sir,’ he lied. He got his dollar all the same.

Wolff was on the ninth floor. Too high to survive a tumble, he’d joked when the bellboy delivered his luggage. ‘This is New York, sir,’ he’d replied laconically. The elevator opened on to a broad landing, pot plants, theatre mirror, leather couch. His room was to the left, halfway along a bright, thickly carpeted corridor. An elderly American couple were bickering at their door, the man struggling to turn the key with arthritic fingers. A little further along, a lady was arranging her shoes for the shine. Everything in order, everything as it should be in a good seven-dollar-a-night hotel — and yet, and yet… there was something amiss — a spy’s sixth sense, a chill: he’d felt it before they arrested him in Berlin; in Turkey too.

Without hesitating, he walked past his room and round the corner to the door at the end of the corridor. He’d checked and knew that it opened on to a fire escape gantry. Removing his shoes first, he stepped out lightly and quickly, counting the windows, seven to the corner of the building, then five more to his room. The curtains were still open, a light inside but a small one, perhaps the desk lamp. Conscious that he was casting a dim shadow, he stooped low and shuffled under the sill, listened for a few seconds — nothing — then glanced inside. A man was sitting a few feet from him at the desk beneath the window. Wolff couldn’t see his face, only his legs, one crossed over the other, his forearm, a hand that disappeared as he drew on his cigarette — and through the smoke the silhouette of a revolver. He crept away from the window and back along the fire escape. Manhattan was still humming, steam rising from rooftops nearby, the night sky lost in the glow of the city firmament, like something in one of Wells’ dystopian stories. In the corridor once more, he didn’t trouble to step lightly and opened the door to his room with no particular care. The intruder was still at the desk, large right hand covering the revolver.

‘Lieutenant?’ he asked.

Wolff pushed the door to and switched on the chandelier. ‘Never call me that: plain Mr de Witt, if you please. You should have left a message.’

‘You should have left a message, sir ,’ he replied angrily.

Wolff ignored him, shrugging off his coat and throwing it on a chair.

‘Gaunt, Captain Gaunt,’ he rose from his chair; ‘but you know.’ He gripped Wolff’s hand too tightly, squeezing it like a boarding-school bully. ‘Look, old fellow, calm down, no one saw me.’

‘I’ll stick with Mr Ponting ,’ Wolff replied.

‘No point. I’m the naval attaché, for God’s sake. Everyone knows me here — well, the people who matter do.’

‘I’m sure. That’s why it was damn stupid to come to the hotel.’

‘Who the blazes do you think you’re talking to?’ He took another step forward, big right hand balled in a fist. Just itching for a fight, always itching for a fight; it was in the hard lines of his face, lantern jaw, gazing down his beak at Wolff, thin, almost colourless lips, all prickly self-regard; captain cum old-fashioned boatswain cum spy, but a spy who wore a crisp white uniform, took rooms at the New York Yacht Club and never missed a diplomatic party. ‘He’s one of theirs,’ young Fitzgerald had said, quoting C directly, by which he meant Naval Intelligence. ‘He’ll tell you America’s his patch, senior service and all that…’ Gaunt enjoyed his role too much to let a lieutenant fifteen years his junior kick sand in his face.