James Chase - You Have Yourself a Deal

Sadu felt a qualm of uneasiness. He glanced at the fat man, sitting in his thick city suit, his yellow face blank, his small hands, like ivory carvings, folded across his bulging stomach. He drove into the gardens and found parking space, as it was lunch time, in front of the Ministère des Finances and turned off the car engine.

Yet-Sen took a copy of France-Matin from his hip pocket and handed it to Sadu. He tapped the badly reproduced photograph of a blonde woman.

“By tomorrow morning this woman must be dead,” he said. “We have every confidence in you. You will have all the necessary help, but you must arrange the details. At six o’clock this evening a man will call on you. He is the weapon... he has no brains. You are to be the brains. Now, please listen carefully...”

Sadu sat motionless, his thin, long fingers gripping the steering wheel of his car and listened. This became his moment of truth. He suddenly realised that his petty hatred of America, the chip he had carried so long on his shoulder had finally come home to roost. He wasn’t certain whether to be pleased or dismayed by this sudden change in his status. But he instinctively knew whatever his reactions, the job would have to be done.

London’s Bond Street has a particular fascination for tourists. Even when the shops are closed at the early hour of 5.30, people from all countries of the world will continue to walk down the traffic-congested street and shop-window gaze, admiring old prints, the leather bound books, the linen, the expensive cameras and the de luxe gifts displayed at Asprey’s.

Among the stream of people moving down Bond Street at the cocktail hour of 7 p.m. was a giant of a man wearing a shabby, foreign cut suit, scuffed shoes and a Marks & Spencer shirt and tie. This man had silver coloured hair, cut close, a square-shaped face, high cheekbones and flat green eyes. His age might be between thirty and forty, but not more. His muscular body was a shade under six foot five. His suntanned face was relaxed and expressionless. He walked easily with the light step of a trained fighter, his big hands thrust into his trousers pockets.

This man whose known name was Malik was Russia’s most successful agent. He had been in London now for a week. He had been told to look at the City, get the feel of it and to behave like a tourist. It was possible he might have work to do here.

So Malik was relaxing. He was staying at a small nondescript hotel in Cromwell Road. He was fully aware that M.I.6 was watching him. He was also aware that his own people had a man following him. All this Malik accepted with indifference. It was part of the game, and he regarded his job as a game, exciting, satisfying and which pandered to his sadistic instincts.

This evening, strolling down Bond Street, he was satisfying his suppressed longing for possessions. Every now and then, he would pause before a shop window and stare with his flat green eyes at the various luxury articles he longed for but knew he could never possess.

There was a portable roulette set that he would have liked to own. In another corner of the window, temptingly displayed, was a leather-embossed blotter complete with a silver and onyx pen set that beckoned to him the way an impossible-to-buy toy beckons to a child. He stood staring through the window of the shop, his face disciplined into a blank mask, his big knuckled fists clenched out of sight in his pockets.

Unwillingly, he moved on, walking slowly, fighting the temptation to stop and look again at things displayed so blatantly in the windows, but now mindful that there was someone following and watching him, ready to make a report, jealous of his reputation, more than willing to ruin him.

The faint sound of a touched motor horn made him look sharply towards a cruising Jaguar that had slowed to a crawl and was only slightly ahead of him.

A girl was at the wheel: blonde and smiling, not more than twenty-three, a mink stole around her shoulders, her eyes inviting, the lines around her mouth etched deeply in worldly awareness and sin.

Malik looked away. He walked on. He felt the blood move through his body. He had a sudden impulse to go with this whore and show her how a Russian can reduce a woman to a gasping, moaning animal, flattened beneath muscle and sinews. The urgent need to do this brought sweat beads out onto his forehead, but he kept walking, mindful of the unseen watcher, knowing every move he made, good or bad, would be reported, if not tonight, then later.

The Jaguar swung to the kerb as he passed and the girl said softly, “Why be lonely, darling? We could have fun.”

Malik kept on. The luxury articles in the shop windows had suddenly lost their fascination. He wanted now only to return to his hotel. Four walls, a curtained window and a locked door offered him the sanctuary he felt in need of, away from watching eyes.

The Jaguar gained speed and passed him. He watched it go with regret. As he reached Piccadilly, the electronic-pulser he wore on his wrist, disguised as a watch, began to throb. This was a signal that he was wanted. Immediately he became alert, the fleshy desires, the envy of luxury wiped from his mind. He touched the winder on the pulser to stop the pulse beat, then walked swiftly down Piccadilly to the Berkeley Hotel. Ignoring the stare from the top-hatted doorman, he entered and moved around the groups of chattering people, cocktails in their hands, to him overdressed and stupid looking, to the telephone booths. He gave the attendant a number, again ignoring the man’s obvious disapproval of his appearance, then when the man pointed, Malik shut himself in one of the booths. It smelt of some expensive perfume and he thought for a brief moment of the blonde in the Jaguar. His big fists clenched. It would have been good to have shown her how a Russian takes a woman. The telephone bell tinkled and he lifted the receiver.

A man’s voice said, “Hello?”

“Four and two and six make twelve,” Malik said, using his own special identity code.

“You are to leave immediately for Paris,” the man told him in Russian. “You are booked on flight 361, leaving at 20.40 hours. Your things have been packed and are waiting for you at the Air Terminal. S. will be at Le Bourget. This is an emergency.” The line went dead.

Malik paid for the call and then, leaving the hotel, he picked up a taxi and was driven to the Cromwell Road Air Terminus.

A fat, suety-faced man who was known to Malik as Drina was waiting in the reception lobby. He had with him Malik’s shabby suitcase, his ticket and 300 French francs.

“You still have a little time,” Drina said. He spoke respectfully. He was a great admirer of Malik, wishing he had the talent and the drive that had established Malik as the top agent. “Is there anything else I can do? I packed your things carefully. Smernoff will meet you at the other end. He would appreciate some duty free cigarettes.” The suety face grimaced into a smile. “I thought I could mention it.”

Malik hated this fat, dumpy man as he hated anyone connected with failure. He had had dealings with him before and his servile, fawning manner irritated him.

Wordlessly, he took the suitcase, the ticket and the money, then walked away. He knew the watcher was still watching. It wouldn’t do even to swear at Drina.

When he arrived at Le Bourget airport, he went through the police control without trouble. His false passport was in order.

He was travelling as an American subject on vacation. The police at the airport were used to Americans. They considered that America threw up an odd assortment of breeds. This Slav looking man was just another visitor, welcomed only for his dollars. Malik passed through the barrier and walked out into the big reception hall where Boris Smernoff was waiting. Malik was glad to see him. Smernoff knew his job. He had the reputation of being the most clever and ruthless hunter of men and Malik had often worked with him. He was thickset, dark and heavily built with a bald patch, narrow, cruel eyes and a talent for accepting any difficulty without protesting. His philosophy was: if it is possible, it will be done; if it is impossible, it can be done.