Ross Thomas: The Seersucker Whipsaw

“Well, I don’t reckon this kind of living would appeal to a married man.”

“It probably depends on how long he’s been married.”

Shartelle grinned. “It might at that. Why don’t you fix yourself a drink while I take a shower. There’s a bucket of ice in the refrigerator and the refrigerator is in the bottom of that thing that looks like an escritoire .”

I poured a measure of Virginia Gentleman into a glass, dropped in two ice cubes which slopped a little of the liquor over the side, added some water and walked over to the window to see what I could of the mountains at night. There were some lights high up, but at night Denver looked very much like Birmingham, New Orleans, and Oklahoma City which were the three other towns where I had been searching for Clinton Shartelle.

He came out of the bedroom wearing a white shirt, a yellow, green and black striped tie that rightfully belonged to the Lancashire Fusiliers, dark gray slacks, and black loafers. His thick white hair was brushed and lay close to his head in a damp, tidy pile.

“‘Denver,’ some early settler once remarked, ‘has more sunshine and sons of bitches per square foot than any place else in the United States.’ He may have been right. I know Pig Duffy would feel right at home here.” He walked over to the fake writing desk and put some ice in a glass. “I see you have your drink, Mr. Upshaw.”

“I’m fine.”

He sat in an armchair and took a sip of his whiskey. From a distance he would look sixty, until you saw him move. The dossier said he was forty-three. Up close, if you blocked out the hair, he looked thirty-two or thirty-three despite the wide mouth and the meandering nose. I decided that it must be his eyes. There has been a lot of nonsense written about childlike gazes, but Shartelle seemed to look out on the world with the lesson-learning gray eyes of a nine-year-old who has been told that he must save the ten-dollar bill he found under the bench in the park. Although he knows he will never find another one, he also knows that he will never again tell anybody if he does.

“What role do you play in the Duffy charade, Mr. Upshaw?”

“I’m an account executive.”

“Which side?”

“Public relations.”

“In London?”

“Yes.”

“While I was taking a shower, I was thinking about your name. You did a series on Hungary a long time ago.” He named the paper I had worked for.

“You’re right. It was a long time ago.”

“And now you’re flacking for Pig Duffy?”

“They’re calling us public relations practitioners this year.”

“How’d you locate me?”

“I checked with the national committee in Washington. They had a rough itinerary. I kept just missing you. My instructions were to make the proposition in person; no phone calls.”

Shartelle rose and moved over to the window that looked out on the Denver night scene. “And what is Pig’s proposition?”

“He told me to mention the fee first.”

“He would.”

“It’s thirty thousand.”

“Oh?”

“Pounds. Not dollars.”

“I’ll say ‘oh’ again and put a little interest into it.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Campaign?”

“Yes.”

Shartelle turned from the window and looked at me. “Where?”

“Africa.”

He smiled, and the smile grew into a laugh. A delightful laugh. “I’ll be goddamned,” he said, choked, and laughed again. “I’ll be goddamned to hell! Nobody but that shanty-Irish son of a bitch would have the nerve.”

“He does have a plentiful reserve.”

“Mr. Upshaw, he’s got the balls of a brass ape. I’ve seen high rollers in my time, but for plain green gall there’s none that’ll match Padraic Duffy, landed gentry.”

“He speaks well of you,” I said in game defense of my employer.

Shartelle dragged a chair close to mine, dropped into it, then leaned over and tapped me on the knee. “Why, he should, Mr. Upshaw. By God, he should! You don’t know about old Pig Duffy and me and it’s too long a story to tell right now, but I will say that he should speak well of me.”

“He said you’d worked together once or twice.”

“Did he tell you about the last time?”

“No.”

“I don’t imagine he tells many people about that, but after it was over, I told him just like I’m talking to you that if he ever so much as mentioned my name in the same breath with his, I was going to clean his plow good.” He tapped me on the knee again. “Now I told him that as one Southern gentlemen to another.”

“Duffy’s from Chicago,” I said.

“Not when he’s in New Orleans, he’s not. In New Orleans he tells folks he’s from Breaux Bridge. Where’re you from, Mr. Upshaw?”

“North Dakota, Fargo.”

“Why, if old Pig got up to Fargo, he’d tell folks up there he was from Mandan. Or Valley City.”

“You know North Dakota?”

“Boy,” he said, “there’s damned few places in this country I don’t know. And if I call you ‘boy’, it’s just my purposeful’ plain way of speaking that seems to put folks at their ease and makes them think I’m not too bright which I probably ain’t.”

“Just call me Pete.”

“I was fixing to.”

“I think I’ll have another drink.”

“You do that. Now what’s this about Africa?”

I tried the Virginia Gentleman again. “Duffy has been asked to handle the strategy, campaign management, and public relations for Chief Sunday Akomolo who wants to be premier of Albertia when it gets independence from the Crown come next Labor Day.” I needed a breath after that.

“Who’s Chief Akomolo?”

“He’s the head of the second largest political party in the country — the National Progressives.”

“How many in the race?”

“There’re fourteen parties — but only three of them count.”

“How did Duffy get asked in?”

“Cocoa. He landed the Cocoa Marketing Board account and did his usual promotion job.”

Shartelle nodded. “I heard about it. The cocoa futures bounced around some as a result.”

“It was a volatile commodity for a while,” I said a bit pontifically. “Well, Chief Akomolo is on the Cocoa Board, met Duffy, and got the idea.”

Shartelle rose and walked over to the window again. “O.K., let’s bring it all out nice and plain. Just what kind of stakes you playing for?”

“No limit. The country’s got twenty million people, add or subtract a million or so. It’s got one of the best harbors on the West Coast. It’s got oil that hasn’t been touched, mineral deposits, a solid agricultural economy, and a built-in civil service system that’ll run for a hundred years and a day before it breaks down or someone forgets to minute a file. The British have seen to that.”

“Who’ll count the votes?”

“The Crown.”

“So the boy who gets in this time will be counting the votes the next time.”

“Probably.”

“Then there’s really going to be only one election, the first one, because the next time around the ins will have it wired.”

“You seem familiar with African politics.”

“No, I’m just familiar with all politics. It’s been my life-study. And in some circles I’m considered a leading authority, and I say that with all modesty.”

“You’ve got the track record, I hear.”

“What’s Duffy’s end?”

“Not as much as you’d think. The entire package is five-hundred thousand pounds. Your cut would be thirty thousand, as I said.”

“And if the Chief wins?”

I looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know really. Let’s just say that there’s probably a tacit understanding that DDT would get the whole thing — advertising, promotion, consultation, marketing, feasibility studies — everything.”