Ross Thomas: The Seersucker Whipsaw

“What’ll it be?”

“Scotch. A double.”

He nodded, moved behind the bar, and poured the drink. He slid it across the mahogany to me.

“Some trouble, I hear.”

“Lots of trouble.” I handed him the note. “It’s from Shartelle.”

He read it and tore it up. He nodded his thanks.

“You staying?” he asked.

“No. Are you?”

“For a while,” he said. “Perhaps business will pick up.”

“Guns?”

He just looked at me. “Have a drink on the house.” He poured us both doubles. I drank, thanked him, and started to leave. I stopped at the door and turned. “Did you know Shartelle before?”

He nodded again. “We met. A long time ago in France. He thought I was French until he stepped on my hand and I called him a son of a bitch.”

“He said he knew you.”

“He has a good memory.”

I got back in the car and William drove to the airport in fifty minutes. It was jammed, but a representative of the Consulate got my ticket confirmed. I had twenty minutes to wait. “I’ll buy you a drink,” I told William.

I had another whisky; he had a beer. “Where’s your brother?”

“He in school, Sah. Very good school that Madam Anne make for him.”

“Will he go tomorrow?”

William looked puzzled. “Yes, Sah. He go every day.”

I nodded. “What do you want more than anything else, William?”

He smiled shyly. “I want taxi, Sah.”

“One of those Morris Minor things?”

“Yes, Sah.”

“How much do you need?”

“Much money, Sah. Three hundred pounds.”

I took out my wallet. I had 132 Albertian pounds left. I gave them to William. “Make a down payment,” I told him. “It’s from Shartelle and me.”

They called my plane before he could thank me. I shook hands with him and he followed as far as Passport Control would let him. I got on the plane and it took off. It was just another plane ride. It flew out over the ocean, turned, and flew back over the Barkandu harbor towards the Sahara and Rome. I looked down only once.

“Some harbor,” I said aloud. The man next to me pretended not to hear.

Two months later I was sitting in my brand new office, in a brand new newspaper building, in one of those brand new towns that they build on the east coast of Florida out of nothing but water and swamp. The sign on my door was new, too, and it said Managing Editor. I was sitting there, with my feet on my new desk, reading my daily letter from Anne Kidd who wrote: “They’ve begged me to stay on for another six months as principal of the school. I won’t be a P.C. volunteer, just a private schoolmarm. In six months I can train someone to take my place and then leave. I don’t think I can explain why I agreed. I just hope you’ll understand. Do you?

“I saw Claude yesterday and she gave me a note from Shartelle to send to you. I’m going to copy it verbatim:

“‘Small but growing counterrevolution in West Africa seeks competent, well-rounded public relations director to assume full responsibilities. Chance for rapid advancement. Our employees know of this ad.’”

I read the rest of the letter, folded it and replaced it in my pocket. It was the fourth time I had read it. Another time and I would have it memorized.

George Sexton, the wire editor, came into my glass-walled cubicle and handed me a long yellow sheet of AP copy and a Wirephoto. I looked at the Wirephoto first.

“Don’t you know those guys?” Sexton asked.

I knew them. There were four in the picture: Dekko in the middle, looking appropriately grim and resolved. Jenaro to his left, a wide smile below his wraparound shades. Dr. Diokadu was on Dekko’s right with the usual sheaf of papers under his arm. Shartelle was in the picture by accident, to the left and the rear of Jenaro. He looked as he always looked in pictures: as if he were trying to remember whether he had turned off the roast.

“I know them,” I told Sexton and picked up the story. It was by Foster Mothershand and the dateline was Barkandu. It was a mailer and the editorial precede said it was the first interview with Chief Dekko since the coup. It was a well-written story and ran at least two thousand words. Shartelle apparently had made good on his promise to the old AP man.

I read it quickly. Dekko, operating from deep in the bush, was causing the new military government a lot of grief, and it seemed likely that he would cause a lot more. Mothers- hand mentioned Shartelle in passing and then devoted about five hundred words or so to a think-piece type summary on the future of Albertia. It wasn’t particularly cheerful.

“Cut it to eight hundred words and run it on nine,” I said. “Give Mothershand his byline.”

“How about the picture?” Sexton asked.

“Crop the guy on the left — the white man with the black hat.”

“Isn’t that your buddy?”

“He doesn’t like publicity.”

“Sort of miss the excitement, don’t you, Pete?”

I looked at him. He was only twenty-three years old. “No,” I said. “I don’t miss it.”

He went back to his desk and I reached into the bottom drawer of mine and took out my lunch — a pint of Ancient Age. I swiveled in my chair and looked out of the big plate glass window that formed one wall of my office. It faced the street. Across the street was a one-story motel and beyond the motel was the ocean. I opened the Ancient Age and took a drink. Two small children, a tow-headed boy and a girl, walked by, flattened their noses against the plate glass, and studied the Managing Editor at work. I toasted them with the pint, took another drink, and put it back in the bottom drawer. The boy stuck out his tongue at me.

I turned to the typewriter, put a sheet of copy paper in, thought a moment, and typed:

ANNE KIDD

c/o USIS

UBONDO, ALBERTIA

WEST AFRICA

REURMESSAGE TELL SHORTCAKE DOWNTAKE HELP-WANTED SIGN. WORLD’S THIRD BEST FLACK ARRIVING SOONEST ENDIT SCARAMOUCHE

I yelled for the copy boy, gave him ten dollars, and told him to trot over to Western Union and send the cable. “If they can’t do it, call it in to RCA.”

I looked out at the ocean once more, then picked up the phone and dialed a number. I did it before I changed my mind. When the voice came on it was the girl’s and I knew it would take longer. The man was quicker.

“I would like to make a reservation on the first flight you have leaving for New York tomorrow morning,” I said. That was easy. She could confirm it. “I would also like to make a reservation on the next flight from New York to Barkandu.” That was harder. “Barkandu is in Albertia,” I said. “Albertia is in Africa.”

There was a long wait while she called New York on another line. Then she came back on the phone and said, yes, she could confirm that for tomorrow at 4:15 P.M. Eastern Standard Time out of Kennedy. She had one more question, and she had to ask it twice, because I had to think about it for a while. When she repeated it the third time, I said: “No, I don’t think so. Just make it one-way.”

I hung up the phone and sat there for a moment, staring at nothing. Then I got up, told Sexton I was going out for lunch, crossed the street, walked around the motel and down to the beach. It was late October and the season hadn’t started. The beach was deserted. I sat on the sand and looked at the ocean. Three small children chased a large dog down near the edge of the waves. The dog barked merrily and wagged its tail. Then the children turned and let the dog chase them for a while. They kept it up for a long time and nobody ever caught anybody. I sat there, watching them, trying not to think. But the thoughts came anyway.

After a time I rose and brushed myself off. The children and the dog were still running up and down. I bent down and picked up a pebble and threw it at them. Or maybe I threw it at Africa.