Ross Thomas: The Seersucker Whipsaw

“Sounds like a good base. Does he worry Chief Akomolo?”

“Not as much as Fulawa does.”

“Have you checked out whether he’s got an agency handling his campaign? I’d sure hate to get out there and find I was being double-teamed by Renesslaer and Doyle Dane.”

“It’s not an agency exactly,” Duffy said and watched Shartelle’s face intently.

“What is it?”

“The CIA.”

Shartelle slumped far down in his chair, crossed his legs, and stared intently at the ceiling. He made himself more comfortable by folding his arms behind his head. Duffy watched him. I watched Duffy.

“Well, now, old buddy,” Shartelle said slowly, “this kind of brings us full circle. You and me, that is. It doesn’t seem too long ago that you and Downer and me were taking and losing that French radio station for the granddaddy of the same outfit.”

“That was war time, Clint.”

Shartelle looked at Duffy and frowned. “You know, Pig, it always amazed me how you got started over here so smooth-like. I mean you had a going concern from the time you caught a cab at Victoria Station.”

“I made a lot of contacts here during the war. You know that, Clint.”

Shartelle looked around the room with the gaze of a probate court appraiser. “Yes, I guess you did. And I imagine you still have some, or you wouldn’t know about the CIA moving in.”

Duffy looked at me. “Nobody but you two knows about it Nobody but you two had better find out about it. I got this information from someone who owes me a favor. It was a big favor that I’d planned to collect in another way. A more profitable way, I might add. A damn sight more profitable. Now that favor’s paid off in full.”

Shartelle straightened himself up in his chair. He looked at me and winked. “What’s Chief Akomolo going to say to all this?”

“He can’t be told, goddamn it, Clint. You know that.”

“I just wanted to make sure you did.”

“He can’t be told,” Duffy repeated. “Nobody can. What do you expect us to do, issue a release blasting hell out of the CIA for interfering in the internal politics of one of Africa’s new and independent nations? Balls. What do you think we’re doing — and Renesslaer for that matter?”

“What we got is three American concerns trying to handicap a three-way horse race,” Shartelle said. “Now it seems strange to me that one of these candidates hasn’t snuggled up to a British PR agency. There’re some mighty sharp ones.”

Duffy sighed wearily. He looked at his open door and for the first time seemed to wish he had something to close it with. “Chief Akomolo hates the British. Don’t ask me why, it’s just a way of life with him. They’re colonialists. They’re the imperialistic power. Fulawa is sold on the Renesslaer bootstrap philosophy. He’s also cynical enough to believe it will keep things the way they are for the rest of his lifetime and then some. As for Dr. Kologo, the CIA sold him a campaign that must be based on one thing and that’s money. It’s the only way I can figure it.”

Shartelle leaned forward in his chair. “Now, Padraic, you correct me if I’m wrong. Let’s look at it like this: I believe you told me that Dr. Kologo has his base among the trade unionists and the radical younger crowd.”

“Anything under forty-five is young,” Duffy said.

“Now what’s old Sir Alhaji got?”

“The Muslims and the Emirs. It’s a little complicated, but he has a tight rein. He also has the political right — if you can call it right.”

“What’s it right of?”

“Maybe the Social Democrats in Germany or the Labourites here. But not much.”

“And Chief Akomolo?”

“He’s got the socialists and his tribe — which is the big gest tribe there is except that some of them are Muslims.”

Shartelle nodded. “I follow you. Now just how far left is the laborskate bunch that’s backing Dr. Kologo? China-left?”

“Christ, no!”

“Not even Russia?”

“No. The trade unionists and the young crowd are just left of everybody else. There are only thirty-one communists in all of Albertia. Thirty-two if you throw in old Mrs. PryceSmith who retired there. But she’s English and doesn’t count. There is no radical right and no radical left. Not as we know it. Everybody’s left of center, but not enough so that you can distinguish them.”

“Well, now,” Shartelle said, “it begins to make a little sense.” He rose and started to pace the room. “And hell, Pete, it’s better than ever! We got Africa and Jungle Jim and Tribal Chiefs and Secret Agents all sneaking through the rain forest. We got high-powered flacks and bewildered old India hands watching the last of the Empire crumble. We got all this as wild as it can be and just south of Timbuktu!” He turned in the room abruptly. “And sure the CIA wants in, and you know why? It’s because they’ve been badmouthed all over the place about backing the kook groups, the military, the far right extremists, instead of the good, solid lib-lab representatives of the people.

“So in Dr. Kologo they got themselves a candidate — a good man, as Pig here would call him. He’s not to the political right, he’s not tied up with the military, he’s got the support of the unions, and if he wins, then the CIA can leak it out that they supported this good man. If he loses, what the hell. They gave their support to the best man in sight and he lost. At least they weren’t supporting the sinister military-industrial complex — if Albertia’s got one yet.”

“That’s not quite it, Clint,” Duffy said. “That’s a good chunk of it, but not all. Candidates stand for election down there much as they do in England, by districts. Now if none of the three parties gains a simple majority at the center, then a coalition can form the government. This is a likely possibility. And if it happens, then both Chief Akomolo and Fulawa will go courting Dr. Kologo because they despise each other. And the CIA might have the final say on who the successful suitor shall be.”

I half-listened as they went on mapping out the destiny of a large piece of African real estate for the next half-century or so. Maybe this was what I had been missing those years that I had stood around in hotel corridors and the drafty halls of government buildings waiting for someone to open a closed door and lie about what they had been saying inside. You never knew really what they actually said or whether they yawned or picked their noses or just talked about women while the administrative aide pounded out the communiqué.

I wondered how Duffy had found out that the CIA was lumbering its way into the campaign and I wondered if two men, very much like Duffy and Shartelle, hadn’t been sitting around in a hotel room or some office in Paris or London or Lagos or Virginia when one, turning to the other, had said something like, “What do you think about taking a flyer on the Albertia do? We can send Johnson — he’s been moping around the office.” And the other one said, “Not bad, Stanley (or Bill or Jack or Rex or Bryan). Why don’t you get it down on paper and I’ll walk it through?”

The edge that had crept into the voices of Duffy and Shartelle brought me back. I felt I should have been taking notes.

“It was only an offer of help, Clint,” Duffy said. “Downer’s there now and he could stay on for a couple of months to give you and Pete a hand.”

“I don’t think I want Downer because I know Downer and I’ve worked with Downer. I remember the time you and me and Downer were in Liège and trying to get to Aachen and that stupid son of a bitch—”

“Never mind. I remember. All right, Downer’s out. Do you have anybody in mind that you’d like to have aboard?”