Brian Freemantle: Comrade Charlie

‘Honey!’ she said, in the pouting, little-girl voice she had for asking special favours.

‘I didn’t say we couldn’t,’ assured Krogh quickly. He liked being the big spender, the whatever-you-want-you-get man. He could afford it, after all.

She came closer to him, nuzzling against him. ‘Now?’

‘Sure. Now, if that’s what you want.’

‘You’re very good to me. And I love you for it. I still like the car, of course. Love it like I did when you bought it for me.’

The sudden jump confused him. ‘What?’

‘My car. I still like it.’

‘Good.’ It was red, the colour she’d wanted: a Honda sports. Krogh liked to treat them both the same so he’d bought one for Barbara, as well. Barbara had chosen blue.

‘It’s just that I’ve seen this convertible: a Volkswagen GTI, all white. White upholstery, white top, white wheel trim,’ recited Cindy, as if she were reading from the sales brochure. ‘It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life and I love it to death and want to show it to you. Not to buy. Just to show you, so you can look. That OK?’

‘Sure that’s OK,’ said Krogh. The price of a new car would be swallowed without a ripple in the profits coming to him from the Pentagon deal. He wished he’d thought of it as a gift instead of her having to ask. He could still make it a surprise for Barbara.

‘I really do love you,’ repeated the girl. ‘Don’t you ever leave me, will you?’

‘You’re the one who’ll want it all to end one day,’ said Krogh realistically.

‘I won’t!’ insisted Cindy. ‘I won’t ever want that!’

‘Let’s not talk about it.’

‘I said noon. It’s a quarter off eleven already.’

Again Krogh was confused. ‘Noon?’

‘To meet the salesman who’d got the dinkie little VW. I knew you’d say yes because you’re so wonderful so I made an appointment to see him. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No,’ sighed Krogh. ‘We’d better get cleaned up.’

The salesroom was on Sunset, just short of where it ceases being smart movie-magazine Hollywood and gives way to the tacky I-could-have-been-a-star cocktail places. The car was on the front, glistening from a polish job, the Sold sticker already on the windscreen. Cindy said the man must have misunderstood. They went through the hood-lifting, ass-in-the-seat-for-comfort routine and the salesman said he’d take the Honda sports off their hands at a price they would not get anywhere else. Krogh bought it on the spot, which he’d known in bed that morning that he would and Cindy had known in bed that morning that he would. Krogh insisted on all the paperwork being in his name — in owning the car, in fact — just like he owned the condo on Malibu and the apartment and the car in San Francisco. Krogh knew exactly what he was doing and with whom he was doing it and when the girls moved on or he moved on he didn’t intend losing out on real estate that was appreciating in value all the time or on automobiles that still had some equity in them. As they parted with handshakes the salesman said: ‘Your daughter’s never going to want another car after this one, Mr Krogh. I hope she knows what a truly lucky girl she is.’

‘Asshole!’ said Cindy as they went back towards the ocean.

‘If he’s an asshole why’d you take the card he slipped you?’

‘He didn’t slip me anything!’ said the girl indignantly. ‘He gave me his card in case anything came up with the car I wanted to talk to him about.’

Krogh hoped to Christ she was careful: he had a very real fear of catching something from either Cindy or Barbara. They went to eat at Gladstones, on the beach. There were a lot of halter tops and cut-off jeans and bare flesh and yells and shouts of young recognition and Krogh felt very old. Krogh didn’t finish his steak and their waiter, who wore a ponytail tied with a spotted ribbon and knew Cindy by her christian name, fashioned a take-home tinfoil doggy bag in the shape of a long-necked swan.

‘You coming back so I can thank you properly for my car?’

‘I should get back,’ said Krogh. He would go into the plant. His father-in-law would hear about it even if the man weren’t there: things like that — his dedication to work — were important. He was as safe as hell and up to his ass in stock options but his father-in-law retained the title of President and controlled the stockholders’ votes. Krogh enjoyed impressing the old man, like he enjoyed facing down the critics who’d sneered at the shopfloor draughtsman who’d gone for the main chance and married the boss’s daughter. It was going to be difficult to criticize now, after the Star Wars deal.

Cindy ran him to the airport and Krogh promised to call. There were no delays on the flight nor hindrance on the road after landing in San Francisco and Krogh was at the plant by four, making sure he was seen going through the office level to the executive suites. He tried Barbara’s number, just to talk, but got the answering machine and rang off without leaving any message. Peggy picked up the call at home and when he told her he was at the plant said: ‘You work too hard. You don’t allow any time for yourself.’

‘I will,’ said Krogh easily.

‘Busy trip?’

‘I’m worn out.’

It was the sort of club that could exist only in Los Angeles or New York, a flowered place for the butterfly people to flutter and briefly settle before moving on. Cindy’s sort of place.

She cruised the jostled bar and the fast and slow disco, sure of herself and in no hurry to prove anything. She refused two quick approaches, hello goodbye, hello goodbye, already aware of the man at the bar, like he was aware of her: a hunk and knowing it, very dark-haired, chisel-faced, smiling at her but not doing anything else. In the end Cindy made the move, detouring on her way back from the powder room. When she got to him she said: ‘I just checked for my second head: I couldn’t find it.’

‘The one you’ve got is fine.’

‘Glad to hear it. At last.’

He bought her kir royale, champagne and cassis, without asking what she wanted, and stayed with vodka, neat, for himself, and danced like a dream. When he suggested dinner at Spago she said he’d never get a table and he did, without her seeing any money change hands, and they both knew he was coming back to Malibu without their even talking about it.

‘I like the car,’ he said, outside the restaurant.

‘My daddy bought it for me,’ said Cindy.

‘You must have a very generous daddy,’ said Alexandr Petrin.

There had been occasions, quite a few in fact, when Charlie had regarded the assessments sessions to be a holiday: sitting in the sun, hat-over-the-eyes stuff. But not this time. He derided Harkness for behaving like a prissy schoolmaster — perhaps school mistress was more accurate — but that was exactly what this was going to be, just like being at school with all the report marked up in credit and debit columns. And Charlie was bloody sure — absolutely convinced — that if he didn’t get well over passmark in every course Harkness would have him. All the reasons could be manufactured, to bury him in some clerical division: failure to reach minimal but required standards, lack of concentration, inability to cope with the demands of the job, etcetera, etcetera.

So Charlie tried. He couldn’t recall trying so hard in a practice environment because before he’d always considered war-games to be just that, kids’ games, bang, bang, you’re dead. Now it was different. Now it wasn’t playing pretend. It was him against Harkness, although it wasn’t quite a physical contest. Near enough, though. Important for him to win: always for him to win.