Brian Freemantle - Charlie Muffin U.S.A.

Pendlebury accepted the proffered still photographs. Every one showed Terrilli standing with the same concentration over a display case.

‘That’s all he did,’ said Pendlebury, as if confirmation were necessary. ‘Just spent an hour going from display to display, hardly ever looking up.’

‘He’s a junkie and we’ve got the fix,’ insisted the Director.

‘It certainly looks like it,’ conceded Bowler. ‘I never expected he would fly all the way from Florida. It clinches it for me.’

‘What about the Englishman?’ demanded Warburger.

‘I think he’s smart,’ said Pendlebury thoughtfully. ‘Appears not to be, but I think it’s an act.’

‘Is he going to be a problem?’ asked Bowler.

Pendlebury hesitated. Then he said, ‘Not if I handle it carefully enough.’

‘Don’t make a mistake, will you?’ said Warburger seriously.

‘No,’ promised Pendlebury.

‘If he becomes a nuisance, it could be resolved,’ said the Director.

‘I know,’ said Pendlebury. ‘But there’s no reason, not yet.’

‘Let’s just keep our options open,’ said Bowler.

‘I’ll be careful,’ said Pendlebury.

‘Be sure you are,’ said Warburger.

At least the meal and the wine had been good, thought Charlie. He felt as if he were in one of those television advertisements promoting analgesics for teachers who get migraine attacks from the incessant chattering of children. Charlie decided he must be getting older than he had fully realised. Because there was no harm and because he knew he had a function to fulfil, to earn the dinner, Charlie had told them about the liner fire in Hong Kong and how he had been allowed to travel to Peking by the Chinese authorities for proof that it had been caused by the Hong Kong Chinese owner and not by communist agents. It had been easy to omit the part played by the fervent C.I.A. man from whose death Charlie had stood aside because to have intervened would have disclosed his true identity and revived the pursuit by both American and British Intelligence Services which had already cost him the death of his wife.

The other men at the table had grown irritated, jealous of the interest the women had shown in the account and convincing themselves it was exaggerated. Whenever they’d expressed disbelief, Clarissa, who knew little of the circumstances, had assured them as if she had been personally involved that Charlie was telling the absolute truth.

‘Didn’t I tell you he was absolutely fantastic!’ she kept repeating.

Had he been a dog, Charlie thought, he’d have been expected to wag his tail. Perhaps he still would.

They had finished their meal when, his hand cupped as if proposing a Masonic handshake, the man whom Charlie had identified as Giles reached across the table towards him.

‘Want some?’ he invited.

Twice during the evening he and the girl with him, Fran, had snorted from the silver file of cocaine.

‘No thanks,’ said Charlie.

‘Frightened?’ demanded the man, imagining a chance to deflate the obvious admiration of the women around the table.

‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘It rots your nose.’

‘Smoking gives you lung cancer,’ cut in the other man, John.

‘I don’t smoke either,’ said Charlie.

‘And screwing gives you the clap,’ said Fran, joining in the game.

‘Life’s a regular little minefield,’ agreed Charlie.

‘Surely you do that!’ said Clarissa and Charlie became aware of the amused attention of everyone. Fran and the other girl, Pandora, must be twenty years younger than he was, Charlie thought. There was a vague embarrassment. And the recurring irritation he had first felt at the exhibition. At least Sally Cosgrove’s refusal to come with them, pleading an official reception with her husband, had spared him her disdain.

‘Only in a locked room with the lights out,’ he said.

‘That sounds dull,’ protested Pandora. ‘I never expected you to be dull.’

‘That’s the trick,’ said Charlie, pushing his chair away from the table. ‘Never do what’s expected of you.’

‘Where are you going?’ demanded Clarissa.

‘Back to the hotel,’ said Charlie.

‘But we’re going to meet Sally and the others… a club,’ she said.

‘I’m not.’

‘I want you to.’

It was an insistence from someone whose wishes were always obeyed. Everyone else at the table had grown quiet, Charlie realised.

He smiled down at her. ‘I’ve got to be up early in the morning. Business to discuss with your husband.’

‘I said I want you to stay!’

‘Good night,’ said Charlie, extending the smile around the table before walking away. It would have been a grand exit had the loose rubber sole of his Hush Puppies not caught against the stair edge. If the restaurant manager had not saved him, Charlie would have fallen flat on his face.

‘Cinderella is a girl’s part, anyway,’ he apologised to the man.

Conceit is rarely regarded as a fault among the very rich and powerful. Indeed, it is often mistaken for the confidence which enables them to obtain their riches and position. And often it is the frailty which leads to their undoing. Giuseppe Terrilli knew about conceit and its dangers and he was therefore confident he would never become a victim of it, any more than he would ever become a victim of any human failing, which he recognised was a conceit in itself, but still not a problem because he acknowledged it and could guard against it.

All his life Terrilli had guarded against what he considered weakness. He had loved his wife absolutely and had seen no contradiction in his readiness to kill her if she had become attracted to someone else, not because of any sexual betrayal but because she might have revealed his secrets. He accepted that he might have enjoyed the effect of alcohol or drugs, but abstained from both because he knew they would weaken his self-control, and there had never been a moment, not since he was eight years old and had pushed his elder brother to his death from the top of their tenement building in New York’s Little Italy and then held back from the instinct to look over the parapet to see what had happened, knowing someone below might look up and identify him, when Terrilli had not known complete self-control.

With such self-awareness, Terrilli knew the risk of what he was contemplating; like the alcoholic, in brief moments of sobriety, accepts that gin is destroying his liver or the heroin addict that each injection increases the possibility of an aneurysm in the brain. But unlike the man who declares the drink to be his last or the addict convinced the fix will be the final one before the cure, Terrilli was sure he could make it work. And the feeling was confidence, not conceit.

It just needed planning; the sort of planning he had put into establishing the narcotics operation as one of the most lucrative within the organisation, grossing more than the country-wide prostitution or Las Vegas gambling.

It was from the criticism of the organisation rather than any police involvement that Terrilli considered it important to protect himself, which was why it had to be an outside operation, organised personally by himself, and not something he could delegate to Tony Santano. If he told Santano, then Santano would tell the organisation. And then there would be a meeting of reasonable men to convince him he was being unreasonable.

Terrilli was sure that Robert Ghambine was the perfect choice for the robbery. For over two years the man had been trying to transfer from New York to Florida, to become part of the family there. And for two years Terrilli had held him off, waiting until Chambine could be put into a position to provide something. The exhibition was to be his chance, and Ghambine knew it. If he succeeded, then he would be made one of Terrilli’s lieutenants. If he failed, Terrilli would have him killed.