Gordon Kent - The Falconer’s Tale

It hadn’t helped that another car had passed and the driver had laughed.

When they got out in the drizzle at Salen, Dave was in the silent phase of anger. He didn’t bother with his raincoat but hunched his shoulders and walked toward the restaurant—if you can’t punish somebody else for being stupid, punish yourself. Piat regretted having said what he’d said, because he knew he had made things worse, and it would all rub off on the meeting with Hackbutt. He didn’t know why he cared that the meeting go well, but he did. Maybe for Hackbutt’s sake. Maybe some vestigial pride of craft.

“Reservation,” Dave growled to the smiling man behind the combination bar and reservation desk.

“Name?”

Dave ground his teeth. He didn’t know Piat’s cover name.

“Michaels,” Piat said. “Jack Michaels.”

“Oh, yes, right—we chatted on the phone about running.” They had, in fact; now they chatted a bit more while Dave secreted bile. Piat had run a route the day before that this young man had suggested. “Fantastic,” Piat said now. “Great scenery. Great run.” The young man talked about hamstrings.

Hackbutt wasn’t there yet. They sat at a table for four, from which the young man whisked a table setting. Dave folded his arms and looked around as if he expected somebody to call him a bad name. Piat ordered a glass of Brunello and bruschetta, which wasn’t on the menu but didn’t raise any eyebrows. He tried to mollify Dave by offering him some of the toasted bread when it came, but Dave simply looked at it. He wasn’t going to allow himself to enjoy anything.

Hard on poor old Hackbutt .

“We could order,” Piat said when Hackbutt was twenty minutes late.

“We’ll wait.”

Piat shrugged and asked the young man if by any chance they had some roasted pepper in olive oil. He was enjoying that when at last Hackbutt stumbled in, looking as if he’d just come from Lear’s blasted heath—hair soaked and tangled, beard dripping, ancient drover’s coat glued to his legs by the wet.

“I walked.”

All three of them were standing by then. Hackbutt looked only at Piat. Piat saw Dave stick out his hand, and he said quickly, “This is the guy I’ve told you so much about, Digger. You two will really get along.” He ducked out of the way of Dave’s paw and went behind Hackbutt to help him off with the enormous and very wet coat. Hackbutt tried to turn to keep eye contact as if it were his only contact with reality. Piat gently turned him back and eased the coat off his shoulders, preventing Hackbutt from putting out his own hand. By the time he was able to do so, Dave had withdrawn the offer and was pulling back his chair.

“Siddown,” Dave said.

Hackbutt looked at Piat for permission. Piat nodded. Hackbutt sat.

So did Piat. He picked up his fork and stabbed it into a piece of glossy roasted pepper and prepared to say something light and conversational about the weather, and Dave said to him, “You’re done here. Bug out.”

Piat looked at him. Dave, he thought, was incredible. He put the pepper in his mouth and picked up his last piece of bruschetta and mopped up some of the olive oil. When he looked at his old friend, Hackbutt’s face showed frozen panic.

“You hear me?” Dave said.

“I did.”

“You’re done. Head out.” He jerked one thumb toward the door. “Look for a Land Rover.”

Hackbutt at last managed to open his mouth and wheeze, “Yeah, but—Jack, Jeez—”

Piat was on his feet. He patted Hackbutt’s shoulder. “Everything’ll be fine. It’ll be great.” He glanced at Dave and saw an expression of malice and triumph. Dave, he knew, was right—the case officer’s the boss—but my god! he was a shit. Piat walked the few steps to the entryway, picked his raincoat off a hook, and opened the door. It was raining harder. He didn’t look back because he didn’t want to see Hackbutt’s face.

He went out to the road and started looking for a Land Rover, found one around the corner of the restaurant. Partlow was just visible through the rain at the wheel. Piat climbed in the passenger door.

“There we are, Jerry,” said Partlow. “Probably the easiest ten thousand dollars you ever earned.” He put the car in gear and started out of town. The big chassis barely fit the single-lane road past the old inn that dominated the north end of Salen.

“That’s it?” asked Piat. “And you’re sure Dave can handle this from here?”

Partlow changed gears. “I’m sure Dave can handle him as well as anyone, Jerry.” There were headlights visible on the long hill down from Aros Mains, and Partlow pulled into a lay-by to let the other car pass.

Piat considered a number of bitter replies and realized that, whatever mistakes Dave made, he himself was out of it. For two days, he had returned to the world of being a case officer. He had allowed Hackbutt’s needs to become the horizon and limit of his world, just as he always had. The shoulder to cry on. The voice in the dark.

All done. Never again, and all that. He took a deep breath and let it out.

“So, now what?” Piat asked. He was gripping the hand-hold over the passenger window a little too hard. Partlow was driving fast in the rain, taking curves too aggressively, and with what Piat saw as a reckless disregard for the possibility of further oncoming vehicles on a single-lane road.

“I take you back to the hotel. You check out and take the ferry back to the mainland. And goodbye.”

Piat trod hard on his anger. Partlow’s dismissal was a little too much like Dave’s. Stick to what matters . “When do I get my money? And my rods?”

“Why, immediately, if you like. Really, Jerry, your constant paranoia depresses me. You are done. You were hired to perform a service and you did a fine job. No hard feelings, I hope?”

Piat eyed an upcoming double hairpin turn with some misgivings, but he said, “No, Clyde. For once, I have no hard feelings.” He shrugged, mostly at himself. But Partlow was clearly pleased with the progress of the operation, and he probably had money just lying around—“Although I did lose a thousand dollars’ worth of fishing in Iceland, a trip I had planned and anticipated for some time.”

“Jerry, just come out with it. I take it we’re leading up to a demand for more cash?” Partlow sounded like a loving but aggrieved parent.

“Well.” Piat’s grasp on the handle loosened as Partlow reached the two-lane road that led into Tobermory. “Well, to be frank, Clyde, I’d think you could get me an airplane ticket and refund me the value of my trip to Iceland.”

Partlow sighed. “I had intended to add fifteen hundred dollars as a success bonus, Jerry. Is that sufficient? You can purchase your own ticket.”

Piat watched the town of Tobermory spreading out below them as they drove around the traffic circle. “Throw in the car for the rest of the day,” he said. “Let me have the car. I’ll go fishing.”

Partlow sighed again. “Jerry, sometimes I think you aren’t quite sane. It’s raining. It’s cold.”

“So you won’t leave the hotel. It’s a spate, Clyde. Give me the money and my rods and I’ll get an afternoon’s fishing here. And no hard feelings.” Curious how easily manipulated Partlow was on this. It had never occurred to Piat before that Partlow wanted his approval. But he did. Interesting .

Partlow turned and looked at him, as if assessing him. Almost certainly was assessing him. Then he smiled. “What the hell. Just don’t run off with the car, Jerry, okay? It’s a rental, and I signed for it.”

Piat smiled. “Clyde, why would I run off with the car?”

Piat spent thirty minutes with Partlow signing forms. It amused him that Clyde was so punctilious on his forms—another sign that the man hadn’t spent enough time running real agents. Perhaps that was the root of his insecurity. Piat complied cheerfully, however, especially when he discovered that he could sign all the forms in a cover name. He acquired sixty-five hundred dollars in large bills and retrieved his fishing gear and his battered backpack.