Paul Theroux - The Family Arsenal

Hood said, ‘Make it a fat one, squire.’

The next day, Mayo said, ‘You found it?’

‘Right,’ said Hood. ‘Ask Murf.’

‘I don’t know nothing,’ said Murf.

‘But you know we found it, don’t you, squire?’

‘Oh, yeah, I know that,’ said Murf. ‘But I don’t know nothing else.’

‘So that’s why you wanted the van. I leave the house for six hours and I come back to a muddle. Give me the keys.’

Hood handed her the keys and said, ‘There’s no muddle, sweetheart. Everything’s fine. We found the stuff, now stop shouting.’

‘I think you’re lying,’ said Mayo.

‘You think I’m lying? Are you a screamer or what? Of course I’m lying.’

‘Then where did it come from?’

Hood said, ‘When I get a few answers from you, sweetie, you’ll get some from me.’

‘I’ve been straight with you.’

‘Sure you have. You haven’t told me a thing.’

‘It’s too soon. But I’ll tell you this. There’s something big, a Provo offensive in England. We don’t want to blow it.’

‘Hear that, Murf?’ said Hood.

‘Yeah.’

‘Something big. An offensive.’

‘Yeah.’

‘But she doesn’t want to blow it.’

Murf sniggered.

‘He thinks you’re full of crap,’ said Hood to Mayo. ‘He’s a bright boy.’

‘Hop it, Murf,’ said Mayo. ‘I want to talk to Hood alone.’

‘See you later, squire,’ said Hood. Murf winked and hunched out of the room.’

‘I’m glad you two are finally getting on.’

‘We’re pals, Murf and me. He doesn’t know whether to scratch his watch or wind his ass, but we’re pals.’

‘Those televisions upstairs, all those boxes,’ said Mayo. ‘I don’t like secrets.’

‘You’re not telling me anything, so I’m not telling you anything. I thought I could help. I can shoot and I can move faster than those drunks in Kilburn. But who do they trust? Teenagers — these tenth-rate screamers and tip-toes. It’s a joke, and so far I haven’t done a goddamned thing.’

‘You did that passport.’

‘It takes ten minutes to make a passport. They don’t even realize that it’s harder to forge a visa than a passport — ask any consul. Look, I didn’t join up to make passports. I joined to take scalps.’ Hood glared at Mayo. ‘Well, I get the message. I’m on my own.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Mayo. ‘We need you.’

‘Prove it,’ said Hood. ‘Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me why they’re stalling.’

‘They’re not stalling,’ said Mayo, but she turned away as she said it and Hood read evasion on her back.

‘Yes, they are,’ he said. ‘You’re trying to protect them. They’re supposed to be so efficient, but as soon as I saw Brodie I knew they were a bunch of amateurs. Professionals don’t risk a whole campaign by sending a kid like that to do the dirty work — and Murf has the political judgement of a tunafish. No, they’re beginners — like you with your painting. Sure, it’s a nice painting, but you’re the only one who thinks so. You’re wasting your time. All these secrets, all this waiting — tomorrow, next week, next year. It means one thing: they don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve got no skill, so they’ve got no nerve. And you want me to believe there’s some big secret! Honey, I know their secret — they’re incompetent. They’re stupid. They’re stalling. Admit it.’

‘They have got a plan, Val,’ said Mayo. ‘There’s going to be an English offensive. In terms of headlines, one bomb in Oxford Street is worth ten in Belfast.’

‘They’ve got a plan,’ he said. Their opiates were plans, plots, counterplots, circular stratagems, this drugged sentry-duty to which they attached importance. Threat and plot replaced action, the motions of militant bureaucracy blinded them to the fact that they had no power. But they were satisfied with the self-flattery of their secrets, like addicts sucking a pipe of smoking promises. ‘Well, they haven’t got me.’

‘Don’t say that. If you leave I’ll be blamed. I told them we could trust you.’

‘Did they need you to say that?’

‘You’re an American. You were in the State Department. How were they supposed to know you weren’t a spy or —’

‘They thought I was a spook?’ he said sharply.

‘At first.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

‘Because I knew you weren’t.’

‘How do they know I’m not one now?’

‘The passport you made. It worked. He wasn’t picked up, whoever used it.’

‘I still think it’s a pretty sloppy outfit. You can tell them I said so.’

‘Maybe I will.’

‘And another thing,’ said Hood. ‘Tell them I know they’re stalling. They’ve got a plan. Big deal — a plan is just a piece of paper, or in their case one Guinness too many. Any drunk can have a plan. There’s only one thing to do and that’s act. What are they waiting for?’

‘All right,’ said Mayo, fatigued by the argument. ‘Something’s gone wrong. There, are you happy now?’

‘What is it?’

‘I can’t tell you. I don’t know.’

‘They’re drunk.’

‘It’s serious. Something to do with supplies. All the contacts were made — that’s why they needed the passport. They think they’ve been burned.’

‘Supplies,’ said Hood. ‘You’re talking about hardware. What about their supply-lines? What kind of mob is this?’

‘This isn’t America, Val. We don’t buy machine-guns at the local iron-mongers. We have to get them on the continent — from Arabs, thugs, anyone. Then they have to get them into the country. It’s bloody hard.’

‘You’re wrong, sister. It’s easy,’ said Hood. ‘Just send one of those creeps around here and I’ll tell him how.’

‘You’re so belligerent all of a sudden,’ said Mayo. ‘You’ve got all the answers, haven’t you? Well, I saw that room full of stuff upstairs. What do you propose to do with your twenty television sets?’

Hood said, ‘Get twenty people and watch them.’

Mayo shrugged, but the talk had rattled her; she started out of the room.

Hood said, ‘And what do you propose to do with your painting?’

‘I don’t want to think about it,’ she said.

‘I’ll be sorry if they pay your ransom,’ he said, ‘I’m beginning to like it.’

The painting’s secret had been revealed slowly. It had changed from day to day, from week to week, and now nearly a month since he first saw it the image had set. It was definite. He had seen Rogier as confused, furious, hesitant, holy, insane; one day the thin smile was mocking, the next day it was benign, then it was not a smile at all but a mouth mastering pain. It was the portrait of a villain in black. It was a patrician gentleman gleaming with wealth. It was an anxious bridegroom pausing at the window of experience. It was an ikon with saintly hands and small feet, a man suffering an obscure martyrdom, his soul shining in his face. Hood gave it titles: ‘The Expelled Consul’. ‘The Jailer Lord’, ‘The Hangman’, ‘Death Eating a Cracker’. One time it was not a man at all; he’d had an opium dream in which it was revealed as a woman, slender, like a heron in black, with small breasts, a dainty griffin standing in a high attic — the onset of loneliness, the moment of widowhood. All these, then none of these. The legs were apart, the boots planted almost athletically on the square of carpet; the arms were rising on the handle of a silver dagger, the eyes were awakened with fury and pricked by the red light of imagination. The neck was tensed to turn, the hands to fight. It was the instant between decision and movement, a split-second of calm. It was, passionately, a man of action.