Raymond Benson - Doubleshot

“Excuse me, but is Mr. van Breeschooten here? He’s the manager, isn’t he?” he asked.

The big man eyed Bond without moving his head.

“Yes, he’s the manager, and, no, he’s not here.”

“Can you tell me when he might be available?”

The man turned his head to look Bond up and down. Not many people asked for the manager.

“Are you a cop?”

“Of course not. I’m a salesman. I wanted to talk to him about a new line of videos my company is selling. Amateur stuff. Hard-core, of course. Very high quality.”

“He’s at the office. You’ll find him there.”

“Ah. Thank you. Might I have the address?”

“Down near Brewer Street.” The man rattled off a number.

“Right,” Bond said. “Many thanks.” He turned to leave, then hesitated, as if he wanted to ask the man something but was too shy.

“Is there anything else?” the man asked.

“Uhm, yes, I couldn’t help but notice that pretty woman who came out of here a few minutes ago. Does she come here often?”

Now the man really thought Bond was some kind of pervert. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. Lots of women come in here. Men with their wives, couples, lesbians, you name it …”

“Right,” Bond said sheepishly. “Well, thanks.” This time Bond hurried out of the place.

He walked south and found the office on the ground floor of a seedy-looking building. The upper floors presumably contained residential flats. A plaque on the door read: “Clayton Enterprises.” Next to it was the residents’ entrance to the building. An intercom and listing of the tenants with buzzer numbers was attached to the alcove. He scanned the list and found a “van Breeschooten” in number 302.

Bond knocked on the office door, but there was no answer. He tried the knob—it was unlocked. He went inside and found a cluttered room that smelled of stale coffee and cigarette smoke, but there was no one there. It contained a desk, computer, telephone, coffeemaker, and stacks of papers all over the place. The ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts. Behind the desk was another door that was ajar. Bond peered inside and saw that the rest of the ground floor had been gutted to make a storeroom for the boxes of products carried by van Breeschooten’s shops. Two men were inside, packing videos into padded envelopes for posting. They both had Cockney accents, were heavily built types, and appeared to be in their thirties. They were probably strong-arms in van Breeschooten and Clayton’s organization. He was surprised to see from the bulges at their waists that they were both armed.

“… But then he said that the money would be bloody good, and it was!” one of them said.

“Last month’s check was a nice surprise, I must admit,” the other said.

“The company must be doing well. We’ll get the details on the new job any day.”

“If the money is as good as last time, I’m there!”

“Where is Walter, anyway?”

“Upstairs in the flat. Clayton is with him.”

The first man snorted. “Couple of poofters, they are …”

Bond left them alone and turned his attention back to the cluttered office. The papers were invoices, packing slips, order forms, and the like. He opened a desk drawer and found an unsealed envelope from a travel agency addressed to Walter van Breeschooten. Bond looked inside and found airline tickets for both Clayton and van Breeschooten to fly from London to Tangier, Morocco, later that night.

Interesting, Bond thought. The Union’s headquarters was believed to be in North Africa.

He replaced the tickets and envelope in the desk, gave the other drawers a cursory search, and decided there was nothing else of interest.

Bond slipped out of the office and tried the door to the residential part of the building. It was locked, so he pressed the button marked “Deliveries.” After a moment, someone buzzed him in. The building’s narrow stairwell smelled of garbage and dirty nappies. He could hear a baby crying in one of the flats above him. Bond quietly crept up to the first floor and listened at the landing. No one was about. He went up two more flights to the third and top floor. He could faintly hear the voices of two men talking behind the door of number 302, which was next to a window that opened out onto the fire escape.

Bond raised his left foot and pried off the heel of his field-issue shoe. Major Boothroyd had recently added an ingenious listening device to the equipment inside the shoes, which included a first-aid kit, escape tools, and other odds and ends that were neatly packed in the hollowed-out spaces. The device was a high-power UHF transceiver the size of a two-penny coin. A suction cup/microphone was attached to the side so that the device could stick to any surface. Bond licked the suction cup and placed it firmly on the door. He then pulled out the earpiece that was attached to a tension wire embedded within the device. With the earpiece lodged firmly in his ear he could hear the voices clearly.

“… And the process will continue with the distribution of the latest payments. But the new project will bring in a lot of money. I think we’ll do very well.”

“I’ve heard that it’s very risky.”

“It is, what I know about it. They’re keeping the details under wraps for now. You know as much as I do.”

The first voice was Dutch, all right, so that must be van Breeschooten. The other voice was decidedly English. Michael Clayton.

The Dutchman sighed loudly and said, “I sure don’t want to have to go back to Morocco again. I hate it there.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” the other man said. “It will be nice to get out of London for a change.”

Bond waited, hoping that one of them would reveal something that might implicate them as Union members.

“Well, let’s just hope that tonight goes as planned,” van Breeschooten said. “Your cousin’s news was encouraging.”

“Yes. Everything is in place. We’ll make the bloke wish he’d never been born.”

“How come your cousin’s always so cross?”

“I don’t know,” Clayton said. “Been that way forever.”

A noise in the stairwell distracted Bond. He heard the front door open downstairs. Someone was on the ground floor and was beginning to ascend. Bond willed whoever it was to stop at one of the lower floors. He was determined to hear as much of the conversation as possible.

A Cockney voice boomed out from the stairwell, “Get your own bloody sandwich. I’m going upstairs. Back in a minute.”

Damn! It was one of the storeroom workers. He was coming up here!

Bond listened intently to the two men inside the flat. Come on, he thought, say something about the Union.…

“Did I tell you what happened at the meeting three months ago?”

van Breeschooten asked.

“A commandant was killed?”

The footsteps were growing louder. The man was at the first floor.

“Throat slit, ear to ear. Right in front of us.”

“What did he do?”

“Cheated the company. The boss doesn’t like that.”

The ascending worker was at the second floor. In a few seconds he would appear and Bond would be trapped.

“The boss doesn’t like a lot of things, from what I gather.”

“He’s quite a character,” van Breeschooten said. “I admire him a great deal. You know he’s given the orders to move the headquarters out of Casablanca.”

“Where are they moving?”

“I don’t know yet.”

The Cockney was a few steps from the landing. Bond was ready to pull the listening device off the door when the Englishman in the flat said, “Do you think I’ll really get to meet Le Gérant this trip?”

That was all Bond needed. He tugged the device off the door just as the Cockney thug appeared around the corner. He saw Bond and yelled, “You there! What are you doing?”