by Marc Puttock At the hotel check-in he leaves a false name again, consciously trying not to let the signature look the same as his others, left behind on a crooked trail of boarding houses and cheap motels. The desk clerk asks, "Can I help you with your bag, Sir?" "Er...no thanks it's no bother...I'm expecting a call, however...if you could let me know...that is if it's no trouble to you?" Upstairs, and the room looks reassuringly familiar: the sheets and sink at least look clean. To the man's taste, this is preferable to the Holiday Inns with their identical rooms from Brazil to Japan. "Not that it would matter," he silently muses, "since there's never enough time to completely relax nor finally unpack." Superstition forbids him that; and the case is ritually stowed beneath the bed with two shirts still inside. The phone rings and as the attache is put through he barely remembers, "Mr. MacMillan, that's you!" "Mr. MacMillan, is that you?" the voice on the line asks, "You come highly recommended for a job that we have to do." "Not we," he replies "I know that by now...It's me that gets dirty hands but I never expect the diplomatic corps to understand. Listen, we need to talk, so let's make a rendezvous...I already know a small cafe down by the docks." And so later, over a couple of stiff Martinis, a small brown envelope and forced pleasantness are exchanged. The attache expresses his confidence in his man for the task. "MacMillan" dryly replies that he was the only one they could have asked, "verstehen?" This time the work does not seem too hard; not much more than slipping past a guard, removing some papers from a file, and mailing copies to an address in Beirut. The next day the man quietly disappears carrying a briefcase that is worn and well used: functional and reliable with a concealed compartment fitted into the seams; a bag that is hard to spot on the carousel at the airport terminal: another case in the crowd. The man feels the grip fit snugly in his hand like a rosary in the palm of a priest as he rides in comfort through the twilight, dozing in the buffet of the boat train. He dreams intermittently of a Mr. Jones just arrived in Geneva and a small cold room with no view. |
©1980 MARC PUTTOCK |
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