The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(31)

What I did was leave the motel, telling them that I would be back after dinner (I’d already paid, naturally) and drive circuitously to the heart of Oklahoma City, arriving tired and grim.

Not too near the centre I found a solid, sober sort of hotel which looked as though it would not knowingly harbour the more obvious kind of barbouze or assassin. I drove into the underground garage and waited until the night attendant had exhausted his stock of admiring ‘shee-its’, then I told him that the Rolls was entered in an RR Concours d’Elégance in Los Angeles the following week and that a hated rival would stop at nothing to impede my progress or the car’s chances of success.

‘What would you do,’ I asked him hypothetically ‘if a stranger offered you money to let him sit in the car for five minutes while you went away and sat in your office?’

‘Well, Sir,’ he said, ‘I guess I’d jest wave this little old wrench at him and tell him to haul his ass out of here, then I’d ring the desk upstairs and then in the morning I’d kind of tell you how much money he’d offered me, see what I mean, Sir.’

‘I do indeed. You are clearly a capital fellow. Even if nothing happens I shall assume, in the morning, that you refused let us say five, ah, bucks, what?’

‘Thank you, Sir.’

I went up in the lift or elevator and started work on the desk clerk. He was a well-scrubbed, snotty little chap in one of those suits only desk clerks can buy – or would want – and his breath smelled of something unwholesome and probably illegal. He studied my luggage like a pawnbroker before he peevishly admitted that he did have a vacant room with bath, but he thawed fast when he saw my diplomatic passport and the five-dollar bill I had carelessly left inside it. He was just sliding the money towards him when I trapped it with a well-shaped forefinger. I leaned over the counter and lowered my voice.

‘No one but you and I knows that I am here tonight. Do you follow me?’

He nodded, both our fingers still on the money.

‘Consequently, anyone telephoning me will be trying to locate me. Are you still following?’

He still was.

‘Now, none of my friends could possibly be trying to get in touch with me here and my enemies are members of a political party which is dedicated to the overthrow of the United States. So what will you do if somebody calls me?’

‘Call the cops?’

I winced with unfeigned chagrin.

‘No no NO,’ I said. ‘By no means the cops. Why do you think I’m in Oklahoma City?’

That really fetched him. Awe stole into his juicy eyes and his lips parted with a tiny plop.

‘You mean, just call you? Sir?’ he said at last.

‘Right,’ I said, and released the five dollars. He stared at me until I was inside the lift. I felt reasonably secure – desk clerks all over the world have two talents: selling information and knowing when not to sell information. These simple skills spell survival to them.

My room was large, well-proportioned and pleasant but the air conditioning made tiresome noises at random intervals. I asked room service for a selection of their best sandwiches, a bottle of branch water, a good drinking glass and the house detective. They all arrived together. I took pains to befriend the detective, who was an awkward, seven-foot youth with a shoulder holster which creaked noisily when he sat down. I gave him Scotch whisky and a load of old moody similar to that which the desk clerk had gobbled. He was a serious boy and asked for my credentials; they impressed him considerably and he promised to keep a special eye on my floor that night.

When he had gone, five dollars later, I inspected my sandwiches with moody pleasure; there was great store of them, on two sorts of bread and filled with all manner of good things: I did my best with them, drank some more Scotch and got into bed, feeling that I had secured myself as best I could.

I shut my eyes and the air conditioner rushed into my head, carrying with it all manner of dread and speculation, a thousand horrid fancies and a mounting panic. I dared not take a sleeping pill. After an interminable half hour I gave up the fight for sleep and put the light on. There was only one thing for it – I lifted the telephone and put in a call to Mrs Spon in London. London, England, that is.

She came through in a mere twenty minutes, shrieking and honking with rage at being awakened and swearing by strange gods. I could hear her vile little poodle Pisse-Partout in the background, adding his soprano yelps to the din; it made me quite homesick.

I soothed her with a few well chosen words and she soon got it into her head that this was a matter of some seriousness. I told her that, at all costs, Jock must be at the Rancho de los Siete Dolores by Tuesday and that she must see to it. She promised. The problem of getting an American visa in a few hours is nothing to a woman like her: she once got a private audience of the Pope just by knocking on the door and saying she was expected; they say he very nearly gave her a contract to redo the Sistine Chapel.

Knowing that Jock would be there to meet me eased my worst fears; it only remained now to get there without leaving any bloodstains in my spoor.

I sank into an uneasy slumber interspersed, curiously, with erotic dreams.





12




There was no tea to be had in the morning but I was on the very threshold of the old West and knew that I had to learn to rough it. ‘Pioneers! Oh, Pioneers!’ as Walt Whitman never tired of exclaiming.