The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(82)

‘No no no, I didn’t mean that; I meant that I absolutely promised to telephone my, ah, business manager before –’ I stole a glance at my watch ‘– before midnight. He flies to Frankfurt or one of those places at crack of dawn. Could I possibly …?’

‘Hurry,’ she said, handing me the telephone. I dialled. Johanna’s cool and lovely voice answered. Summoning up what rusty remains of the German language I could recall, I addressed her throatily.

‘Ah, Herr, er, Johann! Hier ist Charlie Mortdecai!’

‘Darling, are you drunk already?’

‘No, no,’ I cried, still employing the German tongue, ‘canst thou German understand?’

‘Well, sure, Charlie dear; your German is a little different from mine but I think I can make out.’

‘Good. Understanding is what I need shall. There is here something of a small difficulty. To retain the confidence of our friend it seems necessary that I to bed take her must. What shall I do? Hullo? Hullo? Canst thou me hear?’

‘Yes, dear. You mean you want a “Green Card”, hunh?’

‘What is that? Ah, yes, now I understand.’

‘Well, OK, just this once. But Charlie … ’

‘Ja, Herr Johann?’

‘You are not to enjoy it.’

‘No, Herr Johann. Goodnight.’

‘Oh, and Charlie?’

‘Ja?’

‘Save some, hunh?’

‘Zu befehl, Herr Johann,’ I said. I wiped a furtive bead of sweat from the brow and hung up. Turning back to Loretta I said, ‘Sorry about that, darling. Frantically important business. Sure you understand.’

‘Naturlich,’ she said in tones of frosty sweetness. ‘Es scheint mir dass du versucht hast von deiner Frau eine Freischute zu bekommen, und ich kann mir auch denken für was.’

‘What what what?’ I asked reasonably.

‘I mean, does she say it’s OK to screw?’

‘Oh dear, oh God,’ I thought, ‘I used my real name on the bloody telephone.’

‘Ho ho,’ I said aloud, archly, and for want of anything more sensible to do or say I enfolded her in my arms and kissed her passionately. She had re-zipped herself – all the weary work to do again – but as my fingers tugged at the rip-cord she stood up.

‘Goodnight, darling,’ she said.

‘How do you mean, “goodnight”?’

‘Well, I suppose I mean sort of “goodnight”.’

‘But but but … ’

‘Yes, it would have been such fun but I mean to go on living.’

‘Eh?’

‘I mean I don’t want to get killed this week. Or any week. Here is your hat and umbrella. Please do not think hardly of me; I think you are cute, I have always loved stupid men. Oh and darling, do button yourself up in front – the nights are cold, you might catch chilblains.’

The porter was reading behind his desk in the foyer. His face was benignly blank but it seemed to me that his eyebrows rose a fraction as I shambled past him.

‘Goodnight,’ I mumbled.

‘Goodnight, sir,’ he answered puzzledly and went back to his copy of Forum. He had probably been reading about premature ejaculation.

At home, Johanna, too, raised an eyebrow, far lovelier and more damaging than that of the porter.

‘Home so soon, Charlie dear?’

I snarled in a muffled sort of way and poured myself one of the largest whiskies-and-soda of my career. I did not punish the soda-water syphon too hard. Wordlessly, Johanna handed me two E capsules from a little gold drageoir. I swallowed them sulkily.

‘I’m blown,’ I said at length.

‘Blown, Charlie? You mean Loretta …?’

‘No, no; I mean my cover is blown – don’t you ever read spy-stories? Loretta knows who I am, the bitch speaks German. Better than I do, in fact.’ She seemed to smother a smile.

‘But of course she does, dearest; she is German, you see.’

‘You should have told me.’

‘You should have asked.’ I restrained the words which sprang to my lips for I was not one to use vile language in front of women, never having been married before, you understand.

‘Anyway,’ I said, when the blessed whisky had got a firm foothold on my bloodstream, ‘the operation failed. I got nothing out of her.’

‘Nor, uh, into …?’

‘I cannot bear coarseness in women.’

‘Don’t be so stuffy, Charlie; I didn’t for one moment expect her to prattle. She is very highly-trained indeed. As a matter of fact it was you I was checking out, not her. A kind of initiative test, you know?’ I digested this, along with another whisky and s., which might have been the big brother of the previous one. My blood boiled with chagrin and frustration while many a bitter reflection on the nature of womankind occurred to me. It seemed to me that the only way to retain my tatters of self-respect was to stalk off to my bed in a marked manner.

‘I think I shall go to bed,’ I said in the distant tones of a man who has drunk both Armagnac and Scotch whisky and who has, moreover, been thwarted in the very act of a passionate encounter.

‘Bed?’ she said. ‘Great! Can I come?’ I studied her with a slight stirring of grudged admiration. She stood up with a little movement, shrugging off her peignoir to reveal a shameless little creation in black lace which seemed to be precariously supported only by her out-thrust breasts. The black lace ended just where her long and lovely legs began; had she not been a natural blonde one might have been at a loss to detect the hem-line. My look of admiration changed subtly into one of affection – I was reminded of my earlier r?le of ‘heavy investor’.