Hopscotch

“Russo stole a truckload of American passport blanks for you three years ago. You haven’t unloaded all of them.”

“They are getting scarce,” Saint-Breheret said imperturbably. “If you prefer a wholesale price perhaps you’d do better to try your own government printing office.”

“You stay in operation because it’s convenient for us to know where you are. We appreciate your co-operation. But if you start dragging your heels maybe we’ll have to re-evaluate your usefulness.”

The tongue darted across the pale lips. “I have never turned you down.”

“How much?”

“Five thousand francs for the passports. Two thousand for the license blanks. The credit cards you may have for five hundred.”

Kendig said patiently, “My bureau is on a budget.”

“Oui. So am I.”

“Six thousand for the package.”

“I must cover my overhead you know.”

“You’ll survive.”

“Seven,” Saint-Breheret said.

“I’d hate to turn in an uncooperative report on you.”

Saint-Breheret threw up his hands. “You would have my blood!”

He worked a full day on the documents. First he penciled in each letter lightly in outline; then he forged carefully with a straight pen with several nibs. He could have had Saint-Breheret do the job—Saint-Breheret was far more accomplished at it—but in time they’d get onto it and question Saint-Breheret and he didn’t want the Frenchman to be able to tell them what names he’d sold Kendig. Saint-Breheret knew the credit cards but that was part of the scheme.

The credit cards were in the name of James Butler and he prepared a passport and a driver’s license in that name; Butler became fifty-four, a management consultant, born in Cinci

As James Butler he went over the border to Barcelona and then flew TAP to Lisbon. Butler lost three hundred French francs at the casino in Estoril, spent the night in the Hilton, paid with an American Express card and hired a Volkswagen from Avis in the morning with his BankAmericard. Before noon he left the rented car parked on a lot in Cascais. A man who didn’t give his name—none was asked—took a taxi from Cascais back to Lisbon International and paid the driver fifteen dollars in American cash. At four o’clock, on American Express again, James Butler boarded a Pan Am flight for Dulles International Airport.

E

Saint-Breheret could be relied on to be indiscreet; he would put them onto James Butler. In that respect the fun would be in deciding how long to keep Butler—how close to allow them to come. That was the key to his enjoyment of the game: and the enjoyment was chiefly his own; Cutter wouldn’t share in it to nearly the same extent because Cutter could afford to blunder all he wanted to. The game was far more taut for Kendig because he needed to make only one mistake and it would be ended.

It was bound to be anticlimactic; that was one thing that troubled him. The game had to be more enjoyable than the endgame: the chase was what had meaning, not the kill. Victory was never as heady as its anticipation had been. In a very real sense it wasn’t whether you won or lost; it was how you played to win.

For Cutter and his minions it would be a dreary business, wasteful and perhaps distasteful. Chickens would suspend their pecking order when there was a weak sick chicken in the coop: they’d all turn on it and peck it to death; but most likely they didn’t take much pleasure in it. Kendig didn’t see Cutter taking great glee from it; Cutter was a cold man but not a vindictive sort.

So Cutter must be primed. Make him mad, Kendig decided. Flaunt yourself. Embarrass him—insult him.

That was it then. Prolong the game. Stretch it until Cutter made a laughingstock of himself. Force it to the point where Cutter’s career was on the line. Make a fool of him and it had to turn out that way.

He smiled a little and was aware of it; the realization made him smile even more. It was infectious. The stewardess smiled back. “Is everything all right, sir? May I get you a drink?”

“I think I’ll go up to the lounge, thanks.”

He went up the self-conscious little spiral stair. They were Americans, most of them; no one else paid to travel first class. Each of them would have some “business” excuse for the vacation to make the fare tax-deductible. One of them was pounding the piano with more ferocity than skill. There was a lot of drinking and a lot of talk: poses struck, laughter forced. It wasn’t the sort of gaiety he could stand. He had one drink and went back down to his seat.

One of them had been a twin for Myerson, right down to the phony smile. He remembered the last summons to the office down the hall on the fourth floor. “I take it you don’t like it much up here. Or are there personal problems perhaps?”

“Has the man on the fifth floor registered displeasure with my performance?”

“You’ve been lackadaisical, you’ve got to admit that.”

“But not sloppy. I’ve done my job.”

“With all the enthusiasm and initiative of a typist third-class.”

“I wasn’t cut out for shifting bureaucratic rubble from one office to another.”

“We did offer you an alternative.”

“Filling out my time decoding telegrams over at NSA?”

“Assistant Deputy Director for Eastern European Affairs. That’s a responsible position, Miles.”

“A ringing title and a big salary and they’d never let me within a mile of action or policy. A nice faceless assistant to an assistant.”

“Miles, you’re fifty years old and by all the medical prognoses we had a year ago, you should have been dead. You had a God damned bullet in your head.”

“It hasn’t affected my brain. I’m still the best field man you’ve got.”

“We don’t get much call for those kinds of skills any more. You’re perfectly aware of that.”

“Sure.”

“Then what’s your beef?”

“Christ I don’t know. I’m just bored.”

“We’re all bored. It’s just another challenge to meet, Miles. We’ve still got to do the job.”

“Why?”

“Because—oh to hell with it.”

“Look—use me for a decoy. Anything.”

“Begging demeans you, Miles.”

“Not as much as being junked like an old car.”

“Damn it, I hate a man who doesn’t know when the party’s over. At least have the grace to know when to go home. If you can’t fit in behind that desk then give me your resignation. You’ll get a full early-retirement disability pension.”

“Wonderful.”

“Well?”

“You’ll have my resignation this afternoon. With parsley.”

“If that’s the way you want it.… Let’s have lunch soon, what do you say?”

Alexandria was a strip town. The long main drag was crowded with impatient kids driving their souped-up cars uselessly about. He walked past a theater that advertised mature adult films. Beyond that was a string of advertising boards along the waiting-bench wall of a bus depot. One of the ads told young men they could get job-training for high-paying skills if they joined the Army. Another begged businessmen to hire unemployed veterans.

He rented a Mustang under the name James Butler and booked himself into a motel near the Interstate. He slept from midnight to nine in the morning and after the rush-hour traffic had dissipated he drove up to Langley and went into a drugstore phone booth and rang the number.