When I am very sad I make a comedy, and when I am very happy I make a serious drama.
—Billy Wilder
Comus was chained to the metal wall of a bulkhead. He looked about seventy, with grey hair and a salt-and-pepper beard. He was scrawny, though he might once have been powerful. Now he looked tired. His eyes were red with fatigue as he warily watched Pavel come in. Josef was leaning over him.
“I’m afraid our friend Comus is being very unhelpful,” he said. “He refuses to say anything at all, which is a pity, as it leaves us no alternative. Get the needles, Pavel.”
“You can’t do that, Josef.”
“He’s endangered the whole damn operation and I want to know why.”
“He’s Comus, for God’s sake,” Pavel pleaded.
“It’s all our lives at stake. If we’ve been compromised, we need to know.”
“But jeez, Josef, it’s Comus.”
“You have a better idea?”
Pavel shrugged and went and got the spike. He held it up for Comus to see.
“Do you understand what this is?”
Comus just looked at him. He didn’t even turn away as Pavel shot him up.
Pavel waited five minutes and then hooked Comus up to a small reactor box. A wide band ran from his arm to the machine. It would monitor his reactions. Josef walked over and looked at the old man for a minute.
“You understand why we are doing this?” Nothing.
“Listen, we don’t have to do this. You can just tell us the truth. Nobody wants to harm you.” Comus simply stared at him.
“Why did you try and leave the ship? You had no business on H9. Just the watchers and the detonation mob. You knew that? So why this other thing? I don’t get it.”
If he was hoping for a confession, it was not forthcoming.
“Have it your own way. The drug will help you remember.”
“I have done nothing to compromise the security of the operation.”
“Well, good. That’s good to know. So let’s start at the beginning shall we and see what we can establish for a fact.”
The sound of the word “fact” chopped like a sharp ax in the room.
Josef pulled out an eight-by-ten of Katy Wallace.
“Who’s this?”
“You know perfectly well.”
“Please just answer the question.”
“Her name is Katy Wallace, I believe.”
The needles jumped on the meters.
“When did you meet her?”
“I have never met her.”
A flicker of reaction indicated a possible untruth.
“All right, why did you arrange to meet her?”
No response.
“Why did you tell her to go to the Rialto?”
Again no response.
“Was it to meet you?”
A long pause. Then a nod.
“Good. What was the purpose of the meeting?”
“It was personal.”
“Personal.”
“A private matter.”
“Are you aware of her relationship with Emil Keppler?”
“Of course.”
“Was that why you met her?”
“I didn’t meet her.”
Josef pulled out a picture of the Ganesha.
“Did you give her this?”
He shook his head. The needles leapt.
“Now that was a lie,” said Josef. “Any idea what this is?”
“It’s a Ganesha, a Hindu god of good fortune.”
“Good fortune for whom? Not for Sammy Weiss, that’s for sure. Do you know how she came to get hold of it?”
Comus shrugged. He was tired of this. Josef and his stupid games. That’s all they did, play games, usually with people’s lives. He was sick of it all. He had been in the struggle too long. And what did the struggle amount to? A simple philosophical choice. Kill or be killed. This is the issue: is it worth dying for a belief? And the nasty lurking underside of this simple question: is it worth killing for a belief? Legions of saints and martyrs and heroes of church, state, and revolution had all fought and died for such issues. Was any of it worth a toss? He stopped listening for a moment as Josef explained the workings of the Ganesha. A postman, yeah, yeah, yeah. A miniature transmitter, blah, blah, blah. The watchers had been monitoring Comus for his own security, bugging him electronically to see if he was being “painted” by any detection devices. Once he had tried to go to H9, he had been prevented, blah, blah, blah.
Now Josef was outlining the way the watchers had followed Katy to the Rialto. They had called McTurk in when they picked up a faint signal from the Ganesha. Sammy Weiss had activated it. For Sammy it was a fatal mistake. Within minutes they were in her apartment. They had found sensitive search requests on her screen. That was enough.
“Did you give the postman to Katy Wallace?”
“No. I never met her.”
“Okay, you had it delivered to her?”
“Yes.”
“And it contained a message to meet you?”
“Yes.”
“To which she could reply at a distance?”
“If you say so.”
“Who did she give the Ganesha to?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“But it was to confirm the details of your meeting on H9?” Hesitation. “Yes.”
“Okay, so you wanted to see her?” Nod.
Josef leaned forward. “Why?” A long pause this time.
“Why in the middle of an operation did you meet with the mistress of a man with whom we are doing business?”
Nothing.
Josef persisted. “Was it to warn her? Or were you doing some other deal? Perhaps a little insurance? Information in exchange for…what exactly? Not money, not you, not now. Help me here. I just can’t understand why you were meeting her so secretly?”
“I’m not going to tell you anything else.”
“What a pity.”
He said nothing.
“What a pity we can’t ask her.”
The old man looked up. What was he talking about?
“We can’t ask Katy Wallace because, you see, she is dead.”
They watched him come apart.