Chapter Twelve

I got away from the old rat-bag eventually, but not before she’d broken my left arm. Between that and the fact my Luger was now rusting at the bottom of her ornamental lake, it struck me as a very bad beginning to my day of destiny. I should have had more faith, for my luck changed quite quickly.

If America has one saving grace, it’s that money really counts. If you have it, you can make things move; and if you have a lot of it, you can make them move fast. Hence, no later than mid-morning, I was sitting on a couch in Washington’s Belvodine Hospital watching while a friendly young black intern put the finishing touches to my cast.

“You got a clean break there, sir,” he told me cheerfully, “so you shouldn’t have any complications. It may start to itch a bit when the bones begin to knit, but I can give you some tablets to take your mind of it. And some pain-killers in case there are any twinges.” He pushed me gently back down on the couch. “Now, let’s make sure nothing else needs looking at.”

He began to prod my ‘abdomen with firm, sure fingers. I was stripped to the waist and a mass of noticeable-bruises. Why Johnson didn’t send Sister Marie Therese in to clean up Vietnam was beyond me.

“Your ribs are fine,” the doctor told me. He pressed. “Any pain here?”

“I’m all sore,” I told him honestly.

“Yea, but any special pain?”

“No.”

“How about here, Mr Reichmann?” I’d signed myself in as Karl Reichmann, a Swiss financier with the misfortune to have fallen out of a tourist coach.

“No.”

“Or here?”

“No.”

He straightened up. “Well, the internal organs seem to be in one piece. We’ll take X-rays, of course, just to be sure.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I said in my clipped Germanic accent. I didn’t have time for X-rays, although how I was going to get to de Gaulle now was something I hadn’t quite worked out.

“That’s your decision, sir, and your privilege. But if any pain develops - kidneys, liver, stomach, heart, spleen - don’t wait around. Get right back in here and we’ll check it out.”

A blonde nurse walked briskly past and without thinking I fantasised she was wearing only a pair of white see-through briefs. My reaction to the thought brought a painful reminder of the Mother Superior’s first well-placed kick. “Would you now check my generative organs, doctor?” I requested stiffly. “I am fearing they may have suffered damage.”

“Sure.” He pulled screens round the couch to spare the blushes of the nurses and eased down my trousers. “Well,” he said, “you’ve still got two of everything you need. Some bruising, though - I shouldn’t do any running for a day or two.” He frowned. “Did your penis always bend like that?”

“Yes,” I told him. “A professor in Zurich has told me it is no more than the loss of skin elasticity on one side.”

“That would do it all right.” He gave me a last professional glance and said, “Well, I think you can safely get dressed now. I’ve done about all I can for you.”

Getting dressed took a little time in my delicate condition, but since I was a paying customer, he stayed around to keep me company; or perhaps just make sure I didn’t leave without asking for the bill. “You know, sir,” he said pensively, “the longer I work in Casualty, the more I get to thinking accidents come in cycles.”

“Really?” I said, more or less disinterested at this stage.

“Happens all the time. You mightn’t see a knife wound in months, then one comes in and the next thing you’re treating knife wounds every day for weeks. Or broken feet. You get them a lot of big building sites. Somebody gets careless and drops a concrete block. Get one workman in with that problem and you get a dozen lining up right after him. Now take your case - “

“Excuse me, please. Would you help me with my tie?”

“Sure.” He’d obviously been asked to do it before because he was an expert. “Now take your case,” he said again. “How often do you think somebody’s likely to fall out of a coach and hurt themselves badly enough to need hospital treatment? Once a year? Twice a year maybe in a city this size? Let me tell you, sir, this very morning we had an old soldier in with multiple rib fractures from falling from a coach. And now you, with bruises and a broken arm from the same thing.” He grinned, a dazzling slash of white against the black skin. “But at least you don’t have to see the President bandaged like a mummy.”

On the instant, my mind grew crystal clear and razor sharp. “What?” I said.

“You got it, sir. He has an appointment with the President of the United States this very afternoon to get some charity certificate. And he’d going to turn up there looking like the ghost of Tutankhamen.” He shook his head. “Man, that’s something I’d really like to see.”

“Who is he, this man?” I asked casually.

The doctor finished knotting my tie. “Can’t tell you that, Mr Reichmann. Medical ethics.”

It made no difference. I had a mental file on every human being in the presentation party and there was only one old soldier amongst them. His name was General George Ivimy.

General George Ivimy Retd., that is, thank God. His address, a suburban villa by the sound of it, was printed in a phone book in the hospital lobby. I made a, mental note, then went out to the car where I sat and thought.

The loss of an arm was fairly serious in the circumstances. It ruled out the garrotte completely, for one thing, and made the use of the rifle damn near impossible. Which left the Luger, except that the Luger was nestling at the bottom of the convent lake, guarded by that cloistered dragon. (I hadn’t bested her, hadn’t come remotely close to besting her. Our bout of unarmed combat came to an end when I ran for my life, my broken arm hurting like hell. She’d even tried to chase me, but desperation gave me wings.) I had a variety of lethal knives, of course, but a knife wasn’t quite the thing for the sort of situation I was getting into. A handgun was certainly what was needed, but nothing on God’s earth would have persuaded me to brave the Mother Superior again.

Had Washington an East End, I wondered? A villainous quarter like that of London where you could buy things to kill off old politicians? Then it struck me like a thunderbolt. I was in the Land of the free now, a culture moulded on the myth of Billy the Kid. I didn’t need an East End or any other end. All I needed was a gun shop. In America, it was a God-given right to carry arms. A man had to protect himself against Indians, didn’t he?

Not knowing where to find a gun shop, I cruised around until I saw a policeman and asked him. He directed me without a second thought.

It proved less easy than I thought. The place was full of low-calibre hunting rifles, but when I asked for a handgun, the storekeeper sucked his teeth. He had the sort of deep, slow drawl I associate with Kentucky so I had trouble figuring out exactly what the problem was. But I had less trouble figuring out the solution. I simply took out a thick wad of dollar bills and began to count them quietly. He grinned and took me to a back room where I chose the sort of snub-nosed little revolver much favoured by television detectives (Had Bormann found nothing yet?) and though in Washington you needed a licence, the fact that it was possible to buy guns mail order made it all a bit nonsensical, as the shopkeeper agreed. (At least I think he was agreeing. Time still had not attuned my ear to his accent.) I confessed I had stupidly left my licence at home and convinced him of my honesty by adding a $25 bribe to the price of the gun. Then I bought a large supply of shells.

“Looks like you’re in for a bit of target practice this weekend.” the shopkeeper said, lapsing suddenly into comprehensible English.

“Not really - I’m just planning to assassinate General de Gaulle.”

He roared with laughter.

Outside in the car, I loaded the revolver, pushed on the safety catch and dropped it in the side pocket of my jacket. I tried to glance at my watch before remembering my left arm was in plaster. I stared at the cast stupidly until it occurred to me I’d stowed my watch away safely in my breast pocket. I fished it out to discover it was almost noon. Time was running out. Not only did I have to take care of Ivimy, the Tutankhamen General, but I also had to have a bite of lunch before my 2.30 pm appointment at the White House, I’d be damned if I was going to assassinate de Gaulle on an empty stomach.

It took me almost half an hour to find the home of General George Ivimy.

It was, as I’d suspected, a suburban villa. But to give the Yanks their due, they did these things in rather better style than London. The house was a long, low ranch type, set back off the road in a quiet tree-lined cul-de-sac. I pulled up outside, praying he might be alone. I had no worries about recognising him. How many old men do you see bandaged from head to foot?

I reached into the glove compartment and took out the package I’d bought earlier. Not the gun, which, you may remember, was in my pocket, but another package. I should like you to believe I bought it specifically for the job in hand, but for the sake of honesty I must admit such was not the case. This package contained an inflatable woman. I bought it, in a fit of wild frustration, from a late-night sex-shop in New York after Beth disappeared. The sales assistant assured me it was ‘complete in every detail’ and threw in a tube of special lubricating-cream to make it more comfortable in use. What he didn’t mention was that you needed a bicycle pump to blow it up. By the time I found an hotel and inflated the damn thing by mouth, I was too exhausted to do anything but fall asleep. And since I hadn’t sealed the valve properly, it had reverted to a crumpled heap of flesh-coloured vinyl by morning.

This time, however, I had a bicycle pump. I screwed it into the valve and a few frantic minutes later I’d been joined in the car by an excellent simulacrum of a stark-naked redhead with nylon pubic hair. I waited until the street was empty of pedestrians, then carried her out - she wasn’t very heavy - and stuffed her under the front wheels of the car with her legs poking out. Then I ran up to General Ivimy’s door and hammered furiously.

I was in luck. It was opened eventually by the General himself, bandaged as my Belvodine doctor had promised, from head to foot and using a crutch.

“Sir! Sir!” I cried. “There’s been an accident!”

A raw voice emerged from a hole in the bandages. “Are you trying to be funny, son?” Then, as he caught sight of the cast on my arm: “Jeese I’m sorry - I thought you meant me.”

“No, not my arm - there! Out there on the road!”

He followed my pointing finger. “Jesus H. Christ!” he exclaimed.

“There was nothing I could do,” I babbled. ‘I was driving along at thirty miles an hour when she ran out from behind a tree and threw herself under my car!”

“That broad’s naked,” the General said. He began to hobble down his driveway as fast as his crutch would permit. “Stark naked, by God. Was she naked when she threw herself under?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really didn’t notice.”

“What are you, son - a queer?” General George Ivimy asked me.

We reached the car together and he abandoned his crutch to sink to his bandaged knees, the better to inspect the naked woman beneath my car. After a moment, he reached out and touched her. His voice took on a note of outrage. “What the hell is this? It’s a doll!” But by then I had the snub-nosed Colt poked in his ear,

“It’s all right, General, I said quietly. “We’re going for a little ride.”