But Pendel never heard what the President of Peru said. Heavenly choirs sang again for him as he duly recorded in his notebook the backdoor efforts of the pro-Japanese President of Panama to extend his power into the twenty-first century, as confided by the devious and hypocritical Ernie Delgado to his trusted private secretary and indispensable assistant, Louisa also known as Lou.
‘Those bastards in the opposition sent a woman to slap me at the meeting last night,’ Juan Carlos of the Legislative Assembly announces proudly while Pendel chalks the shoulders of his morning suit. ‘I never saw the bitch in my life. Steps out of the crowd, runs up to me all smiling. TV cameras, newspapers. Next thing I know she’s given me a right hook. What am I supposed to do? Slap her one back in front of the cameras? Juan Carlos, the woman-beater? If I do nothing, they call me a poofter. You know what I do?’
‘I can’t imagine’ – checking the waist and adding an inch to accommodate Juan Carlos’s rise to fortune.
‘Kiss her on the mouth. Put my tongue down her filthy throat. Got breath like a pig. They adore me.’
Pendel dazzled. Pendel levitated by admiration.
‘Now what’s all this I’m hearing about them putting you in charge of some very select committee, Juan Carlos?’ he asks severely. ‘I’ll be dressing you for your presidential inauguration next.’
Juan Carlos let out a peal of coarse laughter.
‘Select? The Poverty Committee? It’s the lousiest committee in town. Got no money, no future. We sit and stare at each other, we say it’s a pity about the poor, then we go have ourselves a decent lunch.’
In yet another intimate one-to-one conversation conducted with his highly trusted personal assistant behind closed doors, Ernesto Delgado, driving force of the Canal Commission and keen pusher of the top secret Japanese-Panamanian accord, remarked that a certain confidential file on the subject of the Canal’s future would have to be slipped to the Poverty Committee for Juan Carlos to run his eye over. When asked what in the world the Poverty Committee had to do with Canal matters, Delgado gave a crafty smile and replied that not everything is what it seems in the world.
She was at her desk. He could see her exactly as he dialled her direct line: the elegant upper corridor of the Headquarters Building with its original louvre doors to keep the air moving; her tall airy room with its view of the old railway station desecrated by the McDonald’s sign that drove her crazy every day; her super-modern desk with its computer screen and low-flush telephone. Her moment’s indecision before she picks the receiver up.
‘I wondered whether there was anything special you wanted to eat tonight, darling.’
‘Why?’
‘Thought I might drop in at the market on my way home.’
‘Salad.’
‘Something light after squash, right? Darling?’
‘Yes, Harry. After squash, I shall require a light meal such as salad. As usual.’
‘Busy day? Old Ernie on the stomp, is he?’
‘What do you want?’
‘I wanted to hear your voice, that’s all, darling,’
Her laughter unnerved him. ‘Well you’d better be quick because in two minutes this voice is going to be interpreting for a bunch of earnest harbourmasters from Kyoto who speak no Spanish and not a lot of English and only wish to meet the President of Panama.’
‘I love you, Lou.’
‘I hope so, Harry. Now excuse me.’
‘Kyoto, eh?’
‘Yes, Harry. Kyoto. Goodbye.’
KYOTO he wrote ecstatically in capitals. What a sub-source. What a woman. What a coup. And only wish to meet the President. And they shall. And Marco will be there to usher them to His Luminosity’s secret chambers. And Ernie will hang up his halo and go with them. And Mickie will get to hear of it, thanks to his own highly paid sources in Tokyo or Timbuctoo or wherever he bribes them. And ace operator Pendel will report it word for word.
Intermission while Pendel, cloistered in his cutting room, combs the local newspapers – these days he takes them all – turns up a daily court circular entitled: Today Your President Will Receive. No mention of earnest harbourmasters from Kyoto, no Japanese on the menu at all. Excellent. The meeting was off the record. A secret, highly clandestine meeting, Marco let them in at the back door, a bunch of tight-lipped Japanese bankers pretending to be harbourmasters who don’t speak Spanish but they do. Add a second coat of magic paint and multiply the result by infinity. Who else was there – apart from wily Ernie? Of course! Guillaume was! The crafty Frog himself! And here he is, standing before me, shaking like a leaf!