‘Hell’s that?’
‘A bitser, Andy. The same as Marta. The same as me. Part-Indian, in his case. There’s no racial discrimination in Panama, you’ll be pleased to learn, but they don’t care for Turcos a lot, specially not new ones, and races do get whiter as you go up the social ladder. What I call altitude sickness.’
It was a brand new joke and one that he intended to include in his material, but Osnard didn’t see it. Or if he did, he didn’t find it funny. In fact, to Pendel’s eye, he looked as though he would prefer to be watching a public execution.
‘Payment by results,’ Osnard said. ‘Only way. Agreed?’ He had lowered his head into his shoulders, and his voice with it.
‘Andy, that has been a principle of mine ever since we opened shop,’ Pendel replied fervently, trying to think when he had last paid anyone by results.
And feeling light-headed from the drink and a general sense of unreality, his own and everybody else’s, he almost added that it had been a principle of dear old Arthur Braithwaite’s too, but restrained himself on the grounds that he had done enough with his fluence for one evening, and an artist must ration himself even when he feels he could go on all night.
‘Nobody’s ashamed o’ mercenary motive any more. Only thing that makes anybody tick.’
‘Oh, I do agree, Andy,’ said Pendel, assuming that Osnard was now lamenting the parlous state of England.
Osnard cast round the room in case he was being over-heard. And perhaps the sight of so many head-to-head conspirators at nearby tables emboldened him, for his face stiffened in some way Pendel was not at all at ease with, and his voice, though muted, acquired a serrated edge.
‘Ramón’s got you over a barrel. If you don’t pay him off, you’re screwed. If you do pay him off, you’re stuck with a river with no water and a rice farm that can’t grow rice. Not to mention the hairy eyeball from Louisa.’
‘It’s a worry to me, Andy. I’ll not deny it. It’s been putting me off my food for weeks.’
‘Know who your neighbour is up there?’
‘He’s an absentee landlord, Andy. A highly malicious phantom.’
‘Know his name?’
Pendel shook his head. ‘He’s not a person, you see. More a corporation registered in Miami.’
‘Know where he banks?’
‘Not as such, Andy.’
‘With your chum Ramón. It’s Rudd’s company. Rudd owns two-thirds, Mr X owns t’other third. Know who X is?’
‘I’m reeling, Andy.’
‘How about your farm manager chap? What’s-his-face?’
‘Angel? He loves me like a brother.’
‘You’ve been conned. Case o’ the biter bit. Think about it.’
‘I am doing, Andy. I haven’t thought like this for a long time,’ said Pendel as another part of his world keeled over and sank beneath his gaze.
‘Anybody been offering to buy the farm off you for peanuts?’ Osnard was asking, from behind the wall of mist that had somehow gathered between them.
‘My neighbour. Then he’ll put back the water, won’t he, and have a nice viable rice farm worth five times what he gave for it.’
‘And Angel running it for him,’
‘I’m looking at a circle, Andy. With me in the middle,’
‘How big’s your neighbour’s farm?’
‘Two hundred acres,’
‘What’s he do with it?’
‘Cattle. Low upkeep. He doesn’t need the water. He’s just keeping it away from me,’
The prisoner is giving one-line answers while the officer writes them down: except that Osnard doesn’t write anything down. He remembers with his quick brown fox’s eyes.
‘Did Rudd put you onto buying your farm in the first place?’
‘He said it was cheap. An executors’ sale. Just the place for Louisa’s money. I was green is what I was.’
Osnard drew his balloon glass to his lips, perhaps to mask them. Then he took a suck of air and his voice flattened itself for speed.
‘You’re God’s gift, Harry. Classic, ultimate listening post. Wife with access. Contacts to kill for. Chum in the resistance. Girl in the shop who runs with the mob. Behaviour pattern established over ten years. Natural cover, local language, gift o’ the gab, quick on your feet. Never heard anyone pitch the tale better. Be who you are but more of it and we’ll have the whole o’ Panama stitched up. Plus you’re deniable. You on or not?’