The Tailor of Panama by John le Carré

‘For money, why not? Fat man, fat salary,’ Osnard said, as if stating an irrefutable law of espionage.

‘Mickie wouldn’t care for a Yank one bit,’ said Pendel, wrestling with the enormity of Osnard’s proposal. ‘The invasion got right under his skin. State terrorism is how he calls it, and he’s not referring to Panama.’

Osnard was using the chair as a rocking horse, coaxing it back and forth with his ample buttocks.

‘London’s taken a shine to you, Harry. Doesn’t always happen. Want you to spread your wings. Put a fullscale network together, cover the board. Ministries, students, trade unions, National Assembly, Presidential Palace, Canal and more Canal. They’ll pay you responsibility allowance, incentives, generous bonuses plus increased salary to set against your loan. Get Abraxas and his group aboard, we’re home free.’

‘We, Andy?’

Osnard’s head remained gyroscopically still while the rump of him went on rocking, his voice sounded louder on account of being lowered.

‘Me at your side. Guide, philosopher, chum. Can’t handle it all alone. No one can. Too big a job.’

‘I appreciate that, Andy. I respect it.’

‘They’ll pay subsources too. Goes without saying. Many as you’ve got. We could make a killing. You could. Long as it’s cost effective. Hell’s your problem?’

‘I haven’t got one, Andy.’

‘So?’

So Mickie’s my friend, he was thinking. Mickie’s opposed enough already and he doesn’t need to oppose any more. Silently or otherwise.

‘I’ll have to think about it, Andy.’

‘Nobody pays us to think, Harry.’

‘All the same, Andy, it’s who I am.’

There was one more subject on Osnard’s agenda for that evening but Pendel didn’t grasp this at first because he was remembering a warder called Friendly who was a master of the six-inch elbow jab to the balls. That’s who you remind me of, he was thinking. Friendly.

‘Thursday’s the day Louisa brings work home, right?’

‘Thursdays is correct, Andy.’

Dismounting thigh by thigh from his rocking horse, Osnard fished in a pocket and extracted an ornate gold-plated cigarette lighter.

‘Present from a rich Arab customer,’ he said, handing it to Pendel where he stood at the centre of the room. ‘London’s pride. Try it.’

Pendel pressed the lever and it lit. He released the lever and the flame went out. He repeated the operation twice. Osnard took back the lighter, fondled its underparts, returned it.

‘Now take a squiz through the lens,’ he ordered with a magician’s pride.

Marta’s tiny flat had become Pendel’s decompression chamber between Osnard and Bethania. She lay beside him, her face turned away from him. Sometimes she did that.

‘So what are your students up to these days?’ he asked her, addressing her long back.

‘My students?’

‘The boys and girls you and Mickie used to run with in the bad times. All those bomb-throwers you were in love with.’

‘I wasn’t in love with them. I loved you.’

‘What happened to them? Where are they now?’

‘They got rich. Stopped being students. Went into the Chase Manhattan. Joined the Club Unión.’

‘Do you see any of them?’

‘They wave at me from their expensive cars sometimes.’

‘Do they care about Panama?’

‘Not if they bank abroad.’

‘So who makes the bombs these days?’

‘No one.’

‘I get a feeling sometimes there’s a sort of Silent Opposition brewing. Starting at the top and trickling down. One of those middle-class revolutions that will flare up one day and take over the country when nobody’s expecting it. An officers’ putsch without officers, if you get me.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘No what?’

‘No, there is no Silent Opposition. There is profit. There is corruption. There is power. There are rich people and desperate people. There are apathetic people.’ Her learned voice again. The meticulous bookish tone. The pedantry of the self-educated. ‘There are people so poor they can’t get poorer without dying. And there’s politics. And politics is the biggest swindle of them all. Is this for Mr Osnard?’

‘It would be if it was what he wanted to hear.’

Her hand found his and guided it to her lips and for a while she kissed it, finger by finger, saying nothing.

‘Does he pay you a lot?’ she asked.

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