Chameleon

  "And?"

  "They look at each other, they look at me, they tip their hats, and kinda tiptoe out. That's a year and a half ago. No problems since. Tell you what, Sailor, why don't ya quit, come down here, be my partner. I need somebody to help me run this place. I'm a lousy businessman. What saves my ass is, so is everybody else on this crazy knoll."

  "Oui, he needs help," said Joli.

  "If I went into business with you, we'd be broke in a week. I have to take off my shoes to count to eleven. Let's talk about Falmouth. Okay?"

  "You been here ten minutes, ten lousy minutes and you want to get to business already."

  "I don't have much time left."

  "Christ, you haven't even met Isidore yet."

  "Who's Isidore?"

  "Ah! Who is Isidore indeed!" Joli said.

  "Izzy is my new partner. He lives right over there through that door."

  "Michael ..."

  "Un moment, my friend," he said and took out his keys and unlocked the door.

  Isidore?

  Actually, Rothschild had achieved his unique position in the intelligence community by accident. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time: an unimpressive little piano bar called Senor Collada's in Montego Bay, Jamaica. A CIA agent named Jerome Oscarfield was the unwitting catalyst of the gambit.

  Oscarfield needed a drop. And there was happy old Six Fingers, the Magician of the Keyboard, plinking out tunes night after night, month after month. The perfect drop. One night Oscarfield slipped Rothschild a small envelope, well sealed.

  "Are you a patriot?" Oscarfield asked in a whisper.

  "American or world?" asked Rothschild.

  "American!" Oscarfield responded, a bit alarmed.

  "Just joking," said Rothschild. "I'm red, white and blue, alll the way through."

  Oscarfield was obviously relieved.

  "Now listen carefully. A man who'll call himself Bolo will introduce himself. He'll ask you to play 'Moon Over Miami,' that's how you'll know it's really Bolo."

  "I don't do requests," Rothschild said.

  "You don't have to play the song," Oscarfield said, his patience wearing a bit thin. "It's like a code, so you'll know it's really him. Just pick a discreet moment and give him the envelope."

  "Somebody else could ask me to play 'Moon Over Miami.' It's very popular. I'll tell you a song nobody ever asks for—"

  "The song doesn't make any difference," Oscarfield said, cutting Rothschild off, his voice beginning to rise. "You don't have to play the song. It's the combination. He'll say, 'Good evening, my name is Bolo, will you please play"Moon Over Miami." ' You can tell him to go fly a kite, for all I care, just give him the goddamn envelope. There's two hundred bucks in it for you."

  "Ah!" said Rothschild. "For two bills I'll be glad to play 'Moon Over Miami.'"

  Oscarfield lowered his voice again. He smiled with difficulty. "You don't have to play the song. Tell him you don't know it. Forget the fucking song. Just remember Bolo and 'Moon Over Miami.' That's all you have to do."

  "Done," Rothschild said. "What's this Bolo look like?"

  "I—uh, I don't know what he ... uh, looks like. I've never ... uh, met ... Look, what he looks like doesn't matter."

  Oscarfield stared at Rothschild for quite a while. It was a bad idea, he was beginning to think. But he decided to try again. "Let me try once more," he said. "This man named Bolo will come to you and ask you to play 'Moon Over Miami.' When he does, give him this envelope. It's like a code, you see? Who cares what he looks like? I don't care if he looks like King Kong as long as he gives you the code. Okay?"

  "We're in business," Rothschild said, sticking out his hand.

  "Don't do that," Oscarfield said. "People will see us. Put your hand down. Here, take this."

  "What's that?"

  "It's the two hundred dollars."

  "A deal is a deal," Rothschild said, and as Oscarfield started out of Senor Collada's, he played a few chords of "Moon Over Miami."

  Actually Rothschild was simply toying with Oscarfield. Everybody from the pastry chef to the doorman knew Oscarfield's dodge. At first Rothschild didn't really take him seriously. Then, one evening, Bolo showed up. It had to be him. He was the size of a Mack truck and wore dark glasses in the middle of the night and he changed tables three times during one set.

  That's him. Got to be, thought Rothschild. Playing musical chairs like that. Nervous as a preacher at a nudist camp. But if this was some kind of undercover job, why would they pick somebody the size of Mount Rushmore?

  The answer, he eventually learned, was that the obvious frequently eluded them.

  The minute he announced the break, Bolo was on his feet and beside him. He stuck out a hand as big as the piano top.

  "I'm Bolo," he said.

  "Good," said the Magician.

  "Do you know 'Moon Over Miami'?"

  "I don't play requests."

  Bolo was taken completely aback. He was not programmed for jokes. "Do you know 'Moon Over Miami'?" he repeated.

  "Does it go like this?" Rothschild asked, and began whistling a few bars of "Stars Fell on Alabama."

  Bolo looked around the place without moving his head.

  "I don't know how it goes," he said. "Goddammit, where's the fuckin' envelope?"

  Realizing the big man had no sense of humor, absolutely none, Rothschild slipped him the envelope.

  "You're off the wall, y'know that," Bolo growled under his breath and lumbered out of the place.

  Rothschild figured that was the end of that. But two weeks later Oscarfield appeared again. "That was nice, the way you handled that," he confided. "Really put old Bolo to the test. I heard about it." He slipped Rothschild another two bills.

  Four hundred dollars for not playing "Moon Over Miami." Rothschild was impressed. After that, Oscarfield used him frequently as a drop. He never saw Bolo again. Pretty soon another agent decided to use Rothschild as his Caribbean drop, then another. Then there was Haversham, a British operator with M.I.6. Then an Israeli named Sil-verblatt. And a Frenchman named ...

  Within five years Rothschild was the postman for the entire Caribbean intelligence community. He became adept at steaming open envelopes. Then he got into cryptology. It became a hobby. Breaking codes. Keeping files. Cross-references. Before long, Rothschild was quite aware that most of the spies in the islands spent most of their time spying on one another. Sometimes members of one agency even spied on other members of the same agency. The madness of it all appealed to Rothschild's love of the perverse. He began to feel a sense of power. Occasionally he would change the messages slightly, just to see what would happen. In one such instance he almost started a revolution in Guatemala. It was marvelous. It gave the Magician an entirely new outlook on life.

  So when he moved to St. Lucifer to become pianist in residence at the Great Gustavsen, the epicenter of the Caribbean undercover network just naturally shifted to St. Lucifer. Rothschild became so important that once, when he went to the States for a three-week vacation, the entire intelligence community was thrown out of whack. At one time there were eighteen operatives, representing every major country in the world, staying at the Great Gustavsen, waiting for le Sorcier to return.

  By the time he acquired Isidore he was knocking down almost five thousand a month in retainers, from the CIA, the KGB, the Surete, M.I.6, and every other outfit in the network.

  Isidore opened up whole new vistas. With Isidore his power became even greater.

  "Voilà! May I present Izzy," Rothschild said as he opened the door to Isidore's room.

  Isidore's room was a walk-in closet.

  Isidore was an Apple II mini-computer.

  O'Hara stared at it in mute appreciation. It was beautiful and very compact. It had a keyboard with a telephone cradle attached to it, and it had its own monitor screen and its own high-speed Kube printer. The main box, Izzy's brain, was about a foot square, with three gates in the front and a large square ready light. A casse
tte recorder was attached to the telephone modem on the keyboard. The telephone was also equipped with a speakerphone.

  Into it, Rothschild had fed mountains of information. But he also made the computer available to agents on a confidential basis, always leaving the room so they could tap out their identification and open up the files of their home-base computers. A video camera built into the wall and aimed at the screen enabled him to collect all of the various codes and machine language necessary to tap into the main computers of most of the major intelligence agencies. By using phone taps, he had also recorded the agents making access calls to their computer centers, and by combining these information banks with his own computer, he had both visual and verbal contact with them.

  It was a marvelous hobby.

  And it made the Magician one of the most dangerous people in the world.

  Having explained his wonderful toy, Rothschild sat down and spread his hands. "How about that?" he said proudly.

  "You mean you can plug into the base computers for the CIA, the KGB, like that?" O'Hara asked.

  "Mostly on a level-two basis, but in some cases I can even tap their top-secret files."

  "Where did you get this thing?"

  "Miami. Anybody can buy them. It's learning to use them that's the secret. Let me show you how it works." He slid a picture on the wall to one side, revealing a large wall safe. He spun the dials and opened the safe. It was filled with cassette tapes and floppy disks and videotapes. He took out a cassette deck and three disks.

  He put a disk in each of the gates, and the cassette in the small tape recorder. "These disks store information," he explained. "The first one has the program on it. That's what makes all this work. The cassette has the phone access information on it. Once I get the computer on the line, all I need is the proper access code and I can get a visual print-out on the screen."

  He picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  "I hope the phones are working today," he said. "I'm calling the access line at Langley."

  "The CIA computer?"

  "Yeah."

  Joli nudged O'Hara. "He spends so much time in here, that is why he needs help to run the business," he whispered.

  Rothschild punched the speaker phone buttons. O'Hara could hear the phone ringing. The connection broke and a voice said, "This is Langley Base One. Your identification, please."

  Rothschild put the phone in the cradle attached to the keyboard of the computer and pressed the "Play" button on the tape deck. A recorded voice said: "This is Oscarfield, C-One clearance, two-level."

  Rothschild pressed the "Pause" button on the tape deck.

  The voice said: "Voice ID complete. Access, please."

  Rothschild pressed the "Play" button again: "Two-level, file access."

  The voice answered: "Tracking, two-level, file access." There was a pause and then: "Proceed."

  He pressed the "Play" button again. Oscarfield's taped voice said: "Modem readout, two-level."

  Pop! The monitor screen was filled with questions and blank spaces. Rothschild filled them in:Access identification: OFLD

  Agent sector: FIELD

  Agent access: L-2

  Agent clarity: B-532

  Subject name: O'HARA, FRANCIS

  Subject agency: PRIVATE

  Was subject formerly attchd? Yes x No

  Previous afltn: CIA

  File level: BASE

  Photos: YES

  Other info: NO

  Accessing file ...

  The light on the side of the computer began to blink. After two or three seconds it stopped and a message appeared on the screen:Press code key to continue ...

  Rothschild pressed two-three-five and the screen cleared for an instant and then O'Hara's file flashed on-screen.

  "I'll be damned," O'Hara said.

  "It is truly magic," said Joli. "The whole world speaks to him on his machine."

  Rothschild pressed a key and the small white cursor moved rapidly down the screen. He stopped at a listing for "Current assignment":Subject is on special assmnt. Deep storage.

  No contact anticipated for several months.

  "The Winter Man really covered his ass, Sailor. As far as your current report goes, you're a fuckin' mole somewhere for the CIA. That way he doesn't have to account for you for maybe a year, until the file is reviewed. So a couple of months from now he'll send down a report that -your assignment fell through, then he'll report that you've retired. As far as your file goes, nobody will ever know you were on the run for a year, dodging his fuckin' goons."

  Rothschild typed in "ACCESS,PHOTO,SUBJECT,CURRENT" and the letters appeared across the bottom of the monitor screen. He punched the return button on the keyboard and a computerized photo of O'Hara appeared on the screen. He was in a navy uniform.

  "Hell, that picture was taken when I was in the Navy!" O'Hara said.

  "You look like a child," said Joli.

  "It gets weird sometimes," said the Magician.

  "How did you get onto this thing, Michael?"

  "Would you believe I read about it in the New York Times? At first I thought it was just an expensive toy. Then I started realizing the potential. Man, I can tap into the Times, the Washington Post, United Press. You name it, I got it."

  "Look, I think Izzy's just great. Right now I've got other things on my mind."

  "If you're worried about missing Falmouth—I mean, if that's what's got you edgy, forget it. Falmouth told me to give you the letter whenever you showed up. He said if the situation changed, he'd call me and I was to burn the envelope. So far he hasn't called. If he does, I'll tell him you're on your way."

  "What letter?"

  Rothschild reached into a slot in the rolltop desk and pulled out a business-size envelope and gave it to O'Hara.

  "You're going to a travel agency in Fort Lauderdale," Rothschild said casually. "The agent there, a dame named Jackowitz, has your plans."

  O'Hara looked up at Rothschild. "You read my mail," he said with indignation.

  Rothschild slumped and stared contritely at the floor. "Force of habit," he said. "I know it's awful. Forgive me."

  "He does it all the time, everybody's mail," Joli said.

  The envelope contained a ticket to Fort Lauderdale and a slip of paper with "See Carole Jackowitz, Anders Travel Agency," and the address and phone number of the agency written on it.

  "Doesn't waste words, does he," Rothschild said.

  "What kind of merry-go-round is this? Why not send me straight to Lauderdale, why here?"

  "I guess because he trusts me. This Jackowitz woman is a travel agent. He needed me as a go-between in case something went wrong."

  "Something went wrong with what?"

  "Whatever you two are up to. He didn't tell me a thing, Sailor, just that the sanction had been lifted on you and he was expecting to meet up with you and it was very hush-hush, not something to gossip about. That's all I know." He leaned over toward O'Hara with eyebrows arched quizzically and whispered, "Want to tell me about it?"

  "Oui," said Joli, "We have been trying to guess what it is for weeks."

  "Not yet," O'Hara said.

  "Shit. My curiosity's been eating me alive for three goddamn months and you say 'Not yet.' "

  "I don't have anything to tell you."

  "Well, you can be out of here at seven tonight and be in Miami by ten. Or you can wait until tomorrow morning and we'll demolish this bottle of brandy and catch up on the past two years."

  "I vote for the bottle," Joli said, offering another round.

  "Michael, I've been from Japan to Boston to here in less than three days. My tail is dragging. I've got jet lag. But the suspense is driving me berserk and I'm gonna stay berserk until I find out what's going on with Falmouth and I won't know doodly-shit until I catch up with him. So, Joli, pour us some more brandy and make damn sure my jet's on the way to Lauderdale tonight ... with me on it."

  8

  WHEN HINGE ARRIVED at his hotel room, he took
a shower and styled his hair with a blower, then he stood, naked, in front of the mirror. His body was hard and tight, sinews standing out like fishing lines along his biceps. He looked at his scars and smiled. Women loved them, loved to trace their fingers along the rigid tissue on his legs and arms and down his left side. He could have written a book with just the lies he had told about those scars. He returned to the bedroom and got dressed. Then he reached into the suitcase and took out a wide, rawhide belt with a large gold buckle on it and held it in his hand for several seconds as though weighing it. The buckle was engraved, its letters aglitter with small diamonds:UNITED STATES RODEO ASSOCIATION

  1963 National Champion

  Cheyenne, Wyoming, January 6, 1964

  He had come a long way from Del Rio, Texas.

  Bucking horses in west Texas in the fresh snow, it didn't hurt quite so goddamn bad when you went off, even though underneath the clean white blanket, the ground was like a brick. The soft fresh powder, early in the mornings when the horse's breath was a thick wide cloud mixed with his own, cushioned the fall, so he wasn't afraid of the crazy ponies with their long winter hair and wild eyes because it didn't hurt like it hurt in the summer, when the drought had baked the earth in the corral until it cracked and the dust made the horses sneeze and they were mad with the heat anyway and they started fighting the minute they heard the saddle leather creaking, oh, God, he hated the summers.