on King at all except for a report received from Learyâs own agent in the Sûreté in Paris. The C.I.A. were often accused of penetrating and subverting the intelligence services of other countries and inducing agents to act for them. It was accused of many unorthodox and ungentlemanly acts, and it was Learyâs private boast that much of what was said was true. He had men working within the French intelligence who passed on anything they thought might interest the C.I.A. And it was one item in just such a report that was pinned to the bottom of the last page on Eddi King. The proprietress of a fashionable Paris brothel had mentioned in her report to the Sûreté that the leading French communist Marcel Druet had visited the establishment in order to meet an American called King. Learyâs man had followed the lead right up to the cab which took King back to his hotel, the next morning, and identified him from the hotel register. That was the smell Leary had in his nostrils. Druet was one of their top men. He didnât go to brothels to meet anyone but another top man. Eddi King, the wealthy intellectual publisher. It didnât just smell; in Learyâs view it stank. He just hoped that Miss Elizabeth Cameron didnât have the same kind of odour. It was possible that she might know a lot more about Mr King than his people had been able to uncover. And what she didnât know she might be able to find out, right from the inside. He hoped Peter Mathews didnât ball it up. He made a note on the file, and closed it. He had men working on it in Minneapolis, going through the school records, checking at the college. Somewhere, someone had got at King. Most probably during his internment in France. The French would follow that one up. In the meantime Leary had ordered a thorough check on everyone who worked for Future . His superior might think that this activity was going too fast and too far on a single lead, but Leary had one argument which silenced every protest. An election was coming up. Anything could happen.
Keller had been a week in America; he thought of it with amusement, but like all his jokes the humour was thin and inclined to bitterness. One week, spent cooped up in the luxury apartment with the Magritte painting staring at him from the wall, reading the books he found in the guest bedroom, one after another, watching television and waiting for a call that didnât come. Nobody had contacted him, Elizabeth Cameron came and went, pretending to act normally while the strain grew more apparent every day. She cooked for him; she went out for lunch and disappeared during the day to do whatever rich women did to waste their time, and then they spent the evenings together. At first he had gone to his room early, thrown himself on the bed and tried to sleep.
After the fourth day he gave in; he felt stifled, savage with tension and uncertainty. He was a man who couldnât bear confinement and inactivity. He let her take him out and show him New York, and in spite of himself he began to relax and enjoy what he saw. It was a fabulous city; it couldnât be compared to Paris, which was the only European capital he knew, and the cities of the Middle and Far East were so different that they might have existed on another planet. She was right when she described New York as an exciting place; it reminded Keller of an enormous glittering hive, peopled by a species of human he had never met before. Always hurrying, driven by time, by that curious American word hustle, which couldnât be translated and yet described so much, living at a pace that frayed the nerves and made the Martini into a national emblem. It had a beauty which was peculiar to itself; the glacial buildings, towering into the sky, the two great rivers, the Hudson and the East, running through the asphalt island like twin arteries, the oasis of Central Parkâabove all the unbelievable panorama of the city at night. She
Keller had been a week in America; he thought of it with amusement, but like all his jokes the humour was thin and inclined to bitterness. One week, spent cooped up in the luxury apartment with the Magritte painting staring at him from the wall, reading the books he found in the guest bedroom, one after another, watching television and waiting for a call that didnât come. Nobody had contacted him, Elizabeth Cameron came and went, pretending to act normally while the strain grew more apparent every day. She cooked for him; she went out for lunch and disappeared during the day to do whatever rich women did to waste their time, and then they spent the evenings together. At first he had gone to his room early, thrown himself on the bed and tried to sleep.
After the fourth day he gave in; he felt stifled, savage with tension and uncertainty. He was a man who couldnât bear confinement and inactivity. He let her take him out and show him New York, and in spite of himself he began to relax and enjoy what he saw. It was a fabulous city; it couldnât be compared to Paris, which was the only European capital he knew, and the cities of the Middle and Far East were so different that they might have existed on another planet. She was right when she described New York as an exciting place; it reminded Keller of an enormous glittering hive, peopled by a species of human he had never met before. Always hurrying, driven by time, by that curious American word hustle, which couldnât be translated and yet described so much, living at a pace that frayed the nerves and made the Martini into a national emblem. It had a beauty which was peculiar to itself; the glacial buildings, towering into the sky, the two great rivers, the Hudson and the East, running through the asphalt island like twin arteries, the oasis of Central Parkâabove all the unbelievable panorama of the city at night. She
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