The Night Manager

"Joe, this class act of yours ― forgive me, of Mr. Burr's ― this honourable guy, this Mr. Pine, has a criminal record going back for years. Barbara Vandon in London and friends of hers up in Langley have dug up some very unsettling background material on Mr. Pine. It seems he is a closet psychopath. Unfortunately, the British pandered to his appetites. There was a quite bad killing in Ireland, something with a semiautomatic. We haven't gotten to the bottom of it, because they hushed it up." Prescott gave a sigh. The ways of men were devious indeed. "Mr. Pine kills, Joe. He kills and he steals and he runs dope, and it's a mystery to me that he never used that knife he pulled on your agent. Mr. Pine is also a cook, a night owl, a close-combat expert and a painter. Joe, that is the classic pattern of a psychopathic fantasist. I do not like Mr. Pine. I would not trust him with my daughter. Mr. Pine had a psychopathic relationship with a doper's hooker in Cairo, and ended up beating her to death. I would not trust Mr. Pine on the stand as my witness, and I have the gravest, and I mean the gravest, reservations about the intelligence he has hitherto supplied. I've seen it, Joe. I've studied it at the many points where his testimony stands alone and uncorroborated yet indispensable to the credibility of our case. Men like Mr. Pine are the secret liars of society. They will sell their own mothers and believe themselves to be Jesus Christ while they do it. Your friend Burr may be capable, but he was an ambitious man who was breaking his ass to get his own outfit off the ground and have it compete with the big players. Such men are the natural prey of the fabricator. I do not believe that Mr. Burr and Mr. Pine made a wholesome pair. I don't say they consciously conspired, but men in secret conclave can psych one another up in ways that make them cavalier with the truth. If Dr. Apostoll; were still with us ― well, he was a lawyer, and even if he was I a little crazy, it was my belief that he would hold up pretty, well in the stand. Juries always have a place in their hearts for a man who has returned to God. However, that is not to be. Dr. Apostoll's no longer available as a witness."

Strelski was trying to help Prescott off the hook. "It never happened, right, Ed? How's about we agree the whole case was a piece of horseshit? There's no dope, no guns, Mr. Onslow Roper never broke bread with the cartels, mistaken identity, you name it."

Prescott pulled a rueful smile as if to say he did not think that he would go that far. "We are talking about what's demonstrable, Joe. That's a lawyer's job. The lay citizen has the luxury of believing in the truth. A lawyer has to be content with the demonstrable. Put it that way."

"Sure." Strelski was smiling too. "Ed, may I say something?" Strelski leaned forward in his leather chair and opened his hands in a gesture of magnanimity.

"Go right ahead, Joe."

"Ed, relax, please. Don't strain yourself. Operation Limpet. It's dead. Langley killed it. You're just the mortician. I understand that. Operation Flagship lives, but I'm not Flagship cleared. My guess is, you are. You want to screw me, Ed? Listen, I’ve been screwed before; you don't have to take me to dinner first. I've been screwed so many times, with so many variations, I'm a veteran. This time it's Langley and some bad Brits. Not to mention a few Colombians. Last time it was Langley and some bad somebody else, maybe they were Brazilians ― -no, dammit, they were Cubans, and they'd done us a few favours in the dark days. Time before that it was Langley and some very, very rich Venezuelans, but I think there were also some Israelis besides ― to be honest, I forget ― and the files got lost. And I think there was an Operation Surefire, but I wasn't Surefire cleared."

He was furious but wonderfully comfortable. Prescott's deep leather armchair was a dream; he could lounge in it forever, just breathing in the luxury of a nice penthouse office without the unpleasantness of a lot of people getting in his way or a naked snitch kneeling on the bed with his tongue pulled down his chest.

"The other thing you want to tell me, Ed, is I can kiss but I can't tell," Strelski resumed. "Because if I tell, somebody will have my ass and take away my pension. Or if I really tell, somebody may feel obliged reluctantly to shoot my fucking head off. I understand those things, Ed. I have learned the rules. Ed, will you do me a favour?"

Prescott was not accustomed to listening without interrupting, and he never did anyone a favour unless he could count on one in return. But he knew anger when he saw it, and he knew that anger given time subsides, whether in people or in animals, so he regarded his role as essentially a waiting one and kept his smile going and answered rationally, as he would if he were in the presence of a raving lunatic. He knew also that it was essential not to show alarm. There was always the red button on the inside of his desk.