'Right,' said the pale aide.

'Either we treat them like house-trained adults or we say they're bad kids we don't trust.'

'Right,' said the pale aide again.

'People respond to respect. If I did not believe that, I would not have devoted my best years to the comedy of diplomacy.'

'If we could kindly bend our arm to the halfway mark, sir,' Pendel murmured, laying the edge of his palm in the crook of the Charge's elbow.

'The military will hate us,' said the aide.

'Are these lapels going to bulge, Harry? They look kind of busty to me. Don't they to you, Michael?'

'One pressing, you'll never hear from them again, sir.'

'Look great to me,' said the pale aide.

'And our length of sleeve, sir? About so, or a trifle shorter?'

'I'm hesitating,' said the Charge.

'About the military or the sleeves?' said the aide.

The Charge flapped his wrists, watching them critically as he did so.

'So is fine, Harry. Do so. I have no doubt, Michael, that if the boys on Ancon Hill had their way we'd be seeing five thousand men in combat gear line the road and everybody bussed in and out in APCs.'

The aide gave a grim laugh.

'However we are not primitives, Michael. Nietzsche is not an appropriate role model for the world's only superpower as it enters the twenty-first century.'

Pendel turned the Charge sideways so that he could better admire his back.

'And our jacket length, sir, overall? A suspicion longer or dare we say we're happy with what we see?'

'Harry, we are happy. It's tops. Forgive me for being a fraction distrait today. We're trying to prevent another war.'

'In which endeavour, sir, I'm sure we wish you all success,' said Pendel earnestly as the Charge and his aide tripped down the steps with the crewcut driver sashaying alongside.

He could hardly wait for them to leave. Heavenly choirs were singing in his ears as he scribbled frantically in the clandestine back pages of his tailor's notebook.

Friction between US military and diplomatic personnel is reaching a highly critical flashpoint in the opinion of the US Charge, the bone of contention being how to handle student insurrection if and when it raises its ugly head. In the words of the Charge, spoken in total confidence to this informant...

What did they tell him? Dross. What did he hear? Glories. And this was only a rehearsal.

'Dr Sancho,' cried Pendel, opening his arms in delight. 'Long time no see, sir. Senor Lucullo, what a pleasure. Marta, where's that fatted calf then?'

Sancho a plastic surgeon who owned cruise ships and had a rich wife he hated. Lucullo a hairdresser with expectations. Both from Buenos Aires. Last time it had been mohair suits with double-breasted waistcoats for Europe. This time we just have to have white dinner jackets for the yacht.

'And all's quiet on the home front, then?' Pendel asked, artfully debriefing them over a gla.s.s upstairs. 'No big putsches planned at all? I always say South America's the only place where you can cut a gentleman his suit one week and see his statue wearing it the next.'

No big putsches, they confirmed with a giggle.

'But Harry, have you heard what our President said to your President when they thought n.o.body was listening?'

Pendel hadn't.

'There were these three Presidents all sitting in one room, right? Panama, Argentine, Peru. "Well," says the President of Panama. "It's all right for you boys. You get re-elected for a second term. But at home in Panama re-election is prohibited by our const.i.tution. It simply isn't fair at all." So our President turns round and says, "Well, my dear, maybe it's because I can do twice what you can do once!" Then the President of Peru says-'

But Pendel never heard what the President of Peru said. Heavenly choirs sang again for him as he duly recorded in his notebook the backdoor efforts of the pro-j.a.panese President of Panama to extend his power into the twenty-first century, as confided by the devious and hypocritical Ernie Delgado to his trusted private secretary and indispensable a.s.sistant, Louisa also known as Lou.

'Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in the opposition sent a woman to slap me at the meeting last night,' Juan Carlos of the Legislative a.s.sembly announces proudly while Pendel chalks the shoulders of his morning suit. 'I never saw the b.i.t.c.h in my life. Steps out of the crowd, runs up to me all smiling. TV cameras, newspapers. Next thing I know she's given me a right hook. What am I supposed to do? Slap her one back in front of the cameras? Juan Carlos, the woman-beater? If I do nothing, they call me a poofter. You know what I do?'

'I can't imagine' - checking the waist and adding an inch to accommodate Juan Carlos's rise to fortune.

'Kiss her on the mouth. Put my tongue down her filthy throat. Got breath like a pig. They adore me.'

Pendel dazzled. Pendel levitated by admiration.

'Now what's all this I'm hearing about them putting you in charge of some very select committee, Juan Carlos?' he asks severely. 'I'll be dressing you for your presidential inauguration next.'

Juan Carlos let out a peal of coa.r.s.e laughter.

'Select? The Poverty Committee? It's the lousiest committee in town. Got no money, no future. We sit and stare at each other, we say it's a pity about the poor, then we go have ourselves a decent lunch.'

In yet another intimate one-to-one conversation conducted with his highly trusted personal a.s.sistant behind closed doors, Ernesto Delgado, driving force of the Ca.n.a.l Commission and keen pusher of the top secret j.a.panese-Panamanian accord, remarked that a certain confidential file on the subject of the Ca.n.a.l's future would have to be slipped to the Poverty Committee for Juan Carlos to run his eye over. When asked what in the world the Poverty Committee had to do with Ca.n.a.l matters, Delgado gave a crafty smile and replied that not everything is what it seems in the world.

She was at her desk. He could see her exactly as he dialled her direct line: the elegant upper corridor of the Headquarters Building with its original louvre doors to keep the air moving; her tall airy room with its view of the old railway station desecrated by the McDonald's sign that drove her crazy every day; her super-modern desk with its computer screen and low-flush telephone. Her moment's indecision before she picks the receiver up.

'I wondered whether there was anything special you wanted to eat tonight, darling.'

'Why?'

'Thought I might drop in at the market on my way home.'

'Salad.'

'Something light after squash, right? Darling?'

'Yes, Harry. After squash, I shall require a light meal such as salad. As usual.'

'Busy day? Old Ernie on the stomp, is he?'

'What do you want?'

'I wanted to hear your voice, that's all, darling,'

Her laughter unnerved him. 'Well you'd better be quick because in two minutes this voice is going to be interpreting for a bunch of earnest harbourmasters from Kyoto who speak no Spanish and not a lot of English and only wish to meet the President of Panama.'

'I love you, Lou.'

'I hope so, Harry. Now excuse me.'

'Kyoto, eh?'

'Yes, Harry. Kyoto. Goodbye.'

KYOTO he wrote ecstatically in capitals. What a sub-source. What a woman. What a coup. And only wish to meet the President. And they shall. And Marco will be there to usher them to His Luminosity's secret chambers. And Ernie will hang up his halo and go with them. And Mickie will get to hear of it, thanks to his own highly paid sources in Tokyo or Timbuctoo or wherever he bribes them. And ace operator Pendel will report it word for word.

Intermission while Pendel, cloistered in his cutting room, combs the local newspapers - these days he takes them all - turns up a daily court circular ent.i.tled: Today Your President Will Receive. No mention of earnest harbourmasters from Kyoto, no j.a.panese on the menu at all. Excellent. The meeting was off the record. A secret, highly clandestine meeting, Marco let them in at the back door, a bunch of tight-lipped j.a.panese bankers pretending to be harbourmasters who don't speak Spanish but they do. Add a second coat of magic paint and multiply the result by infinity. Who else was there - apart from wily Ernie? Of course! Guillaume was! The crafty Frog himself! And here he is, standing before me, shaking like a leaf!

'Monsieur Guillaume, sir, greetings, slap on time as usual! Marta, a gla.s.s of the Scottish one for Monsieur.'

Guillaume comes from Lille. He is mousy and swift. By profession he is a consultant geologist who samples soil for prospectors. He has just returned from five weeks in Medellin in the course of which, he tells Pendel breathlessly, the city has played host to twelve reported kidnappings and twenty-one reported murders. Pendel is making him a fawn alpaca single-breasted with a waistcoat and the spare trousers. Artfully he steers the conversation towards the topic of Colombian politics.

'I don't see how that President of theirs dare show his face, quite frankly,' he complains. 'Not with all the scandals and the drugs.'

Guillaume takes a gulp of Scotch and blinks.

'Harry, I thank G.o.d each day I live that I am a mere technician. I go in. I read the soil. I make my report. I get out. I go home. I have dinner. I make love to my wife. I exist.'

'Plus you put in your very large fee,' Pendel reminds him genially.

'In advance,' Guillaume agrees, nervously confirming his survival with the aid of the long mirror. 'And first I bank it. If they want to shoot me, they know they waste their money.'

The only other partic.i.p.ant to the meeting being the highly retiring top French geologist and freelance international consultant with close links to the Medellin cartel at the policy-making level, one Guillaume Dela.s.sus, esteemed in certain circles as a powerbroker without equal and the fifth most dangerous man in Panama.

And the other four prizes still to be awarded, he added to himself as he wrote.

Lunch-hour rush. Marta's tuna sandwiches in heavy demand. Marta herself everywhere and nowhere, deliberately avoiding Pendel's eye. Gusts of cigarette smoke and male laughter. Panamanians loving their fun, and doing it at P&B's. Ramon Rudd has brought a handsome boy. Beer from the ice bucket, wine wrapped in frozen wadding, newspapers from home and abroad, portable telephones used for effect. Pendel in his triple element of tailor, host and master spy skipping between fitting room and clubroom, pausing in midflight to dash off innocent memoranda in the back of his notebook, hearing more than he listens to, remembering more than he hears. The old guard with new recruits in tow. Talk of scandal, horses, money. Talk of women and occasionally the Ca.n.a.l. Crash of the front door, noise level falls then rises, cries of 'Rafi! Mickie!' as the Abraxas-Domingo show sweeps in with its customary panache, the famous play-boy pair, reconciled once more, Rafi all gold chain, gold rings, gold teeth and Italian shoes, with a coat of many colours by P&B flung over his shoulders because Rafi hates dull, hates jackets unless they are outrageous, loves laughter, sunshine and Mickie's wife.

And Mickie sullen and unhappy but hanging onto his friend Rafi for dear life, as if Rafi is the only bit left to him after he has drunk and squandered all the rest away. The two men enter the fray and separate, the crowd draws to Rafi while Mickie heads for the fitting room and his umpteenth new suit that has to be finer than Rafi's, brighter than Rafi's, costlier, cooler, more seductive - Rafi are you going to win the First Lady's Gold Cup on Sunday?

Then suddenly the babel stops, whittled to one voice. It is Mickie's, booming and hopeless emerging from the fitting room, announcing to the a.s.sembled company that his new suit is a piece of s.h.i.t.

He says it one way, then repeats it another, straight into Pendel's face, a challenge he would prefer to fling at Domingo but dare not, so he flings it at Pendel instead. Then he says it a third way because by now the gathering expects it of him. And Pendel not two feet from him, stone hard, waiting for him. On any other day Pendel would have side-stepped the onslaught, made a kindly joke, offered Mickie a drink, suggested he come back another time in a better mood, gentled him down the steps and poured him into a cab. The cellmates have played out such scenes before and Mickie has acknowledged them next day with expensive gifts of orchids, wine, precious huaca artefacts and craven hand-delivered notes of grat.i.tude and apology.

But to expect this of Pendel today is to reckon without the black cat, which now bursts its leash and springs at Mickie with claws and teeth bared, ripping into him with a ferocity n.o.body dreamed Pendel could command. All the guilt he has ever felt about misusing Mickie's frailty, traducing him, exploiting him, selling him, visiting him in the pit of his blubbering humiliation, comes welling out of Pendel in a sustained salvo of transferred fury.

'Why I can't make suits like Armani?' he repeated, several times, straight into Mickie's astonished face. 'Why I can't make Armani suits? Congratulations, Mickie. You just saved yourself a thousand bucks. So do me a favour. Go down to Armani and buy yourself a suit and don't come back here. Because Armani makes better Armani suits than I can. The door's over there.'

Mickie didn't budge. He was stultified. How on earth did a man of his mountainous dimensions buy himself an Armani suit across the counter? But Pendel couldn't stop himself. Shame, fury and a premonition of disaster were pulsing uncontrollably in his breast. Mickie my creation. Mickie my failure, my fellow prisoner, my spy, coming here to accuse me in my own safe house!

'You know what, Mickie? A suit from me, it doesn't advertise the man, it defines him. Maybe you don't want to be defined. Maybe there isn't enough of you to define.'

Laughter from the stalls. There was enough of Mickie to define anything several times over.

'A suit from me, Mickie, it's not a drunken scream. It's line, it's form, it's rock of eye, it's silhouette. It's the understatement that tells the world what it needs to know about you and no more. Old Braithwaite called it discretion. If somebody notices a suit of mine, I'm embarra.s.sed because there must be something wrong with it. My suits aren't about improving your appearance or about making you the prettiest boy in the room. My suits are not confrontational. They hint. They imply. They encourage people to come to you. They help you improve your life, pay your debts, be an influence in the world. Because when it's my turn to follow old Braithwaite to the great sweatshop in the sky, I want to believe there are people down here in the street, walking around, wearing my suits and having a better opinion of themselves on account of them.'

Too much to keep inside me, Mickie. Time you shared the burden. He took a breath and seemed to want to check himself because he gave a kind of hiccough. He began again but Mickie mercifully got there first.

'Harry,' he whispered. 'I swear to G.o.d. It's the pants. That's all it is. They make me look like an old man. Old before my time. Don't give me all that philosophical horses.h.i.t. I know it already.'

Then a bugle must have sounded in Pendel's head. He looked round him at the astonished faces of his customers, he looked at Mickie staring at him, clutching the contested alpaca trousers, exactly as he had once clutched to himself the too big orange trousers of his prison uniform as if he were afraid somebody would s.n.a.t.c.h them from him. He saw Marta, motionless as a sculpture, her smashed face a patchwork of disapproval and alarm. He lowered his fists to his sides and drew himself to his full height as a prelude to standing comfortably.

'Mickie. Those trousers are going to be perfect,' he a.s.sured him in a gentler tone. 'I didn't want us in a houndstooth, but you would have it and you're not wrong. The entire world will love you in those trousers. The jacket too. Mickie, listen to me. Somebody's got to be in charge of this suit, you or me. Now who's it to be?'

'Jesus,' Mickie whispered, and slunk out on Rafi's arm.

The shop emptied and settled for its afternoon sleep, the customers withdrew. Money must be made, mistresses and wives placated, deals struck, horses backed, gossip traded. Marta too had disappeared. Her study time. Gone to put her head inside her books. Back in his cutting room Pendel switched on Stravinsky, cleared his tabletop of brown paper templates, cloth, chalk and scissors. Opening his tailor's notebook at the back pages he flattened it at the point where his coded jottings began. If he was chastened by his a.s.sault on his old friend he did not allow himself to know it. His muse was calling to him.

From a ring-backed invoice book he extracted a page of ruled paper with the nearly-royal crest of the house of Pendel & Braithwaite at its head, and below it in Pendel's copperplate hand an Account Rendered to Mr Andrew Osnard in the sum of two and a half thousand dollars at the address of his private apartment in Paitilla. Having set the invoice flat on the work surface, he took up an elderly pen attributed by mythic history to Braithwaite, and in an archaic hand that he had long cultivated for tailoring communications, added the words 'your early attention would oblige', which was a sign to say there's more to this bill than a demand for money. From a folder in the centre drawer of his desk he then drew a sheet of white, unruled, unwatermarked paper from the packet that Osnard had given him and sniffed it which he always did. It smelt of nothing he recognised except, very distantly, prison disinfectant.

Impregnated with magical substances, Harry. Carbon paper without carbon for one-time use only.

What do you do your end when you get it, then?

Develop it, you a.s.s, what do you think?

Where, Andy? How?

Mind your own b.l.o.o.d.y business. In my bathroom. Shut up, you're embarra.s.sing.

Laying the carbon gingerly over the invoice he took from his drawer the 2H pencil that Osnard had given him for the purpose and began writing to the resounding chords of Stravinsky, until Stravinsky suddenly annoyed him so he switched him off. The Devil always has the best tunes, Auntie Ruth used to say. He put on Bach but Louisa was pa.s.sionate about Bach, so he switched off Bach and worked in friendless silence, which was unusual in him. Brows down, tip of tongue protruding, Mickie determinedly forgotten, the fluence beginning to rise in him. Listening for a suspicious footfall or the tell-tale shuffle of an enemy eavesdropper the other side of the door. Glancing constantly between the hieroglyphics in his notebook and the carbon. Inventing and joining. Organising, repairing. Perfecting. Enlarging out of recognition. Distorting. Making order out of confusion. So much to tell. So little time. j.a.ps in every cupboard. The Mainland Chinese abetting them. Pendel flying. Now on top of his material, now under it. Now genius, now slavish editor of his imaginings, master of his cloud kingdom, prince and menial in one. The black cat always at his side. And the French as usual somewhere in the plot. An explosion, Harry boy, an explosion of the flesh. A rage of power, a swelling up, a letting go, a setting free. A bestriding of the earth, a proving of G.o.d's grace, a settling of debts. The sinful vertigo of creativity, of plundering and stealing and distorting and reinventing, performed by one transported, deliriously consenting, furious adult with his atonement pending and the cat swishing its tail. Change the carbon, screw up the old one, toss it in the wastebasket. Reload and resume firing on all guns. Rip the pages from the notebook, burn them in the grate.

'You want a coffee?' Marta enquired.

The world's greatest conspirator had forgotten to lock his door. Flames rising in the grate behind him. Charred paper waiting to be crushed.

'A coffee would be nice. Thank you.'

She closed the door behind her. Stiffly, not smiling at all.

'Do you need help?'

Her eyes were avoiding him. He took a breath.

'Yes.'

'What?'

'If the j.a.panese were secretly planning to build a new sea-level ca.n.a.l and had bought the Panamanian government on the sly and the students got to hear of it, what would they do?'

'Today's students?'

'Yours. The ones who talk to the fishermen.'

'Riot. Take to the streets. Attack the Presidential Palace, storm the Legislative a.s.sembly, block the Ca.n.a.l, call a general strike, summon support from other countries in the region, launch an anti-colonial crusade across Latin America. Demand a free Panama. We would also burn all j.a.panese shops and hang the traitors, starting with the President. Is that enough?'