Raymond Doyle boredly flipped another page of The London Times, left hand propping up his curly head. He had commandeered nearly half of the restroom table and two chairs, sitting on one and resting his blue jean-clad legs on the other. The Times had no earth-shaking news in it; 1982 was barely into its second week, and the politicians and criminals were still recuperating from their holiday activities. Bodie and Murphy, both wearing navy suits, crisp white shirts and patterned red ties, were amicably squabbling over who had copied whose attire while waiting for fresh hot water for their tea.
“Bodie! Doyle!” George Cowley’s voice carried easily down the hall to the relaxing agents. “My office now. Now!”
Doyle jumped to his feet while Bodie halted in mid-sentence and strode rapidly out of the restroom door, his partner right behind him. When the controller of CI5 summoned his men in that tone of voice, they obeyed with all speed. Announcing themselves with a quick knock, Bodie and Doyle entered their boss’s office.
Mr. Cowley was seated behind a large oak desk, a few letters from the morning’s post strewn over its surface. Letter in hand, Cowley glared in disapproval at Doyle as the agent settled into one of the two chairs facing his boss. Doyle sprang to his feet and copied the eyes-front military stance that Bodie had assumed upon reaching the desk.
“Sir,” they chorused respectfully, frantically racking their brains for what they had done to provoke the Cow this early in the morning.
“I just received this invoice from the American International Hotel,” Cowley began mildly. Bodie and Doyle exchanged a quick glance. “I’d like to know, gentlemen,” Cowley’s voice increased rapidly in volume, “how you managed to damage five hundred and seventeen pounds’ worth of hotel property!”
“Five hun -- ” Doyle cut himself off while Bodie struggled to conceal a smirk; this was Doyle’s misdeed, and Ray would have to placate the Cow this time around.
Doyle took a deep breath. “It was the twentieth of December, sir, and we were assigned stakeout duty on one James Kirkpatrick, ammunitions dealer and suspected IRA sympathizer....”
* * * * *
“Now, this is more like it.” Bodie’s blue eyes scanned approvingly over the richly appointed hotel room. “Nothing less than five star.”
Doyle grunted in agreement, surveying their base of operations. The parlour they were occupying was decorated in cool colours. A plush sky-blue settee took up most of the far wall, with a mahogany coffee table in front of it. Two well-padded wingback chairs in a muted floral pattern, an end table placed between them, were opposite the sofa. An impressive mahogany desk stood between two windows, and a large console TV on coasters was flanked by an ample, sliding-door cupboard and a door on the inner wall. Also decorated in blues and greens, the bedroom held two queen-size double beds and led to a roomy bathroom with an oversized bathtub and marble-topped sinks. The unaccustomed elegance of their stakeout site was secondary to its location: directly across the E-shaped hotel’s courtyard from the fifth-floor suite of one James Kirkpatrick, affording CI5 an eagle-eye view of their suspect’s activities.
The American International Hotel had been conceived four years earlier as a home away from home for visiting American businessmen and tourists. Its reputation for luxurious accommodations and outstanding service had spread throughout London, and it consequently handled a respectable amount of British lodgers as well.
The transplanted Texan assistant manager, Thomas J. Washington, possibly confusing the CI5 with the CIA, had been fairly cooperative, readily looking the other way when the GPO tapped Kirkpatrick’s phone, but had firmly vetoed the idea of hidden cameras in Kirkpatrick’s suite, saying, “Absolutely not! We are not that kind of hotel!” Instead, Bodie and Doyle had been installed with their surveillance and phone-tapping equipment in room 513, on 24-hour obbo, with Murphy and Lewis providing backup in their car outside the hotel.
So far, it had been a routine observation, although the tedium was much easier to swallow in the exceedingly comfortable surroundings of their hotel suite than in their usual bleak and dingy stakeout sites. Setting down the binoculars he’d been using, Bodie took a last sip of coffee and put the empty Styrofoam cup on the desk next to his thermos.
Ray Doyle, finished with his mid-afternoon kip (he’d drawn the first shift of the night watch), wandered into the parlour and over to his partner. Grabbing a second Styrofoam cup, he picked up the thermos and poured himself some coffee. A trickle of dark liquid dripped into the cup, failing to even cover its bottom.
“Bodie! You hogged all the coffee!”
“ So? Call room service and order a fresh pot. There’s a menu around here somewhere.” Bodie rummaged in the desk drawers, yanked out a blue-covered menu and opened it. “Hmm…CI5 sarnies don’t sound very appealing for dinner; I could do with a nice Yorkshire pudding.” He started reading the entrées aloud. “Barbecued beef, country-fried steak, pork chop casserole, chuck roast, Southern-fried chicken?! The only normal food listed is pizza!” He read further, encountering the beverages. “Iced tea? Trust the Yanks to ruin good tea by plunking ice cubes in it!” Bodie reached for the desktop phone, figuring that even stateside food would be excellent at this highly touted hotel.
“Are you crazy?” Doyle snatched the telephone receiver from Bodie’s hand and re-cradled it. “D’you know when the last time was that Cowley approved a room service charge?”
Bodie blinked. “No.”
“December 24, 1976.” Catching Bodie’s nonplussed _expression, Doyle explained: “Jax and Anson were on a stakeout similar to this one. It was Christmas Eve, and Lake and Williams were supposed to relieve them at six -- only Lake’s wife accidentally poisoned them with a bad Christmas goose, and they wound up in hospital -- Lake and Williams, that is. The Cow couldn’t find any replacements, so Jax and Anson had to take the next shift as well. The hotel delivered a complete Christmas dinner: roast goose, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, mincemeat pie and brandy -- and a box of cigars for Anson and an air filter for Jax -- all courtesy of the Old Man. That’s the last -- and the first -- time he ever okayed any room service charge on anyone’s expense chit. So keep your mitts off that phone, unless you want to pay for room service out of your own wallet.”
Recalling that the only items priced under five pounds on the menu were beverages and desserts, Bodie shook his head.
“Don’t know why you need room service, anyway,” Doyle grumbled. “I’m the one who didn’t get any coffee.”
“Look, Ray, there’s bound to be a soft drink machine somewhere on this floor.”
“Hey, there’s a thought.” Doyle brightened, then swiftly searched his pockets and added mournfully, “No change.”
With an air of long suffering, Bodie dug into his own pocket and gave Doyle a handful of coins. “Here.”
“Ta, mate.” Doyle left the room, and Bodie resumed watching the suite across the courtyard.
Striding easily down the thick, navy-carpeted hallway, Doyle turned left at the intersecting main corridor and passed a pair of lifts and a few suite doors before finding a niche in the ostentatious, flocked wallpaper. Displayed in the meter-and-a-half-deep nook were two vending machines, one for candy bars and one for soft drinks. Doyle frowned peevishly at the Coke machine. I’m a Pepsi man myself. Oh, well, beggars and all. Resigned, he deposited four tenpence in the coin slot.
“Hi! I’m a talking Coca-Cola vending machine!” The totally unexpected, American-accented male voice and accompanying Good Humor-cart-like music had the CI5 man scrabbling for his gun before commonsense prevailed. Wary, Doyle scrutinized the soft drink dispenser. Painted white words stated sideways, “Enjoy Coke,” on a bold red background, covering most of the tall machine’s face. The right-hand wooden panel not only contained the usual plastic-coated rectangular selection buttons, coin slot, return knob and change holder, but also had a small, black, perforated speaker panel just below eye level. Printed on top of the speaker were the words, “Hello! I’m a Talking Vendor.”
Doyle shook his head.What will those barmy Yanks come up with next?
The machine wasn’t finished talking. “You need to put in more money,” it prompted.
“Eh?” Ray’s green eyes swept over the side panel and noted the price per can. “Sixty pee?! That’s highway robbery!” he groused, but dropped a twentypence coin down the slot. After all, it was Bodie’s money.
“Make your selection, please,” the Yank’s voice requested. Doyle jabbed at the outsized Coke button and waited impatiently. Nothing happened. The expected can of Coke failed to materialize in the bottom dispenser opening, and Doyle angrily pressed the Coke button again.
After several seconds, the voice reminded him, “Make your selection, please.”
“I bloody well did!” Ray growled and forcefully punched the Coke button another time. Receiving no response, he hit the coin return button with equally rewarding results. Disgusted, Doyle put his thumb down hard on the Coke button and kept it there.
Half a minute later, the polite voice repeated, “Make your selection, please.”
Frustrated, Doyle’s sneaker-clad foot connected violently with the vending machine. The kick produced no discernable change in the machine and several beats of throbbing pain in Doyle’s right foot.
“Make your selection, please,” the machine instructed for the fourth time, sending the security agent over the top. Bracing his hands on the upper front corners of his adversary, Doyle started shaking it. The assaulted Coke dispenser began rocking backwards and forwards, swaying in ever-increasing arcs.
Realizing almost too late exactly what he’d set in motion, Doyle desperately leapt backwards. His lightening-quick reflexes saved him from serious harm, but the upper edge of the toppling machine grazed Doyle’s oatmeal-jacketed arms as the vending machine crashed face down on the floor. Shattered red-and-white plastic sprayed everywhere, and a dozen or so over-jolted Coke cans exploded messily, staining the navy rug.
“Thank you for using the talking vendor...talking vendor...talking vendor...” the Coke machine babbled cheerfully, caught in a vocal loop. The deserted corridor filled magically with hotel personnel as three bellhops, two maids and what appeared to be the hotel copper closed in on the hapless machine-abuser.
Meanwhile, Bodie was experiencing his own brand of excitement in the hotel suite. Right on the heels of Doyle’s departure, the tapped phone buzzed. Bodie listened as Kirkpatrick set up an instant meeting in the hotel bar with his caller, identified only as “John.” Eyeballing Kirkpatrick through his binoculars, the CI5 man watched as the suspected terrorist grabbed his suit jacket and keys and left his room. Bodie followed the same procedure, heading down the hallway to the lifts. He figured that once he entered the hotel’s drinking establishment, he would snag the best vantage point for overhearing Kirkpatrick’s rendezvous with the mysterious John.
Kirkpatrick was already waiting for the lift when Bodie arrived at the main corridor. Not wanting to share the lift with his suspect, Bodie smoothly located the stairs further down the corridor and walked past the lifts. His peripheral vision noted a disturbance in an alcove off to the right. Some silly sod was tangling with half a dozen uniformed hotel staff members. Bodie did a double take, recognizing the silly sod’s curly head and angry stance.
Opening the exit door, Bodie disappeared down the stairway. He stopped at the first landing down and extracted his R/T. “Three-seven to six-two.”
“Six-two here.”
“Four-five needs backup, Murph. Fifth floor, main corridor -- you can’t miss it. And be diplomatic.”
“Eh? What’s the situation?” Murphy queried over the R/T.
“Can’t explain now. Our man’s meeting someone in the hotel pub, and I’m on my way there, too.” Bodie resumed his descent. “Have Lewis ready for a tail job -- I’ll give you the description from the bar. Out.” Pocketing his R/T, Bodie quickened his pace and made it to the pub well ahead of Kirkpatrick.
* * *
George Cowley heard the story’s conclusion in stony silence. Finally, he asked, “Did you honestly think an unreported incident was a nonexistent incident? You must’ve known I’d find out about it!”
Doyle’s “No, sir,” collided with Bodie’s “Yes, sir.” Bodie quickly amplified his response. “We knew you’d find out about it, sir. We just wanted to postpone the inevitable. At least ’til the holidays were over.” He grinned smugly. “And we did manage that…sir.”
“It didn’t affect the outcome of the case, anyway,” Doyle added. “We nicked James Kirkpatrick, John Ryan and the whole mob on Christmas Eve.”
“Och, you’re right there, Doyle; it didn’t affect the terrorist case,” the controller conceded. “But it certainly has affected CI5’s budget -- that’s five hundred and seventeen pounds I’ve got to come up with from somewhere! I should take it out of your salaries,” he said sternly. “However, in a convoluted sort of way, it’s a legitimate operating expense. Rest easy, Doyle; your paychecks won’t be docked. Now, sit still and I’ll give you your next assignment.”
Bodie exchanged a puzzled glance with his partner. Can’t believe he’s letting us off the hook that easily, he readily perceived Doyle’s thought. The ex-Para relaxed into a modified parade-rest position, and Doyle sank gracefully into the chair he’d vacated earlier.
“I want you to go up north…. You remember Chief Constable Green’s city?” His agents nodded readily, and Cowley continued. “Go up there and ferret ’round for a week or so -- make sure his successor, Stafford, isn’t following Green’s example and over-policing the place.”
“Sir,” Doyle interrupted, “do we have information that this Stafford fellow is overusing his authority?”
“No, but you know my views on that: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You’re to maintain a low profile, and I’ve already secured you lodgings. You’ll have to double up -- due to our sudden budget constraints, of course.”
“Yes, sir,” Bodie acquiesced, then asked, although he was half sure he already knew the answer, “Where did you book our lodgings, sir?”
“The Star Hotel on Beek Street,” Cowley named the dilapidated inn next to the railway tracks that had housed the two agents while they were investigating the Pellin case. “I’ll expect daily reports from the both of ye. It’s a fair drive, lads; you’d best get started.”
“Running all the way, sir,” Bodie said as he and Doyle crossed over to the door.
“See that you do. And send Murphy in on your way out.” Cowley smiled benevolently. “Can’t have six-two following your daft example, omitting mention of the escapade from his report and thinking he’s gotten off scot-free.…”
THE END
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