MAMista by Len Deighton Page A

it.’
    â€˜It’s too simplistic.’
    â€˜I don’t care what you call it,’ said the President with aharshness one seldom heard from him. ‘I don’t even care if it’s right. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows that drug abuse has become the number one public concern, and we’ve got an election coming up.’ He scowled and sipped his drink. ‘Did you see those figures Drug Enforcement came up with? … How many of my own White House staff are sniffing their goddamned heads off?’
    Gently Curl corrected him. ‘It was just an assessment based upon national figures, Mr President. Your staff do not reflect that wide spectrum. And those figures would have included anyone who took one experimental puff of marijuana at any time in the past five years.’ Curl had learned never to use any of the more colourful names for addictive substances when talking to the President.
    â€˜Well, let’s not get side-tracked,’ said the President, who sometimes needed that sort of reassurance. Self-consciously he sipped his cognac and ginger. Curl could smell it. ‘The Benz government is too closely identified with the drug barons. I don’t want him in power for ten more years.’
    â€˜But that’s just it, Mr President. The drug dimension hasn’t been overlooked, believe me. Oil moneys could wean Benz away from the drug revenues. It would give him legitimate revenue. And the oil would give us a lever. He’d have to lean on his drug growers, or we could turn off the oil-money tap.’
    â€˜Do we have any contact with the Marxist guerrillas?’
    â€˜Yes, sir. More than one. We are siphoning a little medical aid to them through a British Foundation. We want a report on their true strength. Medical aid – shots and pills and so on – will provide us with a reliable headcount. We also plan to start some friendly talks with their leader. It would be as well to have someone down there negotiating, if only as a counter-weight to Benz. Or a counter-weight to Doctor Guizot,’ Curl added hurriedly.
    â€˜Yes, we don’t want it to be a one-horse race. I hope you’ve chosen your “someone” carefully, John.’ The President picked up the heavy report from the floor andopened it. He never needed bookmarks; he could always remember the number of the page at which he stopped reading.
    At this cue Curl stood up. ‘I’ll say goodnight, Mr President.’ He put the prompt cards into his pocket. There were many more things to say but this was not a good time to get the President’s assent to anything at all. Curl was disturbed by the way the meeting had gone. It had almost come to an argument. Until tonight he’d not realized how deeply disturbed the President was by the polls that showed his steadily decreasing popularity. In that state of mind, the chief might make a very bad error of judgement. It was Curl’s job to make sure the right things were done, even at times like this when the chief was unable to think straight. When happy times were here again, Curl would get his rightful share of praise. The old man was very fair about giving credit where credit was due. Sometimes he’d even admit to being wrong. That was one of the reasons why they all liked him so much.
    â€˜Nothing else, was there, John?’
    â€˜Nothing that can’t wait, Mr President.’ As Curl walked to the door there came a sound like a pistol shot. It was the President cracking the binding as he squashed the opened report flat to read it. He treated books roughly, as if taking revenge upon them.

3
    LINCOLN’S INN , LONDON .
‘I knew you’d be crossing the water.’
    Ralph Lucas was forty-five years old and every year of his active life had left a mark on him. His hair was grey, his eyes slightly misaligned. This gave his face a rakish look, as does the tilted hat of a boulevardier. He was short, with a