Smile on the Void by Stuart Gordon

Author:Stuart Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0-399-12503-5
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Corporation
Published: 1981-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

I made the crucial connection with Kitaj in the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, London, on 2 September 1984.

The previous few weeks had been frustrating, insane. I no longer had a clear idea what I was doing. The Golden Fleece of Kitaj that I pursued now looked very muddy to me, yet still I pursued it. In July, while attempting to track him, I got caught in a riot in Kingston, Jamaica, which cost me a broken arm. Some weeks later I was waiting for him to show up in Mexico City for talks with Jiminez. He didn’t arrive, but the earthquake did. Somehow by the beginning of September I got to Brussels where he was expected to be making a grain deal with the EEC Commissioners on the evening of the first… and there, while crossing a crowded plaza, minding my own business, I was blasted by a bomb planted by resurgent Flemish nationalists. Five people were killed. I was mildly concussed, I missed Kitaj, but while receiving attention in a Brussels hospital I saw a TV newscast: he was already gone, to London.

I took the chance. I knew when he was in London Kitaj usually stayed at the Arab-owned Dorchester, despite his alleged Jewish background. I had the feeling that if I didn’t make connection this time, I never would. The three and a half years since Detroit had tested my faith and my funds to the limit, and I feared that soon I might give up. Feverishly I discharged myself from the hospital and caught a 4:00 a.m. flight to London. The flight took half an hour… but then it took more than three hours to get from Heathrow to Hyde Park Corner: the Piccadilly Line tube broke down in the tunnel. I looked and felt dreadful when at last I emerged into the morning rush hour and walked the few hundred yards up Park Lane to the hotel. It was 8:10 a.m. when the new automatic doorperson at the Dorchester denied me entry despite the battery of ID cards and credentials which I always carried with me, but just when I was beginning to despair (conscious of the dangerous looks I was getting from the armed human porters) the door clicked open in unexpectedly positive response to a Conservative Party membership card which had expired two years earlier.

My luck felt good. I went in. I had no evidence that Kitaj was here, but it felt right. To allay suspicions I went straight to the desk, told a tale of being caught in the Brussels bomb-blast and how I had a breakfast rendezvous at the hotel with a business associate. They bought it, but I was aware of eyes on my back as I went to wash and clean up. As nonchalantly as possible I set myself at a table in the ground-floor restaurant, near the door, with a good view of the lobby through which, I hoped, Kitaj would soon pass on his way out.

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