The Judas Goat Read Online Free PDF Page B

early and placed an ad in the Times. The ad said: “REWARD. One thousand pounds offered for information about organization called Liberty and death of three people in bombing of Steinlee’s Restaurant last August 21. Call Spenser, Hotel Mayfair, London.” Downes had promised the previous evening to have the file on Dixon sent over to my hotel and by the time I got back it was there, in a brown manila envelope, folded in half the long way and crammed in the mail box back of the front desk. I took it up to my room and read it. There were Xerox copies of the first officer’s report, statements taken from witnesses, Dixon’s statement from his hospital bed, copies of the Identikit sketches that had been made and regular reports of no progress submitted by various cops. There was also a Xerox of a note from Liberty claiming credit for the bombing and claiming victory over the “communist goons.” And there was a copy of a brief history of Liberty, presumably culled from the newspaper files.
    I lay on the bed in my hotel room with the airshaft window open and read it over three times, alert for clues the English cops had missed. There weren’t any. If they had overlooked anything, I had too. It was almost as if I weren’t any smarter than they were. I looked at my watch: 11:15. Almost time for lunch. If I went out and walked in leisurely fashion to a restaurant and ate slowly then I would have only four or five hours to kill till dinner. I looked at the material again. There was nothing in it. If my ad didn’t produce any action, I didn’t have any idea what to do next. I could drink a lot of beer and tour the country but Dixon might get restless about that after I’d gone through a couple of five grand advances. 
    I went out, went to a pub in Shepherd’s Market near Curzon Street, had lunch, drank some beer, then walked up to Trafalgar Square and went into the National Gallery. I spent the afternoon there looking at the paintings, staring most of time at the portraits of people from another time and feeling the impact of their reality. The fifteenth-century woman in profile whose nose seemed to have been broken. Rembrandt’s portrait of himself. I found myself straining after them. It was after five when I left and walked in a kind of head-buzzing sense of separateness out into Trafalgar Square and the current reality of the pigeons. The ad would run in the morning, they had told me. I had nothing to do tonight. I didn’t feel like sitting alone in a restaurant and eating dinner, so I went back to my room, had a plateful of sandwiches sent up with some beer and ate in my room while I read my book. 
    The next morning the ad was there, as promised. As far as I could tell I was the only one who’d seen it. No one called that day, nor the next. The ad kept running. I hung around the hotel waiting until I got crazy, and then I went out and hoped they’d leave a message. 
    During the next five days I visited the British Museum and looked at the Elgin Marbles, and visited the Tower of London and looked at the initials scratched in the walls of tower cells. I observed the changing of the guard, and jogged regularly through Hyde Park along the Serpentine. I carne in six days after the ad was placed, my shirt wet with sweat, my blue sweat pants worn stylishly with the ankle zippers open, my Adidas Cross-Countries still newlooking. I asked as always were there any messages, and the clerk said “Yes” and took a white envelope out of the box and gave it to me. It was sealed and said on it only “Spenser.”
    “This was delivered?” I said. “Yes, sir. ”
    “Not phoned in? This isn’t your envelope?”
    “No, sir, that was delivered by a young gentleman, I believe, sir. Perhaps half an hour ago.”
    “Is he still here?” I said. “No, sir, I don’t believe I see him about. You might try the coffee shop.”
    “Thanks.” Why hadn’t they phoned it in? Because they wanted to see who I was, maybe, and they could