I wondered about the voice on the phone that had saved my bacon in Hamburg. The only explanation that made sense was that also in the circle around Herr Otto X was another infiltrator from a body I knew only as the Firm, checking on behalf of my government on possible arms sales to the IRA. But I never found out who he was, and so far as
I know, never met him.
The spring of 1973 was restful. I had completed my three-novel contract, had no ideas for a fourth, and was just beginning to see some serious money coming in. Then I dropped by at John Mallinson’s flat for a drink, and someone else, on her way home from a modeling assignment, also came by. She was an auburn-haired girl whose legs seemed to go on forever. We married in Gibraltar that August.
And a letter came from David Deutsch, the producer appointed by John Woolf to make the film of Jackal. It had filmed in London and was then shooting all the French scenes in Paris. Would I like to come over for a visit and meet the star, Edward Fox? Of course I would.
I knew the face because, months earlier during preproduction, Fred Zinnemann had asked me to his office for a consultation. With his Old World Viennese courtesy, he explained there was a problem with the casting.
The Hollywood studio that would distribute the movie wanted a known star. Michael Caine had been interested, ditto Roger Moore. Charlton Heston had begged for it. But Zinnemann wanted a man who, though an excellent actor, was still little known enough to vanish in the crowd, as the Jackal was supposed to do.
In his Mount Street office, the director solemnly placed six photos before me, all postcard size. They were all of handsome young men, blond, staring at the camera.
“Which, for you, is the Jackal?” he asked. I scanned them all and placed my finger on the bottom right-hand photo.
“That one.”
“I am so glad. I have just signed him. His name is Edward Fox.”
The other five were male models. Edward had already gained his spurs as Lord Trimingham in Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between. But internationally, he was still relatively unknown. The Day of the Jackal was going to change that.
AN UNUSUAL DINNER
Fred Zinnemann was a brilliant director, but it was as if he were two men. Off the set, he was Old World courtesy personified, but on the set he was a miniature dictator. Perhaps he had to be to get the films made; there are some very large egos in filmmaking.
He was staying at the Hotel Warwick in the rue de Berri, just off the Champs-Elysées, with Edward Fox very much under his wing and control. He did not really want his new young star going off into town at night, lest he be late for the early starts that were necessary to get out to the studio and into makeup.
I arrived at the hotel on time and he introduced me to Edward. Dinner was friendly, but slightly formal, and ended rather early for the City of Lights. I suspected Edward might have been up for a more adventurous evening.
As we were crossing the lobby toward the door and out of earshot of Mr. Zinnemann, I asked if he had actually ever met a contract hit man. He said he had not.
“Would you like to?” I asked.
“Well, as I am supposed to be playing one, it might be interesting,” he said.
I told him that at eight the next evening, there would be a taxi parked across the street with me in it. He should just cross the road and jump in.
It was quite a long shot, but I was lucky. I hoped Armand would be in town, and when I contacted his doting sister, she said he was indeed, and she would tell him to call me at my hotel. He rang just before midnight and I told him what I had in mind. He seemed amused, but would not come to the Eighth Arrondissement, setting up a “meet” in the heart of the red light district at a café-bar I had never heard of.
Of the six mercenaries who had stayed on in Biafra after the bulk of the French-supplied contingent ran into an ambush and then to the airport to evacuate themselves, as I said, I really liked only three: Alec the Scot, Johnny the Rhodesian, and Armand.
Armand was lanky and swarthy, with the black hair and eyes of his Corsican ancestors. He spoke rarely, but observed the world with an ironic half grin.
He had gone to Biafra only because the chief of the Brigade Criminelle of the Paris police had advised him in the friendliest way that he should leave Paris for a while to avoid an embarrassing arrest. There were no hard feelings, the spirit being that we all have to make a living.
So he had joined the group being organized by Jacques Foccart, the French government’s Mr. Dirty Tricks for Africa, to be led by ex-Legion legend Roger Faulckes. When the French contingent ran for home after a week, Armand stayed on, and indeed to the end.
I discovered that he had actually sought out the Irish missionaries and monthly handed over his pay to buy more food for the children. He also told me, when I learned of it, that he would be immensely displeased if word got out. One did not lightly displease Armand, so I kept quiet.
Armand had never really been a gangster in Paris because he never joined a gang. But he occasionally acted as settler of accounts between the gangs of the Paris underworld. The city police had no objection to the place being cleaned up a bit, which was why they mostly left him alone.
On one occasion, Madame Claude, proprietress of the corps of the best call girls in Europe, felt she was being followed, possibly with intent to kidnap. She, too, consulted the chief of detectives, who recommended she engage Armand to look after her.
A week later, her driver again noticed the lights of the stalker car in his mirror. Armand, sitting beside him, asked him to pull over and stop. The car behind did the same. Armand got out and strolled back to have a word. There was a brief conversation through the side window of the car behind. It hung a U-turn in the middle of the boulevard and drove off. That was the end of that.
Although he was much younger than her, Madame Claude developed a huge crush on him, made more so by his polite disinclination to take advantage. So she offered him the choice of her school of extremely pricey ladies—on the house, so to speak. But he preferred, as he put it, to roll his own, so he left her employ.
The bistro he had stipulated was down a side street, and as the taxi entered it, we noted that both pavements were lined with streetwalkers. We got out, and as I paid the driver we received a chorus of the usual salutations.