The Arbitrator

When the Arbitrator was in America, he usually slept with her, his lips against her open mouth. When he awoke, he would have a faint taste of solvent on the tip of his tongue, a slight scent of oil in his sinuses. The taste and the scent would stay with him until the third sip of his morning coffee.

But this morning, because he was in Paris, where things weren't tight, because he'd taken a sleeping pill before retiring, he awoke without her. He lay perfectly still, keeping his eyes closed for ten seconds, until all his senses were functioning in the precise manner he desired them to function. Then his left arm shot into the air, flipping sheet and blanket from his body, and he sprang lightly to the floor. Two steps took him to the side of the wardrobe, which stood almost flush against the wall. He cocked his head, peered into the shadows between wardrobe and wall.

She was there, sitting in her holster, the magnetic disk on the back of the holster sticking to the magnetic disk whose three razor-sharp prongs were lodged in the wardrobe's wooden back. (continued on page 160)Arbitrator(continued from page 157) In that shadowed space, her black butt reflected no light.

He returned to the bed, flopped back down upon it, his arms outstretched. Then, slowly, he turned his head to read the time, admiring the contrast of his black skin against the white sheet before he admired the contrast of his gold watch against his black skin. It was 10:30. Once, he had wished his arm to be whiter than the sheet, but he had wished that before he had met The Chief, before he'd become The Arbitrator.

He found the room a trifle cool, unlike the room in New York in which he'd stifled for a week before flying to Rome, where, after assuring himself he was not being followed, he'd met his contact, who had rebriefed him on the drive to Milan, a city less watched by the CIA than Rome, to board the Simplon Orient Express for Paris.

He left the bed again and put on a white terrycloth robe, thinking it ironic that he was to make his last hit in Paris, a city he liked, when, lying on the bed in that airless room on East Tenth Street, he'd been positive that The Chief would confirm the plan to make the hit in New York, a city he hated.

He'd waited a week for a phone call that never came. Instead, there'd been a knock at his door: The Chief, in person.

"You leavin' tonight fo' Rome. Don't check out heah. We gonna keep dis room in youh name till afta de hit been made. Use dis locker key at de airport. Dere's a suitcase packed and ready. Use youh American passport fo' Italian customs. You be given a Togolese one fo' France. Youh contact gonna be in de little café to de left of de Trevi Fountain between two and fouh tomorrow aftanoon."

He'd taken the envelope with the ticket and the money The Chief had held out, silently gone to the closet to get a shirt.

The Chief had sat on the bed, watching him dress. "No questions?" The Chief had finally asked.

The Arbitrator had shrugged.

The Chief had smiled. "I gonna miss you. You my man. We has to move everythin' up by two days. Gallup Poll come out show he got de nomination in de bag. Secret Service gonna drop a covuh on him from de minute he come back. Infiltrator got word to us last night. De Senator, he gonna have his last fling wid only two bodyguards in Paris. From den on, dat honkie, he gonna be covuhed like he was already de President. France is ouh place. You can move 'bout dere like you was a honkie."

The Arbitrator had nodded. They'd shaken hands. He'd picked up his briefcase and left the hotel on East Tenth Street.

The thought of that hotel made The Arbitrator tighten the belt of his robe with a jerk. The corridors had smelled of piss and spilled booze; his room had smelled of dust and cooking oil and pot. The air conditioner hadn't worked, the windows didn't open and the red needle of the thermometer hadn't dropped below 95 during his entire stay. He hadn't even been able to finish his essay on revolutionary assassins for Black Fist because his hand had begun to sweat so much every time he'd closed it to hold the pen that he'd smudged ink all over the paper. And because he was The Arbitrator, a professional, he had not been able to leave the room until The Chief had contacted him. No, not quite true. He'd left it once to get a paper, when the quarter had jammed in the pay radio, and he'd been unable to get the news of what the paratroopers were doing uptown. He'd called the desk and told them to hold any calls, he'd be back in seven minutes, and then he'd left his room and strode quickly down the corridor to the elevator. He'd had to wait five minutes. When the door had opened, he'd stepped into the cage to find a black hippie who'd carried a large sketchbook under his left arm and had had his right arm around the shoulders of a little Whitey dropout, a little Miss Whitey Professional Spade Lover.

The Arbitrator, pushing the button M, had rested the back of his head against the wall of the cage, fixing black hippie with an algid stare.

Black hippie had given him a "Look-at-me-man-I-got-me-a-Whitey-chick" wink.

The Arbitrator had not blinked. He'd just continued staring.

Black hippie had shuffled his feet.

Black hippie had dropped his arm from the white chick's shoulders.

The Arbitrator had continued to stare.

Black hippie had nervously turned his eyes to the floor indicator of the elevator's control panel. But the light was out of order.

When, at the ground floor, the elevator door had opened, The Arbitrator had not moved. Black hippie had waited an instant, then put his hand on the small of the white chick's back and propelled her toward the door. The Arbitrator had waited until her left foot had just cleared the two-inch step between elevator and lobby before moving. His wide, heavy shoulders had caught her perfectly, smashing her against the doorframe as he exited. He had whirled quickly, his powerful torso blocking the door. His long index finger had risen and fallen in a measured beat an inch from the black hippie's nose. "You keep making that scene, you gonna smell like sour milk, boy." he'd snarled.

But he hadn't left his room again. He'd been afraid he'd bust someone up, and he was too valuable to TAR to get into a stupid fight, to get into any fight, for that matter.

The belt of his robe tied, The Arbitrator went to the phone. For this last job, TAR, Inc., was sending him first-class. He was staying at the Georges V.

"Give me coffee and a Herald Tribune," he said in English. "And I wants my coffee black!"

Only after he'd hung up did he realize that the French probably wouldn't dig that dig. But they'd dug it in Cleveland. He'd gotten a tiny female gasp, followed by dead silence.

"I wants my coffee," he repeated with a smile. The hardest thing for him to learn had been to use the third-person verb with the first-person pronoun, the first-person verb with the third-person pronoun. After all that nice Stanford education, he'd talked like the White Knight himself. But, as The Chief had said when he'd recruited him, "We might use you, man. But if you gonna think black, you gonna talk black."

The bellboy who brought his breakfast had gray hair, tired eyes. He stood inside the door, waiting to be told where to put the tray.

"You put it on the table, boy."

But the Frenchman only looked at him blankly.

"La table! La table!" The Arbitrator shouted. He walked to the wardrobe, took a five-franc piece from the pants hanging there. He flipped it at the bellboy, who juggled it, dropped it. The Arbitrator grinned as the white man went down on his hands and knees to retrieve it from under the bed.

"You look good down there, Whitey," The Arbitrator said.

The bellboy nodded, bowed, shut the door behind him.

He propped the bolster against the headboard, sat on the bed, brought the breakfast tray over onto his lap. As he sipped his coffee, he scanned the first page of the Trib. His man was there. Not his picture, but his name:

Senator Thomas Stops in Paris on Way Back from International Conference in Bonn

Senator George Thomas (R., New York) arrived here last night for a two-day working vacation on his way back to Washington via New York from the Conference on African Problems in Bonn. Senator Thomas, considered by most political experts as certain to gain his party's nomination for President at its convention next month, is expected to confer with President Mendès-France about ways to improve Franco-American economic cooperation, which has ameliorated slowly but (continued on page 194)Arbitrator(continued from page 160) steadily since the death of General de Gaulle two years ago. Senator Thomas said...

"Senator Thomas say, 'Dig mah grave wide, dig it deep, Ah'm gonna take me a little sleep,'" The Arbitrator said with a laugh. "Senator Thomas say, 'As de leadin' Republican liberal in de Senate, Ah is aginst dese retention camps bein' set up by de Govumunt.' Senator Thomas say, 'Dese heah retention camps, dey nothin' but concentration camps.' And de Senator Thomas, he right."

The Arbitrator paged slowly through the first section.

"But dey don't got nothin' 'bout de fact dat De Arbitrator, he heah in Paris. Dat 'cause dey don't know he heah. Now, I gonna write dis Herald Tribune and say, 'You bettuh covuh De Arbitrator, baby, or you gonna go out of de business, just like youh New York paper done a few years ago, yeah man. You bettuh write:

De Arbitrator in Paris to Hit De Senator Thomas

De Arbitrator (Nigger, New York) come to Paris 'cause he gonna knock de head off de Senator Thomas (Honkie, New York). De Arbitrator work fo' TAR, Inc., one big Black Extremist organization dat get its name from de memory of all doze little black boys got tarred. De Inc., it pronounced in abbreviated form in memory of all doze white folks who done tell theah young'uns dat God, He take a big bottle of ink and He pour it ovah de nigger and dat's why de nigger, he black.'"

But he stopped joking when his eyes caught a small squib on the entertainment page.

Jansey Heron Troupe in Rehearsal

The Jansey Heron Ice Ballet arrived here yesterday to begin rehearsals for next week's engagement at the Palais des Sports. Miss Heron, a longtime favorite of Parisians, has put her troupe up at the Hôtel des Deux Mondes, a Left Bank hostelry. Miss Heron, a Negro, has not skated in America since the 1969 San Francisco riots. She will skate the lead role in a new ballet here.

He read the article twice, shook his head, tossed the paper on the floor. He'd not seen her for over ten years. Suddenly, he found himself wondering about the pictures that would go with tomorrow's headlines. He had no illusions about leaving The Ascot alive after he made his hit. Since the hand grenade in the House of Representatives, the FBI had taken charge of training Congressional bodyguards. They drew fast, and they didn't miss. If they got him in the face, like he was going to get Thomas, he knew no paper would print the picture. But if they shot his guts out, there might be a picture of the upper half of his body.

And if she recognized him?

He got out of bed and carried the tray over to a table. If she recognized him, it would have to be by the picture, for the newspapers would not even have his current alias. His contact in Rome, a member of TAR's political unit, had instructed him to dump his fake Togolese passport in a sewer on Rue Pierre Charron before entering The Ascot. He would be without any identification when the police went over his clothes. He would eventually be identified when the desk clerk at the Georges V began to connect the disappearance of the supposed official from the Togolese Ministry of Education, who had airmailed a Manila envelope to the United States, with the assassination of Senator Thomas, and notified the police. The bellboy would remember his arrogance. Room service would remember he'd spoken English, rather than the petit nègre he spoke when he really was playing an African role. That he mustn't be identified immediately was part of TAR's policy of frustrate and terrify. It was important that white America spend a week asking why. Why Thomas? It was important that white America have time to begin spinning its eternal logical theories (all the time sensing that logic had become as obsolete as Martin Luther King)--it couldn't have been an American Negro!Why, Thomas was the one man respected by black and white alike--before the truth was known and the white liberals, again robbed of their jewel, logic, began to turn, themselves, toward the goal of TAR, Inc., geographic separatism.

So, if she recognized him, it would have to be by a picture that most likely would not be printed. He stood in the middle of the floor, undecided. She was the only chick he'd ever had the big heart for, the only person to whom he'd given a part of himself before he'd met The Chief and given all of himself to TAR. His indecision lasted only a moment. He was going to die that night. He walked to the phone and asked the desk clerk to get him the Hôtel des Deux Mondes.

When the voice said, "Hôtel des Deux Mondes," he asked for her, his hand tightening involuntarily on the receiver, but his voice calm.

"Who's calling, please?"

"Tell her that... that Mr. James Lee Jackson is calling."

It had been a long, long time since he'd given his own name. He'd traveled with so many passports from so many countries--even his American passport, which he'd given to his contact when they'd arrived in Milan, didn't have his real name. Among the revolutionary groups with which he'd worked in Algeria, Ghana and Venezuela, he was known only as Monsieur L'Arbitre or Señor El Arbitro.

"I'm sorry," the voice said a moment later. "Mademoiselle Heron has already left for rehearsal. Will you leave a message?"

"Where's she rehearsing?"

"The Palais des Sports."

He hung up, stripped off his robe and went into the bathroom to shave. He lathered his face for five minutes, put a new blade in the razor. He had one phone call to receive. After that, he had nothing to do until seven o'clock.

He'd shaved and showered and was taking his suit from the wardrobe when the phone rang.

"Brother?" asked the voice.

"The new day will be a sunny one," he replied.

"Good. How are you? All set?" The voice was indistinguishable from a white voice. Among the higher echelons of TAR, The Infiltrator was one of the few who didn't talk black. He was special advisor on race relations to the President of the United States.

"I'm calm and set."

"As we knew you would be. The program is now confirmed and will take place as planned. There will bé an Oriental girl in your line of sight. We'd appreciate your skill."

"Don't worry."

"Goodbye, my friend. Your name will become a revered one."

The Arbitrator placed the receiver back in its cradle. The Infiltrator had always been above suspicion in the white bureaucracy. He'd lost an eye in a beating arranged by The Chief to ensure his Uncle Tom reputation among the radicals, his moderate reputation among the Washington bigwigs. The smoked-glass lens in The Infiltrator's glasses was a daily reminder to the President of his loyalty. It was also a reminder of his sacrifice for TAR, but only four people knew that. Now, accompanying Senator Thomas, he'd arranged the biggest hit to date, the assassination of the one man who moderate blacks and whites alike thought could put the country back together. The Arbitrator thought of the Oriental girl and smiled. The liberal Senator from New York would not realize his plan for some liberal lovemaking that night.

The Arbitrator ran his hands over the cloth of the 1000-franc suit he'd bought at The Red and Black the day before. He loved good cloth. When he entered The Ascot, he'd be taken for a wealthy African, all tailored in European threads. The summer before he'd gone to Stanford, he'd unloaded crates at the Washington Market to buy a Brooks Brothers suit.

"Perhaps you're looking for something in our three-forty-six line?" the salesman had murmured discreetly.

"I guess so," he'd answered, confused.

"It's, ah, more in your, ah, bracket," the salesman had confided with a wink.

He'd bought the suit at Macy's, instead.

"Humiliation, my Whitey friends, reaps undesired rewards," he said aloud, as he shoved the wardrobe away from the wall. He took the holster from the magnetic attachment, pushed the wardrobe back into position. He had designed the holster himself, just as he had designed the magnetic attachment. It fitted against the small of his back, two inches above his right buttock. He'd designed it for maximum concealment, not for a fast draw. He adjusted the strap, buckled it. He didn't bother to check the revolver. He'd broken her down, oiled her, wiped her clean the night before. Each bullet in the cylinder had almost enough power to tear a man's head off.

After knotting his tie, he opened the suit jacket on the bed. He slid his wallet into the jacket's left inside breast pocket, his passport into the right. He slipped on the jacket and buttoned it. With both the wallet and the passport so readily available, he'd have no need to unbutton the jacket again. Even when he drew the pistol, he'd come up under the jacket's back flap. Bodyguards watched for shoulder holsters. He was too professional to use one.

He went into the bathroom, methodically arranged his shaving brush, cream and razor on the shelf. He glanced about the room. Nine pages of yellow paper filled with neat, ballpoint print lay beside an addressed Manila envelope on the desk. He went to the desk, reread the second paragraph of the first page:

History has many examples of men willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause. Those who die for religion are called saints and martyrs; those who die for love, heroes and tragic fools. We who will die for the dream of a new state and economic justice are called leaders of the masses and revolutionaries. Perhaps the most noble revolutionary is the assassin. Though usually not living to see the fruition of his beliefs, he changes history with a single movement of his finger. He is the necessary instrument of change, the tool that changes the functioning of the machine. He uses his life that his leaders may use their minds.

He put the pages in the envelope and sealed it. He checked the room a final time, then shut the door behind him, the envelope in his hand.

In the lobby, he gave the envelope to the desk clerk and impressed upon him the necessity of airmailing it to America immediately. He leaned across the counter and gave the clerk an appreciative slap on the shoulder, receiving with a smile the clerk's disdainful stare. The clerk would remember him. Then he walked out to Avenue Georges V.

He stood for a moment, looking up and down the avenue, trying to remember the location of the Palais des Sports. Along with his B.S. in math from Stanford, he'd gotten an R.O.T.C. commission; and, in that time when he'd been sure he'd crack Whitey's world, he'd served two years in France as a demolition expert with the Air Force at Evreux; but now, for the life of him, he couldn't remember where the Palais des Sports was.

Because, he thought with a grin, the only sporting I ever did was around the Opéra and Pigalle.

He walked over to a taxi, climbed in and told the driver to take him to the Palais des Sports. In the back seat, trying to imagine the way she would greet him, he had a moment of uneasiness. Maybe she'd refuse to talk to him. Or turn him off with the quiet sarcasm she used on Whitey when Whitey got too white. The thing about Jansey--she always made Whitey step over the fence into her world before she'd do battle with him. She seldom lost.

She'd been a freshman his junior year at Stanford, had dropped out after her sophomore year to become America's first Negro figure skater in the Olympics. And although she'd not won a medal, she'd gained enough publicity to turn pro and go out on her own. They'd followed each other for a while, had spent a glorious two weeks his last year at Evreux, her first time in Paris, and marriage had seemed their future scene.

Until he'd been discharged and run up against Whitey in New York.

Until he'd been discharged and slowly realized that he wasn't going to crack Whitey's world, even though he thought he'd already done so at Stanford and in the Service. He learned, painfully, that getting good marks at Stanford and getting letters of commendation in the Service didn't have much to do with the white world of finance, the world to which he'd expected admission, for the simple reason that he was better qualified--on his résumé--than most of his white friends. When that realization had finally jelled, he was left with nothing but his own blackness. And after he met The Chief, his blackness became everything.

After he'd met The Chief, he'd written her in Tokyo, where she was on tour. He'd put it bluntly. Her troupe was integrated; she didn't dig the new day. "My future plans do not include a black bourgeois wife," he'd written.

He hadn't seen her again.

He paid the driver, walked up the steps of the Palais des Sports, entered. Below him, past the rows of empty seats, a honkie and two black chicks swept across the ice. Two other honkie chicks sat at the edge of the rink, unlacing their skates. He looked at his watch. It was 12:30. They'd be breaking for lunch.

He stood for a moment, looking down at the ice. The honkie chick and one of the black ones skated over to a bench. Jansey was alone on the ice. Her white sweater was speckled with red; her red skirt rose rhythmically to reveal red panties, then floated down like a collapsing parachute to cover her thighs, as her hips switched her gracefully toward greater speed. As he began walking down toward the rink's edge, he had an instant of dizziness that made him grab the arm of a seat. He remembered the incredibly smooth skin of her stomach against his cheek, the light, exquisite touch of her fingers moving through his hair. He had not thought of such things for years. He sighed and hardened his heart.

Now, as he put his hands on the rink's railing, she was moving faster, her face masked in concentration. The ice murmured under her cold, slicing blades, as she went into a flying sit spin, came out of it, seemed to flow upright, her arms extended, the grace of a black crane leaving the water, faster, the strokes of her blades no longer individual movements but a blur of speed and power as she went into a double axel, grace changing to the elegance of perfection, and then she eased into a regular spin, doing the most difficult, the double axel, in the middle, so she did not appear to be building toward any special climax but merely slashing the ice into servitude with the mastery of her blades. Out of the spin, she began to circle the rink.

When she saw him, she did not change pace. She went by him once, meeting his eyes; she seemed to soar again as she circled the rink, and then she came to where he was standing, checking her flight with a quick twist of her blades that sent glittering flakes of ice spraying against the sideboards.

"You like this city, James Lee? Seems I've seen you here before."

As if they'd parted only the day before.

"Always keep your cool, don't you, Jansey?"

"It's my constant proximity to the ice, honey. You're looking well."

"I making it, baby. I making it."

"Oh. I making it. You talks like dat, you not working for no IBM, is you, James Lee?" But there was a warm tone in her mimicry, and no hostility in her eyes, and he remembered that this was Jansey's way.

He grinned.

"Come on, honey. What are you doing in Paris? Did you come all the way over just to watch little old me?"

"Why else?"

She laughed, a throaty, full laugh that reminded him of a time they had had lobster and two bottles of a blanc de blancs near the Gare Saint-Lazare and she'd laughed the same way.

"I'm going to take off my skates and go change, James Lee. Will you be here when I come back?"

"Lunch?" he asked.

"But not much. I've turned into a weight watcher."

He stayed, leaning against the rink, while she unlaced her skates. But when she disappeared into the dressing room, he stepped back and took a seat. Somewhere behind his forehead, there was an ache. He put his hand on his coat, above his right buttock, and slowly massaged the bulge there until the ache in his head went away.

When she returned, she wore a white linen jacket over a red print dress. Her eyes were clear, playful. He'd forgotten how really gorgeous she was. She took his arm.

"There's a nice place close by, where we can have a bite. I'm on steak and salad. But they have a marvelous coquille St. Jacques. You still eat the way you used to, James Lee?"

"When I'm in America, I eat blackeyed peas and chitterlings," he said pointedly.

She rolled her eyes up at him. "Soul food, brother?"

"Soul food, sister." But he felt guilty saying it like that, as if he were making light with The Cause. She gave off an intense gaiety that prevented him from being solemn, even when he tried.

"You're going to have to eat something different today. I don't think Monsieur Pierre has even heard of black-eyed peas. Now, tell me, Mr. Phi Bete. Whatever became of that nice Stanford mathematician?"

Her refusal to talk seriously irritated him.

"Whitey put him down, just like he puts down all darkies with a degree. He came out of the Air Force with four letters of commendation. But you know that."

"I remember he had a yearning to be the first Negro executive at IBM. He was going to break the field open. The Jackie Robinson of computers. That's what he wanted to be."

"Yeah," he said bitterly. "Whitey trained me well. So I made the rounds. IBM was only the first of many. We like you, Mr. Jackson. We like you. But since you insist on meeting the public, we have no place for you right now. I'm sure a man of your sensitivity can understand about our Southern accounts. We'd be happy to bring you along, if you'll stay out of sight. The time surely can't be far off when the public will be ready for Negro executives. But that time isn't now. If you don't want what we offer, all I can say is come back in a few years. Honkie executive don't give you no double talk, baby."

"But you didn't go back. And now they must have twenty colored executives."

"Yeah," he snapped. "Executive Toms to the President. I didn't go back, because after twenty-odd years, I found out who I was. A black black."

She took his hand, led him through the restaurant to a table in the back.

"Does your hate prevent you from pulling out a lady's chair for her?" she asked softly.

About to sit down, he moved quickly beside her, pulled out the chair.

"You have a beautiful suit, James Lee. What do you do that you can buy such beautiful suits?"

"I'm in arbitration," he said, watching her carefully.

"I see. Did you ever... marry?"

"No," he said. He wondered if she had some reason for not questioning him further about his work.

"That's too bad. You were a beautiful lover. You would have made some woman very happy. There was so much of you that wanted love. There was so much of you that wanted to give yourself to someone. There was so much of you that wanted so much."

"I never got what I wanted. Whitey saw to that. That's how Whitey does it, baby. He accustoms you to caviar and then, when the chips are down, he offers you a hot dog. He builds you up till you think you're a man, and then he castrates you."

Her big eyes stared at him, but she made no comment. His words sat in the silence; he heard their echo, detected the tone of self-pity. She kept staring at him.

"Did you ever marry?" he asked, ill at ease, anything to make her start talking, to make him lose the feeling that he was at fault. Yet, glancing at her quickly, he saw her eyes were not accusing him.

"Why, yes. I married. I had a little boy. Didn't you know? Where were you in 1969? It was in all the papers."

1969. Three years ago. He'd been in Venezuela. He'd hit eight men that year. Castro had asked to meet him, had told him his work had brought down the government two years ahead of schedule.

"I was out of the country that year," he said. "You mean all the papers gave it a big splash because you had a kid? What were the headlines? 'Skating Nigger Breeds'?"

She shook her head; her eyes remained calm. "It wasn't because I had a boy, James Lee. It was because he died. He and my husband were shot to death. The San Francisco riots."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't read much about them. By the time I got back to America, it was New Orleans. I remember the Marines used hand grenades in Frisco."

"They did, indeed, James Lee. But my boy and my husband were killed by TAR snipers."

"TAR snipers? What kind of loose talk is that? How do you know they were TAR?"

"I know. And I know they didn't do it on purpose. Our apartment wasn't in the ghetto. But they did it just the same."

He felt his strength, his certainty of purpose, flood through him. He leaned across the table, reached out, took her hand.

"We've all got to make sacrifices, Jansey. There's a new day coming. A day when blacks will rule blacks, when Whitey finally gets desperate and surrenders part of our country to us. I know it's hard, baby, but the new day is closer than you think. And when we make it, it will really be the new day. That's what TAR is fighting for. Your boy and your husband died like all our martyrs--so that one day we can live in freedom, like man was meant to live."

"I've heard that before, James Lee." Her eyes looked beyond him. "My brother died in Vietnam. Fighting for a new day for the South Vietnamese. People who want power are always promising new days to their followers. But too many of the followers don't live to see the dawn. Let's not talk about it anymore, James Lee. I left America in Sixty-nine. I've never gone back. You see, our revolutionaries rejected everything about the white man except his capacity to abuse power. I don't care for power, James Lee. It's easier here in Europe. Nobody has to live up to the cowboy tradition. All these countries are small and tired, without hair on their chests. They know they can't have big power anymore. So they're a little more human--by default, maybe. Tell me about your mediation. What are you mediating? And why do you come to Europe to mediate?"

"No, Jansey," he said, twisting the heavy silver ring he wore on his right fourth finger. "Arbitrate. When you mediate, both parties must agree. An arbitrator has the absolute power to make the final decision." Even as he used the word "power," he knew he should have used another word. It merely supported her point. And her point was false.

"So," she said, and she said it with sorrow and sympathy, her eyes shutting, opening, shutting, opening, as if she'd been stabbed by a migraine. "So that must make you The Arbitrator. James Lee Jackson. The Arbitrator."

He smiled with the full power of his fame. Even she, an expatriate, had heard of him. Yet, a moment later, he felt his power wane. There was a softness about her that decayed his strength, a softness that had never failed to fascinate him. The way he'd been fascinated by a viper Boumedienne had kept in a cage. He became aware that his hand was in hers, that she was squeezing it.

"James Lee," she said. "I remember how you used to go to the chapel services at Stanford. You'd always bug me 'cause I didn't have religion. I still don't. But I remember that Christ had a few strikes against him. He was one boy out there alone in the desert, with no rifles and the whole big establishment against him. And he made it. He made it by choosing mediation. The Mediator. Let's you and I mediate, James Lee. Let's have a bottle of champagne and mediate. Because the James Lee Jackson I knew would have been a great mediator. He would have had a kind of greatness The Arbitrator doesn't have. And then we'll have another bottle of champagne and mediate a little more." She stood. "I have to make a phone call, James Lee. You wait for me here. You wait for me like you didn't wait for me when I was in Tokyo, waiting to finish up and come home to you in New York oh, oh so many years ago." She leaned across the table, brought the back of his hand to her lips, then walked to the stairs that led down to the telephone and the rest rooms.

Far deep in him, a part long encased and guarded by the discipline of The Cause quivered slightly, threatened to break into that empty place in his chest he was sometimes aware of. He brought his mind to bear on that part of himself; he closed his eyes and he clenched his fist, and with a physical effort, he put things back in order. He knew now why he'd taken the taxi out here. He'd come to see if seeing her would change anything. But what she had to offer was soft, soft like a sponge that absorbed a man's ideals and his courage. What he had wanted was a word of solace because he was going to die. What he had wanted was to feel for a moment that he was loved by a single human, instead of respected by the members of TAR. It was an understandable need but an invalid one.

He stood, dropped 100 francs on the table and left the restaurant. It was a breezy, sunny Paris afternoon, and it would take him two hours to walk back to the Champs. He would walk it because he loved breezy, sunny afternoons and because once he'd loved Paris and once he'd been in love in Paris. Funny about her bringing up Christ. He saw what she'd been trying to do, and he wondered. But then he laughed, stroking that place, that hard place, above his right buttock.

Wondering now is like that story of Christ, he thought. Christ, with all his life behind him, climbing Calvary, lurching under the weight of the cross, turning to a beggar by the roadside and saying: "Say, fella. You think I'm doing the right thing, don't you?" But Christ hadn't done that any more than he was wondering now. He guessed Christ had been free to choose mediation over arbitration. But the death of Christianity had proved Christ wrong. Now, with a new hope before his people, the hope of their own country, it was time to learn from Christ's mistakes.

When he got to the Champs, he would sit at a sidewalk café and read a newspaper until it was time. Once more, he moved his hand behind him and felt the compact form of the revolver. It had a short barrel, and he would have to be very close to his man to render his decision.

But he was an expert shot, and in the holster was the instrument of his greatness, the voice of The Arbitrator, the thing that gave him the absolute power to make the final decision.