Z is for The Zoot Suit Jazz Club and the Zambezi Zither Quartet

Link to Part Three

(Part Four)  

Boris was up early the following morning he needed to be in the office. Since the announcements of the official closure due to government cutbacks things had already started getting packed up, and fast.  He usually walked or used the bus most days but today he felt he was being watched, he got a flash of an elderly guy on the bus, then in a shop window, and then two old chaps on a park bench. He shrugged it off, after all he is a spy and spies are paranoid and they were all old, but he doubled back and took a taxi anyway. Once a spy always a spy.

 As he entered the department it was a shock, it was half empty and even as he looked around he saw his own desk being loaded up into a van. . . . Its like the last day of the closing down sale at Woolworths he said to one of the men sifting everything . . . . Sorry sir, yes sir but its orders from the top was the reply. Boris was angry he needed to find out what was going on. He made a few phone calls, but was told he was old school, field agents were not needed anymore it was all desk jobs now, monitoring social media and reading email, Boris was a dinosaur and was being pensioned off. It was a big pension and he should not rock the boat or else.

As evening fell Boris headed to the Zoot Suit Jazz Club alone, he was confused and very angry. He and Irene were a good team and he could not understand how she could be working for someone else. As he entered the half light of the old jazz club he heard a voice saying Well thank you Zelda and the Zodiacs that was a great song. . . . . we will have a sort break and then it will be tonight’s special guests The Zambezi Zither Quartet followed by our very own BLACK WIDOW AND THE SPIDER JAZZ BAND  

As Boris looked round the club he saw the old men he had seen in the morning, alarm bells rang in his head and in the gloom he checked his revolver. As he did so a voice behind said You don’t need that Boris . . . He turned, it was Irene  . . . . . . whats going on he said I thought we were a team. . . . . We are . . . let the general explain she said smiling.

Sorry Boris . . . you cracked things quicker than we thought, caught us on the hop. . . .We are intelligence Deep INTELLIGENCE; Irene says you are one of the best. we heard about the impending closure of your department months ago and she suggested we recruit you, we need some younger blood here we are now all very old field agents.  Another elderly man joined them, how did you work out the Link with the Zoot Suit Jazz Club and the spider so quickly. . . . Boris looked puzzled I DIDN'T it was the old guy; the strange one, he told me to listen to the live show on Jazz FM last night THAT IRENE did with her band. Irene now looked puzzled that’s not until next week Boris.  The General also confused asked Boris what he knew about the old man. . . I don’t know much, he had an old MATCHBOX and a spider said Boris And he did say he played piano in a bar in Berlin back in the days of the cold war. The two old men looked like they had seen a ghost  . . . . One then said Zackary . . Agent Z . .  but he’s dead, he was shot in October 1963. They say he had a story so big it would bring down the governments of several counties; but rumour has it he was sold out by his own side; a command from the very top.  As the two old men looked at one another Irene took Boris to a table and they sat and chatted until Irene joined her band singing long into the night, Boris finally able to relax.

Later in the early hours as Irene and Boris drove back to Boris’s home in a black Mercedes they pass an old man, he watches them as they drive past; then he bends down and carefully slides a small spider into an old matchbox. As he does so the owner of the Italian coffee shop opposite shouts across the road . . . Another Job done . . . . The old man nods and turns into the park and through the undergrowth to his forest shack deep in the Patagonian rain forests.

Back at Boris’s flat Boris says to Irene Is it true that female spiders eat the male. But Irene just smiles and says. . . This is a child friendly blog Boris.

THE END

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