Rhodesia (11 page)

"Darling," he murmured, "you're so damn beautiful you scare me. I meant to tell you before..."

"Tell... me... now," she gasped.

Judas, before he called himself Mike Bor, had found Stash Foster in Bombay, where Foster was a dealer in humanity in die many vicious ways that arise when there are uncounted, unwanted, gross masses of it Engaged by Judas to bring three minor wholesalers of dope aboard Judas' Portuguese motor-sailer, Foster fell right into the middle of one of Judas' small problems. Judas wanted the good-quality cocaine they carried, and he did not care to pay for it, especially since he wanted the two men and the woman out of the way because their operation fitted nicely into his developing organization.

The three were tied up as soon as the vessel was out of sight of land, plowing through the hot-looking Arabian Sea, bound south for Colombo. In his lavishly furnished cabin Judas said thoughtfully to Heinrich Muller, while Foster listened, "Best thing for them is overboard."

"
Ja
," Muller agreed.

Foster decided they were testing him. He would pass the test, because Bombay was a lousy place for a Pole to make a living even if he was always six jumps ahead of the local
banditti.
The language problem was just too much, and you were so damn conspicuous. This Judas was building a big operation and he had real money.

"Want me to dump 'em?" he had asked.

"If you would be so kind," Judas purred.

Foster took them up on deck with their hands tied, one by one, the woman first He slit their throats, severed the heads completely from the bodies, and stripped the corpses before dropping the bodies into the greasy-looking sea. He made a weighted bundle of the clothes and dropped it over. When he was done there was only a yard-across puddle of blood on the deck, forming a red, liquid tray for the three heads, eyes-adroop.

Fastidiously, Foster pitched the heads over, one by one.

Judas, standing with Muller near the helm, nodded approvingly. "Have that hosed down," he ordered Muller. "Foster — let's have a talk."

This was the man Judas had ordered to watch Nick, and in so doing had made a mistake, although it might turn into a plus. Foster had the greed of a pig, the morals of a weasel, and the reasoning power of a baboon. A full-grown baboon is a match for most dogs, except a Rhodesian Ridgeback female, but the baboon thinks in odd little circles and has been bested by men who had the time to fashion weapons from available sticks and stones.

Judas told Foster, "Watch this Andrew Grant Stay out of sight. We're going to take care of him."

Foster s baboon brain promptly concluded he would gain acclaim by "taking care" of Grant If he had succeeded, he probably would have; Judas considered himself an opportunist. He came very close.

This was the man who watched Nick leave Meikles in the morning. A small, neatly dressed man with powerful shoulders that hunched over rather like a baboon's. So unobtrusive among the people on the sidewalks that Nick did not notice him.

Nick had awakened before dawn and ordered coffee sent up as soon as room service could manage it He kissed Boots' awake — noting with satisfaction that she matched her mood to his own; love-fun had been great, now on with the business of a new day. Make the parting perfect and your anticipation of the next kiss would ease you by many a rough moment She drank a quick coffee red a long good-bye embrace, and slipped away after he checked the corridor as all clear.

As Nick was brushing a sports jacket, Gus Boyd arrived, bright and bouncy. He sniffed the air of the room. Nick frowned inwardly, the air-conditioner hadn't carried away all of Booty's perfume. Gus said, "Ah, friendship. Wonderful
Varia et mutabilis semper femina."

Nick had to grin. The lad was observant and his Latin wasn't bad. How would you translate that?
Woman is always a switcheroo?

"I prefer happy clients," Nick said. "How's Janet doing."

Gus poured himself coffee. "She's a sweet jellyroll. There's lipstick on one of these cups. You leave clues all over."

"No, there isn't" Nick did not waste a glance at the buffet. "She didn't put any on before she left. All the other girls — er, satisfied with Edman's efforts?"

"They're absolutely enthusiastic about the place. Not a single damn complaint, which you know is unusual. Last night was a free night so that they could explore restaurants if they wanted to. Every one of them had a date with one of the colonial types and they lapped it up."

"Ian Masters put his boys up to it?"

Gus shrugged. "Could be. I encourage it. And if Masters puts a few dinner checks on the account, I never object as long as the tour has gone well."

"Are we still leaving Salisbury this afternoon?"

"Yes. We fly to Bulawayo and take the morning train to the game preserve."

"Can you get along without me?" Nick snapped off the lights and threw open the balcony door. Bright sun and fresh air flooded the room. He gave Gus a cigarette, lit one himself. "I'll join you at Wankie. I want to check into the gold situation more thoroughly. We'll beat the bastards yet. They've got a gravy train going and don't want to let us ride."

"Sure." Gus shrugged. "It's all routine. Masters has an office in Bulawayo that handles the transfers there." Actually, although he liked Nick, he was pleased to lose him — for long periods or short. He preferred to dispense tips without observation — you could pick up quite a percentage over the long pull without shorting the waiters and porters, and there was a lovely shop in Bulawayo where women usually lost all thrift-control and spent dollars like dimes. They bought Sandawana emeralds, copperwarc, and antelope and zebra-skin items in such quantity he always had to arrange a separate baggage shipment. He had a commission arrangement with the shop. Last time through his cut had been $240. Not bad for a one-hour stop. "Be careful, Nick. The way Wilson talked this time was a lot different from when I did business with him before. Man, what a scrap you put on!" He shook his head at the recollection. "He's become — dangerous, I think."

"So you got that impression too, did you?" Nick winced as he probed his sore ribs. That flop from the roof at van Prez's hadn't helped any. "That guy can be black murder. You mean you didn't notice it before? When you bought the thirty-dollar-an-ounce gold?"

Gus flushed. "I figured — aw hell, I don't know what I figured. This thing has started swinging. I'd just as soon drop it, I think, if you figure we'll get jammed up bad if anything goes wrong. I'm willing to take chances, but I like to watch the odds."

"Wilson sounded like he meant it when he told us to forget the gold business. But we know he must have found a helluva market since you were here last. First he sells you gold cheap, so he must have had it spilling out of his treasure rooms. Then he doesn't have any at any price. He's found a pipeline, or his associates have. Let's find out what it is, if we can."

"Do you still believe there are Golden Tusks. Andy?"

"Nope." It was a rather simple catch question and Nick gave a straight answer. Gus wanted to find out if he was working with a realist. They might have dummied a few up and painted the gold white. Hollow tusks of gold to beat the sanctions and help smuggle the stuff into India or wherever. Even London. But now I think your friend in India is right. There's plenty coming out of Rhodesia in nice four-hundred-ounce bars. Notice he didn't say kilos or gram-weights or jockey leads or any of the slang terms the smugglers use. Nice, big standard bars. Yummie. One feels so wonderful in the bottom of your travel case —
after
you've cleared customs."

Gus grinned, chasing a fantasy. "Yeah — and a half-dozen of 'em shipped with our tour baggage would feel even better!"

Nick slapped him on the shoulder and they went down to the lobby. He left Gus at the dining-room passage and went out into the sun-splashed street. Foster picked up his trail.

Stash Foster had an excellent description of Nick and the picture, but he countermarched once, near Shepherds', so that he could see Nick full-face. He was sure of his man. What he didn't realize was that Nick had an astonishing photographic eye and memory, particularly when concentrating. At Duke, in a controlled test, Nick had once remembered sixty-seven photographs of strangers, and was able to fit them to their names.

Stash had no way of knowing that, as he passed Nick amid a group of shoppers, Nick caught his direct glance and catalogued him —
baboon.
Other people were animals, objects, emotions, any related detail to help his memory. Stash received an accurate description.

Nick heartily enjoyed his brisk walk — Salisbury Street, Garden Avenue, Baker Avenue — he strolled when there were crowds, swung at marching double-time when the walk was empty. His strange pattern irritated Stash Foster, who thought,
What a nut! Going nowhere, doing nothing: stupid physical culturist.
It would be a pleasure to let the lifeblood out of that big, husky body; to see that straight spine and those wide shoulders fallen, twisted, crumpled. He scowled, his wide lips pulling on the skin of his high cheekbones until he looked more apelike than ever.

He was wrong about Nick's going nowhere, doing nothing. Every moment the AXEman's mind was absorbing, contemplating, filing, studying. When he finished his long walk there was little about the major area of Salisbury he did not know, and a sociologist would have been delighted to receive his impressions.

Nick was saddened by his conclusions. He knew the pattern. When you have traveled in most of the countries of the world, your capacity for evaluating groups expands like a wide-angle lens. A narrow view would show hard-working, sincere whites who had wrested a civilization from nature by bravery and hard work. The blacks were lazy. What had they done with it? Weren't they now — thanks to European ingenuity and generosity — better off than ever?

You could sell this picture easily. It had been bought and framed many times, by the defeated Confederate South in the United States, by Hitler's listeners, by grim-jawed Americans from Boston to Los Angeles, especially many in police departments and sheriffs offices. Outfits like the KKK and Birchers made careers out of recooking it and serving it under new names.

The skin didn't have to be black. The stories had been woven about red, yellow, brown — and white. The situation is easy to set up, Nick knew, because all men carry the two basic explosives within themselves — fear and
guilt.
The fear is the easiest to see. You've got your precarious blue- or white-collar job, your bills, your worries, taxes, overwork, and boring or despised future.
They
are competition, tax-eaters, who crowd the labor offices, mob the schools, roam the streets ready for violence, mug you in the alley. They probably don't know God, like you do, either.

The
guilt is
more insidious. Every man has once or a thousand times rolled round in his brain perversion, masturbation, rape, murder, theft, incest, corruption, brutality, knavery", debauchery, and having a third martini, cheating his income tax report a little, or telling the cop he was only doing fifty-five when it was over seventy.

You know
you
don't-won't-can't do these things. You're good. But they! My God! (They really don't love Him either.)
They
do all of them all the time and — well, anyway,
some
of them every chance they get.

Nick paused on a corner, watching the people. A pair of girls, lovely in flouncy cottons and sun hats, smiled at him. He smiled back, and kept it turned on for a homely girl who came along behind them. She beamed and blushed. He took a cab to the office of Rhodesian Railways.

Stash Foster followed him, guiding his driver by watching Nick's cab. "I'm just seeing the town. Please turn right... now up that way."

Strangely enough, a third cab was in the weird procession, its passenger using no subterfuge on his driver. He told him, "Follow number 268 there and don't lose him." He was following Nick.

Because the journey was short, and Stash's cab moved erratically, not steadily on Nick's tail, the man in the third cab didn't notice it. At the railroad office Stash let his cab go on by. The third man got out, paid off his driver, and followed Nick right into the building. He caught up with Nick as the AXEman strode through a long, cool, covered passageway. "Mr. Grant?"

Nick turned and recognized the law. He sometimes thought that professional criminals were right when they claimed they could "smell a plainclothesman." There was an aura, a subtle emanation. This one was tall, slim, an athlete. A serious type about forty.

"That's right," Nick answered.

He was shown a leather case with an ID card and a badge. "George Barnes. Rhodesian Security Forces."

Nick grinned. "Whatever it was, I didn't do it."

The quip fell flat as a beer from last night's party left open by mistake. Barnes said, "Leftenant Sandeman asked me to speak with you. He gave me your description and I saw you on Garden Avenue."

Nick wondered how long Barnes had followed him. "That was nice of Sandeman. Did he think I'd get lost?"

Barnes still did not smile, his clean-cut face stayed grave. He had the accent of north-country England, but spoke his words round and rolling-clear. "You remember seeing Leftenant Sandeman and his party?"

"Yes, indeed. He was helpful when I had a flat."

"Oh?" Evidently Sandeman had not had time to fill in all details. "Well — evidently after he aided you he ran into trouble. His patrol was in the bush about ten miles beyond van Prez's farm when they came under fire. Four of his men were killed."

Nick dropped his half-smile. "I'm sorry. News like that is never pleasant."

"Would you please tell me exactly whom you saw at van Prez's?"

Nick rubbed his broad chin. "Let's see — there was Pieter van Prez himself. A well-weathered old-timer who looks like one of our western ranchers. A real one, who worked at it. About sixty, I guess. He wore..."