The Runaway Man: A dying man, a dying world, a child to be saved

by Steven Hardesty

  A fresh terror shot through Ali Hossein. He saw with the clarity of revelation that no matter what he did next, no matter what great things he had accomplished for the conspiracy, no matter what a great man he was to become, Homan Rostamkolahi had the power of nemesis over him. Homan would always be there somewhere ready to uproot and upset and derange Ali Hossein’s entire life and all his glorious plans and ambitions.

  Homan strikes me with my own grenade, thought Ali Hossein, and then secretly gives it back to me to defend myself against the man I had poisoned, the man to whom Homan had brought me to confess, the man who now holds a pistol to my heart? The world is too complicated!

  Ali Hossein shouted at Patchway with the gun, “Don’t you see? It’s too complicated for all of us. Free me! Let me live and forget all about a few drips of poison.”

  Ali Hossein thought, Take the grenade from your pocket. Show it to Patchway. Fling it aside to show your good faith. Prove to him you are not his killer.

  Then he realized Patchway would kill him as soon as Ali Hossein lifted the grenade from his pocket.

  What could he do? Could he throw the grenade and jump behind cover? Would the grenade explode before the stupid foreigner could pull the trigger? What of Nutting – did that mad man have a pistol in his belt, too? Would Ali Hossein be shot to pieces by Nutting if he did kill Patchway? The grenade that could save him could kill him!

  “What is going to happen to me?” Ali Hossein cried. He wiped sudden sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket and left a smear of mud. “You must be insane to suspect me! I’m a servant of General Bassari – think what can happen to you if you abuse me!”

  “Tell me why you poisoned me,” Patchway said. “I want to know why.”

  The grenade gripped in his hand in his pocket gave Ali Hossein a sudden wild courage and he shouted, “Look at you, you stupid American, standing there trembling with a pistol in your hand. How can I think when one finger spasm could kill me? Let me help you decide what to do. Let me go, that’s what you must do.”

  “Tell me what I want to know,” said Patchway.

  The grenade was not enough! Ali Hossein had no time! Patchway was going to kill him if he did not talk faster and say something plausible.

  “Zargoneh!” Ali Hossein cried out in his panic. “He made the poison!”

  Patchway was surprised. “What did I do to him to poison me?”

  Ali Hossein began to weep. “It was him, it was him, you fool. He wants you dead.”

  “Why does he want me dead?”

  “The princess did it! Yasamin Safavifard! She poisoned you at Bassari’s party, I’m sure of it!”

  “Tell me why you killed me,” said Patchway, “or I’ll kill you now.”

  Was there a chance? Was Patchway offering Ali Hossein his life?

  Ali Hossein goggled at the revolver held in Patchway’s two hands and thought for an instant that he would have to reveal the whole conspiracy if he was to live. Even tell Nutting that they first had intended to poison him but Patchway came to town and he was a much better victim. Tell Patchway that he was dying too soon and that Zargoneh had given him pills to keep him on his feet a few more hours. That Patchway surviving the poison would deny the conspiracy the use of his body after the murder of the Saint to provide a foreigner on whom to blame the assassination. Tell him every complicated thing.

  If he told that much, then Ali Hossein would have to tell Patchway that the explosive barrels Patchway had forced Nutting to sell to Bassari were marked “Made in U.S.A.” to put the blame even farther afield and to confuse the investigation if things went wrong and others had to be found to shoulder the guilt.

  But if Ali Hossein said all that, then General Bassari would kill him. He was trapped! Death on every side! What could he do but take a mad chance?

  Ali Hossein yanked Anahita’s hand grenade from his pocket and threw it at Patchway’s feet and dived behind a bale of carpets.

  He heard the grenade thunk on the warehouse floor.

  Then he heard Patchway speak in a voice so grim it chilled his heart: “Ali Hossein,

  you forgot to pull the pin.”

  Ali Hossein groaned loudly from his hiding place. “I suppose you’re going to kill me now?”

  “Stand up,” said Patchway.

  Ali Hossein obeyed. He faced Patchway across the carpet bale. It was all hopeless. There was nothing left to do but to scream against the injustice of his own stupidity.

  Ali Hossein began screaming before the pistol fired.

  * * *

  Nutting turned off the warehouse light. Stink of gunpowder in the gloom. He heard Patchway vomit. Nutting wanted to vomit seeing the ghastly mess Patchway’s bullet had made of Ali Hossein’s face and skull.

  Nutting shoved Patchway’s pistol into the man’s pocket and helped Patchway stagger out of the warehouse to a pool in the alley where Nutting could wash Patchway’s face and hands.

  Patchway leaned against the alley wall, face dripping water, and said, “Who had him do it?”

  “You said it’s Ardjovani.”

  “He’s SAVAK. Ali Hossein is army. Yasamin – could she be part of it?”

  “You’ve killed the man who poisoned you,” said Nutting. “Isn’t that enough murder?” He had disgust in his face. “You have got to be on that plane at noon today or you’re a dead man. Do you want to carry on killing people or do you want to live?”

  “If they want to kill me, they can do it anywhere anytime, on the plane or on the road to the airport. Yasamin knows why they want me dead and she’s got to tell me.”

  Nutting rinsed his own hands in the pool. “I’m not coming with you. Ali Hossein was justice but what you want now is murder. You disgust me, Patchway. Go it alone.”

  Patchway went up the alley.

  Nutting shouted, “For God’s sake, Patchway, don’t do it!”

  * * *

  Yasamin Safavifard’s house in the richest part of Shiraz was part castle, part battleship, part pizza parlor painted a dozen garish colors and with a giant sunburst mosaic on the front wall. Patchway followed the butcher boy into the house, the boy carrying a slab of fresh lamb, neighborhood dogs moaning behind him. Patchway shoved aside servants and found Yasamin in her parlor. “Patchway!” she cried in English. “My God, Patchway!”

  “Why did you try to kill me?”

  “Patchway!” she said, stunned.

  “Tell me why.”

  “Don’t be absurd!” she cried in a kind of desperation, searching the room for help but waving away her servants. “No one has tried to kill you. Certainly not me. What are you doing in my house without permission?”

  “I’m poisoned with mang.”

  “I don’t believe it – you’re still on your feet. No one walks with mang in him. I’ll give you yogurt – you’ll feel better. Or do I call my bodyguards?”

  “Call them.”

  Yasamin did nothing.

  “Call them,” said Patchway.

  “I won’t,” she said. “I forgive you. Your illness, whatever it is, makes you crazy.”

  A sudden pain gripped Patchway’s stomach. He clutched his belly and Yasamin saw the pistol stuffed under his belt.

  “Why have you that pistol?” she cried. “Now I will call my bodyguards.”

  “Ali Hossein,” said Patchway.

  “Al-lah! What have you done to him? He’s a worthless little man but a harmless fool. What did you do to him?”

  “Dead.”

  “You killed him? You didn’t have to kill him!”

  “I killed him because he wouldn’t tell me why I’m dying.”

  Yasamin goggled at him. “Are you asking me?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Will you kill me if I don’t know?”

  Patchway drew the revolver.

  “I don’t even know if you’re sick,” Yasamin cried, “or insane. Put that down – you could kill me by accident. Okay, alright! There’s only one man in town who would poi
son you and that’s Dr. Zargoneh.”

  “Why would he do it?”

  “For the sake of his daughters,” Yasamin said in scorn. “Everything he does is for the sake of his daughters. What kind of man is that who reorders the universe for daughters?”

  “Why are so many people trying to kill me – Ali Hossein, Homan Rostamkolahi, Zargoneh, you?”

  “Me? I’m not one of them. We just proved I’ve nothing to do with anything.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “How should I know why?”

  “You’ll come with me,” said Patchway.

  “I will not.”

  He put the revolver into her side.

  “You wouldn’t shoot me, Patchway, I know you wouldn’t.”

  “I’m dying,” he said, “I’ll kill anything.”

  * * *

  Dr. Zargoneh’s frozen mouse face appeared in the opening door. Patchway shoved Yasamin and the doctor into Zargoneh’s laboratory.

  “Is that a gun you have in your pocket?” cried Zargoneh. “What have you done to this poor woman? She’s terrified, Agha Patchway. Have you gone insane?”

  “It’s over,” Patchway said to Zargoneh, his hand over the chill of the old war wound now throbbing with pain.

  “What’s over?” said Zargoneh.

  But he knew it was over. It was a relief to have it over. So much treachery, so many great forces squeezing in on one little man, a man whose sole interest was science and not politics. Who needed living, healthy patients on whom to trial his experimental concoctions to find a cure for the disease killing his daughter. Now it was over, and Zargoneh was free to return to his laboratory!

  The doctor said to Yasamin, still pale with fright, “It’s all changed for me, Princess.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You all betrayed me,” the doctor said. “You killed the wrong man.”

  “What are you saying?” said Patchway.

  Zargoneh said, “Did you see to my daughter’s air ticket?”

  Yasamin said, “Air ticket?”

  “What do you mean she killed the wrong man?” said Patchway.

  “Agha Nutting was the man to die,” said Zargoneh. “Don’t you see that?”

  “Why did anyone have to die?” said Patchway.

  “Who knows? I can get back to my work now and that’s all that matters.”

  “Who said Nutting was to die and then me?”

  “Ask her,” said Zargoneh.

  “I have no idea!” cried Yasamin. “What am I in all this mess?”

  “Anahita’s air ticket?” Zargoneh said to Patchway. “Did you arrange it? No? I dreaded you hadn’t. After all, you are dying.”

  “Am I? After all your antidotes, Doctor?”

  “Antidotes? To mang?” said Yasamin, goggling from one to the other.

  “Yes, yes, I may have saved your life, Agha Patchway,” Zargoneh said hastily. “At least until you can fly to Rome. Still, I had hoped for better from you. Now I’ll have to find another way to get Anahita out of the country before the conscriptors catch her. It will be so very, very hard to do.” He sank into a wondering gloom.

  Yasamin said to Zargoneh, “Keep your mouth shut, you idiot, and you may still have everything you want.”

  Zargoneh was startled. “Will I? Or will I have nothing? Look at Patchway.”

  “What about me?” said Patchway.

  “You’re dying too fast or not fast enough but it no longer matters, does it?”

  “What are you saying?” said Yasamin. “You can’t say that to him!”

  Zargoneh said out of his gloom, addressing neither of them but himself, “Bassari is an idiot and his plan is for greedy fools. What a fool I was to join him.”

  He said surprise as though a revelation, “A man must carry the burden of his own wrongs or those he loves will carry them after him. My Anahita! She cannot carry my burden. I will not permit that. I cannot trade one tyrant for another in the country in which my daughter is forced to remain.”

  “You want to be noble now?” Yasamin said in scorn. “What are you going to do about it, you fool? Are you insane? You can’t say these things in front of Patchway.”

  Zargoneh said to Patchway, “What are you going to do to me?”

  “Tell me who had me poisoned and tell me why and I may do nothing to you.”

  “You’re a fool to believe him,” said Yasamin. “He’s killed all the others.”

  “What’s the point of telling you now?” Zargoneh said to Patchway. “You’re already dead.”

  “Don’t tell him that!” cried Yasamin. “He’ll kill us.”

  “I won’t kill you,” Patchway said to the doctor. “I will do worse. I will take your daughter from you.”

  “What?” cried Zargoneh.

  Patchway swept his arm across Zargoneh’s lab table, spilling his experiments crashing to the floor.

  “My life’s work!” Zargoneh cried. “My Anahita!” He fell to his knees in the shattered glass and spilled chemicals, trying to save bits from the ruin.

  Patchway used the pistol barrel to smash more equipment.

  “No, no!” cried Zargoneh. “For my child’s sake, no!”

  “Tell me why you poisoned me or I smash it all,” Patchway said.

  “Say nothing,” said Yasamin. “He’s not dying fast enough – he has time to spoil it all.”

  “To spoil what?” said Patchway. “What am I dying to protect?”

  Zargoneh flung himself between Patchway and the last table of experiments. “Leave me the rest of my equipment,” Zargoneh cried, “and I’ll tell you.”

  “He’ll tell you a lie, Patchway,” said Yasamin. “He’s an habitual liar.”

  “The General wants your body,” said Zargoneh.

  “That’s absurd!” said Yasamin. “A lie, an unbelievable lie.”

  “He wants a foreign corpse he can blame for the killing of the Saint.”

  “You’re even more insane than I suspected,” Yasamin said to Zargoneh. “Patchway, you cannot believe this babble. You cannot!”

  For Patchway it was not a conscious act. It was an expression of rage. An augmentation of his shout of fury. He fired the revolver once. In the confines of the small room, the discharge was shattering. Yasamin screamed. Zargoneh was flung against the wall and fell into the shattered glass on the floor.

  Zargoneh struggled to turn himself over, blood gouting from his wound. “I’m alive,” he said in wonder. He struggled to look toward Patchway. “Are you really going to kill me?”

  “What’s the point of it now?”

  Zargoneh plucked bits of his experiments from the blood he had spattered on the floor and said, “What’s the point of anything without my Anahita?”

  Patchway pulled Yasamin out of the laboratory.

  “No!” she cried. “Patchway, you cannot. Not Bassari. We can’t go there. He’ll kill us both!”

  “I’m already dead,” said Patchway.

  “I won’t go! Are you going to kill me, too?” Yasamin cried. “You’ve killed everyone else.”

  “You’re safe if you do what I want,” Patchway said.

  “Tell me and I’ll do it!”

  * * *

  Patchway drove the four wheel drive with Yasamin toward Bagheh Eram and Television Hill, through hordes of men in black suits shouting “Alahu akbar!” and shuffling toward Bagheh Eram where the Saint would speak. Patchway understood now why Bassari had chosen this moment to kill the Saint – in the frenzy that would follow the murder, this mob would burn the city. Then Bassari with his army would crush the fundamentalists and save the king from the rebellion Bassari had midwifed. It was from this city flung into civil war that Patchway had to escape with the child he was about to steal.

  Patchway drove past the blue gate with the cherubs that marked Ardjovani’s mansion and into the baked earth courtyard of the house that was Bassari’s. From down the slope that led to the garden, they could hear the rhythmic chants of the pilgrims marching
to surround Bagheh Eram.

  The front door to the house was unguarded. Their footfalls echoed in the empty rooms. The chants outside were muted in the cool stillness. An old servant came down the staircase.

  “Where is the General?” Yasamin demanded.

  The old man bowed and gestured upstairs.

  Patchway with his hand on the revolver in his pocket led up the staircase. They could hear the hack-hack-hack of rotor blades as a helicopter descended onto the roof of the mansion.

  Patchway fell against the wall, sweat running over his cheeks. He clutched his chest. The pain!

  “We can stop this lunacy now,” said Yasamin. “We can get out of this house and I can get you to Rome…”

  “Not until I know why.”

  Through a windblown curtain, they saw General Bassari with an electronic device in his hands. Three other officers with him. Bassari, in fatigues and gold braid, his Santa Claus belly jutting over his pistol belt, turned to his officers with delight in his face as he gestured toward the garden filling with people.

  Bassari saw Yasamin in the room behind the balcony and stopped his gesture. The officers turned toward her. Patchway shoved her onto the balcony, raised his revolver and said, “Why, General?”

  Bassari stood startled, one hand still raised toward his officers and the other holding a remote firing mechanism. He slowly lowered his arms until he had both hands on the device.

  Yasamin said to the General, “He thinks you ordered him poisoned. That’s what he wants to know. He has to know why.”

  “Ridiculous!” Bassari said to Patchway. “You have to know it’s ridiculous. But I can see you’re ill, Agha Patchway, and probably deluded, Iran has that effect on strangers here. We must do something for you. You need a hospital.” Bassari nodded toward an officer and said, “Call him ambulance.”

  The officer reached for a telephone. Patchway turned his revolver on the officer. The officer froze.