When the shelling stopped, precisely at five minutes after the hour, he got up and dusted himself off and walked quickly through the growing crowds of survivors. He headed for the Chinese area of the Getoba.
Chapter 14
HE KNEW exactly where he was going. Tom Adams, who worked at Monc et Cie at Lamy, Chad, had briefed him thoroughly after his stop at Lisbon. He put Georgette Finch out of his mind. She would have to take care of herself. The Chinese quarter was only a half mile away across the Getoba, beyond the central square that was dominated by a mosque and a tall, spired Portuguese cathedral. It was curious to see how the Teleks had become conditioned to their state of siege. From the moment the hourly bombardment ended, the streets filled with the trapped inhabitants-men, women, and children-along with a heavy sprinkling of uniformed rebels. Morale was running low among the civilians, Durell thought, and the sight of their long ration lines reminded him of his own hunger. Each man, woman, and child had a crumpled slip of paper, however, and he didn't dare join one of the lines without such a ration card. Water could be had at any of the public fountains, although he risked dysentery here. He paused long enough to wash his face and duck his head under the fountain, letting the spray of water cool and partially cleanse some of the grime off him. But then he let his hunger and thirst grow as he went on toward the Chinese quarter.
There wasn't much to it. A few small streets, with leaning wooden houses, Chinese signs hanging in the hot breeze, an ineffable scent of the Far East mingled with the flat dust of Africa. The Chinese quarter ended against the old medina wall, where once the proud Arabs had shut themselves off from the black Natangans. The moment that Durell entered the area, he felt that here, at least, there was a divorcement from the tragedy being played out all around the place. The shops were open, revealing wispy-bearded old men in black silken skull caps and stout Chinese matrons and tumbling, fat-cheeked children with slanted, bright sloe eyes of jet black. Durell checked the signs on the alley walls and found the one that Tom Adams had recommended. He had not mentioned the safe house to Georgette Finch. He did not know if she knew about it. But perhaps she would show up at Lu Chin's, in any case.
He followed the alley, picking his way among the playing children and the old men who sat and smoked in the hot sunlight. He ended up against the medina wall. He spotted a machinegun post up there and saw a regular patrol pacing along the crenellated top of the wall. Beyond the wall he could glimpse dense green jungle foliage. Painted signs in old Portuguese still survived on the gray stones of the barrier. Halfway toward it, Durell found the shop he wanted.
The Chinese, he thought, were the world's greatest commercial people. Wherever they went, they found something to sell, trade, or barter, something that was
needed. This particular shop catered to charms of all kinds, from specialized aphrodisiacs from China, India, and Mexico, to African gimcracks from beyond Boganda's borders. There was some curious red and gold calligraphy that Durell could not identify on a plaque just to the left of the dusty, glass-paned doorway. There were two other entrances to the place, used only by men, and Tom Adams in Lamy had warned him about it.
"The old man, Lu Chin, is only a front, of course. He runs the shop, selling powder from crushed and ground rhino horns, that sort of thing. It's the daughter who works for us, Sam. Her name is Pearl Lu. If you really need help-I mean, if it gets truly rough-go see her. We're saving her as a sleeper, though, so use her only in an emergency, understand?"
"All right," Durell had said.
He considered it emergency enough now. Tom Adams had gone on, "Pearl Lu has been pulling down a retainer out of our budget for the past three years; and she's sent back some nice data on the personal peculiarities and sexual whims of some important people in Boganda. You'd better watch what you say, however. Pearl is an expert in electronics, she owns a factory of her own in Hong Kong and is a silent partner, with a major interest, in another plant in St. Louis, of all places. She specializes in compiling taped dossiers for us. You know the sort of thing you can pick up in a whorehouse. And a Chinese joint, at that." Tom Adams laughed, his stout belly moving, his voice a grunting sound. "Pearl is reliable, if you have to go k to her, but she'll have your head on a platter, like a Chinese Salome, if she doesn't trust you. Her data has been fine, but I can't guarantee anything. You pays your money, and you takes your choice."
"Thanks for nothing."
"You're welcome. As I say, it all depends," Tom Adams said with a sly grin, "on whether Pearl Lu likes you."
"What's the matter, didn't she take to you, Tom?"
"Oh, she did, she did. Beautiful. Lovely. I wish I were going to Boganda with you."
"You're too fat," Durell said. "But what's the matter with our official Central, run by this Finch girl?"
"Nothing at all, really. Miss Finch is sharp, good at what she gets around to doing, but she's kind of a political appointee-and an amateur. You can take my word for it, Pearl Lu really knows which end is up." Tom Adams laughed at his own words. "That's Pearl's business, after all. To tell you the truth, she's quite a girl, and I'd never have survived very long if I'd stayed with her, considering all the tricks she has for sale."
"Do you want to know something, Tom?" Durell had asked. "You're rolling in lascivious memories. But I've known Pearl Lu for a long time. I just wanted to hear what you had to say about her. I met her in Hong Kong five years ago, at least. It seems she hasn't changed much since then. So I won't go to her unless I really need help."
"You son of a bitch," Tom Adams said.
A small bell tinkled as Durell pushed open the shop door. The shadows inside were deep and intense. He smelled incense, dust, noodles cooking, fresh tea. There was nothing identifiable under the grimy glass display cases, except for a few pornographic Danish publications, mixed curiously with potency amulets and old bottles filled with mysterious potions. The tinkling of the bell faded away. Durell stood against the wall beside the door and waited. Through the glass door behind him, he could see the narrow street outside, the signs hanging with bright yellow and red Chinese characters over the other shops, two old men smoking ragged-looking cigarettes, and two small boys chasing each other. No other young people were in sight. The Chinese were known to adopt neutrality and sensible noninterference in wars that were not their own.
"Yes, sir?"
The voice spoke in English, as thin as a reed, as fragile as the strands of a spider's web. "Sir? Mtamba? You American man, yes? I speak English for you. You come wrong door, I think. You Telek officer? You off-duty? We do not cater-"
"I want to see Pearl Lu," Durell said.
"My daughter very busy, good girl, work hard, no trouble to Telek police, we all favor rebellion, equal rights, Unity Forever for Boganda, yes, is so?"
"That depends. Where is Pearl?"
"Ah. You American, for sure. Very direct. Very blunt. Good businessman, do not waste time. I think I know who you be. You are Pearl's business, not mine, eh?" The old Chinese chuckled and coughed and bent over, and when he straightened up, he was not as old or as fragile as he had seemed to be; the Browning pistol equalized everything. His black slanted eyes were suddenly sharp and hard, his old blue-veined hand as steady as a rock.
"Stand right there and stay very still, sir." His English improved too. "Be very careful. I am a nervous old man, and old men count their days with more preciousness than the young. These are difficult times, and everyone in the Getoba is on edge. You understand? We cannot endure much more of the mortaring. It is a devilish device, that regular bombardment. Like water torture; you see. Drip, drip. Bang, bang. So many hide every hour, and yet so many are killed. Terrible, terrible. And the Teleks are desperate, you see. We hear they shoot everyone who tries to escape. They surely shoot spies, eh? And you are a spy. Am I right?"
"I've come to see Pearl."
"But not for a bed with one of her girls, am I not correct? You are not Colonel Chance, the American officer who persists in this madness because he has a
money contract. No, no. I know that man by sight. A madman who fights for anyone, as long as he is paid. He and the black American, Major Wells, yes, that is his name-they are both a little insane, I think. We will all die here in this rubble if it is not stopped. Either we will be blown up, or we will die of starvation, eh?"
"Where is Pearl?" Durell asked again. "You talk too much, Mr. Lu. I've come a long way to see your daughter. Her business is not your business, and you would be better off not to know about it. Put away your gun. My stomach is sensitive. I am not your enemy."
"What are you, then?" the old Chinese asked.
"A customer, perhaps. It depends on what Pearl has to sell."
"You look as if you had a hard time getting here. You know what Pearl and her girls sell, sir."
"She has other business interests, however," Durell said.
"Yes, I can see that you know about all that. And a man like you would not pay for a woman. Yes, I can see that now. I am sorry. I humbly apologize. You are not angry because I point this gun at you? I am an old man, and I cherish what days are left to me."
"I'm not angry. But put the gun away, please."
"Thank you. It is done."
The Browning disappeared into the old man's big sleeve as nicely as it had first appeared. There was a beaded curtain in the back of the mildewed shop. The old man moved backward toward it, gesturing for Durell to lead the way. He shook his head and looked out once more at the narrow street that ended in the defense wall. The Chinese quarter had not been a special target for General Watsube's vengeful mortars. There was hardly any blast damage at all in these few little streets. He looked up at the top of the wall, perhaps two hundred feet away, and saw the Telek rebels there behind the sandbags of their machinegun emplacement. Nothing else had changed in the street. The two old men were lighting new cigarettes. The two fat Chinese boys had disappeared.
Durell went through the beaded curtains.
A feeble lamp showed him a flight of wooden stairs, up which the old man shuffled with a curious wheezing noise as he breathed, and then there was a long corridor. He heard a girl's high, amused laughter. He heard a man's voice rumbling in reply behind a closed door. He smelled pot, he thought he smelled opium smoke. The corridor was carpeted, and there were delicate water-color scrolls hanging on the walls, but they were badly damaged by Africa's heat and mildew. Through another door and he realized he had stepped into the adjoining house. A big Chinese, about forty, with cropped gray hair, looked up and brought his tilted chair down with a bang. The old man rattled something at him in fast Cantonese, and the big man nodded, looking at Durell with hostile eyes. When the guard moved, it was like the flicker of a passing shadow. His attack then came like the thunder of an express train.
Later, Durell thought he had no excuse for it. True, he had had no sleep, it had been a difficult night getting into the Getoba, and he had little rest since flying by jet from Lisbon to Chad and finally to Boganda. But it should not have happened. He was hungry and thirsty and close to exhaustion. He was not superman. But still, he should not have gone down.
He felt pain explode in the back of his head, and his spine jolted as he hit the floor on his knees, tumbling forward. He tried to reach for his gun, thinking it was a hell of a way to end, in a Chinese whorehouse in the middle of Africa. Dimly, through a roaring in his ears, he heard the old man screeching at the behemoth bouncer, and at the same time he twisted as his shoulder hit the carpet. He got his left hand free and caught the brute's ankle somehow and yanked. He might just as well have tried to uproot a hundred-year-old oak tree. The old man, Lu Chin, kept up his high screeching in Cantonese, but there was anger in a the bouncer's face now, and his gun shone with a blue wetness and the muzzle was an enormous black eye as it came down to stare into Durell's gaze. Durell had his gun, in his right hand now. He squeezed the trigger and counted on it to fire even after the swim in the Natanga River. He heard an explosion like an echo to his own report and saw the giant look surprised, with a sudden black hole in his face, and then the Chinese crumpled as if made of papier-m?ch?. Something hit the back of Durell's head as he tried to get out of the way of the falling giant, and everything went black.
Chapter 15
POOR SAM. Grandpa is very angry with you."
"Why?"
"You killed Ting Kai, that's why."
"I'm glad."
"But Grandpa was very fond of Ting Kai."
"Mr. Ting was going to kill me. Which would you rather have?"
Pearl Lu giggled in her throat. Most women did not know how to giggle, Durell thought. Pearl's sound was deep and warm and something like the bubble of a latent volcano. He felt her naked breasts move against his chest.
"I'd choose you, Sam. Anytime," she said. "I calmed Grandpa down. It wasn't your fault. Ting Kai was being trained to carry him around on his back, something like Sinbad the sailor. So now Grandpa thinks you are a very dangerous man. I told him he was right." She paused. "It's been so long, Sam."
"Five years?"
"Every single day of them," the Chinese girl said.
"Is business good?"
"Wonderful. I don't work at the trade myself, you understand. You know I never did. I just manage everything."
"Don't be defensive, Pearl."
"I'm not. Ting Kai was my bouncer, of course. He was in love with one of my girls, maybe with me too, so he got a little upset when you showed up."
"He's not upset anymore."
"He'll be marked down as a victim of the shelling, I think. That would be best, in case the authorities, when everything is settled, ask questions. I wish I hadn't come here. I wish I were still in St. Louis. You know all about my business interests there, don't you?"
"Yes."
"I felt much safer there. Are you all right now, Sam?"
"I feel better."
"Is the tea all right? I import it from India, actually. Was the luncheon good?"
"Everything is fine."
She moved against him. "Do you still like me a little bit, Sam?"
"As always."
"Like this? I really haven't been with anybody, you know. I don't sell myself."
"I know."
"Is it the same?"
"You're better," he said.
"We'll talk business later then," she said, making her voice sound like the deep-throated purr of a jungle cat.
They were in a huge Chinese bed together, naked under remarkably, cool, silken sheets. There were no windows in the room. At least two hours had passed, Durell thought, recalling two series of hourly bombardments so far by General Watsube's mortars. He hadn't been out for more than a few minutes, and at first he had fought blindly against the hands that tried to minister to him. Then he had recognized Pearl Lu's voice, and he gave in and let himself be bathed and fed. There was a gash across the back of his neck that Pearl attended to with antiseptic and a piece of surgical gauze. It still stung from where Ting Kai's bullet had grazed his nape. Another half inch and it would have blown away his spinal column. He had no regrets about shooting the big man.
Now and then he had heard the other girls in the establishment, and two of them came in to help Pearl, bringing food and tea. They were Annamese, and he gathered there were also some African girls, two Scandinavians, a couple of New Yorkers, and some hookers from Hamburg. Pearl Lu never operated on a small scale. He had last seen her in Germany, after their initial meeting in Hong Kong, when he'd stopped to pick up some briefing data in Munich. Even then, with her grandfather, she had been in this oldest business in the world. According to her dossier, she had really been born in St. Louis, despite all her references and attachments to mainland China and Hong Kong as her ancestral homes.
"Pearl Lu?"
"Yes, Sam."
"You know that I'm here on business?"
"Yes, darling. My business comes first, though."
"There isn't that much time."
"Oh ho. We will make the time. You must rest. Were you swimming in the river
?"
"To get here, yes."
"To see me?"
"Among other things."
She leaned over him on one elbow, frowning very prettily, her black almond eyes puzzled and thoughtful. "There have been all sorts of stories about the real reasons for this rebellion. I mean, the real reason. I'm not talking about the Teleks and their rights and how they've been abused since this alleged `unity?. I mean, what the Telek leaders are really after. Those mercenaries. They are terrible men, those two Americans, those two officers. They run everything here, they say. I'm ashamed of them as an American, myself. But of course, they take their orders too, they say."
"Who says?"
She shrugged. "People."
"What do they say?"
"They whisper about the Silver Scorpion, an old wives' tale straight out of the jungles of a hundred years ago. A terrible creature, according to the myths, who secretly rules the world. It is superstition, of course. But somebody in the Getoba is the Silver Scorpion, you know. The mercenaries take orders from the Scorpion, the Teleks believe."
Assignment- Silver Scorpion Page 11