Mrs. Pollifax on Safari

by Dorothy Gilman

  "Take it with my blessing," said Farrell, unbuckling a holster at his belt and handing over a gun. "Take this, too," he said, reaching into his pocket, and gave him a chocolate bar.

  "Food?" gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

  "Food," said Cyrus. "You go along and send your message, Farrell, we'll wander along down."

  "Yes, but plain or almond?" asked Mrs. Pollifax happily.

  Their move to the campfire had its ludicrous aspects; Mrs. Pollifax could see this at once. She sat down on one side of Amy Lovecraft, and Cyrus on the other side, while Amy made loud gurgling protests deep in her throat, and across the fire Simon glared at them both with bloodshot, outraged eyes. From five hundred yards away the campfire had looked brilliant but now that Mrs. Pollifax sat beside it the fire seemed astonishingly small, and the darkness around it like a black curtain. She felt exposed and horribly vulnerable.

  "I believe we're here to supply motion," Cyrus reminded her. "What's the matter—second thoughts, my dear?"

  "You won't," she said in a small voice, "say 'I told you so'?"

  "Emily," he said with a sigh, "this is no moment to become rational. I've walked twenty miles in the bush today, helped you turn the tables on these villainous creatures, I've been captured by guerillas and am now sitting here a target ripe for any passing gunman, and do you really think—can you have the effrontery to think— I would say 'I told you so'?"

  "You really are a darling, Cyrus," she said, smiling.

  "Thank you. Eat your chocolate."

  The moments passed slowly, each one seeming interminable. She and Cyrus passed twigs and pebbles back and forth and made flippant, imaginative conversation with a silent Amy, and then in turn with Simon, Reuben, and Mainza. In fact, as Mrs. Pollifax pointed out, they behaved like idiots, to which Cyrus replied that pantomime had always attracted him and that he enjoyed talking with people who couldn't answer back.

  It was twenty minutes later that Mrs. Pollifax became aware of Amy suddenly stiffening beside her. She turned and looked at Mrs. Lovecraft and found her staring off to the left, her eyes opened very wide and filled with alarm. Mrs. Pollifax followed her glance and she too saw something move: a shadow paler than the darkness of the trees. She said in a hushed voice, "Cyrus—over there," and fell silent, suddenly afraid, because if this was Sikota then he had slipped past Farrell and Jonesi and the others without being seen. She saw the shadow pause and then start toward them from a new angle ... the lion approaching the tethered goats, she thought, her throat suddenly dry, and at that moment he seemed exactly like a wild beast stopping to sniff the air for danger. She guessed that he was uneasy and felt a fleeting sense of pity for him, as if he really were a beast being drawn into a trap, and then her pity dissipated as she recalled that this was not a lion but Sikota, for whom everyone talked, which meant he was a man skilled in torture. He was entering now on the farthest reach of the firelight, which began to give his pale shadow some substance. Leaning forward to peer through the dusk, she saw the outlines of a short, grotesquely fat man stuffed into a pale business suit and carrying a long rifle under his arm. She realized in astonishment that he must have arrived by car—he had to have come by car in a suit like that, and Jonesi and Farrell had expected him on foot. Then as he took several new steps toward the fire she lifted her eyes to his face and saw that his skin was a dingy white, with a thin mouth almost drowned in pouches of fat.

  He had stopped, his hand caressing the trigger of the rifle, still half in shadow but his pale suit gleaming in the dusky light. He knows something is wrong, she thought, feeling her heart beat faster. There was a terrifying intelligence about his stillness, as if he was sending out tentacles to weigh and test the atmosphere. And then, as he hesitated, he did the one thing that nobody had anticipated: he called out sharply in a clear, imperative voice, "Simon?" and then, angrily, "Simon?"

  And Simon, bound and gagged, could neither turn nor reply.

  There was an uncomfortable, suspenseful moment of silence during which a hyena howled in the distance, and then abruptly Jonesi stepped out of the bush off to the right and shouted, "Drop the rifle!" From the opposite side of the clearing Farrell called, "Drop it, Sikota, you're surrounded!"

  The man slowly turned toward Jonesi, and then he slowly turned toward Farrell. When he moved his action was sudden, all in one piece, and incredibly fast and graceful for a man of so much flesh. He lifted his rifle to his cheek, peered through the telescopic lens, pointed it at the campfire and pulled the trigger.

  "Down!" shouted Cyrus.

  Mrs. Pollifax agreed completely with this suggestion and rolled off to one side. Two other shots followed the first, but when she lifted her head she saw that it was not Sikota who had fired them. He lay crumpled on the ground, looking like a very large soft pile of laundry.

  "Are you all right, Duchess?" shouted Farrell, and she heard the sound of running feet.

  Mrs. Pollifax looked at Cyrus and he looked at her. He said unsteadily, "Well."

  "Yes," she said, called to Farrell, "He missed," and stood up, brushing the dust from her clothes.

  But Cyrus was shaking his head. "He didn't miss," he told her, pointing.

  For a moment she didn't understand, and then she followed the direction of his pointing finger and gasped, "Oh no! Farrell? Jonesi?"

  It was Jonesi who reached them first, and it was Jonesi who stepped carefully over Simon's feet and knelt beside Amy Lovecraft. Amy looked as if she'd grown tired of sitting upright and had laid down to sleep, but when Jonesi lifted her head there was a bullet hole in the precise center of her forehead; her eyes were sightless.

  "Damn," exploded Farrell, coming up behind them, and he began swearing softly and relentlessly under his breath.

  "Incredible shooting," said Cyrus, looking a little sick.

  "He had a telescopic lens. He got past us somehow, you know. Damn it—both of them dead!"

  "He thought she would talk, Mulika."

  Cyrus snorted at this. "Couldn't have known our Amy, then."

  "Perhaps he didn't," suggested Mrs. Pollifax, and turned away with tears in her eyes. "Sikota's a white man, Farrell, I saw him."

  "Let's have a look," he said brusquely, and they followed him back to the crumpled body of Sikota. One of the men had turned him over and was staring down into his face.

  "You know him, Patu?"

  Patu nodded. "I know him, Mulika. He is the Portuguese who runs the curio shop on Cairo Road

  . Who would have thought he was a spy? He came in a truck, Mulika. Joshua is in the truck now, he says it has a false floor with space to hide people in it."

  "So that's what he planned . . . Not exactly Betty Thwaite's type," Farrell said, staring down at the man, "but politics makes strange bedfellows." He straightened, his face grim. "But we've no time for postmortems. I've talked to Dundu by radio, and as soon as I give him the all-clear he's sending a helicopter for you both." He turned to Mrs. Pollifax and said angrily, "Dundu told me over the radio that President Kaunda's opening a new school in Lusaka on Sunday afternoon, the day after your safari ends. It's his only public appearance until August, and it's been heavily publicized."

  "Oh-oh," said Cyrus.

  "Yes. And if your Aristotle really exists," he said, his face hardening, "then I can't imagine his returning to Zambia at a later date when he's already here now. Sunday would have to be the day."

  "Sunday?" said Mrs. Pollifax in horror. "So soon?"

  "It gives us forty-eight hours." He turned to look at Amy's body and sighed. "Cover her with one of the sleeping bags, Patu. In her own way—I scarcely care to admit it—she was a warrior. At least she wasn't a paid mercenary like Sikota and the rest of this unholy group."

  "Lieutenant Bwanausi has the list now?" asked Cyrus.

  Farrell nodded. "He has the list and he's probably circling now over Kafwala camp waiting to hear from me.

  Chanda's been of enormous help to them, but unfortunately they didn't make contact with Chanda until thi
s morning, and his information was outdated by then because you'd headed off in this direction. Incidentally, Duchess," he added, and a faint smile softened the grim-ness of his face, "Dundu reports they asked a ransom for you of fifty thousand kwacha."

  "Now that's positively insulting," said Cyrus. "About thirty thousand in American dollars, isn't it?"

  "Never mind, I'm alive," said Mrs. Pollifax, wrenching her gaze away from Amy's shrouded figure. Her eyes moved from the dying fire to the sky overhead, and then to the burial ground hidden by darkness, and back to the man at their feet. She said bleakly, "The helicopter will come, then, and whisk us away from all this, but what happens next, Farrell?"

  He nodded. "You go back to Lusaka and wait," he told her. "Spend tomorrow and Saturday recovering. Do a little sightseeing and try to forget tonight, because it's been a shock for you both. But I promise you this," he said in a hard voice. "There'll be no assassination, Duchess, and KK will safely open his school on Sunday afternoon. I'll promise you another thing, too," he added. 'I'll meet you and Cyrus for lunch at your hotel on Sunday and I'll deliver to you the name and identity of Aristotle."

  "Just like that?" said Cyrus.

  "Just like that," promised Farrell, and turning to Patu he said, "Get me the radio now, Patu, we have a long night of work ahead."

  CHAPTER

  14

  It was Sunday morning and Mrs. Pollifax stood outside the hotel entrance watching Dr. Henry pack his ancient Land Rover. It was already filled to the roof with cartons of medical supplies and bolts of brightly colored cloth, and Cyrus was strapping the last suitcase to the luggage rack. The two days of hedonistic pleasure that Farrell had prescribed for them had never materialized. Much of Friday had been spent at police headquarters making and signing statements, followed by a highly censored interview with a Times of Zambia newsman and a great deal of picture-taking. She and Cyrus had briefly shopped for souvenirs yesterday, but it had been impossible to forget what was going on behind the scenes. The safari party's return at midday, escorted by Lieutenant Bwanausi, had been a sufficient reminder, and Cyrus had not been allowed to see Lisa until late afternoon. Nor had she been able to sleep well: her dreams were haunted by fears that Aristotle would kill again and that the assassination, already set in motion, would somehow—in some mysterious way—take place in spite of the police.

  Lisa, standing beside Mrs. Pollifax, turned and gave her a radiant smile. "It's all so incredible, isn't it?" she said. "Do you think that as soon as I arrived in Zambia something inside of me knew?"

  "I think it's wonderful, and just right for you," Mrs. Pollifax told her warmly.

  "And to think that it hit us both the same way," Lisa told her in an astonished voice. "And frightened us so much we kept our distance, not trusting it. I know how / felt ... I sat at the campfire that first night talking to John and thinking we were going to have a very pleasant safari flirtation, and then I looked up and saw Tom and I thought—I just thought, Oh, my God. Like that."

  Listening to her, Mrs. Pollifax could almost forget— but not quite—that in a few minutes she would be meeting Farrell. She smiled at Chanda, who was playing with her multicolored parasol, opening it and closing it and grinning, except that it was no longer hers because she had given it to Chanda at breakfast. "It's a bupe," she'd told him after conferring with Tom on the Bemba word for gift. Now she asked Lisa, "Will you be married here or in Connecticut?"

  Lisa laughed. "All I know is that Tom, the scrupulous guy, insists that I first see his hospital—and the funny house with a tin roof we'll live in—and then we'll make plans and I'll fly home and tell Dad."

  Her father, joining them, looked at his watch and said to Mrs. Pollifax, "Nearly time, my dear. Ten minutes to twelve."

  Lisa gave them each a curious glance. "You have a lunch date with that mysterious Mr. Farrell, haven't you. Will you tell us someday—you and Dad—what really happened to you out in the bush?"

  "I'd tell you now," said Mrs. Pollifax, "except that it's not our story to tell. Not yet, at least." Not until we've seen Farrell, she reminded herself, and put this thought aside as Chanda came to say goodbye to her, the glorious multicolored parasol held high over his head.

  "Goodbye, Chanda nunandi," she told him, gravely shaking his hand. "It's been a very real joy knowing you, and I hope—oh dear," she gasped, feeling a spoke of the umbrella become entangled in her hat

  Cyrus began to laugh.

  "What is it?"

  Cyrus and Tom surrounded her, and the umbrella was carefully disentangled from her hat. Lisa giggled. "It's that red feather," she told her. "It's sticking straight up in the air, all fifteen or twenty inches of it. You look like an Indian chief."

  "Very charming Indian chief," Cyrus said, grasping her arm. "No time to mend it, either. Goodbye, Tom ... Lisa, keep in touch."

  "You too," she called after them.

  Hurrying through the lobby toward the Coffee Hut, Mrs. Pollifax, aware of a surprising number of glances directed at her, said, "Cyrus, my hat—?"

  "Very eye-catching," he told her truthfully. "Sets a new style. There—made it," he said, seating her at a table and taking the chair opposite her. "Nervous?"

  "Of course I'm nervous," she told him, placing her sun-goggles and her purse on the table. "I've been nervous ever since Farrell telephoned to say they've arrested Aristotle and he'd tell us about at twelve."

  "Should think you'd feel relieved, not nervous. Satisfied, happy."

  Of course I'm not being logical" she conceded, "but I find it so difficult to dislike people. I know they're frequently

  selfish or opinionated and egotistical, or dull or contrary

  and sometimes dishonest, but if one expects nothing

  from them it's astonishing how fascinating they

  are, and always full of surprises. You see, I liked everyone on our safari, which makes Farrell's message very worrisome. It means I can expect to be upset soon."

  He said accusingly, "Couldn't possibly have liked Amy Lovecraft."

  "No, but she—I do feel sorry for her, you know."

  "Ha," snorted Cyrus. "Got herself into it. Who was it said 'character is destiny'?"

  "But that's just it," Mrs. Pollifax told him eagerly. "Life is so much a matter of paths chosen and paths not taken, and Amy seems unerringly to have chosen all the paths that would lead to her appointment with Sikota the other night. I can't help feeling cosmic undertones, Cyrus. It's like watching A lead to D, and then to M, and eventually to Z for all of us."

  "All of us?"

  She nodded. "Yes, because six days ago at this hour Amy was still alive, and although we didn't know it, Farrell was down south looking for her, and you and I were sitting here having lunch together—"

  "—and Aristotle, whoever he is, was buckling on his moneybelt?"

  "Oh, I don't think so," she said earnestly. "It would be a numbered account in Switzerland, wouldn't it?"

  "Whatever you say, my dear," he told her blandly, "since you're so much more accustomed to this sort of thing than I. About that quiet life you said you lead . .. raising geraniums, was it?"

  "I said that in general I live a very quiet life," she reminded him virtuously. "I do think there's a difference between living a quiet life and in general living a quiet life."

  "Splitting hairs, my dear."

  "Well, but—yes, I am," she admitted, giving him a dazzling smile. "And you noticed, didn't you."

  "Sorry to keep you waiting," Farrell interrupted, pulling up a chair and joining them. "I'm afraid I can't stop for lunch with you, either, damn it, because I've got to head south and meet Jonesi in—" He stopped in midsentence, staring at Mrs. Pollifax. "Good God, Duchess, your hat?"

  "Never mind the hat," she pleaded. "Who is Aristotle?"

  "John Steeves."

  "Steeves? Good heavens," said Cyrus.

  "Now I really do feel upset," murmured Mrs. Pollifax. "I'm glad Lisa isn't hearing this. Farrell, are the police sure? Has he confessed?"r />
  "I don't think you can expect a confession only hours after an arrest," Farrell told her, and with a glance at the hovering waiter, "Later, if you don't mind, we're not ordering yet . . . No, Steeves hasn't confessed, in fact he's refused even to give his home address or next of kin. The man's being completely uncooperative, which seems almost as incriminating as the parts of a gun and a silencer that were found in his luggage—apparently smuggled past Customs somehow—and the fact that, according to his passport, he was in France on the day that Messague was assassinated."

  He hesitated, and Mrs. Pollifax said, "There's more?"

  He nodded. "A notebook with scribblings in a code we've not been able to puzzle out yet, but on the last page—sorry, Duchess—a list of four names with dates: Messague, September fifth, which happens to be the day he was assassinated, Malaga, October thirtieth, and the names Hastings and O'Connell, which mean nothing to us at the moment but are being checked out. We think the last two were assassinations, too."

  "Unbelievable," said Cyrus.

  Farrell shrugged. "Perhaps, but would you have believed Amy Lovecraft was a Rhodesian named Betty Thwaite, or that the Duchess here was snapping pictures hoping to record an assassin's face?"

  "Steeves," repeated Mrs. Pollifax, trying to assimilate this. A room with a door marked Keep Out, and Lisa saying, He seems caught somehow—and terribly sad about it. "Farrell, he had to have been blackmailed into it," she said. "There's no other explanation. Have you met him?"

  Farrell looked amused. "Those sad spaniel eyes of his, you mean? I'm told women always want to mother a man who looks as if he's suffered, and perhaps he has, but I'd have to cast my vote for a troubled mind. Yes, I've met him."

  "I wonder why he doesn't defend himself," she said, frowning, "although I suppose if he's Aristotle there's not much he can say. He's in prison?"

  "Definitely in prison, yes, or President Kaunda wouldn't be dedicating the Moses Msonthi School at one o'clock today. Duchess, you've too soft a heart, it's time you retired too."