Jack Higgins - East Of Desolation

by East Of Desolation [lit]

  The main door creaked below and Ilana called softly, " Joe?"

  I crouched at the edge of the loft and looked down at her. She was dressed as she had been for dinner with the addition of the sheepskin coat which was draped over her shoulders.

  She glanced up, saw me and smiled. "Is there room for one more up there?"

  "I think so."

  She climbed the ladder and stood looking about her, hands in pockets. "This is nice. Why did you cut out? Weren't you interested?"

  "Fascinated," I said, "Always have been, but Olaf Rasmussen and I are old friends. I've seen it all before. Anyway it was suddenly too crowded in there. Too many people I don't like."

  "Does that include me?"

  "What do you think?"

  We moved along to the open door. She sat on a box and I gave her a cigarette.

  "Do you often feel like that? Hemmed in, I mean."

  "Frequently."

  She smiled and shook her head. "You told me you came to Greenland because you could make more money here than anywhere else. That isn't really true, is it?"

  I looked out into the rain, trying to get it straight in my own mind. "In the City I worried about where I was going to park the car. When I found somewhere, I worried about over-parking. Here, each day is a new struggle--- people against the wilderness. It keeps a man on his toes. One of the few places left on earth that can give you that feeling."

  "For how much longer?"

  I sighed. "That's the trouble. Icelandair has started running four-day tourist trips from Iceland to Narssarssuaq which isn't all that far from here. There's a good airfield and a reasonable hotel. I've a nasty feeling it's the beginning of the end. It always is once the tourists start coming in."

  "And what will you do then?"

  "Move on."

  "With a brand new persona, I suppose?"

  I frowned. "I'm not with you."

  "It's a term Jung used. He argued that most people can't face life in real terms so they invent a persona for themselves--- a new identity if you like. We all suffer from the same disease to a greater or lesser degree. You try to present the image of a tough bush pilot, a strong man with steel nerves who can handle anything that comes along."

  "Is that a fact now?"

  She carried on: "Rasmussen sees himself as a latter day Viking. Jack's trouble is that he's had to create and discard so many different identities that he's long since lost any kind of contact with reality."

  "And where in the hell do you get all this stuff from?" I demanded.

  "I read psychology and social philosophy for a year at university."

  Which took the wind right out of my sails and I stared at her in astonishment. "Why didn't you continue?"

  She shrugged. "I just felt that it wasn't for me, that those dons and lecturers with their heads in their books were living the biggest lie of all."

  I shook my head. "Strange, but I thought I was getting to know you and suddenly, I find you're a complete stranger."

  "What did Jack tell you about me?" she said.

  "About Myra Grossman," I corrected her. "The poor little East End Jewess with a chip on her shoulder and a father with a tailor's shop in the Mile End Road."

  "He must have forgotten to tell you about the other one hundred and sixty-three branches," she said gently.

  I stared at her blankly. "But why should he do that?"

  "Jack's a very complex character. Did he say anything else about me?" I nodded slowly. "Anything I should know?"

  I shook my head. "Nothing important--- nothing I believed."

  "You're a poor liar, Joe." She smiled gravely. "Drinkers--- real drinkers don't have much interest in sex. I should have thought you would have known that."

  I nodded slowly. "I seem to have taken rather a lot for granted. I'm sorry about that. Do you believe me?"

  "I could give it a try."

  "Then tell me one thing? Why did you come out here? That's the one thing I still can't understand."

  She said: "It's really very simple. I wanted to be an actress and money can't buy you that, only talent. Jack helped me along, got me into pictures. All right, I'm certainly not the greatest thing since Bernhardt; but I can get all the work I want now. They come to me."

  "And you feel guilty about that? You think you owe him something?"

  "He was badly in need of financial backing for this picture, the one that's folded. I thought I could interest my father. In fact the truth is that Jack took the whole thing as read."

  "And your father wouldn't play?"

  "I felt the least I could do was to face him especially when Milt Gold told me the whole deal was off now." She shook her head. "Poor Jack."

  "I find it difficult to cry in my beer over a man who's gone through three or four million dollars in his lifetime," I said.

  "I don't. I feel personally responsible."

  "That's crazy." I don't know why, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. "You want to cut that sort of thinking right out for a start."

  Suddenly, she was against my chest and we were kissing, my arms fast around her. She came up for air and smiled, her eyes wide.

  "Are you quite sure this is what you want?"

  "Ever since I saw you in the saloon on the Stella in that ridiculous gold dress."

  "Let's get our terms of reference straight before we go any further," she said and pushed me away. "Do you want to make love to me or me in that kinky dress? There's a difference."

  "I'll have to give that at least ten seconds thought," I said, but as I reached out for her, the door creaked in the barn below and we heard voices.

  I put a finger to my lips and tiptoed to the edge of the platform. Desforge was standing with his arms around Sarah Kelso. As I watched, he picked her up in his arms and carried her across to the hay.

  I moved back cautiously to Ilana. "Remember what you were saying about drink and the flesh? Well Jack's down there in the hay with Sarah Kelso right this minute and it doesn't seem to be bothering him one little bit."

  She held one hand hard against her mouth to contain her laughter and I took her by the arm and led her to the open door and the hoist.

  "In case you're interested that's the only way out."

  She shook her head. "Not for me, I never was the athletic type."

  "So what do we do?" I said.

  .....

  It was a good hour later and quite dark, when Desforge and Sarah Kelso left. I helped Ilana down the ladder and we moved through the darkness to the door. It was still raining heavily and we stood there for a moment, my arm around her waist.

  "Ready?" I said.

  She nodded and we ran across the yard together. We paused on the steps of the porch, laughing, and Desforge said from the shadows, "That you, Joe? I've been wondering what happened to you."

  For a moment, I thought he was going to make trouble. Instead he said, "Look, I've decided I've had this place. Any chance of flying out with you in the morning?"

  "That's fine by me."

  "See you at breakfast then."

  The door closed softly behind him and I looked down at Ilana. "What do you make of that, or does he think he's in love?"

  "He doesn't know what the word means."

  Her face was a pale shadow in the darkness as I held her away from me and looked at her searchingly. "Do you, Ilana? Do you know what it means?"

  "I liked what happened back there in the loft," she said. "I like you. That's enough for one night. Step by step, Joe Martin. Step by step."

  She didn't even kiss me good night. Simply left me to think about it, standing there in the darkness listening to the rush of the heavy rain, smelling the earth, and something seemed to melt inside me so that I felt like laughing out loud for the first time in years.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We flew out of Sandvig just after dawn and landed at Frederiksborg by eight. I got rid of my passengers and started to make up for lost time. I took a couple of miners into Godthaab and carried o
n to Søndre Strømfjord to pick up some machine parts needed urgently by a deep sea trawler which had come into harbour with engine trouble.

  I arrived back in Frederiksborg at one o'clock to find Simonsen clamouring to be taken to a fishing village about a hundred miles up the coast where some Eskimos had been trying to stick harpoons into each other instead of the seals. I dropped him off, promising to return on the following afternoon, and flew back to Frederiksborg.

  It was the first opportunity I'd had to look up Arnie and I went to the airstrip. The Aermacchi was there, raised on a couple of chain hoists and Miller and two mechanics were working on the undercarriage.

  "Where's Arnie?" I said.

  "Haven't seen him since last night." Miller grinned and wiped his hands on an oily rag. "Probably been in bed with some dame all day. A couple of other guys were looking for him. They were back again just after noon. Didn't seem to be having much luck."

  "Who were they?"

  "The older one was called Vogel. Sounded like a German or something to me."

  "Austrian," I said. "Not that it matters. How's the work coming along?"

  "Just fine. He should be able to take her up tomorrow. Tell him that if you see him, will you?"

  So the hounds were closing in? I hurried back to town and called at his house but the front door was locked and there was no reply to my knock. That left two possibilities. He was either with Gudrid or drinking at the Fredericsmut which was on my way to the hotel anyway, so I decided to call.

  It had been one hell of a day. The kind that needs a couple of double brandies to add zest to it so I ordered black coffee, sat on one of the high stools at the bar and pretended I was a drinking man.

  I asked the barman if Arnie had been in and he nodded: "Earlier this afternoon about one o'clock. He had something to eat here and then two men came in and joined him--- the ones who were with you the other night. There was some trouble. I don't know what it was exactly, but he cleared out."

  "What kind of trouble?"

  He shrugged. "I was in the back, but Sigrid was here. Just a minute, I'll get her."

  He went into the kitchen and a couple of minutes later, the impudent looking young Eskimo girl who'd served us on my last visit came in. She was obviously in the middle of baking and wiped flour from her hands with a towel.

  Her English was about as basic as you could get, so we talked in Danish. Arnie had been halfway through his meal when the two men came in. She couldn't understand what they were saying because they talked in English, but the older man got very angry and it seemed Arnie had laughed at him. What happened then, she wasn't sure, but there had certainly been some sort of scuffle because a chair had gone over and Arnie had left in a hurry.

  I thanked her and she returned to the kitchen. I sat there drinking my coffee and thinking about the whole thing, then went to the telephone, rang the hotel and asked for Gudrid.

  She sounded cautious when she came to the phone. "Who is it?"

  "Joe Martin. I'm looking for Arnie."

  She hesitated rather obviously. "He told me to tell no one where he was this afternoon. Said he wanted some peace and quiet."

  "This is important, Gudrid--- really important. Now where is he?"

  "All right," she said. "He's gone fishing."

  "The usual place."

  "As far as I know."

  "Fine--- I'll catch up with him there."

  I put down the receiver and checked the time. It was five-thirty and the usual place was two miles on the other side of the fjord which meant borrowing a boat, not that that would present any difficulty. I left quickly and hurried through the rain towards the harbour.

  .....

  Fog crouched on the lower reaches of the fjord and the steady drizzle indicated a dirty night to come as I left the harbour. I'd borrowed an inflatable rubber dinghy powered by a large outboard motor that gave a surprising turn of speed.

  Four icebergs moved majestically down towards the sea, strung out line-astern like battleships, ranging in colour from purest dazzling white to blue and green. There was a sudden turbulence in the water to starboard as a piked whale surfaced, white flukes and belly gleaming as it rolled and went under again.

  There was beauty and excitement in just being there with the prow lifting out of the water and the rain cold on my face, but none of it really registered. I had to see Arnie, had to have the whole thing out with him, I knew that now.

  I found him drifting in an old whaleboat about a mile further on, fishing for cod with a hand line. He was wearing an oilskin coat and sou'wester and I noticed a double-barrelled shotgun under the seat.

  I tossed him a line and he pulled me close. I climbed into the whaleboat and joined him. "You're a difficult man to find. I've just seen Miller, by the way. He says you should be airborne again by tomorrow."

  "That's nice to know," he said cheerfully, and passed me a Thermos. "Hot coffee--- help yourself."

  He returned to his fishing, dropping a spoon-shaped spinner over the side and I shook my head. "You never learn do you? There's no need for that. Even a bare hook will do. Cod are bottom feeders. All you have to do is jig it up and down--- like this."

  I took the line from his hand and said casually, "What have you done with the emeralds, Arnie?"

  "Emeralds?" His face was as innocent as a child's. "What on earth are you talking about?"

  "The emeralds you found in the wreck of that Heron up there on the ice-cap, the ones Sarah Kelso told you about. Before you try denying it I'd better tell you that I found tracks where a ski plane had landed and a patch of oil about half a mile from the crash."

  "Am I the only person in the world with a ski plane?"

  "The only one in these parts--- the only one who makes presents of uncut emeralds worth forty thousand krone. That was really very rash of you, Arnie, letting your temper get the better of you like that."

  His face hardened. "Why don't you try minding your own business, Joe?"

  I ignored him and carried straight on. "When we bumped into Sarah Kelso outside of her room that night, I think she got the impression that she'd scored a big hit--- that you were so besotted you'd do anything for her, which she saw as a golden opportunity to put one over on Vogel. You could fly in, pick up the emeralds, then return with the tale that any kind of a landing was impossible."

  Most of this was simply intelligent guesswork based on the few facts I did have for certain, but from the expression on his face I was on the right track, so I carried on.

  "You even tried to stop me from going in by insisting that a floatplane landing wasn't possible because there was too much ice on Lake Sule. I suppose the plan was for the two of you to fly off into the sunset together, only you weren't quite as sold on her as she'd imagined and came up with a better idea. At a guess I'd say you told her you hadn't been able to land, which, after all, had always been a possibility. She didn't trust you, especially when you let slip the fact that you were flying out the following morning--- the day the rest of us were leaving for Sandvig, so she went down to the airstrip, started up that old truck and rammed the Aermacchi just to make sure you wouldn't be leaving."

  He had listened without a murmur, but now he said, "There was a Catalina in from Søndre yesterday afternoon. I could have flown back there as a passenger and caught a jet to Canada or Europe."

  I shook my head. "Not with the emeralds on your person--- too big a risk with Customs to go through, especially if they're in the quantity they must be to make this whole thing worthwhile. No, you needed the Aermacchi in the air for the scope it gave you. Lots of possible hiding places on board and the freedom to fly anywhere you wanted. That's why you've hung on here and after all, you'd very little to worry about. Sarah Kelso couldn't be certain you were double-crossing her and she couldn't very well tell Vogel. With luck you might have been away today, but now it's too late. Now they're back and after your blood. Vogel knows a ski plane landed up there and from the look of him I shouldn't imagine he has much trouble
with simple addition."

  He didn't attempt to deny any of it now. "I can look after myself," he said sullenly.

  I felt the sort of annoyance you experience with a stubborn child who refuses to see sense. "For God's sake, Arnie, these men are pros. They've been carving up suckers like you all their lives."

  I suppose it was a mixture of fear and resentment that made him erupt so violently or perhaps it was quite simply that he'd never really liked me.