Gonor said, speaking to the older man, “This is Parker.”
The older man turned his head and studied Parker tiredly and suspiciously. His manner was that of a sage that people don’t come to any more.
Parker said to Gonor, “How many more?”
Gonor looked at him in surprise. “How many more what?”
“People. First there were four of you, and one was no good. Plus Hoskins, General Goma, Goma’s ex-colonist friends, Karns from the syndicate, and now this one. How many more people are on the inside of this thing?”
Gonor was shocked. “Major Indindu is in charge!”
“In charge of what?”
The older man showed a thin smile. “Your surprise is natural, Mr Parker,” he said. He had a heavily British accent. “As is your mistrust. As, I hope you will agree, is my mistrust.”
“The Major will be our next president,” Gonor said.
Parker looked at him. “You mean, after the Colonel’s out?”
Major Indindu said, “If we succeed in restoring the stolen assets, we will allow Colonel Lubudi to announce his retirement during his stay in New York. A new election will be held in Dhaba, and after I am elected, the Colonel will be free either to return or to stay in New York.”
Parker said, “What if you’re not elected?”
“I will be.”
Gonor said fervently, “Major Indindu is our only hope!”
“All right. What about the situation? The diamonds, and how they’re protected.”
“That’s too fast, Mr Parker,” said the Major.
Parker looked at Gonor. “Up to now,” he said, “I’ve dealt with you. If this thing takes place, you’ll be doing the robbery. Is that right?”
Gonor nodded.
“Who else?”
“Mr Formutesca and Mr Manado.”
“Manado?”
Gonor gestured to the man sitting beside Formutesca. “I’m sorry, I thought I had introduced you on our first meeting.”
“What about the Major?” Parker said.
Gonor was surprised again. “With us on the robbery? Naturally not!”
“Then he doesn’t belong here.”
“Surely you can trust”
“It isn’t trust or not trust. We’re not here for a party, we’re here to do a thing. Anybody who isn’t involved in doing that thing shouldn’t be here.”
“The Major had to approve you before”
“No,” Parker said. “You’re the man who’s going out on the limb; you’re the one who’ll make it or lose on the basis of how good I am. What the Major has to do is take your word about me and keep out of our way.”
The Major said something in his native tongue. Gonor, looking unhappy, said something back to him. The Major said something else.
There was a whole conversation starting there. Parker turned away and went over to Formutesca and Manado. Manado was looking slightly shocked and slightly scared, but Formutesca was looking amused.
Parker said to Manado, “How old are you?”
He’d been listening to the Major and Gonor, and now he blinked, focused on Parker, and said, “Sir? I beg your pardon?”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three, sir.”
Parker turned to Formutesca. “You?”
Formutesca was smiling happily. “Thirty-one,” he said.
“You both went to college?”
“Yes, sir,” said Manado, and Formutesca nodded.
“Do any sports?”
“Track team, sir,” said Manado.
“Baseball,” said Formutesca. “Third base. And some gymnastics.”
“You know how to handle guns?”
“Yes, sir,” said Manado, and Formutesca said:
“Naturally.”
“Why naturally?”
“Not all of Dhaba is in the twentieth century,” Formutesca said.
The conversation between Gonor and the Major seemed to have ended, but Parker kept his attention on these two in front of him. He said, “That means you know rifles. Anything else?”
“I have fired handguns,” said Manado. “And the Sten and Uzi.”
“Me too,” said Formutesca.
“What languages do you speak?”
“Just Abu and English,” said Manado.
“Abu? That’s your native tongue?”
“Yes, sir.”
Formutesca said, “I speak some French, some German. More French.”
A door closed. Parker said, “You both drive? You have licenses to drive in this country?” They both nodded. “Either of you color-blind? Epileptic? Get fainting spells? You got any phobias, fear of heights or anything like that?” They both kept shaking their heads.
Behind Parker, Gonor said, “Mr Parker.”
Parker turned around. Gonor was alone. “The Major has approved you,” he said, and it was possible there was something humorous in his tone.
“Good,” said Parker.
“We’ll go for a drive now,” Gonor said.
“Why?”
“I’ll show you where the diamonds are.”
2
The car was a black Mercedes-Benz. Manado was at the wheel and Formutesca beside him, with Gonor and Parker in back. “Go down Park Avenue,” Gonor had said, so Manado had driven down Fifth Avenue to the first eastbound street, over two blocks to Park, and they were now headed south, the Pan Am Building hulking in the roadway ahead of them.
“This will be interesting to our young friends as well,” Gonor said, nodding at the two in front. “They still don’t know where the Kasempas are keeping themselves and the diamonds.”
Gonor should have kept his security as tight as that on the whole deal, but Parker didn’t say so. He just nodded and looked out the window at the cabs.
After a minute Gonor said, “You don’t think much of Major Indindu.”
“I don’t think anything of him. I don’t think about him at all.”
Gonor frowned, studying Parker. “Is that true? Is that why you’re successful? You ignore whatever is not directly necessary?”
“You can’t think about more than one thing at a time,” Parker said.
“Granted,” said Gonor.
“Do I continue, sir?” Manado asked. The Pan Am Building was looming up directly ahead, like a life-sized model no longer needed and left out in the street for the Sanitation Department to take away.
“Straight on,” Gonor said. “But don’t take the tunnel.”
Manado steered the car around the racetrack ramp girdling Grand Central Terminal, of which the Pan Am Building is the hat. He drove well but a trifle too cautiously, letting himself be outbluffed occasionally by hustling cabbies.
They came down the ramp to Fortieth Street, avoided the tunnel underpass, and Gonor said, “Turn left at Thirty-eighth Street.”
Formutesca turned around, saying, “The museum?”
Gonor nodded to him.
“Nobody lives there,” Formutesca said.
“There is the top-floor apartment.”
“But
nobody everlived there!”
“Not till now,” Gonor said. Turning to Parker he said, “Seven Central African nations, when they were all colonies of the same European power, combined to create and support a Museum of African Arts and Artifacts in New York City. Actually it was the mother country that was the inspiration and most of the financial support for the museum. As each of the colonies became independent it ceased to be a supporting member of the museum. Until us. We were the last of the colonies to gain independence. Rather than take over the museum itself, which would have been at the least anomalous, our former mother country has given the museum to us and has presented us with a fund from which the proceeds will furnish the operating expenses.”
Manada had been stopped by a red light at Thirty-ninth Street, but now it turned green and he drove forward a block and made his left. Gonor looked out the windshield and said, “Park across the street.”
“Don’t stop,” Parker said. “Just go past it slow.”
Gonor looked at him in surprise. “Wouldn’t you care to study it for a period of time?”
“Yes, but I don’t want the people in it to be studying me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry; that hadn’t occurred to me.”
“That’s why you hired me,” Parer said. “Where is it?”
“Just ahead, on the left,” Gonor said.
Parker looked out the window and saw it as they drove by. A narrow building of gray stone, it was set back from the sidewalk and separated from its neighbors by narrow alleys on both sides. A black wrought-iron fence, waist high, ran across the front of the property, with carefully tended grass and trees behind it, flanking the walk up to the building itself, which was four stories high. The windows on the first two floors were barred. The front door was massive dark wood, and on the stone wall beside it was a square plaque, unreadable from here. The place looked well cared for but empty. The rest of the buildings on the block were either quiet residential hotels or old town houses converted to discreet offices.
“All right,” Parker said. “Turn right on Lexington.”
“Why not go back?” Gonor said.
“In traffic like this,” Parker told him, “there’s no way to be sure you’re not being followed. You’ve been followed in the past, sometimes by Hoskins, sometimes by General Goma’s people. So maybe you’re being followed now, and if you are we don’t want them to know we’re interested in that museum.”
“Good,” said Gonor.
The light at the corner was green. Manado made the turn. Parker told him, “When you get to Twenty-third Street make the left. Go over to Third Avenue and then south. When you get to Twelfth Street circle the block to the east and keep an eye on the rearview mirror, see if anybody follows you around.”
“Yes, sir,” said Manado.
Parker said to Gonor, “Tell me about this building.”
“It’s a museum,” Gonor said. “Three floors of African artifacts, from shields and spears to wooden dolls. And a fully-equipped apartment on the top floor.”
“That nobody’s ever lived in?”
“It was planned to have a full-time curator,” Gonor said, “but there was never any need for it. And lately, since Dhaba became independent, the museum has been virtually closed. We have a notice on the front door saying the museum is open by appointment only and giving my office phone number to call. There are still occasionally scholars of one sort or another interested in having a look. When one of them calls, either I or one of my staff will come by, unlock the place, and show the visitor around.”
“That’s the only time anybody goes in there?”
“We have a commercial cleaning service, which goes through the display rooms once a week. Also a grounds-keeping service, but they don’t actually enter the building.”
Formutesca twisted around again to say to Parker, “The museum isn’t exactly the liveliest place in town.”
“It was a bad idea to begin with,” Gonor said, “and is now outdated as well.”
“But Patrick Kasempa is living there.”
“Yes. I discovered them almost by accident over a month ago. An anthropologist from the University of Pennsylvania had asked to see some items in our musical instrument department. He spent most of the afternoon. It was getting dark when we left, and that evening I realized I’d left a pipe behind. I went back for it, and there were lights in the top-floor windows. We had been looking for the Kasempas for two or three weeks before that, ever since our friends at home had let us know about the plot, so I waited around to see if anyone appeared. Within half an hour Lucille Kasempa came walking down the street, apparently returning from shopping.”
“Did she see you?”
“No.”
“It’s just the two of them in there?”
“Not at all,” Gonor said. “Patrick Kasempa is one of four brothers, all of whom disappeared at the same time. My guess is the other three are in there with him. On guard duty, you might say.”
Parker nodded. “How many ways into the building?” he asked.
“Well, the front door,” Gonor said. “And a back door, of course; the Fire Department insisted. But it is metal and very securely fastened on the inside. There was a fear of burglaries, the building being empty so much of the time.”
“What’s in back?”
“Not much of anything. At one time it was arranged as a small garden back there with some outdoor sculpture. But it wasn’t authentic; the sculpture was metal casts from wood originals, the flora was wrong and so on, so it was given up.”
“How do you get out there? Just through the house?”
“Yes.”
Formutesca said, “There’s a fence at the back, a wooden fence about eight feet high. If you wanted to, you could come through a building on Thirty-ninth Street and over that fence.”
Manado said, “Sir?”
Gonor said, “What?”
Manado was looking at Parker in the rearview mirror. “We are being followed,” he said, “by a white Chevrolet Corvair containing two men. I can’t make them out clearly.”
“Go around a few blocks,” Parker said. “Lose them.”
“Yes, sir.”
To Gonor Parker said, “What about the side alleys? Can you get to the back through them?”
“There are iron gates at the rear corners of the building,” Gonor said. “They are usually kept locked.”
“Can you get me blueprints of the building?”
“Naturally.”
“And floor plans showing where the displays are.”
“We have those, yes.”
“Good.” Parker frowned out the window a minute, then turned back to Gonor and said, “You know you’re going to have to kill.”
“Not necessarily,” Gonor said.
“Yes,” Parker said. “There are four brothers up there. You won’t get in without killing at least one, and that means you have to kill all four. And the wife.”
Smiling bleakly from the front seat, Formutesca said, “We already knew that, Mr Parker. We weren’t sure you knew it. Or what your attitude would be.”
“It just means you’ve got to look out for the local law too,” Parker said.
“Anything that occurs,” Gonor said, “will occur in our building. We are unlikely to make a complaint.”
“Then noise is a problem too,” said Parker.
Formutesca, smiling, said, “We can be quiet.”
Manado said, “The white Corvair is no longer following us.” He sounded proud of himself.
“Good,” Parker said. “Take me back to my hotel.”
3
Lying on his back on the floor, Parker fixed the holster to the underside of the bed. A .22-caliber High Standard Sentinel fit in there snugly, but would slide out without trouble. With the pistol in place, Parker got to his feet and saw Claire frowning at him. She said, “You’ve never done that before.”
“I do it when I’m working.” He hadn’t told her about the Corvair.
“We’re at a different hotel,” she said. “We’re using a different name.”
“I like to be careful,” Parker said. His other gun, a Browning .380 automatic, was on the bed. He picked it up and put it on the shelf in the closet, under the extra blanket. The Terrier he’d bought the last time he was in New York he’d gotten rid of as soon as he’d left the city. It was cheaper and safer in the long run to buy your guns as you needed them and get rid of them as soon as they were no longer necessary.
Watching him, Claire said, “Are they back again?”
Parker carried a chair over to the hall door and leaned it so it would fall over if the door was opened. “Who?” he said.
“Those three men. The ones we saw first.”
“I haven’t seen them,” he said. He went into the bathroom, came out with a glass, put it on the windowsill, and leaned against the window.
Claire had lit a cigarette. She was moving
nervously around the room, studying Parker and shaking her head. “There’s something,” she said. “You don’t do all this every time. You think they might come after us.”
Parker turned and looked at her. “Sure they might,” he said. “There’s a country they used to run and now they don’t. They want to run it again, and to run it they need to put their front man Goma in power, and to do that they need money, and that means the diamonds, and that means they don’t want me involved. So they might come around.”
She bit her lip. “You want me to leave,” she said.
“Yes. I was going to tell you in the morning.”
“You want me to go back to Miami?”
“No. In the morning you take a cab out to Kennedy Airport. Then you take another cab back, and you take a room at a different hotel under some other name. We’ll work out what hotel, what name.”
“Why?” she said.
“Your shopping trip. You can go on”
“No,” she said. “You don’t give a damn about my shopping trip.”
He hesitated, then said, “All right. I don’t want them to lean on me through you.”
“All you had to do was say so,” she said. “I guessed it a long time ago.”
He shrugged. “What hotel do you want to stay at?”
“The thing is,” she said, smiling at him now, “you worry about me, and you don’t like it that you worry about me. You don’t want me to see it.”
Parker shrugged again, irritated. “Whatever you say.”
“So why don’t I shop in Boston?” she said. “Do you know the Herridge House there?”
“No.”
“It’s a nice hotel, very small. I’ll be Miss Carol Bowen.”
“Mrs,” he said.
“Oh, of course. Because you’ll be coming along later.” She stepped forward and put her hand on his arm. “Not much later, will you?”
“I don’t know how long it will take,” he said. “A week, maybe a month.”
“Then we should start saying goodbye now,” she said.
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