Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43

by High Adventure (v1. 1)

  A little trouble in Belize right now, of course, with Lemuel getting spooked and the Greene woman making a fuss, but that would sort itself out. Or, it wouldn’t; in which case, he would tip his hat and go away. In any event, he wouldn’t worry about it now.

  The truck engines started up, waking him from a light nap. A few clouds had sailed into view, dark with cargoes of rain. His clothing was stiff and heavy with perspiration. “Take me home, Cynthia,” he said, as he climbed back into his seat. “I’m gonna sleep a week.”

  Time for a breather.

  • INTERMISSION •

  “Nothin’ lasts here, Beka.” Gran’s eyes looked funny. “Tings bruk down.”

  “Ah wonder why?” Beka asked, bringing the conch and minced habanero peppers to the stove.

  Her Gran leaned the fork carefully against the frying pan, pushed the window over the back stairs, and propped it open with a long pole. Then she said,

  “I don’t know why, Beka. But one time, when I was a young girl like you, a circus came to town. I can’t remember where it was from, and don’t ask me what happened to it afta. The circus had a fluffy polar bear—a ting Belize people never see befo’. It died up at Barracks Green, Beka. The ice factory broke down the second day the circus was here.”

  PART TWO:

  TINGS BRUK DOWN

  1 JADE NOR GOLD

  It was nice to see Belize City again. Driving in Haulover Road in the battered pickup truck, entering town through the white, bright, flower-strewn cemetery, seeing the little pirate port sagging out ahead of him as ramshackle and unworkable and permanent as ever, Kirby smiled and felt himself relax; it was good to be home.

  Time is the great healer. Today was Tuesday, the 21st of February (temperature 82 degrees, sky azure, humidity 90 percent, sun blinding). It was just 11 days since Black Friday, that awful day when Valerie Greene had blown his beautiful temple scam; when Whitman Lemuel had panicked and run back to Duluth with his tail between his legs; when Kirby had reluctantly, angrily, but necessarily told the troops to dismantle the temple, while he himself took what might very well be the final shipment of fresh-made antiquities north to market. A furious, weary, and pessimistic Kirby had made that flight, but the Kirby driving into Belize City today, Manny gap-toothed and grinning beside him, was a changed man: happy, content, and hopeful.

  What had happened in those 11 days to change him so thoroughly? Very little. In fact, like Conan Doyle’s unbarking dog in the night, it was what hadn’t happened that had most encouraged him.

  After the marijuana-and-artifact flight of the weekend before last, Kirby had told himself he should take on a lot more cargo jobs, since the temple business was probably dead, but he just hadn’t had the strength of will. For four days, back in his little nest among the Cruzes, he had simply sat and felt sorry for himself and watched videotapes: Errol Flynn in “Captain Blood,” Burt Lancaster in “The Crimson Pirate,” Clark Gable in “China Seas.” He had eaten Estelle’s food, drunk a moderate amount of Belikin beer, played card games and pebble games with Manny, and made no plans. Cynthia sat alone and unwanted in the shade of her hangar of trees. Messages were neither sent nor delivered. Hope did not put in an appearance.

  But then Tommy Watson did, last Friday afternoon. The only one of his Indian co-conspirators from South Abilene who had ever visited Kirby at home, Tommy came sauntering up the path out of the jungle, next to the tomato patch, strolled over to where Kirby was hunkered in the dirt playing aggies with two of the kids, and said, “How, Kimosabe?”

  “Fried.” That was Kirby’s joke.

  “We don’t see you around the old joint very much any more.”

  “There is no old joint any more,” Kirby said. “Hush a second.” With a greenie nestled in the crook of the first knuckle of the first finger of his right hand, thumb cocked and ready, he took careful aim across a clear patch of packed tan dirt at a beautiful steelie, paused, squinted one eye shut, fired with absolute precision, and missed by a mile.

  As the kids crowed and hollered, Kirby sighed, shook his head, and got to his feet, brushing off his knees. “You distracted me,” he accused Tommy, and told the kids, “I’ll get even with you guys later.”

  Their jeers echoed around the clearing. Dignified, Kirby turned away and strolled toward the house, Tommy at his side. “What’s happening on my land?” he asked, as though it were a casual question.

  “Nothing.”

  “Excitement all over?” That would be a good thing; the sooner ended, the sooner forgotten.

  “No excitement at all,” Tommy said. “Nobody come out except that turkey sold you the place.”

  “Innocent?”

  “There’s a Mom and Dad couldn’t read the future.”

  “Innocent came out? Nobody else? No cops?”

  “No. And no firemen, no farmers, no cooks, no sailors, no truckdrivers and no high school girls. In other words, nobody.” “All right, Tommy,” Kirby said. “Don’t get your back up.”

  “I’m happy,” Tommy said, as Kirby opened the front door and led the way inside. The Betamax stood with its mouth open, ready to entertain. “I’m not hibernating,” Tommy said, following him in, shutting the door. “I’m out and about.”

  “All right, all right.” Kirby shut the Betamax’s mouth, as a hint to Tommy. “Sit down,” he said. “You want a beer? You want to tell me about it?”

  “Sure, sure, sure.”

  So they sat, and had a beer together, and Tommy described the inaction out at the former temple. After a whole night and morning of back-breaking labor—Tommy made quite a point of that part of it— untempling the hill, absolutely nobody showed up for the closing. All day Saturday the Indians waited, using all their age-old lore to watch from cunning concealment as no police Land Rovers came across the plain, no vans of reporters and photographers, no truckloads of archaeologists. No reconnaissance planes circled low for aerial photography. Nothing at all, in fact, had occurred. “It was very boring,” Tommy said.

  “Sometimes it’s better to be bored. Then what happened?” “More of the same.”

  Sunday had been a repeat of Saturday. By midaftemoon they weren’t even bothering to keep watch anymore, but merely walked around the hill every once in a while to see if there were any activity, of which there continued to be none.

  “They were holding off,” Kirby suggested. “Watching from afar, hoping to catch the perpetrators in the act, or on the site, or something. ”

  “We figured it could be that,” Tommy said, “so we laid low. Luz went to the mission Sunday afternoon, see was there any news, any gossip, but no. I myself went out almost all the way to Privassion, but there wasn’t a thing, man. No vehicles, no stakeouts, nothing.”

  “That woman was on her way to the law,” Kirby said. “Valerie Greene. There’s no question in my mind.”

  “Well, maybe there was questions in their minds, because we still don’t have any law.” Tommy drained his bottle. “You got another?” “Tell me about Innocent.”

  “I’m too dry.”

  Kirby got them a pair of beers, and Tommy said, “That was Monday afternoon. He come out with this other fella, skinny nervous tan fella.”

  “He’s got an assistant like that in Belmopan,” Kirby said. “Young guy.”

  “That’s the one. They come out in a nice new pickup, said on the doors it was from the Highways Department.”

  “And what did they do?”

  “Walked,” Tommy said, and swigged beer at the memory of what a hot and tiring sight that had been. “They walked all over the hill. Your pal—”

  “Call him Innocent, not my pal.”

  “He isn’t my pal,” Tommy pointed out, “and if I call him Innocent I’ll have to confess it in church.”

  “What did he do, Tommy?”

  “Marched around. Kicked the ground a lot. Stomped. Looked mad, confused, worried, upset, pissed off. The young guy with him looked scared. ”

  “Scared?”

  “It
was like a man out with his dog,” Tommy said, grinning a bit. “Your pal stomped up and down the hill, while the little guy scurried this way and that, looking behind bushes, over the edges of drop-offs, up and down and back and forth like he’s chasing a rabbit.” “Then what did they do?”

  “Left,” Tommy said simply.

  “Come on, Tommy,” Kirby said, trying to look and sound dangerous. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I am telling you. They walked up and down the hill. They stood on the top a while, your pal scratching his head and the other guy making little dashes back and forth, looking under pebbles. We watched them, but we stayed out of sight, and you can’t see South Abilene from up there, so there was never any conversation, And after a while they went back down the hill again, your pal pounding his feet down like he was mad at the ground, the other guy rushing back and forth, smelling the earth. Then they got. back into their Highways Department pickup and left. Your pal was driving.”

  “That was Monday?”

  “And today is Friday, according to the mission,” Tommy said, “and that’s the last visitor we had.”

  “I don’t get it,” Kirby said.

  “It’s beginning to look,” Tommy said, “as though the coast is maybe clear. ”

  It was beginning to look that way to Kirby, too. Had Valerie Greene simply been too wild-eyed and weird, and had her story therefore been ignored by the authorities? Anybody who knew that parcel of land at all well, of course, would disbelieve Valerie Greene from the outset.

  Which raised the problem and question of Innocent. Why, at that time of all times, had Innocent and his office assistant decided to come visit his old land? What had he been looking for? He, of all people, had to know there was no Mayan temple there, that Lava Sxir Yt did not exist and had never existed. So what was he after? What garbled story had reached Innocent’s ears that had led him to believe there might be something of interest on Kirby’s land?

  And who had told him the garbled story, whatever it was? Over the weekend, Kirby brooded on those questions, on the absence of official response to Valerie Greene’s undoubted report, on the bewildering visit of Innocent St. Michael, and finally he came up with a scenario which seemed to him to fit all the facts:

  Valerie Greene, as Kirby well knew, was an hysteric, particularly on the subject of purloined antiquities. Let’s just say she went to town, she made a report to the police at the top of her lungs, yelling and hollering and demanding immediate action and send in the troops. What would the police do? They would not want to be around such a crazy person, but just on the off chance she was right they would not want to throw her out of the office either, so they would pass her on to some other authority, who would pass her on to somebody else, and so on and so on, until at last someone would recognize the land in question as having once belonged to Innocent St. Michael. A quick phone call to Innocent in Belmopan would produce his guarantee that no Mayan temple could possibly be found out there, and various maps and surveys would support his statement.

  In the meantime, of course, Valerie Greene would also have been hollering about Whitman Lemuel, as being part of the scheme. Let’s say somebody went to question Lemuel before he boarded his plane. That was exactly the sort of situation Lemuel would know how to deal with; stand on his dignity, show his credentials, denounce Valerie Greene as a dangerous lunatic with delusional ideas. With a member of government (Innocent) assuring everyone the woman’s story was impossible, and a distinguished North American scholar (Lemuel) assuring the same everyone that she was crazy, and with Valerie Greene herself ranting and raving in office after office . . .

  Yes. It could have worked that way. It was a very probable scenario. The absence of any official response at all, not even a quick casual investigation, supported the idea. And if someone had checked with Innocent, it would explain his driving out there to find out what if anything was going on. Trust Innocent to leave no stone unturned.

  This scenario fit the facts as no other did, so by yesterday Kirby had become convinced of its truth. Valerie Greene had done her worst, and had not been believed. Innocent’s curiosity had been aroused, but had not been satisfied. Whatever tempest in a teapot might have occurred in Belmopan or Belize City, it was over now. Lava Sxir Yt could rise again!

  There was no reason to even slow down. Tommy and his fellow workers had been busily creating carvings etched in stone, bone utensils, broken terracotta pots with one triangular piece missing. Kirby for his part had two sets of customers, Mr. Mortmain’s friend Bobbi and the team of Witcher and Feldspan, who had already seen the temple. It was time to start rolling again by selling Witcher and Feldspan some pre-Columbian artifacts.

  Sorry; no jade, no gold. Must have been a temple in a poor neighborhood.

  So yesterday Kirby had finally come out of his funk and become decisive again. Last night he’d gone up to Orange Walk and talked to some people, and had come back with a job flying a cargo to Florida this coming Saturday. And this morning Estelle had given Manny a shopping list, and off he and Kirby had gone, jouncing in the pickup the other way to Belize City, where Kirby dropped Manny off by Swing Bridge and went on Cable & Wireless, where he sent Witcher and Feldspan the good news: See you Sunday, with our first shipment.

  Coming out of Cable & Wireless, Kirby ran into the devil himself; that is, Innocent. “Well, well,” Innocent said, spying him, “my old friend Kirby. You haven’t been around, man.” There was more than the usual edge in his voice.

  They shook hands in the usual way, though, gripping as hard as they knew how while smiling in one another’s faces, but it seemed to Kirby somehow that Innocent’s heart wasn’t in it. The smile on Innocent’s face seemed false, the strength of his grip a fraction off. In that first instant, it seemed to Kirby that Innocent was somehow doing an Innocent imitation.

  They released one another. “I’ve been resting,” Kirby told him.

  “Heavy labors?”

  “Man must work,” Kirby said. “How about you, Innocent? You up to anything these days?”

  “Not much, Kirby.” There was something grumpy about Innocent, underneath the imitation smile. “Too many schemers around, man,” he said, smiling hard at Kirby. “Too many schemes. Too much competition. ”

  Kirby grinned. “Maybe,” he said, “maybe, Innocent, you ought to retire.”

  That put the steel in Innocent’s backbone. Rearing up, eyes sparking, Innocent said, “When I retire, Kirby, you’ll be the first to know. And when I don’t retire, you’ll be the first to know that, too.”

  2 THE END OF THE WORLD

  What a nerve that man has got, Innocent angrily thought, as he watched Kirby swagger away down the street amid the pedestrians and the bicycles and the rump-sprung big American cars and the dusty pickup trucks and the dope dealers’ shiny-bodied black-windowed Broncos. To do what he has done, Innocent bitterly thought, and show his face in this town again.

  Valerie Greene. A vision of her fine white rump grasped between his two hands came unbidden into his mind, and he sighed. Her guileless big eyes and happy wide smile shone on him like a memory of the sun in the rainy season down south. But this rainy season would never end; the sun was gone for good. There was hardly any doubt in Innocent’s mind any longer that Valerie Greene was dead, and just as little doubt that Kirby Galway had done it.

  He himself was also guilty, of course, if only in a small way. He had trusted that poor girl to a very bad man. He had trusted her to him because he was a very bad man, but a very bad man whom Innocent believed he could control. And now see what had happened.

  Valerie had never returned to her room at the hotel. The Land Rover had never been brought back to its garage. The driver had never showed up at his home in Teakettle.

  The Fort George, seven days ago, had packed up Valerie Greene’s luggage and stored it away. The day before that, the Transportation Section had reported the Land Rover stolen. Over the last 11 days, Innocent had left messages for the skinny black man at all
his usual haunts, and some unusual haunts as well, but no answer had as yet been received. Nor had the stolen Land Rover been found. Nor was there the slightest trace of Valerie Greene, alive or dead.

  On Monday, thinking the land might tell him something about Valerie’s disappearance, or about whatever the hell Kirby’s scheme was, Innocent had driven out there, looking fruitlessly all the way for signs that the Land Rover had been in an accident. He’d brought Vernon along, to be a second person in case a witness was needed, or if there was trouble, and that was when he first became aware that Vernon was apparently in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

  Another unnecessary complication. Vernon was too conscientious, that was the whole trouble, in a nation where the lackadaisical was the norm. Innocent told him so, on the drive out: “You work too hard, Vernon,” he said. “You don’t have to prove to me how valuable you are, I already know it. I know you’re trustworthy, and I guarantee you’ll be sitting in my chair some day. You’ve got a bright future, Vernon, you’ve worked hard for it and you deserve it. A man’s reputation is everything, and yours is grade A. If you just don’t overwork and make yourself sick, man, you’ve got it made.”

  You’d think all that would have perked Vernon up a little, but no, just the reverse. The more Innocent tried to make him feel better, the more jumpy and unhappy and pessimistic Vernon became.

  Out at the land, it was even worse. Innocent hadn’t told Vernon much about what they were doing there, so the young man could have had no idea what he was looking for, but he spent the whole time running up and down that hill, looking here, looking there, frantic and urgent and searching like a man who just lost the winning lottery ticket.

  As for the land, it had been exactly the same, of course, which made Innocent mad at himself. What had he expected out there, an entire Mayan temple, one he’d failed somehow to notice all the years he’d owned this parcel?