by Ted Mark
"Who is he?" I turned back to Lagula.
"I do not know. But I can guess who he serves."
"Who?"
"T.U.M.S."
"No thanks. Never use them," I told him. "I've got a cast-iron stomach."
"I beg your pardon?"
"That's quite all right. Go right ahead. Never squelch a belch. That's my motto."
"Mr. Victor, I seem to have lost the thread of this discussion. T.U.M.S. -"
"- for the tummy. I know all about it," I told him. "It's very popular back in the States. Pregnant women live on them."
"Somehow, Mr. Victor, I begin to suspect that we are talking about two different things. The T.U.M.S. to which I refer has nothing to do with abdominal complaints."
"Not Tums for the tummy?"
"No. Whatever that is, no."
"Oh." I puzzled over it for a moment. "Then what -?"
"T.U.M.S. – T-U-M-S," Lagula spelled it out, "are the initials of the organization which I believe sent this man to kill you. They stand for Tactical Underground Masters' Society."
"Ours is an age of initials," I observed. "They permeate our whole society and wreak havoc with conversation. It's a master agent indeed who can keep them all straight. But in any case, I never heard of this outfit. What's their game?"
"It's complicated. T.U.M.S. is a group of white men who banded together to try to restore a sort of company rule to Rhodesia. You see, from 1889 through 1923, the country was ruled by the British South Africa Company. Cecil Rhodes, for whom Rhodesia is named, was general manager of that company, and the stockholders gave him a free hand in ruling the country. It was very profitable for them, and under his rule the native population was completely enslaved. T.U.M.S. wants to set up a similar corporation along the same lines. Only this one wouldn't be subject to English control. It would be run from right here in Salisbury."
"But why should they want to kill me? I have nothing to do with Rhodesian politics."
"They are a peculiar organization – somewhat like your Ku Klux Klan back in America, only far more influential."
"Not my Ku Klux Klan!" I assured him.
"Your pardon. The implication was unintentional. I only meant to say that they are not only political terrorists, but that they also set themselves up as violent enforcers of a strict morality of their own devising. They have been known to whip a man for drinking too much. They have tarred and feathered certain "loose women" who may or may not have been actual prostitutes. They burned down a book store because it was selling copies of Lady Chatterly's Lover."
"I begin to see a connection," I said. "T.U.M.S. spelled backwards is -"
"S.M.U.T. Exactly! British Intelligence has indeed traced an undercover relationship between the two. We can't prove it, but we believe that T.U.M.S. has been smuggling gold out of Rhodesia to help finance S.M.U.T.'s operations around the world."
"And S.M.U.T. wants me killed. It figures," I mused. "Is this what you meant when you said I was in danger?" I asked Lagula. "Is this what you were protecting me against?"
"Yes. This and the Russians. And anybody else you may have antagonized."
"Well, thanks. But I'm afraid you've bitten off quite a hunk of trouble."
"Perhaps even more than you realize, Mr. Victor. T.U.M.S. has powerful connections in the Rhodesian government established yesterday. It is at odds with that government because it wishes it to go further than even Ian Smith dares. Still, it will support Smith until the British are completely out of the picture. After that, nobody knows. But there's always the chance they may try to seize control themselves. Meanwhile, they engage in terrorist activities – mainly against blacks, but also against whites – which the government can't condone, but finds it convenient not to stop."
"It's a hodgepodge all right," I yawned. "But I'm too tired to think about it now. I'd like to get back to bed. I'm damned if I'll sleep with a strange stiff, though. Any ideas about what we can do with him?"
"If you'll give me a hand, I suggest we just drop him out of the window to the gutter below."
"Isn't that likely to cause a fuss?"
"Not if we make sure nobody observes his descent. The way things are in Salisbury tonight, one more corpse should cause little concern."
After first making sure the street was clear of patrols, we did as Lagula suggested. The corpse didn't make too much noise when it hit the pavement; just a sort of soft squish. We drew the window curtains on its exit.
"I shall have to be leaving now, Mr. Victor," Lagula told me. "I think you will be relatively out of danger for a little while."
"Thanks for saving my life," I answered sincerely. "Thanks for everything."
"What are your plans for the afternoon?" he asked.
I told him I intended to contact Ilona Tabori.
"Don't do it by phone," he cautioned. "Your wire may be tapped, or hers, or both."
"I won't," I promised. "I'll go to her hotel."
"When you are through there, come and see me."
He handed me a card. "I may have further information for you."
I looked at the card. It identified Lagula as a tourist guide and gave his address. "Business can't be very good," I remarked.
"It's at a standstill," he admitted. "Good night, Mr. Victor. I will see you tomorrow."
"Good night."
I went back to bed. The machete was still stuck in the pillow. I shrugged, removed it, tossed it out the window, turned the pillow over, and went back to sleep. It was past noon when I awoke.
A half-hour or so later, I left my hotel. As I walked onto the street, I noticed three things. The first was that the corpse had been removed. The second was the thermometer on the wall just outside the hotel entrance. It read 102 degrees. I could well believe it. The sun hit my bare head like a sizzling mallet.
The third thing I noticed was the man following me. A quick look over my shoulder identified him as Vlankov, the Russian. On general principles, I decided to lose him.
It was easier decided than done. Vlankov had the tenacity of a Siberian bulldog. What his tailing technique lacked in subtlety, he more than made up for in stick-to- it-iveness. He stuck like glue.
I hopped in one end of a tram-car and out the other, and he was right behind me. I hailed a cab and took a sightseeing tour of the city, doubling and redoubling back on my route, and still when I hopped out of the cab at a traffic light, he was right behind me. I tried a tall office building, took an elevator up ten floors, a second one down eight, walked three flights of stairs to the basement, exited through the service entrance – and found Vlankov waiting for me. He trailed idly behind me by half a block as I sauntered up the street and tried to figure what to do next.
Inspiration came from a large truck parked at the curb of a side street down which I aimlessly turned. The truck was unloading some gook via a mechanical chute, a sort of a metallic conveyor belt running down into the cellar of a large building. On the spur of the moment, I hopped on the belt and was propelled downward. I landed on something that felt like soft, gooey mud. More of the same poured over me from the chute.
It was pitch black as I crawled away from the icky cascade. I couldn't feel any floor under me as I tried to lose myself in the darkness. It was like trying to move over toasted marshmallows, only the stuff was more powdery than that. Just about the time I settled into a squishy corner, as I'd expected, Vlankov came sliding down the chute. He wasn't taking any chances. There was a big, fat gun in his hand as his eyes tried to pierce the darkness.
Like me, he crawled out of the path of the torrent behind him. Fortunately for me, he crawled in the opposite direction. Once he was out of the beam of daylight coming through the delivery hole, I lost him in the blackness of the cellar.
I bided my time. There seemed no end to the stuff pouring down the chute. The bin – or whatever it was we were in – really began filling up. As it did, the chute retracted automatically so that it wouldn't be submerged by its cargo. I kept brushing the stuff off me
climbing higher as it mounted around me. I presumed Vlankov was doing the same.
Finally the avalanche petered out, and the conveyor belt of the chute ground to a halt. I watched as the chute itself began retracting through the delivery hole. I waited until it had only a few more feet to go, and then I dived for it. The sockets of my arms strained as it pulled me back to the surface with it.
I stayed aboard right back into the van itself. At the last minute Vlankov grabbed the tail end of the chute and was also pulled to the surface. I let him claw his way to the open truck door and then brought my heel down hard on his fingers. I couldn't resist laughing in his face as he let go and fell to the gutter. He was clawing at the gun in his belt, his face red with rage as the van pulled away.
I rode the truck for about twenty minutes, then hopped out when it stopped for a traffic light. I noticed the lettering on the back of it for the first time as it pulled away. It said ACME FERTILIZER COMPANY. Just under that, in smaller print, was their slogan: The Finest Processed Cow Dung in the Land!
My nose confirmed it. James Bond smelled like this. The way the driver of the cab I hailed wrinkled up his faced seconded the motion. I waved enough money at him to make him stop sniffing, and he hauled me to Ilona Tabori's hotel.
She was sunning herself on the balcony outside her room, and she spotted me as I got out of the cab. "Hello there," she called. "I'd just about given up on you. Come on up."
I went up.
"What happened to you?" She stepped back in astonishment as I came through the door.
"It's a long story."
"And a dirty one, from the looks of you," she opined. "What that dreadful odor?"
"What does it smell like?"
"Not roses, that's for sure."
"Answer the question."
"I'm too polite. I'd hate to tell you what it smells like."
"You guessed it. That's what it is, too."
"It makes me nostalgic. I used to be a farm girl." But the look on her face was more kittenish than nostalgic.
"Is that so? And where was that, Ilona?" I fished.
"When I was a kid."
"Not when. Where?"
"Do you like to ask questions, Mr. Victor?"
"I like to get answers."
"Later. I'll tell you the story of my life later. For now why don't you get out of those smelly clothes and take advantage of my shower in there." She pointed at the bathroom.
I took her up on the offer. While I was scalding the offal aroma off my hide in the stall shower, I thought about Ilona. She was a puzzle, all right. In the short- shorts and halter she'd been wearing to sun herself, she looked like a sexy volcano ready to erupt. And if I wasn't mistaken, I'd detected traces of bubbling lava in the throaty way she'd swapped dialogue with me. There was a certain steaminess in the way those near-black eyes had raked me over too.
She was a long drink of vodka, only two or three inches shorter than my six-foot- one. With that wild, long black hair and those ball-bearing hips, she looked more like a leggy invitation to love than a dedicated and anti-sex member of S.M.U.T. And if she was that anti-sex, how come she'd volunteered for the brothel bit in the first place?
I turned off the shower, dried myself, wrapped the bath-towel around me and rejoined Ilona. She raised an eyebrow at my appearance. "What the well-dressed man will wear," she commented.
"I'll get dressed if you want," I offered.
"You're kidding." She waved towards the balcony where she'd put my clothes to air out.
"So I won't get dressed." I sat down opposite her.
We looked at each other in silence for a long moment. It was the look of wrestlers sizing each other up just before they come to grips. The way I sized Ilona up, it was going to be quite a clinch.
The straps of her halter hung loosed in front of it, grazing the tips of her breasts. The tips were outlined clearly under the white material hugging them. Her shorts were of the same material, and just as tight. The way she was sitting, they creased into an erotic V bisected revealingly at the base. I sensed more than saw the faint, hungry pulsation there. She moved uncomfortably under my gaze and the flesh of her thighs quivered slightly.
"Why are you staring at me so?" Ilona finally broke the silence.
"No reason." I shrugged.
"Your towel says differently."
She was right. Her sexiness had affected me. There was a terrycloth tent rising from my lap. I felt like a schoolboy caught short without any textbooks behind which to hide the naughtiness of his aroused puberty.
"Why, Mr. Victor, you're blushing!"
"Sorry."
"Don't be. It's sweet. But very unexpected from a man of your experience. After all, you are the man from O.R.G.Y."
"Even Casanova was capable of being embarrassed in a specific situation. But how come you know about O.R.G.Y.?"
"Oh, word gets around," she said evasively.
"And," I added, "your frankness isn't really very consistent with your membership in S.M.U.T."
"Let's forget about S.M.U.T.," she cooed. "Let's just stick with the situation at hand." She unfolded her charms and sauntered over to me. "You're putting an awful strain on that towel," she murmured, standing over me. "The hotel isn't going to like it if you rip through." Her hand hung directly over the top of the tent, the fingers dangling loosely with a nervous sort of plucking motion.
I don't have to be hit over the head. The handiest portion of her anatomy as she stood in front of me was the derriere quivering under the white shorts. I encircled her with my arms and took a firm grip with both hands.
She plucked. The towel was tossed over her shoulder, and she knelt in front of me. Her hand stroked for a moment, and then she converted it into a fist. My own hands slid around the front of her body and dipped into the white halter, sliding past where her suntan ended and squeezing the hot, creamy whiteness of her breasts.
Ilona slip onto my lap then, grasping my manhood with the fast-fluttering muscles of her thighs. She was facing me with her eyes shining brightly, her lips moistly parted. The heat of her desire burned against me through the shorts with a steady, insistent pressure.
We kissed. Her mouth was a suction valve, the lips alive and hungry, the sharp, even teeth playing a teasing game of pleasure-pain, the tongue probing and retreating with a sensuality that was maddening. Throughout the kiss, I clawed at the waistband of her shorts, trying vainly to pull them down over the fleshiness of her writhing hips.
"No." Ilona stayed my hands. "First I want to -" She left the sentence unfinished as she slid back to the floor and once again knelt in front of me. Her black hair swept over my naked thighs as her mouth swooped down to capture the target she had selected.
She was no novice. She didn't rush things. Quick, exciting kisses covered the are and then her tongue darted at random, making me squirm. After a few moments of this, she slowed down, her lips fastening for longer periods here and there, her tongue laving me with slow, thorough relish. Her head came up for a moment, and her face was flushed with wantonness. Her hand grasped the base of my manhood and she bent her head once again. This time she seized the target directly.
My body arched like a strung bow and shook uncontrollably. My hands tangled in her hair and forced her head down farther and farther. Her tongue churned wildly. Her cheeks were taut hollows formed by the vacuum-like sipping of her lips. I could feel her very throat contract in preparation for the nectar she had brewed in me, the nectar at the boiling point and set to erupt. And then -
And then there was a sudden loud pounding at the door. For a moment my passion-fogged mind played tricks on me and I was back in London again with Gladys. But the passion subsided and I came back to reality as Ilona, startled, relinquished her erotic meal-in-the-making and half rose to her feet.
"What's that?" she exclaimed.
The knocking was repeated.
"Who is it?" she called.
No answer. Just more rapping.
"Go away!" Ilona respo
nded, frustrated and annoyed.
But the pounding only grew louder.
She crossed over and opened the door. "There's no one here!" Puzzled, she threw the door wide open to demonstrate her conclusion to me.
However, I knew she was wrong. And a moment later, just after she closed the door, she knew it herself. "Eek!" she screamed as she turned around and her line of vision fell downward. "What's that?" She pointed.
"Lagula," I sighed. I had seen him walk softly between her legs to enter the room while she was still peering out the door. "What do you want?" I asked him.
"To save your life once again, Mr. Victor. You and the young lady must get out of this room immediately!"
"Your timing is really something," I grumbled. "I can well believe Putnam put you up to helping me. He has a sadistic habit of interrupting me at the most crucial times."
"My apologies, Mr. Victor. But believe me, it's a matter of life and death."
"Who is he?" Ilona demanded. The way her voice went up the scale showed she was just as outraged at the interruption as I was.
"I guess we don't have time for me to explain," I told her. "We'd better do as he says."
"Can't he wait five minutes until we -" Her hands slid down her body expressively.
"There is no time!" Lagula insisted. "Please! Come at once!"
"Come on," I echoed to Ilona reluctantly.
"Just a minute." She crossed over to a closet and grabbed a dress from a hanger.
I followed her example and started for my clothes out on the balcony.
"No time to dress!" Lagula insisted, tugging at my arm and starting to push me towards the door.
"But I'm stark naked! I can't go out like this," I protested.
"Wait. There's a poncho here. You can wear that." Ilona reached into the closet and tossed me the slicker. It was the kind of thing both men and women wear in Africa during the rainy season.
Her dress was on over the shorts and halter but still unbuttoned as Lagula urged us out of the room. He led us down a back staircase, and we left the hotel by the delivery entrance. Lagula had a car waiting, and Ilona and I got in the back while he took the wheel. He pulled the car around to the front of the hotel.