The Black Ice Score

by Richard Stark

  Hoskins was watching him worriedly. “Trouble?”

  “My wife wants to see me. I have to go up for just a minute. You want to come along or wait here?”

  “I believe I'll wait,” Hoskins said.

  “Watch my drink,” Parker told him. “I'll be right back.”

  5

  Four black men in red robes stood and sat around the room, like a scene in a Negro version of Julius Caesar. Claire, legs crossed, cigarette in hand, at ease, sat in the chair near the window. She was still wearing the new outfit she'd put on to show him just before he left.

  Parker shut the door with his left hand and let the hand dangle near his hip. He looked around at the faces.

  Claire made the introductions, gesturing at the one of the four who was coming toward Parker now with a solemn face and an outstretched hand. “Mr Gonor,” she said, “this is Mr Parker. Parker, this is Gonor.”

  The use of the name surprised him. He looked away from Gonor at Claire.

  She smiled slightly and shook her head. “That was the name they knew,” she said. “Like the other ones.”

  “We are most sorry about that experience,” Gonor said. His hand was still out. He was short, no more than five feet tall, and he looked up solemnly at Parker as he spoke. “They got to you before we did,” he said. He had some sort of faint accent too, a little harsher than the first group. It might have been two versions of the same accent, such as German might be if spoken by an American from the North and an American from the South.

  Parker said, “Is that what it was? They thought I'd already talked to you so I'd already know what was going on?”

  “Yes.” Gonor's hand was still out there, undaunted.

  “And the same with Hoskins,” Parker said.

  Gonor's hand dropped to his side, and his expression became suddenly wary. “Hoskins? You know him?”

  “I just met him. He called me and we met and talked. He thought I knew about things too. He's downstairs now, waiting for me. In the bar.”

  Gonor turned his head and said something short and harsh in a language Parker had never heard before. Two of the others nodded and headed for the door.

  Parker put his back against the door. “I haven't taken sides yet,” he said. “The advertisement was you were going to tell me what's going on.”

  “What did Hoskins tell you?”

  “Nothing. Doubletalk, like the other bunch.”

  “He shouldn't be here,” Gonor said. “He shouldn't be involved any more; he was told to stay away.”

  “He'll keep,” Parker said. “Tell me the story first.”

  Gonor cocked his head to one side. “Have you made a deal with him? Is that why you don't want us to go get him?”

  “Get him and do what with him?”

  “Bring him up here. Make sure he stays away from now on.

  Parker moved away from the door. “Bring him up,” he said. “That's a good idea. If you see the other bunch, bring them up too. Let's find out what's going on.”

  “You'll find out, Mr Parker.”

  The other two were heading for the door again. Parker said to them, “Hoskins only knows me as Walker.”

  “It isn't our intention to endanger the structure of your life, Mr Parker,” Gonor said. “We'll use the Walker name, if you prefer.”

  “I prefer.”

  The two went out, and Gonor said, “First, I suppose I should present my credentials. I have been sent to you by a Mr McKay, who operates a restaurant in a small city in Maine.”

  “A diner,” Parker said.

  Gonor nodded. “Yes. A small restaurant, with chrome.”

  “All right,” Parker said. Handy McKay was the one man who knew Parker's whereabouts and what name he was living under. Anybody who wanted to get in touch with Parker had to do so through Handy.

  Gonor said, “We were sent to Mr McKay, in turn, by a man named Karns. Do you also know him?”

  “Yes,” Parker said. A few years ago he'd had some trouble with a gambling-and-narcotics syndicate, and he'd had to get rid of the man at the top of it. Karns had taken that man's place and had been grateful to Parker for making it possible.

  “We went to Mr Karns,” Gonor said, “when Hoskins failed to be what we had in mind. We were looking for a criminal, but of a very particular kind. Hoskins is certainly a criminal, but not with the qualifications we need.”

  “Karns didn't send you to Hoskins?”

  “No. We found Hoskins on our own.” Gonor shook his head, as though reflecting on great difficulties in the past. “The United States is a large and complex nation,” he said. “A nation of specialists. Here more than anywhere else in the world there will be someone capable of handling any specific task, no matter how unusual. The only problem is to find him.”

  Claire said, “Mr Gonor, wouldn't you like to sit down?”

  He half turned and gave her a gracious nod. “No, thank you,” he said. “I lead too sedentary a life; I prefer to stand when possible.”

  Claire looked at Parker. “He's at the UN,” she explained, and he understood her to mean that she was sold on Gonor and wanted him to be too.

  Gonor pursed his lips, as though he considered the revelation premature. “As I was saying,” he said, looking back at Parker, “finding the specialist is not always easy. One knows the specialist is here, somewhere, and all one can do is sift. We—my associates and I—we required a criminal. None of us has any experience of the criminal life, at least not in this country, so we began at a disadvantage. In our search, the first prospect we turned up was Hoskins. He is a confidence man, which is the wrong specialty, but he managed to make us believe for a time that he could help us. I believe he intended merely to rob us if by chance we should prove successful.”

  Parker nodded. “I think that's what he was telling me,” he said.

  “Of course. We ultimately saw through him, naturally, and rejected him, but he seems intent on hanging around in hopes some profit will fall to him after all.”

  “Like a dog under the table,” said the other one, who was sitting on the foot of Claire's bed, the packages all in a jumble behind him.

  “Yes,” Gonor said, turning toward him. “Mr Parker, this is Bara Formutesca, an assistant at the mission.”

  Formutesca nodded at Parker with an ironic smile. He was a younger man than Gonor, possibly in his early twenties, and beneath the red robe he seemed to have a compactly muscular body. “A pleasure,” he said.

  Parker nodded back at him, then looked at Gonor again. “So you went from Hoskins to Karns,” he said.

  “Our searching in the underworld brought us to Mr Karns's attention,” Gonor said. “He sent emissaries to question us, then met with me himself, and finally suggested you. He said we could trust you but that we might have difficulty persuading you to work for us. Particularly if you had worked recently and didn't need the money.”

  “I don't need the money,” Parker said.

  Gonor pursed his lips. “Unfortunate,” he said. “Still, we can only try to persuade you.”

  Parker turned to Claire. “Do you want to hear this?”

  “I don't mind,” she said. “Mr Gonor's different.”

  He knew she meant that Gonor didn't smell to her of violence. Violence was what frightened her, violence and the possibility of violence, which was why she didn't want to be around when Parker was planning or working on a caper, didn't want to hear about the details, didn't want to know where Parker was going when he left on a job. Gonor wasn't the kind of man Parker usually worked with so she didn't think of him in connection with violence, but Parker knew she was wrong. Gonor might not be the right type for it, but now he was involved in something with the sharp metallic taste of violence all over it and he wanted Parker to get involved in it too.

  But it wasn't up to him to talk her into leaving. He shrugged and said to Gonor, “All right, go ahead.”

  “Fine,” said Gonor. But then, instead of talking, he turned away and began to pace, loo
king down at his feet as they touched the carpet. Pacing, looking down, he said, “Have you ever heard of Dhaba?”

  “No.”

  Gonor nodded as he paced, as though it was the answer he'd expected. “Dhaba,” he said, “is a nation. On the continent of Africa. Thirty-four months old on the first of April.”

  “I never heard of it,” Parker said.

  Formutesca, with that sardonic smile on his face again, said, “The world is full of little countries, Mr Parker. Togo, for instance. Upper Volta. Mauritania. Gabon. Mali. You don't hear of them unless they're involved in a war or a revolution. Like Yemen, or Nigeria.”

  Gonor said, “So far, Dhaba has had a peaceful life and has not appeared on the front pages of the world's newspapers. Unfortunately, that is soon to change.”

  Parker glanced at Claire, but she was watching Gonor with interest. So far it didn't mean anything to her.

  Gonor said, “I have the honor to represent my country at the United Nations. Mr Formutesca here, and the other two you met, are part of the mission staff. Our nation is led by Colonel Joseph Lubudi.”

  “Uh huh,” said Parker.

  Gonor glanced at him. “You have heard of the Colonel?”

  Parker said, “Hoskins mentioned a colonel. He didn't give the name.”

  “What did he say about the Colonel?”

  “That he wouldn't leave with less than a million.”

  Gonor looked displeased, but Formutesca laughed, saying, “Hoskins has an inflated view of our economy.”

  Parker said, “Every once in a while I read in the paper where the head of some little country raids the country's treasury and takes off to the Riviera. Is that what we've got here?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Gonor nodded and started his pacing again. “The Colonel has already made his raid,” he said, “but he has not as yet joined his money overseas.”

  “The money's out of the country?”

  Formutesca, his smile grim, said, “It's in New York.”

  “And where's the Colonel?”

  “Still in Tchidanga,” Gonor said, and explained, “our capital. He is not entirely trusted, and if he were to attempt abruptly to leave the country he would probably be hung from a handy lamppost.”

  “We have lampposts in Tchidanga,” Formutesca said. “We're very proud of them.”

  Gonor said something to him in that other language, quick and quiet, and Formutesca suddenly looked sheepish. In English Gonor said, “Happily, we learned about our Colonel's plans in time. Dhaba will be three years old on the first of June, and ostensibly in celebration of that fact Colonel Lubudi intends to travel to New York and address the United Nations.”

  “They'll let him out of the country then?”

  “He won't be traveling alone,” Gonor said dryly. “And you can be assured his luggage will be thoroughly searched, perhaps several times.”

  Claire said, “Would the Colonel put up with something like that?”

  Formutesca told her, “None of it will be happening out in the open.”

  “On the surface,” Gonor explained, “we are all very happy and trusting toward one another.”

  Claire said, “Why?”

  “Foreign investment,” said Formutesca.

  “European and American business concerns,” Gonor said, “tend to pull out of African nations at the first hint of trouble. Which is only natural.”

  “Not only is insurrection hard on factory buildings and equipment,” Formutesca added, “but revolutionary governments tend to nationalize everything they can get their hands on.

  “Whatever we do,” Gonor said, “must therefore be done with utmost discretion. None of us dares hint in public that we mistrust our president. None of us dares make a public move to stop his preparations for retirement at national expense. We can only try to learn his plans and keep them from happening.”

  Parker said, “His money's in New York. If I'm the specialist you're looking for, you want someone to steal the money back for you.”

  “Not exactly,” Gonor said, “but very close. We didn't merely want a thief; we wouldn't ask a thief to take the risks of safeguarding our national honor for us.”

  Parker nodded. “Besides, he might not turn it over to you when he got it.”

  “Also a possibility,” Gonor said. “So what we have been looking for is a planner, the sort of individual who organizes large-scale robberies.”

  Parker said, “You want me to plan the job?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who does it, once I plan it?”

  Gonor gestured at himself and at Formutesca. “We do. Four of us from the mission.”

  “Have you ever done anything like it before? Any of you?”

  Gonor shook his head. “No. But we are willing to learn.”

  “You're amateurs who—“

  There was a knock at the door. Parker saw Gonor and Formutesca tense. He turned and opened the door, and it was the other two. They came in quickly and one of them spoke to Gonor, who shook his head.

  Parker said, “Gone?”

  “Yes, I'm afraid so.”

  “He scares easy,” Parker said. “That's the second time today.”

  “Hoskins is a cautious man,” Gonor said.

  “So am I,” said Parker. “And so far I don't like what you're up to.”

  Gonor frowned. “Why not?”

  “You want me to train you to do something you don't have any experience at. You've gone around talking loose talk to a lot of wrong people, telling bees all about this pot of honey you know about. So there's Hoskins buzzing around, there's this other bunch buzzing around—who are they, anyway?”

  “I'm not sure,” Gonor said. “They trouble me, in fact. Three white men? Unless they are from Karns…but I don't believe Karns would have sent me to you and then sent others to tell you not to help me.”

  “They had accents,” Parker said. “Faint accents, maybe something like yours.”

  Formutesca said something, very fast. The other two looked excited and said things. Gonor shook his head, looking angry, and snapped something back at them. Then he turned away, saying, “I don't like his being involved.”

  “Who?” Parker said.

  “General Goma,” said Formutesca.

  “Yes,” said Gonor. He turned back to Parker. “You see,” he said, “Dhaba was formed from parts of two former colonies. There were certain white factions who wanted to retain control through front men, primarily through General Goma, who was the other candidate in our first election. But Goma's connection with the whites became known and he was defeated.”

  Formutesca said, “There was a rumor around for a while that he was building a mercenary army, going to take over anyway, but nothing came of it.”

  Gonor said, “Nothing could come of it. Mercenary armies take money, and General Goma has none. His white supporters are former colonists, and of course most of their valuables stayed behind in Dhaba. Without money, General Goma is no threat.”

  “So he's after the diamonds too,” Formutesca said.

  Parker said, “Diamonds?”

  “The Dhaba unit of currency,” Gonor said, “is the basoko. It is not a hard currency, of course, and Colonel Lubudi naturally didn't dare ship large amounts of it out of the country. In the first place, a great quantity of basoko in the world markets would attract attention to itself. In the second place, if his defection created a sufficiently large dislocation in his wake, the basoko could quickly become valueless.”

  “You can't retire on yesterday's currency,” said Formutesca.

  “So what he did,” Gonor said, “was convert basoko into real property and then reconvert that into diamonds, doing most of his conversions in South Africa.”

  Parker said, “Who has the diamonds?”

  “The Colonel's brother-in-law, Patrick Kasempa. He is married to the Colonel's sister, making him the one person in the world the Colonel can fully trust.”

  “They're here in New York,” Parker said,
“and they have the diamonds.”

  “Yes.”

  “They have guards around the place?”

  “They are well protected,” Gonor said.

  Parker shook his head. “What you've got here,” he said, “is a very sloppy setup. The diamonds are well protected, there's other groups also after them, and you've got people like Hoskins hanging around. You'll never do it without making noise and trouble, and you probably won't come out of it with the diamonds in your possession.”

  “With a professional to lead us—“

  “No.”

  Gonor looked at him. “You won't help us?”

  “You can't be helped,” Parker told him. “There's too many elements involved. The only thing for you to do is go to this Colonel and tell him you know what's up and that he won't get away with it.”

  Gonor shook his head. “We couldn't. If he knew we were aware of his plans, he would have no choice but to try to kill us or escape or both.”

  Formutesca said, “With your help, we could get the diamonds.”

  “No. Aside from everything else, you have a pigeon in with you.”

  Gonor frowned. “A what?”

  “A squealer, he means,” Formutesca said. “An informer. A traitor.”

  Parker said, “The three that were here before, the ones you said are working with this General Goma, they got here before you, which means they knew your plans; they didn't just follow you to me.”

  “Hoskins—”

  “Hoskins followed them” Parker said. “They probably talked to him when he was working for you and found out he wasn't any threat. But since then he's kept tabs on them, which is how he got to me. Because the only name he knew for me was the one I'm registered under, but the other three knew me as Parker. That could only come from your crowd.”

  Gonor said, “Yes. We must have someone in our group trying to safeguard himself in case Goma should win.”

  “It looks that way. It also looks like they'll get to the diamonds before you do.”

  Gonor shook his head. “No. They'll let us do the stealing and then try to take the diamonds away from us. Because I am the only one in the group, Mr Parker, who knows where Patrick Kasempa and the diamonds are.” He looked around at the others, then back at Parker. “There is no point in continuing this discussion,” he said, “until we have removed the traitor. If you will excuse us now, we will call on you again at a later time.”