The Black Ice Score

by Richard Stark

  He looked at himself, looked at the knife, looked at the body. There was no more sinus breathing.

  Shakily, Formutesca smiled. I did it, he thought. He wanted to say it aloud, but he resisted. He felt no more fear, no more revulsion. It was accomplished, and everything after this would be routine. He felt vast relief and a great deal of pride.

  Now he knew what army men were talking about when they mentioned the baptism of fire.

  Because he'd cut so deep there had been much more welling up of blood than with Manado. It was hard to get his knife clean; the handle was also smeared. He did what he could, wiped his hand on his corpse's trouser leg, then put away the knife and went back into the elevator.

  Manado's face in the ceiling opening was the face of a brother. Formutesca smiled up at him and saw the surprise with which Manado smiled back. Then Manado lowered the guns to him and dropped back down again. Formutesca handed him one of the guns and led the way out of the elevator.

  The stairs were in the middle of the building. They turned on no lights, the spill from the elevator giving them enough vague illumination as far as the staircase. From here on they would prefer darkness.

  They were closer than they'd planned, the elevator having stopped on the second floor. They moved slowly enough to be silent.

  As Formutesca was about to start up the stairs Manado touched his arm. Formutesca looked at him questioningly and Manado leaned close to whisper, “I'm all right now.”

  Smiling at the silliness of that, Formutesca nodded.

  “It was just the waiting,” Manado whispered. “But now I'll be okay.”

  6

  Lucille Kasempa had been awake since the second explosion. She'd thrown a robe around her heavy body and come out to the hall to find her husband's brother Ralph standing there wearing nothing but trousers and a pistol.

  She'd said, “Where's Patrick?”

  “Went downstairs with Albert.”

  The fourth brother, Morton, had come out then wearing even less than Ralph. Only the trousers, no gun. The three of them had stood around asking each other what had happened, and finally Lucille had gone down to the elevator and pressed the button to bring it up so she could go down and see for herself what was happening, but it hadn't come.

  And now she was beginning to worry. They'd been down there too long, and there wasn't a sound.

  She didn't like this. She'd had a foreboding from the beginning, from the time Joseph had first come to her with his scheme for getting his money out of the country. “Why do it?” she'd asked him. “In Tchidanga you have everything. You're president of the country, you have power and prestige, you're rich. Why give it all up?”

  But he'd said, “How much longer do you suppose I can hold on to this thing? If Goma doesn't get me, Indindu will. The two of them are out there, both after my head, both after this job. Goma's got the whites behind him, Indindu's got the army and the diplomatic staff behind him. It's only a matter of time—a year, maybe less than a year. I'd rather be a Faruk than a Diem.”

  And she was the only one he could trust. He'd said that, and she'd known it was so. But she'd left Tchidanga with a heavy heart, and it wasn't just because she was giving up the life she loved, the social position, the importance of being the president's sister. It was also this sense of foreboding, this fear that the scheme wouldn't work. They were doomed; they were bringing down upon their heads a violence none of them would escape.

  That was why she'd insisted on the children's going to boarding school in Scotland. She didn't want them anywhere around when it happened, if it happened.

  If it was happening now.

  She had always thought of the Blessed Virgin Mary as her special protector, her patron saint. She had always prayed to the Blessed Virgin. In her bedroom at home there was a small shrine to the Blessed Virgin. She had always come with all her troubles to the Blessed Virgin.

  But how could she pray now? For a month that had troubled her. How could she ask the Blessed Virgin's aid and intercession now? How could she say, “Help me help my brother rob his country, betray his trust, cheat the people who gave him his high office?” How could she ask that? All she could do was say, “Blessed Virgin, although you cannot condone what I am doing, still I pray you understand why I could not refuse, and for the sake of my children help us through this hour of trouble.”

  Was help not to come?

  She could hear nothing from downstairs. How long had it been now, ten minutes, fifteen minutes?

  If only there were an intercom in this building. There certainly should be.

  Maybe she would be able to hear something at the staircase. She started in that direction, and all of a sudden around the corner there she saw two men coming.

  All in black.

  With machine guns in their hands.

  She shrieked and flung herself at the nearest door. She fell through, rolling, the door banging against the wall, and heard the sudden vicious chatter of the machine guns behind her. Ralph and Morton had been farther down the hall, exposed, vulnerable.

  She had never moved so fast in her life. She rolled to her feet; she grabbed the edge of the door; she slammed it. There was a latch on the inside, and she locked it, even though she knew it could only delay the inevitable for a few more seconds.

  She was in Patrick's insomnia room. A game of solitaire was in progress on the table. A notepad there had obscure rows of numbers.

  Patrick? He had gone downstairs. Those two men had come up from downstairs. Patrick could no longer be alive.

  She shook her head, having no time to think about Patrick now, Patrick or anything else. She hurried to the window, flung it open to the cold damp air, and stuck her head out. “Help!” she cried. “Help!”

  The fire escape was down to the right, three windows away. Even a circus performer wouldn't be able to get there from here.

  Would no one hear her? “Help! Please, help!”

  No lights went on in the row of black buildings before her. Nothing happened.

  The door crashed open behind her. She spun around, flattening her back against the wall beside the window. The two men came in, and one of them stood in the middle of the room while the other one came over and shut the window. He smiled crookedly at her. “Not in New York,” he said. “It is well known no one listens in New York.”

  He had blood on his face, on one sleeve, on the knee of his trousers. She stared at him in horror.

  He continued to smile. “You have nothing to fear from us,” he said. His voice was insinuating, like a seducer's. “Just tell us where the diamonds are,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I don't know. My husband kept them; I don't know what he did with them.”

  He stopped smiling. Mocking her, he looked troubled. As though he really worried about her, he said, “We aren't going to have to force you to tell us, are we? We don't want to have to hurt you.”

  She looked at the other one still in the middle of the room, his machine gun pointed at her head. He looked so young, so much more innocent than the other one. Would he stand by and let her be tortured?

  He'd have to, of course. The older one must be in command here.

  She wouldn't be able to stand torture, she knew that.

  It was all over now, all Joseph's plans, just as she'd feared. Even if she didn't tell them, even if she let them kill her without telling them, they wouldn't have to search very hard to find the diamonds. So it was all over, no matter what she did.

  The important thing was to stay alive. For her own sake, and the sake of the children.

  She said, “You won't kill me?”

  “Why should we kill you?” It was the same seducer's voice he used, and it made her know he did intend to kill her. But the other one? Would he stand for it if she cooperated, if she pleaded with him, mentioned the children, did whatever they asked?

  She said, “Down to the right. The last room on the left. In the closet. There's a pair of overshoes in there.”

 
“In the overshoes?”

  She nodded. “In two cloth bags inside the overshoes.”

  He said to the younger one, “Watch her,” and left the room.

  She looked at the younger one. Wasn't his face familiar? She felt as though she'd seen him somewhere. At some diplomatic function perhaps, or some social occasion in Tchidanga.

  She tried to smile at him, but it didn't work very well. She said, “You don't have to kill me, you know. I won't cause you any trouble.”

  He didn't say anything, but she thought she detected sympathy in his expression. She said, “I have three children, you know. They're all I care about, not the diamonds or politics or anything else. I wouldn't want to leave them alone, with no one. So you don't have to kill me, you can leave me here, and I promise you I'll never—”

  The other one came back in. He nodded to the younger one and patted the pocket of his jacket. “Got them,” he said. He turned and looked at Lucille and said, “I'm sorry.”

  Looking at him, meeting his eye, she realized with a shock that he was sorry. It wasn't mockery after all; he was deeply troubled by what he was doing here tonight.

  Too late she understood she'd made her appeal to the wrong one.

  7

  Aaron Marten stood at the window looking out over Riverside Drive and the Hudson toward New Jersey. A few lights defined buildings over there even at this hour of the morning.

  Jock Daask said, “It's the woman I'm thinking about.”

  “I'm sure you are,” Bob Quilp said.

  Marten listened to the voices behind him and looked at the lights across the river.

  Jock was saying, “How do we know she isn't in trouble with the police herself? She's traveling with a wanted man; they could be after her, too. And here we are giving her to them.”

  Still facing New Jersey, Marten said, “Can't be helped. We warned them to stay out of it.”

  Bob said sarcastically, “You could go on up there tomorrow and untie her if you wanted. Untie her legs, anyway.”

  Marten did look around then, frowning at Bob. “That will be enough of that,” he said.

  Bob shrugged, a sardonic smile on his face. “Just trying to be helpful.”

  Jock came walking across the room toward Marten, a pleading expression on his face. “Aaron,” he said, “what difference does it make? Why can't we let him live? We'll be in Africa, for heaven's sake. He'll have his woman back. Why kill him?”

  Marten shrugged. “I don't want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for him,” he said. “It's as simple as that.”

  Bob said, “He must have impressed you tonight.”

  “He did.”

  Jock said, “Why? Why is it all different now? Why change the plans at all?”

  “I don't want him alive,” Marten said, and turned his back and looked out at the river again.

  Was this the first time in his life he had actively desired the death of another man? Marten thought it was. There had been other moments when the death of this one or that one, known or anonymous, was necessary to the completion of something else that Marten wanted, but this was the first time that the death itself was the goal.

  He thought it was Parker's eyes, or perhaps the bone structure of his face. He didn't know what it was exactly, but talking with Parker tonight, listening to his voice, looking at his eyes, watching him move, he understood that Parker was the most dangerous man he had ever met, and that he had made himself Parker's enemy, and that he would not sleep securely at night so long as Parker was still alive. He had had the irrational urge to pull out his pistol and kill Parker right then, almost as a nervous tic, but he had controlled it. Not until afterwards, he had thought, not until we have the diamonds. We need him alive until we have the diamonds.

  But afterwards he must die.

  Bob broke the silence behind him at last, saying, “Shouldn't we be on our way?”

  Marten turned around again. The clock on the mantel said not quite two fifty. “Not yet,” he said. “We don't want to be there too early.”

  “I don't understand that,” Bob said. “We'd do better to be there ahead of them, that's what I say.”

  Marten shook his head. “We wouldn't. Parker was right about that. If we get there first, we're likely to leave traces when we break in. Then Gonor and the others come along, they see marks on the door or whatever, and they don't come in at all.”

  Bob shook his head and started to pace around the room.

  “I don't trust Parker,” he said. “I don't like doing things to his suggestions.”

  “Why not?” Marten spread hs hands, saying, “If there's something I'm not seeing, Bob, I'm willing to listen.”

  Bob made an angry gesture and kept pacing.

  “Parker wants to tell us the truth,” Marten said. “He wants us to get the diamonds, because he wants his woman back. After that he may be dangerous, but not before.”

  “I don't trust him.”

  “Bob, there's nothing he can do to us. There's no way he can get at us. He doesn't know where the farm is and he doesn't know about this apartment. He can't find his woman without our help and he can't find us.”

  Jock said doubtfully, watching Bob pace back and forth, “But what if he's guessed we mean to kill him?”

  “Then he wouldn't tell us anything. It doesn't do him any good to send us on a wild-goose chase. Say this museum isn't where they're taking the diamonds. Say we go there at five o'clock and break in and the place is empty. What good does that do him?”

  “He might have warned the police,” Bob said. “It could be a trap.”

  Marten shook his head. “What good does it do him? He wants his woman. If we don't get the diamonds we don't call him; we don't tell him where she is. Believe me, he's sitting in his hotel room right now next to the phone waiting for us to call, hoping we don't lose out to Gonor and his people.”

  “It makes sense,” Bob said grudgingly. “It's smooth and it's easy and it makes sense. But I've just got a feeling.”

  “I hope you're wrong.” Marten told him. “I think you are. I don't think Parker is stupid, and it would be stupid for him to try to double-cross us. We hold all the cards.”

  Bob shrugged. “I hope you're right,” he said.

  8

  Until he heard the explosions from inside the museum, Gonor sat quietly in the truck smoking his pipe, watching the rare automobile drive by, once watching a police car roll slowly down the block without its occupants appearing to take any interest in the truck, watching the silent and empty street, thinking about the past and the future, thinking about Major Indindu and the future of Dhaba and thinking about the future of himself.

  The first explosion, muffled but unmistakable, broke into his calm and reflective mood, making him tense and nervous, and the second explosion made him far too jittery to sit still.

  He knew he shouldn't leave the truck. If something went wrong inside the museum, Formutesca and Manado would come out at a dead run expecting him to be in the truck ready to start the engine and get them away from there. But he couldn't help it; he had to move. He had to get out and stand and move and walk around, even if only for a minute or two.

  He left the pipe on the dashboard and stepped out on to the sidewalk. The air was damply cold with a chill that went straight to the bone, but he didn't mind. It was too pleasant to stretch his legs, to move around.

  He looked at the museum and noticed lights on now on the top floor. There seemed to be no signs of trouble, so he started to walk. He walked up toward Park Avenue halfway to the corner and was about to turn and go back, when he noticed the car parked across the street. Was that paleness in there a white face?

  Maybe it was Parker come back after all to be sure things were going well. But no, it couldn't be. That wasn't the way Parker did things.

  So who was it? Someone watching, intending to steal the diamonds once they were brought out of the building?

  It was too much of a coincidence, someone's waiting
in a car on this block at this hour in the morning. It had to be somebody involved, somebody after the diamonds. Hoskins maybe, or one of Goma's men.

  Gonor turned away, acting as though he'd noticed nothing. He walked back toward the truck and then past it and on down to the corner. Then, hurrying, he crossed the street to the right and went down Lexington Avenue to Thirty-seventh Street and so around the block, coming at the car from behind. He moved cautiously on the dark street, his pistol in his hand now held against his side out of sight, and when he reached the car he was surprised to find it empty.

  Had he made a mistake before? Had there been no one in the car at all?

  He heard a tiny scraping sound behind him and spun, and someone standing there poked a hard finger into his stomach. He saw it was Hoskins, his face distorted with strain, and then the hard finger exploded in his stomach and he never knew anything again.

  9

  Hoskins stepped back quickly and watched Gonor fall against the side of the car and then crumple and drop to the ground. So it's going to be bloodshed, is it? Hoskins thought, as though the decision had belonged to someone else but he had expected it. Waiting around, all this time, but knowing that sooner or later it would have to start.

  After Walker had done that strong-arm business the other night, hanging him out the window, Hoskins had decided the time had come to play things a whole lot cagier. There were too many hard cases involved, and if Will Hoskins was going to come out of this with the boodle in hand and his head on his shoulders, it was obvious he was going to have to play a quiet and cautious game.

  Quiet and cautious, that's the ticket. Let the hard cases flex their muscles and push each other around. Old Will Hoskins, watching it all from the background, knowing a little bit more than any one of them about what all of them were up to, would know when to move in, when to make that one effective move that would bring him home the bacon and leave the strong-arm boys with egg on their faces.