Silent Partner

by Leigh Brackett

  “I know,” said Sherifian, his carefully toneless voice making no comment.

  “Well,” said Tony, “this other one, the Marlowe Foundation, Sunset Boulevard, Pacific Palisades, forty thousand dollars’ worth of carpets and art objects, special order. That’s a name from the past. It’s a foundation for the study of comparative religion and pretty damned well endowed. Anyway, Karim took a lecture course there when we were at UCL. He was raised as a strict Shia, but he was curious about the rest of the world. There’s nothing strange about them giving him an order; only he never mentioned that one either, and it seems as though he would have. I mean, he was out on the coast in September that year, and I remember driving right past the place. I said something about it was still going, and Karim just said yes and never mentioned that we had just sold them forty grand worth of stuff."

  “Ah," said Sherifian, “that is most interesting." He made notes in the swift, graceful Arabic characters on a separate slip of paper, clipped it to the two invoices, and set them aside. “Mr. Maktabi shall have these—he will come here at about eight. Do you wish to continue working, Mr. Wales?"

  “Sure," said Tony. “Just give me some food and a little time to get the kinks out of my back."

  Sherifian nodded and went out to talk to Ali about dinner. Tony rose and stretched. He was stiff with sitting, and his head was clogged with the pungent smell of Sherifian's Turkish cigarettes. He went to the door and opened it and stepped out into the blue-tiled portico, into cool fresh air.

  Swift, silent, sudden as the flash of a dream, the shapes of men came springing at him from out of the dark garden.

  He cried out in sheer astonishment. A great hand crashed the sound back into his throat and choked him with it. He was buffeted, shaken, dazed, all in a clutch of seconds, his attempt at defending himself smashed before it started. His arm was wrenched up behind his back, and he was held pinioned while a face appeared in the lamplight and looked at him.

  And there was no further doubt.

  “Hello, Tony,” Karim said, and motioned his men on into the room.

  14

  There were two of them beside Karim and the huge iron creature that was holding Tony. They had guns with snouty baffles on them. Sherifian came in from the back of the house with his eyes startled and his right hand under his coat, when they shot him, the guns sounded like champagne corks popping in another room. Beyond Sherifian as he fell there was a cry cut short in the middle, and then two more men appeared, stepping in over Sherifian. Tony was half lifted, half thrown into the room, his shoulder cracking, his mouth gaping with pain. Everyone stood quietly now. The air smelled of gunshots and Turkish tobacco. Karim was looking at the papers on the table, the neatly stacked records of Hassani-Wales.

  Light footsteps clacked over the tiles of the portico, and a seventh man came in. He was small and thin, with hollow temples and cheekbones that showed sharp under his sallow skin. He was a bookkeeper, shoulders slightly stooped, eyes remote behind steel-rimmed spectacles, a nothing man, the sort you have to remind yourself to say hello to. He paused and looked at Tony, and the cold malevolence in this wisp of a man was more frightening to him than the brute force of the giant who was crushing his wrist to powder.

  "Saad.”

  Saad drew his long thin lip back from his teeth. "Mr. Wales.” He added something brief and harsh in Persian and then turned to Karim, who had picked up the two sheets Sherifian had laid aside with his notes. He showed them to Saad, and they both glanced at Tony. Then Saad spoke to the two men who had come in through the back, and they went out again, hurrying. The others began tearing the bundled papers apart and piling them in a loose pile on the floor. Tony tried twice to speak, and each time he was silenced. When they had the papers heaped in a good way to burn, they poured a strong-smelling fluid around the edges and over the top and set fire to it. Flame burst up with a rush and a crackle. The room began to fill with smoke. They all went out, taking Tony with them. Tony began to struggle and protest. Almost at once he was on his knees in the gravel and Karim was bending over him, speaking softly.

  "Yadollah broke Harvey’s neck with one blow. He can do the same for you.” He struck Tony, forehand, backhand, twice across the mouth. “Get up and do as you’re told.”

  Tony got up, tasting blood in his mouth and black bitterness in his soul, and he went where Yadollah guided him, moving with the jerky swiftness of a puppet, half running. As he passed through the inner gate, he saw a man lying on his face in a bed of petunias and knew it was the guard.

  There was a car parked beside Sherifian’s in the paved area at the rear. Karim held the door open, and Yadollah put Tony through it, then followed him in. One of the men got behind the wheel. Karim and Saad hurried around the car and in the other side. The remaining man opened the wooden gate for them, closed it behind them, then crowded into the back seat beside Tony.

  The car moved through the streets of Teheran, a city as modern as Pittsburgh, thronged with traffic, lights glaring from the movie houses, shop windows filled with the latest imports. There were many women among the street crowds, and quite a few of them had renounced the chador. There were policemen on duty and traffic lights, and Tony watched it all go by, watched in silence, motionless as a clam. Yadollah had relinquished his grip on Tony’s arm, but the man on the other side had the baffled muzzle of his gun pressed into Tony’s liver so firmly that it hurt him every time the car hit a rough spot. Tony did not know the city well enough to follow the route the driver was taking. Evidently it was the shortest one out of town, for in a matter of minutes they were passing through industrial suburbs, quiet and shuttered at this hour, and then there were dark fields and walled gardens and villages that became more and more scattered as they went.

  Tony sat wedged between the man with the gun and the iron bulk of Yadollah, who was so far, apart from his size and strength, no more than a jut-jawed, hawk-nosed profile under a felt hat. In front, Karim’s head was silhouetted against the faint glow of the dashboard lights. Tony stared at it, feeling very strange. He searched himself for emotions and could not find any, not even fear. It was as though everything inside him had simply crawled away into hiding.

  Oddly, the first and only question he asked was, “Where is Ellen Lofting?”

  “She’s alive,” Karim said, and went on talking intently with Saad in Persian. It sounded as though they were quarreling.

  So Ellen was alive. That was something.

  Tony did not know what difference it was going to make to him. Even so, he was surprised at how glad he was.

  They drove for what seemed a very long time, going fast, first on the paved road and then on a rough track that rocked and heaved across open desert, making the springs cry out in protest. Naked spurs of rock and bald ridges showed against the stars. The car wound between them until all sense of direction was lost and all civilization vanished behind them in dust and darkness. Then there came a smell of water into the dry air. Tony caught a glimpse of trees as the headlights swung, poplars growing thick as grass behind a tall mud fence, and in a few minutes a walled village appeared ahead, barred and sleeping, a small fortress in the night. The driver stopped at the gate and sounded his horn impatiently. Dogs began to bark. The wooden valves, black with age and use, swung open under the arch. Men came out and spoke to them, lighting their way in with an acetylene lantern. Yadollah yanked at Tony, and everyone except the driver got out.

  Tony saw an open space of hard-packed earth enclosed by the wall and a straggling semicircle of adobe buildings, their flat roofs cubed sharply against the stars. Dogs ran about, big, sturdy curs barking their heads off. Sheep were complaining somewhere nearby; goats bleated; an aroused donkey brayed. There was a comfortable smell of smoke and animals. The car moved away, presumably into hiding. The men began shutting the gates. Yadollah reached for Tony, and Tony said to Karim, “Tell your ape to keep his paws off. I'll walk.”

  Karim spoke to Yadollah, who shrugged and fell into step beside
Tony but did not touch him. The semicircle of buildings was broken by narrow openings, and they walked into one of these, a dusty street straying between houses that pretended to be sleeping even if they were not. Karim carried a flashlight from the car. He guided them into a very narrow alley that branched off the street, and they went into it two abreast, their shoulders rubbing the buildings on each side. The alley curved and wound and ended at a doorway in a blank wall. Karim opened it. They passed through a shed with big iron pots looming between wooden bins that gave off strange herbal odors mingled with the smell of wood ashes. Beyond this was an open court and then a long room with a loom and a weaver’s bench at one end. The tall loom had a carpet in it, half-finished, brilliant flowers patterned on white. Somebody lighted a lamp, and the other end of the room sprang out of obscurity, a psychedelic scream of color where the yarn hanks hung crisscross in an ordered tangle between the dun-brown walls.

  It was a large room, with plenty of space for everyone. They all came in, and the last one shut the door behind them, and Tony thought he knew why they had brought him here. He looked at Karim and said, “My friend. My murdering brother.”

  Emotion returned to him in a kind of red wave that flung him straight at Karim’s throat.

  For one glorious moment he felt flesh, sinew, and the surging pulse between his hands, and he tried his best to kill, amazed even in that moment at his own savagery. Then something struck him from behind, and he fell. Yadollah caught him and laid him out on the weaver’s bench.

  When he came to, Karim was standing over him, tall and dark, the white glare of the lamp slashed across his face so that it was all hard highlight and deep shadow.

  “You fool,” he said. “You idiot.” His voice was low, and his eyes shone as bright as a butcher-bird’s. “Why couldn’t you be content to count your money and play with your dolls?”

  Yadollah stood hugely at Karim’s right, and Saad drooped on the other side, a gray little wisp of evil, immensely competent. The man with the gun stood leaning against the door. Tony was afraid, terribly afraid, but there was a difference between now and that other time in Soho. Now he could endure being afraid. He did not yet know for how long.

  He said, “How did you find me? Everybody was so careful.” All the long flights and furtive scurryings, such a waste of time.

  “Did anyone think we would accept that tax audit without checking into it?” Karim was scornful. “We had the accountants watched; we saw Sherifian in contact with them and knew it was a blind, followed Sherifian to the villa. Obviously somebody was there, and who else would it be but you?”

  Tony nodded. “I guess so, after that ride I didn't take on the freeway.” He sat up on the high, broad bench. His head and neck hurt, and he rubbed them, looking at Karim, puzzled. “Why did you bring me all the way out here to kill me?”

  Almost impatiently Karim said, “The time for that was California, and they bungled it. You've already done all the harm you can do, forcing us out in the open. Killing you now would get me nothing but the pleasure of doing it, and besides, I have another use for you. Now I want to know how you got to that villa, from the beginning.”

  Tony hesitated. He didn't know whether to believe Karim or not, about keeping him alive; but it was a cheering thought, and he clung to it. It was extremely difficult to gather his mind together, to think of what he ought to say.

  Karim pointed with his chin at Yadollah. “I don't think you have an endless amount of hero in you, Tony. I'd advise you to hoard what there is for a better time.”

  Yadollah bared broad yellow teeth and swung his hands, smiling.

  Tony decided that Karim was right. In any case he couldn't think of anything he could tell them that they wouldn't know or be able to guess. So he talked.

  Karim translated for Saad. They asked questions, coming back over and over to Maktabi, making Tony repeat every word that had passed between them.

  Wearily, for the tenth time, Tony said, “All he knows about the Lion is that it exists. He wanted one clear sign that you were connected with it, and you gave him that yourself tonight.”

  “I wouldn't take the glory from you,” Karim said grimly. “You’re a real heller when you do get going. Saad had to protect the network—he's the comrade, my watching conscience—and I had to protect my people at this end, so we had to destroy the records. And of course, to do that—”

  “You had to kill Sherifian and Ali and the guard. Sure. That's crystal clear. But what about all the rest of the records? There was only one year of them at the villa, and even without me Maktabi and Corbett can make a lot of time, now that they know.”

  “We hadn't finished collecting the rest for the audit. They were still at the office. I have a bit of news for you, Tony. Hassani-Wales doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “You burned out the office, too?”

  “That's where the other men went. We're in touch here, of course, by radio, and word was waiting. Not a cinder left.”

  Saad spoke, and Karim smiled grimly at Tony. “Saad has just asked me if I'd give him five minutes alone with you. His operation here is scrubbed, and he's got to run for it, and he hates to go without saying good-bye to the one responsible. I'm tempted, but I can't stand the little bastard."

  “Then why are you working with him?” Tony said. “And what's so noble about you? Murdering people, trying to tear your country apart—”

  Something came into Karim's face, a fleeting gleam of that pure and lofty faith that transcends all human matters—love, friendship, loyalty, compassion, honor, even common decency. And Tony understood how Karim had been able to kill Harvey Martin and why he would be able to do anything that was required in order to gain his end. He shivered as though a cold and sudden wind had blown through him.

  Karim said, “You have a hard trip ahead, so I would advise some sleep. Yadollah will take you.”

  “They'll pick up your father,” Tony said. “They'll pick up everyone you've ever spoken to.”

  “They’ll have to find my father. As for the others, they don’t know any more than you do. You’re a little bit late, Tony—you and Maktabi. Harvey came at a critical moment. He could have blown it. But we have everything we need now, so the network closing off doesn’t bother us. And even if they did manage to take my father, or me, it wouldn’t affect the plan. As long as one of us is alive and able to function, we’re all right. I’ve taken care of that. American efficiency, Tony.”

  “Good old UCLA.” Tony stood looking at him, trying to match together the several faces of Karim, and something came back to him from the old days. He laughed, without humor. “You told us a story once about the three students, Omar Khayyám and Nizam something and the third one who grew up to be Hasan the Assassin and a kind of bad friend. Makes you something like the Young Man of the Mountain, doesn’t it? Did you know this even then, Karim? When we were, oh, Christ, eating hamburgers and drinking beer at Muscle Beach?”

  “Yes,” he said. “All of it.” He turned away abruptly. "Yadollah!”

  Yadollah shoved Tony out through the door into the courtyard and up a narrow flight of steps to the roof of the weaving room, which served as a porch for the upper rooms. There was a light pole canopy covered with reeds and, underneath it, a doorway. The door, Tony noticed, was extremely solid and had a massive bar across it. Yadollah lifted the bar and pushed him into a room with carpets on the earthen floor, a brightly decorated chest, and a lamp burning in a niche in the wall.

  The door banged shut behind him, and the bar thumped down, and Ellen Lofting looked up from where she was sitting on the carpet under the niche, reading a book by the light of the lamp.

  She dropped the book and stared, then sprang up and took the lamp in her hand and brought it to him, to light his face clearly so that there should be no mistake.

  “Well,” she said, and took two steps backward, shaking her head. “I will be damned."

  Hesitant and unsure, he said her name.

  She put the lamp back in t
he niche, and her hand trembled, and then her whole body. She turned and came tightly against him, her arms holding him fiercely as if he were a rock in a current that was trying to sweep her away, and she made no sound at all but only clung to him and shuddered. And he stroked her awkwardly, not knowing what to say or do.

  15

  She moved away from him at last.

  “I'm sorry. Seeing you like that, without warning, someone from my own world—something snapped. I’m all right now.” She sat down and shook a cigarette from a red packet and lighted it, her hands still unsteady, then looked up at him with a curious mingling of interest, doubt, and simple hostility. “I don’t know whether I'm glad or sorry. How did you get here? I mean, did you do it deliberately, or was it just another typical Tony Wales operation?”

  “Both,” he said. She was thinner, the fine, long bones of her face more distinct. Her hair was longer, but otherwise as he remembered it, and her eyes had not changed. They were still blue, direct, and devastating. He joined her on the floor because there weren't any chairs, and it dawned on him that he was very tired and very hungry. “Is there anything to eat? We—"

  After a minute she said, “We what?”

  “We never got our dinner. Sherifian and Ali . . . Christ, they’re both dead, and I’m hungry.”

  She looked at him intently, and her expression changed. Wisely asking no questions, she rose and fetched him a bottle and glass from another wall niche, then went into an adjoining room. Tony ignored the glass and had a long pull at the bottle. Elizabeth I, Irani Scotch. The thick book Ellen had dropped was Sykes’ History of Persia, Volume II. She came back in, and he said, “You do yourself pretty well at that.”