Heat of Passion

by Harold Robbins

  “I don’t think he is. He’s skimming a grand or two a week, not enough to make a difference in the long run.”

  “Then what do you think he’s up to?”

  I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t know. But I can feel the con in my bones.”

  “Tell me what your bones are saying.”

  I told him about Eduardo trying to get me to sell the mine. And not wanting a bonus for setting up the deal.

  “He didn’t ask for money? Holy shit, bubba—uh, Win, you’re right. That motherfucker wouldn’t pass up a nickel if it was wedged between a croc’s teeth. I can think of one thing he might be doing.”

  “Holding back production to reduce the price of the mine?”

  “You guessed it.”

  “It’s a possibility. At first I thought the mine was salted to take Bernie to the cleaners. After I got rid of the notion that the mine had been salted, my next bet was that it was being skimmed blind. That’s not happening either, probably because Eduardo would have to have you and every other supervisor in the place in on it.

  “Then I figured maybe he deliberately keeps production low to reduce the mine’s output, but I’ve talked to foremen who have worked other mines about how much they pulled out. Eduardo seems to be about on par in terms of how much dirt they haul out per man-hour. And we haven’t hit blue dirt, that’s a certainty. You can tell we’re still in the yellow stuff just by looking at what’s coming down the conveyor belt.”

  “But you still think he’s got something up his sleeve?”

  “He could have asked for ten percent of the sales price as a finder’s fee, fifty thousand in his pocket even if he was getting a fee from the buyers. If I didn’t think something was up, I’d have agreed.”

  Cross blew smoke rings. “Yeah, he’s got something going all right. Hell, for that kind of money, you could almost buy my loyalty.”

  “I told you, if I make it, you make it.”

  “Yeah, trust you? A guy who’s never worked a job or made a dime in his life? You’re gonna start running a mine tomorrow and get us rich?”

  “Cross, one thing you need to learn in life, people are consistent. Losers never make it big. And achievers succeed at anything they try. Running a diamond mine isn’t any more complicated than winning a race in a sailboat.”

  “You are full of shit.”

  “True, but go back to the consistency thing. I’m a winner, in everything.”

  “I guess you’re telling me that I’ll always be a loser.”

  “No—”

  “Forget it, I was just falling back into my usual prissy-ass crap about my impoverished childhood and that silver spoon up your ass.”

  “Well, are you going to give me a hand with the dirty work?”

  “Where do you want to start?”

  “You gave me an idea when you talked about how Savimbi dealt with insubordinate employees. We could stick a hot poker up Eduardo’s ass and make him drink Drano.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Cross chugged down the last half of his glass of whiskey. Afterward, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and eyed me quizzically again.

  “Okay, wise guy, tell me, how do you know that my diamonds didn’t come from the mine? They feel the same as river diamonds once the oil’s been boiled off. What’s this secret your old man taught you?”

  “Eduardo had choice roughs, all over a carat, all flawless. Your stones were a mixed bag, some good, some bad, nothing really sensational, just the sort of stuff the garimpeiros pull out with their shovel-and-bucket method.”

  I got off the bed.

  “What my old man taught me was that people are consistent. A thief is a thief his whole life, even if he only indulges once. And an honest man doesn’t steal. If you had had one flawless diamond larger than a carat I would have known you got it from the mine. And I would have shot off your left nut.”

  32

  Cross used his security keys to open the door to Eduardo’s quarters. The living room was dark. Light came from a crack around the door to the bedroom. We crept across the room and I listened at the door. I recognized the sounds—the groans and moans of two-legged animals humping.

  Having less finesse than me, Cross kicked open the door. Eduardo was sprawled spread-eagle on the bed and Carlotta was on top of him in a female superior position. Both were naked. Carlotta screamed and Eduardo bucked her off, moving his hand under his pillow.

  Cross pointed his gun at Eduardo’s face. “Take your hand out, slowly.”

  I retrieved the gun from under the pillow while Eduardo and his woman squawked.

  “Did you know that humans are the only animals that fuck face-to-face?” Cross said. “I read that in a book somewhere.”

  “This is—”

  “Grab your clothes,” I told Carlotta, “and get out of here.”

  Eduardo struggled into his pants. “This is outrageous, you will pay for this intrusion, I have powerful friends, you will be dead by morning.”

  Funny—in America or Europe, people would threaten to call the police. In Angola, the threat is that you’ll be murdered.

  “Let me give it to you in simple terms, Eduardo,” I said. “You have been stealing from me, stealing the mine blind. You’ve been skimming the cream of the crop off the grease table.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “No, pal, it’s butt-fuck you time. Watch him while I take a look around.”

  He had a three-foot-high black safe in the corner of the bedroom. “We’ll need to persuade him to give us the combination,” I said.

  “Forget the safe,” Cross said. “They’re loss leaders in Angola, nobody’s stupid enough to put anything in them except junk. With this guy, I’d look for a secret compartment, floor, wall, ceiling.”

  He was right. I found the hiding place under the sink in the tiny kitchen. I removed boards from the bottom of the sink cabinet and found a cigar box full of wrapped diamonds and a waterproof pouch containing paperwork.

  The look on Eduardo’s face told me I’d hit pay dirt.

  Cross whistled as I unwrapped diamonds.

  “This bastardo wasn’t a piker, was he?”

  “Fuck you,” Eduardo said.

  Cross hit him in the mouth. “You’ve been stealing on my watch, compadre. And you didn’t even offer to cut me in on it.”

  “These are superior roughs,” I said, “all will cut down to at least a carat, all flawless or near flawless, fifty grand worth at least, even the ten cents on the dollar you get here.”

  Eduardo started mouthing another threat and I sat down beside him, shook my head, and gently told him, “It won’t work, pal. Colonel Jomba isn’t going to be happy at all.”

  Eduardo’s face went gray-green and his eyes bulged. “Jomba doesn’t have anything to do with this, you know that.”

  “I can’t keep it from him.” As I spoke, I began examining the paperwork in the pouch. “When he came by, he took me aside to talk about you. He got word that you were skimming from the mine and not kicking back to him. One of the foremen tipped him off that you’ve been treating the grease table like your own private cookie jar. Jomba wasn’t happy at the news, Savimbi himself told him to straighten out the mess.”

  “Jomba is insane. Keep the diamonds, I don’t care, I’ll go to Luanda and be with my family.”

  “That’s really nice of you to let me keep what you stole from me. Hey, what’s this?”

  I pulled out the deposit history to a Swiss bank account. “Over three hundred thousand dollars.”

  Cross shook his head. “Holy shit, this guy is something else.”

  “How long’s he been manager?” I asked.

  “Two years,” Eduardo said, “but half of the money came from the last mine I ran.”

  “Okay, so with fifty grand in the box and half of three hundred thousand in the bank, you’ve ripped me off for a couple hundred grand. Which means you ripped Jomba and Savimbi off for a hundred grand. Not to mention what you owe them on thefts from the last mi
ne you ran.”

  Eduardo was sweating bullets. “Jomba will kill all of us if he finds out.”

  “Actually, he offered me a reward, half of whatever I recover.” I looked up at Cross. “What do you think Jomba will do to him?”

  Cross laughed. “You don’t have to threaten him. He knows. Don’t you, Eduardo? What do you think? Maybe slice pieces off your arms and legs, an inch at a time, and toss them to his dogs? Slice your tongue down the middle for lying to him? When you’re nothing but a bloody stump, he’ll hang you up in the middle of town for the flies to—”

  Eduardo slumped forward and I caught him before he hit the floor in a faint. We got him back into the chair and I shook him awake.

  “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do, Eduardo. When the banks open in Switzerland tomorrow, you’re going to do a telephonic transfer and transfer everything in your account to my account. And then you’re going to get a head start before we tell Colonel Jomba.”

  We tied up Eduardo so he couldn’t go anywhere and left the room. Cross would sack out in the room to make sure Carlotta didn’t help Eduardo escape.

  When we were out of Eduardo’s hearing, Cross asked, “You really plan to tell Jomba? He’ll take a big cut if you do.”

  “And if I don’t, I’ll be the one taking a cut. What do you think the chances are that Jomba has someone at the mine on his payroll or just scared shitless enough to keep him advised?”

  “It’s a sure thing someone at the mine’s reporting to him.”

  “And Cross.” We stopped and faced each other. “You get ten percent of whatever is left after Jomba grabs his piece. The rest will go to run the mine.”

  “Thanks. And hey, I think you’re right about Eduardo. The diamonds he bled from the mine weren’t enough to make a big difference to the bottom line. That means he’s up to something else.”

  I held up the pouch of papers. “I’m going through these tonight. Maybe he left tracks in them.”

  33

  Eduardo and his honey took off after I supervised a money transfer from his Swiss account to my New York bank. It felt like something foul had been swept from the mine. With the threat of Jomba after them, I figured it would be a long time before they raised their ugly heads.

  My first official act was to promote the foreman who had been giving me lessons in diamond mining. I put him in charge of the daily operation of the mine, reporting directly to me.

  I had coffee with Cross out on the verandah of the living quarters.

  “I found a geologist’s bill in Eduardo’s paperwork, someone from Cape Town,” I said. “There’s no report, just the bill.”

  “It wouldn’t be unusual for an Angolan mine to use a South African geologist. Was it for the mine or someplace else?”

  “For the mine.”

  Cross shrugged. “Probably nothing to it. The mine gets geological studies now and then to direct the tunneling.”

  “I know, I saw them in the mine files. But there are two things unusual about the bill. It’s not from the firm that has done studies in the past. More importantly, the bill says it was for the Blue Lady but Eduardo paid for it out of his personal funds.”

  Cross snorted. “Eduardo was so cheap, he wouldn’t pay for his mother’s funeral out of his own pocket.”

  “Another thing, he had the bill hidden with his cache of stones. It must have been awfully important to him. And something he wants to keep secret.”

  “Why don’t you call the geologist and have him send you a copy of the report?”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. Eduardo claimed that the people who want to buy the mine are a group of South African businessmen. He might have been lying, but he might just be thick as thieves with this geologist and this South African group. I want to check the geologist out first, hire an investigator, see if he’s legit, what his reputation is, maybe even pay a cold-call visit on him in Cape Town. It’s harder to say no or lie face-to-face in person.”

  “I have a friend who’s security chief at a South African mine. Mining’s a small world. He might know something about the guy.”

  “See what you can find out. In the meantime, get ahold of Jomba. Eduardo and Carlotta should be in Luanda by now if they hired a charter. We have to show him Eduardo’s paperwork and settle up with him. I don’t want him to get the idea that we’re slow at paying.”

  “Uh, bubba, don’t look now but I think you have a problem.”

  The shift foreman was running toward us. Cross and I got up and met him at the bottom of the stairs. He was so excited that he burst into an African language.

  “Portuguese,” I told him, “speak Portuguese.”

  “He’s telling you there’s a problem in the mine,” Cross said.

  “Slow down, what’s the problem?”

  “Water is coming into the tunnels.”

  “From where?” It was a stupid question, water from underground rivers and streams was a constant problem with the mine.

  He jabbered again so fast in Portuguese and an Angolan dialect I couldn’t understand him.

  “That bastard,” Cross said.

  “Who?”

  “Eduardo went down into the mine before he left and had the graveyard shift remove the latches from all the watertight doors. He’s flooding the mine.”

  “What? What do we do?”

  “We? You got someone in your pocket? You’re the new mine manager. Start managing.”

  PART 5

  MARNI

  34

  Clipboard in hand, Marni watched Angolan workers unload a truck into a UN aid warehouse in the small town of 9th de Outubro. The town name of October 9th had once been named 28th de Julho, July 28th, for the day it was liberated from the Portuguese during the war of independence, but had changed several years before when the UNITA renamed it for the date they “liberated” it.

  A worker let a sack of rice fly off his shoulder. The sack ripped open as it hit the truck’s bumper and rice spilled out onto the ground. A crowd of women and children watching the unloading made a mad dash to grab handfuls of the rice.

  “Damn it!” Marni threw her clipboard on the ground. “That’s the third bag you people have broken. I saw you, I know it was deliberate. Sonofabitch!”

  She stormed away, heading for a cold-water dispenser set under the shade of a tree. She patted sweat from her face with her handkerchief, then poured cool water on it to cool her neck.

  Michele LaFonte, another aid worker, picked up the clipboard and joined Marni in the shade. She laughed as she handed Marni the board.

  “I see you’re following the training manual on how to deal with indigenous workers.” Michele’s English was overlaid with a heavy French accent. She was Marni’s supervisor and teacher.

  “Aren’t throwing tantrums in the manual? Sometimes it’s the only language they understand.” She nodded toward the truck being unloaded. “They’ve been dropping bags deliberately, aiming them at a jagged edge on the bumper so they’ll burst. That food is sent from halfway around the world to feed them and their people and they sabotage it. The people scooping it up are in league with the ones dropping it.”

  “Let me guess, they demanded more money for unloading, were late starting, are dragging their feet—”

  “All of the above. And they especially don’t like to take orders from a woman.”

  “It’s a loss of status for them.”

  “That’s how it started, they demanded more money just because I’m a woman and then they turned to sabotage when I refused. I just wish there was a dose of reality in those manuals I read about Third World relief before I got here. The books left out the part about the fleas that leave ugly sores on your ankles, the food that turns your stomach into a volcano until you’re puking lava, the mosquitoes thirstier than the Vampire Lestat. They don’t even mention the time difference. There is no concept of time here, at least not one I understand. These people come and go when they please, work when they damn well want to, and only sho
w up for sure if it’s time to get paid.”

  “Tell them what I’ve been telling my crew—the cost of every damaged bag will be deducted from their pay.”

  “Good idea!”

  In a jumble of Portuguese, Umbundu, and the international language of hand signals, Marni got across the fact that she was going to deduct broken bags from their pay. A howl went up from the workers but they went back to work, handling bags more carefully, after she threatened to fire the whole bunch of them.

  “Good work!” Michele said when she came back into the shade.

  “I’m still learning. I wish I had your command of the language in dealing with these people. And your balls.”

  “You will, it’s just a matter of practice. And survival.” Michele’s features turned grave. “Word has come from the south that two of our people and ten Angolan workers were killed in an ambush of a food convoy.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “The names haven’t been released yet. I’m praying none of my friends were killed.”

  “Jesus, what an awful way to die. Being murdered when you came here to help. Do they know who did it?”

  “There’s no word yet, but they usually never really know anyway. Oh, the government will send out patrols, or Savimbi’s UNITA will send them out, there’ll be some fighting and an announcement that renegade government troops or renegade rebels or someone else did it and has been punished, but we never know who’s telling the truth. Things will be quiet for a while and then in a month or two there’ll be another attack, food and trucks will be hijacked, and some of us will be killed.”

  “You have a wonderful sense of fatalism, Michele. The kind that makes me want to pack up and head home.”

  “It is a paradox, isn’t it? UN, Red Cross, missionaries, we all come here to help these people who have been so brutalized by war and the food and medicine is hijacked to be sold on the black market by some of the people we’ve come to help.”