by Ross Thomas
“Thanks. What’s the note for?”
“Remember that little old bar halfway between here and Barkandu—The Colony? The place where the American called Mike was?”
I nodded.
“Give him that note on the way down. Go ahead and read it.”
The note said: “Mike: if you’re running what I think you’re running, I’ll need some. Madame Claude Duquesne in Ubondo is my contact. Shartelle.”
I folded the note and put it in my pocket. “You can get her killed this way,” I said.
Shartelle puffed on his cigar and looked at me thoughtfully. “I reckon that’s my business, boy, and hers.”
William drove the LaSalle to the front of the porch. The top was up. He came in, looked at me, started to say something, changed his mind, picked up my bag and carried it to the car.
“I’d better get packed myself,” Shartelle said. He gave me a half-salute as he moved towards the bedroom door. “If you change your mind, Pete, let me know. You’re about the world’s third-best flack. We could use you.”
I nodded. “So long, Shartelle.”
He paused at the bedroom door, puffed on his cigar, and gave me his wicked grin for the last time. “So long, boy.”
Anne was still sitting on the couch, holding the glass of brandy. I sat beside her. “It doesn’t end here, you know.”
She looked at me and in the eyes that I knew so well there was hurt and pain. “It’ll never end for me, darling. I’m just sick, is all. I’m sick because you’re going and because I have to stay. I’m sick because I can’t be with you.”
“It’s not for long.”
“I’ll write every day.”
“I’ll be moving around.”
“You’re going back to London.”
“For a while.”
“I love you, Pete.”
“The house on the beach. Remember that.”
I kissed her then and held her. “I love you,” I said. And then I thought about the line that went: “… loved I not honor more.” I was fresh out. When I felt her sobs, rather than heard them, I kissed her again gently on the forehead, rose and walked through the door, down the steps, and got into the car. I sat in the front seat with William. He made no objection.
“Let’s go,” I told him.
“Barkandu, Sah?”
“The airport.”
I looked back, then. Anne sat on the couch in the living room of the wide-eaved house. She was framed by the open French doors. She sat very still, holding the half-empty brandy glass in her hand. She didn’t look up as we left. She seemed to be crying.
William drove fast and the old car took the curves well. We were stopped only once by soldiers and made it to The Colony in forty-five minutes. I got out and went inside. The man called Mike was leaning against the bar, listening to Radio Albertia explain the necessity for the coup, and watching his ceiling fan go around and around. There were no customers.
“What’ll it be?”
“Scotch. A double.”
He nodded, moved behind the bar, and poured the drink. He slid it across the mahogany to me.
“Some trouble, I hear.”
“Lots of trouble.” I handed him the note. “It’s from Shartelle.”
He read it and tore it up. He nodded his thanks.
“You staying?” he asked.
“No. Are you?”
“For a while,” he said. “Perhaps business will pick up.”
“Guns?”
He just looked at me. “Have a drink on the house.” He poured us both doubles. I drank, thanked him, and started to leave. I stopped at the door and turned. “Did you know Shartelle before?”
He nodded again. “We met. A long time ago in France. He thought I was French until he stepped on my hand and I called him a son of a bitch.”
“He said he knew you.”
“He has a good memory.”
I got back in the car and William drove to the airport in fifty minutes. It was jammed, but a representative of the Consulate got my ticket confirmed. I had twenty minutes to wait. “I’ll buy you a drink,” I told William.
I had another whisky; he had a beer. “Where’s your brother?”
“He in school, Sah. Very good school that Madam Anne make for him.”
“Will he go tomorrow?”
William looked puzzled. “Yes, Sah. He go every day.”
I nodded. “What do you want more than anything else, William?”
He smiled shyly. “I want taxi, Sah.”
“One of those Morris Minor things?”
“Yes, Sah.”
“How much do you need?”
“Much money, Sah. Three hundred pounds.”
I took out my wallet. I had 132 Albertian pounds left. I gave them to William. “Make a down payment,” I told him. “It’s from Shartelle and me.”
They called my plane before he could thank me. I shook hands with him and he followed as far as Passport Control would let him. I got on the plane and it took off. It was just another plane ride. It flew out over the ocean, turned, and flew back over the Barkandu harbor towards the Sahara and Rome. I looked down only once.
“Some harbor,” I said aloud. The man next to me pretended not to hear.
Chapter
28
Two months later I was sitting in my brand new office, in a brand new newspaper building, in one of those brand new towns that they build on the east coast of Florida out of nothing but water and swamp. The sign on my door was new, too, and it said Managing Editor. I was sitting there, with my feet on my new desk, reading my daily letter from Anne Kidd who wrote: “They’ve begged me to stay on for another six months as principal of the school. I won’t be a P.C. volunteer, just a private schoolmarm. In six months I can train someone to take my place and then leave. I don’t think I can explain why I agreed. I just hope you’ll understand. Do you?
“I saw Claude yesterday and she gave me a note from Shartelle to send to you. I’m going to copy it verbatim:
“‘Small but growing counterrevolution in West Africa seeks competent, well-rounded public relations director to assume full responsibilities. Chance for rapid advancement. Our employees know of this ad.’”
I read the rest of the letter, folded it and replaced it in my pocket. It was the fourth time I had read it. Another time and I would have it memorized.
George Sexton, the wire editor, came into my glass-walled cubicle and handed me a long yellow sheet of AP copy and a Wirephoto. I looked at the Wirephoto first.
“Don’t you know those guys?” Sexton asked.
I knew them. There were four in the picture: Dekko in the middle, looking appropriately grim and resolved. Jenaro to his left, a wide smile below his wraparound shades. Dr. Diokadu was on Dekko’s right with the usual sheaf of papers under his arm. Shartelle was in the picture by accident, to the left and the rear of Jenaro. He looked as he always looked in pictures: as if he were trying to remember whether he had turned off the roast.
“I know them,” I told Sexton and picked up the story. It was by Foster Mothershand and the dateline was Barkandu. It was a mailer and the editorial precede said it was the first interview with Chief Dekko since the coup. It was a well-written story and ran at least two thousand words. Shartelle apparently had made good on his promise to the old AP man.
I read it quickly. Dekko, operating from deep in the bush, was causing the new military government a lot of grief, and it seemed likely that he would cause a lot more. Mothers- hand mentioned Shartelle in passing and then devoted about five hundred words or so to a think-piece type summary on the future of Albertia. It wasn’t particularly cheerful.
“Cut it to eight hundred words and run it on nine,” I said. “Give Mothershand his byline.”
“How about the picture?” Sexton asked.
“Crop the guy on the left—the white man with the black hat.”
“Isn’t that your buddy?”
“He doesn’t like publicity.”
&
nbsp; “Sort of miss the excitement, don’t you, Pete?”
I looked at him. He was only twenty-three years old. “No,” I said. “I don’t miss it.”
He went back to his desk and I reached into the bottom drawer of mine and took out my lunch—a pint of Ancient Age. I swiveled in my chair and looked out of the big plate glass window that formed one wall of my office. It faced the street. Across the street was a one-story motel and beyond the motel was the ocean. I opened the Ancient Age and took a drink. Two small children, a tow-headed boy and a girl, walked by, flattened their noses against the plate glass, and studied the Managing Editor at work. I toasted them with the pint, took another drink, and put it back in the bottom drawer. The boy stuck out his tongue at me.
I turned to the typewriter, put a sheet of copy paper in, thought a moment, and typed:
ANNE KIDD
c/o USIS
UBONDO, ALBERTIA
WEST AFRICA
REURMESSAGE TELL SHORTCAKE DOWNTAKE HELP-WANTED SIGN. WORLD’S THIRD BEST FLACK ARRIVING SOONEST ENDIT SCARAMOUCHE
I yelled for the copy boy, gave him ten dollars, and told him to trot over to Western Union and send the cable. “If they can’t do it, call it in to RCA.”
I looked out at the ocean once more, then picked up the phone and dialed a number. I did it before I changed my mind. When the voice came on it was the girl’s and I knew it would take longer. The man was quicker.
“I would like to make a reservation on the first flight you have leaving for New York tomorrow morning,” I said. That was easy. She could confirm it. “I would also like to make a reservation on the next flight from New York to Barkandu.” That was harder. “Barkandu is in Albertia,” I said. “Albertia is in Africa.”
There was a long wait while she called New York on another line. Then she came back on the phone and said, yes, she could confirm that for tomorrow at 4:15 P.M. Eastern Standard Time out of Kennedy. She had one more question, and she had to ask it twice, because I had to think about it for a while. When she repeated it the third time, I said: “No, I don’t think so. Just make it one-way.”
I hung up the phone and sat there for a moment, staring at nothing. Then I got up, told Sexton I was going out for lunch, crossed the street, walked around the motel and down to the beach. It was late October and the season hadn’t started. The beach was deserted. I sat on the sand and looked at the ocean. Three small children chased a large dog down near the edge of the waves. The dog barked merrily and wagged its tail. Then the children turned and let the dog chase them for a while. They kept it up for a long time and nobody ever caught anybody. I sat there, watching them, trying not to think. But the thoughts came anyway.
After a time I rose and brushed myself off. The children and the dog were still running up and down. I bent down and picked up a pebble and threw it at them. Or maybe I threw it at Africa.
I didn’t hit anything.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1967 by Ross Thomas
cover design by Jason Gabbert
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