“Too busy to come home for the holidays, was he?”
“Up to his neck in some new business venture, or other. You know what he’s trying to do? He’s convinced a fortune can be made by turning an old winery into a health spa.”
“At least he’s ambitious, Professor. You can be thankful for that. I have a brother who’s perfectly content to push buttons all his life as long as he can water ski and race boats on the weekends. Practically drives my father crazy. Health and fitness shows quite a lot of forethought, actually. It’s all the rage these days. More rich people wanting to get in shape than buy vintage wine.”
“Waste of a lot of good vines, if you ask me. Ah, here comes the lady.”
Their conversation broke off then, long enough to choose between chilled salmon and pasta salad or chicken cordon bleu, and whether or not they would like a plate of bread and cheeses before dinner. All this while being handed a warm steamed towel to wash with. The deliciousness that enveloped Meg at the anticipation of enjoying such luxuries (not to mention the adventure that lay ahead of her that was once again beginning to cause a little thrill to ripple through her at the mere thought) all mingled together to distract her.
Then, again, maybe just putting a safe distance between herself and Vidalia Harbin (a psychic, of all things!) was what made her feel better. At any rate, she momentarily lost sight of those “footsteps” she’d been following, and simply ignored the many little things that just didn’t add up.
Such as the professor’s frequent forays past the barrier curtain into coach, when he had presumably paid extra not to have to stand in line with ordinary people. Or during snatches of conversation when his son’s name kept alternating between Tom, and John, or even Robert. Or how, after returning from the lavatory, herself, she distinctly remembered her Bremen Tours bag had been sitting upright rather than on its side. Not that it mattered. She hardly expected anyone who could afford an international holiday to be interested in rifling through some fellow-passenger’s carryall.
“Will your son be meeting you in St. Louis?” Meg inquired politely, though secretly, it was beginning to prick her curiosity whether his son and that gentleman in the rain might not be one and the same. Absurdly farfetched. But hadn’t she asked for a second chance? Was she a woman of faith, or wasn’t she?
“That would be the day,” the professor replied. “No, he doesn’t even know I’m coming. I figure I’ll at least have until that bloodhound of his spills the beans. Might be just enough time to find out what’s really going on. You know he’s managed to liquidate nearly twenty percent of my assets without asking me? From overseas, yet. Up to no good, if you ask me. Been up to no good for a long time, now.” He sighed with a rather poignant despondency and pushed his half-finished dinner aside. “I think he’s trying to prove me incompetent.”
“Professor Anderson…” Meg swallowed the last bite of her salad as if it were pure ambrosia, dabbed her mouth with the cloth napkin (real linen!), and took a sip of her tonic water. No gin in it, of course, but she had purposely cultivated a taste for the tangy soda over the last few months because it contained quinine. Which was what a person planning a trip through the tropics should do. Back in 1894. “Are you sure he isn’t just trying to take care of you?”
He was tipping the brown pill bottle into his palm again, and gave an involuntary gasp when only one last pill rolled out that seemed at least twice bigger than all the rest. “Blast…blast! Who’s been” —he twisted around in his seat and glared back into coach— “tinkering with my blasted pills!”
The stewardess, who was now collecting dinner trays two seats ahead of them, turned around long enough to reveal a hint of impatience that was beginning to replace her former professionalism. She took two steps backward without losing an item off the overloaded tray, and said rather firmly, “Is there something else I can get for you, Mr. Anderson?”
“Another double gin!”
“I’m sure no one’s been tampering with your pills, Professor,” Meg soothed. “You’ve been popping them like candy all by yourself.”
“I don’t know many people who could choke down thirteen pills in less than an hour unless they were nothing but sugar,” he argued. “Somebody’s definitely been…”
“There, you see? We’ve been flying for well over two hours, already, and you had no idea. Which is just what mixing wine and spirits in the afternoon will do.”
“Listen here,” the professor insisted, “If I had taken that many of anything other than antacids, which is all they were, I tell you, I’d be on my ear about now. Wouldn’t you say?”
“I’d say it depends entirely on whether they really were antacids. Because if it was something like heart pills, or…”
“My heart’s strong as an ox.”
“How wonderful for you. Then again, if they were nerve pills…”
“Never taken a nerve pill in my life. Why, I’m in better shape today than I was at forty! And that’s why I resent all the bloodhounds. Especially the ones who treat you like some kind of mental case and tamper with your pill bottles.”
“I can see how irritating that would be.”
“Irritating! It’s degrading! But I’ll tell you something, Meg”—he took a long swallow of his fresh drink and then gave her a conspiratorial wink. “There’s a certain Mr. Gilbert Minelli who should still be wandering around that Paris airport, right now, wondering where the devil I got to this time.” The mere thought gave him a delighted chuckle.
“Hmmm. So that’s what became of him.” Meg took another sip of her soda. “Whatever is Tom going to say? Or is it John.”
“Not a thing, because he isn’t going to find out. That nincompoop Gilbert wouldn’t have the nerve to tell him. He’d get fired. You can’t beat an old fox! Look here…” He withdrew a folded, well-used map from another inside pocket, set his drink on her tray to clear his, and spread it out so she could see. It was a map of France, where someone had marked a neat red circle around a small town in the southern part of that famous peninsula known as Brittany. “Tom’s place is just outside of Port Louis, here, and when I pop in on him unexpectedly, he’ll have to…”
“Port Louis!” Meg gasped. “You mean St. Louis, don’t you? In Senegal?”
“No, I mean Port Louis, in France, where Tom has his blasted broken-down vineyard along the banks of some river in the countryside there.”
“But I distinctly heard you ask the stewardess if this was a non-smoking flight all the way to St. Louis.” Meg had a brief moment of panic, during which she could only calm herself by a reassuring glance over the back of the professor’s seat for a glimpse of her fellow Bremen Tour participants. Just in time to catch an accusing glare from Vidalia, who happened to be waiting at the end of a long line to the lavatory.
“Port Louis, St. Louis, what’s the difference?” The professor grumbled irritably. “There’s a St. Louis in Missouri, too, but I’m not worried we’re headed there – I just changed planes in Paris!”
“Oh, Professor, you’ve made a mistake! This is Air Senegal, it’s going to… “
“Of course I know we’re on Air Senegal, young lady, I’ve flown thousands of miles on these blasted African airlines! I often have business in Ghana. I’m going there at the end of the week.”
“Yes, but we talked about Bremen Tours…and how I was going to…”
“Bremen Tours ends up in Ghana. Does it not? I know because I happen to be a shareholder in that company. I like to help out young companies, now and then. I also happen to know they land first in Dakar. I’m headed that way, too. Next week. To get to St. Louis, Senegal, you have to change planes and double back from Dakar.”
“This airplane is headed for St. Louis right, now, Professor,” Meg argued. “It’s landing there first. But whatever made you think an African airline would stop off in some small city in France? It’s not a bus service.”
“Well it…” Now he glanced back toward coach himself before turning to her with an expres
sion that was beginning to show traces of confusion. “Why it must have been that nincompoop Gilbert! Doesn’t even have enough brains to get the tickets straight! He told me we didn’t need to change airlines. It was already one of the stops on our tickets and Tom would be…”
Now, his words slowed down and began to slur. Whether from all that alcohol or the pills, she had no idea, but Meg suddenly felt he was not only losing his grip on reality, but about to slip away entirely. “Whatever the problem, we’ll get it fixed,” she assured. “We’ll call Tom as soon as…”
“No-o-oh, we can’ tell Tom ‘bout this…” He lifted a hand toward his breast pocket, but it was as if he had shifted into slow motion and seemed to have trouble connecting. “We’ll tell ‘im…tell ‘im I had some bi’ness to take care of an’…went on ahead…then I’ll – blassst! Blassst-blasss…”
The clutch of items slipped from his hand and tumbled onto the tray. His wallet fell to the floor, and a cell phone skidded onto Meg’s lap before he finally came up with a white business card and shoved it toward her. “You call. Jus’ tell ‘im that…what I said.”
“I can’t call now, we had to turn these off, remember? But I will as soon as we get there. I promise.”
“Tell tha’ rascal his ol’ dad…has figgurd out what he’s up to…and he’ll never…” He folded his arms on the tray in front of him and laid his head down, then. “Get away with it… ‘cause I…blass-it-all, now I am tired…”
“Oh, honestly!” Meg retrieved the small airline pillow that was wedged between their seats and placed it under his head. She tucked the cell phone back into his pocket and then turned the business card over in her hands.
J. T. Anderson
Professor Emeritus, UCLA Film Institute
Yes, film institute! This must certainly be her second chance at that divine appointment. It had to be. Because what were the odds of being randomly upgraded to first class, only to be seated next to an authority on filmmaking? At the very moment she was taking her first hesitant steps toward her dream of producing educational films! But what did his son have to do with any of it if he didn’t even live in the country? Of course, meeting the son might eventually have led to meeting the father. Especially if the conversation had taken that sort of turn. The only question now was…
What exactly was she supposed to do next?
Gold Trap
5
Mistaken
“My deplorable ignorance of French prevented me from explaining my humble intentions to them.”
Mary Kingsley
The stewardess glanced at the professor, sleeping peacefully now, with his head resting comfortably on the airline pillow. “That was easier than I thought,” she whispered to Meg. “I was expecting at least one attempt at lighting the pipe.”
“He didn’t get off when he should have,” Meg whispered back. Nearly everyone in first class was either reading quietly or dozing, now, and they both kept their voices low. “He’s on the wrong plane! I think he was supposed to change planes back in Paris!”
“Professor Anderson?” The stewardess shook him gently.
“It won’t do any good,” Meg informed her. “Between all that alcohol and those pills, he’s taken enough to drop an elephant.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be too concerned. Lots of people overdo things a bit when they’re nervous about flying. He’ll probably just sleep the rest of the way and be glad when it’s all over.”
“He isn’t nervous about flying, he just doesn’t trust your African airlines with all their…”
Meg caught a slight glimmer of disdain flicker briefly over the beautiful young face. The woman had no accent, but perhaps she had lived abroad somewhere and simply had a knack with languages. Whatever the reason, it didn’t hide the fact that she was clearly insulted at the inference. “I mean, well…what do we do if he doesn’t wake up? Personally, I don’t think he’ll wake up for days.”
“Then we’ll take him off in a wheelchair and call for a doctor. The airport handles these kinds of problems all the time, Miss Jennings, so you really shouldn’t let it bother you. Besides, I’m quite sure he intended to go to Africa, tonight. At least he seemed sure enough when he had your seat switched to first class.”
“What? You mean it wasn’t just a courtesy upgrade?”
The stewardess shook her head with a slow, rather mocking smile. Or was she imagining things? A call button bell went off in the first row, and the young woman turned to see who had rung. Then she looked back at Meg and smiled again. “Maybe he just wanted to talk to a private investigator…I never would have pegged you for one of those!”
“What? Oh, honestly! That was just something Vidalia…”
The stewardess left Meg talking to herself and returned to her duties.
“Well…well, of all things!” Meg looked back at the professor, again. Sleeping like a baby. Imagine someone paying good money to have a perfect stranger upgraded to first class. It all seemed rather desperate in a sad sort of way. But whatever his reasons, he had definitely managed to get himself into a bad situation, now. And Meg was not the kind of person to leave anyone in the lurch at a time like that.
Hadn’t he said he was in some kind of trouble?
Which was why she remained in her seat and did not get off the plane when they finally landed in St. Louis. When Vidalia (who was the last person to leave on account of her seat assignment) finally passed by, she was in fine high spirits, and reached over the sleeping professor to give Meg an enthusiastic shake.
“What do you think, girl? The tour guide ended up in your seat, and he personally knows a genu-wine witchdoctor! Gonna introduce me! And wait ‘til you see what he give me. It’s a…”
“You can show me later, Vidalia,” Meg answered, having no desire for a close inspection of some dried toad, or lizard’s tail, or any other piece of fetish a witchdoctor might consider valuable. “Right now, I’m going to make sure this gentleman gets settled into the nearest hotel and call his family.”
Vidalia leaned over the professor for a closer inspection. “Just drunk if you ask me. The old coot! Serve him right if you just…”
“I’m taking him to a hotel. They’ve already called for a wheelchair, and…”
“You gonna be way late, I can see that right now. I’ll register for us both and make sure we get the same bungalow.”
“Oh, you don’t have to…”
“I want to!” A peal of delighted laughter bubbled out of her as she hurried her large bulk down the deserted isle. “Kindred spirits gotta stick together!”
Kindred spirits! After that, Meg waited nearly half an hour in the deserted plane. Where was that stewardess? It seemed everyone had forgotten about them. Just when she figured on taking things into her own hands, a wheelchair came in. Propelled by a dark man who looked more like a passenger than a skycap. He was wearing a shiny, multi-colored shirt that reached almost to the knees of his slacks, and a fez-type hat on top of his head to match. He also had a thick gold chain around his neck, at the center of which was some primitive rendition of a crocodile with an enormous red eye. It was her first glimpse of the real Africa.
“Finally!” Meg said. “I thought everyone forgot about us.”
“It isn’t easy to find a wheelchair at this hour, Megan Jennings.” The voice was deep and hypnotic, as if laced with some kind of poison. “It is nearly midnight. Yes.”
There was something odd about him. Something that made her uncomfortable. His face looked as if it had been chiseled out of rough black granite, and he had three peculiar lines on his left cheekbone, just under his eye. Those eyes looked very cold and impatient, but it may have been from having to deal with the task at hand.
“The witching hour. Yes.” He flipped the armrest up and grasped the sleeping professor under both arms to drag him into the waiting chair. Then he pulled a black bag from an open upper bin, smacked it onto the professor’s lap, as if it might keep him securely weighted into the chair. “There.” He
rolled the large wheels backward a few feet to let her pass. “You are free.”
“You don’t look like an airline employee.” Meg pulled her carryall over her shoulder, stepped into the isle, and started toward the door. “Where’s your badge? And how did you know my name?”
“It is our policy to call everyone in first class by name. I will show you my badge when we get inside. Watch your step. The stairs may be slippery.”
Looking back on her arrival, Meg tried to console herself with the fact that any decent person would have done the same thing she did…only no decent person had. Of all the people on flight two ninety-two out of Paris that day, she was the only one who felt compelled to accompany the sleeping professor to his fate. Eventually, even the airline people bowed out.
And that small city in Senegal wasn’t what she expected, either. Even though it was nearing midnight, Meg knew the moment she stepped down off the set of metal stairs rolled up against the plane, that the runway was not paved. What’s more, there were no other planes around. Not even one.
Instead of the “wind tinged with the ever present smell of burning grass,” she had read about in books, she was met with a warm, rather sticky dampness that carried with it the bold announcement that they were practically on the ocean. Having been an ocean-dweller herself for the first half of her life, she could tell. She could also tell in one sniff that the tide was low, and the main occupation for locals must be the fishing trade.
At the bottom of the stairs, she turned around in time to see the professor’s head whip back and forth as his wheelchair lurched down the steep steps, with the skycap barely hanging on behind. After that, progress was irritatingly slow over the unpaved ground, and a thought suddenly occurred to Meg. She was going to miss her connecting ride to the traditional village compound in the historic town of Podor, on the Senegal River.
Gold Trap Page 4
