The Black Ice Score p-1

by Richard Stark

  His experience of the United States got him offered the post at the UN mission, and the ambivalence of his feelings toward the United States made him accept. Would it be different in New York City from in the Midwest? Would it be different for a member of a UN mission rather than a student? Not much.

  In a way, it was America’s ambivalence toward him that first made him consciously a patriot about his homeland. He saw that Dhaba with idealistic men at her helm could eventually offer everything America offers, and without the left-handed taking away. He wanted that; he wanted it badly.

  Badly enough to be sitting here in this darkness, a machine gun cradled in his lap, waiting to steal and to kill.

  Could he kill? He hated the Kasempas for their rape of his homeland. He was afraid of them for their reputations as brutal men. What the hatred and the fear would combine to form he didn’t yet know. He had never killed anyone, had rarely ever fought with anyone. He had a secret admiration for men like Parker, who could face the bloodiest possibilities without flinching, but he believed he could never be like them.

  He heard movement, a rustling sound, and knew it was Formutesca looking at his watch again, reading the green fingers of the luminous dial. Then Formutesca whispered, “Two o’clock.”

  Time. Manado nodded, even though Formutesca couldn’t see him, and moved on hands and knees to the rear of the truck dragging his machine gun behind him. He looked out the window in the door and the street was empty, so he pushed the door open and climbed out to the street, leaving the machine gun on the floor of the truck.

  Formutesca climbed out after him. “Start unloading,” he said and went around to talk to Gonor in the cab of the truck.

  Manado brought out the ladder and propped it against the rear of the truck. Then he got his own machine gun, found Formutesca’s, and wrapped them both in an old pink bedspread and laid the package on the curb. Finally he took out the long wooden toolkit and put that also on the curb. He shut the doors, and Formutesca came back.

  “All set,” Formutesca said.

  Manado looked up at the museum’s top-floor windows. They were dark; they’d been dark for over an hour now.

  Formutesca carried the ladder; Manado carried the toolkit and guns. They crossed the curb and walked to the building next door to the museum. Formutesca had a key that would open the inner door. There was no one around.

  They couldn’t use the elevator; they didn’t know whether the superintendent could hear the motor or not. He had seemed unusually conscientious Parker and Formutesca had both said so and he just might come out to see who was moving around in his building at two in the morning.

  So they climbed stairs to the fifth floor, and Formutesca led the way down the hall to the men’s room. He switched the light on and Manado said doubtfully, “Should we do that? What if somebody sees?”

  “We can’t work in the dark,” Formutesca said.

  “We have flashlights.”

  Formutesca shook his head. “Parker says people don’t pay any attention to an ordinary light in a window,” he said. “But they see a flashlight moving around, right away they think it’s a burglar.”

  “I suppose so,” said Manado, but the bright light continued to bother him. It made him feel exposed, as though hundreds of people were watching. Unconsciously, he moved with his shoulders hunched.

  Formutesca was the one who’d been through this before, so Manado allowed himself to be taught. Formutesca showed him how the ladder was placed and then said, “You go across. Take your time, and you’ll be better off it you look straight ahead. I’ll hold the ladder steady at this end.”

  “All right,” said Manado.

  “You going to take the guns?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get up on the windowsill and I’ll hand them to you.”

  Manado had no particular fear of heights, but crossing a space five stories up on a ladder was making him very nervous. He crouched on the windowsill while Formutesca handed him the package of guns, then put the package down gently crosswise on the ladder. He pushed the package ahead of himself and went crawling slowly out over the air.

  In a way, he was glad this was happening at night. All he could see below him was blackness, with only the ladder itself and the roof rim ahead illuminated by spill from the window behind him. The package of guns gave him something to think about too, besides his nervousness.

  He got across, lowered the package to the roof without making a clatter, got on to the roof himself, and turned around to signal to Formutesca that everything was all right.

  Formutesca called softly, “Hold it steady for me.”

  “I will.”

  “One minute.”

  Formutesca left the window, and Manado saw him walk over to the door and switch off the light. They wouldn’t be coming back this way, so Formutesca would have to cross in darkness.

  Nothing happened for quite a while, and Manado understood that Formutesca was waiting for his eyes to adjust. Manado stood leaning on the end of the ladder holding it steady and waited. Now that the light was out, now that he was safely across the emptiness, he felt much better. The darkness cloaked him. His presence on this roof meant the enemy’s stronghold was already breached. Manado was beginning to feel good.

  A small clatter, and vibration of the ladder against his hands. Peering across there, he saw that Formutesca had placed the toolkit on the ladder. Now here he came, pushing the heavy box ahead of him, moving slowly.

  When the toolkit was close enough, Manado took one hand from the ladder and lifted it over on to the roof. Then he helped Formutesca over the edge, and the two of them pulled the ladder over and laid it down on the roof. They had to leave the window open over there; they had no choice, but it shouldn’t matter.

  The day’s drizzle had ended several hours ago, but the air was cold enough so that a wet, slushy slickness covered most of the roof. They had to walk carefully carrying their equipment, and Manado wondered what would happen if he lost his balance and fell, the machine guns crashing around.

  But it didn’t happen. They got to the elevator housing, and Formutesca used the key to unlock it. Now they did use a flashlight, seeing that the interior was as Parker had described it. The elevator was just below them on the fourth floor. Apparently, the Kasempas kept it on the first floor during the day for security’s sake but didn’t bother about doing that at night.

  In the toolkit was a coil of rope. While Manado got it out, Formutesca climbed inside the elevator housing and stood spraddlelegged on the metal beams in there. Manado handed the rope in to him, and Formutesca tied one end to the central beam, being sure it was on tight and secure. The other end he lowered on to the elevator top, where it lay looped like a brown snake. They’d brought enough to reach the first floor, just in case.

  While Formutesca climbed back out of the housing, Manado was getting the gloves from the toolkit. They worked now in silence, having gone over the details of this time and again with Parker. They both knew their parts.

  Manado handed Formutesca a pair of gloves and put on the other pair himself. Then he climbed in where Formutesca had been. Their flashlight had a magnet on the side and was now attached to the housing, pointing down. In its light, Manado grabbed the rope and lowered himself slowly to the top of the elevator.

  It made a metallic popwhen he stood on it, like a cooling oven, not loud, but startling in the middle of silence. Manado froze, one hand still on the rope, and listened. But there was no more sound, and when he looked up, Formutesca already had the other rope around the package of guns and was lowering it to him.

  Manado eased the package down and untied the rope. As Formutesca pulled the rope back up, Manado opened the bedspread, smoothing it out over a large area of the elevator roof. It would muffle any more sounds they might make and it would keep them from getting filthy from the years of accumulated dust up here. He left the trapdoor area clear, and he put the two machine guns out of the way to one side.

  The toolk
it came down next. Manado got it, set it on the bedspread, and then gathered in the rope as Formutesca dropped it to him. He rolled the rope into a ball while Formutesca slid down the other one. Light and shadows flickered crazily for a minute, since Formutesca was bringing the flashlight down with him, and when Manado looked up he felt one sudden instant of irrational and superstitious fear. Like himself, Formutesca was dressed entirely in black, shoes and trousers and mackinaw and gloves, and sliding down the rope there, the flashlight beam bouncing this way and that, he looked absolutely satanic, lithe and lean and dangerous.

  Manado felt the instant fear, and then he thought, That’s what I look like too, and all at once he felt very good. Not afraid of anything.

  Standing beside him, Formutesca looked at his watch and whispered, “Ten after. Not bad.”

  Manado was grinning. “I’m ready to go right now,” he whispered.

  Formutesca grinned back at him. “I know what you mean. It’s too bad we have to wait.” He looked around. “Well, we might as well get ourselves comfortable.”

  Manado’s grin faded slowly. Comfortable. Wait. His good feeling evaporated as fast as it had come. He looked up, the top of the housing indistinct up there now that the light source was down here. All at once it seemed as though they were in a grave.

  “Sit down,” whispered Formutesca, who had already done so. “I want to switch off this light.”

  Manado sat down, and Formutesca switched them into darkness. They had had to leave the housing open up there, and damp, cold air was settling in. Manado shivered.

  4

  Patrick Kasempa couldn’t sleep. It was the usual thing. He sat in the small room at the rear of the top floor, what he called his insomnia room, and he played hand after hand of solitaire. He never cheated, he rarely won, and he kept track of his record on a notepad he kept just to his right on the tabletop.

  He never had insomnia at home in Tchidanga, never. It was the climate that did it; he’d known that for years the clammy climate of Europe and North America affected him badly. He always had insomnia when he traveled north from Dhaba. Only in the soft nights of the tropics could he find normal sleep.

  Another two months of this. He didn’t know if he could last; he wasn’t sure how much longer he could take this. Joseph had made his move too early, that was obvious. He should have waited another three months before starting; he should have organized his timetable better. The result was, here they were, seven hundred thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds in their possession, sitting here like monkeys in a treetop waiting for some hunter to notice them and shoot them out of the branches. It was enough to keep a man awake even if he didn’t have insomnia to begin with.

  The answer was, Colonel Joseph Lubudi was a stupid man. And the Colonel’s sister Lucille, whom Kasempa had married out of misplaced ambition, was as stupid as her brother or they wouldn’t be here now. No, the two of them would be in Acapulco at this very minute with the diamonds, rich and anonymous and safe. And asleep.

  But no. They had to stay here in New York, this ugly city, this clammy graveyard, the whole city dank and gray. It’s a wonder anyone could sleep in a place like this. They had to stay here another two months; they had to wait for Lucille’s stupid brother to make his stupid move, to be caught, to be torn to pieces by an enraged mob and the pieces to be buried in some potter’s field somewhere. Thenthey could go to Acapulco, not before.

  “Joseph will get away,” Lucille kept saying. “You’ll see.”

  Bah.

  The fact was, Colonel Lubudi would notget away, and Kasempa knew it. The Colonel had handled this whole affair so sloppily it was a miracle they hadn’t been found out yet. Would his enemies let him out of Dhaba without first counting the governmental knives and forks? Nonsense. Joseph was a dead man, and Patrick Kasempa knew it.

  But he couldn’t tell that to Lucille. He could hint, he could talk around it, he could try to make her understand it herself, but if he were to directly advocate their disappearing with the diamonds, Lucille would be thrust into a dilemma of loyalties, husband versus brother, and Kasempa wasn’t all that sure in his mind which way such a dilemma would be resolved.

  So there was nothing to do but wait. In New York City. Sleeplessly.

  Another hand was stuck. Kasempa sighed and gathered the cards together and shuffled them. His wristwatch said the time was two forty-five. The way he was feeling, with luck he might be able to get to bed and to sleep by four. He shook his head and dealt out a new hand.

  There was an explosion.

  Kasempa looked up, the cards in his left hand. The blackness outside the window was unchanged.

  It had been near, very near. In the building?

  The alarm hadn’t sounded, so it couldn’t be either the front or back door. When the building had been converted to a museum and this apartment put in for the full-time curator the place had never needed, an alarm system had been built in to help protect the place from burglaries at night. When switched on, the alarm rang a bell in the master bedroom if either door was tampered with or opened. They kept the alarm switched on at all times, and the only instances when it had rung were the two times Gonor had brought visitors to the museum, once a few weeks ago and then again just this afternoon. If the explosion had meant someone trying to break in through one of the doors, the alarm would have sounded. So if it was in the building it had to be something else.

  What?

  Kasempa put the cards down, and got to his feet. He went to the door, opened it, and stood in the hallway listening.

  Nothing.

  A door along the hall opened, and Kasempa’s brother Albert appeared, sleepy-eyed but with a pistol in his hand. “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. Listen.”

  The two brothers stood facing one another listening. All the brothers were physically alike, short and bull-like and broad, but faster-moving than they looked.

  Another. A sudden loud blast, an explosion. Like a hand grenade going off, or something larger.

  In the building.

  Albert said, “What the hell? It’s downstairs!”

  “Come on!”

  Another door opened as they hurried toward the elevator, and their brother Ralph called, “What’s going on?”

  “Stay here,” Kasempa shouted back. “We’ll take a look downstairs.”

  The elevator was already on this floor, and the door slid back when Kasempa pressed the button. They went in together and Albert said, “All the way down?”

  “Of course!”

  Albert pushed the button for the first floor, the door slid shut, and they started down.

  Kasempa heard the slight sound above him. He looked up, and a rectangular opening was spreading in the ceiling. He saw eyes, hands in darkness, and something was flung in.

  A grenade!

  “No!” he shouted, recoiling. The elevator was suddenly too small. He and Albert were cramped together; neither could move.

  But the thing hit the floor without exploding. It seemed to fall apart, to break open in two halves. A faint yellowish mist rose up.

  Albert was shouting, Kasempa couldn’t tell what. But he knew what that was; he knew it was gas; he knew he’d been mousetrapped and he was a dead man. He knew it, but he refused to let it be so. He pushed savagely past his brother, reaching for the buttons. He wouldn’t breathe; he refused to breathe, though he had already inhaled some of it in the first few seconds after it broke open. Albert was falling over, falling into his path, his weight leaning on Kasempa’s chest. Kasempa gritted his teeth, pushed the heavy weight away, and got his fingers on the buttons.

  If he could stop the elevator. If he could get the doors open. If he could get outof here.

  He could feel the nausea welling up, feel the darkness behind it. He could feel his strength draining away. He leaned on his fingers, pressing all the buttons.

  The elevator was stopping. Green kaleidoscopes were irising in around the edges of his vision. Albert had slid to the flo
or, his weight now leaning against Kasempa’s legs, and the strength was rushing like blood out of his legs.

  The door slid open. He saw it sliding, as slow as eternity, with the last of his vision, saw the second-floor displays in semidarkness, saw the green kaleidoscope iris close over his eyes, felt his hands sliding down the smooth wall of the elevator. He tried to take a step, out and away, but all that happened was that his knee bent. It kept bending.

  5

  Formutesca continued to sit on the trapdoor after the elevator had stopped. He could hear the door slide open. He sat there listening, controlling himself, feeling the excitement and nervousness in him like low-voltage electricity pouring through his body. Across the way, Manado sat and stared at him. But Formutesca had no time now to think about Manado or to worry about whether or not Manado would carry his weight when the time came. He had no time now to think about what was or was not happening in the elevator, no time to think about the fact that no attempt at all had been made to push the trapdoor up. All he could think about was what was happening inside himself.

  Bara Formutesca was African middle class, and he himself wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. His father was a British-trained doctor, his mother a German-trained schoolteacher, and their son was an American-trained diplomat. But what did that mean, or matter?