The Black Ice Score

by Richard Stark

  It didn't surprise her that he was one of the three who had been at the beginning of all this, before Gonor had shown up.

  He looked at her and said, “You're awake. Good.” Then he frowned, studying her across the room. “Something wrong?”

  She shook her head. She couldn't find anything to say, and she was terrified of what he might do.

  He kept frowning, standing just inside the door, and then he seemed all at once to understand and to be made strangely embarrassed by it. He spread his hands, palms down. “You're all right here,” he said. “You're safe here. Do you want something to eat?”

  She shook her head again. Her fear was beginning to fade, not so much because of his assurances as his embarrassment, but there was still nothing to say to him.

  He looked around, apparently at a loss, wanting to establish contact and not knowing how. “If you need anything,” he said, “just knock on the door. I'll come by.”

  “I need to go home,” she said. “Back to the hotel.”

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “Not yet.”

  “When?”

  “Pretty soon. You sure you're not hungry?”

  She surprised herself by asking, “Do you have any aspirin?”

  He smiled happily. “Sure,” he said. “Be right back.” He left, and she noticed he took the time to lock the door behind him.

  Now she was angry at herself for having asked. It had given him the contact he wanted; it had given him her acceptance of the situation. She felt as though she had allowed him a victory he didn't deserve, and she considered refusing the aspirin when he brought it, but realized that would be an empty gesture and wouldn't reclaim the loss.

  What a stupid way to be thinking. She looked around the room, cold and bare and minimal.

  She needed Parker.

  2

  Jock Daask liked his women with meat on their bones and brains in their heads, and this girl Claire had both. He sat across the kitchen table from her, watching her eat the corn flakes and milk that was the only food they had for her, and he reflected that he would have liked to have met her some other way. He reflected also on the sexual implications of their current roles in relation to one another—kidnapper and victim—but the possibilities for rape didn't really interest him. Jock Daask wasn't that sort of man.

  He wasn't all that sure what sort of man he was, in fact. His current roles could only be described in negatives—he had kidnapped but was not a kidnapper, he would steal but was not a thief—and it seemed to him his whole life was expressed only in the same terms of contradiction. He had been born in Africa, but was not an African. His parents were Europeans, but he was not a European. He had done well at the university in England, but he was not an intellectual. He had been a mercenary soldier in various parts of Africa, but he was not a rootless adventurer. There was nothing about him, it seemed, that did not include its own negative.

  Jock Daask was the son of a wealthy plantation owner in Africa, and he had grown up always knowing that everything and everybody he saw belonged to his father and would one day belong to him. His friends in his youth were the children of other white landowners, and even then they had all seemed to be aware of their essential dislocation, at once the ruling class and exiles. Still, it was worth exile to be a member of the ruling class.

  Until independence. The nation of Dhaba was spared the more gruesome birth pains of many of the new African states, but even in a land of peaceful turnover one fact could not be gotten around: the white ruling class had to go.

  Daask had been in London at the time, doing postgraduate work at the university, and he hadn't known anything was wrong until his father phoned him from London Airport to come out and pick him up. Their land had been taken from them, not by spear-waving cannibals but by paper-waving bureaucrats, bland men with empty smiles.

  The number of ex-colonists in London and in other parts of Europe continued to grow. And the idea of counterattack grew, from men like Aaron Marten, whom Daask had known since childhood, who were determined to get their own back one way or another no matter what. And from men like General Enfehr Goma, the unsuccessful first candidate for president of Dhaba, who would be willing to live the life of a comfortable figurehead if the Aaron Martens could put them on the throne.

  They could do it. There was nothing strategic about Dhaba, not in minerals or geographic location or rivers or anything else, and so no European power would intervene. The neighboring African states all had sufficient internal problems to keep them from doing anything more than complain at the UN. All they needed was the money to mount the offensive. The current president, Colonel Joseph Lubudi, was so patently corrupt that the masses of the nation might even welcome General Goma, or at least wouldn't be violently opposed to him.

  But it couldn't be done without money. And from where would the money come? The ex-landowners had lost practically everything. General Goma had no money of his own and couldn't attract the support of anyone with money. So where would they get the money?

  From Dhaba. From Colonel Lubudi. From the Colonel's brother-in-law, Patrick Kasempa.

  Daask again looked at the woman Claire eating a third bowl of cereal. If he were Parker, and this Claire were his woman, he would trade Gonor and the diamonds for her in a minute. Parker would cooperate; Daask was sure of it.

  She became aware of his eyes on her and abruptly stopped eating. “That's all I want,” she said sullenly, pushing the bowl away.

  “You must still be hungry,” he said, trying to sound gentle and friendly. He knew it was absurd, but he wanted her not to dislike him.

  And it was true that she had to still be hungry. She hadn't eaten since the drugged dinner at the hotel in Boston last night at around seven o'clock, and here it was nearly midnight. Twenty-nine hours without food. Bob had insisted they not offer her anything to eat until she asked for it, so all she had had at first was the aspirin and water he'd brought her this afternoon. When she'd finally knocked on the door and asked for something to eat it was clear she hadn't wanted to ask for anything at all but had been driven to it by hunger.

  And something in his expression when she'd met his eyes just now had driven her away from hunger again. “I don't want any more,” she said and folded her arms as though she were chilly, though it was warm here in the kitchen.

  Bob Quilp was out in the living-room waiting for the call from Aaron saying that Parker would cooperate, that everything was going to be all right. Daask had a very strong feeling about the closeness of this kitchen, his solitude with this woman, the persistent sexual overtones of the relationship thrust upon them. He couldn't help it, and he didn't intend to do anything about it, but the aura itself was pleasurable and he wanted to prolong it.

  “A glass of milk,” he said. “Would you like that?”

  “I want to go upstairs again,” she said. She got to her feet and stood there waiting.

  Daask was suddenly irritated by her. Didn't she feel the ambience between them? Wasn't she aware of what sort of person he could be, how lucky she was that he was gentle? He wanted to say something about it, to point it out to her, but he couldn't find any phrasing that didn't sound silly somehow. Or threatening.

  He shrugged and got to his feet. “Up to you,” he said. “You go first.”

  They went up to the second floor, and she went willingly into her room. He stood in the doorway a minute, watching her go over to the bed and sit down with her back to him.

  Then he said, “In a little while we'll have to tie you up.”

  She turned her head, and it pleased him to see a little glint of fear in her eyes. “Why? I won't try to get away.”

  “We'll be leaving,” he said. “We'll tie you when we go. But we're going to tell Parker where you are, so don't worry. He'll probably be here before morning.”

  She shook her head. “He won't do what you want him to do.”

  “Of course he will,” Daask said reasonably. “You're more important to him than Gonor is; it only makes sense
.”

  “He can't stand to be pushed,” she said.

  “He'll cooperate,” Daask said. “It's only sensible.”

  She shrugged and turned her back again.

  Daask was about to say something else, but from downstairs he heard the ringing of a telephone. “That's it now,” he said and shut the door. He locked it and hurried back downstairs.

  3

  William Manado sat on the floor in the back of the truck and fingered his machine gun. It was too dark to see anything except when an occasional automobile drove down Thirty-eighth Street from Park Avenue and its headlights shone through the windows in the rear doors, illuminating himself and Formutesca sitting across the way. Formutesca smiled encouragingly at him every time there was light that way, but in the intervals of darkness there was no encouragement from anywhere, and Manado was frightened.

  He hadn't shown it; not to Formutesca, not to Parker, certainly not to Gonor. He hadn't shown it, he wouldn't show it, and he wouldn't let it interfere. But he couldn't deny it either—he was afraid.

  Unlike Formutesca and Gonor, unlike most of the governing class of Dhaba, Manado was not from a professional family. There were no doctors, lawyers, civil servants or engineers in his background. He had come from a village family, a very poor village family, and he would be a very poor villager himself today if it were not for one thing. Manado could run.

  He was fast, and he was tireless, and he could pace himself. He had run himself on to the track team at Tchidanga School, and he had run himself into an exchange scholarship for a Midwestern American university. Fortunately, his brain was as fast as his body, and he'd been able to take advantage of the advantages his running had brought him. He majored in political science at the American university, mostly because all exchange students were expected to major in political science, and took his minor in mathematics, because he liked to watch numbers run. As for America, what that country offered him because he had brains and speed baffled him almost as much as what was refused him because he was black. Afterwards, when people at home asked him about that, what it was like to be a black man in America, he always said, “Well, it takes some getting used to.” What he meant was, “I'm not sure, but I think maybe it's worth getting used to.”

  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 possiblities 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 bed-spread 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.

  Th
e 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 pop when 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.