Aftershocks c-3 Read online

  Johnson wanted to tag along to find out whatever he could, but didn’t have the nerve. He watched the doctor lead away the electrolysis expert. Before long, he’d get answers through the grapevine.

  And he did. Things came out piecemeal, as they had a way of doing. It wasn’t appendicitis. He heard that pretty soon. He didn’t hear what it was for three or four days. “Liver cancer?” he exclaimed to Walter Stone, who told him. “What can they do about that?”

  “Not a damn thing,” the senior pilot said grimly. “Keep her from hurting too bad till she dies-that’s about the size of it.” He seldom showed much of what he thought, but he was visibly upset here. “Could have been you or me, too, just as easy. No rhyme or reason to this-only dumb luck.”

  “Yeah.” Johnson felt lousy, too. He didn’t mind being an ambulance driver, but he hadn’t signed up to be, in essence, a hearse driver. And there were also other things to worry about. “This won’t hurt the plan too much, will it?”

  Now Stone looked stern and determined. “Nothing hurts the plan, Glen. Nothing.”

  “Good,” Glen Johnson said. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

  4

  With a shriek of decelerating jet engines, the Japanese airliner rolled to a stop on the runway just outside of Edmonton. The pilot spoke over the intercom, first in his own language and then in English hardly more comprehensible. “What the hell is he talking about?” Penny Summers asked.

  “One from column A, two from column B,” Rance Auerbach guessed. Penny gave him a dirty look. He ignored it and went on, “It would have been a lot faster and a lot cheaper to fly a U.S. airliner out of Tahiti.”

  “And it would have made stops in the States, too,” Penny pointed out. “I didn’t want to take the chance.”

  “Well, okay,” Auerbach said with a sigh. “But I’ll tell you something: there aren’t a hell of a lot of places left where we can go without somebody wanting to take a shot at us as soon as we get there. That gets old, you know what I mean?”

  “Things ought to be pretty peaceful for the layover here.” Penny sighed, too. Rance knew what that meant. Whenever she came to someplace peaceful, she got bored. When she got bored, she started turning things on their ear. He’d had enough of things’ getting turned on their ear. Telling her so wouldn’t do him any good. He knew as much. He didn’t think she started stirring things up on purpose-which didn’t mean they didn’t get stirred up.

  Groundcrew men wheeled a deplaning ladder up to the airliner’s front door. Rance grunted even more painfully than usual as he heaved himself upright. Except for a couple of trips back to the head, he’d been trapped in a none-too-spacious seat ever since Midway Island. He hadn’t been sitting here forever-he couldn’t have been-but it sure as hell felt that way.

  “Baggage and customs and passport control through Gate Four,” a groundcrew man bawled, again and again. “Gate Four!” He pointed toward the airport terminal, as if none of the deplaning passengers could possibly have noticed the big red 4 above the nearest gate without his help.

  “Well, well, what have we here?” a Canadian customs man said, examining their documents with considerable interest. “Papers from the Race, valid for South Africa only-rather emphatically valid for South Africa only, I might add. Then all these endorsements from Free France, a Japanese transit visa, and a transit visa for the Dominion here. Fascinating. You don’t see things like this every day.”

  “You see anything wrong?” Rance put a little challenge in his raspy, ruined voice.

  “And you, sir, do not sound like a South African,” the customs man said. “You sound like an American from the South.”

  “Doesn’t matter what I sound like,” Auerbach said. “Only thing that matters is, my papers are in order.”

  “That’s right,” Penny agreed. A lot of places, they could have made things go smoothly by greasing the functionary’s palm. There were parts of the USA where that would have worked like a charm. Eyeing this customs man, Auerbach thought a bribe would only get him in deeper. He kept his hand away from his billfold.

  “I think we had better have a look at your baggage,” the Canadian official said. “A good, thorough look.”

  He and his pals spent the next hour examining the baggage not only by eye but with a fluoroscope. A customs man patted Rance down. A police matron took Penny off into another room. When she came back, steam was coming out of her ears. But the matron shrugged to the customs men, so Penny had passed the test.

  “You see?” Rance said. “We’re clean.” He was awfully glad neither he nor Penny had tried to sneak a gun through the Dominion. Canadians didn’t like that sort of thing at all.

  The lead customs agent glared at him. “You have close to fifty pounds of ginger in your suitcases,” he pointed out.

  “It’s not illegal.” Rance and Penny spoke together.

  “That’s so.” The customs man didn’t sound happy about it, but couldn’t deny it. “Still, I strongly suggest you would be very wise to keep your noses clean while you are in Edmonton. Give me those preposterous papers.” With quite unnecessary force, he applied the stamps that cleared them for entry.

  Because Auerbach wasn’t up to carrying much, they rented a little cart to get all the luggage to the cab rank. Fortunately, the first waiting cabby drove an enormous Oldsmobile whose equally enormous trunk devoured all the suitcases with the greatest of ease.

  “Four Seasons Hotel,” Penny told him as he held the door open for her and Rance.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “Best hotel in town.” His accent wasn’t that far removed from her Midwestern tones. Next best thing to being back in the States, Auerbach thought.

  He hadn’t known what to expect from the hotel; choosing one from thousands of miles away couldn’t be anything but a gamble. But this gamble paid off. “Not bad,” Penny said as bellmen all but fought over their suitcases.

  “How long do you expect to be staying, sir?” the desk clerk asked Rance.

  “Only a few days,” Rance answered. With luck, they’d sell their ginger here and then head on to France with a nice stash. Without luck, they’d have to try to smuggle the ginger past the noses of the Race’s French chums, and probably past the Lizards’ own snouts, too. Rance didn’t like thinking about all the things that could happen without luck.

  “Phew!” Penny said when they finally made it to their room.

  “Yeah.” Rance hobbled over to the bed, let his stick fall to the thickly carpeted floor, and stretched out at full length on the mattress. His back made little crackling noises. “Jesus, that feels good!” he said. “I feel like I was stuffed into a sardine can for the last month.”

  “I know what you mean.” Penny lay down beside him. “The Japs make seats and spaces between seats that suit them, but they’re too damn cramped for Americans. I’m not a great big gal, but I’m not teeny-tiny like that, either.”

  He reached out and let his hand rest, almost as if by accident, on her leg. One thing led to another, and then to another after that: both of them, worn out by long travel and other, happier exertions, fell asleep on that big, comfortable bed. When Rance woke up, he heard the shower going. It stopped a couple of minutes later. Penny came out, wrapped in a white hotel towel. “Oh, good,” she said when she saw his eyes were open. “Now I don’t have to shake you.”

  “You’d better not.” Sitting up made Rance’s ruined shoulder yelp, but he did it anyhow. “What time is it?” Asking her was easier than looking at the clock on the nightstand.

  “Half past six,” she answered. “Why don’t you spruce up, too? Then we can go downstairs and get ourselves some supper.” As if to spur him out of bed, she let the towel drop.

  “Okay,” he said, groping for his stick when he would sooner have been groping her. But soap and hot water were good in their own way. After endless hours in that airplane, he felt filmed with grime. Scraping sandy, gray-streaked stubble off his chin and cheeks made him look less like a stumblebum an
d more like an up-and-coming ginger dealer.

  Everybody in the Vintage Room, the Four Seasons’ restaurant, looked like somebody, whether he was or not. Whiskies arrived with commendable speed. The steaks Rance and Penny ordered took a lot longer, though. The service was courteous and attentive, but it was slow. After Japanese food on the airliner, Auerbach’s stomach seemed empty as outer space. He finally lost patience. When his waiter walked by, he growled, “What are you doing, waiting for the calf to grow up so you can butcher it?”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” The waiter didn’t sound more than professionally sorry. “I’m sure your supper will be ready before too very long.” Off he went. The restaurant wasn’t crowded, but things didn’t move very fast even so.

  A couple of tables over, a fellow with a splendid graying handlebar mustache waved for his own waiter. “I say,” he boomed in tones unmistakably upper-crust British, “has everyone in your kitchen died of old age?”

  “Oh, good,” Penny said with a laugh. “We’re not the only ones who can’t get fed.”

  “Not the only ones starving to death, you mean,” Rance grumbled. He studied the Englishman. After a moment, he grunted softly. “God damn me to hell and throw me in a frying pan if that’s not Basil Roundbush. I haven’t seen him in years, but that’s got to be him. Couldn’t be anybody else, by Jesus.”

  “That ginger smuggler you have connections with?” Penny asked.

  “The very same,” Auerbach said. “Now what the devil is he doing here? I hadn’t heard that he’d given up on England.” He paused. “For that matter, with the Nazis down for the count, there’s no point in giving up on England, you know?” His eyes narrowed. “Maybe he’s here on business.”

  “Yeah.” Penny’s eyes lit up. “Maybe we could do some business if he is. Finding somebody like that-we wouldn’t need to chase around after locals with connections. It could save us a lot of time.”

  “You’re right. Money, too.” Rance grabbed his stick and used it to get to his feet. He limped over to the table where Basil Roundbush was sitting and sketched a salute. “Long as you’re not getting fed, either, want to not get fed along with my lady friend and me?”

  Roundbush’s gaze swung toward him. The Englishman was so handsome, Rance wondered if he ought to let him anywhere near Penny. But it was done now. And, no slower than if he’d seen Rance day before yesterday, Roundbush said, “Auerbach, as I live and breathe.” He sprang to his feet and shook Rance’s hand. “What are you doing in this benighted Land Without Supper?”

  “This and that. We can talk about it, if you want to,” Auerbach said. “And I might ask you the same question. I will ask you the same question, when you get over there.”

  “I hope my waiter eventually realizes where I’ve gone-or even that I’ve gone.” But Roundbush grabbed his own drink and followed Rance back to his table. He bowed over Penny’s hand and kissed it. She did everything but giggle like a schoolgirl. Auerbach had known she would. Sourly, he waved to his waiter for another drink. Roundbush’s waiter came by the empty table and stared in blank dismay. More handwaving got that straightened out. The dinners did eventually arrive.

  Over what even a Texan had to admit was pretty good beef, Rance asked, “And what are you doing in Canada?”

  “Taking care of a nasty little spot of business,” Basil Roundbush answered. “Chap named David Goldfarb-fellow wouldn’t do what he was supposed to. Can’t have that go on: bad for business, don’t you know?”

  “Goldfarb?” Rance’s ears pricked up. “Not the fellow you sent down to Marseille?”

  “Why, yes. How the devil could you know that?” Before Auerbach spoke, Roundbush answered his own question: “Don’t tell me you were the people the Lizards had involved in that fiasco. Small world, isn’t it?”

  “Too damn small, sometimes,” Rance said.

  “It could be, it could be.” Basil Roundbush waved airily. “In any case, the bloke’s not wanted anything to do with us since. He knows rather more than he should, and so…” He shrugged. “Unfortunate, but that’s how life is sometimes.”

  “You ask me, you ought to leave him alone,” Rance said. “You asked for trouble, sending a Jew down into the Reich. I’d give you what-for, too, you tried that on me.”

  Penny kicked him under the table. He wondered why, till he remembered they might be able to sell Roundbush their ginger. Well, that was water over the dam now. The Englishman gave him a frosty stare. “I’m afraid your opinion doesn’t much concern me, old man. I intend doing what suits me, not what suits you.”

  Rance’s temper kindled. He didn’t care who the limey was, or how big a wheel. Nobody brushed him off like that. Nobody. “You can goddamn well leave him alone, mister, or you’ll answer to me.”

  Penny kicked him again, harder. He ignored that, too. He’d thought she would make trouble here, and now he was doing it. Roundbush didn’t laugh in his face, but he came close. He said, “If you think your foolish words will do the slightest thing toward changing my mind, old man, I must tell you you’re mistaken.”

  “If you think I’m just talking, old man, you’re full of shit,” Rance replied. Penny did her best to take his leg off at the ankle. The Lizards had done their best to take it off at the thigh. He wasn’t afraid of anything, not any more, not even-maybe especially not-of dying. It gave him an odd sort of freedom. He intended to make the most of it.

  Whenever the telephone rang these days, whether at home or at the Saskatchewan River Widget Works, David Goldfarb answered it with a certain amount of apprehension. He also answered it with pencil and paper handy, to record the phone numbers of callers. That wouldn’t do him any good with Basil Roundbush, of course, but it might help with local hired muscle, if the Englishman chose to use any. Goldfarb had no way of guessing how many scrambler sets Roundbush had brought along.

  “Saskatchewan River Widgets,” he said now, pencil poised. “David Goldfarb speaking.”

  “Hello, Goldfarb. We met once upon a time, a long ways away from here. Do you remember?” It wasn’t Roundbush’s voice. It wasn’t a British voice at all. That accent was American, with an odd twang. The fellow on the other end of the line also spoke in a harsh rasp, as if he hadn’t had a cigarette out of his mouth for five minutes since the day he was born.

  More than anything else, that rasp reminded David Goldfarb of who the caller had to be. “Marseille,” he blurted, and then, “You’re one of the Yanks the Lizards used to try to nab Pierre Dutourd.”

  “That’s right,” the American said. “Name’s Rance Auerbach, in case you don’t recollect. You ought to be interested in hearing I had supper with that fellow called Roundbush last night.”

  Goldfarb already had his number written down. He could pass it on to the police with no trouble at all. Voice tight, he said, “And I suppose you’re going to tell me you’re the one who plans on finishing me off.” Anything more he could pass on to the police would be welcome, too.

  But this Auerbach said, “Christ, no, you damn fool. I just wanted to make sure you knew old Basil was gunning for you. I told him to leave you the hell alone, and he told me to piss up a rope. So I’m on your side, son.”

  Nobody’d been on Goldfarb’s side for a long time. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Without Jerome Jones’ help, he never would have been able to emigrate from Britain at all, and without George Bagnall, he might still be languishing in bureaucratic limbo in Ottawa. But Roundbush and his chums seemed much more determined to do him harm than anybody was to do him good. He said, “I know dear Basil is in Edmonton, thanks.”

  “That’s nice,” Auerbach said. “Do you know he intends to do you in, too?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” David answered. Talking about it felt surprisingly good. “I’m taking what precautions I can.” Those were pitifully few. And he could do even less for Naomi and the children than he could for himself.

  “I told the son of a bitch he’d answer to me if he tried any nasty business on you,” Rance Aue
rbach said. “He didn’t cotton to hearing that, but I told him anyhow. After he sent you to France, he can damn well leave you alone now.”

  “Did you?” Goldfarb was frankly amazed, and no doubt showed it. In an absent way, he wondered what sort of name Rance was; the Yanks could come up with some strange ones. But that didn’t matter. He went on, “And what did he say to that? Nothing too kind, is my guess.”

  “Right the first time.” Auerbach coughed, then muttered, “Damn!” He drew in a breath whose wheezing Goldfarb could hear over the telephone before continuing, “No, he wasn’t too happy. But then, he doesn’t think I can do much.”

  Remembering how physically damaged the American was, Goldfarb feared his former RAF superior was right. He didn’t want to say that. What he did say was, “What can you do?”

  “Less than I’d like, dammit, on account of I’m not gonna be here real long. But I’ve already talked to some of the cops here,” Auerbach answered. “For some reason or other, Canadians take things like death threats a lot more seriously than we do down in the States.”

  Was that supposed to be funny? Goldfarb couldn’t tell. He said, “You’re supposed to take things like that seriously, aren’t you?”

  Auerbach laughed. Then he coughed again. Then he cursed again. He said, “Only goes to show you’ve never lived in Texas.” After another round of coughs and another round of soft curses, he went on, “Listen, you know where you can get your hands on a pistol without filling out forms from here to next week?”

  “No,” Goldfarb answered. He’d been advised-hell, he’d been told-to leave his service weapon behind when he came to Canada. He’d done it, too, and spent the time since Basil Roundbush first called wishing he hadn’t.

  “Too bad,” the American said. “The trouble with guys like good old Basil and his pals is, they don’t play by the rules. If you do, you’re liable to end up a dead duck.”

  “I know,” David said unhappily. “But what can you do about all this? What can I do about it, for that matter?”