Oliver Bleeck - Brass Go-Between

There was perhaps fifteen seconds of silence. I assumed that he was rapidly weighing it all, totting up the costs, figuring the losses, poking at the loopholes. He turned from the window. “What do you intend to do with it?” he said.

“That’s no longer your concern.”

“I can, of course, beat any price.”

“I’m sure.”

“So it’s not price?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t understand it.”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t think you would.”

“What assurance do I have that you will continue your silence?”

“None.”

“Yes,” he said. “I did expect that.” He thought some more, for all of five seconds. “Eight o’clock tonight.”

“All right,” I said. “Where?”

“My home in Virginia. It’s not far from Warrenton.” He spent thirty seconds giving me directions. I wrote them down.

“You will come alone, of course?” he said.

“No.”

Spencer didn’t like that. He frowned his frown, pursed his lips, and jutted his chin. “I must be assured some measure of privacy, Mr. St. Ives.”

“Four, maybe five persons have died because of the $250,000 ransom for that shield, Mr. Spencer. According to the financial and oil and gas journals that I went through at the Library of Congress, the oil underneath Komporeen is worth maybe $200 billion or more. I guarantee that the person that I’ll bring with me won’t violate what you call your privacy. He will, however, make me feel a little more secure.”

“He’s not of the police, is he?”

“No, he’s not a cop. He’s just insurance as far as I’m concerned.”

“And you really think you need it — this insurance?”

“Yes,” I said. “I really think I do.”

I was back in my hotel room by twelve-fifteen dialing the phone. A voice, a deep familiar one, answered on the first ring with a bass hello.

“Mbwato?”

“Mr. St. Ives. How good of you to call.”

“You’ll get your shield at eight o’clock tonight.”

There was a long silence. “You are positive?”

“I’m not even positive that the earth isn’t flat.”

His deep laugh rolled over the phone. “According to our legends, it is a cube.”

“Stick with them,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, and there was another pause. “There is a saying in your country about a gift horse.”

“It’s no gift,” I said. “I’ve got a price.”

“You restore my faith in human nature.”

“I thought I would.”

“And your price?”

“Six hundred and eighty-five dollars. Those are my out-of-pocket expenses.”

“You are joking, of course.”

“No, I’m not joking.”

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t think you are.”

“There’s one more thing.”

“Yes.”

“How soon can you get yourself and the shield out of the country?”

“Tonight,” he said. “We have several contingency plans.”

“Have you got one for Virginia?” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Virginia. That’s where we pick up the shield. Near Warrenton.”

“And you think we may be in a hurry?”

“Yes.”

“A great hurry?”

“Yes.”

“To use your country’s parlance, might it even be called a getaway?”

God, he likes to talk, I thought. “It could be called that.”

“Then give me the exact location and I’ll get Mr. Ulado on to it. He’s our getaway expert. Quite good at it really.”

I read him the directions that Spencer had given me. “I have a rented car in the garage here,” I said. “We’ll use that.”

“Shall I meet you there?”

“Yes. At seven.”

“Anything else?” Mbwato asked.

“Nothing.”

“There are a couple of details I should attend to.”

“All right,” I said.

There was another pause and I was wishing he would say good-by, but he didn’t. “I’m sorry, Mr. St. Ives, but my curiosity is overwhelming. Just why are you doing this when you were so adamant previously?”

“I changed my mind.”

“But why?”

“Cotton candy,” I said.

“I beg your pardon.”

“I’m a sucker for cotton candy. Spun sugar. Just like I’m a sucker for stories about hungry, kids and lost puppies and sick kittens. But after a while you get tired of listening to the stories, just like you get tired of eating cotton candy. I’m tired of your stories so I’m going to do something about it.”

Then I hung up before he could tell me any more of them.

We only got lost once on the way out of Washington. It’s an easy town to get lost in and we took a wrong turn somewhere around the Lincoln Memorial and wound up heading for Baltimore. Mbwato was navigating with the aid of an Esso map and finally he said, “I think we’re headed the wrong way, old man.”

Haying just seen the BALTIMORE — STRAIGHT AHEAD sign I agreed with him, made what I was sure was an illegal U-turn, and headed back toward the Lincoln Memorial. This time I crossed the Memorial Bridge into Virginia, found the double-laned Washington Memorial Parkway, sped past the entrance to the CIA, and finally picked up 495, the circumferential highway that belts Washington. It was still muggy, the air conditioning in the rented Ford didn’t work, and I was in a foul mood. Getting lost does that to me.

Mbwato, on the other hand, held his large black leather attaché case on his lap, hummed to himself, and admired the countryside. “According to the map,” he said, “we take 495 until we come to Interstate 66, which leads to State 29 and 211. Five miles this side of Warrenton we turn right.”

“In the glove compartment,” I said, “there’s a pint of whisky.”

He opened the glove compartment, looked, and closed it. “So there is,” he said.

“Would you mind kind of taking the cap off and passing it to me? I mean if it’s no bother?”

“Oh, none at all,” he said, got the whisky out, took off the cap, and handed me the bottle. I took a long drink and handed it back to him. “Not that I approve of drinking while driving, you understand,” he said.

“I understand,” I said. “Neither do I.”

“But under certain circumstances, especially when there may be some unpleasantness in the offing, it should be permissible.”

“Even for navigators,” I said.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, and tilted the bottle up.

It gurgled at least three times before he put it back into the glove compartment.

He stared out at the scenery again. There wasn’t much to see. Some fields, some trees, and occasionally the tacky back yards of some plastic houses that people bought because it was all they could afford and the forty-five-minute drive to Washington was a small price to pay for having lily-white neighbors.

“They didn’t get quite this far, as I remember,” Mbwato said.

“Who, the Negroes?”

“What Negroes?”

“Never mind,” I said. “Who didn’t get this far?”

“The Confederacy.”

“About as close as they got was Dranesville,” I said. “They turned north there toward Pennsylvania. Dranesville’s about fifteen miles or so from Washington.”

“I wish I had more time,” he said. “I would so liked to have spent several days studying the battlefields. I’m quite a Civil War buff, you know.”

“I’ve been to Gettysburg,” I said. “I found it all very confusing.”

“Were you ever a soldier, Mr. St. Ives?” he said.

“A long time ago,” I said. “The war was called a police action then and I wasn’t a very good soldier even in that.”

“When I studied your Civil War at Sandhurst, I must confess that I developed a rather sneaking sympathy for the Confederacy. Pity that they didn’t have a more suitable cause.”