Donald Westlake - High Adventure

“National treasures— Priceless antiquities— Irreplaceable artifacts—” Valerie Greene was in full cry now, orating to a stadium of 60,000.

Kirby held the machete up in front of this virago’s face. His eyes were on her throat. “One,” he said.

“Two,” said the crazy man.

Valerie backed away. Was he counting to ten... or to three?

The crazy man’s face was very red. Veins stood out on his neck, reminding Valerie irrelevantly of Michelangelo sculptures, and he raised the machete even more menacingly, like Reggie Jackson seeing a fat one come across the plate. He didn’t say three.

“I—” Valerie said, back-pedaling. “You—”

She hadn’t realized the Land Rover’s engine was off until she heard, behind her, the driver switch it back on, nrnrnrnrnr, cough , CHUG.

Would he leave without her? Would the one in front chop off her head? Men! Valerie turned about and scampered to the Land Rover, leaping in as the skinny black man shifted into low; so she would never know if he’d been waiting for her or if she’d just made it. The Land Rover jolted forward, the driver spun the wheel in a hard right which took them in a loop around the crazy man, and from the safety of the moving vehicle Valerie yelled at him, “I’ll report you! I’ll tell Mister St. Michael!”

Something, probably the threat, possibly the name, drove the crazy man over the edge. With a mighty oath, he flung his machete to the ground, where it bounced in a sudden jump of pebbles and flutter of dust. Tearing his bush hat from his head, he hurled that atop the machete, then jumped on the hat with both feet.

Twisting around in the metal bucket seat as the Land Rover sped back the way they’d come, Valerie saw the crazy man jumping up and down on his hat and machete, then pausing to pant and cough in all the dust he’d raised, then shaking his fist after Valerie, then shaking both fists at heaven. All at once, he stooped, picked up a handful of pebbles, and threw them after the Land Rover, though they were far out of range by now.

Valerie looked up, and there it was, serene, silent against the blue sky, indomitable: the temple, looking like nothing more than a hill from this distance. Covered by a millenia of jungle growth, a thousand years of accumulated earth, growing plants, rotting flora and fauna, nature’s heavy veneer disguising the works of man. “Do you know what that is?”

The driver looked in his rearview mirror: “A very angry man.”

“No,” Valerie said. “The temple . I was right!”

The driver veered, jolting Valerie almost out onto the hard dry ground covered with dead and dying grass. She faced front, and saw they were angling around the airplane, where Whitman Lemuel — oh, she remembered him — stood holding his jacket up over his head like arrested numbers runners in newspaper photographs. “I know you !” Valerie yelled, shaking her finger at him on the way by.

And to think, to think, she’d been embarrassed at dinner last night, afraid he would notice her !

The driver leaned forward, squinting at the rearview mirror. “That hill?” he said. “That’s really a temple?”

“Over a thousand years old,” Valerie told him, awed by its existence, its reality, her own astonishing brilliance in rescuing it from oblivion. “A Mayan temple.”

“Well, that’s pretty good,” the driver said. “And nobody knew it was there.”

“The world is going to know, just as soon as I get back to Belmopan,” said Valerie.

“Uh huh,” said the driver.

“Not back yet?” Innocent shook his head, smiling at the desk clerk. “Women,” he said. “Never on time anywhere.”

The desk clerk answered the smile; he and Innocent St. Michael had known one another a long time, in a limited but satisfactory way. “But what could we do without them, eh?” he said.

“Bugger all,” said Innocent. Before the desk clerk could decide whether that had been idiomatic or literal his switchboard lit up and he had to excuse himself, being the only person on duty at the desk at this time.

Innocent studied his watch: a Rolex, a birthday gift from his wife, selected and paid for by himself, gift-wrapped by the girl in the store. Two minutes to five, it said; by the time he got to the bar, the sun would definitely be over the yardarm.

“Yes, yes,” the desk clerk was saying. “I’m doin the best I can, Mister Lemuel, but it just may not be possible. Oh, yes, sir, I’ll go on trying.” Hanging up, he turned back to Innocent, shaking his head and saying, “It always be Americans. Impossible.”

Innocent had heard the name Lemuel and his ears had pricked up, because he knew who that was. Another of Kirby’s strange visitors from the States; a teacher on vacation, he claimed. “What’s this one want?” he asked.

“The Earth and all,” the desk clerk said. “He registered here for two more days, but now in a rush his plans all different. He run in here an hour ago like the end of the world, had to be on a plane today , had to be out of Belize this very minute, sudden urgent message from home. Foo,” commented the desk clerk. “If this man got any sudden urgent message from home, I’d know it, wouldn’t I? I’d hand it him, wouldn’t I?”

“Of course you would,” Innocent said, thinking, Hmmmmmm. “Sounds like he picked up the running shits,” he said.

“I don’t know what that man’s problem be,” said the desk clerk. “I done all I can. I told him, there’s no more flights out to the States today, so then he wants a charter, he won’t spend another night in Belize. I told him, he already got to pay for tonight at the hotel, it way too late to check out, he don’t care ’bout that. I tell him, any charter out of the country, there’s all kinds of paperwork, Customs clearance, police, all that, now he’ll take a flight anywhere, he don’t care. Honduras, El Salvador, Jamaica, all the same to him. Now, you know there’s nothin I can do bout that.”

“So he’ll spend the night,” Innocent said, “and go out in the mornin.”

“Complainin, complainin,” commented the desk clerk. “Well, I go off at six.”

“Let’s hope my little lady’s back by then,” Innocent said. “I’ll be in the bar.”

“I be sure to let you know,” the desk clerk promised.

On his way back to the bar, Innocent paused at the public phone booths to make three calls. In the first, he said, “There’s a man at the Fort George called Whitman Lemuel. Just a couple minutes after six, you call him, tell him you hear he’s looking for a charter flight, tell him to meet you at the Municipal Airport right away to make the arrangements, you’ll get him right out tonight. No, you don’t have to go to the airport.”

In the second call, he said, “There’s an American fella named Whitman Lemuel gonna be out to the Municipal Airport around six- thirty, looking for some charter flight. Arrest him on twenty or thirty technical charges. No, no, you won’t have to defend them.”

In the third call, he said, “There’s an American name of Whitman Lemuel gonna be comin in around seven. He’ll be spendin the night. Don’t hurt him, but do scare him. I’ll be comin down in the morning to rescue him, and I’m hopin to see a grateful man.”

Smiling, well pleased with himself, Innocent went on to the bar, where he ordered a gin and tonic and sat on one of the low broad swivel chairs, looking out at the view over the tame swimming pool at the feral sea. The pool, in the hotel’s late afternoon shadow, looked cold, but the sea, glistening in amber sunlight, looked warm. The impounded black freighter still stood in the offing, awaiting auction. White sails far out moved toward the barrier reef.