Donald Westlake - High Adventure

From here on, it got easier. Cynthia being almost out of fuel, she was much lighter now, and lifted easily from the pasture. Nine miles and seven minutes later, he was circling over another field, where the two slat-sided farm trucks and the half-dozen men were waiting.

This part of the job was all cut-and-dried, the negotiations having been completed long ago, nobody here but low-level peons. While Cynthia was unloaded and her fuel tank refilled from jerry cans brought out on one of the trucks, Kirby lay in the shade of his baby’s wing, and thought about life. It was complicated, he decided, but amusing. All in all, not bad.

A little trouble in Belize right now, of course, with Lemuel getting spooked and the Greene woman making a fuss, but that would sort itself out. Or, it wouldn’t; in which case, he would tip his hat and go away. In any event, he wouldn’t worry about it now.

The truck engines started up, waking him from a light nap. A few clouds had sailed into view, dark with cargoes of rain. His clothing was stiff and heavy with perspiration. “Take me home, Cynthia,” he said, as he climbed back into his seat. “I’m gonna sleep a week.”

Time for a breather.

from BEKA LAMB, by Zee Edgell

“Nothin’ lasts here, Beka.” Gran’s eyes looked funny. “Tings bruk down.”

“Ah wonder why?” Beka asked, bringing the conch and minced habanero peppers to the stove.

Her Gran leaned the fork carefully against the frying pan, pushed the window over the back stairs, and propped it open with a long pole. Then she said,

“I don’t know why, Beka. But one time, when I was a young girl like you, a circus came to town. I can’t remember where it was from, and don’t ask me what happened to it afta. The circus had a fluffy polar bear — a ting Belize people never see befo’. It died up at Barracks Green, Beka. The ice factory broke down the second day the circus was here.”

It was nice to see Belize City again. Driving in Haulover Road in the battered pickup truck, entering town through the white, bright, flower-strewn cemetery, seeing the little pirate port sagging out ahead of him as ramshackle and unworkable and permanent as ever, Kirby smiled and felt himself relax; it was good to be home.

Time is the great healer. Today was Tuesday, the 21st of February (temperature 82 degrees, sky azure, humidity 90 percent, sun blinding). It was just 11 days since Black Friday, that awful day when Valerie Greene had blown his beautiful temple scam; when Whitman Lemuel had panicked and run back to Duluth with his tail between his legs; when Kirby had reluctantly, angrily, but necessarily told the troops to dismantle the temple, while he himself took what might very well be the final shipment of fresh-made antiquities north to market. A furious, weary, and pessimistic Kirby had made that flight, but the Kirby driving into Belize City today, Manny gap-toothed and grinning beside him, was a changed man: happy, content, and hopeful.

What had happened in those 11 days to change him so thoroughly? Very little. In fact, like Conan Doyle’s unbarking dog in the night, it was what hadn’t happened that had most encouraged him.

After the marijuana-and-artifact flight of the weekend before last, Kirby had told himself he should take on a lot more cargo jobs, since the temple business was probably dead, but he just hadn’t had the strength of will. For four days, back in his little nest among the Cruzes, he had simply sat and felt sorry for himself and watched videotapes: Errol Flynn in “Captain Blood,” Burt Lancaster in “The Crimson Pirate,” Clark Gable in “China Seas.” He had eaten Estelle’s food, drunk a moderate amount of Belikin beer, played card games and pebble games with Manny, and made no plans. Cynthia sat alone and unwanted in the shade of her hangar of trees. Messages were neither sent nor delivered. Hope did not put in an appearance.

But then Tommy Watson did, last Friday afternoon. The only one of his Indian co-conspirators from South Abilene who had ever visited Kirby at home, Tommy came sauntering up the path out of the jungle, next to the tomato patch, strolled over to where Kirby was hunkered in the dirt playing aggies with two of the kids, and said, “How, Kimosabe?”

“Fried.” That was Kirby’s joke.

“We don’t see you around the old joint very much any more.”

“There is no old joint any more,” Kirby said. “Hush a second.” With a greenie nestled in the crook of the first knuckle of the first finger of his right hand, thumb cocked and ready, he took careful aim across a clear patch of packed tan dirt at a beautiful steelie, paused, squinted one eye shut, fired with absolute precision, and missed by a mile.

As the kids crowed and hollered, Kirby sighed, shook his head, and got to his feet, brushing off his knees. “You distracted me,” he accused Tommy, and told the kids, “I’ll get even with you guys later.”

Their jeers echoed around the clearing. Dignified, Kirby turned away and strolled toward the house, Tommy at his side. “What’s happening on my land?” he asked, as though it were a casual question.

“Nothing.”

“Excitement all over?” That would be a good thing; the sooner ended, the sooner forgotten.

“No excitement at all,” Tommy said. “Nobody come out except that turkey sold you the place.”

“Innocent?”

“There’s a Mom and Dad couldn’t read the future.”

“Innocent came out? Nobody else? No cops?”

“No. And no firemen, no farmers, no cooks, no sailors, no truckdrivers and no high school girls. In other words, nobody.”

“All right, Tommy,” Kirby said. “Don’t get your back up.”

“ I’m happy,” Tommy said, as Kirby opened the front door and led the way inside. The Betamax stood with its mouth open, ready to entertain. “ I’m not hibernating,” Tommy said, following him in, shutting the door. “I’m out and about.”

“All right, all right.” Kirby shut the Betamax’s mouth, as a hint to Tommy. “Sit down,” he said. “You want a beer? You want to tell me about it?”

“Sure, sure, sure.”

So they sat, and had a beer together, and Tommy described the inaction out at the former temple. After a whole night and morning of back-breaking labor — Tommy made quite a point of that part of it — untempling the hill, absolutely nobody showed up for the closing. All day Saturday the Indians waited, using all their age-old lore to watch from cunning concealment as no police Land Rovers came across the plain, no vans of reporters and photographers, no truckloads of archaeologists. No reconnaissance planes circled low for aerial photography. Nothing at all, in fact, had occurred. “It was very boring,” Tommy said.

“Sometimes it’s better to be bored. Then what happened?” “More of the same.”

Sunday had been a repeat of Saturday. By midafternoon they weren’t even bothering to keep watch anymore, but merely walked around the hill every once in a while to see if there were any activity, of which there continued to be none.

“They were holding off,” Kirby suggested. “Watching from afar, hoping to catch the perpetrators in the act, or on the site, or something.”

“We figured it could be that,” Tommy said, “so we laid low. Luz went to the mission Sunday afternoon, see was there any news, any gossip, but no. I myself went out almost all the way to Privassion, but there wasn’t a thing, man. No vehicles, no stakeouts, nothing.”

“That woman was on her way to the law,” Kirby said. “Valerie Greene. There’s no question in my mind.”