Donald Westlake - High Adventure

Saturday morning and Innocent sat in his office in Belmopan, his old self again, playing the telephone like a virtuoso, taking care of business he’d let go all to hell, covering his ass in every conceivable direction, and primarily seeing to it that none of the mud from the Vernon affair would stick to his own voluminous skirts.

Vernon. Who would have guessed? “I trusted that boy,” Innocent muttered aloud, yet even as he said it he knew that wasn’t the really accurate way to describe the situation. Innocent hadn’t exactly trusted Vernon, it wasn’t in Innocent’s character or training to throw something like trust around with a lavish hand, but what he had done was something that had the exact same effect as misplaced trust: he had underestimated Vernon. Patronized him, condescended to him, assumed that Vernon had no importance.

“And all along he was selling me out.”

Selling out his nation, too, of course, but that was secondary. He had betrayed Innocent , which meant Innocent had been unwary enough to get into a position where betrayal was possible. Now, among all the other things he was taking care of today, Innocent was going through Vernon’s desk and correspondence files, seeing what other unpleasant surprises might be in store, while down in Belize City Hospital Vernon was busily spilling what guts he had left, telling everything he knew about everything, naming every name.

“He could hurt me, that boy, if I’m not quick.”

“Talking to yourself, Innocent?”

Innocent looked up, frowning, not liking to believe he was the sort of person who talked to himself, certainly not wanting to be caught at it, and there was Kirby, grinning in the doorway, dressed for flying business in his open-neck shirt and khaki slacks and sturdy boots. “Well, Kirby,” Innocent growled, seeing nothing in that doorway that pleased him, “and what the hell happened to you yesterday?”

“Saved a village,” Kirby told him, grinning. “Went home to rest.”

“And what about Valerie?”

“Here she is.” Kirby stepped into the office then, and Valerie followed, looking happy and healthy and just a bit sheepish.

That son of a gun took her to bed, Innocent thought. There was pain in the thought, but also release. One of the things he’d been trying not to think about ever since Kirby and Valerie and the plane had all flown away yesterday from South Abilene was what he would feel — and what Valerie would feel — the next time they saw one another. The gradual suspicion had been forming inside him that the great life-changing love he had felt for Valerie was perhaps easier to maintain when she was dead or disappeared, a great mythic figure, than when she was an actual flesh-and-blood girl. The epiphany that Kirby had claimed Innocent was having the night before last in South Abilene had been a great shaking and cleansing of his system, long overdue he now believed, but it probably wouldn’t have been possible if Valerie had not been both (1) good, and (2) unobtainable.

So what should their relationship be, now that she was no longer among the missing and he’d already had his apotheosis? To go on being obsessed by her when she was present would be kind of silly, but what was the alternative?

On the other hand, even if she were no longer a goddess on earth but merely a woman, she was still quite an intriguing woman, and that pleasant afternoon spent in Vernon’s house — Vernon! by God, he knows so much! — was something Innocent would not at all mind repeating. Just how long would it take to get used to and bored with this great big tall girl with her happy enjoyments? It would be fun to find out.

But it was not to be. One look at Valerie, and a second look at Kirby, confirmed it, and a moment of sadness and nostalgia and regret passed over Innocent, like the final tremor when you’re getting over the flu. But then it was washed away by a sudden flood of relief: He would not have to follow through on his protestations of love after all. He would not have to behave toward Valerie present as he had sworn he wanted to when she was Valerie absent. He could have his epiphany, and get away with it!

“Well, come on in, you two,” he said, rising from behind his desk, beaming at them, coming all over avuncular. “Looks to me like you’ve buried the hatchet.”

“We straightened out one or two things,” Kirby agreed.

“We talked it all out,” Valerie said, smiling softly, “and we understand one another now.”

“But what we’re here for, Innocent,” Kirby said, “I want to make good on our deal. You already know about Valerie, but I promised to tell you about the temple.”

“Oh, you don’t have to, Kirby,” Innocent said, just as smiling and open and friendly as anything. “What I saw in South Abilene, and talking with Tommy Watson, I’ve got it pretty well figured out by now.”

“Hmm,” said Kirby. He didn’t seem pleased.

“And then the tape, that helped,” Innocent said. “But you haven’t heard the tape, have you?”

“What tape?”

So Innocent got the tape out of the locked desk drawer and put it in the cassette player, and once again those sounds and words filled his office: “This way, gentlemen. Watch out for snakes.” Throk . “The noise keeps them in their holes.”

Valerie just looked bewildered, but Kirby stared at the cassette player as though it were his ancestors’ form of Zotzilaha Chimalman. The words and the sound effects went on, and Kirby just stood there and stared and listened until his own voice said, “Do you know how many people there are in New Jersey?” and that other voice said, “No one I know.”

“Witcher and Feldspan!”

Innocent hit the STOP button. “They recorded every conversation with you, Kirby.”

“Holy Christ! Those two?”

“Never underestimate people,” Innocent said: Vernon.

“But— They’re legitimate antique dealers!”

“That’s right. Doing undercover reporter work for a friend of theirs named Hiram Farley, editor of a big American magazine called Trend. Ever hear of Trend , Kirby?”

“Those dirty bastards.”

“I managed to have them lose these tapes at the airport,” Innocent said, “or otherwise you and your temple would be all over Trend magazine by now. You didn’t know I was helping you like that, did you?”

“Didn’t want me blown out of the water,” Kirby said, “until you figured out what I was up to and how you could horn in on it.”

“You always think the worst of me, Kirby,” Innocent said, and risked a smile at Valerie, telling her, “I hope you won’t be like that, Valerie.”

“I always say nice things about you, Mister St. Michael,” Valerie said.

Innocent almost laughed out loud. Oh, good, Kirby, you have no idea what you’re hooked onto here. He said, “The point is, Kirby, if you think of dealing with those fellas again, just remember these tapes.”

“Oh, I will,” Kirby said grimly, “but the deal I most want to talk about, Innocent, is ours. We did shake hands on—”

“Kirby, Kirby, do you think I’d try to reneg ?”

Kirby frowned at him: “You won’t?”

“Certainly not. It’s true I know Valerie’s alive without you having to tell me; there she is, as beautiful as ever.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And it’s true I know all about your fake temple without you telling me. But, Kirby, I’d like to think I’m an honorable man. Why, I’ve been doing nothing at all this morning except put together this paperwork on our transaction.” And he handed over the manila folder.