Росс Томас - Cast a Yellow Shadow

“Do sit down,” the old man said. His voice was deep and there was no quaver in it. He gestured towards the end of the conference table. Padillo and I sat in two chairs at the end. There were two empty chairs between us and the two men who sat next to the desk and looked at us. They were fairly young, in their late thirties, and one was dark and one was fair. They were both big. Not fat. Just big.

“You’re Van Zandt,” I said.

“That is correct. Which of you will do the killing? I thought I might be able to tell, but you both have the hunter’s look about you.”

“Where’s my wife?” I said.

The old man looked at me with black eyes that sat deep in his skull. He looked at me carefully, then nodded to himself, and switched his gaze to Padillo.

“You’re the one,” he said.

“Where’s his wife?” Padillo said.

The fairhaired younger man spoke. “She’s quite safe.”

“I didn’t ask if she were safe,” I said. “I asked where she was.”

“We don’t propose to tell you that.”

Van Zandt shifted his gaze from Padillo to the blond man. “That will do, Wendell.” His eyes went back to Padillo.

“Few men, Mr. Padillo, have the opportunity to study the man who will kill them. I hope you will forgive my curiosity, but I find you fascinating.”

“Since nobody seems inclined to make the introductions,” Padillo said to me, “I will. On your right is Wendell Boggs. He’s the Minister of Transport. On your left: Lewis Darragh, the Minister of Home Affairs. We met in Lomé.”

“Your wife talks a lot,” I said to Boggs.

He flushed and looked at Van Zandt. The old man put his hands flat on the table, raised his elbows until they were level with his shoulders, and leaned forward. He looked like an angry turkey buzzard about to take off. His hands had brown mottled spots on their backs.

“We are not here to squabble,” he roared. “We are here to plan my death and I damn well intend to see that it’s planned correctly.”

“Sorry, sir,” Boggs said.

Darragh, the Minister of Home Affairs, looked at Padillo. “Are you willing to proceed?”

“With what?” Padillo asked.

“With the discussion.”

Padillo leaned back in his chair, produced a cigarette, lighted it, and blew the smoke out. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll discuss it. It’s set for Tuesday now, I understand.”

“That’s correct,” the old man said. “That gives me a little less than three days of living left, doesn’t it?” He seemed to almost enjoy the thought.

The two younger men stirred uncomfortably in their chairs. “How does it feel to plan a man’s death like this, Mr. Padillo?” Van Zandt said. “I mean in a civilized manner, over the coffee and cigars that I’ll offer later? I understand you’ve done this type of work before.”

“So they say.”

“I remarked that look about you. You’ve got the hunter’s eye. At eighty-two I’m not sorry for a damned thing so I’m not sorry about ending this way. Tell me, what type of piece do you plan to use?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. What would you say to a Ga-rand M-i — the old World War II standby?”

“No sporting piece for you?”

“It depends upon what’s available. I have no favorites.”

The old man leaned back in his chair. “Just recalling my first military rifle. Was an old Lee Metford Mark II with a ten-round magazine and a half-length cleaning rod attached. Damned thing weighed more than ten pounds, and it stood more than four feet tall.”

Van Zandt stopped talking and coughed. It was a deep, wracking cough. His face flushed and a vein popped out on his forehead. He shook his head when he was done.

“Let’s get on with it,” he said. “First, let me say it’s a dirty business. I know it and you gentlemen know it. Kidnapping a man’s wife — well, it’s something that I’d rather have had no part of. But it’s done; it’s done. I’m going to have myself assassinated because of politics, but that’s usually the reason for assassinations, isn’t it? Unless you have one that’s wasted, like that fool Verwoerd’s. The only thing he ever drew were madmen. He could have died for something, if he’d planned it. I’m dying anyway, you know. Be gone in a month or two, no matter what. Cancer of the stomach. Nasty thing — a truly nasty thing.” The old man paused and stared across the room. He seemed to be staring at nothing. The two younger men twitched in their chairs.

“Just remembering,” Van Zandt said. He smoothed his long thin white hair with a mottled hand. “Remembering how it was sixty years ago before they built the roads and brought in their stinking autos and spread out their filthy cities. It was a good country then. Still a good country and that’s what my dying’s all about. To keep it a good country.”

He looked at me. “You have blacks here and you have trouble with them, don’t you, Mr. McCorkle?”

“We have all kinds of trouble,” I said. “We’ve got a big country.”

“Have you found a solution to your color problem? Have you? Of course not. Never will either. Black and white can’t live together. Never could and never will. That’s why I’m dying. My death will slow down the blacks. It won’t stop them. I know that. But it will slow them down. It will shock people.”

“Nobody grieved much over Verwoerd,” Padillo said.

“Of course not. The bloody fool got killed in his own country, by a madman and white at that. My country wants to be independent and run its own affairs, elect its own government, conduct its own foreign relations, arrange its own trade agreements. The blacks can’t do this — they haven’t a notion.”

He stopped again and again the young men twitched. “My death will help do this one thing, gentlemen: it will slow down the encroachment of the blacks on the affairs of my country. It will create sympathy. It will — since I am to be assassinated in the United States — weaken your country’s resistance to our independence. My death at the hands of a black will give my country twenty years to put its affairs in order. By then it will be able to cope. I assure you: we will be able to cope. Rhodesia, South Africa, and us — we will conduct our own affairs. And my death will serve this purpose.” He paused again. “Separate development,” he said firmly. “It’s the only solution. Your country should adopt it.”

Padillo moved his chair closer to the table. “I don’t know if your death will affect the future of your country or not. It sounds to me as if you’re giving it too much weight. Maybe it will create the political climate you’re looking for and get the British off your back. Maybe they’ll let you go independent and then a hundred-thousand whites can go on keeping two million blacks in their place — wherever their place is. The back door, I suppose. Maybe it will work; maybe it won’t. But before you get too carried away with it all, let me mention something. I won’t be the one who pulls the trigger.”

There was a brief silence. The old man looked at Padillo and then at Boggs and Darragh. It was Darragh who sighed as he spoke.

“I don’t like to keep mentioning Mrs. McCorkle, but—”

“You don’t have to mention her,” Padillo said. “I only said that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t say it couldn’t still be done.”

“Why can’t you do it, Mr. Padillo?” Van Zandt asked.

“Because the FBI is interested in me. They’re interested in the guns I ran in Africa. They’ve had a tail on me since I’ve been here.”

“We’ve been watching you, too, Padillo,” Boggs said. “We haven’t noticed the tail, as you say.”

“Then you haven’t looked. We shook them off to come here. But that will only make them interested. They’ll make sure they stick next time.”