Gavin Lyall - Judas Country

Ken said quietly: 'You locked me in.' The Smith was back pointing at Aziz's middle.

He may have gone a bit paler. 'I assured you it was only a temporary-'

'You locked the door.' Ken's voice was still quiet but his hands were white on the gun.

Aziz said: 'But of course, it was only-'

'You locked the door.'

'I amtelling you-'

'You locked the door.' The statement had gone beyond meaning, now. Aziz twitched his head side to side, looking for help, a way out, just an explanation.

I said: 'Hold it, Ken. Let me talk to him. I'm loaded, too.'

For a long moment Ken just stared fixedly down the gun at the fat man's stomach. Then he let his hands drop. Aziz let out a shaky breath.

I said: 'We'll be leaving soon, so you'd better organise a car to get us down the hill.' I jerked my head at the telephone. 'We'll have to trust whatever you tell them, but you'll come out to see us off, so if you want to arrange a shoot-out…' I shrugged.

Aziz nodded and went to the phone and gave a few brief orders, looked up at me.

'When we're out of here,' I said, 'You're back in charge again. What sort of deal are you offering Mitzi now?'

His thin face ran through a kaleidoscope of expressions: relief, suspicion, amusement. Then he spread his hands. 'Just as before: a fifty-fifty share, as I arranged with Professor Spohr, when you find the sword. But meanwhile, I must have the document for security.'

Ken snapped: 'You'll get it shoved up-'

'Hold it, hold it.' Then I shook my head at Aziz. 'No, I'm sorry. I might have voted for that before, but then you changed your way of doing business. You got a bit too crude and insensitive…'

He winced; that must be one of the worst insults you can hand a French-angled Lebanese. Let him suffer.

I went on: 'I think we're prepared to accept that youdid back the Professor-'

'I can prove it,' he said. 'Of course, the documents are not here, but…'

'Let's just say we accept it. And so, when and if Miss Spohr finds the sword, she will make sure you, are fully refunded and, on top of that, properly rewarded.' I looked at Mitzi. 'Okay?'

At that moment, her ideas about proper rewards were running to lighted matches under fingernails, but she managed a brief grunt of:'Ja.'

I looked to Aziz and he looked back almost pityingly. 'You cannot expect me to accept that, when I have the original agreement signed by Professor Spohr which-'

'I haven't seen that agreement,' I said, 'but it must at least imply a conspiracy to commit a crime in another country, namely Israel, and namely the illegal export of an antiquity. In a Beirut court you might get that agreement to stand, you being the Aziz ben Aziz, and you might even make it binding on the Professor's heirs. But outside of Beirut, and depending on the texture of the paper, I very much advise you to use it to wipe your arse.'

There was a long strained silence broken, at last by Ken's chuckle. 'You been studying for the Bar while I was away?'

'Only in them.'

Aziz said coldly: 'Do you expect me to trust you, then?'

I shrugged. 'We had to start off by trusting you.'

Ken said: 'Confucius he say: when pistols come in door, trust jump out of window forgetting trousers.' So he really was feeling calmer. But I still didn't want to leave him alone with Aziz.

'The car should be ready by now,' I said. 'Go and collect Eleanor.'

He looked doubtful, or maybe disappointed. 'Can you manage…?'

'Of course. Get weaving.'

He went out. Aziz and the new boy looked at me, and after a time Aziz asked: 'Why was your friend so very angry?'

'Yesterday morning he came out of jail after two years. Every day they locked the door on him. So then you did, too.'

'Mon Dieu.'He went a bit paler. "That was, as you say, insensitive of me. But what else could I do?'

'If you can't think of another way of doing business then you'd better get usetfto being on the wrong end of a gun.'

He thought this over, then said slyly: 'What would you do if I told Emile to take his gun back?'

Tveshot men before; one gets used to it. I mean me, not them.'

He didn't say anything more, and Emile had never looked as if he was in a volunteering mood anyway.

Then the door opened and Ken hustled in a rather bewildered Eleanor. 'What's all the rush about?' Then she sensed the stiffness in Aziz's and Emile's attitudes – and saw the gun in my hand. 'Great Jesus, has the rodeo come to town?'

'Just an old Lebanese business custom.' I reassured her.

'We're leaving by the back door,' Ken said. 'And like now. Ready to move?' He took his gun out of of his pocket.

'Emilestays here,' I told Aziz. 'You come with us, so I should advise him not to sound the sirens.'

Aziz told him something, then looked at Pietro, still curled up, eyes closed and far far away. In time, too. Instinctively, he lowered his voice: 'What did you do to him?'

'Nothing,' I said. 'He just wanted to take his gun back off Ken.' I locked the door behind us and gave Aziz the key. As we headed down the dim corridor away from the noise of the party, I said: Treat him gently. He may not be much of a bodyguard again, but I think he sort of died back then.'

The ride down the hill, in a big metallic-grey Mercedes, was a lot smoother than the journey up. And no problems, either. I'd wondered if Aziz might call the police and have us picked up for carrying illegal firearms, stealing a car, kidnapping a chauffeur and everything short of barratry and mopery. Then I'd decided he didn't want us in jail any more than we wanted to be there, and for once I was right.

Nobody said much until we were standing on the steps „of the St George watching the car flow away in the cold lamplight. It wasn't even very late; not yet midnight.

Ken stretched and said: 'Well, one final jar before the dew falls? ' He looked around us and Eleanor and I nodded.

Mitzi said: 'I think I will go to bed, please.'

'Your choice,' Ken said, and we walked up into the hotel -which was still as wide awake as high noon. 'But just as a matter of professional interest: where¡s that paper?'

Mitzi turned to Eleanor. 'You still have it?'

'The document about the sword? Sure.' And she dug in her big handbag and passed it over. ('Je-sus,' Ken said softly. 'If the bastard had only known…'

'Was that what it was all about?' Eleanor asked.

'An animal searched me,' Mitzi said bitterly, stowing away the paper and then heading for the desk to pick up her key.

Ken looked at Eleanor. 'Didn't anybody try to take offyour clothes?'

'Didn't they hell.' She looked a little warm. 'Enough of themimplied the idea, though I don't think they were looking for bits of paper. You know there was another room, smaller and darker, where they had a little brazier thing burning?'

I felt a smile crawling on to my face and tried to frown it down.

'Did they?' said Ken innocently.

'They suggested I should stand over it, kind of; it was supposed to be… well, aromatic.'

Ken grinned wickedly. 'And which one of us'll you have first?'

She blushed, really blushed.

'And modern science,' I said, 'proves there's no such thing as an aphrodisiac.'

She staredfirmly at the lift doors while her blush faded. Mitzi came back with her key to say goodnight.

Ken said: 'For God's sake be careful with that piece of paper. Why not the hotel safe now?'

I said: 'No,' without quite knowing why except that it was an obvious place and I didn't think Aziz needed any help in thinking of obvious places.

'I will keep it okay,' Mitzi promised. Then she smiled, rather demurely. 'Thank you for being so brave, like knights.' She turned away into the lift.

Ken looked at me and raised his eyebrows. 'Gadzooks and forsooth.'