The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax Read online

  "The Moses Msonthi School, sir. Manchichi Road

  ."

  "Right. I'll look for him there."

  He hurried out to the entrance to find that, perversely, there were no taxis now. He paced and fumed, considered the state of his blood pressure and consulted his watch: it was 12:40 and Farrell had said the dedication ceremonies began at one o'clock . . . When a taxi finally arrived it was 12:45 and he was too grateful to express his sense of aggrievement. He climbed in and directed the driver to the school.

  "Oh yes, sir, yes, sir," the driver said with a big smile. "Our president opens the school today. Very nice, very beautiful school for girls."

  "Yes . . . well, see if you can get me there fast," he told him, and tried to think of what he'd do when he reached the school. There'd be crowds, he supposed; a big event opening a new school, probably speeches, perhaps not, but certainly crowds. He hadn't the slightest idea how he'd find Dundu, or whether Emily would turn up there too. Perhaps by now she'd discovered the man was a bona fide Zambian, except that if it really was Kleiber . . . Better not think about that, he decided, and practiced taking deep breaths to remain calm. The streets were relatively empty of traffic since it was Sunday and the shops were closed, but as they neared Manchichi Road

  the traffic increased. Cyrus paid off the driver a block away from the school and set out to find Dundu Bwanausi, not even certain that he'd mastered the man's name yet.

  Mrs. Pollifax sat on the edge of her seat watching the taxi ahead and contributing frequent comments to spur the driver on. "He's wanted by the police," she confided, feeling that some explanation was becoming necessary and hoping that what she said was true but hoping at the same time that it wasn't. "Not too close, driver, we mustn't be noticed. Have you any idea where they're heading?"

  "We are very near Manchichi Road

  , madam, perhaps he goes to watch our President dedicate a school."

  Oh God, she thought, and said aloud, "Do you mean the Moses Msonthi School?"

  "Yes, madam. This is Manchichi Road

  we turn into now, and the taxi ahead is going to the school, see? It stops now."

  She began fumbling in her purse for money. "I'll get out now, I hope this is enough," she said, thrusting kwacha notes on him, and as he drew up to the curb she added, "But will you do something important for me, driver? Will you call the police and tell them—tell them Aristotle is at the Msonthi School? Aristotle."

  "Aristotle. Yes, madam." He gave her a curious glance.

  She climbed out and gave him a long, earnest look. "I'm depending on you, I'm depending desperately on you."

  "Yes, madam."

  Up ahead she saw Mr. Kleiber strolling around the edge of the crowd looking for a place to enter it. She hurried toward him, mentally rehearsing what possible karate blow might fell him before he could shoot President Kaunda, because of course that had to be the only reason he was here in his masquerade, which meant that her instincts about John Steeves had proven sound after all, except that Steeves was now in prison and here was Aristotle still free, and no one knew . . .

  It was frightening.

  The sun was glittering, and shone on women in colorful blouses and skirts with babies slung over their shoulders, on barefooted children and men in overalls and in solemn Sunday best. A very neat avenue had been left clear for the President, she noticed. She saw Kleiber examine it and then, before she could reach him, he slipped into the crowd and vanished from sight.

  Lieutenant Bwanausi was idling near a police car at the southern corner of the crowd, waiting to see his President, whose photograph hung on every wall of his small home. One of his friends passed and called out a greeting, and then came over and shook hands with him, asking how things went with him. Dundu thought back on his week's work, recalled how close an assassin had come to threatening the life of his President, and said that life went very well for him indeed. His friend strolled on, and hearing the crackle of static from the car radio behind him, Dundu reached for the microphone. "Bwanausi here."

  At first he didn't understand what Soko was saying. "How is this, your speaking the name Aristotle, Soko," he said. "Two messages?"

  First, it seemed, there had been the message from a man at the Hotel Intercontinental, which Soko now read to him. "But Dundu," he protested, "I thought the man was drunk. Now a second call has come in from a taxi driver. He says he and a woman chased a taxi to Man-chichi Road

  , and this woman pleaded with him to call us and say that Aristotle is at the school."

  Dundu felt a spasm of fear. Was this possible? Could John Steeves not be Aristotle after all? Yet how could this be, given the evidence? "Man, this is bad news," he told Soko. "Is it too late to reach KK's party? Aristotle is the code name of the assassin we thought we jailed last night."

  There was a stunned silence. "Oh God," said Soko. "I'll try, Dundu, I'll try."

  "Do that, send out a—" He stopped as he heard the sirens. "Too late, the President's here, Soko." He dropped the microphone and began running . . .

  Mrs. Pollifax pushed her way through the crowd trying to find Mr. Kleiber, but now in her panic everybody had begun to look like Mr. Kleiber and she couldn't distinguish one face from the next. She stopped and forced herself to be calm, and instead of elbowing her way deeper into the crowd she turned and pushed her way toward the avenue down which the President would walk. Reaching the front row, she thanked a man who had let her pass and leaned out to look down the avenue. One glance was enough: she saw the President climbing out of a limousine and shaking hands with a number of people grouped around the car. She turned her head and looked to her left and saw Kleiber standing in line only twenty feet away from her, one hand in his pocket, a faint smile on his lips, his face remote, almost dreaming. Mrs. Pollifax turned and began to struggle toward him.

  Cyrus had given up trying to find Lieutenant Bwanausi. He had withdrawn to a playground behind the crowd and had climbed to the top of a convenient jungle gym, from which he could sit and keep an eye out for a familiar face. He held little hope of finding one now, and if he didn't he wondered if Emily would expect him to throw himself across the President's path. Probably, he thought, and hearing a sudden ripple of cheers from off to his right, he realized that it was one o'clock and that President Kaunda must have arrived and that he'd better do something. Before climbing down he took one last look at the knots and clusters of people on the fringe of the crowd, framed against the wall of heads beyond, and then he realized that for several minutes he'd been absently watching something—a red stick or a pennant—move determinedly from a point on his right toward an unknown point on his left. Staring at it intently now, his eyes narrowing, it stirred his memory.

  Emily's feather, he thought in astonishment, and taking a quick fix on it he climbed down from his jungle gym and hurried to the edge of the crowd, entered it at some distance ahead of where he judged Emily to be, and alternately pushed and shoved his way inward. He was in luck: the first time he stopped to look for the feather he spotted it some twenty feet away. Assuming that Emily was under it, he moved forward to intercept her, and at that moment the crowd shifted and he saw her. He also saw, not far away from her, the back of a man wearing a charcoal pin-striped suit: Kleiber.

  Emily had seen Kleiber too. She crept forward, the feather at a ridiculous slant now, and when she moved in beside the man, Cyrus, thrusting aside several small children to reach her, guessed what she was planning to do. She had just lifted her right hand when Kleiber turned his head and looked at her. Cyrus saw them exchange a long glance, and then he saw the gun in Kleiber's hand and he caught his breath, appalled. Slowly Kleiber lifted the gun and pointed it at Mrs. Pollifax, who froze, staring at him in astonishment.

  Cyrus gasped, "Not karate, Emily—judo now." Memories of long-ago gymnasium classes came back to him, of a dreary evening spent in throwing and being thrown to the mat, and with only a fleeting thought to brittle bones, Cyrus hurled himself across the twelve feet of space
that separated them. His shoulders met solid flesh, there was a crunch of bone meeting bone, several sharp cries, and he and Emily Pollifax, Willem Kleiber and two small boys fell to the ground together.

  Only Dundu Bwanausi, racing to them from the opposite side, knew that five people had not been accidentally pushed to the ground by the crowd. He leaned over Kleiber with a grim face, pocketed the man's gun and snapped handcuffs on his wrists. He picked up the two crying children and dusted them off. He gave Cyrus a hand, and then he helped Mrs. Pollifax to her feet and carefully restored her hat to her. Only when he looked into her face did his expression change. He said softly, fervently, "Oh madam, zikomo—zikomo kuambeia, ten thousand times zikomo . . ."

  But Cyrus, too, had something to say. "Damn it, Emily," he complained, "only way to keep an eye on you is marry you. Think we could find a quiet corner and talk about that?"

  CHAPTER

  16

  In Langley, Virginia, it was Monday morning and Car-stairs, returning from an early conference Upstairs, was scowling.

  "Something wrong?" asked Bishop, looking at him curiously. "Or wronger than usual?"

  Carstairs poured himself a cup of coffee before answering. "Not really," he said, "except that my ego's suffered a small blow."

  "Oh?"

  Carstairs made a face. "You know I've never enjoyed being outmaneuvered by the British . . . Upstairs asked for a review of the Aristotle file this morning, and damned if Liaison didn't report that British Intelligence has a man on Aristotle's trail too."

  Bishop began to understand. He said with a grin, "You mean one of Emily's safari companions was an Ml agent?"

  Carstairs nodded. "Some travel writer or other. Seems a damned waste of talent."

  Bishop chuckled. "Think he was taking snapshots too?" He had a sudden vivid picture of Mrs. Pollifax and a British agent swarming over the safari with their cameras.

  "It's no longer important," Carstairs said, shrugging. "The safari ended Saturday and we'll soon have Mrs. Pollifax's photographs, and we can pool the results with London and Interpol. The pictures are what matter, although I'm certainly hoping she'll bring us Farrell as a dividend. I wonder if they've had their reunion yet . . ."

  "As a matter of fact they have, sir."

  Carstairs put down his cup of coffee and stared. "You've heard from her?"

  "No," said Bishop, "but this cable arrived from Zambia while you were in conference. It's from John Sebastian himself, no less, datelined 2 p.m. yesterday Zambian time."

  Carstairs brightened. "Marvelous! Is he coming back to us?"

  "No," said Bishop, and read aloud:

  SORRY CHAPS BOOKED SOLID FOR NEXT FEW YEARS STOP SUGGEST YOU BOOK EMILY HOWEVER BEFORE CYRUS BEATS YOU TO IT STOP DELIGHTED TO FIND DUCHESS STILL INDESTRUCTIBLE ALTHOUGH NOT FOR WANT OF TRYING STOP RETURNING HER TO YOU ONLY SLIGHTLY BRUISED WITH LOVE AND KISSES FARRELL.

  "Now what," said Carstairs, "is that all about?" "I suspect he'd been drinking, sir," said Bishop, and tossed the cable into the wastebasket.