Mrs. Pollifax Pursued Read online

  With infinite relief and a sense of triumph he heard Desforges say easily, "Oh yes, that was certainly interesting. I must say, those African potentates live well. Most interesting."

  Carstairs, in an attempt to decipher just what this meant, hazarded an amused, "Well entertained, were you?"

  "Mon Dieu, yes! Champagne, pheasant, caviar, all the good things of life."

  Carstairs, hopes rising, continued, "You would say, then, that Bidwell had established a congenial relationship with the President?"

  "Definitely, yes. Old friends, one might say. We stayed at the palace two of the nights, and when we went out into the field we had escorts and guards. Very well taken care of. Of course the people are starving," he added ruefully, "while the President is designing a third palace and having all his caviar flown in from Europe. One regrets this sort of thing but business was business in Bidwell's case."

  "Of course," Carstairs said, and, "What was the nature of his business, M. Desforges?"

  "That, I am not at liberty to tell you, of course, without Bidwell's consent."

  "As you know," Carstairs said crisply, "this is Central Intelligence calling. Perhaps if your Sûreté asked the question?"

  Desforges hesitated. "I would have to say the same to them, you know. Client confidentiality and all that." He added cautiously, "It is perhaps permissible to say that Monsieur Bidwell and his company now own exclusive mineral rights to the country."

  "Oh yes," Carstairs murmured noncommittally. "Do you happen to recall the name of the company?"

  "Offhand, no, I only glimpsed it on documents."

  "Would it be Claiborne-Osborne International?"

  "No, no, quite different, Something-Something Mining Company of Ubangiba, but I don't recall the attached name."

  Aha, thought Carstairs, and risked another wild guess. "With Lecler and Romanovitch involved, of course."

  "Yes, their names were mentioned."

  Better and better, thought Carstairs, there was beginning to be a shape to this. "Thank you, M. Desforges," he said, and as if just thinking of this he added, "Oh—one last question, if I may ask it without endangering your—uh—client confidentiality. Would you say that from a business point of view their acquiring the mineral rights will prove profitable?"

  "Hmmmm," murmured Desforges thoughtfully. "Of course oil or natural gas would be far more profitable but I suppose any form of energy in that region . . . With cheap labor, and it would have to be very cheap labor—a bit Leopoldish, of course—but with cheap labor profitable, yes."

  Carstairs felt a rush of excitement; Bidwell might not have struck oil but he felt that he had struck it. "Thank you, M. Desforges," he said with conviction.

  Energy, he reflected, and rang the Africa section; it was time to find out what, if anything, Bidwell planned for Ubangiba. "Allan?" he said. "Carstairs here. I want to learn what your geology department can find out from the various strata—what I think are called the metamorphic and sedimentary rock formations?—of the country of Ubangiba. I want to know just what minerals could possibly be unearthed there. Not known, you understand, but potential."

  "What do you mean, not known?" asked Allan.

  "Just that. So far as the usual descriptions of the country go, there are no minerals at all. On the other hand, someone seems to have discovered something that's made it worth tying up exclusive mineral rights over there and I gather it's neither oil nor natural gas."

  "Hmmm," murmured Allan. "Tin, gold, iron-ore, wolfram ..."

  Carstairs shook his head. "It's been referred to as energy-producing but not oil."

  "That'll take a few days," said Allan. "We'll have to start from scratch with an analysis, and do some real research."

  "That's expected," Carstairs told him. "As soon as possible, though, and with my thanks."

  He glanced up as Bishop walked into his office.

  "I'm back," said Bishop gloomily. "Raining in New York and my trip was a wild goose chase, wasn't it? A total waste?"

  "Not at all," Carstairs assured him smoothly, and with a glance at his watch, "Nearly four o'clock, you've not had time to connect with Mrs. Pollifax, I suppose?"

  "No rest for the weary," sighed Bishop. "I'll try right now but Willie seldom inhabits his office afternoons. He does, however, have an answering machine so I'll just keep calling and leaving messages. That should annoy him."

  "Do that," said Carstairs, turning to the work on his desk. "She's safe, which is what matters, but I'd like to know why on earth she needed a safe house here in the United States when not on any assignment. Keep trying."

  11

  Kadi was having the time oí her life. After all, she had never been sawed in half before, and in concentrating on the Professor's instructions and listening for the key words that would tell her the moment when she and Tatiana would be spun dizzily in a wide circle, she completely forgot her two days in a closet, Chigi Scap Metal, and her anxieties about Sammy. She had entered a world of magic and drama, and after a very sobering adolescence she was experiencing playtime. It was surprising how restful it felt, and how liberating.

  By two o'clock the Professor announced that she had mastered the timing of her role in the act and that she could be released to investigate her startling new environment. Before she left he delved into a trunk in the rear and handed her a pair of black stockings and a pair of size 5 shoes that matched Tatiana's. "Take 'em along and be back here six o'clock sharp."

  Kadi went at once to the trailer to rummage through her knapsack for the sketchbooks she'd taken to New Haven in what felt now an eternity ago. A carnival, she thought, would be a wonderful opportunity for sketching faces.

  She found Mrs. Pollifax already in the trailer with a notepad in her lap. "I'm to be a feature writer for a newspaper and interview some of the carnies," she told Kadi. "I have narrowly escaped being a fortune-teller."

  Abruptly Kadi sat down, knapsack on her lap. "Mrs. Pollifax—"

  "It's Mrs. Reed," she reminded her pleasantly.

  "Reed . . . Reed," said Kadi, "but why? And—you said you would explain, didn't you? To be here of all places, and suddenly you're not Mrs. Polli—I mean, suddenly you're Mrs. Reed."

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. "Yes, I suppose you have to know. . .." Leaving her bunk to sit beside Kadi she said, "You understand this is very confidential."

  "Yes," Kadi said, watching her face.

  Keeping her voice low, "You've heard of the Central Intelligence Agency in this country, the CIA?" Kadi nodded. "Some years ago, during a difficult time in my life"—she smiled, remembering—"I applied for work with them, quite outrageously, of course, but also out of desperation because I'd come to a dead end in my life. The man who interviewed me—I can't describe how shocked he was—wanted to get rid of me as fast as possible, but by chance I was seen by a man who was looking for someone just like me and thought I'd be an excellent courier. An Innocent Tourist, he called me.

  "I barely survived that mission," she told Kadi dryly, "but it ended successfully and since then I've been given other assignments abroad. So you see, when I found you in my closet I was—well, somewhat experienced in surprises, and when I made my phone call from the hospital it was to someone I know in the—the Department."

  Kadi, watching her wide-eyed, said shakily, "You mean I picked just the perfect person to help me."

  "Not perfect," Mrs. Pollifax said modestly, "but not uninitiated. The surprise for me is that this carnival is semi-supported by my—er—friends, as a place where people in danger are occasionally sent by the Department for safekeeping. Willie told me this last night. It's assumed that Willie's Rich Uncle bails out the carnival when it can't pay its bills, which I have to say is tremendously inventive and clever. But one of the men sent by Willie's Rich Uncle was knifed last night while we were flying here and I've been asked to help. Only for a few days," she added firmly.

  "Wow," said Kadi admiringly. "Can I help, too?"

  Mrs. Pollifax smiled. "You can help by rem
embering to call me Emmy, or Mrs. Reed, and by noticing anything odd here. Except," she added reasonably, "I expect that everything will seem rather odd to us. For instance—" She glanced at her list, "I am now going to try and locate a Snake Woman. What do you plan to do?"

  "Sketch people," said Kadi. "For practice."

  Mrs. Pollifax looked at her thoughtfully. "A very good idea. Of course a few here may object to being sketched. . . . Perhaps you could explain that Willie's trying you out for a concession of your own. Sketching people."

  Kadi leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "I do admire the way your mind works."

  "And if anyone questions you, say you're 'with it,' " added Mrs. Pollifax.

  "With what?"

  "I suppose with the carnival; it's what one says, or so Willie told me. To tell them you belong."

  "Belong," said Kadi wistfully. "What a nice word," and opening the door she walked out, sketchbook and pen in hand, to explore the midway.

  Mrs. Pollifax found a match and burned her small list of carnival suspects and then ventured out herself. It was past three o'clock and as she left the circle of trailers and entered the midway she saw a police car parked near the big tent called the Ten-in-One. A policeman was standing beside it. Mrs. Pollifax's glance veered to the right as a second policeman ushered out of the tent an extremely odd-looking young person carrying, in outstretched arms like a libation, a gleaming mahogany box. Mrs. Pollifax slowed her pace, not sure whether the policeman was escorting a young woman or a young boy: he or she was thin as a reed, and tall, with a shock of orange hair clipped in the style referred to as punk, wearing a pink halter tight as a Band-Aid across the chest, and tight black slacks. Only when her eyes fell to the high-heeled shoes, and at last noted two small bulges under the halter did she realize it was a young woman. Her face was no less startling than her tall thin body: thin sharp features and a bright slash of scarlet lips.

  "She's got her knives, Lieutenant," the policeman called to his companion. "Very different ones, no similarity."

  "Let's see," the lieutenant said. "You're Jasna?"

  The young woman nodded and placed the mahogany box on the hood of the car. Opening it, she said in a lightly accented voice, "These I work with. The case stays locked. It is locked always until my act begins."

  Mrs. Pollifax, lingering in the shadow of a booth, watched the lieutenant bring out a tape measure, pluck one of the long pointed knives from the box and measure it. "You throw these? At a man?"

  She nodded indifferently. "Yes."

  "You never miss? He doesn't mind?"

  "He taught me," she said with a shrug. "Before that it was I who stood on the platform and he who threw the knives."

  From between two concession booths a bearded man appeared, wearing a long cape, his head tilted up, eyes concealed by dark glasses. "Jasna?" he called. "Jasna?"

  "Over here, Papa," she called out to him.

  As he took a few steps forward he prodded the earth with a cane, and Mrs. Pollifax realized that he was the blind man that Willie had mentioned last night. The two policemen watching his progress looked shocked. "Good God, blind," murmured the lieutenant.

  "If you must know, yes," the girl said coldly, "but once, in Europe, he was famous before he lost his sight." To the old man she said, "It's all right, Papa, they only wanted to see the knives, see if one had been stolen, or if I—" She gave the two men an amused glance, "If I went about trying to kill people."

  Her father's cane found the car and he stopped, his cane as alive as fingers searching for Jasna. "Over here, Papa," she said softly. "Now—you have seen the knives, we can go?"

  The lieutenant brought a photograph from his pocket. "From the depth and width of the wound it would have been a knife like this," he said, handing the photograph to her. "Ever seen one of these knives?"

  She said scornfully, "It looks like a kitchen knife, you would do better to ask in the cook-house."

  "I'd call it a dagger," the lieutenant said.

  She said with a shrug, "Not one of mine."

  Mrs. Pollifax decided to move along before she was seen, and slipping through the space from which Jasna's father had entered the midway she walked around the back of the Ten-in-One and came out farther down the midway. Several of the booths were open now and occupied, with their flaps rolled up; at one of them a man on a ladder was touching up a sign with a paint brush while Kadi was standing at another booth arguing with the man behind the counter. As Mrs. Pollifax neared her she heard Kadi say, "I told you I'm 'with it' but I'll pay, I will if you want. All you have to do is start the ducks moving, I don't even want a prize."

  She was facing a ruddy-faced man with a stubborn mouth who glared at her angrily. "You nag worse than my wife .. , nag nag nag," he growled. "To get rid of you—okay once, just once, you hear? Then scram."

  Mrs. Pollifax stopped behind her. It was a shooting gallery that had caught Kadi's attention, a few rifles in a row on the counter and a line of yellow ducks in suspension along the back wall. With a martyred sigh the man pressed a button and the ducks began moving; he continued to glare at Kadi, who picked up one of the B-B guns, aimed, fired rapidly and knocked over all eight of the moving ducks.

  Beaming, Kadi thanked him. "That was great fun, thanks, really."

  Mrs. Pollifax, staring at her in surprise, was not alone in her reaction.

  "Hey girlie," shouted the man, "come back."

  Kadi turned.

  "Can you do that again?"

  "Well, I suppose so," Kadi said, considering this.

  "Even faster? Show me." He pressed the button and the ducks flew upright again and began moving across the back panel, but faster now. Kadi lifted a rifle, aimed, fired, and seven of the eight fell over. He stared at her. "Look, kid," he said, "you wanna work for me tonight? You be my stick and I'll pay you, it'll bring in the marks like bees to honey."

  "What's a stick?" asked Kadi.

  "The come-on . . , the tip sees how easy a kid like you shoots down the ducks, they can't wait to get out their wallets." He winked. "At least until they win too much." He didn't explain what he did if they won too much.

  Kadi said politely, "Thank you very much but I've got a job with the Professor, I'm being sawed in half."

  He leaned forward eagerly. "Look, any time you're between acts, you come here, I'd appreciate that, young lady. Name's Pogo." He thrust out a calloused hand to shake, and Kadi politely extended hers, shook it and said, "I'll see, Pogo. Thanks."

  Turning and seeing Mrs. Pollifax, she grinned. "Hello, Emmy Reed!"

  "Kadi," said Mrs. Pollifax in awe, "where on earth did you learn to shoot like that?"

  "Oh, at home in Ubangiba," she said, joining her. "Sand grouse and scorpions and snakes—Sammy and Rabi and Duma and me. I had only a B-B gun but Sammy and Duma had real pistols."

  "You certainly won Pogo's heart." Mrs. Pollifax glanced down at the sketchbook Kadi carried tucked under her arm. "I see you've already sketched him."

  Kadi laughed. "Well, it's mostly a caricature, there wasn't much time."

  "But I recognize him at once," said Mrs. Pollifax, studying the quick sketch. "That protruding underlip—and that's a very witty line suggesting his broken nose. Have you done others?"

  Kadi stopped and turned a page. "Just this."

  "Jasna!" exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax. "Perfect! I've just seen her." Smiling, she said, "I'll have to write the New Haven police department and tell them what a terrible mistake they made, not hiring you."

  "I wish you would," Kadi said wistfully. "I really need a job."

  "You just had an offer," pointed out Mrs. Pollifax with a twinkle.

  Kadi laughed. "I did, didn't I."

  Willie was striding down the midway, looking harassed, but seeing them he stopped. "Go all right with the Professor?" he asked Kadi.

  "Oh yes," she said eagerly, "but Mr. Willie, how did you know my name was African?"

  He grinned. "Rule one in a carnival: never ask personal questions.
So I'll ask you one: what country you from?"

  "Ubangiba."

  He nodded. "Know any pidgin English?"

  She laughed. "A little. Gut ifnin, ha yu de?"

  "A de wel," he said, laughing with her. "A de fayn."

  "Gut," she told him. "Waka fayn."

  MORE dimensions to this man, thought Mrs. Pollifax; it suggests a good many adventures for the CIA in his youth. She said, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but where will I find the Snake Woman, Willie?"

  He glanced at his watch. "Still in her trailer. Dark brown mobile home, red curtains," and to Kadi, with a smile, "Waka fayn," and strode away.

  She left Kadi staring after Willie with a look of amazement and pleasure on her face, and made her exit from the midway, giving the police car a surreptitious glance and noting that it was empty. Reaching the circle of trailers she located the dark brown mobile home, as long and luxurious as Willie's. An extremely voluptuous young woman was sunning herself in a lawn chair near it, and seeing Mrs. Pollifax she called out with a friendly smile, "Come say hello, you're the lady going to get us in the newspaper, right?"

  Startled, Mrs. Pollifax said, "But how did you know?"

  The girl laughed. "Boozy Tim told me, Boozy Tim knows all the gossip, he knows everything that goes on here. Have a seat." A hand with brilliant red nails indicated the chair next to her.

  Mrs. Pollifax made a mental note to look up this Boozy Tim who "knew everything," but she resisted the invitation. "I'm looking for the Snake Woman, are you—?"

  "Oh, her . . , she's feeding her snakes just now." The hand was casually waved toward the trailer behind her. "I'd advise waiting, it's a messy business."

  Mrs. Pollifax eyed the mass of brown hair in the girl's lap. "Is that alive?"

  "Lord no," she said, laughing. "It's my wig, honey, I was brushing it." She held it up to her head to display long corkscrew curls that reached to her waist. "I'm half the girlie show, me and Zilka. Shannon Summer's the name. Sit."

  Mrs. Pollifax sat. She also stared, for there was a great deal of Shannon Summer at which to stare, six feet of her at least, with long legs and curves that appeared to defy every law of nature, topped off with a saucy round face and wide smile. "Girlie show?" she said.