Safari for Spies

A Hop, a Skip, and a Slump

Before Nick left he attached an extra lock to his bedroom door, one that AXE’s specialists guaranteed to withstand everything short of a battering ram. He revealed its secret to Hakim who could then come and go as he wished and yet not leave the room and its grisly contents unguarded.

Ambassadors had to be very careful what they left lying around in their hotel rooms.

Hakim had certain arrangements to make and Nick went on his way without asking unnecessary questions. He couldn’t help thinking, though, that the cross-eyed Egyptian was singularly undismayed by the problems involved in the tactful disposal of corpses. In fact, the pleasure with which he approached his task was almost ghoulish.

“You can’t do it alone,” Nick had said. “Leave them until I get back from...”

“Never mind, never mind,” Hakim interrupted. “You attend to your part of the job and I’ll attend to mine. I can assure you that I shall handle it to your satisfaction. And to my own.” And he had actually rubbed his hands together and cackled with villainous glee.

“Cornball,” said Nick, and set to work effecting some striking changes in his own appearance.

Hakim had inspired him. When Nick left the Hotel Senegal, as unobtrusively as only he (and probably Hakim) knew how, he was already employing a shambling stride that looked slow and careless but covered the ground quickly. By the time he had gone two blocks he was sure that no one was following him or could possibly recognize him as the distinguished diplomat come to Dakar on grave, official business. He caught sight of himself in a shop window and almost gagged Great! But let’s not overdo it, Carter, or you’ll be arrested on suspicion of something unspeakable.

He was nothing more sinister than a man with a pleasantly ugly face and a slight limp when he did the first part of his shopping and then checked into the Hotel Majestic under an indecipherable Polish name. He felt more comfortable the moment he had done it. This business of going around with his own name tied to his own face while he was engaged in a sticky job was something he hadn’t cared for since his early days with the OSS. It was more a question of security than personal safety; the job couldn’t help suffering when you were too easily recognized.

The rest of his shopping took him considerably more time and cost him more money, even though his purchases were very small. He hid them on himself, then bought a street map and made a tour of various sections of the city in case he found himself running up an unfamiliar alley pursued by cops or killers. In no time at all he had grounded himself at the wrong end of a cul-de-sac.

The Hop Club started hopping toward the end of the afternoon. Nick knew this because he had wandered past it and through the nearby streets during his tour, and read the sign that said: “OPEN 5 TIL?????”

It was not much of a club as far as the entertainment was concerned. A scrawny piano player with huge, dilated eyes plinked away with a languid proficiency that might have sounded fine if the piano hadn’t been dead and exhumed after a long interment. It also wasn’t the kind of club with a uniformed doorman or a dues-paying membership — nearly all its clients seemed to be members of one desolate fraternity.

The Club served snack suppers and coffee, soft drinks and sandwiches, ice cream and alcohol. On the whole it was a pretty horrible — and very popular — place.

The piano moaned away while Nick stood just inside the doorway and looked around. His face was at its most repulsive and his skulking manner at its most obnoxious. Any right-thinking bouncer would have thrown him out at once. But the only guy who seemed to qualify as a bouncer eyed him without undue curiosity. There was neither major-domo nor hostess to show him to a table, and the male cashier made it clear that it wasn’t his job to play escort to the suckers. The seedy waiters steadfastly ignored him.

Nick found a small table for himself, one near the door that gave him a fair view down the length of the room. It was a two-seater, pushed against the wall and far enough away from the nearest table to let a couple talk in peace if they wanted privacy.

But most of the couples weren’t talking very much. Most of them weren’t even couples. There were fewer women than men at the tables, and they were scarcely bargains at any price. Only one or two of them looked like anything other than leftovers. It was not so much their features that repelled as their thick, poorly applied make-up, and the tangled untidiness of their hair and clothes. At least half of the people wore dark glasses even in the poor light of the unclubby club. Not many of them seemed to be drinking very much. One man was singing and shouting to himself over a cup of coffee and several others seemed to be sipping the same stuff, only more quietly. Of course it was pretty early for the action to begin, but this lot didn’t seem to be craving action. One group was talking and gesturing animatedly, but the others just sat around and twitched.

Christ Almighty, Nick thought, trying to grab a waiter. If Abe Jefferson had a place like this under his nose in Abimako he’d close it up in three seconds flat or else he’d have his own man sitting in on it. Which led to the thought that maybe the Dakar chief did, too.

The waiters continued to ignore him but somehow Nick began to feel noticed. Someone was definitely taking a good long look at him from the half-open service door in the back. He pulled a switch-knife out of his pocket and gave them something to look at. The blade clicked open so crisply that a man two tables over jumped and cringed away. Nick picked intently at his fingernails. It was not one of his favorite habits, but it gave him a chance to show off some minor hardware.

At last a reedy waiter in flowing off-white favored him with a glance.

“Scotch,” Nick snarled.

The waiter curled his lip. “Brandy and gin.”

“Thanks for the suggestion, but I said Scotch.”

“Only brandy and gin.”

“All right, for Chrissake. Brandy and gin.”

The waiter gave him the look that waiters specialize in and stalked off to the small bar opposite the piano. He came back with two shot glasses. One of brandy, one of gin.

“Shall I mix it?” he said insolently.

“I’ll mix it,” Nick growled. “And tell the manager I want to see him. Business.”

The waiter raised one eyebrow. “I’ll find out if it’s convenient. What kind of business?”

Nick’s eyes narrowed and his mouth became a thin, hard line.

“I’ll tell him myself. Just get him.” The malevolence in his face and the ice in his voice were not wasted. The man turned abruptly and walked to the door in the rear.

The gin was awful but the brandy was surprisingly smooth. Nick drank them both, swallowing the gin like medicine but lingering over the brandy. He pretended not to see the waiter stopping to exchange confidences with the bouncer, and looked pointedly at the radium dial of his watch. The bouncer — a bruiser in a bulging American suit — nodded and went in to deliver the message himself.

Nick was reaching into his pocket for the pack of Moroccan cigarettes he’d bought earlier in the day when the inner door opened wide and closed firmly. Nick concentrated on lighting up, forcing himself not to swing his head and stare and wondering how surprised it was politic for him to be.

The floor shook near him.

He let himself look up.

An immensity of female flesh wallowed to a stop beside his table. It was dressed in a vast and shapeless black thing that had to be a dress because it wasn’t anything else, and it was one bulging roll of fat after another from the improbable ankles to the melon cheeks. Little piggy eyes peered at him from between the folds of face-fat, and huge earrings descended from the pendulous ear lobes. There were white, grandma ruffles at the sausage neck and lacy frills at the hem of the black sack. The incredibly dainty fingers of both chubby hands were dripping with rings. The small round mouth opened and a sound emerged from hiding.

“I am the manager,” it mooed. “What is your business with me?”

Nick pushed back his chair but did not rise. He reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a card case.

“You’re the manager? I didn’t expect... uh... a woman. My card.”

The moo turned into a bray of laughter. The great body shook and heaved like a mountain in an earthquake.

“That’s not all you didn’t expect, is it, meanface? What’s this card?” She snatched at it with her bejeweled fingers and went on chuckling hugely. A scene from Coney Island flashed into Nick’s mind, of the huge and madly laughing female who used to sit in her vast chair outside one of the amusement tunnels, rocking back and forth and exhorting customers to come in and thrill to the wild fun of the crazy mirrors and the rocketing cars and the things that popped up screaming from the cobwebby darkness. She had been carried off one day, still laughing, by the men in white coats and she had died in an insane asylum.

“A. Sigismondi!” she read out incredulously. “That’s not your name, is it? It’s not anybody’s name!”

“Maybe it isn’t,” Nick admitted. “But I use it. Is there some place we can talk in private?”

“Novelties and Specialties,” she read. “Casablanca.”

“For God’s sake,” Nick murmured. “Not so loud. I didn’t come here to talk to the whole damn room — just you.”

Her small eyes stared into his face. “We’ll talk here.”

“I don’t like it,” Nick said flatly. “Maybe I better talk directly to the owner.”

“You don’t have to like it,” she said, just as flatly. “And I am the owner. What are these specialties of yours? And why tell me about them?”

“I heard about your place, in Casablanca,” he said softly. “And my contacts tell me that you might be interested in what I have to offer. That is to say, they referred me to the Hop Club, but not to you by name. They are discreet. I hope that you are, too. Now perhaps you will let me talk to you without an audience.”

She peered down at him, her eyes bright and penetrating.

“The Big One sent you?” she murmured.

He stared back at her, trying to look treacherous and reproving at the same time. “I know nothing of the Big One,” he said, wishing that he did. “My business is my own. Except, of course, for my... associates in other countries.”

“Ah, other countries.” She flicked out a chair as though it had been made of matchsticks and scrunched down upon it. Her body and the chair groaned simultaneously. “You have samples of your novelties with you? They must be small enough to be hidden by my body!” She laughed hugely. “If we are going to talk, we must call each other something. I am Madame Sophia. Sophia, like Sophia Loren!” Her body rippled with enjoyment. “But how can I call you Sigismondi? It is impossible!”

“Call me anything you like,” he said shortly. “Let’s not waste each other’s time. First give my card back, if you please, and then make no move until I have shown you what I have. If you are not interested, say so, and I will leave. But I warn you, Madame Sophia, when I go I do not intend to be interfered with by your hired hands.” His expression was concentrated menace.

She pierced him with her bright, tiny eyes and pushed the card to him across the table. One sleeve slid inches up her fat arm and he saw the pinpricks. At least she wouldn’t holler for the cops. “You are hard,” she whinnied approvingly. “I like a ruthless man. These others are — pah!” Disdain shivered through her body. “You have strength. Show me what else you have.” Her tone and her glance were so suggestive that she seemed to be talking of things other than the samples in his pocket.

He hid his feeling of revulsion and looked away from her at the two new customers coming in. They belonged in dark, dockside alleys, or at some Mau Mau campfire, mouthing horrible oaths and thrusting their clawed hands into living human entrails; or they belonged to the Hop Club and whatever organization collected degenerate beings and turned them into murderers.

Nick watched them find a table in the rear before pulling the first of the packets out of his pocket. At the same time he noticed several other men leaving their tables and shambling through the door beyond the skinny piano player.

He hunched his shoulders and leaned down over the table, shielding the packet from all eyes but hers. His hand bared it but did not let go. It was transparent plastic, filled with a white powder more sought after and carrying a higher price tag than gold dust, even though it had been cut and sliced and powdered by one soulless thief after another. She would never know this until she tried it — and he hadn’t brought it here for anyone to use.

“I have more of that,” he murmured. “Much more. Bigger packets, many of them, worth millions if I could reach the American market. But this is more convenient for me — especially if I can unload in quantity. Understand, I do not have to. I know of other markets. And I will go to them if you are not interested.”

“Let me open it,” she breathed.

“Here?” Nick hissed. “You must be mad. You must have an office or a back room we can use.”

Madame Sophia looked from him to the packet.

“Perhaps we can,” she cooed. “Perhaps. You had something else to show me?”

He slid the packet away from her grasping fingers and reached inside his jacket for the second of the two most vital items he had managed to secure during the day.

It was tube-shaped, more or less, and smaller than his hand, so that concealing it on its trip across the tabletop was easy. He opened his hand in front of her and her huge breasts drooped down to meet it.

He heard a tiny gasp coming from the elephantine frame.

“Where did you get this?” Her fat but dainty fingers pinched at the root and squeezed obscenely.

Nick shrugged. “What difference does it make, if you have a use for it?”

Her tiny mouth pursed. “There is not much use for only one.”

Nick clicked his tongue impatiently. “One! I told you these are samples. I have unlimited supplies.”

“That is most unlikely,” Madame Sophia said skeptically. “I know the source of these things, and I know that they grow only under very rare conditions. Your supplies cannot possibly be unlimited. You are lying.”

Nick filled his voice with impatience and contempt.

“You know the source! When it has only been discovered by my people within the last few weeks? Pah! I suppose you are referring to that dried-up vegetable patch in — what’s the place’s name? — that place in the Nyanga hills.”

“Duolo,” she said thoughtfully. “So. Dried-up vegetable patch. Hmm. Yes, I think we can come to terms. We will go to my rooms in the back.” She heaved and grunted her way up from the chair. Nick put the samples into his inside pockets and significantly patted a hidden holster. “No tricks, now,” he warned. “I don’t give up anything for nothing.”

“Why should you?” she mooed understandingly. “Come.”

It seemed to him that there was no sound in the room but the tinny tinkle of the piano and the creaking of the floor beneath her feet. And it felt as though every eye in the room was boring into him.

Madame Sophia made a reassuring gesture to the brawny bouncer and waddled majestically through the inner door with Nick trailing in her wake. She led the way down a narrow passage barely large enough to let her through, grazing past several closed doors and one slightly open one. Nick paused behind her to light up one of his Casablanca cigarettes and dart a swift look in through the crack. What he saw and heard in that brief flash of time was worth his entire trip.

A bland-faced young man in a bright American shirt was talking into a radio transmitter. His face was the typical yellow-beige of China, and his voice was pure Chinese American. It was saying: “...success is ours if the President dies. Our cause goes well...”

Nick caught up silently with Madame Sophia and followed her into a room at the end of the passage.

She closed the door behind them.

“My office,” she said.

It was some office. It was furnished with an immense desk, immense chairs, and an immense bed.

“Sit, and let us talk.”

Nick chose a straight-backed chair and sat down. For some reason his cigarette tasted foul and there was an unaccountable queasiness at the pit of his stomach. He looked around for an ashtray and stubbed out the cigarette.

“I want it understood,” he said, “that I’m in this business because it’s business, and that’s all. I can supply as much as you need whenever you need it. There is of course a delivery charge that’s added to the sale price.” Nausea almost overwhelmed him and dizziness flooded his head.

“Ah, delivery charge,” murmured Madame fatly. “But you look a little pale. A drink, perhaps?”

A drink! Sweet Jesus, that was it! Never take a chance on a stranger in a place like this — never. A mickey, a quick frisk, then either truce or death.

“No, thanks,” he said. “That gin was poison. You’re right, I don’t feel good. Think I’ll get some fresh air.” He staggered to his feet.

Madame Sophia laid her fat little right hand on his arm and squeezed. “Why don’t you just he down until you feel better? Sleep a little. Rest.” She tugged at him suggestively, maneuvering him toward the bed. The old elephant had muscle hidden beneath that fat, he thought dazedly. Got to get out of here. Got to get out of here. They’ll see through disguise. Find weapons Wilhelmina Hugo Pierre see AXE tattoo take heroin and dump me.

He took a deep breath and shook her hand off.

“No,” he snarled. “You think I’m crazy? You’ll be sorry for this filthy trick.”

“Why, sweetie,” she cooed. “I don’t know what you mean by trick. Come, now, lie down on the bed.” Her strength seemed to be growing while his faded. It was hopeless; he had to go before he blanked out altogether.

He sank one fist into her great belly. She gave a belching gasp and clutched herself without falling. Christ! She was whale blubber and rhino hide and giant sandbag all rolled into one. One fat hand reached for an alarm button near the desk and the other scrabbled at his throat. The O-shaped mouth and pouter-pigeon chest were gathering for a scream. Nick drew back his failing right arm and slammed the hard side of his hand against that ugly mouth and up at the button nose. This time Madame grunted and staggered back, blood spurting from her nose. It seemed an eternity before she dropped, but drop she did. Nick planted one more vengeful blow in the vast abdomen and stumbled to the “office” door.

How the hell get out of this place before he dropped in his tracks... His head was swinging like a yo-yo and his legs were turning to spaghetti.

Wilhelmina came out of her holster as Nick swung open the door and shuffled into the passage. She was noisy, but she was his best bet under these conditions. Wilhelmina was a 9mm stripped-down Luger who had done time in the SS Barracks at Munich before Nick had killed her owner and adopted her. She had become his most trustworthy troubleshooter.

A wave of sickness came over him, and he moaned. The door to the radio room swung open and the operator stepped out and stared at him. So soon! Nick moaned to himself. One shot here and the whole house is down upon me and I don’t even know how to get out of here.

He leapt at the blurred colors of the plaid shirt and drew back Wilhelmina with all his strength. Wilhelmina struck quietly but with a force as deadly as her bullets, dealing the blow to the throat that crushes the windpipe, and delivering it with lethal power and precision.

The fellow in the plaid shirt managed one awful noise and dropped. Suddenly all the doors down the passage flew open and it seemed that the floor swayed and the whole length of the narrow hallway was a gauntlet filled with scarecrow creatures with goggling eyes and clutching, clawing hands.