The Second Saladin

40

The strange patterns of fortune that swirled through it all disturbed him, made him deeply suspicious: things were always baffling, always astonishing, constructed as if with an Arab’s cunning. The curious passage by which, as Chardy left the arena, Ulu Beg entered — as if it were written above that their meeting be postponed for a different day. Then again, the Kurd reflected, the play of whatever force had kept the fat Danzig alive. From fifteen feet he’d fired, seen the clothes fly as the bullets hit, seen the man knocked down. He’d seen it, with his own eyes. Then by what magic did Danzig survive?

Was it some American trick, whose subtle purpose no mind could divine? Or had he in fact failed?

He had read the newspaper until he came to an explanation.

A vest to stop bullets!

A vest! And then, when he thought he was done with surprises, he’d turned a last page and found still another, a familiar face gazing at him from under another disturbing headline:

She was dead. Two strangers also. Two ex-brothers, one hunter, one hunted, pass in the night. And after it all, this Danzig still lived.

Ulu Beg sat back wearily and rubbed his hand across the stubble of his beard. He was tired, his eyes raw. He’d been on the move now a week since it happened and he was running low on money. He needed a shave, to wash, to rest.

He looked about him. The train station was crowded, even at this late hour. Outside it was raining. America was supposed to be full of miracles, and yet this train station smelled of the toilet and was dirty and hot. It was also full of peculiar people: madmen, old ladies, mothers with wild children, sullen soldiers, rich dandies; in all, a much stranger range of passengers than the buses. Or maybe it was his desperate mood or his fatigue, and the knowledge that his chances were growing more slender each day; he would never reach Danzig; he would be caught.

He had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Nobody would guide him. He’d made a terrible mistake a few minutes ago, confusing a quarter and a fifty-cent piece and there’d been a scene at a little coffee bar and a policeman had wandered by to straighten things out. Even now the officer was watching him from behind a pillar.

The Kurd looked at the clock. In a few minutes — unless the train was late and they were always late — there would come a train that would take him to Washington. In Washington, he would find Danzig’s house. He had a picture of it still from a newspaper he’d read weeks ago in Arkansas. Somehow he’d find it. And this time he’d get close enough to place the muzzle against the head before he fired.

He sat back, looking up at old metal girders. His head ached. The rain beat a tattoo against the roof. The smell of the toilet reached his nose. He felt himself begin to tremble. He wished he could sleep but knew he must not. He thought he might have a fever.

He wished he had some help. He wished he knew where he was going. He wished he knew what was written above. He wished he knew what surprise would come next.

A man sat next to him and after a few seconds turned and said, “Do you care for a cigarette?”

It was Colonel Speshnev.