The Saint and the People Importers (16 page)

“Listen, you humanoid short circuit,” he said. “I know that you know where Fowler is operating his transport service tonight, and you’re going to tell me, and you’re going to get it right.”

Shortwave blinked rapidly.

“I told you I d-dunno,” he said with a little less conviction.

Simon straightened up to his full height and put his hands on his hips.

“Then you’d better get your antenna up and tune in fast,” he said, “because you’re going to tell me while I’ve still got time to drive there.”

Tammy came in from the kitchen.

“Mr. Haroon wants to know if you want rice too,” she said.

“How about it, Shortwave?” Simon asked considerately. “Would you like rice?”

“I wouldn’t like nothing.”

“Clear enough,” the Saint said. “A real purist. Coming up-one large order of Curry Vesuvius.”

Abdul Haroon appeared in the dining room with a steaming bowl on a tray. He set it down in front of Shortwave, whose face twitched as the corrosive fragrance of the rusty yellow-green substance rose to his defenceless nostrils.

“No rice?” Haroon asked. “Chutney?”

“Nothing to dilute the full impact,” Simon insisted. “You see, the customer is already starting to shed tears of joy at the mere prospect of sampling your cooking. Open wide, friend.”

Shortwave sat with his skinny jaws clamped shut.

“You’ll open up or we’ll pry your mouth open with a cleaver. I assure you I can think of a lot worse things than this to do to you … some of them inspired by you last night. So open up and either start talking or start chewing.”

He dipped a spoon into the bowl and held it in front of Shortwave’s mouth, which still did not budge.

“All right, Abdul,” the Saint said. “Go get those hot tongs.”

Shortwave opened his mouth and instantly Simon introduced the spoon and its contents. When he had withdrawn the empty spoon he held it threateningly just beyond Shortwave’s lips.

“Now swallow like a nice boy,” he said.

Abdul Haroon’s lamb curry, in the state it ordinarily reached his patrons, was of that not quite unbearable degree of spicy hotness which a curry must have if it is to to be a real curry and yet not irrevocably cauterise the taste buds. It brought happy moisture to the eyes, perspiration to the brow, and to the palate an addictive desire for more. Few were the European partakers of the dish who did not intersperse their bites with copious use of their handkerchiefs and with large profitable gulps of Haroon’s wine and beer. Gratified, satisfied, half-melted, they would complete the meal with a sense of victory and the appearance of one who has walked through a Turkish bath fully clothed.

That was the curry ordinaire of the Golden Crescent. Shortwave had just been presented with a sauce so loaded with ardent powders of seeds, pods, and leaves as to make the normal torrid dish seem as bland as a bowl of scrambled eggs.

First Shortwave’s skull-like face underwent a general horrified transformation, as a wax mask might change on sudden exposure to searing heat. His eyes opened wide. His crewcut brown hair, already on end, seemed to bristle like the protective armament of an aroused porcupine. Then tears flooded from his eyes and he crumbled into a violent fit of coughing.

“I’d say it’s a hit,” the Saint said, looking up at Haroon and Tammy.

Tammy was in a state of empathetic numbness; but Haroon, after his first intense observation of the phenomenon, broke into a delighted grin.

“Ha, ha,” he said, as precisely as if he were pronouncing the words from a grammar book. The laugh grew on him. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Suddenly he saw how Shortwave was glowering up at him, and the laugh caught in his throat and the grin was instantly withdrawn from his lips.

“Don’t worry, Abdul,” the Saint said. “Your days of being bullied by these rats are over. Right, Shortwave? Where are Fowler and Kalki?”

“I told you I dunno!” Shortwave said defiantly.

“You forgot to stutter-or maybe it’s the curry cure,” the Saint remarked. “Obviously what you need is more of the same.”

Shortwave protested violently against the next heaping spoonful of curry before giving in and taking it. There followed the immediate question whether he was consuming it or being consumed by it. His appreciation this time was even more spectacular than the first. His whole body seemed ready to glow, and after the initial paroxysms he continued to gasp for air like an overtaxed steam engine. The Saint already had another mouthful ready for him, and in the concluding phases of his reaction to that Shortwave shook his head in what appeared to be surrender.

“Okay, okay,” he finally rasped. “That’s enough.”

“If you have any doubts, there’s plenty more where that came from,” said Simon. His voice became deadly earnest. “And if this kind of treatment seems namby-pamby to you, I’m sure you do understand we can become a lot more inventive, especially since we don’t have all day to soften you up.”

Shortwave was looking genuinely defeated.

“They’ll kill me if I tell,” he said.

“We’ll do worse if you don’t.”

Shortwave could think of no answer to that.

“What’ll you do if I do tell?” he asked.

“If I were in your seat I’d concentrate on what’ll happen if you don’t start telling fast-but just to set things straight I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll keep you alive and in one piece, tucked away somewhere so we can really work you over if we find out you’ve given us the wrong information.”

“But sometimes Fowler makes a plan and changes it,” Shortwave said hastily. “What if I told you what I know and he changed his mind? Then you’d think …”

“Never mind what we’d think. What is the plan?”

Shortwave sat back in his chair, putting as much space as possible between his gullet and what was left of the curry. He took a deep breath.

“Fowler’s got this cabin cruiser that he runs these wogs in on, and he moves it up and d-down the coast between jobs so nobody gets wise. What he uses is one of these…” Shortwave stopped. “He’ll kill me if I tell you.”

“I think I’d better have a word with your personal chef,” the Saint said, looking around towards Abdul Haroon, who was watching from the other side of the room.

“I’d rather eat that stuff than what Fowler would do to me,” Shortwave averred hopelessly.

“I wasn’t thinking of fattening you up any more for the slaughter,” Simon told. “I was just considering how you might do in a curry yourself. Abdul, how about bringing in a butcher knife and a long fork?”

“Seriously?” Abdul asked.

“Very seriously,” said the Saint.

The glint in his eyes would have outdone the sharpness of the best-honed steel blade in Abdul’s culinary arsenal. Shortwave did not wait to find out just how serious the Saint was.

“Okay,” he said. “Just don’t tell him I told you. It’s one of them forts they sunk out in the water in the war. You know what I mean?”

“In the Thames estuary?” the Saint asked him.

“Right.”

“If they sunk it, how can Fowler use it?” Tammy asked.

“They were big things they floated out into the estuary and sank to use as anti-aircraft emplacements,” the Saint explained. “The top part sticks up above the water. I’ve never seen one, unfortunately.”

“Oh, I know,” Tammy said. “And people tried to use them as pirate radio stations because they were outside the three-mile limit.”

“And now they’re abandoned,” Simon said. “Or they were supposed to be. Which one does Fowler use-and what does he use it for?”

“The guys who bring the load over from the Continent stow them there and Fowler picks them up,” Shortwave said.

He tried to describe the location of the unused fort which Fowler used.

“Who brings them over to the fort?” Simon asked.

“I d-d-dunno. He never comes and stays. He’s just the one that runs loads over here for Fowler to pick up. These Indian guys wait on the fort for Fowler to run them in at night.”

“And where does he run them in?”

“I couldn’t tell you. Sometimes it’s one place and sometimes it’s another. There’s plenty of places where nobody could see them coming in at night.”

The Saint looked at Tammy.

“Does that sound like the truth to you?”

“What good’s it to me to make it up?” Shortwave said. “Like you said, if I lie you come back and mess me up good.”

“All right then,” Simon said. “Tell me exactly how to find this fort-and I mean exactly.”

For the next five minutes Shortwave gave instructions for locating the fort. It was less than five miles offshore, and it was lucky for the Saint that it was no farther, since Shortwave’s direct experience with it was limited to two trips, and since his talent for observation and navigation left quite a lot to be desired.

“I can’t help it,” he finally said wearily. “That’s all I know. You can find it. It ain’t that hard.”

“What time does he pick them up?” Simon asked. “Does he stay out there on the fort during the day?”

“I think he goes out in the afternoon and then comes in with the load after dark.”

“What sort of boat does he have?”

“Some kind of cabin cruiser. Not too big.” Obviously Shortwave was no boating buff. “Sometimes he keeps it at a yacht club down towards Southend.”

“What’s it called?”

“I dunno.”

“For somebody with his own private built-in communications system there sure is a lot you dunno,” the Saint said.

Shortwave’s eyes rolled briefly up as if to inspect the top of his own head.

“I think you broke it,” he said. “Since you kicked me I ain’t heard nothing.”

“That would be a pity,” the Saint commiserated. “However, if your directions turn out to be helpful, maybe I’ll reward you by having you wired for cassettes.”

He looked at his watch and stepped away from the table, touching Tammy’s arm to signal her to follow him. They walked alone back into the hall.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think it’s all we’ve got to go on. It’s even possible he is telling the truth. I think we threw a pretty good scare into him.”

“So we go to the fort?” she asked almost brightly.

“Didn’t last night dampen your enthusiasm?” he asked. “I’d rather you stayed in London and kept watch over Shortwave.”

“And I’d rather go with you,” she said staunchly. “You promised. And anyway, we can leave Shortwave here with Mr. Haroon.”

“Aren’t you awfully trusting?” the Saint said, pulling her into the kitchen to be certain that Haroon could not hear. “What if Abdul lets Shortwave go?”

“He wouldn’t dare,” she said. “For one thing. Shortwave would kill him for cooking up that curry.”

“That’s the sort of motive only a newspaper-woman could dream up,” the Saint said. “Let me just say it straight out: I don’t think you should come with me because it’s too dangerous and because we don’t need two people- especially one who’s inclined to dive for the barrels of rifles when they’re pointed right at her.”

“I’m going,” Tammy said.

“What about your car?” he suggested temptingly. “It’s probably still lying wounded out in that ditch near Wraysbury. Shouldn’t you take care of it?”

“I’ll call up my paper and tell them what happened and they can see about the car.”

“No, you won’t,” the Saint said firmly. “To Fowler and Kalki you’re supposed to be dead, remember? You’ll have to stay missing so that they don’t change their plans for tonight. And, as I said, it would be a lot safer for you to stay missing right here.”

“I won’t stay here!” she persisted. “You promised me!”

Simon looked hard at her and shook his head with angry admiration.

“For that I should have my head examined,” he said. “But if you’re determined to have a hole in yours like Shortwave-“

As if the Saint’s last word had been a stage cue, there was suddenly a horrendous uproar from the dining room.

Shortwave was yelling at the top of his voice: “Hey! Don’t leave me! I just heard-they’re gonna get me! D-d-d-don’t leave me! I heard …”

3

“Just what did you hear?” Simon asked.

Shortwave, wild-eyed and sweating, scarcely managed to bring his vocal dam-burst under control. Abdul Haroon was as he had been when the Saint and Tammy had hurried in, speechless and staggered by the whole affair, sagging weakly against a wall.

“I heard they’re gonna get me,” Shortwave babbled. “It started working again, and I heard it.”

“What started working again?” Tammy asked.

“My head,” Shortwave said impatiently. “Like, you know, I can hear stuff, and just then I’m sittin’ here and bang it starts up again and I hear a little bit of Tea for Two and some static and then I hear Fowler saying to Kalki he better get me because I squealed …”

The little man ended his sentence not so much because he seemed to have run out of things to say as because his lungs ran out of air. While he was reinflating, Tammy rolled her eyes and tapped her temple with a forefinger for Simon’s and Haroon’s benefit. Simon nodded.

“I can’t think why I should waste time soothing your psyche,” he said to his captive, “but I can think of two reasons why you couldn’t have heard that even if your circuits did warm up again. Number one, you’re wired for radio transmissions, and I should think Kalki and Fowler would talk to one another on the telephone or in person. Number two, and much more significant they couldn’t possibly know you squealed unless they’d been here five minutes ago … unless you’re going to tell me they’ve got antennae of their own, and a network hook-up.”

“I d-d-d-dunno, but I heard it. They know it, I’m telling you! It come through as clear as a bell. Wait a minute!” He stopped and listened intently staring at the table. “The princess wore a trendy silk and organdie cocktail dress with matching …” He looked up and shook his head with relief. “Naw, that ain’t Fowler.”

“Definitely not,” agreed the Saint.

“But it was before!” Shortwave insisted.

“It was your guilty conscience,” Tammy said sceptically. “It’s high time you developed one.”

“And leaving you with that edifying thought, we’ll be on our way.”

The most observant and objective judge would have had a hard time deciding whether it was Shortwave or Haroon who reacted more boisterously to that piece of news. They both began yawling at once, and out of the caterwauling came the general impression that neither of them wanted to be left anywhere-but above all else did they not want to be left there, especially not with one another.