Thefts of Nick Velvet (8 page)

The audience cheered and General Tras smiled. Off to one side of the stage the shortstop Mike Nesbitt and some other players seemed far from pleased at the turn of events, but there was little they could do. General Tras resumed his speech. The big game would take place in two days’ time, on Wednesday. The teams would have Tuesday to practice.

“I can’t wait to see it,” Maria Tras told Nick as they left the building.

“I’m surprised that Pop Hastin gave in so easily.”

“Now that it’s done, the game should be an exciting one.” She glanced sideways at Nick. “Will you be staying for it?”

“I have no reason to. Asignar paid me the rest of my fee. But it might be wise to stay down here for a few days. Even though my true identity isn’t known I’m sure the authorities back in the States will be watching for me.”

“I wish you would stay.”

“Thanks.”

“And I hope you can dine with us at the presidential palace tonight. My father is inviting Pop Hastin and all the others.”

“I don’t know if I dare face him,” Nick told her. But there was something odd about the whole business, something that bothered him. He knew he’d be there.

The presidential palace was as regal as Nick had expected—a great white building that must have dated from the early years of the century. In certain rooms there had been obvious attempts to copy the decor of the White House in Washington, but the venture had been ruined by a tasteless plushness more, in keeping with kings than presidents.

“Our country was founded in 1899 by the great revolutionary leader Palidez,” General Tras explained as he led them on a brief tour. “He wrote our constitution and built this house.
Nueve—
that was the word he lived by. This is called the
Casa Nueve
, a fitting name.”

Nick nodded. “The New House,” he translated, “for a new country.”

Maria shot him an odd glance and started to say something, but then Asignar joined them with Pop Hastin and Roswell, the publicity man. “Shall we go in to dinner?” the Minister of Information suggested.

Roswell was seated next to Nick, and as they sat down the publicity man said, “We might make something out of this yet, no thanks to you.”

“Oh?”

“Pop thinks it’s a great publicity break for the team, and he’s right, of course. Every magazine in the country will want our story when we get back.”

Later, after a meal of wild boar more fitted to a medieval monarch than a Caribbean president, Nick had an opportunity for a private word with Pop Hastin. “I’m glad you realize the publicity value in all this,” he said.

Pop reached for some chewing tobacco. “I was upset at first, but now I’m beginning to like the idea. All season long I’ve listened to sports commentators chuckle about the Meager Beavers, and at my age that wasn’t easy to take. But now we’ve been kidnaped by you and brought down here to play the Jabali team. You didn’t kidnap the Yankees or Cards or Pirates—you kidnaped the Beavers!”

“Well, yes,” Nick admitted. He wasn’t about to mention that he’d picked the Beavers simply because they were last in the league standing.

“Coming out to the practice tomorrow?” Pop asked.

“I’ll be there.”

By morning the news of the stolen Beavers had made headlines around the world. The storm was particularly heavy in Washington, as Nick had feared, but Pop’s statement to the American Ambassador that they were well-treated and anxious to play the game had done much to cool the tense situation.

At the stadium for the practice session Pop Hastin had a further statement for reporters. “We are here as guests of the President and we consider it an honor to be so chosen. We’ll be returning home after the exhibition game tomorrow.” In answer to persistent questions he added, “We are not being held against our wills or mistreated in any way.”

Nick breathed a sigh of relief as he settled onto a bench to watch the practice. At least Pop’s statement should take some of the pressure off him. He glanced up to see Tras and his daughter coming over to join him. The President was obviously excited, like a small boy on a Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. The General watched intently as Stan Karowitz took batting practice and actually cheered when the tall first baseman hit a line drive to the farthest corner of left field.

“Do you think your team can take them?” Nick asked.

“The Beavers are very good. It will be a real event for my people and I do not really care which team is victorious. But of course I will be cheering for Jabali.” He watched the pitchers for a time and then added, “Jorge has suggested a patriotic pageant before the game tomorrow. Our independence day is in a few weeks—on September 9th—and he thinks an early celebration is in order. He’s to speak to both teams about taking part.”

Nick grunted and lit a cigarette. A few minutes later, when General Tras went down on the field to speak with his own brightly uniformed team, Maria moved next to Nick. “Something’s troubling you,” she observed.

“I’m running low on American cigarettes.”

“Something besides that. I’ve known you only a day, but I can see the worried look in your eyes.”

“It’s just this whole setup,” he admitted. “I could understand one man, an absolute ruler, getting the crazy idea to steal a baseball team and bring it here, overriding the objections of his advisers. But this is different. Your father told me it was Asignar’s idea. And yet Asignar apparently isn’t even a baseball fan. At least he’s nowhere in sight today.”

“You worry needlessly,” she assured him. “After all, the Beavers are happy with their new fame. My father is happy. You should be happy with the money you were paid. Why look for trouble?”

“Because I brought them here. If anything happens, I’ll feel responsible.”

That night Nick dined with Maria at Jabali’s most expensive restaurant. On the way home he noticed an anti-Tras slogan chalked in Spanish on the side of a building. Maria seemed to miss seeing it, and he did not call it to her attention.

Nick had arranged to escort Maria to the baseball game the following day, since her father would be busy on the field during the opening ceremonies of the pageant. When he called for her at the presidential palace just after noon, he still carried the pistol he’d used to hijack the plane. He wondered why he hadn’t left it in his room, yet knew somehow that it belonged with him, even at a baseball game.

“There’s already a lot of traffic,” he told Maria. “I didn’t know there were so many people on the island.”

“It is a great day for them.”

“Few foreigners, though.”

“My father does not encourage them. He has the airport watched. Even the number of newsmen is limited.”

“So I noticed.” They were walking through the downstairs rooms toward the door when Nick paused to examine the large oil painting over a massive stone fireplace. It was of a handsome bearded man in military uniform. “Who’s this?” he asked.

“Palidez, our liberator. Father mentioned him at dinner the other night. Founder of our country, author of our constitution, builder of this house—”

Nick studied the painting more closely. “He’s missing a finger.”

“Lost in the Revolution. It became a sort of symbol. He died in 1920, rich and famous—and loved by his people.”

One of the servants had turned on the radio and they could hear the sounds of the stadium ceremonies. “They’re starting without us,” Nick said. “We’d better hurry.”

“I’m ready.”

He led her out to the official car, where a dark-skinned driver waited by the open door. “Too bad all your servants can’t come.”

“Most of them went, but the house requires so much work—you can imagine, with nine rooms on each floor.”

Nick froze with his hand on the car door. “My Spanish is rusty,” he said, hardly breathing. “Your father said this place is called the
Casa Nueve
—”

Maria chuckled. “I started to correct you the other night. New House would be
Casa Nuevo
. The presidential palace is called
Casa Nueve
, which means—”

“Nine House! Nine rooms on each floor! And
nine
was the word Palidez lived by!” From the car radio came the sounds of the pageant ceremonies, the rolling of drums, the blowing of bugles. “Come on! We’ve got to get there fast!”

“But why?”

“Don’t ask questions. What I need are answers and you can give them to me.” The car pulled away from the palace grounds and headed toward the stadium. “Jorge Asignar is up to something and it’s no good.”

“Asignar? I don’t understand.”

Nick Velvet leaned back in his seat, eyes closed, trying to see it all. “The thing was Asignar’s idea from the start. At the airport Monday he was surprised to see nineteen players with manager and coaches and all. He didn’t need them. He only needed nine men—a baseball team. Nine men who could enter the country without attracting your father’s suspicions, without being noticed by his airport guards.”

“Nine men—”

“Don’t you see, Maria? This whole country is built on the mystical number nine. There are nines every where—the President and eight cabinet ministers—nine in all. Nine sea-shells on your national flag. And the cabinet always sits in row J at the auditorium—the ninth row, since theaters hardly ever have a row I. The country was liberated in 1899, on September 9—the ninth day of the ninth month. And nine-fingered Palidez did it all. He wrote the constitution and built the palace, Nine House, with its nine rooms on each floor.”

“I know all that,” she said.

“Then tell me what else there is. Something in the constitution that Palidez wrote. Something that Jorge Asignar needs nine men for.”

“Nine men—” And suddenly her hand flew to her mouth. “My God, the firing squad!”

It was then that the driver pulled over to the curb and turned to face them with a pistol in his hand.

Nick Velvet fired a single shot through the back of the seat, hoping his aim was good. It was—the driver crumpled sideways without a sound.

“Help shove him over,” Nick told Maria. “I’ll drive.”

“He’s one of Asignar’s people,” she gasped.

“He was. I’m glad I still had the gun with me. Which way should I go?”

“Straight ahead—you can see it from here, over on the left.” As he drove she kept talking. “Palidez’s constitution states that the President of Jabali can be removed from office and sentenced to death by a secret panel of judges in a time of national crisis. But the actual execution of a President can only be carried out by a nine-man firing squad. To insure that the firing squad itself is impartial, none of the men can be citizens of Jabali.”

“So Asignar brought the Beavers in to be public executioners. He’s planning to take over the country, but he wants it all nice and legal. He doesn’t want the citizens upset.”

“But how can he get the Beavers to shoot my father?”

“However it is, I’ve got to stop it. I agreed to steal a baseball team, not to provide a firing squad. Asignar suggested the pre-game pageant. He must be planning it for then.”

The voice on the radio droned on in Spanish. Nick missed many words, but he got the general idea. Both teams were lined up on the field, facing the President who was standing on a raised platform. The teams carried rifles, symbolic of Jabali’s revolution, but they would soon exchange them for bats, symbolic of today’s peaceful life.

“Faster!” Maria urged. “They have guns, and father is now down on the field.”

Nick swung into the stadium driveway, saw a policeman signaling him away, and brushed the man aside like a fly. Then he headed the car toward the metal gates that blocked the entrance to the field. “Keep your head down,” he warned Maria.

The car hit the gates with a force that cracked the windshield and crushed in the radiator, but they were through. The Beavers, nine of them, were facing General Tras, aiming their rifles in the air in some sort of salute. Nick drove the crippled car forward in a final burst of speed that almost bowled the players over.

“Don’t shoot!” he yelled to Nesbitt, the shortstop. “It’s a trick!”

There was shouting from the stands, and Nick saw soldiers running onto the field. “They’re only blanks,” Karowitz protested. “Asignar told us to fire over the President’s head as part of the pageant.”

Nick grabbed one of the rifles and ejected a blank cartridge. “Then he’s somewhere with a high-powered rifle. He couldn’t expect you fellows to really execute the President, but he wanted it to look that way.”

General Tras was running over now, his face ashen. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“Asignar is planning to kill you and make it look like an execution. Once you’re dead, no one would know the difference. The judges who condemned you in secret must be part of Asignar’s plot.”

There was the crack of a rifle, from far off, and Tras stumbled to the ground. The bullet had hit the fleshy part of his thigh. “He’s on the roof, over there!” Nick shouted. He grabbed one of the rifles and then remembered they held blanks. A soldier had reached them, his rifle pointed, and Nick grabbed the soldier’s rifle as a second shot sounded from the roof.

“Everybody down!” he shouted. The second shot, fired in haste, had missed. Now Jorge Asignar was up and running along the edge of the roof. Nick fired two quick shots, then took an extra few seconds to squeeze off the third round at the running figure.

Asignar went off the edge of the roof, falling without a sound, and hit the top of the Beavers’ third-base dugout.

“There are men faithful to me,” General Tras said as they bandaged his leg. “We will round up the rest of the plotters.”

“With Asignar dead they’ll be off and running,” Nick told him. They were still in the center of the field, surrounded by players and soldiers.

“How can I thank you?” Maria Tras asked Nick.

“There must be a way.”

From the dugout Pop Hastin had finally fought his way through the mob. “What is all this shooting?” he demanded. “Let’s get that body out of here and play ball!”

N
ICK VELVET WAS A
thief, a highly paid specialist in a crowded field. Often, between the paid assignments that brought him as much as thirty thousand dollars each, he liked to relax on the front porch with Gloria and think of things as they might have been. He sometimes felt that life would have been just as pleasing and not half so complicated if he worked at the electronics plant down the block and spent his evenings watching television with a beer at his side.