Bagley, Desmond - The Spoilers Page 14

  'How much did you back the nag for?' asked Tozier curiously.

  Raqi did not answer, but Follet gave a booming laugh. 'Fifty thousand,' he said. 'And the odds are fifteen to one. Our boy stands to make three-quarters of a million rials. I keep telling him it's okay, but he doesn't seem to believe me.'

  Tozier whistled. Three-quarters of a million rials was about £4,000 -- a fortune for a young Iranian clerk. Even his fifty thousand stake was a bit rich -- about £260 -approximating to a sizeable bite of Raqi's annual income. He said, 'Where did you get that much? Did you go home and break open your piggy bank?'

  Warren said sharply, 'Shut up! The race is about to start.'

  'I'll pour the drinks for the celebration,' said Follet, and went over to the sideboard. 'You guys can cheer for me -- the nag's name is Nuss el-leil.'

  'I don't get the lingo,' said Tozier. 'What's that mean, Javid?'

  Raqi opened bloodless lips. He did not take his eyes off the screen as he answered, 'Midnight.'

  'A good name for a black horse,' commented Tozier. 'There they go.'

  Warren glanced sideways at Raqi who was sitting tensely on the edge of his chair, the bluish gleam of the television screen reflected in his eyes. His hands were clasped together in a knuckle-whitening grip.

  Tozier jerked irritably. 'Where the blazes is that horse? Can you see it, Javid?'

  'It's lying fourth,' said Raqi. A moment later he said, 'It's dropped back to fifth -- no, sixth.' A tremor developed in his hands.

  'What's that bloody jockey up to?' demanded Tozier. 'He's throwing it away, damn him I* Fifteen seconds later the race ended. Nuss el-leil was not even placed.

  Follet stood transfixed at the sideboard. 'The little bastard double-crossed us,' he breathed. In a moment of savagery he hurled a full glass of whisky at the wall where it smashed explosively. 'I'll fix his goddam wagon come tomorrow,' he yelled.

  Warren switched off the set. 'Calm down, Johnny. I told you it couldn't last forever.'

  'Yeah, but I didn't reckon it would end this way,' said Follet bellicosely. 'I thought Jamshid would cotton on to us. I didn't think I'd be gypped by that little monkey on the horse. Wait until I get my hands around his scrawny neck.'

  'You'll leave him alone,' said Warren sharply. In a more placatory tone he said, 'So we've lost a hundred thousand -- that's only five per cent of our winnings up to now. We're all right.' He sat at the table and gathered the cards. 'Who's for a game?'

  'I reckon Johnny's right,' said Tozier in a hard voice. 'We can't let this pass. No jock is going to get the better of me, I tell you that. When I buy a jockey, he bloody well stays bought.'

  'Forget it,' said Warren curtly. 'That particular game is over -- we move on to something else. I told you this was the last time, didn't I?' He looked over his shoulder. 'For God's sake, come over here and sit down, Johnny. The world hasn't come to an end. Besides, it's your deal.'

  Follet sighed as he took his seat. 'Okay -- but it goes against the grain -- it really does. Still, you're the boss.' He riffle-shuffled the pack and pushed it across the table. 'Your cut.'

  Javid Raqi sat frozen and did not move.

  'Hey!' said Follet. 'What's the matter, kid? You look as though you've seen a ghost.'

  Two big tears squeezed from Raqi's eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

  'For God's sake!' said Tozier in disgust. 'We've got a crybaby on our.hands.'

  'Shut up, Andy!' said Warren savagely.

  'What's the matter, Javid?' asked Follet. 'Couldn't you stand the racket? Couldn't you afford the fif ty thousand?'

  Raqi seemed to be staring at an inward scene of horror. His olive complexion had turned a dirty green and he was trembling uncontrollably. He moistened his lips. and whispered, 'It wasn't mine.'

  'Oh, that's bad,' said Follet commiseratingly. 'But remember what I told you -- you should always play with your own money. I did tell you that, you know -- and so did Nick.'

  'I'll lose my job,' said Raqi. His voice was filled with desperation. 'What will my wife say? What will she say?' His voice rose and cracked. Suddenly he was babbling in Persian and none of them could understand what he was saying.

  Follet's hand came out sharply and cracked Raqi across the cheek, shocking him into silence. 'Sorry about that, Javid; but you were becoming hysterical. Now, calm down and talk sense. Where did you get the dough?'

  'From the place I work,' said Raqi, swallowing hard. The chief clerk has a safe -- and I have a key. He keeps money for out-of-hand expenses. I went back to the office and . , . and . . .'

  'Stole the money,' said Tozier flatly.

  Raqi nodded dejectedly. 'He'll know as soon as he opens the safe on Monday. He'll know it's . . .'

  Take it easy, kid,' said Follet. 'You're not in jail yet.'

  That was an aspect that had not hit Raqi, and he stared at Follet with renewed horror, Follet said, 'Maybe we can help you.'

  'Count me out,' said Tozier uncompromisingly. 'I'm not going to subsidise a freeloading kid who's still wet behind the ears. If he can't stand the heat, let him get out of the kitchen. He should never have come into this game, anyway. I told you that in the first place.'

  Warren looked at Follet who just shrugged, and said, 'I guess that's so. You've gotta learn by your mistakes, kid. If we bail you out now, you'll do it again some time else.'

  'Oh, no; I promise -- I promise.' Raqi spread his arms wide an the table, grovelling before Follet. 'Help me -- please help me -- I promise . . .'

  'Oh, for Christ's sake, stand up and be a man!' barked Tozier. He stood up. 'I can't stand scenes like this. I'm getting out.'

  'Wait a minute,' said Follet. 'I think I've got something.' He pointed his finger at Tozier. 'Weren't you telling me about a guy who wanted to get something from the company this kid works for? Something about some chemicals?'

  Tozier thought for a moment, then nodded. 'What about it?'

  'How much would he pay?'

  'How the hell do I know?' said Tozier in a pained voice. This chap was working an angle in which I wasn't interested.'

  'You could always ask him. There's a telephone there.'

  'Why should I? There's nothing in it for me.'

  'For Pete's sake, can't you be human for once in your goddam life?' asked Follet in an exasperated voice.

  Warren's voice was quiet but it cut through the room with authority. 'Use the phone, Andy.'

  'Oh, all right.' Tozier picked up his jacket. 'I think I have the number here somewhere.'

  Follet patted Raqi on the shoulder. 'Bear up, Javid; we'll get you out of this jam somehow.' He sat next to him and began to talk to him quietly.

  Tozier mumbled to someone on the telephone. At last he put it down and crossed the room with a paper in his hand. 'This man wants to know who's been ordering these chemicals -- especially in quantity. He wants to know where they were despatched to. He also wants to know of any transactions concerning a man called . . .' He peered at the paper. '. . . Speering. That's it.' He rubbed the side of his jaw. 'I screwed him up to forty thousand but he wouldn't go higher for the information.'

  'Why does he want it?' asked Warren.

  'I reckon he's in industrial espionage.'

  Follet took the sheet of paper. 'Who cares why he wants it so long as Javid can deliver?' He gave the paper to Raqi. Can you get that stuff?'

  Raqi wiped his eyes and looked carefully. He nodded, and whispered, 'I think so. All this is in the stock ledgers.'

  'But the guy will only go to forty thousand, damn him,' said Follet. 'For crying out loud, I'm game to help make up the difference.'

  'Count me out on that,' said Tozier grimly. 'I've done my bit.'

  'Nick?'

  'All right, Johnny; we'll split it between us.' Warren sorted out five thousand rials from the money on the table and passed it to Follet.

  'There, you see, Javid; we've got ten thousand here. All you have to do to get the other forty thousand is to go back to the office. You have the key?'
/>   Raqi nodded, and allowed Follet to help him to his feet. 'It will take time,' he said.

  'Half an hour. That's all it took to loot the safe this afternoon,' said Tozier brutally.

  Follet saw Raqi to the door and closed it gently. He turned, and said, 'We're nearly there. There's just one thing more to be done.'

  Warren sighed. 'It can't be any dirtier than what we've done already. What is it?'

  'You're not concerned in it, so rest easy,' said Follet. 'Now, all we have to do is wait. I'm going to see Ben -- I'll be back in ten minutes.'

  It seemed, to Warren, an eternity before Raqi returned. The minutes ticked by and he contemplated the sort of man he was becoming under the stress of this crazy adventure. Not only was he guilty of blackmailing Follet, but he had assisted in the corruption of a young man who had hitherto been blameless. It was all right for Follet to preach that you can't cheat an honest man; the men who offer the thirty pieces of silver are just as guilty as he who accepts them.

  Again there was the expected knock at the door and Follet went to open it. Raqi had pulled himself together a little and did not seem so woebegone; there was more colour in his cheeks and he did not droop as he had when he left.

  Follet said, 'Well, kid; did you get it?'

  Raqi nodded. 'I took it from the ledgers in English -- I thought that would help.'

  'It surely would,' said Follet, who had forgotten that problem. 'Let me have it,'

  Raqi gave him three sheets of paper which he passed to Tozier. 'You'll see it gets to the right place, Andy.' Tozier nodded, and Follet gave Raqi a bundle of money. There's your fifty thousand, Javid. You'd better put it back in the safe real fast.'

  Raqi was just putting the money into his pocket when the door burst open. A man stood there, his face concealed by a scarf, and holding an automatic pistol. 'Stay still, everyone,' he said indistinctly. 'And you won't get hurt.'

  Warren looked on unbelievingly as the man took a step forward. He wondered who the devil this was and what he thought he was doing. The stranger wagged the gun sideways. 'Over there,' he said, and Raqi and Follet moved under the threat to join Warren at the other side of the room.

  'Not you,' said the man, as Tozier began to obey. 'You stay there.' He stepped up to Tozier and plucked the papers from his hand. That's all I want.'

  'Like hell!' said Tozier and lunged for him. There was a sharp crack and Tozier stopped as though he had hit a brick wall. A stupid expression appeared on his face and his knees buckled. Slowly, like a falling tree, he toppled, and as he dropped to the ground a gush of blood spurted from his mouth.

  There was a bang as the door closed behind the visitor, and a faint reek of gunsmoke permeated the atmosphere.

  Follet was the first to move. He darted over to Tozier and knelt down beside him. Then he looked up in wonder. 'Good Christ -- he's dead!'

  Warren crossed the room in two strides, his professional instincts aroused, but Follet straight-armed him. 'Don't touch him, Nick; don't get any blood on you.' There was something odd in Follet's tone that made nun stop.

  Raqi was shaking like an aspen in a hurricane. A moaning sound came from his lips -- not words, but the mere repetition of his vocalized gasps -- as he stared in horror at the blood spattered on the cuff of his jacket. Follet took him by the arm and shook him. 'Javid! Javid, stop that! Do you hear me?'

  Raqi became more coherent. 'I'm . . . I'm all ... right.'

  'Listen carefully, then. There's no need for you to be mixed up in this. I don't know what the hell it's all about, but you can get clear if you're quick about it.'

  'How do you mean?' Raqi's rapid breathing was slowing.

  Follet looked down at Tozier's body. 'Nick and I will get rid of him. Poor guy; he was a bastard if ever there was one, but I wouldn't have wished this on him. That information his friend wanted must have been really something.' He turned to Raqi. 'If you know what's good for you you'll get out of here and keep your mouth shut. Go to the office, put the dough back in the safe, go home and say nothing. Do you understand?'

  Raqi nodded.

  Then get going,' said Follet. 'And walk -- don't run. Take it easy.'

  With a choked cry Raqi bolted from the room and the door slammed behind him.

  Follet sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. 'Poor Andy,' he said. The chivalrous son- of-a-bitch. Okay, you can get up now. Arise, Lazarus.'

  Tozier opened his eyes and winked, then leaned up on one elbow. 'How did it look?'

  'Perfect. I thought Ben had really plugged you.'

  Warren stepped over to Follet. 'Was that play-acting really necessary?' he asked coldly.

  'It was really necessary,' said Follet flatly. 'Let's suppose we hadn't blown him off that way. Some time in the next few days he'd start to think and put things together, and it wouldn't take an egghead to figure he'd been conned. That boy's not stupid, you know; it's just that we rushed him -- we didn't give him time to think straight.'

  'So?'

  'So now hell never be able to think straight about what happened. The fact of sudden death does that to people. As long as he lives hell never be able to figure out what really happened; hell never know who shot and killed Andy -- or why. Beca use it doesn't tie in with anything else. So he'll keep his mouth shut in case he's implicated in murder. That's why we had to blow him off with the cackle bladder.'

  'With the what!'

  The cackle bladder.' Follet gestured. 'Show him, Andy.'

  Tozier spat something from his mouth into his hand. 'I nearly swallowed the damn' thing.'

  He held out his hand to disclose a reddened piece of limp rubber. Follet said, 'It's just a little rubber bag filled with chicken blood -- a cackle bladder. It's used quite often to dispose of the chumps when they're no longer needed around.' He sniggered. 'It's the only other good use for a contraceptive.'

  .Ben Bryan came in, grinning. 'How did I do, Johnny?'

  'You did fine, Ben. Where are those papers?' He took them from Bryan and slapped them into Warren's limp hand. Those are what you wanted.'

  'Yes,' said Warren bitterly. These are what I wanted.'

  'You wanted them -- you've got them,' said Follet tensely. 'So use them. But don't come the big moral act with me, Warren. You're no better than anyone else.'

  He turned away abruptly and walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER 6

  They drove again among the ochre-red mountains of Kurdistan along the winding and precipitous roads. Warren was thankful to be in the lead; somewhere behind and hidden in the cloud of dust were Tozier and Follet in the second Land-Rover and he did not envy them. Bryan was driving and Warren navigating, trying to find his way to a spot pinpointed on the map. This was more difficult than had at first appeared; at times Warren felt as though he were in Alice's Looking Glass Land because the roads* unmarked on the map, twisted and turned sinuously and often it seemed that the best way to approach a given point was to drive in the opposite direction.

  And again, it was only by a considerable stretch of the imagination that these scratch marks in the mountains could be called roads. Ungraded, stony, washed-out and often on the living rock, these tracks had been worn by the pads of thousands of generations of camels over hundreds, possibly thousands of years. Alexander had marched through these mountains, riding among his hetaeroi to the conquest of Persia and the penetration of India, and Warren judged that the roads had not been repaired since.

  Several times they passed groups of the nomadic Kurds who were presumably in search of greener pastures, although where those pastures could possibly be Warren did not know. The whole land was a wilderness of rock and eroded bare earth with minimal hardy vegetation which sprouted in crevices in the bare hillsides, sparse and spindly but with the clinging tenacity of life. And it was all brown and burnt and there was no green at all.

  He checked the map again, then lifted it to reveal the three sheets of paper which Javid Raqi had abstracted from his' office at so much expense of the spirit. The infor
mation had been a constant worry to Warren ever since he had seen it. He had been prepared for a reasonable amount of chemicals -- enough to extract, at most, a hundred pounds of morphine from the raw opium. But this was most unreasonable.

  The quantities involved were fantastic -- enough methylene chloride, benzene, amyl alcohol, hydrochloric acid and pharmaceutical lime to extract no less than two tons of morphine.

  Two tons! He felt chilled at the implications. It would provide enough heroin to saturate the United States illicit market for a year with plenty left over. If this amount got loose then the pushers would be very busy and there would be an explosion of new addicts.

  He said, 'I've checked the figures again, Ben -- and they still don't make sense.'

  Bryan slowed as he approached a difficult corner. 'They are startling,' he admitted.

  'Startling!' echoed Warren. 'They're damned nearly impossible. Look, Ben; it calls for twenty tons of raw opium -- twenty tons, for God's sake! That amount of opium would cost nearly a million pounds on the illegal market. Do you think the Delorme woman has that much capital to play with?'

  Bryan laughed. 'If I had that much money I'd retire.' He twisted the wheel. 'I've just had a thought, though. Perhaps Raqi fudged the figures in his excitement. He was translating from an oriental script into western notation, remember. Perhaps he made the identical mistake throughout, and uprated by a constant factor.'

  Warren chewed his lip. 'But what factor? Let's say he made an error of a factor of ten -that brings us to about four hundred pounds of morphine. That's still a hell of a lot, but it's much more reasonable.'

  'How much would that be worth to Delorme?' asked Bryan.

  'About twenty million dollars, landed in the States.'

  'Yes,' said Bryan judiciously. 'I think I'd call that reasonable.' He slammed into low gear as they breasted a rise. 'How much longer before we get to whosit's place -- what's his name?'

  'Sheikh Fahrwaz.' Warren checked the map. 'If everything goes well -- which it won't on past form -- we should be there in an hour.'