up tourists in London. But I also have need of bodies and I cannot always choose the best.”
“It’s hard to get good help,” I said. “It is that,” he said. “You would be good help, I think. I have knocked men down with punches no harder than I gave you.”
“You might try it sometime when your thugs and terrorists were not around to support you.”
“I am not big, but I am quick and I know many tricks,” he said. “But we’re going to kill you so you and I will never know.”
“You are when your friend Nose-o comes back and says there’s no one waiting outside with an antitank gun.” The little guy smiled. “You are not an amateur either,” he said. “We’ll kill you whether there is someone there or not. But it is best to know. Perhaps you would serve as a hostage. We shall see.”
“What’s this important work you’re doing?” I said. “It is freedom’s work. Africa does not belong to the Nigras or the Communists.”
“Who does it belong to?”
“It belongs to us.”
“Us?”
“You and me, the white race. The race that brought it out of the cesspool of tribalism and savagery in the nineteenth century. The race that can make Africa a civilization.”
“You aren’t Cecil Rhodes, are you?”
“My name is Paul.”
“All your people share this goal?”
“We are pro-white and anticommunist,” Paul said. “That is common ground enough.”
“Let me ask you a question, Kathie,” I said. “You speak English, I assume.”
“I speak five languages,” she said. She was on the couch in the same spot she’d been in when I came in. She was very still. When she spoke only her mouth moved. “How do you wear white pants like that without the French bikinis showing through?” Kathie’s face turned a slow red. “You are filthy,” she said. Paul hit me again, with his left hand this time, evening up the bruises. “Do not speak so to her,” he said. Kathie got up and left the room. Paul went after her. Hans and Fritz pointed their guns at me. A key turned in the door behind me and Big Nose stepped in. “No one,” he said. Hawk stepped in right behind him with two shotgun shells in his teeth and, firing past his ear with a cutdown shotgun, blew most of Fritz’s head off. I dove behind a lounge chair. Hans fired at Hawk and hit Big Nose in the middle of the forehead. Hawk fired the second barrel at Hans as Big Nose was going down. It folded him over and he was dead by the time he fell. Hawk broke open the shotgun. The spent shells popped in the air. Hawk took the fresh shells from his mouth and slid them into the breech and snapped the shotgun closed by the time the spent shells hit the floor. I was on my feet. “Through there,” I said, and pointed toward the door where Kathie and Paul had left the room. Hawk reached it while I dug my gun out of Big Nose’s belt. “Door’s locked,” Hawk said. I kicked it open and Hawk went through in a low crouch, the shotgun held in his right hand, and I went behind him. It was a bedroom and bath with sliding doors that opened onto a courtyard. The doors were open. Paul and Kathie were gone. “Goddamn,” Hawk said. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said. We did.
16
The next morning we looked in the Danish papers. There was a front-page picture of Kathie’s apartment and a shot of bodies being wheeled out on stretchers on page two. But neither Hawk nor I could read Danish so there wasn’t much to learn. I clipped the story anyway, in case 1 found a translator. Hans and Fritz looked pretty much like two of the people on my list. Hawk and I looked at the Identikit sketches and agreed that they were. “You doing pretty good,” Hawk said. “That’s six.”
“You didn’t waste a lot of time when you came through the door.”
“Like halt or I’ll shoot, that jive?”
“What did you do,” I said, “follow Big Nose?”
“Sort of. I spotted him when he come out looking around and I figured he was checking if this was a setup. So I slipped in the hallway there and hid in the shadows back under the stairwell. You know how hard we is to spot in the dark.”
“Unless you smile,” I said. “And if we keeps our eyes closed.” We were having breakfast in the hotel. Pastry and cold cuts and butter and cheese buffet style. “Anyway,” Hawk said, “he come slipping back in and when he open the door I come right in back of him.” Hawk drank some coffee. “Who the one we lost with Kathie?” he said. “Name’s Paul, little guy, very tough. He’s a lot heavier article than we been dealing with before. He’s a real revolutionary, I think. Of one sort or another.”
“Palestinian?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Right wing. Wants to save Africa from the Communists and the Nigras.”
“South African? Rhodesian?”
“I don’t think so. I mean he may be in that now, but he spoke a language more like Spanish. Maybe Portuguese.”
“Angola,” Hawk said. I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just said he was anticommunist and pro-white. You probably didn’t do much to change his attitude.” Hawk grinned. “He got a big job. I hear there’s quite some number of Nigras in Africa. He going to have to do a powerful heap of saving.”
“Yeah. He may be dippy, but he’s no pancake. He’s trouble.” Hawk’s face was bright and hard. He grinned again. “So are we, babe,” he said. “True,” I said. “What’s the program now?” Hawk said. “I don’t know. I gotta think.”
“Okay, while you thinking, why don’t we stroll down to Tivoli and walk around. I heard about Tivoli all my life. I want to see it. ”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.” I paid the bill and we went out. Tivoli was nice. Lots of greenery and not too much
