'Fine. You look wonderful, Mac.'
Peter Marlowe told Mac where the money for the chicken had come from, and Mac said, 'You were right to take the money. Like as not that Prouty laddie stole the thing or made the thing. He was wrong to try to sell a bad piece of merchandise. Remember laddie, Caveat emptor.'
'Then why is it,' Peter Marlowe asked, 'why is it I feel so damned guilty?
You and Larkin say it was right. Though I think Larkin was not so sure as you are —'
'It's business, laddie. Larkin's an accountant. He's not a real businessman. Now, I know the ways of the world.'
'You're just a miserable rubber planter. What the hell do you know about business? You've been stuck on a plantation for years!'
'I'll ha' you know,' Mac said, his feathers ruffled, 'most of planting is being a businessman. Why, every day you have to deal with the Tamils or the Chinese — now there are a race of businessmen. Why, laddie, they invented every trick there was.'
So they talked to one another, and Peter Marlowe was pleased that Mac reacted once more to his jibes. Almost without noticing it, they lapsed into Malay.
Then Peter Marlowe said casually, 'Knowest thou the thing that is of three things?' For safety he spoke about the radio in parables.
Mac glanced around to make sure they were not being overheard. 'Truly.
What of it?'
'Art thou sure now of its particular sickness?'
'Not sure — but almost sure. Why dost thou inquire of it?'
'Because the wind carried a whisper which spoke of medicine to cure the sickness of various kinds.'
Mac's face lit up. 'Wah-lah,' he said. 'Thou hast made an old man happy.
In two days I will be out of this place. Then thou wilt take me to this whisperer.'
'No. That is not possible. I must do this privately. And quickly.'
'I would not have thee in danger,' Mac said thoughtfully.
'The wind carried hope. As it is written in the Koran, without hope, man is but an animal.'
'It might be better to wait than to seek thy death.'
'I would wait, but the knowledge I seek. I must know today.'
'Why?' Mac said abruptly in English. 'Why today, Peter?'
Peter Marlowe cursed himself for falling into the trap he had so carefully planned to avoid. He knew that if he told Mac about the village, Mac would go out of his head with worry. Not that Mac could stop him, but he knew he would not go if Mac and Larkin asked him not to go. What the hell do I do now?
Then he remembered the advice of the King. 'Today, tomorrow, it doesn't matter. Just interested,' he said and played his trump. He got up. The oldest trick in the book. 'Well, see you tomorrow, Mac. Maybe Larkin and I'll drop around tonight.'
'Sit down, laddie. Unless you've something to do.'
'I've nothing to do.'
Mac testily switched to Malay. 'Thou speakest truly? That 'today' meant nothing? The spirit of my father whispered that those who are young will take risks which even the devil would pass by.'
'It is written, the scarcity of years does not necessitate lack of wisdom.'
Mac studied Peter Marlowe speculatively. Is he up to something?
Something with the King? Well, he thought tiredly, Peter's already in the radio-danger up over his head, and he did carry a third of it all the way from Java.
'I sense danger for thee,' he said at length.
'A bear can take the honey of hornets without danger. A spider can seek safely under rocks, for it knows where and how to seek.' Peter Marlowe kept his face bland. 'Do not fear for me, Old One. I seek only under rocks.'
Mac nodded, satisfied. 'Knowest thou my container?'
'Assuredly.'
'I believe it became sick when a raindrop squeezed through a hole in its sky and touched a thing and festered it like a fallen tree in the jungle. Tha thing is small, like a tiny snake, thin as an earthworm, short as a cockroach.' He groaned and stretched. 'My back's killing me,' he said in English. 'Fix my pillow, will you, laddie?'
As Peter Marlowe bent down, Mac lifted himself and whispered in his ear,
'A coupling condenser, three hundred microfarads.'
'That better?' Peter Marlowe asked as Mac settled back.
'Fine, laddie, a lot better. Now, be off with you. All that nonsense talk has tired me out.'
'You know it amuses you, you old bugger.'
'Less of the old, puki mahlu!'
'Senderis!' said Peter Marlowe, and he walked into the sun. A coupling condenser, three hundred microfarads. What the hell's a microfarad?
He was windward of the garage and smelled the sweet gasoline-laden air, heavy with oil and grease. He
