was on your airplane, had committed a crime.”
“So?”
“So the Kenyan police are looking for a Kenyan financial acrobat who had desperate need for that much hard currency.”
“Wrong. The man who killed, what’s-his-name, Louis Ramon?”
“Right.”
“Was not the man Louis Ramon came to meet. Whoever killed Louis Ramon did not know he was carrying one hundred thousand dollars in hard currency on him. You can’t tell me someone’s willing to do murder and not willing to stoop over and pick up one hundred thousand dollars if he knows it’s there.”
“Dan thought that point interesting.”
“Was Dan interested in why you called?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Carr, in calling Dan Dawes, you’re showing a lot of interest in a case which has nothing to do with you. Aren’t you afraid of making him, and the police, suspicious of you?”
“Oh, I see. Well, in a small place like Nairobi, we all love the gossip.”
“Yeah? How many other people have called Dan Dawes for inside information on this case?”
“I didn’t ask him. And he didn’t say.”
“Sorry, but I’m afraid you’re tipping our hand.”
“Didn’t realize we’re playing poker.”
“I’m waiting to hear the official charges against my father. Was the man he slugged a policeman or not? I’d appreciate knowing that as soon as possible.”
“Is this all you’re thinking, young Fletcher?” Even in the dim light shed by the hanging lanterns of the lodge’s patio, Carr’s face was without shadows.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I mean.”
Surprising warmth flooded through Fletch’s body. “Well. I don’t know my father.” He shook his head. “It would have been natural for him to meet us at the airport.” He shook his head again. “I don’t know. I may be mistaken.”
Carr tipped his head back and finished his beer. “You’re thinking something, at any rate. That’s a relief.”
“My, my,” said Carr. “What have we here? A crippled Sheila …?”
“…being held up by Juma!” Fletch yelled.
“What happened?” Barbara leaned forward and looked out Fletch’s window.
Flying low over the camp, everything was visible. Sheila was hobbling down from the tents to meet them. A homemade crutch was under her right arm. His arm around her waist, Juma supported her from the left side. Sheila’s right leg was in a long cast. They were both looking up at the airplane, laughing. Behind them hurried Raffles with a pitcher of lemonade and glasses on a tray. Sheila tripped on a tuft of grass. She and Juma nearly collapsed on the ground, laughing.
Carr landed the plane wheels perfectly on the slightly uphill track. “The old dear’s splintered her drumstick.”
Fletch banged the cockpit door open and held it up.
“Poor Sheila,” said Barbara.
Fletch said quietly, “And no Walter Fletcher.”
Raffles was first to the airplane.
Sheila and Juma were rollicking down the slope, holding on to each other, laughing like two roisterers in the wee hours.
Fletch got out of the plane, then Barbara. They jumped off the wing.
Carr emerged from the cockpit just as Sheila and Juma arrived.
“All’s right here,” Sheila called out. “All’s right with you?”
Standing on the airplane’s wing, arms akimbo, Carr said, “Clearly, all’s not right here!”
“But it is!” Sheila waved her crutch. “Juma’s a hero! At least, to me!”
“How did you crack your kicker?” Carr demanded.
“The bloody corkscrew tipped over on me! There I was, alone in the jungle, as they say, leg broken, full weight of the corkscrew on me, no more able to move than Buckingham Palace, while three snakes were exploring closer to me, thinking nasty thoughts, I’m sure, while also hearing hyenas laughing at a few ripe ones not far off, and out pops Juma from the flora like a Masai
“‘Spear in hand’?” Fletch muttered.
“Darling Juma!” Hand around his shoulder, Sheila grabbed him to her and planted a kiss on his ear.
Juma was laughing merrily.
From his elevation on the airplane wing, Carr was studying Sheila’s cast. “Simple or compound?”
“Compound,” Sheila said proudly.
“Juma set it for you?”
Holding up her encased leg, Sheila said, “Juma did a first-class job!”
“Good for Juma!” Carr said. “We all thank you, sir.”
As they were drinking lemonade, Sheila chatted, “When Juma discovered me in the bush, he moved with such speed, brain, and brawn, I was put to right in no time at all!”
Carr shook his head. “Can’t leave you alone for a minute.”
“Oh, rot,” said Sheila. “Next you’ll tell me I spoiled your plans to go dancing tonight!”
“I don’t know, though, Peter.” Over coffee after lunch under the stretched canvas, Sheila looked around at the less than luxurious campsite, walls of jungle three sides, the derelict-looking Jeep, the sluggish river, the corkscrew lying on its side on the riverbank. “Perhaps it’s time to pack it in.”
Carr picked a cracker crumb out of his lap and put it on the table. “Been thinking the same thing, old dear. Enough gets to be enough.”
Still looking around, Sheila said, “Enough is enough.”
Carr, Barbara, and Fletch had flown from the Masai Mara early that morning. They had left the two
Awaiting them at the camp had been a mother with a baby whose back had been burned, whom Carr tended as well as he could, and an old man being blinded by cataracts Carr had to send away.
Lunch at the campsite was late, bigger than usual, slower. Sheila’s broken leg had prevented her starting the day’s digging, and thus it never did get started. They even had sherry before lunch while Sheila and Juma regaled them again, laughing, about Sheila’s pain, terror, near death in the jungle; Juma’s appearing from the jungle like a
“I’ll be damned if I sell airplane number two over this project,” Carr said. “I already sold one airplane to finance this.”
“The one your father used to fly,” Sheila said to Fletch. “The one your father now has.”
“Did he finish paying for it?” Barbara asked.
“Oh, yes,” Carr said. “He had that profitable year flying the Uganda border, while the rest of us were refusing to do so.”
“And the house in Karen,” Sheila said. “We sold the house in Karen.”
Juma came and sat at the table with them.
“Hello, hero,” Fletch said.
