“Come through, please, darling.” He spoke into the mouthpiece and smiled at Johnny as he hung up. Then as the door opened he went to meet Ruby Lance, and kissed her on the mouth. The two of them stood, arm in arm, and looked at Johnny.
“The Company is not the only thing I’ve taken from you, , Benedict said softly.
“I want a divorce.” Ruby looked steadily into Johnny’s face.
“Benedict and I are going to get married.” They were all watching
Johnny, and they saw him flinch.
He looked from one face to the other, then his mouth tightened and his forehead furrowed.
Tracey saw his anger mounting, and her eyes flicked to Benedict’s face. He was leaning forward expectantly, his lips quivering with expectation, his eyes alight with triumph.
Tracey wanted to scream out a warning to Johnny, stop him falling into the trap that Benedict had set so carefully.
Johnny took a pace forward, coming up on to the balls of his feet.
He was about to make his defeat total and ineradicable. Then Benedict spoiled it for himself, he goaded once more.
“Game, set and match, Johnny Lance,” he crowed.
The effort of will that Johnny made to recover his reason was not shown on his face, he made the step forward seem natural and he continued towards the door.
“The house is in your name, of course, Ruby, so would you please send my things down to the Tulbagh Hotel,” he asked quietly.
He stopped in front of the couple and spoke to Ruby.
“You’ll want to protect your reputation, of course, so I’ll not sue for adultery. We’ll call it desertion.”
“You’re eating your guts out,” jeered Benedict. “Lance can’t keep his woman. Van der Byl took her away from him.
Go on, sue for adultery - let the world hear it.”
“As you wish,“Johnny agreed.
And he walked out of the Board Room to the elevators.
Johnny flopped on to the bed fully dressed, and rubbed his closed eyes with his fingertips. He felt confused and off-balance, the edge of his mind which usually slashed quickly and incisively through a problem was dulled.
This problem was so multiplied and tangled that he felt like a man in a thicket of African ebony trying to cut his way out with a blunt machete.
Without opening his eyes he groped for the telephone, and the girl on the hotel switchboard downstairs answered.
He gave her a number in Kimberley.
“Person to person, Mr. Ralph Ellison.”
“Fifteen minutes delay, Mr. Lance” the girl told him.
“Okay,“Johnny replied. “Ask room service to send me up a Chivas
Regal and soda.” He suddenly needed liquor, something to dull the pain.
“Make that a double, honey no, make it two doubles.” He had drained both glasses by the time his Kimberley call came through.
“Ralph?“Johnny spoke into the receiver.
“Johnny, how nice of you to call.” There was an echo like distant laughter beneath those cool ambassadorial tones in Ralph Ellison’s voice and Johnny knew instantly that the word was out. Damn it, he was slow - of course Benedict would have blocked him.
“Are you still interested in a deal on the Thunderbolt and Suicide
Concession?” Johnny loosed a despairing longrange shot.
((“Of course, you know we are always interested,” Ralph replied.
“The price is two million.” Johnny lost interest and lay back on the bed, closing his eyes again. He knew Ralph was having his revenge - you didn’t take this boy to court and win without sowing yourself a minefield to retreat over.
“Two million,” Ralph murmured. “Now that’s a little high for a field that’s yielding 200 carats of small industrial diamonds per
10,000 loads, that’s definitely on the high side. Of course we wouldn’t want that battleship of yours either - we are not starting our own navy.” Ralph chuckled juicily. “We could talk around fifty to a hundred grand - no more than that, Johnny.”
“Okay, Ralph.” Johnny spoke wearily. “Thanks all the same. We’ll have a drink together sometime.”
“Any time, Johnny,” Ralph agreed. “Any time at all. You call me.”
Johnny dropped the receiver back on its hook and looked at the ceiling.
He had heard that a gunshot wound was numb at first - he felt numb now. All that energy had seeped out of him, he had lost direction.
The telephone shrilled and he picked it up. The girl on the switchboard asked politely: “Are you finished, Mr. Lance?” “Yes,” said
Johnny. “You might say that.”
“Is there anything else you require?”
The girl sounded puzzled.
“Yes, honey, send up the hemlock.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Two more big fat whiskies, please.” He drank them in the bath, and while he dried himself the doorbell tinkled. He wound the bath towel round his waist and went through to open the door.
Tracey stepped into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.
They stood looking at each other for a long moment. Her eyes were big and dark, reflecting his agony faithfully.
“Johnny-” Her voice was husky, and she reached out and laid the palm of her hand on his cheek. His shoulders sagged, and he moved close to her, his forehead sinking on to her shoulder. He sighed, a ragged broken exhalation of breath.
“Come,” she said, and led him to the bed. Leaving him there she went to the windows and closed the curtains.
It was warm and safe in the half dark of the curtained room, and they held each other as they had done long years before. Clinging together, so their breathing mingled, and it was not necessary to speak.
When they became lovers it seemed that they had waited all their lives for that moment.
Afterwards he lay in her arms and he felt strength flowing back into him, drawing it from her. When he sat up in the bed the bemused, almost dazed expression had gone.
His Jaw was out and his eyes were bright.
“We’ve still got three days, he said.
“Yes.” She sat up beside him. “Go, Johnny. Go quickly, don’t waste another moment.”
“I’ll pull Kingfisher out of the main gully. I’ll find those diamonds. They are there. I know they are there. I’ll take her right down into the jaws of Thunderbolt and Suicide, I’ll find those bloody diamonds - damned if I won’t.” He swung his legs off the bed, reached for his clothes, glancing at his wrist watch as he did so.
“Four o’clock. I can get to Cartridge Bay a few minutes after dark.
Will you call the communications office, ask them to radio Cartridge
Bay and have a flare path set for me, and Wild Goose standing by to run me out?”
“I’ll phone them from here. Then I’ll take a bath - you go on. Don’t waste time.” Tracey nodded eagerly, and Johnny let his eyes drop down over her body. He reached out and touched one big white breast almost diffidently.
“You are beautiful - I hate to go.”
“It will all be here, waiting for you, when you get back.”
“It wasn’t the way I’d planned it. It wasn’t good the way I’d dreamed about it.” Benedict paced angrily over the floor of the Old Man’s study, swinging towards the windows and pausing to stare out at the mountain across
