A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 112

"Tell Bodo, the Barman at the Stardust, that you are a friend of mine," the inspector advised Job when they dropped him off on the outskirts of the town. "He'll get a special price for you and tell you which of the girls have the clap and which ones are clean."

As they pulled away, Sean could at last crawl out behind the seat and slump gratefully into the passenger seat. "What the hell kind of trick was that?" he complained. "You damn near gave me a hernia."

"What better way to get V.I.P treatment," Job chuckled, "than to have the head of the customs service as a pal? You should have seen the guards at the border saluting us!"

"Where is this nightclub?"

"Not far. We'll be there before eleven."

They drove in silence for a few minutes while Sean rehearsed the next order he had to give. He waited until Job turned the truck into a dimly lit side street and switched off the engine. In the side mirror, Sean watched the other two Unimogs pull in behind them, cut their engines, and switch off their headlights.

"Back home again," Job chuckled. "Nothing to it."

Back home," Sean agreed. "And back home is where you are going to stay."

T" here was a long silence. Then Job turned his head and looked at Sean thoughtfully.

"What do you mean by that?"

"This is the end of the road for us, Job. You aren't coming to Grand Reef, you aren't hijacking any Stingers, and you sure as hell aren't coming back to Mozambique with me."

You're firing me?" Job asked.

"That's it, pal. I've got no more use for you."

Sean took a small wad of Zimbabwean dollars, part of the oney General China prov an o to "Get rid of that uniform as soon as you can.

If they catch you in it, they'll shoot you. Take the next train back to Harare and go see Reerna at the office. She's holding about four thousand dollars in back pay and bonus for you. That will be enough to tide you over until Capo Monterro's estate pays out the money it owes us. My Job ignored the proffered money. "You remember that day on Hill Thirty-oneT"

"Shit, Job, don't pull that sob stuff on me."

"You came back for me," Job said.

"Because sometimes I'm just a bloody fool."

"Me too." Job smiled. "Sometimes I'm just a bloody fool."

"Listen, Job, this is not your shauri anymore. There is nothing in it for you. Get out. Go back to your village, buy yourself another couple of pretty young wives with Capo's dollars. Sit in the sun and drink a few pots of beer."

"Nice try, Sean. Pity it didn't work. I'm coming back with you."

"I'm giving you a direct order."

"I'm refusing to obey it. So convene a court-martial."

Sean laughed and shook his head. "She's my woman, so it's okay for me to risk my life."

"I've been nursemaiding you for almost twenty years, and I'm not giving up now," Job said. He opened the cab door. "Let's go and find Cuthbert in his Superman suit."

Sean left his cap and tunic on the seat; the insignia of a famous regiment would be out of place in a cheap nightclub. The Stardust was at the end of the lane in a converted furniture factory, a barnlike building with all its windows blacked out. They could bear the music from a hundred paces out, the hypnotic repetitive beat of new wave African jazz.

Women were clustered around the entrance. In the overhead light their dresses were as colorful as butterfly wings. Their hairstyles were flocculent Afros or the intricate beaded dreadlocks of the Rastafarians, their faces were painted into death masks of ds like iguana rouge and purple lipstick with iridescent green eyeli lizards.

They swarmed around Sean and Job, rubbing themselves against them like cats.

"Hey man, get me in!" they lDleaded. "Give me five dollars to get in, darling, I'll dance with Y'O and jig-jig, man. Everything."

"Come on, whitqyj" A child with a tender, immature body in a shiny dress of cheap nylon, the face of a black Madonna, and ancient weary eyes, seized Sean's arm. "Take me with you and I'll give you something you've never had before." S re the front of Sean's body and cupped her hand to fondle him. Sean took her wrist and restrained her.

"What have you got that I've never had before, sweetheart?

AID ST They pushed their Way through the rustling nylon skirts and lawyers will handle that. You will be entitled to half of that... clouds of cheap perfume and at the door paid their five dollars.

The doorman stamped their wrists with an indelible dye in lieu of an entrance ticket and they ducked through the black curtain.

The music was a stunning, painful assault, the lights were revolving strobes and ultraviolet. The dance floor pulsated with humanity transformed into a single primitive organism, like some gigantic amoeba.

"Where's the bar?" Sean bellowed into Job's ear.

"I'm a stranger here myself." Job seized his arm and they struggled through the engulfing sea of light and sound and gyrating bodies.

The faces around them were transported as if in a religious fervor, eyeballs rolled glaring white in the rays of the ultraviolet $ V, lamps, sweat glistened on upraised arms and streamed in rivulets down jet black cheeks.