Part 32 (2/2)
”Who wouldn't?” Penny said. ”But if I don't think I can get away with it, I'm not going to try it, right?”
”Well, yeah,” Rance admitted. ”Trouble is, you always think you're going to get away with it. If you were right all the d.a.m.n time, we'd still be in Texas, or more likely in Tahiti.”
She gave him a dirty look. ”I didn't hear you telling me not to run that ginger down into Mexico. I didn't see you staying back in Texas when I did it, neither. If you had, you'd still be in that apartment by your lonesome, pouring your life down a bottle one day at a time.”
”Maybe,” he said, though he knew d.a.m.n well she wasn't wrong. ”So I'm here instead. If I hadn't been along, you'd probably still be in a Lizard jail. Of course, if I hadn't been around, you'd probably be dead now, but you don't think about that, not any more you don't.”
Penny's scowl got fiercer. ”All right, I've screwed some up before, but I really don't see what can go wrong this time.”
Rance laughed again-he laughed till it hurt again, which didn't take long. ”So there's nothing going on, and there's nothing that can go wrong with whatever is going on. I like that, I'll go to h.e.l.l if I don't.”
”G.o.d d.a.m.n you,” she said furiously. ”You weren't supposed to know anything about it.” They were both barely remembering the microphones they figured the Lizards had hidden in the apartment, if they were remembering at all.
”That's what the gal who's cheating on her husband always says, too, and she never thinks he's going to find out,” Auerbach said. He didn't have the energy to get as mad as she was. ”Just remember, if your boat springs a leak down here, I drown, too. And I don't feel like drowning, so you'd better level with me.”
He could tell what was going on behind her blazing blue eyes. She was deciding whether to stay where she was and talk or walk out the door and never come back. Rather to his surprise, she kept on talking to him, even if what she had to say didn't directly bear on the argument. ”Come on down to the Boomslang,” she said. ”We can hash it out there.”
”Okay,” he answered, and limped over to pick up his stick. He didn't feel like hobbling to the tavern, but he didn't feel like having the Lizards listen in on an argument about smuggling ginger, either. Even with the cane, his bad leg gave him h.e.l.l as he went downstairs, and kept on barking when he got down onto the sidewalk. It would do worse when he had to go back upstairs, and he knew it. Something to look forward to, Something to look forward to, he thought. he thought.
A Lizard patrol was coming up the street toward him. The male in charge was even newer in town than he and Penny were. Auerbach waved; there were good Lizards and bad Lizards, same as there were good people and bad people, and this male seemed to be a pretty good egg. ”I greet you, Gorppet,” Rance called in the language of the Race.
”And I greet you, Rance Auerbach,” the Lizard said. ”You are easy to recognize because of the way you walk.” He waved, too, and then led the patrol past Rance and away along the street.
As soon as the Lizards were out of earshot, Penny said, ”If you know Gorppet, what are you getting your bowels in an uproar about over this ginger deal? He's not the kind of Lizard who'd rat on us. Anybody can see that.”
”You're cooking up a deal with him him?” Rance said, and Penny nodded. He stopped in his tracks; standing still hurt marginally less than walking. Before he said anything more, he paused to think. Penny wasn't wrong. Gorppet struck him as a Lizard who'd done a lot and seen a lot and wouldn't blab any of it. Still... ”He's not that high-ranking. If he makes a deal with you, can he hold up his end of it?”
”Has he got the cash, you mean?” Penny asked, and Rance nodded. She said, ”You don't have to be a general to be a big-time ginger smuggler, sweetie. A lot of the big ones are just clerks. They don't buy the stuff with their salaries-they buy it with what they make selling it to their buddies.”
”Okay,” Auerbach said after more thought. ”I guess that makes sense. But Gorppet doesn't strike me as the type who'd do a lot of tasting. Didn't he get transferred down here on account of he's some kind of hero?”
”Yeah, but that doesn't mean he hasn't been tasting for years-I asked him,” Penny said. You would, You would, Rance thought. She went on, ”He hasn't been in the selling end of the business till now, though. You're right about that. Part of what he got for being a hero, along with this transfer and his promotion, was a h.e.l.l of a big reward for catching some Arab or other.” Rance thought. She went on, ”He hasn't been in the selling end of the business till now, though. You're right about that. Part of what he got for being a hero, along with this transfer and his promotion, was a h.e.l.l of a big reward for catching some Arab or other.”
”Can he turn it into any kind of cash we can use?” Rance inquired.
”We, huh?” Penny said, and he felt foolish. She let him down easy by answering the question: ”It's not that hard here in South Africa, you know. Everything turns into gold if you work it a little.”
She was right about that. He couldn't deny it. ”Only trouble with gold,” he said slowly, ”is that it's heavy if we've got to leave town in a hurry.”
”It's heavy, yeah, but it doesn't take up much s.p.a.ce,” Penny replied. All of a sudden, she grabbed him and kissed him. A little black kid walking past smoking a cigarette giggled around it. She took no notice. When she was done with the kiss, she said, ”And now you're starting to sound like somebody who might be interested in this deal after all.”
”Who, me?” Auerbach looked back over his shoulder, as if Penny might be talking to somebody else. She made as if to hit him in the head. He ducked, then winced when his shoulder twinged. ”I don't know what the devil gave you that idea.”
”Can't fool me-I know you too well,” Penny said. Since that was probably true, he didn't answer. She went on, ”We can do it-I know we can. And when we do, Tahiti here we come.”
Not for the first time, Rance thought of warm, moist tropical breezes and warm, moist native girls. But his long-ago West Point days made him also think of logistics. ”How do we get there from here? Either way we go, it's through Lizard-held territory. They sent us down here to be good little boys and girls, remember? They're liable not to want to let us loose again.”
”If we've got the cash to get to Free France and live there, we'll have the cash to pay off whoever we need to pay off to get us the h.e.l.l out of here,” Penny said, and Rance could hardly deny that was odds-on to be true. She continued, ”Come on, let's get over to the Boomslang. I've got to talk to Frederick.”
Alarm bells clanged in Auerbach's mind. ”What do you need to talk to him about?” He didn't like Frederick much, not least because he thought the Negro might like Penny a little too well.
She set her hands on her hips. ”I've got to get the ginger from somebody, don't I?” she said patiently. ”Frederick's got ginger, but he doesn't have the connections with the Lizards for anything more than nickel-and-dime deals. I d.a.m.n well do.”
”Frederick's got connections with the local tough guys, though,” Rance said, ”or I figure he does, anyhow. He probably would have woke up dead one morning if he didn't. How's he going to like you pulling off a big score on his home turf?”
”He'll get enough to keep him sweet-plenty for everybody,” Penny said. ”Rance, honey, this'll work. It will will.”
Her confidence was infectious-and Rance didn't feel like living in South Africa for the rest of his life. It might be better than a Lizard jail, but it wasn't a patch on the States. ”Okay,” he said. ”Let's go to the Boomslang.” He wondered how much trouble he was getting into. He'd find out. He was all too sure of that.
Penny kissed him again. n.o.body on the street snickered this time. ”You won't be sorry,” she promised.
”I'm sorry already,” Rance said, which wasn't quite true but wasn't quite a lie, either.
Frederick wasn't in the saloon when Rance and Penny went inside. That surprised him; from everything he'd seen, Frederick d.a.m.n near lived in the Boomslang. But, sure enough, the big black man breezed in before they'd got very far into their drinks. He sat down beside them as if he expected to talk business. And so he probably did-Penny must have started setting up this deal a while ago.
”So... we go forward?” he said.
”We go forward,” Rance answered before Penny could say anything, ”as soon as you convince us you're not going to sell us out to the Lizards or try to do us in and keep all the loot for yourself.”
Frederick laughed as if those were the funniest ideas in the world. Auerbach didn't find them so amusing. Frederick might be greedy for cash, or he might want to screw them over because they were white. But then the Negro started to talk. He had a good line; Rance had to admit as much. The longer he listened, the more convinced he got-and the more he wondered how big a fool he was being this time.
No one in the village where Liu Han, Liu Mei, and Nieh Ho T'ing had taken refuge dared destroy the altar to the spirits of Emperors past the little scaly devils had set up at the edge of the square. Despite protests from the three Communists, the villagers went right on burning offerings in front of the altar, as if it commemorated their ancestors and not forward-slung creatures with eye turrets.
”They are ignorant. They are superst.i.tious,” Liu Mei complained to her mother.
”They are peasants,” Liu Han answered. ”Living in Peking, you never really understood what the countryside is like. Now you're finding out.” Living in Peking, she'd forgotten how abysmally ignorant the bulk of the Chinese people were, too. Returning to a village reminded her in a hurry.
”We have to instruct them,” Liu Mei said.
”Either that or we have to get out of here,” Liu Han said unhappily. ”We probably should have already. The little devils are learning to use propaganda better and better. Before too long, the peasants in this village-and the peasants in too many villages all through China-will take sacrificing to the spirits of the little devils' dead Emperors as much for granted as they do sacrificing to the spirits of their own ancestors. It will help turn them into contented subjects.”
”What can we do?” Liu Mei demanded. ”How can we start a counterpropaganda campaign?”
It was a good question. It was, in fact, the perfect question. Liu Han wished she had the perfect answer for it. She wished she had any answer this side of flight for it-and how much good would flight do, if other villages were like this one? She didn't, and knew as much. ”If the Lizards punish villages that harm the altars, no one will harm altars,” she said. ”Burning paper goods in front of them seems too cheap and easy to be very bothersome.”
”But it enslaves,” Liu Mei said, and Liu Han nodded. Her daughter went on, ”How do we know the little scaly devils really are watching those altars, the way they say they are?”
”We don't,” Liu Han admitted. ”But they could be doing it, and who has the nerve to take a chance?”
”Someone should,” Liu Mei insisted.
”Someone should, yes-but not you,” Liu Han said. ”You're all I have left in the world. The little devils already took you away from me once, and they tore my heart in two when they did. I couldn't stand it if they took you again.”
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