63
The ten rafts moved out of Macdonald Bay in a long straggling line, slow and unwieldy, their motors straining and groaning against the weight. Each raft, twenty feet square, was loaded twelve feet high, the coffee sacks covered with the gray tarpaulins, four or five men riding on top of each. Frank stood atop the lead raft, with Chase trussed up to one side and Charlie jabbering away with two other Bantu boys back by the steering stick.
It was a dark night, the quarter-moon giving very little illumination. Looking back, Frank could barely make out the next two rafts in the line, wallowing along on the placid lake like waterlogged suitcases from some wrecked liner. It had taken three hours to come here from Port Victoria, but it would be more like six hours going back.
From time to time Chase kicked up a fuss, apparently having something he very much wanted to say, but every time he thrashed around and made those growling noises behind the filthy gag, either Frank or Charlie cuffed him into silence again. However, Frank had continued to brood about that earlier hint of Chase’s, the suggestion that he’d double-crossed them in some way that could mean trouble ahead, so after they’d come out of the bay and completed the long slow broad turn from south to east around Bwagwe Point, Frank stomped over the tarpaulin-covered sacks to where Chase was lying, all wound around with rope like a fly being saved by a spider for a meal later on. Hunkering down beside the man, rapping a knuckle on his temple to get his attention, Frank said, “I’m gonna take that gag off now. You got something to say, say it. But don’t do any shouting or I’ll make you sorry.”
Chase nodded, eager and anxious. He was already trying to say something, behind the gag. “Wait a minute,” Frank told him while he struggled with Charlie’s knot. Then, when he finally got the gag off, all Chase could do at first was cough and spit and clear his throat. Frank waited, and at last Chase said hoarsely, “Will you make a deal?”
“With you?” Frank laughed without humor.
“If we don’t deal,” Chase insisted, lying there, twisting his head to look up at Frank, “you’re certainly dead, and I’m probably dead.”
“Tell me about it, Chase,” Frank said. “What did you cook up for us?”
“Do we deal?” Urgently, pressing hard, limbs straining against the ropes, Chase said, “There’s money in it, Frank, there’s plenty of money in it. We can both retire.”
“Tell me your story.”
But still Chase hesitated. “Will you deal? Will you come in with me? Can I trust you?”
Frank laughed at him. “Look where you are,” he said. “If I want, I can just roll you off the edge here. Plop, you’re all gone. Baron Chase gone forever. Fish food. You want to deal? Tell me the story or shut your face.”
Chase thought about it for a while, obviously unhappy. The side of his face looked raw where it had rubbed against the tarpaulin. Taking a deep breath, shaking his head, he said, “I’ve got to, Frank. You’re my only hope.”
“Tough,” Frank commented.
“I sold the coffee,” Chase said.
Frank frowned., “Sold it? This coffee? Who to?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Chase said. “A man in Switzerland. You’ve never heard of him.”
“Why would he buy coffee from you, Chase?”
Chase rested his head against the lumpy tarpaulin. Sounding more tired, he said, “He’s part of the combine buying the coffee. Buying it originally. I told him I had knowledge the coffee wouldn’t make it out of the country, he and his people were going to lose out. But I might be able to find him some other coffee. The price has gone up, anyway; he can charge the Brazilians more for it if it isn’t the same coffee anymore. He cuts his losses and I—we—make a very nice profit.”
“He went for this?”
“He told me, if his coffee disappeared, if I had substitute coffee, we had a deal.”
“Another convent child,” Frank said. “What’s your arrangement?”
“I deliver to his people in Dar.”
Dar es Salaam, capital of Tanzania, was a major port on the Indian Ocean, second only to Mombasa in tonnage of cargo. But it was more than a thousand miles from here. Frank said, “How do you get it there?”
“By train from Mwanza.”
Mwanza. Just as Kisumu was Kenya’s principal port on the lake, Mwanza was Tanzania’s, down at the southern tip, the extreme far end of the lake, well over two hundred miles away. Frank said, “These rafts can’t make it to Mwanza.”
“I know that.” Again Chase hesitated, making it clear that now he was coming to the crunch. Inching cautiously into it, he said, “There’s an Asian called Hassanali.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Frank agreed. “These are his engines. He had some police trouble.”
“I arranged his police trouble,” Chase said, not without pride.
“Why?”
“He owns a cargo ship called the Angel; it operates out of Kisumu.”
“I know the Angel,” Frank said. “Huge motherfuckin ship for this lake, but we don’t use him. He’s a crook, worse than the railway. But why make trouble for Hassanali?”
“He wouldn’t deal, but captain Usoga, who runs the Angel, he would.”
Frank looked forward at the empty lake. It was very dark out there, except for the tiny glints of moonlight on wavelets. “You’ve got the Angel out there in front of us,” Frank said. “To hijack us.”
“Yes.”
“They’ll have armed men aboard,” Frank said, turning to look back toward the other rafts. “They’ll just steam by and pick us off.”
“Not if we deal,” Chase said. “Not if I call out to Captain Usoga, tell him who I am. He needs me alive to get his money.”
Frank studied the trussed-up man with some surprise, almost with admiration. “You’re a pirate, Chase,” he said. “Do you know that? You’re a goddam pirate.”
Chase had no comment.
“All right.” Frank brooded, looking forward. “Where do they figure to hit us?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a liar, but it doesn’t matter. I know. The only sensible place is the narrows between Matale Point and Sigulu Island.”
“Frank!” Chase said, struggling against his ropes. “You can’t outrun them! Frank, you’re not just killing yourself, you’re killing me!”
“Be quiet now,” Frank told him. “I’m thinking.”
Standing, Frank pondered a minute, then turned away and headed toward Charlie and the others back by the steering stick. Chase called something after him, which Frank ignored. Reaching the three Bantu, he said, “Charlie, old son, I’m gonna take you into my confidence.”
“Oh, nice!” Charlie said. Moonlight reflected from his bright eyes and white teeth and wet chin.
“D’ja ever hear of pirates, Charlie?”
“Oh, yes,” Charlie said. “Even so, in the cinema. Swing on ropes. Swords.”
“You got it. And that’s what’s out in front of us. Except no swords. Guns.”
Charlie looked around at their raft. He was a quick study. “Bad completely,” he said.
“I figure,” Frank told him, “they’re waiting for us off Sigulu Island. Where it’s narrow there, between the island and the shore.”
“Oh, sure,” Charlie said, happy in agreement. “Ambush. Very good.”
“Good for them, not good for us.” Gesturing at the other two Bantu, who were watching and listening and not picking up one English word in ten, Frank said, “Can either of these boys swim?”