The window was a fascinating junkpile of suggestively shaped roots and small bottles filled with revolting fluids. An ancient elephant’s foot served as a tray for an assortment of dried bones and tufts of hair, and a sunburned sign exhorted him to SHOP HERE FOR WONDER DRUGS AND MIRACLE CURES. It was dark inside the shop and the crammed window almost obscured the counter. But he could see enough to know that the man behind the crowded counter was old and wizened and that the man who faced the old one was the man he had been following.
He decided to go in and buy an amulet.
The door came open with a rusty jangle of bells. There was a swish and a slam at the rear of the shop, and as the door closed behind him he saw that he and the old man were alone in the store. He blinked dazedly as if to accustom himself to the gloom, but he saw every detail of the musty little shop and knew that there was a door behind a curtain that was still swaying. He could even hear the footsteps going up uncarpeted stairs.
“Help you, sir?” the proprietor crooned. “Souvenir? Love potion? Strength of elephant or heart of lion? Or do you wish to look around?”
“I’d love to look around,” Nick said truthfully, “but right now I haven’t got time. A good luck charm, that’s all I need. Something to ward off evil.”
“Ah! Many kinds of evil, many kinds of charms.” The old man busied himself beneath the counter. “This one, against wicked men. This for illness. This, to bring success in business...”
“I’ll take that,” Nick said, noting that it was a relatively clean old coin while most of the other offerings were shapeless little bags or yellowed teeth, and also noting the brand new telephone that squatted so incongruously on the counter. He paid the man and slipped the charm around his neck while his eyes found the telephone wires that ran up one low wall and through the ceiling.
“I wonder if I might use your telephone?” he said suddenly. “I see that I am late for an appointment.” He put some of his change back on the counter and lifted the receiver without waiting for an answer. The old man sucked in his breath sharply.
“Oh, no! I am sorry, Senhor... M’sieu! No, I am afraid you cannot.” He anxiously pulled the phone away from Nick and pushed down the bar. “It does not work very well — I am afraid it is out of order.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “It seemed to be working very well,” he said coldly. “I distinctly heard another voice on the line.”
“That is the trouble,” the old man panted, making what Nick thought was a rather good recovery. “There always seem to be other voices on the line. There are telephones across the street at the hotel. I am sure you will find better service there.”
“All right. I’ll try.” Nick irritably took back his change and walked out of the shop. The bells clanged discordantly behind him.
He looked across the street at his hotel. Its main entrance was almost directly opposite. Some of its windows were straight across from the small window above the “Herbalist” sign. Very convenient, he thought, wondering how long the herbalist had had his telephone — or phones. He also wondered how he had been fortunate enough to draw a room in the rear overlooking the quiet square.
It was still a few minutes before two and there was no car waiting for him in front of the hotel. It suddenly struck him that there were very few cars on the streets at all; perhaps it was something to do with the long lunch hours he’d heard about. Two cars were parked just beyond the loading zone of the hotel, both empty, and another idled on a corner while its driver chatted with someone on the sidewalk. The atmosphere was so strangely quiet that it was somehow not peaceful at all.
Nick thought of the fragments of speech he had heard on the telephone. A deep voice had said in French: “...dangerous to wait.” The second voice was a strange mixture of nasal whine and sibilance, and it had said plaintively: “But we must find out what...”
And a little old man who sold herbs and charms had abruptly cut him off. A little old man who was about as unlikely a candidate for high-powered international intrigue as Nick had ever seen.
Nick stepped off the curb and felt that familiar, crawling tingle at the back of his neck. He almost turned, but he made himself walk on into the street. There was no sense tipping off Green Face too soon — he’d find out much more by stringing him along. And, by the same token, Green Face had no reason — yet — to put a bullet in the back of Nick’s head.
The roar of the motor slammed through Nick’s ears and ripped his thoughts apart. The idling car no longer idled; it threw itself at Nick like an angry elephant but with much greater speed. Tires screamed and a horn blared furiously and Nick threw himself forward to miss the monster by inches. He cartwheeled on to the sidewalk and drew himself up by a lightpole, reaching reflexively for Wilhelmina. A police whistle shrilled and something flew past his ear to slap into the wall behind him and roll back almost to his heels. Thoughts of grenades leapt into his mind but he saw instantaneously that it was a rough stone with a piece of paper wrapped around it. A motorcycle cop roared out of a side street and flung after the fleeing car. Wilhelmina stayed where she was.
Nick picked up his cane and the stone and peeled off the wrapping paper. The crudely scrawled message read: YANKEE MURDERER GO HOME!
Abe Jefferson’s car was engaged for some time that afternoon before it was free to take Nick on the tour, and so was the Chief of Police. When they did meet briefly, it was only to exchange rapid bursts of information and arrange an evening meeting. In the end it was Tad Fergus who acted as guide while Uru lashed the big car into breathtaking feats and Stonewall sat stolidly beside him with his tremendous right hand resting on his gun butt.
“Look, keep your car,” Nick had protested vigorously. “Let somebody from the Embassy take me.”
Jefferson’s refusal was emphatic. “Mr. Fergus will show you around, since I cannot, but I insist that you take my car. It is bulletproof, whereas the Embassy cars are not. And Vice-President Adebe is using the only other safe car in the city. No, please do not argue. I have my hands full as it is.”
Nick capitulated. “What news about the President?”
“ ‘As well as can be expected,’ the doctors say. I personally do not know what that means. But I would say that somebody has leaked out the story, or at least part of it. I don’t know who it could have been. But there is an undercurrent in the city that I do not like. You must be very careful.”
At Nick’s request Tad directed Uru to take them to all sites of shootings and explosions in the vicinity of Abimako. They drove along the seashore between the brilliance of the sea and the biting blue of the sky and then inland to the small mission stations on the outskirts of the city and the lovely, lazy suburbs where the Russian residents lived. The lanky, redheaded Tad filled in the background with vivid detail and a wealth of knowledge that warmed Nick to him, and crisply gave him capsule reports of eyewitness accounts and local reactions to the incidents. Nick stopped at damaged homes and shattered warehouses, picking his way thoughtfully among the ruins until he had seen enough to set a pattern in his mind. Then they drove back into the heart of town and stopped at the old fort that served both as the Presidential residence and the Government Offices to meet various officials and see the site where Julian Makombe had been shot.