Now the tank was bearing down on the taxi. Suddenly the road seemed to fall away from under it. It just vanished from sight.
“We are lucky,” the driver told Regina. “That could have been us if we hadn’t been stopped from going up the street.”
“What happened?”
“The guerillas must have dug a tunnel under the road and then covered it over. It’s a tactic they use frequently. They have no mines to booby-trap the highways with, so they do it in a more primitive fashion.
From behind them a sewer cover was pushed up and rolled away. One by one, a group of young people pulled themselves up from the sewer. Then, wielding clubs and lances, shooting bows-and-arrows, they charged past the taxi and into the pit where the helpless tank lay. The crew of the tank had no chance to escape.
A swarm of heavy bombers came in low overhead and dropped their loads on the area. The bazooka team and the machine-gun crews scattered for cover. The driver of the cab seized the opportunity. With bombs hitting all around them, he backed the cab up at top speed until they were out of the block. Then the taxi shot forward, weaving crazily, dodging bombs and bullets and an occasional flaming arrow.
Two hours later they pulled up in front of the hospital. The driver checked the meter and told Regina the fare.
“Outrageous!” she protested. “You kept it running all the time we were bogged down there with the tank!”
“Whatsamatta? Ain’t I entitled to waitin’ time?"
“You’re supposed to go straight to your destination. You rode me all over Dacca!”
“It ain’t my fault some of da roads was bombed out.”
“And we sat behind those rickshaws for at least an hour with the meter ticking away!”
“Ya can’t blame me fa traffic conditions neither.”
“You’re a thief!” Regina told him. She paid him and got out.
“Sure. I’m a goniff. That, Mem’sahib, was the most important lesson I learned in Logic at Cambridge.” Regina flounced up the steps to the hospital, indignation setting her aquiver under her hot pants and see-through sweater. Inside, an orderly, staring at her, wheeled a stretcher through a plate-glass window. The patient on the stretcher also stared at the red-haired vision of pulchritude as he absentmindedly plucked slivers of glass from his flesh.
The male receptionist jabbed himself in the eye with his pen as he directed her to Tex Kincaid’s room The operator nearly shot the elevator through the roof before he could take his eyes off Regina long enough to locate the “stop” position on the lever-dial. It took him three tries to line up the cage with the floor and let her out. As she walked through the ward to Tex Kincaid’s private room, there was an epidemic of misjabbed needles, dropped plasma bottles and falling bedpans in her wake.
Finally she closed the door behind her and was alone with Tex in his private room. He was sitting up in the bed, wearing a white hospital gown. His face lit up with recognition when he saw Regina.
“Bullseye!” he greeted her. “Ah’m sure pleased to see you.”
“How are you, Tex?”
“Hale an’ hearty as a grizzly in the springtime.”
“Then what are you doing in the hospital?”
“A small operation, Regina. They’ll be comin’ for me any time now.”
“What kind of operation?”
“Well, it’s sort of related to my business, Regina,” Tex answered evasively.
“How is business, Tex?”
“Super-peachy. The situation here’s tailor-made for me. Chewin' gum’s goin’ for one dollar American a pack.”
“You must be a wealthy man, Tex.”
“Rich as Croesus. An’ gettin’ richer. But Ah’ll tell you somethin’, Regina. It’s no trick to make money. All it takes is determination an’ the willin’ness to sacrifice. Them fellers out there whinin’ how they can’t make it, they plain don’t wanna make it. They ain’t willin’ to sacrifice to make it. Anybody can get rich if they want to bad enough. Anybody can do anythin’ they wanna do. A very wise lady taught me that.”
“Was the wise lady Faith Venable?” Regina tried a shot in the dark.
“Now how’d you know that?”
“She’s the reason I came here to see you, Tex. She’s been murdered and-—”
“Ah heard ’bout that,” he interrupted. “It’s a real loss. Tell the truth, hearin’ ’bout her death made me decide to come into the hospital here for the operation.”
“Did she advise you to have it?”
“In a sorta way she did.”
“Were you a disciple of hers? Do you believe in Transcendental Meditation, Tex?” Regina found it incongruous that Tex should believe in anything but the Almighty Buck, but she asked the question anyway.
“Yes Ma’am. Ah’m a true believer. It works.”
“Works how?”
“Well, Ma’am, you may not believe this, but it’s good business.” Tex explained. “Business—makin’ money-—is all a matter of concentration. Concentration—now that’s really a combo of meditatin’ an’ transcendin’. Thinkin’ ’bout yourself-that’s meditatin’. Brushin’ aside all the crap that gets in the way—-that’s transcendin’. Now when Ah think ’bout myself, it’s ’most always a financial consideration. Some other teller, it might be sex, or fam’ly, or how smart he’d like to be, or wantin’ to reform the World. But with me it’s money. Them other things get in the way—particularly sex. The next teller, maybe the money thing is what gets in the way of somethin’ else. But Ah’ll tell you true, Ma’am, Sister Faith—what she taught me--it’s turnin’ me from a quick-money boy to a real Big Time Operator.”
“You mean because you’ve freed your mind of distractions?” Regina summed up.
“Yes Ma’am. Almost. An’ right soon now, all the way.”
Regina thought a moment and then plunged right into her reason for being there. “Faith had a list of names of her disciples. There’s reason to think the name of the murderer is on that list,” she told Tex. “You were in New York the night of the murder. And your name is on it,” she added.
“Shoot, Ma’am! You sayin’ Ah mighta killed Sister Faith? Why that’s plumb ridiculous. She done made me ev’rythin’ Ah am today!”
“Not everything,” Regina said out of deference to Faith’s memory. “But Sister Faith was your Guru, wasn’t she?”
“You might put it that way, Ma’am.”
“And she gave you your mantra?”
“Yes, Ma’am. She surely did.”
“W hat is your mantra, Tex?”
“Now you know Ah can’t tell you that, Ma’am. Ah done swore secrecy.”
“What did you and Faith discuss the last time you saw her in New York?”
“How to transcend. See, Ma’am, Ah had this problem. Ah could transcend ’most any distraction save one thing. An’ that one thing was keepin’ my mind offa business when it hadn’t oughta be. Sister Faith tol’ me how to get over that hump.”
“What was the one thing, Tex?”
“Sex.”
“And what did she advise you to do?”
“Have this here operation, Ma’am. At first Ah wasn’t sure. But Ah thought ’bout it, an’ meditated on it, an’ now Ah know she was right. It’s the only way Ah can get my mind offa poontang an’ keep it on business where it belongs.”
“What is the operation, Tex?”
“Ah’rn havin’ myself made into a steer, Ma’am.”
“You mean castrated?”
“Gelded. Yes Ma’am.”
“But that’s awful!” Regina exclaimed. “You’ll be a eunuch the rest of your life!”
“Yes Ma’am. But Ah’ll be the richest eunuch ever come down the pike.”
They were interrupted by the door opening. A stretcher was wheeled into the room. “It’s time,” one of the attendants told Tex. He climbed onto the stretcher and they wheeled him out.