It was a classic touch. She acknowledged and openly hero-worshipped every valiant quality and impulse that a man would like to be credited with, and in the next breath she absolved him of any uncomfortable risk of having to live up to them, and prettily made it a command. Nobody but the Saint would have been so sincerely ungrateful.
“You’re the boss,” he said curtly, for there was no doubt that she meant it. “But we go as far as damn — yanquis can. Right?”
“Right.”
“Okeh. But how are you going to explain this to Pappy?”
“You know, we’ve got reservations to fly back tomorrow night. This has all been so sudden... The only thing I can think of is that I’ll have to make some excuse and let him go alone. But what excuse is there? I can’t pretend to be sick, or he’d never go.” She was almost suddenly panic-stricken, groping desperately for an answer. “I’ve told him before about wishing I could be a travelling secretary. Could I tell him that you’ve offered me a job? Would you mind if I did that?”
Simon laughed.
“If it’s as easy as that, consider yourself hired.”
She clung to his arm impulsively for a moment.
“If Loro can do what he says he can, I wouldn’t hold you to it.”
“I might like being held,” he said. “But we’ll have plenty of time to talk about that. If your father goes for it. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed, because I won’t even be able to help you sell it.”
“Why?”
“I have to go over to Cristobal first thing in the morning. I’ve got an old friend in the Navy who’s stationed on that side, and he promised to show me some sensational tarpon fishing on the Chagres River. He can only get two days off, so I’ll be back on Friday. If I find you’ve checked out, I’ll know it was just one of those things.”
“I’ll be here, I promise,” she said. “And by then Loro should have lined up those guns.”
When he left her at her hotel several hours later (Professor Nestor did not make his residential headquarters at El Panamá, both for reasons of economy and because it would have been grossly out of character) she kissed him goodnight, not alarmingly, but with a spontaneous warmth which suggested that her full gratitude would be more than perfunctorily enjoyable.
The Professor was sitting up in bed, wearing a suit of gaudy pyjamas and reading a luridly jacketed paperback.
“We’re cooking, Pappy,” she said. “Everything went just like the script. Even better — he’s going away for a couple of days’ fishing, so there won’t be any problem about seeing you off.”
“Splendid,” said the Professor. “But I’d better go up to Santa Clara as usual until after he’s left, so there’ll be no chance of accidentally running into him.”
Santa Clara is a seaside resort on the Pacific coast which is supported mainly by Service personnel and Canal employees, and the average tourist is unlikely even to hear of it, let alone visit it. The Professor had found it a convenient and pleasant place to lie low in when he was supposed to have flown back to the States.
“This’ll be one of the long jobs,” Alice said. “He’s determined to go up the river himself as far as I’ll let him. That means I’ll have to get my hands all fishy and my shoulder sore from that blasted shotgun, and pretend I like it.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Oh well, maybe I can get his mind on to something else at least part of the time.”
“I notice your lipstick is a little smudged,” he remarked. “With a routine as good as we’ve got, I don’t think you need to develop your part so far in that direction as you’ve been doing.”
“Would you rather get someone else to do it?” she inquired. “I’ll play it the way I feel it, or quit. There isn’t much fun for me in this goddamn place. And this is one John who isn’t a bit hard to take.”
When the following Friday morning went by without any phone call, she experienced a qualm that was almost as much personal as it was mercenary. She would have sworn that it was practically a toss-up whether Sebastian Tombs was more attracted by herself or the golden frogs, but as the afternoon wore on she began to wonder how both lures could have failed simultaneously. When her phone rang at last, after five o’clock, she was so relieved to hear his voice that her tone was quite angry.
“Whatever happened to you?”
“I’ve been busy,” he said mildly. “You sound almost like a wife — or a boss.”
“I’m sorry.” She recovered herself quickly. “I guess I was getting worried. After seeing my father off and waiting here, I was starting to think how silly I’d look if you never came back.”
“Two things I never stand up, darling,” he said, “are a beautiful blonde and a chance to make easy money. How’s Loro doing?”
“He’s been calling me every hour. He’s got all the guns and ammunition, but his friends are pressing him for the money.”
“Tell him they can have it as soon as the banks open tomorrow.”
“What have you been so busy with — boss?”
“I got a tip over on the other side that should be worth a fortune,” he said. “I’ll tell you when I see you. Will you be gorgeous and hungry if I pick you up, let’s say at seven?”
She had to struggle with an assortment of vague apprehensions until she met him. There were several facts that he might have heard or learned from someone who really knew the country that could have shaken the foundations of his belief in the Professor’s imaginative story, yet he had not sounded at all hesitant or sceptical. And when he greeted her he was unrestrainedly jubilant.
“This could be the greatest break for us,” he said. “My pal on the other side is a fly boy in the Navy, a full Commander, no less, but he’s never given up hope of getting rich some day. He thinks he has all the opportunities, and all he needs is a bit of luck. He used to dream about making a forced landing on some unheard-of mountain of gold or a dry wash full of diamonds. Lately it’s uranium, and he never takes off without a small Geiger counter in one of his life raft ration cans. Well, every place he goes, he studies up on the local mining laws, because when he strikes pay dirt he doesn’t intend to be horn-swoggled out of it on some technicality. So I told him that I was thinking of scouting for some gold around here myself — without giving away any of your secrets, of course — and he told me that any minerals you find in Panama belong to the Government, unless you’ve bought a prospecting concession in advance for the exact area where you find ’em. Did you know that?”
“No,” she said with a blankness that did not have to be feigned.
“Anyway, that’s how it is. But my pal knew all the rules, so as soon as I got back here this morning I went to work to take out a prospecting concession on the area you’d shown me on the map. My trouble was, it’s such a little-known law that half the officials I talked to hadn’t heard of it themselves. Or maybe it’s just been too long since anyone did any serious prospecting around here. It took me half the day to find the right bureaucrat who could issue the concession, and it was even tougher getting him to do it on the spot, instead of mañana, or next month. But I finally made it. Look!”
He triumphantly unfolded a closely typewritten sheet of heavy paper. It was trimmed and embellished with an imposing variety of stamps, embossings, ribbons, and sealing-wax, with a number of ornate signatures, but it was all written in Spanish, and about the only words that she recognized were the name of Sebastian Tombs.