“What about the Major?” Parker said.
Gonor was surprised again. “With us on the robbery? Naturally not!”
“Then he doesn’t belong here.”
“Surely you can trust”
“It isn’t trust or not trust. We’re not here for a party, we’re here to do a thing. Anybody who isn’t involved in doing that thing shouldn’t be here.”
“The Major had to approve you before”
“No,” Parker said. “You’re the man who’s going out on the limb; you’re the one who’ll make it or lose on the basis of how good I am. What the Major has to do is take your word about me and keep out of our way.”
The Major said something in his native tongue. Gonor, looking unhappy, said something back to him. The Major said something else.
There was a whole conversation starting there. Parker turned away and went over to Formutesca and Manado. Manado was looking slightly shocked and slightly scared, but Formutesca was looking amused.
Parker said to Manado, “How old are you?”
He’d been listening to the Major and Gonor, and now he blinked, focused on Parker, and said, “Sir? I beg your pardon?”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three, sir.”
Parker turned to Formutesca. “You?”
Formutesca was smiling happily. “Thirty-one,” he said.
“You both went to college?”
“Yes, sir,” said Manado, and Formutesca nodded.
“Do any sports?”
“Track team, sir,” said Manado.
“Baseball,” said Formutesca. “Third base. And some gymnastics.”
“You know how to handle guns?”
“Yes, sir,” said Manado, and Formutesca said:
“Naturally.”
“Why naturally?”
“Not all of Dhaba is in the twentieth century,” Formutesca said.
The conversation between Gonor and the Major seemed to have ended, but Parker kept his attention on these two in front of him. He said, “That means you know rifles. Anything else?”
“I have fired handguns,” said Manado. “And the Sten and Uzi.”
“Me too,” said Formutesca.
“What languages do you speak?”
“Just Abu and English,” said Manado.
“Abu? That’s your native tongue?”
“Yes, sir.”
Formutesca said, “I speak some French, some German. More French.”
A door closed. Parker said, “You both drive? You have licenses to drive in this country?” They both nodded. “Either of you color-blind? Epileptic? Get fainting spells? You got any phobias, fear of heights or anything like that?” They both kept shaking their heads.
Behind Parker, Gonor said, “Mr Parker.”
Parker turned around. Gonor was alone. “The Major has approved you,” he said, and it was possible there was something humorous in his tone.
“Good,” said Parker.
“We’ll go for a drive now,” Gonor said.
“Why?”
“I’ll show you where the diamonds are.”
2
The car was a black Mercedes-Benz. Manado was at the wheel and Formutesca beside him, with Gonor and Parker in back. “Go down Park Avenue,” Gonor had said, so Manado had driven down Fifth Avenue to the first eastbound street, over two blocks to Park, and they were now headed south, the Pan Am Building hulking in the roadway ahead of them.
“This will be interesting to our young friends as well,” Gonor said, nodding at the two in front. “They still don’t know where the Kasempas are keeping themselves and the diamonds.”
Gonor should have kept his security as tight as that on the whole deal, but Parker didn’t say so. He just nodded and looked out the window at the cabs.
After a minute Gonor said, “You don’t think much of Major Indindu.”
“I don’t think anything of him. I don’t think about him at all.”
Gonor frowned, studying Parker. “Is that true? Is that why you’re successful? You ignore whatever is not directly necessary?”
“You can’t think about more than one thing at a time,” Parker said.
“Granted,” said Gonor.
“Do I continue, sir?” Manado asked. The Pan Am Building was looming up directly ahead, like a life-sized model no longer needed and left out in the street for the Sanitation Department to take away.
“Straight on,” Gonor said. “But don’t take the tunnel.”
Manado steered the car around the racetrack ramp girdling Grand Central Terminal, of which the Pan Am Building is the hat. He drove well but a trifle too cautiously, letting himself be outbluffed occasionally by hustling cabbies.
They came down the ramp to Fortieth Street, avoided the tunnel underpass, and Gonor said, “Turn left at Thirty-eighth Street.”
Formutesca turned around, saying, “The museum?”
Gonor nodded to him.
“Nobody lives there,” Formutesca said.
“There is the top-floor apartment.”
“But
nobody everlived there!”
“Not till now,” Gonor said. Turning to Parker he said, “Seven Central African nations, when they were all colonies of the same European power, combined to create and support a Museum of African Arts and Artifacts in New York City. Actually it was the mother country that was the inspiration and most of the financial support for the museum. As each of the colonies became independent it ceased to be a supporting member of the museum. Until us. We were the last of the colonies to gain independence. Rather than take over the museum itself, which would have been at the least anomalous, our former mother country has given the museum to us and has presented us with a fund from which the proceeds will furnish the operating expenses.”
Manada had been stopped by a red light at Thirty-ninth Street, but now it turned green and he drove forward a block and made his left. Gonor looked out the windshield and said, “Park across the street.”
“Don’t stop,” Parker said. “Just go past it slow.”
Gonor looked at him in surprise. “Wouldn’t you care to study it for a period of time?”
“Yes, but I don’t want the people in it to be studying me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry; that hadn’t occurred to me.”
“That’s why you hired me,” Parer said. “Where is it?”
“Just ahead, on the left,” Gonor said.
Parker looked out the window and saw it as they drove by. A narrow building of gray stone, it was set back from the sidewalk and separated from its neighbors by narrow alleys on both sides. A black wrought-iron fence, waist high, ran across the front of the property, with carefully tended grass and trees behind it, flanking the walk up to the building itself, which was four stories high. The windows on the first two floors were barred. The front door was massive dark wood, and on the stone wall beside it was a square plaque, unreadable from here. The place looked well cared for but empty. The rest of the buildings on the block were either quiet residential hotels or old town houses converted to discreet offices.
“All right,” Parker said. “Turn right on Lexington.”
“Why not go back?” Gonor said.
“In traffic like this,” Parker told him, “there’s no way to be sure you’re not being followed. You’ve been followed in the past, sometimes by Hoskins, sometimes by General Goma’s people. So maybe you’re being followed now, and if you are we don’t want them to know we’re interested in that museum.”
“Good,” said Gonor.
The light at the corner was green. Manado made the turn. Parker told him, “When you get to Twenty-third Street make the left. Go over to Third Avenue and then south. When you get to Twelfth Street circle the block to the east and keep an eye on the rearview mirror, see if anybody follows you around.”
“Yes, sir,” said Manado.
Parker said to Gonor, “Tell me about this building.”
“It’s a museum,” Gonor said. “Three floors of African artifacts, from shields and spears to wooden dolls. And a fully-equipped apartment on the top floor.”
“That nobody’s ever lived in?”