“Sounded more like a death threat to me.”
“You want it?”
“Maybe. We can talk about it. We’ll have to get some things straight, like what happens after Nairobi.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“London.”
“I expect we might find a slot there in about three years.”
“I won’t stay in Africa a minute more than eighteen months.”
“Two years, and I’ll see what I can do about London. When can you get up here?”
“I’ve got a few things to sort out in Atlanta. A week from Monday?”
“Okay, you’re on. Uh, listen, you’ll have to learn Swahili, you know.”
Howell could hear him grinning. “You bastard,” he said. “That’s going to cost you an extremely expensive lunch.” He hung up.
Howell picked up the completed manuscript of Lurton Pitt’s autobiography from the desk, and looked around the cabin. It was strangely dark, with its boarded-up windows. It seemed dead; just a lot of lumber and furniture.
He still wasn’t entirely sure of what had happened to him here, and he wasn’t sure if he ever would be. But he felt ready to go back and work at his life, instead of just wandering through it; to go back to what he did best and try to do it better.
He walked over to the battered player piano; it was missing chunks of veneer and spattered with buckshot, but still, somehow, whole. He flipped the switch. A flood of music poured out.
George Gershwin was playing “I’ve Got Rhythm”. Howell waited until It was finished, then he flipped off the switch. He laughed all the way to the car.
