Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43 by High Adventure (v1.1)

Author:High Adventure (v1.1) [Adventure, High]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

28 BUT NOT IN COROZAL

Nine A.M. Saturday morning, and the first thing Innocent saw when he walked into his suite of offices in Belmopan was his faithful assistant, Vernon, elbow deep in paperwork. “Well, good morning,” Innocent said. “Working on a Saturday?”

Vernon looked up from his graphs and lists: “I had to see the dentist yesterday, so I came in to get caught up.” He looked as though he still had the toothache.

“I have some phone calls to make,” Innocent said, “then an appointment down in Belize.” He grinned, thinking about his appointment. How happy he was going to make Whitman Lemuel, by rescuing him. For a price.

Vernon reached for his phone. “Who do you want to call?”

Good old reliable Vernon. “Transportation,” Innocent told him. “I signed out a Land Rover yesterday, I want to know if it’s back.”

While Vernon made the call, Innocent reflected again on yesterday’s unsatisfactory conclusion. Having arranged for the harrying of Whitman Lemuel, he had sat in the bar of the Fort George, one G and T after another in his hand as he’d watched daylight fade over the ocean. In air conditioning, behind glass, he had seen the slowly changing colors of sky and sea as a huge television production, slow but vast, put on particularly for him. Occasionally, a dusty cartop was visible, passing by on the dirt road beyond the hotel property’s stone wall. But none of those cars contained Valerie Greene.

Full night turned the windows into mirrors, and the view of himself sprawled on the low dark chair, drink in hand, waiting hour after hour for some woman who never appeared, finally irritated Innocent to the point where, a little after 7:30, he went back out to the phone booths, called a friend in the police, asked one or two guarded questions, and was assured no government vehicle of any kind had been involved today in an accident. (A rare day.) He then called Belize City Hospital, where no female U.S. citizen had been admitted in the last 12 hours. Likewise the Punta Gorda and Belmopan hospitals. He didn’t phone the hospitals up in Corozal and Orange Walk because that was the other end of the country; Valerie had been traveling south.

At that point, he could have taken a room at the hotel for himself, and there were any number of women he could have phoned to come join him, but he just didn’t feel like it. His appetite had been set for Valerie Greene, and he wanted no substitute. Besides which, he was somewhat surprised to realize, he liked that girl, and wanted to be sure she was all right. So he ate alone in the hotel dining room, facing the curtains that close out the night view, and when she still hadn’t returned he left a simple message for her with the night clerk: “I’ll phone in the morning. Innocent.” Whereupon he drove home, took a quick moonlight swim in the pool to get the kinks out of his body, and slept like a baby.

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