Evan Tanner #07 - Me Tanner, You Jane by Lawrence Block

Author:Lawrence Block [Block, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense, Espionage, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Suspense Fiction, Hard-Boiled, Detective and Mystery Stories, Intelligence service, Spy Stories, Intelligence Officers, Africa, Intelligence officers - United States, Tanner; Evan (Fictitious Character), Insomnia
ISBN: 9780061262975
Google: tZF9Rfy5NJYC
Amazon: 0061262978
Publisher: Harper
Published: 1986-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Under a wide and starry sky,

Dig my grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea

And the hunter home from the hill.

“I thought that might make a good epitaph for him, that it was fitting. But I had nothing to write with and nothing to write on, and anyway I knew I’d never be able to mark that grave so I could find it again. So what was the point of an epitaph if wasn’t anybody going to know who was buried there? What I did was I just spoke the words aloud, and I don’t suppose that did any more good than writin’ them, but it was something to do and I did it.”

He heaved a sigh, and we were all three respectfully silent for a few moments. “He must have been a very great man,” Plum said. A few moments ago, I seemed to recall, she had characterized the late Retriever as a fascist bastard. Women are decidedly fickle.

Bowman agreed that the Retriever had indeed been a great man. “You hear all these people talk about Black Power,” he said, “and here’s a guy actually went and did something about it. And with such style, such flair.”

“You must have been terribly devoted to him,” she said.

“Well, I could say it was just a job. Just the same old shuck.” He grinned gently. “But I’ll tell you a thing as straight as anything anybody ever told you, Plum kitten. And that’s that nobody on earth was ever as devoted to anybody as I was to Knanda Ndoro. And that’s the truth.”

Plum bowed her head and closed her eyes. Bowman let the poetic beauty of the scene build to a peak, then borrowed my Swiss Army pocketknife to scalp his two former comrades. Scalp is not the right word for it, but it will have to do. There was still some alcohol in my jug, and we used it to wash the red dye from the, uh, scalps. They would be presented to Sheena, who would accept them as trophies of the hunt even as she accepted Plum and me as faithful members of her rebel band. At least that was the theory.

I pictured Bowman digging Knanda Ndoro’s grave with his own two hands. I wanted to ask him about the treasure, but it seemed inappropriate to bring it up now.

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