Mrs. Pollifax on Safari (2 page)

“Out of her petticoats, wasn’t it?” said Bishop, smiling.

“—and it turned out that a complete amateur had duped all the professionals.” He stopped smiling and said abruptly, “Mrs. Pollifax, of course.”

Bishop, reading his mind, was shocked. “Tangling with a cold-blooded assassin, sir?”

“She’s tangled with them before,” pointed out Carstairs, “but this time she doesn’t have to tangle with anyone at all, just take photographs. Most of these safaris nowadays are camera-shooting, not hunting safaris, and
there’ll be cameras in everybody’s pocket.”

“Maybe,” said Bishop grudgingly, and then, smiling, “Of course she’d be marvelous at it Ingenuous, artless, the sort everyone confides in … Do you think Aristotle might confide in her, too?”

Carstairs gave him a sour glance. “Try not to be naïve, Bishop,” and then as his gaze moved to the clock, “She’ll need a yellow-fever shot and someone will have to pull some strings to get her a visa in a hurry, and if that safari’s booked solid there’ll have to be more strings pulled, although thank heaven it’s early June and not the high season yet in Africa. Bishop—”

Bishop sighed. “New York, I suppose?”

“Right. Get the first plane over and start things moving. The Zambia National Tourist Bureau’s on Fifty-eighth Street, I think, and so is the embassy that will produce the visa. While you’re phoning about a plane reservation I’ll call Mrs. Pollifax and see if she can take this on. God, let’s hope so,” he said fervently. “After your business in New York you can go on to New Jersey and brief her.”

“Right. Oh, by the way,” said Bishop, pausing at the door. “If she’s available do I mention Farrell being in Zambia?”

Carstairs considered this judiciously. “You’d better, I suppose, just in case—heaven forbid—they accidentally bump into each other at the wrong time. It could give the whole show away.” He hesitated and then added, “Hold on a moment.” Smiling almost mischievously, he said, “I’ll go even further. Ask her to give Farrell a ring on the telephone when she arrives in Lusaka. He must be in the book. There might not be time for a reunion before
her safari, but they could certainly get together afterward.”

Bishop looked at him curiously. “That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?”

“Highly irregular but also crafty,” admitted Carstairs. “I’d like to know how our old friend Farrell is doing. Damn it, Bishop, I miss that man,” he said indignantly. “I can name half a dozen jobs in the past three years he would have done a hell of a lot better than anyone else. He must be bored to death with retirement.”

“It’s possible,” said Bishop.

“Of course it’s possible. Definitely get her to Lusaka early, Bishop, and ask her to look him up before she flutters about photographing everyone on safari. Now go away and let me tackle Mrs. Pollifax before she slips through our fingers.…”

At that particular moment Mrs. Pollifax was standing in the middle of her living room practicing the karate on-guard stance. One could never be too prepared, she thought, adjusting her balance so that her weight was placed equally on both feet, and when this had been accomplished she curled each hand into a fist and attempted a quick horizontal slash. More than this she dared not risk. Lorvale, her instructor, was currently enthusiastic about attacking with blood-curdling shouts of
“Ki-ya!”
but it seemed reasonable to suppose that this would bring her neighbors down upon her head.

The telephone began ringing and Mrs. Pollifax reluctantly disengaged her stance to answer it. She could tell at once from the rustling sounds in the background that the call was long distance. A muffled voice said, “Hold
please,” and then a familiar one said, “Carstairs here. Mrs. Pollifax, could you leave for Africa this weekend?”

Mrs. Pollifax reflected that karate did help; this somewhat startling query did not unbalance her at all. “Yes, I think I could,” she told him. “How
are
you, Mr. Carstairs?”

“Understaffed and terribly busy,” he snapped. “You did say yes?”

“It slipped out,” she said, “but if I can find someone to water my geraniums, yes I could go to Africa this weekend.”

“Then start looking,” he said, his voice a shade less harassed. “Although not for a few hours, because Bishop’s on his way to New York, or will be in a few minutes. He’ll make all the arrangements for you. Who’s your doctor?”

Startled, she told him.

“Good. Bishop will be around to see you. Sometime between one and two o’clock?”

“Either will be fine,” she told him, hung up and at once felt a shock tremor move inch by inch down her spine to her toes.
What
had possessed her to say yes? She couldn’t possibly leave for Africa this weekend, the idea was preposterous. Africa was halfway around the world and one prepared cautiously for such a trip, announcing it to friends, reading guidebooks, making lists in advance. That was how her neighbor Miss Hartshorne traveled, and at the moment it appeared to Mrs. Pollifax a very luxurious and sane way to do such things.

On the other hand, she could remember feeling exactly this way at other times when her tranquil world had collided with Carstairs’ rough and dangerous world, and
acknowledging this she let her mind run back over past adventures. She was, miraculously, still alive and sound, with dimensions added to her life that brought a chuckle at rare moments, such as when the garden club had shown a prize-winning Colin Ramsey film on Turkey and she had recognized two of the women in baggy pants and veils drawing water from a well. This time it was to be Africa.

She said it aloud—“Africa”—and at the sound of the word her heart began to beat faster and she realized that she was smiling. Africa, the dark continent. Tarzan. She remembered that when her son Roger was a boy she had taken him to see every Tarzan film that came to the Rivoli theater, and when his tastes had begun to veer toward Rita Hayworth she had gone to see Tarzan alone, enchanted by the animals, the steamy jungles, poisoned arrows and roar of lions … Lions, she thought with a gasp. Even if Carstairs sent her to a bustling African city she must find a way to see lions. She would
demand
lions.

How dull her life had been growing lately, she thought, and how exciting to realize that she was going to see Africa. There suddenly seemed a great many things to do. She would have to sort through her entire collection of
National Geographics
, and there was all that material on game conservation in her desk drawer …

With a guilty start she realized that it was nine o’clock and the breakfast dishes were still unwashed. Bishop would be coming in a few hours too, and she wondered if he was still partial to chocolate eclairs—she would have to visit Mr. Omelianuk’s delicatessen at once. She
reached for her coat, tucked her hair under a floppy straw hat, and went out.

It was a brilliant June morning but she walked carefully nevertheless, for the ground beneath her might be covered over with cement, and her eyes shaded by straw, but in Mrs. Pollifax’s mind she wore a cork helmet and moved soundlessly through tall grasses, her ears alert for the sound of native drums.

Bishop arrived precisely at two o’clock, and although he looked harassed he had lost none of his insouciance, which, considering the years he’d spent as Carstairs’ assistant, always astonished Mrs. Pollifax. “Why don’t you look older?” she protested, taking his coat. “You never do, it’s disconcerting.”

“Nor do you,” he told her gallantly, giving her a kiss on the cheek, “but in my case I
know
I’m older because my pushups are growing lazier and when Carstairs loses his temper at me I sometimes feel an overwhelming urge to cry. Is that for me?” he asked, staring fascinated at the table in the living room set with damask linen, china teapot, flowered Haviland cups and pastries.

“
Especially
for you. Sit down and I’ll pour. There are five eclairs.”

“I count six.”

“One,” she told him reproachfully, “is for me. I suppose you’re understaffed and overworked because of last year’s congressional investigations? Which, I must add, was very shocking indeed. Even
you
need some checks and balances, you know.”

“
We
are not and were not being investigated,” he said, sitting down and picking up an eclair. “Carstairs asked me to tell you very firmly that his department has remained scrupulous to the letter in all its undertakings.” He hesitated and then said dryly, “At least as scrupulous as can be expected when our business is to gather information by nefarious means, hit troublesome people over the head, and indulge in other interesting forms of skulduggery.”

Mrs. Pollifax, recalling certain people that she herself had been forced to hit over the head, did not comment: it was a very modest number, of course, but one of which she was sure neither her garden club nor her pastor would approve. She continued pouring tea, noticing that Bishop was already devouring his second eclair. “You’ve not had lunch?”

“Clever of you to guess,” he said, swallowing. “Carstairs packed me off at eight forty-five with a thousand errands to do, and presently you’ll have your share to do too. I don’t suppose he told you anything?”

“Not a thing, except it’s Africa.”

“He wants you to go on safari.”

“On safari!” Mrs. Pollifax stared at him in astonishment.
“Safari?”
she repeated incredulously.

Bishop watched her eyes subtly shift focus as if she gazed at something unseen to him and very far away. She looked, in fact, as if she were experiencing a beatific
vision, and understanding the processes of her mind, be shook his head. “No, Mrs. Pollifax,” he said firmly, “they don’t wear cork helmets in Africa any more.”

She forgave him this underhanded remark but not without an indignant glance. She said with dignity, “I would be
delighted
to go on safari, cork hat or no. But why? Surely there’s more?”

“Naturally. It’s a very specific safari starting out next Monday in Kafue National Park in Zambia. That’s in Central Africa, and if you’re not up on your African countries, it was called Northern Rhodesia before it gained its independence in 1964. You can read all about it because I’ve brought you lots of pamphlets. It’s good safari country, not as well-known, perhaps, as Kenya or Tanzania just to the north, but it’s rapidly getting discovered. Less touristy, more relaxed and unspoiled … Actually, Kafue Park is one of the larger game parks in the world—half the size of Switzerland—and of course the Victoria Falls are in Zambia too.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Pollifax, “and the President of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, recently visited Washington.”

He looked impressed. “I’d forgotten that. Well, we’d like you to hurry over there, join the safari, get acquainted with your companions and take pictures of them—every one of them—either openly or surreptitiously.”

“Is that all?” asked Mrs. Pollifax, puzzled.

“Believe me, it’s frightfully important,” he told her. “We want everyone on safari observed and recorded, and for this we need someone who has always dreamed of a safari, someone utterly charmed by a lioness in the bush, fond of birds and flowers, and of course given to compulsive picture-taking. In fact,” he said with a smile,
“I’d urge you to carry along a stupefying number of snapshots of your grandchildren, and if you don’t have any, rent some. You know how to operate a camera?”

She nodded, and he slit open the mysterious package he’d brought with him. “Here’s a very good normal camera,” he said, handing it over to her. “Nothing fancy, you can buy it in any drugstore, easy to operate, small enough to tuck into your pocket. And here,” he added, bringing out a jeweler’s box, “is a different sort of camera, in case one of the group is camera-shy.”

“This is a camera?” said Mrs. Pollifax opening the box and staring at a brooch inside. “It can’t be, surely.”

“A bit vulgar, isn’t it?” he said cheerfully. “But you have to admit it doesn’t look like a camera.”

“It certainly doesn’t.” She lifted the lapel pin out of the box and examined it. It had been designed as a miniature clock with a pendulum, its total length about three inches, which included the pendulum from which hung two small gold balls. The face was a sunflower with gold petals surrounding it, and two glittering eyes were set into the center with a curved smile below them.

“Lacks only a cuckoo,” pointed out Bishop. “You pull on the chain to take a snapshot. Just a slight tug will do it, and then you touch the hands of the clock to move the film along for the next shot. The lenses are in the eyes. Takes forty snapshots, and then you bring it back to us and we smash it and remove the film.”

“Very ingenious,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax, and then with a thoughtful glance, “Just who is going to be on this safari, Bishop?”

“It’s purest intelligence-gathering,” he assured her blithely. “Someone of interest to us may be popping up
there. You know how it is, a rumor, a whisper … all in the name of the game.”

Mrs. Pollifax’s smile was gentle. “I’ve never heard you lean so heavily on clichés before, Bishop. In the name of the
game
?”

“Well, I can’t tell you
much
more,” he said candidly, “because Carstairs won’t allow it. But it won’t hurt to point out that there have been a number of assassinations in the past seven months that have never been solved. The most publicized were Malaga in Costa Rica and Messague in France.”

She nodded.

“According to the particular netherworld we’re in touch with—made up of criminals, spies, informants and hangers-on—they were accomplished by one man with the code name of Aristotle. We don’t know anything more about him but we’ve intercepted a message leading us to believe he’ll be on this safari Monday, and that’s all I can tell you.” He brightened. “But I
can
tell you what the computer announced this morning when we fed it a list of possibilities for the job. It seems an old friend of yours is in Zambia. He doesn’t work for us any more but you know him very well.”

“I do?”

Bishop grinned. “I’d assume that after sharing a cell together in Albania for two weeks you’d know each other pretty damn well.”