Judas Journey. Lee Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ three of them sat down. Simpson motioned to a waiter, gave their order, and then said to Ramsey, “I am quite drunk, Rackwell. I hope you will forgive me.”

      “Don’t mention it. Are you out here on a job?”

      “I was,” Simpson said, “but it is finished. Down Tampico way—for an American mining company. Consulting job.” He smiled at the two men. “As they say in the theatrical world, I am currently at liberty.” He drank from a tall glass which Ramsey knew contained Scotch and water, knowing Simpson’s drinking habits as he did.

      Nevil Simpson was a geologist, a free-lancer, who worked mostly as a consultant. Ramsey and Pete had met him in Pennsylvania when he’d been doing some special strata testing for the coal mine. The two men had been assigned to help Simpson, and in the six weeks it had taken to complete the tests the three of them had become good friends. When Simpson left, they had promised to write each other, but they never had. Ramsey was genuinely pleased to see the grave and friendly geologist.

      Pete touched Simpson’s arm. “Tell him about it,” he said eagerly.

      Ramsey grinned at Simpson. “Don’t tell me you got married again?”

      Simpson sighed and fixed Ramsey with bright and somewhat glazed eyes. “No, Rackwell,” he said sadly, “my marital situation remains unchanged. I wish it were otherwise, but my beloved ex-wife still refuses to share my roving life.” He sighed again. “Pete is referring to the mahogany.”

      Ramsey looked puzzled. “Mahogany?”

      Simpson nodded solemnly. “A veritable forest, a virgin stand. Fabulous.” He drank from his glass.

      Ramsey gave Pete a questioning glance. “Go on,” Pete said to Simpson. “Tell him.”

      Simpson leaned forward and peered at Ramsey. His blue eyes seemed to swirl in his head. “Pure luck,” he said gravely, “meeting you and Pete like this. Would you be interested in going after the mahogany?”

      “I don’t know.” Ramsey winked at Pete. “Where is it?”

      Simpson took an envelope from an inside coat pocket, laid it on the table, produced the yellow stub of a pencil and drew a wavering line. “That, gentlemen, is the Rio Verde in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi.” An inch from the line he made a cross. “And there is the mahogany.” He drained his glass in one long swallow and said softly, “Virgin, Rackwell. Fabulous.” His gaze shifted and focused waveringly on a spot above Ramsey’s head. “Excuse me,” he mumbled. He closed his eyes and his head sank slowly to the table.

      Ramsey looked at Pete, shook his head slowly and stood up.

      Pete grasped Ramsey’s arm. “Listen, Rack, he’s on the level. We just met in the bar and got to talking, and then he began to tell men about the mahogany. He was a little drunk, but not like he is now, and the more he talked the more I believed him. It’s like he said; he was down there in Mexico working for the mining company, making some kind of survey, and he found the mahogany, a forest of it, way the hell back in the bush. Rack, he wants us to throw in with him—form a—an expedition, he said. We’ll all be rich.”

      Ramsey laughed. “Oh, sure.”

      “No, Rack, listen,” Pete said excitedly. “It makes sense. When he found the mahogany he was with a crew of ignorant working stiffs, Mexicans, dumb as hell. They didn’t pay no attention to the mahogany, and Simpson didn’t tell anybody about it—just us. He was trying to find somebody he could trust to go in with him, and we show up. He made a map of the location and he wants to go back, to see if there’s a way to get the wood out to the coast, but he don’t have enough money, and besides it’s a job for at least three men—the supplies to carry, and all. There’s a road part way, but it peters out and we’ll have to walk in. There ain’t no roads back there, Simpson said, and no places for a plane to land, just swamp and hills and jungle. But it’s there, Rack, all that mahogany. Think of it—the money!”

      A little of Pete’s excitement was communicated to Ramsey. He had respect for Simpson’s education and intelligence, and he gazed thoughtfully at the sleeping geologist. “We’ll talk to him when he’s sober,” he told Pete. “But we can’t leave him here.”

      “He’s got a room upstairs,” Pete said. “He told me he’d been here a week.”

      Ramsey reached into Simpson’s coat pocket, found a tabbed key and said to Pete, “Two-o-six.” He paid the check and a sympathetic waiter told them they could take their friend up a back stairway. They got Simpson out of the bar, ignoring the amused glances of the other patrons, and up the stairs. Pete supported Simpson while Ramsey unlocked the door of room 206. As they laid Simpson on the bed, his wallet fell from his coat pocket. It lay open on the floor and when Ramsey picked it up he saw the contents of two cellophaned sections. A card in one certified that Nevil H. Simpson, of St. Louis, Missouri, was a member in good standing of the Geological Society of America. The other compartment held a faded snapshot of a pretty dark-haired woman in a white dress standing in bright sunlight beside a palm tree with the white roofs of a tropical village on the far hills behind her.

      Pete peered over Ramsey’s shoulder. “Must be his wife.”

      “Ex-wife,” Ramsey said. “Pretty, huh? Must have been taken in the days before she divorced him, before she decided she wanted to settle down in one place.” He sighed and replaced the wallet in the coat pocket. They undressed Simpson to his underwear and covered him up. As they left, they heard him mumble, “Fabulous . . . Virgin . . .”

      The clerk called them at six o’clock, as they had instructed. Sleepily and mechanically they dressed in their working clothes of blue jeans, flannel shirts and heavy shoes. Years of conditioning had hardened them to getting up and going to work after a few hours sleep, or no sleep at all, often with wicked hangovers. It was part of the life they led, and they accepted it without complaint. Ramsey had long ago learned that there was a price for everything and that it was merely a matter of choice and how much you paid, in one way or another, for pleasures of goods received. This morning he was tired, but his head was clear, and he was faintly annoyed to realize that he was thinking of the little dancer at the Jungle Tavern. What was her name? Sara something.

      Pete yawned, picked up his leather jacket and metal lunch box. “Well, come on. If we wanna eat, we gotta work.”

      They left the room they shared and as they passed Simpson’s door, Pete paused and listened a moment. “Not a peep,” he said, grinning. “He’s still dead to the world.”

      Ramsey merely grunted. It was funny, he thought, still thinking of the dancer. She had let him pick her up, and then pulled the innocent, hard-to-get act.

      In the restaurant down stairs they ate ham and eggs, fried potatoes, brown bread toast and drank hot coffee from thick mugs. The Gulf Hotel catered to oil field workers, and the cook filled their lunch boxes with sandwiches, pie and coffee. Then they went out into the fresh morning and caught a bus to the field.

      It was almost six o’clock when they returned to the hotel, tired and muddy. After a bath and a change of clothes they went down to the bar. Simpson was sitting at a table with a full glass before him. He stood up as they entered and smiled a little ruefully. He was wearing the same blue suit, but his shirt was fresh and white, his yellow mustache was neatly trimmed, and his blue eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses were bright and clear.

      Pete waved, grinning, “Hi, Simpson.”

      Ramsey СКАЧАТЬ