‘Get it,’ Burke told me. ‘Bring whatever you find.’
There was certainly considerably more than five thousand dollars in the cash box I brought to the desk although I never did find out exactly how much. Burke took the lot, the neat packets of banknotes vanishing into the capacious pockets of his bush jacket.
‘One must be prepared to take risks for quick re-turns, isn’t that what you said, Coimbra?’
But Coimbra was past caring and fainted across the desk. Herrara still leaned against the wall, hands flat. Burke turned and hit him almost casually, striking with clenched fist at the base of the skull. Herrara went down with a groan.
The Banker’s special was returned to its clip inside the crown of the bush hat and he replaced it on his head, adjusting the angle of the brim in the mirror. He turned to face me.
‘First rule in the bush,’ he said. ‘Walk, don’t run. Remember that on the way out.’
We left by the side entrance which was usually kept open for those clients who wanted direct access to the girls and didn’t welcome publicity. A Ford truck was parked just around the corner from the cafe, an African dozing behind the wheel. Burke told me to get in the back, spoke to the driver and joined me.
As the truck started to move, I said, ‘Where to now?’
‘The old army airstrip at Caruba. Do you know it?’
‘I’ve only been in town a couple of weeks. That job at the “Lights of Lisbon” wasn’t intended to be my life’s work. I was just trying to raise the price of a ticket to Cape Town.’
‘Any special reason?’
‘A man has to have an aim in life.’
He accepted it, looking quite serious and nodded. ‘That was good shooting back there. Where did you learn?’
When I explained he was obviously surprised. At that time I didn’t realise how good I must have looked because it wasn’t until later that I learned that I acted instinctively like a real professional who always aims for the shooting-hand with his first bullet, knowing that a dying man can still get off a shot at him.
We moved out through the edge of town; there were no longer any street lamps and we were shrouded in darkness. After a while he asked if I had my passport.
I reached for my wallet instinctively and nodded. ‘About all I have got.’
And then, as if it had only just occurred to him, he said, ‘My name is Burke, by the way-Sean Burke.’
‘Stacey Wyatt.’ I hesitated. ‘Didn’t I hear Coimbra call you major?’
‘That’s right. I was twenty years in the British Army -Paratroops. Left last year. I’ve just been granted a commission by the Katanga government.’
‘The Congo?’ I said.
I’m forming a special unit to help keep order. Coimbra was supposed to find me a few men. The bastard didn’t even try. Now I’ve got an old D.C.3 waiting at the airstrip and no one to fly out in her.’
‘Except me.’
The words were out without thought and impossible to go back on, even if I’d wanted to. There was pride for one thing, but there was more to it than that. For some reason I found that I wanted his approval. I don’t suppose a psychologist would have had much difficulty in analysing the situation. I’d lost my father too early in life for a growing boy, plus the whole of that side of my family. Now I was running hard, trying to erase the memory of the events of the last few terrible months that had taken my mother and had left me with only one individual on top of earth who really cared for me-my grandfather. The one person I was afraid to love.
Burke’s voice cut in on my thoughts. ‘You mean it?’ he said softly.
‘Coimbra was the first person I ever shot at in my life,’ I told him. ‘I think I should make that clear in fairness to you.’
‘Four hundred thousand francs a month,’ he said, ‘and all found.’
‘Including a shroud? I hear it’s rough up there.’
He changed-altered completely, became almost a different person. He laughed out of the darkness, reached over and squeezed my arm. ‘I’ll teach you, Stacey-everything you need to know. We’ll cut a path from one end of the Congo to the other and come out laughing with our pockets full of gold.’