Assignment Black Gold Read Online Free PDF Page A

led him into a storeroom packed with eases that reached
to the beamed ceiling. One corner had been cleared as an office of sorts,
and contained a modern steel desk with a Formica top, a steel chair on rollers,
and filing cabinets. The girl closed the door and reached for the light.
    It was the first time he had properly seen her.
    She was tall, coming a bit above his shoulder, with thick
blond hair tied with a red ribbon at the nape of her neck. It should have made
her look severe, but instead it gave her olive-tinted face—her Portuguese
heritage, Durell guessed—a serene and classic look. Her eyes were pale blue,
the whites clear and striking against her darker skin. There was a slight bump
to her nose, perhaps from her amorous Yankee ancestor. She had a full mouth and
a good chin; her skin was extraordinarily clear, almost limpid. She wore blue
jeans, tight about her thighs, with a wide black leather belt studded with
brass. Her long feet were in leather- thonged sandals,
They looked clean. He could not see where she wore any makeup. A thick series
of gold and silver chains hung about her neck, the pendants hanging down over
her dark man's shirt between high, proud breasts.
    She grinned at him in the light of the gooseneck desk lamp,
aware of his survey. “Hi, Cajun.”
    “I should thank you,” he said. “Where did you get to be so
handy with grenades?”
    “Brady taught me about them. And guns, too. And a bit about his
work for you people. None of the details —he was tight-mouthed about what he
really did. But, of course, I couldn't be living with him and not know he had
irons in the fire for K Section.”
    “Are you really married to him?”
    She stood spread-legged, challenging, her hands thrust into
the tight pockets of her jeans. “Sure I am. He’s kind of attractive in a rough
western way—-he was. at least, when I met him in Gloucester last summer. I have
ambitions, you see. I’m an artist. Not bad, not good yet. I was looking for a
gimmick, and when he said he was coming here to Africa, I thought it might be a
good chance to study Lubindan art work. Something new, you see. So we were
married at Rocky Neck. All my friends were there, envious as hell. Besides, I
thought I loved him.”
    “But you discovered you didn’t?"
    She shrugged. “I discovered I have no talent for anything.
Not tor art. And not for love.”
    “You don’t seem worried about Brady.”
    “At first I figured he was away on a job for you
people, or looking for more merchandise.” She waved negligently at the crates
of African souvenirs in the dimly lit storeroom. “We weren’t speaking to each
other when he left.”
    “He gave you no hint of anything special in the wind?”
    “No. And short of breaking down that locked door to his room
upstairs, I’ve no idea what he might be doing.”
    “Let’s see that door."
     
    She led him up a flight of wooden steps to the
second-floor living quarters. Her round bottom in the tight jeans was
suggestive, but he didn‘t think she was deliberately tempting him. Durell
followed her with care. There was a living room, a bedroom, and a small and
very tidy kitchen. Everything was neat and tidy—a heritage from her New England
forebears, he thought. She had been a good homemaker for Brady Cotton, whose
habits were like those of it bear. Sloppy and disheveled, he dropped his
clothes wherever he happened to be. He had eternally muddy boots and a habit of
disrupting the orderliness of any room he occupied. Perhaps that was one of
their marital difficulties, Durell thought.
    “Don't put on the lights,” he said as she reached for a
switch again. “Have you a flashlight?”
    “Sure.”
    A place for everything. and everything in its place. The
torch hung on a nail in the doorway casing. She put it in his hand in the
gloom; her fingers were warn and dry. She said, “'That’s the door. He has
a radio in there, you know."
    ”Yes.”
    “One of yours?”
    “Yes.”
    “How much was he paid