Judas Journey. Lee Roberts
shook her head quickly. “I have met many men, but I have not stayed in one place long enough to really get acquainted with them.”
“Good,” he said, smiling, and touching her hand. She didn’t draw her hand away. He suggested leaving then, and she agreed.
The fog was thicker and the street lights glowed yellowly through it, making a glistening dampness on the pavement. A taxi rolled along the curb toward them. Ramsey took the girl’s arm and started for it.
“No,” she said. “Let us walk. I live only a few blocks from here.”
Ramsey waved the taxi on. Ten minutes later they came to a small neat brick apartment building on a quiet side street. There was a clipped hedge and a small tiled stoop flanked by a wrought-iron railing. Ramsey followed the girl into a small dimly-lighted foyer containing a single telephone booth, a row of mail boxes, a door labeled Office and an automatic elevator. She turned to face him.
“It has been nice,” she said. “Thank you very much for bringing me home.”
He was surprised. “Aren’t you going to ask me up?”
She gazed at him gravely. “Did you expect me to?”
“I had hoped you would.”
“Why?”
He was a little disconcerted, but he said easily, “Maybe have a nightcap, talk—the usual reasons.”
Her eyes hardened a little. “I’m afraid you have been wasting your time.”
He moved close, placed an arm around her small waist and tilted her chin with a finger. “Please,” he said softly.
She stood stiffly within his arm. “Let me go,” she said in a low voice.
He forced her against him and kissed her. She didn’t resist, but her lips were cold. The time for gentleness is past, he thought, and he looked beyond her at the mail boxes on the wall. A white card on one of them read: Sara Colvin—3-D. He pushed her into the elevator and pressed a button numbered 3. As the door closed and they began to move upward, he looked down at her. There were tears on her cheeks and her eyes were tightly closed. He was surprised and a little shocked. He let her go, aware that the elevator had stopped and that the door had slid open. Blindly she moved past him into a green-carpeted hall. He started to follow her. “Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry. I—”
She turned a corner of the hall and disappeared. He stood still. There was the sound of a key turning in a lock, and a door opened and closed firmly with a final click. He stood in the silence, bewildered. Hell, he’d picked her up, a part Mex gal who danced almost naked in a sucker trap—what did she expect?
He hesitated a moment, then decided against knocking on her door. She had made it clear that she did not want him. He sighed, shook his head and entered the elevator.
CHAPTER 3
PETE DAVOS was waiting for him in the lobby of the Gulf Hotel. “How was it?” Pete asked, grinning.
“Shut up.” Ramsey strode past him.
“Aw, Rack,” Pete protested, hurrying after him. “I was just asking. I been waiting for you, Rack.” He grasped Ramsey’s arm.
Ramsey stopped and turned. “I thought you were going to bed.”
“I was, but there’s somebody I met in the bar. I want you to meet him.”
“I’m tired. Who is it?”
“You’ll see,” Pete said, grinning. “Come on.” He pulled the reluctant Ramsey across the lobby.
They entered a long murky room with a bar against one wall, booths along the other, tables in the center. Pete led Ramsey to a table at the far end. As they approached, a man stood up and gazed at them steadily, swaying a little. He was a very thin man with wide spare shoulders. His narrow face and the top of his bald head were burned dark by the sun, and the yellow hair over his ears was bleached almost white. His nose was long, with sensitive nostrils; his mouth and chin were firm. He wore a rather scraggly yellow mustache and his eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses were the pale blue of a winter sky. A dark blue serge suit hung limply on his lean frame and a black knit tie was knotted loosely in the collar of a soft white shirt. He was about fifty years old.
“My God,” Ramsey said, grinning broadly. “Simpson.” He held out a hand. The thin man reached for it, missed, and Ramsey grabbed his.
“Rackwell,” Simpson said gravely, “it is nice to see you again.” He pointed a long wavering finger at Pete Davos. “When I saw Pete come in, I couldn’t believe my eyes.” He peered down over his glasses at the table. “I see that I have received a fresh drink. Will you join me?”
The 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