Me Tanner, You Jane

Page 21

He took one step inside, his eyes peering at my bed, and I was ready to strike when his jaw worked spasmodically and he started down. I never touched him. He fell like a tree, fell in one stiff-legged motion, fell neatly forward and smacked his head on the floor.

He slept for ten hours. He came to late in the afternoon. I was sitting by the side of the bed when consciousness returned. He tensed his muscles and strained, and veins stood out on his temples and forehead and a pulse worked in his throat. I thought for a moment that he would burst his bonds. I had tied him up securely with half a dozen electrical cords and Mrs. Penner’s fifty feet of clothesline, and even so I wasn’t sure it would hold him. The sonofabitch was unbelievably strong.

He went limp again, his eyes opened, and he saw me. He became extremely scrutable. A full complement of emotions played over his handsome face.

He said, “You were ready for me.”

“I was.”

“You weren’t asleep.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You hit me with something.”

“Never touched you.”

“I feel like I been drugged.”

“That’s what happened, all right.”

“With what?”

“Opium.”

The eyes widened. “How?”

“In your coffee. I gathered a little of it every time I wandered into the fields.”

“And here I thought you had dysentery, Tanner cat.”

“It was harvest time on the old plantation,” I went on. “Did you ever see how they gather opium? A week or so after the petals drop they cut into the fruit. Then they let it go on ripening, and the good stuff drains out of the opium fruit and hardens. Then they go through again and collect it.”

“And you put it in my coffee.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How’d you know how much to use?”

“I didn’t. I wasn’t worried about using too much. After all, it was completely raw opium. Not refined into morphine or codeine or anything. The only thing I was worried about was that you would taste it in the coffee.”

“That was pretty horrible tasting coffee, all right.”

“I didn’t think it would have as much effect as it did. It probably wouldn’t have if you hadn’t been close to the edge of exhaustion to begin with. Even so, you held out for a long time before it knocked you down. I was just hoping it would take the edge off your reflexes, even things out a little.”

He thought this over. “Well, Tanner cat,” he said at length, “I reckon I can see where it all lays. You want to do me out of my half of the Retriever’s treasury. And you also want to make sure I don’t inform on you to the Old Man. I can see your point, but the thing is-”

“Wrong.”

“Huh?”

“The Chief never wore a hat in his life. Bed-Stuy is a part of Brooklyn. And you ain’t Bowman cat, Bowman cat. You’re the Glorious Retriever of Modonoland, and do I call you Knanda or Ndoro or both?”

Chapter 15

After a few moments of respectful silence he said, “I am rather glad to have that out of the way, Tanner. Actually I was surprised the deception succeeded as long as it did. It was a difficult role to play.” His manner was entirely different now, the voice rich and resonant, the tones properly pear-shaped. He sounded like the announcer on the old Shadow radio program – Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

I said, “The Shadow do.”

“Pardon me?”

“An old joke.”

“Quite. I was saying that the role was not an easy one for me. Bowman was a crude, rough type. There was a raw primitive quality about him that was not without appeal, however. I doubt I’d have thought to pose as him if you hadn’t virtually put the suggestion into my head by greeting me with his name.

“You recognized the agency recognition signal.”

“Ah, yes. It was one of the items the man disclosed to me. Not the only one.” He smiled a private smile, a sly smile, not the easy grin he had used during the masquerade. “I must say I enjoyed playing the part. And it did take you in for rather a long time.”

“Not really.”

“Oh?”

I told him I’d known for a long time. That there was too much happening in his colloquialisms, too many outdated phrases mixed in with newer expressions. “And too many Britishisms. Not just the odd items Bowman might have picked up through exposure to you, not just bits he might have affected, but turns of phrase that would only be possible to someone whose education was British rather than American.”

“And I had fancied myself equipped with a keen ear for just that.”

“Oh, you’re good at it. You sound right most of the time. But it’s one thing to know how to use the regionalisms of another area and another to keep your own regionalisms out of your talk.”

“Quite.”

“And there were other things, too. The absolute fascination with Plum.”

“A fascinating girl. And Bowman did like women, you know.”

“But he wouldn’t be struck by the idea of a mixed-blood girl. Plum ’s color really got to you. It’s a nice enough color, but it’s not as rare as you made it seem. Not in America, certainly. Some of the stanchest black nationalists are as light-skinned as Plum is. But that kind of racial mixture is rare in Modonoland.”