Wade Miller - The Killer

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• Chapter One. THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 1:00 P.M.

  THE RIFLE IN HIS LAP WAS a .475 Jeffries. He had won it in a lion shoot in the Masai game preserve nearly thirteen years ago and it had his name and the date engraved on the heavy barrel. Jacob Farrow, Kenya Colony, 1938. It had been worth more than two hundred pounds then, and some men would have kept it under glass or mounted on the wall as a trophy. But he wasn't sentimental; a gun was for use, and he'd never found a rifle that suited him as well.

  He tossed aside the rag, finished with the daily cleaning. His big hand stroked along the butt, absently and sensuously. He thought fleetingly, Perhaps a woman is what I need, and then he shrugged. The Jeffries hadn't been fired since January, the longest rest the gun had ever had. The only one of his many rifles that had been fired in the last three months was the Mauser, and that only to frighten the hyenas, the dust-bin patrol, skulking past the airport fence to raid the chicken yards and garbage heaps on the outskirts of Nairobi.

  When he'd lovingly racked the Jeffries, he had nothing else he wanted to do and he was bored. He muttered, Damn them, about the men who had taken his license away. He poured another gin and carried it with him as he prowled the three Spartan rooms of his brick cottage. Then he stalked out on the shaded veranda and faced the gray African vista and drank his gin.

  Perhaps a woman... he said aloud. Perhaps he could lose himself in some stray wife around the Muthaiga Club, some thin-frocked, white-legged lady who'd become expert at deceiving her husband. There were several with moist dissatisfied mouths. Orhe hadn't remembered her for a yearin the Arab bazaar was a shopgirl, not even half Arab and surprisingly clean. She had regal breasts like sun-tipped dunes and plump thighs and a fiery talent of consummation. Perhaps... Then he damned his own stupidity, grinning angrily. A woman wasn't what he needed; he needed an excitement more lasting.

  Farrow was a man of controlled violence. That was his trade, and he couldn't get used to having nothing to do. He was tall with big bones, and his flesh was drawn tightly over them. His hair grew back from a straight line above his forehead, giving his craggy face the appearance of a block of dark grainy wood. His hair and his ragged mustache were brown. His body, clad only in khaki shorts and unlaced safari boots, was also brown, partly from weather and partly from malaria.

  But his eyes were gray, pale and flat and startling in their contrast to his general brownness. Today they sparkled restlessly because he was a little drunk. It showed only in his eyes and the taut grin. Normally his face was masklike, thus escaping ugliness or fierceness.

  He got the .475 Jeffries from its rack again and stood on the veranda, sighting it at emptiness. The rain had stopped for a while and the air was brisk on his bare skin. Through the open sights of the rifle he picked out individual white blossoms in the coffee fields across the road. Beyond that, to the west, he could see the Athi slope rising gradually toward the Mua forests and the blue mountain of Donyo Sabouk. Elephant country. He swung the gun barrel south, toward the hundred-mile width of the Masai plains, flatness broken only by the four-peaked Ngong Hills. Lion country. And to the north, the modern buildings of Nairobi, its skyline lorded over by the twin minarets and dome of the central mosque.

  The magnificently peaceful view didn't stir Farrow. But, as he gazed at the city, another vagrant idea did. He murmured to the rifle, What if we didn't pay any attention to them? What if we simply left, had ourselves a good hunt?

  The outlaw notion hung fire as he spotted a moving target. It was a car sloshing at high speed along the road, disappearing now and then behind the clumps of stately eucalyptus. He got the car in the sights, kept it there, pretending the front door handle would be a heart shot. These outlying roads were unpaved, and the winter rains made them treacherous bogs, but the car's driver knew his business.

  Farrow lowered the gun, apathetically curious, as the automobile came nearer his cottage. He recognized the car as one rentable at the agency in Nairobi, which meant the driver was a European, the generic term in the colony for any white. He guessed further that the driver had been looking for the Somali village and had taken the wrong turn. He waited.

  The car wheeled off onto his land and slithered up to the veranda steps. The driver's head poked out. Within the hood of a rain cape was a round white face with an embalmed look. Rimless spectacles glinted up at the veranda. The man's voice was crisp, faintly nasal. Farrow? Jacob Farrow?

  Yes. Come in. Farrow decided the visitor was American. His own voice was clipped and precise despite the gin, distinctly British. He went into the sitting room and was racking the Jeffries when the stranger halted inside the door to remove galoshes and rain cape.

  Osher's my name. Paul Osher. He wasn't very tall but he was erect, shoulders back and his large belly coming out to a point. His pale smooth skin appeared soft, but his handshake wasn't. Despite his fuzz of white hair he seemed ageless; despite his girth he didn't wheeze from climbing the veranda steps. He wore a black suit and tie as if in mourning. The starched collar constricted the roll of hard-looking fat that served as his neck, and his chin was little more than a dimple and his mouth was a small fish mouth. He inspected the sitting room.

  Farrow shoved forward a chair. I have gin. Care for it watered?

  Don't bother, please. Osher sat down. His rimless glasses and his steel-blue eyes briskly surveyed Farrow. He had the air of a cattle buyer, his mind totting up the hairy muscularity of Farrow's legs, the three parallel scars on his left bicep, claw marks.

  Osher said, I'll state my business. You're a professional guide, what they call a white hunter. I'm told that you're the best there is.

  That was nice of somebody. He poured a straight gin for himself.

  The same source told me it wasn't wise to drink until sundownand then go slow.

  Farrow looked at him. The stranger was using Farrow's own words, a favorite aphorism. You seem to have been told a good bit about me.

  We must have the best, no mistake about it. Do you smoke? His hand darted forth with a case of cigarettes. Farrow said no and Osher screwed one into a holder. The holder filled up much of his mouth, but he spoke around it efficiently. Mr. Farrow, are you available for a hunt? He felt an instant's thrill before he remembered. No, Farrow muttered, I'm not.

  Osher ignored it. He droned, The price will be five thousand dollars for you, plus expenses. Ten thousand if you make the kill. In pounds, that's

  Yes, I know what it is in pounds. Farrow leaned a bare shoulder against the brick fireplace. He felt a bit stunned. Mr. Osher, at the risk of appearing to be a damned fool at business, let me tell you this: The most expensive safari I ever heard of cost only twenty-five hundred American dollars, including guide. It's still talked about in town. It was a high-water mark.

  Nevertheless, I've stated our price correctly.

  No hunter's worth it.

  You may be. If you're interested, Mr. Farrow.

  Certainly I'm interested. I'm He stopped suddenly, then grimaced. His face was a mask again as he poured himself another drink. Gin is good for disappointment. I'm not doing any hunting, not presently.

  Not on British territory, not till December, said Osher. They've suspended your license for poaching.

  You're thorough, Farrow said dryly. If you've talked to the game office, why did you waste a trip out here?