Read Online And Now the News by Theodore Sturgeon - Free Book Online Page A

he
wouldn’t
.”
    â€œThat,” said Brunhilde Moot flatly, “doesn’t matter.” A large red ant chinned on the overhang of the tabletop. She bent to watch it. It gained the surface and began to amble between the moisture-rings left by their glasses.
    She said, “The old Chinaman had a brother who will get all his property—isn’t that so? And he certainly knew where the money was hidden. Hang him, then, and have done with it.”
    â€œHe’s my friend,” said Cotrell with some difficulty.
    Again he felt the heat and brilliance of her gaze. She bent again over the ant. She blew the ash from her cigarette and swept the glowing tip across the ant’s antennae. It curled up, straightened, blundered into a drop of moisture from one of the sweating glasses, andstruggled there.
    â€œI want you to meet him,” said Cotrell.
    â€œI would like to,” she said. “I would like to see what a transplanted oriental, living at the edge of the jungle, has to recommend himself to a man of your stature.” There was considerable insult buried in the phrase. Brunhilde was richer, stronger, more beautiful, and certainly more intelligent that anyone’s average, and was deeply conscious of it. To her, the world was obviously composed of a handful of people and a great many members of the lower orders.
    â€œLunch there, perhaps?” Cotrell said. “I can offer you a pleasant drive, and certainly some native cooking.”
    â€œYou do intrigue me,” she smiled. “And I would so like to think, later, that I had helped you catch and hang your man.”
    â€œGood,” said Cotrell. He looked at his watch and rose. “I’ll send Yem Foong a wire, and we’ll be on our way. I hope I’m not rushing you?”
    â€œI can be ready in five minutes,” she said.
    While he was taking care of the check, she stepped to the end of the marquee for another long look at the harbor. As Jeff Cotrell stepped up behind her a moment later, a thirty-foot dugout was moving almost directly under the end of the marquee. Brunhilde tensed as she watched it. In the bow was a giant who could have modeled for a Hercules. As he bent over the paddle, they could see three long scratches in his golden back.
    â€œDamn,” said Brunhilde Moot. She straightened, turned, saw Cotrell. “I’ve broken my fingernail,” she said. “See you in five minutes. The lobby?”
    He nodded and managed to smile. When she had reached the landward end of the marquee he returned to the table, picked up a glass, and with its base killed the red ant which still struggled there. He was a little surprised at himself when the glass broke in his hand. He went to compose and send his telegram.
    In Cotrell’s low-slung Lanchester, Brunhilde closed her eyes when the car approached an intersection and turned, opening them again on the other side. “Drive left,” she read from a sign. “I’m still not quite used to it. Pulling over to the left to let a car overtake you,stopping in the middle of the street to wait for a right turn. I’m glad you’re driving.”
    â€œYou have driven here though, haven’t you?” asked Cotrell, his eyes on the road.
    â€œNot enough to like it—oh! What a wonderful place! See—goats on the sidewalk! And that old woman with the donkey!”
    â€œYes, pretty much the same as it’s been for the last three centuries. That’s the charm of this place; but it has its drawbacks. Have you ever noticed the little Spanish-wall houses with thatched roofs and louvred windows?”
    â€œYes. They all seem to be the same size.”
    â€œThat’s right. About a hundred and fifty years ago the Home Government put a tax on every room of a house over two, and another on glass windows. The natives simply stopped building houses with more than two rooms, and put in those slatted windows. And although the