Read Online Charlie Martz and Other Stories by Elmore Leonard - Free Book Online Page B

Englishman who raced motorcars and organized badminton tournaments—
    â€œReady?” Clad looked up. “As soon as I file this.”
    Ah Min was about to sit down, but now she stopped. Clad had taken a feathered dart from one of the desk drawers. He punched the point through the note he’d written, half turned in the chair, and threw the dart across the room, still with his feet on the desk.
    The girl watched him with open astonishment, then looked around. On the wall behind her, pinning their notes to a four-by-five-foot corkboard, were at least a dozen darts.
    â€œMy file of things to do,” Clad said. “Notes in plain sight aren’t lost.” He saw Ah Min look at him curiously again.
    â€œYou might just as well become familiar with it now, Minnie,” Clad said then. “The ones on the right are things to be done soon.” He pointed his pencil in the general direction of the darts. “The ones on the left are things to be done anytime. But sometimes my aim is off and the things to be done soon become things to be done anytime.”
    She nodded thoughtfully. “I see.”
    â€œFor example,” Clad said, “that note I just filed. That’s to remind me—” He paused. “You know about the badminton thing?”
    â€œI heard some about it.”
    â€œIt’s next Sunday. Here.” Clad’s dark face showed momentary concern. “That’s something we have to get on right away. Get the word about that it’s going to be here instead of K.L.”
    Ah Min said, “And the note is to remind you to write letters of explanation.”
    Clad shook his head. “I don’t have to remind myself of that. No, the one I just filed is a reminder to invite an old friend to the thing Sunday.” He nodded toward the board. “Read it. You can begin getting used to my handwriting.”
    Ah Min hesitated. “Which one is it?”
    â€œSomewhere on the right,” Clad said. “To be done soon.”
    She moved to the board now, pulled off one of the darts, and read the note aloud. “Phone Rad to bring up a case of Scotch from the Selangor Club Friday.”
    â€œNo, not that one.”
    She tried another. “Find out where five-four Gurkhas are. Call Mitch for b.t.” Then looked at Clad questioningly.
    Clad nodded. Then asked, “You don’t understand it?”
    â€œI’m not sure.”
    â€œMitch is Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Mitchell. Fifth Battalion Fourth Prince of Wales’s Own Gurkha Rifles. I served with him during the war. So, when I heard he was somewhere down around K.L., I said to myself, get him to the badminton thing.”
    â€œThe b.t.,” Ah Min said, still hesitantly, but nodding her head now.
    Clad smiled. “Minnie, my system just sounds complicated. If it wasn’t absolutely simple, I wouldn’t have any part of it.”
    Clad dictated fifteen letters that morning, and during the afternoon, Ah Min typed them. All of them announced the badminton tournament’s change of location and urged contestants to arrive early Sunday morning. All were identical but for the last paragraph. Clad varied these, adding something personal and for the most part mildly insulting to each.
    At four o’clock Ah Min left the police post. She walked past Clad’s green Riley, noticing the bullet marks from front to rear fender where Tam Lee’s Sten gunmen had swept the car. Perhaps they had been overanxious. Or Clad had an overabundance of luck. But luck couldn’t last for a man as lazy as he was. A man who never moved from his chair or noticed her dress. A man who threw darts and called her Minnie.
    She followed the main road through the village to her aunt’s house, a one-story structure made of plywood, bamboo, and roofed with attap; and as soon as she was inside, while her aunt silently prepared the rice, Ah Min composed the message to Tam Lee.
    She had planned to