Assignment Moon Girl by Edward S. Aarons Page B

Few
men come this way.”
    When he had eaten and had three more cups of the Arab
coffee, he dug in his sweaty shirt pocket and found the last of his cigarettes.
Four of them. He offered them around and extended the last to the woman who
cooked. She wore a veil and a black robe and was not, obviously, among the
emancipated women who danced in the nightclubs of Teheran. She shied away in
embarrassment and the fat man took the cigarette with a grin.
    “How much money do you have, American?”
    “Enough to reward you reasonably.”
    “American dollars?”
    “A few.”
    “And your watch?”
    “If you insist.”
    “We are not greedy. Your money and your watch. I would like
them now.”
    Durell moved so that the Arabs could see the gun in his
belt. Something shimmered in the fat one’s face. The thin Arab looked angry.
Then the other said: “Yes, we will be reasonable, sir.”
    “Then let‘s get started.”
    He walked toward the huts. They were all empty. A small inn
yielded only an inarticulate old man who told him nothing and knew less. No
sign of the girl. He walked back to the two men and the woman.
    “I was not alone," he said casually. “Where is the girl
who traveled with me?”
    “We see no one but you, sir.”
    “But there was a girl here.”
    “No, sir. No one.”
    “In Teheran, you will be rewarded richly for her. Tell me
where she is.”
    “We did not see a girl.”
    After some hours, they were ready to move. He could not
hurry them. The truck was loaded with second-hand car parts that looked like
the castoffs from a ten-year-old junk yard. The man in the Arab robe tied the
camels to the tailgate of the truck. It was obvious that the beasts had been
stolen from somewhere. The water-cans were filled, and the stout man
indicated Durell’s seat in the truck cab, between the two Iranians. He shook
his head.
    “I’ll sit with your cargo.”
    “We travel at night. It will be cold.”
    “I’ve been cold before.”
    He was not sure he should leave this area without the girl.
But she was gone without a trace. There was no sign of violence here, and he
felt sure she had slipped away from him on her own account. He wondered what
Hannigan would say about that. Teheran Central would be furious. But it
couldn’t be helped. He watched the thin Arab range through the junk-piles of
the oasis, shouting in a high, angry voice. The stout one picked his teeth and
waited and talked to the woman. Presently the Arab came back, his thin, crooked
face dark with fury. They spoke together in a dialect that Durell could not
understand.
    “What is it?” he asked in Farsi.
    “The third camel is gone.”
    “There were three?”
    “Your friend—the woman—must have taken it.”
    The fat man laid a pudgy finger against his nose. “The
beast was the best of the three, a fine runner. Most valuable, sir. She
stole it—your woman friend. We must be paid.”
    “Very well.” Durell felt much better suddenly.
    “You’ll be rewarded in Teheran.”
    “We would like something now, sir.”
    “In Teheran,” he insisted.
    “In the city of men, we will be cheated and ignored and
perhaps beaten and accused of crimes of which we are innocent. We want the
money now.”
    “All right. Here is all I have.”
    Durell gave the man his last fifty in American
currency. The single eye lit up greedily in the dusk.
      The money was
snatched from him. The woman cried out something in protest, and the Arab began
to argue, but the fat man suddenly started beating the woman and the Arab moved
away in fear and finally got behind the wheel of the Renault truck.
    A few moments later, the ride began.
    It was strange, Durell thought, that Har-Buri’s hunters
hadn‘t come this way after him.
     
    They traveled all night under the light of the moon, along a
thin and treacherous trail that threaded its way through odorous salt swamps.
Durell kept checking their direction, but it remained correctly westward,
toward the railroad and highway that