Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer

Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer

Chapter 1


"She musn't go alone," Cyrus was saying. "Absolutely not—it could be dangerous for Kadi, we both know that."

Mrs. Pollifax looked at her husband, seated on the couch with his left leg heavily encased in plaster and propped on a stool, and she didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. "Cyrus, I can't possibly leave you and go with her," she told him. "Your cast won't be removed for eleven more days, you need help with your crutches, you can't drive, you can't manage cooking or shopping—"

"She mustn't go alone," he repeated firmly. "No matter what  appeals have come from Ubangiba and young Sammat she mustn't go alone."

Mrs. Pollifax acknowledged this with a sigh."What's to be done, then? We've practically adopted Kadi—or did she adopt us?" she asked with a smile. "She's spent every weekend with us, when not at art school, and of course I feel responsible, but who can go with her? She's like family."

"Like quicksilver," Cyrus said. "Eager. Curious. Can't have any harm come to her. Those three men. . ."

He didn't finish his sentence but he didn't need to: Mrs. Pollifax had met Kadi Hopkirk eight months ago, literally in a closet, after which the two of them had spent an extraordinary week together that had ended with Carstairs of the CIA whisking them off to Africa, to the country of Ubangiba. It was a relationship that Mrs. Pollifax had assumed would end when she and Kadi parted, but much to her delight it had only begun.

They had known Kadi was an orphan—and why—but they'd been unprepared for the nightmares that had awakened them on a number of the weekends Kadi spent with them: the whimpers, followed by the screams of "No! No!" Kadi had never cared to speak of what she'd seen that day when her parents were executed at their mission station during one of Ubangiba's coups, but over the months of knowing her, and because of those restless sleeps, Mrs. Pollifax and Cyrus had managed to extract from her several small details. There had been three men, Kadi had said reluctantly, not wanting to remember; she had been returning on foot to her father's clinic with a precious bag of salt when she'd heard loud voices, gunfire, and her father's nurse screaming. She'd stood behind a screen of bushes at the edge of the compound to see what was happening, and why Rakia was screaming, and "there were three men," Kadi had said again, tight-lipped.

Cyrus had said, "And did the nurse, Rakia, know who they were?"

Kadi had shaken her head. "They caught and blindfolded her before—before—"

"Then did the three men see you?""Cyrus asked. Kadi had only shrugged, saying, "Right away Rakia and Laraba hid me, and by night the arrangements had all been made to smuggle me out of Ubangiba."

Now Kadi had announced that she had to go back in response to Sammy's call for help. In April, on their brief visit to that country with Carstairs, she had been safe enough; she had been warmly welcomed by old friends but she had been well-protected on that trip. Since then, knowing more, both Mrs. Pollifax and Cyrus had wondered if those three men had survived the brutal reign of President Simoko that had followed the coup, and—if they were still alive—what might happen when Kadi returned again: would they fear being recognized and identified by Kadi, and find it expedient to silence her?

Cyrus interrupted her troubled thoughts to say, "Mrs. Lupacik!"

Jolted, Mrs. Poilifax said, "What? Who?"

"Mrs. Lupacik. Here last month when you had the flu. She could move in, take over."

"But—did you like her, Cyrus? You have to remember I had that horrendous temperature," she reminded him. "I was upstairs in bed and you were in the living room, in the hospital bed, and I scarcely remember anything."

Cyrus sighed. "Lightning certainly struck twice! Mrs. Lupacik? Strong as an ox. Puts things where I can't find them, but likable. I could manage. Professional nurse, too, after all. Good cook, and frankly, m'dear, a vacation would do you a world of good. You've lost weight, you're still pale, and not at all up to snuff. Between the flu and waiting on me you've tired yourself out."

A vacation, thought Mrs. Pollifax with amusement, when Sammat is in trouble and has sent out an SOS to Kadi for support and help?

A troubled African country, Ubangiba, she reflected, small and impoverished. Kadi had grown up there with Sammat, who happened to be the grandson of King Zammat VIII; he had been sent as a boy to her father's mission school, to study and be trained for college abroad. In those days it had not been an impoverished country. It was after the king's death that Ubangiba had been looted and despoiled by coups and atrocities: Sammat's father was the first leader to be assassinated; he had been succeeded by President-for-Life Chinyata, who had done his best to bankrupt the country until he in turn was assassinated in the coup by President-for-Life Simoko. It was during this period that Sammat had been sent off to Yale University, apparently placed on hold by Simoko's government for some future use, when his royal lineage might be exploited or his death adroitly arranged.

His future use had become apparent in April when President-for-Life Simoko had been assassinated. It was from Yale that Sammat had been rescued by Carstairs, with the help of Kadi and Mrs. Pollifax, and during the three days they had all spent in Ubangiba, and even before their departure, the chiefs of the Shambi and Soto tribes had pleaded with Sammat to become mfumo, or chieftain, and restore heart to the devastated country. He might be young but he was, after all, the grandson of their beloved King Zammat, and it was Sammat who possessed the sacred royal ring of gold and who had studied abroad such important matters as economics and African agriculture and many other subjects that they hoped might bring a few miracles.

From what they'd learned since April it appeared that Sammat had indeed been producing a few miracles; inflation had fallen, the gwar was now worth thirty cents to the U.S. dollar, and he had persuaded the Shambi and the Soto tribes to select representatives to write a constitution that included human rights and elections in three years.

"Except they don't all of them understand what a constitution means," Kadi had said, and to Cyrus she had explained, "The Soto are mostly nomads, you know, and only a few of them have had any real education. They've really been quite neglected, so they're very suspicious, and there's a Dickson Zimba among the Soto who has had schooling, and is a real troublemaker."

"Ambitious," Cyrus had said, nodding. "There's always one."

"While so many of the Shambi are city people," she'd reminded them. "Merchants, lawyers, teachers, shopkeepers, some of them educated abroad. Sammat is Shambi, too."

In the end, "which no American could possibly understand," Kadi had told them with a grin, "they agreed to take all their disagreements and problems to Sharma, the eldest wise man."

It had been decreed by Sharma, said Kadi, that what the country needed for untangling all the knots and settling the arguments was not a chieftain, a mfumo, but a king.

"A king!" Mrs. Pollifax had exclaimed. "Sammat a king? He doesn't want to be a king, does he?"

"No he doesn't, but of course he's the only one left of the royal line and a king is believed to have magical powers, you see, and is always respected."

Mrs. Pollifax had said doubtfully, "Of course he's young—only twenty-three—and I suppose a king has more panache than a mere chieftain."

Cyrus had said with a twinkle, "Being a retired judge I'd certainly be interested in this Sharma's technique in handing down his judicial decisions."

"And you'll be meeting him!" Kadi cried triumphantly. "The coronation is one month from now and we're all invited, it'll be great fun, won't it?" She had beamed at them both. "You'll be really impressed by Sharma, he's a medicine man—a diviner—and he must be at least a hundred years old by now. He's the man King Zammat sent for when he was dying. It's Sharma who predicted a reign of evil for ten harvests and counseled the king to have the sacred royal gold ring buried secretly for those ten years. Sharma sees things, he is wise."

To forestall any mention of diviners tossing cowrie shells or going into a trance, Mrs. Pollifax had said quickly, "We'll go, won't we, Cyrus? Your cast will be off by then, you may not even need a cane by coronation time!"

"Blessed thought," Cyrus had said, regarding the cast with distaste. "No longer sure I've a leg inside this monstrosity, but if they find one, of course we'll go, m'dear."

That had been ten days ago—a peaceful ten days that had ended last night with Kadi's telephone call from the "Y" in Manhattan, where she lived.