Brass Go-Between by Ross Thomas Page B

draped over his right forearm.
    “Mr. St. Ives?”
    I stopped and turned. “Yes.”
    “Mr. Mbwato was wondering whether he could give you a lift.” He had a voice similar to Mbwato’s, though not nearly so deep. It was a nice tenor with all of the African edges smoothed away and if I had closed my eyes, it could have been David Niven asking, ever so politely, whether I could possibly use a ride.
    “Not today, thanks,” I said, and started to turn away but stopped when the oyster-white raincoat dug into my side with something that could have been a gun or a pen or even an unusually stiff forefinger. I decided that it was a gun.
    “Come on,” I said. “This is ridiculous.”
    “Isn’t it just?” the tall young man said, and smiled gently. “But you see, I have my instructions and when I don’t follow them through to completion, Mr. Mbwato becomes most upset.”
    “That’s a gun under your coat, not just your finger?”
    “I’m afraid it’s a gun, Mr. St. Ives.”
    “I could yell. For a cop.”
    “There is none to hear.”
    “I could just yell.”
    He smiled again and looked to be genuinely amused. “What response do you think your fellow New Yorkers would make? A sidelong glance? A derisive smile? Come now, Mr. St. Ives.”
    “I could run.”
    “Then I would surely shoot you. Probably in the leg,” he added thoughtfully.
    “All right,” I said. “Where’s Mbwato?”
    “Just down the street. We had quite some difficulty in finding a place to park.”
    I turned and the young black man turned with me, his raincoat-covered arm still aimed at my left kidney. “How did you know I was here?”
    “In the George Building? We observed you going in; we assumed that you would be coming out.”
    “You followed me from the hotel then?”
    “Yes, Mr. St. Ives, we did.”
    The car was an appropriately black seven-passenger Cadillac that, according to the license number, had been rented for the occasion. The tall young man opened the rear door for me and I climbed in. Mbwato was seated in the back, making the car look smaller than it was, and another black man was behind the wheel. The one with the raincoat walked around the car and got in beside the driver.
    “Mr. St. Ives,” Mbwato said in his bass voice which sounded as though it had started somewhere down near the subway. “What a distinct pleasure to see you again. Where can we drop you?”
    “My hotel would be nice.”
    “Of course. Mr. St. Ives’ hotel,” he said to the driver. Mbwato, really dwarfing the rear of the Cadillac, wore a different suit this time, a dark green one with brass buttons on its vest, a white shirt with a widespread collar and a paisley tie. Everything fitted admirably and for all I knew he may have been patronizing Myron Greene’s tailor.
    “Why?” I said.
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “Why the gunpoint invitation?”
    “Gunpoint?” he said. “There was no gun.”
    “Your friend in the front seat said there was.”
    Mbwato chuckled and sounded like an amused bullfrog. “Did Mr. Ulado tell you that he had a gun?”
    “He did.”
    Mr. Ulado turned in his seat and smiled at me. He held up a fountain pen and winked. “This was the gun, Mr. St. Ives. I apologize for my method of persuasion, but Mr. Mbwato did so much wish to have this chat with you.”
    “It’s really my fault,” Mbwato said. “I urged Mr. Ulado to make the invitation as convincing as possible. He must have been carried away.”
    “He did fine,” I said, and leaned back in the seat and stared out at the traffic. We rode in silence for a while and when I turned I saw that Mr. Ulado was gazing straight ahead while Mbwato was staring out of his window at whatever there was to see at 38th Street and Third Avenue. “The persons who have the shield have been in touch with you by now, I presume,” he said, still looking out of the window.
    “Yes.”
    “I scarcely think that you would care to tell me what they have proposed?”
    “No,” I said.